Page 44 of A December to Remember
“I looked forward to the summer all year. It was my favorite time,” added Star.
“Better than Christmas?” Verity asked, astonished.
“Better than anything,” Star replied.
“Do you miss Granddad?”
“I do, very much.” Star smiled sadly.
“He was one of a kind.” Maggie’s hair fell over her eyes and she tucked it behind her ear.
“It doesn’t seem right that he’s gone, does it? I didn’t think I’d feel the lack of his presence in the world as much as I do.” Simone was still kneeling by the box.
“That’s just howIfeel,” said Star.
Maybe by sifting through the past they could find their way back to when they were summer sisters, and bring those lost parts of themselves into the present. It occurred to Maggie that for a man so invested in a life of free-spirited chaos, Augustus sure knew how to play the long game when it came to his daughters.
19
It was Fridaymorning. The night before, each sister had taken a pile of papers from the strongbox to look through. It had been an emotional evening. Old memories, old hurts, and old happy times swirled around them in a confusing jumble.
In the morning light, Star had her head bent over a collection of silver lockets and periodically looked up at the tablet Duncan had loaned her, to confirm the dates against a hallmark checker website.
The ledger was open on Duncan’s desk, and he was prowling the shop looking for a pair of seventeenth-century shoe buckles, which had supposedly belonged to Charles the First.
“Are you starting from the first page and working through methodically?” asked Simone, who had left sifting through old winter solstice celebration menus and budgets to help Duncan’s search.
“I am attempting it this way first, yes. If that doesn’t seem fruitful, I will do it the other way: pick an item and attempt to match it to the ledger. Have you looked through it?” he asked.
“No.”
“It’s a bit... disjointed. I’d expected it to be laid outchronologically or alphabetically by item. Whilst it is alphabetized, it’s organized according to where the items came from rather than what they are. Where space has run out for a particular letter, another page has been added in with glue. It’s a little chaotic.”
“Ah, much like the man himself.”
“Oh, it wasn’t started by Augustus. The ledger begins with notes from Patience North and has been carried on down the generations.”
“So the buckles we’re looking for came from where?”
“Abingdon.”
“Of course. Absolutely no help whatsoever in finding the items.”
“That is correct.”
The door to the shop opened and Patrick walked in. “Patrick North!” Simone raised her hand in greeting. It still took her by surprise that he was a young man now. Seeing him at the funeral had been the first time she’d seen him properly in maybe five years. He looked like his dad, apart from the eyes of course.
Despite the sisters’ difficult relationships with their father and, in more recent years, one another, they were all fiercely protective of their name. Maggie had kept the name North when she’d married Josh, and when Simone had married Evette, she’d taken the North name. Patrick and Verity were also Norths, as would Simone’s children be, should she ever have any.
“Hi,” he called, meandering through the aisles until he located them.
“Hey, Patrick.” Star smiled up at him. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks,” Patrick replied, letting his eyes wander over the crammed shelves. “You?”
“Not too shabby,” Star replied.
Patrick nodded and murmured “good, good” but was too captivated by the clutter to start a proper conversation.
