The Road Home

by Susan Crandall

  All of the booths and tables were filled. Lily took a seat on a stool at the counter, near the pedestaled cake dome filled with doughnuts.

  The waitress set a cup of coffee in front of Lily. “Hope Tad didn’t knock you on your derriere on his way out. Bulls his way around everywhere. We’re all just supposed to jump out of the way. Don’t take it personal.” She was about Lily’s age, and very attractive. Suddenly Lily was self-conscious of the baseball cap she’d put on when she’d not had time to get a shower before taking Riley to the marina. “Hope regular’s okay. Fresh pot. We don’t serve much decaf in the morning.”

  Lily could do no more than blink at the waterfall of words tumbling from the glossy lips. She was certain the waitress didn’t draw a single breath between her sentences. “Thanks.”

  The woman nodded. “Special this morning’s the western omelet, side of bacon or sausage, and toast. Course, I prefer the French toast. Willie, he’s our cook, makes the best French toast in the state—no exaggeration. Been selling a lot of the omelets today, though. On Wednesday, we have blueberry pancakes. Not the canned or frozen kind. Real blueberries. You should be sure and stop in on Wednesday. You want cream with that coffee?”

  It took Lily a minute to realize the woman had actually paused for an answer. “Oh. Yes, please.”

  The waitress set a small pitcher of cream beside the coffee cup. As Lily creamed her coffee, she said, “Did you say that man’s name was Tad?”

  “Well, yeah. Figured you knew him, since you went to school together. Class of ’89, right?” She didn’t pause for confirmation. “You probably don’t remember me. Cassie. Cassie Edmunds. I was two years behind. Class of ’91.”

  She was right, Lily didn’t remember Cassie. However, she’d never forget Tad Fulton: basketball star, homecoming king, most popular guy in school, and, in Lily’s book, number one asshole. The mere mention of his name made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Now that she thought about it, that guy did look a little like Tad, blond hair a little darker, another thirty pounds on his athletic frame. Had she known it was him, she just might have punched him in the nose.

  “We took the state championship in basketball my senior year. Did you know that?” Cassie hadn’t paused for a response, steamrolling right on into her next comment. She settled her elbow on the counter and propped her chin on her fist, apparently ready for a long walk down memory lane. “It made all of the Midwest papers. We were the ‘Cinderella’ team. Tiny little Glens Crossing High over all of those city schools. Town practically closed down during the final game, everybody went to Indy to see it. Sorta like that movie, Hoosiers. Course now they have class division basketball. No more Cinderellas.” The nostalgic look faded a bit from her eyes and she straightened back up when Mildred, the waitress that had been in the Dew Drop as long as Lily could remember, passed, giving her a pointed look and pursed lips. Cassie made a slight smacking sound with her tongue and said, “Bet Tad wishes he could have been on that team. What can I get you?”

  “Ah, nothing. Coffee’s fine.” Lily was having trouble adapting to Cassie’s way of sliding a question on the end of a totally unrelated statement.

  “ ’Kay, then.” Cassie patted the counter with her palm. “Call me if you change your mind. Really oughta try the French toast.”

  Mildred came up beside Cassie and bodily nudged her into motion. Then she lowered her voice to Lily. “Sorry, ’bout that. Cassie’s real wound up today. She’s got a date with Bud tonight, you’d think she’s got bees in her underwear.” She paused. “Glad to have you back in town, Lily. Your dad’s gotta be on cloud nine.”

  Lily somehow doubted, considering all of the trouble she’d brought along with her, that her dad was anywhere near the heavens at this moment in time.

  All of these years and not once had she considered how her absence affected her father. It had never crossed her mind. But these past few days, everyone in town seemed to be making one pointed comment or another about how her dad had missed her. She tucked away the niggle of guilt playing with her senses.

  Then Lily’s mind skipped back a beat in the conversation. “Cassie has a date with Bud—the guy at the marina?”

  “Yep. Been after him since he came to town. I told her she didn’t know what she was biting off, but you can’t tell Cassie anything. I told her not to marry that husband of hers, but do you think she listened?”

