Chapter 5
The next afternoon, I set Theo and Sam up at the kitchen table with markers, blank paper, and a bowl of apple slices. I told them Aunt Lauren might call, but we weren’t going to talk about grown-up problems while they were there.
Theo drew a ship with flames coming out of its smokestacks.
“Is that our cruise?” Sam asked.
“It’s a dragon ship,” Theo said, offended.
I turned the paper over before either of them could ask why a vacation ship was on fire. Then Lauren’s name lit up my phone.
“Don’t put it on speaker,” she said when I answered.
“I won’t.”
Her face appeared, washed pale by the cabin light. Behind her, a curtain shifted with the motion of the ship. She looked tired, and I couldn’t tell if it was the late hour or the effort of keeping her voice steady.
“I found the tablet,” she said. “It was in my carry-on.”
“So you brought it?”
“I didn’t know I’d brought it. It was wedged under my shoes.” She glanced away from the screen. “I’m looking now.”
The boys’ markers squeaked across the paper. I kept my phone angled toward myself and watched Lauren’s eyes move as she scrolled.
“Do you remember what the email said?” I asked.
“Not exactly. Just that Mom told me to delete it.” Her mouth tightened. “I thought it was about one of her bills.”
“Then we’ll see what’s actually there.”
“Don’t say ‘we’ like it’s settled.”
“I’m not trying to take it from you.”
“I know.” She swallowed. “I just need to be sure I’m not making this worse.”
A chime sounded faintly through her phone. Lauren stopped scrolling.
“Found it?”
“I think so.”
She leaned closer to the screen. For a moment, all I could hear was the faint rush of air from the ship and the dry rasp of Sam’s marker on paper.
“Mom sent this to me,” Lauren said. “It’s not the one I remember. It’s earlier.”
“What does it say?”
“I’m reading.”
She scrolled, then read silently again, as if a different meaning might appear if she gave the words another chance.
“Lauren.”
“She says she’s arranged for a notary to come by Grandma’s house. She says Grandma has agreed to let her make the change.” Lauren’s voice thinned. “Then she says, ‘You’ll finally have the house, just like it should have been all along.’”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Does it say what the change is?”
“No. Not in this message.” She dragged a finger down the screen. “There’s a date.”
“What date?”
“It was three weeks before Grandma died.”
The words landed between us. At the table, Theo added a crooked blue wave beneath his burning ship.
“Maybe Grandma wanted to give it to you,” I said.
Lauren looked up sharply.
“You think so?”
“I don’t know what she wanted. Neither of us can decide that from one email.”
“I know Mom said Grandma promised it to me.” Lauren’s gaze dropped back to the tablet. “She said they talked about it privately.”
“Then why ask for a notary?”
“I don’t know. To make it official?” She spoke quickly, then slowed. “Maybe Grandma agreed and the paperwork just didn’t get finished.”
It was the explanation Lauren had carried for days, perhaps longer. She held it close, but the email had put a crack through it.
“Does the message say Grandma was there?” I asked.
Lauren shook her head. “No. It says Mom arranged it.”
“Does it say the notary met with Grandma?”
“No.”
“Then don’t fill in what isn’t there.”
“I’m not.” Her eyes flashed. “You sound like you already know she did something wrong.”
“I know she told you to delete an email about a notary and a house she didn’t own.”
Lauren flinched.
At the table, Sam looked up. I gave him a small smile and pointed to the empty corner of his page. He returned to drawing.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“No, you’re right.” Lauren pressed her lips together. “I just want Mom to explain it before I decide what it means.”
“That’s fair.”
“You would say that.”
“I would.”
She held the tablet closer to the camera, then pulled it back. “Should I take a picture?”
“Keep the tablet. Don’t delete or change anything. And if you’re willing, we should show Vance.”
Her face closed.
“No.”
“Lauren—”
“I said I’ll talk to Mom first.”
“Then talk to her. But don’t erase this because she asks you to.”
“I’m not going to.”
“Can you meet Vance when you get back?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sharpened with strain. “I can’t hand him something that could ruin her without even hearing her side.”
“It might also explain her side.”
“She’s our mother.”
The sentence carried more than its words. I looked at Lauren and saw the little girl who used to wait for Constance’s approval before deciding whether she’d had a good day. I also saw the woman who had just read her mother’s promise to give her a house that wasn’t hers.
“I know,” I said.
Lauren’s gaze wandered to the cabin door. Someone passed outside, footsteps fading along the corridor.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll call her.”
“Keep the tablet with you.”
“I heard you.”
“I mean it. Don’t leave it where she can get to it.”
She looked at me, wounded and angry at once. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“No. I don’t.”
For a beat, neither of us spoke. Then Lauren ended the call.
I set my phone facedown on the counter and returned to the boys. Theo had drawn three people on the deck of his ship. The smallest one had a bright yellow hat.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Sam,” he said. “He’s the captain.”
Sam grinned without looking up. “Theo’s the dragon.”
I laughed with them, grateful for the ordinary noise, until my phone buzzed against the counter.
A message from Lauren appeared.
Mom texted me. How did she know I found it?
Before I could answer, another message arrived beneath it.
Don’t show that tablet to anyone. Not Adeline. Not Vance. You don’t understand what you’re holding.
My eyes stayed on the screen.
May you like
Then Lauren’s next message came through.
She says she’s calling me now.
