Or had she?
Stricken, she took her address book from the nightstand and punched out the number of Mara’s parents in Eugene. Mary O’Neill answered the phone. Paige had spoken with her several times in the course of disposing of Mara’s things. Now, after a cordial greeting, she said, “I have some papers here, Mrs. O’Neill. They’re actually letters written by Mara to a Lizzie Parks.” She gave the address. “I’d like to send them on. Do you think Lizzie’s still at this address?”
There was a silence at the other end of the phone. Paige imagined that Mary O’Neill was trying to decide if the address was indeed correct or, alternately, that she was flipping through a phone book to check.
As it happened, Mary O’Neill was doing neither of those things. In an awkward voice she said, “No. There’s no Lizzie at that address. There’s no Lizzie at all.”
With horror, Paige imagined that Lizzie Parks, too, had died. “What do you mean?”
“There never was a Lizzie. Not in real life. When Mara was little she used to pretend she had a cousin just her age who lived here in Eugene. But there never was any cousin. Lizzie Parks was Mara’s imaginary friend.”
Paige’s hand shook. She bowed her head and pressed her free fingers to her forehead. “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Well. That solves the mystery, then.” An imaginary friend. “Thank you. I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said, and hung up the phone.
She studied the letter she still held in her hand, until the script blurred. Noah, too, was blurred when she raised her eyes. “No Lizzie Parks. She was an imaginary friend.”
Avoiding him, she went to the love seat, gathered the rest of the letters that had been in the packet, and retied the yarn that held them together.
Noah lowered himself beside her. “She was an unhappy woman.”
Paige swore softly and lowered her head. “An imaginary friend.”
“Others have them.”
“In their late thirties?”
“Sometimes. These letters aren’t much different from what many adults write, only they call it a journal. So Mara wrote her journal in letter form, and put a name at the top. It’s just a difference in style. That’s all.”
But Paige was devastated. “An imaginary friend. She must have been that much more lonely that any of us ever imagined.”
“That’s not your fault, Paige.” He drew her close. “You were nearby. She might have taken advantage of you if she’d wanted to. Same with all the other people who liked her so much. But she chose to keep her thoughts to herself.”
Paige supposed. “Mara was pulled in two different directions, one dictated by her past, one by her present. To satisfy the first meant repudiating the second, and vice versa. It was a no-win situation. She was bound to fail.” She pressed her face to Noah’s collarbone and took a shuddering breath. “I feel so very, very, very bad for her.”
The telephone rang. Paige didn’t move at first. Noah was a comfort. But when the second ring came, her sense of duty took over. “Hello?”
“Dr. Pfeiffer?”
“Yes.”
“This is Anthony Perrine, Noah’s father.”
She glanced at Noah. “Dr. Perrine. How are you?”
“I’m well, but I’m afraid there’s a problem. A short time ago, I received a call from Sara’s mother. Sara has disappeared. Liv has been trying to reach Noah without any luck. I thought he might be with you.”
“He is. Right here.” She put the phone to Noah’s ear. His hand covered hers there.
“Yes, Dad?”
Paige watched his face grow somber, then angry.
“Liv doesn’t know how long she’s been gone?” He listened. “Swell.” To Paige he said, “Liv slept late. She hasn’t seen her since last night.” To his father he said, “Where has she looked?” He listened, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. “I’ll start calling her Mount Court friends. I don’t think there are any in the Bay area, but I’ll work my way eastward. She could have thumbed, God help her.”
The doorbell rang. Paige let Nonny answer it.
“Have her call every one of the old friends that Sara might have contacted while she was there,” Noah told his father. “Where would she have gone lugging that huge duffel bag? And why would she have run off that way? Did Liv say they’d been arguing?”
Paige put her ear to the phone but couldn’t make out the answer. So she whispered, “Ask if she left any clues—matchbooks, telephone numbers thrown in the wastebasket, bus schedules.”
