An Accidental Woman

by Barbara Delinsky

  Her chin trembled. Even with the scar giving her mouth the hint of a smile, she looked profoundly unhappy.

  He refused to soften the words, but let them stand in the silence that ensued.

  Finally she cried, “What do you want from me?”

  “Just what I said before: A name. A date. A place. I want something that relates either to Heather or to Lisa, something suggesting that the people in California are wrong.”

  She covered her face with her hands. The legs of her jumpsuit trembled in the area where her knees would be.

  “Hate me, Heather,” he challenged, taking a chance that she would turn around and walk out the door, but needing to push her that little bit more. “Hate my guts for saying this, but what you’re doing is selfish. It’s selfish and self-absorbed and shortsighted. You aren’t the only one involved here. If you can’t do something for Poppy and Cassie and all the other friends you have in town, do it for Micah and Missy and Star. Your silence is hurting them. They took you into their lives and their hearts. Shoot yourself in the foot if you want, but don’t shoot them. What you’re doing to them is not fair. They deserve an explanation.”

  She lowered her head, and for a minute he feared she might sink to the floor. But she just stood there with her hands over her face and her legs bracing her body against the door. It took all of Griffin’s self-control not to say something that would give her an out. He felt cruel.

  But he waited, first one minute, then another, then just one more.

  Finally, she pushed herself up against the door and dropped her hands. Her eyes were dry. “Aidan Greene,” she said in a monotone, and spelled it out. “A-I-D-A-N. G-R-E-E-N-E.”

  Griffin didn’t have to write down the name; it was instantly burned into his mind. “Where can I find him?”

  “Now? I don’t know.”

  “Fifteen years ago?”

  “Sacramento.” Her eyes grew woeful with the admission.

  He smiled sadly, rose, and went to her. Gently, he squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you, Heather. This is good. It will help.”

  * * *

  Micah returned from the sugarbush earlier than he might have, but as the afternoon wore on, as he stretched coil after coil of tubing from one tree to the next, as his body tired, the sun fell low, and the shadows on the snow lengthened, the issue of the knapsack loomed large.Inside the sugarhouse, he went to the pile of wood, uncovered the worn canvas pack, and set it on the worktable. For a minute, only a minute, he was held back by the same old fears. This time, though, his need to know what was inside was greater than his fear of what he would find.

  Undoing the buckles, he opened the sack. There were three envelopes inside. He pulled them out.

  One was smaller than the others and contained three photographs. They were black-and-white shots, the same two young women in each. They couldn’t have been more than teenagers, though it was hard to be sure. Clothing, hair, even the narrow street in which they stood, looked foreign. There was something familiar about their faces. Micah imagined he saw traces of Heather. Mother and aunt? Grandmother and great-aunt? There was no writing anywhere, no date, no notation of any sort.

  Replacing the photographs, he turned to the larger envelopes. The thinner of the two bore the return address of a law firm in Chicago and was addressed to Heather at a post office box in that city. He took out the letter it held and read it once, then again. Then he opened the last envelope. It had the return address of a hospital, but there was no addressee, no stamp, no postmark. Inside were two plastic ID bracelets of the kind that hospitals used. Each had been neatly cut near the metal clasp that had held it on. The larger had Heather’s name on it, the smaller that of Baby Girl Malone.

  That was it, then. Heather had had a baby six months before coming to Lake Henry, and had given it up for adoption through a Chicago law firm.

  Micah let out a long pent-up breath. He should have been angry. Heather hadn’t been willing to have his baby, though she knew he wanted it. Now he could only figure that she had left part of her heart with this child, who, for whatever reason, she had to give up.

  He was trying to think what that reason might be and how it played in her silence now, when he heard the crunch of boots on packed-down snow that was starting to soften. He looked up as Griffin came through the door.

