by Jan Fields
After her early supper, Annie still felt too keyed up to settle. She wished she could call Gram for a solid dose of gentle wisdom. Then she thought of someone she could talk to.
She hopped into her Malibu and drove to the church. She knew Reverend Wallace often worked late at his office on Fridays to prepare his Sunday sermons. She also knew he wasn’t in favor of uncovering the mysterious artist, but the mystery wasn’t the only thing weighing on her mind. Her worry over LeeAnn was exactly the kind of problem Reverend Wallace could help with.
She hurried into the church and headed for the office. Ellen looked up from her desk and smiled brightly at Annie. “You’re becoming my most regular visitor,” she said. “You just caught me. I was about to head home for the evening. What can I do for you?”
“This time I was hoping to speak with Reverend Wallace,” Annie said. “Is he in?”
Ellen nodded. “Let me see if he’s free.” She picked up the phone and told the reverend that Annie had come to see him. “He says you’re welcome to come in, if you don’t mind him eating while you chat.”
“I don’t mind,” Annie said, “but I don’t want to interrupt his supper.”
Ellen lowered her voice. “Actually he hates eating by himself. He would go home, but Mrs. Wallace has him on a diet. He’s been eating lunch and Friday dinner at his desk ever since.”
Annie thanked the young woman and headed into Reverend Wallace’s office. The minister was only a little taller than Annie and a bit portly, though Annie wouldn’t have considered him fat. He stood as she entered and smiled. “How nice to see you, Annie.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner,” Annie said.
He waved away the apology. “You’re brightening up a very dull meal. My dear wife is dieting and feels it’s something we can share. So, I’m brown-bagging veggy wraps and carrot sticks for lunch. And I have broiled chicken and more veggies for dinner. I believe I’m going to grow rabbit ears and whiskers any day now.”
Annie’s gaze swept over the desk and the remains of his dinner as she sat in the chair across from him. “I don’t know too many rabbits who eat Oreos.”
“My one vice,” he admitted with a laugh. “So now you know why I don’t go home to eat when I can eat at my desk where I keep a stash. But I do limit it to three cookies a day. A bit of self-control nearly worthy of John the Baptist.”
Annie laughed. “I certainly won’t being doing any finger-pointing after eating chocolate chip muffins with Alice this morning.”
“Ah—Alice is a truly heavenly baker,” he said. “But I’m sure you came to chat with me about more than treats.”
Annie nodded. “I’m worried about my daughter, LeeAnn. She and her husband have hit a rough patch, and I don’t quite know what to say to her. Gram was always such a fountain of wisdom, and in situations like this, I really feel my own inadequacy.”
“Betsy Holden was a singular person,” Reverend Wallace said. “But in situations where your grown children are going through difficulties, the secret is to give them room to make their own choices, to be supportive, not to take sides, and to remind them of their still greater support from the Lord.”
“Oh well—I seem to have failed at everything except being supportive,” Annie said. “I told LeeAnn I thought she was doing the wrong thing, and I didn’t even mention prayer, though I’ve been praying for them.” Annie felt tears gathering, suddenly certain that she’d messed up everything!
23
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Reverend Wallace said. “If there is one thing I’m sure of about you, it’s that you weren’t trying to run your daughter’s life. Overall, how strong would you say LeeAnn and Herb’s marriage is?”
“Very strong,” Annie said. “They complement each other well, and they clearly love one another and the children. Normally, they’re very open and honest.”
“And how strong would you say their relationship with God is?” he asked.
“Solid,” Annie said. “It’s one of the reasons I was so pleased when LeeAnn married Herb. He’s quiet about his relationship with the Lord, but it shows in a million different ways.”
“Then I’m certain they’ll weather this rough spot,” Reverend Wallace said. “Just as I’m sure you weathered a few with your husband. And I know Betsy weathered a few with Charles.”
Annie blinked at that. She rarely pictured Gram and Grandpa as anything but blissfully happy together. She did know they had had one spat, after her grandfather had retired and they were cleaning out his office in the carriage house. As an adult, Annie knew that it was unrealistic to think of them as perfect, but it also felt strange to think of Betsy and Charles Holden as normal people, as well as her beloved grandparents. “Thank you, Reverend Wallace,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
He smiled. “And you’ve given me a pleasant dinner companion. Really, I know it’s difficult, but try not to worry too much.”
Annie thanked him again and left. When she reached her car, she dialed LeeAnn’s number but only got her voice mail. “I just wanted to say that I love you, and I’m praying for y’all. I believe you’re going to come through this just fine. Just don’t forget to lean on the Lord, LeeAnn. You don’t have to do everything on your own.”
When she ended the call, she closed her eyes and said her own prayer for LeeAnn and her family. She felt a real sense of peace about the situation by the time she got into her car and headed home for a quiet evening.
As soon as she got home, she called Alice and asked her not to bring over muffins in the morning. “I’m feeling guilty about all the goodies,” she said. “I’m going to end up with a figure like Boots.”
Alice laughed. “I can’t quite imagine that. OK, do you want to leave about midmorning for the bazaar?”
“That sounds good. I’ll meet you at your house.”
