My Daughter's Legacy

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Instead, I’d gotten a 4.0, never missed a single counseling session, and passed all four drug tests with flying colors. Better yet, not only had I kept her “in the loop”—I’d texted and emailed her regularly.

  I knew I wasn’t an accomplished scientist or artist like my cousins Renee and Danielle, nor was I an up-and-coming psychologist like my sister, Maddee. But that didn’t mean our grandmother had to treat me like a poor stepchild. What was her problem? Now that I was sober, I was trying hard to believe I could accomplish anything I set my mind to, but Nana’s doubts didn’t help things.

  Worse, our relationship was about to face a new challenge once I revealed my secret. With another heavy sigh, I got ready for bed, telling myself I could handle whatever lay ahead so long as Maddee stood beside me and believed me. The trick would be getting my sister to trust this recovered addict who used to lie as a matter of course and had proven over and over through the years that she could not, in fact, be trusted.

  The next morning, I was sitting on the front steps of the dorm, waiting for Nana’s ride to show, when a shiny blue mini SUV pulled to the curb in front of me. The driver turned it off, climbed out, and looked my way. “Nicole Talbot?”

  “That’s me.” I stood and grabbed the handles of my various bags and lugged them toward the back of the car, where the man popped the hatchback and helped load everything inside. Then, to my surprise, he gestured toward the driver’s door and offered me the key.

  I looked at the gray fob dangling between us and then back at him. “Um, excuse me, but aren’t you supposed to be the one at the wheel? I think that’s why you’re called the driver?”

  He responded by reaching into his suit jacket and pulling out an envelope, which he handed over to me. Puzzled, I opened it up and slid out the contents. First was a printed note, like the kind that might come with a mail-order fruit basket.

  For going above and beyond in every way this past year.

  I’m so very proud of you.

  Love, Nana

  There was a second page, and I turned to it, realizing it was the title to the car in front of me—with my name on it.

  “This car?” I asked in disbelief. “It’s mine?”

  “Straight from the lot and loaded with every bell and whistle we’ve got.”

  “Is this some kind of prank?” I knew I was staring at him stupidly, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Nope. It’s legit.” He turned and walked to the passenger side. “Get in. I’ll show you everything you need to know.”

  With shaking hands, I took my place behind the wheel, still too stunned to speak. I listened in a daze as the man gave me a quick orientation, pointing out the touchscreen navigation system, keyless ignition, and a bunch of other stuff I knew I wouldn’t remember.

  He asked for a lift back to the dealership, and somehow I managed to get him there. But as soon as I was alone, I pulled into a parking lot, took out my phone, and dialed Nana’s number. She answered on the second ring.

  “Are you crazy?”

  To my surprise, my grandmother actually giggled, a sound I’d never heard from her before. “Do you like it, dear?”

  “Are you kidding me? How? Why?”

  “You earned it, Nicole. Now come on home, will you? I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

  I shook my head in wonder. My exacting, critical, demanding, crazy-making grandmother, of all people, trusted me enough to give me this? Tears filled my eyes, and I grabbed a tissue from the complimentary packet in the cup holder to wipe them away.

  “Nana, I—”

  “Hush, now. I know. Just be sure to wear your seat belt. Drive safely.”

  With that, she was gone.

  Between the high of my grandmother’s approval and the smooth ride of my new—my new—car, I was in heaven as I headed out on the two-hour journey to Richmond. It took a while before I came down from the shock of it all, but by the time I reached the halfway point at Charlottesville, I was fully in the zone and doing what I’d told Nana I would, using the travel time to process the transition from school to home.

  I’d learned a lot in the course of my first successful year back in college, and not just academically speaking. I’d learned I could stay sober even out of rehab and on my own. I’d learned how to make friends in places other than bars. I’d learned that I actually enjoyed myself a lot more without the fog of drugs or alcohol dimming every experience. In a way, this had been a year of narrowing down, of figuring out what I did and did not want. I wanted to stay sober, and I wanted to tell my secret. I wanted to be completely honest from here on out. I was pretty sure on all of that.

