The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls

“Fee, are you ready?” Jill called, car keys firmly in hand but patience slipping away. Fee was on the phone, again. Actually speaking. Not a good sign. It indicated a drama whose scale outstripped the ability of Fee’s wickedly quick texting thumbs. Or worse: one for which no electronic trail would remain. Jill had hoped Fee’s fallout with her friend Marjory would have blown over by now. Judging by Fee’s moodiness and clandestine conversations, it hadn’t. Friends soothed Jill with reminders that all teens had dramas, but Jill had a sense that this one had really wounded Fee. Despite everything else going on—money concerns, Ruby’s erratic behavior, and now Keith coming to town—Jill had already resolved to focus on her daughter this summer. Another potential funnel for eye-on-the-sky Jill to watch.

Standing in the home’s foyer—now the check-in area—Jill crossed her arms and stared at the wall of McCloud family memorabilia: the crest bearing the family motto, “Hold Fast”; a glass-encased tartan kilt and sporran; and photos, one of which, in particular, always caught her eye. Jill’s aunt Rose, her father’s sister, was the original wayward in whose memory the home had been repurposed. Rose, from whom Jill inherited her russet hair and petite stature, was fifteen at the time of the photo and bore a postwar charm and confidence. Posed in front of the house, she wore a fitted white cotton dress with a square neck and belted waist, and had a head of curls that she’d probably rolled in rags or socks to achieve the corkscrew spirals so fashionable back then. Jill shivered to think of the horrors which led to Rose’s death one short year later on some makeshift operating table in a back-alley clinic. To this day no one knew much, except Rose’s pious father would never have accepted an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

The clearing of a throat just inches from her left ear yanked Jill back to reality. Mr. Nitpick, Room 202, stood before her, fingering one of the local maps she provided. “If I might have a word,” he said.

She knew, all too well, he wouldn’t keep it to one. It had taken three phone calls, long, laborious conversations, just to make the reservation. Of foremost importance was the mattress. Two conversations were required to confirm that the inn offered Dux mattresses, genuine Dux mattresses, not some cheap Nanking knockoff, but the real deal—king size. In a moment of complete insanity, Jill had been talked into the luxury beds during the inn’s remodel, two years prior. Fifteen beds, at over seven thousand dollars each; it was a ridiculous business decision with no proof of return, except for the carper in 202. She, herself, slept on a Serta, circa 1990.

“How may I help you?”

“Are any of the nearby breweries organic?”

Not with the organic again. The reservation process was all the warning Jill needed and she had taken great care to ready Room 202 before his arrival. No one tucked a tighter bed corner than Borka, Jill would bet the land on it. And Jill, an admitted neat freak, had given the room her seal of approval. At check-in, he’d handed Jill a large shopping bag. “If you don’t mind, I prefer my own sheets,” he’d said. “Egyptian cotton, fifteen-hundred thread count.” No guest had ever checked in with their own bedroll before and Jill had been startled. She’d reassured him that the inn’s linens were of the highest quality. He’d shaken his head from side to side and asked, “Ah, but are they organic?” As, no, Jill could not guarantee that some WWII bomber hadn’t been retrofitted for a Nile Valley flyover of DDT, she’d graciously taken the sheets and Borka had remade the bed.

“Big Falls Brewing Company is organic.” She pointed to a spot on the map. “About thirty minutes north of here.”

“And do they craft traditional cask ales, unfiltered and unpasteurized?”

“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” Jill said. “And make sure you see the falls. They’re only a fifteen-minute hike from the gates. Well worth the effort.”

Jill sent her guest off with binoculars and a backpack provisioned with a water bottle, Amana blue cheese, crackers, and a handful of locally grown apricots. She then put in a quick warning call to Max at the brewery.

Fee finally emerged with cutoff jeans and a T-shirt shrugged down and over one bare shoulder. Her legs were long and strong and Jill wondered whether Fee could have sprouted overnight. She was taller than the other McCloud women by at least four inches, with a solid athletic build and chestnutbrown hair. Jill had always coveted Fee’s smooth-as-corn-silk hair. Jill favored her father’s side of the family, the Scottish side, with wiry red hair and parchment-white skin that freckled under anything over sixty watts. Fee, on the other hand, was already tanning nicely.

“I’m ready,” Fee said, flipping her hair back with a flick of her wrist. “Let’s not be all day at it either. I have soccer later.”

Jill straightened Fee’s shirt with a swift tug.

