by Liz Flaherty
“This is the orchard, Aunt Zoey, remember? And I’ve been waiting for snow ever since I left here when I was seventeen.” Cass pulled on the quilted jacket she’d broken down and bought for herself. “I have my can of stuff that’s supposed to repel all perpetrators in one pocket and my phone in the other.”
“Just be safe.” Damaris’s smile was weak, but it was there. “Royce is already mad at one of us. If you get hurt, she’s going to be all the madder.” She came over, scarcely limping, and put her arms around Cass. “I know it’s a hard time for you, too, with waiting for test results and…and whatever’s happened between you and Luke. I hate adding to it.”
Cass hugged her back. “We’ll survive, Stepmom. We’ve all had worse.”
Once outside, she looked around, acknowledging silently that it might not be such a good time for a walk. It was a cloudy, starless night. The flashlight Zoey had urged her to carry had been a good idea. The thermometer that hung on the wall of the back porch had assured her it was indeed cold enough to snow. She hesitated, then stepped off the porch. She needed the air.
She wanted to be excited about snow. About Christmas coming. About finishing her book in the last hour of the last day before deadline. About the other book that would be released in just a few days. In The Corpse in the Cornfield, Lucy Garten’s hair grew back, and Cass had been as eager writing about it as she’d been when her own scalp had been covered again.
But she couldn’t seem to call up any excitement now. As she walked through the rows of trees, she saw the light on in the office in the apple barn and knew Luke was there. She wondered if he was as miserable as she was.
She hoped he was. She hoped he missed her and that he would eventually make at least some effort to understand why she hadn’t told him about Cassandra or the books. Or much at all about who she’d been.
At the Ground in the Round, she let herself in, turning on just enough light to get around, and made a pot of coffee. She wouldn’t drink it all, but she could leave it in a thermos until the next morning. The coffee shop was closed for the weekend, but she knew she’d be in anyway. It had become her safe place. She squirted pumpkin syrup into the fresh brew, added a shot of cream and sat at the table she always shared with Luke.
Loneliness was much worse after having experienced a few months of almost constant companionship. She’d shared more affection with Luke since August than she’d known in the last couple of years of her marriage, more intentional time together than she and Tony had spent in longer than she could recall.
The coffee was so good that if she closed her eyes and breathed in its aroma, she could almost pretend the chair on the other side of the table wasn’t empty. In her mind’s eye, she could see Luke sitting there with his own cup—the one Royce had painted with the words Cool Hand over his first name. He was wearing flannel shirts every day these days, ones that started out with creases in their sleeves and neatly tucked into jeans that fit the way the denim gods intended. By midmorning, the sleeves were always rolled up and his shirttails hanging out. He wore a hat all the time outside, but took it off whenever he went indoors, so his hair was always as rumpled as his shirt.
The word rumpled had probably been invented for him, Cass thought, because he undoubtedly wore it better than anyone else ever had.
She had thought waiting for the final results of scans and biopsies made for the longest weeks in the world. When you added in the loneliness factor, the days grew longer.
The back door she’d locked behind her opened as she sat there, and she knew without looking that it was Luke. She recognized the sound of his footsteps on the plank floors and his soft half humming, half singing that she’d learned to ignore after asking, “Did you say something?” ten times or so.
No wonder he’d felt so close when she sat down with her coffee—he’d been nearly that close. She hadn’t even started when the door opened.
“Cass?” His voice was near, but he didn’t come into her line of vision. “You all right?”
No. Are you? But she couldn’t say that. “Fine.” She made the word crisp. “I brewed some coffee if you want a cup.”
“Thanks.” She could hear him as he found his cup and poured the coffee.
“It’s not half caff,” she warned.
“Doesn’t matter. I think my brain’s decided sleeping is optional anyway.”
He sat across from her, and the room felt warmer than the sixty degrees that was the nighttime setting in the shop. “How’ve you been?” she asked, because she couldn’t stop herself and because he looked exhausted.
He shrugged. “Not so good.” He met her eyes. “I don’t like how we left things.”
Her heart leaped in her chest, and she started to apologize again, then stopped herself. She’d already done that and it hadn’t helped. “I don’t, either.”
She didn’t know where to go from there, and sensed he didn’t, either. Was this it? Had they become so close only to have their budding relationship sundered by their first emotional dispute? She’d thought disagreeing about virtually everything to do with business had prepared them for this. But it hadn’t. It hadn’t at all.
Cass swallowed some coffee and rushed into the silence. “Damaris has to report to the Pentagon on Wednesday morning. Royce is really upset.”
Luke whistled. “I don’t blame her. That’s tough.”
“I don’t blame her, either, but Damaris tried to put it off and Royce knows it. It’s disappointing, but it’s not something that could be helped.”
“Mom and Dad can’t come down, either. Thank goodness for Skype. Dad made Mom promise not to cry when she sees her baby all decked out for the dance.”
Cass chuckled. “One thing about living in a house full of women is that, while none of us are big-time weepers, there are situations that will set one or all of us off. You just never know what it’s going to be.”
She could almost see the question in his eyes. Have you cried over us?
