Tribute

by Nora Roberts

  Lovingly restored trim, letters hidden in a book, an old barn painted red again. All of that, every step and detail, were links she forged herself to make a chain of connection.

  He’d do whatever he could do to help her forge it, even if it came down to shopping for a grill.

  “Hey, Ford.”

  “Back here,” Ford called out when he heard Brian’s voice, and unfolded himself off the sofa as Brian walked in. “Weber or Viking?”

  “Tough choice,” Brian said without any need for explanation. “I went with the Weber, as you know, but a man can’t go wrong with the Viking.”

  “How about a woman?”

  “Women have no place behind a grill. That’s my stand on it.” He bent down, picked up Ford’s discarded T-shirt. “This is a clue. It tells me that I’ve come too late to interrupt morning sex. Damn that second cup of coffee.” He tossed the shirt at Ford’s face, then leaned down to greet Spock.

  “You’re just jealous because you didn’t have any morning sex.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re here. Why are you here?”

  Brian gestured to the counter and Cilla’s research pile as he crossed over to open Ford’s refrigerator. “Where’s Cilla?”

  “Upstairs, getting dressed so we can go out and debate between Weber and Viking.”

  “You’ve got Diet Cokes in here,” Brian observed as he pulled out a can of the real thing. “A sure sign a guy is hooked. I went by my mom’s yesterday.” Brian popped the top, took a swig. “Hauled off, to her surprised joy, not one but two boxes of junk she’s saved for me. What am I supposed to do with a crayon drawing of a house, a big yellow sun and stick people?”

  “I don’t know, but you can’t throw it out. According to my mother, dumping any childhood memorabilia they saved dares the gods.” Ford got his own Coke. “I have three boxes.”

  “I won’t forget it’s your fault I took possession of that stuff.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket, tossed it on the counter. “However, as I didn’t score female companionship last night, I went through some of it, came up with this. It’s a card my grandfather gave my mother on the occasion of my birth. He wrote some stuff in it.”

  “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  “Damn right. I am now housing every report card I got from first grade through high school. You’ll let me know if it matches. I’m kind of into it now.”

  “One way or the other.” Ford picked up the card, studied the strong, bold lettering of Cathy’s name.

  “I gotta go, pick up Shanna. I’m driving her to the airport.” He squatted down, rubbing Spock’s head, the wiggling body. “Tell Cilla I’ll have a couple guys there tomorrow to finish that mulching, and I should be able to swing by the new place she’s buying, take a look at the yard.”

  “Okay. I’ll get this back to you.”

  Brian smirked at the card. “Yeah, I’m worried about that.”

  Ford went upstairs, into the bedroom where Cilla was pulling her hair back into a tail. “I’m set,” she told him. “I’m going to go over while you’re getting dressed, take another look at a couple things before we go.”

  “Brian just came by.”

  “Oh, did he look at the new property already?”

  “No, next week, he said. He brought this.” Ford held up the card.

  “Is that . . . Of course it is. I didn’t expect him to find something so fast. Wow.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “Big mystery could be solved. It makes me a little nervous.”

  “Do you want me to go check it out, then just tell you?”

  She dropped her hand. “What am I? A weenie?”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  “They’re in my office.”

  She went in with him, watched him take the book off the shelf, then set it on the counter for her to open.

  “I keep thinking how she chose Gatsby. The rich, shining life, the glitter and then ennui, romance, betrayal, ultimate tragedy. She was so unhappy. I dreamed of her again not long ago. I didn’t tell you. One of my Janet and Cilla dreams. Forest Lawn. They’re both buried there. Her and Johnnie. I only went there once. Her grave was literally covered with flowers. It made me sad to look at it. All those flowers, brought by strangers, fading in the sun.”

  “You planted them for her here instead. And even when they fade, they come back new. Year after year.”

  “I like to think that would matter to her. My personal tribute.” She opened the book, took the stack of letters out. “I’ll open this,” she said, choosing one. “You open that.”

  Ford took out the card. He’d expected a happy picture of a baby, or a sentimental one of a mother and child. Instead he found Andrew Morrow’s initials on heavy, cream-colored stock. “Pretty formal,” he commented, and opened the card.

  Congratulations to my lovely daughter-in-law on the birth of her son. I hope these roses bring you pleasure. They’re only A small token of my great pride. Another generation of Morrows is born with Brian Andrew.

  Affectionately, Drew

  Cilla laid the letter beside the card.

