Keepsake

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "I have to go," she said coldly, and she turned to leave.

  "Livvy, wait!" Rand called. Now there was anguish in his voice.

  She whirled around. "What? What can you possibly say in your defense?"

  "I didn't kill her. You have to believe me, Liv. I loved her—I thought I loved her, anyway. I was seventeen, for God's sake!" he said, raking both hands through his hair.

  Olivia studied him as closely as she ever had in her life. The stakes were high; his answer mattered.

  "I don't know how it happened," he said. "One minute I was her cousin, someone for her to vent to, and the next, we were .... But I didn't kill her, I'm telling you. I was all set to marry her, to raise the child—well, you saw the letter," he said with a smile that was bitterly wry. "I was just your average teenage doofus. God only knows how I thought I'd support us or where we'd live. Certainly not in Keepsake."

  Olivia had only one question: "Does either Mom or Dad know?"

  He shook his head. "Eventually reality set in and I started having second thoughts. I wanted Alison to put the baby up for adoption. She got angry; we had a fight over it. But before anything got resolved, she disappeared. Then they found her hanged at the quarry. I was as shocked as anyone. Livvy, I'm telling you the truth," he said with a look of burning desperation. "I've never lied to you—not when it counted."

  Olivia had expected her brother to deny murdering Alison, but she hadn't expected to believe him. The emerging agony she felt was because she had absolutely no acceptable fallback scenario to him being the murderer.

  Her next question came out in a whisper. "Who do you think killed her, then?"

  Grimacing, Rand rubbed his brow with his middle finger and said, "Uncle Rupert? I've always assumed that she told him about us. You know how possessive he was—"

  "No, no, it wasn't Uncle Rupert," Olivia said, feeling a new wave of nausea kick in. "When Quinn and I went over there, he told us that he had pushed hard for the investigation to go forward back then. With no results. Didn't I tell you that part?"

  "No," he said with a blank stare.

  "It wasn't Uncle Rupert. Someone else." Her heart was beginning to feel as cold and glassy as an Elsa Peretti paperweight.

  Rand looked frightened now. "Oh, man ..."

  Their thoughts were locked on exactly the same plane. Neither spoke. The only sounds were of children screeching and a big dog barking.

  And then the deep, resonant chime of the front doorbell.

  "Oh, hell," Rand said. "I'm going to have to get that. Your car's out front, the kids are outside."

  "I'm going, then," she said. "I've got to get out of here."

  That didn't happen. The visitor was their father, and he was in a fury of indignation.

  "Those sons of bitches on the council aren't going for the tax break," Owen Bennett said, waving his briefcase at both of his children.

  Rand was stunned. "Dad, no way! The whole point of this last postponement was to get Murphy in line."

  "Murphy! Murphy managed to turn everybody else around! You know what you can do with Murphy!"

  "How'd he do that? It's impossible!"

  "Is that so? Tell it to the mayor. I just had lunch with him. He gave me the heads-up: The plan will be shot down five to two at Tuesday's council meeting. All right, let's get to work," he said, heading for Rand's study. "I want to have dates, I want to have profit projections, I want to have numbers to rub in their smug, short-sighted faces. I want that mill shut down mañana!"

  "Oh, Dad, not that," cried Olivia, following him into the small office. "You're not really going to move the mill to Mexico?''

  "Oh no?" he said grimly. "Watch me. Three goddamned generations of Bennetts have busted their humps to keep this town afloat. I've watched my profit margin tighten like wool in a hot dryer. No more! Keepsake can go the way of every other mill town in New England. See if I give a damn. Run along, Olivia. Rand and I have work to do."

  Brother and sister exchanged one quick glance, and then Olivia walked out in a state of shock.

  It wasn't her uncle. It wasn't her brother.

  Who was the adult that Alison would have gone to first? Of course. Who was the one who would have tried hardest to make her pregnancy go away? Of course. Who would have tried, first, to buy Alison's compliance, and failing that, taken more drastic measures? Who had the most to lose in reputation and prestige, and the money and the will to see that that didn't happen?

