Secrets At Maple Syrup Farm (26 page)

“Oh, my God, Clay. How could they?” Shock made my eyes widen. “Why would they be so cruel? It wasn’t as if they didn’t have their own stake in the business.”

He shrugged. “All that for the sake of my share… The worst thing was having to dodge the phone calls from the guys who’d spent the better part of three months working on that one job for us. I had no way of paying them. In the end, I sold my apartment, and used the money from that. I sold it for a lot less than it was worth, so they didn’t have to wait any longer than they already had. I was almost thirty, and worked fourteen years as a carpenter, and I lost everything. My business, my house, my reputation, and of course my girlfriend, but it’s not like I mourn that part.”

“And then you inherited the farm?”

“Yep. A few months later I got the call from my uncle’s attorney. I’d grappled with leaving, but my name was mud, so I figured I’d come hide out in sleepy old Ashford and forget about the world, and the people who inhabit it. Until this bossy blonde strode up the driveway, and I
knew
things would change.”

“Bossy?”

He laughed. “And nosy.”

“Oh yeah? You don’t want to know what I thought of you when I first walked in.”

He guffawed. “
Nice drill you have there
? If I remember correctly, a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one.”

I blushed, and covered my mouth to stop the laughter. “I can safely say, it’s one of the best drills I’ve ever had.”

“Is that so?” He rolled over, pinning a leg each side of me, and leaned on his forearms, gazing into my eyes.

“Maybe I need another lesson on how to use it?”

He let out a moan, and bent to kiss me.

***

I think I’d just about exhausted Clay by the time I left the Maple Syrup Farm. He wanted to drive me back to town, but I’d grown to love the walk, especially now the sun followed me a few steps behind. My body twinged at the memory of his touch, and sometimes I wondered how I’d ever be able to function normally again. I was still reeling about Clay’s confession and angry on his behalf. It explained so much about him, and his need to be alone. The way he couldn’t easily trust people anymore.

The Gingerbread Café was still open, so I poked my head inside.

“Sugar plum,” CeeCee said waving me in. “Well lookie here. Care to tell me why you all flushed like that?”

“Sunburn,” I deadpanned.

“Don’t look like sunburn to me.” She waggled a finger at me.

I laughed and followed her to the silver prep bench, hefting myself up on a stool. “Where’s Lil?”

“She’s taken off early, with that fine thing o’ hers from across the way.”

I smiled at the way CeeCee spoke.
That fine thing
was Lil’s husband, Damon, but she never used his Christian name.

“You in a bit of a conundrum?” She stared me down, making me blush.

I folded my arms and leaned on the bench. “How do you always know?”

She smiled, her brown face crinkling like paper. “Well, you see, you’re all flushed up with love, but right there—” she poked me between the eyes “—you got the tiniest little wrinkle. So spill…”

I sighed. “Why is life so messy sometimes? I’m meant to be ‘finding’ myself but somehow I’ve managed to find someone else, and I have to leave. I made a promise to my mom. And I want to go, I really do, but I also want to stay. How can I please both parts of me?”

“You ruled by your head and your heart, cherry blossom. Findin’ yourself is as easy as listenin’ to ‘em both and deciding what’s best. You ain’t the stranger who walked in all that time ago lookin’ like a deer trapped in headlights. I see a beautiful girl, flushed up with love, and confidence. Art school won’t go forever now will it?”

I mulled it over. Mom wanted me to be happy—it was as simple as that. But I knew she wanted me to further my art, and after being here, and finding Jessup’s journals, being inspired by him, so did I. Mom had complete faith I could make a career out of it. I think her real motivation was she’d know I had something else I loved in my life other than her when things changed.

“There’s always a solution to every problem, if you look hard enough,” CeeCee said. “And if it’s meant to be, he’ll wait.”

Would he though? I’d changed so much in the last few months, but so had Clay. Was our relationship, or whatever it was a stepping stone for things to come? Or just a bridge to cross? Only time would tell. “Long distance—it will have to be if he does wait, Cee.”

“You never know what might happen… You just go on and things will work out, mark my words. You need a gingerbread milkshake,” CeeCee said. “Always makes things clearer.”