  My Dear. My Darling.

  There Are no words to express my sorrow, my sympathy, my grief for you. I wish I could hold you, could comfort you now with more than words on A page. Know that I’m with you in my heart, that my thoughts Are full of you. No mother should have to suffer the loss of her child, And then be forced to grieve in so public A manner.

  I know you loved your Johnnie beyond measure. If there can be comfort now, take it in knowing he felt that love every day of his short life.

  Only Yours

  “Is that fitting, is that fate?” Cilla said quietly. “That I’d choose the loss of a son to compare to the birth of another? It’s a kind letter,” she continued. “They’re both kind notes, and both strangely distant, so carefully worded, I think. When each occasion should have filled the page with emotions and intimacies. The tone, the structure. They could be from the same person.”

  “The writing’s similar. Not . . . well, not exactly exact. See the S’s in the card? When he starts a word—son, small—with an S, it’s in curvy print. In the letter—sorry, sympathy—traditional lowercase cursive.”

  “But the uppercase T’s are written the same way, and the Y’s. The slant of the writing. It’s very close. And they were written years apart.”

  “My and my in both really look like the same hand, and the upper-case I’s, but the uppercase D’s, not so much.” Ford knew he looked with an artist’s eye, and wasn’t sure if that was a plus or a minus. “Then again, in the card, that’s a signature. Some people write the first letter of their signature differently than they might a word. I don’t know, Cilla.”

  “Results, inconclusive. I don’t suppose you know any handwriting experts.”

  “We could find one.” He looked up, into her eyes. “Do you want to go that route?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. Damn it. No easy answers.”

  “Maybe we could get our hands on a sample closer to when the letters were written. I can ask Brian to try for that.”

  “Let’s just put it away for now.” She folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope. “We know one thing after this. It wasn’t Hennessy. I’d forgotten about the letter after Johnnie’s death. No way, even if he was crazy in love, would he have written that after the accident. Not when he was with his own son in the hospital.”

  “You’re right.”

  “So, if I had a list, I’d be able to cross a name off. That’s something. I guess it’s going to have to be enough for now. At least for now.”

  Ford closed the book, put it back on the shelf. He turned to her, took her hand. “What do you say we go buy a grill?”

  “I’d say that’s exactly what I want to do.”

  But he left the monogrammed note on his desk when he went to dress. He could find a graphologist. Someone outside Virginia to whom the name Andrew Morrow meant n
othing. And he could see where that led.

  CILLA’S PLEASURE WHEN her walnut flooring finally arrived Tuesday morning hit a major roadblock before noon when her tile layer stormed over to her work area beside the barn.

  “Hi, Stan. You’re not scheduled until Thursday. Are . . .”

  She found herself backpedaling quickly as she caught the murderous look in his eye. “Hey, hey, what’s the problem?”

  “You think you can treat people that way? You think you can talk to people that way?”

  “What? What?” He backed her right up into the side of the barn. Too shocked at seeing the usually affable Stan with a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead, Cilla held up her hands as much in defense as a gesture of peace.

  “You think ’cause you come from money and got yourself on TV you’re better than the rest of us?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where—”

  “You got some nerve, goddamn it, calling my wife, talking to her like that.”

  “I never—”

  “You got a problem with my work, you talk to me. You got that? Don’t you go calling my house and yelling at my wife.”

  “Stan, I’ve never spoken to your wife.”

  “You calling her a liar now?” He shoved his face into hers, so close she could taste his rage.

  “I’m not calling her anything.” Alarm lumped at the base of Cilla’s throat, so she spaced her words carefully. “I don’t know her, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I come home and she’s so upset she can barely talk. Started crying. The only reason I didn’t come straight over here last night is she begged me not to, and I didn’t want to leave her when she was in that state. She’s got hypertension, and you go setting her off ’cause you decide you don’t like my work.”

  “And I’m telling you, I never called your house, I never spoke to your wife, and I’m not dissatisfied with your work. In fact, the opposite. Or why in God’s name did I contract you to lay the floor in my kitchen?”

  “You tell me, goddamn it.”

  “Well, I can’t!” she shouted back at him. “What time was I supposed to have made this call?”

  “About ten o’clock last night, you know damn well. I get home about ten-thirty, and she’s lying down, flushed and shaking because you screamed at her like a crazy woman.”

