by Jane Peart
Coryn left the Seafarer with a sense of relief. She said goodbye to the other two, making some noncommittal remarks about getting together again. As she walked in the direction of the beauty salon her mother patronized, she saw a man and a little girl coming toward her. As they got closer, she saw the man was Mark Emery. The child with him must be his daughter.
They saw each other almost at the same time. She looked as surprised as he was. Coryn Dodge was even prettier than he remembered. In sunlight her hair had mahogany lights, her blue eyes seemed bluer. She was dressed in a blazer, pants, a silk scarf patterned with vivid autumn leaves was knotted casually at her neck.
“Hello there,” he greeted her. “What a wonderful surprise.” The warm look in his eyes made her heart skip a beat.
Coryn smiled. “Good to see you again, Mark.”
He turned to the little girl beside him, “Coryn, I’d like you to meet Ginny. Ginny, this lady is Coryn Dodge. We came up on the same plane from San Francisco after I left you at Nana’s and Grampa’s.”
The child regarded Coryn with wide curious eyes. She had a spray of golden freckles across a small button nose and round, rosy cheeks.
Coryn held out her hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Ginny.”
Ginny smiled, shook Coryn’s hand. She was not at all shy, but she had a sweetness about her that suggested the security of being well-loved.
“Are you Christmas shopping?” Coryn asked.
“Sort of.” Ginny glanced at Mark, as if for confirmation. “We shopped for the Three Wise Men.”
Puzzled, Coryn looked first at Mark then back at Ginny.
“See, first we got the stable scene, where the Baby Jesus was born, and the angels. Last year, we got the shepherds and some of the sheep. So this year we get the Three Kings,” Ginny explained.
“Shari, Ginny’s mother, always wanted Ginny to understand Christmas wasn’t just presents and Santa Claus, so we started celebrating ‘little Christmas,’ too. January sixth commemorating the arrival of the Magi.”
“How lovely,” Coryn said, touched by this unique family custom. “So, did you find them?”
“Yes, they’re great! They’ve got crowns and goldtrimmed robes and all.” Ginny smiled happily. “Now we’re going for a carriage ride, aren’t we, Daddy?”
Mark nodded. “A promise is a promise.”
“That should be fun.”
The carriage was just turning the corner at the end of the street. It came to a stop a few yards from where they were standing. As the driver helped down the couple who had been riding, Mark raised his hand to signal that they wanted to hire the carriage next. Coryn walked over to the curb with them.
Ginny gave a little skip, swinging Mark’s hand, then she glanced up at Coryn. “Want to come with us?”
The driver stepped forward and said with a grin, “Same price, one or two adults with a child.”
“How about it?” Mark asked Coryn. “Would you like to?”
Riding in a carriage with Mark and Ginny would certainly beat waiting in a beauty salon for her mother, she thought. “Why not?” she replied with a smile. “How long will it take?”
“Fifteen minutes is the ride, miss.” The driver tipped his stovepipe hat, opened the carriage door.
Coryn looked at Mark, Ginny and the carriage. It did look like fun. “Okay, I’d love to.”
The next thing she knew, she was being helped up into the carriage. With a flick of the driver’s whip, they started off. Coryn glanced at Mark. He looked different this afternoon. Younger, handsomer, his hair was tousled by the brisk wind off the bay. He was wearing a creamy Irish-knit sweater, corduroy pants. He was obviously more relaxed and enjoyed being with his child.
The horses’ hooves clip-clopped on the brick streets as they rolled through Old Town. People walking along the sidewalks looked at them, smiled and waved. Ginny giggled.
“Let’s wave back like the English royals I’ve seen on TV!” Coryn suggested. She fluttered her hand in the famous back-hand wave Queen Elizabeth gave while riding in her carriage.
“Yes! Let’s!” said Ginny as she bounced’happily and followed suit.
Mark looked a little embarrassed, but grinned indulgently at both of them.
The wind was strong, cold. Coryn pulled her silk scarf from around her neck and tied it under her chin to keep her hair from blowing into her face.
