The Near & Far Series

by Serena Clarke

  “And…do you have any children?” Cady asked, although she thought she knew the answer already. She’d been half hoping for more siblings, and half nervous at the prospect. Shelby was work enough—but maybe brothers or sisters would lessen the intensity of their twin-ness. On the other hand, they might only complicate things more.

  “Any other children,” her sister corrected her.

  He smiled. “No. Never was blessed. Never found the right lady, in fact.”

  “Really?” Shelby said. “That’s hard to believe.”

  It was. He was so handsome, and tall, and obviously financially successful, he seemed to be a great catch.

  “There must have been someone,” she pressed.

  “Shel, leave it,” Cady told her, as he looked uncomfortable.

  But then he smiled. “That’s okay. Let’s just say I haven’t been great at making things work. Now—would you like to see some of Santa Almendra?”

  Nineteen

  They drove for what seemed like miles in Holt’s truck, a huge Dodge Ram. It was a real boy’s toy, pimped out with just enough extras to show how much the owner loved it, but the dirt on the paintwork proved that it was more than a showpiece—it was a working vehicle too. They set out onto the farm, all three of them sitting up front on the kind of bench seat the girls never saw in England. Holt wore his cowboy hat and leaned his elbow out the window as he steered one-handed. The girls had their sunglasses on, their eyes still not used to the bright California sun, but he just squinted a little under the brim of his hat.

  “These acres around the house make up the main farm,” he explained, as they left an access road and made their way between rows of trees. “But we have holdings in other parts of the valley too, and further afield. Santa Almendra is the biggest almond producer in the state.”

  Shelby poked Cady in the side, her eyes big. The extent of his empire was impressive. And the idea that all of this was his, and they were his only children—his only family—obviously wasn’t lost on her sister. But Cady shook her head. They hadn’t come to dig for gold. Just for the truth.

  “Santa Almendra.” She tried out the words, rolling them on her tongue the way he did. “What does it mean?”

  He laughed. “Well, literally it means ‘Saint Almond’. Sounds silly in English, I know. But when my grandfather—your great-grandfather—first came here from back east, he was getting to be an old man. He’d made and lost a decent kind of fortune already, and he told my dad that almonds were going to save them. He noticed that everything in California was saint this and saint that, so he called his new farm Santa Almendra. It started out as a joke, but it stuck.”

  “It sounds beautiful, to someone who doesn’t speak Spanish,” Cady commented.

  “Well, it’s a beautiful place,” he said, effortlessly navigating the big truck along a narrow, climbing track. “And if you decide to stay awhile, you’ll probably pick up some Spanish.”

  Stay awhile? Cady looked at Shelby, but she was one step ahead.

  “Is that an invitation?” she asked their newfound father, direct as usual. “I suppose you have plenty of room for guests.”

  Before he could reply, Cady spoke up. Partly she felt the need to cover for her sister’s boldness, but also, she wasn’t convinced that staying at the farm was a good idea. It had been a pretty intense afternoon so far—forcing the getting-to-know-you might be a bit much.

  “No, no,” she said, giving Shelby a surreptitious look. “If we stay in California, he means. Tonight we can stay in town before we go back to San Francisco. We’ve been hanging out with a flash mob, and they’re planning an event, so there’s quite a lot to do,” she explained, trying to give him an easy out.

  She knew full well that the Flashpointers didn’t need them, and weren’t expecting them back any time soon—if at all. Yes, they’d found him, and found out some of the things they needed to know. There was more to come, of course. But they should probably give themselves, and him, some space. All three of them had a lot to think about.

  “You’re welcome to stay,” he said. “It’s just me, so there are plenty of spare rooms in the house. Elva comes in every day except Sunday and Monday. Although I sometimes see her sneak in on those days too.” He stopped the truck on a bare outcrop, overlooking the valley.

  “Come on,” he said, opening his door. “This is my favorite place on the farm.”

