Kindred Spirits

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Madeleine let out a groan. “I know this is hard for you, Mom, but unfortunately we can’t turn back the clock. Dad’s reached a certain age where he can’t do what he used to.”

  Coming on top of Lynne’s sickness and suicide, Beth was getting fed up with mortality. When she was younger, she never thought about death and illness. Sure, she and Marc would get old someday. Someday far, far away. But she hadn’t stopped to think about how close that day was and that Marc, like her father, could lose his vitality or that she, like Lynne, would wake up to find that a routine bout with the flu was something more. She couldn’t fathom being in her mother’s position, having to make these life-and-death decisions for the man who’d once been the family breadwinner.

  Procrastination was a trap, she decided. It was how people ended up in the hospital, how they got so old without ever having fulfilled even one promise of youth.

  “Beth?” Elsie said. “Which would you choose?”

  “I would like to choose not to choose.” Those were Lynne’s words when her doctor laid out three options to treat her cancer, all of which carried unpleasant side effects.

  Maddy said, “I know what you mean, Beth. And Mom’s right. It seems like yesterday when Dad was pulling us across the lake. His shoulders were these massive boulders and I remember thinking there was no one stronger on earth than my father.”

  “Me too,” Beth chimed in, glad that Maddy had dropped the bossy, know-it-all, older-sister routine for once. “By the way, Maddy has a valid argument about New York hospitals. Grace doesn’t even begin to compare to Columbia-Presbyterian. Of course Dad should have his bypass there.”

  “Thanks,” Maddy said, sounding surprised. “That’s very big of you, Beth. I’d also like to add that I’ve been doing some soul searching as well and I have to agree there are plenty of advantages to keeping Dad close to home. Beth’s right when she says he’ll recover quicker if he’s in familiar surroundings, and Mom, I know it’ll be easier on you.”

  It was so much more pleasant not to fight about this, Beth thought. It was a wonder they weren’t so cordial more often. Like Lynne used to say, “It’s hard enough fighting for your life, without spending your life fighting.”

  “So what’s the answer?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t know,” Elsie said dreamily. “I think the only answer is to live life to the fullest while you can and collect memories like fools collect money. Because in the end, that’s all you have—happy memories. If you’re fortunate.”

  If the view off Scenic Cup was as awe inspiring as Dr. Dorfman claimed, the women wouldn’t find out that day. The storm had caught up with them, filling the Susquehanna riverbed with fog that inched up the sides of the mountains and rolled onto the roads. Darkness was falling and they had just reached Crescent Hollow.

  What they could make out in the dim light and rain seemed to be another tidy Pennsylvania town brimming with pride. Immaculate vinyl-sided or brick houses lined the wide streets. The small yards had been raked free of leaves and driveways had been freshly blacktopped for winter. Even in this weather, Old Glory hung limply from most doorways.

  “Small-town America,” Beth said with satisfaction. “Vintage Sherwood Anderson. Except Sherwood Anderson was Ohio, not Pennsylvania.”

  “Same difference,” Carol said as she tried to negotiate the GPS. “You need to hook a left, MK, and the Millers should be three doors down at the end of a dead-end road.” They turned onto a quiet street, leaving the noise of traffic behind.

  “What a lovely neighborhood,” Beth noted with delight. “And with the dead-end road, so safe.”

  She’d been making observations like this ever since they’d entered the greater Crescent Hollow area. “Such a nice place for Lynne’s daughter to grow up.”

  Mary Kay slowed the Highlander to 8 Bound Book Road. While the Cape Cod–style home would never make the cover of Town & Country, it was adorable and sweet, with gingerbread overhangs and a brick chimney covered with climbing ivy. Rain rolled off the eaves, and a white picket fence, a throwback to another era, bordered a thick green lawn with large dripping oaks, between which swung a hammock. A backyard boasted gardens, a silver cedar swing set, and a brick patio. Where the lawn ended, the woods began.

  The plantings of juniper bushes and azaleas, rhododendrons and mums, obviously had been tended with loving care. Even the mailbox had its charms. Red cardinals flying over a winter field.

