Aubin studied my face with light, troubled eyes. “Come up on the porch, out of the sun.”
I’d been picturing Aubin Pavegeau as an old man for some reason. His name, maybe. But by the looks of him, he was midforties at most. A shock of dark, thick hair drooped onto his forehead. A head taller than me, he was lean but muscled, wearing a tight blue tee. His jeans seemed extra baggy, and I wondered if he’d lost weight recently or if he preferred a looser fit because of his damaged leg.
“Your name is Callow?”
I followed him up the steps. “That’s right.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
I could practically see the mental math he was doing as he pieced together the truth of who I was. “Twenty-four.”
“I see.”
He walked steadily and surely despite a marked hobble. Part of the porch was screened in, and he held open the door for me. I went ahead, noting the small tears in the screen, the blistered, peeling paint on the frame, the sagging ceiling panels, and the loose deck boards. A small wooden table was flanked by two white rockers, not a speck of dirt on them. On the table was a library-loaned cookbook, a pitcher dripping with condensation, half-filled with purplish-red tea, and a mason jar full of ice.
“Have a sit-down. I’ll be right back—I need to grab another glass.”
A set of hand-carving tools were lined up on a workbench pushed against the wall. An assortment of walking sticks and canes in mid-production leaned against one of the porch columns.
Aubin returned a moment later, a tall glass clutched in the palm of his big hand. He set his cane against the house, then sat and went about pouring the sweet tea.
“Beautiful work,” I said, motioning toward the carvings. One cane had a handle that looked like Ruby’s face.
“Thank you. My father taught me. He was a woodcrafter, had a shop in town before it became too pricy to keep open. He’s been gone a few years now.”
“I’m sorry.”
He tipped his head in acknowledgment, and handed me the glass he’d just filled.
I glanced around. “Is Summer here? I have a piece of pie for her—she accidentally left it behind at the café this morning.”
“She’s out picking blackberries this afternoon.”
“Oh. Then I’ll leave this with you if that’s okay and let you get back to your day.” I set the box on the table.
“No need to rush off,” Aubin said, motioning to the glass in my hand. “That sweet tea isn’t going to drink itself, and you look like you could use some hydration.”
I could probably drink a whole gallon of water right now and still be parched. “Thanks.” I took a sip, unsure at first what I was drinking, and then I decided I’d never tasted anything so good. “Blackberry? It’s delicious.”
“Took me nearly a month to perfect the recipe.”
“Worth every minute.” I took another sip, trying to deconstruct the flavors. “Is there honey in there?”
“Yes, ma’am. But what gives it that extra something,” he said, listing forward and dropping his voice, “is grenadine.”
I took another sip, and now that I knew what I was looking for, I could taste it. “I wouldn’t have thought to use grenadine. It’s a perfect complement.”
“I have a few pomegranate trees out back, and I make my own syrup. Out here in the woods, you tend to use what you have on hand.” He pulled the stick from his pocket and started chewing on it again.
It was a sweetgum twig, I realized. Nature’s toothbrush, Zee had once said, but it seemed to me Aubin’s chewing was more habit than anything.
“I should be taking notes. I’d love to serve something like this at the café.”
“You’ve taken over the Blackbird, then?”
“For the time being. I’m going to medical school soon back in Massachusetts.”
“Medical school. You don’t say,” he said, not sounding surprised at all. He peered at me over the rim of his glass. “You’ve got your mama’s eyes. The coloring, that bright green is all Eden.”
“You knew my mother?”
He broke eye contact, turning his attention to Ruby, who was galloping across the yard. “A long time ago, I did. Knew your daddy, too. No denying you look like AJ.”
I held on to the glass tightly, its chill seeping into my palm. My parents, if they were alive, would be forty-four years old this year. Aubin, if I figured his age right, would be about the same. “How well did you know them?”
“AJ and I grew up together. When he and Eden started dating, we three would hang out from time to time.”
