All About Evie (ARC)

by Cathy Lamb

  was grieving for my grandma, which had triggered grief for my mom, I didn’t. I haven’t. My grandma left her house to me and her money. She had a lot, actually, because my granddad had worked for forty years for the railroad. I went to rehab, and this time I committed to it and dealt with losing my mom. I got my GED, then I went to college and became a teacher, and I met Eric at the beach one day in California, where I’d moved to get away from all my memories, and that was it. Eric is the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met. His background is messy, too, but we decided we would give our kids a safe and happy life.”

  “And now you have five beautiful kids.”

  She grinned. “And . . .” She leaned in. “I’ve got a bun in the oven again.”

  We laughed and clicked our coffee mugs together. “But tell me, Evie. I can see something in you, something’s troubling you about my moving here. Don’t deny it. What’s going on?”

  “Oh!” I hesitated. “I feel so guilty, Emily,” I whispered, gutted. “Ever since your mom was killed, this guilt has stalked me.

  I forgot to check what she was wearing the night she was killed.

  It was my fault. I let my excitement about the Halloween dance get to me and your mom died because I wasn’t watching carefully enough.”

  “Evie, you were a kid. We were kids. You told us about that premonition. I should have noticed her clothes, too, but I didn’t.

  My mom obviously didn’t even notice and you told her what outfit she would be wearing. She didn’t believe you could see the future anyhow. I finally don’t feel guilty anymore. It was entirely Gavin’s fault. If you had interfered with that premonition that night, he would have killed her another night. He beat her up all the time. She’d told him several times to get out, she didn’t want him there anymore, and each time he’d flip out. He even threatened to kill me if she left him. Gavin would never willingly have allowed her to leave him. Never. He was going to kill her whether or not you interfered. I didn’t tell you half the stuff that was going on even though you were my best friend. I was scared to death of him.”

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  I thought about that. I hadn’t known that he’d threatened to kill her on multiple occasions, that he’d threatened to kill Emily, too. But maybe Emily was right. I had seen one scenario. If I had interfered that time, what was the likelihood that Gavin would have tried again? It was high. Extremely high. The abuse would not have stopped and Patsy would have eventually left, or tried to leave, to protect Emily, and he would have come after her. I exhaled. Deeply. I think it was the first deep breath I’d taken around this issue ever. “I am so sorry, Emily, though. I am.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. You need to forgive yourself. You need to let it go. You need to not blame yourself for one more day, Warrior Friend. Zombie Fighter. Dragon Slayer Girl. This was not your fault, it was not your responsibility.”

  I smiled through overwhelming relief. “King Kong Wrestler.

  Space Alien Fighter. Queen of Lily Pads Island.”

  “Best friend,” she said, hugging me. “I’m so sorry you suffered like this, Evie. I truly am.”

  “Best friend, I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me too, Evie. We’ll be Zombie Fighters again in no time.”

  “May the power be with us! We’ll just have to make sure we’re Zombie Fighters around your kids’ nap times.”

  “And I won’t be a fast Zombie Fighter the huger I get.” She patted her stomach.

  I couldn’t believe it. Within three days Eric and Emily found a home on the island overlooking the ocean, with land for “all the monsters to run around on,” Emily said. “Also. We’re getting chickens and goats.” They had bought the land where her former home stood. They would demolish the house and planned to build a playground there for the town.

  Her kids ran over to us on her new property, and I hugged all of them. Emily had introduced me as Aunt Evie.

  “You were our mom’s best friend when you were a kid!”

  Alexi said, her toothless smile so cute.

  “My best friend still,” Emily said, hugging me.

  The kids hugged me again and I ended up tackled on the ground, giggles all around.

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  * * *

  That night, after I had dinner with Emily and Eric and the kids, I went home, exhausted. Kids are tiring. I put on my red boots. Mr. Bob and Trixie Goat were out again, but I didn’t have the energy to get mad. They skipped right over to me, all victorious and happy, and walked with me while I did my animal rounds, feeding and taking care of everybody.

