by Cheri Allan
“Nana!”
“Oh, please. I think the chemicals she uses in her hair have done something to her good sense.”
Kate went back to picking up food debris. “She doesn’t use anything but the natural dyes now.”
“After thirty years of pickling her brain. But, she had you, so it’s clear the commonsense genes made it through before she did too much damage.”
Kate knew Nana was only trying to lift her spirits, but still. It hurt that a dog meant more to her mother than her own grandchild. Kate wondered if she had married one of the prep-school boys her parents approved of rather than the son of a factory worker whether Liam would be more acceptable in her parents’ eyes. She didn’t have time to dwell on the thought, as a shriek rang down the hall.
“Katherine! Come quick! There are feces on your bathroom floor!”
Kate met Nana’s eyes across the room. “Well, don’t look at me,” Nana said.
Kate hurried down the hall.
“There. On the rug. The corner was flipped over, and when I went to straighten it—you really should invest in those mats that stay in place—I found that!” Kate’s mother shivered and pointed in horror at the bathmat. “Who does that?” she cried.
Kate sighed and carefully picked up the mat to shake the offense into the toilet. “Ma, there were a dozen three and four year-olds here today. Obviously someone had an accident and didn’t know what to do about it.” She rolled up the mat. “There.”
Her mother looked at the toilet dubiously. “Do you have any sanitizing wipes? I think it’d be a good idea to touch up… surfaces.”
Kate pulled a package of wipes from under the sink and disinfected the sink, toilet handle and finally the toilet seat. Not that she could picture her mother actually sitting on the toilet seat. No doubt she’d hover like she’d always advised Kate to do in public restrooms. You never know who’s been there. “I’ll take this to the laundry.”
Kate returned to the living room where Liam was now busy chopping Play-Doh into tiny bits that were quickly adhering to the carpet fibers under his knees. “Pumpkin, can you bring your Play-Doh to the kitchen? Nana will give you cookie cutters to use with it.”
Nana ushered Liam toward the kitchen door and raised an eyebrow at the rolled bath mat. “Don’t ask,” said Kate.
Kate closed the laundry room door behind her, fighting back a bubble of hysterical laughter as she clutched the soiled bathmat in her hand. Good God. She unrolled the bathmat on top of the washer and stared at the little brown smudge in the corner, and suddenly… suddenly it seemed a commentary from the universe on the state of her whole life. Randy’s death. Nancy’s ultimatum. Ma’s stupid dog. It all distilled down to this one, simple fact.
Her life was a poo-stained bathmat.
Kate’s chest grew tight and her eyes blurred as she grabbed the pre-treater bottle off the shelf and aimed it at the smudge. She squirted blindly, blinking back tears. You’d think after all she’d cried over the last seven weeks, the source of them would have dried up already.
But they weren’t tears of grief. They were tears of panic.
Nancy’s words replayed in her head like a bad movie reel...
Go. Find out what’s next for Kate Mitchell. Find your passion.
Kate pushed away from the washer, the mini wieners roiling in her gut. Find her passion? How in hell was she supposed to find anything when she was barely making it through the day? And, furthermore, who in their right mind would be passionate about being a secretary in a private school?
Fine. Executive Assistant. Whatever.
Kate blew out a shaky breath and shoved the bathmat into the washer. Her gaze bounced around the cluttered room. How was she supposed to find her passion in the middle of this chaos? She’d meant to clean it. Truly. But then Randy had gone and died, and that was the end of that.
Except it wasn’t.
Her heart pounded as she closed the washer and fought against the small, nagging, paralyzing thought that had been poking at the edges of her sanity for days. She’d buried herself in preparations for Liam’s birthday, Nana’s visit, contacting the admissions office at the school, hoping against hope she would be saved from having to acknowledge the truth. But she couldn’t hide from it any longer.
Randy had been gone for seven weeks.
And she hadn’t gotten her period since.
She could barely breathe as her eyes fell on the small pile of clothes on the dryer. Randy’s clothes. She’d washed them and set them aside, had meant to return them to him. Now it was too late.
