Sincerity, Eventually, Finds an Answer

I turned off the burner and set the jar on the counter. The sauce hissed in the pan while Miles breathed into my ear. "Tell me what you found," I said. "I already told you. The ledger." "You found an old ledger in the inn?" "Not just any ledger. The one from the year you left." His breath caught. "Dad's going to meet the buyers on January second. Ruth's cleaning out the office. She said the old books can go in the recycling bin, but I saw your name on a note inside." My grip tightened around the phone. I had spent eleven years training myself not to respond to anything that came from Grayhaven. I had changed my number twice, left my father's emails unopened, and learned to be calm when a customer at the stationery shop mentioned the Tideglass Inn. My father's inn had been a white-shingled building on a bluff above the harbor, with blue trim and a roof that groaned whenever the wind came in from the water. My mother had planted the rose bushes near the front steps. She'd been dead five years when I left. "What kind of note?" I asked. "I don't know. The page was folded. Ruth walked in, and I put it back." "Why are you calling me now?" "Because she told Dad you called last week." "I didn't." "I know. That's why I called." I looked at the half-made dinner on my stove. My apartment was warm. My work clothes hung over the back of a chair, and my little rented kitchen smelled like garlic. Nothing in it belonged to the Tideglass Inn. "Does Dad know you're calling?" "No." "Does Ruth?" "She knows I was in the office." I shut my eyes. Ruth had been my father's second wife since I was fifteen. She spoke softly in front of other people and kept her nails short enough to work the reception desk without snagging a guest's reservation card. She had never needed to raise her voice to make a room feel like it was waiting for her permission. "Why tell me about the sale?" I asked. "Because the buyers want the building empty by February. Ruth says she's throwing out the old desk, too. The one Mom used." The word Mom made the years between us seem briefly smaller. "What do you want me to do?" "I don't know." Miles went quiet. I heard a door close on his end. "I wanted to tell you before they got rid of it. And I wanted to ask if you'd come back." I watched steam curl out of the sauce. "Miles, I can't show up because you found a page in a ledger." "I know." "I don't know if Dad wants to see me." "I don't know either." His honesty stopped me from saying the next thing I had planned. I had expected him to insist. Maybe I wanted him to. Instead, he offered no promise he couldn't keep. "There's something else," he said. "Ruth wants me to help sort the office tomorrow. Dad said it's family business. She told me not to make this harder than it has to be." "Harder how?" "She said the buyers need a clean history. Then she said it would be better if I didn't bring you into it." I sat down. The jar of sauce stood open on the counter, forgotten. "Did she say why?" "No. But I found something in the ledger. I think she wants it gone." "Did you read the note?" "I saw one line. It said, 'Don't let June carry this.'" My name sounded strange in his mouth. I hadn't heard anyone from home say it in years. I rubbed my thumb against the edge of the phone. At eighteen, I'd stood in the inn's office while my father placed a typed statement in front of me. Eight thousand six hundred dollars had gone missing from the payroll reserve. Ruth said she'd seen me with the envelope. Dad asked me to sign a confession and promise to repay it. I told him I hadn't taken a cent. He looked at the paper instead of me. I left before midnight. "I'll come tomorrow," I said. Miles exhaled, a rough sound that didn't quite become relief. "Thank you." "I'll look at the ledger. That's all I can promise." "Okay." "Don't confront Ruth. Don't take anything out of the office. And don't tell Dad I'm coming until I get there." "Okay." I ended the call and stood in my kitchen, listening to the sauce bubble against the pan. I'd said I was coming to look at a ledger. I knew better than to call that a small thing.