Making Up for Lost Time

by Karin Kallmaker

  “Why did you even have me?”

  “I was too scared to get an abortion.”

  The breath left Jamie’s lungs as if she’d been punched in the stomach. The ringing in her ears took several minutes to clear. When she could, she managed, “Am I supposed to thank you?”

  “No. That I have a hollow soul is my concern. You were unfinished business. I had to make the effort to find out how you’d managed, settle the past so I can look at my future.”

  “And you were going to leave without a word? Not even an explanation?”

  The hazel eyes didn’t waver. They weren’t serene, but resigned. “I took one look at you and knew you were Jamie, and I knew you weren’t unfinished business. You’re about as finished a person as I’ve ever seen. You know who you are. In time you’ll like who you are better. And you’ll be happier than I ever was or probably ever will be.”

  “Are you ill?”

  Finally, a slight smile. “No, just leaving the world forever, not physically, but emotionally and mentally. The place where I’ve been the last ten years is a good retreat. I help the Sisters with the planting and harvest, and they say I’m good with the animals, though it’s so easy I don’t know why it deserves praise. I can’t take vows because I don’t believe in God.” Again the slight smile. “They despair of me for that. But I can stay there for the rest of my life. I was never meant to be in the world.”

  “But you were long enough to have me.”

  “I think that was a good thing. I was meant to have you. And meant to leave you here. She raised you well.”

  “She was a great mother.” Jamie couldn’t hide a smolder of resentment.

  “You deserved that. I know you don’t think I have a right to, but I think I can take away some pride in the fine woman you’ve become.”

  “Am I supposed to forgive all now?”

  “No. No, Jamie. You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to love me or think kindly of me. I don’t deserve it.” The hazel gaze turned inward. “I’ve been numb for twenty years and don’t expect it to get any better.”

  Jamie took a deep breath, separating herself mentally from her mother’s passivity. “Who hurt you? Why are you so wounded?”

  The blankness parted and Jamie glimpsed a moment of turmoil in her mother’s eyes. “I used to think I was wounded. I used to think I had scars that ran deep. It’s taken me a long, long time to realize there’s nothing deep about me. I’m broken, I don’t know why. When I stopped searching for great joy I lost my great sadness. I was no fit mother for you. A child needs joy. There’s none in me.”

  Jamie tried to blink back the tears, but it was no good. One after another slowly trickled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry for you, then. I don’t hate you.” She would never understand her mother’s emptiness and had always known it had nothing to do with her. “And thank you for letting me find joy here. I never called her mother.” She didn’t know why she added the last, but an aching knot inside eased when her mother’s eyes misted. “And I remember. I remember we laughed sometimes.” She took a deep breath and dashed the tears off her cheeks. “Will you come back?”

  “I don’t think so. Our house is on a reservation in New Mexico and it was hard to do this. I miss it so. But here—” She held out a card to Jamie. “This is the address. You can write me, let me know how you’re doing. I might not write back, but I’ll read your letters. And I’ll cling to my pride in you.”

  Jamie took the card, then glanced back at her mother. “Safe journey, then.” Aunt Em had always said that when people left.

  “Thank you, Jamie.” She turned away.

  “If you ever need anything…” Jamie watched her mother walk to the corner, then lost sight of her. She didn’t know if her mother had even heard her. She glanced at the card in her hand, then slipped it into her pocket.

  “You okay?”

  She turned sharply and focused on Val. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “You’re a lousy liar. What am I going to do with you?”

  Jamie sniffed and realized she didn’t want to go back inside through the dining room. Better to go around the back, blow her nose and try to get a sense of reality. She knew Val was following her but wasn’t prepared for Val’s hand on her shoulder.

  It wasn’t fair that every nerve in her body jumped. “Hey.” She jerked out from under Val’s hand.

  “Don’t blow me off. You’re about as fine as a foggy afternoon.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Val couldn’t possibly empathize.

  “I understand. I wouldn’t want to talk. If my mother walked through that door right now I wouldn’t talk to anyone about how it made me feel.”

  “How did you know it was my mother?”

