All That Remains

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I can’t say most of the memories I have of it are all that good.”

  “I suppose not. Don’t your kids come stay?”

  He tried not to react. He didn’t want to talk about India and Autumn, but there wasn’t any reason to shut down Wren the way he had the other time she asked about them. He’d shared plenty about himself with her, but this was different. You didn’t tell a woman about your marriage, your children, unless you were becoming intimate in a way he’d sworn he never would again. Yet he had to answer her.

  “They live too far away.”

  He knew right away he’d been too terse. Her expression closed.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, sounding, despite the words, relieved that Abby was waking up.

  His cue to rise and take his plate to the sink. Just as well the baby had interrupted before he’d felt compelled to keep talking. Carlene had always accused him of being closemouthed, but he found it all too easy to spill his guts to Wren.

  One more danger sign.

  ONCE HE HAD IT in his head, Alec couldn’t quit mulling over whether he ought to sell the damn house. What he couldn’t understand was why he even hesitated.

  Maybe it was the family history thing that stopped him. Alec’s grandfather, as well as great-aunts Pearl and Edwina, had been born in this house. Had grown up here in Saddler’s Mill. Pearl had spent her entire life here, sleeping virtually every night of it in that room upstairs where Wren now stayed. Alec found himself wondering whether his mother and Great-Aunt Pearl had ever talked about the future. Obviously, Mom hadn’t considered selling, perhaps in part because Sally and her kids were here. Then, in her will, she’d left him the house. He still struggled with that. She’d left investments she considered to be equal in value to Sally, but the house to him. It sometimes felt more like a burden than a gift. What sense did it make to leave a four-bedroom house to a divorced man who didn’t even see his kids every other weekend? What did he need with a house this size? It felt like a mockery to him, living in it.

  Of course, Great-Aunt Pearl had rattled around in this house all by herself for thirty or forty years, after her parents had passed on. He wondered if she’d ever thought about moving, whether living in a house designed for a family felt wrong to her, too.

  Prowling the internet at his desk the next day, he found his mind split, like a computer screen with two programs running. One was conducting the continuing search for Molly or Samuel Rothenberg. He made notes on the Rothenbergs that popped up, even as he kept thinking about Great-Aunt Pearl. His childish self had felt so uncomfortable in her house, so hemmed in by her fussy collectibles and lace doilies, he wasn’t sure he had ever relaxed enough to see her as a human being.

  From this distance, it was easier to realize that she must have had dreams and regrets like everyone did. Maybe seeing other people’s children had given her a bitter taste, considering she’d never had the chance to have her own. If so, he and Pearl had something in common, didn’t they? It was a nice irony that he was now living in her house, a hermit as sour as she could ever have been. He’d had the family, and lost it. She’d never had one at all. But they had both suffered from the same cause: they were alone.

  He thought maybe she’d tried to be nice sometimes. She’d baked awfully good chocolate-chip cookies when Alec and Sally were staying with her. And made lemonade from real lemons, instead of concentrate, a novel concept to them. Maybe she’d made those cookies especially for her great-niece and great-nephew. If so, he hoped she’d known how much he liked them.

  His attention abruptly focused on the computer monitor, where Samuel Joseph Rothenberg, resident of Gainesville, Florida, had popped up. It appeared he was a State Farm Insurance agent. A few minutes later, Florida State DMV records confirmed that a Molly Elizabeth Rothenberg held a driver’s license and was listed at the same address.

  Bingo.

  Wren was going to be thrilled. Alec sat unmoving for a long moment, still staring at the monitor.

  Damn it. Why wasn’t he happy to have good news for her?

  Why did he feel something more like panic?

  Finally he took careful note of the contact information and turned off his computer. It was a little early, but he was going home, he decided. The county owed him a few hours. He and Wren had to talk, really talk, before she went off half-cocked and bought an airline ticket without thinking through her best choice.

  The minute he let himself in the door, he could see the alarm on Wren’s face. She was waiting in the hall with a rolling pin in her hand. Maybe she was planning to bake a pie, but her hands and the rolling pin were free of any dusting of flour.

  “Alec?”

  Belatedly he realized that he’d scared her. Her few freckles stood out against her pallor.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have called to let you know I was coming home early.”

  If anything, her eyes got bigger and darker and the rest of her smaller, as though she was drawing in on herself. He’d seen her do that before and didn’t like it.

  “Is…is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No.” He pulled a smile from somewhere, because this was good news for her. “Something’s right. I found your friend Molly.”

  She stared. Then joy suffused her, coming from the inside out, and she went from being as plain as the bird she’d been named for to being so pretty she made his heart ache. “Molly? You found her?”

  “Pretty sure.” Okay, now he was happy, even though underneath a part of him regretted knowing that she would never need him quite so much again. And…he’d liked being needed. At least, he’d liked being needed by her. He cleared his throat. “You’ll need to call, but I found a Molly Elizabeth married to a Samuel Joseph Rothenberg.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Florida,” he told her. “Upstate, not on the ocean.”

