The doorbell rang—an unusual occurrence—and Jillian was barely in the hall on her way to respond when Nia burst through the unlocked door.
“Now I’ve done it.” Nia bent her head down into her hands. “Now I’ve really done it.”
“What are you talking about? Did you and Leo have a fight?”
“What?” Nia’s head arced upward, still held between her palms. “Leo and I don’t fight. I married a saint. You know that.”
“Then what?”
“Meri.”
“I thought you two had come to an agreement.”
“We did. I’ve went way over a line. Big-time.”
Jillian pointed into the living room. “Maybe you’d better sit down and tell me what happened.”
“I can’t sit down.” Nia crossed the room with a nervous hitch in her step, pivoted, and returned.
“Then I’m going to sit down.” Jillian chose the comfortable purple chair with the matching ottoman. It was hard to feel distressed slouched in this chair.
“I didn’t mean to.” Nia zigzagged across the room. She paused long enough to pick up a porcelain carousel that had belonged to Jillian’s mother and then immediately set it down. “See that? That’s what I did. That’s what gets me in trouble.”
“I’m not following.”
“I pick stuff up. Why do I do that? But now that I know, I can’t just ignore it.”
“Hold the phone,” Jillian said. “You found out something you’re not supposed to know?”
Nia blew out her breath and looked at Jillian square on. “I invaded her privacy. Not like asking you to use her Social Security number but actually invading her privacy.”
“Maybe you should tell me exactly what happened—without telling me what you shouldn’t know, because I shouldn’t know it either.”
“I went to Meri’s room to take her some fresh towels. The door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed. I thought I would just leave the towels on the bed instead of on the floor outside her room.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“It wouldn’t be, if that’s all I’d done. Perfectly innocent. In and out in ten seconds. No harm, no foul.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to ask this. But …?”
“I knew Meri was away from the Inn. I’d just sent her on an errand—some food shopping that would take her a while. And the letter was right there on the dresser next to the door. How could I not see it?” Nia was on the move again.
Jillian raised both hands, palms up and out. “Whatever it was, keep it to yourself. You shouldn’t have seen it, and you certainly shouldn’t be telling me.”
“But this is big, Jillian. And when I tell you, you’ll understand.”
“Nia, no. This is not a good idea.”
Nia began to pace again. “You know my curiosity gets the best of me. Even when I was your babysitter, I used to come over here and look through the cupboards just to see what your parents kept.”
“I’m pretty sure every teenage babysitter on the planet does that.”
“And I touch things in museums even though the sign right in front of me says ‘Do Not Touch.’ It’s like I think rules of civility don’t apply to me.”
Jillian swung her feet off the ottoman, planted them flat on the floor, and leaned forward. “Did you see something that puts Meri in danger?”
“No.”
“Harmful to anyone else?”
“No.”
“Illegal?”
“Definitely not.”
“Touching on legal matters in any way?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Then I think you have to just block it out of your mind.”
“But Jillian, if you saw where the envelope was from, you’d be curious too.”
Jillian covered her ears. “Lalalalala. I’m not hearing this.”
Nia stopped roving long enough to tug at Jillian’s arms. “You should. This is why Meri is here.”
Jillian considered. Five seconds. Then ten. “Okay. Where was the envelope from?”
“University of Tennessee Health Science Center.”
“That sounds suspiciously like it could be related to a medical school.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“Okay. So she has an envelope from a medical school. Her family is full of doctors. That’s not all that surprising.”
Nia swatted Jillian’s shoulder. “It’s not the envelope that matters. It’s the letter.”
“Whoa. Are you telling me you opened the envelope?”
“Technically it was already open. It’s not as if Meri hadn’t already read the letter.”
Jillian stood up. “But now you read it. You read her personal correspondence.”
“It’s terrible. It’s awful.” Nia threw herself onto the navy sofa. “I’m a wretched soul, probably beyond redemption. But it explains so much. You’ll agree when you hear what it is.”
“I can’t know this.” Jillian pointed a firm index finger at Nia. “I can’t be dragged into this. Let it go before we both need to engage legal counsel.”
“Meri flunked out of medical school.”
“Nia. Nia!”
“I know.”
“I said don’t tell me.”
“But don’t you see? This matters. It was a letter from the dean dated about ten days ago.”
“It’s so early in the academic year,” Jillian said. “How is it possible to get a letter like that with this timing?”
“Well, there you go. You’re sucked in, just the way I was.”
“I still wish you hadn’t told me.” Jillian dropped one hand on top of her head. “How can I possibly unknow this now?”
“You can’t. Not any more than I can. And we can’t act like we don’t know, not when she shows up on my doorstep acting like a frightened, skittish kitten.”
Jillian tilted her head back to stare at the twelve-foot ceiling with its original crown molding.
“Well,” she said, “you’re right; coming from a family of doctors, this is no small thing. No wonder she’s running away from home.” Jillian returned her gaze to Nia. “But you have to come clean with Meri. And you have to do it right away.”
