Fly Away with Me

by Susan Fox

  Often, she got so enthused about some of the funded programs that she wished she could get more intensively involved. More than one had offered her a job, but she’d turned them down because there were so many other worthwhile projects that might not get funded without her efforts. Like the equine therapy one. She had a really good feeling about it.

  She turned to Aaron, eager to share her excitement, and then thought better of it and gazed out the window. The road was one she hadn’t been on before, running along the west shore of Blue Moon Harbor. Houses were scattered along each side of the road. The ones on the ocean side were set back behind trees on sizable lots; on the other side, modest houses sat on smaller properties, most with nice gardens. Aaron pointed out one of those houses as being the home of Jillian, the other pilot, whom she’d met briefly. An occasional gardener, dog walker, or cyclist raised a hand in greeting as they drove by. Ottawa was going to seem very formal and fast-paced after this.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?” Aaron asked.

  “Talk about what?”

  “The applicant?”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “They look like a good possibility.” Previously, she’d gushed on and on about her work. Last night, thinking about all her chats with Aaron, she realized she’d talked to him with few filters, sharing information and feelings about her family and her job. She’d always been outgoing rather than reticent, but with Aaron it felt so disproportionate, the way she’d shared and he’d tried to keep things light. They’d agreed on a fun, no-strings relationship, and though he kept teasing her about being so serious, she’d persisted in doing it. He’d been a good listener, seeming to be interested, asking good questions, even offering a few insights, but likely he’d been bored out of his mind and just being polite. Last night she’d told herself to lighten up in both her emotions and her behavior.

  “This place we’re going,” she said, “Arbutus Lodge. Is it a nice seniors’ home? My grandmother—” She broke off, stopping herself from blurting out another rambling family story.

  “Did she go to one?”

  “No, she died at home, the way she wanted it.” Nana had flatly refused to consider any kind of residential or care facility. She’d said those places were filled with decrepit, senile old people, and while she might be in her eighties, she was nowhere near being decrepit nor senile. She’d been correct on both counts. Fortunately, she’d had Eden’s family to help her out, and the money to hire a housekeeper who also prepared dinners. Nana had been able to stay in her own town house until she died unexpectedly from a massive stroke.

  “Good for her. Sadly, Mrs. Montgomery doesn’t have that option. She did live with her daughter’s family up at Sunset Cove for a couple of years, but they couldn’t keep an eye on her 24/7. She wandered off, almost set fire to the house. The family doesn’t have the money for full-time, live-in care, so Arbutus Lodge was the next best option.”

  “You know a lot about her.”

  “Most islanders fly with Blue Moon Air now and then. They talk, I listen. As for the lodge, from what I’ve heard, it’s a nice place and the staff are competent and friendly.”

  They were quiet then, until he pulled into the parking lot of an attractive two-story structure painted a sunny pale yellow with bright blue trim. Its wings spread across a grassy area with trees, flower beds, walkways, and benches. Ten or so people were outside, wandering lazily or seated on benches or in wheelchairs. A moderately high wooden fence marked off the property, but any sense of imprisonment was softened by vines of clematis and Virginia creeper.

  When Eden and Aaron walked through the front door, the inside was equally bright and appealing and the air smelled of pine needles. Behind a reception desk sat a pretty young woman with delicate Asian features and short black hair in a flattering pixie cut. She looked up and smiled brightly. “Aaron! Hi, it’s been a while.” A name tag pinned to her pink blouse identified her, in large type, as Glory.

  “Hey, Glory,” Aaron said. “Yeah, it has. You coming to the B-B-Zee dance tonight?”

  “You bet.”

  “Save me a dance, okay?”

  Oh, great. Eden was leaving tomorrow and Aaron was already lining up his next fling.

  But then Glory said, “Definitely. Brent’s always glad to sit one out. He says I have to stop wearing him out on the dance floor or he won’t have enough energy for anything else, once we get home.” She giggled. “If you know what I mean.” And then she turned to Eden. “I’m sorry. Old friends catching up.”

  Aaron snorted. “Old friends?”

