Falling for You

by Becky Wade

  “No . . . ah . . . I mean, yes.” She picked at a seam in the upholstery.

  “Have you asked forgiveness for the things we did the last time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how come you’re still carrying guilt around?”

  His question struck her like a splash of water. “I . . .”

  “The mistakes you’ve made are forgiven, Willow.”

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  “It is. Isn’t it?”

  “Not for me.” She wished she could wipe away the regret that dogged her and the unworthiness she felt whenever people called her a role model. Wholeheartedly, she wished that.

  But what was that saying about wishes? Ah, yes. She remembered it.

  If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

  Letter from Jill, age nine, to Josephine:

  Aunt Josephine,

  Mom has been sad all day today. When I walked into the kitchen a while ago, she was crying. So I asked her what was the matter, and she said that today’s your birthday.

  You went away right before I was born, so you’ve been gone a really long time now. We still don’t know what happened to you. Sometimes people from TV or the newspaper ask Mom questions about you. Sometimes people call to say they think they might know where you are. But they never do.

  Please come back, Aunt Josephine. We’ll make you cake and have ice cream and give you a birthday party.

  I’m going to tear up this letter and spread it over the fireplace, so it can go up the chimney to you just like the letter in Mary Poppins.

  I love you, Jill

  Chapter

  Twenty-two

  So, Melinda,” Corbin said the next afternoon. “If Felicia Richmond turns and runs when she sees you, do I have your permission to tackle her?”

  “Yes,” Melinda answered with a rusty chuckle.

  “No,” Willow said. “No tackling for you. Think of your shoulder.”

  “I’ll have to tackle her with my left shoulder, Melinda. Is that cool with you?”

  “Yes, Corbin.”

  They’d made the drive from northern Washington to southern British Columbia in four hours, Melinda sitting in the passenger seat of Corbin’s Navigator, Charlotte and Willow occupying the captain’s chairs in the second row.

  The atmosphere had started out relaxed. The adults had talked. Charlotte had watched a movie. They’d stopped for a quick lunch and continued on. As they’d begun to near Mission, though, tension crept into the car.

  Now they were only a few miles from Haven Gardens, the nursery run by Felicia Richmond, the woman who looked a great deal like the age-progression portrait of Josephine Blake.

  At this point, Corbin appeared to be the only one in the SUV unaffected by their nearness to their destination. In order to loosen everyone up, he’d begun firing humorous questions at Melinda.

  “Is it okay with you if I whip out Josephine’s wanted poster and hold it up next to Felicia’s face?” he asked.

  “Unnecessary,” Melinda said. “I’ll know if it’s her.”

  “What do you think about us stopping to get some ink?”

  “Ink?” Melinda asked.

  “That I can use on her fingers,” Corbin said. “Then I’ll force her fingers onto paper and—boom—we’ll have her fingerprints.”

  “The idea has merit.”

  “We should be able to see the nursery soon,” Willow said. She’d served as the trip’s navigator. “It’s coming up in half a mile on the left.”

  Charlotte snapped to attention. “There!” She pointed. “Is that it?”

  Willow leaned to the side to see. “Yes. I think that might be it.”

  Corbin slowed.

  “It is!” Charlotte said. “Look at the sign. Haven Gardens.”

  Corbin pulled into the small parking lot situated in front of the shop.

  Back in Washington, when they’d compared Felicia Richmond’s address to the address of Haven Gardens, they’d realized that the two were one and the same. Felicia both lived and worked on this property.

  Silence descended over the car as the four occupants drank in the details of the place. The nursery occupied land a few miles outside of Mission. The only evidence of the nearby city was the well-traveled road curving into the distance.

  A metal roof topped the clapboard-sided shop. To one side of it, bordered by a split-rail fence, stood rows upon rows of plants and flowers in buckets of all sizes. Shoppers browsed the merchandise. A large greenhouse hunkered on the shop’s other side. Beyond the nursery, a gardening plot bristled with growing trees and shrubs. Past that, three hundred yards or so in the distance and facing a small lake, sat a house.