  “Oh, Lynne!” Beth said, delighted. “You should see Julia’s home. You would love, love, love it.”

  Mary Kay pulled over and Beth jumped out of the car, into the pouring rain, not bothering to so much as pull up the hood of her raincoat.

  Carol shrugged. “That’s it, then.”

  “We’re committed.” Mary Kay depressed the button on her umbrella. The long journey was about to come to an end. She hoped.

  Beth had rung the doorbell, practically hopping up and down, as Mary Kay and Carol made their way up the walk. “I hear someone. Julia’s father.”

  “Alice’s father,” Carol emphasized. “Her name is Alice.”

  Beth made a mental note to remember that.

  Before they could plan their strategy, however, the door swung open and there stood a little portly man in jean bib overalls. Hardworking farming stock, Mary Kay thought. Honest.

  He greeted them with the warm cheer of a doting grandfather. “You poor gals standing out in the rain. Come in, come in.”

  They gathered in the small tiled foyer, wet and dripping, encouraged by the reception. A bouquet of cut flowers rested on the hall table, another under a mirror. Yes, this did bode well. Very well indeed.

  “Heck of an evening to be out like this,” he said. “Your car break down?”

  “Not exactly.” Beth brushed rainwater off her cheeks. “Are you, by any chance, . . . Donald Miller?”

  “I am. And you?”

  She inhaled deeply, unable to restrain herself. “Julia . . . I mean, are you Alice’s father?”

  Mary Kay cringed.

  Carol said, “Maybe we should explain first, Beth.”

  “Is Alice OK?” he asked earnestly. “I haven’t heard from her in . . . Gosh. Days.” He ran a hand through his white hair. “Normally, we talk every night, but her husband took her for a getaway for a few days, you know, so she could recover after her mother’s funeral last week.”

  Mother’s funeral last week? This didn’t make sense. Did Alice know about Lynne?

  “Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Donald had dropped his arm, his shoulders going limp. “What? What is it?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” Carol stepped forward. “We don’t know anything about Alice. We’ve come here for a completely different reason concerning your daughter. Maybe we should all sit down.”

  Baffled, Donald led them to a small formal parlor with a fireplace, a couch, and two recliners, one of which he obviously preferred because the arms were worn and it was littered with newspapers. A reading lamp overhead was on bright and a book was overturned on a nearby table. There was another vase of cut flowers by the bay window.

  He took the chair while Mary Kay and Carol took the couch, as they had at Aunt Therese’s and Eunice’s. Beth sat separately, absorbing the news about Julia’s mother. Had Julia really been at Lynne’s funeral?

  Carol led the charge. “Mr. Miller, we are friends of Alice’s biological mother, Lynne Swann. Actually, Lynne Swann Flannery.”

  He rested his large farmer’s hands in his lap. “Well, I’ll be.”

  “And I’m afraid we don’t come under the best of circumstances. As you may or may not know, Lynne died two weeks ago after an eight-year battle with cancer.”

  He furrowed his brows, puzzled. “How the heck would I know that? I haven’t thought of that name for thirty years, not since we adopted Alice. If you hadn’t said biological mother I wouldn’t have had the foggiest idea who Lynne Swann was.”

  Now it was Beth who was confused. So Julia hadn’t gone to Lynne’s fun
eral after all. Then. . .

  “So when you mentioned the funeral for Alice’s mother,” Mary Kay said, “you were talking about. . .”

  “I was talking about my wife, of course, Grace. She was Alice’s mother.”

  “Of course,” Carol parroted, diplomatically.

  It was too little, too late. Without meaning to, they’d gotten off on the wrong foot and Donald was working himself into a mild lather. “Alice never had another mother. Never. She and Grace were attached at the hip. Why, Alice even looks like Grace.”

  Beth turned her attention to a collection of framed photos, nearly all of which featured the same cherubic strawberry-blond girl, from a baby posing with a fuzzy white blanket and pink bow in her hair to a kindergartner with her lunchbox and fist raised on her first day of school to a young woman in a wedding photo, Alice’s long cream satin train wrapped around her feet, her auburn hair adorned with matching roses, Donald on one side, Grace on the other.