  “You look just like her. Except your eyes. Your eyes are…alive.”

  Jamie blinked and finally processed what Val had said. “Your mother abandoned you?”

  “After a fashion.”

  “No, she either did or didn’t.”

  “Emotionally she abandoned me when I was born. Physically, when I was seven. I grew up on army bases. I think that’s why I can’t cook. I really do think fried chicken is baked and corn should be shriveled, and all served up on aluminum trays.”

  Jamie sighed, unable to find a polite laugh at Val’s attempt to cheer her up. “I don’t hate her. I thought I did, at least a little. I guess I knew even then it was for the best. I wouldn’t be here, otherwise.” She sniffed and took a deep breath. “You wouldn’t be trying to turn me into a good liar.” She caught a whiff of something from the kitchen. “And I wouldn’t have just burnt two cobblers and a bread pudding.”

  “I thought it was supposed to smell like that or I’d have taken them out. The apple dessert at the PX always smelled like that.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “Let’s have another cooking lesson. How to tell when something is done.”

  She would think about her mother later. She still felt the imprint of Val’s hand on her shoulder. She would think about that later, too.

  Val hadn’t thought about her mother in a long time. She tossed and turned under the comforter for about a half an hour, then gave up trying to sleep. For the moment, anyway. Was she awake because she was thinking about her mother or because she couldn’t get past the image of Jamie’s pain, her stricken expression as she watched her mother walk away? It haunted her. She had been overwhelmed with wanting to make it go away.

  She had laughed when Sheila suggested there might be something more than fragile, slightly hostile friendship between Jamie and her. Laughed because her first reaction had been, “Whatever would Jamie see in me?”

  She turned on her side. Jamie was serious. There was nothing superficial about her. She didn’t laugh easily, and she wouldn’t love easily. I, on the other hand, do both. In and out of love twice a year, at least before she got her nose done and took a hiatus from dating and sex. She was used to a life where you didn’t put down roots because you never knew when you’d have to bug out, military style, to the next town, the next set of friends.

  The Jans of the world fell in love with her. Heck, it wasn’t even love. Passionate lust. Jan hadn’t called since leaving. She hadn’t felt the urge to call Jan, either. They gave freely of their bodies and kept their hearts intact, just like she did.

  She had never suspected that she might change. Or wish she could change.

  If she became rich and famous…What a tired refrain that was getting to be. As if that’s all there is to life, she thought. But if she did, would she become another Sheila Thintowski, with conquest and sex just an extension of personal worth and personal power? Did she want to be that kind of person?

  Okay, she did want to be famous. She didn’t have to be rich—well, not very rich. Rich enough to keep renovating inns and houses and gardens.

  Her father had had the military as the foundation of his life. It was his personal life. No matter what happened, he could fall back on the structure of the military as a safety
net. Val had no such safety net. Seeing how Liesel, that funny Jacob O’Rhuan, and his sweet—for a guy—son, Jeff, had rallied around Jamie made Val realize how few of her relationships had the solidity of…family. Few? Try none.

  Val, she told herself firmly, stop this. You’re standing on the brink of your dreams. One thing at a time.

  You have plenty of time, she whispered to her increasingly sleepy self. You’re only thirty-four. Plenty of time.

  Chapter 10

  Christmas week turned wet and cold, not unexpectedly. The fog gave way to low, black clouds that seemed to hold oceans of rain. The covered wooden sidewalks elevated over the street proved their usefulness as the mud rose higher each day.

  Jamie had reviewed the menu with Val for Mark Warnell’s entire proposed stay until Val could discuss almost every aspect of the recipes comfortably. She could also help with most of them, looking as if she were actually in charge of their creation.

  Sunday was the first day that they closed the Waterview so they could finish the dining room floors and Jamie could concentrate on cooking for what was now a party of five: Mark Warnell, Sheila Thintowski, Graham Chester, Val and Jamie. Though Jamie was well aware that she wasn’t necessarily in the party, but she had to eat, too, at least breakfast and lunch. She planned to slip out after dinner was cleared away each night to spend time with Liesel.

