Rescued Heart

by Georgia Beers

  ***

  Lisa found the last piece to finish the border of the puzzle. Finally. She snapped it into place with a victorious, “Yay!” She glanced again at the box top, depicting the entire picture the puzzle would presumably show once she was finished. It was a field of purple flowers, each one looking very much like the next, and for an instant, she wondered how in the world she thought she’d be able to put it together without tossing herself off the roof in frustration. The border had obviously been the easy part. But she took a deep breath and remembered how many equally difficult puzzles she’d mastered in the past year: twenty-three.

  “I got this,” she said to Groucho, who was draped around her shoulders in his usual impression of a feather boa. “No worries. I totally got this.” She was scanning all the pieces she’d laid out on the card table, trying to plan a strategy, when her cell rang. She looked at the screen for a long moment while she did a quick calculation to figure out how many of these calls she’d ignored.

  Too many, really.

  With a sigh, she pressed the answer button. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, sweetheart. Is this a bad time?”

  “No.” Yes. Isn’t it usually?

  “Oh, good. Um…” her mother hesitated, sounding a little nervous. Which was par for the course during these conversations. “I haven’t spoken to you in a while, so I thought I’d call and say hi. See how the fundraiser went.”

  Lisa poked this inside of her cheek with her tongue. She knew where this was coming from. Though the fundraiser was well-publicized, she suspected Aunt Joyce had a hand in creating a conversation starter for Lisa’s mother. She suppressed a sigh.

  “It went well,” Lisa said, matter-of-factly. “We had a good turnout. Adopted out lots of animals.”

  “Great. That’s fantastic. You’re so good at what you do. It makes me proud.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How are those animals of yours?”

  “They’re fine.” Purposely not elaborating, Lisa rolled her eyes at herself and her own passive-aggressive tactics. Apparently, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  “Good.” A beat of silence. “Have you talked to your brothers lately?”

  She hadn’t in over a week, and it irritated her that her mother pointed it out. The same mother who had gone for weeks and weeks at a time without talking to the children she’d left behind. “I’ve been really busy.” She tried not to dwell on the fact that her brothers rarely called her. She was the one who seemed always to do the reaching out.

  To her mother’s credit, her tone held no judgment. “Well, Eric got a promotion,” she said proudly. Eric was five years younger than Lisa and worked for American Express as a financial planner. At twenty-seven, he was one of the youngest in his office, but the guy was a whiz with numbers. Always had been. Something Lisa was not. And had never been. She envied him.

  “Good for him,” she said, picking up a puzzle piece and turning it different ways.

  “He’s doing so well there. And apparently, Ben has picked up six new contracts for this summer. Six. And he’s kept all his old ones.”

  “He’s going to be working his tail off,” Lisa said, grinning with pride even through her annoyance. Ben was two years younger than Eric and despite the fact that they couldn’t possibly be more different, they were as close as twins. Eric was clean-shaven and wore a suit and tie every day. Ben was lucky to shave four times a month and preferred worn jeans, flannel shirts, and work boots. The two of them were tighter than almost any other pair Lisa had ever seen. And as much as she loved her little brothers with all her heart, she had often felt left out, not included in their circle, probably because she’d been thought of as more mother than sister. “Starting that landscaping business of his worried me, but he’s really done well.”

  “He has. I’m so proud of him.”

  “Me, too.”

  Turned out, the boys were a fairly safe subject, and they actually chatted about them for several more minutes before the conversation lagged, as it always did with Lisa and her mother.

  “We should have lunch soon,” her mother said. “Or dinner. Either works for me.”

  “Sounds good,” Lisa replied, using the same stock answer she gave every time her mother suggested a get together of any sort. “Let me check my schedule and I’ll toss you some dates.”

  “Okay, sweetheart.” Was that a note of dejection in her mother’s voice? A stab of guilt poked Lisa in the ribs, but she slapped it away. “You let me know. I’d love to see you. It’s been too long.”