  “Grandma?” Charlotte asked. “How do you want to . . . do this?”

  “Let’s go inside and see if Felicia’s there. If she isn’t, we’ll speak with the employee who is.”

  Melinda had called earlier to make sure the shop was open. When she’d asked the young man who’d answered the phone whether Felicia was in today, he’d said that she was, so they had every reason to hope that they’d have the chance to meet her face-to-face.

  Stress burrowed into the grooves of Melinda’s profile. Willow was painfully aware that these next few moments might be filled with abject disappointment should Felicia turn out to be a stranger.

  Or these next few moments might bring Melinda into the presence of her long-lost sister, and in so doing, illuminate a situation that had been filled with darkness for forty years.

  The shop’s door creaked cheerfully as they entered. It occurred to Willow that she was holding her breath, so she made herself inhale air scented with cloves, lemon, and dirt.

  No sign of Felicia.

  A college-aged kid as skinny as a scarecrow stood behind the counter. “Welcome.” He smiled widely. “How can I help you?”

  “I was hoping to speak with Felicia Richmond,” Melinda said.

  “Oh, sure.” He looked around as if checking to make sure Felicia wasn’t standing behind one of the potted plants. “I think she said she was going to work on the plot out back. Head through the back door, and the pathway should take you right to her.”

  They thanked him. Corbin held the door as Melinda, Charlotte, and Willow filed out. Momentary sun had broken through the hazy day, making the fifty-five degree temperature feel warmer than it was. Greenery bowed and murmured in the light wind as Melinda led them along the path.

  Willow couldn’t see anyone.

  Maybe the employee in the shop had been wrong—

  But, wait. There. Off to the side, a figure dressed in loose pants, rain boots, a canvas jacket, and a floppy straw hat knelt between lines of bushes. The woman’s back was to them. She appeared to be pulling weeds and tossing them into the basket near her feet.

  Melinda faltered.

  Air bunched up in Willow’s chest. Could it be?

  Melinda squared her shoulders and continued forward. As they drew close, Felicia turned and lifted her face to them. Her features were framed by her hat, her body framed by the scene of the garden and the more remote backdrop of the lake. She held herself completely still for several seconds.

  Then, slowly, she rose. Her face smoothed with shock. Her lips parted, as if she was on the verge of speaking, but she said nothing. Her eyes roamed Melinda’s face.

  Melinda came to a stop a few feet from Felicia. The two women, very much matched in height and build, faced each other. The wind ebbed away.

  “Josephine,” Melinda said in an emotion-roughened tone.

  Moisture pooled in Felicia’s eyes. “Melinda.”

  Melinda nodded and opened her arms. Both women began to cry, shoulders shaking as they clung to each other.

  The tiny hairs blanketing Willow’s skin stood up as a chill ran through her. This woman in the gardening hat and rain boots, here on this verdant piece of earth on the shoulder of a lake in southern British Columbia, was Josephine Blake?

  It was a miracle that she was alive.


  It was a miracle that they’d found her.

  She and Corbin had gone on this missing persons hunt for Charlotte’s sake, because Charlotte had truly believed that they could solve this case. Willow had been convinced they couldn’t. Just like she’d been convinced that she and Corbin could never work out.

  Charlotte had been right, and she’d been wrong. Perhaps she’d been so bent on protecting herself from the improbable that, somewhere along the line, she’d stopped believing in the miraculous.

  Corbin took hold of her hand. She looked across at him, and he gave her the same unadulterated grin that he’d once worn in the moments following a Super Bowl victory. That time, the grin had been snapped by a photographer and immortalized on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This time, the grin pierced her heart.

  Willow intertwined her free hand with Charlotte’s so that they formed a chain, the three of them. The Operation Find Josephine detectives.

  “That’s Josephine,” Charlotte stage-whispered.

  “It better be,” Corbin said. “We’ll have to take Melinda to a mental institution if this is how she greets all gardeners.”

  “We found her,” Charlotte said to Willow.

  “I think we did.”