  Unfortunately, in other areas, mostly what I’d managed to figure out thus far was what I didn’t want. I wanted to try dating for the first time since the accident, but I didn’t want to end up with the kind of guy I’d always gone for before—the tough, sexy, dangerous sort. I wanted some kind of career in psychology, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be a therapist who just sat in a room all day, working with people one on one.

  In both of these things, I knew what I didn’t want, but what did I want? Growing anxious at the uncertainty of it all, I reminded myself to take it one day at a time. I simply had to trust that God would reveal each of these things to me according to His will, His plan. When it came to church and men and career, I could simply trust and wait.

  But then there was the police investigation, which was a bit more… complicated.

  Twenty-two years ago, when I was just six years old, a man had been stabbed and killed in an old hunting cabin in the woods next door to my grandparents’ estate. My sister, who was eight at the time, our two nine-year-old cousins, and I had gone for a hike soon after it happened and accidently stumbled upon a lifeless, bloody body with a huge knife protruding from his chest. We’d run screaming back to the house, but by the time police arrived and made it out to the cabin to investigate, the body was gone and all traces of the crime had been cleaned away. Not one person—not even our own parents—believed our story. Some of the boy cousins taunted us, laughing behind our backs and naming us “the Liar Choir.”

  All four of us had been traumatized by the incident, albeit in different ways. My cousin Renee had been hurt most by the mistrust and doubt of those who said we’d simply imagined it or made it all up. My cousin Danielle suffered primarily from the visual assault. As an artist, she saw the world differently than others and retained it all too well. As she’d said many times since, she hated that she could never unsee that body. That knife. That blood. It hovered in her dreams and sometimes even made its way into her artwork.

  For my sister, Maddee, the worst part had been me. Older by two years, she’d always been deeply maternal, and the fact that she hadn’t protected me from such a horror weighed heavily on her. It was even worse afterward, when she had to sit helplessly by for years as I struggled first with night terrors and, later, with addiction. She hadn’t understood the full cause of my trauma, however, because she hadn’t known the whole story.

  My own scars were different than theirs because they included seeing a man I loved and idolized do something wrong, and when I told him what I’d seen, he made me promise not to tell anyone else. According to my counselor, we’d never know how much of my addiction was rooted in that mess, but it definitely played a part. Now that I was sober and stable and ready to reveal the truth, I could only hope I would find healing in the same way the others had.

  Fortunately, both Maddee and Renee had managed to work through much of their trauma and were doing much better, starting nearly two years ago when Renee had used her skills as a scientist to prove our tale was true, that there really had been a dead body in that cabin when we were children. In response, the police had reopened the case, and though they still didn’t have all the answers, they certainly knew a lot more now than they had before. Once I shared my secret, would it help them figure out the rest?

  Or would it serve only to smear my grandfather’s good name and m
uddy the waters even more?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nicole

  I reached Richmond’s Fan District shortly after eleven and managed to find a parking spot directly across the street from the carriage house where my sister lived. She rented it from a lovely older woman we called Miss Vida, who resided in the much larger and quite beautiful home in front of it. During my convalescence here after the accident, Maddee had talked Miss Vida into helping out as an ad hoc caretaker, but she and I had hit it off so well that we’d become fast friends.

  Maddee must have been watching for me, because by the time I’d climbed from the car, she was practically at my side and throwing her arms around me for a big hug.

  “Where’d this come from?” she asked as we pulled apart, eyeing my new vehicle.

  “One guess.” Suddenly I felt embarrassed that I’d been the beneficiary of such generosity. But before I could say anything else, Maddee flashed a knowing grin. “Ah, yes. The Nana graduation car.”

  My embarrassment turned to relief. “You got one too?”

