Family Tree

by Susan Wiggs

  “Nothing,” Fletcher muttered. “That was a perfect cast, and I got nothing.”

  “Try being imperfect for once in your life,” Gordy said, casting a few feet downstream from him. His fly tangled briefly in some weeds, then popped free. There was a flash of movement as a big trout latched on. Gordy tried to reel it in, but the line went taut and then slack as the fish got away.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Fletcher knew he could have hooked that fish, no problem.

  “Just psychoanalyzing you,” Gordy said cheerfully. “And reminding you that there’s much more to life than being Teddy’s dad and being good at your job.”

  “Thanks, Gord. I had no idea.”

  “Why’d you let her go?”

  “Because she doesn’t need my permission.” He sent out another cast, aiming for a calm meander in the stream. For the third time, Annie had left, heading off to L.A. in search of a dream. He finally got it. He just needed to make his peace with it.

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” said Gordy.

  “What I know is that she’s left me three times.”

  “There’s where you’re wrong. See, she left. That doesn’t mean she left you.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Damn, if you don’t know that, I can’t help you.”

  “Who says I need your help?”

  “Maybe it’s Annie who needs your help. And since I’m speaking as her lawyer, that’s all I can say at this point, although—holy shit!” Gordy’s line went taut. The trout leaped, its underbelly flashing in the twilight. It was a big one, a fighter, but Gordy was determined. He struggled and slipped on a rock, letting out a yelp as the frigid water filled his waders. He kept fighting, refusing to let go of the rod.

  Fletcher set down his gear and hurried over. “Hey, don’t float away on me,” he said.

  “I got this . . . Jesus, it’s cold.”

  Fletcher tossed him the net. Gordy flailed, then managed to net the fish and slog ashore. His lips were blue, though he was grinning from ear to ear as he inspected his fat, shiny catch. “Now, that’s a fish,” he declared, shivering as Fletcher took a picture with his phone.

  Fletcher noticed an incoming message—from Annie’s brother. “Good timing on the fish,” he said. “We have to go—now.”

  Annie landed with both feet on the ground. She had left L.A. with her dignity intact and a sense of what lay ahead. She wanted to get back to a place where food was real. And love was real. Yet when Fletcher showed up in the chill of early evening, her stomach pounded with apprehension.

  “My brother shouldn’t have called you,” she said, meeting him on the porch. She resisted the urge to throw her arms around him.

  “You should have called me.”

  “I was going to. You’re freezing,” she added.

  “Gordy and I were fishing.” He hung his coat and left his boots by the door.

  “Come on in. I made coffee.” She went into the kitchen and filled two mugs.

  “So, your meeting in L.A. . . .” he prompted. His expression hardened as though he was bracing himself.

  She had asked him to trust her to make this work out, and he hadn’t done that. “I’d have carte blanche to write, produce, and host my own show.”

  “Wow.” His smile was forced. “Congratulations, Annie. I’m happy for you.”

  “You are not. You want me barefoot and pregnant in Switchback.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fantasize about that.” He wrapped his hands around the coffee mug. She loved his hands—the shape and strength of them, the way they touched her.

  Focus, she told herself. “I’m staying here.”

  His eyes lit up. “That’s great.”

  “I don’t have a choice. There’s a legal entanglement with my ex that would force me to share the production with him. It’s complicated.”

  “I’m a lawyer. I can do complicated.”

  “I’d have to take him to court. I’m not up for that. Just the thought of having to deal with him on any level makes me ill.”

  “Hand everything over to lawyers. A good one will protect you.”

  “I wish. If it was anyone other than my ex, I’d be up for a fight. But Martin . . . I just can’t. He’s toxic to me. He helped himself to my life’s work, and then he cheated on me. Oh, and did I mention he and Melissa are having a baby together? God, Fletcher. I hope you never have to deal with a betrayal like that.”

  “I’m sorry, Annie.” He studied her for a long moment. “Suppose he wasn’t standing in your way. Would that mean you could go ahead with your show?”