  She stood very still, as if drinking in his news, and then suddenly flew at him. So quick it was more like a hummingbird than a wren, she hugged him and kissed his cheek, then danced away. “Do you suppose she’d be home right now? Oh—maybe not if she works. Except—wait. Are they an hour ahead of us? I can try, can’t I? You do have a phone number.”

  “I have a phone number.”

  Happiness had her lit up, something like when she looked at Abby but different, too. He hoped like hell her friend wasn’t going to let her down. It was obvious Wren hadn’t been able to count on very many people in her life.

  “Can we talk before you call her?”

  She whirled to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “What if she invites you to come right away?”

  Looking bewildered, she said, “I got Mom’s check yesterday. I told you that, didn’t I? If you’ll cash it for me, I’ll have plenty to get there.”

  “Wren,” he said gently, “maybe it’s not what you want to hear, but I’d like you to stay here until we locate James. Your friend’s husband is an insurance agent. How can he protect you? Or Abby?” Tacking on her daughter was a cheap shot, but necessary if he was going to stop her from doing something stupid.

  Her teeth closed on her lower lip for a moment as her eyes searched his. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “It’s not fair that you have to take on all my problems just because you climbed in that attic window.”

  He wanted to take on all her problems. Stunned, he realized how much he wanted that.

  “To some extent, your problems are my job.” It was weak logic, but the best he could come up with in the moment.

  “But I’m living in your house.”

  Still shocked at his own conviction that he was ready now and forever more to take care of this woman, Alec struggled to find the right tone.

  An easy grin—yeah, he could do that. A voice that held an undercurrent of humor. He could do that, too. “Yep, and you’re feeding me better than I’ve eaten since I can’t remember.”

  Her face relaxed and she smiled at him. “I am feeding you well.”
>
  “Why don’t you call your friend now?” he suggested. “If James hasn’t shown up on her doorstep yet, tell her to be cautious. I’d feel better if you stayed here for now. Will you do that?”

  Her smile became tremulous. “Yes. Thank you, Alec.”

  “Good. Then make your call.”

  WREN STARTED CRYING the minute she heard Molly’s voice. “Oh, Molly. It’s Wren. I’ve been looking for you, and… It’s really you!”

  Within seconds, Molly was blubbering, too. They talked over each other, and it didn’t matter. The two years since they’d seen each other were erased. It wasn’t until they became coherent again that Wren tried to explain how and why she’d lost touch.

  “It’s not like James was watching me 24/7. I could have emailed or called. But I didn’t want to upset him, and if I used our computer or phone, he would have seen. But I’d have felt awful sneaking out to use a computer at the library or something.” Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. “I don’t even think it was James, though. Really, I was ashamed of myself. I didn’t want to admit to you what my life was like. How could I have let myself be so weak?”

  “You never had very much confidence in yourself where guys were concerned. You didn’t even notice when some guy was hitting on you. Remember that soccer player? Garret, or something like that?”

  “He didn’t—” Wren heard herself say automatically, and then she flushed with the realization that this was her inner voice.

  “He did,” Molly said firmly. “Only you never gave any I’m-interested signals. I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, you’re sure of yourself in some ways. Like that time Professor Austin was being a racist jerk, and you were the only student in the class who was brave enough to stand up and say you weren’t going to listen. He got in so much trouble when you reported him.”

  Wren drew her knees to her chest, which meant putting her feet on the sofa. Aunt Pearl was probably rolling over in her grave.

  “I guess it has to do with Mom,” Wren admitted. “Well, and my father, too. Knowing your own father never wanted you is kind of hard on the self-esteem.”

  Molly made sympathetic noises.

  Wren explained the understanding she’d arrived at. “And at least I worked up the nerve to leave James.”

  Her friend was appropriately furious when Wren told her about the first time she’d tried to leave him, and how badly James had hurt her. Then Molly listened, aghast, to the tale of Wren’s more recent escape—and to the news that James had apparently left Seattle within a day of Wren’s disappearance.

  “No, he hasn’t called,” Molly said. “And he might have been watching the house, but I don’t know what he looks like.”

  “Alec thinks he’s here. In Saddler’s Mill, or maybe Mountfort.”

  “But if he’s trying to track you down, wouldn’t Alec have heard by now?”

  “It’s making Alec really unhappy that he hasn’t gotten even a whisper about James. But there’s so much chaos right now. If James thinks I’m in a shelter, he could be making the rounds. According to Alec, there are all kinds of out-of-town people here. FEMA workers, National Guard, adjusters from insurance companies, government people to assess environmental damage… James could pretend to be one of them.”

  “So maybe you’d be safer if you weren’t in Saddler’s Mill. Why don’t you come down to Gainesville and stay with Sam and me?”

  “I was hoping eventually maybe I could for a little while,” Wren said. “You probably guessed that, since I’m here because I came looking for you.” She hesitated. “Would Sam mind?”

  “Of course he wouldn’t. I talk about you all the time. The only thing is— Oh, Wren, I’m having a baby, too.”