“So you were close friends, then?” I would love to find someone who knew them well, who could share stories with me. Someone other than the Lindens. I wanted to get to know the people my parents had been.
“What is friendship, really?” His voice was strained, and he wouldn’t look my way. He just sat there, running his hand along the thigh of his bad leg.
I saw pain in his eyes and wondered where it originated—in the past or with his injury—but I couldn’t bring myself to push for an explanation. Feeling suddenly bereft, I set the tea glass on the table. “I really should get going.”
Aubin didn’t seem the least bit sorry to see me go. He grabbed his cane, walked me to the screen door, and held it open.
“Thank you for the tea.”
I was barely off the porch steps when Aubin said, “Anna Kate?”
My chest ached as I glanced back at him, standing there leaning on his beautiful cane, his eyes looking like dark reflecting pools of remorse.
He said, “You … Did you grow up happy? Was your mother happy?”
I didn’t want to think too hard about the answer to those questions. But my voice gave away my emotions, nearly breaking flat open as I said, “What is happiness, Mr. Pavegeau, really?”
7
“Some people don’t want anything to do with the pie,” Summer Pavegeau said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “My daddy, for instance. He tells me all the time it’s best to leave the past in the past.”
The reporter took note of her blackberry-stained fingertips as he said, “But you don’t think so?”
She glanced out the window, looking toward the mountains as though searching for something only she could see. “No,” she said, “but I find comfort in the past. All he finds is pain.”
He capped his pen. “Why’s that?”
Her gaze snapped back to him. “I thought you were doing an article on the blackbirds?”
Smiling, he said, “I seem to have gotten a little sidetracked.”
Summer nodded. “Wicklow has a tendency to do that to people.”
Natalie
I’d rushed straight home from that enlightening encounter with Anna Kate Callow for naught.
Neither Mama nor Daddy had been home. Since it was growing late and they were hardly night owls, they would most likely return any minute now. This time of night, they liked winding down with cocktails and dessert on the patio, a nighttime ritual of theirs as habitual as the setting sun.
I’d wait them out. Although it was past Ollie’s seven o’clock bedtime, I wasn’t ready to give up on getting answers regarding Anna Kate. How long had they known about her? By Mama’s strange behavior at the café this morning, I assumed not long. The way she had acted now made perfect sense—she had been trying to get a look at Anna Kate while keeping me in the dark. It was a familiar pattern—Mama often kept me in the dark on important matters.
While I understood why Mama fought so hard to protect me from anything physically or emotionally harmful, her rigidity on the matter had ended up making her my biggest threat. I wasn’t sure she fully understood the damage she’d done. Or perhaps, she simply hadn’t cared as long as I was safe.
As for Anna Kate, I was thrilled to discover someone else hanging off my mother’s branch of the family tree—surely, she would take some of Mama’s pressure off me. If that someone happened to be a young woman, close to my age, all the
better. When I was younger, friends had been hard to come by, being that they all needed the Seelie Earl Linden stamp of approval. I had long since learned to close myself off from potential playmates, just to save the ultimate embarrassment of telling someone that I couldn’t come over that day.
Or ever.
I threaded my fingers through Ollie’s velvety soft hair as I read her a book, and she shifted to lean against my chest. Curled up together on the overstuffed sofa, I took a moment to inhale the sweet, lingering scent of her baby shampoo. This was actually my favorite time of day with her. It was our downtime, when she was extra loving and snuggly.
It had been hours since we’d arrived home, and after getting Ollie fed and bathed, I’d spent most of my time reading books, building blocks, playing trucks, and occasionally checking to see if any of the lights were on in the main house. Or the big house, as I’d called it growing up, seeing as how it felt like a jail.
Ollie blinked slowly, her eyelids growing heavy at the cadence of my voice, and I took a moment to appreciate the miracle that was my daughter. To enjoy the warmth of her tiny body, to feel her heartbeat against my arm, to soak in her innocence and sheer joy at simply being alive.
