Natalie glanced at me, her eyes wide, before taking Ollie from her father’s arms. She headed into the dining room behind her mother.
Doc snagged my arm, pulling me to a stop just short of the doorway. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he said, “I’d appreciate it, Anna Kate, if you didn’t mention anything about my”—he paused for a second—“issues with the heat.”
In the light of the kitchen, he didn’t look as ill as he had on the deck of the café the day I’d first met him, but I could still see the sallowness of his skin. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him, but I knew that whatever caused that yellowish skin tone had nothing to do with the weather. “Heat?” I said, emphasizing the word.
“Yes, the heat.”
It hit me suddenly why he was acting suspiciously. “They don’t know, do they?”
The truth shone in the depths of his dark, downturned eyes. Neither Natalie nor Seelie knew he was ill. “Promise not to say anything?”
It wasn’t my diagnosis to share, but it didn’t seem fair to Natalie and Seelie that they didn’t know. I would want to know. “Only if you promise to tell them soon.”
“I will.”
“Are you at least under a doctor’s care?”
“Many.” He sighed.
“What exactly is wrong?”
“It’s nothing to—”
“Come on now, let’s sit down. What are you two whispering about?” Seelie asked.
Doc propelled me into the dining room and said, “I was telling Anna Kate again how wonderful it is to have her here.”
It’s nothing to worry about. That’s what he had been going to say—I was sure of it. But by the looks of him, I was worried. I had my share of biology and anatomy classes in college, and I was quickly searching my brain for a disease that would cause that kind of coloring. Hepatitis or liver failure jumped first to mind. Treatable, yes, but sometimes fatal.
“It is indeed,” Seelie said, raising her gaze to meet mine. She quickly dropped it again, as if not wanting to seem like she was staring. “I hope it becomes a tradition for as long as you’re in town, Anna Kate. Our home is your home.”
I managed a weak, noncommittal smile. “Thank you.”
“Where am I? Are there hidden cameras?” Natalie buckled Ollie into a booster seat tethered to the chair next to hers and looked upward, scanning ceiling corners.
“Don’t be absurd, Natalie,” Seelie said. “Now let’s sit and have a nice meal. What can I get for y’all to drink? There’s sweet tea, wine, Coke, and coffee…”
Natalie went back to shaking her head in disbelief and gave Ollie a green bean to gnaw on.
I wasn’t much of a drinker, but I eyed the wine and wondered if anyone would mind if I drank it straight from the bottle. To play it safe, I opted for tea.
Along with an overabundance of surrealism, the dining room held a farmhouse table, painted matte black. A long runner embellished with embroidered roses ran down the center of the table. Among plates and bowls of food, three small vases held fresh flowers that looked like they’d come from the backyard flower beds. Daisies, black-eyed Susans, white roses, and ferns.
“Beautiful flowers,” I said as Doc held out a chair for me.
“Thank you.” Seelie put a tall tea glass in front of me, then went around to the other side and handed one to Natalie as well. “James cut them from the garden this morning.”
James. Doc. My grandfather. My very ill grandfather.
I fought a rush of sadness and focused on my surroundings. White china sat on thick green cotton placemats that had an intricate floral design stitched into them, and the polished silver flatware gleamed. The artwork tended toward colorful animal prints, watercolors of rabbits, squirrels, and a lamb. Framed family photos were tucked around the room, on the sideboard and on top of a hutch. I wanted to get up to study each and every photo, but I didn’t want to be overtly rude.
“Before we eat, I’d like to say something,” Seelie said as she took her seat. She looked across the table to Doc.
He gave her an encouraging nod.
Seelie’s gaze shifted to Natalie, then me. She inhaled deeply. “Anna Kate, I don’t know what happened the day your father died. No one does. I chose to believe the worst, because it helped me deal with the pain if I had someone to blame. It was easier than not knowing the reason why he isn’t here. I needed someone to blame.”
