CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A LONG FALL
HE RETURNED ME to my window as quietly as we’d exited. Leaning in, he gave me a long and simmering kiss, and I didn’t want to let go of him. The warmth inside of me flared a bit. He pulled back reluctantly with a soft smile. “Someday—but today is not that day—I won’t have to say goodbye to you.”
“Promise?”
“Always.”
And then he was gone, and the ladder quietly disappeared from the side of the house as well. I sat on the corner of my bed, feeling a bit unbalanced. Scout still hadn’t turned a paw in my absence, so I padded down to the kitchen to get some juice and noticed in relief that my mother had come home. The soup pot stood in part of the sink, soaking for cleaning in the morning, and she’d made a few extra grilled cheese sandwiches beside the leftover I’d fixed for her because bread had disappeared and the skillet was dirtied, too. Oddly enough, there were two soup bowls also soaking. I’d loaded mine and Steptoe’s, and stood looking at her dirty dishes in slight surprise before deciding that Simon had probably had a second dinner. He didn’t have a digestive system like we did, and I think he burned every last molecule for energy every time he ate. Like my Scout, his appetite qualified as voracious. Hiram’s wasn’t skimpy either. Luckily, they wouldn’t eat us out of house and home; they brought groceries as often as they shared meals with us, and right now our bank account had a comfortable pad. May it stay that way.
I found the glass juice pitcher, poured myself three fingers, drank it, and headed back upstairs. Somewhere close to my bedroom door I found myself wondering if my mom had entertained a different guest.
That kept me wide awake for about three minutes, but I gave up thinking to dive back into my bed, nicely warmed by one sprawled golden dog body.
The morning breakfast came accompanied with a nice thick stack of paper, bound in a card stock wrapper. I stared at it. “Wow. Is that it?”
Mom bustled around the kitchen as if she had energy to spare. “It is, indeed.”
“Where does it go now?”
“To the university printers if Faith delivers the disk as she should. It will be ready when I walk in early May.” She stopped at my elbow. “It’s been a long time coming.”
“But worth it, right?” I hefted the manuscript. “Copies?”
“They made about twelve. Six to the committee members, two to me, and four for . . . well, I don’t know who those are meant for, but they’re only photocopies. It’s the bound ones that will take my breath away.” She looked down at me. I could see some silvery hairs among her natural blonde, and a few fine lines at the corners of her brilliant blue eyes, and something else. Satisfaction? A job finished and done well? We didn’t have a lot of successes in our lives that we could enthusiastically point to; like most people, we just kept surviving with our heads above water. But this was a real achievement.
“Congratulations doesn’t say enough.”
“We should celebrate, right?”
“We should!” I dug my phone out of my pants pocket. She reached over my shoulder and pushed my wrist to the tabletop.
“Phone later, breakfast now. And I’ve already put kibble down for Scout. Simon’s nowhere to be seen, so it’s just the two of us.”
The animal in question wiggled his butt as he sat next to the now very empty bowl and looked at me as if he’d been neglected. I pointed at him. “You get my toast corners. That’s it.”
He licked his lips in anticipation.
I dug into my breakfast as Mom sat down opposite and, every once in a while, one of us would look at the binder and let out this crazy, crooked grin. Mine faded as I considered what Carter and I had discussed. I put my fork down.
She noticed the change in my mood immediately. “What is it?”
“How can you tell it’s anything?”
“You get a shadow in your eyes. And a few bags underneath. I can always tell when you haven’t slept well. I usually chalk it up to our varied group of friends, many of whom seem to be primarily nocturnal. But mainly, now, you look worried.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” I traced my finger over a pattern in my paper napkin. “Dad’s not doing well.”
She stopped with her hand in midair. “Are we losing him?”
Words jammed together in my throat. I nodded instead.
She put her cup down. “What can we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who would know? Carter? Hiram and his clan? The professor if we could find him?”
I managed a shrug, still fighting with the lump of words, and ended up just shaking my head.
“I thought that you thought that Mortimer might have observed something, noted something in his journal.”
