Hollyhock Ridge (33 page)

“I haven’t seen you since you were a little bitty thing,” he
said. “How’s your dad doing?”

“About the same,” Claire said.

“I’ve been meaning to get up there and see him,” he said.
“You think that’d be all right?”

“He’d love it,” Claire said. “Most of his old friends avoid
him now.”

“Well, there’s two kinds of people in this world,” he told
her, “people like me, and people who wish they were like me. I’ll be up to see
him this next week. If he feels up to it, I’ll take him out in the boat and
we’ll see what’s biting.”

“Thanks,” Claire said.

“It’s a damned shame about Laurie,” he said to Kay. “I wish
I’d done more to help him.”

“We all do,” Kay said.

Daphne and Bobby were picking up their things, preparing to
leave as Claire went up to them. Their eyes were red rimmed and faces puffy
from crying. Claire opened her mouth to speak but then couldn’t think of
anything to say.

Daphne reached out, squeezed Claire’s hand, and said, “You
take care.”

They walked away, and it was then that Claire saw Ed,
standing at the back of the room, his back against the wall, with a cup of
coffee in his hand. As soon as he saw her notice him, he put down the cup and
came forward.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

Claire had held it together pretty well up until that point,
but his kind eyes and compassionate expression undid her. She walked into his
embrace and bawled.

Sonny followed Kay home, and it seemed perfectly natural to
assume that he would stay the night. For a while, they sat out on the porch in
the darkness, swaying to and fro on the glider, holding hands, and saying
nothing. Meanwhile, fireflies glowed on and off, frogs peeped, and crickets
trilled.

Holding Sonny’s hand, Kay silently prayed for Laurie’s safe
journey to the other side, and that Claire would be comforted, her faith
strengthened by adversity. She thanked God for Sonny, asked that He might
overlook their current sleepover arrangement, and would forgive her for being
so very human. She prayed for Knox and Diedre, and that Matthew would find a
way to forgive her. She remembered Sal then, and said a prayer for him and
Antonia. She asked that God guide her to do the right thing, and to forgive her
when she did not. She thanked God for all her many blessings. And finally, she
prayed for Grace to be protected on her journey home.

It was midnight when a car drew up to the curb. Kay squinted
in the glare of the headlights to see whose it was. Someone got out of the back
seat and tossed a duffel bag on the ground. It wasn’t until the front car
window rolled down and Janet called out, “Got her home safe; see you tomorrow,”
that Kay realized that her last prayer had been answered.

Claire woke up to a knock on her bedroom door.

“Claire Bear,” her father said. “You’re going to be late for
school.”

She had a fierce headache. She could feel how swollen her
eyes were. It was not going to be pretty.

“Liam’s out delivering the papers,” her father said.

Claire closed her eyes and tried to draw the strength she
needed to deal with her father’s dementia, but the well was almost dry. Her
little brother, Liam, had died from leukemia as a child, more than twenty years
ago.

Oh, and Laurie was dead.

Laurie was dead.

It hit her in the chest like an anvil.

What she would give for some of that memory loss.

“Claire Rebecca,” her father said, in his stern voice.

“I’m getting up,” she called out, and then did so.

It was 6:00 a.m.

When she opened the door, Mackie Pea and Junior the kitten
came barreling down the hallway to greet her. She could hear her father shaving
in the bathroom, so she walked her swollen eyes, aching head, and broken heart
to the kitchen, let the animals go outside, and started the coffee.

She couldn’t bear to think about what had happened the day
before, so she focused on the small things she could accomplish without
thinking too much: the next step in her day, the next item on her list.

She prepared a tall glass of ice water, and took a package
of frozen peas out of the freezer. She let the dog and cat back in and fed
them. She took a long deep drink of the icy water and it felt good going down.
She wondered if it was possible to become dehydrated from crying.

When Ed arrived, she was sitting at the kitchen table, her
head tilted back, holding the bag of peas across her eyes.

He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her
head.

“Good morning,” he said. “Will you feel like going for a run
later today?”

“A walk,” she said. “A long walk, but tonight.”

He sat down across the table from her. She removed the bag
of peas and looked at him, but to his credit, he did not wince at what he saw.
He smiled kindly instead.

“I hear the Fitzpatrick Family Circus is coming back to town
today,” he said.

“Great,” she said. “I can hardly wait til Aunt Bonnie
discovers I traded places with Melissa.”

“If you need to escape, give me a call,” he said.

“Thank you,” Claire said. “I’ll come by the office after I’m
done at the bakery.”

“No one expects you to work today.”

“I want to work,” Claire said. “It will keep me from
thinking too much.”

“I’m writing Laurie’s obituary,” Ed said. “I told Daphne I’d
take care of it, and she’s going to email some information and a photo. I
gathered so many stories from the folks in the E.R. waiting room last night I
could fill a whole issue. Is there anything you’d like to add?”

