“Her first husband died in an accident, too. Pretty coincidental, isn’t it?”
If she was shocked, it didn’t show on her face. “What kind of accident?”
I handed her the obituary, which she read and handed back to me. “It says he fell during a hike. Do you know if Piper was with him when it happened?”
“Not yet, but I’ll find out more tomorrow. I’m going to go see his mother.”
“I suppose that’s fair enough. Let’s see what she says. In the meantime, back to your father and Leo. Can you tell me the ways in which they are alike?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; it felt a little condescending for her to prompt me like this. “Both of them are hardworking.”
“Good. What else?”
“I suppose both are more vulnerable than they let on.”
She leaned forward. “How so?”
“Both of them succumbed to the charms of a woman outside of their marriages. That suggests to me, if not a weakness in character, at least a weakness in resolve.” I wondered if Celeste’s husband had such a weakness and if she trusted him or not.
“I find it interesting that you refer to a weakness in character as ‘vulnerability.’ Why do you think that is?”
It was because I still believed in Leo and didn’t want to admit his character might be flawed. And, in my father’s case, it was because he’d lived in a miserable marriage for over twenty years. But I shrugged, not ready for her to try to disabuse me of my ideas. “I’m not sure.”
“Most women would vilify their husbands and call them names. Yet you continue to defend Leo, to say you want him back. By continuing to believe that Leo was coerced into infidelity, don’t you think you’re letting him off the hook too easily?”
“Maybe. I guess I haven’t wanted to allow myself to feel that anger, because I’m afraid if I do, it will swallow me up. But he is responsible. And he did wrong me.”
She was nodding. “Yes. He did. And it’s okay to feel that anger. This is a safe place.”
“How could he do that to me? After the way I took care of him and the children? My father might have had a reason to leave, but Leo didn’t.”
She rotated her hands, palms up. “These things happen sometimes. Why do you think it’s still so hard for you to forgive your father when you’ve said yourself that you understand what he did?”
“I forgave him a long time ago for leaving my mother—even for leaving me. After all, I was eighteen. But what I can’t forgive him for was replacing me.”
She looked puzzled. “Replacing you?”
I nodded at her. “With a new daughter. Four years younger than me. She wasn’t even his biological child, but I found out a few years after he left that he’d adopted her.”
“How did you find out?”
“My mother told me. She started following him, and she saw them together a year after he left. He told her everything then. How he was starting a new life with a new family.”
“That must have been very hurtful.”
Why did therapists always do this? It must be to prompt their patients to say more, but it always felt like a ridiculously obvious statement. I took a deep breath before responding. “Yes, it was. He even paid her college tuition, something he told my mother he couldn’t afford for me. He was more concerned about the future of a child who wasn’t biologically his. That’s what I can’t forgive. When all my friends left that August for colleges all over the country, I had to enroll at the community college, because without my dad I couldn’t afford the tuition for BU. Sometimes I wonder if he did it on purpose, to make me stay home and take care of my mother. He knew what she was like, that she’d be pestering me constantly with her complaints about how sick she was and how she needed help. What kind of man does that to his own child?”
“You’re right. That’s not fair at all.”
“The only reason I found out was because my mother told me—more evidence of what a bad person he was.”
“That was a terrible thing to do.”
“Terrible that he didn’t pay my tuition or terrible that she told me about it?”
“Both. They both let you down.”
I looked past her to the framed degrees hanging on the wall behind her. A bachelor’s from Springfield College and a master’s in social work from Syracuse University. “Did your father pay for your undergrad?” I asked, cocking my head.
She looked a bit surprised. “I’m not sure how that’s relevant.”
“I was just curious.”
Celeste rubbed her hand across her chin. “Would it be accurate to say that both your father and Leo abandoned you and gave their affection and resources to someone else in your place? And that perhaps, in Leo, you chose someone with the same character traits as your father?”
Please don’t pull any punches for my sake, I thought. “No, I don’t think that’s accurate,” I said, crossing my arms.
My father was a liar, a cowardly liar, I thought to myself. Leo was an honorable man who’d already been dealing with depression and feelings of inadequacy when he got caught in a web of someone else’s deceit—someone who was out to hurt my family. Was he responsible for his actions? Of course. But you could only blame the person for inviting the vampire into your home—you couldn’t blame them for falling victim to the bloodsucker’s thrall.
41
Piper
“We’re going to have a family game night,” Piper called out to the children, who were coming downstairs with Rebecca, fresh from their baths.
“Fun!” Evie said.
Piper had already set up the board for Sorry in the family room. As they took their seats, Rebecca brought in a plate of store-bought brownies.
The kids each grabbed one, as did Leo, who stuck his right in his mouth. “These are good!”
This woman really was getting on her nerves. Piper would have to talk to her again about all the sugar.
Stelli looked inside the Sorry box. “I want red. What color do you want, Dad?”
Leo shrugged. “You pick.”
“You can be yellow. Evie’s blue. You’re green, Rebecca.”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a long moment, then Rebecca spoke. “No, sweetie, the four of you are playing.”