Yes, she had.
“I may be leaving Miniagua at the end of the school year.” His voice was sharp and clear in the otherwise silent room. It was as if his words were stones, falling on to an empty plate.
“Leaving?”
“I’ve been offered a job in Pennsylvania, working with a guy I’ve worked with before. He was my mentor, although he’s not all that much older than I am. The money’s good. The position is challenging in a different way from being an orchardist.”
“What about the orchard?” What about all of us? Mary and Isaac and Lovena and all the others? I thought we were a family.
“We’ll be able to hire a manager. Or you can run it. You’re probably better at the business end of things than I am.”
“Do you want to sell your half?” She didn’t want to buy it, but she could if she had to. She was home, and she wasn’t leaving again. If becoming sole owner was what it would take to keep the orchard family together, that’s what she’d do.
“No. At least, not now. I’m not even sure yet that I’m going.”
Something was missing from the conversation, but she wasn’t sure what it was. He didn’t look any happier than she felt, and there hadn’t been even a hint of excitement in his voice when he’d mentioned the new job.
He’d always said he’d probably go back to engineering someday, but she hadn’t expected it now, nor had she expected him to leave the area. She knew jobs in his field weren’t ones that showed up often in small towns or rural areas, but she’d thought he’d hold out for something closer than Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania. Where he’d gone last Monday. Had he known then?
“Was that why you took that trip last week?” she asked. “To see about a job?”
He nodded. “Mostly.”
Anger came so thick and fast it made an echoing sound in her ears. She set down her cup. Picked it up. Then set it down again to keep from throwing it. “You didn’t think of mentioning it? I mean, not that I would have a vote in your decision, but you didn’
t think telling me might be a good idea?”
He hesitated. “I did think that, and Rachel let me know in so many words she did, too. I can’t say for sure why I didn’t tell you, other than I really wasn’t interested in the job. I went because Dan was so insistent.” He met her eyes again, and she didn’t look away, just held his gaze and hoped she didn’t start to cry. That could definitely wait until later.
He’d told his family, but he hadn’t told her. That made sense—his lifelong relationship with them certainly held more weight than the three-month one he and Cass had shared. But it still hurt.
So did something else. “Maybe,” she said carefully, “you can make clear to me why my not telling you about things important in my life was an unpardonable relationship sin, yet it’s perfectly all right that you didn’t even mention a job interview that would affect not only our personal lives but our business partnership as well.” She got up from her chair, not waiting for his answer, and went behind the counter to pour the rest of the pot of coffee into a thermos. She was taking it home with her; she thought she might be needing it.
“I was wrong. I know that.”
“You certainly were.” She was proud of how crisp her voice was—she didn’t feel the least bit crisp. “I believe that’s called betrayal, isn’t it? Or is it just sexist? You know, okay for the big, strong man to lie by omission but not for the little woman.”
“You know me better than that.”
“No, I don’t. I thought I did, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? Again. I do just make the most wonderful choices. I should probably give a class on it.” Crispness gave way to bitterness. She rinsed out the coffee carafe, her hands shaking.
He followed her, waiting until she finished what she was doing. “I should have told you, but my reasons for not doing it weren’t sexist. Stupid maybe, in retrospect, but…I didn’t want to hurt you, Cass.”
“Whoa.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Tell me if I’m overthinking it, but I’m almost certain you went about that the wrong way.”
“You’re not overthinking it,” he admitted. “It was wrong from start to finish.” He rinsed his cup and dried it before putting it back in its accustomed place. “I never hid the fact that I didn’t want our relationship to become serious, did I? We knew we weren’t forever.”
“No. Neither of us wanted that.” At least, she hadn’t thought she had. It wasn’t his fault she’d changed her mind in the middle, that she’d come to think forever wasn’t the fairy tale word she’d so long believed it to be.
She met his gaze in the dusky light of the coffee shop and realized he was as scared as she was of the future. What she couldn’t see in the regret his features revealed was how he felt about her now that they’d betrayed each other’s trust for the first time.
The other part of that was she wasn’t sure how she felt about him, either. Anger had a way of twisting the emotions until they were snaky, hurtful things that created abrasions so deep they should have bled.
She turned away, picking up the thermos and moving toward the back door. “I guess we got what we wanted, then, didn’t we?” Her throat hurt, and she knew if she didn’t leave, there’d be no holding back the tears. “Remember to lock the door when you leave.”
It had begun to snow while she’d been in the coffee shop. The flakes were thick and soft and silent, covering the ground quickly. She wished she could appreciate the beauty of the snow after all the years she’d waited to see it again. Had it really only been an hour ago she’d left the house?
She’d never fallen out of love with Tony for the simple reason that she hadn’t been in love with him in the first place. The affection they’d shared in the early years had given way to friendship and, finally, to disinterest. Her anguish over the dissolution of their marriage had had more to do with feeling like a failure—Ken Gentry’s daughter hadn’t been raised to fail, for heaven’s sake!—than with the actual ending of the relationship.
She’d only gone about twenty feet when Luke fell into step beside her. “You left your flashlight,” he said, extending it to her. “I’ll walk you to the house.”
