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“I don’t know,” Bonnie said, frustration welling up inside her. She glanced at the clear, blue Arizona sky—illuminated by a sun that was already heating this March day to Midwest summer temperatures.
She slid her hands into the pockets of her slacks. “Have you ever had the feeling that the role you’re playing isn’t significant?”
“Of course you’re significant, Bonnie!” Beth said, stopping to stare at her. “My gosh! This entire family revolves around you.”
“Only because I got here first,” she said. “It could just as easily revolve around you.”
“But you—”
“That’s not really what I meant,” Bonnie continued, cutting off Beth’s rebuttal. “And you’re right. I have no business feeling like I do and I’m just going to stop.”
She turned, heading back toward the day care.
“No.” Beth grabbed her arm. “Wait. I’m listening now. Talk to me.”
Feeling ungrateful and selfish, Bonnie tried really hard to convince herself that if she just kept working on it, she could make these feelings go away.
She’d been trying for months.
“I just feel my life is too small, that I’m not doing enough with it.”
Beth started to walk and Bonnie fell into step beside her. “With my education and capabilities, I could be helping the homeless or abused women, making some kind of real difference. Sounds crazy, huh?”
“No. Not at all.”
“The world is filled with people who need my help more than the relatively privileged, well-loved kids who come to my day care.”
“We don’t have a lot of homeless people here,” Beth said softly. “And though I’m sure there are some, there probably aren’t many abused wives, either.”
“That’s part of the problem, I think. Shelter Valley is such a protected—and protective—place that I’m isolated from larger realities.”
“So you want to leave town?”
“No!” Bonnie ran her fingers through her hair, trying to massage the ache from her head. “Of course not. Maybe I just need to feel needed.”
“Which you are, of course, by so many people.”
“Yeah, but not in the way I mean.” She tried to find words to articulate things she wasn’t sure she understood. “Last week, after the fire, Shane Bellows helped me clean up. All I did was talk to him for an hour and yet I left feeling I’d really used my life for a greater good. He was responsive and just so happy to be part of an adult conversation. He needs a friend, Beth, someone who’ll treat him like a grown man with something to contribute, instead of the half person he’s sort of become. It’s that kind of satisfaction I’m missing. I think.”
“Be careful with Shane, Bonnie. You’ve got a history with him that could trip you up.”
“No worry there. He’s not at all the man he once was. That history is dead and gone.”
“From what I understand, even the doctors aren’t completely sure how much Shane’s mind has been altered.”
“He’s completely harmless, Beth, if that’s what you’re getting at. His doctor didn’t think there was any problem with him working around small children, which he certainly would have if Shane posed any kind of threat.”
“Just be careful.”
Beth waved as a car passed. Mr. and Mrs. Mather. They’d been one of her house-cleaning clients, Bonnie remembered.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you.”
Bonnie wished Beth’s opinion didn’t matter so much.
“No.” As if by previous consensus, they both turned the corner, slowing their pace as they started down another deserted street. “As a matter of fact, I completely understand.” She spoke in a low voice, holding Bonnie’s full attention.
“You know how I spent my youth, Bonnie. Training to be a concert pianist is completely consuming, draining every ounce of energy you have and then demanding more. I gave it everything and somehow managed to get my business degree, as well. And then, after my parents were killed and I was on my own, I suddenly found myself with skills and discipline and drive, and nothing important to contribute. People were dying every day while I played scales.”
“Hardly.” Bonnie still got chills every time Beth sat down at the piano. The woman brought something elemental, spiritual almost, to everything she played.
“It’s how I felt,” Beth insisted. “And that feeling drove me straight into the trap James Silverman and Peter Sterling set.”
It was the first time Bonnie had ever heard her friend mention her ex-husband and his partner. The two men who’d, in the end, contracted a killer to ensure her death.
“I wanted to make a difference, to stand for something, to help save the world in some significant way.”
Taking Beth’s arm, a silent support, Bonnie ached for her friend, ached because of the memories Beth would never completely escape.
