by Susan Fox
She’d meant her words to be reassuring, yet tears formed in her mother’s eyes. Mom cried so easily these days, her emotions thrown out of whack by her disease and its ramifications.
With quiet dignity despite a tear that slipped free and tracked down her cheek, her mother turned to Aaron. “We’re afraid you’ll take her away from us. I don’t know how we’d survive without Eden.”
Kelsey made a sound and Eden glimpsed hurt in her eyes before her sister said, “Mom, kids grow up and leave the nest. You can’t tie Eden to you forever.”
Aaron spoke up. “Mrs. Blaine, Eden loves you. She’s made it clear that her family is her top priority. Please don’t worry.”
Her mom lifted her napkin to blot the tear. “Easier said than done, I’m afraid.”
“Aaron’s right,” Eden said. “The last thing we want is to add to your worries. I could have kept our relationship a secret, but that didn’t feel right. Aaron’s important to me and I want all of you to get to know one another. I don’t want you to condemn him and our relationship just because he’s not from Ottawa.” She thought of mentioning that he would consider moving here but didn’t want to pressure him. “Can’t we relax and have a good time?”
“Helen,” Dad said quietly, “that sounds like good advice.”
Her mother took a long, audible breath. “You’re right. All of you are right.” She sent a wobbly smile in Aaron’s direction. “I apologize for the melodrama. I never used to be like this. Please forgive me for my lack of hospitality.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Mrs. Blaine.” He sounded sincere. “You should never have to apologize for being honest about your feelings.”
Mom’s smile strengthened. “Thank you for that. And please call me Helen.”
Eden let out her own breath in a sigh of relief. For now at least, it seemed things would go smoothly. But in the back of her mind lurked the knowledge that her mom would never willingly see her daughter move across the country. Kelsey was right about adults flying the nest, but their mother’s illness had made her uncharacteristically insecure. Hopefully, as her health improved, so would her confidence. She’d realize that it wouldn’t be such an awful thing if Eden lived somewhere other than Ottawa—though Eden felt a major pang at the idea of substituting Skype calls and quarterly visits for seeing her parents at least a couple of times a week.
Of course Aaron might develop a love for this city and decide he wanted to move here.
Or their initial attraction might fizzle and they’d go their separate ways.
Life was so much simpler when there wasn’t a man in it.
Chapter Eighteen
Late Tuesday afternoon, Aaron was trying his hand in Eden’s kitchen. He’d spent an hour shopping in ByWard Market, not far from Eden’s apartment. He figured he could make an interesting dish out of handmade fettucine, shrimp, fresh porcini mushrooms, shallots, and heavy cream. An Ontario white zinfandel should match it, and a salad of mixed greens, feta cheese, strawberries, and fancy balsamic vinegar. He’d been throwing together meals since he was a kid and wasn’t half bad at it, especially now that he could afford decent ingredients. He wasn’t much of a dessert guy, though, so he’d cheated and bought tarte tatin, an apple tart, from a French bakery.
Eden had said she could try to take time off from work, but he knew that would be problematic for her so soon after her week off. He said no, he was happy to explore on his own. Yesterday, he’d borrowed her Smart car and spent the day hiking in Gatineau Park. Today, he’d roamed the city on foot. The Ottawa area was growing on him, but he missed the ocean.
When he heard the door open at six o’clock, Eden arriving right on time, he went to meet her. She wore tailored gray pants and a sleeveless white blouse and carried the gray suit jacket over her arm. The office garb made her look professional and surprisingly sexy.
After a lengthy hug and kiss, she said, “It smells good in here.”
“Told you I’d take care of dinner.” Yesterday, he’d walked over to her office to meet her after work and they’d gone to a French bistro. He hoped tonight’s meal wouldn’t be a major letdown after that gourmet meal.
With her arms looped around his neck, she leaned back and gazed up at him. “I thought you meant you’d buy ingredients. You didn’t have to cook.”
