As a journalist, Kendra had learned not to be judgmental, but she was relieved. This was an improvement over what she’d thought she might hear. Manning’s account of his phone call with Rachel still haunted her.
Rachel said Leah was not the angel she seemed like to everyone else. She said Leah would spend her days in hell
.
“There’s got to be more to it,” Helen said.
“Mark was never told much about Leah’s past. He knew she had a daughter, and that was about it. Then Leah passed away, and before she died, she made Tom promise he would find Rachel’s child.”
“How did she
know
Rachel had a child?”
“Rachel called Leah sometime after Isaac’s birth and told her about the baby. She wouldn’t say whether it was a girl or a boy, or where the baby was born. After all those years, she was finally going to come back and visit. She said she would tell Leah more when she came. Then she died before she could make the trip.”
“Must have broken Leah’s heart.”
“Rachel was working in a bar. There was a fire, and several people were killed before anyone could get to them. She was one of them.”
“A terrible way to meet your Maker.”
“Mark said Leah started trying to find her grandchild right afterward, but she died before she found out much. So Mark’s father took up the search. He died about six years ago, but not before he asked Mark to continue. Tom left everything to Mark, but Leah left her land here and a quilt she’d made to her grandchild. Mark put the land in trust, with the provision that if Rachel’s son or daughter wasn’t found in his lifetime, the land would be sold and the money donated to Tom and Leah’s church down in New Market.”
“How did he find your husband?”
“He did what Leah and Tom never felt comfortable doing. When he hit a brick wall, he put it in the hands of a private investigator. Isaac was adopted at birth by an Air Force officer and his wife. It was a private adoption, and they looked good on paper. Maybe Rachel thought being brought up as an Air Force brat would give her son the discipline she never had, I don’t know. We’ll never be sure.”
“He have a good life?”
Kendra gave one shake of her head. “Colonel Taylor wanted his own son, not somebody else’s.”
“Your husband had a lot to bear.”
Kendra had already revealed more than she was comfortable with. But she had a reason. “Here’s why I’ve told you that part. I want you to understand why Isaac is so negative about the land and anything to do with his birth family. His adopted father never let him forget his roots. He grew up being told he came from trailer trash. He’s angry at everyone in the picture, even though he’s not the kind of man who would ever say so.”
“That explain why he’s not here with you?”
“Some of it, yes.”
Helen pursed her lips and nodded. “Well, it makes some sense, that’s for sure. I can see why Leah couldn’t let it go, but maybe she should have let it die with her. Rachel didn’t give her the baby to raise. She wanted her baby to have a fresh start.”
“I hoped maybe you had some insight into that. Why she couldn’t let go.”
Helen took off her glasses and held them up to the light, then she wiped them on the hem of her housedress before she put them on again, taking her time. “Here’s what I think, and it’s not worth a lot.”
“It’s worth more than anything I can come up with on my own.”
“Leah moved here sometime in the thirties, as near as I can remember it. She was young, and she came alone. There was no husband in sight, but she had a ring on her finger. We thought she was a widow, but I remember my mama saying she thought maybe Leah’s husband had left her. And maybe she moved here to get over it.”
Kendra winced. Isaac’s family really did sound like characters from a Grand Old Soap Opry.
“I don’t know how she came to own the cabin and the land,” Helen said. “It was abandoned when she got here. I don’t remember anyone ever living there, as a matter of fact. Not before she did.”
“Manning thought maybe it was an old hunting cabin.”
“Could have been. Anyway, she showed up pregnant, too. She had her baby here. Never took off that ring, although if my husband up and disappeared on me, I would have pawned the ring and had a good dinner out.”
“So Rachel was born here?”
“You’d never know it, though. Didn’t fit in. She got teased some because her mama wasn’t from here. It was hard times, and strangers didn’t sit too well, you see. But except for women worrying ’cause Leah was too pretty, people liked her well enough. Rachel, now, she was a different story. Just didn’t seem like one of us.”
Kendra was forming a picture of Rachel. “So why do you think Leah wanted so badly to find Isaac?”
