Look Closely

by Laura Caldwell

  Della fussed over me, telling me to sit in one of the chairs. While she spooned ice into our glasses and placed a few cookies on a paper plate, I noticed how little she had changed. Her olive skin was still smooth, her cheeks still full with a pink glow. Her hair, though obviously dyed to keep its black color, still lay in crinkled waves to her chin. She’d put on a few pounds, but they only made her seem more like the comforting figure of my memories.

  “Tell me,” Della said, settling into the chair next to me. “Tell me everything about you.”

  I talked about law school, my job, my apartment in Manhattan. When I finally slowed down, I took a bite of an oatmeal-raisin cookie, the soft, sweet taste raising a recollection of Della in our old house, lifting a baking sheet out of the oven, placing a hand on my head, telling me to wait until they were cool.

  “And you’re not married?” Della said. She bit into her own cookie, but her eyes watched me, waiting for an answer.

  “No. I’m a long way from married.”

  “No one special then?”

  I shook my head. “A few years ago, I was dating someone seriously.” I thought of Michael, sitting bare-chested in his bed, eyes playful, holding firm to my hand, trying to pull me back under the covers.

  “And what happened to that?”

  I shrugged. The therapist I’d seen after Michael and I broke up had nodded her head at the end of our first and only session and said in a grave tone, “Abandonment issues,” as if she was making a horrible diagnosis like, “Permanent facial disfigurement.” It was natural, she said, for a child who lost a parent so young to have such feelings, but I couldn’t carry them over into my adult relationships and push people away. I knew she had a point, but I had never learned how to avoid keeping most people at arm’s length. I got busy with the bar exam, and I didn’t keep up with the prescribed weekly appointments. Michael met someone at his firm our first year out of law school, and he slid away from me the way the others had. I didn’t think I was ever really in love with Michael, or with any of them for that matter.

  I felt that I’d know true love when a kiss could make everything, the rest of the world, disappear. I kept waiting for that moment with Michael. I didn’t expect it to happen right away, but I hoped each time. I’d close my eyes, feel his lips settle over mine, and while I enjoyed it, I was always still right there. Nothing ever disappeared, not the Miles Davis music Michael always played or his high-rise apartment where we often stayed. I began to wonder if maybe I was incapable of feeling that kind of love, or maybe I was laboring beneath an unattainable fantasy.

  Della asked me about college at UCLA, about high school on Long Island, about the tutors in Europe and grade school before that in San Francisco. And then we were back to Woodland Dunes, to the year my father and I left.

  “I missed you all so much when you were gone,” Della said. She raised a paper napkin to her eyes, and I wondered for a second if she was going to cry. “It was like a part of my family had left.” Her voice creaked, betraying her age. “Of course, I had my own family to take care of. Max was twelve and Delphine ten. My husband said I had to get over it. I had to get over Leah’s death and get a new job.”

  “And did you?”

  “Oh, I got other jobs, although never as a housekeeper or a nanny again. I cleaned office buildings for a janitorial service, and I cooked meals for the sick.” Della tsked, as if none of that had mattered much. “I never got over Leah.”

  “You two were close,” I said. An image drifted back of my mom and Della in the kitchen, sun slanting through the high window over the sink, the two of them laughing as they washed dishes. It seemed to me now that my mother probably kept Della around as much for her company as her housekeeping skills. I couldn’t remember my mom having any other close friends.

  “She was a wonderful woman.” Della’s voice was softer now. “A good friend. And I miss her every day.”

  I stayed silent, and tilted my head up for a moment, watching a squirrel above me racing from branch to branch. I had missed my mom every day, too, but not in the same way. I longed for the vague concept of my mother, of a mother in my life. I missed her especially when I was learning about boys, shopping for prom dresses, graduating from college, from law school. I had my dad for all those things, and he tried to be everything—father, mother, friend—but sometimes I craved female guidance and companionship. My friendship with Maddy had filled some of that void, yet no one could totally replace a mother.

