“We’ll make a silver-dollar one for Audie,” Kat says.
As if he knows exactly what she’s proposed, Audie thumps his tail against my leg. I reach down and rub the top of his head.
“Interest you in a cup of coffee while you wait for your order?” Sam asks, looking at me with a friendly smile.
“Sure,” I say.
He pours us both a cup from the pot at the end of the counter. I follow him to a table by the window. He pulls out a chair. I take the one across from him, Audie curling up at the edge of my chair.
“What brings you to Smith Mountain?” Sam asks, taking a sip from his cup.
“I kind of grew up here,” I say. “Been away for a long time. I guess maybe it’s one of those pilgrimage things.”
“Well, Cross Country’s one of the prettiest spots on the lake.”
“I worked there in high school, when it was a horse farm.”
“The Mason family owned it, I believe?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m glad to know it’s going to be taken care of again. Everyone had high hopes for the last owner, but somehow that didn’t work out.”
“Hope I can do it justice.”
“Tell me about your writing,” Sam says, crossing his arms. “Cross Country seems like a good place for that.”
“It would be,” I agree.
“If?”
“I could actually write,” I admit reluctantly.
“Slump?”
“You could say that. Just not sure if it’s permanent or temporary.”
“Must be a common thing with you writers. Bowie was telling me about something similar that happened to him.”
“How’d he work through it?”
“From what he said, I think it ended up being a case of it working through him. He said writer’s block seems to hit him when he has something in his life he needs to stop and take a look at. That writing was kind of a hiding place. And if he didn’t want to work on his own problems, he could open the laptop and work on someone else’s.”
I absorb the words, recognize the truth behind them and wonder if my writing block was what allowed me to come back to Smith Mountain Lake and work on some things I’d intended to leave as they were, never look at again.
Kat appears at the table with my breakfast just then. She sets the delicious-smelling food in front of me, then bends down to put a saucer with a small pancake on it in front of Audie. He lifts his head and licks her cheek, then takes the treat from his plate.
“He likes it,” she says, a smile of delight on her face.
“Thank you,” I say, realizing I’m really glad to have stopped in here today. Making friends isn’t something I’ve put a lot of emphasis on in the past few years, and it’s good to know there are people worth making the effort for.
I dig into my own food, understanding why Audie looks so happy.
“Are you married, Tate?” Sam asks.
“No,” I say. “You?”
“I am. To the lovely proprietor of this establishment.”
I glance at the kitchen where Myrtle is singing and stirring a big, stainless-steel pot on the stove.
Sam laughs. “Myrtle? She’d be boxing my ears by day two.”
I smile. “Is your wife here?”
“She had to run some errands in Roanoke this morning. I hope you’ll come back and meet her.”
“I’d like to.”
“Anyone special in your life?”
I start to shake my head, and then I think of Jillie, and just say, “I’m not sure.”
“Good enough. If you decide there is, we’d love to have you both over for dinner one night.”
“Thanks,” I say. “That’s really kind.”
“All right then,” he says, pushing back from the table. “I’ve got a few errands to run myself. Need to get them done before Gabby gets back. We’re planning a picnic on the boat this afternoon.”
“If you’re over my way, stop by Cross Country,” I say.
“Would love to see it,” Sam says.
He calls out “See ya later” to Myrtle and Kat in the kitchen and ducks out the door. Watching him go, I think he is right. Whatever it is I need to figure out about my life, now’s the time. The rest can wait.
44
Jillie
AFTER I DROP the girls off at school, I decide to go by Stone Meadow and get another load of our stuff. I dread doing so, but it’s never going to get any easier, and it’s not fair to the girls to have to do without their things.
I knock at the front door, hoping Lucille will be the one to answer. Thankfully, she does, her eyes instantly brimming with tears at the sight of me.
“Oh, Jillie, why have you left us?” Her voice is hoarse with tears.
I reach out and take Lucille’s hands in mine, squeezing once and saying, “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stay here any longer.” I can see from her expression that she understands, even though she wishes it weren’t so.
“Come in,” she says. “Come in.”
“Is anyone home?” I ask.
“Only me. Let’s go into the kitchen, and I will make you a nice cup of coffee.”
I follow her through the foyer to the back of the house, already feeling like a stranger here, as if I no longer belong. But then I never really did, so this isn’t a surprise.
Lucille picks up a coffee carafe from the counter, retrieves a cup from the cupboard and brings it to the table.
“I’ll only have a cup if you join me,” I say.
She looks a little surprised by this. She never sits and joins the family in this kind of thing, but maybe she understands my feelings, now that I’m not part of the family and their rules do not apply to me.
“Okay,” she says, getting a cup for herself and returning to sit at the table.
“Where are you and the girls staying?” she asks, her forehead wrinkling with concern.
“With an old friend,” I say.
“Mr. Callahan?”
“Yes.”
