Livvie is grounded. She has been forced to rake leaves and clean bathrooms and come right home after school, and the misery is catching up with her, and by extension the rest of us. All weekend she moped around the house, enduring her punishment like a surly prisoner, and begging, a few times, for me to let her use the computer “for homework,” even though we both knew she just wanted to use a screen, another luxury we told her was off-limits.
What Livvie doesn’t realize, given the way she glares at me as she passes me in the kitchen or answers my questions with one-word mumbles, is that her punishment is a drag for me, too, even if I’m the one who imposed it. Even Max seems off, declining my offer yesterday to take him to the comic-book shop he’s been wanting to check out in Charlottesville. Cole is the only one who seems unaffected. Or maybe just oblivious.
I push my scrambled eggs around my plate. They are overdone, browned at the edges, a rookie mistake that I want corrected. A chef at an inn needs to be able to handle scrambled eggs. Cole, meanwhile, is laughing with the cute college-aged waitress who’s refilling his coffee cup. “Keep it coming, Steph!” he smiles up at her.
Ugh. Give me a break.
I look across the table at Livvie, whose expression, I fear, matches my own. She is sulking into her pancakes, drawing designs in the pool of syrup on her plate with the tines of her fork. I sit up straighter in my chair, take a deep breath, and resolve in the moment to improve my attitude, if only for the kids. My own mother’s voice rings in my ears: If you can’t get out of it, get into it, she’d say, shooing me off to school or to do my chores or some other obligation I didn’t want to fulfill.
Bradley is telling a story about the fox he saw earlier this week during his early-morning walk. It trotted right down the middle of Maple, he says, and then stopped at William’s—“I swear on my mother’s grave!”—and sat by the front door like it was waiting for the coffee shop to open so it could get itself a cappuccino! Our eyes meet as he looks around the table. I can’t look at him now without thinking of what Susannah has revealed to me. Did he really cheat on his first girlfriend with Henrietta? I wonder. Does he feel responsible at all, the way Susannah does, for the way their best friend died? Has he carried this guilt around for decades, too?
“So, kids,” Diane says, putting down her teacup. “How are things at school?”
Livvie squirms in her seat. As far as I know, Diane doesn’t know she’s grounded. I purposely didn’t mention it, certain she’d use the information to opine about my parenting.
“Good,” Max says, through a mouthful of French toast. “There’s a kid in my math class.” He starts to laugh. “You won’t believe what he did on Friday! He came into class giving everyone high fives. But not me, fortunately, because he’d covered his hand in Vaseline first!”
“Oh my goodness, whose child is that?” Diane says, looking to me, like I should have the names of every Draper student somehow committed to memory.
“No idea,” I say.
“Max, I’ve known kids like that,” Cole says, laughing. “Take it from me, that sounds like someone you might want to steer clear of. We had a teacher when I was a senior who always drank Diet Coke. She kept a bottle on her desk all day. This kid in my class replaced it with another bottle, and when she took a sip . . .” He shakes his head.
“What, Dad?” Max says. “What did he do?”
“He’d replaced the soda with soy sauce!”
“Ugh!” Max screams. Livvie starts to laugh, and I sink back into my chair, surprised by how the sound of it makes me feel so relieved. “That’s disgusting!” she says, giggling.
When she notices me watching her, she smiles back at me. I’ve been waiting for that all week.
“Speaking of people to steer clear of,” Diane says, patting at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “How is your story about Susannah going, Elizabeth?”
“Great, actually,” I say, pushing my plate forward and leaning my elbows onto the table, which I know will make her crazy. “We’ve actually been talking a lot about the past.” My eyes dart to Bradley, to see how he’ll react, but his nose is deep in his coffee cup.
“The past?” Diane says.
“Yes,” I say. “We spent a lot of time this week talking about her relationship with Henrietta.”
“Who’s Henrietta?” Max says.