Saturday morning started late when Annie forgot to set her alarm, and she was grateful they’d changed their morning plans. Annie ate oatmeal for breakfast and felt very virtuous about not giving in to the urge to pull out her muffin recipes again.
Alice was ready to go by the time Annie walked over to her house. Annie looked at the lovely scarf Alice had tied over her hair, and she knew Alice was going to suggest they take the Mustang with the top down to enjoy the warm, bright day. “I’ll look like a dust mop by the time we get to the church,” Annie said. “I should go back and get a band so I can pull my hair up into a ponytail.”
“I have a better solution,” Alice said, and she pulled a second scarf from her purse. It looked as if it were splashed with different shades of blue watercolor.
Annie tied it over her fine blond hair. “OK, let the cyclone begin!”
Alice laughed. “It’s not that breezy.”
“That’s because your hair just looks better and better when it’s wind-tossed.”
“You mean bigger and bigger,” Alice said. “That’s why we have scarves. They’re like tie-down ropes to keep our hair from launching!”
As they drove to the church, their conversation drifted to horrible hairstyles they had known and worn. “You should have seen me at the prom,” Alice said. “Between my heels and my hair, I towered over my date. Plus, I could barely walk in my shoes, much less dance. Not that it mattered; I think my hair terrified the poor guy. He barely got near me all night.”
Annie laughed. “I wore my hair up in a chignon. I thought it was very elegant, though it had so much hairspray in it that it felt crispy.”
“Oh, I know exactly the look,” Alice said. “Crispy helmet head. It was the other big prom look back then. I went for electrified lion, but crispy helmet head is a classic too.”
By the time they reached the church, Annie was glad of the scarf because it helped cover her ears as well as her hair. The wind generated by riding in the convertible was cold!
They found a parking space in the already crowded lot. Clearly the church bazaar was a very popular activity that particular Sat
urday. The church hall buzzed with conversation as Annie and Alice walked in. Tables had been lined up against the walls and another row of tables ran down the center of the room. This left wide, comfortable aisles for browsers—which was very helpful as there were a lot of browsers. Annie could see they were mostly women, but a scattering of men and kids looked at the tables of goods eagerly. Annie and Alice had barely made it clear of the knot of people at the door when a small group of women called out to Alice.
One of the women waved for Alice to come over. “We need to talk to our Divine Décor connection, stat!” the woman shouted.
Alice turned to Annie. “Do you mind? They’re nurses from the hospital and really good customers. I promise to just be a few minutes, and then I’ll catch up with you.
“That’s just fine,” Annie said. “Go. Make the connection. I’ll start looking around. Of course, if I beat you to any of the really great things, you’ll have no right to complain.”
Alice laughed. “I’ll try to be brave.”
Annie began to slip through the crowd in the room, thinking absently that with this many people, they should raise some good money for the food pantry. As she looked around, Annie’s eyes fell on a lone figure flipping through the pages of an old book at one of the tables tucked in the far corner.
Annie remembered the woman from A Stitch in Time. It was the shy lady who had known Gram. What was her name? Suddenly it hit her. Ivy. The woman was named Ivy, like the Christmas carol The Holly and the Ivy. With a soft gasp, Annie realized she was looking at Candace Caine.
It all fit. Candace Caine was shy but knew Gram well, and Ivy had certainly shown a close familiarity with Gram at their first meeting. She was short, though almost painfully thin. Still, Kate had mentioned that she seemed to have lost a lot of weight. She might have been plump once. And she’d written something on a card for Mary Beth. Annie thought for a moment and then remembered—her email address and possibly her name. That could be why the “I” in Annie’s note looked so familiar to Mary Beth. Had Annie finally found the answer to the mystery? She started slowly across the room.
Ivy looked up as Annie reached her table.
“Hello, Ivy. Could I speak to you just for a moment? There’s something I really need to ask you.”
Ivy looked at her silently for a moment, and Annie watched the play of emotions across the woman’s face. She wondered if Ivy would just tell her to go away, but finally the thin woman simply nodded.
Annie stepped closer and leaned toward Ivy slightly, speaking very quietly. “You’re Candace Caine, aren’t you?”
Ivy sighed and smiled sadly. “I haven’t been Candace Caine—except when composing books—in years. It’s been long enough that it feels like a name that belongs to someone else.”
“And you made those beautiful cats that have appeared around town?” Annie said.
Ivy nodded. “I love needle felting. I use it in some of my book illustrations. I did one book with a little needle-felted cat, and it just seemed to want to pop out of the pages. He was a copy of a cat I once had, so I made him as a three-dimensional piece. After that, I made more and more little cats. They make me happy.”
“Ebenezer,” Annie said. “The first cat you made was Ebenezer.”
Ivy looked at her in surprise. “How did you know the name of my cat? I know people talk about you being something of an amateur sleuth, but that’s amazing.”
“Actually, Adam Smithfield told me the name of the cat.”
Ivy’s face clouded. “I’d heard he was in town. I even saw him from a distance. He was walking up the steps to Maplehurst Inn. I nearly fell off my bike, I was so shocked. He hasn’t changed at all. Not like me.”
“He seems desperate to find you,” Annie said.
