“Vera? What do you say? Will you marry me?”

Eric was hopeful. His eyebrows were lifted and he had a slight smile on his face.

Vera’s face heated. Marriage? So, this was what the fuss was all about. The private elegant dining room overlooking Massanutten, the fresh tulips, the candlelight. Why hadn’t she seen it coming?

“I’m . . . I’m shocked,” Vera managed to say. She felt the air escape from her chest. She took a deep breath. Lungs don’t fail me now.

He held out a ring. “Will you wear it? It was my mother’s.”

The oval emerald, set with two diamonds on either side, caught the candlelight in its glow.

“Just beautiful,” Vera said.

The silence that followed was remarkably uncomfortable between them. She loved him—this was true. Why didn’t she jump on this opportunity to spend the rest of her life with the man she loved?

“Gun shy?” he asked, softly.

She nodded. “I’m afraid so.” Her stomach twirled.

“But we—”

She held her hand up. “Eric, I love you. It’s not that. I want to be with you. I’m just not sure about marriage.” Afraid she was going to be sick, she took another deep breath.

“It’s the natural order of things, Vera. I mean, I understand your hesitation, given your recent divorce and all that he put you through. But I feel like we are already family,” he said.

“I know. Me too. Can you give me a little time to consider this?”

He sat back in his chair and looked deflated. “You can take as long as you want, Vera. I’m not going anywhere.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. This man never ceased to amaze her.

Yet, she simply could not wear his ring. At least not tonight.

 

 

Sheila dropped her scissors on the table with a thud. “You’re being ridiculous.”

They were at their weekly scrapbooking gathering. Five women sat around the table: Vera, her best friend Sheila, Annie, DeeAnn, and Paige.

Vera’s chin poked out and her mouth twisted. She looked back down at her scrapbooking page.

“Wait a minute, Sheila,” Annie said, her dark eyes lit. “Only Vera gets to say if she’s ready to get married again. C’mon.” She glued a metallic gold paper photo frame around a picture of her sons onto her page.

Annie Chamovitz, mom to two boys, freelance writer, always said what was on her mind.

“Yes, but to let that that ass ex-husband of hers dictate her next relationship!” Sheila said, clicking on her laptop.

“Is that what I’m doing?” Vera said after a few minutes.

“What else are you supposed to do? You’ve only been married to one man, so what else are you going to judge things on?” DeeAnn interjected and, true to form, passed a plate of butterscotch chocolate chip cookies toward her. “Take one, you’ll feel better.” DeeAnn owned the town’s bakery and always had a goodie or two to offer. Vera took a cookie.

“Look at your parents,” Sheila said. “They had a great relationship. Your failed marriage was not you. It was all about Bill.”

Vera sucked in her breath—there it was. She wasn’t so certain that the failure had nothing to do with her. It takes two. Could she have tried harder to keep Bill’s “interest”? Were there signs she ignored along the way? Had she gotten too ambivalent? More than anything, Vera didn’t want to hurt Eric. Maybe she didn’t have what it takes to have a good marriage.

She took a bite of the cookie. “Mmm. This is fabulous, DeeAnn! Butterscotch and chocolate chip. Who would have thought?”

“My intern is fabulous,” DeeAnn said and held up a page. “I love working with young people. Fresh ideas. You can’t beat them.”

“Humph,” Paige said. “I used to feel like that, but teaching history all these years, well I’m not so sure about it anymore.”

“Jaded,” Sheila said. “Look at this.” She held up a page that had a photo of her receiving the award aboard the Jezebel, along with a postcard of the entire ship. The page was a startling blue-green and she used black as border for the photos and starred jewels placed haphazardly around the page. A simple yet elegant design.

“Nice,” Vera said. “Are you going to add a journaling piece there?” She pointed to the huge blank area on the page.

Sheila nodded. “At some point. I wrote every day when on the cruise. I just need to transpose it. Figure out what journaling goes where. But this is my last page so I better figure it out soon.”

Vera had finished a mini-album of the scrapbooking cruise. It had given her time to process what had actually happened during that time. It wasn’t just the murder but also all of the intense scrapbooking and methods she’d learned that she found herself wading through in her mind.

Vera scooted around in her seat and looked over Annie’s book, her art journal. “That’s amazing, Annie. I didn’t know you were so creative.”

Annie looked up at her and grinned. “Me, neither. But this has been so much fun, and so satisfying. Even more so than scrapbooking—and even writing for me at this point.”

“But, you’re a writer,” DeeAnn pointed out and took a bite of her cookie. “Isn’t that a problem?”

Annie shrugged. “Not so far. My writing isn’t really creative. At least it doesn’t feel like it anymore.”

“What about your poetry?” Paige asked.

Annie shrugged. “I don’t seem to have time for it.”

“Well, if you ever want to start writing poetry again, I’d love to talk with you about trying to make some cards together. God knows I can’t write,” Sheila said.

Annie looked surprised. “I haven’t thought about my poetry in a long time. But that sounds interesting.”

A silence fell over the group. Vera hoped the subject had been changed, that nobody would mention Eric’s proposal for the rest of the evening.

Sheila bit her tongue so hard that she thought she might draw her own blood. She’d never seen Vera so happy, so centered, and so much in love. Why wouldn’t she marry Eric? Anybody with half a brain could see he was quality. She’d had her doubts at first, but he’d won her over on the scrapbooking cruise.

Sheila looked around the table. She found herself in awe of Annie’s new art journal. It was almost like a meditation for her. A peaceful look would come over Annie’s face as she considered her page—and then she might add a sticker or a button, or journaling. She’d gotten very inspired by the new art journaling movement—something Sheila found intriguing, but didn’t have the time to follow through on. And her lack of time was going to get worse. After her first few days in New York at her new design job, she was amazed by the sheer amount of work her colleagues at David’s Designs managed and what she’d have to accomplish. Everything moved so quickly in that city. And what she found with her design work—well, she found things needed some time to percolate. She wasn’t sure if she could keep up.

“I really love using doilies, like they showed us on the cruise,” Paige said. “I’ve been using them in my winter scrapbook, almost like big huge snowflakes.”

“Great idea,” DeeAnn said. “You know, I have a bunch of crocheted doilies and I wonder if I can use some of the smaller, more delicate ones on a page. My mother made them. I want to do another scrapbook about all of her handicrafts. She always kept so busy with them.”

“I like that idea,” Vera said. “If I were you, I’d research little bit about making fabric archival. You don’t want the paper to destroy those treasures—or vice versa.”

DeeAnn bit into another cookie.

“How’s the new job going?” she asked after she swallowed her first bite.

Sheila sighed. “So far, so good.”

“How’s Steve dealing?” Vera asked.

“Fine.” Sheila waved her hand. “I leave them food to heat up and they manage. I’ve only been once so far.”

“Oh good, I’d hate to run into him in the grocery store, sulking.” Annie smiled. “When you were on the cruise, I ran into him there. He hated being at the store.”

“He’s so spoiled,” Vera said and laughed.

“That’s crazy, Sheila. He can help you out more,” DeeAnn said.

“I don’t mind,” she replied. “Right now, with Donna home, she helps out a lot.”

“But if you’re going to work, even if it’s mostly from home, he’s going have to pitch in,” Annie replied.

“Earl would never go for that,” Paige said. “I gave up on that years ago.”

The women settled into their scrapbooking even more. DeeAnn journaled, Paige trimmed a photo, and Vera was figuring out the placement of a photo.

“What do you hear from your mother?” Annie asked Vera.

“Not much,” Vera said. “She called when they landed in Paris. Then she told me not to bother them.”

“What?” Sheila said.

“Yes,” Vera said. “At least I know they landed safely. They are staying with several different people while they’re there and she didn’t want to be disturbed. She said she’d call me when they are ready to leave. I think. Is that what she said? Or did she say she’d call when they get back to the States?”

“I’m surprised you’re taking that so well. You’re used to hearing from her every day,” Annie said.