I grabbed for my juice and gulped down a big swig of slightly sweet and acidic orange juice. Winter season oranges were never as good as spring and summer. My tongue stung a bit. “Nothing yet,” I managed. “And there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Her gaze narrowed ever so slightly.
I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. “I chased him out of the house when I found out he’d emptied my college fund.”
“And where was I at the time?”
“Evening office hours. I think you were trying to talk a student out of dropping too late and getting a horrible grade on his record.”
She slid her hand over the table to mine and gripped me. “Honey, I’m sorry. So, so sorry he did that to you.”
“No. No, no—you don’t get it. I did that to him.”
“Don’t think that. Ever. I knew something was going on and should have called him on it before it got that far. You reacted.”
“I overreacted.”
“Maybe. But it wasn’t your fault then, and it isn’t now. Your dad caused most of his own problems, and I got tired of running interference for him. I loved him, but—”
“But?”
“It was like watching an alcoholic drown in booze. I couldn’t make myself step in and stop it. I kept hoping that he’d come to his senses. I did love him. Yet he’d changed so much . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Her hand, tight on mine, felt a little chilled. I hesitated before asking, “Would you have left him?”
“Not then. I might have, but he left us first, didn’t he? Long before you told him to leave. I don’t know what I would have done. If you get him back now, will he be the man I married, the man who was your father, or the man who couldn’t stop gambling?”
“I think he deserves a chance.”
“You would. Then give him that chance, if you can. But don’t beat yourself up if you can’t. I think it would be cruel to keep him trapped in limbo.”
“Do you believe in hell?”
She took her hand away. “Not exactly. But if I did, I think that’s where he’s been for the last few years, don’t you? Not able to return or move forward. I think he’d tell you to do what you have to do.”
“If only I knew what that was.”
She got up, put her tea in the microwave to heat it up again, and said, her back to me, “You’ll figure it out.”
The appliance dinged, masking my reply, which was probably wise because she hated hearing me say things like, “Whatever the fuck that might be.”
I was handling the laundry when Evie called. I’d been out for a long run, winter day or not, because when the semester started, I knew coach would be jogging our legs off, season or no season for field hockey. I pried my phone out of my pocket. Not a good sign, that. I might have to start running on a daily basis. My jeans shouldn’t be quite that tight.
“Tessa, Tessa, Tessa!”
“Ohh-kay. That would be me.”
“Did you get the invite?”
I glanced around the laundry room before answering, “What invite?”
“Party, this weekend, Hiram.”
“Oooooh.”
Evelyn pounced. “Good oh or bad oh?”
“Neutral. Meaning, at least I know why you’re so excited and I may have to turn the volume down.” I stopped sorting clothes for a minute and leaned one hip against the washing machine as it churned. “Is this the big everybody-meet-everybody luncheon?”
“It is!”
It looked to me like this was going to be my week for coming clean. I was going to have to pull her aside and tell her about the birds and the bees and fairies and magic. “Saturday?”
“Yes. Late lunch, around three pm. You’re coming, right? And your mother?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Actually, I would if I could, but only because I’d met my quota of running into brick walls this month and it was still really early in January. “Don’t embarrass me by asking him to marry you again.”
Evelyn’s voice dropped a tone. “I won’t. That was really stupid of me, wasn’t it?”
“Not stupid, just extremely premature. If he’s the one, you’ve got time to get to know him first.”
“With these butterflies?”
“I think those butterflies might be hormonal.”
“Never!” But Evelyn laughed. It was good to hear that rather than a frantic explanation of why things had to be the way they were, from her point of view. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
The dryer buzzed. “Gotta go, I need to lay these clothes out so they don’t wrinkle. I’ll give you a call when I get my own invitation.”
“Done deal!” She signed off, and I bent over to disperse the load. I wouldn’t get the mail for a few hours yet, so I buried myself in chores.
As it turned out, it didn’t come in the mail. Hiram delivered our invitation in person, our front porch groaning a bit as he ascended it and stood at our front door, very formal.
The dryer buzzed again from the laundry room in the back as I opened the house for him. “Is this about Saturday?”
“It is. And I hate to trouble you, but I need a word or so.”
