Tell Me Not to Love You novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Life Tenancy

Sol storms the breakfast room, Amos produces the paper that makes the gatehouse her mother's for life, and Garrick says there is no engagement; Blythe says nothing can outbid a date already set.

I peeled the notice off the door and folded it into my coat pocket.

Then I went to work, because bread does not care who is evicting you.

I shaped sixty baguettes with my jaw clenched so hard my ears rang.

At nine I told the owner I needed an hour.

He took one look at my face and said, "Take two."

The weekend guests were still at brunch when I reached Windward.

I walked up the front steps and opened the great oak door.

The breakfast room smelled of coffee and hothouse lilies.

Rosalind sat at the head of the table in a grey silk blouse, with Colin Harrington and his wife on her right.

Blythe sat beside Garrick, buttering toast, and Amos had parked himself at the foot with his cane across his knees.

The staff stood along the wall, my mother among them.

Her face went the color of paper when she saw me.

"Solveig," Rosalind said. "How unexpected."

I walked to the table and laid the notice beside her plate.

"You taped this to our door at some point after midnight," I said. "I'd like to know why."

"Household reductions," Rosalind said, without looking at it. "The estate is trimming. It has nothing to do with you."

"Then why did you thank us for eighteen years?"

The Harringtons stopped chewing.

"Sol, please," my mother whispered from the wall.

"My mother cleaned your floors for eighteen years," I said. "She earned a pension, not a notice."

I kept my eyes on Rosalind.

"If she wants us out, she can say it to my face."

Rosalind set down her cup with a click.

"I will say it to your face, then. The gatehouse belongs to Windward. Windward belongs to this family. You are guests of its generosity."

Blythe smiled into her toast.

"Kersti," Amos said from the foot of the table, very mildly. "Would you be so good as to bring me my coat?"

My mother crossed the room and fetched his tweed jacket from the chair.

Amos felt in the inner pocket, took out a folded paper gone soft as cloth, and held it up.

"July of 2011," he said. "A fine summer. Philip and I were fighting about the Christmas lights."

He unfolded the page with great care.

"I, Amos Whitcombe, grant Kersti Ostlund the gatehouse for the term of her natural life."

He lifted one finger.

"Rent free, with her household."

He tapped the bottom of the page.

"Witnessed, notarized and signed in blue ink, because I knew you'd call it a forgery if it was black."

He looked down the table.

"I carry it everywhere, Rosalind. It's the only vote I have left."

Rosalind's face did not move, but her hand tightened on the cup.

"That was never recorded."

"It was signed," Amos said. "I have found that is the part that counts."

My mother's shoulders sank with relief.

Colin Harrington put down his fork and studied the lilies.

"Mother."

Garrick had not spoken once.

He stood up now, and every head turned.

"There is no engagement," he said.

His voice was quiet and perfectly steady.

"I never said yes, to you or to anyone. I'm saying it out loud so that nobody at this table has to wonder."

"Garrick," Rosalind said.

"I'm not finished." He looked straight at Blythe, and not unkindly. "I'm sorry you heard it this way. It's no reflection on you."

He did not look at me.

I understood that he had chosen not to, so no one would put my name in the room.

I put my hand flat on the table so it would stop shaking.

Blythe patted her mouth with a napkin.

"What a lot of drama before eleven," she said sweetly.

"I'll be staying through the week, Rosalind, if that's still all right. We have so much to plan."

"Of course, darling," said Rosalind.

My mother walked me out.

She said nothing until we were on the gravel.

Then it came in Swedish, low and fast, which she only did when she was frightened.

"You do not know what you've done."

"I know what she did," I said.

"You know nothing." She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. "Go to work."

She went back inside through the side door.

I was halfway down the drive when I heard heels on the gravel behind me.

Blythe caught up easily, in a camel coat that had cost more than my mother made in a month.

She fell into step beside me and smiled.

"He's sweet," she said. "He gets that from his grandfather. Doesn't mean anything."

I kept walking.

"His mother and my father have a date set," she said. "A real one. With a lawyer."

She slowed, and let me go on without her.

"You can't outbid a date, Solveig."

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