“He told me he didn’t like being a policeman,” Claire said.
“Turns out he was awfully good at it.”

“Everyone says he was a great guy,” Ed said. “I didn’t know
him that well but whenever our paths crossed I enjoyed talking to him.”

“I wish I had known him better,” she said. “I wish I could
have made a difference.”

“There was probably nothing you could’ve done,” Ed said.
“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

This made Claire so angry. Who was Ed to tell her she
couldn’t have saved Laurie? Before the accident, he was intending to go to
rehab. He could have turned his life around. He was once this great guy all
those people loved; why couldn’t he have found a way to be that man again? Why
didn’t he want to? More selfishly, she thought, why wasn’t the possibility of
being with her enough of a reason?

She wanted Ed to leave, and to quit coming around with his
comments about things he couldn’t possibly know about. Immediately after this
thought, Claire was ashamed of herself for taking out her anger on Ed.

It was Laurie she was mad at, of course it was.

“Anything else you want to add?” he asked.

“He played the piano. He liked to sing old songs.”

He didn’t have sex with her the night she got drunk, took
off her clothes, and begged him to. How would that look in the obit?

‘Goes to show character,’ Claire thought.

“His ex-wife is quite a bit younger than he was,” Ed said.
“Pretty lady.”

“I heard the first wife was the soul mate,” Claire said.
“Did you ever meet her?”

Claire had stopped sticking pins in her imaginary Ed voodoo
doll and was now sticking them in herself. She didn’t want to hear how
wonderful the woman was, or how great their marriage was. Claire had shown up
at the theater as the actors took their closing night bows; she didn’t want to
hear how great the run had been.

“I ran into her at fundraisers, walks for various causes,”
Ed said. “She was a nice woman.”

“Of course she was,” Claire said.

Laurie’s sainted dead wife would have been a better wife
even for Ed. Claire begged herself to quit asking questions, but she stuck
another pin in instead.

“What did she look like?”

“Tall and thin, with long dark hair,” Ed said. “She was pretty.”

“Of course she was,” Claire said.

If Daphne was meant to be a copy of the original, Claire
guessed she was just the smudged, illegible faxed version of the copy.

“You can love more than one person in a lifetime, you know,”
he said. “You can even love more than one person at the same time.”

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,’ Claire was thinking.

It hurt too much, and she was too tired to start crying
again.

Ed meant well, she knew he did. His expression was full of
sympathy and compassion. He had proved his friendship by showing up at the
hospital where Claire was grieving over the loss of his rival. He had gathered
her up, shepherded her home, tucked her into bed, and stayed until she fell
asleep.

“Thank you, for coming to Morgantown last night, and for
bringing me home,” she said.

“That’s what friends do,” he said. “We help pick up the
pieces and put each other back together.”

“C’mon!” Ian said from the front room. “We’re late!”

“Will I see you later?” he asked.

“You will,” she said.

Kay woke up to Sonny snoring loudly next to her. He had
taken up three fourths of the bed again and all of the top sheet and quilt. Kay
slid out of bed and performed her morning tasks. By the time she’d put the
kettle on, he was up, and soon she could hear him taking a shower. She checked
on Grace, who was still sound asleep in her room.

Kay retrieved the newspaper off the front steps and sat with
her tea on the front porch to read it. She immediately wished she’d waited. It
seemed like every story inside was something she didn’t want to face this early
in the morning.

Knox’s death had been tentatively deemed accidental, but the
names of the three trustees on the secret account had been revealed, and
Marigold’s name was there in black ink on the front page, as a new person of
interest in the ongoing investigation.

The paper also reported that Marigold had formally withdrawn
her candidacy for mayor. It said that opposing mayoral candidate, Kay
Templeton, had not been available to respond to this bombshell announcement.
Kay knew that many of the voicemails that were waiting on her cell phone were
probably from someone at the Pendleton paper, asking her for a comment.

Laurie’s death warranted a big write-up. Multiple law
officials eulogized him and praised his exemplary police record. County
Sheriff’s Homicide Investigator Sarah Albright stated that he was instrumental
in the investigation that resulted in the arrest of several members of an
extensive network of drug manufacturers, and that he died in the line of duty.

“He will be missed,” she was quoted as saying.

Sal’s obituary covered half of a page, and detailed his long
history in Rose Hill. Kay had just started reading it when Sonny came out on
the porch and sat down next to her.

“How’s my girl?”

“We need a bigger bed,” she said, and handed him the page
with his father’s obituary.

“What we need is a bigger house,” he said. “My apartment
isn’t much bigger than this.”

“I love my little house,” Kay said. “I don’t want to leave
it.”

“Then we’ll add on,” Sonny said. “I know a guy who’ll do it
cheap. He’ll even work for food.”