  “I’m, like, in shock right now,” Charlotte said.

  Melinda and Josephine walked toward them arm in arm, supporting each other. Their faces were splotchy from crying. Despite that, an angelic glow emanated from them both.

  “This is my granddaughter, Charlotte,” Melinda said.

  “Hello, Charlotte.”

  “This is Willow Bradford and Corbin Stewart,” Melinda continued. “They’re friends of Charlotte’s. When Charlotte asked them to help her look for you, they said yes.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Josephine said.

  “Likewise,” Corbin said just as Willow said, “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “This,” Melinda said, patting Josephine’s forearm, “is my sister Josephine.”

  Josephine was now a mature woman in her sixties. Nonetheless, she very much resembled the photographs of her twenty-something self. Her body was softer than it had once been, but sturdy and healthy-looking. She’d protected her skin from the sun, so while Melinda’s skin was tanned and crepey, Josephine’s was much paler. Wrinkles delved beneath her eyes, bracketed her lips, and lined her forehead. Her hair, once long and mahogany, had lightened to a mellower shade of brown shot through with gray. She’d bobbed it above her shoulders in a straight line.

  “Come with me,” Josephine said, turning to guide them down the path that continued toward the lakeside house.

  Charlotte scampered ahead to walk next to her grandmother and great-aunt. Willow and Corbin followed, still holding hands.

  Josephine’s house came into crisp focus as they approached. The rectangular structure had been built of aged bricks. Ivy covered large swaths of the exterior. Pale blue shutters framed gleaming, multi-paned windows. Its steeply pitched slate roof made it look like an illustration from a fairy-tale picture book.

  Indoors, Josephine had furnished her home in farmhouse style. Off-white sofas. An abundance of honey-colored wood. Pottery. A sisal rug.

  “Please, have a seat,” Josephine said. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

  When Josephine disappeared around a corner into her kitchen, Melinda, Willow, Corbin, and Charlotte eyed one another with disbelief.

  I’m shaking, Melinda mouthed, holding out her hands to show them. It was quite an admission, coming from the usually stalwart Melinda.

  Charlotte laughed and rubbed her grandmother’s hands between her smaller ones.

  Corbin and Willow took seats on one of Josephine’s sofas. Corbin put his arm around her and idly ran a fingertip up and down a patch of her upper arm. Willow’s thoughts whirled with the magnitude of the reunion that had just occurred, while her senses focused on the motion of his finger—up and down, up and down—and its warm wake of sensation.

  The gasp of a drip coffeemaker coming to life interrupted the quiet. Then Josephine arrived with a plate of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies.

  Willow felt too keyed up to eat, but Charlotte and Corbin could, as always, be counted upon to eat cookies.

  Josephine lowered into the delicate armchair near the brick fireplace. “The coffee will be ready soon.” She’d taken off her hat while in the kitchen and finger-combed her hair. She wore side bangs and her bob was slightly layered, Willow could now see.

  Josephine Blake was what she’d always been. A beauty.

  Josephine didn’t lean back into the armchair but sat upright in the center of the seat, legs together. She had the look of a witness testifying at a trial. “I’m amazed that you’re here at Haven Gardens.” She laid a hand on her chest. “To look up and see you there,” she said to Melinda. “What a shock.”

  “It was a shock for me, too,” Melinda said.

  “You’ll have to tell me how you found me. But I’m sure you have a hundred questions for me first.”

  “More like a thousand,” Melinda said wryly.

  Josephine nodded and sorrow stole over her features for the first time.

  “Why did you disappear?” Melinda asked.

  “To answer that, I’ll need to start well before the day of my disappearance. Do you remember that I worked on Foster Holt’s election campaign in the fall of 1976?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d volunteered on a few other political campaigns prior to that, but in those cases, my volunteer jobs were small. Foster’s campaign manager must’ve seen something in me because he gave me a lot of responsibility. I met Foster relatively early in the campaign and, over time, I got to know him well. He was an extraordinarily charismatic man. Handsome. Smart. Everything he wanted for the country was exactly what I wanted for the country. I believed in the things he believed in. I had . . . stars in my eyes,” she said bitterly. “I think I was already in love with him when he began showing a romantic interest in me.”