“It’s the least I could do. You’ve given me a place to stay.” They hadn’t told her parents that he’d moved from his hotel to Eden’s condo. He put his hands on her waist and regretfully eased her away from him. “Come eat. This meal’s time sensitive.”
She kicked off her shoes, dropped her purse on the small table by the door, and followed him into the kitchen, pulling off the twister thingy that held her hair back in a ponytail. As he plated the pasta dish, she oohed and aahed, making him feel like he was an Iron Chef, and then they went to the dining area where he’d already set the table.
He was happy with how the shrimp and mushroom pasta had turned out and Eden proclaimed it delicious. As they ate and sipped wine, he asked about her day and, with a glowing face, she told him about the hours she and Navdeep had spent with a funding applicant, a charitable organization that provided equine therapy for wounded veterans.
Even as Aaron thought how great this was, talking over dinner, a part of him was saying he couldn’t ask her to give up a job she so clearly loved.
Eden helped herself to more salad. “This food is amazing. Where did you find all the ingredients?”
“ByWard Market. Your sister and I had lunch there and I shopped after.”
Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “You had lunch with Kelsey?”
“Yeah, she called me. We went to Lowertown Brewery and had craft beer and rotisserie chicken.” He’d been happy for the opportunity to get to know Kelsey, who was more approving of him than were Eden’s parents.
“Did you have a good time? What did you talk about?”
“Stuff. This and that. You.” He winked. “It was fun. I like her.”
Eden smiled. “It’s hard not to like Kelsey.”
“I know you think she’s too directionless, but I think she’s doing okay for her age. At least she hasn’t made any major mistakes, the way Miranda always seems to.”
“That’s true. And I really think she’s growing up. Maybe it happened when she was away at university, or maybe when she started looking after Mom. But she is being more responsible.”
“I told her I’d seen her paintings.” He gestured toward one of the walls. Eden had some interesting art scattered throughout her place. Nothing expensive, mostly prints by local artists. There were a couple of colorful abstracts of flowers. When he’d mentioned liking them, she’d said Kelsey had painted them in high school, taking inspiration from their mother’s garden. Eden said it had been one of her sister’s phases, before she got bored and went on to something else. Story of her life, Eden had commented. “I told her I thought she had talent,” Aaron said.
“She did. Art was one of the things she was best at. Painting would be a hard way to make a living, but if she used her talent in advertising, graphic design, computer animation . . .” She shook her head. “But she didn’t want to hear any of that.”
“Maybe none of it resonated with her.”
“That’s the trouble.” Eden pushed her empty plate aside. “Nothing resonates with her, at least not for long.”
“At least she tries things, and she’s getting an education. I gather she’s willing to let your parents help with that?”
“Actually, she’d rather have gone traveling, picking up jobs along the way. But Mom and Dad were horrified at that idea. They place so much value on a university education. Kelsey said she’d try it out, as long as she could at least live somewhere interesting rather than go to the University of Ottawa like I did.” Her mouth twisted. “When she talks about McGill, it’s more about her friends, exploring Montreal, having fun, than her studies.”
As compared to him, who’d been so single-focused. For him, learning
to fly was all the fun he’d wanted. Maybe he’d missed out on some things, yet he wasn’t envious of Kelsey. “I feel kind of sorry for people who haven’t found that one thing they really want to do.”
“Hmm. Maybe that’s what she’s waiting for. I just always thought she should pick something and commit to it.”
“Hard to do if you’re not passionate about it.”
“I suppose. Maybe she should see a career counselor.”
“Maybe. I admit I’d like to see Miranda settled on a career path. But she’s twenty-six and she has a kid. Kelsey still has time. If she tries different things, she may stumble across the one that’s special for her. And then she’ll be motivated to work for it.”
“I hope so. I want her to find something that’ll make her happy and financially secure.”
As they went to the kitchen to make coffee to accompany dessert, Eden said, “What did Kelsey say about you and me?”