It was a beautiful morning and Jill ambled along. She shopped the farmers’ market every Tuesday while it was in season. The impatient Fee had already been dispatched to the far end of the market for raspberries. The inn was sold out through the weekend with four new bookings coming in less than an hour after Jasper’s visit. In anticipation of a full house, Jill had a long list of required items; still, she was enjoying the festive atmosphere. Her rolling cart was laden with bouquets of delphinium and gerberas, crisp green cucumbers, bright yellow peppers, trays of lush, red strawberries, and a bag, the large size, of kettle corn, which she was shoveling—by the fistful—into her mouth.

She wiped a sticky hand down the back of her Capri jeans and adjusted the Iowa Cubs cap down over her freckled nose as they worked their way along High Street, formerly the poshest residential area in town and currently an artery of the expanded downtown. Besides the Climbing Ivy Restaurant, there was the Perry Home, now an antiques store; the Milton Home, a hair salon and day spa; and the old Graystock Home, now the Graystock Bed and Breakfast. Jill grabbed another handful of popcorn and peered into the Graystock’s windows in an effort to gauge whether her competition was also enjoying a flush of bookings. Both inns were of similar size and rating. The Graystock offered more of an in-town experience with its proximity to restaurants, shops, and the newly renovated opera house. The McCloud Inn boasted a country escape with its neighboring horse farm, access to hiking trails, and views of the pond and surrounding woods. She wondered if the owners of the Graystock had her same financial constraints: a crushing spate of repairs and renovations, winter business slow as a hobbled mule, and a newly adjusted home equity loan muscling for command of the monthly ledger.

As she stood there, staring, the front door opened and a tall man with wavy bay-brown hair stepped out to the large covered porch. He paused, surveying the scene with one hand shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare.

Jill tugged her cap down to her eyebrows and moved as quickly as her rolling cart would allow between the pop-up canvases of a local baker and an asparagus vendor before she arrived, flushed and breathing hard, in front of the Harmony Farms stand. She took a deep bracing breath and bellied up to the checkered tablecloth.

“Jill, I was hoping you’d stop by. I have new pictures of Leo.” Susannah, goat-cheese maker extraordinaire, crouched below the table to rifle through a basket.

Jill took the blissfully quiet moment to scan the selection of cheeses. For all the subtle flavors Susannah could finesse into a silky goat cheese, she was a conversational tidal wave. A gold-medal gabber who could cudgel from one unfinished thought to the next without the need of a transition, preposition, or—for that matter—respiration.

Susannah popped to a stand, holding a stack of photos. “Did you see that the guy from Missouri is back with peaches again this week? And Maddie thinks Leo could be left-handed. And major-league material the way he pitches that bottle back across the room.”

Maddie, Susannah’s daughter, had moved to Minnesota only a few short months following the death of Susannah’s husband. The sudden loss of her spouse, daughter, and only grandchild had rendered the already chatty vendor starved for conversation. Many market regulars were since making do with Gouda or cheddar. The more others scattered, the more Jill remained loyal. Susannah was sweet and well meaning, if a whopping time suck.

“Heard you’re hosting old Hester’s wake,” Susannah said, pressing the top photo into Jill’s hands. “Look at this one. Have you ever seen such a sweet patootie?”

“Sweet patootie?” asked a male voice from behind Jill. “Are we talking potatoes or posteriors?”

Jill turned to find Keith Fraser smiling like he was as much a fixture at the weekly market as Ma’s Muffins. “Keith. Oh my goodness, Keith.”

“I thought that was you a minute ago,” he said, lifting both arms, a possible prelude to a hug.

Jill extended her right hand. They shook. Noticing a sag in his shoulders, she regretted not stepping into the hug. She dropped his hand, but held his gaze. He’d aged well, damn him. A full head of hair and perfect teeth. His smile had always buckled her knees.

“I’m sorry about your aunt,” she said, while internally chanting stay cool, stay cool. Her physiology was not cooperating. Muscles tautened, her epidermis flamed, and longabandoned neural pathways cleared with a dizzying tingle.

“She lived a good long life.” Looking down at Susannah’s photo, he added, “Posteriors it is. Bare at that.”

She relaxed. The fact that for the past fifteen years she’d imagined hundreds of run-in scenarios with Keith but not a single one involving the naked bottom of a gabby goat herder’s grandchild somehow settled her nerves. She handed the photo back to Susannah. “My friend’s adorable grandson.”

