Return to Little Hills

by Janice Macdonald

  “Sorry. The answer is still no.” Beth’s face wouldn’t go away. “I’m expecting a call from my boyfriend and—”

  “He’s given to maniacal fits of jealousy?”

  “Difficult to imagine, isn’t it—that I’d inspire fits of maniacal jealousy? But you’ve pretty much summed it up. I don’t want to risk his wrath.”

  “God forbid,” he said. “But perhaps I could give you a note to take back to him, confirming the chasteness of our encounter. If that isn’t sufficient, I’ll…challenge him to a duel. Meanwhile—” he touched her arm “—would Thursdays work for you and your mother to come to school?”

  “Thursdays?” She considered. Would her mere presence on campus threaten Beth somehow? Come on, a voice in her head mocked. You think you’re some kind of femme fatale? Get over yourself, why don’t you? “Barring an emergency trip to the IGA, Thursdays would work just as well as any other day.”

  He smiled. “Brilliant. I’ll let Beth know. While your mother is at the teen mother center, you can come over and meet the journalism students. I’ll call you when I’ve set up a date.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  EDIE COULD SEE Vivian and Maude waiting at the living-room window when she walked up the front steps. As she fished for her key, the door swung open and Vivian stood glaring at her under the blazing hall light. Edie blinked, her eyes still adjusting from the dark street.

  “Where were you?” Vivian hissed. “Mom’s in a complete tizzy. I couldn’t calm her down. She wanted me to call the police to go look for you.”

  “I went for a walk.” Behind Vivian, Maude had appeared, wraithlike in a cream silk robe. “What’s the big deal?”

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack.” Maude clutched the front of her robe. “Tell her, Vivian, tell her how frightened I was. First I couldn’t find the phone—”

  “Mom, the phone is where it always is,” Edie said.

  “You moved it,” Maude said. “You took it off the stand where I always keep it and I went to pick it up and nearly tripped on my robe and—”

  “I could have sworn I did put it back,” Edie said, trying to remember.

  “Why did she need to move it?” Maude asked Vivian. “What’s wrong with leaving it where it’s always been?”

  “Mom.” Edie took her mother’s hands. “I promise I’ll never move the phone again.”

  “Complain? What have you got to complain about?” Maude snatched her hands from Edie’s and moved past her into the kitchen. “If you’re going to start staying out all night, you can pack your bags and leave right now—”

  “God.” Edie smacked her hand to her head. “I can’t stand this.”

  “See!” Maude pointed an accusing finger at Edie. “That’s what she does. Slaps her head and swears at me.”

  “Mom, it’s her head.” Vivian, bustling around the kitchen, poured milk into a brown mug and set it in the microwave. “If she wants to slap it, that’s her business. Be thankful it’s not your head she’s slapping.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Edie muttered.

  Vivian shot her a warning look and turned to Maude. “Edie’s back now and everything’s fine, Mom.” She put her arm around Maude’s shoulders. “I’m making you some hot milk and we’re going to get you up to bed, okay?”

  “I don’t like her shouting and cursing,” Maude said. “And I don’t like her hitting her head.”

  “Mom.” Edie took her mother’s hands again. In order to look directly into Maude’s eyes and say what she wanted to say, she had to get down on her knees. For a moment, she saw the three of them as a sort of tableau. The ancient queen with her flowing silk robe, the faithful servant at her side and herself in supplication at her mother’s feet, begging forgiveness for a transgression she hadn’t even been aware of committing. The thought that it had always been that way filled her with a sudden anger that made it difficult to meet Maude’s eyes, but she swallowed and summoned strength from somewhere deep within herself. “I’m sorry I shouted and hit my head. I’m sorry I worried you by staying out late. I shouldn’t have gone out and I truly apologize.”

  Her chin trembling, Maude nodded. “I love both my daughters,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to either of you. Vivian, help me up to bed, will you?”

  “SO YOU WERE JUST OUT for a walk?” Vivian asked after Maude had been tucked into bed and she and Edie were in the living room drinking white wine from a bottle Edie had bought the day before at the IGA.

