Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three

by Inglath Cooper

  “Shh,” Kala says again, terrified now. She could go to jail if she’s caught. She looks up at the big house, waits to see if the upstairs light flicks on. When it remains dark, she breathes a sigh of relief and opens the door.

  She turns to look back at the dog who is still watching her.

  “You can come in if you want,” she says.

  The dog whines, lies down on the grass with its head on its paws.

  “Okay, then,” she says. “You’ll let me know if anyone comes?”

  Another whine is the reply, and she can only hope that’s a yes.

  32

  Tate

  I AWAKE THE next morning to a slat of sunlight slipping through the window blinds. It’s not quite six. I get up, take a shower, then go downstairs and make some coffee.

  I take the cup outside, disappointed to see that the dog is not there. But then I hadn’t really expected it to be.

  I sit down on the porch step, sip my coffee and wonder how I will fill the hours of the day stretched out before me. The book is going nowhere, and I’m sick of sitting in front of my blinking computer screen, as if waiting for some sort of divine inspiration to strike.

  I glance at the barn and then the house that sits at the corner of the driveway a short distance from it.

  Something at the back catches my attention, and I lean to the left for a better look. Recognizing the Beagle, I put down my coffee cup and walk that way.

  At the sight of me, the dog hunkers down and rolls over, as if it is sure the sky is about to fall, and I am the cause of it.

  Realizing he’s a boy, I squat a few feet away and hold out my hand. “You did hang around, didn’t you, fella?”

  He rolls back over, studies me with big brown eyes, a soft whine coming from his throat.

  “How about some more of that chicken?” I get up and turn toward the main house. He lets out another whine and glances at the guest house.

  It’s then that I notice the broken pane on the door.

  I don’t remember it being like that when I checked things out before.

  I walk over, turn the knob, and find it unlocked. I open the door and stick my head inside. More broken glass on the floor. Whoever did it is probably long gone by now. I decide to take a look around anyway.

  The kitchen is small, but I remember the countless dinners I’d had here with Jillie and her father. This house had felt more like a home to me than any I’d ever lived in.

  I walk down a narrow hall to the living room, coming to an abrupt stop when I spot a young girl curled up by the fireplace, her head resting on a navy backpack.

  As if sensing my presence, she comes awake with a jolt, sitting straight up and squinting at me. “Oh, my gosh,” she says.

  I’m a little stunned by the words, the voice, the face. She’s no more than fifteen years old, and it is as if I’ve been bolted back in time.

  “Who are you?” I ask, somehow already knowing the answer.

  She scrambles to her feet, slips the backpack over her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’ll go. I know I shouldn’t have broken the door, but I just needed a place to sleep—”

  She edges the room, slips past me, and heads for the back door. “I’m sorry. I won’t be back again.”

  I follow her outside, reaching for her arm to stop her. “Whoa, whoa. Not so fast.”

  The Beagle, sitting a few yards away, barks once. The girl glances at it. Her face brightens for a moment.

  “Is that your dog?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “I saw you feeding him last night.”

  I study her for a moment, not sure what to do. Obviously, she’s running from something. And not old enough to be doing so by herself. “He looks like he could use some more food. Come on up to the house, and I’ll fix you both some breakfast.”

  She takes a step back, raises a hand. “Thanks, but I have to be going.”

  “Any place in particular?”

  She shakes her head.

  “You’re Jillie’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  Surprise flits across her face. “How do you know that?”

  “You look almost exactly like her when she was your age.”

  “You knew her then?”

  “I did. We were . . . really good friends.”

  She doesn’t say anything for several moments, as if this is a little much for her to process.

  “I make pretty good pancakes,” I say.

  She lifts a shoulder, considering.

  Without waiting for her answer, I call the Beagle and head for the house.

  33

  Jillie

  I LET THE GIRLS sleep until almost seven, even though we need to be out the door at seven-thirty. I’d had a restless night, too many thoughts to keep at bay long enough to allow sleep to take over.

  I open the door of their room, stepping into the darkened interior. “Girls? Time to get up for school.”

  Corey is curled up in a ball, the covers thrown aside, as they always are at some point during the night. Kala’s bed is empty. My heart knocks a little. I go to the bathroom door, find it open. She’s not there.

  “Corey?”

  “Hmm?” she responds, still groggy.

  “Where’s Kala? Did she already go downstairs?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Be right back,” I say. Kala never gets up before she’s called, but I go downstairs to look for her anyway. Lucille is in the kitchen, popping bread into the toaster. She looks up at me and says good morning.

  “Good morning, Lucille. Have you seen Kala?”

  “No,” she answers, wiping her hands on her apron. “I got here at six. Haven’t seen her.”

  “Thanks,” I say and head down to the barn on the off chance that she’s there.

  Jess, the barn manager, is already there and feeding the horses their grain. I ask if she’s seen Kala, somehow expecting her to say no, which she does.