  They got out and stood in the sun, taking in the view. Below, orderly rows of almond trees stretched out into the distance, their green contrasting with the brilliant blue of the summer sky. Off to the side they could see the white plantation-style house, separated from the company buildings by more trees and the expanse of lawn. It was a scene of calm and plenty, a million miles from the hectic, flung-together city that was home for them. What if they’d grown up here, Cady wondered, instead of in London? A sunshiny, wholesome setting like this must make a totally different kind of person than the concrete and relentless—albeit historically rich—environment of London. Would she be less straight-laced, more ready to leap into things? Who would she be, if she was California Cady?

  Which reminded her—there was still the question of the California Cady and Shelby. If they weren’t his sisters, who were they? She resolved to ask him as soon as the time was right.

  Shelby was captivated by the scene spread before them. “This is all yours.” She couldn’t hide the ‘wow’ in her voice.

  “Yes.” He smiled. “But I have a lot of help. If you do want to stay for a while, I’ll show you. We’re getting ready for harvest soon. It was my dad’s favorite time of year.”

  Shelby pointed. “Your house is so pretty.”

  From here it looked like a dollhouse, waiting for a child to come and open the front and bring it to life with imaginary games. It seemed a shame that there were no children there. Cady’s doubts about staying were toppled by what he said next.

  “My parents always imagined that house full of grandchildren, but they both died without that wish coming true. You girls didn’t make it in time to meet them—but you’re meant to be here.”

  “Well…” Cady said.

  And at the exact same moment, Shelby said, “We’ll stay, thank you.”

  He nodded. “Elva will be glad. She’s the only person who knows about you, now that my parents are gone.”

  “I thought she was strangely excited to see us,” Cady said.

  “Yeah. I had to tell someone else. You two are too big a secret not to share. And she’s a vault. She wouldn’t tell a soul.”

  “Wait,” Shelby said, ready to be offended. “Why do you have to keep us a secret?”

  “I don’t have to, now,” he said. “Before, I was a secret to you, so it was better to have it both ways. Now we can just be us.”

  For a moment, Cady felt a rush of happiness as warming as the sun on her back. But then she remembered the one person who was still in the dark about this secret—their dad. And then she felt sick. How did he fit into all of this? Once it was Shelby who wanted to tell him the truth, and Cady who held back. But now that they’d crossed the line and met their biological father, she didn’t know if she should, or could, keep the secret any more. Now, the weight of it had increased hundred-fold. And the guilt was a creeping growth, poking its fingers into the doubting corners of her mind. She stood on the dusty ground, next to one father, and her stomach churned on behalf of another.

  But Shelby was smiling. “Being us sounds good to me.”

  It did sound good, to Cady too. But what sounds good doesn’t always turn out to be for the best, she knew. And a half-uncovered secret this big was a creature with a life of its own. Holt had said he wanted to do the right thing by them, and she wanted to do the right thing by her family too. She just had to figure out what that was.

  Twenty

  The porch at Santa Almendra was a sanctuary. Inside, the house was delightful—stuffed comfortably full of the collected furniture and belongings of a family that had lived ther
e for many years, and done well. The rooms were quiet and welcoming, and the air-conditioning was an escape from the heat. But on the shady porch, the sweet breeze freshened the air, and the sounds of summer hummed around them. They ate dinner there that night, talking cautiously, feeling their way around what this new family connection meant. Beautiful though it was, inside the house was firmly Holt’s territory. The porch felt like neutral ground, a kind of safe zone where they could begin to figure out who they were together.

  Elva fussed around, bringing citronella candles and refilling their glasses.

  “Eat with us,” Holt urged her, but she shook her head.

  “No, no,” she said. “You need this time together. The girls and I will get to know each other soon enough.”

  As the three of them talked, it slowly started to feel more comfortable. But it was a strange situation, flung together, all the weight of their unshared history stilting their interactions. Cady knew that trying to force an artificial intimacy was never going to work. Still, the talk gradually became less stilted, the silences less awkward, and by the time they said goodnight, it didn’t feel completely unnatural for him to give each of them a kiss on the cheek. But there was a long way to go.