Coryn enjoyed the ride thoroughly. Seeing Rockport from the vantage of a carriage was like being transported back in time. She glanced at Mark, smiling. “This is really fun!”
He grinned back. Coryn was having a good time. Her eyes were sparkling, and her smile-why, she looked really beautiful.
They went up Viewmont Hill to its crest, where Highland Inn stood, then back, and circled the little park in the center of Old Town. The driver shouted “Whoa!” to his compliant horse, and pulled to a stop.
Ginny looked disappointed.
“It was too short, wasn’t it?” Coryn said understandingly.
“Well, maybe we’ll do it again,” Mark said, getting out, then turned back to lift Ginny down. “But now we’re going for our treat, remember?”
“Oh, yes! We’re going to have a frozen-yogurt cone,” Ginny told Coryn. “Pumpkin flavor. It’s my favorite.”
“For the time being, right?” Mark laughed. “Would you like to come with us?”
Coryn again glanced at her watch and hesitated. She still had a half hour before she had arranged to meet her mother. She would like to stretch this time with Mark Emery and his little girl longer. She made up her mind quickly, “Okay, I will. A frozen-yogurt cone sounds just great!”
With perfect naturalness, Ginny took Coryn’s hand and the three of them walked down the street together to Old Town’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. On the way Ginny chattered happily. The pinkand-white-striped awnings outside the shop matched the ruffled aprons and headbands on the girls behind the counter. Inside, the decor was so deliberately nostalgic, with curlicued metal chairs and faux-marbletop round tables that Coryn and Mark exchanged an amused look. But it was also charming and since Ginny was enjoying herself completely, their amusement remained shared but unspoken.
Ginny had a little trouble with the generous double-dip serving. The creamy substance melted away faster than her small tongue could lick it up. Ginny fretted a bit as it started to drip down the side of the cone and onto her hands, but Coryn quickly came to the rescue. She took some packaged handi-wipes from her purse and she deftly cleaned Ginny’s chin and sticky fingers.
“You must have been a Girl Scout. Always prepared.” Mark commented, his eyes amused. Coryn smiled.
“I’m going to be a Brownie. Next year when I’m seven,” announced Ginny.
Coryn saw the look of tenderness on Mark’s face and was touched. It was clear he adored his little girl.
Coryn checked her watch again and said, “Sorry, but I have to hurry. I really do need to meet up with my mother.” She got up to leave, “Thanks for inviting me to your party. I really enjoyed myself.”
Their gazes met. Mark smiled and she caught her breath.
“We enjoyed having you along,” Mark told her.
“It was fun waving in the carriage,” Ginny added.
They said goodbye and Coryn hurried away in the opposite direction. She felt happy and lighthearted. Meeting up with Mark and his child had been a most pleasant surprise. She liked what she’d seen. He was a real hands-on Daddy.
As Mark and Ginny came out of the ice-cream parlor and were walking back down the street, they were hailed by the driver who was standing by his mount and carriage waiting for customers.
“Sir! The lady forgot her scarf,” the carriage driver said, handing Mark the length of silk. Mark took it, held it for a second, breathing in the scent that clung to it. He recognized it. It was the same distinctive perfume he had noticed the night he had driven her home from the airport
“It’s pretty, isn’t it, Daddy?” Ginny asked, fingering the edge
of the scarf. “Like Coryn. She’s pretty, too, isn’t she?”
“Yes, very,” Mark answered, folding the scarf and putting it in his jacket pocket “She’ll be sorry she lost it. We’ll have to return it to her, won’t we?”
Chapter Six
Coryn stepped inside LaMode Beauty Salon and was immediately swept into a pink perfumed world. The assorted fragrances of lotions, cosmetics and shampoo mingled in the warm air. Blow-dryers whirred and women’s voices murmured. A constant hum of conversation flowed from the pink-leather quilted booths and manicure tables.
A high-fashioned coiffeured blonde with vividly blue-shadowed eyes and incredible long, curved false eyelashes sat behind the reception desk. She was new since Coryn had last been here, and when Coryn asked if her mother was finished, the young woman ran long sequin-lacquered fingernails down the page of her open appointment book.
