“Are you okay?”
“I will be in a few seconds.” Her grandma closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “There’s a chest in the attic. Look in there and see if you can figure out what happened to my father.”
“Has Mom looked for him?”
Her grandma nodded. “Mabel loves a good story as much as I do, but she was just as confused. Ask your mom about what she found.”
Penny was getting really worried about her grandma. The morphine looked as though it hadn’t helped the pain. “Do you want me to get a doctor?”
“Not yet. There’s one more thing. In the chest, there’s a small enamel box with a key inside. Momma always said as long as I have that, I’ll never need anything else. I wasn’t able to work out what the key unlocked. Keep it safe.”
Her grandma’s eyelids closed, then slowly opened. She sent Penny a tired smile. “Be happy, honey. I’m so proud of you.”
“I love you, Grandma.”
“Love you, too.”
Before Penny could push the emergency button, her grandma took one last shuddering breath. And with the same dignity and grace with which she’d lived her life, she began her next journey.
Wyatt stood in the foyer of The Welcome Center. For such a small town, Sapphire Bay had great community facilities.
The sprawling building he’d just visited had two accommodation wings, shared living and dining rooms, and a large commercial kitchen. There was a range of meeting rooms of different sizes, and plenty of storage.
The Welcome Center was also right beside The Connect Church. But the best thing was its proximity to the tiny home village. On the far side of the parking lot, twenty-five tiny homes had been built off-site and moved onto a large parcel of land. Each pod of eight homes had a larger communal activity and kitchen facility. As the homes were built, the residents had formed separate groups. The amount of social interaction between each pod of homes was minimal. Ethan wanted that to change.
Basing the art project in The Welcome Center and the village might be enough to encourage people to work together and break down the barriers they’d created.
Ethan handed Wyatt a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list of the regular bookings for the meeting rooms. If you want to use the large one, the only day it’s consistently available is Wednesday.”
“The day of the week doesn’t worry me. Is there anything else on Wednesdays that people from the village might go to?”
“Not that I’m aware of. The best person to ask would be Mabel Terry, but she isn’t here at the moment. I could ask one of the other volunteers from The Welcome Center.”
“I can do that before we leave.”
A young woman walked into the foyer and smiled at Ethan. “It’s good to see you. Thanks for all the help you gave us last Friday.”
Ethan smiled. “It was no trouble.” He turned to Wyatt. “Andrea, this is my friend, Wyatt Johnson. He’s an artist and moved to Sapphire Bay a few weeks ago.”
Andrea held out her hand. “It’s good to meet you. I work part time with Shelley, the Center’s accountant. My boys and I stayed at The Welcome Center for a few months when we first moved here. If you ever need any help with anything, just ask. When I’m not working with Shelley, I volunteer behind the reception counter.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Wyatt replied.
“Has anyone heard from Mabel?” Ethan asked.
Andrea shook her head. “No one knows how her mom is. We’re waiting for Pastor John to give us an update. But I do have some good news. Sam had her baby. It’s a little girl.”
Some of the weight seemed to lift from Ethan’s shoulders. “That’s wonderful.”
“I thought so, too.” Andrea checked her watch. “I’ll leave you to whatever you’re doing. I need to prepare two rooms for some new guests. It was nice meeting you, Wyatt.”
“Same here.” After Andrea left, the smile on his face faded. “Why is everyone so friendly?”
Ethan laughed. “It can be a bit of a culture shock, but it’s just the way everyone is. Most people are super friendly and willing to help with whatever needs doing.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.” Ethan pulled out his cell phone. “Talking about helping, Zac’s busy with the free community health checks at the moment. Would you mind if I dropped in to see if he needs me for anything?”
“That’s fine by me. I want to have another look at the walls you want us to paint, anyway. Does meeting back here in twenty minutes suit you?”
“It sounds good. I’ll see you soon.”
With Ethan on his way to see Zac, Wyatt walked out of the center and headed toward the large concrete garages sitting between the church and the tiny homes. The art project would create an opportunity for the residents of the tiny home village to paint large murals on the outside of the garage walls. At the moment, all the residents saw were gray, concrete blocks.
The idea behind the project was to encourage people to take ownership of the tiny home village and feel as though it was their home. It would also brighten the dull boundary between the buildings.
With his tape measure and cell phone in his hands, he took some photos and added the dimensions of the garages to the images.
“What are you doing?”
Wyatt looked over his shoulder, then down at the red-headed boy standing behind him. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old. “I’m working out how long and high the walls are.”
“Why?”
“We might paint pictures on them.”
The little boy’s face broke into a grin. “I like painting. Could I help?”
Wyatt searched the properties for the boy’s parents. It wasn’t safe for him to be out here, talking to a complete stranger. “If it goes ahead, you can.”
“What’s your name?”
“Wyatt.”
“I’ve got a friend called Wyatt. But he’s not as big as you.”
That didn’t surprise him. Regardless of
