Fortune Lost

By Samantha Means

All Moira Jameson has left of her mother is what’s in the journals willed to her, and there are far more secrets to her mother’s past than Moira could have imagined. As she learns about the woman behind the veil of motherhood she finds her judgments of her mother have been, at best, unfounded. Her secret has wounded generations, and in getting to the bottom of it Moira finds her faith and all she’s ever believed in to be challenged, and she has to ask herself if, in giving her the journals, her mother is asking for something in return beyond the grave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samantha Means
• Release date: Jun 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370386222

Samantha Means

Samantha Means is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who is passionate about serving and loving vulnerable populations. She's worked with troubled youth in drug rehabilitation facilities and alternative school programs, cared for the elderly and disabled as a home care aide, and has traveled around the world to care for orphans and indigenous populations. Her joy is in helping people from all walks of life, and she uses the talents God has given her in writing and public speaking to share hope, faith and encouragement to anyone in need. ​ Samantha has 20 years experience at her disposal to empathize with those she reaches out to in her writing and speaking. Like many men and women still suffering in silence, Samantha has been a victim of sexual assault, intimately knows the battle with PTSD, has struggled with alcohol abuse, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. After a difficult beginning, she has learned many truths that can help others in need of a light to shine the way out of the dark. "The truth is," she says, "you're not alone, and God does have a plan, and you can succeed no matter what you're up against. I'd like to show you how. It's not a get-healed-quick scheme or the answer to every problem, but it's a place to start." ​ Originally from Spokane, Washington, Samantha achieved her bachelors degree in Human Development as well as her certification to teach English as a second language through Cambridge in 2015. She's lived abroad in Japan and in the Middle East but calls the Pacific Northwest home.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

November, 2016

Rockpoint, Idaho

Come on...

9-1-1, what’s the location of your emergency?

Um, R-Rockpoint!

What’s the exact location please?

Mom! She won’t… Oh my God.

Ma’am, I need your exact location. Do you know where you are?

Mom!

Ma’am, I need you to tell me where you are.

My house.

What’s your address?

Wake up, Mom. Mom? Wake up!

Ma’am. I need your address. Can you tell me your address?

Uh… 291 North Pine Street. It’s blue. The house is blue.

I’m sending someone right now. Can you tell me your emergency?

She won’t get up! Get up, Mom, please!

What happened to your mom?

She just fell. She won’t get up. Mom, get up. Mom!

Stay with me. Is your mother breathing?

I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Can you tell me what happened?

No, she just fell. She was getting something from the pantry and fell.

You’re in the kitchen?

Yeah.

Stay right where you are, stay on the line with me. Okay? Keep talking to me. Someone will be there soon. What’s your name?

Moira.

Moira, what’s your mother’s name?

Erin. Erin Jameson.

CHAPTER TWO

December, 2016

Rockpoint, Idaho

Moira’s eyes fluttered open.

Silence wrapped around her like the blankets and sheets she slept in. Her cries from that wretched day echoed even as the dream slowly began to fade. She sighed and rolled over, hugging her pillow against her chest to calm her pounding heart. It ached and she remembered.

The soft hue of dawn crawled through partially drawn flowered curtains into her small bedroom. Frost and snow latched onto the corners of the window and Moira Jameson, buried in her warm bed, felt nothing but a dull ache. She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep again, without the dreams this time. Blissfully black and blank… and she failed.

She should just stay in bed.

One glance at the calendar across the room reminded her that she had somewhere to be. People expected her.

Moira ran a hand through tousled black and red hair and eased her long legs over the edge of the bed, every muscle protesting. Her feet found the slippers she kept within reach so no bare foot of hers had to endure freezing wood floors. This winter was particularly brutal, even for north Idaho. With a shudder, she pulled one of her father's old sweatshirts over her head. Breathing in the fading smell of his pipe tobacco, she shuffled down the hall.

If her mother were still alive she would have stoked the stove in time to warm the house by breakfast. The cold, like everything else, reminded her that she was gone.

Forever gone.

She trudged down the creaking steps of the old craftsman home and was greeted by a yawn and sneeze from her English bulldog. Thick and slow, he heaved himself up from the giant pillow by the cold wood burning stove and padded across the living room to meet Moira at the bottom of the stairs.

Hey, Wally, she murmured. She headed for the coffee pot with him trailing behind. He hung his head, his nails making a tap-tap-tapping noise on the linoleum before awkwardly plopping his hips on the floor. Moira programmed a full pot, and wrapped her arms around her waist as she watched the beginnings of a new day crawl through the kitchen window, bathing the counters and wall in light.