“You don’t have to,” she said stiffly, shoving the torch into her coat pocket. “I know the way.”
He didn’t answer, just accompanied her to the porch of the farmhouse. Once there, he stayed at the bottom of the steps until she got to the door where, in spite of herself, she turned to look at him.
“We both thought we knew the way,” she said quietly, “but I have to admit I’m as lost now as I ever was.”
He nodded. “Who’s lost? Cass or Cassandra?”
“Both.” She tilted her chin. “Who’s moving to Pennsylvania? You or the guy I thought I knew?”
He didn’t answer. Unshed tears made her eyes feel swollen and hot even in the cold night air. She turned away and went inside. She reached to turn off the porch light, then let her hand drop.
She might be closing the door on their relationship, but she wasn’t ready for the symbolic lock the darkness would put on it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“SHE COULD HAVE gotten out of it.”
Exasperated, Cass put the silver slipper back into its box and closed the lid. “I swear, one more spoiled-brat remark and you can wear last year’s flip-flops to the dance. It won’t bother me the least little bit.”
It had probably been a mistake, bringing Royce to the mall after going to the airport, but it’s what Damaris had asked her to do. Three shoe stores and at least twenty try-ons later, Cass was nearly to a screaming point. “Let’s get lunch,” she said instead.
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s too bad, because I am.” With an apologetic smile at the associate who’d brought out the last five pairs of shoes Royce had hated, Cass walked away, leaving her sister to follow. Or not. Although leaving her in a mall in Indianapolis probably wouldn’t fly with either Damaris or Zoey.
In the restaurant, Cass stared across the table at Royce until the girl met her eyes. “What?” The unaccustomed defiance was almost comical, but Cass thought it was preferable to the silence that had accompanied them across the country in August.
“I’m going to talk a minute, Little Sister Princess, and you’re going to listen. I’m not taking a vote here or saying ‘poor baby’ or any of that. You’re a good kid and I’m proud of you, but you’re being a pain in the… You’re being a pain and it needs to stop here.”
“You don’t know how it feels.”
“The heck I don’t. I was an army brat, too, remember?”
“You didn’t have both parents in the army. Your mom was a normal mom. She kept fruit on the table in the same green bowl everywhere you moved to. When Dad had an assignment where you couldn’t go, they didn’t ship you off to the lake with Aunt Zoey every time.”
Cass frowned. She hadn’t realized sixteen-year-old memories were that convenient. “Of course they did. You know that. And thank goodness they did. We lived on some okay army posts, but none of them were home. Same with my mother and the stepfather du jour.” She leaned forward, clasping Royce’s fingers in her own. “Even when I wasn’t here for however many years it was, it was the one place I knew I could come back to. The one place I did come back to.”
“And look how that turned out.” Royce didn’t wear sarcasm well, but the words were effective nonetheless. “You and Luke barely speak to each other. It’s like you and Tony all over again except that you’re hurt more this time, and Luke is, too. You can see it in his face every time he looks at you. Is that what home means?”
Cass had to catch her breath, and Royce’s face fell.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Really, I didn’t, Cass.”
“Honey, it’s okay to be mad—even at me. Especially at me—after all, I’m Sister Perfect, right? In a way, I guess it is what home means. Luke and I are mad at each other and we’re probably breaking up and you’re right, it hurts like—what is it Lovena says?—the dickens. That’s it. It hurts like the very d
ickens. But I have you. I have Zoey. I have your mom texting me back no matter where she is. And I have Miniagua. I’ll never again have to be as alone as I was before I came back here.”
“When you were in California, it was home.” Royce said sulkily. “Your mother was there. Mom and I were. It was home.”
“In a way, I guess it was. It was the longest I ever lived in one spot. You, too, for that matter. Even with Tony, we flipped houses and businesses often enough I never felt at home, and I never settled into California. Remember, I never even hung pictures on the walls in my apartment. I went to a different church every couple of weeks. I never called the mail carrier by his first name or gave bottles of water to the UPS guy when he delivered a box of books. When your mom let me bring you here, she wanted you to have what I had at the lake when I was your age. What I have there now.”
“I really do love the lake,” said Royce, her young face wistful enough to break her sister’s heart. “But I want her to be there, too.”
“I know, but do you remember wishing Dad was like other fathers? He used to shake hands with us when he came back from a tour, for heaven’s sake. We wished for what everyone else seemed to have, but it didn’t happen and we’re okay, aren’t we?”
“We have a broken family.”
Cass waved an impatient hand. “Everyone has a broken family. Look at this.” She took the miniature photograph album she always carried out of her purse and opened it to a picture of a girl in a tiara. “Do you know who this is?”
Royce frowned. “No, but you’ve always carried it.”
“Her name’s Linda. We were best friends that year I lived at the lake and she died in the accident—sitting where I should have been. Her family was irretrievably broken that night. Arlie and Holly’s dad died—their family was broken, too. Jack and Tucker’s dad caused the accident and then died—that was a double hit for them. Remember the green bowl?”
“We just talked about it. Of course I remember.”