“I miss her,” Vera said after a few minutes. “But you know, I don’t worry as much about her as I used to. Jon watches over her and I know if something happened . . . well . . . he’s there. So I am not freaking out about not hearing from her.”

“Well, then, what are you freaking out about these days? There has to be something!” DeeAnn said and the other women laughed.

Vera waved them off, and Sheila went back to musing over her friends gathered around the scrapbooking table—all of them intent on the work in front of them. Papers and books and embellishments were scattered around the table, along with cookies and drinks.

Sheila’s thoughts turned to her daughter, Donna, who wanted to take the semester off from college. She needed a break—Sheila saw the weariness in her daughter. They were awaiting word to see if her scholarship would be affected by her taking time off. They should hear back any day now, since the semester would be starting soon. Sheila said a little prayer while she looked over the laptop at her friends.

 

 

The next day, Paige received a phone call from her son Randy.

“I have news, Mom,” he said.

“What?”

“I have a job interview.” They had been talking about his dissatisfaction with his current job as a pastry chef and his life in New York City. He’d broken up with his boyfriend of many years, and wanted to start anew somewhere else.

“For a cruise line? I know you were talking about that,” she said.

“No,” he said. “For Pamela’s Pie Palace.”

Paige gasped and tears pricked at her eyes. Was it true?

He continued. “They are expanding into other pastries and need someone to help out with it, along with making pies, of course.”

“I’m sure you’ll get the job,” Paige said.

Was it true? Could it be? Could her son be moving back home? She was afraid to hope for too much.

“Don’t be too sure,” Randy said. “I’m sure the competition is fierce. The pay is good for the region.”

“But you are so qualified,”

“Maybe too qualified.”

“Now that’s a possibility,” Paige said, calming herself down. That was a very real possibility. She should not get her hopes up.

“But it would be so nice to come back to Virginia,” he said.

After they finished their conversation, Paige went back to grading papers—of the chores that went along with teaching, this was one of those she hated most. She’d gotten into the field because of her passion for history. She wanted to pass that passion on, but most of the time it didn’t work that way. She sighed and read over the next page.

Earl walked into the room and opened the refrigerator door, pulled out a beer, and turned to look at her. His brown eyes were bloodshot from the late hours he’d been keeping for work.

“Who was on the phone?” he asked with a casual air.

“Randy,” she said, looking back down at her papers.

“Oh yeah? What did he want?”

“He has a job interview,” she said.

Earl opened his beer bottle and a hiss escaped from it. He sat down at the table. “Some fancy-schmancy place in the city?”

She looked up at him. Her eyes met his. What would his reaction be? After years of not speaking, he and Randy now talked occasionally. They were making their way toward one another. Paige didn’t want to rush things. But at the same time, she was excited and hopeful.

“No. At Pamela’s Pie Palace,” she said and her voice cracked.

His eye widened. “Holy shit,” he said.

Even after all these years of marriage, she still found him hard to read at times. So she left it alone when he walked out of the room and turned the television on. He was surfing the channels, trying to find a sporting event. She finished grading the papers, got up, and grabbed two beers from the fridge—one for her and another for him. He was probably ready for his next one.

“Thanks,” he said when she handed it to him and joined him on the couch

“I saw your friend Beatrice today,” he said when a commercial came on.

“I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t Bea,” she said. “Bea’s in France with Jon.”

“Are you sure about that?” he said. “I swear I saw her and Jon in the drugstore.”

“Nope. She’s not scheduled to be back for a few more days.”

“The more I think about it, if that wasn’t Beatrice Matthews, I’ll eat my hat.”

“I’m telling you she’s not home. I saw Vera last night. Of course, she was all reflective about Eric’s proposal, but I’m certain she’d have said something if they’d come home early.”

“Still no answer for Eric?”

She shook her head.

The game came back on and the subject was dropped.

Strange, though, for him to confuse Bea and Jon with another couple. How many eighty-four-year-old women were hopping about town with a dashing French man?

 

 

Vera had a whole day to herself in the house, a rarity. She loved this old house. So many memories here—and they didn’t build houses like Beatrice’s old Victorian anymore, with all of its interesting nooks and crannies, and sighs and moans.

Vera was living in her girlhood home, sitting in the window seat that she had sat in so many times as a girl, and looking out the window at the mountains. Given all the years, things hadn’t changed much. A tree or two was gone, but more had replaced them. Now an in-ground pool spread across the backyard.

With her mother and Jon still in France and Elizabeth spending the weekend with Bill, Vera’s Sunday stretched out before her, filled with possibilities. She had wanted to get into the kitchen and experiment with chocolate. Today would be a good day to do that. She also needed to do a few loads of laundry, which, now that she had a child, seemed to be never ending. She had some bookkeeping to do as well, for the dance studio. All of these things floated through her mind as she looked out at the mountains. Eric and his marriage proposal weighed heavy on her mind.

She sighed. Why marriage? They had been having such a good time together. Marriage might spoil things. It certainly had with Bill.

She stroked the new family pet, Junie Bee, a long-haired tortoiseshell cat. She fit right into their household—even Beatrice was fond of Junie Bee. She’d never let Vera have a cat the whole time she was growing up—but when Lizzie had asked for one, Beatrice couldn’t say no.

Junie Bee was three years old. Lizzie had picked her out at the local animal shelter. Junie Bee’s original owner had passed away. The cat was mostly well behaved, with a sweet, playful personality. Lizzie had named her after a character in one of her books and she loved playing with her.

But Junie Bee had a few strange quirks about her that Vera found a little annoying. She’d often found her on the kitchen counter—where no cats were allowed. And the cat had a penchant for shiny things—aluminum foil, jewelry, shiny paper, anything. Also, for an animal, the cat had developed a finicky appetite. No cheap dry cat food for little Miss Junie Bee.

The phone rang and she got up to answer it.

“U.S. Customs,” the voice on the other side of the phone said. “Is this the home of Beatrice Matthews?”

“Yes,” Vera said. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, but we have a package here that needs to be claimed,” the voice said. “She must have left it behind at the airport.”

“But she isn’t here,” Vera said.

“We can hold it here for her to pick up or we can send it to the house. But we need a credit card to do that.”

“Well, hold on. Let me get my purse,” Vera said.

She walked over to the dresser, the cat tangled beneath her feet, and as she reached for her purse, it struck her as an odd thing that her mother had done. Why ship a package from France instead of bringing it home with her? And why did the person seem to be suggesting her mother had left it there? Beatrice wasn’t scheduled to be back for a few days yet. Vera shrugged.

Junie Bee played with the phone cord and Vera picked the cat up and placed her on the bed, shaking her finger at her. Junie Bee’s head tilted and she blinked.

Vera gave the man her credit card number and said good-bye before she went back to sitting in the window seat, with Junie Bee at her feet. She pulled a quilt around her as a chill crept over her. So many things she needed to do and wanted to do. Something whispered to her to stay where she sat. And so she did.

She was awakened to the sound of the phone. Another phone call! She struggled to awaken but didn’t make it to the phone on time. She listened to the message.

“Jon Chevalier? Monsieur?” said a voice, followed by a bunch of French words that Vera didn’t understand. Even though she knew French ballet terminology, she couldn’t speak the language—or, as it turned out, even understand it.

She pushed the button to return the call.

“’Alloo? Jon?” the voice said.

“No, not Jon,” Vera said. “English?”

“Yes, a bit. Who is speaking please?”

“My name is Vera Matthews. I’m Beatrice’s daughter.”

“Beatrice? Yes, yes, yes. I would like to speak to Jon. This is his sister, Eva,” the woman on the other line said.

“Jon’s not here. He’s in France,” Vera said, confused. She had thought Eva was one of the people on their list to visit.

“No, no, no. They left here,” said Eva. “I told them to call when they returned. No call! I am worried.”

“They are not scheduled to be home for a few days. Please don’t worry.”

“No,” Eva insisted. “They left here already.”

Oh, maybe they left her house and moved along.

“But they are still in France, somewhere. I’ve not heard from them,” Vera said.

