No Place to Hide (6 page)

Maddy lit up. “That’s brilliant. I’m really glad, because that happens, doesn’t it, houses like speak to you, and it could be it’s been waiting for you to come along, so now you’re all going to live happily ever after.” And clinking her glass to Justine’s as though to seal the deal, she melted off into the crowd.

Present Day—Culver, Indiana

It was Rob’s last night. Justine was sitting with him on the moonlit porch drinking whisky as they talked, with blankets covering their knees to keep out the cool, damp air. Though they’d always been close, the bond between them had grown stronger, more precious than ever this past year, since Justine’s world had imploded. She really had no idea how she’d have coped without him, or what on earth her life was going to be like once he’d gone home and left them here.

“So what will you do about Lula and Matt?” he asked softly.

Though she’d known the question was coming, had braced herself for it, she still had no idea how to answer, so she simply shook her head.

Lula had left a message on the answerphone the night Hazel had accused her of not having a daddy, but Matt wouldn’t have got it, which was why he hadn’t rung back. Luckily Lula hadn’t taken long to calm down and seemed to bear him no ill will, apart from saying, “Naughty Daddy, he should listen to his messages.”

“It’ll happen again,” Rob warned.

“Maybe, maybe not.” She wished he’d let it go, and seeming to sense it, he did. However, he didn’t take them on to much easier territory.

“You need to get a job,” he said, “if only to fill the time.”

“I know,” she replied. “I’ll find something.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll have a better idea once I start looking. Don’t nag, Rob, please. I’m still getting used to things, and you leaving isn’t making it any easier.”

His dear, kind face showed how torn and worried he was, so she reached for his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze

“I need to be able to tell Mum—and Matt—that you’re getting it together,” he said.

She raised a sardonic eyebrow. “If Mum wanted to know how I am, she could always pick up the phone or send an email. She’s done neither since I got here, so why would you feel the need to assure her I’m OK?”

“You told her not to be in touch,” he reminded her, “but I hear you, and I agree, she should have made more of an effort.”

“Has she contacted you?”

“A few times. She always asks about you and Lula.”

“And you tell her we’re doing fine?”

“Something like that.”

“Is she still raising objections to me being here?”

“No, she hasn’t said anything about it.”

Justine’s eyes drifted to the moonlit lawn, where a cat was stealing through the flower beds and Lula’s tricycle lay abandoned near the gap in the hedge that formed their entryway. She didn’t want to ask the next question, but neither could she hold it back.

“Will you go to see Matt?” Her eyes were still averted; her voice was a small sliver of sound in a misty breath.

Rob was watching her closely. “I should think so,” he replied. “I’m sure he’ll want to see me.”

She nodded. “Yes, he will.” What she wouldn’t give to be able to see him herself, but that was a thought she must quickly discard. No more contact between them. It was the only way. “You should take some pictures of Lula to show him,” she said, wondering, as she spoke, if that would be the right thing to do.

“Don’t worry, I have lots,” he told her.

Her eyes went to his.

“He’ll want to see them,” he said softly.

She knew that was true, and since there was no more to be said, or nothing that would make a difference now, she downed the rest of her nightcap and led the way back inside.

The next morning turned out to be even harder than she’d feared. Lula couldn’t bear to be parted from her uncle. She loved him almost as much as she loved her daddy. It dug painfully into Justine’s heart to admit that Lula probably knew her uncle better than Matt by now. After spending the best part of last year with Rob and Maggie in Brentford, followed by these past two months in Culver, she’d grown very close to him, as he had to her.

She clung to his legs so tightly and hysterically as he made to get into the car that he swept her up in his arms and whispered a secret in her ear.

Lula liked secrets, even though she wasn’t all that good at keeping them.

She managed to hold on to this one for a week before finally confiding to Justine that Uncle Rob had promised to come back at Christmas with Auntie Maggie and her cousin Francine, whose birthday was on Christmas Eve. Francine was going to be twenty.

A year older than Abby
…

Don’t go there. Don’t even think it.

She hoped to God Rob meant to keep to his word, because Lula was already marking off the days on a calendar. He’d said in a recent email that he would, so she mustn’t doubt him.

Lula was unhappy this morning because she’d insisted on calling Uncle Rob and Daddy before leaving the house and had got bumped to voicemail both times.

“What do you want to talk to them about?” Justine asked as they were about to get into the car to drive to day care,

“I want to tell them that we had another mummy deer in the garden with two babies,” Lula answered miserably. “And there were rabbits, and we heard an owl last night.”

Relief released a few tight bands in Justine’s heart. At least she hadn’t wanted to beg them to come and get her, or to make Mummy take her home.

Where was home for Lula now?

Surely it had to be here.

“Of course you do,” she smiled, helping her climb into the car, “and they’ll want to hear all about it when they ring back.”

Since Lula had nothing to say to that, Justine got into the driver’s seat and started toward the lake. A fine mist was swirling gently over its sunlit surface, masking the distant opposite banks where the Academies would already be in full swing, and shrouding the small jetty where she, Rob, and Lula had often picnicked on summer evenings while watching the sun go down.

Aware of a car closing in behind her, she waved to Tamsin, one of her neighbors, and turned left toward town. Tamsin hooted and waved back as she headed off right—she was making drapes for the owners of a newly built house farther along South Shore Drive close to the Venetian Village.

There were so many treasures around these shores, architectural, historical, natural, even mystical…

“Mummy?”

“Yes?”

“Can we sing a song?”

As the words echoed from the past, causing a harsh burn in her heart, Justine smiled and said, “Of course. Which one would you like?”