  The next day, he took them on a tour of the orchards and explained the yearly cycles of pollination and harvest. How the trucks would come, loaded with hives of bees to work their intuitive magic. The way the fruit developed, slowly ripening and splitting until it was ready for harvest. And how the machines would then drive down the rows, shaking the trees and letting the fruit fall to the ground to dry before it was collected. As he talked, it was easy to tell the pride he took in the work they were doing, and in the end product.

  And to every person they met, in the orchard, the machinery sheds and the offices, he said the same thing: “These are my daughters, Cady and Shelby, from England.”

  And to every set of astonished raised eyebrows, he gave the same simple response: “I know. A good surprise.”

  Cady could only imagine the swirl of gossip and conjecture they must have been leaving in their wake. But when put on the spot, everyone took Holt’s cue, welcoming them warmly and matter-of-factly. Hearing him say their names, she wondered again about where their mum had got them from. She couldn’t imagine Anne getting muddled about something as big as that. But with no sisters, the origin of their names was a mystery. If they weren’t his sisters, who were the women in the photo? Cady wanted to ask Holt, but the right moment hadn’t seemed to present itself—yet.

  At one point Holt took a phone call, walking away as he talked. They could see him nodding, his face serious.

  “We need to go out to the edge of this orchard block,” he told them when he came back, indicating that they should get in the Dodge again. After a few minutes’ drive, they stopped in a field near the road. A man raised his hand in greeting, but his face was serious. Behind him, every tree in the first row had been hacked into. It looked like an ax murderer (or several) had gone mad, leaving great gashes and wounds in the beautiful trees, and dismembered branches on the ground.

  Cady looked at Holt. “What happened here?”

  His lips were a thin line. “Eco-protestors, making a point.”

  He got out of the truck and the girls followed, silently taking in the scene. It was upsetting to see the slashed trunks and chopped-off branches of the damaged trees, and their pitiful state was a painful contrast to the others still standing strong and lush.

  Holt shook the man’s hand, and surveyed the damage. “I heard there were plantings further south being attacked in the last few months,” he said.

  “Yeah. Looks like it’s our turn all of a sudden. We’ll up security, but there’s only so much we can do, with so much ground to cover.” The man looked at the girls. “New assistants?”

  Holt laughed. “Maybe.” He made the introductions. The man—his general manager—looked surprised, but took his cue from Holt and moved on to the problem at hand.

  He pointed to an ‘e’ carved into a circle on one of the trunks. “Earth Stand. Environmental activists,” he added for the girls’ benefit. “They go for direct action, which usually equates to nothing more than eco-terrorism.”

  “Ecotage, they call it,” Holt said. “Eco sabotage. This is small potatoes for them, but it could lead to more.”

  “Why would they do this?” Cady asked him, gesturing to the ruined trees.

  He sighed. “Their line is that this kind of farming is environmentally unfriendly.”

  She looked around. Under the trees, in every field they’d visited, the ground was bare earth. She remembered his description of how they harvested the crop, letting the fruit dry on the ground. There was obviously nothing natural about the scorched-earth surface. “Is it?”

  He’d obviously dealt with the question before. “Any food crop that’s produced in large volumes becomes a monoculture. We have a lot of people to feed in this country, and almonds are a huge contributor to the Californian economy. We do our best, but there have to be compromises. Their kind of extremist propaganda and vandalism isn’t helpful.”

  “Oh.” She nodded, but in her mind she wondered how many chemicals were needed to maintain the pristine orchards around them. It was a complicated issue, but she could see how some people felt so passionate about protecting the earth.

  The men continued their discussion, and Cady went over to Shelby, who had wandered back and was leaning against the truck. “Some people are assholes,” she said pithily, waving at the damage.