  The revelation that Josephine had loved Foster Holt did not deeply surprise Willow, seeing as how they’d found Josephine less than thirty miles from Foster’s fishing cabin.

  She thought back to the weeks she and Corbin and Charlotte had spent sifting through data and pursuing leads. They’d had no idea which piece of information would unlock Josephine’s whereabouts. In the end, Foster Holt had been the key.

  “But you were married,” Charlotte said. “And so was the senator.”

  Josephine inclined her head. “Yes. At the time, Foster was married and the father of five young kids. I’m not at all proud of what I did, Charlotte. In fact, I’m very ashamed of it. And, as you’ll hear, I’ve paid dearly for what happened between Foster and me. But back then, the fact that Foster was forbidden made our relationship seem all the more exciting.” She gave Charlotte a level, apologetic look.

  “How long did your relationship with the senator last?” Corbin asked.

  “Five months. We almost always met at hotels. There were only a few occasions when I saw him at his office and once when he came to my house when Alan was gone for the weekend. I both liked and loved Alan. But I fancied myself wildly in love with Foster.” She paused.

  The motion of Corbin’s fingertip against Willow’s arm stopped. Then resumed.

  “I was willing to divorce Alan,” Josephine said. “I started asking Foster whether he was willing to divorce his wife. I was determined and naive enough to think I could pressure him into doing what I wanted.” Her lips pursed. “In case you can’t tell, I’m not fond of the woman I was in those days. I was either too foolish or too self-absorbed to realize that a United States senator in the opening months of his first term would never, ever leave his wife and kids.”

  Charlotte reached for another mint Milano.

  Melinda looked both shell-shocked and grave. She was no doubt thinking about the pain that Josephine’s disappearance had caused her, their parents, their sister Louise, and Alan.

  Josephin
e’s poor husband. For seven years after Josephine had vanished, he’d been married to a missing woman and his life had been locked in suspended animation. Once he’d finally had Josephine declared dead, he’d remarried. And, by all accounts, he’d gone on to find companionship and a measure of peace. However, no one who’d loved Josephine had escaped from her disappearance without indelible scars.

  “What happened between you and Foster?” Willow asked. It felt presumptuous to ask someone she’d just met questions about the intimate details of her history. However, Charlotte was too young to be expected to ask questions, and Melinda didn’t look capable of it at the moment.

  “On April twelfth, 1977, I left the house to meet Paula, a friend from our Sunday school class. She’d heard a rumor that I was having an affair with her husband, Keith. When I learned about the rumor, it frightened me, because even though they’d gotten the man wrong, they’d gotten the affair part right. I wanted to move quickly to stop the rumor, so Paula and I had a nice conversation and then I got in my car and drove to a hotel in Lakewood.”

  “You left the meeting with Paula around ten thirty in the morning,” Charlotte said. “You went to a hotel at ten thirty a.m.?”

  “I did,” Josephine answered. “Foster and I met at the Cornerstone Hotel fairly often because it was halfway between Shore Pine, where I lived, and Redmond, where Foster lived. Don, Foster’s employee, would always book the room under his own name or under aliases, let Foster in through a side door, and hand him the hotel room key. When I reached the room that day, Foster was already there. Lunch was spread out on top of the dresser. Apples, bread, deli meat, cheese. The roasted peanuts Foster ate all the time. A bottle of wine. We ate and talked and laughed and then we did . . . what we did. We spent two hours there together.”

  Overall, Josephine was speaking calmly. The signs of her emotion were subtle—in the stiffness of her hands, the muscle flexing in her jaw, the vertical line between her brows.

  “When it came time for him to go,” she continued, “he kissed me, told me he loved me, and left. Once he was gone, I did what I always used to do after our meetings. I took a long shower.” Josephine seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. “When I came out of the bathroom, there were two men in the hotel room. Neither one of them was Foster.”