“No, they are not in France.”

Vera’s heart sank. If they weren’t in France, where were they?

Eva must be mistaken. No point in arguing with the woman.

“Okay, well, when I see Jon, I will tell him to call you,” Vera said.

“See Jon? He should be there,” she said, sounding exasperated, then muttering something in French.

“Okay,” Vera replied. She didn’t know what else to say. Beatrice and Jon were not home. But according to this woman, his sister, they should be. Her stomach twisted. Had something happened to them? Where were they? “Are you certain, Eva?”

“Absolutely!” she said. “I’ve been trying to call his cell phone. No answer.”

The woman sounded near hysterical.

“There has to be an explanation. Maybe their plane was delayed or something,” Vera said. This conversation is absurd. If her mother and Jon were back in the U.S., they’d come to this house, their home. The older woman must be confused about the dates.

Eva sighed. “Okay, please have him call me when you see him,” she said and hung up.

Rude.

And ridiculous. If her mother was in the U.S., she’d be at home with her family.

 

 

Sheila could not be happier than she was at this very moment. Her entire family had come together for Sunday dinner. Donna might be leaving soon to go back to Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied design, and next year her son would be studying business at community college. He planned to work with Steve, who owned and ran an outfitting and tour company, leading groups through the mountains. Dusty was going to be very busy. The other two children were just as busy. Jonathon was so involved with music and Gerty, well, she had to buckle down this year a get those grades up. Sheila took it all in and knew these moments were going to be more and more rare.

“Pass the mashed potatoes please,” Steve said to Dusty, who handed them to his dad.

Sheila loved the smell of roast chicken that was wafting through her dining room. She didn’t, however, like the dark circles beneath Donna’s eyes.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I can’t seem to get enough sleep,” Donna said.

“Are you sleeping okay at school?” asked Steve.

“When I get a chance to sleep, I sleep,” Donna replied and then took a drink of water. “I want to do well. I don’t want to lose this opportunity, so I work hard. Sometimes that means no sleep.”

Sheila shot Steve a look of concern.

“Taking a semester off sounds like just what the doctor ordered.” Steve smiled.

“I’m all for it, if it doesn’t mess up my scholarship,” said Donna.

“Don’t forget about my concert on Wednesday night,” Jonathon said to his sister. “I want you to hear this new song I’ve been working on.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” she said, smiling and showing off her dimples. She had lost weight and her cheekbones protruded more than usual, giving her a hollow, gaunt look. She had always been so healthy looking, with a scattering of freckles across her nose and a pink tone to her skin.

Sheila tried not to fuss. Her daughter was a young woman. The days of hovering over her and fussing about what she ate or how much she slept were over. But when Donna was home, Sheila made sure that they had plenty of her favorite food things stocked. And Donna availed herself of them.

Sheila also tried to not fuss over their brooding middle-schooler as she moved the food around on her plate. But she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Gerty drooped over the table and barely looked at the rest of them.

“What’s up with you, Gerty?” Sheila said and then bit into her chicken.

“Nothing, Mom,” Gerty replied, giving her a slight smile.

“Ready to go back to school?”

“Not really. I hate it.”

Donna laughed. ”I hated it too. I hear you.”

“You have to get through it, whether you like it or not,” Steve said.

“That’s exactly what Beatrice told me,” Gerty said.

Beatrice had taken to Gerty. She was named after Sheila’s mom, who had been Beatrice’s best friend.

“Bea is one smart woman,” Sheila said.

“I miss her. When is she coming back?” Gerty asked.

“I have no idea. Soon, I think,” answered Sheila.

“Funny, I thought I saw her the other day in town. I must be losing my mind,” said Dusty.

“You must be, son,” Sheila said. “Beatrice is still in France. “

“She had that guy with her,” he persisted. ‘I’m pretty sure it was them.”

“Nope, couldn’t be.”

“Odd,” he said and shrugged his shoulders. “Can I have more chicken?”

Sheila smiled. That boy had one hell of an appetite.

 

 

“Whatever happened to that Cookie Crandall?” Earl asked Paige over dinner that night.

“What brought that up, all of a sudden?” she asked, dropping her fork full of mashed potatoes on to her plate.

“I was thinking about how people come in and out of our lives. This whole thing with Randy. I don’t know whether or not to be excited,” he said, as he lifted his fried chicken to his lips.

“He’s our kid, Earl. It would be great to have him back. I’m sure he’d want to live in Harrisonburg or Charlottesville. I doubt he’d move in with us.”

“Hell, I never imagined that he would,” he said. “But you didn’t answer my question about Cookie.”

“Well, it’s sad, Earl. I don’t like to talk about it.” Cookie’s pale face, with the spark in her eyes completely gone, came to Paige’s mind. What had happened to her?

She took a sip of wine. “The night she showed up at the crop? She had this guy with her. Some kind of doctor.”

“Doctor? She sick?”

“In a manner of speaking. She seems to have lost much of her memory and this man is helping her out. Supposedly. But I didn’t like him. He seemed like a cold son of a bitch. Hard to believe he’s a doctor or a healer. British accent and all that.”

“How long did she stay that night?”

“About an hour. She remembered us, wanted to see us, and the guy asked a bunch of questions,” Paige said.

“Will she be back?”

“That’s a good question,” Paige said. She sat back and thought over that night.

“I’m back,” Cookie had said, standing in Sheila’s basement. “I have no pictures or scrapbooks, though. Is that okay?”

The room had gone silent until a strange sobbing gasp-like sound had escaped from Annie. The rest of the scrapbookers, as if on cue, rushed toward Cookie and the strange man that accompanied her. After the initial sobs and hugs, everybody sat down.

To Paige, Cookie had always looked a bit unhealthy. Always a bit too skinny and pale. Now she looked even unhealthier as she sat at the scrapbooking table. She looked as though she could barely hold herself up in the chair.

“Are you okay?” Annie asked. Annie and Cookie had gotten very close before Cookie had disappeared. They were both outsiders in Cumberland Creek, a place where most families’ histories stretched back for generations.

Cookie nodded.

“We aren’t certain what happened,” the man beside her said. “All of her symptoms point to a lightning strike.”

“This is my doctor, Dr. Dupree,” Cookie explained and introduced them.

“You were struck by lightning!” Vera exclaimed.

“We’re not sure,” Cookie said.

“But he just said—”

“What I said,” he said with emphasis, “was that it looked like she’d been struck by lightning. But we don’t know. Where she was found, there were burns. There were also signs of mild cardiac arrest and temporary paralysis. And a complete amnesia, which we’ve been working on. She’s been remembering a few more things lately. And that’s why we are here. We need your help.”

“We’ll do anything we can to help,” Annie said. “What do you need?”

“We need you to answer a few questions,” the doctor said.

“And I need my book back,” Cookie said. “My scrapbook of shadows.”

“She’s been talking about this book—any idea what that is?”

“Yes,” Annie replied. “I have what’s left of it.”

Beatrice had taken it to a cave, which is what Cookie had asked her to do at the time. Detective Bryant had then found pieces of it scattered through the forest over the next few days.

Cookie beamed. “I thought you might have it.”

The doctor sat back in his chair fast, as if he was surprised. “So there really is a scrapbook of shadows?”

Cookie had grinned, as if to say, I told you so. Paige hadn’t been so sure that Cookie liked that guy either.

“What kind of a doctor is he?” Earl asked, interrupting the story.

“I don’t know and there’s been no word from her since that night,” Paige said to Earl, as she started to clear away the dishes from the table. “But Annie did get an e-mail address where we can write to her.”

“Have you?”

“No,” Paige said. “I really have nothing to say. I mean I’m glad she’s kind of okay. That she’s still alive. But we weren’t that close. Not like she and Annie. And I’m a little bit pissed about the situation.”

“What? Why?” Earl said handing her the last dish from the table as she stood by the sink and began rinsing the dishes.

Paige thought about it for a few beats. “I really don’t know. I’m just angry.”

“Are you mad because she broke the law and escaped from jail?” Earl asked.

