For her sophisticated mother, this room, this house, would be like a pair of shoes that no longer fit. Except for the Curlycue Café, which was the antithesis of fancy, there wasn’t even a single decent restaurant in Burns Lake. Even for a caffe latte, you were looking at a twenty-minute drive to the Starbucks in Schenectady. How long before she went running back to the city?
‘Well, it was nice of you to come,’ Noelle replied awkwardly.
‘I’m not doing it to be nice.’ Mary’s tone was pleasant, but her gaze remained carefully averted. She moved from suitcase to dresser to closet in a seamless rhythm eerily reminiscent of Nana’s.
‘There isn’t much any of us can do until we hear back from Lacey.’
‘You’ll need help with this house. And with Nana. You’re not going to be able to get around very well on that foot.’ Mary spoke briskly.
‘The swelling should go down in a few days.’
Mary turned slowly to face her. In that instant she might truly have been Noelle’s older, more glamorous sister. Then Noelle took note of the tiny lines about her eyes and mouth, like creases in fine linen stationery, and the strands of silver glinting amid her chestnut hair. She looked sad.
‘Oh, honey, I know I haven’t always been’—Mary faltered—‘all that available. But I want to be here for you now. Will you give me the chance?’
What Noelle wanted at that moment was to be a child again, curled up in her mother’s lap. She longed to feel Mary’s hand against her brow and to hear the lilt of her voice reading aloud a bedtime story. Her mother
had
loved her
…
in small, sweet bursts like flowers that bloomed, then were gone. Maybe it was good that she’d come. Maybe she
could
help. Tears filled Noelle’s eyes, and she quickly dropped her head so Mary wouldn’t see.
‘I’d like that,’ she said in a small voice. She was glad when Mary didn’t try to hug her. It was enough for now to be sitting in this room with an open suitcase between them.
Down the hall the phone began to ring. Noelle grabbed her cane and lurched to her feet to answer it.
It was Lacey, thank God. ‘We’ve got a date.’ She sounded out of breath, her voice nearly lost in a sea of static—
damn cell phones, it should be a rule that all important calls be made from a
real
one,
Noelle thought. ‘Thursday morning, first thing. We’ll meet in my office Wednesday afternoon to go over everything.’
‘Lacey, I—’ Noelle started to tell her about today’s dreadful episode, but all she could manage was ‘Thanks.’
Her mind and heart were racing. Two days, she thought. Two more days without Emma. Would she survive until then?
CHAPTER 5
M
ARY STARED IN DISMAY
at the open cardboard carton on the floor. What on earth could have possessed her to come here? In her Madison Avenue suite, as she’d been laying it out for her staff, the decision had seemed just short of reasonable. But here in her old room on Larkspur Lane, seated on her childhood bed, with its maple headboard that still bore the moniker Mrs Charles Jeffers—carved on the underside with a penknife when she was just fourteen—it struck her as just shy of insane.
Hers wasn’t the kind of job from which you could simply take a leave of absence! She had accounts to oversee. Clients who depended on her. Lucianne Penrose, for instance. Lucianne, with her twenty-five diet centers and another one opening next month. The very first time Lucianne had trouble reaching her in a so-called emergency, she’d have a royal fit. On TV the formerly obese housewife, now a trim size eight, might appear to be the patron saint of the overweight, but in reality she was hell on wheels.
Lucianne wasn’t the only one. There was Madison Phillips of Phillips, Reade & White, a white shoe investment firm specializing in ‘intergenerational transfers.’ It was her job to publicize the firm without appearing to do so, mostly through carefully planted items in the
Daily News
and
Wall Street Journal.
Madison, with his silver mane and fondness for Cuban cigars, who had once, while gazing out the windows of his thirty-fourth-floor Wall Street Office, remarked to Mary in reference to the Staten Island ferry terminal, that ‘it was a damn shame something wasn’t done about that eyesore.’ The old man would not be amused, she thought, to hear that she had temporarily relocated to a town that, as far as he was concerned, wasn’t even on the map.
And she wouldn’t allow herself even to
think
about the potential (make that probable) pitfalls of orchestrating the Rene’s Room banquet from afar. Hollywood mogul Howard Lazarus had founded the charity in the name of his beloved wife, Rene, a victim of breast cancer, and its annual fundraiser was the fall season’s hottest ticket. This year more than two thousand socially prominent New Yorkers were expected to show, along with a number of Hollywood movers and shakers. And guess who was in charge of planning the affair, soup to nuts? One false move, Mary thought, and the whole apple cart could overturn, bringing
her
down with it.
