Page 3 of Miss Humbug
I fished out airport presents for the kids—keychains, smooshy little stuffed animals, T-shirts featuring California pro sports teams. These were sporty kids. They liked sports. Just nobody ask me which ones.
The kids swarmed and scattered. I could spend face time with them later. Right now, I wanted to hear from Grans. She wanted us here, and I wanted to know why.
I crossed the room and tentatively stood before the woman who raised me. She smiled. “How was your flight?”
Terrible. “Great.”
“And your job?”
Non-existent, but no way would I admit it. “Going well.”
“Wonderful. I’m glad to hear.”
“When is game time?” One of Ashe’s kids stood holding a board game box. The cute one with freckles who wasn’t sticky.
“Games are after we talk schedules with Grans,” Cara answered with patience.
Adults arranged kids while I sat on the couch facing the centerpiece of the room, an ornate fireplace with a professional photo of the family mounted above the mantle. Mom and Dad smiled down at us, preserved in time. I was two in the family portrait and reaching off camera, already eager to make a break for it.
Grans made a production of sitting in a wingback chair, like a gazelle folding her limbs just so. “Thank you all for gathering. It means so much.”
Calamity ensued with a shrieking child and a shushing mother, until Grans dropped the grandmother-lode. “I’ve decided it’s time to move on from Hollybrooke House.”
I couldn’t have heard her right. Move on?
“You’re selling,” Shawn said, as a declaration, not a question. “Let me help you with the listing. No one’s going to rip you off on my watch, Grans.”
“No one in this town would dare,” my uncle Joe piped up.
“You know, my commercial real estate company is ranked number three back home,” Shawn added. “Number three and rising.”
“It’s notyourcompany,” Ashe shot back. “You just work there.”
“I’m an important fixture in the line of command and—”
Grans held up a hand. “I’m not selling. I’m moving to an active, adult community with one-floor living. These stairs are killing me.”
On the wordskilling me,we collectively held our breath. Look, we didn’t mince words in this family. We’d been through too much.
She tossed a hand in the air. “I’m notdying. It’s this pesky business of aging. This is too much house. After my hip surgery, the stairs have become a burden. Too many empty bedrooms with you lot off and away. The greatgrands aren’t staying overnight often enough to justify keeping the rooms up. And besides, my cleaning woman is planning to retire. She’s the one who showed me the lovely retirement community she’s moving to with her husband.”
Silence, not usually a guest in our collective presence, sank in and made itself comfortable. A pit formed in my gut. The house. The beloved house. What would happen to the house?
Grans went on. “There’s not a chance I’d let the masses get in a bidding war over our beauty. This house stays in the Holly family.”
Murmurs coursed through the room, which devolved into fighting among the kids, somebody crying, and loud complaining this was all so boring. See ya, Silence.
Ashe rounded up the kids and funneled them outside. “Stay in view of the window!”
Grans waited out the commotion. “Since I’m alive and kicking, there’s no sense holding out on a will to pass down the house. I’d like to move ahead now. Only it leaves me with an impossible decision.”
Who gets the house. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be in her orthopedic flats right now for that decision.
Uncle Joe, Grans’ son, and his wife Sunny were the obvious next in line. Only they’d built a beautiful custom home they’d spent years renovating, so would they even want Hollybrooke? Ashe and Cara could be likely candidates with their three kids. Same for Rafe and his family. Or Riley and her daughter. They’d all probably appreciate owning the family legacy.
“I decided to take myself out of the equation,” Grans said. “I had a brilliant idea. A contest. You’re each eligible to win the house. I’m calling itThe Great Holly House Caper.”
Silence swelled for a hot second until the room exploded in noise.
