An Inheritance

Chapter 9

The next morning began as every other, yet Lauren was impatient on the ride to the cottage.  It seemed like such a waste going back and forth each day, it really cut into the time she spent there.  Reaching the clearing, Lauren spent a few moments just looking around at the cypress and honeysuckle.  Even the dilapidated barn had a golden hue with the sun rays just touching its side.  She was itching to go back to the greenhouse and learn more about the plants inside.         

Fighting that urge, Lauren went into the house, and ignoring the letter boxes in the front bedroom,  headed toward the desk.  The remaining bills were all in order, nothing surprising.  The large right-hand drawer held manila folders sectioned off within hanging green file folders.  The drawer was crammed but everything was neatly arranged with tabs identifying the contents:

‘Medical’ contained her grandmother’s doctor, dentist and hospital bills along with test results from these visits.  It was surprising that these all appeared to be normal bi-yearly or yearly visits; nothing indicated any problems or ailments other than slight arthritis.  As Lauren thought about it, she hadn’t seen any medications anywhere, not even aspirin.  Very unusual for a woman her age.

‘Taxes’ held exactly that.  Copies of tax returns for the past ten years showed incomes far exceeding what Social Security could have paid.  Since these papers were just the consolidated sheets and not the addendums, it left Lauren wondering where all of the money had come from.  There was also a sub-section for property taxes.  This tax information had been sent on to her by the lawyer, so there were no surprises there.

‘Improvements’ included everything that had been done to the property since the middle 1900s.  There were receipts for the remodeling of the kitchen, the addition of the bathroom, the upgrading of the pipes, the rewiring of the electrical and reroofing the house and barn.  The greenhouse addition was in there along with the automatic watering system improvement.  The newest receipt, just six months ago, was for a large ‘green’ septic system where waste was purified in one tank, then pumped into another to be purified again and the resultant clean liquid sprayed onto the property and garden.  Every bit of cost, down to nails and tools, were in this folder.

‘In Progress’ contained a number of quotes for an addition to the cottage and the leveling and rebuilding of the barn.  Lauren picked up these folders and took them to the couch.

Laying out the various sketches on the coffee table she saw that although they were from different companies, in general the entire back of the cottage was to be expanded to create a large bedroom with a doorway to the bathroom.  A hallway would cut into the first two bedrooms leading to the new bedroom.  This caused the first to be smaller, but was now labeled ‘office’ while the original second bedroom would still remain fairly nice sized.  Next to the new bedroom was another small room labeled ‘laundry’ with an outline of a washer and dryer. 

There were to be minor modifications to the kitchen, primarily moving the window and sink to the right corner of the room, creating a large counter and additional storage above.  Another window would be put into the right wall and butt up against the one in the corner.  Lauren could see that it would create a wide panoramic view of the back and side yards of the cottage.  Another interesting item in the sketches was the addition of a dish washer.

Lauren was impressed, these plans seemed to update the cottage, yet keep its original character.  One of the sketches had a star on it, and she assumed this was the one her grandmother wanted to pursue, although she didn’t know how her grandmother could afford such a large and expensive undertaking.  The company for the starred plan was from Fred Stanley Contractors.  Fred Stanley was one of the names left in the voice mail; Lauren would have to check that out.