by Davis Bunn
Goldie leapt from the car and shot down the path rimmed by Monterey cypress. But Daniel did not move. Not yet. Travis had a spiel he used to start every lecture about staying clean and sober. It began with how guilt would kill a guy faster than a Glock.
Only today was different.
Travis cleared his throat, tapped his fingers nervously against the side window, and said, “About what we were just talking about.”
Daniel assumed he meant Nicole, which seemed an odd thing to bring up now. But Daniel’s attention remained mostly elsewhere. The wind was up, blowing off the ocean strong enough for the tree limbs to wave like beckoning hands.
Travis went on, “Maybe it’s time for you to wake up, like the lady said.”
That turned him around. “You really think this is the place and time for us to be having that conversation?”
Travis shrugged. “To tell the truth, I’m thinking maybe Ricki doesn’t have it wrong. What if it’s time to get back into the big world?”
Daniel studied his friend. The man who had stared down the world’s most fearsome offensive linesmen actually looked worried. “Tell me what’s going on, Travis.”
He sighed. “Ricki’s friend is concerned there might be money missing from the city’s accounts.” Travis had been born in Nashville and raised there until his massive build and his speed brought him to the attention of university scouts. His native down-home roots tended to come out when he was stressed. Like now. “She and Ricki have been worrying over this for two, maybe three months now.”
Ricki had served two terms on the city council. That was back before Chloe, their daughter, turned into a full-time occupation. “Why don’t they take it to the police?”
“This is where things get complicated.”
“What were they before?”
“The lady claims the way things are structured, it looks like she’s been the one with her fingers in the till.” Travis swiped his face with one massive hand. “Ricki got worried enough, she tried to bring in an outside accountant and got shut down.”
“Who could do that?”
“The mayor. Her office, anyway. Said it was none of Ricki’s business, and everything was fine, like that.” Travis gave him a look that came as close to fear as Daniel had ever seen. “We’re talking over seven million dollars. This is bound to come to light. Ricki is up nights, worrying the real thieves have set up her friend to take the fall.”
Daniel was tempted to open his door and start down the path. But he remained where he was, staring out the front windscreen. If he didn’t shut this down now, Travis would start in on him again when he returned from the grave site. When he was too weak to resist.
The emerald lawn to either side of the central lane was dotted with headstones and regret. Daniel knew exactly what Travis had not said. That his past life had made him the perfect guy to dive into the hidden numbers and find out what was going on. But that man had died in the accident, along with his fiancée. Daniel was a different person now. He lived a simple life. He stayed clean. He took one day at a time. No matter what Travis might say once he returned to the truck, Daniel’s answer would not change. Those days were over and done for good.
CHAPTER 3
Stella’s day began by breaking the contract she thought she had signed with fate. This one day it was guaranteed to rain. Even during California’s three-year drought, it had rained each time this horrible anniversary crept into view. Seven years and counting, she had been able to set her calendar by the fact that a deluge would greet her that particular morning.
This year should have been no different. It had rained steadily for two weeks. Last night, the weatherman had offered dire warnings of floods, mudslides, lightning, hail, everything but an invasion of locusts. Which was why Stella had slept as well as she had. She knew it was silly. She could tell herself that she was acting like a superstitious ninny all the other days of the year. But this morning, she needed rain and the simple assurance that this one thing would go her way.
Only she woke to a blade of sunlight slicing through her bedroom window.
Amber, her eleven-year-old daughter, bounded into the room and shouted, “It’s sunny!”
Stella rolled over. “They said it was going to rain.”
“It’s not raining now!”
“Bad storm, that’s what the weatherman said.” She settled the pillow on top of her head. “Stay inside. Lock your doors. Don’t even think of going anywhere.”
Amber plucked the pillow away. “Which is why we have to go now!”
