The Secret of Everything (44 page)

When they reached the top, there was a statue of the Blessed Mother, a long-haired, dark-skinned version of Mary. She had curves and plump hands and Tessa loved her immediately, imagining that the sculptor had used his wife, a wife he loved, as a model.

Before they began their climb, Natalie and Tessa had agreed to give each other privacy at the top. Natalie wanted Tessa to go first, so Natalie pointed to a grove of trees, where there was a bench overlooking the river far below. Tessa nodded, and Natalie trundled over there.

Tessa watched her go. For years, she’d been herding young women up mountains, mothering them, encouraging them, especially loving the ones who were not particularly fit or had never discovered they had power in their bodies. She mothered them because she had no children of her own.

She turned back to the statue and looked up. It would be hypocritical for her to pray, since she didn’t particularly believe in sainthood or Catholic ritual.

But she did believe in something. Something that had brought her back to her sister, something that lent healing. Something that had made dogs.

And she believed in forgiveness, for herself and for others, so she bent her head and spoke to Lisa. “I’m sorry that my hubris let you down,” she said. “Let you die. I hope wherever you are that it’s beautiful. I hope you’re looking after your mother, helping her come to terms with the loss of you. I hope you know I loved you and respected you.”

At the base of the statue was a covered altar, with offerings of all sorts. Tessa took out a hat that had belonged to Lisa and placed it at Mary’s feet. “Look after her,” she said.

Then she stepped away and gestured toward Natalie, who stood up and came over with a very sober face.

Natalie’s feet were hurting. A lot. She didn’t go barefoot all that much, and now she could feel bruises and cuts and things all over them. She limped a little as she approached the statue of the Blessed Mother.

“Hi,” she said aloud, and knelt on the ground, realizing that her knees were going to get awfully sore, even through her jeans, but that was okay. She pulled out her mother’s rosary, made of dark-blue beads, and held it in her hand. “I’m sorry for stealing, and I will not do it anymore.” It had finally come to her that it was her choice to steal. That she had to decide not to do it.

She bowed her head and began to say the rosary, not all of it, but a decade and a couple of Our Fathers and Glory Be’s. The wind whipped across her body as she chanted, and it felt like it was blowing away everything in the past, scrubbing her clean. Something heavy and thick in her chest seemed to get lighter and lighter and lighter, until it felt like her heart was just normal again, like it used to be before her mother died.

Her father had taken her to the salt store, where she offered to do whatever work the lady needed for two hours every week until the lady was happy again. The police and everybody said it was okay to do it that way, and the woman had a look like the Wicked Witch of the West, all pinched, but she agreed. Natalie had gone in yesterday, and the woman just had her break down boxes and make them flat for recycling. It was super easy.

And the lady—Ms. Tonkin—started talking to her, telling her all about the history of the pink salt Natalie had stolen like a crazy person. When her dad came back to get her, Natalie
asked if she could buy some of the pink salt to bring with her today, and he said she could take it out of her allowance.

So now she had an offering. She took the salt out of the bag and put it in her hand. She thought of her mother’s eyes, which were always sad, always. It wasn’t Natalie’s fault, like she sometimes thought. It was some broken thing inside her mother, her daddy said, and sometimes that just couldn’t be fixed.

When she was ready, Natalie opened her eyes and opened her hands and let the wind sweep the salt away.

   V
ince was working on the fence for the dogs when he saw Tessa driving up with Natalie. The dogs sprang off the porch in glee to investigate, and Vince put his hammer down to go help Nat if she needed it.

She limped toward him, but she was smiling broadly, the pilgrim badge on her blouse, her shoes in her hands. “We did it!” she cried, and hobbled over to him. “Look at my feet!” She sat down and held up her feet so he could see the filthy, bruised, bloody bottoms.

“Jeez, Nat, that looks like it hurts! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Dad,” she said, and there was something so clear and solid about her that he nodded.

“Good. Why don’t you go take a bath, soak those feet?”

“‘Kay!” She stood up. “Bye, Tessa. Thanks again!”

Tessa waved. She had something in her hands and carried it over. She, too, was hobbling a little, though not as dramatically as Natalie. “Hi,” she said.