  Alice wasn’t the spitting image of Grace. She was the spitting image of Lynne.

  It was like seeing Lynne when they first met as young mothers with babies, when she was shoveling snow and singing show tunes. It was like coming across her photo in the high school yearbook earlier that day. There was the same faint patch of freckles across the nose, the mischievous green eyes and daring smile at her lips.

  A lump formed in Beth’s throat as she remembered the wedding dress in Lynne’s closet and the pair of earrings she’d set aside just for her daughter. They would have gone perfectly with Alice’s complexion.

  So lost was she in memories, she didn’t notice the tension filling the room like a poisonous cloud.

  Donald had been insulted, understandably, Carol thought, wishing she could retract the last ten minutes. They should have mentioned they were friends of Alice’s biological mother and then quickly segued into asking about his wife and her funeral and his feelings. That way, he might have been more receptive to their visit, instead of taking it as some sort of an affront.

  “Mr. Miller,” Mary Kay said, “we didn’t mean to imply that your wife wasn’t Alice’s mother.”

  “She was buried only last Wednesday. Have you no sense?” His jowls trembled and his eyes watered. “With all due respect, the last thing I need are three strangers coming for Alice, too.”

  Was that what he thought, that they were here to win over Alice? “Oh, no,” Beth piped up. “That’s not our intention at all. We had no idea your wife died. We’re here only to fulfill our friend’s last wish.”

  “Which is?” His hands had moved from his lap and were gripping the arms of the chair.

  “To find Julia.” She mentally kicked herself. “I mean, Alice.”

  “Alice,” he said again. “And what could you possibly want with her, seeing that your friend’s passed on?”

  The women were suddenly at a loss for words. Obviously, their purpose had been to hand Alice the letter from Lynne and then leave. But they couldn’t give the letter to Donald, not with the fire in the fireplace right behind him ready to devour the envelope. They couldn’t take the chance.

  “Lynne spent the last few years looking for your daughter,” Beth said again. “And after she died, she left a note asking us to take up the search. We have a letter for Alice, too, that Lynne wanted us to give to her.”

  “For what purpose? To tell a heartbroken daughter that the mother who gave birth to her was dead too?” His words were civil, but the sharpness in his tone was piercing. “That’s a darned self-serving goal, if you ask me. Might make you feel good, but did you ever stop to consider what getting a letter like that would do to Alice?”

  Not deeply enough. “It wasn’t our place,” Beth said weakly. “We are just doing what was asked of us.”

  “So I keep hearing. But that doesn’t make it right.” He flexed his beefy hands. “People ask lots of things from other people. But that doesn’t mean they’re right just because they ask. No disrespect to your friend, but it was wrong of her to ask you to find Alice. She had no business and, quite frankly, neither do you.”

  Carol rested her cheek against the cool palm of her hand. There was some merit to his words. “What, exactly, are you afraid of, Mr. Miller?”

  He scowled. “I’m not afraid of anything. What I am is disgusted that after all these years you and your friends think you can show up on my doorstep one night and intrude on my family. When your friend gave up Alice for adoption, she forfeited her parental rights. She signed off. She agreed to walk away.”

  Carol said, “And what if I told you she did that under duress, that Lynne was drugged and manipulated into signing those papers?”

  “Then I’d have to ask what took her so long to have a change of heart. Alice is thirty. It’s a bit far gone to be coming in and taking my little girl.”

  “We’re not taking your little girl,” Mary Kay began, but it was no use.

  “Please,” he said, directing them to the front door. “Try to understand. I buried Grace on Wednesday, my wife of forty-eight years. Wednesday.”

  Beth nodded in sympathy. After all, she’d just buried someone dear to her heart, herself. Clutching the purse that held Lynne’s precious letter, she bustled to the doorway, Mary Kay and Carol on her heels muttering apologies.

  This had been their one opportunity to find Julia. After all that work and perseverance, after driving over hundreds of miles to locate Julia’s adopted parents, in the end they had blown it.

  They had failed Lynne. They had let her down.