Stella squinted against the light. Her daughter was impossibly excited. “Honey—”
Amber responded with an exact duplicate of her late grandmother’s favorite reaction. Amber’s arm cocked at a ninety-degree angle, the hand tilted so far back it almost faced the ceiling. Her voice turned sharp. “Don’t you even think of giving me lip.”
Which was good for a smile. Any day but today. “Go turn on the coffee. That’s a dear.”
* * *
They drove through brilliant sunlight, as if the day was determined to challenge her right to be sad.
“There it is, Mommy. On the right.”
“I know, dear.” But truth be told, Stella would have driven right past it if Amber had not spoken. She parked in front of the florist, cut the motor, and took a hard breath. One of many.
But as she reached for the door, Amber announced, “I want to do it, Mommy.”
“What, alone?”
She nodded. “Please?”
Truth be told, Stella had no interest in going inside, enduring the florist’s shared sorrow. They had been friends since forever, and the florist knew everything there was worth knowing about today. Stella reached in her purse and pulled a bill from her wallet. “You know what to buy?”
“Of course, Mommy. I’m not a child.”
That was hardly a reason to get teary-eyed. But still. Stella could not quite focus on her daughter as she scampered down the sidewalk.
Now that she was alone, Stella felt her mind settle into a discordant drone. Eventually, Amber emerged from the shop, holding the bouquet with both hands. The Peruvian lilies formed a pastel rainbow as she hurried back. They had been her late daughter’s favorite flower. For the six long weeks of basically living inside Jenny’s hospital room, buying these flowers had been a daily event. Now every time she saw them, she was drawn straight back to the moment she had laid the bouquet on her daughter’s casket.
The florist was a slender man in his late fifties. He followed Amber from the shop and called something to Stella, the words lost to the buzzing in her head. Stella leaned and pushed open Amber’s door. She heard herself say, “Those are lovely.”
“Freddie let me choose them myself.”
Stella waited while her daughter fastened herself into the child seat, exchanged waves with Freddie, and drove away. Around them, Miramar sparkled like a town-sized jewel. The day’s colors were impossibly brilliant. Coral and jade and emerald and . . .
Amber asked, “Did Daddy leave because of me?”
Stella found herself shocked out of her mental drone. All the anniversaries of Jenny’s death followed the same leaden path. Amber asked about the sister she remembered mostly from photographs and bedtime chats. She focused her questions on the early days, those lighthearted months before Jenny’s illness was diagnosed. Back when Stella was mother to two amazingly beautiful twin daughters. Amber liked to hear stories from that time. Like how she and her sister spent hours together, long before either of them had learned to talk, chattering and laughing and singing. Like they had shared a secret language. Like they understood precisely what the other said. Like their infancy was reason for hilarity. Like the good times would last forever.
Not once in seven anniversaries had Amber asked about her absent father. “What, darling?”
The look Amber gave her silenced the buzz entirely. Her daughter was rarely sad or down. Now she seemed to be both. Her liquid gaze held an ancient’s bu
rden. “Something Daddy told me last time he called.”
Stella felt the old wrath rekindle from the ashes. “What did Ben say, honey?”
“I asked him why he didn’t come see me. He said he looked at me and saw the one who would never grow up.”
Her ex was too low a life form to murder, tempting as it was. Stella took another of the day’s hard breaths and replied with a calm assurance that amazed her. “Your father left because he felt our family was too full of sorrow. He said he could not go on with us. I disagree totally. I think we would have become whole again much more swiftly if we had stayed together. I think our love would have healed us. But Ben didn’t agree, and so he left. But he loves you very much, sweetheart. That is what you must always remember.”
Amber was satisfied enough to turn toward the window and hum softly. Stella waited a few moments, until she was certain her daughter was not watching, and swiftly wiped her face. She continued the dialogue in her head, saying the things she would never repeat to Amber. After Jenny’s death, during the hours when Ben’s wife and remaining daughter most needed his strength and support and comfort and love, he wrapped himself in a gray mantle of drunken self-pity and retreated into a dark abyss of his own making.
