Chapter 9 - The Schoolhouse
By November, the New England autumn had painted the trees surrounding Concord in brilliant shades of amber, crimson, and gold.
I decided it was time to leave the main house.
I didn't move back to Jamaica Plain, and I didn't return to my old apartment.
Instead, I bought a white two-story farmhouse built in 1840, sitting on three acres of land just two miles down the river from my father’s estate. The house had a red barn, a wide wrap-around porch, and an old stone fireplace in the kitchen that filled the rooms with the scent of burning birch wood.
My father spent three weeks arguing with the contractors about the thickness of the double-pane windows and the security system, but for the first time in my life, I didn't fight his hovering care. I let him install his high-tech security cameras; I let Thomas set up a private check-in protocol; I let him buy Leo a wooden rocking horse that took up half the living room.
On a quiet Tuesday afternoon, I was standing in the kitchen, making fresh vegetable soup while Leo napped in his crib upstairs.
The sound of tires crunching on the gravel driveway made me look out the window.
A dark blue sedan stopped near the porch.
My father stepped out of the driver’s seat. He wasn't wearing his usual dark suit or tailored cashmere sweater; he wore a heavy tweed jacket, leather driving gloves, and flat caps like the ones my grandfather used to wear when he fished the Merrimack River.
He walked up the three porch steps, carrying a small, square wooden box under his arm.
“Dad,” I said, opening the door before he could knock. “What’s this?”
“Something that arrived from the bank vaults in Boston today,” he said, stepping into the warm kitchen and removing his gloves. He set the wooden box onto the oak dining table.
I walked over, lifting the heavy brass latch, and opened the lid.
Inside, resting on dark red velvet, was a silver pocket watch engraved with intricate Victorian scrollwork.
I picked it up—it was heavy, cold, solid. On the back, in faint, elegant script, were three initials: E.V.V.
“My grandfather’s watch,” I whispered, looking up at him. “Elias Voss.”
“He gave it to me when I opened my two-room office above the dry cleaner in 1987,” my father said softly, his gray eyes shining with an uncharacteristic softness. “He told me that money was like river water—if you try to hold it in your fist, it slips through your fingers and disappears. But if you build a deep well, it feeds everyone who comes to drink.”
He reached out, his large, rough hand covering mine as I held the silver watch.
“I spent thirty years building that well, Avery,” he said quietly. “And when you walked away from it four years ago, I thought I had failed you. I thought I had made the well so deep you were afraid of falling in.”
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“I wasn't afraid of the well, Dad,” I murmured, leaning my head against his shoulder. “I was just afraid I wouldn't know how to swim on my own.”
“You knew how to swim the moment you picked up that baby on the curb,” my father said, kissing the top of my head. “You just needed to remember whose blood was running through your veins.”
