CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jill
Friday Morning
Hours later, never having entirely surrendered to sleep, Jill swung her legs to the side of her bed and slowly unfolded to a stand. She shuffled across worn floorboards, pausing at the window to witness dawn crowning behind the line of pines and remembering another day that had begun with a view onto the same stand of trees.
Parting the curtains into a curled shave of light, Jill—on hiatus from university—peeked out at the flocked trees and a fresh six inches that had fallen overnight.
“Open them,” her dad called from his sickbed. In the ten weeks since the New Year, he had deteriorated rapidly. He hadn’t taken food in days and could barely manage a few sips of water. A rolling hospital-style bed had been set up in the dining room so they could keep any eye on him continuously. A hospice nurse visited daily to tend to his IV drip of morphine. His doctor had wanted to admit him, but he’d refused. He wanted to die in the house his grandfather had built, surrounded by his family and life’s work.
Jill pulled the heavy drapes slowly, revealing a yard covered in snow. It lay in windswept ridges resembling a baked meringue topping.
“The crocuses?” her dad asked.
“Buried. Poor things,” she said, instantly regretting her choice of words.
“The vagaries of life,” he said, wincing as a spasm of pain crimped him into a small, hard knot.
“Do you need anything?” she asked, knowing he never did. He endured the pain with such fortitude that she was humbled, daily, by his tenacity.
She was shocked, therefore, at his “I do, in fact” response.
“What?”
“Your mother will need help,” he said in a voice splintering with emotion. “She got hurt, badly hurt, at a very young age.” His mouth was dry; his cracked lips smacked back and forth, fishlike, in an effort to work up a little saliva. “For all the spunk and spirit she musters, there are times when the old wounds reopen, leaving her sad and vulnerable. I’m worried. She’s already showing signs.” He became restless, using precious energy to grasp at Jill with shaky hands. “We McClouds, we take care of one another. We hold fast. Promise me that you’ll take care of her, that you’ll take care of everything.”
“I will.”
“Say it out loud.”
“I promise.”
“There’s my girl,” he said, collapsing backward, spent.
She was his girl. For as long as she could remember, Jocelyn—blond and bubbly—had been proclaimed “all Ruby,” whereas Jill’s McCloud clan coloring and earnestness had long earned her the title of “Daddy’s girl.” She was more than happy to live up to the title, spending long, lazy winter days with him, their two heads bent over a cribbage or chess board. She also shared his love of books and old movies, Philadelphia Story the declared favorite of them both. And she had always shown an interest in their Highland heritage, going so far as to develop a taste for colcannon, smoked salmon, bitter marmalade, and—later in life—a good scotch whisky. Though she never had warmed to the melancholy wail of bagpipes.
After their chat, he’d settled, almost comfortably, gazing out onto the wintry scene.
Hours later, Jocelyn dropped onto the skirted chair facing the small vanity in Jill’s bedroom. “I feel sick,” she said, fiddling listlessly with a knockoff bottle of Chanel. A small spray of scent, illuminated by the weak afternoon light, floated like dust particles. Jocelyn winced. “Gag me. Even this makes me want to wretch.”
“We all feel the same,” Jill said. An undeniable pall had lingered over the home for weeks. Jill was quiet. Ruby was fretful, and Jocelyn, for her part, was mad at everything. She broke up with John Foley, moaned and complained about her customers, hated winter, hated Iowa, and anything else that had the misfortune to cross her path or her mind.
“It’s not just that,” Jocelyn said. “I mean I really feel sick. I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Is it one of your migraines?”
Jocelyn corked her ears with her index fingers. “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t even say the word.”
Migraines were the unmentionable black hole into which Jocelyn fell for days at a time.
“Sorry.”
Jocelyn lowered her hands. “This is different.”
There was something greenish to Jocelyn’s complexion. Jill took a seat on the bed, leaned against the headboard, and stretched her legs in front of her. “Dr. Bradley said there’s a lot of flu going around. Mom’s not looking too good either. She went to lie down right after lunch.”
Jocelyn stood slowly, bracing herself against the vanity top. “I think I’m gonna do the same. But first I think I’ll go hang my head inside the toilet bowl. I know it’s my turn, but can you give Dad his meds?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Jill watched as her sister shuffled out of the room. There was a rap at the window and she turned to see Keith with his face pressed against the dirty pane. She grasped the doublehung and, with effort, lifted the heavy frame.
He scrambled into the room and turned to muscle the window shut. “I thought Jocelyn would never leave.”
“What are you doing? How long have you been out there?”
He rubbed his hands together. “Too long. I thought I might have to build a shelter out of pine boughs and that stack of newspapers around the side of the house.”
“Why didn’t you ring the front door, for goodness’ sake? You’re always welcome here, no reason to be sneaking around.” Keith had, in fact, been using the window to Jill’s room as a portal for some time now, but only for shadow visits, those falling between midnight and sunup.