“Yes, adorable,” he said, nodding to the proud grandmother. “Can I walk with you?” he then asked Jill.

A bubble made its way up her throat. “Yeah. Sure.” She stacked four tubs of Susannah’s labors onto her cart. “Okay if we settle up next time?” she asked.

Susannah waved her away with a “Yes. Yes. Shoo now,” in what was quite probably Jill’s quickest transaction with Harmony Farms. Ever.

“I’m glad I ran into you,” Keith said. “Jasper has spoken to you, right?”

“Yes. He came by this morning.”

“And it’s not too much trouble. I mean, it’s not asking too much . . .”

“Not at all,” Jill said. “There’s no reason . . .”

“I wasn’t implying . . . It’s more that we haven’t given you much notice.”

“It’s nothing we can’t handle.” Their stutters and stammers had her wishing they could start again. Were it only possible, she thought, to go back to the very beginning. She stopped, finding herself once again in front of the Graystock Bed and Breakfast, the hotel he’d apparently chosen over hers. “And how lucky we ran into each other.”

“Funny enough, I just called your place a little while ago, I left a message for you,” he said, grinning. “Could I possibly have spoken to someone named Borka?”

“Yes.” Jill tried very hard not to return the smile. Way back when, Borka would have easily made their “monikers of doom” list. Keith had a theory about names and their role in an individual’s destiny. It had all begun with his uncle Claude, who tripped over his size-thirteen shoes and ended up hurtling—like a bowling ball—down the escalator at Marshall Field’s, and striking holiday shoppers left and right. He managed to break three legs that day, only one of which was his. Keith also liked to cite his friend Skip, who had been passed over for promotion, twice. Jill, he had believed, was the name of a faithful sidekick, as in Jack and Jill. So much for his theory.

“I’d like to come by sometime,” he said. “Go over the arrangements.”

Jill wished she had some sort of smartphone or electronic date book that needed checking first. The truth was, everything went onto a huge paper calendar on her desk. “How about tomorrow at four?”

Keith spread his hands, as if it had all come too easily. “Tomorrow it is then. Four o’clock.”

Surely there must be something else to say, Jill thought. About the passage of years, roads traveled, or, in her case, weeded over. Fee’s long legs striding into view provided a welcome interruption.

“Fee. Honey.” Jill waved with her right arm high over her head. “Over here.”

Fee approached, looking from Jill to Keith and back to Jill.

“Keith, this is my daughter, Fee.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” he said, shaking Fee’s hand.

“Keith is an old . . . friend of mine,” Jill said to Fee. “The wake we’re hosting is for his aunt Hester.”

“Oh,” Fee said, still volleying looks between the two of them.

“Speaking of which,” Jill continued, “we’d better get back. It’s a busy week.”

“See you tomorrow,” Keith said.

They both held their ground for a moment before Keith signaled himself off and turned to walk away. Jill had forgotten about the way he waved, arm and hand held firm and fingers splayed wide. She got about five paces along before Fee was at her elbow with eyes the size and shine of two brass portholes.

“Was that an old boyfriend?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because you hesitated between the words old and friend. A dead giveaway.”

Jill picked up the pace.

“So?” Fee asked, catching up with Jill and the squeaky cart.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“It’s just . . .”

“Just what?” Jill asked.

“He’s not bad looking,” Fee said. “So when?”

“Around the time of your grandfather’s death.”

“But that’d be around the same time as . . .”

“I knew Keith just after . . .” Jill steered the unwieldy cart over the gravel surface of the parking lot.

“But, then, you must have been . . .”

“Only just. And I certainly didn’t know it.”

Fee fluttered her lashes, obviously processing the information. “What happened?”

“He left town,” Jill said in an end-of-discussion tone. As much as she knew that this was a missing piece to the mousetrap assembly of timing and events surrounding Fee’s birth, Jill was reluctant to elaborate. Over the years, Fee had naturally had questions. Jill’s story of a college boyfriend, an Al Thomas, had always been vague. Having left school to assist with her dying father, a preoccupied and in-denial nineteen-year-old Jill had waited too long to track down the transferred-by-then, out-of-state student with an all-too-common name (was Al short for Alan, Albert, Alfred, Alexander, Alvin, or some unusual moniker like Alonso or Alphonse?).

“Because . . . ?” Fee asked.

“Because of a lot of things. Bad timing most of all.” The topic reminded her of a loose end. “Let’s go. I need to get home and phone your aunt Jocelyn.”