Chapter 5: The Answer Is No
The Briar Falls town council meets in the old library hall, under a portrait of Samuel Whitcombe the First, my husband’s great-grandfather. I’d walked past that painting a hundred times. I’d never noticed he had Sam’s eyes.
Thursday night the hall was packed. Pine Hollow came in work clothes and Sunday clothes. Brent came in a white linen shirt and a lawyer. Courtney sat in the third row, alone. My mother sat beside me in her coral cardigan, holding my hand so tight it hurt.
Brent took the podium like he owned it.
“This is a formality, folks. The report is clean. The lease is coming. Ashgrove’s people know a good deal.” He spotted Sam, standing at the back wall in his canvas jacket, and smirked. “And look, even the handyman came. Something broken, Sam? The lights?”
A few people laughed. Fewer than at the party.
Arthur Bell rose from the front row and buttoned his jacket.
“Madam Chair,” he said, “I represent Ashgrove Holdings. The owner is present and would like to give his answer in person.” He turned. “Mr. Whitcombe?”
The room turned with him.
Sam walked down the center aisle, past the families from Pine Hollow, past Mrs. Delgado, past Courtney, past my mother, whose mouth fell open. He stood at the microphone in his oil-stained jacket under his great-grandfather’s portrait.
“My name is Samuel Whitcombe Pruitt,” he said. “Ashgrove’s answer is no.”
Brent laughed, too loud. “This is a joke. He fixes garbage disposals.”
“I do,” Sam said. “Yours took me twenty minutes. Your engineer has been dead for six years.”
My mother turned to me, white as paper. “Holly. Did you know?“
“Since Sunday,” I said. “Six years of marriage, and I found out on Sunday.”
Then he told them about the engineer who died in 2019.
Pine Hollow stood up first. Then the rest of the room.
Brent’s lawyer stood up and quietly asked for a recess. The council chair asked the sheriff’s deputy at the back to step forward. By Friday, the county prosecutor had opened a fraud inquiry. By the end of the month, the lake house had a bank sign on the lawn.
Brent never apologized. I don’t expect him to. Last I heard, he’s selling used boats two counties over and telling everyone who’ll listen that he was robbed.
Courtney moved into our spare room for six weeks. She apologized to Sam on the second night, over his terrible chili, and he told her she could stay as long as she did the dishes. She did them every night. She’s in a one-bedroom on Elm Street now, working at the bakery, and she says it’s the first job she’s ever been proud of.
My mother didn’t lose her house. I found out in December that the bank’s note on her loan had been bought by a small company in Columbus that forgave it in full. Its address was Arthur’s office.
She came to our door on Christmas Eve with a pie and stood on the porch in the snow for a long time before she knocked.
“I measured him with the wrong ruler,” she said to Sam. “For six years.”
“You did,” Sam said. “Come in, Lorraine. It’s cold.”
People ask me if I’ve forgiven him. The honest answer is: mostly. Some nights I still lie awake and think about the coupons. Then I remember why he hid it, and who he hid it from, and I understand.
We still live in the little house. Pine Hollow got a new garden, with a bench that has Mrs. Delgado’s name on it.
And we still drive the old green Ford. It still leaks oil.
We park it wherever we like.