  Edie drank some wine and considered. If she lied about seeing Peter, it would give the whole thing more significance than it deserved.

  “I ran into Peter Darling,” she said.

  Vivian set her wine down. “And?”

  “And nothing, really. We walked for a while. He told me about things he’s doing at school. He wants Mom to volunteer in the teen mother center and he asked if I’d help set up a journalism group.”

  “What?” Vivian shook her head, clearly astounded. “See, that’s exactly the sort of thing Ray’s always complaining about. This guy gets these ideas that are so damn impractical, it’s not even funny. Mom has no business volunteering…you told him no, I hope.”

  “I told him it sounded like a good idea. Mom loves babies. I think it would be good for her to have something to do.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.” Viv folded her arms across her chest. “Once she moves into Maple Grove, how is she supposed to get over to the high school? Are you going to be here to drive her? I certainly don’t have the time.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.” Edie shrugged. “I’m sure someone could give her a ride. I’ll talk to Beth—”

  “No you won’t,” Viv snapped. “You’ve screwed up enough as it is. Why the hell can’t you just look beyond the moment, Edie? Think things out a little. Did you mention Beth, by the way?”

  “Mention Beth?”

  “To Peter.”

  “No.” Edie gulped down half the wine in her glass. Viv could destroy a pleasant evening in no time flat. “Beth’s name didn’t come up.”

  “Edie, you’re good with words. I’m pretty sure you could have worked her name into the conversation somehow. Or you could have if you’d wanted to.”

  Edie yawned and rose to her feet. If she left right this minute, she could avoid locking her hands around Vivian’s throat. She smiled. “Well, as pleasant as these sisterly little chats are, Viv, I think I’m ready for bed.”

  “Oh sure, walk away. The truth’s always painful, isn’t it? You know what, Edie? I see right through you. Beth’s this small-town schoolteacher, you’re some big-shot reporter who breezes into town. You know damn well Beth’s infatuated with Peter, but you’ve just got to prove that all you have to do is lift your little finger and he’ll be all over you.”

  “Yep, that’s me.” Anger tingled, effervescent on her tongue. In a moment, rage would erupt in tears and she wasn’t about to give Viv that satisfaction. Casually, she stooped to pick up her wineglass from the coffee table. “I’ve got him panting all over me. Asked me out twice already, but I’m letting him dangle—”

  “He asked you out?”

  “Twice. Dinner, the theater…”

  Vivian sighed. “Well, just don’t say anything to Beth. He probably just thinks you’re…I don’t know, available or something. But Beth’s much more his type. I’m thinking maybe we should give her a makeover…”

  “Good night, Viv.” As she walked up the stairs, Edie decided she didn’t want to be around when her sister learned that their mother had invited Peter and his daughters to dinner. Her preference, she thought, would be not to be around, period. Right now, she wanted to get on a plane and fly far, far away from Little Hills, Missouri.

  THE NEXT DAY, Maude went out with Dixie Mueller again. This time Edie questioned Dixie’s daughter so thoroughly that the woman got a little snippy and intimated that if Edie was that concerned, perhaps she shouldn’t allow Maude to go. Maude went, anyway.

  Alone in
the house and relishing the quiet, Edie spent the morning working on her laptop at the kitchen table, drafting an article she planned to sell as a freelance piece. War correspondents—does gender make a difference? She was of the opinion that it did. War was dangerous for all journalists, but women war correspondents faced what female war victims faced, including the threat of sexual assault. And, some of her female colleagues complained, it was difficult to get high-ranking officials to take them seriously. She worked steadily for an hour or so. Sitting in her mother’s kitchen, she had taken a while to properly focus on the article. But before long, she’d become so engrossed that when she heard a clap of thunder, she thought momentarily it was gunfire.

  When she heard the second low rumble, she got up to look through the kitchen window. The sky had turned an ominous green, the leggy rosebushes black silhouettes in the neglected backyard. She’d forgotten Midwest weather: the weird green color the sky got during a storm; the still, heavy air.