“Well. We’re not too sure about that. This doctor claimed that someone took her from the cell, helped her to escape, but she was essentially taken against her will,” Paige said. “I’m not sure how much of this I buy.” She opened the dishwasher and began placing dishes on the racks. “I just hope that Annie and the others don’t get hurt by her any more than they already have been.”

 

 

The Cumberland Creek scrapbookers didn’t get together very often, outside of their Saturday night crops. But it was DeeAnn’s birthday and so they decided to take her out to lunch in Charlottesville. They all rode together in Vera’s minivan.

They’d planned to go to a Thai restaurant that DeeAnn had selected. She was bound and determined to expand her culinary horizons these days.

“I want to travel,” DeeAnn said as they traveled over the mountain to Charlottesville. “My poor old mother didn’t get to eat anything exciting or travel or anything before she became sick and died. What’s the point in holding on to all your money just for the hospital to get it?”

“That’s the truth,” Vera said. “I want to travel, too.”

“Where do you want to go?” DeeAnn asked.

“Oh, I don’t know if I have any particular place in mind, but I’d like to see more of this country.”

“Not France?” Sheila said.

“Sure,” Vera replied. “I told Mom and Jon that the next time they go, I want to join them. I think it would be nice for Lizzie to go in another couple of years.”

“Speaking of your mom, Dusty thought he saw her the other day in town,” Sheila said.

Vera felt a strange pinging moving through her body. Was her mother in Cumberland Creek? Why hadn’t she seen her?

She pulled into the parking lot of Thai Garden and parked her van.

“Earl thought he saw her, too,” Paige chimed in.

“You know, the strangest feeling came over me. How can it be that people think they saw my mother?”

“It must be someone new in town that resembles her,” Annie said. “You live with her. You’d know if she were home.”

“That’s what you’d think,” Vera said. “But we’re talking about my mother here. Half of what she does never did make any sense to me. And she’s ornery. Is she playing a joke on me?”

Sheila laughed. “Anything’s possible.”

“But that’s not much of a joke,” Paige said as they left the van and walked through the parking lot. “If your mother is home and hasn’t told you and is staying somewhere else, that’s not funny. That’s just strange.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t talked to her,” Annie said.

“She asked me not to call her. She said she’d call me,” Vera said.

“Why?” Annie asked.

“She said she didn’t want to be bothered and they were going to be very busy in France,” Vera said and opened the door to the restaurant. A spicy scent greeted them.

Vera and Annie had had Thai food before, but the rest of them hadn’t. So Vera looked forward to introducing them to the cuisine.

After they were seated and ordered, Vera remembered that strange phone call she’d received from Jon’s sister. Could they have already come back to the States like she had tried to tell Vera? If they had, where were they?

“Forget it,” Vera said out loud after a bit, her friends looking up at her. “I’m calling her. She doesn’t get to tell me not to call. She’s my mother, for God’s sake. She’s almost eighty-five years old. Of course I’m going to worry.”

She pulled out her cell and dialed her mom’s mobile phone number. Her voice mail was full. Vera threw her phone back into her purse in a huff. The pad Thai that had just been set before her suddenly didn’t seem appealing.

“What’s wrong?” Sheila asked.

“Her voice mail is full. She’s not listening to her messages at all.”

“Well, she said she didn’t want to be bothered. She must mean it,” Annie concluded.

“I hope she’s okay,” Vera said. “I figured Jon would take care of her, but what if something happened to both of them?”

“Calm down. You’re scaring yourself,” Sheila said. “This noodle stuff is good.”

“It’s pad Thai,” Annie said. “Good stuff.”

“There’s something I haven’t told you all,” Vera said, switching back to the topic of Beatrice. “It didn’t make sense then, but now I’m beginning to wonder.” She told them about the phone call from Jon’s sister.

“Okay, look, if your mom and Jon came back early for some strange reason—if—we can find out, right?” Annie said. “You can call the airline. Do you have the return flight information? Call to confirm that they will be on the flight.”

“Is it that simple?” Vera said.

“It should be,” Annie replied.

“Good,” she said, taking a deep breath and noting that her appetite had come back.

She had a plan, now. She’d call and check on her mother. Surely this was all some big misunderstanding. She would ignore the pangs of suspicion and worry.

DeeAnn suddenly gasped, her face turned red, and she reached for her water. “Shit!” she said after she drank it down. “When they say hot and spicy, that’s what they mean.” Her eyes teared up.

“You didn’t eat one of those little peppers did you?” Annie asked.

DeeAnn nodded, tears steaming down her face.

“Eat rice,” Vera said. “Water is not going to help you.”

A few minutes later, DeeAnn shook from laughter. “I’ve never eaten anything like that in my life.”

“Well,” Paige said, “you said you wanted to expand your culinary horizons. There ya go.”

“Won’t be eating one of those things again,” DeeAnn said, in between coughs and patting her chest.

“Are you ready for some pie, then?” Paige said, grinning,

They paid the bill and filed into Vera’s van to head to Pamela’s Pie Palace.

 

 

“I always feel funny about coming here,” DeeAnn said to Sheila after they were seated in a large booth with red vinyl seats. DeeAnn and Pamela were friendly competitors, even though they served different types of baked goods.

“Does she ever come into your place?” Sheila asked.

“Yes,” DeeAnn said. “She comes in for scones.”

“Well, see? No worries, then,” Sheila said.

“I’ll be right with you ladies,” said Judy, one of their favorite servers, as she walked by with a tray full of pie slices.

They all smiled and nodded in her direction.

“Then we have time for your gift,” Paige said to DeeAnn in an excited, singsong voice.

“Gift? I thought the lunch was my gift,” DeeAnn said. But her blue eyes widened as wrapped gifts were laid on the table. “Oh my! Can I open them?”

“Why not?” Sheila said.

DeeAnn opened the largest box first. It was an electronic cutting system.

“Oh! I’ve wanted one of these for years!” DeeAnn squealed.

“‘It cuts paper, vinyl, cardstock, fabric, heat transfer material, and so much more,’” Vera read from the box. “And it’s always fun to bring one of these along to a crop to share with your friends.”

“Hmm. I don’t see that anywhere on here,” DeeAnn said and laughed.

“I think you should open this,” Paige said, sliding one of the smaller boxes across the table.

“How sweet!” DeeAnn said when she opened the gift from Paige. It was template cartridges to go with the new cutting system. This one included strawberries of all shapes and sizes—her friends knew how much she loved strawberries, so much so that she had decorated her kitchen with a strawberry theme.

DeeAnn opened the rest of her gifts—all of them were cartridges to go with her new “toy.” One offered baked goods—pies, cakes, cookies galore! Another one was basic shapes that she could use as frames for photos, for journaling, or for decorating a page. She was beyond thrilled; she was inspired and could not wait to get home and create a new page or two.

Just then, Judy came back to their table and started to hand them menus. “Hello, ladies,” she said.

“I don’t need a menu,” Annie said. “I know what I want.”

“How about the rest of you?” Judy asked, taking back Annie’s menu.

The group had already decided what pie they wanted. Vera was last to order.

“I’ll have a slice of strawberry rhubarb,” she said.

“Isn’t that something?” the waitress said. “Your mama ordered that.”

“What? When?” Vera squealed.

“Oh, I guess it was a couple of days ago. Um, maybe last week. I’ve been working so hard that I—”

“My mother is in France,” Vera said.

Judy looked at her and shrugged. “I could have sworn it was her. Sorry. Your pie will be a few minutes.” She walked away.

The women sat in stunned silence.

“That old bat is back from France,” Sheila finally said.

“I don’t understand,” Vera said.

“She’s up to something,” Sheila said. “But what?”

“Why wouldn’t she be at home?” Annie said. “This doesn’t make sense. After a long trip overseas, I’d want to come directly home.”

Vera’s face hardened. Her chin jutted out.

Sheila often wondered about Beatrice, but this took the cake—or the pie, as it were. Why would Bea come home and not see her daughter? Poor Vera had been worried and missing her mother the whole time she was in France. This had to hurt.