He let her deal with the coffee machine and took the tarte tatin from the fridge. “That I’m good for you because I got you to lighten up.” He cut two slices of dessert. “I just wish your parents felt the same way.”
“You know it’s not personal. They’re afraid I might move away.”
“Yeah. And yet they didn’t have a problem with Kelsey going to Montreal for school.”
“They protested but gave in when they realized it was the only way she’d agree to go to university. Besides, I’m the older one, the reliable one. They’ve always counted on me and I’ve always been there for them. Even though they complained about Kelsey being flighty, they kind of let her get away with it. Each parent-child dynamic is different, I think.”
Probably Eden had liked being the good child, the mature one, the one her parents relied on. Was there any way that pattern could now be broken, so that she’d seriously consider moving away from Ottawa?
He sighed, wishing he and Eden could have a normal relationship where they could just see how things developed rather than being haunted by life-changing issues.
“We’d better eat our dessert,” he said. “You’ve got that call with Di at eight.”
Helen Blaine and Di SkySong had been Skyping almost every day, and introductions had been made so that now Helen’s husband, her daughters, and Seal SkySong had all spoken to each other. Di had said she so badly wished she could fly to Ottawa for a visit, but their SkySong retreat was fully booked and she couldn’t leave until into the fall.
Eden hadn’t had a chance to talk to Di privately and she wanted to do that. And so, after finishing dessert, she took a second cup of coffee to her office to Skype Di. Aaron did the dishes and tidied up the kitchen, then went into Eden’s living room.
Her apartment was comfortable. Relatively spacious. Large windows. Of course the view was of condominiums and town houses. No ocean. No forest. No hummingbirds, but maybe they’d come if he hung a feeder. They did to the feeders outside her parents’ kitchen window, but then that house had a garden.
He picked up the book he’d started, giving one of Eden’s legal thrillers a try, and sat on the couch. Though he’d tried the balcony once, the sound of traffic got on his nerves.
Damn, he was being picky and negative. He had found a number of positive things about Ottawa and should focus on those. Of course the one huge draw was Eden.
“Aaron?” she called from down the hall. “Come say hi to Di.”
Eager to escape his thoughts, he went, pulling up a chair to sit beside Eden at her desk. Di smiled at him from the screen of Eden’s laptop, her slender face, bright blue eyes, and long brown-and-silver hair familiar and yet distorted a little by technology.
“Hey, Di,” he said. “This is weird, eh?”
“I know. It’s like a parallel universe, seeing you somewhere other than Destiny. Or in the air, like you’re a bird.”
He grinned at her. She might co-manage a moderately successful business, but a good part of her was still a hippie, the same as Seal. “Yeah, a bird. That’s me.”
“So, you and my niece. Tiny, bitty universe, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” If it were, there wouldn’t be so many kilometers between his home and Eden’s.
“Aunt Di,” Eden said, “when I was trying to track you down, I talked to a lot of people who’d been members of the commune, or had contact with it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It sounded like Merlin wasn’t the greatest guy. Like maybe he abused some of the women.”
Di blinked and didn’t speak for a moment. “Why do you want to know about Merlin?”
Eden sighed and exchanged a glance with Aaron, who leaned over to put his arm around her shoulders. “At first, I was concerned that something might have happened to you,” Eden said.
When Di didn’t respond, Eden went on. “Now, I admit it’s just curiosity. Once I see a puzzle, I want to figure out the answer.”
Aaron, the reader of mysteries, added his voice. “Me too.”
Di shook her head. “It was a long time ago. Best to let it be.”
“Why?” Eden asked. “If it was so long ago, what does it matter now?”
Di glanced away from the screen, making Aaron wonder if Seal was in the room. She sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t. Okay, then. In the beginning, I found Merlin charismatic.”
A male snort sounded, she glanced away, and then turned back to the screen. “Seal always figured the guy was a poser and it was all about power and feeding his own ego. Seal butted heads with Merlin a time or two.”
“Oh!” Eden gasped.