  Lisa couldn’t recall how long it had been. Dodging phone calls or e-mails when she wanted to was easy. Sidestepping her in person was much more difficult, and since her mother had come back to town a little over a year ago, Lisa’d become a virtual master at avoiding her. I’ll hear about it from Aunt Joyce, she thought as she hung up the phone and stared at it in her hand.

  It’s not like she’d never tried to deal with these feelings inside. There was a stack of books upstairs in her bedroom. The Children of Divorce. Adult Children of Divorce. Forgiveness is a Choice. Mother Daughter Wisdom. There was a time when she’d read endlessly on the subject, snapped up any book she could find that had to do with children of divorced parents, kids who had a strained relationship with one parent or another—anything that she thought might relate to her situation. But for whatever reason, she just had trouble letting go of the past and moving forward with a clean slate. She’d never been able to give her mother that: a clean slate. Her best friend Grace told her she had “mommy issues.” Aunt Joyce was always telling her how unhealthy it was to hang on to “that big, heavy grudge,” how it stressed her heart and her psyche and her soul, not to mention her outlook on every other aspect of her life.

  They were both right. Lisa knew that; she wasn’t an idiot. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to pry her fingers open long enough to let go of the whole thing. She held on with both hands, as if letting it slip from her grasp would mean she’d lose a major piece of herself. Which was silly. She knew that, too. And the truth was, she wanted to let go. Being quietly, endlessly angry was nothing short of exhausting. But whenever her mother called and used that sweet, friendly voice, never striking back even when Lisa was downright mean to her (which didn’t happen often, but did happen), it just made Lisa hold on tighter.

  A puzzle piece flying off the table caught her attention and pulled her from her ruminations. Tiny was on the card table, apparently wanting to help.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Lisa said, swooping him up and depositing him on the floor. He was the only one of the four felines who climbed up on things. The kitchen counter. Her dresser in the bedroom. The curtain rod in the living room. Keeler’s back. “Am I going to have to use the squirt gun on you, buddy?” He looked at her with his big eyes as if he knew just exactly what she’d said, then ran away into the hallway, Lisa smiling after him.

  The phone call—and the unpleasant thoughts it brought with it—gone for the moment, she scratched Groucho’s head and picked up another piece of the puzzle. It was obviously a piece of the sky, the blue surprisingly warm. Turning it in her fingers, Lisa gazed at it, the color settling into her, reminding her suddenly of the sparkling blue of Ashley Stiles’s eyes.

  Wait. What?

  With a head tilt to the side, she furrowed her brows.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I’m late. I know. I know.” Ashley hung her jacket on the hook inside the door of her mother’s house and scooted up the three steps into the kitchen. Her mother pulled a chicken from the oven, and when she stood up, Ashley kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “Honey, the day you show up on time is the day I start to wonder if the world is about to end.” Monica Ribisi set the pan with the roasted chicken down on the counter and slid off her oven mitts.

  “I brought wine,” Ashley said, by way of apology, holding up a bottle of Pinot Grigio. />
  “Then all is forgiven.”

  Ashley uncorked the bottle and opened a white cupboard door, only to see a stack of navy blue plates where the wineglasses should be. “Mom. Did you rearrange the cupboards? Again?” She opened three more doors before finding the correct one. “What are you trying to do to me?” She poured two glasses and handed one to Monica.

  “I felt like a change,” Monica said with a shrug as they clinked glasses.

  Ashley shook her head with an affectionate grin, and they sipped.

  “Are you two hogging all the wine for yourselves?” asked Ashley’s big sister, Kelly, as she entered the kitchen.

  “Wine? What wine? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ashley held her wineglass behind her back.

  “Ha ha. Very funny. I want some.” Her brown hair, which she had recently cut short, looked stylish and hip, and she had eyes the exact same shade of blue as Ashley’s. She poured herself a glass and sipped.

  “How’s life?” Ashley asked as she carried a bowl of salad into the dining room.

  “It’s not bad.” Kelly followed her with butter and the salt and pepper shakers. “Not bad at all.”