The server brought their slices of pie to them. Nobody had gotten the same flavor. DeeAnn had selected the coconut cream, Annie the chocolate, Sheila the peanut butter, and Paige had ordered apple with cinnamon ice cream.

Sheila sat back in the booth and enjoyed the spectacle of Pamela’s Pie Palace, with its black and white tile floor and red booths, each with a little jukebox on the table. Sheila busied herself with digging some quarters out of her change purse and sorting through the music on the jukebox. She couldn’t look at Vera’s sullen face anymore.

She slipped a quarter in and selected “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley, hoping to cheer Vera up. She always responded to music.

“Sweet Jesus,” Paige said, rolling her eyes. “This is extraordinary pie.”

“Humph,” DeeAnn said and then took a bite of her coconut cream, shaking her head. “Fabulous.”

Pamela herself came up to their table. “Why hello, ladies,” she said. “I understand it’s your birthday. The pie is on me.”

“Why, thanks so much,” DeeAnn said. “Excellent pie, by the way. As usual.”

“Means a lot to me coming from you,” she said. Pamela was a looker, with long blond hair, huge doe-like brown eyes, and a figure straight out of a 1940s pinup calendar. “So Paige, I’m very excited to talk with Randy.”

Paige’s face reddened as her friends all looked at her. She brought her napkin to her mouth and placed it back in her lap. “Randy’s excited too,” she said. “He said you’re expanding. Sounds like quite an opportunity.”

“We’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” Pamela said. “We’d like to do a line of pastries, but I don’t have time. Pie keeps me hopping.”

“I hear ya,” DeeAnn managed to say. She was obviously annoyed. The pitch in her voice and the pursed lips were a dead giveaway.

Oh boy, Sheila thought. Paige didn’t tell DeeAnn about this.

After Pamela left the table, DeeAnn glared at Paige.

“Wait minute,” Paige said. “I was going to tell you. I just found out about it myself.”

“Your son is going to work for Pamela when one of your best friends owns a bakery in town?” DeeAnn said.

“I don’t see a problem,” Annie said. “C’mon. If you want to hire him, make him an offer. Otherwise, what’s the problem?”

Annie didn’t know that DeeAnn had offered him work many times through the years. Randy hadn’t been interested in living in Cumberland Creek until now.

Paige cleared her throat. “DeeAnn, it’s not personal. He was involved with a man then who would not leave the city. He wants to start anew. Pamela called him and so he’s going to talk with her.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Vera said, after swallowing the last bite of her pie. “He’d be close to home and you’d see him more and maybe he and Earl would get closer. I don’t think it would be a good idea for him to work for you, DeeAnn, simply because of your friendship with Paige. It could get weird. What if it didn’t work out?”

DeeAnn went back to concentrating on what was on her fork—a smear of coconut cream with meringue. “Well, that’s a good way of looking at it.”

When Judy came to fill up their coffee cups and clear away the plates that were empty, Vera asked her to think hard about when she had seen her mother.

“I think it was two days ago,” Judy said.

“How did she look?”

“She looked like she always does,” she said. “She and Jon sat right there.” She pointed to another booth. ”In one seat together, like a couple of lovebirds. It was very cute.”

That did not sound like Beatrice.

“Was there anything out of the ordinary about them that you can think of?” Vera asked after a moment.

“No. They had some kind of book that they were looking at while they ate their pie,” she said. “Now, you ladies have a good day.” And with that, she was gone.

 

 

Paige mulled over Vera’s situation with Beatrice. Imagine that her mother had been gone for a few weeks and not even bothered to touch base with Vera when she came back to the States. It was perplexing. But then again, Beatrice could be the most confounding person on the planet. Usually a person knew where they stood with her though. This sneaking around was not her normal way.

“Earl, do you really think you saw Bea and Jon the other day?” she asked while they were lying in bed with their books.

“I told you that it really looked like them,” he said. “But you said it couldn’t be them.”

She told him what she’d learned today.

“That woman has always been a little strange, if you ask me,” he said, setting his book on the nightstand and taking his glasses off.

“What were they doing in the drugstore?” she asked.

“They were getting medicine. They were in line at the pharmacy,” he said, after a moment.

“Medicine?” Paige thought a moment. She didn’t know if Beatrice or Jon were on any medication. She’d ask Vera tomorrow and tell her what Earl had said. It might help. She went back to reading her historical romance novel. As her mind relaxed into the story, a thought occurred to her. Beatrice on medication? What if she was on some new medicine that confused her and she and Jon were wandering around somewhere lost? Lord knew Jon didn’t know his way around—especially in the mountains, where Beatrice had grown up. If they were out there, goodness knew what could happen to them.

Her heart started to race and she set down her book, sitting up in bed. Earl snored beside her. She had to call Vera, that’s all there was to it. Time might be of the essence.

She left the bedroom and went downstairs and dialed Vera.

“Hello?” Vera said into the phone. She sounded as if she had been sleeping.

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” Paige said. “But I thought you’d want to know this. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I wanted to talk with Earl again.”

Then she told Vera what Earl had said. The phone was deadly quiet.

“Vera?”

“I’m trying to think,” she said. “Jon takes blood pressure medicine. And something else. I can’t remember what it is. But I thought he refilled all that before they went traveling.”

“Your mom doesn’t take anything?”

“Nope. She’s as healthy as a horse. She takes vitamins and supplements, things like that,” Vera said and paused.

“What?” Paige said, urging Vera on.

“I just can’t get over the fact that my mom is back in Cumberland Creek and hasn’t come home,” Vera said. “What is she up to? Where is she staying? Is she okay?”

“She must be okay,” Paige said. “People keep seeing her around. But I agree it’s odd. Could she be confused?”

Vera sighed. “She is eighty-four years old, but she seems so sharp. She’s a little forgetful sometimes. But so am I.”

“Did you call the airline yet?”

“I tried. I couldn’t get a live person, just a recording,” she replied. “I’ll try again tomorrow. Good night, Paige.”

“Good night,” she replied.

 

 

Vera’s daughter, Elizabeth, had been sleeping for a few hours. Vera found this time of night most relaxing. She tried to watch a little TV and couldn’t find a thing that she wanted to bother with. She’d decided to grab a magazine and take it to bed with her when her cell phone rang again. It was Eric. Oh no.

She hadn’t been hiding from him. Not exactly.

“Hey, babe,” he said. “How are you? I haven’t heard from you in a while.” His voice comforted her.

“I’ve been busy with Elizabeth and we took DeeAnn to Charlottesville for lunch for her birthday,” Vera said.

“I miss you. It makes being on call even worse,” he said.

“I miss you, too. Thursday will be here before you know it.”

“Early day tomorrow?”

“Yes, I need to get the studio’s taxes done and I have a full afternoon and evening of classes,” she said. “But listen to this.”

She then explained how people had been saying they’d seen her mother—at the Pie Palace, walking around town, and at the drugstore.

“What do you make of it?” she asked him when she was done.

“Are they certain it’s Beatrice?”

“They seem to be.”

He was silent.

“Eric?”

“I’m confused,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m not sure what to do.”

“Nothing you can do, I suppose. She’ll come home eventually. In the meantime, my beeper is going off. I have to run. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Vera said, her heart spinning. It was true that she loved him. But did she want to marry him? After being married for over twenty years, and being extremely disappointed, she wasn’t sure she could do it again. But Eric was a different man from her ex-husband.

She climbed up the stairs to her room, looked in on Elizabeth first, with Junie Bee cuddled up next to her. She then padded to her room and lay down in her bed. This had always been her room, even as a child. She liked it here. But maybe it was time to move out and try it again on her own—just she, Elizabeth, and Junie Bee. She grimaced—the last time she had tried to strike out on her own, it had not ended well.

Vera sunk into her bed and pulled the covers around her and closed her eyes. As she slipped into the place between sleep and awake, a strange beeping noise awakened her. Maybe she was dreaming? There it was again. Hmmm. She opened her eyes. What was that noise?