Noah nodded. He held her gaze while he listened to what his father was saying, then he related Paige’s suggestions. “Sara wouldn’t want to just vanish. She’s not—”
“An unhappy child,” Paige said into the mouthpiece. “She’s adjusted well at Mount Court. She likes it here. If anything—”
“I’d imagine her getting on the first plane out of San Francisco—”
“And flying back here,” she finished.
“Hi, guys,” came a voice from the door.
Paige and Noah swung around to face Sara, who was grinning from ear to ear.
Noah let out a sigh of relief. While Paige left his side and wrapped her arms around Sara, he told his father, “She just walked in. She looks fine.” He cleared his throat. “I’m dying to hear how she got here. Do me a favor and call Liv, Dad? Tell her I’ll talk with her another time.” He hung up the phone.
Paige was still holding Sara—protecting her, she fancied, from whatever punishment Noah had in mind. Then Noah’s arms encircled them both, and she released her breath.
Noah wanted to be angry at Sara but couldn’t. She hadn’t gone to see a friend; she had come home to him. That meant the world to him. Moreover, when she explained that she had taken a cab to the airport, changed her ticket to a flight one day earlier, and taken another cab first to Mount Court, then to Paige’s, he couldn’t find much fault. She had used common sense. At no time had she done anything dangerous—thoughtless, perhaps, in that she’d given her mother a scare, but she’d been angry. It seemed that Liv had done little more than spend Thanksgiving Day with Sara. She had a new boyfriend, with whom she spent most of her time. Sara had been very much on her own.
Noah was furious at Liv, though not surprised. She was a selfish woman. He had every intention of telling her so when they spoke.
“She told me to visit my friends,” Sara said, holding Sami on her lap, while Noah, Paige, and Nonny sat nearby, “but there wasn’t anybody to see. My two closest friends were away, and the others didn’t want to see me any more than I wanted to see them. I wanted to say hi to Jeff—he was my stepdad for so long and I have his name, for God’s sake—but she forbade it. So there was nothing to do. I figured that I could just as well do nothing here.”
Noah saw defiance. And pride. “Another time,” he cautioned, because it was one thing if he told Liv off, another if Sara showed disrespect, “tell your mother you’re leaving.”
“She would have tried to stop me. She would have taken my ticket and my money. She would have locked me in my room.”
Noah doubted that.
Sara was staring at him. “You don’t believe me.”
“Did she ever lock you in your room?”
“Once.”
He would have asked when, had her expression not told him. It had been after one of the shoplifting incidents. Sara didn’t want him telling Paige and Nonny about those.
So he didn’t ask. And her defiance faded. In a more reasonable tone she said, “She would have made me go out with her and Ray, and I didn’t want to do that. He’s smarmy.”
“Smarmy?” Paige asked.
“He fawns all over her. Whatever she says or does is always right. If she decides to marry him, I’m outta there for good.”
Noah rather liked the thought of that, except that he felt a moral responsibility to take the high road. “She’s still your mother. You don’t see her much now that you’re living with me, but it would be nice if when you do get together you coul
d be civil to one another.”
Sara made a face. “Tell her that. She wasn’t very civil to me. She kept telling me that something was wrong—either my hair was a mess, or my skin looked lousy, or I was gaining weight.”
“You’re not gaining weight,” Paige said quickly. Eating disorders were the rage among the girls at Mount Court. She didn’t want to encourage another.
“I weigh fifteen pounds more than her,” Sara said.
“You’re also four inches taller,” Noah pointed out.
“Which means,” Paige added, “that inch by inch you weigh less than she does. You can tell her that next time she mentions it.”
Noah grinned at Paige’s resourcefulness. It was but another of the things that he loved—like the way she had hugged Sara without recrimination, the way she had put in her two cents when he’d been talking with his father, the way her thoughts had run parallel to his.
Then his smile faded, because he didn’t know what would happen if he went to Santa Fe next year and she stayed here.