“What am I supposed to say to her? I accidentally picked up an envelope, opened it, read your mail, and put everything back, and now I can’t behave normally around you?”
“Leave out the ‘accidentally’ part, and I think you have the basics.”
“I’m sorry and not sorry all at the same time,” Nia said. “Come on, let’s go and get this over with.”
Jillian glanced toward her office and the unrelenting stack of work. The family tree for the reunion. The lost young woman in St. Louis. An article to write for a genealogy journal. Deciding whether to accept an invitation to speak at a conference. Three proposals from potential clients she hadn’t even had time to read yet, much less prepare quotes for her fee.
“Of course I’ll go with you,” Jillian said. “Will Meri be back?”
“I think so.”
They walked together to the Inn, Nia’s stride slower than usual. Jillian adjusted to Nia’s speed, wishing her father were the one walking into a situation that would require his mediation skills. Nia and Meri wouldn’t be bargaining over compensation or property or custody, but Nolan always said his greatest satisfaction came when he knew that parties across the table had truly listened to each other. All Jillian had was a ten-year-old introduction to psychology college course about which she remembered very little beyond the fact that the professor never wore socks and rooted for Ohio State during football season. Neither of those tidbits was likely to be useful in this situation.
“I got everything,” Meri said as soon as they entered the kitchen at the Inn. “Free-range organic eggs, thick-sliced sourdough bread, center-cut bacon. And I made sure the butcher knew it was for you so he wouldn’t give me the fatty stuff, just like you said. And pastries from Ben’s Bakery—fresh, not day-old.”
“Thank you, Meri,” Nia said. “It was a tremendous help to be able to send you out for these things and know you would come back with the right stuff and not let anyone push you around just because you’re new.”
“I got the vegetables too. They didn’t have as many orange peppers as you wanted, so I got extra yellow. I hope that’s all right.”
Meri’s face was lit with pleasure. For a couple of hours she had focused on something other than the dread that infused Jillian’s conversation with her the day before. For the moment, Jillian put a smile on her own face.
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Nia said. “I’m used to working with whatever ingredients I can find, as long as they are high quality, and I’m sure you did your absolute best to represent the Inn well in your purchases.”
“I did try,” Meri said. “I’d like to help make tomorrow’s breakfast buffet and see what you’re going to do with all these scrumptious things.”
“I’d be delighted to have your help.”
Jillian tilted her head at Nia’s falsely bright tone and softly cleared her throat.
“We’ve had a busy morning,” Nia said. “I have some chicken salad and a few of Ben’s croissants. Why don’t I make us all some sandwiches?”
“I had a bite while I was out,” Meri said.
“And I should probably get back to work,” Jillian said. “But we could just sit and talk for a few moments.”
“I’ll get out of your way,” Meri said.
“Actually,” Jillian said, “we’d like you to sit with us.”
“I still need to sweep the upstairs hall and make sure all the wastebaskets got emptied.”
“That can wait.” Nia’s tone gave in to what had to be done. She pulled out a chair and tapped the back of it for Meri to sit down.
“What’s going on?” Meri sat and folded her hands on the table. “Have you decided I’m not working out?”
“No!” Nia said. “Nothing like that.”
Jillian took the seat opposite Meri and waited for Nia’s reluctant compliance. Finally Nia sat.
“I thought you could use some clean towels,” Nia said, “and I noticed your door was open, so I went ahead and put them on your bed.”
“Thank you.” Meri’s tone carried more suspicion than gratitude, and the light was flickering out of her eyes.
“On the way out, I couldn’t help noticing the letter on your dresser.”
Meri’s eyes widened.
“My cousin went to medical school in Nashville, so I got curious. I have a terrible, lifelong problem with curiosity. Anyone will tell you that.” Meri said nothing.
“There aren’t enough words in the universe to tell you how sorry I am, at least not any of the ones I know. I shouldn’t have stopped. I should have just kept walking. But I didn’t. I picked up the letter.”
Meri scraped back her chair. “You are not about to tell me that you read my personal mail in my private room.”
Nia’s face was as red as Jillian had ever seen it, redder than that weekend they went over the mountain to Grand Lake and Nia insisted she never got sunburned but of course she fried to a crisp.
“I don’t believe this,” Meri said. “Here I’ve been working so hard the last few days to earn your trust after running away that first night. It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t trust you.”
“It never occurred to me that you shouldn’t trust me,” Nia said. “I don’t know what came over me. I was just going to leave the towels outside your room, and then the door was open, and then … well, there are no excuses. It was a complete breach of your privacy and your trust, and I am deeply sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
Meri looked away. “I don’t know what I think right now.”
“I’m sorry for what I did,” Nia said, “but I’m not sorry for what I know. It helps me—us, because I told Jillian—understand something about you. If this is the reason you showed up in Canyon Mines, you should know that you still have friends here. This changes nothing on my end.”