Was it one of Elizabeth’s battery-operated toys? That had happened one night a few weeks back. The weirdest noise had woken up everybody in the house. Vera rolled over—the noise had stopped.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Vera arose out of the warm bed. Damn.

Beeeeep.

She opened her bedroom door and the noise became louder.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It was coming from her mother’s room.

Nightlights now lit the long hallways of the house, so Vera easily found her way, feeling a little like she was invading her mother’s privacy as she opened the door and turned on the bedroom light. Vera hadn’t been in her mother’s room since she’d left for France.

There, on her mother’s bed, sat her luggage. On top of it sat Beatrice’s cell phone, the beeping indicating that the battery was about to die.

Beatrice’s suitcase? Her cell phone? Where on earth was Beatrice?

Vera opened the suitcase and saw her mother’s usual traveling clothes, plus a few wrapped gifts. One was for Lizzie, one for her, and one for Eric. As if gifts were going to soften the blow of this!

A tear stung Vera’s eye. Her mother was home and she hadn’t even bothered to call or tell her she was home. Talk about rejection!

Vera left the room in a huff and stomped back into her own room. She fell into her bed in a fit of tears.

When she woke up the next morning, Elizabeth was curled up next to her and Junie Bee was sitting on her chest, kneading her claws in the blanket, purring, and looking straight into Vera’s face. How long had the cat been staring at her like that?

She kissed Lizzie and gently pushed the cat off her. She glanced at the clock—still early enough to make Lizzie a good breakfast before she went off to preschool.

Standing in her mother’s kitchen, scrambling eggs, Vera tried not to panic. She also tried not to hold this disappearance of Beatrice’s against her. Certainly there was a logical explanation. As she poured the eggs into the cast iron skillet, a crashing noise erupted behind her and she turned to see Junie Bee splayed on the floor with a number of refrigerator magnets and papers. Vera picked it all up and set everything on the counter, not willing to give up her meditative stance in front of the scrambling eggs.

After Vera dropped Lizzie off at preschool and went to her dance studio, her cell phone rang.

“Hey Vera,” Annie said. “I was wondering if you had any luck with the airlines.”

“I tried calling them back today,” Vera said. “But I couldn’t get past the recording.”

“Save your breath,” Annie said. “I found out that they won’t give flight information anymore unless it’s a family emergency or if it’s a cop or lawyer that needs to know. Sometimes even they need a court order.”

Vera sighed. “Where could they be? And should I be worried? I mean, I go back and forth between being worried and being seriously annoyed with my mother. Why would she be back in the States and not come back to her home?”

“I’m worried, too,” Annie said. “It doesn’t seem like her at all. Unless she’s up to something.”

“Something like what?” Vera said, after hesitating.

“Something big, though I have no idea what.”

“I keep thinking about that older couple in the papers a few years ago, you know the one? They decided to drive off a cliff together because they’d had enough and wanted to be together forever,” Vera said. “You know, that band Fastball released a song about another couple like that. Remember? What was it called? ‘The Way,’ that’s it. I read an interview that the band came up with the idea for the song after reading about the disappearance of an older married couple who left home to go to a festival. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine hundreds of miles away from where they were supposed to be.” She took a deep breath.

Annie laughed. “I don’t see your mother as being ready to shuffle off anytime soon, do you? Nor do I see them both being confused like that, do you?”

“No, but something must have happened in France. What if Jon’s doctor told him he only had a few months to live or something?”

“Calm down, Vera,” Annie said. “I’m sure it’s all going to be revealed soon.”

But even as Vera hung up the phone, she wasn’t so sure that her mother wasn’t in trouble somewhere, needing help.

She glanced over at the calendar—tomorrow was the date Beatrice and Jon were scheduled to arrive home. At least officially. She was suddenly struck with an idea. She had all of her mother’s flight information—why didn’t she call and pretend to be her to check on the flight in an effort to track her steps? Maybe the airlines could tell her something useful.

Vera picked up her cell phone and dialed the number of the airline. She pressed this button, then the next, prompted by the recording. Then it asked for her confirmation number, which was on the itinerary stuck to the fridge. Feeling very efficient and impressed with herself, she dialed in the number.

“That number is not valid,” came the recorded voice. “Try again, or dial zero for assistance.”

Vera tried again and received the same recording. She pressed zero and was placed on hold with some strange music playing in her ear.

“Flight cancellations,” a voice said. “How can I help you?”

A live person!

“I’m checking on my flight. Flight number 741,” Vera said.

“Just a moment please,” the voice said.

“What is your full name and confirmation number please?” the voice came back on after a few minutes.

Vera told her.

“I’m sorry that reservation has been cancelled. Did you not cancel your flight?”

Flummoxed, Vera hung up the phone. She didn’t know what to say. A brew of emotions filled her. Her mother must have cancelled the flight and returned home earlier. Vera’s hand balled into a fist and she reached for her bag before heading to the studio.

When Sheila walked into the dance studio, Vera was staring off into space.

“Hey!” she said. “You still with us?”

“Huh?” Vera said.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sheila said. “Thinking about that proposal again?”

“Concerned about Mama and Jon.” She ignored the proposal bit from Sheila. Honestly!

“I’ve been thinking . . . have you called the airline?”

“Annie called this morning and said passenger lists are private. Cops could get them, though,” Vera said. “But then I had this crazy idea and it worked.” She told Sheila what had happened.

“So evidently she cancelled her flight and came back to the States early,” Sheila said. “But where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Vera said, throwing aside her pencil. “She doesn’t have her cell phone with her and Jon never has his with him. Besides, their luggage is at home. Mama’s luggage is already home, on her bed, with her cell phone.”

“Why don’t we get Detective Bryant involved?” Sheila said after a few beats.

“You mean file a missing persons report?” Vera asked.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Shelia said, crossing her arms.

“Oh, I don’t know. That’s serious stuff to get the police involved.”

“And why shouldn’t you?” Sheila said. “Your mom is going to be eighty-five years old and she’s missing.”

“If they found her and she was fine, she’d kill me,” Vera said, biting her lip.

Sheila grinned. “Might be worth it.”

“I might do it. I’ll give Bryant a call and see what he says.”

“Good idea. I’m off to the grocery store,” Sheila said.

As she left, she turned to look at Vera, edged between her desk and the computer, surrounded by papers. How many times had she seen her friend in this same tableau? The studio was decorated in pinks and browns and the walls were covered with posters of ballerinas. One of these days, Sheila vowed to make a scrapbook for Vera, the woman who had made countless scrapbooks for her ballet students over the years.

As she walked out on to the street, Sheila’s cell phone blared. “What?” she said, after seeing Steve’s name on the screen. She’d just left him, for God’s sake.

“Something is wrong with Donna,” he said.

“What? What do you mean?” she said, her skin vibrating.

“She won’t get up,” Steve said.

“She’s just tired,” Sheila said.

“I walked past her room and she’s wide awake, but staring into space . . . and there’s a foul odor coming from her room. I wanted to go in there, but I think she’s peed herself,” Steve said. “And she won’t—”

Sheila shoved her phone into her purse and ran home. What was happening to Donna?

She ran down the block past everything familiar—but it all looked so strange, so menacing. All of it stood between her and her daughter. She saw her house and it looked so far away. So far. Too far. She continued to run, past the neighbors, past the woman who said hello to her. Sheila passed her with a blur, but she didn’t care. She needed to get home to her daughter.

Home. There it was. She ran into her yard and up the porch steps and flung open the door. Steve stood there with his cell phone still in his hands, mouth open. She didn’t even bother to say hello; she ran up the stairs. Steve followed close behind.

And there was Donna, just as Steve had said. She looked vacant, like a shell—as if the spirit in her had fled.

“Donna?” Sheila said, putting her hand to her forehead. Why? What a stupid thing to do. A simple gesture. A gesture concerned mothers everywhere make. But this was no flu.