  “Right on time, Ash.” Vincent Ribisi gave Ashley’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and winked at her as he went into the kitchen to help with the rest of dinner.

  “Never gets old, all the late jokes,” Ashley said to her stepdad, shaking her head.

  Monica came in with the potatoes and Vince followed with the chicken on a platter. “You’ve been late since the day you were born, sweetie,” she said to her daughter. “It’s just who you are.”

  The five of them sat down to dinner. Doing so on a Tuesday night was unusual, but it happened to be a day everybody was available, and Ashley’s mother liked to round them up whenever she had the chance. Everybody had their own lives, their own crazy schedules, and getting everybody on the same page could be crazy difficult. So today, they ate cheerfully and caught each other up on their lives, just as they always did during family dinners, happy to be together.

  “You still doing volunteer work at the shelter, Ash?” Kelly’s husband, Stephen, asked.

  Ashley nodded. “A couple times a week, if I have the time. They’re really great about being flexible with my schedule.”

  “They had a big fundraiser last week, right? One of my colleagues works with them.” Stephen was in advertising.

  “Really? You guys have us for a client?”

  “Yeah…I think Kristin…” He gazed at the ceiling as if looking for the answer up there. “Well. Not important. But yeah, we do work for them.”

  “Cool.” Ashley swallowed a bite of chicken. “I really like it there. Nice people. They’re good to the animals. I enjoy it.”

  “Does it get hard?” Vincent asked. “Like…sad, I mean?” He was a very large, very Italian man of sixty who’d been Ashley’s and Kelly’s stepfather for the better part of ten years. Physically, he looked like he could crush a bowling ball in one hand. In reality, he was a huge sap of a man with an enormous heart and a soft spot for animals. Ashley loved him for that.

  “A little,” she replied. “The older dogs have much less of a chance of being adopted. That can be hard. I mean, it’s a no-kill shelter, so they won’t be put down. But still. I wish I had a huge farm with tons of land. I’d just take them all home with me.” Her thoughts shifted to Jax, his big, soft eyes sad with loneliness.

  “Yeah, I’d have a tough time with that,” Vince said and took a sip of wine. “You’re a stronger person than I am.”

  Ashley puffed up a bit with that, and her mother smiled at her. After a beat, Monica asked, “Have either of you talked to your father lately?”

  Kelly looked at Ashley and they each shrugged. “I talked to him a couple days ago,” Kelly said.

  “I think he left me a message the other day, but I haven’t called him back yet.” Ashley made a mental note to do just that.

  “Well, I spoke to him yesterday.” Monica took a sip of wine and said nothing more.

  “Okay, you obviously have something you want to share,” Kelly said with a grin.

  Divorced for nearly fifteen years, Monica and her ex-husband Rick had surprised everybody by becoming very close friends. They spoke on the phone several times a week, and Rick was always invited to parties or gatherings hosted by the Ribisis. Most people found the whole situation oddly disconcerting, but Ashley just thought she was lucky. The idea of her parents disliking each other—or worse, hating each other—wasn’t something she could ever even imagine. They just made better friends than spouses. It was as simple as that.

  Monica leaned forward slightly and lowered her voice as she said, “I think he’s seeing somebody.”

  “You mean he has a new flavor of the month,” Kelly corrected.

  “Stop that,” her mother scolded.

  “Mom. Come on. He dates somebody for a month or two, then finds a reason to stop seeing her and moves on to the next. It’s what he’s done for how long? Since he started dating? You know this as well as we do.” Kelly looked to Ashley for confirmation.

  Ashley shrugged. “She’s right.”

  “Well, I think this one might be different. He sounds…smitten.”

  “Smitten?” Ashley looked to her sister, who grinned back at her. “What is this, 1943?”

  “Stop that,” Monica said again. “You know what I mean. Call him and see for yourselves.”

  “Gonna have to now,” Ashley said.

  “Hey, how’s the cookie business, Ash?” Vincent asked as Kelly stood and excused herself to the bathroom.

