“I like Beth,” said Maddy.
Asia’s heart jumped. She concentrated on peeling a strip of loose wood off the edge of the porch step. “But you like Harry too,” she muttered finally.
Maddy threw back her head and laughed. Asia hadn’t heard her laugh like that since before Ira got sick. “And that makes you wonder about my judgment.”
Asia shrugged. Maddy rested her knitting in her lap and massaged her fingers gently. “Of course I like Harry.” Her eyes twinkled. “He’s my son. And he came right away. We need him here. How would we get back and forth from the hospital, for one thing?”
“I could drive us,” said Asia. Maddy smiled, and Asia couldn’t hold back a faint smile too. And then her misery flooded over her. “Everything is changing because of Harry,” she said. She abandoned the piece of wood and squeezed her hands between her knees.
Maddy was quiet for a few minutes. “I always knew there must be someone like Beth out there,” she said at last.
“A grandparent, an aunt, an uncle. It only made sense. At first, Ira wanted to look. But I was afraid.”
Asia hadn’t known that about Ira. Maddy said there were no secrets in this family, but it wasn’t true. She felt sick when she thought about all the things no one ever told her.
“Ira loves you to pieces,” said Maddy. “We both do. And we’ll always be your family. But we should have tried to find your other family. Harry is right.”
Maddy was speaking carefully, but Asia couldn’t control her anger any longer. “Harry should have minded his own business! He should have left us alone!”
Maddy looked sad. Asia’s eyes burned. She stared hard at her knees. She had one last thing to say. “If Beth is so great, then why did my mother say she was dead?”
Part of her wanted to shock Maddy. But Maddy was unshockable. “I’ve thought and thought about that too,” she admitted. “When Harry told us he’d found her, I thought she must be some kind of monster. But as soon as I met her, I realized there are two sides to this story. And now it just doesn’t seem to matter.”
It did matter. Asia dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. How could Maddy say that?
“The important thing right now is to get Ira better,” said Maddy. “And then we’ll sort all this out.”
Is that what Maddy thought they were doing, sorting things out? The tears escaped from Asia’s eyes and flooded her cheeks. She pushed away Maddy’s quick touch on her arm and jumped off the porch and ran.
Asia opened the door of Ira’s workshop and slipped into the cool building. The smell of wood shavings and varnish lingered in every corner. It was easy to pretend that Ira had just stepped out. That the heart attack han’t happened.
Asia walked beside the shelves, lightly tracing her fingers over the boxes. The gleaming eyes of bears and rabbits and birds glinted in the sunlight from the windows. She could hear Ira’s soft voice. “Now that’s a mischievous look on that squirrel. What do you think of putting a snowshoe rabbit on the new pine box?”
Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside. Asia froze.
Beth’s head popped through the doorway. “I’ve been exploring. I just discovered Maddy’s garden. What a wonderful place to escape from the world. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere as peaceful.”
Asia felt exactly the same way when she was in Maddy’s garden. But she was silent. If this was an invitation to talk, she wasn’t taking the bait.
Beth stepped inside. She was wearing a floppy sunhat today, and her long bare arms jangled with bracelets. “Ira told me about his boxes when we were at the hospital. Do you mind if I have a look?”
Asia hid her surprise and shrugged. Somehow she hadn’t imagined Beth and Ira talking. She had pictured Ira lying on his pillows, his face gray with disapproval, while Beth rattled on about how wonderful everything was. What else had Ira said to her?
“I understand you know the secret to every box,” said Beth. “Ira says you’re a huge help to him.” She picked up a smooth round box with a swallow on the lid. “This is lovely. Don’t tell me. Let me see if I can figure it out myself.”
Asia watched her for a few minutes as she turned the box sideways and upside down. “I give up,” she said finally, with one eyebrow raised.
Asia walked over and took the box from Beth. “It’s this wing,” she said. “You have to move it just the right way.”
She pressed one of the swallow’s wings, and a tiny drawer slid out of the lid of the box.
“Ingenious!” said Beth. “A perfect hiding place.” She glanced along the shelves filled with gleaming boxes. “What a treasure trove. I told Ira I’d love a box, and he recommended letting you choose for me.”
Asia knew which one she would pick for herself. It was one of the smallest boxes, tucked at the end of the bottom shelf. The smooth curved sides were made of red cherry, and the oval lid was inlaid with a wolf howling at a sliver of moon. The moon was the key to the secret compartment. Tourists overlooked the little box when they came to Cold Creek, and Asia secretly prayed that it would never sell.
“Maybe one of the whale boxes,” she muttered, steering Beth away from the wolf box. “Lots of people like the whale boxes.” She reached up to the top shelf and lifted down a big square box with a killer whale arching across the lid. She showed Beth how to press one of the whale’s flukes and slide out the secret drawer.
“Perfect,” said Beth. “I live near the ocean, so it will have special meaning.”
Asia tightened inside. Now she was supposed to ask Beth about her house in West Vancouver. Pretend to be interested. This whole thing was probably just an excuse for the let’s-get-to-know-my-granddaughter talk.
“These boxes are valuable,” said Asia loudly. “You better tell Maddy you’re taking one of them.” She paused. “So you can pay her.”
Beth’s gray eyes looked at Asia evenly. “Of course. I’ll take it over to the house and talk to her about it right now.”
Her grandmother had got the point. So why did Asia feel worse instead of better? After Beth left, she stayed behind in the quiet workshop. She tried to recapture the feeling of Ira, but he had disappeared. She brushed a pile of sawdust off his workbench and watched Beth through the wide side window, talking to Harry beside the house, showing him the box. Harry was smiling.
Everybody likes her, thought Asia. Maddy, Harry and maybe even Ira. Everybody but her.