The Family Legacy Contract

Chapter Three

My bedroom was at the front of the house, overlooking the street. It was the smallest of the three bedrooms, although I'd chosen it when I was little because it had a window seat, which I'd imagined would be a wonderfully romantic place to sit and read.

In practice, the window seat was too narrow to be comfortable for very long, and the cushion had flattened years ago. I still liked it, though.

I'd painted the walls a pale blue when I was sixteen, with Mum's help, and most of the furniture was second-hand. There was a little wooden desk beneath the window, a bookcase Dad had made from leftover timber, and a wardrobe whose doors needed lifting slightly before they'd close.

Above the desk hung a corkboard covered in photographs, postcards and scraps of paper.

Some were places I wanted to visit. Others were pictures of things I liked: a beautiful old library, a little apartment overlooking a canal, a balcony crowded with flowers.

In the centre was a photograph of the Amalfi Coast, all colourful buildings clinging to cliffs above impossibly blue water.

I'd bought it at a charity shop for fifty cents. It was probably my favourite thing in the room. I changed into my pyjamas, plugged in my phone and sat at the desk to look at my budget.

The numbers hadn't improved since I'd checked them at the diner.

I opened a new page in my notebook and wrote down the shifts I still had, followed by the odd jobs I might be able to pick up.

Mrs Donnelly — motel cleaning.

Mrs Ellis — dog walking.

Mr Patterson — garage.

There was also a woman on the other side of town who sometimes needed help with her garden, although I hadn't heard from her in a while.

I added her name anyway. Then I calculated how many hours I'd need to replace what Ruth had cut.

It was more than I'd hoped.

I rested my chin in my hand and looked at the corkboard.

There was a time when I'd thought that working hard was enough. If I saved carefully, took whatever opportunities came along and didn't waste money, eventually I'd be able to afford the things I wanted.

I still believed that, mostly. I just hadn't expected eventually to take quite so long.

A knock sounded at my door.

"Come in."

Ben appeared in the doorway, wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of tracksuit pants.

"Hey."

"Hey."

He looked at the notebook on my desk.

"Doing your accounts?"

"Something like that."

He stepped inside and leaned against the doorframe.

"Thanks for earlier."

I turned towards him.

"For what?"

"Being excited. And offering to help with the interview."

"Ben, of course I'm excited."

"I know. It's just..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Mum's already talking about visiting me at Christmas, and I haven't even got the scholarship yet."

"Well, that's Mum. She'll probably have your entire first semester planned by breakfast."

He smiled.

"Probably."

I waited, sensing there was something else he wanted to say.

"Do you think I've actually got a chance?"

I looked at him in surprise.

"Of course you do."

"Yeah, but the other people on the shortlist are probably really smart."

"Benjamin Walsh, you are really smart."

"You're my sister. You have to say that."

"No, I don't. I've spent seventeen years telling you when you're being an idiot."

He laughed.

"Listen, they had twelve hundred applicants, and they picked you. They wouldn't waste their time interviewing someone they didn't think deserved to be there."

He looked down at his hands.

"Yeah. I suppose."

"And even if you don't get it, this is still an amazing achievement. You should be proud of yourself."

He nodded.

Then, after a moment, he said, "I wish you could've gone."

I felt something tighten in my chest.

"To university?"

"Yeah."

I looked at him.

He was still leaning against the doorframe, his expression unusually serious.

"You always wanted to go," he said. "And you would've been good at it."

I wasn't quite sure what to do with that.

For years, I'd thought of my plans as something I'd quietly put aside, an inconvenience that belonged to me alone. I hadn't realised Ben had been paying enough attention to remember.

"Well," I said, making myself smile, "I'm not exactly ancient. There's still time."

"I know."

"And if you win this scholarship, I fully intend to visit and make use of your student accommodation."

He grinned.

"I don't think you're allowed to do that."

"Then you'll have to smuggle me in."

"You're terrible at sneaking around."

"Only because you always tell Mum."

He laughed again, and some of the awkwardness disappeared.

"Night, Nat."

"Goodnight. And Ben?"

He stopped in the doorway.

"I'm really proud of you."

His smile was smaller this time, but somehow sweeter.

"Thanks."

After he'd gone, I sat for a while looking at the open notebook. I was proud of him, I couldn't remember ever being prouder.

But I was jealous, too, and I wished I wasn't.

It seemed terribly unfair that happiness and envy could occupy the same space, especially when the person I envied was someone I loved so much.