  “I imagine it would, yes.”

  “And what would that look like? Doing your own show?”

  “I could finally create the program I always wanted.”

  “In L.A.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You miss it, then. You miss L.A.”

  “I miss the energy. The creativity. The excitement of making a show. But—”

  “You should have what you want, Annie. You should have everything you want.”

  After only a few days amid the congested freeways of L.A., Annie felt soothed by the slow pace of Switchback as she went to pick up the champagne for tonight’s celebration. They had probably ordered too much, but champagne would keep. It was always better to have too much than to run out.

  Even though it was good to be back, Annie worried about the question Fletcher had planted in her mind. What would her life here look like? Would she languish, unfulfilled, as her mother had for so long? Or would she flourish like the maples in the sugarbush, coming into her own the way Gran had as a young bride? If she was honest with herself, if she went back to her reasons for leaving Vermont in the first place, were they about fulfilling someone else’s dreams, or her own?

  “Annie! Hey, Annie!” Teddy Wyndham waved and ran over to her as she wheeled the flatbed cart of champagne from the liquor store out to the truck.

  “Hey yourself.” The sight of Teddy always made her smile. He was as bright and cheerful as a song. Over the summer, she’d fallen in love with him, too, coming to care about him in ways she hadn’t expected.

  “Let us help you with that.” Fletcher lifted a case and Teddy quickly grabbed the other side. Annie knew Fletcher could have hoisted the box by himself, but he was the kind of dad who gave his kid every chance, big and small, to succeed.

  “Do me a favor and take the cart back.”

  “You got it,” Teddy said.

  “He’s so great,” Annie told him. “He seems completely happy and secure.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I understand why you want his life to be here, Fletcher.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how much this place has to do with it.”

  “It’s a factor. But there are other things. I mean, Degan Kerry grew up here . . .”

  “Then again, so did the inventor of roll-on butter and bacon spray.”

  He shut the tailgate of her truck. “I like running into you on a Saturday morning. I’m glad you’re back.”

  Flustered, she dug for her keys.

  “All set, Dad.” Teddy joined them again. He looked at Annie. “We’re going skating at the ice rink, and then there’s a game after. Wanna come?”

  The feeling of almost-tears persisted, but Annie forced a smile. “Thanks, but I need to get going. I have a wedding to attend.”

  “Yeah?” Fletcher eyed the cases of champagne in the truck. “Who’s getting married?”

  “My parents.”

  Snow flurries danced through the sky as Annie loaded up the empty bottles, along with flattened boxes and packing material to take to the transfer station. The sun was just coming up, so Fletcher’s arrival startled her.

  “I’m busy,” she said without pausing in her work.

  “I can see that.” He lifted the second blue bin into the truck, then climbed into the cab next to her and buckled up. “That was a lot of champagne for a small wedding
.”

  “It was. We had quite a celebration.” Clearly he had something on his mind, so she put the truck in gear and drove down the mountain.

  “That’s good. Your folks deserve to be happy.” He flopped a thick envelope onto the console between them.

  She glanced at it. “What’s that?”

  “A draft of the new settlement with your ex. All you need to do is sign, and you can go ahead with your new production. He won’t stand in your way.”

  Annie nearly choked with surprise. She had just made her peace with the missed opportunity. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m a judge. I’m always serious. Haven’t you heard the expression ‘sober as a judge’?”

  She turned on the wipers to bat away the flurries. “What made him change his mind?”

  “He didn’t. He would have kept his hooks in you any way he could, if that was possible. But it wasn’t, because he made a stupid move after the accident.”

  “I don’t get it. I mean, Martin made a lot of stupid moves. Which one are you referring to?”

  “He divorced you in the state of Vermont.”

  Annie didn’t think that was so stupid. “He won a more favorable settlement than he would have in California,” she said. It was old news.

