Chapter 13

KAYLA

2010

I drive to the office Monday feeling even more anxious than I did last week. I actually case the main level of the parking lot for the red-haired woman before slipping into my usual spot and getting out of my car. I barely slept over the weekend, still trying to figure out what the woman wanted with me. Does she regret confiding in me? If she’ll murder one person, she could just as easily murder two. If the woman knows where my new house is—and she obviously does—does she also know that Rainie spends her mornings at preschool? Does she know where that preschool is? How the hell does she know anything about me?

I spend half an hour on the phone, trying to find a fencing company willing to run a fence between my thickly wooded backyard and the lake. It turns out, fencing companies are not crazy about installing fences through a wooded lot. I hear about copperheads and yellow jackets and the sheer misery of clear cutting a straight line for the posts. The one company that is willing has no openings for a month. I make an appointment with them to come out and take a look. Give me an estimate. Then I get off the phone and stare out the window for a while. I have never even seen the lake, it’s so deep in the woods. Do I really need to worry about it?

After work, I visit my favorite shop for window treatments in Carlisle, the county seat of Derby County, where all the good stores are. Amanda, an interior designer I’ve worked with often on my projects, gives me a bunch of catalogs and a stack of samples to bring home. Now I have an hour or so to myself before I have to pick Rainie up and I can’t wait to get to the new house and figure out how to cover all those big gaping windows.

I turn onto Shadow Ridge Lane to the familiar sight of white construction vans. Straight ahead, at the end of the road, I see our perfect house in its cave of green trees, but what catches my eye is that white sedan in the driveway of the Hockley house. A woman with short gray hair is lifting fabric grocery bags out of the trunk. I remember the welcome light in that house from the night before. On a whim, I pull in behind her car. She looks up, the bags weighing her down. I get out of my SUV and wave.

“Looks like you can use some help!” I call, walking toward her.

She smiles. “I can’t argue with that!”

I slip one of the bags from her arm and pick up the remaining two from her trunk, then follow her up the driveway, past Buddy Hockley’s blue truck and through the side door of the house.

I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. We’re in a kitchen, the wallpaper covered with faded images of rolling pins and sacks of flour. There’s a small white four-burner stove and an out-of-place stainless-steel refrigerator. The porcelain sink is huge. White cabinetry covers two walls and looks as though it’s been repainted a dozen times over the years. On the wall next to the door is a key rack that was probably made in a long-ago shop class. Three key chains dangle from it, the wallpaper worn away where the keys hit the wall. The kitchen is the antithesis of my shiny modern kitchen and it feels comforting to me. Something smells amazing in this room. There’s a slow cooker on the counter and whatever is in it makes my mouth water.

“You can set the bags right there.” The woman nods toward the table, which is covered in a blue-and-white-checked tablecloth.

I lower the bags to the table. “Can I help you unload the groceries?” I ask.

“No, but you can sit and have a cup of tea with me,” she says, as she begins pulling produce from one of the bags. “You must be the new neighbor. You bought that gorgeous house at the end of the street, right?” I can’t place her accent. Not Southern, but not Northern, either.

“That’s right,” I say, sitting down at the table. “And you must be Mr. Hockley’s … aide, or…?”

She laughs. “I’m his sister, Ellie. Do you know my brother?”

“No. I mean, I’ve seen him around, so I know who he is. Everyone sort of knows everyone around here.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” she says.

I wonder how old she is. Her hair is very short and is not exactly gray, as I’d first thought. More of a blond-gray. She’s an inch or two shorter than me, around five four. She’s slender and appears to be in great shape in her jeans and green T-shirt. Even her arms look toned. Her eyes are a clear pale blue behind silver wire-rimmed glasses and she wears dangly silver earrings. There are very few lines in her fair skin. I think she’s probably in her late fifties.

“I heard Mr. Buddy is ill,” I say. “I was sorry to hear that.”

She nods. “That’s why I’m here. He and my mother both need someone to look after them and I was able to make the time.”

“That’s great you could come. My name’s Kayla, by the way.”

She looks up from her task to smile at me. “Happy to meet you, Kayla.” She pulls a can of loose tea from the shopping bag, opens it, raises it to her nose, and takes a deep breath. “Ahh, beautiful,” she says. “Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?” She turns the can to show me the label. ROOIBOS.

