by Sherry Lewis
“I haven’t been home in over a year,” Douglas said, “and everything’s exactly the same.” He grinned, looking more like a kid of eighteen than his thirty-six years. He’d grown tall as a teenager, but the height suited him better at this age than it had then. His deep brown eyes held their usual twinkle, and tiny smile lines creased the skin around them.
“Not exactly the same,” Fred insisted. “Change is in the wind.”
“Well, let’s just say I’m not likely to get lost around here,” Douglas said with a laugh. “You’ve got a long way to go before you catch up with Seattle.”
“Who said we wanted to?”
Douglas laughed again. “Got to leave us some place to come home to, huh?”
Fred nodded. “Yep. At least as long as I have any say in the way things are done.”
Douglas threw an arm around Fred’s shoulder and changed the subject. “After we see Alison, let’s drop by Maggie’s okay?”
Douglas had an impetuous nature, which often worried Fred. The boy didn’t believe in making plans, but his way of dropping in on people unannounced didn’t always go over well. “Did you call her this morning?”
“Who? Alison? Or Maggie?”
“Either. Both.” Fred tried to keep exasperation from sounding in his voice. Margaret had always argued against her brother’s easygoing manner, and Fred thought Alison deserved more consideration from her father, especially under the circumstances.
But Douglas didn’t seem concerned. “No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t you think you should have let Suzanne know that you’re back? You’re divorced now, son. She might not appreciate—”
“She knows how I am,” Douglas broke in before Fred could finish. “It’ll be fine. Besides, she’s been all right with you, hasn’t she?”
Fred refrained from pointing out the obvious flaws in Douglas’s thinking. Suzanne knew only too well how Douglas was. After fourteen years of marriage, she’d stopped complaining about Douglas’s habit of leapfrogging from job to job. She’d abandoned her efforts to change him and moved from Seattle to Portland, taking Alison with her. Then, less than a month ago, Suzanne and Alison had moved back to Cutler. And late last night, Douglas had shown up on Fred’s doorstep—unannounced, of course.
“She’s seemed pleased to see me every time I’ve been over there,” Fred admitted, “but you can’t expect her to feel the same way about you.”
Douglas patted Fred’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t worry so much, Dad. She’s come back to Cutler, hasn’t she? And she knows I’ll come here to visit you. If she didn’t want to see me, she wouldn’t have come back here. Besides—” He broke off suddenly and grinned. “Hey! Is that Enos?”
Fred followed his gaze and found Enos Asay, Cutler’s sheriff, standing on the corner with one of his deputies less than a block away. The deputy was tall and lanky, towering over Enos by nearly a foot—Grady Hatch. Without another word, Douglas sprinted toward the two men.
Fred followed . . . without the sprint.
Even as a boy, Douglas had been full of energy and hard to pin down. He’d been interested in everything, started more projects than Fred could count, and abandoned every one of them halfway through. Fred had been waiting the boy’s whole life for him to settle down and focus on something—anything—all the way to the end. Judging from what he’d seen of Douglas so far, it looked like he’d be waiting a while longer.
TWO
Enos was still facing the other direction as Douglas jogged toward him. He tilted his battered old cowboy hat back on his head and gestured toward the east end of town. Grady looked in that direction, nodded, and walked away just as Douglas reached Enos’s side.
Enos glanced at Douglas, did a double take, then whooped loudly and threw his arms around Douglas. “Doug? Good billy hell, what are you doing here?”
Douglas returned the embrace and the two men spent a minute laughing, pounding shoulders and patting backs, both talking at the same time.
Stretching to see over Douglas’s shoulder, Enos shouted to Fred. “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming home?”
“I didn’t know myself. He just showed up last night.”
Enos looked back at Douglas. “How long are you going to stay? I’ll tell Jessica to figure out a good night to have you over for dinner.”
“That’d be great,” Douglas said. “How is she?”
“Same as always. But tell me about you. What brings you back home?”
“I just needed a visit.”