I closed the notebook and switched off the desk lamp.

Outside, the street was quiet, and a car passed slowly beneath my window, its headlights moving across the ceiling before disappearing.

I lay in bed and thought about Chicago. About the university buildings, the busy streets, the trains and the lake. About Ben getting to experience all of it.

I hoped he won.

I hoped he went away and had the most wonderful four years of his life.

And somewhere beneath those hopes, where I didn't particularly want to look, was the quiet, stubborn wish that one day something wonderful might happen to me, too.

The trouble with cleaning bathrooms was that no matter how thoroughly you scrubbed them, there was always something you wished you hadn't seen.

I was currently contemplating a suspicious brown mark behind the toilet in room six of the Willow Creek Motor Lodge, trying to decide whether it was rust or something considerably less pleasant.

I gave it another spray of bleach.

Some mysteries were better left unsolved.

The bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in, with pale pink tiles, a shower curtain decorated with seashells and a mirror that had begun to blacken around the edges. The motel had been built sometime in the seventies, and although Mrs Donnelly kept it reasonably clean, there were certain things no amount of scrubbing could disguise.

I suspected the tiles had once been fashionable. Perhaps they would be again, if we waited long enough.

I crouched beside the toilet and worked the brush into the grout, careful not to knock my elbow against the little ceramic shelf above the cistern. The cleaning products smelled strongly of lemon and chlorine, and I'd already opened the bathroom window as far as it would go, which was approximately three inches.

Outside, a bird was singing in the hedge that separated the motel from the neighbouring property.

It sounded considerably happier than I felt.

Still, I wasn't complaining.

Mrs Donnelly had called that morning asking whether I could help with a few rooms, and I'd arrived to discover that she intended to pay me for four hours regardless of how quickly I finished. Considering I'd spent most of Thursday evening trying to work out how to replace the hours Ruth had cut at the diner, the offer had felt like a small miracle.

I'd almost hugged her.

Instead, I'd thanked her very politely and asked where she kept the cleaning supplies.

I finished the toilet, wiped down the sink and polished the mirror before stepping back to inspect my work. It wasn't a beautiful bathroom, but it was a clean one and there was something satisfying about that.

I liked jobs where you could see what you'd accomplished. A dirty room became a clean room, an untidy garden became a tidy one, and a stack of dishes disappeared into cupboards. Even when the work was unpleasant, there was usually a point at which you could stand back and say you'd finished.

Most other things in my life weren't quite so obliging.

I carried my bucket into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn, leaving the room in a dull yellow light. I pulled them open and immediately regretted it when the morning sun revealed a fine layer of dust along the windowsill.

I'd already cleaned that.

Apparently, I'd done a poor job.

I went over it again.

The room contained a double bed with a wooden headboard, two bedside tables and a television mounted slightly crookedly on the wall. A small desk stood beneath the window, and beside it was a luggage rack that Mrs Donnelly insisted guests appreciated, although I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone use one.

I stripped the bed and folded the old sheets into my laundry bag, then fetched fresh linen from the trolley outside.

Making beds was probably my least favourite part of motel cleaning.

Not because it was particularly difficult, but because the mattresses were heavy and the fitted sheets seemed determined to come loose at precisely the wrong moment.

I managed three corners without incident. The fourth sprang free as I pulled the sheet over it.

"Oh, for heaven's sake."

I climbed onto the mattress, tucked the corner back into place and smoothed the sheet with both hands.

When I finally stood up, the bed looked respectable. I added the pillows, pulled the quilt into position and arranged the little decorative cushion Mrs Donnelly insisted on placing in the centre. It was shaped like a seashell.

Naturally.

I was beginning to suspect she'd bought an entire collection of seaside-themed furnishings at some point and simply never stopped using them.

There wasn't a beach within several hundred miles of Willow Creek.

I checked the time, nine forty-eight.

I'd been working for just over an hour and had already finished two bathrooms, changed three beds and vacuumed the reception office.

At this rate, I'd be finished well before lunchtime.

I considered asking Mrs Donnelly whether there was anything else she needed done. She'd mentioned that the storage cupboard was a disaster, and I'd noticed several boxes of old towels stacked in the laundry room.

I could probably organise those. Four hours' pay was generous enough that I wanted to make sure she'd got her money's worth.

I wheeled the cleaning trolley towards the next room.