  Who else?

  Sickened still further by this latest turn of events, Olivia detoured to a clump of forsythia and threw up behind it, then rinsed with a bottle of soda water she carried everywhere now.

  Suddenly she heard her niece cry, "Auntie Livvy, Auntie Livvy, I see you!"

  Kristin was peering at her through the yellow shrubs, obviously assuming a game was afoot. "Now it's our turn! You count to a hundred, and Zack and me will hide. No fair peeking!"

  "Oh, wait, sweetie, no, that isn't—"

  Her niece, muddy from her Mary Janes to her nose, halted and turned for further instructions. Were there other, more special rules to be followed? She was ready! She was willing! Her eyes were huge with expectation, her mouth opened and ready to swallow everything that her beloved aunt was willing to tell her. Hop on one leg? Run away backward? Just say the word.

  With a laugh that was half sob, Olivia dropped into a crouch and held her arms out wide. "Hug first. Then we'll play. And make it a big hug."

  Kristin broke into a wide, gap-toothed grin and ran full speed into her aunt's arms, then squeezed as tightly as a five-year-old could. Anything for love.

  Olivia breathed the child's innocence deep into her lungs the way a firefighter would suck in air after escaping a smoke-filled building. It was all for the women and children now, her silence.

  The men in her family were tainted.

  ****

  Quinn Leary was in the last few days of building a stone wall for a well-heeled cosmetic surgeon in Santa Barbara. He enjoyed the work, enjoyed not having to make any decision more earth-shattering than which stones would lie flattest on top of which other stones. When his beeper sounded, his first impulse was not to respond. He had taken very few commissions since his return to California, and he liked it that way. For now, he was going to continue to pick and choose.

  But that's not why he had the beeper. Thanks to caller ID, he knew that it was Mrs. Dewsbury trying to get in touch with him. The widow was strictly A-list, so he grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler in his truck and found himself a shade tree.

  He was concerned—Mrs. Dewsbury would never call before the rates changed unless it was important. Presumably it had nothing to do with her recent discovery about the burning bus. He never should have sent that provocative postcard about Harrisburg, not to a woman as shrewd and well-informed as she was.

  He sighed. She looked like such a little old lady. Why the hell couldn't she behave like a little old lady?

  He dialed her number. She answered at once.

  After gliding through opening pleasantries, she said, "My dear, I have some very interesting news for you."

  "Don't be coy, madame," he said, sitting back against the tree. "It's not your style."

  He was slugging water from the bottle when she said, "All right, then. Olivia is pregnant."

  Out came the water through his nose and down the wrong pipe, giving him a choking fit that ended in tears.

  "How do you know this?" he managed to croak.

  "Promise you'll keep it a secret until the day you die?"

  "Yeah, yeah—who?'

  "Father Tom. He did not hear it in the confessional," the widow hastened to say. "He heard it as gossip. There's a difference, you know. He's not bound—"

  "I don't care, I don't care," said Quinn. "Just tell me how reliable the rumor is."

  "On a scale of one to ten, I would say eight. Father Tom heard it from his housekeeper who heard it from her niece, who works in the billing department of an ob-gyn in Middle
town. Apparently Olivia didn't want to put in a claim to her insurance and insisted on paying cash. Well! Even though she'd gone to a clinic outside of Keepsake, the girl in billing still recognized the name. I mean, really. Bennett Milled Goods. It's like being a Hershey in Pennsylvania. Olivia should have used an assumed name if she really wanted it kept secret. Of course, in that case I wouldn't be calling you now."

  Quinn let her roll to a complete stop before his next question. "Who else knows about this?"

  "I imagine it's just a matter of time before everyone does. Father Tom may have been one of the first; I doubt he'll be the last," Mrs. Dewsbury said dryly.

  "When did Liv make that initial visit?"

  "Early April, I believe."

  "Has she gone since?"

  "Oh, yes. More than once."

  She was keeping the baby, then.

  "And why did it take the blabbermouth so long to blab?"