“Good to know,” she said. “Considering I now have to drive
to Pendleton to buy food, I’ll need to stock up.”

“Do you think Grace will be okay with all of this?”

“She was surprised,” Kay said. “I was, too.”

“It was always meant to be,” Sonny said. “It just took us a
while to realize it.”

“When did you know?”

He paused, looked off in the distance, and then smiled.

“I came to hear you speak at the IWS hospice fundraiser back
in June,” Sonny said. “You were so eloquent, and gracious to Marigold, even
though she was so rude to you. And you were beautiful; I could see the teenager
in you, you know, right in there with the woman you grew up to be. I thought to
myself, that Kay Templeton is one class act. Then I thought, I’m single and
she’s single; why don’t I call her up and ask her out?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because what could a woman like you possibly see in a man
like me?’ ”

“Only everything,” Kay said. “Everything I love best.”

“Well, then,” he said. “I have a question for you.”

“Yes,” Kay said. “The answer is yes.”

“We can get a license today,” he said. “I’m not kidding
around, here.”

“Let’s do it,” Kay said. “Quietly and quickly.”

“Good idea,” he said. “What with my dad and Diedre, and, of
course, Matty. So many tender feelings; it would probably be best.”

“We can go down to the Pendleton courthouse and do it,” she
said. “We’ll get Pauly and Julie to be our witnesses.”

“My mother’s going to flip out,” he said.

Kay had a feeling his mother was going to be more relieved
than anything else.

“You’re feeling what you need to feel, right?” he asked.
“You’re not just getting carried along by me.”

“It feels right,” she said. “I think Dottie would approve.
You?”

“Oh, I got no doubts,” he said. “We’re gonna do fine.”

Claire was cleaning the house in anticipation of her mother
coming home later that day. As she put the tall stack of paper plates back up
in the cabinet above the refrigerator, she rediscovered the bottle of whiskey
and Pip’s baggie of pot. Overcome with fresh grief, she sat down at the kitchen
table to cry, and was still there, the bottle in front of her and the bag of
pot in her hand, when Ed came in through the back door.

“This looks serious,” he said.

“It’s Pip’s,” she said. “I don’t know whether to flush it or
smoke it.”

Ed took the baggie from her and went down the hall, where
she could hear the toilet flush.

Claire’s phone rang and she answered it.

“Your twenty-four hours is almost up,” Gwyneth Eldridge
said. “What are you going to do about Pip?”

“Not a blessed thing,” Claire said. “Thanks anyway.”

“But …” Gwyneth started to say.

“Listen, Gwyneth,” Claire said. “What Pip or your sister do
or don’t do is up to them. We gotta quit trying to control everything. As for
me, I’m not going to waste another minute worrying about Pip, and I’m sure as
hell not going to decide what’s best for him. It’s none of my business.”

“I assume this means you’re not interested in the spa position,”
Gwyneth said, contempt and condescension dripping from her words.

“Nope,” Claire said, “but thanks, anyway.”

She ended the call and began pouring the whiskey down the
kitchen sink drain.

“I would have helped you drink that,” Ed said.

“Nope,” she said. “Nobody’s drinking this.”

Ed sat down at the kitchen table, and it was then that
Claire noticed he didn’t look like he felt well.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

He shook his head, and she was taken aback to see he was
fighting back tears.

“Hey,” she said, “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, took a deep breath, and wiped his face
with his hands. When he looked back up he gave her a weary, sad smile.

“Have you been on the Internet today?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“Looks like Eve’s senator got careless with his emails and
texts.”

“Uh oh,” she said. “What happened?”

“Someone on his staff turned it all over to a reporter at
the Washington Post.”

“He’ll just say his accounts were hacked.”

“I don’t think he can get away with that. Apparently he sent
naked photographs of himself and certain parts of himself,” Ed said. “There’s
no way he’ll be able to run now.”

“What’s Eve say?”

“She’s pretty pissed,” Ed said. “Not all of the emails were
to her.”

“Oh, no,” Claire said. “Poor Eve.”

“More women are expected to come forward,” he said. “More
than a few.”

“So much for her exclusive access to the next president.”

“Not so exclusive, as it turns out.”

“Does this change anything for you and her?”

“You might say that,” he said. “She’s anticipating that her
confidential emails to him will be revealed any minute. If they are, her career
will be over.”

“She can say her account was hacked,” Claire said.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Ed said.

“She sent photos, too?”

He nodded.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “You tried to warn me; I just
didn’t listen.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s on her way to Atlanta, to meet with her agent and
attorney.”

“I guess the baby …”

“Not mine, never was, and never will be.”

He looked so woebegone that Claire’s heart, or whatever was
functioning in its place this morning, went out to him. She sat down next to
him and put her hand on his arm.