“In my handbag, by the front door. They’re lying right on top.”
Margaret glanced at me as if to say, You do it. My knee-jerk response was to argue but she’d earned big-time brownie points so I headed down the hallway. I spotted the white patent leather purse on a small mahogany table by the door and the gloves draped over it. As I snatched up the gloves, I happened to glimpse a picture of Mabel taken with a young man. The photo looked to have been taken in the early ’60s. Mabel stood straight, and her dark hair was teased high on her head. She wore funky catlike glasses and a flowered dress. She would have been in her mid to early fifties when the photo was snapped. My gaze drifted to the guy who was in his mid-twenties, wore a checkered short-sleeved shirt and short hair parted on the right. Tall and lanky, he had his arm around Mabel and was grinning.
I’m not sure what it was about him that caught my attention but I found myself leaning in for a better look. His hair was as dark as mine, and his skin had an olive tint. As I looked at him, I had the odd sensation that I was looking at myself. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to me, so instantly my guard rose. I did not want to start daydreaming about how another stranger might somehow be related to me. I didn’t need that drama.
Irritated, I turned from the photo and carried the gloves into the kitchen.
Impatience and annoyance snapped in Margaret’s eyes. “Did you get lost?”
I had, when I’d stared into eyes that had reminded me of me. “Sorry.”
The weak attempt at an apology grabbed Margaret’s attention. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, sure.” Florence handed me the lemonade and before I thought to ask I said, “Who is in that picture with Mabel by the front door?”
“The young man with that checked shirt?”
“Yeah.” Today the lemonade tasted bitter.
“That’s one of her nephews. Thomas. He was one of her favorites.”
“Was Thomas in for the funeral?”
“No. Thomas passed about ten years ago. Had a heart attack, I think. He has a sister but she didn’t come to the funeral.”
Disappointment slammed and bounced around my chest. I had never met this guy, and I still felt as if I’d lost something. Stupid. “So let’s have a look at that letter.”
Margaret seemed to understand that something was up but she didn’t say a word. Instead she slipped on the far-too-large gloves, pulled the letter out of the envelope, and gently opened it. Paper creaked and cracked.
April 3, 1856
Dear Mr. McCrae,
I’ve decided that I am not well suited for boarding school. The girls here continue to be far too silly, and I’ve no desire to sit and stitch for hours on end. I am doing as you advised and keeping my thoughts to myself but my frustration bubbles when the other girls giggle at my cross-stitch patterns. The world is full of far more important issues than the petty dramas that erupt in dance or French lessons.
Jenna continues to thrive and she seems to love her art classes the most. I do worry about the spring cold that she caught. Though she is mended now, it took her some time to recover. Do not tell her I’ve told you this. She does not want you worrying about her.
How does work at the bakery progress? Will you be buying that new oven? How is Hennie doing? Does she still miss her Susie? My heart goes out to her. Tell her I understand her loss, and that I too miss my own mother terribly. Send her my love. Please send word of real news soon.
Your friend,
Sally
“Susie,” I said. “Sally knew Susie and Hennie.”
Margaret laid the letter down. “Remember Mabel said her grandmother told her stories about a young slave girl?”
Keeping all the family connections straight was a challenge. “Sally was Mabel’s grandmother, and Mabel is a distant cousin of ours.”
“I don’t know,” Margaret said. “She never said a word to me about family connections. And Mom and Dad never said anything, either.”
“Well, Dad never talks about family. Losing his dad was painful so he just avoided the whole family tree thing altogether,” I said. And if Mom knew something she’d never really mentioned it. She knew I was a bit touchy when it came to discussing past relations seeing as I didn’t know mine.
We both reread the letter. “It sounds like Sally lost or had been separated from her mother, and that she understood what Hennie might be feeling.”
Susie. Jenna. Sally. All girls who’d lost their mothers. Like me.
Their losses made me take a hard look at mine. I could contact mine. She’d written me a letter—and I hadn’t done a damn thing about it but whine and worry. It was time to stop and rip the Band-Aid off. There was a woman out there who had answers, and I was ignoring her because I was afraid. Suddenly, my fear smelled like a big load of bullshit.
An hour later, I left the letters with an excited Margaret in her apartment and made my way back to the bakery. After a quick check of inventory and supplies, I headed up to my room and dug Terry’s letter out of the box where I’d stashed it weeks ago.
It wasn’t like me to run from trouble. In fact, I was the kid who ran toward it. My coworkers at Suburban often said Daisy never met a problem she didn’t like to ratchet up.
And here I’d been acting like the small child on the bakery patio eating her cookie and waiting more and more desperately for her mother to return.
As carefully as Margaret opened Sally’s letter, I opened Terry’s letter. My hands trembled and my breath grew shallow as I read the words: Thirty years ago . . .
Tears burned my eyes and I felt sick. Like it or not, I had to talk to this woman. She might be bogus. She might have answers. But one way or another, I needed to know.