Her lips twisted as she picked up a T-shirt and rubbed the soft, faded fabric between her fingers. She concentrated on the sensation, trying to picture Randy in it, trying to remember how it felt with him beneath it, trying to remember how life felt before everything fell apart, but all she felt was... T-shirt.
Kate let her head sink to the washer, the metal cool and hard beneath her forehead as tears seeped through her lashes. She fumbled in her pocket for a tissue, her fingers instead finding a folded piece of paper that had already gone through the wash.
She peeled it open, recognizing the raised letterhead at the top, and her hands shook as she smoothed it out on top of the washer.
Dear Ms. Mitchell,
It is our pleasure to inform you that your application for admission to the Fine Arts Program has been accepted…
The words blurred. She’d carried the letter around in her pocket for days, rereading it, not quite believing how neatly life was working out. And then she’d gone to drop off some things at Randy’s apartment. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but she had.
I’m happy for you, he’d said. I know you’ll do great. I always loved how you could do anything you set your mind to.
She’d hugged him then, her spirits buoyed by his unexpected support. She never intended to kiss him. Never intended to let it go further. But as he’d pulled her tight against him, all she’d been able to hear were the words …I’m happy… and …I always loved you… even though neither was true.
“Katie, you still in there?” Nana knocked on the laundry room door, and Kate straightened and wiped her eyes. “Liam wants to know if he can watch Bob the Builder, your mother’s left and I think Sandy needs to pee.”
Kate cleared her throat. “Just a minute.”
She picked up the letter, running her fingers over the softened folds, rereading it one last time. It seemed like yesterday she’d opened the envelope, her heart fluttering with excitement, her future unfolding like sweet promises and fresh starts.
She let out a long, shaky breath… then tore the letter into tiny, confetti-like pieces.
Sweeping it into the trash, she started the washer and opened the door.
CHAPTER THREE
____________________
FOR THREE YEARS THE SAME HORRID poppies and sunflowers had blinded her. If cataracts didn’t ruin her eyesight, those god-awful flowers would. June sipped her gin and tonic, held her cards close to her chest and squinted against the blinding riot of flowers on the vinyl tablecloth that Lydia insisted they use whenever poker night was at her house. At least the woman made good brownies. It was worth the stop in Sugar Falls before she left for the Quilt Show in Portland the next morning, just to have these brownies. June reached across and snagged another as her friend, Ruth Pearson, placed an edge-weary photograph on the growing pile in the middle of the table.
“All right, June,” Ruth said. “I’ll see your granddaughter with that darling great grandchild and raise you one eligible grandson who owns his own business.”
June waited for Ruth to bite her cheek—it was one of her tells.
Ruth reached for a brownie instead.
Sugar. Ruth must have a good hand. She always reached for sweets when she was feeling victorious. June dropped her cards to the table. “I’m out of luck and relatives. I fold. What do you have, Ruth?”
“Read ‘em and weep, ladies!” Ruth fanned her cards face-up in front of her.
June sloshed gin and tonic on the tablecloth. “Ruth Pearson, if you weren’t chair of the Gifts for the Greater Good campaign, I’d swear you were cheating. You’ve won five hands in a row!”
“Oh, stop your belly-aching.” Ruth gleefully pulled the pile of photographs toward her as if it were cold hard cash and not the winning pot in their own personal twist on poker. She’d only won the right to talk about anything she wanted for the evening—old stories or new—but it was exciting nonetheless. “Did you see my cards? Don’t you know what that means?”
“A royal flush—?”
“In hearts!” Lydia chimed in meaningfully, her silver bangles jingling excitedly.
“They think it’s a sign.” Claire tapped the deck and slid the playing cards into their box.
June looked at her friends as if they were showing signs of early dementia, which was entirely possible given they were all well past menopause. “A sign of what?”
“That someone in the pot will get married!” Lydia tittered.
June snorted indelicately. “What kind of hooey is that?”