“I’ve never had that. How do you pronounce it?”

“Roy-boss,” she says. “Full of antioxidants. It’s delicious and good for you.”

“I’d love a cup,” I say. I’m a coffee drinker, but I’m so ridiculously excited to meet a neighbor that I’ll drink anything she offers. She seems equally pleased to have company as well.

“Are your brother and mother home?” I’m being nosy. I’m certain her brother is home; the truck is here. I’m just curious to know what’s wrong with him.

“Yes. They’re both sleeping right now, which is what they do most of the time these days. My mother’s eighty-eight and she doesn’t walk well and she’s just worn out. She’s been in an assisted-living place for the last three years, but she despises it—even though it’s supposed to be one of the best—so I figured I’d bring her home as long as I’m here. I’ve set up the downstairs bedroom for her. My brother has congestive heart failure.” She fills the kettle and sets it on the stove. “There just isn’t anything they can do for him now. He still has some good days and usually comes downstairs and has dinner with Mama and me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Is he your older brother?”

“Older and only.”

“You grew up in this house?”

She shuts her eyes and I swear I see pain in her face. But it’s as though she quickly catches herself. Doesn’t want me to see it. “Until I was twenty,” she says. “I moved away then. Moved to California. And although Buddy used to come out to visit me every few years, I haven’t been back here since I left. Forty-five years.”

“Wow,” I say. I realize she must be sixty-five. “It must have been a shock to see Shadow Ridge Lane with all the houses going up.”

She groans. “I can’t get used to that big sign at the entrance. ‘Shadow Ridge Estates.’ Estates!” She laughs. “Shadow Ridge this and Shadow Ridge that. This street will always be Hockley Street to me. I mean, can you tell me where the ridge is that makes your new neighborhood Shadow Ridge?”

I laugh myself. Jackson and I had joked about that. “There’s no ridge that I know of,” I say. “Just like there’s no hill in Round Hill.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Do you know what’s happening with these houses?” She gestures toward the street. “Are they sold or what?”

“Our house was completed first,” I say. I don’t want to get into an explanation of why our house was finished so far ahead of the others. “Some of the others are sold. Maybe half of them. But I think it’ll be a while before anyone else moves in. I’m your only neighbor for now.”

She’d opened one of the cabinets and had been reaching for the cups, but she stops. Lowers her arm. Her expression is serious as she looks directly into my eyes with her clear blue ones. “I heard there was an accident,” she says softly. “I heard that the husband—your husband—died. I’m very sorry. That’s a tragedy.”

“Thank you.” I feel touched. I think of the red-haired woman. She could have simply heard about Jackson through the grapevine, too, and that gives me a few seconds of comfort until I remember that the red-haired woman was in Greenville, thirty miles from Round Hill, too far away for the rumor mill to reach her. I don’t want to think about her and I focus on Ellie again. “So it’s just my daughter and me now.” I glance at my watch. I have plenty of time before I need to pick Rainie up from my father’s, and I’m in no rush to leave. I like Ellie—her energy and friendliness. I like knowing I have a neighbor.

Ellie takes down the cups and sets them on the counter. “Your daughter’s only three, right?” She scoops the loose tea into a teapot. “That’s got to be so hard on her. And you.”

I nod. “She’ll be four in a couple of months. How did you know her age?”

She looks thoughtful. “I don’t know. I must have heard it somewhere.”

I don’t like that Rainie and Jackson and I have been the topic of so much conversation. “Will you be staying in Round Hill?” I ask, changing the subject.

She sighs and pours hot water into the teapot. “I can’t leave Buddy and my mother,” she says. “I’ve thought of taking them back to San Francisco with me, but I live in a little cottage and all their doctors are here and I’m not sure either of them would survive the trip. So I think I’ll be here until…” She gives a little shrug.

“I understand,” I say. “It’s got to be hard to be uprooted and not know when you can go home.”

Ellie leans back against the counter, her arms folded across her chest. “The hard part is that I have a yoga studio and one of my friends is taking over my classes, but I’ve left things a little topsy-turvy, you could say.”

“You teach yoga?” I can’t keep the surprise from my voice, and she smiles.

“For thirty-five years.”

“No wonder you’re in such amazing shape.”

She laughs. “Thank you.”

“There’s a really good studio on Main Street,” I say. “Have you been?”