In my lap, my hands were fisted so tightly my short fingernails dug painfully into my palms. “And now you suddenly don’t need someone to blame?”
I tried to keep in mind all Natalie had told me, about how the accident changed her mother. Her account had tugged at my heartstrings, because I was human. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to live through the death of your child. It didn’t excuse Seelie’s behavior toward my mom, but it explained it to a certain degree.
However, even knowing all that, accepting it, even, didn’t stop the anger simmering within me. I tried my hardest to tamp it down, to listen, but I could feel it bubbling under the surface.
Healing, I reminded myself. Healing.
Seelie held my gaze. “Until I saw you the other night, I couldn’t admit to myself that’s what I’d been doing. There’s an unimaginable pain that comes with burying your child, agony that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Accepting that God simply decided AJ’s time was up and took him away … I couldn’t bear the thought.” Moisture shimmered in her eyes. “It was easier for me to blame your mother than accept it was God’s will. It was the only way I could go on.”
Ollie fussed and Natalie quickly gave her a handful of green beans, a scoop of mashed potatoes, and a sippy cup of milk.
“It sounds to me,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “as though you still haven’t accepted it. Do you believe the crash was an accident or not?”
“I don’t know what happened,” she repeated.
I broke eye contact and pressed my lips together to keep from lashing out.
“Seelie,” Doc said, a warning in his low tone.
“Hush up,” she said to him. “I’m just being as truthful as I can. Anna Kate, before now I wasn’t even willing to consider the crash was an accident. Now, I am, but I need more time to fully process it. I need time to adjust to the fact that I could’ve been wrong for so many years. That I could’ve caused irreparable damage to others in my quest to see that someone was held accountable for AJ’s death. To accept that there might be no reason at all why my son was taken away from me.”
Could have. Might be. The words stung, not because she wouldn’t blindly accept that my mom hadn’t driven off that road on purpose, but because the words needled my conscience. The fact of the matter was that Seelie was right: no one knew what had happened on that road.
But I knew my mom. Knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t physically hurt another person. She abhorred violence of any sort. The only times I ever heard her truly angry were the rare times she spoke of Seelie and Doc, and even then she hadn’t raised her voice. “My mother would never hurt anyone on purpose. If you’d taken any time to get to know her, you’d know that.”
“Of course we knew her,” Seelie said dismissively. “She and AJ dated for three years.”
Taking a deep breath, I said, “You knew her only as the enemy. You didn’t know who she was as a person at all.”
“Eden is not an innocent victim in all this,” Seelie snapped. “She hurt us by hiding you away, didn’t she? Vindictive isn’t a pretty look on anyone.”
“And there she is. That’s my mama.” Natalie leaned back in her chair. “Thought I’d lost my mind for a while. Bare feet,” she murmured.
“Natalie.” Doc sighed.
“What?” she asked. “Bare feet. When have you ever known Mama to walk around with bare feet in the house? Never. That’s when. Slippers, sometimes. But mostly it’s normal shoes. Heels, even.”
Seelie looked toward the ceiling and muttered something under her breath before saying to Natalie, “T
hat’s enough, young lady. If I want to be barefoot in my own house, then I will.”
Natalie rolled her eyes, and I had the feeling they’d been rolled quite a bit under this roof while she was growing up. “Yes, ma’am.”
Seelie faced me. Her blue eyes had frosted over, and in them I saw the hard woman Natalie knew so well. “If Eden wanted to punish us by keeping you away, she succeeded. We will never get those years back.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Doc interrupted.
Heat radiated through my body as my temper flared. “Actions reap consequences. You can try to spread the blame around, but it’s your vile behavior that has led us to this point. You know what you’ve done.”
She linked her hands together, set them on the table’s edge, and leaned in. “Yes, I do know. I loved my son so much that I wanted what was best for him. Parents want what’s best for our children, and if that comes across as harsh sometimes, then so be it. Eden was opinionated and headstrong and came from questionable bloodlines—between Zee’s hippie ways and a practically anonymous father … Eden didn’t fit in our world. She wouldn’t have been happy,” Seelie said. “There are expectations that come with being a Linden. Could you imagine Eden at a Junior League meeting?”
