It kind of was, in all honesty.
I thought back on the documentary, the storied history of this estate, and how the Becks gave it new life. She and her husband poured their hearts and souls into every garden and every design. They even gave it a name—Lilymoor House. While it had had two owners before, it didn’t become Lilymoor until the Becks bought it at an estate auction. Famously so. It was a house ready to be condemned, and instead they found a way to sturdy its walls and tame its roses.
I couldn’t imagine what this place would be like without a Beck, like a sky without birds, or springtime without flowers.
It was almost impossible to imagine.
“That is what I have to figure out,” Eula finally said with a foreboding sort of gravity. “Henry’s niece? Perhaps one of my great-nephews—Oliver? Or Cyrus?”
Juliette and Wykofski winced at the names, even though they tried to hide it. I didn’t know who either of those men were, but I knew for certain that I hadn’t met them in the month since I’d started working. If they were Becks, or related to one, maybe they also loved Lilymoor? But then why didn’t Juliette or Wykofski seem all that excited by the idea?
I sipped at my tea again, though I was the only one enjoying the Earl Grey. Both Juliette and Wykofski had set theirs down, forgotten in the sudden news.
“Jules,” Eula went on, “I’d like you to make some calls. I have contacts at some papers and gardening magazines—use them. Let’s announce my retirement . . . really make athingofthis bicentennial. One last big hurrah. What do you think?” She waited, expectantly, for us to be overjoyed by the idea, but none of us seemed particularly excited, and that annoyed her. “Well?Thoughts?”
Juliette seemed to be making calculations in her head, while Wykofski looked like he didn’t want to think about this at all. I was trying—in vain, apparently—to keep my emotions in check.
Eula saw our pinched faces and waved her hands in the air dramatically.
“Oh, come on! It’ll befun! And don’t any of you worry, I’ve already instructed my lawyer to set aside provisions looking after all of you. I’m not abandoning anyone, and I’ll stay at Lilymoor as long as its new successors would like. I know this is sudden,” she added reassuringly, taking both Juliette’s and Wykofski’s hands and squeezing them tightly, though her eyes settled on me. “But let’s give Lilymoor the love she’s given us all these years. Nothing lasts forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it as it goes. What do you say?” she asked one final time, and smiled at us.
Finally, Juliette squeezed her hand back and returned the smile. “We’re going to throw thebestparty, Eula!”
“Better than the best,” Wykofski agreed, then looked at me for confirmation. “Right, Sunny?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, hoping my smile looked genuine. “We absolutely will.”
No pressure at all.
By the time we finished our tea and Eula dismissed us, fire-flies blinked on across the garden, mimicking the flicker of the lights on the veranda. The air was cool, and the stars werebright, the night made perfect for curling up in a hammock and falling asleep. Harrie would’ve called this kind of eveningcozy.
Eula’s retirement and successor announcement changed nothing about my job; I still had to prepare these grounds for the bicentennial regardless of who took it over afterward. As I dumped out my cold tea in the kitchen sink and washed the cup, Wykofski came in with the uneaten cookies and returned them to the bread box.
He jostled my shoulder with his, and I blinked, realizing that I was staring out the window. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I set my cup on the drying rack and offered to wash his. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that hecouldtell something was bothering me. I’d tried to keep a polite distance from him and Juliette, since I’d only be here for the summer. Goodbyes for me were—
Well, I hated them.
“Just been a long day,” I said.
“Tell me about it. Euls is good at surprises, but I didn’t think she’d dropthis,” he lamented with a sigh.
“Yeah,” I said noncommittally. “She’s really something.”
I should have asked how he was, since he’d been working here for about eight years, and how he was feeling about Eula’s retirement, but that felt too personal—like it would open a door to, what,friendship?
So I didn’t, and he bid me good night as he left out the back to lock up the shed and finally go. Was he still going to hang out with people tonight, or did the news drain him like it had me? No, I doubted it. Nothing got Wykofski down.
I put his cup on the drying rack, wiping my fingers off on a towel embroidered with titmice.
On my way back to the veranda to make sure all the other cups were gone, I caught Juliette grabbing her jacket and purse from the office upstairs. She fixed her hair in the big mirror in the foyer, and Eula said, still sitting on her walker, “Ooh, those are your date shoes!” She motioned to the red heels Juliette had in her other hand. I hadn’t even noticed them. Eula’s eyes sparkled. “Big plans tonight?”
Juliette beamed sheepishly. “With adentist! I’ve never dated a dentist before. We’re going to an all-you-can-eat buffet and he wants to pay, so youbetI’m going to eat my weight in lobster. Free food and a nice chat? Sounds like a lovely way to spend an evening.”
“It’s a little late, isn’t it?” Eula asked.
“Oh, he said he couldn’t until after nine. He goes to the gym or something every evening. Stress stuff.”