“Yes, he’s certainly put enough money into it,” Ivy said. “It’s been so many years. I really expected him to let it go long before now.”
“You won’t talk to him?” Annie asked.
“There’s no point in it,” Ivy said. “He’ll look for a while longer, but eventually he’ll go back to England and to his family there. He’s married, you know. There’s really no excuse for him to chase all over the world after me. His poor wife.”
“Oh.” Annie hadn’t expected that. “Did he get married after you left him?”
Ivy shook her head and closed the book in her hand with a soft snap. She laid it back on the table and ran her hand gently across the worn leather cover. “He was married all along. Not that I knew. Not that he told me.” She looked up at Annie and smiled sadly. “I was very young then. Not so much in years as in experience. Still, I was not the sort of girl who got involved with married men. I really wasn’t. And Adam and I never … well, we never did anything physical. But I fell in love with him.”
“And you left when you found out he was married,” Annie guessed.
Ivy nodded. “Of course. I couldn’t do anything else. As betrayed as I felt, I knew my heart well enough to know I couldn’t be around him. Eventually I would have forgiven him, and then I would have started making excuses to myself for why I should be involved with him.” She smiled sadly again. “I really never expected him to care when I left.”
“Are you sure he’s still married?” Annie asked.
Ivy shook her head. “I haven’t checked up on him in years. I did at first when I learned he was looking for me. I imagined he had divorced his wife so he could find me and marry me. But every time I made inquiries, Adam was still married. Finally, I decided it wasn’t healthy to keep checking up on him.”
Annie nodded. It sounded like Ivy was being sensible. But if Adam was married and intended to stay married, why was he looking for Ivy? “He told me that you were a lost love,” Annie said. “Why would he lie about it? Was he ever cruel to you?”
Ivy shook her head. “I know I seem the sort who would meekly put up with abuse, but I am not. I respect myself more than that. No, Adam was always kind and not just to me; I never saw him behave unkindly to anyone. I wouldn’t have left him my dear Ebenezer if I thought he had a cruel streak.”
“He was more than a little short with me yesterday,” Annie said.
Ivy raised her eyebrows questioningly, and Annie told her about meeting Adam during her walk. “Maybe he’s growing tired of the hunt and will go back to London soon,” Ivy said.
“Maybe,” Annie said, “but he certainly seems determined.”
A small group of women moved in on the table of old books and Ivy looked at them uneasily. “I really should be going,” she said softly.
“Ivy,” Annie said, dropping her voice to match Ivy’s soft murmur. “I’d really like to talk more. Not just about Adam, but also about the cats.”
“This isn’t a good place,” Ivy said.
“Would you have lunch with me?” Annie asked. “You could come to Grey Gables, or we could eat at the diner.”
“I haven’t been eating out much lately,” Ivy said. “But I would love to come by Grey Gables for a cup of tea. It would be good to see Boots again.”
“I’m sure she’d like to see you, too.”
Ivy nodded, shifting her weight nervously as another group joined them at the table. “Perhaps this afternoon,” she said finally, “but now I really must go.”
Annie watched the smaller woman dart through the crowd like a minnow in a stream. Annie hoped Ivy would come to Grey Gables to talk with her. She now knew who had been leaving the little cats around town. She knew who Candace Caine had become, but she felt a lot of questions were still unanswered. Why had Ivy decided to give away all the little cats now? And why would Adam be looking for her if he was a married man?
Annie was still staring absently into the crowd when Alice popped up in front of her. “Wow, you sure look a million miles away,” Alice said.
“Actually, I was just trying to sort out one more piece of the mystery puzzle,” Annie said.
“You found another clue?” Alice demanded. “How come all the clue-finding on this mystery h
appens when I’m not around?”
“I happened to see Ivy Beckett,” Annie said. “Do you know her?”
Alice nodded. “I think I met her once. She’s really quiet.” Then Alice froze and her eyes widened. “Do you think …?”
“Actually, I know,” Annie said. “Ivy Becket is Candace Caine. What I don’t know is why Adam is looking for her.”
“They aren’t old loves?”
“Only in the sense that Ivy was once in love with him—and he was married. Ivy thinks he still might be married.”
“Well, I would love to say married men don’t fall for other women,” Alice said, “but ….”
“I think there’s more to it,” Annie said, “but I know Adam is not going to explain it to me after our frosty encounter yesterday.”
“And Ivy doesn’t know why Adam is here?”
“She doesn’t seem to,” Annie said. “She said she would come over this afternoon for a cup of tea. Maybe I can find out enough answers to make sense of all this then.”
“Maybe,” Alice agreed, and then she grinned. “In the meanwhile, come and tell me what you think about this hand-painted lampshade I found. I think it would look fantastic in my bedroom, but I need a second opinion.”
“With your decorating sense, you want my opinion?” Annie asked.
“Opinion, encouragement, whatever,” Alice said. “It’s a little pricey. I need a nudge.”
“So—your taxes apparently didn’t cut too deep, did they?” Annie joked, following Alice through the crowd to a table of hand-painted items. The shade was lovely. Alice needed very little encouragement before money changed hands, and she was walking around carefully carrying the shade in a bag.