  “Okay,” Glory told Eden, “we weren’t exactly friends in school. I got to know Aaron after Blue Moon Air started offering free flights to our residents who have medical appointments in Victoria or Vancouver and can’t afford the fare.”

  How nice of the airline’s owner. “Hello, Glory. I’m Eden Blaine and I’m—”

  “Here to talk to Mrs. Montgomery,” the other woman said. “Yes, I was the one who talked to Aaron when he set it up.”

  “Thanks for suggesting that we come in the morning, when she’s at her sharpest.”

  “You’ll enjoy her. Gertie’s delightful, and she’s always glad to have company. Her memory’s erratic, but Aaron said you wanted to ask her some questions about the past, and that’s what she does best with.”

  “Will she be in her room?” Eden asked.

  “Probably,” Glory answered. “She likes a sit-down with the morning paper after breakfast. She doesn’t read books anymore because she can’t remember what she’s read, but with newspapers she says it’s all fresh every day anyhow. She’s in 403, which is on the ground floor of wing four, just through that door.” She pointed. “If you don’t find her there, let me know and I’ll have one of the staff hunt her down.”

  Eden thanked her, and she and Aaron headed in the direction Glory had indicated. Artwork lined the walls, some of it excellent and some pretty awful, but each piece was framed and had a card beside it with the title of the painting, the artist’s name, and a date.

  Walking past a charming watercolor of a cottage surrounded by roses in bloom, with a couple of kids’ old-fashioned bicycles in the yard, she said, “Oh, look.” She caught Aaron’s arm, stopping him. “See this? It was done by Gertrude Montgomery.”

  He gazed at the painting, seeming almost captivated. “It looks like a home, a family home,” he murmured under his breath in a tone that sounded rather like envy.

  “It does.” She linked her arm through his and they continued on to suite 403.

  When Aaron tapped on the door, a female voice called, “Come in.”

  They stepped through to see a cozy sitting room, the furniture upholstered in flowered fabric and more paintings on the wall. A woman with short, curly white hair and glasses, clad in a purple-and-white-striped top and mom jeans, looked up from her seat in a chair by the window and folded the newspaper she’d been holding. A walker sat beside the chair. The room smelled faintly of lavender.

  “I do apologize,” the woman said. “I thought it was one of the staff, so I didn’t get up and come to the door.” She made as if to rise.

  Eden and Aaron hurried over. “No, please don’t get up, Mrs. Montgomery,” he said.

  Gray eyes with a hint of violet focused on him. “You’re Aaron Gabriel. You flew me over to Victoria when I needed those tests at the hospital.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I certainly remember a handsome, well-mannered boy like you. And now you’ve come to visit me. How lovely.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Mrs. Montgomery, I’d like you to meet—”

  “Gertie. Call me Gertie.”

  “Okay, Gertie. And this is Eden Blaine, who’s—”

  Again she interrupted him, shifting her gaze to Eden. “I don’t know you, do I? You’re not an islander?”

  “No, Mrs. Montgomery. Uh, Gertie?” She wasn’t sure whether the first-name invitation extended to her. “I’m from Ott
awa, visiting the island.”

  “Are you one of the ones who’ll stay? Some stay, you know.”

  “I’ve heard that. But no, I’m not. My family and my job are back in Ottawa.”

  “Family is what matters,” the elderly lady said firmly. “For heaven’s sake, sit down, you two.”

  Eden and Aaron seated themselves side by side on the couch.

  “I agree totally about the importance of family,” Eden said. “It’s my family that’s brought me here.” She had struck it lucky, with Gertie Montgomery seeming entirely lucid. But that state might not last, so she skipped the backstory and got straight to the point. “My mom wants to track down her long-lost sister, Lucy Nelson. She came here and joined the commune in 1969, when she was seventeen. I wondered if you might have run into her.”

  “I was, hmm, thirty-five in 1969. Married, with two children under ten. A public health nurse. The medical clinic consisted of two rooms off the fire station. A visiting doctor came twice a week, and so did a dentist. There was a midwife and there was me.”

