Page 44 of Blackout

‘Okay.’ I gave my mother one of my more genuine smiles and in return received one of hers. ‘Let me show you where everything is here in the office, then we can wander downstairs to the shop and where everything is made in the factory.’

I showed my mother all the cabinets I had just rummaged through, so she knew where to find all the paperwork and where to file everything. When I got to the last cabinet, the one I didn’t get to look at before, I found three of the four drawers empty. Either Grandpa had left room for expansion, or some files had gone walkabout. There was one file in the top drawer, and it had all the information about the bakery inside. I took the whole file out and stuck it into my handbag, along with the folder I already had in there.

‘What are you doing?’ my mother asked when I had finished with my handbag.

‘Do you know where Dad’s Will is?’ I ignored my mother’s question to ask my own.

‘Harley, what are you up to?’ I guess my mother knew how to play that game too.

‘Do you trust me?’ I asked her, and she nodded her head. ‘Yesterday at the family meeting, I got the sense that Grandpa was hiding something.’

‘Your grandfather isn’t hiding anything, Harley.’

I nodded my acknowledgement to my mother; I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. She didn’t trust me that something was wrong and as much as I wanted to believe her that nothing was, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that Grandpa was keeping something from his family.

Grandpa had a hold over this family, and I didn’t know why. Then a thought crossed my mind, Had he taken advantage of our vulnerability to keep us close for some reason known only to him? If he had, I needed to find out why.

I didn’t tell my mother about any of my suspicions. I showed her around the shop and the factory floor probably quicker than I needed to, but she thanked me for the basic tour and we both left early. We would have a fresh start tomorrow and get stuck right into all things that were office paperwork.

‘See you here at eight tomorrow?’

‘See you then,’ she replied. Then she reached for me for the first time since my father’s funeral to really hug me.

I locked the office and made my way back to my house to figure out the paperwork I had stashed in my handbag. I hoped somewhere inside the files held the answers to the suspicions that were niggling me.

Twenty-two

When I got home I dropped my now-heavy handbag onto one of the chairs at my kitchen table. I kicked my shoes off and took a moment to wander around my house.

I thought about what I would take with me if I had to leave here tomorrow. The answer: there wouldn’t be much. I had never been one to hold on to things. I guessed what I had would either fit into the one suitcase I owned and the one box of treasures I’d kept since living with my grandparents. The house had been furnished when I moved in, styled by my grandparents, who were only too happy to help.

I pulled the contents of my handbag out onto the kitchen table. I didn’t open the files straight away. Somehow, I was a little nervous about what I would find.

My mobile chimed with a new message. I wanted to ignore it, but just in case it was bakery-related, I dug my phone from my bag. The text was from Zach.

Z: I hope you find what needs to be found. When you do, come back to me.

I thought about a response but wasn’t quick enough. Zach had text me again.

Z: I just want you to know I’m on your side. I know you have to do this your way. I just wished you would have let me continue to hold your hand.

Zach’s words hit a soft place inside me, and I wanted him to know that I would find my way back to him. But it was the business first, then me, then Zach. That was the way it had to be. With my phone in hand, I sat down on my lounge.

H: I appreciate your support and I would have loved for you to continue to hold my hand. But right now I want to work on being the best woman I can be for you.

I moved back to my kitchen table in front of the leather-bound folder and unzipped it. I didn’t know what to expect as I opened the folder, so I took a seat and sifted through paper after paper. After the first quick look through, I wondered how my dad’s folder had ended up in the office desk drawer. Had Dad left it there? Had Grandpa put it there and simply forgot about it? Why had I not bothered before this moment to look inside? I guess I was managing okay and up until now I hadn’t needed to.

Dad had kept tabs on his father. That was what this paperwork told me. He had kept important papers in his leather-bound folder, and it was now time to sort through them. I took out all the papers in Dad’s folder and laid them out on my kitchen table.

I didn’t understand them and none of these papers made any sense. It took me a few hours to comprehend what was on them. But it all fell into place once I looked at the last piece of paper. The paper I held in my hand told me that my dad had been working towards upgrading and expanding the James Family Bakery to another factory and more shop fronts. He had wanted to bake more than bread and savoury pastries, and to expand the bakery range to include sweet pastries too. This expansion would have taken a few years while he saved the money, but his plan was to move back to Melbourne after Addison and I finished high school to focus on modernising the James Family Bakery brand.

Grandpa had kept hidden that he hadn’t been the head of James Family Bakery for quite some time. My dad had been in charge before he died and the papers from the lawyers stated the change in ownership was…

Wait…

Was that right? I stared at the date while I tried to make it all make sense. The date was too familiar, and I was caught by surprise. The date the handover was effective from was the last time we’d headed to Melbourne as a family. That was the purpose of our school holiday trip, I now realised ten years later, to make the changes to the business my dad had wanted.

Grandpa had known the direction his son was going to take the family business when he’d handed it over to my dad. But the James Family Bakery hadn’t expanded in the last ten years. We’d ended up in Melbourne like my dad had envisaged, but none of his other plans had come to fruition. And I wondered why that was. Had Dad’s dreams been too much for Grandpa? Had Grandpa been waiting for me to take over to be able to bring my dad’s dreams to life.