“I hear he bought the Mason place.”
“I’m going to be helping him there for a while and living on the farm in the house where I grew up.”
Lucille’s worried expression softens a bit. “That is good then. It is like goming home, yes?”
“In a way, it is. Nothing is the same, and my dad not being there makes me sad, but it’s only for a little while. Until I can—”
“I understand,” Lucille says. “You don’t need to explain. Are the girls all right?”
“Yes, and you’re welcome to visit them anytime. They love you, and I know they will miss you.”
Lucille’s tears are again instant. “I only wish things could be different.”
“Me too. But they aren’t.”
“It’s not fair. You deserve to be here. This is your home, your children’s home, even though—”
“It’s okay. It’s better this way. I never really belonged here. I’m just sorry it’s taken me this long to get the courage to move on with my life.”
“You have to do what’s right for your girls.”
“I’m not sure what is right for them though. Kala—”
“Is a beautiful, young girl who should never have anything other than that suggested to her.” Lucille’s voice is suddenly adamant. “Especially not from her grandmother.”
Lucille never says a negative word against her employer. She’s loyal like that, and it is simply not in her nature. But her love for Kala trumps here, and I reach across the table to squeeze her hand.
“I wish that I could ask you to go with us, Lucille. But I simply don’t have the means.”
“And I wish I had the means to leave here without it mattering,” Lucille says softly.
“I’ll always be grateful for your friendship. Please know that.”
Lucille gets up from the table, brushing imaginary crumbs from her apron and saying, “If we don’t stop this, I’ll never get anything done today.”
I stand
up and take my coffee cup to the sink, rinsing it out before saying, “I just wanted to get a few more of our things, if that’s okay.”
“Of course, it’s okay,” Lucille says, “and I will help you.”
We both know that if Mrs. Taylor or Angela had been here, it would not be okay at all.
UPSTAIRS, I FIND some empty boxes at the back of my closet and begin filling them with clothes.
I leave the things that really don’t matter to me, finding there are more of those than the ones that do seem to matter. Once we’re done in my room, Lucille rounds up a few more boxes for the girls’ stuff.
I don’t want to leave their toys, so I start there. Stuffed animals they’ve had since they could barely walk, a worn giraffe with half an ear missing, a purple bunny that Kala had once refused to go to sleep without. I set them on the bed, unable to put them at the bottom of the box. I open a dresser drawer and pull out the baby blankets I had saved. I press them both to my face and breathe in the lingering smell of baby lotion.
Lucille puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes once. She opens another drawer and begins taking out Corey’s riding breeches and shirts. She fills one box, and I fill another.
“What is going on here?”
I jump at the voice, startled by Judith’s sudden, shrill question. Turning to face the door, I instinctively step in front of Lucille. “I’m just getting a few of our things,” I say.
“Did you let her in the house, Lucille?” Judith asks, barely restraining her incredulity. “Obviously, you did, since you’re helping her remove things that do not belong to her.”
“Ma’am?” Lucille says meekly. “She’s only getting what belongs to her and the girls. I didn’t think you would see anything wrong with that.”
“To the contrary,” Judith says, her face suddenly infused with red heat. “Anything she obtained here was done so through the generosity of my son. Not that you ever showed appreciation for that, Jillian.”
The accusation is so unjust that it stabs through me like a newly sharpened knife.
“Mrs. Taylor,” Lucille starts.
“I would advise you to stay out of this, Lucille. It is none of your concern. Go back to the kitchen immediately.”
The command sends a bolt of anger through me, and I am suddenly furious with myself for involving Lucille in this. “Judith, please do not take this out on Lucille. She was only being kind.”
“Knowing full well that I would not approve,” Judith says, looking pointedly at the housekeeper.
A heavy silence hangs in the room, and then Lucille looks directly at Judith. “You are completely right about that, ma’am. I did know that you would not approve. But that does not make it right. How can you treat your own family so shamefully?”
“What?”
Judith’s outrage falls across the room, smothering in its intensity. “Lucille, I would suggest you do as I say, immediately,” she manages in a choked voice.
Lucille stares at her for a very long moment, and then, “No, ma’am. I don’t think I can do that. Not any more. You see, Jillie isn’t the only one here who has decided enough is enough. I’m afraid that one day you’re going to realize you can’t treat people the way you do. I quit, Mrs. Taylor. As soon as I get my things, I will leave the house.”
“Lucille—” I begin.
“It is fine, Jillie. We both know this is something I should have done long ago.”
Lucille leaves the room then. Judith stares at me with such hatred that I almost feel sorry for her.
“You have five minutes to get whatever you’re going to take, and then you are to leave this house. If I ever find you here again, I will call the police without a single hesitation.”
The words fall across me, and all I can think is how poisonous they are and that I need to get out of here as fast as I can. I pick up the two boxes that mean the most, reach for the giraffe and purple bunny, putting them on top.
