Don't Step Aside, This Photo Needs You In It

Chapter 4: The Negative

My mother's old camera sat in a display case in the hotel library, beside a silver tray of room keys. Dad had put it there after she died, under a brass plaque that read ELISE VALE, CO-FOUNDER AND HEART OF VALE HOUSE.

The words had been added during a family dispute over the lobby renovation. Dad had wanted the plaque removed. I'd threatened to take the camera home if he did. The compromise had left the camera behind and the plaque on the wall.

I was studying it when June came into the library.

"Do you still have the negatives?" she asked.

"Some."

"From the hotel?"

"I kept the ones Mom gave me."

"Could they prove anything?"

"What do you mean?"

She took the plaque in with a glance. "Dad says Mom loved the hotel as much as he did. He says she would've wanted him to sell it if that was the only way to save it."

"That's what he says about her?"

"He says she wanted a fresh start."

I looked at her. "She wanted the west wing repaired. She didn't want Harborlight buying the place."

"Did you hear her say that?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before the storm. She had a folder of renovation plans. The same plans Harborlight wants to scrap."

June sat on the library sofa. "I don't remember."

"You were living in Pine Harbor."

"I came home that summer."

"You were here for three days."

"And you were here every day. You got all the conversations."

The accusation wasn't unfair. Mom and I had been close. June had worked summers at the hotel, but she'd preferred her life away from it. After Mom died, I'd treated that like betrayal. I'd never considered how it might have looked from her side.

"I didn't mean to keep you out," I said.

"You didn't have to mean to."

I went upstairs to my old room and pulled the storage case from under the bed. Inside were envelopes of film, labeled in Mom's square handwriting. I found the folder she'd used for the west-wing project. The negatives showed the hotel's original beams, the old guest rooms, and the storm damage. A contact sheet caught Mom standing in the ballroom beside a table of architectural drawings.

I brought it downstairs.

June leaned over the sheet. "That's the ballroom before the restoration."

"And that's Dad."

He stood near the windows, speaking with a man whose face had been turned away from the camera. The back of the contact sheet had two lines written in Mom's hand: "Grant and Pike, revised plan. No demolition until daughters consent. Ask Celia to add to trust."

I read it twice.

"Who's Pike?" June asked.

I looked closer at the negative. "I don't know."

The surname meant nothing to me then. It would later.

I called Celia and read her the note. She asked me to photograph both sides of the contact sheet, then told me not to make assumptions.

I had spent the afternoon doing exactly that.

That evening, Graham joined us for the welcome dinner. I showed him a print of the old ballroom photo.

"Do you know this man?" I asked.

He looked at it longer than necessary. "That's my father."

"Your father worked with my parents?"

"He consulted on the hotel's expansion in the early nineties." Graham's voice stayed level. "My firm has been involved with Vale House for a long time."

"Was he planning to demolish the west wing?"

"I don't know what his proposal was."

"Would you keep the original structure?"

"Our current plan would modernize the rooms. We'd preserve the ballroom and the exterior."

"Not the west wing."

"We haven't finished the surveys."

June sat beside me, listening. "You promised to preserve the hotel."

"I promised to preserve what makes it recognizable," Graham said. "The structure needs significant work. We can't promise to save everything."

I put the photo down. "Then you're not preserving the place my mother built. You're preserving its name."

"Buildings change. Keeping a historic property open is better than letting it collapse."

That was reasonable. It didn't make me like the plan.

"Is that why you want my photo?" I asked. "To make the family look united?"

"I want an honest picture of the owners discussing the future."

"Then take one of us discussing the future."

He glanced at June. "I'm not the one who asked for a portrait."

June's mouth tightened. "Dad asked for the photo."

Graham turned toward me. "I'm sorry if my presence has made this weekend harder. But I didn't create the ownership rules or the financial problem. I'm trying to make a deal that keeps the staff employed."

"Then let us see the full terms."

"I have no objection."

Dad's voice came from behind us. "We're not discussing the sale at dinner."

"You put the buyer at the table," I said.

He looked at the photograph in my hand. "You've been digging through things that don't concern you."

"It concerns me when you submit a false proxy."

"Your mother's notes aren't proof of anything."

"No one said they were."

His gaze shifted to the photo. "Put it away."

I slipped the contact sheet into its envelope.

After dinner, June walked me to the staircase.

"Graham may be telling the truth about wanting to save the hotel," she said.

"He may."

"You don't trust him."

"I don't trust the deal."

"Those aren't the same thing."

"I know."

We stood beneath the framed family portrait Dad had ordered after Mom's funeral. Mom sat at the center, June on one side, me on the other, Dad standing behind us. The picture had been taken three years before she died. It showed all four of us smiling.

June touched the frame. "Do you think Mom would have wanted us to fight over this place?"

"I think she would've wanted us to tell each other the truth."

"That sounds like a thing people say when they don't know what their mother would've wanted."

I looked at her. "Maybe."

She took her hand from the frame. "Don't decide for me, Maeve."

"I won't."

"And don't make me choose between you and the hotel."

"I'm not asking you to."

The words sounded sincere. The problem was that the choice was already there.