Enos nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Have you seen Alison yet?”
“Not yet,” Douglas admitted. “We’re on our way there now.”
“Does she know you’re coming?”
Douglas shook his head.
“Well I’ll be dipped,” Enos said. “I guess Suzanne doesn’t know either?”
This time when Douglas shook his head, he looked a little sheepish. “No.”
Enos cut a glance at Fred. “Well I’m sure it’ll be all right,” he assured Douglas. “She’s not the type to keep you from seeing your own daughter.”
Douglas shot Fred a quick look of triumph. Obviously, he thought Enos agreed with his methods.
Fred had a different opinion entirely, but he didn’t say a word. Arguing with Douglas was usually fruitless. The boy had a way of flying by the seat of his pants that had always driven Fred to distraction. Try as he might, Fred had never been able to convince Douglas of the wisdom of keeping both feet on the ground.
“Well, if you’re going, you’d better get on over there before someone else tells Suzanne you’re here,” Enos advised. “I’ll give you a call about dinner.”
“Sounds great.” Douglas took a step or two away, then said, “Tell Jessica hello for me.”
Enos settled his hat in place and patted Fred’s back. “Will do. Now go on and let me get my coffee. Grady’s saving me a table at the Bluebird.”
Douglas laughed. “See? I told you nothing had changed around here.”
“Only because he gets his coffee free there,” Fred argued. “If he weren’t the sheriff, it might be another story.”
Enos shook his head. “No, I’ll go to the Bluebird as long as Jessica keeps buying that fancy flavored stuff she’s been bringing home. Who ever heard of drinking chocolate-mint coffee?” He made a face and shuddered. Enos often served as a guinea pig for his wife’s experiments with products she saw advertised on the television. Fred sympathized. Just because something was new, that didn’t necessarily make it better.
As was typical of Douglas, he was suddenly impatient to be on his way. He took an impatient step away, called back to Enos, “It’s good to see you,” and then turned a scowl on Fred. “Are you coming, Dad?”
Fred shoved his hands into his pockets as they turned down Ash Street. When he realized that Douglas had done the same thing, he allowed himself a quick smile.
He knew Douglas was eager to see Alison again, and he understood that. The two of them had always been close, and Alison would be thrilled to see her father. Fred, however, wished that Douglas could be more realistic when it came to Suzanne. Douglas never was anxious to her fatherly advice, but after hearing his convoluted logic about why Suzanne had returned to Cutler, Fred knew he had to say something. “How long has it been since you saw Suzanne last?” he asked, determined to start out gently.
Douglas shrugged and thought for a moment. “I saw her for a minute on Thanksgiving.”
“So nearly four months?”
Douglas nodded. “If you count that as a visit. It’s been a long time since we did more than say hello and decide what time I should bring Alison back.”
Exactly! “I don’t think you should expect too much when you see her.”
“What do you mean?”
Fred lifted one shoulder casually. “Just that divorce can do strange things to people. She might not be too happy when you come knocking on her door without warning.”
Douglas’s face clouded. “I have
a right to see my own daughter, don’t I?”
“Of course.”
“Well then . . .” Douglas looked away as if they’d settled something and made a point of studying the tops of the pines at the side of the road. Silence stretched between them, uncomfortable and strained.
They walked without speaking until they reached the block that housed Cutler’s elementary and junior high schools. Trying to ease the tension Fred struck up a new conversation. “Helen Digby passed away right after Christmas. Did I ever tell you that?”
Douglas made a noncommittal sound.
“Wasn’t she your second-grade teacher? Or am I thinking of Jeffrey?”
“No, it was me,” Douglas grunted. “But it might have been Jeff, too.”
“Well, she passed away. Had an aneurysm, if I remember right. It was real sudden.”
Douglas nodded, but said nothing more.
“They’ll have to hire a new teacher now, I guess.”
Fred had spent a lifetime working for the school district, and he’d loved almost every minute of it. Even though he’d retired eight years ago as building and grounds supervisor, he still knew just about everyone, and he still had his opinions about what the district needed.
