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“Clara’s all over that place.”
And maybe he was, too—a bereft teenage version of Josh that wouldn’t loosen his grip on the grown man. “It might be time to face her and yourself.”
“You’re a psychologist all of a sudden?”
She shrugged. “Is this house any easier to be in?”
His face turned ruddy, as if he were ashamed of the tears that had turned her back into a fighter. “I haven’t stayed in that house for longer than a weekend since I left for college.” And he’d left the second he was able to.
She stood, still and silent. He had to decide. She’d made her decision, but she couldn’t force Josh to try again.
He turned. She let him reach the stairs before she spoke, and she spoke over the feeling she was strangling.
“Wait.”
He stopped without looking back. “What?”
“Maybe I’m not being fair, but I do wish you’d come.”
With his back to her, he tensed his shoulders. More eloquent than words, resentment carried him downstairs.
Lydia grabbed at the wall. Suddenly exhausted, she limped to their bedroom. They’d already perfected the silent sharing of a bed, each clinging to one side. She kicked off her shoes, lay down and pulled the quilt Evelyn had given her on her last birthday up to her shoulders.
SITTING AT the family room desk, Josh tried to concentrate on paying the bills that had piled up while Lydia was in the hospital. He ruined four checks and five envelopes.
Memories, never far from his mind, rushed at him, claws outstretched. His parents had been unconscious when he’d come home from his first day of high school. Revolted at the sight of his mother and father sprawled on matching sofas, he’d expected the worst—with no idea how bad it would be. He’d searched the house for Clara.
He’d found her dollhouse, abandoned, her lunch, half eaten. He’d found her body, floating in the filthy swimming pool in their back yard. He couldn’t save her. He barely remembered the paramedics dragging him away from Clara after his mother had finally awakened to his screams and dialed 911.
Though he couldn’t stop loving his parents, he’d also hated them since that day. Nothing—not a visit, not brainwashing—could change the facts.
But his hard feelings couldn’t help Lydia. If she needed comfort—and for some ungodly reason, his parents were love enough for her, how could he refuse to go?
Swearing inside his head, he climbed the stairs. He’d expected to find Lydia reading. Instead, she was burrowed inside a quilt his mom had made for her. The vulnerability of her slight body sealed his fate.
He eased the door shut and started packing the car. He turned their Halloween candy over to the neighbors, asking them to hand it out, and he packed his clothes. Then, he called his parents.
His father answered. “Josh, is something wrong?”
“Lydia’s fine. She mentioned that Mom asked us to come up for a few weeks?”
“Yeah.” His dad sounded stunned. Too stunned to make it easier on Josh.
“Well, do you mind if we take her up on that?”
“No, son. Come. Yes, Evelyn, he wants to come up.”
His mother’s voice came through the phone. “You’re coming? I’m so happy. When?”
“Lydia’s been napping. I’m going to wake her up so I can pack some of her things. We should be there by dinner.”
“Tonight?” He might have offered her the recipe for turning lead into gold. “We’ll be ready. I need to make the bed in your old room. We’ll have lobster. Bart, run down to the market and get some corn. Even if it’s not fresh, it’s Lydia’s favorite. I think I’ll make homemade peach ice cream.”
“Okay, Mom. Thanks. I’ll call when we’re almost there.”
“Don’t bother. Just come and we’ll see you when you get here. Josh, I’m so pleased.”
“Thanks for the invite.” His parents were already talking to each other when he hung up. He put his bag in the back of the car and spread a sheet on the backseat, hoping he could persuade Lydia to rest on the drive up, rather than sitting for four hours.
Finally, he eased to her side of the bed and rubbed her shoulder. She opened her eyes and focused on him. “Hi.”
“Want to go to my mom and dad’s?”
She sat up, a hint of light in her eyes at last. “Are you coming?”
As if she’d given him a choice, but he was doing this because she needed it, and he wasn’t about to let himself resent her. “Yes.”
“When do you want to leave?”
“We just have to pack your things. Tell me what you want and I’ll put everything in a bag for you.”
“What about Halloween?” She rubbed her face. “I feel as if I’m still asleep.”
“I asked Mrs. Dover to hand out our candy.” A retired teacher, she had a way with children.
