After a while, Laura ventured into the yard, careful not to let the cats out, per her mother’s firm instructions. It was a beautiful day, the sun shining hotly but cool enough in the shade of the maple tree. Laura sat in one of the four cushioned chairs at a square table and allowed her body to relax. She realized that she felt oddly at ease, even though she was poised at the threshold of what would most likely prove to be the biggest adventure of her life.
Within moments, Laura was asleep.
Chapter 31
Maybe, Arden thought, for about the tenth time that morning, she shouldn’t have bothered to come in to the shop today. Maybe she should have stayed home with Laura. Brent was more than able to run the shop on his own, and Zach—or was it Elly? One of them—was due in after lunch. But Laura had said she was tired, and no doubt she needed some time alone after the emotional drain of yesterday’s reunion.
Suddenly, Arden became aware of Brent frowning at her. “What?”
“You moved that pencil holder from one side of the counter to the other and back again three times for no reason that I can fathom. And I’ve asked you twice if you want me to weed out the used-book section, and you either didn’t hear me, which means you might be going deaf, or weren’t paying attention, which means something’s up. Are you feeling okay?”
Arden opened her eyes wide. “Me?” she asked coyly.
Brent dramatically surveyed the otherwise empty shop. “Um, yeah. You.”
“I’m fine.”
“Hmmm.” Brent eyed her more closely. “Are you coming down with something? There was that awful Milton kid in here the other day, coughing up a storm and not bothering to cover his mouth. I had to restrain myself from using a mop handle to push him out of the shop. What sort of parents let their sick children out and about like that?”
Arden laughed. “No, really, Brent, I feel fine. And the Miltons aren’t exactly the brightest sparks in Eliot’s Corner. I’m not sure we can blame them for that.”
Brent still didn’t look convinced, but he went off, no doubt to clear from the used-book section the titles that had been there for over six months. They would be donated to the charity shop run by the Baptist church on the edge of town.
The moment Brent was gone, Arden’s mind returned to Juniper End’s new resident. She wondered what Laura was doing at that very moment. Exploring the cottage perhaps; assessing Arden’s book collection; seeing what she kept in the kitchen cupboards. Napping on the couch. Playing with the cats. Speaking to a friend back in Connecticut, relating the story of her reunion with the woman who had given birth to her. What would she tell this friend about Arden Bell? What were Laura’s true first impressions of her mother?
Hopefully, not that Arden was a liar. She had promised to tell Laura everything about what had happened between the summer of 1984 and June of 1985, but now she wondered if she could keep that promise. Some things were so dark and unpleasant—like, for example, her suspicion that Herbert Aldridge had had a hand in Rob’s disappearance.
Arden sighed. She would have to wait and see how things developed between Laura and her. Hopefully, they would grow close and Arden would feel safe in sharing the thoughts and feelings she had kept to herself over the long years since leaving Port George.
Brent suddenly reappeared. He did not look happy. “Elly just texted to say she’s running late today and won’t be in until two. That girl is impossible.”
“Not the most responsible person, I agree, but I think she’s harmless.”
Brent put his hands on his hips. “You’re a softie, that’s your problem. She should be thankful she got this internship—why did you chose her, anyway? Don’t answer that—and learn to pull her weight around here. She’s taking advantage of you, that’s what she’s doing.”
Arden sighed. Brent was probably right. She did have a soft spot for the young. “Okay. Talk to her if you feel you must. But be nice. Maybe she should be thankful for the internship, but she’s also under no compulsion to stay, and some Elly is better than no Elly.”
“Hmmph.” Brent frowned. “That’s debatable. I’ll be in the travel section if you need me, dreaming of foreign lands.”
When Brent had gone off, Arden looked up at the big round clock over the counter. It was only a bit after eleven. Darn. She couldn’t wait to go home to her daughter. Such a simple thing—to go home to a loved one—parent, partner, child, friend.
Such a simple and marvelous thing.
Chapter 32
“I’m sorry there’s not more for dinner. I really need to do a big shop,” Arden explained. “I didn’t know . . . I mean, I need to restock on a bunch of things.”
“Don’t apologize,” Laura said firmly. “You didn’t know I would suddenly show up on your doorstep. If you want to give me a list, I’ll do the shopping tomorrow while you’re at work.”
Arden took a sip of her wine before going on. “You know, I have to tell my friends who you are very soon. You were probably seen driving into town, and people will have noticed an unfamiliar car parked outside the cottage. And if someone sees you bringing groceries into the cottage, well, the gossips will be having a field day. See, I’ve never had a visitor from out of Eliot’s Corner. I never told anyone where I was going when I left one place for another.”
Laura made no comment but wondered how a woman who appeared as friendly and, well, as normal as Arden had managed to remain so unattached for all the years since leaving Port George and fetching up in Eliot’s Corner. Maybe one day Laura would know the answer.
In spite of Arden’s protests, she had created a delicious and filling meal of pan-fried chicken with savory rice and fresh broccoli. For dessert, there was a choice of vanilla-bean or dark chocolate ice cream.