Diane squirms in her seat. I wait for Bradley to say something, pausing to give him the invitation, and when he doesn’t, I start in. “She was a woman who grew up with Susannah Lane and Grandpa. She was in their class. She and Susannah were best friends. She and Grandpa were friends, too.”
I know that this is bold, and it pains me to second-guess him, a person I adore so much, but I can’t just sit here. I watch him, waiting for him to say something, but he is acting as if I am speaking in a vacuum and he hasn’t heard a word I’ve said. He reaches past Diane for the butter, having just rifled through the bread basket for a slice of raisin bread.
“Elizabeth, I have to know. If you are writing a story about Susannah selling her land, why are you talking to her about Henrietta?” Diane asks.
“Just getting to know her better,” I say. “And Henrietta’s death is a big reason why she didn’t come back all those years.”
“Well, that’s what everyone says,” Cole mutters.
“What?” Max asks.
“Never mind,” Diane says.
I clear my throat. “Actually,” I say, looking at the kids, “your dad’s right. A lot of people say Susannah Lane left Greyhill and never came back because of . . . well, it’s a sad story . . .”
“Elizabeth!” Diane says, her cheeks pink with alarm.
“They’re nearly thirteen years old, Diane. It’s fine,” I say, my eyes still on Bradley, who’s chewing his bread with the vacant expression of a cow chewing its cud. The longer he sits there silently, the more I start to think there’s a reason for it . . .
I press on. “So, kids, it’s a sad story, but Henrietta Martin actually died in an accident.”
“No, no, I’ve heard about this!” Livvie says, with a burst of enthusiasm. “She’s the one who fell, up on the mountain!”
“The Cliffs!” Max said, wagging his finger in acknowledgment.
“How do you know about the Cliffs?” Cole asks, looking from me to the kids.
Max hums something that sounds like “I don’t know.”
“Everyone knows about it,” Livvie says, her face rearranged back into its more typical scowl.
“But what does that have to do with Mrs. Lane?” Max says. “What did you mean, Dad—”
“Really, nothing,” Cole says.
“No, no,” I say. “It’s not nothing.” He glares at me, signaling me to stop.
“Elizabeth . . .” Diane mumbles, shaking her head in disapproval.
“This is an important lesson for the kids to know,” I say, my focus now on Bradley. Is he not chiming in because of the way Diane feels about Susannah? Or is it because he fears I know something . . . “Especially Livvie.”
“What?” she says, her eyes widening. “Why me?”
“People in town, as you have probably heard, don’t particularly like Mrs. Lane. She has all this land that she’s selling, and people think it might change Greyhill if outsiders start moving here, or building big, fancy vacation homes.”
“But we’re outsiders,” Max says.
“Exactly right—” I start, but Cole cuts me off.
“You’re not outsiders,” he says. “You come from a long line of Greyhill natives who—”
Now I cut him off. “Come on, Cole, it’s not like they’ve become members of the royal family. It’s just a town. Give me a break.” I pause, realizing from the expression on his and my in-laws’ faces that I may have gone a touch too far. “Anyhow, people around town also say she had something to do with her best friend’s death, which is awful, as you can imagine.”
The kids nod. “Like she pushed her or something?” Max says, his mouth droppi
ng open.
“Well, yeah,” I say, my eyes darting around the table. “Or something . . . Anyhow, the point is that people say that’s why she left town and didn’t come back until now.”
“But you don’t think that, Mom?” Max asks.
“Absolutely not,” I say, my eyes landing on Bradley, who is still behaving as if I’m recounting something innocuous and irrelevant, like the plot of a nighttime soap. “Now that I’ve had the chance to get to know Susannah, and actually become friends with her, I think she’s misunderstood. She hasn’t had the easiest life, and people around here think the worst of her. Imagine what that’s like . . .”
“Not fair,” Livvie says.
