Page 51 of The Glass Dolphin

The paper was brown and almost brittle, but the writing was neat and legible. Clara wanted to swat her mother’s hand out of the way so she could see what it said, but she waited quietly.

“I don’t know what this is saying,” Mom finally said. She passed it to Clara, who couldn’t read fast enough.

“It’s a document between the Coalition,” Alice said. “And the city. For a time, in 1962, they operated without a President, because he’d fallen ill and couldn’t perform his duties. His brother worked for the city, and he turned all affairs of the Coalition over to him.”

Clara caught their names—Nathan and Collin Gant. They didn’t ring any bells for her, and they didn’t need to. The document looked like an agreement for Collin Gant, one city controller, to run the Coalition for a time while his brother, Nathan, recovered from an illness.

“He never did get better,” Alice said. “I spoke to Collin’s daughter. She lives in South Carolina now. She was maybe ten or fifteen when her uncle died, she thinks. Her dad took care of everything, even the Coalition, for a while.”

“So that’s when things got messed up?” Robin asked, gently taking the paper from Clara. She let it go, because she didn’t need to examine it letter by letter.

“I believe so, yes.” Alice took another bite of her cookie. “These are so good, Kristen. I don’t know how you make them so fluffy and moist. My sugar cookies are always burnt and brittle.”

Mom smiled at Alice, her eyes glassy. “We’re not going to lose it?”

“I think we have a strong case,” Alice said. She glanced at Robin, who relinquished the paper to Jean. “Robin?”

She cleared her throat and pulled her hands off the table. Clara saw the way they trembled before she did. “Okay, so, confession,” she said. “I thought maybe it would be…I don’t know what I thought. Duke is the Vice President of the Coalition right now, so I told him about the lighthouse. I asked him if there would be any advantage to the Coalition owning it.”

Clara stared openly at her. Robin had always been vocal and kind, which reminded Clara a lot of herself, actually. “You wanted it?”

Robin nodded as she cleared her throat. “I thought there might be an advantage to having it, yes.”

“Is there?” Jean whispered.

“Duke doesn’t think so. He also finds it very odd that the Coalition would’ve purchased the land or the lighthouse. He said that money would’ve had to come from the members, and he doesn’t think they’d have been able to afford it.”

“I went to the Coalition with Robin,” Alice said. “She’s been very helpful in introducing me to the right people there.” Their eyes met, and so much was said between them. Alice still obviously trusted Robin, who likewise respected and trusted her. “We found no sales slip, no title, no evidence that extra money was collected from Coalition members in 1950. We interviewed anyone we could find, and no one recollects the Coalition purchasing the lighthouse.”

“So…so, what?” Mom asked. “That newspaper article was a lie? Everyone who might know is dead?”

“We still have no title for the lighthouse,” Jean reminded them.

Clara nodded emphatically, pointing past Robin to Jean. “We need a title.”

Alice surveyed the group, and Clara just wanted her to spit out everything. Just tell them all. Now. “Robin?”

“I think it’s the only explanation.”

Alice sighed. “This isn’t evidence,” she said. “I don’t know if the court will even care or allow us to enter it if they do ask or care.”

“What isthis?” Clara asked, her voice very nearly tripping over her pulse, which sat in the back of her throat.

“Based on the newspaper article, which I found in the archives and pulled—” Alice started fumbling through her accordion filing system, then gave up. “I have it in there. Rose Worthington didn’t reallysellthe lighthouse. That was only the headline.”

“Like clickbait,” Robin said.

“Right,” Alice agreed. “She was struggling financially after her husband died at war. No doubt about that. The bank here has gone through all of their non-digital records and preserved them digitally. We could see her account stretching back to the time when she and Clancy—Kristen’s grandfather—bought the lighthouse. She was overdrawn a lot, and there were tiny notes in the margins of her statements. She’d trade things to pay bills, and that was pretty common back then.”

“One of the things she traded was fish,” Robin said.

“Fish?” Clara and her mother said at the same time. Clara wanted to look at her mom, but she didn’t dare tear her eyes from Robin.

She nodded. “We spoke to a woman who kept the history of the Coalition—her husband was President three or four times—and she said that Rose was often at their meetings. She was amemberof the Coalition.”

Clara sat back in her chair, her lungs laboring to breathe. She wasn’t even sure why, but the dots weren’t all adding up to a complete picture for her. Yet. “I don’t understand.”

“Grandmother Rose,” Jean said slowly. “Sold the lighthouse to the Coalition…” She looked at Clara too. “I get lost there.”

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