by Karen White
Jude’s with us this week. We invited Caroline, too, but she couldn’t go. Mrs. Collier has her going to this charm school in Atlanta to learn how to walk and dress. I’m glad I wasn’t there when Mrs. Collier told her about it—I’m sure the walls are showing scorch marks! You’d think Mrs. Collier would understand that the more she pushes Caroline to go one way, the more Caroline will push just as hard to go the other direction. I feel sorry for them both. It’s like they’re communicating with walkie-talkies that are set on different channels. They’re both saying the same thing, but the other one always hears something else.
Yesterday Jude pulled a small piece of driftwood out of the ocean. I think it’s very old and I like to imagine it bumping along the bottom of the ocean while explorers sailed above it. It’s got deep grooves and pits and lines that go from one end to the other and then lines that go nowhere at all. But taken all together, it’s so beautiful. I told Jude I’m putting it on my bookshelf at home. It will remind me of him and life in general. Because if you think about it, every day is full of wrong turns and roads that take us nowhere. But when you stand back and look at it, you can see how beautiful it all turned out and that you’re standing where you’re supposed to be.
Jewel closed her mother’s diary and slid off her bed. Opening her door, she stuck her head out into the hallway and listened for sounds from her dad’s workroom. When the buzz saw started she knew the coast was clear, and she crept into the closed-off room that her dad never talked about.
The air always seemed different in here. It was almost like walking into an empty church before services, the silence itself holding its breath, the anticipation pushing at your back, making you move forward. Like all the people who had been there before were sitting there, invisible, waiting for someone to come in and breathe the life back into them.
She knelt by the trunk on the floor and opened the lid slowly, not sure what to expect from this trunk that smelled like her mother. Taking out the quilt on top, she draped it over the bed, then began to take everything out and spread it on the floor. The previous week she’d taken the quilt out of the box it had been in, and placed it in the trunk. It was easier to put it back that way, without struggling with retaping the box.
She found the piece of driftwood near the bottom, wrapped in a football jersey with the number 02 stamped on the front. She touched the dried wood, letting her fingers run along the lines and ridges, feeling her mother’s hand guiding her own as her short, clipped nails dipped in and out of the wooden crevasses. Gently she set it aside, then placed everything else back, but paused as she lifted the quilt, noticing again how the bottom half of it lay empty and unfinished. Who did it belong to and why was it stored in her mother’s trunk? She felt the urge to put it away, that somehow it wasn’t ready to be taken out. Maybe it was her mother talking to her again, the way she sometimes did in dreams.
Jewel picked up everything she’d put on the floor, then refolded the quilt and carefully placed it on top inside the trunk before closing the lid. Then she crept back to her room with the piece of driftwood, thinking of the best place to put it and hoping her dad wouldn’t notice.
Drew pulled up in front of Rainy’s store and turned off the truck’s engine. He supposed he should start calling it his own store, seeing as how the papers had already been signed and his name would soon be on the deed. He waited for a rush of satisfaction, or at least a sense of completion, but all he could feel as he stared through the windshield at the weathered boards and broad display window was bewilderment.
How did I get here? He slowly got out of the truck and leaned on the door for a moment and thought of Shelby. She had always encouraged him to find his dream, to go where his heart led. It had taken him a while to understand why it was so important to her, and when he’d figured it out, the end result had to been to chase him further and further into his work existence as a lawyer, and away from her and the life he thought they’d had.
But now Shelby was gone, and he had Jewel to raise all by himself. He’d hoped that moving to Hart’s Valley would be the perfect solution—he could follow his dream of creating beautiful furniture, and he’d have more time for Jewel. Except he and Jewel seemed to avoid each other, and while he loved creating the furniture pieces he’d been making, there was still something else, another piece of the puzzle, waiting to be fitted into place. If only he could figure out what it was.
Leaving the truck, he was halfway up the wooden steps of the store when he heard a car pulling up behind him. Turning, he smiled his best jury-clinching smile as he faced Caroline Collier. It had been her idea to meet in Rainy’s parking lot so her mother wouldn’t have to panic over their hiking trip.
“Good morning,” he said, still smiling.
“Yeah, whatever,” she said, climbing out of her mother’s Cadillac.
“It’s so nice to meet another chirpy early bird like me. Don’t you just love mornings?”
Caroline only grunted, then reached inside the car and pulled out an enormous travel coffee mug and took a big gulp.
Drew’s gaze took in Caroline’s outfit, from the tank top and cutoff jeans shorts to her thin white legs with short ankle socks and . . . Keds?
His smile faltered a bit. “We’re going hiking, remember? Not taking a leisurely stroll around the lake.”
She looked at him with half-closed eyes and took another sip of her coffee. “This is all I have. Guess we can’t go. I’ll just go home and crawl back into bed.”
“Good try.” He motioned toward the front door of the store. “Let’s go in and have a chat with Rainy until the stores in Truro open. There’s a great sportsman’s warehouse there that should have what you need.”
She looked at him as if she hadn’t heard a word. “Do you have a cell phone I can use?”
