Chapter 7 - The Ghost of the Past
The guest house behind the lake cabin was small, rustic, and smelled faintly of cedar and old pine needles. That night, as a heavy summer thunderstorm rolled across the lake, lightning split the sky in jagged forks of white light, followed by the deep, rattling roar of thunder that shook the windowpanes.
I sat at the wooden kitchen table inside the main cabin, going over my university checklist. Financial aid? Verified. Housing contract? Signed. Course registration for my freshman honors seminar in political science? Complete.
Grandma walked in from the hallway, wrapped in a knitted woolen shawl, holding a mug of chamomile tea. She stopped beside my chair and glanced down at the papers spread across the table.
"You're burning the midnight oil, scholar," she murmured, setting the tea down beside my laptop.
"I just want to make sure nothing is missing," I said, leaning back and rubbing my eyes. "Every time I look at these papers, I keep expecting something to glitch, or for a letter to arrive saying there was a mistake."
"There was no mistake, Hannah," Grandma said firmly, pulling out the opposite chair and sitting down. "You earned every line on those pages. Don't let your father's ghost steal your confidence now."
"Do you think he'll try anything desperate?" I asked, looking out the dark window toward the guest house where Mom and Tyler were spending the night. "Dad... he’s never failed at anything this completely before. His entire identity was wrapped up in being the patriarch of a traditional household where his word was absolute law."
Grandma’s expression darkened slightly. She took a slow sip of her tea before answering. "A proud man backed into a corner is a dangerous animal, Hannah. But Arthur is also a coward. He’s spent his whole life hiding behind the illusion of authority because he didn't have the intellectual or emotional capacity to earn genuine respect. He won't come here. He knows the sheriff has my direct number, and he knows my lawyers don't lose."
She was right about his cowardice, but neither of us anticipated just how far his desperation would drive him before the week was out.
The next morning, the storm had cleared, leaving behind a crisp, washed-blue sky and a glittering lake surface. At around nine o'clock, the sound of a roaring, sputtering engine echoed up the gravel drive—not the battered pickup truck Mom and Tyler were using, but a sleek, unfamiliar sedan.
May you like
I was on the front porch watering Grandma’s geraniums when the car came to a halt. The passenger door pushed open, and an elderly man in a rumpled gray suit stepped out, carrying a heavy leather briefcase.
It wasn't my father. It was local attorney Marcus Vance—the man who had handled our town’s real estate disputes for forty years, and incidentally, the lawyer who had drafted Grandma’s original trust deed back in 1984.