“Good.” Lydia grinned. “I’d hate to find our door soaped when we get back.”
Hell, he was just relieved she could think of returning. “What do you need?”
She shoved the quilt down to her knees and crawled out, grimacing as the movement hurt her. “I’ll pack for myself.”
He got out of her way and dragged her bag from the back of the closet to the end of the bed.
“We should call your mom,” she said, grabbing her things.
“I did.”
Lydia stood over her suitcase, clothing spilling over her arms. “Evelyn must have fainted.”
“She was happy.” He’d dreamed of a real family until he was sixteen and they’d come home and brought him back to Kline, Maine, with them. He’d been grateful to escape the foster home where he’d milked cows and felt bitter for nearly two years, but he hadn’t expected family life back in Kline. He’d never been able to believe in it or his parents.
“What changed your mind, Josh?”
Still mired in the past, he didn’t understand.
She read the question in his eyes. “About going to Maine.”
“You needed to see Mom and Dad.”
Puzzled, she dropped her clothes and then tried to bunch them into a tidy pile. With a few deft moves, she folded all the pieces that had seeped over the edge of the suitcase. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Before either of them could ruin the moment, he fished out their coats and carried them to the car. When he realized she might try carrying her suitcase down the stairs, he hurtled back inside.
Lydia was putting on his favorite sweater. Soft, green, touchable, a shade that deepened her eyes so that he could barely make himself look away from them. Her head popped out of the V-neck. She looked embarrassed to be caught dressing—by her own husband—and confused about his abrupt return.
“What’s up?”
He shook his head, swallowing an accusation that she was treating him like a stranger. “You ready?”
“As soon as I add toiletries.” She tossed toothpaste and various other items into her bag, then she brushed her hair into place with her fingers and grabbed her purse off the dresser. “Ready.”
He scooped the quilt off the bed. Downstairs, he turned off the lights and then outside, he opened the back passenger door. Lydia hung back. “What?”
He held up the quilt. “I thought you could rest. It’s a long drive.”
“I’ll climb in the back if I get tired.”
“Come on, Lydia. Let me have my way. You’ve been a little more active each day, which I assume means the rest is helping you.” Physically, at least. He couldn’t say the silence in their house spelled recovery for either of them.
“I’m all right.” She touched his arm, willingly. His chest tightened. “I’m better.”
He opened the front door and helped her inside. As soon as he started the engine, she punched in her favorite radio station. Some guy sang about memories of love. Josh glanced at Lydia. Her smile startled him because it came from inside.
He smiled, too, but he had to look away from her. Making her happy felt too good.
THE NEEDLE on the gas gauge was dropping toward a quarter tank as he took the exit for Kline, Maine—named for Reverend Levi Kline, a sixteenth-century hellfire-and-brimstone minister whose influence still obscured most kindness in Josh’s hometown.
He drove down a long ramp between tall pines and far-off hardwoods, almost bare of fall leaves. He always felt more like a stranger than a prodigal son. No one in town had mentioned his parents’ way with a bottle, but disapproval had followed him down every street.
He’d escaped Kline’s small-town, fish-eye interest the morning after he’d graduated from high school. People described New Englanders as stand-offish. Not if you’d grown up among them in a family that provoked notice for all the wrong reasons.
He’d buried himself on the large city campus of Boston College and continued to remain unnoticed through law school. One thing a lobsterman’s son could count on in those days of dwindling catches had been plenty of financial aid.
During law school, a Commonwealth Supreme Court judge had selected him as his clerk. Afterward, he’d turned down six-figure starting salaries to keep his unspoken promises. Success often made him forget he was the town drunks’ son who wasn’t supposed to amount to anything.
Lydia beamed with appreciation at the quaint bandstand on the square and the Victorian houses that lined the west side. “Think of the history the people who’ve lived in those homes have seen. A woman from Colorado can’t even believe places like this are real.”
Her excitement annoyed him—like always. “I’ve got plenty of history—and it’s real enough.”
“Didn’t you know good times here, too?”
“You want the truth? I’m good at my job. People come to me for advice. I get offers—big offers that would mean a lot more to us than a town house.” He felt her gaze on him. Her hard gaze. “What?”
“I don’t care about offers. I’m beginning to hate your job. What about us? You can’t measure success by our marriage.”
