Chapter 13: The First Grandchild

Lacey's POV

Byron's text came at 10:40, while I was folding Poppy's sleepers on his kitchen table.

"I'm at Mom's. Brady knows he can't be the father. Bring the letter."

I read it standing up.

Then I buckled Poppy into her car seat, took the cream envelope from the drawer, and took the old farm truck's keys off the nail by the door.

The truck smelled of apples and diesel, and it rattled the whole way into the city.

Eleanor's house sat behind a brick wall, with white columns and a gravel drive.

The front door was unlocked.

I carried Poppy down a hall of framed Angell photographs and stopped at the kitchen archway.

Eleanor sat at the island with a cup of tea she wasn't drinking.

Brady stood against the sink with his tie off and his eyes red.

Byron leaned in the doorway to the back hall, with a photocopy folded in his fist.

"Lacey," Eleanor said. "Good. Everyone who matters is here."

I set Poppy's seat on the floor next to Byron's boots.

"Brady asked me a question," said Eleanor. "I'll answer it once, and I'd like no one to interrupt."

She turned her cup a quarter turn on its saucer.

"Your father's trust leaves the voting shares in Angell Orchards to the first grandchild," she said. "I am trustee until that child is twenty-five."

Brady laughed once, and it was an ugly sound.

"I learned when you were fifteen that you would never give me one," she told him. "So I made sure there would be one."

"You made a baby," said Brady.

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