The Parker Inheritance

Ten years after Abigail Caldwell’s mistakes, Candice Miller is just a twelve-year-old “trying to get through a horrible summer” (4). Her parents are recently divorced and now her mother has dragged her to Lambert, South Carolina to a small house once owned by Candice’s grandmother. Candice and her mother must stay there for the summer while Candice’s father helps make renovations to their Atlanta home. Frustrated and bored, Candice spends most of her days reading but has run out of material.

As Candice lies in bed reflecting on how much she doesn’t want to be in Lambert, her mother Anne comes home and checks in on her. Candice expresses her dissatisfaction at having to read the same book again, and her mother tells her to check the attic to see if there are old books left from Candice’s grandmother. Anne comments on Candice wearing a bracelet that “used to belong to her grandmother” (5), saying that she’s happy Candice is wearing it.

Candice begins asking her mother more questions about Abigail Caldwell, finding out that even though Candice’s grandmother lost her job, the city avoided a scandal by not making it as public. Anne cautions Candice to not try to solve this mystery. 

Anne agrees to take Candice to lunch and the library. As Candice changes, she thinks about her mother’s work as a novelist writing romance novels; with all the stress of trying to renovate and sell the Atlanta house, “she wasn’t writing, seemingly at all” (10). As they leave, Anne says hello to the neighbors across the street: Juanita and her son Brandon, who is eleven. Anne invites them to come along; with some reluctance and pushing from Juanita, Brandon agrees to go.

Brandon inquires Anne about her writing, nervously asking if she is working on any projects. Anne avoids the question and asks Brandon about his own reading. He talks about liking boy books, about which Candice is judgmental. 

After lunch, Candice spends time looking through the library, then finds Brandon with “his face… literally buried in his book” (15). He quickly hides the cover from her. As Candice starts talking about books she’s read, she begins to realize that Brandon doesn’t only like boy books and that its likely he ”didn’t want her making fun of him” (16). By the time the conversation is finished, both children feel more positively about their forced meeting and agree to split the library books so that they can check out ten each.

Anne wants to stay for a while at the library, so Candice moves on to using the computer, beginning to search for “‘Abigail Caldwell’ + ‘Lambert’ + ‘fired’’” (18). It seems that Abigail had made a big mistake in digging up the tennis courts. When Brandon comes to find Candice, she begins asking him about her grandmother. Even he knows that Abigail was fired for trying to solve a made-up mystery. 

As time in Lambert drags on, Candice amuses herself by playing a logic and puzzle app and listening to music from her dad’s iPod, which she borrowed. Anne finds her in the living room with the music on too loud and chastises her; Brandon has come over and sees Anne yell at Candice for the volume of the earbuds. Candice is embarrassed, thinking that her dad would have never yelled “at her like that in front of other kids” (23).

Candice and Brandon begin trading some of the library books they’ve borrowed, since Brandon already finished reading his. Candice isn’t in a good mood, so Brandon leaves shortly after, but only a few minutes later he comes back to the door with scratches on his face and leaves on his shirt. Behind him on the sidewalk are three boys who bullied him moments before. Candice understands Brandon’s situation and invites him back into the house. To pass time, Candice invites Brandon to look for old books up in the attic. 

In the attic, Candice begins looking through a box “labeled FOR CANDICE” (27). After pulling out textbooks, dictionaries, and a book on Greek mythology, Candice finds the puzzle book with a small note inside. Brandon is busy looking at the mythology book, so Candice puts the letter back inside the puzzle and says they should go back downstairs.

Candice reads the letter in the puzzle book, which is addressed to Abigail Caldwell but isn’t sealed. The letter lays out a plot to create “an opportunity for Lambert to earn back everything… [taken] from the city-a fortune totaling $40 million” (30). The letter details a love story and complicated drama in which the letter writer chose to take away things from Lambert because of the mistreatment of a woman named Siobhan Washington. The letter also explains that copies have been sent “to the mayor, the school district superintendent, the chair of the school board” (31) and the newspaper.

Candice immediately knows that the conflict described in the letter is because the Washington family is Black and that the perpetrators, the Allens, are white. Candice looks at the note her grandmother wrote, which directs her to solve the puzzle.