Winter Garden

Winter Garden Page 21

“Use the micro,” Nina said distractedly.

Meredith spun around. “That’s your answer? Use the micro. That’s all you have to say?”

“Dad made me promise—”

Meredith dried her hands on a towel and threw it on the counter. “Oh, for God’s sake. We aren’t going to help her by making her tell us fables. We’ll help her by keeping her safe.”

“You want to lock her away again. Why? So you can have lunch with the girls?”

“How dare you say that to me? You.” Meredith moved closer, her voice lowering. “He used to pore through magazines, looking for his ‘little girl’s’ pictures. Did you know that? And he checked the mail and messages every day for calls that hardly ever came. So don’t you dare call me selfish.”

“Enough.”

Mom was standing in the doorway, dressed in her nightgown, with her hair uncharacteristically unbound. Her collarbone stuck out prominently beneath her veiny skin; a small three-tiered Russian-style cross hung from a thin gold strand coiled around her neck. With all that pallor—white hair, pale skin, white gown—she looked almost translucent. Except for those amazing blue eyes. Now they were alight with anger. “Is this how you honor him, by fighting?”

“We’re not fighting,” Meredith said, sighing. “We’re just worried about you.”

“You think I have gone crazy,” Mom said.

“I don’t,” Nina said, looking up. “I noticed the new column in the winter garden, Mom. I saw the letters.”

“What letters?” Meredith demanded.

“It is nothing,” Mom said.

“It’s something,” Nina said.

Her mother made no sign of having heard. No sigh. No flinch. No looking away. She simply walked over to the kitchen table and sat down.

“We don’t know anything about you,” Nina said.

“The past does not matter.”

“It’s what you’ve always said, and we let you. Or maybe we didn’t care. But now I do,” Nina answered.

Mom looked up slowly, and this time there was no mistaking the clarity in her eyes, nor the sadness. “You will keep asking me, won’t you? Of course you will. Meredith will try to stop you because she is afraid, but there is no stopping you.”

“Dad made me promise. He wanted us to hear one of your fairy tales all the way to the end. I can’t let him down.”

“I know better than to make promises to the dying. Now you have learned this lesson, too.” She stood up, her shoulders only a little stooped. “It would break your father’s heart to hear you two fighting. You are lucky to have each other. Act like it.” Then she walked out of the room.

They heard her door slam shut upstairs.

“Look, Nina,” Meredith said after a long silence. “I don’t give a shit about her fairy tales. I’ll take care of her because I promised Dad and because it’s the right thing to do. But what you’re talking about—trying to get to know her—it’s a kamikaze mission and I’ve crashed once too often. Count me out.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Nina said. “I’m your sister. I know how hard you tried with her.”

Meredith turned abruptly back to the stove, attacking the melted pot as if treasure lay beneath it.

Nina got up and went to her sister. “I understand why you put her in that terrible place.”

Meredith turned. “You do?”

“Sure. You thought she was going looney tunes.”

“She is looney tunes.”

Nina didn’t know what to say, how even to frame her opinion so that it made sense. All she knew was that she’d lost some essential piece of herself lately, and maybe fulfilling the promise to her father would help her get it back. “I’m going to get her to tell me that fairy tale—all of it—or die trying.”

“Do what you want,” Meredith said finally, sighing. “You always do.”

At work, Meredith tried to lose herself in the everyday minutiae of running the orchard and the warehouses, but nothing she did was right. It felt as if there were a valve in her chest tightening with every breath she took. The pressure building up behind it was going to blow any minute. After the third time she yelled at an employee, she gave up and left before she could do more damage. She tossed a packet of papers on Daisy’s desk, said tensely, “File this, please,” and walked away before Daisy could ask a question.

She got in her car and just drove. At first she had no idea where she was going; somewhere along the way, she found herself following an old forgotten road. In some ways, it led back to her youth.

She parked in front of the Belye Nochi gift shop. It was a lovely little building set back from the highway and ringed by ancient, flowering apple trees.

Long ago, it had been a roadside fruit stand; here, Meredith had spent some of the best summers of her life, selling their ripe, perfect apples to tourists.

She stared through the windshield at the white clapboard building, its eaves strung with white lights. Come summer, there would be flowers everywhere—in planters by the door, in baskets on the porch, twined up the fence line.

It had been her idea to convert this fruit stand into a gift shop. She still remembered the day she’d approached Dad with the plan. She’d been a young mother with a baby on each hip.

It’ll be great, Dad. Tourists will love it.

That’s a killer idea, Meredoodle. You’re going to be my shining star. . . .

