The Astoria

Chapter 1

"To my beautiful niece, Miss Astoria Wendall-Jones of whom I am so proud and grateful for, I leave fifty percent ownership of the old movie theatre which she is named after." The white haired gentleman at the front of room intoned without looking up from the paper.

Tears filled my eyes as he revealed what my darling Auntie Adaline had left as my inheritance.

It had been six years since I had last visited my home town of Wynford where The Astoria movie theatre was located but I had fond memories of it as a child. Although it hadn't been a working cinema in awhile it had been used as something of an events space for the local villagers with school discos and book clubs being held there if I remembered rightly.

In the few months since Aunt Addie had passed away I wasn't sure if anyone had checked on it though so that would be first on my list when we finished here.

My fingers curled tightly round the edge of my bag as I waited to see which family member I would be sharing this precious gift with. I wasn't particularly close to any of my cousins and had never encountered any of them, or even heard them mentioned, when I visited Addie in the hospice over the last year. Still I wasn't surprised to see them turn up here as a sea of black clothed people, sniffing into their tissues. Perhaps they hoped their belated interest would result in something in the way of inheritance?

I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the notion but now was neither the time or the place for that. Had my mother still been with us I knew she would likely be thinking the same and have had me giggling.

But no such luck. I was alone in the world since Aunt Addie's passing. A fact which I had tried to ignore but had me throwing myself into my work to escape the the crippling loneliness.

My father was the first stolen from me. A drunk driver just two weeks after I came into the world.

My mother never found anyone else, never loved anyone quite so intensely as she had loved him. They had been together pretty much all their lives and cared so deeply for one another that my Mum had never been able to love again.

I was their surprise, their miracle baby, arriving years after they gave up hope. My mother had thought it was the menopause until the doctors told her of my existence. A fact she loved to teasingly remind me of.

Then she was taken from me too. Cancer when I was eighteen. I had always known that my parents being older than most meant I would like lose them sooner but nothing really prepared me for it. If it hadn't been for Aunt Adaline I don't know how I would have made it through that time.

Now she was gone too. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat and looked carefully around the room. I hoped my Aunt knew what she was doing with whoever would own the other half. Perhaps she had known I was going to be alone and this would be the best parting gift she could give me? I hoped at least.

The man at the front cleared his throat loudly, drawing my attention back to him.

"The remaining fifty percent I leave to Thomas Moore nephew of my dear friend Angela Moore as a thank you for the kindness and companionship they showed me in the years before I was confined to this hospice." The solicitor says slowly.

I blink and glance around at the similarly shocked faces of my relatives. Angela I know was Aunt Addie's neighbour and friend for many years but who on earth is Thomas Moore?

"Wow." Someone at the back whistles and I spin in my seat to face an unfamiliar man.

He's tall, with dark blond hair and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. The navy blue suit he's wearing doesn't really fit properly and he has pushed the sleeves of both the shirt and jacket up, revealing tanned forearms.