“Thanks, Cee.” I leaned my elbows on the bench, and cupped my face, watching her work. She ambled around the kitchen, grabbing milk and spices, and whipping some cream in a handheld blender. When she placed the drink in front of me, my mouth watered. Spicy, nutty, and dolloped with so much cream, it’d fill me up if I managed to drink it all.

“Lil’s been baking up a storm, practicing a bunch o’ new recipes. What else you lovebirds got to do for the festival?”

I blushed at the term, and then guilt crept up and tapped me on the shoulder. Clay and I had spent the better part of the last few days lying entwined, on the soft green grass by the lake when we should have been working.

“Oh,” I said. “Fix a few garden beds. Pick up the bain-marie. Confirm with the band. Buy napkins, and the decorations…”

“Never you mind,” CeeCee said. “‘Tween all of us, we’ll get it done. You know Walt said he’d come, and I’m just about giddy with happiness for him. Lil and Damon went to visit, and you know what…he was working on some furniture. Things might just be looking up for our Walt.”

“Oh that’s great news, Cee.”

She put her hands on her plump hips. “I was thinkin’ we could introduce him to Clay, maybe they can bond over furniture or some such, and it might bring him outta the house more.”

“Might get them both out more,” I said.

“Two miracles in one day?” She laughed. “It’s happened before.”

***

Back at the B and B, I dialed Mom’s cell. It rang out, so I washed up, brushed my teeth, and called her again. This time she answered, but a coughing jag got the better of her.

“Sorry, honey. Dang cough. How’s things? It’s late.”

“Were you asleep?”

“I can’t sleep in this awful place…sometimes—” She broke off, suddenly.

My skin broke out in goose bumps. I
knew
she was keeping something from me. “
What place
? Where are you, Mom?”

Silence hung between us. I listened hard—voices, TVs in the background. My heart beat so hard, I could feel it in my ears. “Mom…” I tried to keep my voice level, hoping my first instinct was wrong. “Do not tell me you’ve moved into
that
place, please.” I spoke through clenched teeth, as realization hit me hard.

“Honey…”

I stifled a sob. “Aunt Margot was never there, was she?” That explained all the dodged phone calls, Mom allegedly asleep when Aunt Margot was hundreds of miles away in her own house.

She sighed, rasping. “It’s for the best.”

“The best?” I spat the words. My brain was about to explode. I couldn’t believe she’d do this. The one thing we’d always vowed would never happen. Her moving into the state facility. Aunt Margot must have paid a paltry amount to make it happen, and wiped her hands, probably thinking she was a savior. My chest seized. “Why, Mom? WHY?” The sobs escaped as I thought of her in that place, where there were too many beds crammed into the rooms. Where it was understaffed, and busy, too noisy for her, and she was too easygoing to ask for what she needed.

“It’s not so bad. Now I want you to listen to me. Lucy, this would have happened anyway. You’d work yourself into an early grave the way you were going, and I won’t have it.”

“No!” I let the tears fall. Part of me wanted to scream at her for doing this, and the other part wanted to curl up and sob. Our family of two that had been split up the middle. “No way, Mom. I’m coming straight back. I’m leaving…”

“Oh no you’re not, Lucy! I won’t have you wasting your life anymore! I forbid you to come back! You hear me?” Her voice rose. She’d never yelled at me before. “You made me a promise and you’re going to keep it!”

“So you lied? This whole trip was built on a lie? The promise was for nothing! Just like yours was!” I couldn’t comprehend why she’d do such a thing. Facilities like that meant the end was near, and it goddamn wasn’t.

“What?” she asked quietly.

I took a deep shuddery breath. “I know you broke a promise to Aunt Margot, and that’s what started the fight.”

Silence met me.

“Mom?”

“How’d you know about that? Did she tell you?”

“No, of course not. I’ve overheard you arguing about it. So what was it, Mom? You can break your promises, but I can’t break mine, even when it means you’re
there
, in that hovel of a place?”

She sighed, a long crackly sound, and guilt rushed me, thinking how this would affect her later. “Aunt Margot wanted me to stop traveling when I had you. She made me promise after your father left, that if I wanted to travel I was to leave you with her, so you could get a proper education, have some roots. Of course, I promised her. Because I didn’t think we’d leave.” A cough caught her unawares, so I waited for her to stop, all the while trying to envisage myself being raised my Aunt Margot.