Finally, Laura put down her spoon and leaned back in her chair in satisfaction. “Have you always been a good cook?”
“I never tried my hand at cooking until I was almost thirty. I found I enjoyed it and I guess I got better as I went along. It wasn’t until I came to Eliot’s Corner and made friends that I learned how to cook for more than one.”
Laura smiled. “I’m hopeless. Jared did the cooking in our marriage, if you can call dumping a jar of red sauce on a pile of pasta and frying hot dogs cooking. But not having any skills of my own, and not having any intention of acquiring those skills, I couldn’t complain.”
“Good thing you’re not a fussy eater. Your father had an enormous appetite for whatever was put in front of him.”
“So that’s where I got it from. I’ve eaten a box of Apple Jacks for dinner and been satisfied. My lack of culinary discrimination used to drive my mother crazy.”
Arden laughed. “Now that’s something else we have in common! I love Apple Jacks! It’s the child in me.”
“Did you have any other children?” It was a delicate but fair question, Laura thought.
“No. I made a decision a long time ago not to. I felt it would be wrong somehow, an insult to the child I had given up. Some people might think that foolish, but that’s how I felt. I don’t regret my decision.”
“It’s not foolish,” Laura said firmly. “And I’m glad you don’t have regrets. What were you like as a child?”
“Do you really want to know?” Arden asked doubtfully.
“Absolutely. I want to know everything about you. Well, everything you’re willing to share.”
“All right then. I was a pretty solitary child. I never had many friends, and the ones I did have were less confidants than just other girls to pass the time with between classes. You know that old expression ‘still waters run deep’? That’s what people said about me. I didn’t mind. I guess they were right. Only with Rob, your father, did I begin to know what it was like to have a friend, someone with whom I could be really honest. Someone with whom I could be silly or serious, with whom I could laugh or cry. Then that relationship was abruptly cut short.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds so inadequate but it’s sincere.”
Arden smiled.
“I know it is. But being totally on my own all these years wasn’t as difficult as it might have been if I’d been a really social person. When at times I did feel the need for sympathy, the need for someone to know what I’d been through, some innate survival instinct told me to be quiet.”
“Even when you came to Eliot’s Corner? I’ll admit I’ve been wondering how you managed to stay so aloof from personal entanglements for all those years.”
“That’s when my habit of silence began to become a burden. Once here, I began to feel safe, comfortable, even happy. Then it seemed silly not to tell the people I was coming to love about my past. But the habit of caution was so ingrained. And there was always the fear that I might be rejected for—”
“For what? For giving up your baby when you yourself were only a kid?”
Arden nodded. “Maybe. Anyway, I convinced myself that the more people who knew about the past, the more difficult it would be ever to put it to rest. Trust, you see, isn’t easy. At least, for me it hasn’t been.”
“And yet, you trust that I’m your flesh and blood, without any hard proof.”
“A mother knows her child. And I never gave up hope. ‘I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep.’ That’s a line from Charlotte Brontë’s Villette.” Arden smiled. “I’m in the habit of quoting it.”
Laura leaned forward. “That reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to tell you. A week or two ago I went to the beach near Port George one afternoon. I was totally alone, I’m absolutely sure of that, when I felt what I can only describe as a reassuring touch on my arm. I was startled but not afraid.” Laura smiled. “You see, I believe the living aren’t alone here. At the time, I thought it might be my adoptive mother comforting me, but now I can’t help wonder if it might have been my father. Maybe he was telling me that I was close to finding you.”
To finding home, Laura added silently.
“It’s possible,” Arden said. “I told you about the dreams I had. It’s not unheard of for family members to be intimately connected across miles, so why not through different planes of existence and states of consciousness?”
Laura glanced to the cats, who were in a wrestling match at the edge of the living room. “Some people believe cats can see ghosts, all sorts of things, really, that we can’t see or even sense.”
Arden looked to the ball of felines and laughed. “I’m not so sure how aware of otherworldly presences Falstaff might be—he’s firmly rooted in the here and now, as in, what’s in his food bowl—but there have been times when I’m sure Ophelia and Prospero have sensed the spirits of people who made the cottage their home long ago.”
“Why?” Laura asked, genuinely interested. “What did the cats do?”
“Tried to bite their ankles, of course.”
Chapter 33
“Welcome,” Deborah said, standing back to allow Arden to enter. “You’re just in time. The tea is ready to pour.”
Arden was nervous, not the least because she had lied to her friend yet again. Last evening, in response to Deborah’s question about the car with Connecticut plates parked outside Juniper End, Arden had said that an old friend was visiting. She simply hadn’t been prepared to share the truth of Laura’s identity over the phone.
Deborah Norrell had a talent for decorating; she achieved a sense of harmony that was a lot more considered than it appeared. Now the two women sat on the sleek, pale gray couch in a living room that was a study in neutrals. Several milk-glass pieces from the mid-twentieth century provided pops of white against the palette of taupe, cream, and cool grays.