“Hiram! If you’re trouble, I need more of it. We’ve biscuits and jam left over from breakfast—go help yourself while I move the clothes over?”
“I will, indeed. Peach jam?”
“Raspberry. Home put up.”
He smiled broadly. “Don’t mind if I do!”
When I showed up at the kitchen table, he had a spread of biscuits, two kinds of jam, one jar of honey, and a pot of wonderful-smelling coffee brewing.
He also had my mother’s binder under his left hand, a third of it read. He closed it and put it aside when I sat down. His brows had settled deeply over his eyes.
I buttered a warm biscuit half, discovered he’d found peach jam in the pantry, and decorated my snack. “Everything all right?”
“So far.”
He didn’t look it, and I wasn’t convinced, but Iron Dwarves weren’t easy to pry words out of if they don’t want to talk.
“Evelyn is excited.”
“I know.” His face twisted wryly for a few brief seconds. “Any chance you could calm her down?”
“I will do my best.” I dusted crumbs off my fingers. “I’m glad you’re doing this. It’s really important to her.”
“I am honored to be in her regard.”
“Don’t sound so stuffy. She’s crazy about you, and I know you care for her.”
“I do. I’m aware. I’m just not certain . . .” His gaze dropped.
I leaned forward and supplied an ending to his sentence. “That you have a future together?”
“Aye, that would be it.”
“So, you should quit it if you haven’t got the courage to stay in it.”
“Well, now . . . I don’t like hearing that. Broadstones are not quitters.”
I decided to point out the obvious. “Nor are they mired in convention. Look at your own father. He fell in love with a harpy, no matter what the others said.”
Hiram sat very silent for a long moment, an index finger ticking on the kitchen table. He cleared his throat. “He did, did he not?”
“He certainly did. And although they had their troubles, I venture to say they loved and respected each other in their own ways for decades. Goldie speaks very highly of him.”
“I wouldn’t want to live separately the way the two of them did.”
“I shouldn’t imagine Evie would either. It’s a little early to be thinking about that now, though.”
“I like to plan for contingencies.” He devoured a raspberry jam biscuit in one bite.
“My advice would be to take it slowly and carefully, at least until after Statler’s inauguration in two weeks. If you rock that boat, all your hopes will sink. Evelyn won’t be able to save either of you.”
“He’s a strong man.”
“And powerful. If you have to go up against him, it will be like those rams that butt heads against each other for days.”
“Bighorn sheep.”
“Those would be the ones.”
Hiram laughed. “You’ve the right of that one. We would, indeed, butt heads until one of us fell over.”
“Not good for anyone.”
“No.” Hiram’s gaze drifted downward, glancing over my mother’s dissertation, and I thought I saw a wince. He pushed away from the kitchen table. “I’ll see the two of you?”
“Long as we have an address.”
He dropped a gold-edged envelope on the table. “Now you do.” He gave a bow. “Thank your mother for the biscuits. She has a delicate hand with them.”
He left, the house softly creaking with each footstep as he did.
I picked up the invitation and slid it open to stare at the address, not at all surprised to find that he owned an estate house in a very good part of town, edged with woods and bordered by a small creek, and likely to have cost more than I could possibly imagine. I would definitely have to have a sit-down with Evelyn before the dinner.
I could hear Mom vacuuming somewhere in the living room and what passed for a parlor/dining room, heralded by Scout’s somewhat panicky retreat to the upstairs. Brave as my dog could be, he’d never quite gotten used to the vacuum cleaner. I followed him up, determined to get that journal and more reading done.
Flopping down in my chair, feet up, dog at one knee, I pulled the journal into position . . . and then noticed a ragged edge of a page I hadn’t ever seen before peeking out of the top. I leafed forward and back until I found the damage. Someone had ripped nearly an entire page out of the journal, something I had never noticed before. The spine held a ragged, jagged edge, of which only one word could be seen. Half a word, in truth. A name? A description? Nic—whatever. I stared at it and then read forward and afterward quickly to see if I could pick up the full name and context.
I finally dropped the journal on my lap. Someone had been into Mortimer’s diary in the last few days. Someone didn’t want me learning what the journal could teach me.