Eby nodded. “Just before we left Atlanta. We bought my sister the house and a car. Gave her some money. Set up a small trust for Quinn. Then we gave the rest of the money away to charity and moved to Lost Lake.”
Kate sat back against one of the pillows, and a puff of dust rose up around them and sparkled in the air. “Why did you give the money away? Mom would never explain it to me.”
Eby shrugged. “I doubt she truly understood. No one did. Our family has a history of wanting money. Wanting it, never having it, never able to keep it. George grew up without money, and he’d been happy without it. When we got back from our honeymoon, everything just fell apart. My mother and sister wanted so much. Expected so much. And nothing was ever enough. George and I realized we didn’t need the money, and my family wouldn’t leave us alone as long as we had it. So we gave it away. And they never forgave me.”
“But Mom must have,” Kate said. “She must have wanted to bury the hatchet, by coming here that summer after George died.”
Eby hesitated. “I don’t want to speak badly of your mother,” she said, looking at Kate kindly. “I know she had a hard time growing up in the shadow of her mother’s grief. And I know she must have loved you. I could tell the first time I met you that you’d had a childhood full of love. She let you express yourself. Like you do with Devin.”
“It’s okay,” Kate said. “I want to know.”
“Quinn grew up with a very negative impression of me. I think she wanted the satisfaction of seeing me grieve the way her mother grieved.” Eby waited for Kate to interrupt her, to protest, but she didn’t. “I was devastated when George died, but I had Lisette and the lake guests and the town, and they didn’t let me go to that place, that dark place. I had a support system, which is what the women in our family sorely lack after they fall in love. They get married and want nothing but that one person. But relying on one person for your every need is so dangerous. One set of hands isn’t enough to keep you from falling. Quinn didn’t like that I wasn’t going to sell the lake and have extra money to share with her. She didn’t like that I was going to be okay. She didn’t expect that. It was just one more thing for her to resent.”
Kate took a moment to process that. “I can’t believe my dad let her come here to do that.”
“I don’t think he knew. When he figured it out, he made you and Quinn leave with him.”
Eby was surprised how easily Kate accepted what Eby had told her. But it all made sense when Kate said, “She was never the same after he died.” Quinn was as high-strung as her mother had been. And Quinn had obviously been as torn up after her own husband died. Kate had seen it, and Eby was sorry that she had.
“It’s the Morris curse.”
“It almost happened to me—when Matt died,” Kate said quietly, looking up at the ceiling. Eby wondered if it was telling her anything.
“But it didn’t,” Eby said. “If we measured life in the things that almost happened, we wouldn’t get anywhere.”
They stayed there, side by side, for a while. Eby decided, once she sold Lost Lake, that she would stay in touch with Kate. This felt good, to finally be able to be in a room with her family and feel nothing but camaraderie, where conversation and moral support were the only things asked for and given freely. It took fifty years for this to finally happen.
Kate stood and dusted herself off. She put her hands in her pockets and considered Eby for a moment. “It’s not official, is it? You haven’t signed over Lost Lake yet?”
“Not yet.”
“So it’s still a thing that almost happened.”
Eby smiled to herself. She caught on quickly. “For now.”
“So no inventory yet.”
“Not physical inventory, at least. Now, mental inventory; I’m doing a lot of that.”
“What are you going to do,” Kate asked, “when you sell?”
“Travel,” Eby said. “George and I always wanted to go back to Europe.”
“What about after?”
“After what?”
“After you travel, where will you come back to?”
Eby laughed. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Kate’s brow lowered. She looked like she was going to say something, then thought better of it. “I’ll leave you to it.” She turned to go, then stopped. “Thank you, Eby.”
“For what?”
“For being a misfit.” She smiled. “You give the rest of us hope.”