She’d poured her heart and soul into this place, choosing every item they sold with exquisite care. And it had been a rousing success, so much so that they’d added on twice and still they didn’t have enough room to sell all the beautiful souvenirs and crafts made in this valley.

When she’d quit the gift shop and moved into the warehouse, it had been to make her father happy.

Looking back on it now, that was when it had begun, this life of hers that seemed to be about everyone else. . . .

She put the car in reverse and drove away, wishing vaguely that she hadn’t stopped by. For the next hour, she just drove, seeing the changes spring had made on the landscape. By the time she pulled into her own driveway, it was dusk, and the view was slowly darkening.

Inside the house, she fed the dogs and started dinner and then took a bath, lying in the water so long it grew cold.

She was still so confused and upset by today’s events that she didn’t know what to do or what to want. All she really knew for sure was that Nina was screwing everything up, making Meredith’s life harder. And there was no doubt in her mind that it would all collapse into a big fat mess that Meredith would have to clean up.

She was sick to death of being where the buck stopped.

She dried off and slipped into a pair of comfortable sweats and left the bathroom. As she was toweling off her hair, she glanced at the big king-sized bed along the far wall.

She remembered, with a sharp longing, the day she and Jeff had bought that bed. It had been too expensive, but they’d laughed about the expense and paid for it with a credit card. When the bed had been delivered, they’d come home from work early and fallen onto it, laughing and kissing, and christening it with their passion.

That was what she needed now: passion.

She needed to rip off her clothes and fall into bed and forget all about Nina and Mom and nursing homes and fairy tales.

The second she had the thought, it calcified into a plan. Feeling excited for the first time in months, she changed into a sexy nightgown and went downstairs, where she made a fire and poured herself a glass of wine and waited for Jeff to get home from work.

At eleven o’clock that night, she was still waiting. And that sense of excitement had slowly melted into anger.

Where in the hell was he?

By the time he finally walked into the living room, she’d had three glasses of wine and dinner was ruined.

“Where the hell have you been?” she said, rising.

He frowned. “What?”

“I made a romantic dinner. It’s ruined now.”

“You’re pissed that I’m home late? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Where were you?”

“Researching my book.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“It’s hardly the middle of the night. But, yeah. I’ve been doing it since January, Mere. You just haven’t noticed. Or cared.” He walked away from her and went into his office, slamming the door behind him.

She followed him, throwing the door open. “I wanted you tonight,” she said.

“Well, pardon me all to hell for not giving a shit. You’ve ignored me for months. It’s been like living with a goddamn ghost, but now all of a sudden, because you’re horny, I’m supposed to change gears and be here for you? It doesn’t work that way.”

“Fine. I hope you’re comfortable here tonight.”

“It’ll be a hell of a lot warmer than your bed.”

She walked out of the office and slammed the door behind her, but with that crack of sound, the anger left her, and without it, she felt lost. Lonely.

She should say she was sorry, tell him about her shitty day. . . .

She was about to do that when she saw the pale bluish light slide along beneath the door. He’d turned his computer on and started writing.

She turned from the door and went upstairs, crawling into their bed. In twenty years of marriage, it was the first time he’d slept on the sofa after a fight, and without him, she couldn’t sleep.

At five o’clock, she finally gave up trying and went downstairs to apologize.

He was already gone.

That morning, Meredith went for a run (six miles this time; she was feeling particularly stressed out), called both of her daughters, and still got to work before nine. As soon as she was at her desk, she called Parkview and spoke to the director, who was none too happy about Mom’s sudden exit. She learned—again—that they didn’t expect an opening in the near future. Things could change, of course (which meant someone could die; someone else’s family could be shattered), but there was no way to guarantee a spot.

Nina would never stay long enough to actually help. In the past fifteen years, Meredith couldn’t remember her sister staying at Belye Nochi longer than a week, ten days at most. Nina might be world-famous and renowned in her field, but she was not reliable. She’d even bailed as Meredith’s maid of honor—at the last minute, with no time to get a replacement—because of some assassination in Central America. Or Mexico. Meredith still didn’t know; all she knew was that one minute Nina was there for her, trying on bridesmaid dresses, and the next minute she was gone.

There was a knock at the door. Meredith looked up just in time to see Daisy waltz in carrying a manila folder. “I’ve got the field and orchardist reports here.”

“Great,” Meredith said. “Just leave them on my desk.”

Daisy hesitated and Meredith thought, Oh, no. Here it comes. She’d known Daisy since childhood, and hesitant she was not. “I heard,” Daisy said, closing the door behind her. “About Nina kidnapping your mom.”