Dressed in lightweight shortie pajamas decorated with excavators, loaders, and dump trucks, she burrowed even deeper into my side, resting her head on my chest. She was going through a construction phase and had been over the moon when she’d spotted these PJs in the boys’ section at the department store. While I didn’t have a lot of money for extras, there was no way I could pass those pajamas by. But I hadn’t completely lost my senses—I bought them a size up, to last her a long while.
Growing up, I never would have been allowed to wear pajamas like these. Until I was a teenager, I had owned only monogrammed cotton nightgowns, ones with scalloped hems or ruffled cuffs. I hadn’t been allowed prints with Disney princesses or fluffy cats or anything cutesy or what Mama would consider tacky. And God forbid if I had worn pajamas designed for boys. A bolt of lightning might have struck my mother dead on the spot.
Ollie’s breathing deepened, and I quietly closed the book and set it aside. I wrapped my arms around her body and held on tightly, resting my cheek against her hair.
It was times like these that Matt most often slipped into my thoughts. Ollie had been only a few months old when he’d died, and I hated that he was missing out on these moments—even if it had been his choice to do so.
My chest tightened, thinking about him choosing to leave us on purpose.
Had he? Or hadn’t he?
I forced myself to breathe evenly, a trick a therapist down in Montgomery had taught me to keep anxiety from blooming into a full-blown panic attack. Breathe in, hold. Breathe out, hold. After a minute, the ache in my chest eased some, pinching instead of crushing.
I’d have the answers I longed for soon. If legend was true, the blackbird pie would tell me all I wanted to know. I’d eat the pie tomorrow, and tomorrow night I’d receive a note from Matt in a dream sometime after midnight.
A note that would hopefully explain everything about his death. With it, maybe I could finally put the past to rest and find the peace I craved. Until then, I’d keep breathing deeply and taking one day at a time.
It was hard for me not to see Matt in Ollie. In her infectious laugh, and in how outgoing she was. Ollie was part of him, and I wished more than anything that he could see the wonder we’d created together. What our love had created.
I watched Ollie sleep and marveled at how little it took to make her happy. Construction pajamas and a new book from the library, and she was the happiest girl in the world.
A yawning pit grew in my stomach, as it always did when I thought about happiness. I would do anything to make sure Ollie stayed this way—perfectly content and oblivious to the hurtful world around her.
Which was why I was here, wasn’t it? A grown woman, essentially living with my parents. I was thankful for their help, yes, but also mortified my life had come to this.
Before I fell down a rabbit hole of regret, I forced myself to stop thinking about things I couldn’t change. All my life, I’d let others take care of me. My parents, then Matt, then my parents again. I needed to stop dwelling on my deficiencies and start figuring out how to become a self-sufficient, independent woman—for Ollie’s sake. She didn’t need a milquetoast mother, but one who was strong. Capable.
Which was all so much easier said than done.
With that thought, the ache in my chest started to grow once again.
As I sang the ABC’s in my head—another trick my therapist had taught me to refocus my thoughts—my gaze fell on the big box near the door that had a note in my mother’s handwriting taped to its top. I had brought it inside and dropped it near the door, not wanting to deal with it straightaway. Besides, I knew what was in it: a sunhat for Ollie. Seeing as how Mama would expect a thank-you when I saw her next, it would probably be a good idea to have laid eyes on the hat in case she gave me a pop quiz on its color, size, or adornment.
I lowered Ollie gently onto the couch, and tucked a throw pillow next to her in case she rolled. I set the box on the raised counter bar that divided the open living room from the kitchen and pulled the note free from its tape. My mother had old-school looping penmanship and took pride in its beauty.
Natalie,
Stacia Dabadie will arrive promptly at nine a.m. Please have Olivia Leigh ready at no later than eight forty-five.