She continued, her words slurring slightly. “I thought we’d have the dog, the cat, the car, the job, live in the burbs…but I just couldn’t do it. So I packed us up and left, and Margot got as upset as I’ve ever seen her. She said some pretty horrible things to me, and I lashed out too. Every day, I regret what I said to her. Nasty things, that I tried to take back, but couldn’t.”

“What did you say?” I couldn’t imagine my mom saying anything hurtful; I’d never heard her raise her voice until today.

“I told her…” she paused, catching her breath “…that she wasn’t going to steal my child just because she couldn’t have her own. It was cruel, and mean, and I still don’t know why I said it. But she was so intent on you being raised the ‘normal’ way, that I couldn’t stand it. What’s wrong with doing things differently? She backed me into a corner, and told me how unlucky you were to have a mother like me, someone so selfish—that only my wants and needs were met.”

I ran a hand through my hair, my mind spinning. I knew Aunt Margot had frowned upon our travels but I didn’t think it was that serious. My feelings toward her softened a little, because she thought she’d had my best interests at heart.

“I don’t know what to say, Mom.” I’d never thought Mom was selfish for wanting an alternative lifestyle. I’d always admired her for it. I could see, though, how Aunt Margot railed against it. Living simply, sometimes with only a penny or two—it was probably frightening for her to imagine.

“Why didn’t she adopt, or try another way, if she wanted children?”

Mom tutted. “Victor wouldn’t. Downright refused. So Margot then took a shine to redecorating her house every six months or so… I think she wanted to be a mom so bad, it almost killed her. It killed our relationship.”

“So let me get this straight…you called her and asked for help?” Now the secrets were out I had to know how they’d managed it, and what I could do to fix it.

“I’ve been writing her for years, keeping her informed of our progress, and one day, she wrote me back, after all that time. She wanted to help you, Lucy. She always has. So I told her all about the Van Gogh Institute and we came up with this plan. Though, of course, she tried to make all these demands, like you go off to college here and that kind of thing. I said I would only agree if the deal was you get one year for yourself, with no strings attached.”

“And what did she have to do with it? Did she pay for the facility?” It hurt to even say the word.

“Yeah, she did. And I asked her to come visit me, but she’s still mulling that one over. I guess a fight that’s carried on this long can’t be resolved that quick. You know how much I hate asking for help, but we both thought your future was important, and time to be young, while you still are…so here I am.”

I clutched the phone, as tears spilled, for her, for me, for Aunt Margot. We’d all had things to overcome in order to survive. What a team we’d make if we’d been more open with each other. “It’s not fair, Mom. We agreed you’d never, ever go there. They can’t look after you there, not like I can.”

“It wasn’t fair on you.” Her voice softened. “I’ll be OK…I really will. When you’re a mom, Lucy, you’ll understand better. I love you more than I can put into words, and if that means I lose a bit of sleep here, then it’s worth it for you to have the life you should.”

“But how can I, now I know you’re there?” The thought of me traipsing around, laughing and smiling each day, while Mom was cooped up in a gray room, the sound of so many TVs blaring, depressed me.

“Because it’s only one year! I have friends here, now. I’m quite popular you know.” She laughed, and it sounded real.

“Like who?”

“Like Curt, and Stevie, and Craig. There’s Meryl, and Dianne… I mean it, they’re great people, honey. They understand what it’s like to be me; it’s kind of like one big support group.”

“So Aunt Margot never came and stayed at all?” My voice dropped. I was hurt they hid it from me, and while I understood their motivations, it didn’t make it any easier.

“No, honey, but she paid for someone to move our stuff into storage, and clean the place up.”

The paintings we’d found at the farm flashed through my mind. I was suddenly glad I didn’t send them to a vacant apartment.

The fight left my body, and I slumped, unsure of what to say, or do. “Are your friends nice?”

“They are, and they are sick of hearing about my pretty daughter the painter, I’m sure. Did you hear back yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You will,” she said, her voice certain. “Soon.”

“You sure you’re comfortable there, Mom?”

“I am, honey. As good as gold, knowing my baby is out there living life. That’s the best feeling in the world, and I get to have that every day for a whole year. Nothing’s better.”