Ruth continued to sort photos. “Not hooey. Don’t you remember? It happened before with Claire’s son, Barry. Within three months of lying in the winning pot next to Lydia’s niece... married.”
“Oh, I can barely breathe!” said Lydia. “Who do you think it’ll be this time?”
Ruth scanned the photographs in front of her. “Hmm. After I take out all the children and married men, I’m left with my grandson. But the only woman is your granddaughter, June, and she’s in mourning, poor dear.” She swept her small pile of photos into the box on her lap and sighed. “Oh, well.”
“So much for fortune-telling cards.” Claire muttered, wiping a brownie crumb off the front of her late husband’s bowling shirt.
Lydia reached across and picked up the two pictures, her coral-polished fingertips shaking slightly as she looked at them through her bifocals. “Too bad, too. They would have made a handsome couple. See?”
June peered over Lydia’s shoulder. “Hmm. I shouldn’t be saying this, him being dead and all, but I wouldn’t be disappointed to see Katie move on to someone more reliable than that deadbeat she was married to, may he rest in peace. She was planning to kick him out, you know. And none too soon, if you ask me.”
Claire tsk tsked. “Young people take marriage too much for granted these days.”
June downed the rest of her drink and resisted a third brownie. She had her waistline to consider, after all. “There was a time I would have agreed with you. But after seeing all my Katie did to make that marriage work, she needed to get him out of the house. If not for herself then for the sake of that precious little one.”
June shook her short silvered hair. “Oh for heaven’s sake, now you’ve got me talking out of turn. Ruth, it’s your turn. You won bragging rights. What do you want to talk about?”
June 13
Why is it that going on vacation with a toddler feels like preparing for a trip up Mt. Everest? Gone are the days when I could throw a few things in an overnight bag. I have to plan for food, water, wardrobe changes, entertainment, Acts of God and Calls of Nature. And that’s just for the ride there. Wish me luck tomorrow. Here’s hoping the Sherpas know where they’re going!
CHAPTER FOUR
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KATE STEPPED OUT OF HER CAR AND took a deep breath, glad to be free of the hot, stuffy interior. She could think of plenty of things she’d rather do than drive five hours with a temperamental A/C and cranky toddler. Dental work came to mind. But her aging Corolla was all she could afford for the time being. Maybe ever.
She swiped a hand across her forehead and looked toward the cottage that would be their home for the summer.
Faded white clapboards, odd dormers and a slightly tilted front porch spoke of decades of renovations and occupants rather than any specific architectural vision. Grass and weeds speckled the gravel drive and fought with pink and purple lupine in neglected planting beds. A stand of white birch—all shimmering oval leaves and arching branches—cast dappled shade across the stone path. And reflecting it all were the glittering, dark waters of Sugar Falls’ Whisper Lake.
Despite the band of sweat that had her T-shirt clinging to her back, Kate felt the tension flowing out of her in undulating waves. Given how life had gone lately, she’d braced herself for sleeping in the car. This at least looked habitable.
She turned just as Liam scrambled into the front seat and out the driver’s door. “Whoa! What’s the hurry?”
“I wanna swim!”
“Me, too, but I need to unload. We’ll swim after I unpack and put away the groceries.” Kate pulled a heavy suitcase out of the car and set it on the drive. Two months. Two months reprieve from all the sympathetic looks and probing personal questions.
Oof. Two months to figure out a decent reply.
“Liam! For heaven’s sake—keep your clothes on. We are not swimming yet.”
“But—”
“No buts. Keep your pants on, young man.”
Liam squeezed his face into a mutinous frown, the expression so like his father’s it made Kate wonder why it didn’t make her cry. Shouldn’t she be crying more? No, it was anger she was supposed to be feeling. At least according to Nana.
But she didn’t feel mad either. She just felt... like she was waiting. To land. To take off. For the lottery commission to tell her she’d won. Maybe for life to stop feeling like it was a runaway train she couldn’t get off... Yes, that.
“Wanna swim now,” Liam said.