  I walk back to the house, forcing myself to remain calm. There is some explanation for this, something logical. But every awful story I have ever heard about children being taken from their beds in the middle of the night races through my mind, and I draw in a deep breath to force calm through my veins.

  I have no idea what to do. Should I wait and see if she comes back? Where could she have gone? Is there a boy in her life, someone she hasn’t told me about?

  I consider whether I should call the police, but the very thought is like a rock in my stomach. Because that’s like admitting that something bad has happened. And I can’t do that. Not yet.

  I grab my cell phone from my room and return to the edge of Corey’s bed. She stretches hard, opens her eyes, and says, “What are you doing, Mama?”

  “Kala’s not here, honey,” I say. “Can you think of anything she said that might help us know where to look for her.”

  Corey fiddles with the edge of her sheet. “Grandma made a big deal about her eating cookies after school yesterday.”

  I study my youngest daughter with a growing knot of anger inside me. “Did Kala tell you that?”

  She shakes her head. “I heard it.”

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  “No. She never does. Only to Kala. Kala asked me if I think she’s fat.”

  I press my lips together, fury a sudden red haze before my eyes. How could a grandmother be so cruel? But with the anger, I feel a weighting sense of guilt for the fact that I have allowed my daughter to be subjected to this. I pray nothing horrible has happened to her. I pray for a chance to right this.

  I have to find her. I turn the phone over, start to dial 911 and report my daughter missing. Before I finish punching in the numbers, the phone rings. I click the talk button, panic in my voice. “Hello?”

  “Jillie.”

  His is the last voice I expect to hear. For a moment, I cannot respond.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” I manage.

  “Your daughter. She’s here at my house.”

 
“Your house?”

  “Cross Country.”

  Relief swamps me in a wave. I drop back against the headboard of the bed, suddenly weak and tearful. “She’s . . . why? I’ve been looking everywhere—”

  “She’s okay,” he says, his voice calm, reassuring.

  I start to cry then, mortified to be doing so in his ear, and at the same time, completely unable to stop.

  “I offered to bring her home, but she says no. Do you want to come over?”

  I have a hundred questions, and yet, right now, none of the answers matter. I just want to see my daughter. Put my arms around her and know that she is really okay. “I’ll be right there,” I say.

  34

  Kala

  SHE CAN ONLY imagine how mad her mom is going to be. It doesn’t happen very often. Her mom has always been willing to talk when she’s done things wrong. But somehow, Kala knows this is going to be different. The knowledge taints the taste of the otherwise passable pancakes the man has made her.

  They eat without talking. When they’re finished, she helps him clean up the dishes, and then follows him out to the front porch where they sit on the steps and wait for her mom. The Beagle takes a spot on the grass below, next to a huge old boxwood. Head on his paws, he closes his eyes and sleeps.

  “I don’t even know your name,” Kala says, when the silence becomes too uncomfortable.

  “It’s Tate. Tate Callahan.”

  She studies him for a moment, the name ringing familiar in her ears.

  Recognition hits her then. “You’re my mom’s friend from when she was growing up.”

  He nods, looks off down the driveway. “I moved here when I was twelve to live with a foster family. Your mom kind of made me her project.”

  Kala frowns at his choice of words. From what little she’s gleaned from her mother’s remarks, they’d been best friends. “Did you ride with my mom here at Cross Country?”

  “I helped with the horses, watched her make a name for herself.”

  Kala stares at the barn, the empty pastures. “Why did she quit riding?”

  He looks at her hard, as if he’s surprised by the question. Her whole life, she’s felt as if there’s some part of her mom she’s never really known. As if she locked it up and refused to ever open the door again.

  “I don’t know,” he answers in a quiet voice. “It’s not something I would ever have imagined her doing.”

  “She was really good, huh?”

  “Really good,” he says.

  “Good enough to go to the Olympics?”

  “I never doubted that was where she’d end up. She was fearless.”

  Kala is quiet for several long moments, and then, “It’s like you’re talking about a different person. Someone I don’t know.”

  He rubs a hand across the knee of his jeans, an expression on his face she can’t quite read. “Sometimes we change when we grow up, stop wanting things we once wanted.”

  The sound of tires on gravel pulls their gazes to the end of the long driveway. Kala’s stomach does a little dip at the sight of her mom’s vehicle.

  She pulls to a stop at the end of the yard, cuts the engine and quickly gets out, walking toward them too fast and then checking her pace.

  “Kala,” she says a few yards away from the front porch.

  “Hi, Mom,” Kala says reluctantly.

  “I’ll let you two talk,” Mr. Callahan says, standing and disappearing into the house.

  Kala’s mom walks over to the steps, sits down beside her. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she says.

  “Sorry if I made you worry.”

  She doesn’t say anything for several long seconds, and then, “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Kala shrugs. “What difference will it make?”

  “A lot, actually.”

  “I don’t belong there anymore.”

  “You belong there as much as any of us.”

  Kala meets her mother’s gaze then and says what she’s wanted to say for a long time. “Do we belong there, Mom?”