“Exactly,” I say. “But being around her, I’ve learned how strong she is. How loving and warm. You should hear how she talks about her friend. And what I want to tell you both is that people might say things about you as you go through life, people might believe you’re a certain way—not as extreme as in Susannah’s case, of course—but it should never dictate what you believe about yourself in your heart, or the way you behave toward others.” I smile at Diane. A big smile. Extra satisfied. Extra warm. She looks, more than she ever has before, like she wants to strangle me.
“What do you think, Grandpa?” Livvie asks, in the tentative way she sometimes speaks to adults now. “What do you think about what people say about Mrs. Lane? You probably know her as well as Mom does.”
“Ohhhh . . .” He wipes his mouth brusquely and tosses his napkin over his plate. “Well, me and Mrs. Lane haven’t been close for a long, long time, but I think your mom’s right. People say things that aren’t true.”
But Susannah says you’ve talked on the phone recently, I want to say. So many questions are running through my head.
“You don’t think Susannah Lane knows something about Henrietta’s death?” Max asks.
“Nah,” he says, reaching over and rustling Max’s hair.
“But you knew Henrietta, right?” Livvie says.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, leaning back and shifting in his chair like he wants to loosen his belt. “Small place like this, you know everyone you grow up with.”
“It must have been sad,” I say, finally getting him to look me in the eye.
“Yup, it was,” he says, standing, declaring that the conversation is over. Why is he so ready to have it end? I look across the table at Diane, who’s narrowing her eyes at me, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m up to. “But enough of all this,” Bradley says. “Max and Livvie, what do you say we go check out the fish in the koi pond out front?”
The kids jump up and Diane follows suit, her anger so obvious it’s practically vibrating off her.
“This brunch was a great idea, Diane!” I say, my voice as merry as I can muster.
She walks off, not bothering with goodbye.
Cole looks at me. “What was all that about?”
I stand. “What?” I say, pushing the chairs into the table so I can scooch through. He is the last person I feel the need to explain myself to right now. “Didn’t you think it was fun? That Steph! She was great. Make sure to leave her a big tip.”
Twenty-Two
My mother is laughing.
“Oh, Bess! Bradley? The Bradley Warner I know?” she says through the phone.
I am lying on our bed, still in the dress I wore to brunch even though the kids and I got home hours ago, leaving Cole at the inn to do some paperwork. “I know. It’s ridiculous to think he could be hiding something, but you should have seen how he was acting at brunch this morning. I almost feel like I have no choice but to believe Susannah’s story about their past. He was cheating on her. And when she confronted Henrietta . . .”
“That may be, but like you said, it’s all just a case of bad timing for Susannah.”
“I know, but can you imagine the guilt you would feel?”
“Well, sure. But honestly, Bess, I can’t stress it enough: From what you’ve said, she sounds nuts!” I can hear her rustling around in the kitchen, taking a pot out of the corner cabinet next to the sink. “That whole scene on her balcony the other day! You said in your email that she practically threw herself off the side of the house!”
“You have a point,” I say, feeling tiny prickles on the back of my neck as I remember how I lunged after her.
“Bessie, just focus on getting that story written and move on,” Mom says, the sound of her turning on the faucet in the background.
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am!” She laughs. “Listen to your mother. Okay, doll. Gotta go. I’ll talk to you this week.”
“Thanks, Mom.” After the line’s gone dead, I hold the phone in my hands for a second and then turn onto my side and close my eyes. I’m just about to drift off when something brushes against my foot and I startle awake.
Cole is standing at the foot of the bed, his mouth set in a hard line.
“Cole! You scared me!” I say, sitting up.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there sulking.
“What?” I say, though I know exactly why he’s pissed.
“Do you want to explain to me what it is, exactly, that you were trying to do at brunch?”
“Nothing,” I say, feigning innocence. “I was just making conversation.”
“Bess.”
“All right, all right,” I say, my voice dripping with a sarcasm that I’m too frustrated to restrain. “I was just filling the kids in on the history of their new hometown. Don’t you think it’s important, Cole, for them to know the way things are around here?”