The motel consisted of twelve units arranged in a shallow U around a cracked parking lot. A little reception building stood at the entrance, with a faded sign above the door and two flowerpots that Mrs Donnelly watered religiously despite the fact that neither contained anything particularly enthusiastic about growing.

Most of the rooms were empty as usual.

Willow Creek wasn't the sort of place people visited for pleasure, and the motel survived largely on travelling salespeople, contractors and the occasional family who'd underestimated how long it would take to drive somewhere more interesting.

There was one car parked near the far end of the building, a dark rental with out-of-state plates.

I knocked on the door of room eight, waited, and let myself inside when nobody answered.

The curtains were already open, and the room was considerably tidier than the others.

There was a dark coat hanging over the back of a chair, a small leather bag on the desk and a suitcase positioned neatly beside the wardrobe. The bed had been slept in, but the covers were folded back rather than tangled, and there were no clothes scattered across the floor.

I appreciated that.

Some guests seemed to regard motel rooms as an opportunity to abandon every civilised habit they'd ever possessed.

I opened the bathroom door and checked whether it needed cleaning. It did, although thankfully not much. I was wiping down the sink when I heard the front door open.

"Hello?"

I looked up.

"Housekeeping!"

A man appeared in the doorway.

For a moment, I thought he looked familiar, although I couldn't immediately place him. He was perhaps in his forties, neatly dressed in dark trousers and a pale shirt, with the sort of composed expression that made him look as though he was rarely in a hurry.

Then I remembered, he'd eaten at the diner a few nights earlier.

"Sorry," I said, stepping out of the bathroom. "Mrs Donnelly said the room was empty. I can come back later if you'd prefer."

"Not at all. Please continue."

"Are you sure? I won't be long."

"Quite sure."

"All right. Thank you."

He moved towards the desk, and I returned to the bathroom.

I wasn't particularly fond of cleaning occupied rooms. There was something awkward about handling other people's belongings while they were standing nearby, even when they were perfectly pleasant about it.

Fortunately, there wasn't much left to do. I finished the sink, replaced the towels and checked the shower before carrying my supplies into the bedroom.

The man was sitting at the desk, looking through some papers. I worked around him, changing the bin liner and wiping down the bedside tables.

"You're very thorough," he said.

I glanced over.

"Thank you."

"Do you work here regularly?"

"Just when Mrs Donnelly needs an extra pair of hands."

"I see."

I folded the used towels into my bag.

"Is there anything else you need while I'm here?"

"No, thank you. Everything's been quite satisfactory."

"Lovely."

I collected my bucket and headed towards the door.

"Just a moment."

I turned to find him reaching for his wallet.

"I believe I owe you a tip."

"That's really not necessary, Mrs Donnelly pays me for the cleaning."

"Nevertheless." He took out several folded notes and held them towards me. "I neglected to leave you a tip when I visited the diner the other evening."

I glanced at the money, then looked again. There were five hundred-dollar bills in his hand. For a moment, I was certain I'd misunderstood what he was offering.

"Oh, goodness. No, I couldn't possibly accept that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's five hundred dollars!"

He smiled as though I'd said something mildly amusing.

"I assure you, it's quite all right."

I looked at the money again, wishing rather desperately that he'd offered me fifty instead. Fifty I could have accepted with a clear conscience. Five hundred was an entirely different matter, although the thought of what I could do with it was already making it difficult to concentrate.

"That's incredibly generous, but it's far too much. I really can't."

"Please. I'd like you to have it."

He held the notes out a little farther.

I hesitated, painfully aware that my hand had almost moved towards them of its own accord.

Five hundred dollars would provide a healthy buffer until I could find something more permanent. I could pay my share of the electricity bill, put something into savings and perhaps even buy the new trainers I'd been putting off for months.

I wanted that money so badly it was embarrassing.

"Are you absolutely sure?" I asked.

"Quite sure."

I accepted the notes before I could talk myself out of it again.

"Thank you. Really, that's extraordinarily kind of you."

"You're very welcome, Natalie."

I folded the money carefully and slipped it into my pocket, still feeling a little stunned.

"Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay."

"I'm sure I will."

I collected my bucket and stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind me. Halfway back to the cleaning trolley, I stopped and took the notes out again.

Five hundred dollars.

I counted them twice, just to be certain, then tucked them safely into the zipped compartment of my backpack. I couldn't quite suppress my smile as I wheeled the trolley towards reception.

Mrs Donnelly was going to think I'd lost my mind if I walked in looking this pleased about cleaning bathrooms.