Nothing complicated.
Ruth held out the key.
“Your grandmother asked me to give this to you if one of two things happened.”
“What things?”
“If you turned thirty…”
She paused.
“…or if you got married without your parents’ financial involvement.”
The cereal spoon slipped from my hand and hit the floor.
Noah slowly shut the apartment door.
I took the key.
My fingers were shaking.
“What does it open?”
Ruth’s expression changed.
Not pity.
Something closer to regret.
“A storage room beneath a property your grandmother owned outside Gastonia.”
I laughed once because the sentence made no sense.
“My grandmother didn’t own property outside Gastonia.”
Ruth looked at me.
“Yes, Mia.”
“She rented her house.”
“No.”
“My parents sold everything after she died.”
“No.”
I felt heat rise into my face.
“Then what are you saying?”
Ruth opened her handbag again and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
It was an address.
“Go there,” she said. “Take your husband. Don’t call your parents first.”
Noah stepped closer to me.
“Why?”
Ruth looked at him.
“Because they’ve had eight years to prepare an explanation.”
The property was forty-five minutes away.
Neither of us spoke much during the drive.
The address led us through an older neighborhood, past new subdivisions, then onto a narrow road lined with enormous oak trees.
Finally Noah slowed the truck.
“There.”
I looked out the window.
At first, I thought we had the wrong place.
A weathered brick house sat behind a long wooden fence.
It wasn’t a mansion.
But it was large.
Two stories.
Wide porch.
Detached garage.
Behind the house stretched nearly six acres of land.
An old sign near the road had been painted over, but beneath the newer paint I could still make out faint letters.
EVELYN’S TABLE
My chest tightened.
My grandmother’s catering company.
Noah parked.
A man was waiting near the porch.
He introduced himself as Mr. Perez.
He and his wife had rented the house for five years.
“Your parents told us the owner lived in Florida,” he said.
“My parents?”
He nodded.
“Your father handled the lease.”
I felt dizzy.
“How much rent do you pay?”
Mr. Perez hesitated.
“Twenty-eight hundred.”
