Page 78 of Once Upon a Fall

“What else needs to be done?” I ask Owen. He’s already told me that the raccoons have to be removed before this house can be sold, something I know well enough. It will hopefully be done soon because I asked Rosie to make a call to the Walker brothers and see if they were willing to help. I hope I don’t regret it.

“You’ll need to find paperwork,” Owen says. “Hopefully things your grandparents kept. If not, most of it you can request from the town clerk. Except for the insurance records. That should hopefully be in the house somewhere.”

“Right,” I say, feeling an ache start in my forehead, just above my eyebrow. Were my grandparents organized enough for me to find that information easily?

“There’s also the well test, septic inspection, someone to assess the damage on the barn structure.”

I rub my forehead, and Owen gives me a closed-mouth smile. “It’s a lot, I know. I’ve made a list for you.” He taps the folder.

“I appreciate it,” I tell him.

“Have you gone through the place to see if there’s anything you’d like to keep?” he asks. “After the raccoons are out, we’ll get a crew in there to remove everything.”

Anything I’d want to keep?

I hadn’t even thought about that. I’m sure there are pictures and other things I’d want to keep, or that my mom would want.

The idea of a crew coming in and stripping the house bare sits strangely with me. It’s just furniture and old things, but almost every one of them is tied to some memory I have of the place.

It’s not like I can keep it all. My storage unit in Worcester isn’t big enough, and most of it is just stuff. My grandparents are what made that house a home.

“How long do you think this will all take?” I ask.

Owen thinks about that for a few seconds. “Before we could list? Three weeks, maybe four. But the parts you’d need to be here for, I’d say it could all be done in about a week.”

A week.

Why did I put off having this meeting? It should have been something I did when I first came to town. But at that point, I didn’t know what I was going to do. Plus, there were the raccoons to figure out, not to mention all the renovations at the inn that somehow became more important than dealing with my own property.

I leave for Manhattan a week from tomorrow. How am I supposed to do all this plus help Rosie with the inn?

The answer is, I can’t.

Owen leaves me with the folder of paperwork and a time to meet again next week, when I can hopefully tell him the house is free of its raccoon inhabitants.

Having a plan should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. There’s one thing I can do right now, though, so I pull out my phone.

Rosie

The princess had a birthday. She forgot it twice.

“Hello, Mayor Monroe?” I say, standing at my check-in desk, holding my phone to my ear.

I’ve been putting off this call for almost a month. But I guess there’s no time like the present.

“Yes?” he asks.

“This is Rosie Harper,” I tell him. “I just wanted to confirm that you’ll be at the community breakfast to kick off the festival on the fifth.”

I bite my lip to stop the rambling apology building in my throat—about how long it took me to call, how I know he sent Juliet to help because I was dropping the ball, and how guilty I still feel even though I’m ridiculously grateful and she is a total lifesaver.

Case in point, she’s picking up pumpkins from Bugelbach’s Pumpkin Farm today because I have no time to do it.

Oh, the guilt.

He chuckles. “I’ve already confirmed that with Juliet, but yes, I’ll be there.”

“Excellent,” I say, smiling at the phone, even though he can’t see me.