  “How did she die?” It was the question I came to ask, the one that had been haunting me since I read that letter, but I hadn’t meant to say it so abruptly.

  Della sat straighter in her chair, then raised a hand to her lips. She lifted her shoulders, then let them fall again. “It’s hard to say. What do you remember?”

  I pushed my mind back to that time when I was seven years old. I remember not needing to ask the question of how she had died, as if I had known the answer and didn’t want to be reminded. But somewhere along the way, I lost the knowledge.

  “I don’t really remember anything specific,” I said. “That’s the problem. And I need to know.”

  Della pushed her plate away and leaned on the table. “Do you remember talking to the police?”

  I felt a strange pulse beating in my neck. “The police? I talked to the police?”

  “We all did.”

  I tried to conjure up some sense of my seven-year-old self, in a police station, sitting across from a detective, swinging my legs underneath the table. “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, they never made any decisions. They never drew any conclusions. Just looked into her death and closed the file. It got people to talking, though.”

  “I remember the whispering and the looks,” I said, slightly agitated now that I was getting close to the topic, yet not learning anything. “But why did the police look into it?”

  A gust of wind blew through the backyard, pushing Della’s hair into her face. She brushed it away; she sighed loud enough that I heard it over the breeze. “Oh, sweetie, your mother died from a blow to the head. They wanted to find out if someone had done that to her on purpose.”

  5

  I checked into the Long Beach Inn, an aptly named bed-and-breakfast perched above a lengthy stretch of tawny sand that hemmed Lake Michigan. Because the summer season hadn’t yet started, I was able to get an upstairs room. It was the largest one, I’d been told by the housekeeper, who was filling in for the owner. The room took up half the third floor, a sunny space painted white, like a summer cottage. A large canopy bed covered in pillows sat in the center. The French doors on the other side led to a balcony and, beyond that, the beach. I had always dreamed of a balcony off my bedroom overlooking the water, but I was too preoccupied now to enjoy it.

  I unpacked the way I always did in hotels. I traveled so often that I liked to try to create a semblance of home for myself, even if it was a fictional and transient one. Once my clothes were in the closet and my makeup in the bathroom cabinet, I called Maddy to tell her what I’d learned. For once I got no answer at either her home or cell phone. There was no one else I could tell about what I was doing, what I’d discovered.

  I closed my eyes and let myself hear Della’s words again.

  Your mother died from a blow to the head. They wanted to find out if someone had done that to her on purpose.

  It only confirmed what I’d thought—that something strange surrounded my mother’s death. What did it mean that my mom had died of a head injury? Did that necessarily mean that someone had purposefully hurt her? I had asked Della those questions before I bolted, but she had shrugged. “There were lots of stories about what happened, but mostly people said it was an accident,” she’d said. “No one really knows.”

  But someone knew. The person who’d sent the letter knew. Or at least they thought they did.

  The sound of a vacuum downstairs made me realize I was standing in the middle of the room, motionless. I’d had so much momentum
all day. What to do now? Though the room was cozy, a huge step up from the impersonal hotel where I’d stayed in Chicago, I wished for my own apartment right then, for my comfy sweatpants and the taupe chenille blanket my father had given me. Under different circumstances, I would have loved to curl up on the canopy bed here with a book, but I couldn’t just sit around. Not now. I couldn’t stand the thought of being in Woodland Dunes and not be moving, remembering, doing. I wasn’t here for a weekend getaway. I was here for my mother.

  The thought drew me to the French doors, but for a moment, I didn’t open them. I stared out at the wide beach, the gray-blue water licking the sand. As I watched the rush and recede of the water, I remembered the feel of my small hand in my father’s as he led me down the unfinished wood pathway to the lake. I must have been about six or seven years old. He had come home to Woodland Dunes that day, a treat for the middle of the week.