  “Cassie’s married—and dating?”

  Mildred laughed. “Oh, no. That man is long gone. Too bad she’s barking up that same tree again.”

  “What do you mean?” The question was out before Lily could censor the words.

  “I’ve seen the type a hundred times. Good-looking devil—quiet, remote, not about to let anyone inside that body armor he wears. Every woman thinks she can save him. No woman’s safe around him. Cassie’s been mooning over him for months. Girl’s bound to get a broken heart. There’s something… dark about him.” She fluttered her hands in the air. “I don’t mean criminal or anything. Just—closed off, you know, sad.”

  “Mean,” Lily added.

  Mildred’s gaze shifted over Lily’s shoulder, toward a customer seated in a booth across the room. “Oh, no. Not Bud. Not a mean bone in his body,” she said distractedly as she picked up the coffeepot and moved away.

  “Bullshit,” Lily muttered under her breath. Clay… Bud… had grown a mean streak as wide as the street out front. Was mean to cats. Chewed up scrawny teenage boys and spit them out just for fun.

  She cradled her head in her hands. Her son was next.

  * * *

  Before she returned to the lake, Lily took care of some errands in town. She needed some paint from the hardware store for the avocado bathroom she couldn’t tolerate one more day, and a coffeemaker, a couple of power strips, and extension cords. That old cottage offered one outlet per room, with the exception of the kitchen. It had two. Also, she wanted to pick up a pair of swim trunks for Riley, as he’d been responsible for his own packing and left his in Chicago.

  The JC Penney store still sat on the alley across from the courthouse and Duckwall’s Hardware appeared to have the same window display she remembered from high school—a red Radio Flyer wagon, a wide snow shovel and a bag of ice-melt, a spread of little seed packets, a tan and blue two-gallon lemonade crock, an assortment of rakes and shovels, and a barbeque grill. Mr. Duckwall obviously didn’t like fussing with changing the display with the progression of seasons. As backward as this all was, it brought a strange sense of comfort to Lily as she made her rounds.

  Walking around the courthouse square, she studied the mix of storefronts and law offices, some new, many the same. When she’d left Glens Crossing there had been only two lawyers in town, one of whom served as judge; both had to be nearing their hundredth birthdays. Now she noticed several plate-glass windows with the names of attorneys-at-law lettered on them—attorney, not lawyer, not counselor. Each of the new attorney offices noted their specialties: divorce, personal financial and estate planning, personal injury claims, court litigation. Didn’t seem to be anyone admitting to criminal defense. Well, some things had kept up with the times, she thought.

  The courthouse itself hadn’t changed. It was three stories, a mix of red brick and limestone, showing tall double-hung windows and topped with a clock tower you could see all the way from Forrester Lake when the leaves were off the trees. She remembered coming here as a youngster with her dad to pay the taxes each May and November. They’d stand in line at the treasurer’s office sometimes for a half an hour before their turn at the window. Always when they were finished, Dad took her and Molly to the drugstore on the corner for ice cream sundaes. Lily had loved tax day.

  She was standing there smiling absently at the courthouse when she heard someone call her name.

  Turning toward the voice, she was surprised to see Karen Kimball moving toward her with a grin on her face. “I heard you were back in town, I just couldn’t believe it.” When she got close enough, she g
ave Lily a brief hug. “We missed you at the ten-year reunion. How long are you going to be in town?”

  Lily kept a polite smile on her face. She couldn’t imagine anyone had noticed when she ignored the invitation to the reunion, least of all head cheerleader, prom queen and class secretary Karen Kimball.

  “Through the summer.” Lily didn’t elaborate further. If Karen had heard she was in town, she undoubtedly knew about Riley’s incident, and probably about Peter’s hospitalization, too. Besides, Karen had been in an entirely different social strata than Lily in high school; this friendly overture took her completely off guard. Lily let her gaze travel to the girl standing just behind Karen.

  Karen reached behind her and pulled the girl forward. “This is my daughter, Michaeline. Honey, this is an old school friend of mine, Lily… Mrs. Holt.”