“Anyway,” Sara went on, “I won’t be seeing her for a while. Not until spring break in March.”
“Aren’t you going there for Christmas?” Paige asked with a questioning look at Noah.
He shook his head. “She goes for Thanksgiving and spring break. Summer has yet to be decided.”
“So what are you doing over Christmas?” Nonny asked. The gleam in her eye told Noah she had plans.
“You tell me,” he invited.
“You’ll stay here, of course. We’ll have a big tree right in that corner. We’ll decorate the house and hang stockings on the mantel, and sing carols in Tucker center with the rest of the townsfolk.”
“Me too?” Sara asked.
“Why, yes, you too,” Nonny answered.
Noah would have hugged her for the wholehearted way she included Sara in her doings, except that the picture she painted was a bit premature. “Actually,” he said, “I was thinking of taking Sara to New York over Christmas to see Rockefeller Center and—”
“New York stinks,” Sara cried.
“I agree,” Nonny said.
Paige looked at her. “No one asked your opinion, Nonny.”
“Well, I gave it anyway. And I’ll continue to give it,” she said as she rose from her chair, “because I happen to be the senior member of this group”—she went to Sara’s side—”which means I’ve lived the longest and had the most experience—come, Sara—and my experience tells me that we’ll all have a far nicer time staying here.” She led Sara, who carried Sami, toward the kitchen. “We’ll be deciding what to make for supper.”
“I’ll bring something in,” Noah called after them.
“Mexican!” Nonny called back.
“I can’t eat Mexican!”
“Then we’ll cook!”
Noah watched the three of them disappear. He thought of the time Sara spent with his parents. She was comfortable with them. But with Nonny she was different. Nonny was an unexpected gift, part adult, part elf. Sara couldn’t resist her.
Or Sami, for that matter. For someone who didn’t have previous experience—despite what she had once told Paige—with children, Sara did just fine with Sami. She held her like a pro, played with her like a pro. But then, with little children one didn’t need experience, just love.
Noah hadn’t thought Sara had so much. She had always been quiet and self-contained, even sullen, yet in this house she smiled, she talked, she participated.
He reached for Paige’s hand. “What are you thinking?”
“Same thing you are,” she said with a sigh. “You’d think Sami was her sister.”
“She could be.”
“Yes. Well.”
“It’s worth considering.”
“Fine for you to say. You’re not the one who’s being asked to give up everything you’ve spent the whole of your adult life building.” She straightened her fingers, but Noah didn’t let go.
“Come on, Paige. People have relocated before.” He suddenly read more on her face. “But it’s not just the relocation, is it? It’s the commitment. It terrifies you.”
She took a breath and let it out in a high-pitched, “Uh-huh.”
Which was another thing he loved about her. She was honest. He didn’t necessarily agree with everything she said—certainly in this case he didn’t agree—but she said what she felt.
He tried to reason with her. “It doesn’t make sense. Your life has commitment written all over it.”
“In some spheres, yes.”
“Why not in all?”
“Because all’s too much to ask.”
“So you quit while you’re ahead,” he suggested with some bitterness. He was hurt that she wasn’t willing to take a chance on him, on them.
“That’s not it.”
“Sure sounds it to me.”
“No. I’m just recognizing my limits. I’m trying to avoid failure.”
“And in the process you’re missing out on the best life has to offer. Being with someone you love is the best kind of commitment imaginable. Lonely people all over the world would give anything for it. Think of your friend Mara.”
“I do. All the time.”
“Do you think she’d be backing away, like you are?”
“Not fair, Noah.”
“True,” he said, leaning closer, “but desperate circumstances require desperate measures. You’re backing away. Taking the coward’s way out. Why? Because your parents treated you like a drag so you think of family life as a drag? Well, what do you think you’ve had here—you, Nonny, and Sami? It’s family life, and it’s no drag. Same when Sara and I join you. You enjoy it. You know you do.”