  I said hello to Virginia Alpaca and Alpaca Joe. Joe spit, his spit relentless, Virginia Alpaca let me pet her. I visited with the lambs, who followed the mother in a line to the fence so I could pet them. “Greetings, Padre, Momma, Jay Rae, Raptor, and The TMan.”

  I talked to Shakespeare and Jane Austen and gave them their hay. The cats twisted in and out between my legs, then sped off to find mice to catch, and Butch and Cassidy barked. Sundance, as usual, was right by my side. My best furry friend.

  I sat on the beach with my arm around Sundance and thought about Miss Patsy and Emily.

  Emily had gone through a dark, black, scary place for years when she lost her mother.

  I had felt guilty for years.

  She had let it go, so now I needed to let my guilt go, too.

  I stared up at the night sky, a handful of stars glimmering, and said, “I love you, Miss Patsy. I am sorry.”

  I swear I saw a whale blow his spout in the distance.

  I took that as a spiritual sign, as Aunt Camellia would have said, and laughed.

  “Johnny, Betsy, Tilly, and Kayla are coming up Friday night to see me.”

  My mother, aunts, and I were sitting in the gazebo. They were drinking wine. I was drinking lemonade. It was dusk, the wisteria leaves floating in the wind above us.

  “They must hate me,” my mother said, her hand an unsteady mess as she pushed her hair behind her ears.

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  “They must hate us,” Aunt Camellia said, her voice breaking.

  “There can be no emotional spectrum in which they wouldn’t.”

  “We deserve it,” Aunt Iris said. “It’s clear when one takes a moment to rationally see this from their side.”

  All three of them seemed tired. Older. Sad to their bones. I felt bad about that.

  “They won’t hate you,” I said. “They’re not here to hate anyone. They want to meet me.”

  My mother straightened up from her hunched position. “I was wrong to deny them you, Evie.” She hunched back down, as if too tired to sit up straight, which was so unlike my mother.

  I didn’t argue with her. My whole chest felt tight. I loved my mother and my aunts. I still felt betrayed. They had denied me the truth of my own life. I would rather hear the truth than live in a fuzzy haze of a reality that is not real. Plus, there were ex-tenuating circumstances: My premonitions, which Betsy could have helped me with. My parents and aunts knew I struggled with depression, that I mysteriously felt lost and alone throughout my life, and they probably guessed why that was, but did nothing. Plus, Betsy and Johnny had been so young when they’d had me, then lost me. Was there no sympathy for them?

  This whole thing had shaken my world like I was in the center of a snow globe. It had turned my relationships with my parents, though my father was long gone, and my aunts upside down.

  “This is a hard situation,” I said.

  My mother and aunts were miserable. They seemed to have shrunk and aged since I’d found out about Johnny and Betsy.

  They were worn out, guilt-ridden. I knew all about guilt and I didn’t want them to live with it.

  “It’s hard for them, for me, for you all.” I took a deep breath.

  They loved me, I loved them. I knew that my aunts saw Jules and me as their own daughters. Forgiveness had to come into play here. “There’s been enough pain. You know what would make this s
ituation better?”

  They all three sat up. “What, honey, tell me,” my mother said. “I’ll do anything.”

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  “Me too,” Aunt Camellia said, her face blotchy from tears.

  “I have been reaching out to the universe to bring peace to this situation, love. I, too, worry they will hate us. More than that, I worry every day that you hate me.”

  “Tell me what to do,” growled Aunt Iris, although she was choking back emotion, too. “Be practical and spit it out.”

  “Make them hats.”

  That was an extremely popular suggestion.

  Their faces brightened. Hope came from sadness, light came from darkness, joy came from guilt and regret. “We’ll do it!”

  they said together.

  “I love you all,” I whispered. “I truly do.”

  “We love you, too,” they said, together again, as if on cue.

  We are an emotional bunch and had a long hug in the gazebo, the wisteria floating around us.