“I didn’t want to deal with Jocelyn. She’s just so . . . moody.”
“It’s not you. Anger is her way of dealing, I guess.”
I didn’t want to disturb your father either. The last time I came by he had that bad spell and needed medication.”
“That’s pretty common. It had nothing to do with you. He likes you. He told me so. Said you had a good head on your shoulders.”
“I wish I got to know him when he was well.”
“I wish you had, too.” Jill looked at her Timex. “I have to give him his medicine in a few minutes. You can’t stay long.”
He pulled her into an embrace. “I won’t, but I needed to see you.” He kissed the top of her head and then pulled her chin up with the tip of his index finger, kissing her full on the mouth. “I missed you. I thought you’d call last night.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed even closer into him. Keith had been the only bright spot in a very bleak winter. She wouldn’t have believed her heart had room for both grief and rapture, yet his presence managed, without fail, to snap her into some sort of heightened awareness of every little thing: the good, the bad, life at its essence. He’d been empathetic to her family’s situation, giving her plenty of rant room in their conversations and a flannel shoulder to cry on. And he’d been incredibly patient, waiting for the late-night phone call with her cryptic message that she still hadn’t fixed the broken latch on her window, their code for “It’s safe to come visit now.”
“I was exhausted. Dad was in a lot of pain, more than ever. And he was having trouble breathing. I was on the phone with the doctor twice. We almost rushed him to emergency, but then decided to honor his wishes and ride it out here.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know.” He rocked her back and forth in his arms. “You’ll get through this. I’m not saying you won’t miss him, but at least you can get back to some degree of normalcy.”
“I don’t know if I even remember normal.”
“Maybe there is no normal,” Keith said. “My dad checked himself out of that rehab clinic my aunt is footing the bill for. He made it four weeks and then just up and walked. He’s down in Florida somewhere, and Hester’s furious. Says he isn’t welcome back, ever, unless he’s sober.”
He pulled away and looked her in the eyes, his own painted with concern. “Sorry. I can’t believe I’m talking about my screwed-up family with everything you’re going through.”
“It’s all right. Kind of a relief to focus on something else.”
“Has your mom decided what she’s going to do with the house?”
There were only two girls left, one of whom had already delivered and the other due within a few weeks. One had decided to adopt out. The other had a job and apartment waiting in Des Moines, an arrangement Jill had worked out with a church they’d kept close ties with over the years. Even without their personal crisis, other factors had contributed to a steady waning of girls. A growing acceptance of pregnant teens remaining with their families—progress, certainly, in the eyes of her father—meant the type of girl they took in was changing. Theirs were the hard-luck, runaway cases requiring stacks of public assistance applications, cooperation with social workers and, at times, local law enforcement.
“It’s pretty scary. She refuses to talk about it. And Jocelyn’s leaving for California on the first wagon train out of here.”
“And you’re going back to school in the fall.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Your mom should sell.”
“What?” Jill stepped away from him. “How could you say that? My great-grandfather built this house.”
“It’s immense.” Keith gestured with his hands. “What would she do with all this space?”
Jill bit her lip. Not only had she, her mother, and her sister been avoiding this conversation, but she’d even managed to bury it deep in her subconscious, avoiding the worry and panic. Dealing with her dad’s immediate concerns was crisis enough. “It’s not worth thinking about yet.”
“I’ve been doing some thinking.” Keith reached out and held Jill’s hand. “About what I want to do.” He pumped her arm back and forth, as if working a jump rope. “And there’s only one common thread in each scenario.”
“What’s that?”
“You. Each and every one of them seems torture without you.”
No guy had ever factored her into his future. Jill felt tingly and warm and happier than she had in weeks. “What does that mean?”
“It means hurry up and finish school so we can escape.”
“Escape?”
“Let’s head west and keep on going,” he said. “San Francisco for starters, and then somewhere in the Pacific. I’m thinking Fiji.”
“You mean live there?”
“Why not?”
“What would we do?”
“Travel, take odd jobs, like in restaurants and bars, meet characters, eat crazy things, collect memories and exotic recipes. For a while, at least. A couple years maybe.” He plied her hand nervously. “My dad never liked being a lawyer. His parents pressured him into it. He claims he never got to explore his own interests. He says he blinked and he was fifty. He wishes he’d had more adventures. Well, I gave the corporate world a shot; it wasn’t for me. I’m ready for a little travel.”
“I don’t know.” Jill pulled her hand away and ran it through her hair. “Travel’s one thing. But living overseas? Even just for a few years. I guess I always pictured myself here somehow.” She gestured out the window to the winter cloaked landscape. “In Iowa at the very least.”
“That’s not how I picture you.” He pulled her back into an embrace. “I picture you on a beach somewhere with tan legs and a wet bikini.”