I glanced at Doc. He was shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he didn’t speak up.
I turned my attention back to Seelie. “You’re not seriously trying to argue that you were doing my mom a favor by treating her badly?”
“Of course not. I’m trying to make you understand that we lived in two vastly different worlds. Eden wasn’t the right choice for AJ.”
I unclenched my fists, then clenched them again. “That wasn’t your decision to make. They loved each other.”
She kept her hands joined, her fingers laced together so tightly they were turning white. “Can parents make mistakes? Absolutely. We’re human. I, however, don’t see that I was wrong to think Eden was anything other than an obstacle holding AJ back from his full potential. And I was right. She was driving the car when he was killed. If he hadn’t been dating her, they wouldn’t have been together, and he’d still be here, wouldn’t he?”
“So much for God’s will,” I said through clenched teeth.
“It must be nice to sit there steeping in your self-righteousness,” Seelie said, her tone softening as she leaned back in her chair. “You haven’t walked in my shoes.” She pointed at Natalie. “Not one word about my feet.”
Natalie snapped her mouth shut.
Seelie went on, and in that moment of letting her guard down, I could once again see the imprint of all she had lost. “But let me ask you this, Anna Kate. How do you feel about Eden hiding you away all these years? She undoubtedly believed she was making the right choice for you, because as I said, that’s what parents do, but do you think she made the right decision keeping you sequestered? Keeping you from people who would have done nothing but love you?”
I looked between the four of them, focusing mostly on Ollie, who was eating mashed potatoes with her fingers. I thought of all the hate after the accident. The hatred my mother had endured. Her hatred toward this family. Hate, hate, hate.
“I thought maybe she had made a mistake,” I said. “It’s why I came here today. I was hoping that we could try to put the past behind us and start over, but now I can’t help feeling that the hate runs too deep for me to dig us out. I’d been foolish to even think it was possible.” I pushed back my chair and stood up.
“It wasn’t foolish, Anna Kate,” Doc said, standing as well. “It’s what we want, too.”
“We’re a family, Anna Kate,” Natalie added. “The thing about families is sometimes they fight. Especially our family. We get angry and say things we don’t mean—and sometimes things we do. It doesn’t mean that there’s not love beneath the anger. Please don’t leave. We can work through this.”
The tears shimmering in her eyes nearly did me in. I couldn’t bear to see her upset. It was then that part of Zee’s blackbird story came back, loud and clear.
Above all else, the guardians must nurture the love. Without it, all is lost.
That those words would resurface now meant I should take them to heart, but I couldn’t overcome the sense that I’d be fighting a losing battle. “I don’t know how we can. The past can’t be changed. There’s no getting over it or putting it behind us. It’s become us. We live it and breathe it, keeping the anger alive, fanning its flames. There’s no way to overcome it.”
“There has to be a way,” Natalie said. “I refuse to give up.”
I wanted there to be a way—the healer in me wanted it more than anything. But there was no balm or salve or herbal tea that could take away this kind of pain.
Seelie stood. “No. Anna Kate’s right. The past cannot change.”
“Mama,” Natalie said on a sigh.
Seelie held up a hand. “The past can’t change, but people can. The minute I saw you, Anna Kate, I realized how hardheaded I’d been all these years. It started me thinking that maybe Eden and I had more in common than I thought. That, perhaps, I’d been wrong about her after all, because if she hadn’t been in AJ’s life … we wouldn’t have you. If I could go back and make some changes—and truly get to know something other than your mother’s flaws, I would. I can’t. I can, however, start making changes right now. I’ve made mistakes that hurt people, and I’m truly sorry. I hope one day you’ll forgive me.”