“Nope. Don’t need one; don’t want one.”
“Great.” Gulping more coffee, she preceded him into the store.
They found Rainy in the back dining room. All the quilting supplies had already been carted over to the Colliers’ for Jewel’s quilting lessons—not that he believed that for a second. Jewel’s desire to quilt was about as believable as Caroline whooping for joy and doing cartwheels across the parking lot. He grinned at the thought, then grinned even more when he caught Caroline looking at him.
Rainy smiled up at them. Her lime-green headscarf matched the T-shirt she wore under her overalls. Rainy Martin was the only person he knew—besides Shelby—who had the ability to keep smiling even during the worst of times. He recalled the days following Shelby’s death when Rainy had come to stay with him and Jewel. He had been like a cracked piece of glass, and Rainy’s strong, capable hands had held him together so the pieces couldn’t fall out.
He kissed her cheek, noticing for the first time that the dining room table was now covered with pictures and articles torn from magazines and newspapers, all of them depicting a foreign locale or travel destination. “What are these for?”
“Oh, just ideas for my trip. I figure that the word retirement won’t sound so final if I have something to look forward to. Else I might as well have you start making my pine box.” She winked at him before picking up a postcard of the Sydney Opera House and fanning herself with it. “It always amazes me to see people retire from life long before their bodies are ready for it.”
Rainy looked at Caroline, who lingered in the doorway, appearing pinched and wary as she nursed her coffee. “Your mother called. She saw that you left looking like you were headed outdoors, so she wanted to make sure you remembered your sunscreen.”
Caroline opened her mouth to say something but Rainy cut her off. “And, no, you can’t use my phone.”
Caroline stuck her jaw out. “That’s okay. I have other sources.”
Rainy looked down at the table and began to rearrange the pictures. “Fine. Just as long as it’s not my phone. I don’t want your mother knocking me into next week. And she’d do it, too. She might look small, but she’s a bruiser.”
Her fingertips wandered across a yellowed travel brochure with Big Ben on the front before he picked it up and opened it. “I remember these.” A small smile brushed across her face, illuminating it for a brief moment. Drew continued to watch her, fascinated at the change.
Rainy laughed out loud. “Well, you should. They were the source of the biggest whupping you ever got.”
Caroline actually laughed. “Yeah, they were, weren’t they?”
Drew wanted to ask what they were talking about, but he was too busy watching Caroline and the way an old memory made her face shine like it was lit from within. He hardly recognized her as the taciturn woman next door.
“When Caroline was in high school,” Rainy explained, “she and Jude and Shelby collected all these travel brochures for me. Even back then I was planning on taking a big trip sometime when Bill and me could get away. Anyway, Caroline got it in her head that it would be a good idea if the three of them took a trip, too, even though me and Margaret had already said no. So what does Caroline do? She sneaks her mother’s credit card out of her wallet and books the reservations over the phone.” She slapped her denim-covered knee and snorted. “Can you believe that? And Caroline planned that all on her own—and took the punishment all on her own, too.”
Caroline sat down at the table and began leafing through all the brochures. With a smirk, she said, “Actually, it was my idea to go first-class. The rest was all Jude’s doing—but I had to make the actual phone calls, since I could imitate mom’s voice.” She smiled to herself, her eyes almost closed, as if seeing old friends long since gone. “I even called the school so we would be excused for the week we were planning to be in Europe.”
Drew stared at the pale, serious woman in front of him, wondering what had happened to the mischievous girl she had once been. He sat down next to her. “How did you get caught?”
“My mom found our itinerary. She saw it under my bed when she was snooping.”
Rainy cleared her throat. “Now, Caroline—you know that’s not what happened. She was hiding your birthday present under your bed because it was the one place you never looked. Your itinerary was lying there clear as day, and Margaret couldn’t help but see it.”
Caroline flipped over a pamphlet from the Louvre and laughed softly. “I almost had her believing it was for your trip when the mail arrived and in it was the American Express bill.” She leaned back in her chair and laughed out loud, a surprisingly rich, throaty laugh. It was the laugh of a person who laughed often and from the heart. “I’d never seen her so mad—I thought her head would pop off like a cork from a champagne bottle.”
Drew found her laughter contagious and couldn’t help but laugh, too, at the image of Margaret Collier’s head propelling off her shoulders. He could see the whole thing from Caroline’s young eyes and wondered again what had happened to her in the years since that had taken the laughter from her. If he had the inclination to get to know her better, which he didn’t, he’d look forward to the challenge of finding out what it was and bringing the laughter back to her eyes.
She caught him staring at her, and the laughter faded from her voice. Her face dimmed again, as if a cloud had passed over the sun, stealing away all color. Softly she said, “I never made the trip either.” With a deep sigh she added, “And, as it turned out, it was probably a good thing my mom stopped it when she did. We couldn’t have gotten on the plane without passports—something I’d forgotten about completely—not to mention the criminal charges for unauthorized use of a credit card.” She glanced at her watch, signaling that the conversation was over. “Come on, city boy—looks like the stores should be open by now. Then I’ll show you what a squirrel looks like and you can play bodyguard in case I decide to pass out and fall off a cliff or something.”
