Ex’s and Oh’s (2 page)

On
the Saturday following her grandfather’s funeral, Caroline let herself into his stately house in Lake Forest. She’d come for the same reason she’d done it yesterday and the day before. She needed to prove he was truly gone.

She wandered through each room, touching the book still open to the last page he’d read, breathing in the scent of Old Spice aftershave on the shirt hanging neatly over his bedside chair. Caroline was going to have to decide what to do with the house. More importantly, she needed to decide what to do about her life. She’d managed on her own for years and suddenly she couldn’t seem to make a decision.

For some reason, she opened the attic door and went up. At the top of the stairs she pulled the string attached to a bare bulb. Dust particles floated on slats of sunlight slanting through the louvered shutters at the end of the long narrow room. Old sofas and chairs crouched beneath canvas tarps and muslin sheets. Antique trunks, dressers,
chests, and all those useless items her grandfather couldn’t part with were stacked nearly to the sloped ceiling.

Caroline would never forget the first time she’d seen this room. Her grandfather had just collected her from a neighbor in Boston after her parents’ plane went down. He’d driven all day and all night to bring her to his home in this historical district north of Chicago. Although she’d visited Lake Forest often prior to that day, it was different without her mom and dad. Everything was different without them.

Scared and alone, she’d awakened the first night in her unfamiliar bed. With a whimper, she’d slipped out of the high four-poster. The lamp was on in her grandfather’s study, but the room was empty. A door hung open at the end of the hall. Following a dim light, she’d crept to the top of the attic stairs.

She’d found her grandfather sitting at a desk beneath the window, an album of some sort open on his lap. With his head bowed, his face downturned, he could have been an old oil painting. Hearing her approach, he’d looked straight at her. So heavy was his sigh, it might have weighed a hundred pounds. It seemed to Caroline that neither of them moved for a very long time. All the while, something unspoken and sorrowful passed between their gazes.

He finally closed the album and placed it on the desk. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses. Folding them pains-takingly,
he tucked them into his chest pocket. He’d done it exactly that way until the day he died, but that night, it was new to her, and she’d put it to memory.

Holding out his hand, his voice had been deep and thick with emotion as he said, “Come, child.”

She couldn’t have flown to him, but it had felt that way to her as she’d darted barefoot across the dusty plank floor and scrambled onto his lap. Closing her eyes, she’d burrowed into him. He didn’t smell flowery like her mother and he wasn’t broad and solid like her father. She was eight and he seemed ancient, but there was strength in his hands, patience in his eyes and kindness in his voice. And although she’d somehow known that her life would never be the same again, she knew she was safe here. She was home.

All these years later, the house in Lake Forest was empty without him. It was hers now. Should she live here with her baby? Or would it be better to start over someplace brand-new?

She lowered carefully into the old desk chair. A thick layer of dust covered every surface of the desk. Each cubby still held some item her grandfather had once used. There were yellowed envelopes, old ledgers, handwritten receipts and postage stamps from the 1940s. He’d been an attorney, and a fastidious one.

In the drawers, she found leather binders, old books and
rusty paper clips. One drawer contained the album her grandfather had been looking at that night so long ago. Beneath it was a metal box. Prying off the rusted lid, she removed several items. The first was a black-and-white photograph. It had been taken at too great a distance to tell who the young woman and two men were. The lighthouse in the background didn’t look familiar, either. Laying the photograph aside with the album, she returned to the box. Beneath pressed wildflowers, nearly powdery now, she found a sheet of yellowed paper, folded in half, an old skeleton key and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with Henry O’Shaughnessy engraved on one bow.

She unfolded the sheet of fine stationery, the name Anna O’Shaughnessy professionally printed across the top. It was dated 1943, and it appeared to have been written by Caroline’s grandmother.

Caroline stared at the delicate handwriting for a long time, her fingertips going to the fine gold chain around her neck. Elsa was Caroline’s mother’s name.

She found herself studying the black-and-white photograph again. The girl must have been her grandmother, who’d died of pneumonia when Caroline’s mother was five. In his younger days, Henry O’Shaughnessy’s hair had been pitch-black. The man on Anna’s right was most likely him. The other man’s hair was lighter and wavy, his head tilted slightly, his stance more cocksure. Karl Peterson?

The seed planted by one man to be raised by another.

Caroline’s mother hadn’t been Henry’s biological child? He must have known. Of course he’d known. And yet he’d never told her.

He was telling her now. It was almost as if she could hear him say there was more to the story. The question was, what was she supposed to do about it?

Caroline was staring into space when a sharp rap sounded on her office door.

“May I come in?” Sheila Ross asked.

Sheila was already in, but Caroline let it go. “Of course. How are you?”

Sheila Ross had become a full partner in the firm when it was almost unheard-of for a woman to do so. Sixty now, she’d
married young, divorced shortly thereafter, then never repeated the mistake. She’d given Caroline advice over the years, but for the most part, she’d been dangled like a carrot in front of Caroline’s nose. If Caroline worked hard enough, was savvy enough, smart enough, won enough cases, high-profile and otherwise, if she sat on the right committees and attended the right parties, luncheons and fund-raisers, she, too,
might
make full partner one day.

“I’m fine,” Sheila said, pulling out a chair. “The question is, how are you?” Petite and trim, she kept her hair a natural-looking shade of light brown. She had good taste in shoes, wore fabulous suits, liked expensive jewelry and fine wine and had small, razor-sharp eyes.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Caroline said. “That’s two fines and no court costs.”

