“They have my genes. Plenty good enough.”
“And Frederick’s ashes?”
Fran raised her eyes to Daphne. “You’ll make sure he’s taken West, right?”
Sugary and light. “Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Moshe to have them?”
“Moshe has enough to think about.”
“Like chasing his mother around the countryside.”
“I didn’t ask him to come out.”
Daphne stroked the back of Fran’s hand. She’d never touched her godmother so much in years; it had never felt right until now. “But you’re relieved he did.”
“I’d gone as far as I could. It was time. It is time. Time to wait.”
Daphne tried not to clutch Fran’s hand too hard. “And what will the great Fran Hertz do until Death arrives?”
Fran’s faint eyebrows soared. “Death? I meant time to wait for the birth of my grandson.”
“Oh.”
“Moshe and Hannah have granted me the honor of naming him.”
“Frederick?”
“Too risky. It might be shortened to Fred and I can’t abide the blood of my blood having a name that rhymes with dead.”
“Clive, then. To rhyme with alive.”
Fran made a face to show her dislike. “It must be Jewish. Do you think Moshe converted because he hated the name Mark?”
“So he could adopt a name that sounds as if he stepped on pudding? No, he did it because he believes with all his heart.”
“I suppose.” Fran’s hand fluttered in Daphne’s hold. “I thought perhaps it could be a masculine variation of Carrie.”
Carrie. She’d not heard the name of Fran’s daughter from the older woman’s lips in more than thirty years. “Is there one?”
Slowly, carefully, Fran brought her needled hand across to rest it on Daphne’s, so all their hands nested together. “You know, I’ve mostly got over missing her, but when you’re around, she comes back to me.”
Daphne confessed what she’d told no one else. “I remember her every time I make lemonade.”
“You make lemonade—” Fran stopped but squeezed Daphne’s hand, a faint pressure.
“All the time. Yes.”
“Two parents, a daughter and a best friend taken all at once.”
“Only one left behind,” Daphne added the fact that had haunted her since she was sixteen.
“To get the rest of us through it.”
Fran couldn’t mean that. Daphne knew she was plain, quiet, boring. Not like vibrant, loud, life-filled Carrie. “I’m grateful to you for saying that, Fran. I am. But you never lied in your life. No need to start now.”
Fran shook her head, her hair rustling against the pillow. “I might not be an Orthodox Jew, but I’ll not question the whys of life and death. After all, if there’s anyone to blame among the living, it’s me.”
“How’s that? You were hundreds of miles away from the accident.”
“Have you forgotten? I was supposed to drive to the recital.”
“Oh. I never knew that.”
“I had a court case to prepare for, so I asked your parents to take Carrie.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh. And your parents drove a hard bargain. They agreed to drive you both on the condition that I pick you up the next morning so they could have a little romantic getaway. You were to stay at my place for a while.”
Tears glistened in Fran’s eyes and then spilled over. Not Fran, not the strong one. Daphne plucked a thin tissue from a box and dabbed Fran’s cheeks. Twice in three days, Daphne was drying the tears of a grieving loved one. Of people she cared about. Two strong people seeking comfort, and her giving it. She might lack courage, but not tissues.
“I kept my word,” Fran said.
Daphne dabbed and dabbed. “You did, Fran. You always have.”
“Don’t you remember why you and Carrie were going to the recital? Have you forgotten that, too?”
“We were in a choir.”
“Yes. And who had the solo?”
“Me,” she said softly and reached for more tissues.
“Yes, you. I never wanted you to be like Carrie. I wanted you to be the person you were in the seconds before the accident. The one who sang great words for all to hear. Instead, you fell silent and read words on dusty pages. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it wasn’t you. It isn’t you. You are more.”
Between her talking and crying, Fran now had to labor through her breathing. Daphne struggled not to grab tissues for herself.
“If...if you can’t see your way to a life with Mel, will you promise me you’ll keep driving?”
“I promise.”
“And...and, now and again, would you sing for all to hear?”
Daphne didn’t think she had it in her any longer. Yet, as always, she couldn’t deny Fran. “I promise.”
Fran sank her head against her pillows. “It’s settled, then.” She pointed to her tray. “Water, please.”
Daphne fell to the task. Then she washed Fran’s face, brushed her hair, brought her juice and salted crackers, closed the curtains and lowered the bed for her afternoon nap.
Fran drifted into sleep soon after, and Daphne had a half hour to wait before Tom arrived to take her back to Spirit Lake. Daphne opened her phone and surfed the internet. She found one link and then another, and as Tom pulled up, Daphne sent a text for Fran to see when she awoke.
Baby name. Carrie=to carry=to bear=bear (the animal)=Dov. Means strength. Rhymes with drove.
* * *
DAPHNE HAD FRAN’S belongings strewed from one end of The Stagecoach to the other when Moshe stepped inside.
“In all fairness to me, the place was a mess from the start,” Daphne said. She cleared scarves and belts off the passenger seat for Moshe. “I’ll be a while yet, unfortunately.”
Moshe, as he had for much of their adult relationship, seemed not to hear her. He dropped into the seat and continued texting.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Lemonade, please,” he said, not looking up.
