“I knew Grandma let Lucy use it.”
“She gave it to her.”
“I didn’t know that part.”
“You laughed when I said it belonged to Lucy.”
Rachel’s face tightened.
“She’s eleven, Emily. I thought Mom and Dad could make that call.”
Lucy flinched beside me.
Grandma noticed.
So did Rachel.
For once, Rachel did not keep talking.
Andrew put the seller document back into his folder.
Then he gave my father the first piece of news that actually changed the situation.
The collector had been contacted.
Dad stared at him.
“You contacted my buyer?”
Grandma corrected him.
“Lucy’s cello’s buyer.”
Dad ignored her.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth,” Andrew said.
He had provided the identifying information for the cello and explained that ownership was disputed because Grandma had already documented the gift to Lucy before the sale.
The collector had compared the information with the instrument he bought.
It matched.
He had not sold it again.
Lucy’s hand jerked in mine.
“You know where it is?” she whispered.
Andrew finally looked at her.
“Yes.”
It was the first hopeful word Lucy had heard about the cello since she walked into that empty music room.
She did not smile.
Not yet.
She was too cautious for that now.
“Can I get it back?” she asked.
Andrew paused before answering.
“That is what we’re trying to do.”
Dad exhaled through his nose.
“And what does the collector want?”
Andrew looked back at him.
“His $87,000.”
Mom laughed once, but there was nothing amused in it.
“We spent it.”
Everyone knew where.
The bright blue water behind her made the sentence almost obscene.
Dad pointed toward the house.
“You think we can just produce eighty-seven thousand dollars because Margaret decided to make some paperwork for a kid?”
Grandma’s eyes sharpened.
“I made the paperwork before you sold anything.”
Dad stopped.
She continued.
“And no, I do not think money appears because you need it.”
She glanced toward the pool.
“You apparently believed that once already.”
Rachel stepped forward.
“Okay, but my children had nothing to do with this.”
Neither Grandma nor I answered immediately.
Lucy did.
“Neither did I.”
Rachel looked at her niece.
Lucy’s voice had been quiet.
It was still quiet.
That was why everyone heard it.
Rachel sat down in one of the patio chairs.
Mom pressed both palms against the edge of the grill station.
Dad looked at Andrew.
“So what are you threatening?”
“I’m not threatening you.”
“You show up with a lawyer at my house and demand $87,000?”
Andrew closed the folder halfway.
“I’m explaining the choice in front of you.”
Grandma stepped in before Dad could answer.
“I want the cello returned to Lucy.”
Dad gave a bitter laugh.
“And if we can’t?”
Grandma looked at him for a long moment.
“Then you can explain to her why keeping your new pool mattered more than correcting what you did.”
Dad glanced toward Lucy.
She lowered her eyes.