“Maybe I don’t write you sonnets everyday, but I thought we were safe and settled.”
“That makes a girl’s heart beat faster.” She’d learned a thing or two about sarcasm. “We began growing apart the day you decided I could wait for your free time. Marriage takes effort, too.”
Starting to feel harried, he slapped the turn signal to indicate a right.
“Go ahead,” she said. “You were saying you’re successful.”
“Some people think so. I did.” Like her, he dropped the argument neither of them was going to win. “But every time I drive down these streets, I’m eighteen again, trying to escape. Look how my parents’ neighbors still stare.” He nodded at an elderly woman who was already too busy storing up gossip to recognize bitterness in his smile he shot her way. “I hid my family secrets. I let my mother and father make Clara’s life a living hell because I had this gut feeling no one else was ever supposed to know what went on behind our doors.”
“But didn’t you have good times?” Apparently, she had to insist. She pointed ahead of them. “Look at that Founder’s Day banner. That means a fair.”
“That happened over a month ago.”
“Don’t they celebrate with a fair? With games and cotton candy?”
“And food for the ducks,” he said, remembering the feel of his sister’s hand in his. A memory too poignant to face for long. “See that pond on the library side of the square?”
Lydia nodded.
“There’s a little cove where those tall reeds grow that has just enough room for two kids. Clara always said it was our spot for feeding the ducks—and they’d swim over the second we started down the hill toward them. I used to take bread for them when I came home.”
“Not since I’ve known you.”
“I couldn’t without explaining.” The truth fought to stay hidden still. “The bad stuff is hard enough to talk about. The good times…” A grown man didn’t talk about his breaking heart.
He almost missed the turn by the brick schoolhouse where he and Clara had attended kindergarten. He never passed the ancient church where they’d buried her without anguish that was like a band across his chest.
“We should bring flowers,” Lydia said.
Small, square and brown, climbing with ivy, but nowhere near as impressive as the brick edifice erected by new money in the “good” part of Kline, the church felt like ground where Clara would always be waiting. She hadn’t been old enough to understand death. Neither had he, but he’d learned in one swift, hard lesson.
Clearing his throat, he turned toward the coast road. “Maybe.”
The ocean’s salty scent greeted them. His father’s family had been lobstermen since—who knew when? Ironically, since Josh and Clara had lived in such poverty, Bart Quincy owned a plot of the richest land in Kline.
Back in the old days, overgrown sea grass had separated the white house from the narrow road. The oversized Cape Cod had looked a little drunk itself, a square, peaked box, in peeling paint gone gray with neglect.
Now a clean picket fence separated Quincy land from folks hiking toward the ocean. Fir trees, holly bushes and a neat lawn bordered the driveway.
“If only you and Clara had known a decent home, maybe you wouldn’t be so wedged in the past.”
He’d never worried much about himself. It kind of warmed him that Lydia did. “And yet, you don’t get that it was my parents’ fault?”
“They aren’t the same people now.”
Always the same answer—and true, but never good enough. They were headed to what amounted to a homecoming for Lydia and his parents. He’d already started holding his tongue.
He looked at his wife’s delicate profile, her large eyes, fringed by long lashes that could feel so soft against his skin, her nose a little large. He’d almost lost her. If coming here comforted her, he’d try to make the best of it and of his parents, too.
Josh opened his fingers on the steering wheel and then tightened them again to follow a slight curve. Usually too aware of consequences to act on impulse, he’d given in to his need to make Lydia happy. Coming home might have been an unforgiving mistake. He’d be stunned if he ended this so-called visit on speaking terms with his wife or his mother and father.
As he parked in a square of loose gravel, his mom slid through the mudroom door beside the kitchen.
He forced himself to smile. Surprise tilted her mouth. She waved. “Even I can tell she’s really glad to see me,” he said.
“What’d you think?” Lydia sounded mystified. As if love made everything right. Wouldn’t their marriage have been as shiny and new-feeling as the day they’d taken their vows if love was all it took? “Is your father home, too?”
“I don’t see the truck, but he might have parked in the barn.” His parents had converted it to a garage after the last of his grandfather’s cows had passed to their bovine reward. “Stay there. I’ll help you out.”