  As the first drops of rain, heavy and furious, began to fall, she ran around the house closing windows, then sat down to write again. But her concentration was gone and after ten minutes or so of erasing everything she’d written, she got up again to look outside. If she craned her neck, she could see, almost hidden in the tall grass, the wooden hutch she’d built for Jim Morrison, the French Lop rabbit she’d had when she was about fourteen.

  Jim would be standing on his hind legs behind the wire mesh, waiting for her to take him out, when she got home from school. Around the same time, Ray Jenkins, whom she’d had a crush on forever, began to notice her. Instead of coming home to feed Jim, she would hang out at Ray’s house. One day, she’d found Jim dead in his little cage, his water bowl bone dry.

  Twenty-six years later, the memory could still make her weep; a lot of memories out there in that small backyard. One winter, her father had turned the lawn into a skating rink for her and Viv. He’d flooded it with the hose before they went to bed, and the next morning it was frozen solid. In the summer, the grass had always been green and clipped. Now it bloomed with dandelions and the rosebushes had huge orange hips that looked black as olives in the strange light of the storm.

  Maude had once taken great pride in the garden. She’d tie a wide-brimmed straw hat under her chin and pull on white gardening gloves patterned with tiny yellow roses. Summer evenings, she’d be down on her knees tying up the peonies that always flopped, stems too slender to support their extravagant frilly blooms. Peonies. Edie turned from the window. She probably hadn’t thought of peonies since she’d left Missouri.

  She wandered about the house. In her head, Vivian was telling her to stop interfering, to leave things alone. And then Maude was saying, I don’t even know why you came back. She wandered back into the kitchen, where Tinkerbell eyed her balefully. “I know,” she said. “You don’t need me here, either. Trust me, I don’t want to be here.”

  Odd how different she felt right now than she had the day she first met Peter Darling at the high school. She’d stood on the podium that day basking in the kids’ admiration as they looked up at her, hanging on to her words. She’d felt good—the successful foreign correspondent wowing them with her exotic adventures. And she’d seen the admiration in Peter Darling’s eyes. Seen herself through his eyes and liked what she saw.

  But only a month ago, she’d stood in a hospital in Kabul feeling about as useless and irrelevant as she did right now. She had no medical skills. She wasn’t bringing anything anyone needed. Why would she? She was a journalist. Patients all around with horrendous injuries imploring her: Do something. Harried nurses trying futilely to stop armed militia from stealing medical supplies. Unarmed, she could do nothing to help. In the midst of all the chaos and suffering, she found herself apologizing to a nurse for being in the way.

  What the hell am I doing here? she’d wondered then—and she did now. Later though, she’d decided there was a good reason. She was there to observe and then to honestly communicate what she had observed. And if something she wrote helped someone to better understand, or brought about change, then she could believe that her work mattered.

  But standing in her mother’s kitchen, it wasn’t so easy to answer the same question. Why was she here?

  “Meow.” Poochie—or was it Panda?—rubbed its ear against Edie’s leg.

  “Yeah?” She stroked the cat gently with her toe. “You’re saying that it’s because I’m a great joy and comfort to my mother? Because my very presence is like sunshine in the midst of her day? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Its tail twitched and, with great dignity, the cat exited the room.

  “You don’t buy that, huh?” She sighed. “Yeah, well, neither do I.”

  In the hall, the stentorian chime of the grandfather clock told her it was now three o’clock. The house felt quiet and claustrophobic, with the seconds, minutes, hours stretching on endlessly until the moment she would climb the stairs and fall into bed. Ben had once said they were both adrenaline junkies, one reason they were drawn to war reporting. She had no doubt that it was true of Ben.

  She exhaled. “There is nothing you can achieve by staying on,” her bureau chief had told her after Ben’s capture. “It’s too dangerous. At the very least, you’ll get in the way, and you could wind up in trouble yourself.”

  She dropped into one of the flowered green-and-orange vinyl chairs that surrounded her mother’s simulated-woodgrain kitchen table, curled her legs up and picked at the polish on her toenails.

