Best of Me

Chapter 2

Garrett stood on the curb looking up at the imposing house. It certainly made a statement but why anyone would want to live in it was beyond him. It looked as if it hadn't been updated in over a hundred years. Sighing he looked down at his phone and texted his mother that he had arrived and that he would call her as soon as he knew what was needed. The fact that his aunt's affairs were falling on his shoulders and not his father's, was one more log to his fire of growing resentment towards the man.

He walked up the steps and rang the old-fashioned bell, waiting for what felt like a quarter of an hour before someone answered the door. The woman that answered the door was older, had snow white hair cut short around her head, and she was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a baggy sweater. Was this the niece that Mable was always talking about? She was older than he had expected.

The woman held open the door with a smile and asked how she could help him. "I'm here to see my aunt, Mable Scott-Reed," he stated before he was let into the house. The woman closed the door behind him and then offered to take his coat.

He noticed a movement on the massive and ornate staircase in front of him and looked up to see what looked like a young peasant girl from a fairytale. She was slight and looked as if a hard wind would blow her away, she was wearing a mid-length wool skirt, a blue sweater set and for some reason she had a ridiculous handkerchief scarf thing covering her head.

Her skin was alabaster white and her brown eyes were huge in her almost gaunt face. The girl would be stunning if she would put on a little weight and dress her age. He felt that he was beginning to stare so he forced himself to look away and study his surroundings.

They were just as out of place in the modern age as the girl was. The hall was massive and it looked just as Garrett had imagined it would. Thick carpets in deep colors were littered over the wooden floors, the walls were white plaster covered in plaster motifs with dark wainscoting on the bottom half, and the staircase was massive and dramatic with a stained-glass window at the top. The ceiling in the hall rose at least twenty-five feet to the floor above. The house was built to be impressive and it was, even to Garrett's jaded eye.

'I'm here to see my Aunt Mable," he reminded the woman who had opened the door.

"She's expecting you, if you'll follow me," the young woman said as she led the way up the stairs. He followed and as he reached her level he realized just how small she really was, she barely reached his shoulder.

They climbed the stairs in silence and he wondered what she was thinking about and who she was, she had an amused look on her face but she seemed to be far away, as if she was thinking about something from a different time or place. She gave him a little smile as she reached the door to a bedroom at the end of a long gallery that looked down on the stairs and floor below, there was a similar gallery running along the other side of the open space.

The young woman knocked, was bid to enter, and then with a look at her watch disappeared without another word.

'Useless girl!" Aunt Mable protested from her bed as she looked over Garrett.

Garrett entered the room and noted the fire which made the room very warm compared to the temperature of the rest of the house.

"Now you know why I asked you to come. She's incapable of handling anything, and now that I'm close to the end of my life I need to make sure that all of my affairs are in order. I can't depend on her to do it."

He studied his aunt looking at her closely in the heavy silence that followed, she certainly did look ill, but she also looked like she was up to something. Garrett had learned to read people early on in his career, especially the people who were up to no good, he knew the signs, no direct eye contact, fidgeting, and passing the blame onto someone else.

"Her?" Garrett asked, walking over to the window and looking down at the street below. He was just in time to see the young girl get on a bicycle with two large hampers attached and cycle away from the house. He frowned, surely it was too cold to be out in the wind, and why didn't she just take a car?

"That was Cora, my niece. She's not really my niece though, my brother adopted her when he married her whore of a mother."

Garrett was careful to keep his face neutral as he sat in the chair in the corner of the room. His mother had warned him about Mable. She had said she never trusted her or liked her and it would be best to watch his back around her.

"She's the one that you claim is unable to run the house?"

"Yes, she's up to something, she spends more money than she needs to, yet this house is falling into disrepair, and she doesn't even keep half of the rooms open anymore. She has driven me to my bed. This is the only room that I can be comfortable in anymore. She's done it on purpose."

Garrett listened to the woman's tirade for about half an hour and realized that this was not something that he could fix in one day. He would have to stay for a few weeks and look into it. If Aunt Mable was telling the truth the house would be crumbling around them within the year.

"She's gone off again today. She spends my money on her friends. She goes off once a week to visit them and she takes them everything from my kitchen. I can barely support this house, I can't afford to pay for her homeless and lazy friends too."

"I'm confused, exactly what do you want me to do Aunt Mable?" He watched the woman as her eyes lit up with what could only be described as malice.

"I want you to stay here until I die, I want you to keep an eye on that girl and let me know what she is up to. It won't be long now and I don't want her sweeping in at the last minute and stealing everything."

"You appear to be fine Aunt," Garrett said watching her.

"I have to appear that way, otherwise Cora will take advantage of me. My doctor has given me a few months at most."

"I'm not a babysitter Aunt Mable, hire someone you trust."

"No!" the word was harsh, "I can't afford it." She softened as she said it. Garrett was wise enough to know that he was being played but he wasn't sure how exactly.

"It's simple when I die you will get everything I have, and I want to make sure you get all of it," she hissed as if the walls were listening.

Garrett didn't particularly want or need anything from the woman, but it seemed to mean a lot to her and she was dying. He gave a silent sigh as he leaned forward. "Fine, I'll stay for a while at least. I will have to travel for work though, so I can't be here all of the time." His mother would owe him big for this. He had a feeling that the next few months were going to be a hassle.

"Wonderful Garrett, I'll call Margie and she'll show you to your room."

He suppressed a shudder, now that the agreement had been made he had the definite feeling that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

His aunt talked to him about nothing in particular until Margie arrived and then she spent a few minutes filling the woman in on everything. Garrett noted that Margie looked upset but she was wise enough to hold her tongue as she listened to Mable.

As the door to Mable's room closed behind them Margie led the way with an icy cold silence across the landing at the top of the stairs and to a room off the gallery on the other side of the house. "Here's the bathroom." She opened a door. "Here's Miss Cora's room and here is yours. You will have to share the bathroom. The only other one is in Mrs. Scott-Reed's room."

Then with a last cold look the woman turned and left him standing in the hallway. Welcoming was not a word he would use to describe the housekeeper, maybe she was in on whatever racket this Cora was running.

He gave a sigh, he had plenty of time to figure it out that was for sure he thought as he looked around his cold room. It was cold but clean, at least that was a point in the housekeeper's favor.