The words lodged in my throat. Jake’s eyebrows knotted into a frown.
‘Mr Sanders – er, Mike – suggested the family’s main concern is the life insurance being held in trust. He didn’t mention the issue of guardianship.’
That was weird. Mike and I hadn’t even discussed the trust fund. It was a huge amount of money and to me, it seemed like a wise move to put it away until the kids were old enough to spend it sensibly. I thought the problem was Amy appointing me as a guardian.
Jake registered my confusion.
‘Can I suggest that you speak with your brother-in-law about the family’s financial situation? That seems to be the main concern of Mr Sanders.’ He gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘As for guardianship, well, that’s really up to you. Nobody can force you to do anything. It was your sister’s wish, but she understood that it would be your choice.’
I thanked Jake for his advice and he told me to call him if I had any further questions. He gave me his business card and by reflex, I gave him one of mine in return. He insisted on seeing me out, but struggled to open the door and shake my hand at the same time, prompting an awkward dance between us on the threshold. I blushed as we finally said goodbye.
I walked along Market Street, my head spinning. Why was Mike so concerned about the money? He had a good job, and he and Amy owned their house outright.
Surely the real issue was that my sister had asked me to euthanise my career and kill my every chance of future happiness by confining me to lifelong spinsterhood back in the village I had done everything to escape?
I found Adam in Barter Books, sipping a mug of steaming coffee while flicking through a hardback of vintage fashion adverts.
The bookshop had always been a favourite place of mine and Amy’s. We would go after school for tea and a scone, then take the late bus back to Seahouses. Books were our window to the world and we were avid readers as children, devouring anything that conjured up far-away places and exotic characters. We kept a detailed list of all the places we wanted to visit, and frequently debated where we would eventually live. Our imaginations took us far from Northumberland. My dream was to move first to New York, then relocate later to Paris. Amy wanted to have a villa somewhere warm, where she would grow her own lemons and olives and where she could swim in the sea all year round.
We had a mutual understanding that there was nothing for us in Seahouses and we would leave as soon as we were old enough. Even Newcastle was too provincial for us. We had grander plans.
Then, when Dad died and Mum left, there was nothing worth staying for.
Both of us went away to university – me to Edinburgh, and Amy to Leeds. But we found the distance between us too great and she joined me in Scotland after her first year. That was when she met Mike, and from that moment on, her priorities started to shift.
I’d been working at The Scotsman as a trainee reporter in my first year after graduating from my English degree, waiting for Amy to finish. Our bigger plan had been to move to London together, but first we intended to have an adventure: we were going to fly to Sicily, then spend three weeks making our way by ferry and train up the west coast of Italy and into France, staying in hostels and cheap B&Bs. We had our inheritance from Dad, but we wouldn’t need much cash. And after everything we had been through, we felt we deserved a summer of fun.
But then Amy had met Mike, and her enthusiasm for the trip dampened. She decided she wanted to spend the summer in Edinburgh, enjoying more time with him and their friends after graduation, before everyone left to become proper grown-ups. The Italy trip wasn’t cancelled, merely postponed – we figured we had many summers ahead of us to do it.
In the beginning, I hadn’t thought Amy and Mike would last. He was uncultured, a bit loud, and I felt she could do better. He had studied something pointless and vague with ‘administration’ in his degree title, whereas Amy was on track to be a high-flyer in nursing.
Then she took him to Seahouses for the weekend and he loved the place. Before I knew it, they were talking about buying a house in the village to renovate. I ended up moving to London on my own. Mike became the centre of Amy’s universe, and I shifted into her orbit.
We spoke almost every day at first, sometimes for hours, both of us taking special deals on our landline because mobile calls were too expensive back then. But gradually, our calls trickled out to twice a week, then even less frequently. Our lives had been completely intertwined for so long, but the rope eventually started to pull apart.
Mike set up his own business, a consultancy or something, and it seemed to do well, so maybe that degree wasn’t a complete waste of time. Before I knew it, Amy was settling back in Seahouses for good, and I was off on my own adventure. It turned out we were two different people after all.
So why did she want to pull me back now?
Adam and I headed back to the car, him with a bag of books that would definitely not fit in his suitcase.
‘Did that help to clear things up?’
I sighed.
‘I think I have more questions now than when we started.’
Chapter Four
My laptop purred to life and I stretched my neck. This was good – work was something I could control. A few blissful hours of distraction. But my assistant, Bethany, had