  Okay, kiddo, time for some straight talk. Grit your teeth because it’s gonna hurt.

  NO ONE NEEDS YOU.

  And that’s not being maudlin or anything, it’s just the truth. It was your idea to come back. Yours. And here’s another thing. If you’re not needed, it’s your fault. You’ve brought it all on yourself. So what are you going to do about it? Mope around and feel sorry for yourself, or find some way to keep yourself occupied for the next few weeks?

  She got up and glanced at her watch. Maude should be home soon. She decided to make dinner. Maude might not need her in the way Maude needed Viv, but Maude would appreciate a hot meal waiting for her. She opened the freezer, dug out a package of chicken breasts from under the boxes of fish sticks and potpies, and stuck them in the microwave to defrost. While she rummaged around in the cabinets for something to serve with the chicken, she had another idea.

  Half an hour later, the chicken was in the oven and Edie, from the laptop on the kitchen table, was cruising the Internet for information on retirement facilities. By the time the chicken was done, she’d amassed enough information that she had a good idea of the questions to ask and the things to look for when she and Viv took Maude out to Maple Grove. Viv claimed to have already done plenty of research, but this would be additional insurance. As she printed out the material, it occurred to her that Viv might also consider this an example of micro-managing. Edie shrugged. So be it. She glanced at the clock again just as the phone rang.

  Maude was calling to say that Dixie’s daughter was taking them both to the movies. Doesn’t need you, doesn’t need your chicken, a cruel voice in her head taunted. Edie set the chicken aside along with the soft-focus fantasy in which she confided in Maude all her doubts about Ben, work and life in general. She set that aside along with the scene of Maude confessing that she hadn’t wanted to burden her because she knew what a busy and successful life Edie led, but… In the fantasy, Maude’s chin trembled, her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I need you so much, Edie,” she would say. “I’ve always needed you. Viv snaps at me.” Small, but Edie couldn’t resist. Anyway, it was her fantasy.

  “So what time do you think you’ll be home?” she asked Maude.

  “Something about Las Vegas,” Maude said. “Dixie said her other daughter saw it and it was hilarious. There are some fish sticks in the freezer if you want to fix those for yourself.

  “HOME, Mom,” Edie said. “What time?”

  “No, no bones. They’re fish sticks. Anyway, I
like them. You suit yourself.”

  After she’d hung up, Edie wondered whether she should have checked with Viv before giving Maude permission. Except that Maude hadn’t really called for permission and Edie was wearying of Viv’s patronizing assurances. “Don’t blame yourself, sweetie.” She could hear Viv’s voice in her head. “It’s not your fault.” Subtext: You can’t help being the selfish and irresponsible one.

  She wandered into the living room where all three cats were asleep on the sofa.

  “Want to join me for a gourmet feast, guys?”

  Tinkerbell opened one eye, the other two cats ignored her.

  “Looks like I’m dining alone,” she said.

  And then Peter Darling called.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “JUST A SECOND…” Peter told Edie as he switched the receiver to his other ear. A squabble had broken out between the twins, who sat on the floor of his office, crayoning pictures of butterflies. “Abbie. You have your own butterfly to color. Let Kate color her butterfly.”

  “But she put brown on my butterfly,” Abbie cried. “And it doesn’t have brown.” She scrambled up from the floor and thrust her coloring book in front of Peter’s face. “See, it should be all blue and she put a brown spot on it and now she’s ruined it.”

  “Sorry,” Peter apologized into the phone. “You know, Ab,” he told his daughter, “with that brown spot it looks rather like a blue morpho. Here—” he reached for his Guide to North American Butterflies “—look through this. I think you’ll find the blue morpho has a brown spot.”

  “Mr. Darling,” the janitor said from the doorway. “It’s after six. You gonna be here much longer?”

  “Mmm?” Peter glanced up. “Sorry. Is it that late? I was trying to catch up on paperwork—”

  “Take your time,” the janitor said. “Just lock up when you leave. And, Mr. Darling, there are three kids hanging around outside the gate. Said something about waiting to go for a walk with you. You gonna go in all this rain?”