  "It's ironic. She was pregnant herself, and went out on maternity leave right after Olivia's initial visit. Father Tom's housekeeper eventually went to see her new grandniece, and that's when she got the scoop. Since then, of course, the housekeeper has made it a point to keep herself informed."

  Just as well that Quinn was sitting down; he was reeling. He thought of asking, "Is Olivia seeing some other man?" but the question seemed absurd. He knew she wasn't. The conviction came from the same place deep down in his soul as the belief that the baby was his, conceived on New Year's Eve. It had felt, on New Year's Eve, as if they were reaching for the stars. Now he knew that they'd managed to snatch one and bring it down to earth.

  It was going to be a girl.

  "I'll be on the next-plane," he said.

  "I knew you would. Hurry home, dear."

  ****

  Olivia's mother had created charming hanging baskets of annuals for every shop on the cobblestoned court.

  "At first I just made one for you—to hang from the lamp in front of Miracourt," Teresa Bennett said. "But then I thought, why stop there? Is it really so much of an effort to make up ten of them? I hope the other shopkeepers won't think I'm being presumptuous."

  Olivia flattened her hands against the rear window of her mother's Explorer as it sat in the street with its engine running and its air conditioning on. The cargo area was filled with magic: green-glazed pots that would hang where they were told, tumbling over with bright pink ivy geraniums and silver-green lamium and exploding with compact daisies in the middle.

  Olivia straightened up and gave her mother an enthusiastic squeeze. "They will love them. Do you want me to take them around to the shops for you, or would you rather do it yourself?"

  "Oh, honey, would you? I'd feel a bit funny."

  "I'll be glad to—but let's hang this one first."

  She was standing on the second rung of her stepladder, reaching up to hang the pot from a cast-iron hook on the antique lamppost, when her mother smiled and said, "Speaking of pots ...," and patted Olivia's stomach.

  "Mother!" Olivia said, shocked to the core. She scrambled down the ladder.

  "Livvy, I was only teasing," her mother said, taken aback by her daughter's vehemence.

  Olivia folded the stepladder with a smack and said primly, "It's not very polite."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Well ... never mind. I'm just self-conscious about it, that's all."

  To say the least. She was going to have to tell her mother, and soon. But, oh God, she didn't know how. One thing was apparent: The charm of the moment was gone. "I'll unload the car," Olivia said stiffly.

  "I'll help you," offered her mother, much more subdued than before.

  It was so awkward. Quinn was everywhere in those pauses between them, which seemed to come more frequently now. It was Olivia's fault, of course; she was the one who had pulled back from her whole family. But her mother obviously was assuming that it was because she had objected so violently to Quinn, and now that he was gone, she was always trying to bridge the gap between Olivia and her with little gestures of affection. With no more success than today.

  For the past few months Olivia couldn't help wondering whether her mother had known about Rand and Alison's affair. Now she had begun to wonder whether her mother might not know even more than that. If Owen Bennett had acted true to form and had tried to clean up the scandalous mess that his son had got into, then how could his wife not know it?

  All in all, better to stay estranged.

  Olivia spent the next hour passing out hanging baskets to pleased and grateful shopkeepers. It was such a beautiful day, and she enjoyed wandering around the cobblestoned court. She came back to Miracourt with real reluctance, which surprised her; the shop had always been her first love and her paramount joy.

  But today she was drawn to flowers. If she owned a garden, she'd be home in it. She watered the dusty miller and ruby-red impatiens that were just getting started in the long box beneath her shop window, and then she dragged out the stepladder again; she wanted to rehang her mother's pot so that the sun-loving daisies faced south. Small gestures, perhaps, but they appealed to her newly discovered nurturing instincts.

  She was standing on the ladder, gazing with pleasure at the flower baskets that hung from every lamppost in the court, when something propelled her to look toward Main. Whether it was a car horn or loud music or just plain magnetism, she never afterward knew, but the first thing to pop into focus was Quinn Francis Leary, striding toward Miracourt as if he were late to pick her up for dinner.

  She hadn't seen hirn since January 14: four months. Long enough for his hair to grow out and hers to be cut short. Long enough for him to lose weight and her to put it on. Long enough for her to forget how tall he was, how rugged, how head-turning handsome.