“Rachel was all she had, you know. Oh, she had the cabin and the land around it, not a lot of land, but enough so she could make do. And eventually she had Tom and Mark. But they weren’t blood. No, Rachel was her life and whatever joy she got from it. And with Rachel gone, maybe all she thought she had left of her daughter was that baby, wherever it was. She must have wanted to pass on some of that family feeling.”
Kendra knew this was only a theory, but it made sense to her. A woman alone. A woman scorned. A child she adored who had run away. And in the end, the only thing left of that child was a grandson or granddaughter who knew nothing of its birth family and needed to—at least in Leah’s mind.
She let the story sink in a little, staring at the fireplace that had been outfitted for spring with poplar logs and dried flowers.
“You said a quilt?” Helen asked after a while.
“A Lover’s Knot quilt. An unusual signature quilt, actually. I’d love for you to look at it. Maybe you can tell me who some of the people are. They must be from around here. I have other signature quilts I’ve bought. I guess I’m becoming a collector. Will you come and see them?”
“Sounds intriguing. But like I said, Leah, she wasn’t much of a quilter. A quilt, that’s a surprise.”
Kendra thought she had probably left Helen with enough to think about. She got to her feet. “I hope you understand that I wasn’t trying to hide Isaac’s ties to Leah and Rachel. I just wanted to feel my way before I made any announcements.”
Helen got up, too. “And Mark Jackson? He can’t help any more?”
“Mark says his father wouldn’t tell him much about Leah’s past. Mark did his part by finding Isaac and passing on the property.”
“So Tom Jackson didn’t know. Or he was hiding something.”
“That’s my guess, too.”
“Well, it’s enough to get my brain spinning, that’s for sure. And I’ll want to see that quilt. I’ll stop over when it’s convenient.”
“I’d love that. I have a phone now.” Kendra gave Helen a card she’d scribbled her number on. “That’s just in case you want to be sure I’m there.”
Helen walked her to the door. “You’re turning into a country girl. You know we drop in when we feel like it.”
“I’m about to have a lot of company. The more the merrier.” Kendra told her about Manning and Cash, and the work on the house.
She pushed the screen door open, but turned before she closed it again. “Do you think Leah would object? To the renovations, I mean? It’s funny, but I don’t want to upset a woman who isn’t even alive.”
“Your husband will be more likely to stay in the house if you fix it up a bit, won’t he?”
Kendra didn’t know.
Helen touched her shoulder. Just a light, quick touch, but a lot of touching for her. “I’d say that anything you do to make a home there will make Leah happy.”
“I think I needed to hear that.”
“You come back anytime. You’re always welcome here.”
There wasn’t much time to process the conversation on the way home. It was just past ten, but Kendra was already as tired as if she had canoed the length of the North Fork. The day was shaping up to be particularly glorious. She knew better than to do any gardening until she’d had a good rest. Instead, she decided to take a notepad out to the porch and make herself comfortable in her new chair. Then she would consider what she had learned about Leah from Helen.
She half expected to hear the pounding of a hammer as she drove up her rutted lane, but instead she heard voices and what sounded like a child’s laughter. She was in the clearing before she had time to guess who might be waiting.
An unfamiliar burgundy minivan sporting Michigan plates was parked in her usual spot. The side door was open, and Kendra could see blankets and pillows and what looked like plastic cartons stacked between two captain’s chairs, one of which held a child’s car seat. She pulled up beside it and got out. By the time she had circled the van, a young woman was coming down the porch steps, steps that now sported a primitive railing.
Kendra stopped. The woman had dark hair that fell in waves from a scrunchie on top of her head. She was slender and graceful, with a long torso, narrow hips and perfect legs shown to their best advantage in cut-off denim shorts. A red shirt was tied just above the waist, and she wore simple suede sandals. Her oval face was fine-boned, her forehead punctuated by a deep widow’s peak.
The world did not spin slower on its axis, and time didn’t stop. But for a moment Kendra felt suspended, as if this reunion, which had eluded her for so long, couldn’t possibly be real.
Then she straightened her shoulders and braced herself. “Jamie.”
“Hey, sis,” Jamie said. “Guess it’s long time no see.”
“H
ow on earth did you find me?” Kendra sailed ahead with the conversation, although she was sure the prevailing wind had abandoned her.
“Riva.”