Picking up my cell, I dialed the contact number in the letter. My heart hammered in my chest as the phone rang once. Twice. Three times. And on the fourth ring, voice mail picked up. “This is Terry Davis. I’m unable to answer my phone right now but leave a message, and you know I’ll get back.”
You know I’ll get back. I wanted to say that I do not know that. I wanted to say that I hated her for leaving and turning me into such a god damned basket case. I also wanted to tell her I loved her and I wanted her to say the same to me.
But instead of going into a long explanation, I let my breath trickle and leak slowly from my lungs before I said, “This is Daisy McCrae. I believe you sent a letter to my mother, Sheila McCrae.” Pause. Crap. Now what do I say? “I’m familiar with the little girl you mentioned. We might be able to help each other.”
I left my number, and then quickly hit End. I held the phone to my racing heart, wondering how long it would take her to return my call. What if she never called me back? What if she was a con artist who’d dug up old newspaper articles? What if she missed me all these years and was sorry?
I had no idea what to expect.
“Shit.”
Chapter Seventeen
I obsessively checked my voice mail each and every morning . . . oh, hell, I checked on the hour, every hour each day of the following few days. Now I was not only waiting for Ralph to call but Terry. There was no message or text from Ralph or Terry, however. Nothing. Nada. Two simple phone calls could have made my life so much easier and yet neither came.
I did check in with Florence and learned Mabel’s nephews were indeed in town. They’d hired an appraiser and were trying to figure out the value of the furnishings. Neither nephew was happy about the fact that the house couldn’t be sold but for now they’d accepted the terms of the will. I told Florence to call me if they got nasty. I knew attorneys. Margaret went through the letters one by one and had reported it was slow going. Time had faded the ink, and the attic heat had left many of the pages brittle. Many crumbled in her hands when she tried to open them so she’d contacted a preservationist.
As much as I wanted to care about the lette
rs, I couldn’t sum up any real interest. Even my interview with Ralph had faded to the background. My thoughts stayed glued on Terry.
I did an Internet search. Three times. I got a few hits on the name, but with no pictures I really couldn’t tell definitively who was who. I even pulled up Facebook and searched through every Terry Davis shown, thinking I’d spot someone who looked like me. I got nothing.
Frustrated, I shut off the computer, annoyed that I was sacrificing good sleep to chase down this woman who remained only a brief letter and a voice on an answering machine. You know I’ll get back.
And through all my emotional crap, the bakery business, unmindful of me, moved on as it always did. Customers. Orders. Deliveries. Repeat. Rachel and I dropped off more samples at the office buildings on Duke. We gave out quotes for parties. We booked two more weddings.
By Friday, I’d still heard nothing from Terry or Ralph, and my nerves surrendered to anger. Ralph owed me a damn call as did Terry, who had dropped a freaking grenade in my life and hadn’t bothered to return the call. Just my luck. Shit.
So I decided to take the bull by the horns. I went out to the back alley behind the Dumpster and called Ralph, the lesser of the two evils. I got his secretary first, who put me on hold. I wasn’t sure if she was going to put the call through when Ralph got on the line.
“Daisy,” he said. “I am so sorry I’ve not called you. It’s been a damn nightmare here.”
I forced a smile in my voice. “Hey, I know you’ve got to be swamped but I’m getting to the point where I either commit to you or the home business.” And that was true. I couldn’t keep accepting orders and marketing if I intended to bolt.
“It’s been a bitch getting the board of directors together so we can look at your resume.”
The committee hadn’t even looked at my resume? I’m not sure why that would have caused me to snap but it did. I was damn tired of being ignored and though I couldn’t do something about Terry, I could handle Ralph. “Ralph, take my name out of the hat. I don’t want the job.”
“Daisy, it’s just a matter of days.”
Maybe. Maybe not. “Either way, I appreciate the offer but I’m staying put.”
“You’re sure?”
No. “Yes.”
“If you change your mind . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Thanks.”
Carefully I closed the phone and kicked the Dumpster in a rush of frustration. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”
“You interview for a job?” Margaret’s voice echoed through the alley.
I started and turned and found her holding a bag of trash. Her expression was a mixture of shock and disbelief. “I just turned it down.”
“Why?”
I pressed my phone against my temple. “Because I have lost my mind.”
“Did you have a shot at it?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I shoved out a breath. “Because the guy I interviewed with was supposed to call me back and he didn’t and I just kind of decided if he didn’t have the manners to call he could bite it.”
Margaret crossed to the Dumpster and tossed in the trash. “Let me guess. You called Terry and she didn’t call you back.”
“How did you know?”
“You can’t get a hold of her so you’re going to hammer the next closest person—interview guy.”
I shoved fingers through my hair. “Crap. I just gave up a dream job.”
“Dreamier than this place?” she said with a smile.
“If the Smithsonian came to you with curator position, would you take it?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Well, I just passed on a job like that.”
Worry creased her forehead as the analogy took root. “Maybe if you call him back, you could tell him you went insane for a minute or two.”