  What a lot of responsibility this woman must have had. “Did you have dealings with any of the members of the commune?” Eden asked.

  “They kept to themselves and didn’t come to the clinic. One of the members had some first aid training.”

  “How do you know that?” Aaron asked.

  “Di told me.”

  “Di SkySong?” he said.

  The elusive Di, who, along with her husband, Seal, were the two people on Eden’s list who she hadn’t been able to interview because they hadn’t yet returned to the island.

  “Yes. When she brought that other girl to the clinic.”

  “When was that?” Eden asked.

  “Let me see . . . I think it would have been 1970 or ’71.”

  Was there any chance . . . ? Voice trembling, Eden asked, “Do you remember the other girl’s name? Or what she looked like?”

  “Oh my. It was one of those hippie names. Ah yes, Starshine, like in the musical, Hair. ‘Good Morning Starshine,’ that was a song from Hair. Pretty song.”

  Lucy could have taken a hippie name. “Did the girl have brown hair?”

  “No, blond. Almost white-blond. Long, beautiful hair.” She gave a girlish laugh. “That’s from the musical, too, you know.”

  Disappointment clogged Eden’s throat.

  Aaron spoke again. “Why did they come, Gertie, if it was so rare for commune members to visit the clinic?”

  “Starshine had miscarried and was bleeding badly,” the former nurse said. “Di had a brain or two in her head, young as she was, and realized that the girl might die without proper medical attention. They’d already had one death at the commune, a boy who overdosed, and she didn’t want another.”

  Her curiosity engaged, Eden asked, “Were you or the doctor able to help Starshine?”

  “It wasn’t one of Dr. Miles’s days, and the midwife was off island. I got the bleeding stopped, but Starshine was badly bruised and I worried about internal injuries.”

  Eden caught her breath. Had the girl been abused?

  Gertie went on. “I told Di to bring her back in two days, when Dr. Miles would be in, or earlier if her condition worsened. We could have taken her to the hospital in Victoria. But they never returned. I hoped that meant the girl was okay.” Her eyes, sharp until then, went dreamy. She began to sing, mumbling the words. Eden caught the word starshine, and something about twinkling below, and then there was just a string of nonsense syllables.

  Compassion filled Eden. How tragic that a woman who’d been so accomplished could have her mind slowly taken over by dementia. She was reminded of her mother’s situation, though at least with breast cancer there was a strong chance of defeating the disease—which her mom was definitely going to do. “Mrs. Montgomery? Gertie?”

  “I was too old. Too old to be a hippie.” At least these words made sense, but she sounded vague. “Kind of a pity. Bells and flowers.”

  “Bells and flowers are lovely, aren’t they?” Eden feared they’d lost her, and it didn’t really matter. Yet the woman’s comments had reawakened Eden’s curiosity about the Enchantery. If Starshine had been abused, the same might have happened to Lucy. “Gertie,” she said gently, “you mentioned that Starshine was bruised. You mean she’d fallen?”

  “Fallen,” the older woman echoed, as if she wasn’t sure what the word meant. Then her gaze and tone sharpened. “That girl fell on a boot.”

  Eden caught her breath. “You mean someone kicked her? Kicked her in the belly when she was pregnant?”

  “Boots,” Gertie said, dreamy again. “I have the prettiest red cowgirl boots. I wonder where I put them?” She smiled at Eden. “Do you like to dance, dear?”

  Eden smiled back, her heart going out to the other woman. “As a matter of fact, I’m going dancing tonight. With Aaron.”

  “Aaron? Who’s Aaron?”

  Eden glanced at him and he shook his head slightly. They both rose and Aaron said, “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Gertie.”

  The woman looked at him blankly, as if she had no recollection of their conversation. And maybe she didn’t.

  Eden touched her age-spotted hand. “May I take a quick look at your paintings before we go?” She gestured around the room.

  Gertie’s face brightened. “Yes, yes. I do love to paint.”

  Eden walked around the room, recognizing that the watercolors and pencil sketches of places and people were unskilled, yet the artist had a knack for capturing the character of her subjects. “These are wonderful,” she said sincerely. “I envy you your talent.”