She freed her hand and clutched it in her lap. “My life was so simple before. Suddenly you’re asking me to be a wife and a mother not once, but twice over, and on top of that you’re asking me to abandon my practice and move to Santa Fe.”
“That’s negotiable,” he offered, thinking for sure that he would pique her interest; but she only shot him a look.
“Negotiable? How romantic.”
“What I’m saying is that my leaving Tucker isn’t a done deed.”
“Fine. If you stay here, we can continue on like we are now.”
“Which would suit you perfectly well. You could keep on with your work, and play at having a husband and kids, and then when the going gets rough, you could take off, free as a bird.”
“I’d never do that.”
“Right! So what’s the difference if you’re married?”
“Precisely? What’s the difference if I’m not?”
He started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. “Christ, you have a quick mouth. Always could tie me up with words. Right from the start.”
“And right from the start you were rigid,” she returned. “You got an idea in your mind, like evening study hall, and insisted on it come hell or high water. Good Lord, Noah, you’ve been through one marriage and failed. Why in the world do you want to try it again?”
“So I can do it right this time.”
“And you’re sure you will?”
“I think so.”
“Well, you have more faith in yourself that I have in me.”
“No,” he said sadly. “I just want it more, I guess. That’s all.” Feeling dejected, thinking that if Paige didn’t really love him, moving back to Santa Fe and putting everything about Tucker, Vermont, behind him might be the only way he’d survive, he left to join the others in the kitchen.
* * *
Paige didn’t know what to do. Conflicting thoughts chased each other around in her head, leaving her little peace that night. Loving Noah was brand new. Left to her own devices, she might have worn the knowledge around for a while to see about the comfort of the fit, but he wasn’t giving her that luxury. He was pressuring her to make decisions she didn’t feel capable of making.
Then, the following afternoon, after she had muddled her way through a day’s work, she got a call from J
oan Felix that upped the pressure something fierce.
twenty-one
“I THINK WE HAVE ONE,” JOAN SAID.
Paige didn’t follow. “One what?”
“Family. For Sami. It’s a mother and father who have four biological children and are looking to adopt a fifth. They just moved to Vermont from the Midwest. We had a preliminary meeting with them last Friday. On the surface, they look good. It’ll be at least a month before the home study is complete. You’ve been through that, so you know what it’s like.”
Paige heard only half of what Joan was saying. An awful thumping inside her drowned out the rest. She caught something about a biological family for Sami, four children wanting to take her west, but the only thing that really registered was an image of Sami’s bedroom, suddenly empty and quiet and cold.
“Paige? Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“I thought for a minute that we’d gotten cut off.”
“I’m sorry.” Paige pressed a hand to her stomach. “Would you tell me again? You found a family for Sami?”
She tried to listen this time, but when she hung up the phone, she was feeling nauseated. It was one upheaval in her life too many. She made her way back to the kitchen and opened a can of ginger ale. She was sipping it, willing her stomach to settle and her mind to make sense out of what she’d learned, when Angie slipped in.
She didn’t say anything, just leaned against the counter near Paige with a nervous look on her face.
Paige didn’t like that look. Not on the all-knowing and confident Angie. “Why do I get the feeling something’s happened?” she asked warily.
“Ben and I are going to make it,” Angie said.
The words registered. Paige intellectualized them and managed a semienthusiastic, “That’s great, Angie,” but she knew there was more. Whereas Angie should have looked pleased, she remained nervous.
“But we may be moving.”
“Moving?”
“Back to New York.”
“Oh, Angie!”
Angie closed her hands around Paige’s wrists and, beseechingly, said, “I’m torn, Paige. In so many ways. If I were the only one involved, I’d never even be considering this. I love Tucker. I love you. I love our families. But I’m not the only one involved—much as I may have fooled myself into thinking that for too long a time. There’s Ben. And what it boils down to is that he needs to be in the city. He’s bored here.”
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