Page 99 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
With a shoulder propped against the wall, Josie grinned as she waited with Evie. “I taught them.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jamison sighed. “We’ll be back in a minute.”
“Take as long as you want.” With a plate full of food in one hand, Evie smacked on her third mouthful of casserole. “Who knew Abe could cook? Am I right?”
Above her on the ladder, Annabethhmpfed. “He could’ve said something sooner and helped out.”
“He’s my son,” Simone replied from farther up the ladder. “And I still don’t know if I’d try his food first.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Jamison admitted. “Food poisoning is my least favorite thing.”
“Hey, hey,” her father barked, already in the attic and steadying Simone at the top. “Eyes forward. Watch your step. I don’t want anyone falling.”
“We’re fine, Benjamin.” Simone brushed off her leggings with a huff. “Who do you think put all the wedding stuff up here to begin with?”
He helped Annabeth up next, then reached down for Jamison’s arm. “Why is my wedding stuff even up here?” she asked as she climbed into the attic. “Why not just shove it in one of the unused guest rooms?”
“Because I knew it would hurt you to see it.” Simone wrinkled her nose at the dusty air, already eyeing the clutter with disdain. “So I put it somewhere you wouldn’t have to.”
The front section of the attic was filled mainly with holiday decorations, all of which were left close to the entry point so they could be removed easily every year. But behind those stacks were layers and layers of Fairweather history crowding the space. A few things belonged to Ty and Simone from when they first arrived, but most were incredibly old pieces belonging to the various Fairweathers who lived at Haven House once upon a time.
Wandering his way through the jumbled chaos, Jamison caught sight of her father directly before he disappeared behind a wall of boxes containing Annabeth’s Nutcracker collection. “Dad, where are you going?”
She followed, leaving Simone and Annabeth to debate whether to bring the Thanksgiving decorations down this year.
“Dad?” Popping out to the other side, she found him in the larger section of the attic where the ceilings rose high above their heads. “What’s that?”
Smiling in a way that tugged on her heartstrings, her father held up a small pink CD player. “This was your mom’s. Laura Jean took it everywhere.”
“Oh, yeah?” She hit the button on the top, making the CD lid open. “I wonder if it’ll play anything.”
“I don’t know, but maybe we can give it to Harper and see if she can get it to work.” He nodded at a box with the wordsLJ’s musicwritten on it. “Those are her CDs. Grab them, and we’ll take it all with us.”
Gathering the small box, Jamison tucked it under one arm, but when turning back around, she accidentally bumped into a candelabra.
“Oh, crap.”
The gothic looking thing tilted in what felt like slow motion until it finally gave up the fight. It crashed into several pieces of Victorian-era furniture, clanging loudly as it collided.
“What are y’all doing?” Simone hurried through the box maze with Annabeth right behind her. “Don’t make a mess up here.”
“Whoa,” Annabeth breathed, pointing to a now-exposed painting. “Who’s that?”
The ornately framed picture was of a young woman, and setting the box of her mother’s CDs down, Jamison tilted it forward to see the inscription. “Margaret Fairweather.Wedding Portrait,” she read aloud from the plaque. “She must be some great-great-grand-whatever.”
“She looks like Charlie, so I guess so.” Her father scooted a velvet chaise lounge to reveal a massive family tree framed in the same extravagant way as Margaret Fairweather’s painting. “Yeah, here we go.” He tapped at the glass. “She was the mother of Calvin Fairweather, who was my father’s grandfather. They were the last Fairweathers to live here before they built Parkland Grounds.”
“She doesn’t look very nice,” Jamison said, eyeing Margaret’s painting. “But then again, she also looks sad for this being a wedding portrait.”
“Forget Margaret, check this out.” Squatting to get a better look at the family tree, her father grinned. “Here she is. The infamous Wilhelmina Fairweather.” He pointed to the name sitting on the same line as Calvin’s. “She’s the one who murdered their father. His death is what forced the mill to close and why the Fairweathers moved to Hollingsdale.”
“But why did she kill him?” Annabeth asked. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to know.”
“The way the story was told to me was that she wanted to marry her doctor, but her father wouldn’t allow it, so she killed him and ran off.”
“Agent Anderson says otherwise,” Jamison noted.
Staring at the family tree, Simone wrapped her arms around herself as if cold. Admittedly, it was a bit drafty in the attic, but she was wearing Devon’s college sweatshirt and should have been warm enough. “If a Fairweather is telling the story, you better believe it’s probably only half true.” She nodded at Wilhelmina’s name. “I hope that poor girl ended up with her doctor and had a good life.”