“You sure know how to make an ordinary day sound exciting.”
Caroline stood and threw her backpack purse over her shoulder. Kissing Rainy’s cheek, she said, “If my mother calls, tell her I’m in the back room taking a nap.”
Rainy just shook her head slowly.
After telling Rainy good-bye, Drew followed Caroline out of the store, watching the swing of her ponytail. Even though he told himself every day that he didn’t miss the corporate world, he could at least admit that he missed the daily challenges of accomplishing the impossible. He’d always thought that was what had made him a successful attorney—and a lousy husband and father. A little challenge like Caroline Collier could be just what he needed. He didn’t need to get personal—just make her laugh.
Drew smiled broadly and held the door open for her. “After you, ma’am.”
“Beauty before age,” she said as she walked past him.
He followed her toward his truck, the thrill of a challenge lightening his step.
Caroline settled herself in the passenger seat of Drew’s pickup truck, wondering again why she had agreed to this. The man bothered her. He couldn’t take a hint when it was time to back off. Every time she caught him looking at her it seemed he was planning something—something to change her. It made her feel like a spider trapped under a magnifying glass on a hot day. She wondered how long it would be before she felt the burn.
They had barely left the parking lot before Drew leaned over and popped open the glove box. “There’s some sunscreen in there.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
His smirk matched hers. “Your mother is just being a parent. She’s only showing you that she loves you.”
Caroline took the tube of sunscreen out of the glove box and opened it. “But she doesn’t have to treat me like a five-year-old.”
“Then maybe you should stop acting like one.”
She was still thinking of a comeback when Drew let out a loud curse and slammed on the brakes before running the truck up on the grass on the side of the road. A large tractor-trailer rumbled past them, rattling the truck. For a moment she thought she was going to throw up. The sound of the squealing brakes and then the wheels going up over the grass had sent her arms over her face as she waited for the truck to flip. It was only after Drew had slammed his door that she opened her eyes and began practicing breathing again.
Caroline stuck her head out the window and looked behind her and spotted Jewel on a bicycle struggling to make it up the hill on the side of the narrow, two-lane mountain road they had just come up.
Drew marched behind the truck to where Jewel had given up and dismounted from the bike. Making sure she could be steady on her feet, Caroline followed in case she needed to be a referee.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Jewel looked up at her father with a smile that Caroline could see wasn’t as confident as she was trying to make it. “I’m riding my bike. You said I could.”
“When I said you could ride your bike, I assumed you meant up and down our street—not on the highway!”
“But you didn’t say I couldn’t.”
Drew opened his mouth but no words came out, though his face had turned a dangerous shade of red. Caroline wondered why Jewel hadn’t stepped back. After a deep breath Drew pointed to the truck. “Not another word. Get in the truck. I’m putting your bike into the back, and don’t expect to see it for at least a month. And it’s going to be at least that long before you’re allowed outside without me accompanying you.”
“That’s not fair! I was only—”
“I said not another word. Get in the truck. You’re going shopping with us, and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until we get home.”
Caroline sent her a warning glance and motioned for Jewel to get in the middle of the front seat before following her inside, and she found that her hands were still shaking.
Drew climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine. They rode in an uncomforta
ble silence for about ten minutes. Then, under her breath, Jewel said, “He is so clueless about being a dad.”
Caroline hesitated before putting an arm around the young girl. “He’s just trying to be a parent, Jewel. If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t be so hard on you.”
Jewel sniffed and a tear dropped on her forearm. “Well, he doesn’t have to treat me like a little kid.”
After a long pause, Caroline said, “No, probably not. But my guess would be that his reaction came completely from his concern for you and not any real wish to embarrass you.”
Silence fell inside the truck again while Caroline studiously avoided looking at Drew and seeing his “I told you so” look. Then fat pellets of rain began to hit the windshield, and the fear and panic that she’d managed to hold at bay rushed to the surface of her skin, pushing at her like tiny needles.
Drew leaned forward to peer up at the sky, then looked at Jewel, who continued to stare straight ahead. “Maybe we can go to the Y for a swim after we finish our shopping. Caroline’s welcome to come, too.”
Caroline answered too quickly, “No. But thank you. I’ll need to get home, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“No, I wouldn’t mind. Just thought you might like a swim. It’s great exercise, you know.”
“I know.” Finally her eyes met his and she saw him dip his gaze to where her hand had clutched at her tank top over her chest. She released her grip, then turned away and stared out the window, where the drops were now hitting the glass in earnest. She watched as rain dripped from trees and puddled like swollen tears on the road. She gripped the door handle tightly, feeling the old fear again, and closed her eyes. The truck slowed and her eyes fluttered open as she glanced at Drew. She caught his look of concern before he turned back to watch the road, keeping his speed to below the speed limit, regardless of the line of cars behind him. She supposed she should be grateful for his concern, but it bothered her too much that he could read her so well.