  She and Aaron said their good-byes and left the room, closing the door quietly. As they walked down the hall, Eden sighed. “What a lovely woman and what a terrible disease.”

  “It doesn’t seem like she’s unhappy.”

  “I hope not. But I bet she was plenty unhappy when she was diagnosed. As a former nurse, she’d have been very aware of what was in store for her.”

  They continued on in silence, pausing only to say, “See you at the dance,” to Glory.

  Once they were in the Jeep, Eden said, “I haven’t seen it. The commune. I’ve been talking to all these people about it, but I’ve never actually seen it.”

  “There isn’t much to see now. The buildings weren’t well constructed and they collapsed over time.”

  She felt the rare urge to cry. She must be PMSing, because suddenly it was all too much. She had failed her mom. She was sad about Gertie Montgomery’s Alzheimer’s and about her mom’s cancer. Sad for her aunt, who seemed to have disappeared without anyone in the family even noticing. Sad that after tomorrow morning’s flight, she’d never see Aaron again. Even the idea that the old commune—once a place that carried the hopes and dreams of a group of young people—was now just a bunch of fallen-down shacks made her sad.

  So much for lightening up. She took a deep breath, fighting for control, determined not to inflict her melancholy on Aaron. “Could you tell me how to get there? I think I’ll take my rental car and go see it.”

  “You’ll never find it.” He touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” She strove for cheerfulness. “Looking forward to that dance tonight, though I’ll no doubt step all over your toes.”

  “Uh-huh. Look, I’ve got a couple of flights today, but how about I pick you up around five and we’ll go out to the commune, then grab a snack before the dance?”

  She couldn’t hold on to the forced smile. Instead, she gazed into his bluish-gray eyes and said, “I already owe you so much, Aaron. You’ve spent a good part of your week chauffeuring me around and introducing me to islanders. You could have been flying or”—or hanging out with a woman who’d show him a much better time—“or doing way more fun things. I must be the worst fling you’ve ever had.”

  “Don’t be silly.” His smile seemed warm and genuine. “You’re good company and it’s been interesting, talking to all those people and learning
about the commune.”

  “You’re a nice man.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m a selfish guy. I do what I want.” He turned the key in the ignition and backed the Jeep out of the parking spot. “I’ll pick you up at five. No arguing.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Aaron leaned against the front of the Jeep, watching Eden wander across the grassy meadow. She lingered by the ruins of a couple of shacks, the weathered gray boards nearly swallowed up by salal and blackberry bushes. She stooped to pick a daisy and twirled it between her fingers, then paused by a gnarled apple tree to stroke its bark.

  She could almost have been one of the hippies from the old days, the way she looked right now. For the first time, she wore a skirt. Not a tailored, lawyer-type one but the kind sold in the shops on Driftwood Road: light cotton, down to the ankles, soft and floaty. So gauzy that, in certain lighting, he saw the slender lines of her legs through the swirly yellow- and orange-patterned fabric. On her feet were flat sandals with multicolored straps. Her top was close-fitting and sleeveless, a warm yellow he guessed would bring out the gold flecks in her amber eyes. He hadn’t been able to test his theory because she had yet to take off her sunglasses.

  When he had picked her up, she’d been chatty, asking him more about island history and saying she was sorry they’d never had a chance to go out sailing. She’d seemed upbeat and yet it hadn’t rung true. This morning, when they’d talked to Gertie Montgomery, he’d seen how Eden respected the woman and tried to relate to her. He’d sensed Eden’s emotions and her openness, things he’d liked about her from the beginning. But since then, with him, she’d kept things on a superficial level.

  He missed the real Eden. Was she upset with him? Pulling away? It was logical that she might, because she was leaving tomorrow. So why should it bother him?

  When he’d bumped the Jeep over the almost nonexistent dirt-and-grass track to the commune, she’d fallen silent. He’d sensed she wanted to experience this place on her own, to perhaps imagine her aunt dancing on the grass with a chain of daisies in her hair, or eating an apple she’d just picked, warm from the sun, sweet and juicy.