“This whole idea was Piper’s, remember, pal?” Leo said, ruffling Stelli’s hair.
“Yeah,” Stelli mumbled.
Piper knew her face had flushed. “I guess I’m green.” She forced a cheerful tone into her voice. “Stelli, why don’t you go first?”
He picked a card. “Three!” He moved his pawn onto the board.
As they started to play, Rebecca withdrew from the room, and Piper felt the tension in the room dissolving.
“Are you looking forward to the long weekend?” Leo asked. “You get to skip a day of school.”
“I am,” Evie said. “I got a new Nancy Drew book, and I’m going to read all weekend.”
Piper smiled. “I have a surprise for you.”
“What?”
“I found all my old Nancy Drew books in a box I’d put in the attic. I took them with me when I left home. The whole series. They’re yours if you want them.”
Evie jumped up and down. “Really? Yes, thank you, Piper.”
Leo gave her a warm smile and reached out to squeeze her hand.
“Are we playing or talking?” Stelli interjected.
Leo laughed. “My little man. Soon you’ll be ready for poker.”
Stelli bit his lip as he picked up his card, then a grin transformed his face. He lifted his pawn and brought it down hard on one of Piper’s, knocking it from the board. “Sorrrrryyyy!” he yelled with glee.
“Geez, Stelli, you knocked her piece off the board,” Evie said.
“It’s okay,” Piper said, leaning to retrieve it from under the table, where she could grit her teeth without being seen. She sat back up again. “Good move, Stel.”
“It’s Stelli,” he corrected her.
Even Leo
was starting to look annoyed. “Stelli, be nice.”
The boy looked at his father, then burst into tears. “I don’t want her here! I want my mommy!” He ran from the room, and Leo jumped up and ran after him.
Piper looked over at Evie, whose eyes were filling. So much for game night.
“Are you okay?” Piper asked.
Evie looked down at the table and shrugged. “I miss her, too, but I know she’s not coming back. Stelli doesn’t understand. He thinks she’d come back if you weren’t here.”
“I wish there were some way I could help him,” Piper said.
Evie pushed her chair back from the table. “I’m gonna go see how he’s doing. Mommy told me that I have to look out for him.”
Piper shook her head as Evie walked away. This was getting out of hand. She took her wine, grabbed a fleece, and went outside to sit. Things were not going as planned. She hadn’t realized when she married Leo that Stelli was going to be such a thorn in her side. When she’d gotten together with Matthew, she’d anticipated that Mia might be difficult—after all, she was the spoiled preteen daughter of a mother who hated Piper. But Stelli and Evie were so young and adorable, she really thought they’d accept her and the four of them could be a family—especially without the influence of a mother poisoning them against her.
But Stelli just couldn’t let his mother go. She stayed outside for another half hour, stewing, until she saw a shadow moving through the house and, looking, saw that Leo had returned to the first floor. The screen door opened, and he came out and took a seat in the rocker across from her.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
Leo nodded. “Yeah. You just need to give him time.”
Once again, Piper had been relegated to second best by the man in her life. When was she going to learn that the children always came first? She’d seen it with Matthew. No matter what kind of trouble Mia caused between them, it was always, Poor Mia, she’s having a hard time with the divorce. Or, Poor Mia, it’s so disruptive going back and forth between two houses. Mia had made up her mind from the minute Piper began dating Matthew that she was going to do everything in her power to come between them. Whenever they’d go somewhere in the car, Mia would jump in the front seat and scream Shotgun, and Matthew would give Piper a tilt of the head while wearing that sappy expression that begged her not to say anything. Mia would try on Piper’s clothes and leave them in a heap on her closet floor, take naps in their bedroom, and she even borrowed, then lost, her wedding band. Matthew never did a thing about any of it.
And still, Piper tried. She offered to take Mia for mani-pedis, or to drive her and her friends around, but Mia told her that’s what she had a mother for. Fortunately, they had her only on weekends, so weekdays were blissful—just Piper and Matthew in their sprawling house on the Pacific Ocean. They’d fall asleep with the balcony door open, listening to the crash of the waves, the smell of salt air filling the room. And then the day that brought it all to a screeching halt—all because of Mia.
Things would be different this time. Piper was going to make sure of that.
“Why don’t we go inside?” Leo said.
Piper was about to stand when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and, pulling it out, put it to her ear. “Hello?” She froze when she heard the voice on the other end.
“Hello, Pamela.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I have somber news.”
She gripped the phone tighter, stood, and walked to the far end of the deck. “What is it?”
“Your father passed away. He had a cerebral hemorrhage in his sleep. I’m told he didn’t suffer, that it was instantaneous.”
Leave it to her mother to convey even this news in her robotic, unfeeling manner.
“When?” was all she could manage to get out.
“He expired last Tuesday.”
Expired? As if he were a carton of yogurt. “Why didn’t you call me then? I would have come right away.”
“Why? Your being here wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“I could have been with you. I could have said goodbye to him,” Piper choked out.
