Chapter 35

13 Days to the Celebration

Malcolm was sitting at his desk when headlights lit up the front of Domus Jefferson and the Shenandoah County sheriff’s SUV came to a stop in the spacious gravel parking area. Malcolm watched his sister kill the lights and sit in the car for a minute or two before opening the door and stepping into the night air. He moved to meet her at the front door, but when he pulled it open, she wasn’t on the porch, she was walking across the north side lawn heading toward the guest cottage. He watched her open the front door, flip on a light, and shut the door behind her.

“Who’s here?” Rain startled him from behind.

Malcolm pointed at the guesthouse. “Sammie.”

“She need something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she all right?”

“I don’t know that either.” Malcolm turned and kissed her forehead. “I’ll find out.” He descended the porch alone and made his way to the small two-bedroom guesthouse he and his sister had once shared as children.

“Knock-knock,” he said, opening the door. Malcolm found Samantha in full uniform lying on her back on a double bed in her old room. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Don’t need one.” She smiled.

“Oh, really?” Malcolm leaned against the open door.

“Nope, I know the owners.”

“Ah, yes, the owners. Good people.”

“Eh. The wife’s sweet,” Samantha said, “but the husband’s a hoser.”

“Hoser? What are you now, a Mountie?”

“Shut it.”

“So why the visit? Shawn finally kick you out?”

“You wish.”

“I do?”

“You know you’d love to have your sister back here tormenting you like the good ol’ days.”

“I thought I did most of the tormenting.” Malcolm slapped her hip. “Slide over, sheriff.” He laid down next to her and pulled the pillow out from underneath her head.

“You’re such a doof,” she said, yanking it back and doubling it over so there wasn’t enough to share.

“Doof,” Malcolm chuckled. “Haven’t heard that one for a while.”

“Yet it never goes out of style,” she said. They laid side by side, looking up at the ceiling.

“Everything all right, sis?”

“Yeah, just been meaning to come by all week. Been thinking about this place.”

“The Inn?”

“The Inn, the cottage, the hill, Mom and Dad. . . . I haven’t been in the old room in a long time.”

“I’m surprised you recognized the place. Rain took down your Johnny Depp and Heathcliff posters years ago.”

“It was Tom Cruise and Garfield, thank you very much. And that was a long time ago. Long before Katie Holmes and long before he became a Scientologist.”

“Garfield’s a Scientologist?”

Samantha pulled her pillow out and whacked him.

“What?” he protested. “I don’t judge.”

Laughter filled the cottage and Samantha put the pillow back in place, this time leaving half for Malcolm and inviting him to take it with a pat. They looked back up at the ceiling. “Remember those glow-in-the-dark stars I had?”

“Uh-huh. Mom bought them for you to make you like the room.”

“Yep. We went to Ben Franklin. Must have been just a couple nights after we moved here. I actually liked the room just fine, but I kept telling her the more stars I had, the more I’d like it. So she kept buying them. Had my own little galaxy up there.”

“I remember. They were still there when you and Will split up and you and Angie moved back here for a while. No glow left, but they were there.”

“How appropriate,” Samantha mused.

They lay in silence, both following thoughts to stale memories.

“Angie loved it here. She missed Will, but she loved living here. I had to drag her away and into that townhouse.”

“I think Mom and Dad spoiling her to death had something to do with that.”

“Maybe so.”

Another verse of silence came and went between them.

“Funny how much you hated this place at first.” Malcolm turned to her. “Now look at you.”

“Of course I did. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re ten and you get ripped from your home.”

“Ripped from your home? OK, John Walsh.”

“What? It was tough moving here. My life was in Charlottesville.”

“Uh, Sammie, you know I moved too? And I was a teenager with actual friends. Most of yours were imaginary.”

“Most of yours were imaginary.” She mocked his voice. “I had friends. Theater friends mostly, but good friends.”

“Maybe so, but you settled in quickly. We all did.”

“This place sure helped,” Samantha said.

“It sure did.”

They reminisced in familiar rhythm about sleepovers and fights, holidays and snowstorms, pranks and parents.

When Malcolm sensed the beat slowing, he went where he least wanted to. “You know I have to ask you this, right, Sammie?”

“What?”

