“There’s one more provision.”
“Which is?”
“She wants you to scatter her ashes.” He looked down at one of the papers in front of him. “This was extremely specific. You’re to go to the end of the jetty at the north end of Avalon—I assume you know where that is—alone. She was quite clear on the alone part. And scatter her ashes into the water there, on the ocean side, not the inlet side.” He looked up again. “I’m not sure I understand the difference, but she made me include it.”
“It’s where she swam to every morning,” I said. “I know where it is.”
“Excellent,” he said. “There’s more to discuss, but Lillian said she wanted me gone by ten.” He handed me a business card. “We’ll need to sit down at some point when you’re ready to discuss investments and to sign the paperwork for the transfer of properties, but I’ll initiate those with the city this afternoon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cohen.”
He shook my hand. “I look forward to a long partnership, Miss Kleinman.”
Lillian showed him to the door, while I stayed on the sofa, trying to wrap my head around the extent of my newfound wealth and what it meant for my future.
I was still there when she returned. “People will be here soon,” she said.
“I wish you would stay.”
She came and sat next to me. “I’ll always just be a phone call or a letter away. But you need to go live your own life now. And so do I. It’s what Ada wanted for both of us.”
“I don’t know how to begin.”
“Yes, you do,” she said, echoing Ada and bringing a tightness to my chest. The doorbell rang, resonating through the too-empty house. “That’ll be your parents most likely. Speaking of where to begin.” She rose, but I took her hand.
“You’ll always have a home here, if you want it.”
Lillian leaned down and kissed my forehead. “I’m glad you came into our lives.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist. “I am too.”
She held me close for a moment until the doorbell rang again. “Best get this over with,” she said. I released her but stayed on the sofa. The amount of money and properties that the lawyer had outlined was quite simply staggering. I could buy and sell my parents many times over. I could buy a villa in the south of France.
But without Ada, it was a hollow victory.
“I’d give it all back for ten more minutes,” I whispered. She would never hold a copy of my finished novel in her hands. The book that wouldn’t exist without her not-so-gentle nudging. If I caved and married Dan, she wouldn’t be there. I owned the Avalon house now—could I go back there in the summers without her? Or would the memories be too heavy, the entire Jersey shore tainted by the hole she left behind?
Part of me wanted to give it all away. But she wanted me to have this. The ability to do what I wanted.
When did she change her will? I wondered. I would have to ask Lillian. Was it before I left? Or after? She made the offer to my father, but knowing Ada, that didn’t mean it wasn’t already done.
The house was beginning to fill with people, and I heard my mother call my name. I finally stood, feeling far older than my twenty years. You need to go live your own life now, I heard Lillian say again in my head.
I found my mother in the kitchen, looking for me. “I need to talk to you and Daddy,” I said. “I’ll go get him. You wait for me in Ada’s study, please.”
Dan was standing between his parents as his father spoke with Ada’s rabbi. I caught his eye, and he excused himself. “Come with me,” I said.
“Are you okay?”
I looked at him, our freedom stretching out beyond us. “Never better. Come on.”
Daddy was in the den, looking through the items on the shelves, which were mine now. “Daddy,” I said. “I need to talk to you and Mama. In Ada’s study, please.”
“What’s this about?” he asked, noticing my hand in Dan’s. “Should the Schwartzes join us?”
“No.”
He looked puzzled but followed us to the small office, going to sit next to Mama on the sofa against the wall. I gestured for Dan to sit in one of the chairs across the desk, which I perched on the edge of. Mama’s eyes widened. “We need to move the wedding up to the fall, don’t we?”
“Pardon me?”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re . . . ?” She trailed off, but I understood her implication.
“No! Mama!” Daddy looked from her to me in horror. “There isn’t going to be a wedding. At least not anytime soon.”
Dan’s face fell, and I held up the fingers of my left hand in a tiny wait gesture to him. “Ada’s lawyer came to see us today. It turns out, she redid her will sometime this summer. And she left me pretty much everything.”
“Wonderful,” Daddy said. “That means you can get married while Dan is in rabbinical school. No need to delay the wedding at all now, regardless of . . . other circumstances.”
“Would you all stop insinuating that I’m pregnant?” Everyone winced. “There’s not going to be any rabbinical school, and there’s not going to be a wedding. At least not unless Dan and I both decide we’re ready for one.”
My father’s eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself.”
“Dan doesn’t want to be a rabbi. He wants to be a photojournalist—”
Daddy scoffed. “There’s no money in that.”
“That’s my point, Daddy. We don’t need the money now. We can do what we want.”
“Now see here, young lady—” His finger was pointed at me, but I cut him off.
“No, you see here. I have houses. Money. Stocks. Even a car—”
“You can’t drive!”
“Dan taught me. And I’ll get a license. But the car isn’t even a drop in the bucket. And you can’t hold money or school over my head as a way to get me to go home now.”
“I meant what I said.” He stood up. “If you stay here—”
My mouth was open to speak. I saw his face on that train platform. While he might have meant it in Avalon, the threat was empty now, and I had no problem arguing until he came around. But my mother beat me to it, putting a hand on his arm. “Walter, enough. With Ada gone, the only blood family I have left are Mildred, Harold, and Marilyn. We’re not disowning anyone.”
He began sputtering, but she wasn’t done. “You can’t bully her into being who you want her to be. She’s different. The world is different. And she’s an incredibly talented writer—something she was probably too scared to even try because you hounded her so. I want her home even more than you do, but she’s grown. And I want her to be happy. She’s never going to be happy doing what you want.” She turned to me. “Will you at least stay engaged in name to keep gossip down?”
I nodded. That was fair.
“Then we give you our blessing.”
“I—” my father began, but my mother didn’t let him continue. She moved around until she was directly in front of him.