Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 101466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I pursed my lips, looking at these two totes. He might have been angry, but he’d remembered I’d asked about them and brought them over for me. That meant something, at least.
I dragged them to the living room, sitting down to open them after I wiped away the dust. Barney appeared, looking lost, meowing loudly for Miller. I bent and rubbed his head. “I know, baby. I miss them too. Even if one of them is a jerk at times.”
He meowed at me, and I rubbed his tummy for a while until he decided it was enough and he jumped up on the sofa. He gave one more meow, as if calling for Miller, then, with a huff, lay down.
I knew exactly how he felt.
I opened the first tote, my eyes widening at the photo album sitting on the top. I pulled it out, opened it up and gasped. It was filled with pictures of Lou when she was young. From the dates written on the pages with the pictures, most of them were in the sixties and onward. Some were black-and-white, while others were color. She wore dresses and smart outfits, looking into the camera and smiling widely. She was beautiful, her dark hair styled in the fashion of the day, cat-eye liner highlighting her brown eyes and a mischievous expression on her face. She had little handwritten notes, and I realized these were modeling pictures. I gazed at the pictures in wonder, slowly flipping through the album.
She was a stunner.
I wished Jesse were here to see these. He would have gotten a kick out of it.
I shut the album and peered into the tote after pulling out the tissue paper. I was so excited, instantly recognizing the items stored in there.
They were the clothes Lou had modeled in the pictures. Or at least some of them. I carefully unpacked them, marveling at the pristine condition. There were dresses and jumpsuits. Pants and blouses. Skirts. When I had emptied the tote, I opened the second one, finding shoes and accessories, as well as some shorts. I stared at the fashionable pieces, amazed. The Lou I knew only ever wore overalls, jeans, or khakis. Loose shirts, sandals, and runners. Big hats. Jesse said she’d never changed. But obviously, she had been into fashion as a young woman. I lifted one dress in particular, holding it up. It was vintage. Deep blue with white polka dots. A halter neck that plunged in the front, edged in lace. Nipped in at the waist.
It was pretty yet, in the pictures of Lou, screamed sexy kitten.
I sat down, knocking over the first tote, and something fell out of the bottom. I picked it up, mystified. The package was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a simple ribbon. I opened it, lifting the lid of the box and peering inside. There were letters, a thin journal, and two boxes. One flat, one a small square.
My stomach grumbled, and I set the box aside and went to the kitchen, throwing together a sandwich. I made coffee, carried a cup back to the sofa, and sat down. After some indecision, I decided to read the journal first. I recognized Lou’s handwriting, so I knew it belonged to her. And she’d kept it, so it meant something. Somehow I liked to think she knew I would find it.
I settled in and started to read.
An hour later, I sat back, still shocked and amazed at the story Lou had written in her journal.
When she was a twenty-two-year-old woman, she had been discovered by a photographer named Gerard Doyle, eighteen years her senior. Gerard took the pictures in the photo album. They had a passionate affair and fell in love. She was ostracized by her family and friends for the relationship. No one spoke to her, except my mom, of whom she wrote fondly, saying her loyalty was something she would always remember. He had no family left, so it was only the two of them.
As Gerard’s reputation grew, she traveled with him, often appearing in his shoots. They were inseparable. They married quietly and lived a private life.
Until he died suddenly of a heart condition he never told her about.
I wept at the grief she described, losing her soul mate, the other half of her heart. She wrote of learning his estate included a house he owned in a small town that used to belong to his grandparents, and he had many fond memories of times he’d had with them and his parents. His final request was to have his ashes scattered in the woods behind that house, and that, one day, she would join him there.
His hometown—Covington. The house he owned—this one. It had once belonged to his grandparents, who’d lived there with their daughter—his mother.
My mother always assumed Lou had bought this house. But she inherited it from the love of her life. And she chose to live here alone, never remarrying, staying private about her life. Her loss.