  “Oh yeah. And Renee and Danielle when they graduated. Looks like yours came early, probably because she’s so proud of how well you’ve been doing.”

  I shrugged, but on the inside I was beaming. “I always wondered why you drove a Mustang.”

  Maddee laughed. “I know, right? She tries to choose something appropriate, and I guess because I’m so into fashion she thought I’d want something sleek and sporty, but that car wasn’t me at all. I was so happy when I finally got to trade it in for the Prius, which is so much more—”

  “Boring?”

  “I was going to say sensible.”

  We shared a smile and then grabbed my bags and headed to the carriage house, a small brick building with just enough space for a kitchen-living room combo and bathroom downstairs and a single bedroom upstairs. When I’d stayed here after my accident, I’d been in a hospital bed that pretty much took up the entire living room area. But this time around I would be using Maddee’s pullout sofa at night, which would leave us with a bit more room during the day.

  “Oh, boy. I see the curtain’s back,” I said as I caught sight of the familiar fabric that she’d used to give me a semblance of privacy. At the moment, it was pulled to the side and tied in place to the banister.

  Maddee’s home was so tiny that everyone thought we were nuts for rooming together this summer, especially our parents. Before, they argued, I’d been in a bad way, limited to the bed or the wheelchair in the weeks following my accident, so space hadn’t been an issue. But this time around, I was perfectly healthy and fully mobile, which would mean a much greater need to work around each other.

  We assured them we knew what we were doing. We’d been close as children but then drifted apart once I started using. After the accident, however, Maddee really stepped up to the plate, taking me in and nursing me back to health, and in the process we had discovered a new sister dynamic that really worked. She might get on my nerves now and then, and we were about as different as two people could be, but she was also my best friend in the world, and I knew her well enough now to know that there would be a lot more laughs this summer than arguments.

  Not surprisingly, the moment we got my bags into the living room area, Maddee headed for her trusty whiteboard, which hung on the wall of the kitchen near the spiral staircase. Glancing at it, I saw that this was a new and much bigger version of the old one, divided into three sections labeled “Schedule,” “To-Do,” and “Calendar.” Good grief. Then again, why was I surprised? Throughout our childhood, every Christmas I begged for a pony while Maddee consistently requested a leather-bound Franklin daily planner.

  “Let’s talk schedules!” she said excitedly.

  “Can’t a girl freshen up first? I’ve been in a car for two hours.”

  “Sure, sorry. I’ll make coffee.”

  I headed for her little bathroom, stifling a smile. My sister truly was one of a kind.

  Soon I was settled at the kitchen table, cup of joe in hand, and Maddee was back at the board, explaining that she thought we should establish some basic rules so things would run as smoothly as possible this summer.

  “We can divide the shopping and cooking fifty-fifty,” she said, pointing to the fridge, where she’d tacked up the week’s meal plan and shopping list. “We do have one problem. We need to find a way to avoid conflicts with the shower in the mornings because our schedules are fairly similar.”

  “I think there’s a locker room at Dover Creek Farms. I can shower there at the end of the day. If this job is as dirty as I think it is, I’ll need it—especially with my new car. I don’t want to create a manure mobile.” Originally, my dad was going to loan me his old truck for the summer so I’d have a way to get back and forth to work. But how could I drive that thing to the farm now that I’d seen Paree?

  Maddee continued working down the list, and then she turned her attention to the big calendar across the lower half of the whiteboard. “Note that we have church tomorrow with Nana, followed by lunch at her house, and then we’ll head to the Virginia Museum of Americana for a special exhibit.”

  “A museum?” I asked skeptically.

  “Oh, I think you might be interested in this one. The exhibit is called ‘Civil War Richmond: Through the Camera Lens,’ and it features Civil War–era photography and memorabilia.”

  “And this interests me why?”

  “Because some of the pictures came from our own family. They feature our Talbot ancestors.”