I gripped the back of the chair as I listened. I felt her words, knew she believed what she said, but I wasn’t sure I trusted her to follow through. She was seventy-odd years old and had lived her life in such rigid confines that going barefoot was a big deal. Could someone truly change after all that time? “I appreciate that. I do. I’m just…” My emotions were too jumbled to make sense of how I was feeling. “I need some time.”
Doc said, “Our door is always open, and the supper invitation stands.”
My gaze fell on Ollie. Oblivious to the turmoil around her, she grinned when she saw me watching her and flapped her arm, sending a green bean flying. “Annkay! Hihi!”
My heart felt like it was breaking in half. She’d started calling me Annkay when she couldn’t properly pronounce Anna Kate. “Hi, Ollie.”
As I watched her play with her food, I realized she only knew love and happiness, so that’s what she gave people. Even people she didn’t know very well. She didn’t know hate, and I didn’t want her to, especially when it came to her own family.
I was leaving this town soon, but when I left, I didn’t have to pack that heavy hatred along with my quilt, like always.
The choice was mine.
I could cut them off completely here and now, or I could start healing, like I had originally intended.
Talking over the catch in my throat, I said, “I’ll be back—I just don’t know when. I need to sort through all these feelings.”
“We’ll be here waiting,” Doc said, and Seelie nodded.
With that, I practically ran toward the patio door, hoping I’d made the right decision by not cutting them off.
I wasn’t sure.
But as I walked home in the bright sunshine and thick humidity, I noticed my steps were just a little bit lighter.
16
Anna Kate
Early the next morning I found myself sitting in the garden at dawn, staring at my feet when I should have been collecting veggies and pulling weeds.
I’d been crouching on the gravel pathway telling the zucchini what went down at the Lindens’ house the day before when I’d taken notice of my feet. My blue toenail polish was chipped. My ankle bones stuck out as usual. They’d always seemed to be extraordinarily bony to me, despite the many times my mom had told me that they were perfectly ordinary. Morning dew mixed with garden dirt had left dark streaks on the tops and sides of my feet, and wishbone-shaped tan lines attested to the fact that flip-flops were my preferred summertime footwear.
The phoebe s
ang from the stone bench in the center of the garden as I slipped my feet out of the flimsy shoes and sat down, stretching out my legs, then drawing them inward to press the soles of my feet together. I held them, closed my eyes, and fought a wave of guilt.
“Anna Kate? Are the weeds so stressful you’re meditating?”
My eyes flew open, and I found Gideon looming over me. “How did I not hear you?”
“Either I’m light on my feet,” he said, sitting down, “or you were deep in thought.”
Looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, his hair was rumpled, his eyes hooded and sleepy. He had on a wrinkled T-shirt, long gym shorts, and sport sandals. Most weekdays, he went for a long bike ride before starting work. “If I was a betting man, then I’d say it was the latter.”
He had nice feet, I noticed. Clean with neatly trimmed toenails. “Are you a betting man?”
He studied me. “Today I am. You’re not really meditating, are you? If so, I can come back later.”
“I’m not meditating. I tried to once, but I couldn’t figure out how to shut off my thoughts. It was as though sitting still, breathing evenly, gave my brain permission to run wild. What exactly is high-fructose corn syrup, why is the Earth round, what really happened to Elvis … that kind of thing. It was a free-for-all in there.” I let go of my feet, stretched out my legs again. “The same goes with yoga. I can’t concentrate.”
“Maybe you should come with me on a bike ride or a hike sometime. Riding works wonders at clearing my mind.”
“Maybe I will,” I said.
I looked at my feet again, at that chipped polish, then shifted my gaze to the mulberry trees. Their branches hung low, weighted by morning dew and almost-ripe berries. The blackbirds had come to sing their songs last night, and I’d listened with tears in my eyes, wishing one of those messages could be for me.
“Anna Kate?” He nudged my leg. Light springy hairs covered his legs, and he had a small scab on his right knee. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe Page 20