  They babbled some more. Molly knew from an ultrasound that she was having a boy. Her due date was only three weeks away. And she admitted that their spare bedroom was going to be the nursery. But she kept insisting that, after the baby was born, Wren could sleep on the pull-out couch in the living room.

  “It would be so amazing if you could stay in Gainesville, Wren. I’ve missed you so much. And if you have to go to work, maybe I could take care of Abby for you. I’m going to stay home for at least the next year.”

  Wren had to swallow a couple of times before she could talk. Her voice came out husky. “I think I’d like that. I— Oh, Molly, I’ve missed you, too.”

  She had to explain why Alec thought it was safer for her and Abby to stay with him until James was located, though, and Molly finally admitted that made sense.

  Eventually Wren heard Abby crying and had to hang up. Molly took Alec’s phone number and address, and they promised to talk every few days.

  Alec had gone upstairs, she presumed to reassure her that she had complete privacy to say anything she wanted to Molly. But over dinner she told him about the conversation and Molly’s offer.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, his tone quiet.

  She couldn’t even let herself think about what she really wanted. “I don’t know for sure,” she said, “but I’d definitely like to see her. And it would be really great to have a friend nearby. Plus, I’d be a lot happier going to work knowing Abby was with Molly than having to put her in day care. You know?”

  “What if you hate Florida?”

  Surprised, she asked, “Do you think I will? Have you been to that part of the state? Is it awful?”

  “Never been to Florida. I’m just not sure moving there because you know one person is the right thing to do.”

  Feeling a spark of annoyance, she said, “Then what should I do? Move back to California so I can be near my mother? Or Seattle, so Abby can see her father?”

  Alec scowled at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “You shouldn’t jump to make any decisions.”

  “Do you see me jumping?”

  “If I hadn’t asked you to stay for good reasons, you’d be on a damn plane by now.”

  Completely bewildered, she stared at him. It was oh, so tempting to think he didn’t want her going anywhere and that’s what he was upset about. But she wasn’t dumb enough to go down that path. He couldn’t possibly—

  Her breath stopped in her throat and she almost gasped. Wasn’t that what she always thought? What Molly had, not half an hour ago, chewed her out for thinking?

  Was there a chance Alec really did want her to stay? He was definitely mad about something. But then, if he was interested in her that way, why didn’t he say so? Could it have something to do with his ex-wife and his daughters?

  This tension couldn’t all be in her imagination, could it?

  “I said I’d stay for now, didn’t I? Shouldn’t I be thinking about the future?”

  Muscles in his jaw bunched. “Of course you should.”

  She threw up her hands. “Did you get out of bed on the wrong side this morning?”

  He muttered a word under his breath that she was sure was a curse. Then he exhaled, a long, ragged sound. “Yeah. Probably. Don’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  They ate in silence for a couple of minutes. She tried not to look at him but felt so aware that her skin prickled. Sometimes she could suppress her physical response to him, but then there would be moments like this when tension rose between them and she was swamped by…oh, simplified, she would have to call it lust. Except she had a bad feeling it was more complicated than that.

  As she went through the motions of eating, she focused on his hand, holding the fork or reaching for his glass. She remembered how his big hands had felt on her bare skin. He’d rolled up his sleeves, and she saw how the muscle in his forearm flexed at even a small movement. His shoulders were so broad, his neck strong, his jaw shadowed with the beginning of a beard and she speculated on how it would rasp under her palm if she laid her hand on his cheek. Without even looking at him, she saw the lock of dark hair that fell over his forehead, the clarity of his eyes when he
flashed a wary glance at her. It was almost unbearable, feeling so much, wanting so desperately to touch and knowing she had to hide it all.

  Then he commented about the beginnings of reconstruction he’d noticed that day, and she realized the subject was firmly closed, the barrier between them set in place. Which left her mystified about what he’d been bothered about in the first place.

  Alec wasn’t an easy man to read. And she didn’t dare try, not now, not until this near-painful hunger for him subsided to a quieter hum.

  He surprised her again later, after they’d cleaned the kitchen together and Abby had woken up. Usually this was the point when he disappeared upstairs. She couldn’t help noticing that he made excuses whenever she suggested he hold Abby, even for a minute, and her nursing obviously made him uncomfortable.

  But tonight, even though he made a point of not watching, he poured himself a second cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said after a minute.

  “Thinking?”

  He sighed. “About the house. I don’t know whether I’m going to sell it or not, but it’s ridiculous to be living in two rooms. Especially with you here, too.”

  She waited. Even in profile, she could see the furrows between his eyebrows. He was obviously struggling for what he wanted to say.

  “I’m working my way up to asking another favor of you,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d consider tackling the living room. Pack up all the crap. I don’t want you to wear yourself out, but if you did a little bit at a time— Sally has a garage sale sometimes. She could sell everything.”

  “I know you don’t like those figurines, but some of them might be worth too much for a garage sale. They should go on eBay, or you could get an appraisal from an antique store or something.”

  “I can’t be bothered with eBay. If you sorted the stuff as you went, I could take anything that you thought was valuable to one of the antique stores in Mountfort. Or, hell, get them to come out here. I’d like to get rid of some of the furniture, too.”