“Normally, I’d argue, but I feel a little dizzy.”
He climbed out and opened her door, searching her face. “Is that normal? Should we call that nurse?”
“I’m just tired.” Lydia wrapped her arm around his waist. “The drive felt longer than I expected.”
“I can carry you.”
She blushed, watching his mother. “No, you can’t, but if you don’t mind we’ll go slowly.”
“You made it,” Evelyn said. “I was starting to worry.”
Josh stared at his mother and at the house. To the right, the ground dipped, just barely, where they’d filled in the pool.
Lydia glanced at him. “Are we late, Evelyn?”
“I was impatient. I’ll get the door.” She opened it while they climbed the wooden steps. “You look dreadful, Lydia. I’m glad to have you, but I hope the trip wasn’t too strenuous.”
“I couldn’t wait.” Lydia hugged his mom. “Where’s Bart?”
“Right here.” He came around the old pine cupboard and hugged her tight. His smile over her shoulder reached Josh. “I was building a fire in the family room.”
“Lydia’s headed straight to bed,” Evelyn said in a take-no-prisoners tone. “We won’t be ready to eat for a while. You have time for a nap.” Evelyn tapped her husband’s chest. “Get the bags while Josh takes Lydia up.”
“Sounds good.”
“Thanks for having us,” Lydia said. “Josh will come right back to help you, Bart.” She tugged his arm. “You should thank them, too.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled. Josh guided Lydia through the dining room into the small hall that separated the unused “company” living room and the family room from the rest of the house.
“It’s too late for you to mediate,” Josh said. “Have you noticed how small this place is?”
“I should have considered you’d feel like the walls were trying to squeeze you.”
“Don’t worry.” They started up the staircase. “Whatever happens between my parents and me will come in its own time. I didn’t do this for them.”
“You don’t know you’re allowed to love them and be loyal to Clara’s memory, too.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“If I could have my mother and father back for even a minute, I’d find the right words to tell them what they mean to me. Think of what you’d say to Clara.”
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“If you’re not careful, you could find too late that you do still care for Evelyn and Bart.” No wonder she ate up his parents’ uncontrollable need to smother her with love. She stopped, so suddenly she seemed to rock. “The stairs are moving.”
“I’m right behind you.” Her hair brushed his chin. He wanted to bury his face in the pale strands and tell her to shut up about his mother and father. “Our family, Lydia—the one you and I will have—that matters to me most.”
She swallowed. Sick or nervous? He couldn’t be sure, but she battled on. “Evelyn and Bart are part of me because I can count on them.”
“Can’t you understand I tried to believe in them again and again? I gave up when Clara died.” At the landing, he moved around her to open his old bedroom door. “Why is this so important to you?”
“Wait.” She held on to the newel post. “I never thought of those times—when you believed in them and they let you down. You were just a child.” Her troubled gaze looked into his past.
“Stop, Lydia. I don’t want you picturing me as a helpless little boy. I don’t need pity.”
“I’ve been thinking… You turned your back on me because you learned how to hold a grudge against your parents. You know how to withhold love.”
“It’s completely different. They let my sister die—and she depended on me.”
“I let your son die—and I was his only protection.”
“How can you say that?”
She didn’t answer with words. Her eyes were red and full of tears.
“Don’t be crazy.” He pulled her close. She stiffened, but he held on. “I’m the one who should have seen what was happening. I’m as blind as my parents ever were. Twice now, someone I’ve loved has died because I wasn’t careful enough.”
“No.” She put her hands on his upper arms, but this time, when she pushed herself away, it was so she could look him in the eye. “You did everything for Clara, and I may be angry because Vivian Durance was your client’s wife, but you couldn’t know what she’d do unless she told you.” She looked at him with a plea for reassurance.
“Of course she didn’t tell me. She ranted and the bailiffs dragged her out of court. She didn’t even threaten me, much less you. I swear I didn’t know.”
“You don’t have to swear.” She braced her hands in the small of her back, sagging against the doorjamb. “I’m exhausted.”
She’d let him off the hook, but if they let it go, were they following the same habit that had nearly sunk their marriage? “Come on. A few more steps and you’re in bed.”
Usually, he had to force himself inside this room. Not this afternoon.