It was so quiet alone.

She stared out the window at the still neighborhood as the coffee pot gurgled, hissed and sighed to life. Homes, cars and signs were coated with a pretty layer of frost and ice. Trees, long since naked of their colorful attire, wore sweaters of glistening silver. The sheen on the road told her it was going to be as icy as a skating rink, though plows had come through earlier that morning. Her mother used to be the one to cover the drive in rock salt while Moira was at work. She forgot to get some on her way home the other day.

She shivered as Wally whined pitifully at her feet.

Moira could almost hear her mother’s voice… Don’t just stand there. Wally needs his breakfast too, ya know!

Moira peered down at the dog whose eyes seemed to droop more these days than they did a few months ago.

Want some breakfast?

The burly dog shifted his big, round eyes from the floor to her face as if to say, please?

Moira nodded. I suppose it’s the least I can do. She dug in the pantry, poured his breakfast into the tin bowl, and left him to eat while she gathered what was needed to start a fire. A hard ball of irritation already burned in the pit of her stomach.

Almost everyone who visited came to work out funeral arrangements, obituaries, and the autopsy. Moira wasn’t the least bit surprised to discover it had been an aneurysm that had killed her mother. It was strange though. Erin had always been a very athletic woman. How could something so simple take her life so quickly? The paramedic said it wouldn’t have mattered if Moira had called 9-1-1 five minutes before her mother’s fall, she still wouldn’t have made it. Erin died before she even hit the floor.

Moira was in a state of shock for days after that. Erin’s closest friend handled most of the logistics and Moira had simply signed on the dotted line when necessary. She didn’t know what else she was supposed to do. Her mother’s attorney had everything laid out nicely as if the whole ordeal had been planned and prepared for years ago.

As she struck a match a flame erupted in Moira’s hand and she held it under a pile of newspapers and kindling. The flame took, licked the paper, causing it to curl and shrivel as the flame grew and swallowed the scraps of wood. It had happened so fast. Moira had never understood her methods of parenting, and Erin had never let her see the side of her that was simply a woman. It disturbed Moira to realize she didn't know her mother as a woman at all.

She added a small log to the flames and kneeled by the open door to warm her hands. Who was Erin Lynn Jameson?

After her father died of a heart attack last year, Moira moved back home. She had thought it would be an opportunity to get to know her mother while helping her get on with life. Instead, life went on as it did when she was a child. Erin jumped back into the swing of things, keeping her daughter at arms length. Her dad’s death sucked the life out of the home.

Her dad had faithfully smoked a pipe for more than forty years, and enjoyed his daily nightcap of the finest scotch he could get his hands on. He had spent the first fifty years of his life traveling and enjoying every minute he could, and the next fifty were to be spent studying it and improving it for the next generation. He always had his nose in a book. Every morning he walked Wally, named after his favorite poet, Walt Whitman. It was on one of these morning walks that her father breathed his last. She had been told he was found with his pipe in one hand and his Bible in the other.

Erin handled it pretty well, she thought. Moira had barely gotten her smile back when God decided to take her mother too. Now she feared she’d never get that joy back again.

A wave of grief began to surface and Moira shoved it aside and put some larger logs on the fire. She closed the iron door with a screech and a harsh latch. She needed to shower and change, drink some coffee, and make herself presentable.

She had a funeral to go to.

CHAPTER THREE

The sun cut through the trees like a strobe light through her windshield. Moira pulled her sunglasses from the glove compartment as she maneuvered her rumbling truck along the winding road. Except for the small pathway the grounds keeper had plowed for visitors, the snow-covered grounds glistened like diamonds in the sun, reminding her of a Thomas Kinkade painting. At any other time she might have appreciated its beauty.

The road curved toward the gray and blue Priest River. Once Moira reached her mother’s burial place, she parked behind a long line of cars. The headache she thought she had eliminated with three cups of coffee began to throb in her forehead again. She turned off the car and reached for the plain black purse she had last carried at her father’s funeral. She dug inside for an ibuprofen and came up empty. Her brow creased in frustration, Moira angled the rear view mirror to take one last look at herself before facing the town. She removed her sunglasses, adjusted the neckline of the black velvet dress that her mother insisted she wear at her father’s funeral, and buttoned the top button of the peacoat she wore for only the most formal of occasions.

Moira nudged back a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun and tried to ignore how much she was trembling, giving up on her hair when a strand fell back across her face.

More people were arriving.