“What?” Di asked.
Eden turned to Aaron. “Azalea gave us the clues whether she intended to or not. Not just the song, ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ but she also said something about ‘Barry, hairy, quite contrary,’ and bull seals barking at each other. Remember?”
“Now that you mention it,” Aaron agreed. “Damn, I should’ve picked up on that.”
“Did Azalea say anything else?” Di asked, her voice strained.
“Not that made sense,” Eden replied. “But please go on, Aunt Di. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“As I said, Seal always had his doubts about Merlin. I was more wide-eyed in the beginning, but then I came to agree with Seal. We were in the minority. Lots of the boys emulated Merlin and lots of the girls wanted to be his lover.”
Eden must have wrinkled her nose or made some other expression of distaste because Di said, “You don’t know the times, Eden. We had mind-altering drugs. The Pill was brand-new and we’d never heard of AIDS. Free love wasn’t just available, it was almost a commandment we lived by.” She turned her head, an affectionate, mischievous smile on her lips, confirming that indeed Seal was beside her. “Seal and me as well. We weren’t into fidelity. But in the end, it was always us. Soul mates.”
“I’m happy for you,” Eden said. “But did Merlin abuse some of the women?”
Di’s jaw tightened. When she spoke, her words came more slowly. “He abused his power. There was a lot of sexual experimentation. Some rough sex. Some dom-sub stuff. Not just with Merlin, but other men and women, too. Some people liked it, some didn’t. People who didn’t like it generally left the commune.” Di paused. “Then Merlin himself left.”
“Why would he do that, when he was the wizard who ruled the Enchantery?” Eden asked.
Di started slightly at the mention of that secret name. “Who knows? Maybe he was bored with us. We were kind of a mess. After he left, we tried to carry on. We didn’t want a leader and said decisions should be consensual. Except everyone had different ideas and values.” She was speaking more freely now. “Some wanted to be more organized, to get efficient at growing food and homeschooling their kids. Others just wanted the ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll.’”
“Not us, of course,” Seal said from out of sight.
“Aunt Di,” Eden said, “do you remember a girl named Starshine?”
Maybe it was due to the technology, but it seemed to Aaron that Di’s facial muscles froze
before she said, “No. There were lots of hippie names and it was so long ago.”
“Seal?” Eden said.
“Me either,” came his answer.
Eden continued. “I spoke to Gertie Montgomery. She told me you brought Starshine to the medical clinic, Aunt Di.”
Di gave a smile that looked forced. “Ah, Gertie. So sad about the Alzheimer’s. You can’t trust anything she says.”
“We talked to her in the morning,” Aaron put in. “She seemed pretty lucid to me.”
“And to me,” Eden said. “She said the hippies from the commune almost never came to the clinic, so this was memorable. Gertie said the girl’s name was Starshine and she had long, whitish-blond hair. She’d miscarried and was bleeding badly.”
As Eden spoke, it seemed to Aaron that Di’s blue eyes grew wider, her expression tenser.
Eden continued. “Gertie thought she might have been abused, maybe kicked. She was afraid there might be internal injuries and she advised you to bring Starshine back in a day or two. But neither of you came back. Was the baby Merlin’s, Aunt Di? Did he beat Starshine and was that why she miscarried?”
“How would I know who she was sleeping with?” Di snapped. “Like I said, everyone slept with everyone.” Aaron noticed she no longer denied knowing Starshine.
“Weren’t you concerned about her? You took her to the clinic, yet you let her go back to someone who may have abused her.”
Di closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. When she dropped her hand and opened her eyes, she said, “I talked to her after we went to the clinic. I said if someone had abused her, she should report him. She said she loved the guy and he loved her. In those days, we weren’t so savvy about sexual abuse. Even now, you know perfectly well that it’s rough on the victim. How does she convince anyone that she didn’t consent to sex, to rough sex, to whatever?”
Aaron’s jaw clenched. He hated that abusers so often got away with it.