Over the years, he’d taken down most of the old posters. No more scantily clad women seducing from the walls. No cars he’d never own on a public defender’s salary. He’d had a thing for Dali when he was a teenager who’d believed human beings could create their own reality. Those posters remained, still in their cheap frames.
“Your mom changed the bedding.”
Gone was the thin spread that had barely covered his grandparents’ old double bed. His mother had replaced it with an ivory comforter, posh and inviting enough to make Lydia test its thickness.
“Want to change clothes?” he asked.
“Yes, please. These jeans are killing me.”
As if on cue, his father showed up, holding their bags. Josh took them. “Thanks, Dad.” He set Lydia’s on the bed and unzipped the clothing compartment. “What can I take out?”
“I’ll get it in a sec.” She grinned at his dad. “Thanks, Bart. How’s the fishing?”
“Good enough.” He hugged her again. Josh watched, bemused. That sort of spontaneity rarely happened here. “I’m pleased you came, and you know Evelyn and I are both so sorry about the baby.”
Lydia faltered. “Me, too, Bart. I’ve been so swallowed in grief I almost forgot he was your grandson, too.” She turned, hiding her face. “Excuse me.” She whipped the flap open on her bag and yanked out a pair of flannel pajama pants and a matching blue tank top. Without looking back, she left to change in the bathroom across the hall.
Josh stared at his father. Over Bart’s shoulder, Clara’s room was closed tight, decades of accusations and grief stuffed inside.
“I’m glad you found time to come, son.”
“I want to be with Lydia.” His father flinched and Josh looked away from Clara’s room. “We’re grateful you and Mom offered her—us—time up here.”
“Come down when you’re ready.” Bart started to leave but looked back. “Concentrate on Lydia. Don’t either of you worry about us this visit.”
Josh exhaled, seeing stars in front of his eyes. Maybe Lydia was right. He had to do something about this thing with his parents.
He moved his bag to the chair at his childhood desk, which was rammed against the wall beneath the sloping eave. He was hanging Lydia’s things in the closet when she came back. “Where’s your father?”
“Downstairs.” Josh pulled back the comforter and sheet. “In you go.” As she crawled past him, he stroked her back. She jumped, but kept moving, unconsciously choosing her usual side of the bed.
“What did you say to him?”
“You don’t have to be suspicious. We didn’t argue.”
“Nice effort.” She eased onto her back. “Wake me if your parents want to put dinner off because I’m sleeping.” She rolled on to her side and pulled the sheet up.
“They won’t mind if you sleep.” He tucked the comforter around her. No task was too small.
“They’re doing enough, getting us out of that house. I don’t want to put them to extra trouble.” She sighed, so weary her skin and lips looked almost bloodless. “Is this worse for you?” she asked.
“No.” Seeing the baby’s things had made him hurt for Lydia and himself and for the child they’d never have a chance to know. He’d never feel comfortable in Kline, but time had applied a sturdy bandage to the wounds he’d suffered there. “Being here is better than being in the town house.”
CHAPTER FOUR
EVELYN WAS CHOPPING tomatoes for a salad when a scream rode up her spine. She dropped the knife. Her hand, jerking, shoved the tomatoes across the counter. She flew down the hall and up the narrow stairs.
At the door to Josh’s room, she paused. Lydia might want privacy. Hell, no. She’d screamed. No one would ever find Evelyn negligent again.
“Lydia?” Tapping twice, she opened the door at the same time. “Are you awake, honey?”
“Come in.”
Already in, Evelyn stopped dead. Covered in sweat that curled her blond hair, Lydia turned from the closet beside Josh’s desk, her hand sliding off the doorknob to tremble at her thigh. Her pale face and shadowed eyes made Evelyn desperate to do something. Anything.
“How bad do I look?” Lydia asked.
“Well.” Evelyn didn’t want to frighten her. “I hope you’re feeling some better. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I thought I’d lost my clothes.” She opened the closet and pulled out a clean T-shirt, her face flushing as if she’d made up an excuse. “Josh must have put them away.”
“You didn’t scream over a shirt.”
Lydia froze. “I screamed? You heard me?”
“Yes.” Trying to laugh, Evelyn pushed Lydia’s moist hair away from her face. “That’s the way screaming works. Do you have a fever?”