“I thought you wanted me to stay.”
“If it’s the Smithsonian of the finance world, I can’t keep you from that.”
“Thanks. That means a lot.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “But I’m supposed to be here. I don’t know why, but I am.”
We stood there for a few minutes, saying nothing. Around the rumble of car engines, the blare of a police siren and rush of wind swirled around us.
“On a lighter note,” Margaret said, “I’ve been reading Sally’s letters.”
I softened the edges of my voice. “What have you found?”
“You’re probably not going to like it.”
I sighed. “Try me.”
“In the earliest letters, the girl mentions missing her mother often. She wishes she could see and hold her mother again. She was homesick for Virginia.”
My stomach burned with frustration. I did not want to feel so awful. “Sally was from Alexandria.”
“She never said exactly where, and I’ve found no record of her.” Margaret leaned against the brick wall of the bakery and folded her arms over her chest. “But that’s not a huge surprise. Lots of people vanished into history.”
“Anything else?”
“She speaks of her studies and of Jenna’s health, which improves and slides with the seasons. No more mention of Susie.”
“Why would she talk more about Susie?”
“I don’t know. Just thought she would. The trail on Susie went cold shortly before Sally’s first letter.”
“And the trail on Terry is cold.” The irony of the whole mess was not lost on me. I couldn’t connect with a birth mother or a damn kid from the past.
“Have you talked to Mom? I mean, she’s been pretty cool about this whole Terry thing.”
“I know I should. She is chomping at the bit about the whole thing. But I need neutral. I need Switzerland. A place without drama or emotion.”
A breeze teased the whips of hair framing her face. “I can see that.”
“I don’t have too many options.”
“Florence?” she suggested.
“The nephews have arrived.”
“I saw movers hauling furniture and boxes out. And when I caught glimpses of her in the front window, she was always talking to someone.”
I thought about the photo of Mabel and her nephew Thomas, who had eyes like mine. Dead Thomas. I wondered if there was another nephew who looked like me? Maybe I should go back and introduce myself.
That’s when I decided I was losing it.
“You got any friends?” Margaret said.
I laughed. “You mean other than Tammy?”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. I forgot. You didn’t make that many friends in high school.”
Perhaps it was my lack of choices that made me think about Gordon. “Mind if I take a break? I’ve mixed all your icings so you’ve got all you need for the cakes.”
“I got this,” she said.
“Rachel should have the girls settled from school in the next half hour, and she’ll help finish up.”
“I got this.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
I walked quickly up Union Street but slowed my pace when I saw the new bike shop sign dangling above the brick building’s door.
Through the big picture window now displaying bikes, I could see Gordon standing behind his counter surrounded by dozens of half-opened boxes. He was talking on his cell phone and gauging by the frown wrinkling his forehead he didn’t look happy. Good. We were a matched set.
I pushed through the front door, wincing as a doorbell jangled. Two rows of bikes took up a good chunk of the room. A neon sign in the back blinked RACE. A poster on the wall featured a Tour de France rider blazing through a field of sunflowers.
The bells caused him to lift his head. He winked and some of the ice in my chest melted. I flexed my fingers, aware I’d arrived empty-handed and I wished I’d brought something. Cookies. Cu
pcakes—something to give me an excuse for being here. Pushing my hands into my jeans pockets, I wondered why I felt like a teenager. As he spoke on the phone, I pretended to care about a bike hanging from the wall.
When he hung up, he ran long fingers through his hair. “Hey.”
“So who’s chewing on you?” I said.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “What makes you think someone is chewing on me?”
“You run your hands through your hair when you are upset. And right now your hair is standing on top of your head, Gordon. What gives? And don’t lie, I know you.”
That coaxed a grin. “Attorneys.”
“Good ones or bad ones? And yes, there are both kinds in the world.”
“Good ones, for now. They represent Suburban in a lawsuit from a former client.”
It made sense that some of Suburban’s clients would eventually sue. Billions had been lost while Gordon had been at the helm. “Do they represent you?”
“That was my question.”
“And?”
The frown returned. “Still waiting on that one.”
“Who is suing?” And then I held up my hand. “Let me guess. Consolidated, Travers, or Carpone.” I’d just rattled off the three biggest losers in the market crash.
“Travers. And they want a pound of flesh.”
I sighed. Everyone had been advised of the risks and still they’d kept their very big bets on the table. They’d known that Gordon’s lucky streak, like even the best poker players’, could end at any time. But they kept letting their bets ride. “The president at Travers is trying to save face with his board.”
“You were always clear with him about the risks and you stayed within the client’s investment guidelines.” Which was true. Gordon had never sugarcoated the fact that he was a high-stakes gambler.
“Thanks for saying that. It’s good to hear. Sometimes it’s hard to get past all the losses.”
“The market went sour. A lot of people got burned.” I’d been one of those who’d been burned and yet here I stood, consoling him.
“I might have talked about risks but I was arrogant. A decade of winning made me believe I was flameproof, and I got scorched.”
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