by Luanne Rice
Go away, she thought.
She didn’t want to bake anything else. Not just today—ever. She wasn’t sure her heart could take another celebration. Maybe if she sat very still and didn’t make a sound, whoever had slipped in would just as quietly slip out. The smell of the baking cake was a dead giveaway, she realized. She knew that whoever was out there would assume, correctly, that cakes didn’t bake themselves.
The thing was, she wanted to hold on to that memory of Dylan a little longer. Dylan in his kitchen, bearded and a little ragged in his work clothes, his heavy boots, his rough hands, his blue eyes. Jane swore she could look into those eyes forever. She was haunted by his eyes.
The bell tinkled again.
Good, she thought. They’ve gone.
But then, some instinct hit her like a brick. It literally knocked the breath out of her. She jumped up, cracking her shin on the chair as she tried to get around it. The pain shot to her knee, but she didn’t even notice. She flew out of the kitchen into the tiny front office—nothing but a desk and two chairs, for people to place their orders.
No one was there. She looked at her window—plate glass, with “Calamity Bakery” spelled out in front, the letters reading backward from inside. Beyond the letters, she saw the street. Her quiet Chelsea street, lined with Callery pear trees, now heavy with green leaves and the dust of late August in the city. Cars parked on both sides of the street. A red truck parked there.
Red truck.
Oh, it touched her heart. Four wheels, a red cab, an open bed with something green inside. A truck just like Dylan’s, transporting greenery. She leaned closer, forehead touching the window glass, to see the license plate.
A Rhode Island plate. White with blue numbers, a sailboat heeling into the wind, the words Ocean State. She was so focused on the numbers and letters and picture of the boat, she almost didn’t see the people.
She saw their feet: white sneakers, mud-encrusted boots.
And their legs: jeans. They were both wearing jeans.
And their faces: not quite smiling, but not quite not smiling. Looking anxious, a little hopeful, like two people who had just driven two states to see an old friend and weren’t sure of the reception they would get. They stared at Jane through the plate-glass window, and she stared at them.
Then she opened the front door. Heat from the sidewalk rose to meet her. She nearly swooned from the rush of heat and ghosts and love and fear. Her heart was in her throat, making words impossible.
Chloe took over. She stepped forward.
“I missed you,” she said.
Jane stared into her eyes, drinking her in, unable to move. Dylan was just over her shoulder, and he nodded, as if to give Jane permission to do what she most wanted—no, what she had to do. So, because she still couldn’t speak and because words had never been able to say it anyway, she just leaned forward with her arms open and brought her daughter to her heart.
EPILOGUE
It’s the Harvest Moon.”
“No, that’s in October. It’s something else. What’s the full moon in September?”
“The Back-to-School Moon?”
“Bite your tongue,” Chloe said, making an anti-vampire cross with her fingers. “Curse Labor Day for summer’s end.”
“You’re really poetic, you know that?” Mona asked. “You should really consider getting a job writing fortunes for fortune cookies.”
“Maybe it’s the Fortune-Cookie Moon,” Chloe said, as they sat in the barn’s cupola, watching the amazing, enormous, full moon rise, orange-pink as it cleared the treetops, spreading its light on the orchard just like one of Jane’s special icings.
“Yeah,” Mona said. “So, tell me, O Wise One: What would our fortunes say?”
Chloe considered. There she was, sitting with her best friend in the cupola of Uncle Dylan’s barn while guests assembled below. The barn dance was Chloe’s brainstorm, and it had actually come to fruition. Jane was actually down there now, with Uncle Dylan—talking to Chloe’s parents. Jane’s sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law were down there, too. Even Jane’s mother was invited—the nursing home was supposed to drop her off in a van. The whole family would be here. Freakily, Chloe’s parents thought it was a great idea.
“Let me guess,” Mona said. “They would say, ‘beware of sharks in dolphins’ clothing.’ ”
Chloe chuckled. Mona had that right. Leaning toward the cupola window, Chloe looked down at the ground, where Uncle Dylan had apprehended the marauders. He had followed up on his promise to call the police, and both Zeke and Brad, his friend, had been arrested.