—M
Soon after we’d moved here, Mama had offered to keep Ollie on Friday mornings. Special one-on-one time. So far, they’d had a teddy bear picnic in the park and driven down to Fort Payne for a children’s theater production. While grateful for some time alone, I had also dreaded those mornings. I didn’t like letting Ollie out of my sight for long and I didn’t want Mama smothering her with rules, either.
It had crossed my mind more than once this past week to sit down with my mother to put an end to the outings. I hadn’t yet found the strength to do so, however, because I knew stopping the excursions would hurt Mama’s feelings and disrupt the progress we’d made with our truce.
Since I wanted peace in the family, I’d bitten my tongue.
But what did Stacia Dabadie, Coralee’s granddaughter, have to do with tomorrow? Using a butter knife, I cut the tape on the box and opened it. Inside there was a frilly pink sunhat, a pink bathing suit, a pink beach towel printed with hearts, and a bottle of sunscreen, SPF 50.
Bile crept up my throat as I set each item on the countertop. My hands went clammy, then ice cold, when I recalled Mama mentioning during last week’s Sunday supper that Stacia Dabadie had taken a summer job as a lifeguard at the pond of the local state park and wasn’t that lovely?
I, of course, had changed the subject straightaway, believing Mama just hadn’t been thinking to bring up something like that.
I should have known better.
Oh, how I should have known.
Seelie Earl Linden rarely spoke without thinking.
As my stomach rolled, I spread the towel out on the counter, folded it in half, then quarters, then eighths until it was too bulky to fold anymore. I set it back in the box. The swimsuit was folded in half, in quarters, in eighths, then rolled into a pink rope. I set that in the box. The hat went next. I carefully set the sunscreen bottle on top of the obnoxious pink pile and went about closing the box, overlapping the flaps until it was secure. I picked up the box, opened the front door, stepped out onto the narrow front porch, and flung the box as far as I could. It flew over the iron safety fence that surrounded the swimming pool and tumbled to a stop on the stamped concrete patio, inches from the shimmering water subtly lit by underwater lighting.
As I turned to go back inside, I noticed the lights on in the big house and could see my parents moving around the kitchen.
With my current mood, it would serve me best to go inside, close the door, and bolt it.
Instead, I peeked in at Ollie, who was still peacefull
y asleep on the couch, and instantly decided to leave her be. I’d be gone only a few moments. Just long enough to let my mother know, plain and simple and to the point, about my position regarding swimming lessons.
I quietly closed the door, and marched myself along the stone pathway that cut through the manicured lawn, past the tea roses, and up the three stone steps of the back porch.
In my anger, all thoughts of Anna Kate Callow had fled my mind, but they came rushing back as soon as my mother’s voice floated through the open patio doors.
“I couldn’t even get a good look at her for all the busybodies at the café, not minding their own business.”
“You could have gone inside,” Daddy said, his tone flat, as though exceptionally tired.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Putting off the meeting is only going to make it harder, for both of you.”
“I’ll not be put on display for the whole town to talk about for years to come. I simply wanted to see if what everyone said is true. That she looks just like AJ.”
A cabinet closed with a thud. “She does, indeed. I stopped by to see her myself this morning.”
My mother’s tone took an icy turn I knew well. “You what?”
“I spoke with her and invited her to supper on Sunday.”
There was a stretch of frosty silence before Mama said, “Why would you do such a thing? We don’t know who she is, what she’s like, or her intentions. She could be after our money.”
“She is our granddaughter,” he said, his voice tight. “There is no doubt in my mind.”
“How naïve of you. I won’t believe it until I see DNA evidence.”
“All it takes is one look to know the truth. The DNA is evident in the shape of her eyes, the dimples in her cheeks, and the color of her hair. She has your hair, by the way, only curlier.”
There was another stretch of cool silence. “If it is true, if, damn that Eden Callow! How dare she steal that girl from us, sneaking out of town like a thief in the night without anyone even knowing she was with child.”
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe Page 8