Lula pouted her lips and wrinkled her nose as she thought—an expression that was all her own. “I know,” she declared, and she promptly began in a sweet, tuneful little voice that drew up so many memories that Justine found it hard to breathe.

Abby had loved to sing.

“
Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world, Red and yellow
…Mummy, you’re not singing.”

Obediently Justine joined in and kept going even when Lula missed the words, not focusing on their familiarity or meaning, but making herself register everything they were passing instead: the town cemetery with its gray headstones and clusters of flowers honoring the dead; cornfields with towering stalks almost ready for harvest; the Garden Court and Culver Bible Church; Wabash, Tampa, and Davis Streets, where some of Lula’s friends lived; until eventually they reached the Evil Czech Brewery, where they turned onto South Main and Lula suddenly shouted the last line, “
Jesus came to save the children of the world.
”

“Well done,” Justine praised, hardly knowing how she was getting the words past the dryness in her throat.

Jesus came to save the children of the world.

Bitterness would never help her to heal; she had to quash it, deny it, damn it, and be rid of it.

What would Matt say if he knew Lula was going to Christian day care?

Considering where they were, he must have guessed it would happen.

They’d never been religious, had never gone to services apart from attending various weddings or christenings, bat/bar mitzvahs, or other such milestones in a friend’s or child’s journey through life.

Maybe not having a God was where they’d gone wrong.

“Mummy! Mummy! Look!” Lula suddenly cried, jumping up in her seat as they slowed to cross Madison Street, where the sunflowers soaring grandly outside the B & B were starting to fade. “What’s that in Café Max?”

Pulling up outside Civvies, the clothing store, so they could get a good look across the street to the café, Justine started to smile. Two banjo-playing skeletons with flashing eyes, mechanical jaws, and swiveling heads were, presumably, chanting hillbilly songs in the front window. Halloween might be six weeks away, but most of the businesses in town were decorating already.

“They’re silly,” Lula laughed delightedly. “I wonder if they have names.”

“You can ask Hazel when you get to nursery,” Justine told her. “We should go now or we’ll be late.”

“We mustn’t be late,” Lula murmured as Justine waved to Naomi, the owner of Diva, another clothing store, this one a couple of doors along from the café, and one of Justine’s favorite places to buy unusual jewelry, housewares, and gifts.

All told, there couldn’t have been more than a dozen shops in the heart of downtown; most were on Main Street between Madison and Jefferson, with the Corndance Café, Café Max, Fisher & Company, and Diva among those on the west side, and a closed-down hardware store, Civvies, Gail’s, which was a kind of New Age emporium, and the Culver Museum and Gift Shop among those on the east side. Farther along, running north of Jefferson, were the bank, library, and gas station, while tucked in behind the main drag were the CVS drugstore, Hammer’s auto repair shop, a post office, a florist, the police station, the VFW hall, and a dry cleaner.

Running in each direction for several blocks from this heart of Culver were row upon row of uniformly laid-out residential streets, with an almost Stepford-like quality to their perfection. Every house was detached, and while some had white picket fences marking their borders, others had glassed-in porches, making them useable year round, and a few could boast grand-looking gazebos or integral garages. What every single one of them had, no matter the condition or size of the house, was an exquisitely kept lawn that flowed seamlessly into their neighbor’s lawn, creating the illusion of a vast and lovingly shared garden that went on for block after block, with very little sign of neglect to break the lull of precision.

Suddenly finding herself outside St. Mary of the Lake Catholic church, Justine realized she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere—not an easy thing to do in such a small town and on a journey she’d made several times by now. It didn’t matter; with everything following a grid system, she’d soon end up where she needed to be. Driving on along Lewis, where grinning pumpkins and corn husks were already in evidence on some porches and pathways, she finally reached the Methodist church, where small children were skipping or dawdling into the day care ministry.

After signing Lula in and storing her jacket and lunchbox in her cubbie, Justine went down to her daughter’s height for a kiss. “Are you going to be all right?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Lula whispered back. “Are you?”

Smiling, Justine nodded. “I love you.”

“I love
you
,” Lula cried. “Can I go and see if Hazel and Rochelle are here?”

“Of course. Off you go.”

Apparently suddenly thinking of something, Lula stopped and turned back.

“What is it?” Justine prompted.

Keeping her voice low, Lula said, “Rochelle’s brother is called Ben.”

As the name seared the wounds inside her, Justine said hoarsely, “Is that so?”

Lula nodded. “Like our Ben, but he’s just a baby.”

Justine swallowed. She could find no words, but as Lula went to break away she quickly held on to her. “Did you tell Rochelle you have a brother called Ben?”

Lula’s eyes grew wide as she shook her head. “No, I never said anything,” she promised, a hand on her heart.

Hugging her close so she wouldn’t see the tears, Justine said, “That’s my girl. You run along now. I’ll be back for you at three.”

Half an hour later, after detouring to the liquor store at the top end of town, Justine let herself into Café Max, feeling profoundly thankful that she had somewhere to go and someone to meet, even though Sallie Jo had texted a few minutes ago to say she was running late.
New listing on Academy Road, owner hard of hearing so taking longer than expected.

The café, with its deliciously welcoming smells of breakfasts cooking and friendly hum of chatter, was divided into two halves, side by side, with the entry half consisting of the reception desk, Sallie Jo’s real estate racks, a large stone fireplace, and, for the next few weeks at least, the Halloween banjo players, while the other half was home to cozy banquettes and tables, a magnificent quartersawn oak bar that Sallie Jo had had shipped all the way from Florida, and, hidden from view, the kitchens.