“Rachel’s mom.”

“What about Rachel’s mom?”

“Nice try. What have you decided?”

“Decided? That’s a tricky word. It’s more like settling.”

“Settling?”

“I’ve settled on not doing anything right now.”

“Really?”

“See, I told you it was tricky.” Samantha closed her eyes. “I’ve settled on not deciding until after all this winds down.”

“Can you do that?”

Samantha smiled and opened her eyes. “I don’t know, I can’t decide.”

“Nice. . . . Well, I’m just glad it’s not me who had to figure it all out.”

“Tell me about it. It’s been weighing on me. I’ve researched it, had a few confidential and extremely hypothetical conversations with the commonwealth’s attorney, made a few calls to Kansas City. How do you report a crime years later that you know was self-defense when no one seems to know, or care, if the victim is dead? I can’t find the neighbor; I can’t find a report. I can’t find a single reason to make that poor woman have to relive a second of that nightmare. All I’ve got is confirmation from Rachel’s school that her mother called to withdraw her from school and requested her records be transferred. That’s it.”

“And yet you’re obligated,” Malcolm said.

“That I am.”

“So you settled.”

“Just until after the party, until Rachel gets things figured out for herself.”

“And then what?”

“I guess I’ll decide then.”

The conversation went to Rachel and Noah, Noah’s broken heart, and Rachel’s unwillingness to face the family again.

“Can I ask you another question, Sammie?”

“Shoot.”

“You think Mom and Dad are cool with this?”

“Cool with what?”

“With selling. With moving on. Do you think they’d be OK with it?”

“Ahhh . . .” She let the word fade into a sigh.

“I worry about that sometimes,” he added.

“Honestly? I wouldn’t let it bother you.”

“Wouldn’t you do the same?”

“Definitely.”

“That’s helpful, thanks.”

“Look, Malcolm, I was ticked off when you told us you’d sold the place—”

“I noticed.”

“And did you notice I didn’t come around for what—a week?”

“Something like that,” he said.

“Then it hit me one day. Dad wouldn’t have taken a poll. He would have done what was best for him and Mom. And that’s exactly what you did. How can I be angry about that? And you said it that night, right? Am I going to run it? No. Is Noah? No.”

Malcolm sat up. “But did I do what’s best for me and Rain?”

Samantha also sat up and they faced each other across the bed. “Of course you did.”

Malcolm looked out the bedroom window toward the Inn. “I don’t know.”

“Uh-oh, is my older brother having second thoughts?”

“Not second. More like fifth.”

Samantha circled the bed and sat next to him. “It’s just cold feet, Mal, that’s all.”

“Is it? I’ve started having these weird dreams, sis. These dreams where I wake up every day bored out of my mind with nothing to do. And what if Rain and I don’t have anything in common without the Inn? What if we sit at the table every night and just stare at each other? This is all we’ve known. We’ve never lived any place but here.”

“You’re being ridiculous. You know as well as I do that isn’t going to happen. If anything you guys will be even stronger without this place. This is just a spot on a tourist’s map, Mal. You and Rain will be great wherever you end up. You know that.”

“I guess. It still feels like a member of the family is dying, and I don’t want to say good-bye. Is that weird?”

“Not at all. Come on, Mal, you fell in love with Rain on that swing out there. You raised your son here. We’re all going to miss it, and if we didn’t feel that way there would be something seriously wrong with us.”

“You’re probably right. It’s just gotten tough lately.”

Samantha held up a hand and began to count. “Let’s see. Number one, you started the summer with an exciting engagement. Number two, your knuckleheaded brother Matthew announces he’s lost a small fortune and his wife, which would have completely devastated our parents. Number three, you decide to sell the Inn. Number four, your almost-daughter-in-law found out her mother had been lying to her most of her life. Number five, wedding’s off and a gargantuan celebration that—thanks to A&P—has completely grown beyond our control is on. That’s a busy summer.”

“Was that supposed to cheer me up?” Malcolm playfully slapped her hand out of the air.

“Did it work?”

“Not so much.”

“How about ice cream?”

“That would help.”

They turned off the lights and slowly strolled back to the Inn.

“I love you, Mal.”

“I know, sis. And I kinda love you back.”

“But you’re still a doof.”