  Long enough for her to have lost touch completely with deep, abiding joy.

  Chapter 27

  "Hello," she said, gazing down at him.

  "Should you be climbing ladders?"

  He knew.

  "I'm eighteen inches above the sidewalk, Quinn. I think I can handle it." I love you, I missed you. How could you leave me!

  "It was only a question, Liv; I didn't come back to tell you what to do."

  "Good." Why did you come back at all? Nothing has changed.

  "I understand that there's been a development."

  Oh. Right. That one thing. "You heard it from Mrs. Dewsbury, I take it?"

  He smiled. It was such a sad and melancholy smile. "I'm not allowed to say."

  "I don't know why people bothered inventing the Internet," Olivia said, climbing down the two rungs. "A few Mrs. D.'s strategically placed could do the job just as well for a lot less money."

  He had been appraising her figure, Olivia knew, deciding for himself if the rumors were true. For one vindictive moment she wished she owned a muumuu.

  She tried to close the ladder, but for some stupid reason the metal spreader wouldn't fold. "Here, I'll do that," Quinn said, moving in to help.

  "No, really, I can do it myself. I—ow!"

  He'd closed the spreader on the edge of her little finger, hardly a tragic event. But Olivia was feeling tragic, and her cry reflected the sharp pain in her heart more than the little pinch on her hand. Again Quinn apologized, this time profusely.

  "It's nothing," she said, sucking the spot. She glanced at it and added, "A little blood blister, that's all."

  With a shaky laugh he said, "Before I maim you for life, will you agree to see me somewhere? Livvy, my God, we have to talk."

  How odd. Not so long ago, Olivia was begging him for the very same mercy.

  She glanced around the court. There was Ella, spying on them over the checkered cafe curtains of her bakery. Burt was outside his antique shop next door, feeling a sudden need to re-sweep his sidewalk. Mark—no discretion there; he just stood in front of his music shop with his arms folded, watching the show. Any minute now someone was bound to pop out of the sewer with a manhole cover on his head and snap a photo of Quinn and her for the bulletin boar
d at the foot of Town Hill.

  She crossed her arms and hugged her sides, mostly to cover her stomach, and said, "Okay. I suppose I owe you that much. Where do you want to meet?"

  "Your place?"

  "Are you crazy? No!" she shouted. "You can't just waltz back into my life!"

  She was overreacting; even she could see that. "Somewhere else," she said, lowering her voice, "but nowhere public. I don't want to be hashing this out in a restaurant or, for that matter, where we're standing. God, I'm sick of this town and its gossip," she added. She felt like taking all of the hanging baskets back.

  She stared at the sidewalk while she chewed her lower lip. Finally she looked up and said, "I know where: the gardener's cottage. My father is in Mexico—yes, Mexico," she snapped when Quinn did a double take. "He won't be home until after midnight, and my mother always stays near a phone when he's away. We won't be bothered at the cottage."

  It was the perfect place: private, but too haunted by memories of Quinn's father for Quinn to try any funny business.

  "Miracourt is open late tonight," she added. "I won't be able to meet you there until ten. Park off the estate somewhere and then walk in."

  "All right, I'll see you then," Quinn said, searching her features for some sign of welcome.

  He didn't find it.

  ****

  By the time nine-thirty rolled around, Olivia had already made a quick trip home to change from her slacks—obviously too tight—to a denim jumper with an empire waist, which she slipped over a black top and tights. It was the kind of outfit she'd wear on a cool night in front of a fire with someone she loved.

  The night was cool, anyway.

  She drove to the cottage second-guessing herself the whole way. What if her mother had guests? What if she decided to drag them down after dinner to ooh and ahh over some new antique in her charming guest house? Olivia thought about it and decided that if that were the case, she would simply introduce Quinn to everyone as the father of her forthcoming baby, say good night, and the hell with them all.

  I will not put this baby through any more stress. This baby comes first. It was such a new priority in Olivia's life, and it was all the more fierce for being new.