  “I guess,” Cady replied. It seemed like one of those situations where the middle ground was no longer viable—no going back from production on a huge scale. Maybe there were ways to lessen the impact, but this kind of protest didn’t seem like the best solution. God, the world was full of things that could be done better, but if she lay awake worrying about them all, she’d go mad. She tucked the problem away in the back of her mind, along with the Pacific trash vortex, global warming, and the Middle East situation. Sometimes it was enough work just figuring out how to be better herself.

  * * *

  The next morning, Holt said he had to go to one of the other farms. There had been vandalism to the plantings there, too. They were welcome to come, he said, but it would be a long drive, and he’d only be checking the damage and having a meeting, then turning around and driving back. Wouldn’t they prefer to stay home and relax?

  Cady was still looking for a chance to ask about their names, but he was clearly steering them in the direction of staying, and a long hot day of driving didn’t sound all that appealing. Well, it could wait a few more hours, until he got home. They agreed that they’d stay at Santa Almendra for some quality porch time.

  After he left, they settled in for a morning of reading, eating chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies, and drinking Elva’s secret recipe pink lemonade. (Not so secret, she admitted—she got it from Martha Stewart. Before she went to jail, she hastened to add.) Every now and then Shelby would set down her magazine and sigh, looking wistfully out into the valley, no doubt with Kyle on her mind. Cady felt sympathetic—she was thinking about a particular Flashpointer herself, too.

  After a while, a small woman on a huge grey horse appeared from around the side of the house. She rode Western style, her legs straight and relaxed in the intricately detailed saddle, the reins loose against the horse’s sleek neck. She wore a cream cowboy hat, large sunglasses, and camel-colored boots under her slim-fitting jeans. Although she was middle-aged, she had a youthful trimness and vigor about her, and she looked utterly at home on horseback.

  “Good morning,” she called up to them. The horse blew out a long fluttery snort and danced a little, but its rider sat easy.

  “Hi,” Cady called back, and Shelby echoed with a ‘hello’. Cady admired the figure she cut on the horse, so at ease. Neither of them had ever ridden, apart from donkey rides on Broadstairs beach when they were kids. Looking now at the animal in front of her, she felt a long-forgotten pang
of the pony love she had as a child.

  “What a beautiful horse,” she said. He—or she—was like a picture-book horse, the kind of noble beauty that would feature on a calendar, or sit in porcelain on a little girl’s windowsill.

  “Thanks.” The woman slapped the horse’s neck, and he shook his head, his mane flying and bridle jingling. “This is Rambler. He’s kinda naughty sometimes, but he’s so gorgeous, you’ve gotta love him.”

  Cady laughed. “I can believe that. I’m Cady, by the way.”

  “I’m Shelby,” Shelby added.

  “I know,” said their visitor. “Word’s out.”

  “That was fast,” Shelby said.

  The woman smiled. “Actually, I have a source on the inside.” Seeing their curious faces, she added, “Elva called me.”

  The way Elva had been so thrilled with their arrival, Cady wasn’t surprised to hear she’d been spreading the news. They waited for the visitor to introduce herself in return, but she didn’t seem in any hurry. Rambler shifted his weight, let out a deep sigh, and let his eyes droop shut in the sun.

  “Um…do you live near here?” Cady asked, looking for any connection.

  “Yes, not far from here, just on the edge of town. Close enough to ride over. We’re practically neighbors.” She paused. “I’m Bee. That’s what they call me, anyway.”

  “Hi,” they both said, and she smiled.

  Then Shelby looked at her more closely, a sudden sharpness in her expression. “What’s your real name?” she asked, straight out.

  The woman adjusted her cowboy hat, as though readying herself for something. Then she regarded them directly, meaning in her gaze.

  “My real name is Shelby.”

  Cady heard her sister’s sharp intake of breath, but her eyes were fixed on the woman on horseback. Here was the other Shelby. She was real. And if she was real, where was the other Cady? And why hadn’t Holt mentioned them, their namesakes? These women who weren’t his sisters, as Anne had believed. Had he told her that—had he lied to her, for some reason? Or had she just assumed? Cady had planned to ask him, when she could…but here was the answer, right in front of them.