“There’s five grand in here? That can’t be possible.” Van tugs on the elastic securing the bills, and it breaks apart, pieces falling to the floor as he pulls the dollar bill free to reveal a hundred-dollar bill underneath. “Holy shit.” He unfurls the rest of the roll, which matches the hundred. He looks around the cottage, maybe seeing it with very different eyes for the first time in his life. “How much money does she have hidden around the cottage? Is it just the cottage? Or the garage too?”

“Just the cottage. At least that I know of. And I don’t know how much, but there’s probably a lot.”

“Holy fuckballs. Why would she do this? Why not keep it in the bank?”

For a moment I worry that I’ve made a mistake in telling him, but I realize I was going to have to eventually and probably should have long before now. I shrug. “She didn’t always trust the bank, and she wanted to have cash on hand just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Another world war? An apocalypse? Her estate getting tied up with red tape? Take your pick of options, I guess. At first it was a few stashes here and there, but over time she kept adding to it, almost like a game? An Easter egg hunt, but with money instead of chocolate.” I found out about it when I once helped Bee dust and dropped one of her many trinkets. A roll of bills had fallen out. She hadn’t made a big deal of it. Just winked and said sometimes it was good to have a little cash hidden around the house, for emergencies.

I move to the wall of framed family photos and pick up one of her with Van when he was a kid, playing in the water down by the beach. I flip it over and push the pegs out of the way so I can remove the backing. Between it and the photo are two envelopes. One has a small stack of twenties, the other fifties. Each one includes a small slip of paper with the amount in each envelope.

“There could be tens of thousands of dollars in here. Maybe even hundreds,” Van muses.

I nod my agreement. “It’s certainly possible.” And, based on how much we’ve found just by looking in three places, I’d hazard a guess that it’s probable.

“You’ve known about this the entire time.” It’s not a question.

I nod. “I would have told you sooner, but I wasn’t sure I could trust you at first. Or if you were even the right grandson. I should have said something right away, though.”

“You could have taken money anytime you wanted,” Van says softly.

“I would never do that.” I take a step back. “Bee trusted me, and I would never take what wasn’t mine.”

Van holds up a hand. “That’s not how I meant it. I’m not accusing you, Dillion. I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’m kind of blown away.” He runs a hand through his hair and grips it at the crown. “It’s kind of a mindfuck for me. You know?”

I drop my arms and nod, the tension in my shoulders easing. “Bee did so much for me. She helped me with college. I earned scholarships to pay for tuition, and Bee helped me apply for a bunch of grants so I wouldn’t end up with huge loans to pay back. She helped me with all of it.” I bite the inside of my cheek and decide to tell him the entire truth, even the things I’ve never shared with my own family. “But it was more than that, Van. She sent me money every month to help with groceries and stuff. She never said it was her, but once I asked my dad about it, thinking it was him, and he had no idea. So of course I asked Bee, right? Because who else would it be?”

“Let me guess—she wouldn’t admit it was her.” A hint of a smile pulls up the corner of his mouth.

“Nope. Gave me her big old innocent doe eyes and told me she didn’t know what I was talking about. She suggested that maybe there was a grant I applied for and didn’t realize I’d been awarded it, but it had to be her because there wasn’t anyone else who would do that for me.” I hold up a finger. “Wait. That’s not true. If my parents had the money, they would have given it to me, but it just wasn’t there. So I kept track of every single deposit she made, and when I finished school and got a job, I tried to pay her back, but she refused to take the money. It was so frustrating, because I wanted to give her back what I owed, but every time I tried, she’d find a way to give it right back to me, so when she needed someone to help with her will, I stepped up. She asked me to be the executor.”

“I wonder why she never asked me to do it.” The question is laced with threads of hurt.

“I know the answer to that. She was worried your dad would step in and try to take over. She knew that he hadn’t been smart with his finances after your mom passed. She’d even loaned him money a bunch of times to help with things, like your education.” It’s uncomfortable to tell him things like this. When I was young, I always felt like a bit of a voyeur when it came to Van and his family.

“I didn’t realize that. I mean, I guess it makes sense. I came out of college loan-free, but I assumed my parents had set money aside for it.”

“I think they had.”

“But my dad spent it.” Van drops his head and rubs the back of his neck.

I slip my arm around his waist and squeeze. “I’m sorry. This must be hard to hear.”

“It’s nothing I didn’t already suspect. I just didn’t realize it was this bad, or that my dad had been borrowing money from Grammy Bee.”

“I don’t know everything, Van, but I do know that Bee worried about what would happen to this place when she was gone, and she wanted you to have it because you valued it. So I went with her to Bernie’s, and I promised I would make sure it was you who got the cottage and the property. Bee treated me like I was one of her own, and to me she was family, so there’s no way I would ever touch what’s hers. Or what was hers. It was never mine to take.”

“You realize most people wouldn’t even think twice about skimming, even a little.”

“Oh, absolutely. But the thing is, when things got tight, I’d suddenly find money in my account that hadn’t been there. It’s like she knew before it even happened.” I pick another framed photo off the wall, this time one of Bee with her husband.

Van steps in closer, his chest brushing my shoulder. “This was taken on Grampy’s birthday. I think he turned sixty-five?”

“He passed away a couple of years later.” I flip the picture over and slide the backing out to reveal yet another envelope. I hand it to Van before I slide the backing into place again.

Van peeks inside the envelope and shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. “This was his favorite outfit that my grandmother wore. Didn’t matter that it was ten years out of style; he freaking loved it when she wore it.”

“Back in the day when shoulder pads were an in thing.”

“She used to wear it every year on his birthday. I always tried to be here for that after he passed away, but it wasn’t easy once I started working full time. Getting a day off in the middle of the week could be a pain in the ass, so sometimes I’d have to come here after work.”

“And go back the same night so you could be at work the next morning.”

Van’s gaze shifts from the photo to me, his expression quizzical. “Yeah.”