The only person who seemed to understand was Simon, but what did that say about her life? ‘Take all the time you need,’ her boyfriend had purred over the phone from Seattle. ‘I’ll be here until the end of the month anyway, and who knows where after that. At least this way I won’t feel I’m neglecting you.’ He gave a wry chuckle.
‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ she’d asked.
‘No crazier than most,’ Simon was quick to reply. Which did nothing at all to reassure her.
Crazy?
She indulged now in a dry, mocking laugh.
If insanity were incorporated, I’d be its majority stockholder.
When was the last time she’d taken her mother’s advice? At the very least she should have first discussed it with Noelle, who’d made it abundantly clear she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea. Had Mary done so, she wouldn’t be sitting here feeling like the world’s biggest idiot.
What did you expect, a brass band marching down Main Street?
a voice scoffed. Thirty years weren’t going to be reversed in a day. Anyway, her heart was in the right place, even if
she
might not be. As her father always said, there’s no substitute for seats in the saddle.
She would simply have to weather the storms to come. Not all of which, she thought gloomily, would be of Robert’s making. And the first order of business was to leave the unpacking for later and find out what was going on.
Mary rose with a sigh. She was sweaty from the drive and thirsty enough to drink a whole gallon of iced tea. The prospect of a long, hot summer in Burns Lake was about as welcome as a trek through an Ecuadorian jungle. To make matters worse, her mother had an almost pathological aversion to air-conditioning. According to Doris, all that ‘canned’ air was nothing more than a breeding ground for germs. Growing up, Mary and her sister would take turns with the fan on sticky summer nights when they couldn’t sleep, positioning it on the sill to send a sluggish stream of air blowing over one bed or the other.
Mary thought about calling her sister. Or better yet, driving over after lunch to say hello. Irish was at least one person who’d be genuinely glad to see her. And the bookstore was air-conditioned. Trish might not have made it out of Burns Lake, as she’d talked about doing when they were young, but at least she’d managed to shake off many of the antiquated notions with which they’d been raised.
Mary was descending the stairs when she was brought to an abrupt halt by a deep voice drifting towards her from the kitchen, a voice she recognized at once.
Charlie.
Her heart lurched. She closed her eyes, leaning into the newel-post. But why should it surprise her? He was Noelle’s father. Naturally he would want to help. Charlie wouldn’t need to be told the right thing to do.
Making her way down the hall, Mary was as acutely aware of each deliberately placed step as she had once been, aeons ago, crossing a creek on stepping-stones to meet Charlie on the other side. In the kitchen doorway she paused for a moment, struck by the sight of her former husband seated comfortably at the table, his chair cocked at an angle and one long blue-jeaned leg propped on the rung of the chair beside it. Doris and Noelle sat opposite, leaning in as instinctively as weary travelers to a warm grate. They were talking in low voices, a family sharing a problem, weighing options. With a sudden, swooning sense of despair, Mary felt like an outsider, an
intruder
almost.
Then Charlie glanced up, and their eyes met. The moment seemed to stretch out and out. At last he cleared his throat and spoke.
‘Mary.’
There was the scrape of his chair against the worn green linoleum, and he was on his feet walking around to meet her. Taller than she remembered. Still lean and loose-limbed, too, though thicker about the chest and middle. His black hair, clipped close to his head, was dusted with gray. The years were evident, too, in the deep lines scoring his narrow, angular face. Only his eyes were exactly the same, an arresting ocher-green, the color of a shady creek hollow.
‘Hello, Charlie.’ It was the only thing she could think of to say. Maybe it was the long drive or the strain of wondering what the coming weeks would hold … or maybe it was Charlie himself, a reminder of her youth—the happiest time of her life, and the most terrible—but she suddenly found herself tongue-tied.
Charlie hesitated, as if wondering whether or not to kiss her cheek. He put out a hand instead. His clasp was firm and dry. ‘I saw your car in the driveway. Noelle tells me you’re planning on staying awhile.’
‘That all depends.’ Mary cast an anxious glance at Noelle. ‘Was that Lacey on the phone?’