  “Yes, but it also means Vermont statute applies to the settlement, and he’d never win in Vermont. You’ll want to go over it with Gordy, of course. You have to authorize everything, but that’s just a formality. Once you sign off on this, Martin Harlow will be out of your life, and you can do whatever you want with your show.”

  The bottles in the back clinked together as she drove over the gravel road to the transfer station. She didn’t say anything for a long time. She was trying to figure this out. After conceding that the new deal wasn’t an option, she had been prepared to stay in Switchback. Now that it was back on the table, the decision was in front of her once more.

  They were the first ones at the dump. The attendant was Degan Kerry, sitting in the gate kiosk with his morning coffee and cigarette. Since high school, he had grown soft and surly. He scrutinized her load, raised his eyebrows when he saw her passenger, then waved them through.

  She backed up to the deep steel-walled container, and they both got out. Grabbing a big green glass bottle, she hurled it into the container. It bounced, but didn’t break.

  “I don’t get it,” she said to Fletcher. “You wanted me to stay here, but now you’re fixing it so I can go to L.A. after all.”

  “I want you to have a choice. You shouldn’t be here by default, but because you choose to be here.” He helped himself to a bottle and shot it into the container, where it shattered.

  Annie threw her next one harder, and was rewarded by a satisfying shower of splintering glass.

  “Good shot,” he said. “You smashed it to smithereens.”

  “Smithereens. Where does that word come from, anyway?” She hurled three more bottles in quick succession. “I told you to trust me and you didn’t.”

  “I told you I loved you and you didn’t listen.”

  “When?” What a stupid question. In one way or another, Fletcher Wyndham had been telling her he loved her since they were in high school. Yes, things had happened.

  “I’m telling you now. And what you need to know is that I never really stopped. I know what I want from life and from you. From us. And you should have what you want. But I understand your caution.”

  “You think I’m being cautious?”

  “It’s a lot, I know. Teddy and I . . . we’re a lot.” He broke another bottle. Snow flurries swirled around him.

  “Yes. You are.”

  They hurled the last of the bottles, one by one, until the truck bed was empty. The flurries thickened into flakes. Annie grabbed his cold hands in hers. “Listen. Everything that’s happened to me has led me back home. Back to you. Back to the big dream I had a long time ago, the one that got lost along the way.”

  “The Key Ingredient,” he said.

  “The key ingredient before it was a TV show. The key ingredient when I knew exactly what it was.” She pressed herself against him, and his warm lips touched her forehead, the sweetest of benedictions. “I’m starting from scratch, Fletcher. I want to start from scratch with you. With us. And Teddy. Forget what we did in the past. Forget that I ran and that I didn’t listen to myself and I was afraid. Start from scratch with me.”

  EPILOGUE

  After

  I can’t believe we’re arguing about this,” Annie said, tying on her apron. The teaching kitchen at Beth’s school now doubled as her studio for Starting from Scratch. The webcast had become so popular that broadcasting from home was no longer feasible.

  “Because it matters,” Fletcher said simply. Her camera-shy husband made only rare appearances on her show. When there was a Fletcher sighting, her fans went nuts on social media. Today, he’d agreed to a small role, but she was starting to regret inviting him. Camera 1 was already rolling, because she never knew when a moment would emerge from the chatter.

  “Gran used to say all arguments are about power,” she said.

  “Gran was probably right.” Fletcher snatched a bite-size homemade cream puff from a tray.

  She smacked his hand with the back of a wooden spoon.

  “Hey!”

  “Gran also used to say that the spoon speaks when words alone are not enough.”

  “I don’t think that’s what she meant,” Fletcher said, savoring the purloined bite.

  Annie moved the tray of cream-filled pâte à choux away from him. “Since I’m the one who’s the size of a water buffalo, I have final say on the name.”

  “Come on,” Fletcher said. “Panisse? What kind of a name is that for a poor, innocent baby?”

  “It’s a lovely name, that’s what kind it is. Lovely and unique, just like our little girl will be.” She smoothed a gentle hand over the mound of her thirty-six-weeks-and-counting belly.