“Mrs. Dodge? Oh, yes. Are you her daughter? Well, she left a little while ago.”
“Are you sure? I was to meet her here.”
“I’ll ask Justine, her stylist. But I’m almost certain…I’ll find out,” she said, and got up and moved into one of the nearby booths.
Coryn recognized the woman who followed the receptionist back to the desk as her mother’s regular hairstylist.
“Hi, Coryn. Your mom wasn’t feeling so well when we finished and I called a cab to take her home. She left her keys and said you could drive her car home.” With her free hand she dug into her pink nylon smock pocket, brought out a set of keys and gave them to Coryn. “Has your mom been sick? I didn’t think she looked good when she came in…pale, sort of shaky. I thought maybe she’d had flu or was coming down with it.”
“I don’t know. I hope not,” Coryn said.
Justine tapped the hairbrush she was holding against her palm. “Lately she’s seemed…I don’t know…not quite herself.”
Hearing someone else put into words what Coryn had felt about her mother since coming home made her suddenly tense. “Thanks, Justine. I’ll go right home and see how she is.”
Coryn drove home quickly, her heart beating hard, her breathing shallow. Something was wrong with her mother. But what?
She didn’t know what prompted her to do it. But when she pulled into the garage, before going into the house, she unlocked the trunk of the car. Inside she found two large shopping bags filled with beautifully wrapped Christmas packages. The tags bore the same names of the friends and relatives her mother had put on her list to buy gifts for that very morning at the breakfast table.
But when had her mother bought these gifts? She’d been in the beauty parlor all morning, Coryn realized. She must have purchased the gifts days ago—and forgotten.
After staring at the presents for a few stunned minutes, Coryn slammed down the trunk and went into the house.
Rita, their weekly housecleaner, was vacuuming in the living room. In a hushed tone of voice she told Coryn her mother was napping.
“How did she look when she came home?” Coryn asked.
Rita frowned, leaned on the vacuum handle. “Not good. When I seen the cab pull up front, I looked out the window, not expecting anyone since you both were gone. Then I saw your mom come up the walk, ever so slow. I went right to the door and opened it. ‘Mrs. Dodge, you look beat and that’s for sure,’ I told her. She said something about not feeling well, so I helped her up to her bedroom. She said she’d be all right if she’d just lie down for a bit. I took her up a cup of tea later but she had a cloth over her eyes and was just stretched out on the bed. I pulled the quilt over her and just tiptoed out.” Rita shook her head. “Never saw her look that bad before.”
“Maybe it’s the flu,” Coryn said through stiff lips, fearing it was something much worse than that.
Still shaken by the discovery of the Christmas presents in the car, Coryn went upstairs. She opened her mother’s closed bedroom door, peeked in, saw she was sleeping and went on into her own.
What should she do? Ask her mother about the wrapped gifts, tagged and ready to give? Could her mother possibly have forgotten? She seemed to forget so many things these days.
Was something seriously wrong with her? All sorts of possibilities crowded into Coryn’s mind. Some kind of emotional break? Some kind of amnesia?
She still hadn’t decided whether to bring up the subject an hour later when her mother emerged from her bedroom, refreshed and fragrant from her rest and bath. She seemed perfectly fine. The explanation she gave for leaving the beauty salon early seemed perfectly logical.
“I should have eaten something before I went there. I rushed around shopping and then-it was so hot in there with all the steam and the smells of nail polish and blow-dryers going, I just felt faint. I didn’t want to spoil your luncheon with Cindy and Lora, so it was simpler for me to come home in a cab.”
Momentarily Coryn felt better. That evening, even with Coryn’s observation, her mother seemed her usual self. They watched TV together, a Christmas program. It was like a hundred other evenings Coryn remembered at home. But she couldn’t forget those packages in the trunk of the car. There was something going on here she didn’t understand. But what?