Douglas never had shared Fred’s interests, and he still said nothing.
“Don’t know who they’ll get,” Fred mused. “It’d be best to get someone younger, don’t you think?”
This time Douglas made a noise that Fred took as agreement, but he didn’t add anything to the conversation. They turned onto Arapaho Street, and Fred gave up trying to talk to his son.
Within minutes, they reached the house where Suzanne had lived with her Aunt Celeste until she married Douglas. The house was small and pink with white trim and a narrow concrete porch. It sat well back from the street behind a winter-brown lawn.
Douglas strode up the stretch of uneven sidewalk that split the lawn in two, and Fred battled a twinge of envy. He’d always been an active man—”vital,” his wife Phoebe had called him—but in the nearly three years since his seventieth birthday, he’d started to feel his age. He’d been just Douglas’s age when Douglas was born, and he’d been young, strong and sure of himself. Now it was hard to imagine ever being so young.
Douglas rang the doorbell and waited only a second or two before pressing it again. A heartbeat later, the door opened and a large woman with a halo of hair tinted an unrealistic shade of red filled the entrance. Fred had heard that Suzanne’s aunt, Celeste Devereaux, had come back to Cutler, but he hadn’t actually seen her since Douglas and Suzanne’s wedding.
In all this time, Celeste hadn’t changed a jot. She had to be creeping up on sixty by now and, as always, she was too brightly made-up, too heavily perfumed, and too colorfully dressed to suit Fred’s taste. And she still jingled; he could hear her from where he stood.
Celeste’s lips, glossy and pink, curved into a smile. She pushed the screen door open and threw her arms around Douglas. “You dear, dear boy. What a wonderful surprise.”
Douglas staggered a little under the attack, but returned the hug as soon as he recovered.
Celeste pulled away when she saw Fred, straightened her clothing, patted her hair, and turned her smile up a notch or two. “Hello, Fred.”
Fred responded politely, but kept well back, just in case the need to hug him suddenly overwhelmed her. “How are you Celeste?”
“Pushing deadlines,” she said and waved them both inside. “Twenty-five books in print now and I’ve got three more coming out this year. I’ve always got too much to do, but you’ll never hear me complain.” She led them into a living room stuffed with too many chairs, tables, and bookcases.
On every available surface, she’d stacked novels—hardcovers and paperbacks tottering in uneven columns—evidence of her career as an author of erotic romance novels. Phoebe had always enjoyed a good love story, so she’d tried reading one of Celeste’s books years ago. After only a few pages, she’d proclaimed the story too steamy to finish and tossed it into the trash to keep it out of the hands of a young and impressionable Margaret. But Celeste obviously enjoyed some measure of success if she had twenty-five of the silly things in print.
She waved them toward the chairs, delicate, antique-looking pieces that didn’t looked as if they could support a man for long. Fred perched on the edge of one. Douglas sank heavily onto the other. Celeste arranged herself on the couch.
“How is everybody?” Douglas asked when they’d all settled.
“Fine. Wonderful.” Celeste moistened her lips and looked over her shoulder as if checking for listening ears. “I’m sorry about the divorce, sweetie. So, so sorry.”
“Yeah,” Douglas said, suddenly morose. “Me too.”
Celeste glanced around again. “Such a shame. You’re one of the good ones, Doug. It’s too bad that niece of mine can’t see that.” Tears glistened in Celeste’s eyes and she ducked her head.
Douglas looked down at his hands and heaved a sigh. “Is Alison around?”
Celeste dabbed at her eyes with a hankie she’d found somewhere. “Of course. I’ll run and tell them you’re here.” She put a hand on her chest then rose and tried to smile. “I’m sorry I can’t stay and chat, but I’ve got to get back to my galley proofs. But I will talk to you in a couple of days, all right?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Douglas managed a smile of his own. “Good to see you again Celeste.”