The fact that their mother remembered where Kendra was living surprised her. Before moving into the cabin, Kendra had left Riva a brief message, but she hadn’t received a response. Not that she had expected one. Riva had already done her maternal duty. After the carjacking, she’d wired a huge basket of chocolates, champagne and delicate designer nightwear for Kendra to enjoy as she lay in Intensive Care, nourished entirely by tubes that snaked in and out of standard-issue hospital garb.
“She must have an assistant who can write,” Kendra said. “Someone who actually jotted down the basics.”
“She’s shacking up with some Frenchman in Marseilles, and she claims the household staff was well trained by his wife.”
Kendra didn’t ask where the Frenchman’s wife was living. Riva never squinted over fine print.
“And from this you found your way here? You didn’t talk to Isaac?”
“Do you suppose he would have told me?” Jamie sounded curious, as if the possibility intrigued her.
Kendra wasn’t sure. Isaac had never met her sister. Kendra herself hadn’t seen Jamie in seven years.
“Mommy!”
Jamie whirled. Only then did Kendra see the reason for the crowded minivan and the car seat. A dark-haired little girl in a fairy princess costume came to the top of the steps. “Alison went potty in her diapers.”
“Alison?” Kendra said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know, isn’t there?”
“Is that Hannah?”
“I’ve got to see about Alison. Come meet them.”
Kendra felt as if someone’s fist was pressed into her belly. “Anything else I should know? Boyfriends, sons, groupies?”
Jamie didn’t answer. She turned away, exposing a wide expanse of tanned flesh where her shirt and shorts didn’t meet. Kendra noted the tattoo of an orchid at the base of her sister’s spine.
The railing was sturdy, although it looked as if Cash needed to add a few more slats. She wondered where he had gone, but all thoughts of him disappeared when she was face-to-face with the child.
“Hannah,” Jamie said, “this is your aunt Kendra.”
Kendra didn’t know what to say. She was staring at a perfect replica of her sister, the Jamie she had rescued from parents with more money than maturity, the Jamie she had tried, in her own childish way, to save, to buffer, to teach. Jamie, before the drugs, the men, the wanderlust. Jamie before years of anger drove her away.
Hannah held out her hand. “I am Hannah Clousell,” she said. “But I am really a princess.”
“This doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kendra said somberly, taking her niece’s slightly grubby hand.
She didn’t want to let go. She wanted to pull this child behind her, to protect her the way she had not been able to protect her mother. Hannah was Jamie at six, blue eyes with no trace of sadness, dark hair brushing the top of her earlobes and the sweet hollow at her nape, Jamie’s narrow aristocratic nose, so at odds with a sweet, encompassing smile.
“Hannah, where is Alison exactly?” Jamie asked.
“In the bathroom. She is not eating soap.”
“You turn your head for one minute,” Jamie muttered, taking off for the bedroom wing of the dogtrot.
Hannah took back her hand with a slight tug. “Alison will eat almost anything,” she explained. “Except endive, which is not my favorite.”
“Mine either.”
“This house is unusual. It’s two houses, both unlocked. In the winter you’ll have to wear a coat to make breakfast.”
“Maybe not. I’m adding rooms. We might close in the porch.”
“Where will we sleep?”
Kendra was at a loss. Things were moving too quickly. “Where would you like to?”
“Well, not in the van. We camped coming here, but I am tired of tents.”
“There’s definitely room inside.”
“That would be better.” Hannah seemed to consider. “Yes,” she said in her precise way. “That’s what we’ll do. But not in your bed. Alison is not trustworthy.”
Kendra looked up to see Jamie backing out of her bedroom with the untrustworthy Alison slung over her shoulder. Kendra glimpsed copper-red curls and the chubby, compact body of a preschooler.
“Disaster averted,” Jamie said. “Diaper changed. I’ll dispose of it at the landfill or wherever these things go in the country. She’s almost done with diapers, but we still don’t travel in big-girl panties.” She squatted and set the little girl on her feet.
To Kendra, Alison looked as if she had just been conjured by leprechauns. She had pale Celtic skin, with cheeks stained a delicate rose. Freckles sprinkled her nose. Spiky auburn lashes lined eyes as green as Blarney’s hills.