“Wonder if Zeke’ll get any prison tattoos?” Mona mused. “He’ll need that dolphin to protect him . . .”
Chloe nodded. She shivered, thinking of how close a call she had had. But now the music began—a guitar, a bass, and a fiddle—and it was too pretty to make her think about ugly things. The notes drifted up, through the rafters and the hay.
“I used to think angels lived up here,” Chloe said. “In the cupola.”
“Is that your fortune?” Mona giggled.
Chloe’s eyes widened. Because, in a way, it was . . . She had been loved and watched over by angels. Isabel; the orchard cats; the deer; her real mother, Jane.
“Maybe it is,” she said. “‘You have angels in the cupola.’ ”
“So, what’s mine?” Mona asked.
“‘Best friends are the best,’ ” Chloe said.
“No, I want something profound,” Mona said. Chloe gave her a long, somewhat exasperated look, as if she felt beleaguered by Mona’s insatiable demands on her heart and intellect. The truth, of course, was that Chloe loved her like a sister, and she wanted to hug her. But, then, tonight she wanted to hug everyone.
“How about this,” Chloe said. “‘In the absence of sisters, we find sisters. In the absence of mothers, we find mothers. In the absence of family, you are my family.’ ”
“That’s my fortune?” Mona asked, as the moon rose higher and the band really began to play.
“Yeah,” Chloe said.
“I like it,” Mona said simply. Then, taking the hug burden right off Chloe’s shoulders, she threw herself right into her best-friend-sister-family with the biggest hug the cramped little cupola would allow.
The barn dance was gearing up. Sylvie and John danced the first dance, “Kentucky Waltz.” Sylvie had worn a full turquoise skirt and white peasant shirt. The shirt had bright embroidery, and she had worn it in high school. She’d had to dig it out of a trunk in the attic for the occasion. Her mother would cluck with disapproval—she had always thought the shirt was too gauzy for public wear—if she ever actually got here. Perhaps Sylvie and John should have picked her up themselves. . . .
Sylvie must have been trembling, because John held her tighter. “You okay?” he asked over the music.
“I’m nervous,” she said. “I’m afraid something awful will happen.”
“Like what?”
“Like Chloe’s mother—adoptive mother—will go up to Jane and have it out with her.”
“But my understanding is that she invited Jane,” John said, wheeling Sylvie around the floor. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
“Yes, but doesn’t that seem very strange to you? Very big of her—almost too big of her?”
“It’s wonderful of her,” John said. “Shows that she has Chloe’s best interests at heart.”
Sylvie fell silent as they danced. As a school librarian and the daughter of a high school principal, she knew that very often the best interests of children were very, very low on the totem pole of life. What she was experiencing right now, it seemed to her, was a true ideal of family.
“It’s unbelievable, I must say; lovely, but almost unreal,” Sylvie said, forehead wrinkled in a little frown. John kissed her right between the eyes, and she leaned back, surprised. “What?” she asked.
“My goal as your fiancé,” he said, “is to get you to trust the world a little more.”
>
Sylvie’s frown deepened. “Don’t I trust the world?”
John just chuckled, cheek against the top of her head.
“Don’t I?” she asked.
“Let me tell you how much you trust the world,” John said. “Right now, you’re thinking that you and I should have driven your mother. Am I right?”
Sylvie smiled.
“Sylvie?” he asked, squeezing her a little tighter. “Am I?”
“Well, yes,” she said.
He laughed, waltzing her around the floor. Sylvie caught a glimpse of Jane standing with Dylan, his brother, and his brother’s wife. Jane looked so sweet and vulnerable, her heart on her sleeve, that Sylvie thought her own heart would break again—as it had, for her big sister, so many times. But Jane was home again, and that was what counted. . . .
“By the time we are married,” John was saying, “I’m going to have you feeling so secure, you’ll never worry again. That’s my promise.”