  “I looked it up. Panisse means chickpea fritters.”

  “Nobody knows that.”

  “I know it. Anybody with a search engine knows it. Let’s move on, Annie. What about Julia, like the late, great—”

  “I’m bored already,” Annie declared with an elaborate yawn. Her viewers had been cheering her on through her pregnancy, sending name suggestions from around the world. “Taste,” she said, dipping a spoon into the caramel sauce that was warming on the stove.

  The slowly melded blend of cream, sugar, butter—and a touch of maple—brought a smile to his face. “Makes me want to marry you all over again.” He slipped an arm around her waist and bent down to whisper, “Bring some of that home tonight, and I’ll—”

  Teddy came in from school, dropping his backpack on a chair with a thud. “Hey,” he said. “Something smells amazing.” At thirteen, he was tall and gangly and hungry all the time.

  “Ted, buddy, help me out here,” Fletcher said. “She’s trying to call my daughter Panisse.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “See?” Annie gave him a cream puff dipped in caramel sauce, and Teddy’s face lit up. “Your son has excellent taste in names.”

  “Come on,” Fletcher said. “Give me something I can work with.”

  “I like creative names,” she said, arranging the puffs on Gran’s favorite Salem china platter. “Aquaria—that’s the name of this china pattern. And since she’ll be born in late January . . .”

  “No,” Fletcher said. “Just no.”

  “Keegan’s mom called her new baby Maple,” Teddy said.

  “Not helping,” Fletcher said.

  “Tree names. That could work,” Annie said. “How about Liquidambar?”

  “Also awesome,” Teddy said, earning another sample.

  Fletcher cuffed him on the head. “You’re just saying that so you can keep eating.”

  “Both of you, wash your hands and you can help me put together the croquembouche,” Annie suggested.

  “Croak and what?” Teddy and Fletch
er went to the sink.

  “It’s a French pastry,” Annie said. “It means something that crunches in the mouth. You make a tower of all these little filled cream puffs and drizzle it with caramel.”

  “And then die of happiness,” Fletcher said.

  “It’s a lot fancier than our usual demo, but since it’s my last before little Ganache makes her appearance, I wanted to go all out.” She was stockpiling episodes in order to savor a long, sweet welcome for the baby.

  “Ganache.” Fletcher looked directly at the camera. “You see what I’m up against?”

  It was such a singular feeling, knowing her broadcast reached every corner of the earth. And as it turned out, people the world over had the same joys and struggles, the same devotion to life and love, food and family. And second chances. And starting from scratch. There was value in beginning anew, putting something together from carefully chosen ingredients and making it wholly your own.

  She never once regretted turning down the network offer. All the creative control in the world, the most artfully lit sound stage, could never replicate what she was able to do right here in this close-knit community, surrounded by family and friends.

  In the past two years, she’d completed the journey that brought her home. She’d revised and republished her grandmother’s cookbook, and was working on one of her own. She’d launched the barrel-aged Sugar Rush.

  And in a flurry of autumn leaves in the maple grove on Rush Mountain, she’d married the love of her life. Now she was expecting a baby. Fletcher was her heart’s home. Sometimes when she thought about how much she loved him, she forgot to breathe. And then she would remember again, the way she’d had to relearn after the accident—smell the roses, blow out the candle.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book started with a storm—and a celebration. I wrote the first words of the novel during a snowstorm that brought all of New York City to a standstill one January week. Being snowed in at a midtown hotel turns out to be a fine way to launch a work of fiction, particularly this one.

  A celebration occurred that week, too. I was welcomed by William Morrow/HarperCollins with a feast of home-baked treats inspired by my previous novels and prepared by Jennifer Hart, Jennifer Brehl, Helen Moore, and Tavia Kowalchuk, whose lavender scones, morning glory muffins, apple strudel, and pignoli cookies made for a delightful meeting.