  Her mom starts to answer, but stops, silent, as if carefully considering her words. “It was your father’s home. He wanted you there.”

  “But he’s not there anymore. He left us.”

  “Kala, your father’s choice had nothing to do with you.”

  “I don’t think Grandma sees it that way.”

  “Your grandmother is angry.”

  “I’m angry too. But I don’t take it out on her.”

  “I know. It’s not fair.”

  “Then why do we stay there?”

  Kala’s mother looks down at her hands, as if she’s searching for an answer.

  “What happened to all your dreams, Mom? Mr. Callahan says you wanted to go to the Olympics. You never told us that.”

  “I wanted a lot of things. But part of growing up is understanding what’s real and what isn’t.”

  “So growing up means letting go of your dreams?”

  With her gaze on the little, white house near the barn, she says, “Yes, sometimes, it does.”

  Kala jumps up from the steps, suddenly more furious than she can ever remember being. “Only if you’re a coward!” She takes off running then toward the barn and the little, white house where she’d spent the night. From beneath the lower branches of a huge old boxwood, the Beagle scoots out and follows her at a run.

  At the little house, Kala opens the door and lets the dog in behind her, shutting out her mom and all her broken dreams.

  35

  Jillie

  I SIT FOR several long seconds after Kala disappears into the house I had grown up in. It’s strange to see her opening the door I’d opened so many times, going back and forth between there and the barn. I start to go after her, but stop myself from doing so. I don’t know what to say to her, how to bridge the ever-increasing chasm between us.

  The door behind me opens, and Tate steps out onto the porch.

  “Everything okay?” he asks.

  I want to say yes, of course, but I can’t. I’ve never been good at pretending something is true when it isn’t. And certainly not with him.

  “No,” I say.

  He sits down next to me. A foot or more separates us, but we might as well be skin to skin. All the old electricity is still there. I force my gaze to the barn and instead think about how sad it is all closed up and empty.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but she seems pretty unhappy,” Tate says.

  “She is,” I agree.

  “Have the two of you talked about why?”

  I nod. “Since Jeffrey died . . . it’s been hard. Maybe she blames me somehow.”

  “That’s a lot for any kid to process.”

  “I know. She doesn’t want to live at Stone Meadow. Jeffrey’s mother . . . she can be very critical.”

  “Of Kala?”

  “Of the world,” I say, and then wish that I hadn’t. The slip reveals too much information, invites pity, and I don’t want that from Tate.

  “Why do you stay?” he asks, and now he’s looking off in the direction of the barn too, as if he doesn’t trust himself to meet eyes with me.

  “That would involve a very long and complicated answer.”

  “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

  I take the opportunity to divert the conversation. “Surely you do.”

  “For now, I don’t.”

  I hesitate, then ask, “So what’s the deal, Tate? Why did you really buy this place?”

  He looks off at the green fields beyond the barn, shrugs. “Unfinished business?”

  “What does that mean?” I ask, alarm pinging through me.

  “Don’t worry, Jillie. I’m not here for revenge.”

  We sit with that for a few moments. “Then, why?”

  He takes a long time to answer. I just wait.

  He doesn’t look at me when he finally says, “It feels like maybe I’m at a point to stop and think about where I’m going next in life. Th
is seemed like a good place to do that thinking.”

  “A run-down farm in a place you said you were never coming back to?”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve done something I said I’d never do again.”

  The words hang between us. Part of me wants him to go on. Part of me doesn’t.

  “Why don’t you help me get it back in shape?”

  The question drops out of the air between us. My eyes go wide. “What?”

  “The farm. Help me bring it back to life as a horse farm, and we’ll split the profit on the resale.”

  The idea is so preposterous that I can’t think what to say. “Why would you do that?”

  He doesn’t answer for long enough that I’m convinced he’s already changed his mind. But his voice is low and certain when he says, “Loose ends, I guess.”

  I want to ask him exactly what he means by that, but I’m not sure I really want to know the answer. “There’s an old saying about not opening doors if you can’t handle what’s behind them.”

  “But if you never open the door, how do you know for sure what’s behind it?”

  “I think maybe it’s safer not to know.” I stand and put some deliberate space between us. “I have to go.”

  “Say you’ll think about it.”

  “Thanks for calling me about Kala,” I say, ignoring the request.

  I walk down to the little house and open the front door, calling my daughter’s name. To my surprise, she appears within seconds. “Let’s go home,” I say.

  “We don’t have a home,” she says, stepping past me to walk to the car. The Beagle trots out behind her.

  As I pull around the circular driveway, Kala raises her hand to Tate. He waves back. I glance in the rearview mirror as we drive away. The Beagle is now sitting on the step next to Tate.

  Kala looks back and says, “Lucky dog.”

  I don’t disagree.

  36

  Jillie

  KALA AND I drive home in silence. I want to talk, but can feel the wall of resistance between us. So I remain silent, painful as it is to let the wounds fester.