“Oh, John,” she whispered, looking at her arm slung around his neck, at the beautiful diamond ring he’d slid on her finger that starry night in Maine. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” he said firmly, kissing her. “You’ll see. I promise. And I never break my promises.”
She kissed him back, but with one eye wide open, trained on the barn door, for a sign that the van from Cherry Vale had arrived.
Sharon held Eli’s hand. He had had severe misgivings about this night, but she had made sure to load up the guest list with the entire Rotary Club, and he was too busy saying hi to everyone to give in to his doubts.
“Great party,” Ace Fontaine said, walking over with his wife, Dubonnet.
“Thanks, Ace,” Eli said.
“Didn’t realize you owned an orchard.”
“It’s my brother’s, actually,” Eli said. “Dylan took it off my hands when our father died.”
“It’s his, too,” Dylan said. “No matter what he says, this orchard belongs to the Chadwick family, and he’s—”
“The Chadwick family,” Eli said, grinning at his brother, but casting a little side glance at Jane. Sharon squeezed his hand, keeping him in line.
“Well, great apples,” Ace said, casting an appraising grocer’s gaze on the food table: Chloe and Mona had done their artful magic, arranging baskets of apples, platters of cheese and grapes, and Jane’s pies and tarts on a long red-checked cloth. “Maybe I should order some for the localproduce section.”
“Sure,” Dylan said. “Just tell Eli what you want.”
“Hey, that’d be great,” Eli said, shaking Ace’s hand. “We’ll make it happen.”
“Sure thing,” Ace said, leading Dubonnet onto the dance floor.
That left Sharon, Eli, Jane, and Dylan alone again. The two brothers stood side by side, trying to out-tough each other in the look department.
“I’m so glad you could be here,” Sharon said, smiling at Jane.
“Thank you for having me. Us,” Jane said, looking very pretty and terribly nervous. Sharon noticed that she and Dylan hadn’t danced yet. In fact, there seemed to be quite a bit of distance between them.
“I hope your mother can make it . . .”
“Thank you. The home said they’d drive her; she should be here at any time.”
“She’s in Cherry Vale?” Eli asked, and Sharon could have kissed him—actually making conversation.
“Yes,” Jane said. “She seems happy there. My sister and I are so relieved.”
“It’s never easy,” Sharon said. “We had to put my mother in Marsh Glen, just before she died. . . .”
“Did she adjust well?” Jane asked.
“Well, she had Alzheimer’s . . . so I’m not sure.”
Jane nodded. “My mother is in the early stages. She’s aware of where she is and what’s happening, which in some ways makes it worse.”
Sharon smiled sympathetically. It was so much easier for her and Jane to talk about the previous generation than the future one. But Dylan seemed to think that it was time to change all that.
“Chloe did a great job making this party happen,” he said. “Right, Eli?”
“She’s a good kid,” Eli said.
“Oh, she is,” Sharon said, gazing into Jane’s eyes. “She’s so bright, sweet . . .”
“Mind of her own, that one,” Eli said.
“I can tell,” Jane said softly. “You’ve done such a wonderful job of raising her. Th—” She stopped herself from thanking them, and Sharon was glad she did. Why should Jane thank them for doing what they were born to do? To raise and love their daughter? The privilege of being a parent was sacred and eternal, and Sharon had come to believe it was just as deep as the actual act of giving birth.
“I see so much of you in her,” Sharon said.
Jane nodded. “Thank you so much for saying that. For giving me that . . .”
“Yes, she has your eyes,” Eli said gruffly. “Didn’t get those baby blues from me or Sharon, that’s for sure. Not just the color, but the . . . beauty. She’s got heartbreak eyes.”
“Well, some people in the family have them,” Sharon said, smiling at Dylan.
“Don’t remind him,” Eli said. “He’ll start batting them at you.”
And everyone laughed, because the statement was so cranky, funny, and inane. Sharon was so proud of Eli for rising above his own insecurities tonight. She smiled at Jane a little wider.