He spoke as if he expected her to have a jug ready, which made sense. There’d always been lemonade around since they’d been kids. The three of them—Carrie, Moshe and Daphne—had made lemonade their official drink and peddled it through the neighborhood for a dime a cup. Their profits had paid for ice cream through many summers. Life in the quiet Halifax suburbs had been good.
Two years younger, Moshe had drifted away from Carrie and Daphne as they entered their teens, and after Carrie’s death, they would’ve split completely if Fran hadn’t contrived family gatherings. When Moshe married and his kids came, he and Daphne saw more of each other, though it was never the free and easy playfulness of their childhood. And they never, ever talked about Carrie.
Yet...if his sister had weighed in the hearts of Daphne and Fran, it must be the same for Moshe.
Would Daphne and Moshe have remained close if they had talked about Carrie more often? Far too soon, they would be the only ones to remember Carrie and Fran. Moshe would be Daphne’s only family, and just a godbrother at that. She needed to try to connect with him, if only through the shared memory of a lost sister. She could help him as she’d helped Fran and Mel.
Daphne pulled open the fridge. “Do you remember how the three of us sold lemonade over the summers?”
Moshe glanced up, but dipped his head back to his phone, as if he’d heard a noise that turned out to be nothing.
The lemons were starting to dry out, time indeed to make lemonade. “You made up our business plan. I was in charge of production. And Carrie—Carrie managed sales.”
“You’re not using those, are you? They seem old.” Moshe seemed more interested in the lemons than the first mention of his sister’s name in years.
“They’re fine. Still two tablespoons of sugar?”
His head bent over his phone again, the pin holding his yarmulke on his head glinting in the sun. Did he have a bald spot under there? Probably only Hannah and his kids knew.
“Message from Hannah,” Moshe said.
Daphne started at the echo of his wife’s name.
“She’s in the hospital. She might have to get induced.”
“Oh.” And here she was calling up the past when his present was bearing down on him. “Do you want to go? I can organize things on this end. I’ll get Fran on the plane with her stuff. Or maybe she can stay in the hospital for a few more days and then I’ll fly out with her.”
“You’d do that?” Moshe asked.
Daphne was about to commit when she remembered Christmas-in-the-Summer. Mel—and Connie, of course—were expecting her to help out. Of course, it wasn’t as important as the health and safety of Moshe’s family. “I can do it,” she said, wringing a lemon dry with the lemon squeezer. “I’ll have to find someone to replace me.”
Moshe frowned. “Replace you?”
“I agreed to be Mrs. Claus for a town event. A summer version of Christmas.”
“You’re more involved here than you’ve been all your life in Halifax.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You’re dating, you’re meeting people and you’re volunteering at an event where you’re going to be the center of attention.”
“I’m busy in Halifax. I have a career.”
His phone sounded. “Hannah says she’ll let me know when she hears more.”
He muttered words of prayer, his body rocking. Daphne stopped spooning in the sugar. Should she join him? Or stand frozen until he was done? She didn’t know much about Hebraic prayer.
She pushed aside Fran’s jewelry box and sat on a bit of the couch. The last time she’d prayed was while trying to get Carrie to wake up in the back seat of the crushed car. May his prayers be heard.
After a time, Moshe raised his head. “I can do no more.”
She stood and continued with the lemonade.
“Carrie decided we should market two different flavors,” Moshe said suddenly. “Dry and sweet. Like wine. Remember?”
Daphne’s heart squeezed as tight as the lemons. “Yes, the sweet was the way she liked it and the dry was for you. Two tablespoons of sugar for an entire jug.”
“You didn’t care. You just made lemonade.”
“That’s because,” Daphne said, taking the water bottle from the fridge, “the secret is not in the sugar. I perfected the recipe over the years,” she said. Every summer she’d played with the ingredients. Tried to reverse engineer from the store brands.
“After she died, I swore off lemonade until—” Moshe pointed to his yarmulke.
Daphne turned her back and dropped her secret ingredient into the lemonade.
“What did you just do?” Moshe said.
“If I told you, I’d have to marry you,” Daphne said and slipped the tiny bottle into her pocket. She handed him his lemonade with its one cube of ice. “Carrie told me the ultimate test for my hero was if he could identify my secret ingredient. A kind of princess and the pea in reverse.”
“And has anyone guessed?”
“No, but then again, I never actually asked any of them. Maybe I was afraid they’d be right. Or wrong. At any rate, you were saying that you didn’t have lemonade until Hannah converted you.”
“Hannah? I didn’t say she converted me.”
“You said—” Daphne replayed his words and then she realized. “Carrie turned you into a Jew?”
He took a sip, smacked his lips experimentally. “It is different. But I have no idea what your secret is.” He paused. “Her death was the reason I converted. I was thirteen, and trying to understand. At the funeral service, the minister read from the Bible. Mom and Dad weren’t religious but—I don’t know—I liked the sound of it. Stupid, right?”
Daphne shook her head. “I’ve read pages and pages aloud from books at night when I couldn’t sleep just to hear the words.”