“The way things are . . .” He stops and closes his eyes, putting his fingertips to his skull like our conversation is physically hurting him. “Bess, why did you do that?”
“Do what?” I say.
“Come on, Bess. The way you brought up Henrietta Martin at brunch. Do you know how uncomfortable that was for my mother? For my father?”
“Since you mentioned him, your father seemed suspiciously quiet, don’t you think?”
“Suspiciously . . .” He shakes his head. “Give me a break, Bess.”
“What?”
“Well, let’s think about it: you’re the only person in Greyhill who trusts Susannah. Why do you think that is?”
I laugh. “Maybe because I’m the only one who’s dared to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the problem is not Susannah but all the hang-ups these assholes in town seem desperate to hold on to for some reason.” There. I’ve said it.
“Wow,” he says.
“What? Is that too strong an opinion for you?”
“No,” he says. “Not at all. But what I think is that you’re wearing blinders because of what happened back in Washington,” he says.
I feel like he’s just punched me in the stomach. “What did you just say?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Maybe you’re clinging to her because you need to, Bess. Maybe you’re scared of getting let down again. Or maybe you so badly want to make up for what happened with Candace that you’re determined to do right by Susannah.”
My mouth starts to water. I swallow, staring at him, waiting for him to take it back, but he doesn’t. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
He doesn’t say anything. He stares back at me, eyebrows raised, like we’re on opposite sides of a chess match and he’s waiting for me to make a move.
I swallow. “The reason I am, to use your word, clinging to Susannah is that she’s the only person around here who tells the truth.”
“Mom!” Max’s voice suddenly calls out from the hallway. “Someone’s at the door.”
I narrow my eyes at Cole. “If that’s your mother . . .”
“And what if it is, Bess?” he says, starting out of the room. “She’s my mother. And she lives across the street. How did you think this would be?”
“Not like this,” I say, my voice shaky with anger. “Not at all like this.”
I’m still sitting on the be
d when I hear her voice.
“I do not want to make anything uncomfortable between us, Cole, you know that,” she says. “But I was just across the street, dropping off some papers for your mother for the holiday fair—Mindy and Whitney and I just met about it—and, well, I just can’t let it go.”
I tiptoe to the top of the stairs, where I can hear them better. I can’t face Eva today, not after everything else. I peek around the wall, just enough to see the pointed toe of Eva’s high-heeled boot in the threshold of the front door. At least Cole hasn’t invited her in.
“Listen,” she says, her voice not quite a whisper. “My Brittany . . . well . . . she says that Livvie made her cry at school.” Oh, give me a break!
“Made her cry?” Cole says.
“Yes,” Eva says. “I don’t know what it was about, Brittany wouldn’t tell me. And she tells me everything, Cole, so it must have been bad.” I see her reach out and touch his arm.
“I don’t know, Eva,” Cole says. “Livvie’s really not the kind of kid who would make another girl cry.”
“I’m sure under normal circumstances, that’s true,” Eva says, her hand still on his arm. “But with your move and all . . . it’s a big change for a girl her age. Maybe it’s just a temporary thing. You know, a phase she’s going through . . . Anyway, I wanted to tell you. I need to protect my child, surely you understand that.”
“Of course, Eva. It’s just—”
“Please, let’s not let this get in the way of our long friendship,” she says. The hand is still on his arm. “I just wanted you to know. Because if things don’t change, I just don’t know that I can allow Brittany to be around Livvie.”
We can only hope, I think.
“Eva, I don’t think that’s going to be a concern,” Cole says, adopting what I used to call his lawyer voice whenever I overheard him on a work call. At least he’s standing up to her, sort of.
“Oh, I’m sure it won’t be any problem,” she says. “I know you’ll handle it.” There’s silence then, and I peek around the wall just in time to see Eva releasing Cole from a hug. As I hear him closing the door, I hurry down the hall to Max’s room, where the kids are supposed to be doing homework.
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