“You look worried,” Deborah announced. “What’s up? Does it have anything to do with this old friend you mentioned? Where’d she come from, anyway? I’ve never heard you talk about anyone from your past.”
Arden took a deep breath. It was best to just dive in. “I lied. I’m sorry. Laura Huntington, the woman staying with me, isn’t an old friend. She’s my daughter.”
Deborah’s eyebrows shot to the skies. “Holy moly, you’d better start from the beginning.”
Arden did. She told Deborah about growing up in Port George, and about meeting Rob Smith, the first and only love of her life, when she was seventeen. She told her about learning she was pregnant and about Rob’s disappearance soon after. She told her about being sent away to have the baby, about the baby being adopted at birth, about coming back to Port George, and about her running away from her name, her home, her old life.
“I knew there was something big you weren’t telling us!” Deborah exclaimed when Arden had completed her tale. “But I couldn’t bring myself to ask questions. I assumed a tragedy and I was right. Damn, how did you keep this to yourself all this time? Did Margery know?”
Arden smiled feebly. “Nobody knew. Silence becomes a habit like anything else. Inertia, too.”
“A body at rest stays at rest. But still, I’d have blabbed to the first person I met after leaving Port George! I’d begin with ‘You’ll never believe what happened to me!’”
“Not if you were afraid of being found and brought back.”
“Oh. Right. And major kudos to you for taking charge of your life at such a tender age! Sheesh.” Deborah frowned. “I feel a bit like a slug now. How can I ever bitch and moan to you about a fussy client or the fact that the grocery store doesn’t carry my favorite low-fat yogurt anymore when you’ve shouldered such big burdens without a complaint?”
Arden laughed. “Trouble is trouble. A person’s burdens feel huge to her, no matter how insignificant they seem to others.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Deborah reached for her friend’s hand. “Arden, I’m so happy for you, being reunited with your child after all these years. Wait. You’re not going to go back to using Victoria, are you? Not that it’s not a pretty name, but I’m so used to calling you Arden . . .”
“No. I’m not going back to Victoria. And I’m not going to talk about the details of my past with anyone other than you and Gordon. At least for now. If someone grabs you in the post office and wants to know everything you know, please say nothing. This is all too new and overwhelming for me to make public yet. Maybe I never will.”
“I promise. Mum’s the word.” Deborah laughed. “Mum! Mom. Oh, my gosh, you’re a mom! Maybe we’d better ditch the tea and break out the bubbly!”
Chapter 34
“How did your friend Deborah take the news?” Laura asked as she helped Arden to set the table for dinner that evening.
Arden smiled. “She was happy for me. She said she always suspected I was keeping something from her, from everyone. I never meant to set myself up as a woman of mystery, but I guess that’s what I did when I settled in Eliot’s Corner.”
“A woman of mystery. It sounds so romantic, even glamorous. But too often the reality doesn’t match the glossy movie image we have of a tragic, beautiful heroine bravely soldiering through life while tightly holding a dark and painful secret in her heart.”
“Indeed.”
After a meal of pasta with mushroom sauce, Laura excused herself and returned a few minutes later holding a photo album.
“I wonder if you’d like to see these. I put together a small collection of photos before I left for Port George, just in case I did manage to locate you and you wanted to know me. It’s a collection of highlights of my childhood, up through my wedding. I know my marriage was a bust, but doesn’t every parent want to see her child on their wedding day?”
“Of course,” Arden said readily. “I’d love to see it. Let’s sit on the couch and you can explain everything as we go.”
“Before we get to that, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your photo on the shop’s website. Did you ever consider that someone from your past might come across it and recognize you? Or that someone from Port George might come into the shop one day and realize that you were Victoria Aldridge? I mean, the towns are only a few hours apart.”
“Maybe I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. But by the time I had the website
set up, I guess I felt strong enough not to care if someone found me out. Even my parents. Besides, it’s been so long since I was last seen in Port George, and I was never well-known, not like your father. I doubted many people, if anyone, would put two and two together.”
“I guess you were right.”
“There’s another thing about that photo. When I left Port George, I didn’t take much with me, and that included pictures of myself. And for all the years before I settled in Eliot’s Corner, I was careful not to let myself be photographed. Not that anyone wanted to take my picture; I had no friends by choice. So, after Margery passed and I set up the Arden Forest website, I found I really wanted to proclaim myself, Arden Bell, as here. Does that make sense?”
“Absolutely.” Laura opened the album. “Ready?”
Arden nodded.
“This one was taken just after my parents brought me home.”
Tears sprang to Arden’s eyes and she reached into her pocket for a tissue.
“I’m sorry.” Laura laid a hand on Arden’s arm. “Are you sure this won’t be too difficult? We could look at it some other time, a week, a month from now.”
Or, I could leave it with her when I go, Laura thought. Because I won’t be here forever.
“No,” Arden said resolutely, dabbing at her eyes. “I want to do this now.”
Next, Laura showed Arden a photo of Marty and Cynthia Huntington taken a few years after the adoption. “And here are my parents,” she said quietly.
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