“Steve.” Sheila’s voice quivered. “Dial nine-one-one.”

 

 

Watching the medics work on her daughter, lifting her small body from her wet bed, felt surreal to Sheila. She had the presence of mind to answer all the questions they put to her. But later she couldn’t remember what her answers had been. As she stood by Donna’s hospital bed, looking over her daughter’s small body, she couldn’t help but remember the day she’d given birth to her, the way she’d felt the first time she held her. Please. I don’t want to lose her, she pled.

Steve wrapped his arm around her as they listened to the slow, steady rhythm of the breathing machine—a precaution, to make sure Donna’s brain was getting enough oxygen. She had been lucid for a minute and looked at Sheila with fear in her eyes. “Mom?” she had whispered, falling back asleep before Sheila could answer. That had been unsettling and hopeful at the same time. Fear, at least was something, some emotion. Dusty, Gerty, and Jonathon sat and stood quiet in the room, standing watch, worried, teary-eyed.

Finally the doctor walked in.

“It looks like Donna had an epileptic seizure,” he said.

“Epilepsy? Now?”

The doctor nodded. “It can set in anytime. Chances are she’s had mild seizures before and didn’t know it.”

“How could that be?” Steve asked.

“It’s the way epilepsy is sometimes, I’m sorry to say. But the good news is that she will recover from this and we’ll be able to medicate her to help ensure this won’t happen again.”

Sheila finally exhaled.

“It may take a few days for her to come around, but she will,” he said. “It would help if we knew what caused it. It often appears that there is no cause. But other times . . . I know you’ve answered this. But are you certain she’d not doing drugs?”

“As certain as we can be,” Steve said. “Given that she’s in college and not living at home.”

The doctor nodded. “I think this is a case of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. Her EEG showed a generalized spike discharge. Sleep deprivation can cause it. Or alcohol withdrawals. Or any number of things.”

“She’s not been sleeping right,” Sheila said. “School has been a challenge for her.”

The doctor nodded as Vera nearly slid into the room.

“Sheila! Sheila! Oh God, what’s happened?” Vera cried, as Sheila fell into her arms.

Paige had just started teaching her second-period American History class when she received the text about Donna. She glanced at the clock—unfortunately it would have to wait until lunchtime. When lunch rolled around, she dialed Vera’s number because she didn’t want to disturb Sheila at the hospital.

“This number has been disconnected,” came the response. Paige looked at the screen of her phone and then at her the contacts. “Oh, bother,” she said to herself. She had pressed the wrong number for Vera—it was her landline. But why was the landline disconnected?

She dialed the right number this time.

“Hi, Paige,” Vera said into the phone after only one ring.

“What’s going on?”

Vera filled her in. “The doctors say she’s going to be fine,” she said and sighed in relief.

“Have you seen Eric while you’re there?” Paige asked.

“He’s been in and out,” Vera said. “Annie and DeeAnn have been here and gone already. I’ll have to leave soon to get Elizabeth.”

“I’ll stop by after work,” Paige said.

“See you,” Vera said and hung up.

“Wait—” Paige started to say, but Vera had already hung up. Paige shrugged. She’d find out later why Vera’s landline was disconnected. Paige and Earl had thought about disconnecting theirs because they rarely used it anymore, and she wondered if that’s what Vera and Bea had done.

Paige often ate her lunch in her car. It was quiet. She read or chatted on the phone with her friends. Sometimes she went out for lunch, but she almost never ate in the school building. She didn’t like most of her colleagues. At this point in her career, they were mostly younger than she and she found it difficult to relate to them. She wanted to retire, but the school kept asking her to stay.

As Paige reached for the handle of the car door to exit, her phone rang. Randy.

“Hey, Mom,” he said. “I’m doing a Skype interview with Pamela tomorrow.”

“Good luck,” she said.

“Are you sitting in the car?” he asked after a moment.

“Yep,” she said.

He laughed. “So antisocial. Anyway, I’m looking forward to chatting with her and seeing what exactly she has in mind.”

“Humph,” Paige said. She was distracted by the Donna thing.

“Are you okay?”

She told him what had happened with Donna. “It’s scary,” she said.

“The last time I heard about her she was doing so well,” he said.

“Yes, but she was working hard to keep that scholarship. Evidently, it was too much.”

“She was always very driven. I understand her wanting to do well.”

“They’re afraid she’ll lose that scholarship,” Paige said.

“Well, so what if she does? At least she will be healthy and happy and alive.”

Paige could not help but beam. How had she gotten such a smart and wise son? “But I remember culinary school,” she said in a teasing voice.

“I was afraid you’d bring that up,” Randy muttered. He had worked himself ragged, developing an ulcer when he was still in school. “In any case, my interview is tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Okay, Randy. I’ll be waiting.” As she walked back into the school, she mused over the changes in her life. You never knew what direction your life would take you. A few years ago, she had been wounded by her son’s announcement that he was gay. The church that they’d belonged to had a firm stance on the issue. She and Earl had gotten married in that church and had attended faithfully. But the longer she’d been away from her son, the more apparent it had become that the church could not fill the void his absence created.

She started to listen to herself instead of the preacher, started talking with Earl about it, and eventually they’d left the church.

She could have never imagined that Randy would come back to Virginia. She was afraid to get too hopeful; it would be a dream come true to have her boy closer. Of course, now he was a twenty-eight-year-old man. She’d lost too much time with him already. She blinked back a tear, took a deep breath, and opened the car door.

 

 

Vera made arrangements for Elizabeth to stay with Annie so that she could stay with Sheila for a while at the hospital. When she returned to Beatrice’s house, Detective Bryant pulled up along the curb. Vera’s heart started to race. What was he doing here?

“Vera,” he called to her as she kept walking toward the door. She didn’t want to turn around. He was bad news. Maybe he was here to tell her that Beatrice’s body had been found over at the bottom of some cliff. She didn’t want to hear it so she kept walking and ignored him.

“Vera!” he called again.

She turned, reluctantly.

“Yes?”

“I understand you were looking for me today,” he said. “And I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d stop by.”

“That’s right. I needed to talk with you about Mama.”

“Beatrice? Really?” the detective said, following her inside.

“It seems that my mother cut her trip to Paris short. She’s been seen around town and evidently has been home long enough to drop off her luggage and her cell phone.”

“And?”

She shrugged with her arms splayed out. “I haven’t seen her.”

His eyebrows lifted and his mouth went crooked. “Are you saying that she’s missing?”

Vera nodded. “I can’t find her or Jon. In fact, Jon’s sister called here looking for him. They must have left Paris days ago.”

His hands went to his hips and his shook his head.

“I noticed her car isn’t in the driveway,” he said.

“No. She drove it to the airport. So I assume she drove it back and then left again. But I’m worried. This isn’t like her. I’ve not heard a word from her,” she said.

“Beatrice can generally take of herself.”

“Yes, that would be the consensus,” she said, sitting down on the couch. “But she is almost eighty-five years old and Jon is in his seventies. Anything could have happened to them.”

Bryant sat down next to her. “You know, I forget about how old she is.” He seemed to be thinking. His hand scratched his stubbled chin. “Could there be a miscommunication somewhere?”

Junie Bee slinked into the room and hopped onto Bryant’s lap. “Cute cat,” he said.

Vera could not hold back a smile, watching the burly detective pet the cat and Junie Bee rub and purr against him, circling and then finally settling onto his lap.

“Um,” Bryant said. “Where were we?”

“Miscommunication,” Vera said, then yawned. It was so late and the stress of the day was getting to her. Her shoulders and back ached from those damned hospital chairs, but the good news was that Donna was awake and quite lucid, smart-mouthing the doctors, which gave them hope.

“Have you checked your cell phone?” he asked.

“Yes, but there’s not much point in that. Mama doesn’t know my cell number. I programmed it into her cell phone so she can just push one button. She has no idea what the number is.”

“What about the house phone?” he asked, looking around and then resting his eyes on the phone on the wall.

“If there was a message, the light would be blinking,” Vera said, and yawned again.