  “Things have died down since Easter, so we’ve all had a chance to breathe. That’s been nice.” Ashley’s job tended to be very cyclical, revolving around holidays and major life events. “Next up will be weddings and graduations. Then the Fourth of July.”

  “You’ve got baked goods for everything,” Stephen commented.

  “True story.”

  Kelly returned a few minutes later and took her seat. “Are you still seeing that girl?” she asked around a forkful of food, avoiding eye contact with her sister.

  Ashley blinked at her, shot her the silent sister-to-sister Really? look before saying, “Sorry?”

  “What girl?” Monica and Vince said at the same time.

  Looking smug, Kelly went on. “Ashley’s been seeing some girl. Carol? Karen?”

  “Carly,” Ashley said, irritated. “And I’m not really seeing her. We’re just…sort of dating.”

  Her mother furrowed her brow. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “It is exactly the same thing,” Kelly confirmed.

  Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, Ashley said, “It’s not at all the same thing. It’s not the least bit serious.”

  “For you,” Kelly said.

  Ashley whipped her head around to gape at her sister.

  “What?” Kelly asked. “I ran into Jenna the other day.”

  “Yeah, well. Jenna doesn’t know everything.”

  But Kelly didn’t give up. “She knows you pretty well. And really, Ash, you’re going to have to get serious about somebody eventually or you’re going to end up a lonely old woman. You’ll be the house the kids all avoid on Halloween because you scare them.”

  The wink Kelly shot in Ashley’s direction did little to take away the sting of the words, but before Ashley could give a smart-ass reply, her brain tossed her a quick picture of Lisa Drakemore, smiling one of her very rare smiles. What the hell? Ashley thought with surprise, then did her best to tamp that image down and ignore her sister’s comments. She shoveled a forkful of potatoes into her mouth to keep herself quiet.

  Luckily, the subject died down and conversation turned to other topics, but the Carly dilemma stuck in her chest, like heartburn. They ate and talked and laughed for nearly another hour before Ashley stood and began to clear the table, reminding everybody that she had to be to work at five a.m. “And then I’m going to go walk some dogs after that,” she told h
er mother.

  In the kitchen, Monica put a hand on her daughter’s back. “I want you to know how proud I am of you.”

  Ashley blinked in surprise. “Where did that come from?”

  Her mother shrugged as she handed Ashley a plate to rinse before lining it up with the others in the dishwasher. “I’m not sure. I just think I need to tell you more often. Your job, the time you put in at the shelter, your visits here…you’re a good girl, Ashley. I’m proud of you and I want you to know that.”

  The welling up of her eyes caused Ashley to blush slightly as she put her arms around her mother and squeezed. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  The entire ride home, Ashley could feel the grin stretched across her face.

  Life was good.

  ***

  Ashley spent her entire Wednesday putting out one fire after another, which was a relief only in that she didn’t dwell on guilty thoughts about Carly. Two different deliveries were incorrect and one was missing altogether. A cake order had a misspelling. One of the bakers called in sick and another decided to simply not show up for work (this was the third time he’d done this and he was going to get fired, Ashley just knew it). A disgruntled customer caused a scene. And one of the industrial mixers decided to just stop working. Ashley was stressed out, frustrated, and tired, but for some reason, the direction of her apartment wasn’t the way she pointed her car when she slid behind the wheel. Instead, without even thinking about it, she headed straight for Junebug Farms. And when she pulled into the parking lot, she felt a sense of relief settle over her.

  Interesting.

  Remembering to change her hat this time, she pulled off her batter-covered white one and donned a hot pink hat with a white Nike swoosh on the front. She tugged her ponytail through the back and checked herself in the rearview mirror, determined she would never again show up covered in frosting. Her white coat and floured shoes were left at the bakery, and she’d changed into comfortable jeans and tennis shoes before she’d left. She surprised herself by wishing she had a little makeup on (she rarely wore it to work), and gave her lips a quick coat of gloss with the tube she kept in the center console of the car. Then she headed in.