Her daughter nodded, looking tense. ‘We go to court on Thursday. But even if the judge decides in my favor, it’d only be temporary. There’s still going to be a full custody hearing, Lacey says. Robert meant what he said—he’s not going to let go without a fight.’
Charlie’s large hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Don’t forget, honey, the scales of justice tilt both ways. Besides, it’s not just you he’ll be going up against.’ His hard expression made Mary wonder what he would do if Robert were to walk in right now. He looked over at Doris. ‘I believe I’ll take you up on that offer of iced tea, Mrs Quinn. No sugar, just plenty of ice.’
‘I believe I know by now how you like your tea.’ Doris’s tone was tart, but she was clearly pleased to be of use. She pushed herself to her feet. In her blue pantsuit, with her white hair smoothed back in a bun, she might have been on her way to a meeting of the Ladies’ Altar Guild. And though she moved about the kitchen more slowly than in years past, it was with a kind of creaky dignity.
How ironic, Mary thought, that Charlie, once banished, was now more at home here than she. Doris even knew how he liked his tea. But it was only natural in a way. The years Mary had been shuttling back and forth to Danville College, forty miles each way, Charlie had been right here in Burns Lake, planted in one place like a sturdy tree. He’d worked hard, yes, but there was always time for Noelle. Even now that she was grown, they remained close. The same was true of Emma. At the christening Mary had been struck by the way their baby granddaughter had lit up when he took her in his arms. A little envious, too, since she herself had been little more than a stranger to Emma.
Even Doris seemed to have formed a queer sort of affection for him. Was it Charlie’s easy charm? Or her mother’s mellowing with age? Either way, Mary didn’t doubt they both were better off for it. From her point of view, though, it would take some getting used to.
‘Does Lacey have any sense of how it will go?’ she asked.
Noelle shook her head and turned a harrowed face up at Charlie. ‘Dad, I’m so scared. Emma must think I’ve abandoned her.’
He squeezed her shoulder. ‘No, honey. She knows you too well. Anyway, you’ll still see her. Even if—he cleared his throat—‘things don’t go your way at first.’
His words hung in the still, muggy air. Noelle didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. Her frightened look said it all. Mary’s heart twisted in her chest. She knew that face. It was the face that once upon a time had looked back at her in the mirror.
‘The important thing to remember is that you’re not alone,’ she soothed, reaching out to lightly stroke her daughter’s arm. ‘Your father and I, Aunt Trish and Nana -we’ll be with you every step of the way.’
‘Not to mention your sister.’ Charlie gave a small, wry chuckle. ‘When Bronwyn heard you sprained your ankle trying to kick Robert’s door down, I had to practically tie her up to keep her from going over there and finishing the job.’
So that’s how it happened. Mary felt a surge of motherly pride, and thought,
Good for you, Noelle.
At the same time, it hurt that her daughter had confided in Charlie before her. In fact, this whole tableau seemed a cruel cosmic joke. She’d pictured it so many times—the three of them gathered about the kitchen table like any ordinary family—that the reality,
this
reality, was more painful than all their years apart.
Mary took a deep breath, fixing a bright expression in place. ‘Speaking of sisters, I was thinking of driving over to see Trish.’ She turned to Noelle, adding casually, perhaps
too
casually, ‘Feel like coming along for the ride?’
‘Thanks… but I’m a little tired.’ Noelle dropped her gaze.
She
did
look tired, Mary thought. And why not, considering the day she’d had? In fact, maybe it had been insensitive of her to ask.
‘Well, I guess that’s my cue to shove off.’ Charlie gulped down the rest of his tea and set the glass down on the table. ‘Thanks, Mrs Quinn. Sorry I can’t stay for seconds, but I want to make it back in time to fill in the headers for tomorrow’s edition.’
‘I’ll walk you to the car, Dad.’ Noelle started to get up.
Charlie gently pushed her back in her chair. ‘No, honey, you rest that foot. I’ll call you tonight after I’ve done some more of that digging we talked about.’
Digging? For dirt on Robert? An old memory prickled at the back of Mary’s mind, nothing concrete, just a vague sense of something amiss, like an itch she couldn’t quite reach. She longed to ask Charlie what he’d meant, but he was clearly in too much of a hurry. She walked him to the door instead.