The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [161]
“Really?” Art said. “What papers were those?”
“A will. Your grandfather’s will, in fact.”
Briefly then, without pausing to weigh the possible consequences, I told the story—Rose and her daughter, and the will written by my great-grandfather, which included Iris.
His expression didn’t change. After a minute, he sighed and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head.
“So, do you have this will?” he asked. “Could I see it?”
I’d left it in the Impala, locked back in the tackle box.
“It’s at the house,” I said. “My mother put it away somewhere, I’m not sure where.”
He nodded.
“Not that it matters,” he said. “Such a will would hardly be valid, all these years later. Rose is long gone, and probably her daughter, too. What difference could any of it make?”
He had no idea, I realized. Not about the chapel or the windows, the fascinating life Rose had led, the other branch of the family, living not very far away.
“Well, actually, she’s still alive. Iris, I mean. I met her recently. She has two grown sons, and grandchildren about my age.”
“Are you serious? You say you met her?”
“Yes. It was really kind of amazing. She’s ninety-five years old. Very together. She has the family eyes.”
“Does she know about the will?”
I thought this was a strange first question to ask. “Not yet,” I said. “I found it after I met her. But I think she should know, don’t you? I mean, it might not be valid, but emotionally it might matter to her. To know she wasn’t excluded.”
Art’s voice got lower then, not warm exactly, but inviting me to hear a confidence. I thought of Iris, and of Rose, of all the things I knew about the family that he did not know, and leaned a little forward, so I could listen. Listen, gather more, collect another piece of the puzzle that might let all the others fall into place.
“Lucy,” he said softly. “Surely you understand that the marshland is worth a great deal of money at this moment. It hasn’t always been valuable, and it may not be again. This is a golden moment, is what I’m saying. Probably this will you’re talking about is null and void. I’m not all that concerned about it. But even so, if you contact this person, this long-lost relative, you open up the door to competing claims, even litigation. And I warn you, the moment will pass, and anything you might have had—anything your family might have had—will be gone.”
“It isn’t about money,” I said, but even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice. I was thinking of Blake, and the falling-apart house, even as I was remembering floating in the marshes with my father.
“It’s always about money,” Art said. “Make no mistake, Lucy.”
Art waited a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was wistful. “I loved your father,” he said. “He was always such a sunny kid, the one everyone was drawn to, growing up. That was hard, and I did some things I regret, and so did he, but I loved him. I like to think that if he’d lived, we’d eventually have made things right between us.”
I took a deep breath, the air full of the scent of cut wood and iron. “It seems to me you had plenty of chances to make that happen.”
He shook his head, gazing beyond me to the doorway, to some distant point in the past. “Your father was a very stubborn man. He had his ways. He wouldn’t listen.”
There was something in his tone, so nostalgic, yet so laced with sorrow and regret. And I didn’t think that sounded true about my father, who had the gift of listening, who had taught it to me. I held still, feeling the quality of the air change in the room. I even blinked slowly, as if Art were a wild animal I didn’t want to frighten away.
“When?” I asked softly. “When didn’t he listen to what you had to say?”
Art didn’t look at me or even seem to hear me.
“I tried everything,” he said. “Everything I could to get him to listen to reason.”
“And he wouldn’t?”
He shook his head, passed his hand over his eyes as if wiping away sleep.
“No. He would not. I tried three, four, five times. He wouldn’t even