Now I had the answer to two of my questions, the first two to be exact.
The will was being read so quickly because Pops had left me his house. The stipulation was that I couldn’t sell it until I was thirty—five years from now—and I had to live in it. If I didn’t do that, the property would remain empty, and no one could enter it apart from me. That would mean it would start to crumble and go to shit with a bow around it.
The house was old and had been one of the first to be built when Piersville was established. It was a large Victorian style property that stood out even now, but had done even more so when it was first completed.
The town was founded by settlers from all corners of the world, who set up homes and sold what they were skilled at making. In my family’s case, that’d been furniture and anything wooden. They were skilled carpenters and furniture makers, and had worked with the other settlers to utilize their trades, too.
Partnerships had been formed throughout the town, and the wares had been sold all over the country. Rumor had it that my family had helped build many of the original homes in the town, but I hadn’t ever checked to see which ones.
Pops’ house was beautiful, with long windows, wooden floors, intricately carved light fixtures, and details that were so intricately done, it was hard to believe they’d been made by hand. He’d modernized it over the years, and it was perfection.
He knew I loved the house and wouldn’t let anything happen to it, so he’d put me over a barrel to move back home instead of returning to my job as an English teacher in Boston.
My question was, why? No, my questions—plural—were all why.
Why would he put those stipulations in the will?
Why did he want me to move back here, knowing why I’d left?
Why had he died?
Why did it feel like life was never going to be the same again?
Why? Why? Why?
And most of all, why wasn’t I as upset about it as I should be?
“I know this all seems unusual, Miss Heath,” the lawyer murmured as he looked up from the papers on his desk. “And, if I’m honest, it is rather unusual, but Mr. Heath was very clear. He discussed the matter with your parents before he wrote the will, and it was agreed they would receive the items they wanted and your dad would inherit the business, but the property and finances were all yours.”
I wanted to throw up on the guy’s beige rug.
“Are you attached to your rug?”
It was a miracle that he understood what I was saying, seeing how it came out of me sounding like I was being strangled. Which, I guess, was technically accurate because my breakfast was now lodged in my throat.
Did PopTarts taste as good coming up as they did when they went down?
I had the answer to that moments later when I moved to get up and run to the bathroom, but all it did was help the end result happen faster.
The answer to the question was: No, they did not. I was also pretty sure I was never eating the blueberry ones again.
It felt like someone was squeezing the life out of me with every heave, and I think the embarrassment and humiliation I was feeling made even more come out of me.
I’d just yacked on my grandad’s lawyer’s rug.
A hand rubbing my back didn’t make me feel any better, either. I was being consoled for ruining this poor man’s floor.
“It’s okay,” the lawyer said gently. “My ex-wife bought it for me, so I’ve got no attachments to it. In fact, I think I’m very grateful to you for ending it like that.”
A surprised chuckle burst out of me as I gulped some oxygen into my lungs.
He waved me off when I made a move to try and clean it up, and pulled out a box of trash bags from a drawer in his desk. “I’ll just roll it up and use these on it.”
So, one of the worst moments of my life ended with my dad and the lawyer carefully rolling up the rug, and then putting a trash bag over either end and wrapping one around the center.
Mom leaned over as they were taping it together. “Honey, we didn’t want to upset you, and whenever we tried to discuss wills with you, you’d disappear into your head. I hate to say it, but the only guarantees in life are death and taxes. You do your taxes every year, it’s a given and the law, so you have to accept now that we’re all going to die eventually.”
If I hadn’t just expelled the contents of my stomach, I’d be doing it now.