When Bryant stood up to take a closer look at the phone, the cat leapt from his lap. “Whoa,” he said, holding up a chewed wire. “Maybe she has been trying to reach you.”

Suddenly Vera was wide awake.

“You need to replace the cord—looks like something has chewed this,” he said, looking at the cat.

“Do you think that Junie Bee—” That damned cat!

He nodded. “No place open right now. Why don’t you let me bring you a cord in the morning? If there are no messages from your mom, we’ll work on finding her. Okay?”

Vera sank back into her chair and nodded. “I never thought to check the phone.”

“Hey,” he said in a lighthearted voice. “I’m a detective. This is what we do.” He grinned and held up the wire.

She laughed. Come to think of it, the last call she’d gotten was days ago from Evie, before she figured out that Beatrice was home. They must have been on their way home then.

“I’ll see myself out,” he said. “Just try to get some sleep. You look tired.”

She nodded. “Yep, I am. Good night.”

When he left, Junie Bee jumped into Vera’s lap and sat face-to-face with her, her amber eyes looking into Vera’s. Vera thought she detected a smugness to her—oh, that’s crazy. She’s just a cat. “I suppose you want food,” Vera said.

Junie Bee mewed and jumped off her lap.

Vera walked into the kitchen, switched the light on and picked the refrigerator magnets off the floor again. She held them up and said, “Stop doing this!” to the cat and stuck them back on the door. She reached into the cupboard and pulled out a can of cat food. She noticed some papers under the edge of the cans. She pulled them out and set them on the corner of the counter with the other papers she’d been picking up from the cat’s kitchen escapades.

She fed Junie Bee, noting to herself that she’d go through those papers in the morning.

She woke up at 3 AM thinking of Eric, and one thought came clearly to her mind: I can’t marry him—I love him too much.

But what if that meant losing him?

Vera rolled over and pulled her quilt closer around her. The damned cat was draped like a hot water bottle over her feet. She drifted back to sleep, with thoughts of Eric, Donna, and her mother, wondering if she wanted to find the old bat after she had pulled this on her.

The next morning, she had her breakfast and coffee and sat down to go through the papers on the counter. She was interrupted by Detective Bryant at the door.

“Come in,” she said. “Thanks so much for helping me out with this.”

As the detective readied the new phone cord, kneeling on to the floor, Vera sat back down and started to go through the stack of papers that had been knocked off the refrigerator. There were several of pieces of Elizabeth’s art, some schedules of activities, and a note from her mother. What? A note?

Dear Vera,

We are home and will call when we get to Rose’s house.

Love,

Mama

“What? When did she leave this?” Vera squealed so loudly that it startled Bryant. He stood so fast that he conked his head on the kitchen table. She held up the note to show him.

“What d’you think?” he said.

“The damned cat!” she hissed. “This note has been under the counter, along with a bunch of other papers the cat had pulled down from the fridge. She just won’t leave things alone.”

As if she’d heard the word cat, Junie Bee entered the room, strutting around, trying to get the detective’s attention. She had quite a little kitty crush on Bryant.

Vera dialed her Aunt Rose’s number on her cell phone as the detective chortled and worked on the phone.

“About damned time,” Rose answered by way of greeting.

“What?” Vera said.

“We must have left a dozen messages for you!”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Rose. The house phone is broken—”

“Broken?”

“The cat chewed through the cord or something. Is Mama okay? Is she there?”

“She’s busy getting ready.”

“Getting ready for what?”

“Your mama is getting married today,” Rose said.

Vera’s heart felt like it landed in her mouth. “What did you say?” Vera barely managed to say. Where was her breath?

“Yep, she’s getting married at noon today, so if you want to be involved you better get your hind end in gear. She’s getting marred over at Lover’s Arch. They had to get married quickly because of Jon’s visa. We had a lot to take care of.”

Hot tears began to run down Vera’s face, leaving a befuddled Detective Bryant wondering what to do with himself.

“I almost missed my mother’s wedding,” she barely said through her tears.

“Well,” he said, placing the phone back on the table with a thud. “We can’t have that.”

 

 

They arrived at the wedding with police escorts. Because Bryant had pulled some strings to arrange for the escorts, he had also invited himself to the wedding. As they disembarked from three cars, they saw the homemade sign that said WEDDING with an arrow painted up the hillside, around the bank from Rose’s home.

Vera clutched one of Elizabeth’s hands and Eric took the other as they hurried up the hillside path. She wished Sheila was by her side, but she felt she couldn’t leave Donna.

“Of course there’s a hill,” DeeAnn complained, surveying the hilly and rocky landscape.

“Stop your bitching and get a move on,” Paige said, playfully pushing her along.

When Vera, Annie, Detective Bryant, DeeAnn, Paige, and Eric finally found Beatrice and Jon, they were standing near a rock arch decorated with flowers and ribbons. A small crowd was gathered.

“Mama!” Vera yelled out.

Beatrice turned around. She wore an antique blue wedding dress and looked younger and more beautiful than she had in a long time. “It’s about time,” Beatrice said. A titter came from the crowd. She motioned for Eric and Vera to join them at their mountainside makeshift altar.

Vera was profoundly happy that she’d found the note and tracked her mother down in the nick of time. She might have missed this. God knew Beatrice was going to get married right then and there, with or without Vera.

It was a beautiful spring day with a perfect mix of sunshine and cool mountain breeze. The scent of lilacs filled the air and wild daisies bobbed in the breeze.

Jon beamed in his tuxedo. Oddly enough, a French man in a tuxedo seemed quite appropriate at this outdoor mountain function. He looked at Beatrice—in fact, his eyes never left her. Eric squeezed Vera’s hand as Elizabeth went to her grandmother and stood beside her.

Vera’s Aunt Rose, Beatrice’s first cousin, officiated the ceremony.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate love. The love between Beatrice Matthews and Jon Chevalier. I had the honor of being at Beatrice’s first wedding as her maid of honor. Today I’m here in another role. Some women, like my dear cousin here, don’t come into relationships easy. But when they love, they love long and hard, and, friends, be assured that this man is worthy.

“Here’s one of Beatrice favorite poems that she wanted to share with us today.” Rose read over the “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman. The last few lines made even the most stubborn eyes tear:

I give you my love more precious than money
I give you myself before preaching or law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Eric and Vera’s eyes met. She felt tears beginning that couldn’t be denied. For the second time that day, she cried. Eric pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her.

“And now,” continued Rose, “I understand that you have each written your own vows. Beatrice?”

Beatrice cleared her throat. Vera thought she saw tears forming in her mother’s eyes as she spoke.

After the vows were made and rings exchanged, Rose gave a final blessing for Beatrice’s and Jon’s marriage.

“May the glory, which rests upon all who love you, bless you and keep you, fill you with happiness and a gracious spirit. Despite all changes of fortune and time, may that which is noble and lovely and true remain abundantly in your hearts, giving you strength for all that lies ahead.”

Jon and Beatrice kissed under the rock arch with ribbons and flowers dancing in the breeze. A fiddler began to play. Where did he come from? Vera wondered. She hadn’t noticed him before. She felt Eric’s eyes on her and she turned to face him.

“Eric, I love you madly. But I can’t marry you yet,” she said in a rush. “Listen, before you walk away, I have a proposal for you.” She reached for his arm to hold him in place.

“A proposal?” he said. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that, coming from a woman who just said no to mine.”

“Let’s move in together,” she said. “I think that’s a good way for us to be together to sort of try things out.”

His chin came up a bit and his face reddened. “Vera, I want to give you everything. The whole package.”

“I know and I want that too. But I need more time. Please. Won’t you shack up with me?” she said and grinned.

“I’d do anything for you. When can you move in?” he asked with more than a gleam in his eyes.

“Tomorrow,” Beatrice said. Vera hadn’t realized that her mom and Jon had been standing there listening. “She can move in tomorrow. And for the record you have my blessing. After all, look what shacking up got me,” Beatrice said, and she poked at a grinning, beaming Jon.