An Inheritance

Chapter 6

Going over and picking up her purse, Lauren rummaged through until she found her own cell phone.  It indicated there was service.  Well, I’ll be.  I never thought to check if I could use my phone from here.  Lauren had just assumed since this property was so far out, that she couldn’t get service.  She had always waited until she was back at the hotel before making any calls.     

Lauren looked back at the phone.  Voice mails?  What code would her grandmother have used to get into her messages?  Going over to the table the phone was on, she opened the small drawer.  An old metal personal phone book laid on top of some gardening magazines.  Lauren hadn’t seen one of these in years.  Pushing the tab down the side to ‘C’, she pressed the lever and the lid popped open.  Finding only names, addresses and phone numbers, she closed the lid.  OK, Lauren thought, it’s not under ‘code’, maybe ‘messages’?  Opening the phone book at ‘M’ gave the same results.  What could she … then Lauren smiled, of course.  Pushing the tab one more time, this time to ‘V’, she pressed the lever and the desired outcome was in front of her: Voice Mail 0118. 

Lauren’s triumphant smiled faded; that was her birthday.  Why had she chosen those numbers?

Just another one of those weird coincidences I’ve been bumping into lately Lauren firmly said to herself, then picked up the receiver again.  She examined the buttons and pressed ‘menu’, then selected ‘voice mail’.  Waiting until the recording indicated that the voice mail code was required, she plugged in the 0118.  “You have 42 messages”.

Lauren hesitated, pulled out a pad of paper and pen she had seen in the drawer, then pressed ‘1’ to listen. 

The first few were messages left from the week that her grandmother had died.  She evidently had left them as ‘new’ or had not even bothered to listen to them.  They were all brief, just stating a name and a request to call them back when her grandmother had a chance.  One was from Sam indicating that he and his class would be there a day earlier than normal due to a pep rally that was to be held on their normal day.  He sounds so young and earnest Lauren thought.  I can almost see him talking to Grand-mere as though they both were right here.

The next message was left on the morning her grandmother had been found.  It was the voice of an older woman who identified herself as Sarah.  She said she would be over in about 30 minutes, just as she promised.  There were a few messages that same day; brief and just stated names and more requests for her grandmother to get back in contact with them.  This must have been before the word went out that Grand-mere had died.  All of these voices that had never been heard made Lauren slightly depressed.

There was a span of time between the first calls and the next; several weeks at least.  There were a few hang-ups and a few where the caller didn’t seem to know whether to leave a message or not.  Then a few days before Lauren had arrived, a message was left … for Lauren.

 "Hi, this is Odilia, and I was a good friend of your grandmother’s.  Lauren, I know you have a lot to do, but I would very much love to come by and talk to you.  Your grandmother told me so much about you and had hoped we would meet.  If I can’t get a hold of you by phone, I’ll just swing by some time and hope to get you in.  Hope to see you soon, bye.”

There were a few more hang ups and then another one from Sarah indicating she knew Lauren was in town and would call on her ‘when it was appropriate’ to do so.

It seemed as though everyone knew she was coming.  Although not a small town, Slidell must have its own word-of-mouth broadcasting system.  Lauren imagined that sooner or later, people who had known her grandmother would stop by, if for no other reason then to check her out.

Lauren looked at the pad in front of her.  She had written down eleven names of the people who had called both before and after her grandmother’s death.  Of course most had just left a first name and Lauren felt they must be close friends, maybe she could figure out who they were from her grandmother’s phone book.  A few had left their full names and phone numbers; maybe tradesmen?  Lauren put the pad aside, she would call them in due time.

Ever the procrastinator, Lauren went to one of the bookshelves and scanned the book spines.  There were a multitude of books on the bayou, marshes and their native plants.  One shelf held a number of ledgers.  Pulling one out, she found it spanned several years and contained a very detailed account of what had been planted in both the garden and greenhouse.  On the very top of each page was the name of the plant, and underneath, the day, time, number of seedlings or seeds that were used in the planting.  A weekly, and sometimes a daily, log was kept on the watering, fertilizing, and the temperatures of both the greenhouse and outdoor garden.

Putting that ledger back, Lauren looked until she found the most recent one, she wanted to know what had been planted in the green house last.  Scanning the pages, she found many plant names that she knew nothing about.  Pulling down a few reference books, Lauren quickly skimmed the appendixes for corresponding names and found two books that seemed to contain many of the plants in question.

Looking at the desk and feeling slightly guilty, but not guilty enough, Lauren took the books and ledger and went back to the greenhouse.  She spent the rest of the day comparing what was in the greenhouse to what she found in the ledger.  While she read about the plants she knew nothing about, Abigail stretched out between some potted plants and basked in the sun’s rays coming through the glass. 

 Lauren was so absorbed that she only knew it was lunchtime by the insistent meowing from Abigail.  Once they had eaten their lunch up in the cottage, they both headed back to the greenhouse and took up their same positions; Lauren at a small desk with ledger and books in front of her, and the cat stretched to catch the sun’s rays.  It was an idyllic, lazy afternoon.  When the shadows of the cypress trees began blocking out the waning sunlight, Lauren decided, with great reluctance, that it was time to head back to the hotel.