  And now they were out of hope.

  The Bad Boy Martinis

  If the classic martini is elegance in a glass, our two favorite alternatives, the Blue Margarita and the Manhattan Martini, are her bad-boy cousins.

  Blue Margarita gets its kick from tequila, a bandit’s liquor distilled from the agave plant and rumored, depending on the brand and method of manufacture, to have hallucinogenic properties. Too often lost in the sugary blanket of artificially flavored margarita mixes, we like to combine a high-quality tequila with a splash of Cointreau, an ounce of fresh lime juice, and a drop or two of Blue Curaçao for color. Proportions depend entirely on your taste. Serve in a chilled glass with a lime twist. Perhaps, a salt-rimmed glass?

  Elusive rye whiskey is the often-overlooked ingredient in concocting the perfect Manhattan. Some establishments cheat by using Canadian whiskey, but rye is the preferred base. To this add several drops of Angostura bitters, a mysterious brew of herbs and roots once promoted to cure a variety of ailments from bad skin to flatulence. To the rye and bitters add equal parts dry and sweet vermouth. Shake with ice and pour over Maraschino cherries.

  Why Maraschino cherries? Because every bad boy needs a sweet and innocent accompaniment.

  And often, vice versa.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "How could I have been so dumb? Dumb.Dumb.Dumb.”

  Mary Kay gripped the steering wheel as she negotiated a winding uphill road in a downpour with zero visibility.

  “It’s not your fault, MK,” Beth said. “You saw him. He was besotted with grief.”

  But Mary Kay was inconsolable. If only she’d handled Miller with more tact, if she hadn’t made that ignorant comment about Grace’s funeral, if she’d simply held her cursed tongue for once instead of blabbing. It might have worked out OK.

  There were so many ifs.

  If Lynne had been alive. If she hadn’t killed herself, if she had held on a few weeks longer, and if she’d asked them to help search for Julia while she was alive, she and Alice could have been reunited.

  If.

  Mary Kay was so bloody sick of ifs.

  Now, exhausted, they headed to a hotel near Wilkes-Barre to recoup. This was no night for more travel, not with the pelting rain and darkness and the disheartening realization that their mission had come to an abrupt, useless end.

  Beth in the backseat put on her headphones and listened to classical music and tried to sleep—anything to drown out her own thoughts.
“I have become comfortably numb,” Pink Floyd once sang. She longed to be comfortably numb.

  Mary Kay squinted, trying to see through the fog. “Put yourself in Miller’s shoes,” she said to Carol, who was searching for hotels on her iPhone. “Less than one week after your wife dies, three strange women show up on your doorstep looking for the only child you have. You’d be irrational too.”

  “He wasn’t that irrational,” Carol said as the car swerved. Mary Kay must have been exhausted from hauling ass across the state. “Mary Kay, you’ve done more than your share of driving. Let me take over the wheel.”

  “Don’t be silly. You haven’t driven in years.”

  It was true. After two years of living car-free in New York, Carol’s skills were probably a little rusty, to say the least.

  “Bullshit. I still know how to drive. Look, you’re weaving and distracted. You’re going to get us all killed.”

  Carol had a point. They pulled over and switched seats. Carol clicked her seat belt, adjusted the seat and mirrors, flicked on her blinker, and got back on the two-lane road. It wasn’t so bad, driving again. Piece of cake.

  “The question is, what do we do now?” Mary Kay reclined her seat and closed her eyes. “What the heck do we do now?”

  “Go home, I guess. Put the letter in safekeeping in case we ever make contact with Alice. Otherwise, it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming.” The wheels slipped a bit and she gasped.

  Mary Kay sat up. “You OK?”

  “Some hydroplaning. I have to get used to driving in the rain again. That’s all.”

  “It’s no big deal for me to. . .”

  “No. I’ll just slow down.” She pumped the brakes and took a turn down the wooded serpentine road in what, according to her GPS, promised to be a shortcut to I-84 that would bypass the hassle of going through Wilkes-Barre. “We did what we could, Mary Kay. It was an impossible mission from the get-go, especially with Lynne already dead.”