  “Where’s Mom?” he’d said when he was inside the front door. He crouched down and held open his arms. “Is she taking her walk on the beach?”

  I nodded and charged into him, wrapping myself around his neck, breathing in the slightly stale scent of the city he always brought with him.

  “Let’s find her,” he said.

  We walked the two blocks to the lakefront and then down the wood sidewalk to the sand. We pulled off our shoes, my dad rolling up the bottoms of his suit pants.

  “Which way?” he said, his voice playful. “You pick.”

  I bounced on my toes with excitement. I looked both ways down the beach. The sun was growing gold and heavy, but it wasn’t dark yet. To my right, the houses were grand, some of them as big as hotels. To the left, they grew smaller and friendlier, and there were usually more kids that way, so I raised my left arm and pointed.

  “You got it, Hailey-girl,” my dad said.

  We walked along the water where it was packed wet and hard, looking for beach glass, the colored shards of glass, rounded and smoothed by years spent in the water.

  “Here’s a great one,” my dad said, bending down to lift a green piece the size of a quarter.

  I held out my hand, but just then I saw a flash of pink farther down the beach. I looked closer, and I could see my mother’s pink T-shirt, the length of her sandy blond hair.

  “Mom!” I called.

  My father stood in one quick motion, the glass falling from his hand. I knelt to pick it up. When I stood again, I saw my mother hadn’t heard me. She was standing a few hundred yards away, her back to us, and she was talking to someone.

  “Let’s go see Mom,” I said, tugging my father’s hand, but he refused to move. He was frozen, it seemed, with his pants rolled up, his suit coat over his arm, staring at his wife.

  I looked at my mom again, too. I couldn’t see who she was talking to, but I could tell it was a man, someone a little taller than her, and for a second, I saw the man reach out and put a hand on my mom’s shoulder.

  “Let’s go.” My dad pulled my hand so hard I almost cried out. He marched me back the way we came, pulling me down the beach. In my other hand, I gripped tight to the beach glass, trying not to drop it. When I looked up, my father’s jaw was hard, his eyes narrow. A few times, I almost stumbled as he propelled us over the sand.

  When we reached the wood walk that would take us back to the street, he slowed so we could sit and pull on our shoes.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

  He looked at me as if I’d said a terrible thing, then he pulled me to him, hugging me so close it was difficult to breathe.

  “Everything’s all right.” He released me, but I thought for a moment he might cry because of the way his eyes were pulled down, the way his mouth seemed ready to tremble. “Let’s go home.”

  We walked back quickly, not strolling as we had on the way to the beach. When we reached the house, he said he loved me very much but he’d forgotten something at the office. He needed to go back that night.

  I sat on the window bench in my room, watching him pull out of the driveway. The bench reminded me of the larger one in my parents’ room where my mother often rested and wrote in her journals. Usually, when I sat on my own bench, it made me feel a little like my mom, and that made me happy. That night, though, staring out at the now dark lawn, I didn’t want to be my mother. She’d made my dad leave, and I only wanted him to come back.

  When my mother came in the room, I was still there. “You made him go away,” I said.

  “What?” My mother raised a hand and smoothed the pink cotton front of her T-shirt.

  “Dad was here. We saw you on the beach, and he left.”

  My forehead was touching the glass of the French doors. Still, I peered at the beach, thinking over this new memory the way I studied a witness’s testimony after a deposition.

  I’d always assumed my parents were happy together, from the devastation my father experienced after she passed away. But was my mother involved with someone else? I knew my father had been upset with her that day, but I’d been too young to draw any conclusions. Now it seemed possible my mother was having an affair.

  I opened the French doors and went onto the balcony. The spring air was balmy and light. I leaned on the painted white railing and gazed at the beach, trying to bring back more of the memory, the parts that had happened before and later, but nothing else came.