“The cult allowed me to believe I was contributing something huge, and that feeling drove me for a long time, Bon. Far longer—and farther—than it should have. It drove me into turning a blind eye to things that were not only immoral but illegal, as well.”
Sterling Silver, the cult run by Beth’s ex-husband and his doctor partner, had been shut down the previous year when Greg had gone searching for the identity of the woman he loved. James Silverman and Peter Sterling were currently serving life sentences in separate Texas prisons.
“So you’re saying I should just ignore this feeling and be thankful for the life I have.”
It was exactly what she’d been telling herself.
“I don’t know,” Beth said, turning with Bonnie as they reached another corner, heading back toward the day care. “I don’t think there are any easy answers.”
Bonnie didn’t think so, either.
“You said Keith noticed something’s wrong. What does he say about all this?”
“Nothing,” Bonnie said, kicking a pebble into the street. “I can’t tell him I need more out of life than he’s giving me, Beth. It would kill him. And it’s not fair to him, either. Because there’s nothing he can do. Besides, I might wake up tomorrow and be perfectly satisfied again.”
“I doubt it.”
“Me, too.”
They walked on, their silence broken only by an occasional passing car. And there weren’t many of those.
“But I still can’t tell him,” Bonnie eventually said. “I can’t hurt him like that.”
“I couldn’t, either.”
“That letter from Diamond today…”
“Yeah?”
“It was the third one of its kind. He’s got a buyer for the property, contingent on me relocating. The developer has a rule against day cares in strip malls.”
“Mike Diamond’s selling?”
“I guess.”
“Wow. That surprises me. I thought he was planning to expand, not get out.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“So what are you going to do?” Beth asked, slowing as the day care came in sight.
“I can’t move without building a place,” Bonnie said. “I’d already exhausted all the other possibilities when Diamond’s place became available.”
“Can you afford to build?”
“Maybe. Probably. If Keith and I take out a loan. But how can I even contemplate putting us deeper in debt when I’m not even sure this is what I want?”
“I’m guessing you haven’t talked to Keith about it.”
They stopped at the corner across the street from Little Spirits. Bonnie looked at her sister-in-law. “How can I—without getting into the whole ‘I’m not satisfied with my life’ thing?”
“So tell Diamond no.”
“I’m planning to.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
They crossed the street, the traffic noises not nearly loud enough to hide what Bonnie hated to admit.
“Because I can’t quite turn my back on the chance to get out of the two years I have left on my lease.”
CHAPTER THREE
THERE WERE SOME THINGS that just shouldn’t change. Stockings was one of them. Lonna Nielson rolled the silky material up her right leg, ignoring the varicose veins she passed along the way, and clipped it into place with two quick pinches of her fingers.
Women had been wearing stockings since before she was born. They hid imperfections. They gave a woman a sense of dress, of polish—a personal finishing that served as an invisible shield between her and anything the day might bring. Those silk stockings told the world that she took pride in herself.
And they had to be real silk stockings, pulled up one at a time and hooked to the garter belt. None of that panty stuff for her. There were certain places a woman just needed to breathe.
Besides, everyone knew that garters were far sexier.
Didn’t make a whit of difference that she was seventy-six years old or that she’d been a widow for more decades than she’d been a wife. Feeling a little bit sexy was important to her.
Taking a deep breath to prepare for the pull in her lower back, she reached down for the second stocking, her mind sliding over the list of things she had to do that Friday morning. First was the Beautification Committee meeting. Not the most important, perhaps, but those idiots wouldn’t get anything right if left to their own devices. She’d been living in this town longer than most anybody else here and knew how to hide her imperfections.
Second stocking in place, Lonna picked up the navy slacks and polka-dot blouse she’d ironed after her five-mile walk and before her granola-and-fruit breakfast that morning. It was almost seven o’clock, and she had to hurry or she wouldn’t have time to get over to Grace’s, fix breakfast and wait for her to finish eating so she could do the dishes before her eight-thirty meeting.