She didn't want to see any of them, she realized. She wanted to turn the truck around, drive home, and crawl into bed. It sounded like a much better idea than being here.

Moira’s driver side door flung open as she reached for the keys in the ignition. Familiar eyes bore into hers.

If I let you sit there much longer, you just might change your mind and go back home.

I wouldn’t do that, Moira mumbled as she pulled the keys from the ignition and slid out of her truck. The bed would have to wait. Ginger Barismantov, her mother’s closest friend, lifted a shapely brow.

No? She was nearing eighty, but her body stopped aging years ago. Her wrinkles were more like laugh lines and her amber eyes had sharpened over the years. When the wind tossed a curl of soft gray hair into her eyes, Ginger simply ignored it and held Moira’s gaze.

Would you have blamed me if I did?

Ginger shut the door and frowned at the woman who matched her tall, willowy frame. Yes, I would, young lady. Your mother wouldn’t want you to wallow in your grief, but she sure as hell would be upset if you didn’t come say goodbye.

Ginger caught the glisten in Moira’s eyes before she could hide it and pulled her friend’s grieving daughter into her arms.

Oh, honey.

I’m fine, Moira protested.

Ginger only held her tighter. You’re a fool to think so. When she let go, Moira’s face was streaked with tears.

She sighed and rubbed the dampness away. Ugh, how am I supposed to do this, Gin? As a cold breeze blew against her tear-stained face, Moira widened her eyes, hoping that the chilly temperature would freeze her tear ducts.

The older woman kissed Moira on the forehead where the headache had begun to throb and held her hand.

One step at a time. She took the first, leading the way to Erin Jameson’s burial site.

Like her father, Moira’s mother had many friends. It seemed that many of the guests who attended her father’s funeral came to her mother’s as well. Perhaps there were more. She hated the sympathetic looks. She didn't want them. Still, she politely nodded to those whose hands reached out to comfort her, but did her best to make it to her seat as quickly as possible. Ginger never let go, giving Moira a strong and steady hand to hold.

As she neared her seat, a firm grip took hold of her shoulder. Moira turned, not certain she could force another smile. But when Elmer Jameson’s sad, gray eyes met hers, Moira didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around her uncle’s thick neck. His white beard tickled her cheek as she whispered, I’m so glad you came.

His lean and muscled arms hesitated for an instant before he returned the hug. His eyes were damp when Moira pulled away.

I couldn’t let her down, Elmer grunted.

Moira managed her first smile in three days. Mom would’ve been happy you made it.

Her father’s brother preferred to live on the outskirts of civilization rather than come to town. Moira only saw him half a dozen times in her life, but she loved him like a second father. Elmer’s heart needed a lot of love, her father had said. So she gave as much as she could when Elmer came to visit his big brother and his family. He accepted love as best as he knew how.

Moira kissed him on the cheek and took Ginger’s hand as she put her sunglasses back on and took her front row seat. Somehow, knowing she had family behind her made the situation a little easier. Elmer was all the family she had now.

The revelation made her heart sink.

When she was a teenager Moira asked her mother if she could have a little sister or brother. Erin just said it simply wasn’t possible. It was easier to leave the subject alone than face the devastated look in her mother’s eyes again.

Without a sister, Moira had drawn closer to the only other woman in her life: her mother. Erin resisted Moira’s attempts at closeness. She had seemed baffled by Moira’s questions.

Sounds like an interesting day, she’d say. Or I don’t know what to tell you. How could a woman who’d already been through all of that not know what to say?

As Moira sat in the cold, the frozen folding chair biting into the back of her thighs, she tried to listen to the preacher talk about how great of a woman her mother was and how she was loved by so many.

The size of the crowd who came to stand in the cold and say goodbye made that obvious. But how many of those people really knew her mother? What was her favorite childhood memory? Did anyone know her parents? Why did she decide to be a teacher? Why did she refuse to get her driver’s license?

Moira considered all the little things she never knew, things her mother wouldn’t talk about, and wondered if anyone in the crowd knew even one of the answers.

A bird sang, drawing Moira’s eyes across the cemetery. Beyond the gentle voice of the preacher and the glistening water dripping from trees slowly thawing in the sun, stood a man leaning against a towering maple tree. It was difficult to make out his face. His long black coat nearly swept the ground. The only movement he made was when he drew a cigarette to his lips.

Ginger glanced over at Moira wondering how the girl was holding up. Last year when her father died, she’d had her mother by her side. Now, the poor girl was alone. Ginger could curse her closest friend for leaving so suddenly if she had the heart for it. A long look at the thoughtful face staring back at her from the photograph in an elegant wood frame whisked that desire away.

Moira, she noticed, was managing the service dry-eyed, but distracted. Ginger found the man in black lingering in the field of stone and snow. Unsettled, she gave Moira’s hand a squeeze and the tension in her brow softened when she squeezed back.

When the crowd slowly began to disperse, Moira pulled her attention back to the service. Suddenly she couldn’t remember the itinerary for the day and looked to Ginger.

Now we head back to your place for the memorial, she said.

Right. Memorial at mom’s place. Her place. She held Ginger’s hand as she stood and slowly approached the closed mahogany casket. It was hard to believe her mother was inside. Moira ran her free hand over the wood and let it rest on top where she imagined her mother’s head might be.

How was she supposed to say goodbye? Her mother wasn’t there anymore. She wasn’t anywhere.

Ginger waited patiently, her eyes drifting to the stranger who remained in the same place smoking a cigarette in the distance.

She’s not here, Gin.

Maybe not. But it still might be helpful to say goodbye.

Maybe. She didn’t want to leave. Not because she felt like she’d be leaving her mother behind, but to leave her mom in that casket meant everything that had happened was real. There’d be no more hoping she’d walk through the front door with her arms full of groceries, or calling to be picked up from the library, or finding her digging in the garden at seven in the morning.

Leaving meant it was one more giant step toward accepting her mother was dead and never coming back. She looked for her uncle in the crowd, disappointed to see he’d already left. Was it so easy for everyone else to let go? She sighed.

Goodbye, Mom. She released Ginger’s hand as she turned away and shoved both in her pockets. Ginger followed quickly behind.

Moira stole a glance over her shoulder at the casket and the man in black still stood beyond it. His hands in his pockets, he faced the funeral squarely and waited.

Do you know who that is? she asked.

I’ve never seen him before.

It wasn’t uncommon for tourists to linger at funerals. Moira sometimes felt like a fish in a bowl, the way they marveled at the way locals actually lived their lives in Rockpoint. It was clear this stranger wasn’t going to approach until everyone had left. She considered waiting him out, or going over to meet him. If he were a tourist, however, it’d be an awfully awkward conversation.

She wasn’t in the mood.

Frustrated by the increased throbbing in her forehead, Moira followed the dispersing crowd to her truck.

Thanks, she said.

Ginger smiled and nodded. See you at your place. She shut the door with a screech and Moira let out a sigh of relief that the whole thing was over.

Suddenly guilty, and frustrated for feeling guilty, she sighed and started up the truck. God, she was a mess. As she waited for the heat to circulate, her eyes scanned the field of headstones floating in a sea of snow searching for the man in black. He stood over her mother’s casket.

What was he doing?

She stared intently at his face, trying to place him. Reaching in the glove compartment she pulled out a pair of binoculars her father used for bird watching and zeroed in on the man’s face.

He was older than she thought. His shortly cropped hair was more silver than black, not unlike the stubble on his jaw. His face, once likely sharply defined and handsome, had begun to sag with age and grief. The bags under his narrowed eyes told her he hadn’t slept in awhile. It also said this visit to Erin Jameson’s casket was not by accident or curiosity.

You knew her, she murmured.

The wind moved his coat, but he didn’t waver.

What do you want? she asked as she continued to press her eyes against the lenses. Had she seen him before?

When he opened his mouth and began to speak, she tried to read his lips, and failed. The longer she watched him, it dawned on her that the stranger wasn’t speaking, but singing.

When he ended his song, the man in black rested his head on Erin Jameson’s casket with his arms outstretched, and wept. Moira slowly lowered the binoculars when he kissed the casket and continued to cry.

Numb, she put the truck in gear and slowly turned it around, hoping the old man wouldn’t notice she’d stayed behind all others to watch him.

When she pulled into the drive of her home, she was only vaguely aware of the mass amount of cars lining her street. She had to talk to Ginger. Why did Elmer have to take off so suddenly? Maybe he knew him.

As she climbed the wet wooden front porch, someone opened the front door for her from the inside and she jumped, surprised.

The memorial. Right.

Her house crowded with dozens of people, Moira eased her way into the entry and tried to ignore the spider-like hands that touched her arms as if to soothe. She scanned the living room for Ginger and attracted the eyes of half of the people sitting on chairs and stools and leaning against walls with coffee or beer in hand. Moira shed her coat on the banister and weaved through the throng to the kitchen. Ginger pulled a plate of cookies from the oven as a teacher her mother had worked with was leaving. She gave Moira a pained expression, a gentle grip on the shoulder and continued into the living room.

Moira rubbed her hands over her face and remembered why she’d gone looking for Ginger in the first place. The man in black. You didn’t know him?

Wally, who’d been curled up under a kitchen chair, trotted over and gazed up at her as he leaned against her leg. Ginger set the cookie sheet on the stove and began scraping the treats onto a wire rack.

Not that I could tell from a distance. Why?

He knew mom. Moira heaved the fifty-pound dog into her arms. Happy to be held, Wally lay limp and gave her a lick of gratitude on her neck. Moira wiped it on her dress and leaned against the counter beside Ginger to keep from being overheard by visitors. I stayed behind just to see what he’d do.

And?

Moira shifted Wally’s curious and prone-to-sneeze nose away from the tray as she scratched under his collar. He sighed.

He sang to her.

Sang?

He sang. I couldn’t hear him, but by the way he was moving his lips he was definitely singing. I used Dad’s old binoculars to see but I can tell you lip reading is not my forte.

Frowning, Ginger put the cookie sheet in the in the sink and undid the apron she’d borrowed. What kind of man sings to a woman’s grave?

One in love. Moira gave Wally a kiss on his wrinkled forehead and set him on the floor brushing the dog hair from her dress. He was weeping by the time he was done singing, Gin. I mean, weeping. He put his head on her casket and just cried like… like he’d lost the love of his life.

Ginger hung up Erin’s apron on a nail by the pantry and straightened her dress. Did you get a look at how old he was?

Mom’s age.

And you didn’t recognize him?

No. Moira crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed Wally’s back with her foot. He slowly rolled over so she could reach his tummy and with a half smile she obliged. Two smiles in one day. She’d begun counting.

When two of Erin’s closest co-workers glided into the kitchen discussing its heavenly smell, they made a beeline to the wire rack and stopped only to give Moira bone crushing hugs.

Your mom would’ve been annoyed she missed out on oatmeal raisin, said Christi as she reached for a cookie. Sometime since her arrival Christi had rolled the sleeves of her blouse up to her elbows and Moira was grateful for her casual appearance. It loosened the tightness in her neck.

She’d have been annoyed to have missed seeing so many people from town gathered together! Joan added with a bite already in her mouth. These are great by the way. Did you make them, Ginger? Joan’s plump cheeks and short curly blonde hair always made Moira want to squish her face between her hands.

Ginger nodded. It was Erin’s recipe.

They rolled their eyes. "Of course it was. That woman could cook."

Moira smiled again and found it easier this time than the last. That was three. Did you ever try her spaghetti?

Joan reached for a second cookie as she was finishing the first. No, she said as though she’d missed meeting a celebrity.

You missed that Spades night. Christi brushed the crumbs from her hands and Wally happily picked them up off the floor. She made spaghetti because it was the first night Cale was back in town.

Cale Drummond? Ginger asked. She turned to Moira. Wasn’t he your dad’s estate lawyer?

Moira nodded.

Real sweetheart, Christi added. Unless you’re playing cards with him. The man has no mercy in cards.

Did you lose? Joan asked.

Oh, I got slaughtered. The four women laughed and Moira felt something shift in her stomach. Surprised, tears rose and she held a hand over her mouth, muttering an apology as she quietly excused herself from the kitchen. Wally hurried after her.

Christi cringed and met Ginger’s eyes. Was that too much?

Ginger smiled gently and shook her head. No.

It’s too soon after Rooney, Joan sighed. It’s not fair.

How long have you two known Erin? Ginger asked.

Joan exchanged a glance with Christi. Well I moved here about thirteen years ago when I got the job at the high school, but Christi grew up here.

I had a ten-year hiatus in Seattle in between.

Were you here when Erin moved to Rockpoint?

Christi glanced at Joan and then back to Ginger. Yes. What’s this about, Gin?

Ginger sighed and scratched the back of her neck. I just wanted to make sure this old brain of mine is still accurate. There was a man at the funeral today, dressed in black and standing way off in the distance. Moira said he waited until everyone was gone before he went to Erin’s casket and cried while he sang to her.

Joan and Christi’s eyes bulged always ready for town gossip. Did she talk to him? Joan asked.

Ginger shook her head. She watched from the truck. I got a decent look at him and he didn’t look like anyone I know. If he lived in Rockpoint I imagine he’d be in the crowd. Do any of you know of any friends Erin was close to when she first got here? Or anybody she mentioned being close to before coming here?

Christi went to a cupboard and pulled out a coffee mug. "She got here when she was seventeen. I remember