  “Have you ever heard me scream like a crazy woman? I was at Ford’s last night at ten o’clock. I nodded off in front of the TV. Ask him. Jesus, Stan, you’ve been working here off and on for months now. You should know I don’t handle things that way.”

  “Said it was you. Cilla McGowan.” But puzzlement began to show through the temper. “You told Kay she was a stupid hick, just like most of the people around here. How I couldn’t lay tile for shit, and you were going to make sure word got out. When I lost work, I’d have nobody to blame but my own lazy ass. How maybe you’d sue me over the crap job I did for you.”

  “If your wife’s a hick, I am, too. I live here now. I don’t contract with subs who do crap work. In fact, I recommended you to my stepmother just last week, if she ever talks my father into updating their master bath.” She realized she was breathless from reaction, but the alarm had dissolved. “Why the hell would I do that, Stan, if I thought your work was crap?”

  “She didn’t just make it up.”

  “Okay.” She had to draw in air. “Okay. Is she sure whoever called gave my name?”

  “Cilla McGowan, and then Kay said you . . . they,” he corrected, obviously ready to give Cilla the benefit of the doubt, “said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ in that bitchy way people do when they think they’re important. Then just laid into her. It took me almost an hour to calm her down when I got home from the summer league. I had to make her take a Tylenol P.M. to help her sleep. She was that upset.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry somebody used my name to upset her. I don’t know why . . .” Pressure lowered onto her chest, pushed and pushed. “The flooring supplier said I called in and changed my order. Walnut to oak. But I didn’t. I thought there’d just been a mix-up. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe somebody’s screwing with me.”

  Stan stood a moment, stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again. “You never made that call.”

  “No, I didn’t. Stan, I’m trying to build a reputation, and a business here. I’m trying to build relationships with subs and service people. When someone broke in and went at the bathrooms, you juggled me in for the repair and re-lay, and I know you cut me a break on the labor.”

  “You had a problem. And the fact is, I was proud of that work and wanted to make it right.”

  “I don’t know how to make this right with your wife. I could talk to her, try to explain.”

  “Better let me do that.” He blew out a breath. “Sorry I came at you.”

  “I’d have done the same in your place.”

  “Who’d do something like this? Mess with you, get Kay all upset?”

  “I don’t know.” Cilla thought of Mrs. Hennessy. Her husband was doing two years in a psych facility. “But I hope I can head it off before it happens again.”

  “I guess I’d better swing by home, straighten this out with Kay.”

  “Okay. You still on for Thursday?”

  His smile was a little sheepish. “Yeah. Ah, you got any reason to call me at home, maybe you should come up with a code word or something.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  She stood in the shadow of her barn, with trim propped against the wall and laid out to dry, stretched across her saw-horses. And wondered how many times she’d have to pay for the crimes, sins, mistakes of others.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Cilla stood in her bedroom, staring at the freshly painted walls while her father tapped the lid back on the open can of paint. She watched the way the strong midday light flooded the room, and sent those walls to glowing.

  “The trim’s not even up, and the floors still have to be done, and still, standing here gives me an ecstatic tingle.”

  He straightened from his crouch, took a long look himself. “It’s a damn fine job.”

  “You could make a living.”

  “It’s always good to have a fallback.”

  “You’ve damn near painted the entire house.” She turned to him then. She still couldn’t quite think what to make of that, or what to say to him. “That’s saved me weeks of time. Thanks doesn’t cover it.”

  “It does the job. I’ve enjoyed it, on a lot of levels. I’ve liked being part of this. This transformation. We missed a lot of summers, you and I. Spending some of this one with you, well, it’s made me happy.”

  For a moment she could only stand, looking at him, her handsome father. Then she did something she’d never done before. She went to him first. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then wrapped her arms around him. “Me too.”

  He held on, hard and tight. She felt his sigh against her. “Do you remember the day we first saw each other here? I came to the back door, and you shared your lunch with me on the sagging front veranda?”

  “I remember.”

  “I didn’t see how we’d ever get here. Too much neglect, too much time passed. For the house, and for us.” He eased her back, and she saw with some surprise, some alarm, that his eyes were damp. “You gave it a chance. The house, and me. Now I’m standing here with my daughter. I’m so proud of you, Cilla.”

  When her own eyes flooded, she pressed her face to his shoulder. “You said that to me, that you were proud, after the concert in D.C., and once, earlier, when you came to the set of Our Family and watched me shoot a scene. But this is the first time I believe it.”

  She gave him a last squeeze, stepped back. “I guess we’re