Missing the cat that had been lying on her bed for seventeen years, Lonna worked buttons through holes that had grown curiously tighter and harder to maneuver over the years. Buffy, her snarly calico, had died six months ago, and while Lonna was probably lonelier than she’d admit, she was loath to start all over again.
Besides, kitty litter was damned heavy to haul around.
Purse over her forearm—navy to match her slacks and low-heeled pumps—she was almost out the door before she remembered the list of new books she was recommending to the library board later that morning. It was still on the printer Keith had installed to go with the computer he’d bought her for Christmas. The boy meant well. And he’d been right. The blamed machine made keeping up with her jobs somewhat easier.
But it was a love-hate kind of thing. Refusing to look at the screen that revealed more information than Lonna had ever had or ever would have, she grabbed the sheet she’d printed out before going to bed the night before.
The phone rang.
She was late already, and even if she didn’t get Grace’s dishes done, she couldn’t just make breakfast and leave the woman to eat it alone. Grace looked forward to their morning chats.
And Lonna did, too.
The machine could get the phone. She slid the paper into the leather zip folder Becca Parsons had given her for her last birthday, stiffening as the phone rang again.
Someone needed to talk to her.
And who was Lonna to determine that whatever he or she had to say wasn’t important?
With an exasperated sigh she picked up the phone.
And three hours later, sitting beside Dorothy’s hospital bed, she assured her friend of seventy years that she would not have to go into a Phoenix nursing home. She would not have to leave Shelter Valley or the home she’d lived in all of her adult life. Dorothy’s heart and soul were her essence, and they were still in one-hundred-percent working order.
Lonna would help her while her broken hip healed.
She’d find the time.
And the energy.
She always had.
THE FILM WAS EVOCATIVE. Intense. Full of energy. Keith just wasn’t sure that what it evoked had anything to say to their audience. Or to anyone except maybe the people involved. Or people like them.
Of course he’d been preoccupied with the conversation he’d had with his grandmother earlier that day. He’d been trying to talk her out of a trip to Phoenix by herself. Friday-afternoon traffic was hell. He’d told her Dorothy would be just fine until later that day when he could take Lonna Nielson to the hospital to see her friend.
Had his grandmother listened?
Of course not.
She’d climbed into her Buick and sped to her friend’s side.
This seemed to be a pattern in his life. His word apparently had little value to the women he cared about.
“You don’t like it.”
Keith glanced at his new program director and smiled. Martha Moore, at least, respected his opinion.
“I didn’t say that,” he said, smiling at her before turning his attention to the monitor.
“You don’t have to say it.” Her words were soft as she, too, focused on the film they were previewing. It was a work a student had found and suggested for the following week’s Fine Art feature on MUTV.
The piece was a dance performance. Sort of. It was a depiction of a human condition, one that every human being eventually faced.
An excellent depiction as far as Keith could tell.
He just had no idea why people would choose to watch other people act out the process of dying. It wasn’t something he wanted to put himself through.
But Martha was riveted. Her whole body leaned toward the monitor, almost as though she was going to jump on that stage with those writhing, painfully weak bodies. Eyes drawn to the slim neck exposed by her short black hair, Keith wondered why Martha was still single. Her husband had left more than two years before, and other than a few dates with the architect who’d done some work at Montford, Martha’s love life had been nonexistent.
As far as Keith knew, anyway.
And he couldn’t understand that. Not only was she slim and sexy and down-to-earth, the woman had a way of making a guy feel she honestly enjoyed his company. He wondered if she had anything planned for the weekend ahead; if so, he hoped it would involve something for her and not just for the four kids she was raising alone.
“What?”
She’d caught him staring.
“Nothing.” Jaw set, Keith turned back to the screen.
Keith made it a priority to support student initiatives as often as he could. Part of the MUTV mission was to give the students running the new digital cable station opportunities to recommend and even develop programming. His television motion-picture students had been the driving force behind Keith’s initial idea for the Montford University television station. Unlike many college and university stations, MUTV was not an education-access station.