Moshe took another sip. “Mint, for sure.”
Daphne shook her head.
“I went out and got a Bible, and started reading it. The stories in the Old Testament, The Talmud—they grabbed me. Everything was explained. There was order and there were mistakes. Everything was so...like life—a struggle. It’s hard to explain.”
“You’re trying to explain to the English professor how important stories are to figuring out life?”
Moshe ducked his head. “I suppose you would know. When I met Hannah at university, it felt right.”
“Not for your mom and dad. They kept calling you Mark.”
“Until the day before Dad died. Then he called me Moshe. Lemon extract?”
“No. Too obvious.”
His phone chimed and Moshe snatched it up. He read the message, then he closed his eyes and mouthed a prayer. He raised his head, smiling a little. “The baby’s heartbeat is back to normal. Hannah can go home to bed rest. Her mother will take care of her and the kids.”
His prayers had been answered. “Good. Crisis averted. For another day,” Daphne said.
“That one, anyway.” Moshe held up his screen with its string of unopened emails. “Here’s another half dozen from work.”
He stood and took a long swig of the lemonade.
“Ginger?”
“Yes.”
“Aha.”
“But that’s not all.”
Moshe frowned. “Has Mel guessed?”
“We’re not that close.”
Moshe gave a sly, teasing grin, the kind he’d let slip just before launching a water balloon at her and Carrie. “Will I have to fly out again to attend a wedding?”
“We aren’t like that. I mean, we could be, but we’re not.” Daphne stopped her useless babbling, struck by another thought. “If—if we did, you would come?”
“Of course. You are family, yes?”
“I was never sure. I’ve always believed you invited me over because Fran nagged you into it.”
Moshe sipped his lemonade. “Listen, Daphne. There are times when it’s just me and Hannah and the kids. But as soon as we think of inviting my mom, we think of you, as well.”
“Oh. I always wondered if maybe you resented me. I kind of replaced Carrie as your sister.”
“I can’t say what you are to me, Daphne. You are not quite a friend or a sister or my mother’s friend. You are just Daphne, the person I’ve known all my life and want to know for the rest of my life, even if she chooses to live on the other side of the country.”
She’d gone into this conversation in an attempt to reach out to Moshe and here he was pressing on her heart. “Thank you, Moshe.”
“And, I might add, you should live on this side of the country.” Moshe sailed on, as if she’d not spoken. “On the drive to get the RV, I came to like Mel. He’s a good man. And he’s good for you.”
Yes, but was she for him? Was what they had enough for her to give up everything she’d ever known in Halifax? Including Moshe?
* * *
BEFORE MOSHE LEFT, they agreed that Daphne would text him when the suitcases were ready and he’d pick them up. But just as she reached for her phone, Mel knocked on the motor home door.
“You’ve settled in,” he said, looking around at the chaos.
Her mess must appall him. “Can I offer you a drink?”
“Sure, whatever you’ve got.”
“Lemonade it is.”
He made room for himself at the dining table.
She poured him a glass. “I was about to tell Moshe to come over and pick up Fran’s suitcases. She’s leaving for Halifax tomorrow.”
“Oh. And you’re not?”
Was it just her o
r did she hear excitement in his tone? She ought not to encourage him, yet she was challenged to suppress her own excitement, much less his. “Not for a few days, at least. There’s Christmas-in-the-Summer in little more than a week, and I still have to sort out the motor home. You don’t know anyone who’d want it, would you?”
“Not offhand. How much do you think it’s worth?”
“I couldn’t tell you. It was Fran’s. I mean, it is hers. Only when... Only after...”
Mel pulled on his cap. “Yep.”
No further explanation required. Where would she find a friend, much less a man, like him? If they lived closer, they might’ve had a chance. But she couldn’t give up her tenured position, her only security she had as an adult orphan. And she certainly couldn’t expect him to leave his business and family—heavens, he was set to be an uncle—to be with her.
“If you like, I could advertise on a couple of buy-and-sell sites I’m on,” he offered. “Might take a week or two, though.”
“That’s fine,” she said, handing Mel a glass of lemonade.
“Must say, I’m kinda looking forward to the Santa event.”
“You are? You live here. At least if I humiliate myself, I can leave town.”
Mel’s mouth turned down, and Daphne could’ve kicked herself. Why had she brought up her impending departure the second he’d expressed an interest in being with her? It felt as if they were already breaking up before they were even together.
“I should first see to getting it repaired,” she said, reverting to the earlier topic of the RV. “Is there a dealer you’d recommend?”
“There is. Except that might take a while. You okay with that?”
Back again to the sticky issue of her leaving. “Oh... I...” Daphne sat down across from him. “Maybe I should leave Moshe to sort it out. He’ll be the...executor.”
“How about,” Mel said, “we start with taking the suitcases to Moshe and go from there?”
What did that mean? She should stop wondering and ask him flat out. They were adults, after all. Or at least, had been practicing the position for more than thirty years. And a frank conversation with Fran and Moshe had worked out rather well. Why should one with Mel be any different?
“Mel. What are we going to do about us? Are we friends or more than that?”
Coming Home to You Page 16