When Ben finally declared that he was leaving, Stella had responded with, “I thought you already had.”
CHAPTER 4
The Miramar cemetery rested on a lonely bluff north of town. On the clearest days, like now, the cliffside walk became a place to stroll and commune with all those beyond reach. To the south, Miramar Bay greeted the shimmering Pacific. Stella parked facing the cemetery and the day. In front of her stretched three rows of ancient cypress. A strong wind blew off the ocean, spicing the air with a force that seemed determined to lift her spirits. The swaying trees cut sharp-edged shadows, as if seeking to unfetter the graves and lift their company into the racing clouds.
Stella was still working on what else she should say about her ex-husband, when Amber exclaimed, “Look at that, Mommy!”
A golden head poked through the window of a large pickup parked two rows up. The dog barked once and struggled through the partially opened window. Finally, the animal leapt out and bounded down the cemetery’s central lane. When it reached the path running parallel to the cliff, it scampered straight toward Jenny’s grave.
Her daughter moved almost as fast as the dog. She unclipped herself from the child seat, opened her door, and raced away.
Stella stuck her head out the window and called, “Amber, wait for me!”
* * *
Daniel walked the central path alone. He watched a woman run ahead of him and had to assume it was the young girl’s mother. The one who had followed Goldie into the cemetery. An impatient breeze turned the trees into a nervous green veil. Daniel tried to tell himself there was no need to feel so apprehensive. But the years could never erase the burden of unease as he approached Kimberly’s grave. And guilt, of course. Deservedly so. As he rounded the corner, his heart pounded like it was determined to burst from his chest.
As with every visit, Goldie lay on her belly upon the grave. Daniel had no idea how the dog could remain so connected to a woman she had known for just six short weeks. He assumed it was some form of synergy, Goldie taking on as much of Daniel’s remorse as a dog possibly could, doing what Daniel secretly did in his heart—prostrating himself over the ashes of all that might have been.
Only today a young girl knelt beside the dog.
She stroked Goldie’s pelt, so fascinated she did not even glance up as Daniel squatted on the dog’s other side. He was very conscious of the mother who hovered just behind the girl, watching the scene with genuine unease.
She was a lovely child, with copper-blond hair and a spray of pale freckles. Then she lifted her gaze, and Daniel peered into eyes more gray than blue, like morning light seen through an ocean mist.
“She’s so beautiful,” the girl said. “Is she yours?”
* * *
Three minutes later, Daniel accompanied the mother and daughter across the cemetery. Or rather, he followed his dog. Goldie had firmly attached herself to Amber’s side. Which was astonishing. Goldie was not unfriendly. She simply took her time, not so much hostile as cautious and watchful. Sometimes for months.
Not today.
Goldie did not so much walk as gambol while the girl chatted softly and stroked her pelt whenever she came within reach, like two old friends strolling through the park, rather than following the cliffside path from one grave to another.
The woman spoke for the first time. “Well, isn’t this awkward.”
“I was thinking the very same thing.”
“Were you?” She smiled, or tried to. “I’m Stella. And the jumping bean up ahead there is Amber.”
“Daniel. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you both. And it is. Except . . .”
“For how we’re here to mark the anniversary of my other child’s death.” Stella softly slapped her fingers against her lips. “I can’t believe I said that. I never speak about it.”
He nodded. That was certainly something he could understand. “How long . . . ?”
“Seven years.” She pointed at the child rushing on ahead. “Jenny was Amber’s twin sister.”
“I am so very sorry for your loss.”
She must have caught an element of his own shared remorse, for she asked, “And you’re here because . . .”
“My fiancée died four years ago today.”
“Oh, my.”
They stopped before a grave. The headstone was a simple wedge of dark granite, the child’s name embossed in copper. DEAREST JENNY.
Beneath this, instead of dates, were the words TOO SOON.