“Chloe has always wanted to know about you,” she said.
“A kid’s curiosity,” Eli said, to mitigate the statement.
“I’m sorry for intruding the way I did,” Jane said, “last spring . . .”
“The situation was a hard one,” Sharon said. “None of us knew what to do.”
“How to handle it,” Eli said.
“You did just fine,” Dylan said. “Look at you, all of you—together tonight, for Chloe.”
“Where do we go from here,” Eli said, “is the question.”
Dylan nodded gravely. The two men frowned, appearing to ponder. Sharon smiled at Jane, and Jane smiled back. They knew that there was nothing to ponder. There was no answer to Eli’s question. They would just go along. They would see.
Sharon, who had spent years praying that she be given a child, praying and waiting as the months went by, a seemingly endless parade of babyless days, knew that life was nothing but a question. Answers were temporary; the question was constant. Women knew that better than men, she thought. Maybe it had to do with the way the moon took hold of their bodies, pulling them like the tides. . . . In that way women learned that life was a mystery, and that something bigger than they were was in charge. Jane might have been thinking the exact same thing: Her smile grew, as did Sharon’s.
“We’ll see,” Sharon said.
“Yes,” Jane said. “We’ll just see . . .”
The band slid into “Newport Blues,” so Sharon grabbed her husband’s hand. After so many years of standing beside dance floors together, words weren’t even necessary. She raised her eyebrows, and he nodded.
“I hope your mother comes soon,” Sharon said.
“Will Virginia be here?” Jane asked, inquiring about Eli and Dylan’s mother.
“No,” Sharon said. “We thought it would be a little much for her, to see all of you and realize what’s going on. She’s pretty frail these days. She’s from the generation that thinks everything should be kept a secret.”
“My mother, too,” Jane said.
Sharon swallowed. She knew those two older women were largely responsible for her and Eli being able to adopt Chloe. And as grateful as that made Sharon for them, she knew it had to make Jane equally ambivalent. But tonight was a night for joining together, not blaming or pushing apart, so she was relieved to see Jane smile.
“I want to meet your mother,” Sharon said.
“She wants to meet you,” Jane said. “And—” Again she bit her tongue before finishing her thought.
“Chloe,” Eli said, completing it fo
r her, reminding Sharon of why she loved him so much. “She must want to meet her granddaughter.”
“Yes,” Jane said. “Yes, she does.”
And full of love for her own life and gratitude for the grace of the moment, Sharon embraced her husband and let him swirl her into the dance.
Jane and Dylan were left standing alone. She wore a white dress with a silver buckle, and he wore a black shirt with a string tie. She felt shy with him, and had ever since that day on the street in New York. They had talked, little by little, about what had happened. He had forgiven her—or at least decided to forgive her; it took a lot for him to say how he had thought they were so close, and how he’d felt so betrayed. And Jane knew. She tried to tell him how her need to see Chloe had been so strong, as imperative as a tidal wave, that she had had to obey it. They were gaining in understanding, but their old closeness had yet to come back.
So now, when he slipped his fingers through hers, her whole body turned liquid, and she thought her legs might give out.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her.
“What? Where?”
“Just come on.”
The band played, slow and sweet, and Dylan led her out of the crowd to a ladder attached to the barn wall. It stretched up to a square hole in the ceiling. He pointed, indicating that she should climb. And she did—hand over hand, up the rungs, to the hayloft. Once up there, he gestured that she should sit down in the hay. She hesitated. So he put his arms around her and pulled her down.
“We need to talk,” he said, lying right beside her in the hay.
“Yes,” she said, sort of surprised that he would want to do it prone, their faces six inches apart.
“I’ve asked you why, and you’ve told me,” he said.
“As best I can,” Jane said calmly, gazing into his blue eyes. She had missed those eyes . . .
“I’m tired of the answers,” he said.
“I know. I’m tired of giving them.”
“Jane,” he said.