“You too, Doug.” She patted his knee and glanced over at Fred. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”
“Wonderful,” Fred agreed without enthusiasm.
With one last despairing glance at Douglas, Celeste disappeared into a room at the end of a narrow corridor. A few seconds later, Suzanne emerged. While Celeste had been thrilled to see them, Suzanne seemed decidedly less than happy.
Fred rose to embrace her anyway. Small and dark, with vivacious brown eyes and a lovely face, Suzanne had always been one of Fred’s favorite children-in-law. He already missed her snappy conversation, ready wit, and the almost comical way she’d kept Douglas in line until she’d tired of the effort.
Suzanne endured Fred’s hug, but her attention never wavered from Douglas, who remained stubbornly settled in his chair. “What are you doing here?” she demanded of Douglas when Fred released her.
“I came to see Alison.”
“Really? How long have you been in town?”
Douglas gave her look cold enough to match the tone of her voice. “Since last night.”
“You should have called first.”
“Oh, come on, Suzanne—” Douglas didn’t move a muscle, but his eyes snapped with hostility.
The appeal was lost on Suzanne. “I mean it, Doug. You can’t just drop in anytime you feel like it. I have the right to my privacy, and Alison has the right to a little common courtesy.”
Fred hadn’t seen the two of them together in at least two years, and the disintegration of their relationship sickened him. Where they’d once used words as the bridge between them, now every syllable worked like a loaded weapon.
Douglas flushed under his disapproval. “I’ll call next time—okay?”
“Fine. Next time.” Suzanne hesitated then shrugged elaborately. “I guess I can ask Alison if she wants to see you.”
A muscle jerked in Douglas’s neck as Suzanne left the room. He kept his eyes trained on her, almost as if he expected some kind of trick. But Alison came into the living room a few minutes later, and Suzanne didn’t come with her. Just as well, Fred thought and turned his attention to his granddaughter.
With her light brown hair cut shoulder length and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks Alison looked enough like Phoebe to make Fred’s breath catch. The resemblance had always been there, but he noticed it more lately—either because Phoebe was gone, or because the seven-year-old’s likeness to her grandmother had suddenly become more striking.
Alison smiled uneasily, almost as if Douglas and Fred were strangers. She leaned a
gainst the wall and looked at Fred with the same honey-brown eyes Phoebe had passed on to their daughter, Margaret.
Douglas bolted out of his chair and bounced across the room. He gathered Alison into his arms, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around. “It’s my little brown-eyed cinnamon roll.”
“Daddy—” Alison protested, but Fred noticed a flicker or delight in her eyes. She peered at Fred over Douglas’s shoulder. “Hi, Grandpa.”
“Make that big lug put you down this instant,” Fred groused playfully.
He expected Alison’s usual giggle, but he earned only a timid smile. And where Alison would once have tried to wriggle out of Douglas’s grasp, now she made no move to get away. She’d grown even more withdrawn since Fred’s last visit, and it hurt him more than he could ever have imagined.
Slowly, as if sensing the change in her for the first time, Douglas put her down. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“Fine, Daddy.”
He took her hand and pulled her toward the couch. “Come and tell me all about life here in the big city. What’s school like? Who’s your teacher?”
“It’s fine. Do you want to see my workbook for reading?”
Somehow, caution had replaced warmth in her relationship with her father, and that worried Fred. He closed his eyes and tried not to let the worry show. He hated the price divorce demanded of everyone, especially the children. He opened his eyes again just in time to see Douglas send him a look of confusion over the top of Alison’s head.
“Sure, sweetheart,” Douglas said gently. “In a minute or two. Do you like it here? Are you happy?”
Alison stiffened noticeably. “I like it very much,” she said, and her tone was every bit as inflexible as her shoulders. Fred thought Suzanne must have warned her not to say anything that Douglas could use against them in case he had ulterior motives for coming to town. “I’ll go get my workbook for you,” she said, escaped down the hallway. When she came back, Suzanne was with her.