I love you with all of my heart.
Gran
My eyes close as tears streak my cheeks. I press the letter to my chest, hoping to draw some of my gran’s love inside. I see the box next to this letter, and sure enough, an antique brass compass gleams from inside. I pick it up. I, in fact, don’t remember the stories. I hadn’t paid enough attention when I was younger. I should have. She’s no longer here to tell me her stories.
“I miss you,” I whisper to my gran.
She always knew what to say, what to do. If something was wrong, she knew how to fix it.
“Um, Piper?”
A voice from the doorway brings me out of my tears. I look up to find Ellen shifting uncomfortably, and I slide the compass into my pocket.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she tells me. “Are you okay?”
She comes in and sits on the chair in front of the desk. I nod.
“Yeah. I’m just missing her, I guess.”
“We all are,” she answers. “I’ve been wondering when it would hit you.”
“Today, I guess.” I smile weakly. She reaches across the desk and pats my hand.
“We’re all here for you,” she tells me. She fidgets and shifts her gaze. I eye her.
“What?” I ask. “Is something wrong?”
“We were just wondering if you could pay us,” she says, and her cheeks are flushed.
“The estate lawyer hasn’t paid you?” She shakes her head, and I feel a bit light-headed. “I’m so sorry. I thought he was paying everything until things are settled.”
“Isn’t it settled?” Ellen asks.
“Well, yes. I mean . . . it is. I just told him that I didn’t know if I want the responsibility of being the CEO of this company, and that I needed time to think about it, and I guess I just thought he’d take care of everything in the interim.”
Ellen looks stricken. “Are you going to sell?”
“No,” I assure her. “I won’t. Probably not. I don’t know if I want to be as hands-on as I’ve been and as Gran was. I might want to travel for a while. But no matter what, I’ll make sure you’re cared for. Don’t worry about that.”
“We weren’t,” she assures me, but I can tell it’s not true.
“Don’t worry at all,” I repeat to her. “Even if I decide I don’t want to live here, I’ll bring in someone to fill my position. Nothing will change.”
She seems relieved now.
“I wonder what else he hasn’t done?” I ask aloud. “I hope he’s paid the bills.”
Ellen doesn’t look relieved anymore and presses a hand to her chest.
“It’s okay,” I assure her again. “I’ll figure it out right now and take care of everything.”
Ellen must figure she should get out before she learns anything else terrifying and darts away, leaving me with stacks of correspondence and bills to sort through.
It takes a good deal longer than I thought it would. My breakfast plate is a congealed oily mess by midafternoon when I finally look up from the desk.
It’d taken a two-hour phone call with the attorney, hours of research, and a mini heart attack to figure out where we are on bills, to get all employees paid, and to get us settled into this moment.
I exhale long and slow.
That wasn’t fun.
When I walk back downstairs, Ellen, Shelly, and Dan are congregated near the Keurig and break into applause when I approach.
“I see your checks have been deposited.” I grin. “You guys should’ve told me they hadn’t been.”
“I did.” Ellen shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Speak for yourself,” Shelly tells her. “I was on fumes.”
“Always speak up,” I tell them. “Seriously. I’m just feeling my way around right now. I’m doing my best.”
They all assure me that I am and then laugh when my stomach loudly growls.
“You need to eat,” Ellen says, and she takes my cold breakfast plate from me.
“What are we serving the Nortons tonight?” I ask. Please be steak. Please be steak.
“Roasted grouper, asparagus, rolls, baked potatoes. They should be back any minute now, shouldn’t they?”
I glance at the clock. It’s two thirty.
“Um. They should’ve come in already.” I gaze out the window, to where the sun is sinking fast.
“Piper, there’s a blizzard coming tonight,” Dan tells me. “You knew that, right?”
“What?” I ask stiltedly. “I couldn’t get a signal this morning, so I couldn’t check.”
“Visibility is going to be zero,” he tells me solemnly.
My heart starts to pound. “That’s not good.”
Dan’s ashen face confirms it, and this is exactly what I was afraid of. I’ve endangered the tour group.
I spring into motion.
“Shelly, get me a radio. Ellen, call the ranger station, let them know to be on the lookout. Dan, we might have to go out searching for them.”
He nods and is already walking to get his overcoat.
Shelly is in the process of turning everything upside down to find a radio.
She finds one in the butler’s pantry and sends a call out to the Norton party.
As she does, I hear beeps coming from another area in the house and I follow the sounds.
I find the Nortons’ two-way radios still on chargers in the utility room.
“Shel, I thought you checked their stuff?”
“I said I low-key checked,” she reminds me. “I didn’t want them to see me digging through it.”
“That’s part of our job,” I tell her, through my teeth. “To make sure they’ve got all of their safety gear. They’re out there with no radio and no cell signal.”
Shelly stares at me, wide-eyed.
“I don’t usually do the morning send-off, so I didn’t think. I’m sorry,” she tells me, her cheeks flushed.
“It’s my fault,” I tell her. “I should’ve been prepared. Dang it.”
“Piper,” Dan says from the doorway. He’s already suited up for the cold. “We should go.”
I nod and grab my parka off the hook by the back door.
“Shel, stay here in case they come back or there’s word . . .”
She nods quickly and hands me gloves.
I slide them on one at a time and look up at Ellen. “Have hot toddies ready for later,” I tell her. “We’re going to need them.”
I head out into the cold and sit behind Dan on the snowmobile. I use his shoulders to block the icy wind from my face.
It’s snowing pretty heavily already, and Dan noses us through the snow and toward the best hunting spots.
We pass several without seeing a soul.
My anxiety rachets up a few notches with every empty spot we find.
“Surely they wouldn’t have ventured farther up the mountain,” I mutter to myself. Dan seems to hear me, because he turns the snowmobile.
We ride until we come to the thick underbrush of the forest, where we climb off.
“We’re on foot now,” Dan tells me needlessly. The underbrush is far too thick for anything else. “It’s negative twenty degrees,” he adds. “We need to find them.”