“I told you. Your being here was unnecessary. Everything’s been taken care of.”
Piper went cold. “Did you have the funeral without me?” She was incredulous. “Why are you bothering to call me at all, then?”
She heard an intake of breath. “You haven’t been home once in all the years since you left, so I didn’t rush to call you. I just thought you ought to know, that’s all.”
Piper was silent.
“There’s an online obituary. If you want to leave a comment there, you may, but since you weren’t interested in being in touch while he was alive, I don’t see why you want to pretend to care now.” Her mother hung up, and Piper began to cry.
Leo looked at her with concern. “What’s happened?”
“My father died.”
A wave of dizziness overcame her; she walked back over to the rocker and lowered herself into it. Her heart was beating furiously, and tears were running down her face. Leo was suddenly next to her, pulling her into his arms. She didn’t know what she was feeling, except that deep, racking sobs were shaking her now.
So that was it. Her father was dead and gone, and her mother hadn’t even thought to call her until a week later. Even though she’d left her childhood home with no intention of ever going back, she realized now that she’d always hoped for some kind of reconciliation, for a time when her parents might realize their own part in abandoning her, first emotionally, and then literally, by never looking for her when she took off. Now, that hope was dead and gone, along with her father. How could her mother be so cold? Was she so unlovable that, even now, when her mother was grieving and utterly alone, she didn’t want Piper’s company?
Leo led her back into the house, and she sank down into the living room sofa. He sat next to her, holding her while she focused on her breathing, willing herself to calm down. She would put it behind her, like so many other painful episodes in her past. Her mother may now be alone, but she wasn’t. She had Leo. And Evie and Stelli. They were her family now, her perfect family, and she would pour all her efforts into them.
42
Joanna
I can’t remember the last time I’d taken a long road trip, and I found the drive to Annapolis calming. Cruising along and watching the scenery roll by gave me time to think and reflect. As I discover more and more about Piper and her past, Leo’s behavior seems less of a betrayal than I first thought. He could never be accused of being naive or easily fooled, but it’s obvious to me that there is something about Piper that allows her to insinuate herself into even the smartest man’s affections. Leo is the type of man women find intriguing. He’s strong and masculine, and at the same time solicitous and generous—of men and women equally. His only fault, as far as I’m concerned, is that he’s a workaholic.
Hard work and long hours came naturally to him by way of his father, who kept the restaurant open seven days a week. I thought about the last time I saw the family. They were all at the house, Leo’s parents and his two brothers with their wives and children. It seemed there were kids running around everywhere, and Evie and Stelli were having a great time with all their cousins. I spent most of my time in the kitchen with Leo’s mother. She and the other women in the family had brought trays and trays of delicious and aromatic Greek food, and we were busy heating things and transferring them to platters. It was a veritable feast, as it always was when the family got together.
It always astounded me that a family could be so large and so close, since my upbringing was singularly lonely. It was fascinating to watch them all together, and it was apparent that they adored Leo. He was the one who had made it big, the first to go to college. And then, when he continued on to law school and became a lawyer, he really became the golden boy.
My thoughts were interrupted by heavy traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, and I had to concentrate more car
efully on my driving. Eventually, I crossed into Delaware and then decided to stop at a rest area for lunch once I hit the Maryland border. When I pulled into the parking lot, I punched the address into my phone’s GPS and saw that I was about an hour away from Ethan Sherwood’s parents’ home.
I’d never been to Annapolis, and when I finally pulled off the highway at exit 28, I began to see why it had been called one of the most charming cities in the country. I passed by large rivers and meandering creeks as I drove to their house, which was at the end of the road on a small peninsula. I pulled up to a beautifully landscaped lot, with seagrasses and graceful trees, and parked on the street. The house was a three-story yellow shingle with a turret room and large front porch.
I breathed in, feeling nervous, and paused for a moment before ringing the bell. Almost immediately, the door opened, and a woman who looked to be in her late sixties stood in front of me.
“Hello, I’m Joanna.”
“Yes, hello, I’m Trish,” she said, running a hand through her silver hair. She had a nice smile and warm brown eyes that put me at ease. “Please, come in. Why don’t we go sit in the living room?”
I followed her down a wide hallway to the back of the house. “Can I get you something to drink? Perhaps some coffee? Or something cold?” she asked.
“Are you having anything?” I asked, not wanting to put her to trouble.
“I usually have an herbal tea in the afternoon.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said.
Trish returned with a tray holding two cups of tea along with milk and sugar and set it down on the coffee table. She handed me a cup, took her own, and then sat in a chair opposite me. “Now, dear, what is it I can help you with?”
I had thought about this carefully beforehand. Since I wasn’t sure of the Sherwoods’ feelings for Piper/Pamela, or if they were even still in contact, I didn’t want to reveal my suspicions, so I’d come up with a slightly different scenario to present. “I’m not sure if you know that Pamela’s living in Connecticut now.”
“Actually, we lost touch a few years after Ethan died. The last time we spoke she was living in California. San Diego.”
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