They were in control of their own programming.
But this particular piece…
Bodies in nude-colored body things, showing the most godawful suffering…
“I think we’re going to have to give this one a miss,” he said.
“No!” Martha’s head spun toward him. “This is what we’re all about, Keith! We have to do it! This is absolutely the best thing we’ve seen in the six months we’ve been here!”
“We’re about positive educational experiences,” he reminded her. “Our programming enriches peoples’ lives in positive ways.”
It didn’t matter if they were showing actual college classes, university sports or a full-length feature film, the goal was the same.
“And it doesn’t get any more uplifting than this,” she insisted. Her brown eyes were turned to the screen again.
Keith stared at her. “It’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen! Those people are dying of AIDS!”
The depictions were real—performed by people suffering from the deadly virus.
“They’re alive, Keith.” Martha’s tone was low, but carried so much conviction Keith had to take another look at the screen.
“Think of the hours of rehearsal they put in here. Listen to the documentary. Hear the laughter. The love these people have grown to share. That’s what living is all about. No matter what,” she continued softly, slowly, “life isn’t over until it’s over.”
Okay. He supposed that was true.
So how come all he’d seen was dying people writhing on the floor?
“You can’t just watch something like this with your analytical mind, Keith. You have to see it, feel it, with your heart.”
A young bald man was making motions, as though he was grooming himself, but kept getting interrupted by an imaginary sore on his hand that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
“It’s horrible,” Keith said, wishing he had the guts to get up and leave.
“Look at the expression on his face.” Martha’s voice was soothing. A balm amidst the tragedy seeming to engulf the small room they used for viewing.
Keith looked.
“He’s alive. That sore or whatever it is isn’t stopping him. He’s still doing what he set out to do. Still accomplishing things.”
“Still living,” Keith said slowly, relaxing slightly as his focus changed, seeing, instead of the tragedy, the determination in the performer’s eyes.
And the deep-seated satisfaction as he completed his task.
“Victory,” Martha said.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
Keith had the most bizarre urge to hug her.
HUGGING HERSELF, Bonnie stared at the water at her feet, remembering Mike Diamond’s letter. Still, the flood seeping into her tennis shoes could easily pass for nothing more than bad luck. Toilets broke. Seals gave way. Curious children conducted flushability experiments with assorted toys and other nonbiodegradable items. The insurance form was already mentally half-written.
“I can help you.” She heard Shane’s thick, deep voice behind her. She hadn’t noticed the slushing of his tennis shoes in the inch-deep water pouring out into the hallway.
He was carrying a mop in one hand, pulling a wringer and bucket with the other.
“The toilet exploded.”
He nodded, started to mop. And then to wring.
Bonnie glanced back at the tile floor in the private teachers’ bathroom. With the wallpaper and area rug, the matching curtains and towels, wastebasket and soap dispenser on the sink, the wood cabinet in which the sink sat—the one she’d saved two months to buy—the place looked like home. Or it had. That cabinet wasn’t going to escape unscathed. She could already see the wood at the bottom starting to warp.
Another insurance form to fill out.
“I turned the water off,” she told Shane. And that was all she’d done. Except feel relieved that her husband had picked up their daughter a couple of hours before. She hadn’t even called Keith yet to tell him about this latest disaster, let alone phoned a plumber. Six o’clock on Friday night wasn’t a good time to get someone in, and it wasn’t as if this was a real emergency.
With one easy flick of the wrist, Shane pulled the lever to bring the rollers down over the mop and release the dirty water into the bucket beneath.
“Can you pick up that rug?” he asked, speaking slowly.
Bonnie hurried to do as he’d asked. The little rug was heavy with water. She dropped it into the sink and then got out of Shane’s way.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, touched that in spite of his limited capabilities, he was such a good friend. “Accidents happen.”
“But you just had a fire.”
“Yeah, maybe someone’s trying to tell me something,” she said wearily, trying to smile.
“Tell you what?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head and moved aside as he worked. “It’s just an expression, but much more of this, and parents are going to wonder if it’s safe to bring their kids here.”