She felt his warm breath tickle the hairs on her neck.
“Or in some mountain cabin, your bare butt on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fire.” He kissed her again hungrily.
She wiggled free. “You’re messing with my mind. All I want to think about right now is my dad and my family and home. It’s all so sad. At his request, we’ve brought all the family photos and memorabilia into his sickroom. The other day I found him staring at that old kilt of his and crying.”
“I’d cry, too, if I had to wear a skirt.”
She elbowed him. “It’s not a skirt. It’s a kilt.”
“A type of skirt.”
“A man-skirt, though.”
“No such thing.”
She rolled her eyes. “The point is he never got to wear it. It didn’t arrive in time. Besides, their wedding ended up being a very small affair.”
“But the marriage was long. Maybe they were tears of joy.”
“I hardly think joy.”
“Relief, then.”
“Relief?”
“That he never had to wear the skirt.”
“The kilt,” she corrected.
“I don’t care what you call it, a guy’s gotta be pretty darn confident of his manhood to pull that off. Not to mention his legs.”
“Maybe he had nice legs.”
“Let’s hope.”
Jill shook her head side to side and then shoved Keith. “And anyway, stop it.”
“What?”
“Stop lightening the mood.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to see a smile, even a tiny one. It’s been a while.” He put his hands at her waist and pulled her close, kissing her softly at first, and then deeply.
“Damn you.” She groaned and pulled away. “I have to give my dad his meds.”
“I can be very quick,” he whispered. He unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans. They fell to her ankles, and she stepped out of them. His fingers tugged at the lace of her panties. She unbuttoned his jeans and he shrugged his sweatshirt over his head. She stood before him, kissing his chest, when the door flung open and Jocelyn stood there wild-eyed.
“Jesus!” Jocelyn said.
Jill stepped away from Keith and returned the angry tone. “You don’t knock.”
Jocelyn glowered and looked from Jill to Keith and back to Jill. “Dad’s dead. Thought you might like to know.”
The weeks following the funeral were, without equal, the roughest Jill had ever endured. The stress of it had her head feeling like it had been cleaved in two with an ax, and her stomach like it was digesting nails and razors. Her mother, as her father had predicted, was overcome with sorrow, barely taking care of herself. And still-mad-at-the-world Jocelyn was in manic preparation mode for her upcoming move to California. Her way of dealing with grief, besides a fighter’s stance and balled fists, was to move on. She was working overtime, trying frantically to save enough for the cross-country trek. Jill had gone almost two weeks without having any real contact with Jocelyn and was startled, one night, to come across her in the dining room with a large ceramic dish of lasagna and a fork. Jocelyn stood guiltily as Jill sat down across from her; Jill was surprised to notice Jocelyn had put on a few pounds. Jocelyn had always had a Ruby-like voluptuousness to her, but she was usually diligent about her weight.
“What’s going on?” Jill asked.
“Getting rid of the last of the pity food. I found this in the freezer next to Mrs. Kirchner’s raspberry cobbler.” Jocelyn started to clear the dish from the table. “I guess I’m like Mom. I eat my way through stress.” It had always been a family joke that Ruby washed troubles away with a tall glass of milk and a big slice of cake.
“Wait a minute,” Jill said. “I thought we could talk.”
“About what?”
“About the stack of insurance papers and bank statements I’ve been sorting through for starters. I spoke to the lawyer again today.”
Jocelyn sat back down, but still clutched the dirty dish. “Really, Jill, can’t you and Mom just handle all of that? Do I really need to be involved?”
“I could do with the help.” Jill remembered her promise to her father to take care of it all, but she was only just beginning to comprehend the enormity of the task.
“How much help could I be? I am leaving, after all.”
“We can’t just dump this on Mom.”
“You have a head for all that stuff. I trust you.”
“I just thought we should discuss it. Keith thinks we should—”
“Please,” Jocelyn cut in, “can you, for once, finish a sentence without Keith’s name cropping up. It’s really annoying.”
Jill sat in shocked silence. Granted, Jocelyn was mad at everyone and everything, but her resentment at Jill and Keith’s relationship seemed to be growing. Jill had hoped their father’s illness and death would put it all in perspective. Life is short, so forgive and forget. Jocelyn, however, seemed determined to remain in begrudge-and-fester mode. “Seeing as you find my relationship with Keith so annoying, it will probably make your day to hear that he’s leaving town on Saturday for three months.”
“Three months? Where’s he going?”
“His mom, impatient for him to get another real job, finally gave in to his interest in a culinary career. She got him a job as a sous-chef on a private yacht. She’s happy because he’ll be rubbing elbows with the boating set or getting back to—as she calls it—civilization. He agreed because he’ll be working under a really great chef.”