I walk past Judith and out of the bedroom then, not giving her the satisfaction of looking back.
45
Tate
I’M RUNNING THE weed eater along the board fence when I see Jillie turn in off the main road. She lifts a hand from the wheel as she drives by me. I wave back, noticing she’s not smiling, and it looks as if she’s been crying.
I remind myself that maybe she doesn’t want me interfering in whatever is wrong, but that lasts all of thirty seconds, and I’m walking back to the little house.
When I get there, she’s still sitting in the car, staring straight ahead, her hands on the steering wheel, the engine running.
I knock softly on the window. She looks up with a start, wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and turns off the vehicle.
I open the door, and she slides out with an attempt at a normal-sounding, “Hey.”
“Hey. Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I just—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence, tears sliding down her cheeks as she shakes her head.
“What happened?” I ask, reaching out to pull her against me.
“I got Lucille fired,” she says, the words muffled against my T-shirt.
“Lucille, the Taylor’s housekeeper?”
She nods, pulling back a bit but not meeting my eyes. “It’s the last thing in the world she deserved. I stopped by the house to get some of our things. No one was there so Lucille helped me pack, and Judith came home and found her helping me.”
“She fired her for that?”
Jillie nods.
“That’s not your fault.”
“It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been there. I don’t understand how she can be so cruel.”
“She sounds like a pretty miserable person.”
“I feel awful for getting her involved in this mess.”
I stare down at her, push a tear-soaked strand of hair back from her face. “I have a feeling it’ll all work out,” I say.
“She’s been with them for twenty years,” she disagrees, shaking her head.
“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”
Jillie wipes her face with both hands. “You must think all I do is cry.”
“I don’t think that. Why don’t we get your mind on something different? Let’s go take a look at the barn and see what kind of work we’ll need to do to get it back in shape.”
She nods once. “Let me go change my clothes.”
“Meet you there in twenty minutes?”
“Sure,” she says, turning toward the little house.
“Jillie?”
She glances over her shoulders. “Yeah?”
“What’s Lucille’s last name?
“Nichols,” she says. “Lucille Nichols. Why?”
I shrug. “I just thought I might have remembered her.”
46
Jillie
I DETERMINE TO figure out some way to help Lucille, but for now I pull myself together and put my focus on this first piece of the farm I might somehow affect in a positive way. If I can start supporting myself and the girls, maybe I’ll have something to offer Lucille as well.
I’ve brought along a notepad and pen, and I start making a list as soon as I walk inside the barn where I had spent my youth.
Memories scatter through my mind, things I’ve not let myself think about for so long. I see the sweet faces of the horses who used to hang their heads over the stall doors, whinnying for a carrot when they would see me come in. I see my dad rolling a wheelbarrow of hay down the center aisle, throwing each horse a flake of second-cutting, orchard grass. I hear his soft whistling but can’t remember the name of the tune.
It makes me both sad and happy to be here. It’s like visiting my old life but knowing it’s temporary and that I will once again have to let it go.
“Hey,” Tate says, appearing at the main entrance of the barn.
I wave my notepad in his direction, saying, “Ready to make a list?”
“Let’s get at it.”
We spend the next hour or so walking from one end of the barn to the other, immediately writing down the obvious, talking over the less obvious. The barn is in better shape than I would have expected. All the old bones are there. For the most part, it just needs a thorough spray washing, some stall boards repaired here and there, a few overhead light bulbs replaced, a plumber to check out the stalls’ electric water troughs, and a fresh coat of paint on the outside.
“I expected it would need more,” Tate says, standing in the center of the concrete aisle.
“The Masons put a lot into building this barn,” I say. “I’m glad to see it’s held up well. We could do the spray washing ourselves. They have the machines at the hardware store, and they aren’t too expensive.”
“You wouldn’t mind doing that?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I like working outside. It’s warm, so it’s a good time to do it.”
“That shouldn’t surprise me, I guess; but somehow, it does.”
“I was a tomboy when you knew me,” I say, running my hand across a dusty stall rail.
“You were, but—”
“You thought the Taylors would have changed me?”
“Maybe.”
I shrug. “Sometimes, I don’t have any idea who I am anymore.”
“You’re still you, Jillie,” he says in a soft voice.
I meet Tate’s gaze, my heart thunking hard in my chest. “Are you still you?”
He doesn’t answer for several long seconds, clearly considering his response. “I’m not sure I know the answer to that. Maybe I’m here to find out.”
“I don’t know how to thank you, Tate. You didn’t have to do this for me, especially with the way things were between us when you left.”
“I know I didn’t have to.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because we have history. I really don’t have that with anyone else in my life. Shouldn’t that count for something?”
I know he’s right, but I feel suddenly ashamed for my own lack of consideration for that history. “I owe you an apology, Tate.”
“Jillie—”
“Please. Let me.”
Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three Page 14