“Not all of it, but why not drink a few bottles? Even accounting for the angels’ share, there will be enough for everyone to have a small glass as a toast.”

In spite of myself, I smiled. The angels’ share was the amount of alcohol or spirits lost to evaporation in drinks like cognac, whiskey, Madeira, or wine—anything that aged in barrels or casks. The story went that the angels drank the alcohol that evaporated through the porous oak because it rightfully belonged to them. For me it always conjured images of rowdy, bacchanalian parties with drunken angels tripping over their celestial gowns and knocking against each other’s wings as they cavorted in heaven.

“That Madeira is also priceless,” I said. “Regardless of how much the angels drank.”

“That’s exactly the point.” He threw me a look as if drinking it were the most logical thing to do. “Lucie, there are two weeks until the fourteenth. I’ll do anything you need to help you find those bottles.”

“Even if there were two years, I wouldn’t know where to begin to look. It’s not hidden under a bed or in a closet, you know. And I’ve been through the attic and Leland’s wine cellar in the basement.”

“Maybe your father left a clue in the documents he kept in his safe-deposit box.”

“What safe-deposit box?”

“Good Lord,” he said, exasperated. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that, either?”

I folded my arms across my chest and gave him a stony look, waiting for him to go on. If I spoke, I would scream or cry or yell. How many more secrets did my father still have that would pop up out of the blue and bite me?

Prescott let out a long breath as if he was weary of explaining so many things about my father that I should have already known. “Leland kept a safe-deposit box at Blue Ridge Federal. I assumed you would have emptied it out when he died. He kept items there … things he didn’t want anyone to see.”

“You mean, things he didn’t want my mother to see.” My voice rose. I was hurt, but I was angry, too.

I thought—hoped—by now we’d straightened everything out, learned everything there was to know about my complicated, flawed father. Gambling debts. Loans. Everything had come down on me like a house of bricks after Leland died. And then there had been the son he never told us about, David Phelps, my biracial half-brother, whom I’d met only a few months ago.