“Alison Callahan, this is Aunt Kendra,” Jamie said, straightening Alison’s T-shirt. The kelly green shirt was just long enough to cover her bottom. It sported the white outline of dancing shamrocks and the words
Murphy’s Irish Pub
. It was her sole item of clothing.
“I poop in my pants,” Alison said solemnly.
Kendra looked at her sister, then back at the little girl. “Well, that happens. I’m glad to meet you.”
“I hungry.”
“Don’t worry,” Jamie said. “We have tons of food. I don’t expect you to feed us. I’ll make peanut butter sandwiches.”
“I turn to a peanut,” Alison said. “I could.”
“How old are you?” Kendra stooped to have a better look. “Three?”
“This old!” Alison held up two fingers and crooked one more. “See?”
“Two?”
“And three-quarters,” Hannah said. “It’s best to be accurate. She has issues.”
“Oh…”
“Two and quarts,” Alison said, nodding vehemently. “That’s right.”
Kendra stood and faced her sister. “I guess you thought I wouldn’t be interested.” She said this in a low voice, careful to keep anger from it.
“Hannah, would you mind getting the picnic basket out of the van?” Jamie said. “The little one? Can you carry it by yourself?”
Hannah rolled her eyes and started down the steps. Alison held up her arms, and Jamie swung her daughter to her hip.
“We have a lot to say to each other,” Jamie said. “But not now, okay?”
“You come from nowhere with two children in tow, one I’ve never even heard about, and I’m not supposed to react?”
“You can react all you want once they’re in bed, okay?”
“You’re planning to stay, then?”
“If you’ll have us.”
Kendra considered. She was even more exhausted than she’d thought. She could feel herself about to say things she would normally never permit, but there was no energy left for silence.
“Do you know how much money I spent trying to find you after you disappeared? How many times I nearly did? But I was always a day behind. Then that one meeting, followed by your letter telling me about Hannah, telling me to stay away from you both.”
“I don’t expect you to understand, sis.”
“Sis.” Kendra shook her head in disbelief.
“We’re here now. Can’t that be good enough to get us through dinner? I shopped for groceries. I’ll cook and clean up. You can get acquainted with your nieces.”
“Just tell me why you’re here.” Kendra could hear Hannah approaching. “That will help.”
“To take care of you,” Jamie said. “If you’ll let me.”
Jimmy Dunkirk never should have married, but more obviously, he never should have married Riva Delacroix. Jimmy was the last hope and scion of an East Coast newspaper empire that, generations before, had nearly rivaled Hearst’s for papers and bravado. Instead, Jimmy, who had no interest in the written word, dismantled and sold the remains, invested the spoils in Manhattan real estate and later, on a whim, a substantial amount in a new company named Microsoft, which seemed to show promise. From that moment on, all his energy went into daredevil exploits, one of which finally killed him.
Riva Delacroix was the indulged and pampered daughter of the New Orleans Garden District Delacroixes. Raised from birth to be queen of carnival, eighteen-year-old Riva was abandoned by her parents when, after two dances at the Twelfth Night Revelers tableau ball, she eloped with Jimmy to start a new life far away from flying doubloons, boiled crawfish and the literary remains of Tennessee Williams.
Kendra always wondered when her father had realized his mistake. The day he discovered his wife indulged in impassioned conversations with the Virgin if he didn’t give her everything she wanted? The night Riva showed a dismaying lack of understanding about Jimmy’s affairs and stabbed him with a letter opener? The month she saw her marriage was in need of an anchor and threw away her birth control pills to provide one?
Kendra was the product of that lapse, a lapse that kept Jimmy semi-tethered to Riva’s side. Jamie was the product of the
next
lapse, nine years later, timed once again to keep a straying Jimmy at heel. By then Jimmy had abandoned any thoughts of becoming a family man. He didn’t like children, their demands, their insistence on being loved. More important, he didn’t like his wife, whose behavior dipped from mildly neurotic to wildly insane, depending on which drugs the doctors prescribed or Riva bought on shadowed street corners.
Jimmy left before Jamie was born. Riva left soon afterward. On occasion both parents stopped by the Upper East Side brownstone, but Kendra and Jamie were left with increasingly incompetent staff hired by the same mother who might weep for an hour after she tried and failed to choose the right dress for a cocktail party.