Chapter Seven
The next afternoon Coryn helped her mother with the holiday ritual of baking dozens of sugar cookies. Clare was in a holiday mood, full of plans for Christmas. Her mother loved Christmas, everything about it, gave dozens of presents to people Coryn did not even know. She decided not to ask her about the gifts in the car. It didn’t seem that important right now. Just as long as her mother was happy.
Wasn’t it enough that her father was sometimes short with Clare? Reminding her of errands, phone calls, questioning her. Coryn saw how upset this made her mother. She considered asking her father about Clare’s forgetfulness, but she knew the conversation would disturb him. It could even make things worse between them and she just didn’t want to add to her mother’s distress. She’d just let it go. For now.
As Clare slid the baked cookies off the sheet onto the wax paper on the counter, the doorbell chimed, and she looked up. “Who could that be?”
“I’ll go see, Mom.”
When she opened the front door, Mark Emery and Ginny stood on the doorstep. “Why, hello.”
“We just stopped by to bring you this.” Mark held out her scarf. “You left it in the carriage yesterday.”
“How kind of you. I didn’t miss it.” She took it. “Thank you.”
Clare had followed her from the kitchen and was standing a little distance behind her. “Mom, I’d like you to meet Mark Emery and his little girl, Ginny. Mark, this is my mother, Clare Dodge.”
“Well, I’m delighted to meet you, Mark. We read your byline regularly. My husband thinks you’re doing a great job.” Coryn’s mother stepped forward, held out her hand to Mark. Then she looked down at Ginny. “And this is Ginny. Do come in, won’t you? We’ve just been baking Christmas cookies. You can be our taste testers.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mrs. Dodge. We wouldn’t want to—”
Ginny tugged on Mark’s hand, her upturned face eager.
“You won’t be. Not at all. Come on in,” Clare urged.
Coryn opened the door wider for them to enter.
“Here, let me take off your coat, Ginny, and you come along out to the kitchen with me,” Clare said. “The little bell on the oven is about to ring that tells us the next batch is ready to take out. Then you can help decorate them, would you like that?”
The bonding was almost immediate. Ginny seemed to feel perfectly at ease with Coryn’s mother. Without a backward look at her father, Ginny went down the hall to the kitchen with Clare, the two chatting like old friends.
Mark shook his head in wonder. “That’s amazing. Ginny’s not shy, but I’ve never seen her take to someone that quickly.”
“My mother’s always had a magic touch with children. All my friends adored her.”
“She seems to be one of those rare people who has somehow managed to retain e
nough of the best elements of childhood so she can relate to children without talking down to them.”
“Like Glynda, the Good Witch, in the Wizard of Oz? When I used to watch it on TV every year, I always thought my mother looked exactly like her.” Coryn smiled, remembering what a magical childhood her mother had given her.
Mark grinned. “She does, sort of, doesn’t she?”
“Here, let me take your jacket.” Coryn took it and hung it up beside Ginny’s little red parka. “Let’s join them. Are you good at decorating cookies?”
“It’s a skill I haven’t really acquired.”
“There’s always a first time.” She smiled again.
By the time they got to the kitchen, Coryn’s mother had tied an apron around Ginny’s neck. It covered her completely. A high stool at the kitchen counter provided her easy access to a number of small glass containers filled with tinted sugar, raisins, jellied candies and chocolate sprinkles. Coryn’s mother then placed a tray of freshly-baked cookies in front of her.
“Look, Daddy, what I’m doing. See?” Her little hands moved swiftly. Tiny fingers curved delicately as she used them to dip into the various toppings. “This one’s going to be a Christmas tree, so I’ll use the green sugar and…” She went on happily talking, intent on the task at hand.
Coryn’s mother was beside her, gently coaching but letting Ginny do the selecting and actual decorating. Coryn thought how happy she looked and was glad she hadn’t mentioned the packages in the car. She saw Mark glance in the direction of her mother and Ginny as the animated chatting continued at the counter. An expression of tender amusement gave his strong-featured face a softness she hadn’t noticed before. What a wonderful father he must be.