  Sundance squished his way in and barked. He likes group hugs.

  “Evie,” Mr. Jamon croaked over the phone, then coughed.

  “Did you get the new romance I ordered?”

  “Yes, it’s here.” I had it right under the cash register at the bookstore.

  “I’ll come get it.”

  “Hang on. You sound terrible. Are you sick?”

  “Pneumonia. That’s why I need that book.”

  “Mr. Jamon, don’t you dare. I’m coming up.”

  “No, no. I can do it.” He coughed like a fiend.

  “Stay in bed, or I’ll have my mother call and yell at you.”

  “Dang. You would do that to me? You play hardball. Lord knows I do not need your mother on my case. Okay. I’ll see you when I see you. These romances are helping me see life through the eyes of a woman, and it’s been a fascinating and enlighten-ing experience. You know I still believe in love, Evie!”

  I left the bookstore for Mr. Jamon’s.

  I’d never been to his house, which was odd, as the island was small, but I didn’t want to simply wander up onto his property.

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  Mr. Jamon was somewhat of a hermit, too, quite private. He’d been that way for decades and did not invite many people up the mountain.

  I’d been at the bookstore since six that morning and needed a break, needed time to think. It was a shiny, lovely day. My mind was on two things as I drove up that curving mountain road: Marco, and my aching, throbbing heart, and Johnny, Betsy, Kayla, and Tilly coming that night to take me to dinner.

  I imagined making passionate love to Marco as I drove, then shoved it out of my mind when I arrived at Mr. Jamon’s sprawling house at the top with panoramic views. He had made omelets with vegetables from his garden, despite the pneumonia. We had a nice chat. I made him take the medicine the doctor prescribed him even though he called it a “pharmaceutical rip-off! Mumbo jumbo medicine. The doctor’s a quack.”

  He loved the romance books I brought him. “My feminine side was buried for decades, but I’m finding it now, Evie. I’m finding it, and Dorothy seems to like it!”

  Dorothy was his new girlfriend, three years his junior.

  “Watch out for Chief Ass Burn,” he croaked out to me when I left. “I heard he’s got a thing for you. He’s a serpent. A bad one. I’ve told him to back off and stay away from you.”

  That was sweet. Chivalry was not dead.

  “That one wouldn’t know how to woo a woman. I know

  how now because of all my romances. I’ve got it down! Ask Dorothy!”

  “I’ll watch out. Thanks for the omelet.”

  “Drive carefully. Watch out for the curves as you’re headed down the mountain. There are blind corners, so don’t rush.”

  “I’ll do that, Mr. Jamon. Take your meds tonight.”

  “You’re as bossy as your mother and your aunts, the old battle-axes.” He winked.

  I laughed.

  I kept my windows down for fresh air, the mountain road curving here and there, tight, one lane, my mind back on Marco, then on Johnny and Betsy and the dinner tonight. I was

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  excited to see them. I was worried. I was a tad-bit anxious. I was feeling tearful already, and emotional, and all fizzled up inside. Like an almost-exploding can of pop that had not been opened yet.

  Betsy. Johnny. Kayla. My aunt Tilly. All of them. New family.

  What would they be like? Would they like me? Would I like them? What role would they have in my life going forward?

  What did they want? What did I want?

  Tonight we would meet at a restaurant in town.

  I took the curve, mountain on my right, the cliff to my left.

  Orange poppies. So pretty. My mother and aunts love them, and not only because of my mother’s name. They love the delicacy of that flower, how it grows without help, how it flows into the meadows here on the island, around ponds and lakes, like an orange shawl . . . and yet those flowers had haunted me my whole life because . . . because . . .

  “Oh, God,” I whispered, shocked, scared. “Oh no. Not now, please, not now.”

  I took the turn, and there it was.

  My premonition. My oldest premonition. The one in which one of us died.

  Probably.

  C h a p t e r 3 4

  Betsy Baturra

  San Orcanita Island

  2012

  Betsy glanced at the cliff below her to the right as she drove around the curve, her windows halfway down, the wind warm.

