The Anonymous Notes That Destroyed My Wedding novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Balloon

Gran confesses a $310,000 balloon payment due September 1 that only Shane knew about, and at dawn Libby matches the cards to the place cards her bridal party lettered, and one of them is in Shane's hand.

I sat.

Gran slid the envelope across the table.

Her name was typed on the front, with the bank's logo in the corner.

"Five years ago," she said. "The freeze year."

I remembered the freeze year.

The buds had come out early in a warm March, and then one night in April it hit nineteen degrees.

We lost almost the whole crop.

That was the same summer Grandpa got sick for the last time.

"The hospital bills," Gran said. "And the payroll. And the new roof on the shed. I took a loan."

"How much?"

"The payments were small. Interest only. That was the trick of it."

"Gran. How much?"

She tapped the paper with one finger.

"Three hundred and ten thousand dollars. All of it due at once. September first."

I read it twice, the same way I'd read the card in the jar.

Balloon payment. Final installment. Failure to remit.

September first was two months away.

"You never said a word," I said.

"You had enough."

"I had enough? I'm the one who does the books for the stand."

"For the stand. Not for the farm."

"Who else knows?"

She didn't answer right away.

That was the answer.

"Shane," I said.

"He's in real estate." She lifted her chin. "He'd know what to do. That's what I thought."

"And what did he say to do?"

"Put the deed in both your names for a wedding present." Her voice went flat. "Married couple, steady income, he said the bank would refinance you in a week. He said you didn't need to worry about it. He said it was his gift to you, too."

I stood up so fast the chair hit the stove.

"You told him and not me."

"Don't you raise your voice in this kitchen."

"You let me pick out napkins! I spent two weeks on the napkins, Gran!"

"They were nice napkins."

"He sold it! Do you understand me? He already sold the farm. There's a man in cabin three with a map of our trees and a red line around all of it."

She went very still.

Then she looked at her hands.

Her knuckles were big and knotted from fifty years of pruning shears.

She had planted the sweet-cherry block by the road the spring after she got married.

She had carried my father down those rows on her hip.

She had carried me down them after he died.

"I was ashamed," she said quietly. "I'm seventy-seven years old and I lost the crop and I had to borrow. I didn't want you to know your grandmother couldn't hold it together."

I was so angry I could hardly see.

I went around the table anyway and put my arms around her.

She smelled like Ivory soap and the orchard.

She held on harder than I did.

"We'll figure it out," I said into her hair.

"How?"

"I don't know yet. I'll know by breakfast."

She laughed once, wet.

"You always said that. When you were eight and you broke the screen door."

"And I fixed it."

"You fixed it with duct tape."

"It's still up."

She patted my back and let go.

"Go to bed, Libby."

"In a minute."

She went upstairs.

I didn't go to bed.

At four in the morning I was still sitting at the kitchen table.

The seven cruel cards were lined up in front of me on the oilcloth.

I'd smoothed them flat with the side of my hand.

Then I went to the hall closet and got down the shoebox.

In May the whole bridal party had come to the barn for a craft night.

Two hundred place cards, hand-lettered in gold pen, with pizza and boxed wine.

Everybody practiced first on scrap cards.

Everybody practiced by writing their own name.

I'd kept the scraps because I keep everything.

Gran calls it the squirrel in me.

I dumped them out on the table.

Twelve practice cards, twelve names, in twelve hands.

I laid them in a row above the seven notes.

The first card, the train one, had loopy capital letters with little hooks on the bottom.

So did one of the practice cards.

The pawn-shop card had a lowercase g that looked like an 8.

So did another.

My hands had stopped shaking somewhere around the third match.

I went card by card, letter by letter, while the sky went gray over the bay.

I saved the fourth one for last.

Enjoy the farm while it's still yours. Signed, the down payment.

Small square capitals, pressed in hard.

A t crossed with a slash that leaned right.

I knew those capitals before I even picked up his practice card.

I'd seen them on three years of birthday cards.

I'd seen them on the grocery list on our refrigerator.

I set his practice card next to the note anyway.

The same capitals.

The same leaning t.

Shane Hollander, in gold pen.

And under it, the down payment, in black.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend