The air in Mr. Abernathy’s office was as thick and stagnant as forgotten history. It smelled of aging paper, leather polish, and the faint, sweet scent of pipe tobacco long since smoked.
Lena Petrova sat perfectly erect in a wingback chair that seemed determined to swallow her whole, its cracked burgundy leather a stark contrast to the sharp, modern lines of her charcoal grey suit. She checked her watch for the third time in ten minutes. 10:15 AM.
A deposition had been rescheduled for this. A client meeting pushed. All for a proceeding she considered a morbid and inefficient formality.
Across the Persian rug, in a matching chair, sat the primary source of the inefficiency: Finn O’Connell. Her ex-husband. He wasn’t looking at his watch.
He was staring out the window at the sycamore leaves skittering across the courthouse lawn, his gaze distant. A familiar knot tightened in Lena’s stomach—a cocktail of irritation and a ghost of something she refused to name.
He looked… exactly as she’d expected. His dark hair was a little too long, curling over the collar of a tweed jacket that was nicely tailored but undeniably worn at the elbows.
He held a stillness she had once mistaken for peace; now she knew it was just an absence of urgency.
They hadn’t spoken a word since a clipped, monosyllabic greeting in the waiting room. The silence between them wasn’t empty; it was crowded with the ghosts of arguments past, with unspoken accusations and the heavy, immovable weight of their divorce decree, finalized eleven months ago.
For Lena, the finality had been a relief, a closing of a chaotic chapter so she could focus on the only thing that made sense: her career. She was on the cusp of a partnership at her firm, a goal she had pursued with the relentless focus of a predator.
This unexpected summons was a distraction.
Finn shifted, the leather of his chair groaning in protest. He could feel Lena’s impatience radiating across the room, a low-frequency hum of disapproval.
He’d seen her check her watch. Of course. For Lena, time wasn’t something to be experienced; it was something to be billed in six-minute increments.
He ran a hand over his face, the grief for his Aunt Maeve still a raw, hollow ache in his chest. Maeve had been more of a mother to him than his own ever was.
She was the one who’d given him his first camera, who’d taught him that beauty could be found in rust and decay, that every storm-battered cliff face had a story. Lena had never understood that.
She saw a dilapidated fence and calculated the cost of repair; he saw the way the morning light caught the peeling paint.
Mr. Abernathy, a man who looked as though he’d been curated by the same decorator as his office, finally entered, carrying a thick vellum folder. “My apologies for the delay,” he said, his voice a gravelly baritone.
“Lena. Finn. Thank you for coming on such short notice. Maeve was… very specific in her instructions.”
He settled behind his enormous mahogany desk, the very picture of somber professionalism. “I won’t prolong this,” he began, opening the folder.
“Maeve O’Connell was a woman of great heart and, it appears, great foresight. There are a few small bequests—donations to the local historical society, her collection of sea glass to a dear friend—but the bulk of her estate is to be addressed to you both.”
Lena’s posture, if possible, became even more rigid. She was prepared for a sentimental token, a piece of art perhaps.
Something she could politely accept, file away, and forget.
Finn leaned forward slightly, a flicker of pained interest in his eyes. He just wanted to hear her voice one last time, even through the dry legalese of a will.
Mr. Abernathy cleared his throat and read from the document. “To my beloved nephew, Finn O’Connell, and to Lena Petrova, who I will always hold in my heart, I leave the entirety of my remaining assets, including my financial portfolio, currently valued at approximately two-point-three million dollars…”
Lena’s breath caught in her throat. The number hung in the air, shimmering, impossible.
Two-point-three million. The exact figure she and her mentor had calculated she would need to buy into the partnership.
It was her future, handed to her on a silver platter. Her mind, a finely tuned engine of logic and strategy, instantly began to churn.
The capital gains tax, the disbursement timeline, the sheer, beautiful simplicity of it.
Finn’s shock was of a different kind. He had never once thought about Maeve’s money.
He stared at the lawyer, bewildered. Maeve had lived so simply.
Her wealth was in stories, in sunsets, in the perfectly brewed cup of tea she’d have waiting for him. This felt… wrong.
“…and my most cherished possession,” Mr. Abernathy continued, his voice dropping with significance, “my home, the Sea-Chaser Lighthouse and its surrounding property.”
A fresh wave of grief washed over Finn. The lighthouse. It was the backdrop to every happy memory of his childhood.
He could smell the salt and damp stone, hear the cry of the gulls and the low moan of the foghorn. It was Maeve’s soul made manifest in granite and glass.
Then the lawyer delivered the final, devastating blow. “This inheritance, both the financial assets and the property, is bequeathed to them jointly, under the following, non-negotiable condition.”