  It didn’t occur to him to hide the knapsack. Along with his anger went pride. Griffin might be an outsider, but there was something about him that put Micah at ease. Maybe it was just that being an outsider made Griffin more objective about the situation. Or maybe it was the fact that Poppy trusted him, and Micah trusted Poppy. Or the fact that the guy had passed a trial by fire on Little Bear, and seemed to be taking it all in stride. Micah needed help.

  Griffin spoke first. “Do you know a man by the name of Aidan Greene?”

  “No.” Micah pushed the envelopes toward Griffin. “These were inside the knapsack. She’s had it hidden since she moved in with me.”

  Griffin looked at the photographs first, just as Micah had. “Relatives?”

  “Must be.”

  Then he read the law firm letter and examined the ID bracelets. When his eyes rose to Micah’s, they were eager. “Looks like both of us hit paydirt today.” He told Micah about his talk with Heather. “A law firm can be called. Hospital records can be examined. This is a start.”

  Micah tried to share his eagerness, but the fear was back. He didn’t know the Heather who had been in a Chicago hospital. He didn’t know any child. He didn’t know the women in the photographs. And he didn’t know Aidan Greene.

  A door had opened on Heather’s past. He was terrified to learn where it would lead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Early Tuesday morning, Griffin awoke to the sun slanting in through the cabin window. He hadn’t pulled the café curtains the night before; he rarely did. Privacy was a city need. Here, no one looked in. No one even walked by. On Little Bear, he had his own tiny corner of the world. He had lights, though he found himself using candles as often as not. Having mastered the art of keeping the woodstove going, cooking rudimentary meals, and doing his business in a latrine in the woods, he was surprisingly comfortable. His cell phone still didn’t work here, but there was an advantage in that. For every wanted call that he had to wait to access until he reached the mainland, there were three calls that he was happy to miss. He had lots of friends, and they called often. He had lots of brothers, and they called often, too. Looking back, Griffin guessed that, totally aside from work, he had been spending two hours a day on the phone—and he hadn’t minded it then. It was a way of life.Here, the phone was an adjunct, not a focus. Here, he saw people face-to-face, and if they remained wary of him, they weren’t as wary now as they had been at first. They knew who he was. They greeted him by name. They were getting used to seeing him at the post office, the general store, the laundromat, the gas station. They let him eavesdrop on conversations, which was a remarkable concession.

  He didn’t need the phone to fill his time here. He was with people—even for breakfast, because when he wasn’t at Poppy’s, he was with Billy Farraway. The old man had taken to dropping by for fried eggs and toast, and presented such a lean and hungry figure, in the broadest sense of theword, that Griffin made him breakfast even when he himself was going to wait to have breakfast later with Poppy. Billy was a relic of the Lake Henry that had existed when Charlie’s café was one wall of the general store and served little more than ham and beans. He never said much, but what he did say had charm.

  This morning, it was barely seven when Billy came by—and that was another thing Griffin had noticed. Waking up early. It came naturally here. Of course, there was no night life to speak of, but Griffin didn’t miss it. He felt good. The bruise on his face had healed. His muscles weren’t sore anymore. He felt stronger than he had in ages, more energetic.

  That was one of the reasons he set off for town as soon as Billy was gone. Another was the Farraway bon mot for the day. ’ Round h
ere, the old man said in his crusty voice, you gotta look up to live right. Look up for the sun, look up for the crow, look up for the crown of the tree. Good crown, good sap. Loud crow, loud tap.

  Griffin stopped by the general store long enough to fill his mug with coffee and catch the pulse of the town before heading for Micah’s. He arrived just as Micah was returning home from dropping the girls at school.

  Draining the mug, Griffin climbed from the cab of his truck. “I gave the information to my investigator,” he said as he fell into step beside the taller man. “He’s the expert. He’ll call when he learns something. Need any help here?”

  Micah shot him a look that perfectly reflected the general sentiment at Charlie’s. Sugaring season was coming on fast. With the sun strong for a second day in a row, snow was melting off the cupola, icicles were dripping from eaves, the air was gentler on the lungs, and the world smelled promising—all of which created a sense of anticipation in the rest of the townsfolk, and a sense of urgency for Micah, who now needed to lay tubing through the sugarbush in a handful of days. The race was on; everyone knew that the first run was the best. They all also knew that Micah was putting people off right and left. He didn’t want them there, he claimed. He could manage himself. He didn’t need favors.