  Ah-ha! Maybe that was it. Lily was no longer Lily Boudreau, daughter of the local tavern owner, she was Lily Holt, of the Chicago Holts, currently living on the “right” side of Forrester Lake.

  The girl had a hard time keeping her eyes off the ground when she offered Lily a handshake. “I like to be called Mickey.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mickey.” Lily took the girl’s tentative handshake and smiled.

  Karen cleared her throat. “We’ve discussed this, Michaeline, time and again. It’s time to put away that childish nickname. You have a beautiful name. Use it.”

  Mickey’s jaw tensed and she looked away. Her hands fidgeted in front of her.

  Karen said to Lily, “It’s so hard to make them see what’s best for them.” Then she leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I know you understand my frustration.”

  Lily didn’t bother to explain the difference between a teenager wanting to exert her independence by being called what she wants and one who is a runaway train, breaking laws and his parents’ hearts at the same time.

  Her sympathy went out to this girl, so unlike her mother. If there was a prom queen under that string-mop of straight blond hair, she was deeply hidden. None of her mother’s self-assurance was evident in the shy smile and downcast eyes. Lily said to Mickey, as if the whole name conversation hadn’t come up, “I have a son about your age. Thirteen?”

  Mickey smiled, revealing a mouth full of plastic braces and purple rubber bands. “Thirteen next week.”

  “Well, happy birthday early.”

  “Now,” Karen said, “we’ll have to get together. My number’s in the book under Fulton.”

  That didn’t really come as any surprise. “You married Tad?”

  “Married and divorced. But that’s a long story for another time. We’ll have lunch. ’Bye, now.” She took a step in the direction from which she’d come. Mickey lingered, looking like she wanted to say something. “Come along, Michaeline, your brother should be done at basketball practice.”

  “ ’Bye,” Lily said. Then, as it just seemed Mickey could use the support, she called, “ ’Bye, Mickey.”

  The girl looked over her shoulder and smiled.

  Unwilling to coop herself up inside painting on such a beautiful afternoon, Lily filled her day by cleaning out the boathouse. If she didn’t keep moving, she was going to spend all day thinking and worrying about Clay Winters. And, she decided within the last hour, he just wasn’t worth that much energy. Obviously, she’d been completely misled by him during his summer visits. Not once had she seen the indication that he was capable of being such a bastard. It just went to prove, love is blind—and deaf, and completely without gumption.

  She gritted her teeth and batted away those thoughts. Here she was, thinking about not thinking about him. Dammit.

  With a concentrated effort, she threw herself into her current project. At first she’d thought she’d set up her potter’s wheel on the back porch. It offered enough space and plenty of natural light. But the boathouse provided more isolation, something she preferred while working. She gave an inward flinch; Peter had always laughed when she called her pottery “work.” He’d considered it an acceptable hobby for a Holt wife, something to fill her hours once Riley had started school, nothing more. She knew she wasn’t good enough to sell. But when she put her hands in the wet clay, all else fell away. Something about taking a lump of mud and turning it into something useful, or simply ornamental, brought satisfaction to her soul. It was enough just to create. It didn’t really matter if anyone else appreciated it or not.

  The process of organizing a new work space did keep her body moving throughout the afternoon, but her mind refused to keep on the task. Time and again she found herself walking out of the wide double door with something in her hand and no idea what she intended to do with it. She would pause in the blazing sun, blink at the object, which ranged from fishing poles and bait pails to cartons of old sporting magazines, then glance back into the comparative dimness of the shed, then back at the thing in her hand again. It made for inefficient work, but the purpose was truly more that of having activity than accomplishing a goal.

  And, even though she’d put her faith in her dad’s judgment, occasionally her stomach would flip as she worried about Riley at the marina.

  In the late afternoon, in anticipation of his call to be picked up, Lily took a shower and spent an hour deciding what to wear. At first she selected an expensive designer sportswear set, slacks and a knit shirt, topped with a cotton sweater tied about her shoulders. Looking at herself in the mirror, she was completely disgusted by what she saw—someone trying to make an impression, as if she were going on a first date. Or, she thought sadly, someone trying to make a show of how much Clay had so carelessly thrown away.