  Just a few blocks to my left was where my father and I had taken our walk, where my mother had stood with the man. Just because he was a man, though, didn’t mean my mother was involved with him. Why was I so quick to jump to the conclusion that my mother had been unfaithful? The hand on my mother’s shoulder, the way she’d smoothed down her pink shirt when she’d come to my room, that was why.

  I sank down on the Adirondack chair, painted white to match the railing. The hand had reminded me of the vision I’d had on the stairs today, of the hand that I had seen steady my mother at the door. The lawyer in me confronted myself. How can you assume it was the same person? And even if it were true, who was he? Did it matter? He might not have anything to do with her death.

  I ran a hand through my hair. I was going in circles. This happened to me sometimes during a big case. My mind wound around too many details, unable to see the important things.

  I threw on a pair of khaki shorts, a long-sleeved shirt and sandals. Once down on the beach, I walked to the left, the way my mother had headed that day, the way I’d followed with my father. A soft breeze blew, playing with my hair, pushing it in my eyes. There were only a few people on the beach—a jogger and an older couple who were camped out with chairs and a cooler. The couple gave me a happy wave.

  As I walked, I gazed across the lake toward Chicago. If I narrowed my eyes, I could see the blocky outlines of the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building through the hazy sun. Somewhere over there, probably on Monday morning the arbitrators would come to their decision on the McKnight case, or maybe it was done already. Either way, it seemed a lose/lose situation. If I lost the arb, I’d have to work with Sean McKnight during a trial, and if I won, he might hire me again. The thought of dealing with his arrogant attitude on another case was not pleasant. I made myself find the bright side. If I won, it might be what I needed to ensure I would make partner. Some associates thought I was a shoo-in, knowing my father was on the executive committee, but the reality was that the higher-ups were so afraid of nepotism accusations that I had to prove myself more than the average attorney. Winning the McKnight case could help seal the deal.

  I stopped walking when I saw a glint in the sand. Reaching down, I wrapped my fingers around a piece of clear beach glass, rounded to a perfect oval. I rubbed it between my fingers, caressing its smooth, dusty surface. It had the same feel as the green beach glass I’d found with my dad that day.

  When I got back to the inn, I looked at the clock over the front desk, surprised it was almost three in the afternoon. I hadn’t eaten anything for lunch except those few cookies at Della’s.

  “Can I help you?” A
man in his late twenties or early thirties came out of the back room. He grabbed a handful of the rusty hair that had fallen over his eyes and pushed it away, but it fell right back again.

  “Oh no,” I said. “I’m already checked in.” I pointed uselessly with my finger toward my room upstairs as if that might provide some explanation.

  “I’m Ty.” He held his hand over the desk. “Ty Manning.”

  He wasn’t much taller than me, but he had a presence about him. When he smiled, his blue eyes crinkled a little around the corners.

  “Hailey.” I shook his hand. “That’s an interesting name—Ty.”

  “It’s short for Tyler, which is too preppy–East Coast–boarding school, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I said, unable to imagine this guy who wore old jeans and an olive T-shirt going to a boarding school on the East Coast or being called Tyler. I knew a million of those types from Manhattan, and unlike my first impression of Ty, they were much more arrogant, much more reserved. “So, do you work here?”

  “I own the place.”

  I could feel my eyebrows rise. “You own the inn?”

  “Yeah. My parents bought it years ago. Their plan was to rehab it and run it as a B and B for an early retirement. My dad can’t seem to retire though, so I bought it from them.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “You are?” He gave me a disarming smile, and again, his eyes crinkled with his grin. “Thanks. Which room do you have?”

  “Third floor on the right. It’s beautiful.”

  “I call it the nap room because I feel like lying down every time I’m in there.”

  I laughed. “I can understand that.”

  Ty turned around and reached into a multileveled box where they kept the keys. “You said your name was Hailey, so your last name must be—” he lifted out a piece of paper with my check-in information, “—Sutter.”

  “Right.”

  He glanced up at me. “That sounds familiar.”