  Truth be told, Griffin was doing himself the favor by coming. He had suffered through another tedious talk with Prentiss Hayden the eveningbefore, and on principle alone wasn’t working on the politician’s bio today. He wanted to be outside in the fresh air, the sun, and the snow.

  Micah went in the back door of the house to pull on a hat and gloves. He handed Griffin a pair of showshoes, and tossed a pair for himself in the bed of the truck. At the sugarhouse, they loaded the truck with coils of piping. Then they headed up the hill.

  The first part of the road was already cleared. When that part ended, Micah lowered the plow and drove on, pushing snow aside with a speed that had Griffin staring out the windshield in amazement. Had they been going around the lake, he might have feared they’d end up off the side of the road. Here, the only danger was in hitting trees, and he knew Micah wouldn’t do that. Instead, they sped up a succession of snow-covered hills, climbing steadily toward a point high above the lake.

  “Sugar maple loves steep slopes,” Micah said.

  Just then, Griffin didn’t care what the sugar maple loved. “How do you know where the road is?” he asked as they barreled on up.

  “I know the trees. I know which side of the road each one is on.”

  Griffin saw thin trees and fat trees. The thin trees looked alike. The fat trees looked alike. He couldn’t make out a pattern. “How?”

  “They’re my life. Besides, I know where the road is. I put it in myself.” He shifted and slowed a bit.

  Griffin relaxed commensurately. “When did you do that?”

  “A dozen years back. I kept buying land, adding to the sugarbush until it got too big to do on foot. Before that, we used a horse.”

  Griffin smiled. “A horse? As recently as a dozen years ago?”

  “And buckets. Some people still use them. Know what it’s like to haul buckets of sap from two, three thousand trees?” He pulled up on the snow, set the brake, and left the truck.

  Griffin was outside in time to strap on snowshoes, as Micah was doing, and shoulder several coils of the blue plastic tubing. After strapping on a waist pack with tools, Micah loaded up with coils himself and led the way.

  Griffin had used snowshoes at his grandfather’s cabin, but they were the old-fashioned wood kind. These were smaller and made of aluminum. Once past the first few awkward steps, he was able to walk withsurprising ease. Staying on the surface was a decided improvement over his last attempt to help here, when he had sunk in with each step.

  Micah was all business. “See that black tubing?” he asked.

  Griffin did. It was roughly an inch in diameter and skirted the area in which they were headed.

  “That’s the mainline,” Micah explained. “It’s wider than what we’re bringing in now, and it stays up year-round. Leaving it here takes some care, but it’s easier than taking it down.”

  Griffin could understand why. The mainline was held in place by a system of steel posts, cable wires, and small plastic ties, the latter affixed every foot. Every foot. In a fifty-acre spread? He couldn’t begin to count the number of ties used in all.

  “End of season,” Micah went on, “after I’ve flushed the thing out, I cover the openings with tape. Otherwise, insects get inside and nest. The last few weeks, I went over every inch of mainline. I had to replace a couple of parts that squirrels and deer chewed away. What we’re putting in now is the lateral line. It carries sap from trees to mainline. Mainline takes it down the hill to the sugarhouse.”

  Griffin was intrigued by the process. He was also intrigued by how much Micah had said at once and without the slightest edge. Clearly sugarmaking was a good thing for him.

  Now he was silent, but his actions spoke for themselves. After tying one end of the thin blue tubing around the tree farthest from the mainline, he stretched it to the next closer tree, then the next. He worked around alternating sides of successive trees—right side, left side, right side, left side—maximizing the tension to hold the tubing in place.

  From time to time, he indicated that Griffin should brace a section until the tension picked up, but words weren’t necessary here, either. Griffin caught on; he began to anticipate a need and be there.