  She was right. She had my interest now. I wasn’t as big on ancestry and family trees and stuff as she was, but after the accident we’d had the chance to read a series of letters written by one of our forebears back in the early 1700s, and I had found them fascinating. Somehow, learning about those who came before made me feel so connected to time and space and family in a whole new way.

  “Aunt Cissy is the Civil War buff and keeper of the photos,” Maddee continued. “She’s the one who loaned out the items for the exhibit.”

  I rolled my eyes. We weren’t proud of it, but Aunt Cissy was sort of the family joke—at least among the younger relatives. She was sweet and always upbeat, but she lived to sing, much to the detriment of anyone who had to listen. Maybe she’d had a nice voice when she was young, but in my lifetime I’d never heard anything come out of her that didn’t curl my toes and threaten to shatter the nearest glass.

  “Come on now,” Maddee scolded. “She is family.”

  “Fine. I won’t make fun.”

  “And of course keep in mind that the annual Talbot family reunion will be at the end of June.”

  “Um, Maddee? It’s the sixth of May. Why are we even talking about this now?”

  “Just thinking ahead.” Without missing a beat, she continued to update me all the way through August 5, which she’d circled in red and written Nicole—Back to school. It was moments like these that made me want to grab the eraser and go to town on her entire system. I liked to take time as it came, not plot everything that lay ahead to the minute. Yes, she was right, I would be moving out August 5. But looking at the board in its entirety made me depressed, as if it were almost time to turn around and go back to college now.

  “And that’s that,” she ended, capping her pen, oblivious to my irritation.

  “Not quite,” I said. I rose and retrieved from my backpack a single page I’d printed up, after much thought, just yesterday. “Tape?” I asked, holding out a hand until my sister complied, tearing a piece from the roll on the counter and handing it over. “Thanks. Have a seat. It’s my turn now.”

  Surprised but curious, she took the chair I’d been using and gave me her full attention.

  “Remember when I moved in the last time, after the accident, and you laid down a list of ground rules about what you expected from me?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, this time I have some rules for you.” With that, I taped my list next to the whiteboard and went through it point b
y point. “No mothering, no monitoring, give me the benefit of the doubt, remember that I made it through two full semesters far from home and did great. Be my sister and friend, not my nursemaid or my mother or my enforcer or my accountability partner or anything else.” I let out a long breath and met her eyes. “Deal?”

  Maddee paused for a moment, considering, and then she smiled. “Deal.”

  “Oh, yeah. One more thing.” Pulling out my phone, I opened up a playlist and waved it at her. “Remember how you held me prisoner here and tortured me with your ’50s music? Well, it’s my turn now. Get ready to rock.”

  Maddee and Greg gave me a welcome home cookout that afternoon, and it ended up being a really nice way to ease back into things. Later that night, once Maddee and I were alone, she was planning to update me on the investigation. I’d intentionally kept myself out of the loop this year, not wanting the added pressure of dealing with that on top of sobriety and school and everything else, so I had some catching up to do. But I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it—nor of telling her my big secret in return—so the barbecue made for a great distraction in the meantime.

  Because the temperature was pleasantly cool, we decided to dine on the front patio, which sat between the carriage house and Miss Vida’s back fence. Maddee and I had just finished setting the table when we were joined by Miss Vida, who came bearing a heavenly-smelling kugel. With her was a man she introduced as her boyfriend, Lev Sobol, and I tried not to act as surprised as I felt. Why hadn’t Maddee warned me?

  Lev wasn’t a bad-looking guy for his age, I supposed, with thick silver hair and a nice smile. When I asked how they’d met, the two of them answered together, like a storytelling tag team. Miss Vida started by explaining that theirs had been a “telephone only” relationship at first.

  “To tell you the truth, I was a cold call,” she said with a giggle. “Lev dialed me up out of the blue to talk investments, but we had such a good time chatting that he asked if he might call me again sometime—and not in a business capacity.”