Page 83 of Gulfside Girls
Joetta Bennett was her mother.
And when her mother died, she’d given the Sea Turtle to her daughters.
Ali shook with the realization that even though their mother had been gone all this time, she’d given them a gift.
Was there a will? Did it come to us that way?
Ali made notes with her questions.
But the main mystery was solved.
Their mother—their vulnerable, beautiful, tragic mother—wasn’t as destitute as they thought. The things they’d found since their dad died had only served to make their mother more mysterious. She’d owned jewelry and designer clothes and now Ali saw her mother had owned real estate in Florida before she died. And before she died, she’d signed it over to her three children.
Ali felt a little dizzy. This upended what she knew about her mom.And why in the world had their father never said anything?
This could have been a way to pay for college or, at the very least, a place to visit on vacation. This would have been some small way to know their mother. Bruce Kelly had cut off all avenues of memory that his daughters could have pursued. She remembered his deathbed apology.Was this it? Was this what he regretted? Keeping this secret?
“It had to be done. Cut off. The only way.”
He’d admitted it. That was what he was saying. Bruce Kelly, in his final breaths, had apologized for cutting them off from the memory of their mother. But why was it the only way? Why did he need to be sure they didn’t know her memory. Or where she came from? Their mother had to be from Florida. This property had to mean she was from here.
The questions Ali had for her mother would never be answered. She’d resigned herself to that a long time ago. But with a harsh slap in the face, she realized she couldn’t ask her father now either.
She’d lived a life without her mother. This was a familiar injury that she’d been able to close off. The scar had almost faded. Or so she thought.
But not being able to take Bruce Kelly to task over this, not being able to call him or talk to him, that was still so fresh. She could still hear his voice in her head.
Ali had long ago forgotten what her mother sounded like.
Bruce Kelly knew their mother left this resort to them and he’d never said a word. Never let his daughters know more about their mom. The seashells they’d found…She’d probably collected them from this place, this beach that seemed to call her home.
These revelations knocked the wind out of Ali. They upended her in a way that she didn’t know how to fix. How did theworld turn right side up after learning you knew nothing about something so important about your own life, your own family?
Ali took a breath. She had to calm herself, and deal in the present and in the reality of what she could do now, what she could know.
How did her mom come into this property? How did a young woman in her twenties own a resort to leave to her children?
Joetta Kelly was Joetta Bennett. And Joetta Bennett was a young woman with means.How did she wind up a mother of three with nothing?
Ali moved through the documents.
There were no more records in that year.
There were no more records of the Sea Turtle. At least that she could find. Ali had been warned that water damage from a long-ago storm had washed away records from the first thirty years of Mangrove County, that was well before everything was backed up on computers.
But one thing was clear. Her mother had given the Sea Turtle to them. And her father had hidden it away.
Why?
Her father’s deathbed words echoed in her mind.
Thirty-Four
Belinda
1984
Joetta was broken in body and mind. No matter how many times the two sisters tried to reason with Bruce Kelly, the pleas met with silence.
