AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Losing Bee felt like losing a family member, and I don’t feel like I’ve had much of a chance to mourn her properly. She passed in her sleep—a brain aneurysm that took her swiftly and painlessly. At least she didn’t suffer.
I decide I should do the thing I’ve been avoiding for the past six months, which is check on Bee’s place. I was hoping that by the time I came home, her grandson would have finally gotten his priorities straight and cleaned it out.
My dad checks on the place every week. Rodents love abandoned homes, and the pipes can seize and the septic system can take a real shitter—pun totally intended—if no one is around to make sure things are working properly. But since I know Dad’s been busy, I wonder what state I’ll find it in.
I push up off the couch, and a flash catches my eye. I pull the curtains open farther and frown as I take in the sports car sitting in Bee’s driveway. It looks expensive, like something an out-of-towner might drive.
Donovan Firestone, Bee’s favorite grandson, is from Chicago, so that might make sense. Ironic that we’ve been living in the same city and he spent all his summers growing up next door, and yet we’ve never officially met. He was the sole recipient of her entire estate, which includes the cottage next door, its contents, and all the land that goes with it. To the left of her cottage is a huge plot of undeveloped land, which also belonged to Bee. I’ve been communicating with Donovan since her passing. This has consisted of a few emails back and forth regarding the estate and me checking on things until he had the time to come out this way to do it himself. Despite what Bee has said about him, he hasn’t proven to be much better than the rest of his family.
Donovan hasn’t seemed particularly concerned about the property, although it’s hard to read someone’s tone in an email. After the will was shown to the family and it was revealed that I was the executor, he called me with some questions about the property. He wanted a better idea of how many acres she had, as well as how much of that was water frontage, and if I could tell him the value. It was an unexpected blow—I was still processing Bee’s death, and all her beloved grandson cared about was how much the property was worth. Apparently Bernie, who had prepared Bee’s will, got a similar call, only this time asking about subdividing the lot and how easy it would be to parcel it off or develop it.
It irked me that this guy who had spent so many summers at Bee’s was so quick to look at trying to squeeze money out of the land by developing it. That maybe he didn’t care about the cottage, like Bee had suggested and I’d believed. I might not have spent time with Donovan, but in a lot of ways I felt like I knew him, because of the stories Bee would tell me and my observations from a distance. He was always helping Bee out, working on the cottage when he was here in the summers. From what I’d seen and heard, he had genuine affection for his grandmother.
So now, the idea that he’d try to parcel off the land or knock down Bee’s cherished cottage is frustrating. Of course it would drive the value up. But it would also have an impact on everyone else’s property value on this side of the lake. Most people would think that was a good thing. But the locals don’t want to pay hefty property taxes because some out-of-towner like Donovan gets ideas in his head.
And maybe he’s already realized that, and that’s why he wasn’t in a rush to come out here. The will hasn’t even been put into probate, and in the last email, he said he didn’t expect he’d be able to come out this way until summer.
Wanting to see if I’m right about who’s scoping out Bee’s cottage, I root around in my purse for my key chain, which includes a key to my parents’ house and one of Bee’s spares. Sadness wells and chokes me up for a moment. I’m aware there’s a distinct possibility that this grandson of hers won’t want her place, and he’ll sell it.
I hop out of the trailer, close the door behind me, and then cut through the narrow path that connects our properties. It’s filled in over the years from disuse, trees bowing toward each other and small shrubs growing heartily under their protective canopy.
I get hit in the face with a few branches and sputter when I walk through a cobweb and nearly eat the freaking spider. I stumble over a root as I wipe my hand over my face and nearly face-plant into the dirt.