  San Orcanita Island was the most serene, peaceful place she’d ever been, but she knew it was because her daughter was here, her daughter Rose. She smiled, then she laughed, the notes dancing through the open window and out around the blue-green island.

  She could not wait for dinner tonight with her daughter. Her daughter!

  She and Johnny, Tilly, and Kayla had come to the island on an early ferry and had breakfast in town. They took a drive to the bucolic blue lake at the campground and hiked the two-mile loop. Then Johnny wanted to go back to their bed-and-breakfast

  “for a nap, to rest my bones.” Kayla and Tilly wanted to shop in town. Betsy had wanted to take a drive, to explore this exquisite place where her Rose lived. She drove up the mountain, away from the lake, the road curving, the view of the ocean sparkling, the sailboats white dots between the other green islands.

  She saw the orange poppies growing on the side of the road.

  She had always loved poppies, but they had haunted her all

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  these years because she knew they were in the premonition that she’d had her whole life, knowing that it meant death. Probably.

  Her hands suddenly gripped the steering wheel. She felt as if she was choking.

  “Oh no,” she said out loud, realizing what was happening.

  “Oh, God, no. Not now, please.”

  The blue truck appeared around the curve, the road so tight, too tight for both of them.

  Betsy saw the flash of black hair. She had seen a photo of her daughter when she saw her name on the ancestry website and had eagerly looked her up, landing on the Books, Cake, and Tea website. She had been stunned by the likeness. Betsy was looking at herself decades ago.

  So now she knew. It was Rose in the truck, her beloved daughter. She was in the premonition she had had all her life, starting from when she was a child, where one of them dies, or both of them, probably, maybe. Betsy made an instant decision, her heart clenching, her eyes filling with tears. She saw Johnny’s face. She saw Kayla, still in high school. She saw Tilly. But she would not lose this child, her oldest, her firstborn. Her love.

  The child who had never, not for a day, left her heart. Her Rose.

  Betsy didn’t hesitate. She turned the wheel of her car hard to the right and headed straight over the cliff. She had sensed death in this shifting, changing premonition; it had been fuzzy, but she would not let
Rose die. She was her mother, after all. A mother would die for her child in an instant. Now was her instant.

  My eyes locked on the other driver coming right toward me in the red car. I saw a flash of black hair. I saw eyes like mine. It was Betsy. It was my biological mother. Shock paralyzed me for a second as my truck continued to plow down the road. One of us would die, probably, or both of us. It was foggy, but death hung heavy over this day.

  But Betsy had a daughter, Kayla. She was only a teenager. I had no children, and her daughter needed her. She should live,

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  not me. Betsy had also spent ten torturous years in prison. She had endured enough pain and loss in her life. It was my turn.

  I turned the wheel of my truck left, toward the cliff. I would go. Betsy would live.

  But . . . what in the world? Her red car turned right as I turned left . . .

  C h a p t e r 3 5

  “All of Serafina’s shiny rainbow scales were now in the glass jar owned by King Koradome. He laughed and laughed when the last scale, a red one, appeared through the waves. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I am the owner of the most beautiful scales in the world.

  They are all mine, forever mine.’ Then he cackled evilly, which made all the fish and dolphins around him swim off, as they could recognize danger when they heard it.”

  “Was Serafina sad?”

  “A little. But she had saved a fisherman in a storm, which is why she lost her last scale, so she knew she’d done the right thing. Afterwards she and her sisters and brothers went to explore a cave together and they made pearl necklaces so she felt better.”

  “What did King Koradome do with all of her scales except stare at them and do the evil laugh thing?”

  “Well, a magical thing happened then.”

  “What?”

  “King Koradome didn’t know the whole story. He used his own magic to take Serafina’s scales away every time she did something kind for someone else, but he wasn’t a smart merman. He didn’t know that the rainbow-colored scales would dissolve into dust when they were all together again until they were returned to the owner.”