It was a lawyer joke. Sheila didn’t pretend to smile. Caroline tried to recall if she’d ever heard the woman laugh or smile and mean it.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sheila asked.

Caroline wasn’t surprised by this visit. She’d passed a very difficult case to Sid Johnson at this morning’s staff meeting, then had nearly fallen asleep after lunch. The partners were worried her grief was turning into depression. She
was
grieving, but she wasn’t depressed, per se. She had a lot on her mind. She was nearly three-and-a-half
months along. She wouldn’t be able to keep her pregnancy a secret much longer.

“Perhaps it would help to talk about it,” Sheila said.

Caroline almost said,
To you? Surely you’re kidding.

She’d spotted last week, and had rushed to her doctor, who’d reassured her that light spotting wasn’t uncommon during the first trimester. Just to be on the safe side, she’d prescribed bed rest for a few days, and had advised Caroline not to overdo. Caroline had spent the time in bed thinking about her mother, and remembering all the times she’d needed her over the years. Caroline couldn’t imagine telling Sheila
that
any more than she could imagine confiding how terrified she’d been of losing the baby.

“I heard Steven Phillips has reconciled with his ex-wife.”

“I heard that, too,” Caroline said, meeting the other woman’s gaze.

“And you’re not upset about it?”

“Believe me, he was more attractive and far more interesting over legal briefs and take-out Chinese.”

Silently declaring a tie in the ensuing stare-down, Sheila chose a different tack. “You know how sorry everyone here with Hilliard, Ross and Whitley was, is, about your loss.”

“I appreciate that, Sheila.”

“It’s been a month, Caroline. I know how you felt about
Henry. He was a dear old man. He lived a good, long life. Some people would argue that it’s less traumatic to lose someone who’s old. Whether it is or not is immaterial. The important thing is that you don’t allow mourning to interfere with your goals.”

Caroline had to fight valiantly not to yawn, which earned her a warning thinly disguised as a lecture on the importance of compartmentalizing, particularly for “women like them.”

“Women like us?” Caroline asked.

“Yes. Women who are not only smarter than most men, but who are smarter than most women.”

Caroline wondered what was so wonderful about being smart. What did Sheila have to show for her intellect, for all her hard work, her cunning, her razor-sharp mind? Invitations to the governor’s ball? A reputation for being as approachable as a porcupine? When all was said and done, would anyone ever discover a written entry from someone who’d ached for her? Would anyone care, truly care, when Sheila Ross died?

It seemed to Caroline that all the rest was immaterial.

She’d taken a long, hard look at her life and found it sadly lacking. It wasn’t as if she expected to find true love, whatever that was. She had no brothers or sisters. But there might be other relatives. What about friends? Other
than Maria, Caroline’s friends were more like acquaintances. Shouldn’t there be a stronger connection to the people in her life?

What about her baby, and motherhood?

Questions plagued her. She didn’t have a clue whether she had what it took to be a good friend or a good mother, but she wanted to try. She hadn’t a clue how to define herself anymore. She knew she no longer wanted to be like Sheila Ross. And as Sheila left her office, Caroline was pretty sure the other woman knew it.

Caroline sat in silence for several minutes after the door closed. There were files to open, case profiles to study and evaluate, laws and their relevance to the situations to research and consider, strategies to plan. Instead, she opened her briefcase and removed the sheet of yellowed stationery. Even though she’d memorized every word, she read it again.

This morning, Henry and I returned to the lighthouse…

Despite her difficulties, Anna O’Shaughnessy had known what was important. She’d done what she had to do for her child.

Caroline pictured her mother in her mind. Elsa was an old-fashioned name for a woman who’d died far too soon. It was a tragic story, but Caroline’s neat and tidy existence seemed tragic, too. She wished there was someone she
could talk to. She had so many decisions to make. Her grandfather’s house felt empty these days. Despite the magnificent views, her apartment downtown felt claustrophobic. Work wasn’t fulfilling, either. Every morning she woke up thinking there had to be more.

She’d conducted an Internet search and had discovered that a town called Harbor Woods was located on the Lake Michigan shore near Charlevoix in northern Michigan. She’d found an address there for a Karl Peterson, too.

Caroline smoothed a lock of her auburn hair between her thumb and forefinger. People often told her she was like her grandfather. He used to tell her she took after her mother. In the journal entry, Anna O’Shaughnessy had implied that Caroline’s mother had gotten her red hair from a man named Karl Peterson.

She wondered how her grandfather had felt as he’d read that entry all those years ago. If he were here, she would ask him. While she was at it, she would ask him who she was, because she didn’t know anymore.

She knew what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go. She’d known since reading Anna’s passage the first time. Her mind racing, her face flushed with possibility, she stood suddenly.

Her plan was bold and spontaneous. She couldn’t remember
the last time she’d done anything spontaneously. How pathetic was that?

That question gave her the conviction to knock on Edward Hilliard’s door. As she entered, her knees shook more than they had when she’d taken the state bar exam. Of course, more was riding on this decision. Her entire future, to be exact.

She sat in the chair Edward indicated. In as few words as possible, she made her request for a leave of absence.

Edward steepled his fingers beneath his fleshy chin. “How long are you planning to be gone? A few weeks?”