Chapter two: The long road ahead
Much like most things in life, trying to start a new life out in the country or anywhere new really is a lot easier said than done. But, someway, somehow, Claire managed to cobble her life together enough and sort out most of the baggage that had been holding her back from doing so.
In fact, resigning from her job and selling her apartment were both much easier in the long run when compared to the legal technicality's she was faced with, which in all seriousness had been nothing short a mess from start to finish, to the point where she doubted if the entire ordeal was even worth the stress.
Her sister, Olivia, had, of course, supported her each and every step of the way, from helping her trade in her old rust bucket of a car for something a bigger and better adapt to unpaved country roads and off-road diving general, then her old shrinky dink city accustomed car would ever be.
Olivia also did whatever she could to make Claire's life more tolerable in the days, weeks, and even months she would spend conversing and meeting with various attorneys and lawyers and anyone else really that happened to crawl out of the woodwork to bother her.
She watched as Claire for the most part just gritted her teeth ad bared it, doing her best to shove all of her frustrations to the back of her mind, while Olivia helped to organize and fill out the mountains of paperwork and other such documents she had been saddle with.
In all fairness, things could have gone a lot smoother if the vast majority of her problems had been caused by none other than Mr. Wilson's son, William. Who just so happened to prove himself to be the biggest pain in the ass that Claire had ever had the misfortune to deal with, and that's saying something.
To be honest, she wasn't all that surprised to find out that William was the same old grease ball she remembered him being when they were both teenagers, with him having outgrown his old looks but not his personality.
Actually, it came as a bit of a shock to find out that the man that stood in front of her was the same lanky teenager, with untameable frizzy red hair, big square glasses, and acne that she had once had the displeasure of being raised with.
It's all gone now, of course, his past appearance having been erased and traded away for a well fitted three-piece suit instead of old well-worn farm clothes and muddied boots, a pair of elegant sleek glasses which work to enhance his features instead of hindering them, and hair that is both perfectly groomed and slicked back against his head instead of knotted and frizzy stuck up in all directions as it once had been.
However, a leopard can never truly change its spots, no matter how hard it may try and she supposes the same goes for people too since William is by all accounts still the same old egotistical ass she remembers him being, who still makes no attempts to hide whatever thinly veiled contempt he has for her.
Although, that thinly veiled contempt of his soon turned into pure undiluted hatred as it became ever abruptly apparent that his father had indeed named her in his will, and that he indeed had to share what he truly believes was rightfully his own with both her and Olivia. Not that she blames him, really.
Since she's not entirely sure how she'd react herself if the situation happened to somehow find it's self reversed. It's not like she's Mr. Wilson's long lost daughter or anything, she's not even entirely certain if she even has the right to call him a friend anymore. She had left the farm so suddenly after all, with Olivia following not too soon after.
A dumb teenager that's what she was, with a hefty size chip-carved into her shoulder and an even larger self-set ambition to make something out of herself in the city, leaving behind the farm and the man that had gone out of his way to do so much for her and stop her life from spiraling too far out of control.
Forgotten, she guesses that's the right word for it, she'd worked hard liked she had promised the old man and got herself a semi-decent apartment, and a job that she loved. Not that any of it mattered in the long run, the stresses of her life have piled up on her to a point where she had all but erased Mr. Wilson and his farm from her mind in order to focus on the then and their problems.
She never once did manage to find the time in all the years that came and subsequently went to visit or at the very least pick up a phone and call to see how he was doing, she doubts she would have ever have managed to keep in touch with the man if it wasn't for him fining the time to write and send her a letter every couple of weeks or so, to see how she was doing.
Not that she ever afforded him the same courtesy, only ever finding the time to write back in reply every now and again and never once telling him the truth about what she had done or was currently doing, instead opting to keep her replies simple and sweet even if the truth was anything but. He was an old man and she would never bother him with her own personal troubles.
She guesses that's why she wasn't all that overly alarmed when the letters stopped coming in all those months back, she's had been expected it to for it to happen, eventually. He wasn't her father and she wasn't his blood, so it made sense at least in her mind that he'd someday want nothing to do with her and would inevitably sever what little contact they still had altogether.
However, if she had known then what she had come to learn in the last few weeks, she'd have, well she doesn't know what she would have done exactly. She just knows that she would have at least tried to something, anything to repay the tremendous debt she knew she still owed him.
She wonders if that was the reasoning that pushed her into being so passive when dealing with William, and his incessant need to squabble about every single dime he was certain he was due.
Claire, for the most part, was content with letting him cherry-pick at what little possessions his father had left her, she had little need for such things anyway since she didn't care to know how much his late mother's jewelry was worth, or how much that old antique globe that she remembers used to sit in Mr. Wilson's sitting room would fetch with the right buyer.
She didn't and still doesn't see the point in fighting over such things as that, so she just let him have them and anything else he still wanted to take from the farm.
He could strip the place bare for all she cared, it's not like she cared to keep any of the little knick-knacks or trinkets she had been left. The only thing she cared about getting was the farm at that moment. Although, she was pissed to find out that William had already been and sold off all of the livestock and farm equipment months prior, back when his father had first fallen ill.
Although, that's not to say that she just let him get everything that he wanted, when he wanted it, without her getting something in return. The first thing she made him do was to get his late father's farm be signed over to her, and the second was to make him swear to leave her sister and what little amount of money as well as the old compass the old man had left her alone.
He'd agreed in an instant to her the former at of her demands, jumped for joy in fact when he had realized that she was indeed one hundred percent serious about taking over the farm. Signing away his ability to prevent her from getting what she wanted with a smirk, knowing full well that he had drained every last penny that he could out of what remained of his father's legacy.
Saddling her with all of the debt that had been accumulated against the property ever since his father had first fallen ill little over a year ago. It didn't matter to her, at least not then. She did still have her savings after all and she was sure that with enough hard work and gumption shed be able to make it all work out eventually, Mr. Wilson had had enough faith in her to leave her the place after all.
And with the conclusion of the whole tiresome ordeal between the trio coming to an end with them all getting more or less what they wanted, all that Claire was left to do was sit and wait for the last few pieces of legal documents to be officialized.
While she tried to not let her fears deter her from what she was certain was a once in a lifetime opportunity, after all.
She only hopes that she hasn't straddled herself with a mountain of debt for nothing, she wants the old man's faith in her to come to fruition without becoming homeless in the process.