Kate stooped down and cupped her son’s cheeks. His father’s dark eyes flashed up at her. Like it or not, Randy Mitchell would always be a part of her life. Maybe they hadn’t worked out, but hadn’t they made a beautiful baby together?
Kate swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and stood up. “Do you want to see inside?”
“Yeah!” Liam ran toward the front door.
Kate hurried to keep up, stepping gingerly over a profusion of purple violas popping up through the flagstones, her suitcase banging against the worn porch steps. She grasped the doorknob. It felt warm in her palm like a friendly handshake. She turned it. Good Lord. It wasn’t even locked.
Liam rocketed past. “Are there toys?”
Kate hauled the suitcase over the threshold. “Only the ones we brought. You can explore while I get the other bags. But no touching.”
Liam disappeared down a hall.
Kate looked toward the living area. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. More furniture, maybe? The nearly empty space featured bead-board walls, a fieldstone fireplace, a large braid rug… and a single, hideous, gold-painted rocking chair with tasseled seat cushion. On the other side of the room under a picture window stood a small dining table and mismatched barstools.
Kate stepped toward the view of the lake as it sparkled in the late afternoon sun.
Well, it wasn’t overly large. Or grand. Or awash with seating options. But it looked clean. And unlike her own parents’ home, it was blessedly free of fragile knick-knacks and collectibles a rambunctious toddler tended to endanger simply by breathing.
Reassured Liam wouldn’t immediately find anything to break, Kate swiveled around. She had a few more bags to bring in, groceries to unpack… Checking off her mental to-do list, she stepped over the threshold... and slammed gracelessly into the tall, lanky stranger on the porch.
Tall. Lanky. Yup, that was the sum total of what she discerned before the air whooshed out of her lungs and her face came into abrupt contact with a firm chest. Before she could react, she picked up the warm, faintly sweet scent of man. She inhaled—an involuntary action—and stepped back.
Oh. Lord. She’d almost forgotten how good a man could smell.
“Whoa.” Strong fingertips briefly grasped her arms, steadying her. “Sorry about that,” he said, letting go. “I didn’t expect anyone until later.”
Kate’s gaze skimmed slowly up the damp vee o
f sweat on the man’s T-shirt. A smile creased his lean, tanned face. She swallowed, her heart doing an odd somersault in her chest. “And you are...?”
“Jim Pearson. Ruth Pearson’s grandson.” He reached out his hand and Kate shook it numbly. It was warm. Firm. “I’m sorry. I’d come back another time, but Grams insisted I do this ASAP.”
“She insisted?”
“I think her exact words were, ‘get your butt over there before she grows desperate.’ My guess is she thought you deserved something more, ah, reliable. So…?”
Kate stared at him, perplexed, but then his words finally sank in. She could feel the heat creeping up her neck. Oh. Dear. Lord. Did Ruth Pearson think she was so desperate for a man she needed one delivered to her doorstep the moment she arrived? Don’t people normally send cookies or a batch of brownies? Quiche, maybe? But a man?
And if this man was sent as a sacrificial offering on the altar of her non-existent love life, what must Nana’s friend have told him? What must he think of her? And how pathetic did that make her appear?
Good grief. Good-looking or not. Gracious or not. She wasn’t some sorry charity case!
He gestured toward the door. “Can I come in?”
“Ah... you know...” Kate blocked the doorway, trying to ignore the lean, well-toned torso in front of her. How could she tell him he was wasting his time with a capital W? “I don’t know what your grandmother told you, but... I’m really not interested.”
“You’re not?” He stared at her, nonplussed.
“It’s nothing personal, but the thing of it is, I usually kind of like to choose my own—”
A furrow appeared in his brow. “You want to choose your own.”
Kate nodded, wondering why this should be so surprising. “Exactly. I know your grandmother meant well, and I’m sure what you have to offer is very...” She swallowed again. “Nice. What I mean is—please, don’t be offended—but I really don’t see any reason for you to come in.”
Despite what she felt was a crystal clear ‘no-thank-you’ he didn’t make a move to leave.