  “DTS,” Micah said at one point. “Downhill, tight, and straight.”

  That was self-explanatory, too.

  Not that Griffin was minimizing the job. There was clearly an art to it, and Micah was a master. He knew how high to wrap the tubing, how tight to pull it, how to eliminate slack when it occurred. He knew how to connect it to the mainline using small fittings and other little gadgets thathe pulled from the pouch at his waist. Moreover, he seemed to have a mental map of the entire sugarbush, such that with only a glance at the code on the tiny tin tag on each coil, he knew exactly which trees matched which coil.

  “You’re skipping these?” Griffin asked when Micah completely bypassed several trees.

  “They’re too small,” he explained. “In another couple of years, those ones’ll be sap givers, while these two big ones here will be retired. It’s a theory of sugarbush management.” As he spoke, he pointed at the trees with his eyes. His hands weren’t taking the time off. They worked steadily—wrapping, stretching, connecting, clipping.

  Tying no more than four trees to each mainline connection, he finished one area, moved to the next, finished that one and drove on. The truck was nearly empty when a cell phone rang.

  Feeling a quick anticipation, the hope that Ralph might have located Aidan Greene, Griffin reached into his pocket. But Micah’s hand was the one that came up with the ringer.

  “Yeah,” he said into it. “Nothing . . . no . . . twenty minutes.” He dropped the phone back in his pocket and set off with the last coil. “Poppy has lunch at the house.”

  Griffin felt anticipation again. This time it lasted not only for the twenty minutes—on the nose—that it took to finish laying the last coil and drive back down to the house, but through lunch. All he had to do was look at Poppy, and he felt a lift. Her eyes were a warm brown, her cheeks pink, her hair adorably messy. She smiled easily, insisted that Griffin eat the half of her tuna sandwich that she claimed she couldn’t finish, and repeatedly reassured Micah that Aidan Greene was their lead. She was also wonderful when the school called to say that Star was sick.

  “I’m on my way,” she said and pulled on her jacket. Then she paused.

  * * *

  There was something Poppy needed to say. It was hovering there in the kitchen, between Heather’s fingerprints and Micah’s brooding. He stood by the phone now, with his brow furrowed and his eyes on the floor. She wheeled over to him.“We didn’t talk about the baby thing,” she said quietly. “Are you okay with that?”

 
He raised somber eyes. “No. She should’ve told me.”

  Poppy agreed. But she could see Heather’s side, too. “It was part of her past, and that past involved another man. Maybe she felt you didn’t want to hear that.”

  “I knew she’d been with a man before me. I’m not stupid. She wasn’t a virgin. And she wasn’t in love with another man when she came here. No lingering thing. I knew that. So why couldn’t she tell me about the baby?”

  “Maybe she associated the baby with the man.”

  “A baby’s a baby. If she’d been pregnant when we first got involved, I’d have taken the baby. I wouldn’t have cared about the man if she didn’t.”

  “But it was part of her past,” Poppy repeated, needing to make this point. “It was over and done. Why did she have to tell you that?”

  “Because she loved me,” Micah answered. “At least, she said she did. You don’t keep secrets like that from someone you say you love. Having a baby is a big thing for a woman. How could she never say a single word about it?”

  “Maybe she just couldn’t.”

  “I can’t buy ‘couldn’t.’ ”

  But Poppy knew it was possible. “You said it yourself,” she pleaded. “Having a baby is a big thing for a woman. Having to give it up could be even bigger. There are all sorts of emotions tied up with that.”

  Micah grunted. “Well, I’m getting tired of it. I have emotions, too. I have feelings. I have two little girls, and I don’t know what to say. These things are starting to come out, and all I can think is that I don’t know the half.”

  Poppy might have said the same thing herself. She hadn’t expected all this. Nor had she expected to feel guilty on Heather’s behalf, but that did explain why she felt such a need to defend her. “About the baby, I’m sure she thought you’d be hurt.”