“So, did he break up with you?” Jocelyn sounded almost gleeful.
“No.” Jill hated the way Jocelyn looked at her with a mixture of pity and triumph. “As a matter of fact, he almost didn’t take the job because of me. But his mom went to a lot of trouble. And it’s only three months and a great opportunity. Anyway, he told me he loved me. He said he’s never, in all his life, met anyone like me. And he’s coming back. He’s definitely coming back.” Jill, cringing at the doubt and defensiveness in her voice, tucked a clump of hair behind her ear.
Jocelyn laughed. “Of course he is.”
“He promised.”
Jocelyn stood and took a step away from the table. “The house and everything goes to Mom. It’s her decision, not mine and not yours, so on second thought, stay out of it.” Jocelyn’s face went all red and puffy. “And tell Keith to stay out of it, too. The last person Mom needs sticking his nose into all her personal information is Hester Fraser’s nephew.”
Jocelyn marched out of the room, leaving Jill to brood. What Jocelyn said was true. The will had left the estate to their mother. This was no surprise; Jill had discussed as much with her dad. The surprise was Ruby’s abdication of all involvement, which was what Jill had wanted to discuss with Jocelyn. Ruby showed no interest, nor offered any assistance, in sorting through the tangle of family finances. She acted listless and detached, manic in spurts, and then feeble and sickly. Even her hair was thinning. The other morning, Jill found an entire clump of it on her mom’s pillow. It was just as well that the McCloud Home for Girls was officially closed. Jill had already mailed a letter to the long list of donors and benefactors advising them and thanking them for their years of support. Even without the care and upkeep of young girls, Jill was becoming convinced her mother was unable to handle the responsibility of such a large home.
Her concerns grew the next morning when she found Ruby in the kitchen rummaging through the pantry. She wore Daniel’s old brown terrycloth robe. It was faded and frayed and much too big for Ruby.
“What are you looking for?” Jill asked.
“Olives.”
“What do you need olives for?”
“Meat loaf.” A large can of kidney beans fell onto the checked linoleum floor with a thwack, and Ruby kicked it out of her way.
“You’re making meat loaf now?” It was ten in the morning. Ruby had obviously just woken up. Her hair looked unusually thin and was matted on one side. Her eyes were red and swollen. “What about those checks I left you to sign? Did you get to them?”
“I’m hungry. And there’s some ground sirloin in the fridge.”
Jill knew there was ground sirloin, because she had bought it yesterday and intended to fry burgers for that night’s dinner. “I don’t know if we have olives.”
“Then I’ll make pancakes.” Ruby sounded frantic. She pulled at her bangs.
Jill shook her head. “Mom, we need to talk about the house.”
“What about it?”
“How are you going to manage? Jocelyn’s leaving for California as soon as she pulls enough money together.” Jill crossed her arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. “And I’m going back to school in the fall.”
Ruby paused for a moment, looking at Jill as if this were new information. Something shadowy passed over her eyes. “Janine will need new school shoes in the fall.” Ruby had found a box of Aunt Jemima and was dumping an unmeasured quantity into a mixing bowl. Flour dust lifted into the air and then settled in a ring around the outside of the large bowl. “Her favorite color is red.”
Jill’s eyes flashed back and forth, and she held her breath, not believing what she was hearing. It was an acknowledged fact that Ruby had suffered some sort of exhaustion or breakdown after the death of baby Janine. And again following the pre-Jocelyn miscarriage, but those incidents were years ago. And stories were one thing, but to observe such behavior firsthand was something else entirely. Jill now understood her father’s deathbed concerns and the signs he claimed to have observed.
“Josh should take her to buy them. Little Janine loves to drive in his convertible.” Ruby stirred the dry mix with a frantic pump of her arm, the wooden spoon clicking against the side of the bowl.
“Mom, you need eggs and milk.” Jill hoped directions to a simple task would bring her back. She opened the fridge, pulled out eggs and a gallon of milk, and set them on the counter next to Ruby’s mixing bowl. “We were talking about the house. What you want to do with it.”
Ruby sloshed milk into the bowl. “Daniel will know what to do.” Ruby cracked one egg, and then another, on top of the mix. She started stirring again, whipping the batter violently. Clumps of white paste splattered onto the counter.
Jill stepped in. “Why don’t you let me do that for you. You go rest. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
Ruby allowed Jill to take the spoon from her. She shuffled toward the kitchen door, then stopped. “Janine likes blueberries in hers,” she called over her shoulder. “Josh likes his rolled with lemon juice and butter.”
“Got it.” Jill turned to hide the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. There had been, over the years, the occasional mention of Ruby’s first sweetheart and baby Janine’s father, Josh, who had died in a car accident. And Janine’s name was part and parcel of the family. Jill had, however, never heard them discussed as if they were living, breathing entities with an appetite for pancakes.