The Art of Inheriting Secrets(40)
“I know. Better now than after we get married.”
“But we’ve worked so hard to get to this point, where things might get a little easier. Your mom’s house, the apartment. You love this life. You’ll regret giving it up once you get over all this drama.”
“Drama? My mother is dead, Grant.”
“You know what I mean. The situation is making you question everything, but you love me, love our life. You know you do!”
“I did. Now I don’t.” I donned my magazine voice, clear and direct. “I’m breaking up with you, and it’s not negotiable. Let’s just be adults about this, can we?”
“Oh, now that you’ll have your mom’s house money, you’re going to walk away, right? After all that—”
“Not going to listen to this,” I said. “I want my mother’s paintings. You can call the gallery.”
“I’m keeping those paintings. They’ll be my settlement, since you’re going to cut me out of the house.”
“Grant! Can we please not do this? It’s my mother’s work. It doesn’t belong to you.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to take me to court.”
“Court? That escalated pretty fast.”
“This happened pretty fast. We’ve lived together six years. What we’ve collected together will be ruled common property.”
“That’s ridiculous. Grant—”
“I don’t want to talk any longer,” he said and hung up.
Stunned, I stared at the phone for a long moment, then started to punch the redial button and halted.
My breath was coming in hard pants, and I stood up to relieve the anger surging through me. What a jerk! I would get the paintings back, of course. No one would award him such personal property—but it infuriated me that he would make such a claim. I needed to call my mother’s agent and find out what the legalities were. What if he tried to sell the paintings? It made me feel vaguely panicky.
On the upside, I realized that I was deeply relieved that I hadn’t told him anything about the rest of it: the manor, the estate, my title.
I was also relieved to be free of him. Until I had spoken the words this afternoon, I hadn’t realized how furious I was over his desertion, how betrayed I’d felt, lying in that hospital bed. I rubbed my knee, feeling echoes of that deep, painful loneliness.
What had taken me so long?
Filled with a restless, half-furious, half-buoyant exuberance, I tugged on a sweater and a hat and headed out into the still-sunny afternoon. The sun hung high enough over the hills that I would have a solid couple of hours of daylight yet. The tip toward summer felt hopeful after the long dark winter, and I set out down the high street.
The foot traffic surprised me. When I had first started traveling to England, largely for work, it had been impossible to find anything open on a Sunday at all, and nothing after five p.m. on weekdays either. Few shops were open today, but the cafés and restaurants nearly all were. I wandered by each one to read the menus and peer inside. I wanted a good walk first, but maybe I’d have supper out tonight. At Coriander, I paused, but it was closed, the tables neatly set for next time. The card in the window informed me that the restaurant was closed Sunday and Monday. Sensible.
Wandering on, I looped up around the church and looked for a path that might lead to Rosemere, as Samir had said. I found one that meandered through a field, past a small pond, and along a bank of tall bushes I thought might be rhododendrons. I followed it all the way around; crossed a stream over a tiny, ancient bridge; and paused to admire a thicket that was so still it might have been medieval. The path leading out only led me upward to the top of the village. I paused and looked back, wondering where I’d missed the switch, but clearly I’d gone the wrong direction entirely. In the distance, Rosemere stood in mute beauty, flaws hidden at such a distance.
For one moment, I imagined how she could look with light streaming in clean windows, the hallway and stairs brought to life again with feet running up and down and the voices of humans ringing through the rooms.
I walked the rest of the way to the top of the hill and found myself in a grassy clearing that offered views of the wood and a small lake—that must be the “mere” in “Rosemere”—and the quaint tumble of the village with roads leading into the central square from all directions. They would have been tracks, once upon a time, roads worn into the earth by farmer’s carts and the hooves of animals.
Again that sense of history and endless time struck me. I stood here on this hill, and how many had stood here before me? How many would after me?
It almost made me dizzy. Made me feel both too small and oddly comforted. My life mattered, but in a way, it was just a blip.
Sweating lightly, buoyed by the fresh air and exercise, I wandered back down the lane. It was lined with a mishmash of houses, here a couple of old cottages with thatched roofs, there a narrow Victorian, three stories high, next door to a modern cube with the utilitarian tone of the fifties, and then a couple of ordinary cottages, no thatch. No matter what the style, the front gardens burst with the offerings of spring—tulips in a dizzying array of varieties, red and pink and variegated; spills of hyacinth; a spectacular dogwood tree. A stout woman bent over at the waist plucking weeds, singing breathily.
I wondered what would be blooming in the gardens at Rosemere Priory. I’d never had a chance to garden seriously. Would I even like it? My mother had been passionate, but that didn’t mean it would suit me.