“I’ve heard about it, but haven’t found the time to stop in yet. I’ve just been using a room upstairs. Do you practice yoga?” She pours our tea, catching the tea leaves with a small strainer.

“I used to, off and on, though I wasn’t very good at sticking with it.” An understatement. “I did it in my early twenties and then pregnancy yoga when I was expecting Rainie and then a little before I went back to school. And then the accident happened and—” I shrug my shoulders and Ellie nods.

“Life intervened,” she says, setting the two cups on the table and sitting down across from me.

“Right. And now I’m back at work. I took off a few months after the accident, so yoga is not the first thing on my mind.” I taste the tea. It’s far too hot to drink, but the flavor is woodsy, as if I’m drinking my backyard.

“What sort of work do you do?” she asks.

“I’m an architect. My husband and I both were. We designed the house.” I nod toward the end of the street. “We both worked for the same design firm in Greenville.”

She frowns. “Has to be hard, going back to work without him there,” she says, and I nod.

“Extremely,” I say.

“Who’s watching your little girl while you’re working?”

“She’s in preschool in the morning and then my father takes care of her in the afternoon.” I look at the time on my phone again. “Which reminds me that I’d better go pick her up soon.” I nod at the cup of tea in my hand. “This is … interesting.” I smile.

“It’ll grow on you,” she says.

I take another sip. She’s right. It’s not bad. “What are you making in that slow cooker?” I ask. “It smells delicious.”

“Doesn’t it?” she said. “It’s a Middle Eastern stew. I eat mostly vegetarian and a bit of seafood, so I cook a little chicken separately and toss it into my mother’s and Buddy’s bowls. But I have to say I’m frustrated with the stores in Round Hill.”

“How come?”

“No za’atar in any of them. No Middle Eastern or kosher groceries in Round Hill. I’m spoiled by living in California. Have you ever had it?”

“I think so,” I say. “Kind of a combination of herbs and spices?” There’s a great Middle Eastern restaurant in Greenville and I’m pretty sure I know what she’s talking about.

“I’m going to have to send away for it. For a man raised on chicken and dumplings, Buddy loves my Middle Eastern cooking.”

“How did you end up in San Francisco?” I ask.

“Oh, that’s a long story.” She waves away the question. “But it suits me there. I have lots of good friends whom I miss dearly.”

“I know what that’s like,” I say. I lost friends by becoming a widow. They rallied around me in the beginning, but every one of my close friends is part of a couple and sometimes I wonder if they think widowhood is catching.

I glance at the clock on Ellie’s range. “I’d better go.” I drink the rest of the tea and get to my feet.

“I’ll walk out with you,” she says.

Outside, we walk down her driveway past Buddy Hockley’s truck and her car. When we reach the street, I look straight down Shadow Ridge Lane and see my house, surrounded by trees. I turn to face her. “It was so nice meeting you, Miss Ellie,” I say sincerely.

“Oh, none of that ‘Miss Ellie’ stuff.” She laughs. “I’ve been away from the South for so long, I won’t answer to that anymore. Just ‘Ellie,’ please.”

I smile. “Okay, Ellie. I’m happy we’re neighbors, even if we’re at opposite ends of the street.” I look toward my house again. Hesitate for a second before I speak. “Last night”—I nod toward her old white house—“I looked out my front window and the neighborhood was pitch black except for a light in this house. Your house. It made me feel…” I’m suddenly embarrassed, baring my soul to this near stranger.

“Less alone?” Ellie offers.

“Exactly,” I said.

“I’m glad,” she said. “You let me know if you ever want to practice some yoga. No charge, of course. It’s always nice to have a partner.”

“I will,” I say, wondering if I could fit that in.

“I hope I haven’t made you late picking up your daughter.”

“Oh no. My father just lives over on Painter Lane.”

Her smile grows uncertain. “What’s his name?” she asks. “Your father?”

I suddenly remember Daddy saying something about hanging out with the Hockley kids in a tree house. “I think you knew him,” I say. “Reed Miller.”

She hesitates a moment. I can’t read her expression. It’s flat, but there’s something brewing behind it. “Ah,” she says finally. Then she turns away from me, abruptly. Over her shoulder she calls, “Have a nice afternoon, now.”

I stare after her, confused by such an awkward ending to a comfortable visit. One thing I know for sure, though: she knew my father.