  She ripped off the clothes and tossed them on the bed.

  Then she took the opposite approach, sneakers with holes in the toe and baggy coveralls with paint splattered on the legs. She stepped back in front of the tall mirror.

  Well, that just looked ridiculous, all she needed was pouffed bangs, some huge earrings and slouch socks and she could jet right back to the eighties.

  Off came the coveralls, out came her favorite pair of faded jeans and an old blue heather-tone T-shirt from the Gap. She scrubbed off all of the makeup she’d applied to go with the designer outfit and slapped on a little mascara and lightly powdered her nose. The last thing she wanted Clay Winters thinking was that she was in any way trying to impress him.

  Nonchalant indifference, that was the ticket.

  She put her hair up in a bobbed ponytail and left the bedroom.

  After that, time moved with impossible slowness, each second digging in its nails, clinging to the day, moving on only when reluctantly shoved aside by the next second. The shadows didn’t seem to move across the kitchen floor, appearing as permanent markings instead of passing time. Lily paced and fidgeted, fussing with a salad she was making for dinner, arranging and rearranging the cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices.

  Soon the sunlight was masked by sporadic clouds, making the kitchen look aged and depressing. This room could really use her attention next.

  Then she caught herself. This wasn’t her house. It was Peter’s. She had no rights here. Yet, strangely, she didn’t feel like a visitor. She felt like she belonged, like she was a part of this house she’d pointedly avoided for fourteen years. Now that she was surrounded by these familiar walls, she realized this house held more childhood happiness than youthful misery and confusion. She supposed it was that poignant combination that made it feel like home.

  Six o’clock came and went with no call from Riley. Twice since that hour, Lily had picked up the telephone. Twice she’d hung up without making a call. She didn’t want to embarrass Riley. Nor, if she was totally honest with herself—something that she’d noticed was becoming increasingly harder to find, self-honesty—did she want Clay to think she was a mollycoddling mother who couldn’t let her son out of her grasp for a full workday.

  That thought only brought about more frustration. Against her will, she’d spent the entire day alternately dreading and craving the moment she would see C
lay again. When she caught herself imagining him falling on bended knee, begging her forgiveness, admitting that leaving her had been the worst mistake of his life, she wanted to kick her own ass. That was the furthest thing from what she wanted. Her life was complicated enough without introducing another challenge. One rebellious teenager on the brink of starting himself a criminal record and one alcoholic ex-husband who still depended solely upon her (Peter’s parents had yet to admit he had a problem) should be enough to keep any woman’s emotions fully occupied.

  But somehow, a short time would pass, and she’d find herself back at that very mental scene once again.

  She tried to focus on the fact that she had to keep Peter’s recovery in mind. What would he do if he knew Clay was living in Glens Crossing? How would it affect him to know Riley was spending every day with the man? At the best of times, Peter couldn’t overcome his jealousy of Clay—even before Lily had been thrown into the mix. It was something he concealed well—at least as long as Clay was around. Once Clay disappeared, that jealousy swelled as Peter chewed on it until it nearly choked him.

  Now she and Clay and Riley were bound together by a circumstance Peter wouldn’t see as coincidental. The entire scenario, as unlikely as it was, would sing betrayal in Peter’s ears.

  There was only one logical answer. Peter couldn’t know. There was no reason for him to find out. Even if Riley mentioned Clay (which he couldn’t do without admitting he was in trouble again), he knew him only as Bud. Peter would make the same assumption she had—Cecil “Bud” Grissom was still running the marina. This was definitely a case of what Peter didn’t know, couldn’t hurt him.

  As for herself, perhaps no amount of forewarning would have prepared her for this reunion, one she had foolishly assumed would never come about. Early on, she’d created an impenetrable capsule around the part of her that had belonged to Clay. Now those walls were dissolving, leaking emotions so toxic she wondered if she could tolerate them. If only she could call poison control and get an antidote for desertion and betrayal.