Her voice ran like a silver river down his neck, circled his chest. “Hi,” he said gruffly, and picked up his hammer. “I brought something,” she said. “Oh?”

She grinned. “You didn’t happen to notice that I was carrying a stack of frames in my hands?”

He shrugged. If he didn’t let her have a crack, he wouldn’t crack, and it would all be okay.

“I thought you might like something to hang on your walls,” she said, and held out her gift.

They were photos, five of them—all her own work, he guessed. There was Natalie’s hand with the avocado, and one of Vince with Hannah, and the coy photo of Jade with chocolate on her mouth, and one the day she’d been here to talk to Natalie, when the light had been so extraordinary. It was Vince, surrounded by the dancing arrows, looking forbidding and godlike.

“Zeus,” she said.

There was something in her voice that made him look up. “I’m not leaving Los Ladrones,” she said. “I’m probably stuck in that crappy rental for a while, because it’s too expensive to buy, but I’m staying. My boss nixed the tour, because he thought it was too mellow for our demographic, but I’m going to work with Vita and Green Gate to develop my own tours of the area. Cooking, mellow walking. Less adventure, more joy.”

He looked back at the photo. He’d never seen himself like this. “You made me look like a giant,” he said.

“You don’t have to say anything back, Vince, but I really need to tell you that I’m in love with you. And your girls. And your dogs and your town. I know it’s fast and I know it doesn’t make any sense, but sometimes you have to go with your instincts. I can take as much time as you need to prove it to you.”

He wanted to believe her. If he had been on his own, he wouldn’t have hesitated for a minute to take a chance, but the girls deserved better than a maybe.

As if she sensed his hesitation, she tucked her hands in her pockets. “Look at the last picture.”

He put the Zeus picture aside, and there were the two of them, looking up at the camera from her bed that rainy afternoon he’d come back to kiss her. They looked calmly, steadily at the camera, heads just touching, her blond hair splayed on the pillowcase and over his bare shoulder. Eyes full of love. Both of them. He remembered that he’d turned and kissed her shoulder.

“I love this.” He turned and carefully put the photos down. His hands were shaking as he turned back. “My mother brought me a photo, too,” he said. He pulled the snapshot out of his wallet and handed it over. “That’s me, at nine.”

She looked at the photo. Vince came close and looked over her shoulder. It showed a boy in jeans and a T-shirt with a little girl on a tricycle decorated with tissue-paper roses. The girl had a sash over her bathing suit, and her long blond hair swept her rear end. “I remember this.”

“Nobody ever told me that they thought you drowned. You were just gone, like everybody else. And I missed you. You were funny and smart and silly, and you loved to read whatever I brought you from my mom’s store.”

“See?” she said, smiling. “I knew it.” She raised her eyes. “I think you should trust me. I’m not going to clean your house or suddenly make great meals, because I’m not good at that, at least not now. I’ll want to be on the trails, and I want to teach the girls how to be strong and listen to their inner voices. I want to sleep with you and eat breakfast with you every day.”

What Vince thought, suddenly, was that she always told the truth. He knew in his bones that she would never leave, that if she gave her word she would keep it.

“Promise?” he asked.

She raised a hand, like a Girl Scout, three fingers up. “Promise.”

The rigid blocks he’d been keeping up collapsed all at once, and Vince scooped her into his arms. “God, Tessa, all I’ve wanted to do for a week is charge over there and order you to stay here, live here, be here.” He buried his face in her neck. “I am so in love with you that it scared me half to death. I used Nat as an excuse, but it’s been me who was afraid.”

Her arms locked hard around him. “I have so many things to tell you.”

“Do you love me?” he asked, raising his head so he could see her eyes.

“Yes,” she said clearly. “I just said I did.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

He kissed her. “I love you.”

Holding her, it felt like everything that had been out of alignment for so many years suddenly moved into place.

Behind him was a giggle. “Daddy and Tessa, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Jade chanted.

“Scamp,” he said, but he kissed Tessa again anyway, hearing the laughter of his daughters fill him like a song.

Tessa, curled against him, began to hum under her breath.

“What’s that song?”

She stopped to listen, and laughed—Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young—then sang aloud,
“Our house is a very, very, very fine house …”

Déjà Vu
, he said, and Tessa laughed.

“Déjà Vu,”
she agreed.