Goldie planted herself on the grass, just as she always did on Kimberly’s grave. Daniel watched as Amber knelt beside the dog and spoke softly, stroking her pelt and pointing at the gravestone. He knew Stella was fighting for control and did the only thing that seemed right at the time, which was to settle his hand upon her shoulder.
Amber looked up and exclaimed, “Mommy, we left the flowers in the car!”
It seemed the most natural thing in the world. Walking over and offering the child the bouquet he had neglected to leave with Kimberly. “Why don’t you use mine?”
CHAPTER 5
It was mid-afternoon before Ricki called to say she was bringing Nicole over. After returning from the cemetery, Daniel did a bachelor’s job of cleaning the house and preparing the home’s guest room. The second bedroom had not been used in four years. Daniel’s only relatives were all back on the East Coast, and they were not close. He no longer had contact with any of his LA crowd. In the beginning, Daniel had maintained a clean break from the man he had been before. It was the only way he could do what he most wanted—staying clean and sober. Now it was hard to say what was habit and what was still necessary. Which was one reason Ricki’s invitation felt so threatening. Meeting a woman meant testing his boundaries. The prospect terrified him.
Goldie gave another of her soft whoofs a few minutes before Ricki pulled into the drive. When he hesitated to open his front door, Goldie looked up and tapped the wood with one paw.
As Nicole rose slowly from the car, Goldie rushed over and nuzzled the girl’s hand. Another astonishment. Today his normally shy dog was three for three, making friends with Amber and Stella and now welcoming Daniel’s first houseguest in four years.
Daniel was uncertain how to welcome his niece. He had no experience with children of any age. He had not seen Nicole since his sister had expelled him from their lives, which had happened a week after Kimberly’s funeral.
Nicole stood by the SUV and studied everything with an uncertain air. Ricki moved around the vehicle, draped a hand over Nicole’s shoulders, and led her up the walk. As they approached, Daniel saw the tracks of recent tears on Nicole’s cheeks.
He came close to hating his sister at that moment. But all he said was, “Welcome to your new home.”
*
* *
Ricki showed Nicole to the guest room while Daniel unloaded the pickup’s rear hold. Seeing the young woman’s belongings tossed in a heap inside the vehicle brought up the sort of burn he had not known since leaving LA. Life in Miramar had kept him sheltered from the casual brutality of ambitious city people. He swallowed down on the anger at how Lisa had scolded her own daughter. Ricki came out and helped him carry in the second load. “She’s hiding in the bathroom.”
“As good a place as any,” Daniel said.
“You’re bringing her to my place for an early dinner tonight.”
Daniel walked Ricki back outside and accepted both her hug and her command to show up in an hour and a half. When he reentered the house, he found that Nicole had taken up a station by the living room’s front window. The afternoon wind had died, and a sunset fog was rolling in. Basically, all Nicole could see was her own reflection. Daniel wondered if she even saw that much.
He stepped up behind her. “Can I make you a cappuccino?”
“Mom doesn’t let me . . .” She stopped speaking because Daniel settled a hand upon her shoulder.
“I don’t know how to say it any clearer than this,” Daniel said. “Your mother is not here.”
He stood there, feeling as uncertain as he had in years. He could see the new tears in her reflection and feel the tight tremors from her young frame. It would have been nice to embrace her, try and heal the wounds caused by all the wrongness in this world. Instead, he simply stood and held her shoulder and gave her time.
When she spoke, Nicole’s voice was constricted to a near-whisper. “A coffee would be nice.”
When the money had started rolling in, Daniel had gone for the best of everything. And in LA, that covered a lot of ground. He got to know the Beverly Drive wineshop owners by their first names. He had accounts with three of the city’s top men’s clothiers. Toward the end, he was recognized as a trendsetter. The press junkies who tracked stars would call out his name, wanting to know what was hot that night and where the elite were gathering. He ate, he drove, he partied . . .