“And your business would be in trouble.”
So why didn’t that thought strike terror in her heart?
He mopped and wrung, bending down to wipe a bit of debris off the baseboard behind the toilet with a paper towel he’d pulled from his back pocket.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“It’s okay, it’s my job.”
The simple statement brought tears to her eyes.
Bonnie didn’t know what was wrong with her. She didn’t seem upset about what was happening to her day care—her life’s dream. And Shane Bellows’s mopping made her cry.
“I’ll go call a plumber,” she said, and escaped to her office before she could do something else she didn’t understand.
Like ask Shane to have dinner with her so she could figure out a way to help this shell of a man with whom she’d once been so in love.
Or use the flooded bathroom as an excuse to call her husband and tell him she couldn’t come home.
KEITH WAS LYING on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, three-year-old Katie astride his upper back. She was leaning forward with her chin near his ear as her green eyes intently followed along in the big book of children’s stories her father was reading to her.
If one could refer to Keith’s dramatic rendition of each scene as simply reading.
Closing the door from the garage into the kitchen, Bonnie stood and watched the two of them, filled with so much love she ached. Keith’s voice rose and fell, his head turning or nodding, his shoulders rising and falling, with Katie riding right along with him, her body responding to each change of cadence. Her little hands clutched her daddy’s sweater and patted his shoulders in excitement. Her eyes grew large. She laughed. Her dark curls seemed to dance. Then, as the story grew more serious, she listened quietly again.
Keith looked up as he played the part of a frog turned into a prince and caught Bonnie standing there. The grin on his face froze; his voice died. Katie looked up then, too, her wriggling body stilling immediately as she saw her mother. And the questioning look in the little girl’s big green eyes shocked Bonnie. It was as though, like her father, Katie was assessing the situation.
“Hi!” Bonnie dropped her purse and briefcase on the table. “Don’t stop,” she told Keith. “You were just getting to the good part.”
His face softened as she joined them in the family room. “How was your day?”
She thought of the flood. Of Shane.
“Fine.” She didn’t want to spoil the fun Katie and Keith were having.
Keith watched her for a minute more and then, without letting her see his thoughts, turned back to the book.
The tales continued and eventually, as Bonnie relaxed and laughed along with her daughter when Keith tried to play the wolf huffing and puffing at the straw house, Katie slid down from her father’s back and crawled onto her mother’s lap.
As she hugged her little girl close to her heart, savoring Katie’s warmth, and shifted just enough to let her toes rest against Keith’s thigh, Bonnie swallowed hard.
GRANDMA NIELSON called just as they were finishing the pizza Bonnie had made for dinner. Katie had sauce smeared on her nose, rimming her pert baby mouth, over her chin and on her chest. Bonnie couldn’t see Katie’s booster chair under the table, but there was probably sauce mixed in with a pile of crumbs on her lap, as well.
“She just got back from Phoenix,” Keith said, hanging up the phone.
“At eight o’clock? She drove home in the dark?”
Her husband frowned. And nodded. While he accepted his grandmother’s right to live her life the way she wanted to—encouraged it even—her health and well-being had become a constant worry to him.
“How’s Dorothy?” Bonnie asked, getting a damp cloth to wipe Katie’s cheeks.
“She doesn’t need a hip replacement.” Keith didn’t look too happy.
“That’s good news.”
It was testimony to the changes in their little family when, without a fuss, Katie lifted her face and only blinked when Bonnie wiped her clean.
“She’ll be home next week.”
Bonnie set Katie on the floor before tending to the mess on the booster chair and table. “Wow,” she said to her husband, never missing a beat in their conversation. “That’s a fast recovery, isn’t it? She’ll be able to get around that soon?”
“No.”
Cloth in hand, Bonnie stopped. “No?”
“The doctor suggested long-term care. Grandma’s determined to bring her home.”
“Who’s going to…” Bonnie didn’t need to finish the question. She knew the answer. Lonna Nielson was.