He peered over his spectacles, first at Lena, then at Finn. “They must both take up residence in the Sea-Chaser Lighthouse for a period of no less than three hundred and sixty-five consecutive days, beginning within one week of this reading.
During this year, they must work together to actively restore the property to a state of good repair, as determined by an independent assessor upon the conclusion of the term.
Should either party vacate the premises for more than seventy-two hours, or should they fail to meet the restoration requirement, the entirety of the estate—both the money and the lighthouse—will be forfeited and donated to the National Bird-Watching Society.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Lena’s vision of a partnership buy-in dissolved into a logistical nightmare.
A year. A full year, living with Finn, in a dilapidated lighthouse, swinging a hammer?
It was absurd. It was blackmail from beyond the grave.
Finn was the first to speak, his voice thick with emotion. “She’s giving us her home.”
He said it with a reverence that scraped against Lena’s raw nerves.
“She’s giving us a prison sentence with a cash prize at the end,” Lena countered, her tone clipped and cold. The lawyer’s presence was the only thing keeping her voice from rising.
“This is insane.”
“Insane?” Finn turned to her, his blue eyes flashing with a hurt so profound it momentarily stunned her. “It was her life, Lena.
She loved that place. She loved us. Don’t you see what she’s trying to do?”
“I see a manipulative and legally dubious codicil designed to force two people who can barely occupy the same room into a year of forced cohabitation,” she shot back, her inner lawyer taking command.
“Mr. Abernathy, what are the exact parameters of ‘actively restore’? Is there a defined budget? A list of required repairs?”
Finn flinched as if she’d slapped him. “God, you’re already turning it into a business transaction.”
“That’s exactly what it is!” Lena insisted, her voice tight with frustration.
“It’s a one-year project with a multi-million-dollar payout. It’s the most important transaction of my life.
We need a contract, an operating agreement. We need to define the terms of our… partnership.”
The word hung between them, ugly and ill-fitting.
“She didn’t want a partnership, Lena, she wanted a miracle,” Finn said, his voice dropping to a low, wounded murmur.
“She wanted to fix what we broke. And you’re sitting there talking about operating agreements like we’re renovating a corporate office. It’s a sacred duty to her memory.”
“A sacred duty doesn’t pay my bills or secure my future,” Lena said, the words tasting like acid.
“The money does. I need that money, Finn. I’ve worked my entire life for the opportunity it represents.”
Mr. Abernathy cleared his throat again, a gentle but firm interruption.
“The terms are as I’ve stated. They are ironclad.
Maeve’s instructions were very clear. You either accept them together, or you refuse them together. There is no middle ground.”
Lena’s mind raced, weighing the pros and cons in a furious, silent debate.
Con: A year of her life, derailed. Proximity to Finn, a man whose artistic sensibilities and financial irresponsibility had driven her mad.
Physical labor. Rust. Possibly seagulls.
Pro: Financial independence. The partnership.
The culmination of a decade of sixty-hour work weeks. Everything she’d ever wanted.
The scales didn’t just tip; they crashed to one side. There was no choice. Not really.
She looked at Finn, at the genuine pain etched on his face. He saw this as a pilgrimage to his aunt’s memory.
She saw it as a hostile takeover of her life for a year. Their opposing worldviews, the very fault line that had fractured their marriage, was laid bare on the surface of Mr. Abernathy’s polished desk.
“I’ll do it,” she said, her voice betraying none of her inner turmoil. It was the same tone she used when accepting a difficult case. Cool, decisive, professional.
Finn stared at her, a complicated mix of hope and despair in his eyes. He hated her reasons.
He hated her pragmatism, her inability to see the heart of the matter. But he couldn’t honor Maeve’s wish without her.
And the thought of the lighthouse—Maeve’s lighthouse—being sold off to strangers or, worse, turned into a nesting ground for puffins, was unbearable. He had to save it. For Maeve.
“Fine,” he said, the word heavy with resignation. “For Aunt Maeve.”
“For the money,” Lena corrected, not to be cruel, but to be clear. Honesty was the only way this arrangement, this unholy alliance, could possibly work.
“Let’s not pretend this is anything else.”
The ghost of a smile, sad and tired, touched Finn’s lips. “Right. No pretending.”
Mr. Abernathy slid a set of documents and a single, heavy, iron key across the desk. “You’ll need to sign these acceptance forms.
The key is to the front door. The clock starts in seven days. I wish you both… the best of luck.”
Lena signed her name with a sharp, angular flourish. Finn’s signature was a looping, almost artistic scrawl.
They stood, the transaction complete. They were partners again, bound not by love, but by the will of a dead woman and the promise of a fortune.
They walked out of the office into the bright autumn afternoon, the silence between them now filled with the deafening roar of the year to come. They didn’t walk together.
They walked on opposite sides of the pavement, two separate people heading towards the same, storm-battered destination.