Starved for family and affection, Kendra attached herself to the helpless baby with the trusting blue eyes. From the moment she saw her little sister, Kendra knew she was the only force that stood between Jamie and disaster.
Now Kendra lay in her bed, head pillowed on her arms, and wondered how even as a child she could have believed Jamie had a chance. With Jimmy in residence during Kendra’s childhood, some decent choices had been made about who would care for her and what schools she would attend. But Jamie’s care had been almost entirely at Riva’s whim, and although Kendra had done what she could, she’d been a child with a child’s lack of influence.
Jamie had grown up in a world where she was smothered by maternal affection, then peremptorily abandoned. She was Riva’s “poor little baby,” the sweet little “beignet” who had been so cruelly deserted by her heartless father. Jamie was tugged between Riva’s bipolar personalities, until she frequently dissolved into a helpless puddle of misery.
In between Riva’s appearances, Kendra did what she could. And when Jamie was eleven, Kendra gathered up her little sister and brought her to Chicago, where she was attending Northwestern University. Kendra set up housekeeping with a Filipino nanny who embraced Jamie as her own.
Their father died in a skydiving accident that year, and what little influence he had exerted over their mother disappeared. Riva dropped into their lives on her way to everywhere, trailing clouds of ecstasy or misery, telling glamorous stories that made the impressionable and love-hungry Jamie yearn for the life from which her sister had snatched her. Kendra, trying to provide stability, remained in Chicago after graduation, taking any newspaper job she could find in order to work her way into serious journalism.
Then, one day, when the increasingly rebellious Jamie was seventeen, she simply disappeared.
Since then, Kendra had seen her sister only once. Seven years ago she had tracked Jamie to a Brooklyn flophouse. At first Jamie hadn’t even recognized her. Kendra had begged her to come home. She had promised to help her straighten out her life, but when she returned the next morning to plead with her again, Jamie had moved on.
A letter arrived months later. Jamie had given birth to a little girl named Hannah. She did not want Kendra’s help, and she would not tolerate her interference. If Kendra tried to find her, Jamie and her daughter would disappear for good.
After that there had been sporadic phone calls and ground rules. Hannah, as a subject, was off-limits. And for once in her life, Riva kept any details she knew to herself. Jamie refused to visit and said that when she was ready for a relationship, she would find her sister.
Now she had.
From the beginning, Kendra had felt an affinity for Leah Spurlock, whose missing daughter had never returned. Kendra had given up hope of seeing Jamie again, but now here she was, in the house where Leah had waited and prayed. The irony was not lost on Kendra.
Surprisingly, she had managed a nap after Jamie’s announcement that she had come to Virginia to take care of her. Perhaps the notion that the sister who had swallowed so many of Kendra’s waking hours wanted to give something back had pushed her over the edge of exhaustion. She no more believed Jamie’s words than she believed that Isaac would have a change of heart and learn to love this property. Perhaps she’d slept because she knew she would need every bit of energy in the days ahead.
Footsteps ran past her door. Childish footsteps. Nieces. Two of them, which was new information. The girls had different last names, so apparently they also had different fathers. Kendra struggled for objectivity. The girls looked well nourished and relatively clean. Although Hannah reminded Kendra of herself at that age, too mature and too helpful, she seemed happy enough. She was obviously a bright child, and Alison, who was eternally curious, seemed happy and bright enough, as well.
But what kind of life had these little girls led?
The footsteps stopped outside Kendra’s door. She pushed herself upright and called a greeting. Hannah opened the door a crack and peeked inside. “We are to bring you tea when you wake up. Are you awake?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Hannah looked as if she wasn’t sure what to say.
“Of course it would be very nice if you did,” Kendra added quickly.
“There will be Oreos, too.” The door closed.
Kendra didn’t want to smile, but she was afraid if she didn’t, she was going to cry.
“Damn you, Jamie.” She punched her pillow, then punched it again for good measure.
She was sitting propped up with pillows when the door opened the next time. The whole crew entered, led by Hannah who carried a tall glass of iced tea. Alison was next, with a plate showcasing three Oreos formed shamrock-style in the middle and a sandwich cut into quarters around the edges. Jamie held the door.