“Yes,” Jillian said, “it certainly puts some perspective on everything you’ve been telling me about the doctors in your family. We want to help.”
Meri stood up. “Well, my family will know by now. All those messages—it’s only a matter of time before they find me here. Nia, if you wouldn’t mind paying me for the days I’ve worked, I’ll just leave.”
“Leave?” Nia said. “And go where?”
Meri shrugged, as Jillian had come to expect her to do.
“Somewhere else. Find another job. I’ll have to get a different phone. A prepaid one. And somehow get a different car. My parents own that too, so I can’t sell it. Maybe I can get a bus ticket. Do you think my wages will be enough for a bus ticket somewhere?”
“Meri, let us help you,” Nia said.
“Will today count as a full day of work if I finish everything?” Meri said.
“Yes, of course.”
“Then I’ll go in the morning.” Meri left the kitchen, her soft steps taking her through the dining room, into the hall, and up the stairs.
“We can’t let that girl leave,” Nia said.
“I don’t disagree,” Jillian said, “but I don’t know how to stop her. Gagging and tying her would just make things worse.”
“What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?”
“You broke her trust,” Jillian said, “but if it’s any comfort, I’m pretty sure she was going to leave anyway and you just wouldn’t have known why. She doesn’t want her family to find her.”
“I have to go talk to Leo.”
“That’s probably a good idea. And I’m going to call my dad.”
Nia headed out to Leo’s workshop, and Jillian went out to the Dunston patio and pushed her father’s speed dial number, hoping he wasn’t in a meeting. She was in over her head with this intuitive and mediative stuff, but she couldn’t see how it would be in Meri’s best interest to let her abandon her car somewhere and get on a bus to who knows where. Nolan promised to help that evening. If they could just keep Meri close by all day, he would take her out for dessert.
Nia came marching out of the workshop, her demeanor transformed. “I have a plan.”
Jillian followed her into the house. “What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
“What happened to being contrite and remorseful?”
“I am those things, but I am also determined to help Meri out of whatever mess has her hiding on the run. And that means she is staying put.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Just watch.”
Nia stood at the base of the stairs and called up for Meri to come down.
Meri came three-quarters of the way down the staircase, broom in one hand and a wastebasket in the other.
“I have quite a list of things I need your help with over the next few days.” Nia waved a sheet of paper. “I’ve written them out, so you can see for yourself that it’s far too much for me to handle on my own with an employee leaving without notice.”
“What are you getting at?” Meri sat on a step. “I told you I’m leaving in the morning.”
“Tomorrow is Wednesday. We agreed that you would be paid on Fridays, at the close of each week. So I will pay you on Friday as we agreed. We also agreed that you would give me a week’s notice. Telling me today that you’re leaving in the morning is hardly a week’s notice.”
“I don’t believe you,” Meri said. “First you invade my privacy, and now you treat me like an indentured servant?”
“This is what we agreed to.”
“That was before.”
“I apologized profusely,” Nia said, “and what I did does not interfere with our ability to perform our respective responsibilities for the term of your employment.”
“You are a piece of work, you know that?” Meri stomped up the stairs.
Nia withdrew to the office, and Jillian followed. Nia collapsed into her desk chair.
&n
bsp; “You just bought us a week,” Jillian said.
“I hope I did,” Nia said. “Now you and your dad have to do your part.”
“Piece of cake,” Jillian said, “especially since now she hates you and hates us by association.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Memphis, August 26, 1878
Callie had taken to feeding Eliza enormous breakfasts. Eliza’s mother had always overseen a genteel vegetable garden but had drawn the line at having clucking chickens on the property. After all, they lived in town, not out in the country. She did not appreciate the less refined households whose roosters announced the dawn. But the clacking and crowing had come closer in the last week. Clearly Callie had rounded up abandoned chickens and sheltered them behind the coach house, where a well-oiled carriage sat idle while the horses were boarded at a livery during the household driver’s annual leave—which had been extended by the impossibility that anyone should return to Memphis in the middle of an epidemic. Eliza was always content to hail a cab. It was her mother who wanted the security of her own carriage and a driver she knew. Now though, cabs were becoming scarce. Drivers spent their days hauling wagons loaded with coffins, and still the task was greater than the hours in the day. Eliza walked anywhere she needed to go in town and planned for the extra time that took.
Callie came into the dining room.
Eliza nodded. “I’m finished. Thank you for another breakfast sure to last me all day.” Eliza had made herself consume every bite of the scrambled eggs, griddle cakes, bacon, and toast. Whatever food there was at the Sisters House should go to those who lived there or those they served.
“Yes, Miz Eliza. Your mama would want me to make sure you keep up your strength.”
“I’m not ill, Callie.”
“You tired though.”
Eliza offered no dispute. Everyone at the Sisters House was exhausted. The epidemic showed no sign of abating.
“It be rainy again today,” Callie said. “Wear your wellies and take the umbrella. Your mama would say.”
The Inn at Hidden Run Page 9