  Liesel was combating her holiday loneliness by inviting several single friends to a midnight Christmas Eve buffet after caroling. But Jamie missed Aunt Em horribly every time she thought about it being Christmas, so she knew Liesel felt even worse. In a way, it was helpful to have so much work to do.

  Today she was making the broths precisely the way Aunt Em always had. She kept the new door to the kitchen firmly closed while they sanded and varnished the floor—it would never do to get the scent of varnish into the broth.

  She roasted ten pounds of beef bones, then popped them into individual stockpots. The deglazed roasting pan would contribute to the cold meat glaze. Three pots of stock would be bases for stews and soups, the remaining one for gravies and sauces. Since the weather was proving so abysmal, the arrival time of the guests was uncertain, so the lunch meal would be Italian—only the pasta had to be made at the last minute.

  The racket from the dining room stopped abruptly. Having no constant stream of meals to make gave Jamie the luxury to slip out the back door and around to the front. The sidewalk was stacked with the new tables, benches and chairs. She peered between them at Val and Jeff O’Rhuan. Jeff had made himself available to do any heavy work Val needed. The two of them were moving a machine that looked like a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a sander to one end of the room. It looked really heavy.

  She watched as they took much smaller machines and worked their way on their knees along the sides of the floor. Dust was everywhere. After a few minutes a piece of sandpaper flew off the bottom of Val’s machine and Val got up, looking very much as if she wanted to kick the thing. She raised her goggles and Jamie burst out laughing—Val’s eyes and nose were clearly outlined by a layer of fine dust.

  Val heard her and sent a gesture using one finger. She turned away, so Jamie felt perfectly safe sticking out her tongue at Val’s back. Geez, Val brought out primitive emotions in her.

  Back in the kitchen Jamie thought idly of making chocolate cupcakes. No, she had promised herself she was through making chocolate over Val. But a little cupcake—that wasn’t much. Just a little bit of chocolate.

  She made the batter and turned a dozen cupcakes out in record time. Just as she finished Jacob O’Rhuan banged in the back door.

  “M’darling, something smelled so good I had to stop in.”

  Jamie poured him a cup of coffee. “I’m warning you this won’t last as long as Liesel’s.”

  “Liesel’s coffee would revive the dead,” Jacob said.

  Jamie smiled to himself—Jacob could wake the dead without coffee.

  “What are they doing in there?” Jacob bit into a cupcake. “Delicious, m’darling. They’re making some kind of racket.”

  “Sanding the floors so they can be revarnished. I don’t know what Val was so happy about after they stripped down the first part—something about clearcut oak.”

  Jacob peeled the baking paper from his second cupcake. “Floor’s never been refinished as long as I’ve known the place. That’s a long time. I wouldn’t recognize it.”

  “I feel that way sometimes. But other times I feel as if it’s mine now. Don’t get me wrong—”

  “I understand,” Jacob assured her. “I know you loved Em like nobody, but you’ll be wanting to put your own stamp on things. Em wouldn’t have minded in the least.”

  “I didn’t think she would. Because of all her hard work, my circumstances are different. No one handed her an inn free and clear as a starting-off point.”

  “She was a good woman.” Jacob finished his third cupcake. “Liesel’s been telling me you’re helping Val get a big break in show business. She’s a talented young gal.”

  “Yes, she is. Have you actually looked at the dining room lately?”

  “I’m always in here, eating your goodies.”

  Jamie laughed. “Don’t I know it, you big lug.”

  Jacob grinned, his beard going all bristly under the sheer energy of his good humor. “Good to have you back here, m’darling. Don’t you be going away.”

  “I don’t think I will, at least not anytime soon.”

  “Well, I’ll go peek at my son, make sure he’s not gumming up the works.”

  “Have a cupcake for the road,” Jamie offered. “You’re a growing boy.”

  Jacob’s laugh lingered after he left, and Jamie turned on the boom box Val had put in the kitchen. She chopped crystallized fruits for stollen, a tasty German fruitcake. Not only would it be the first snack to welcome the weary travelers, but Jamie intended to keep her aunt’s tradition of providing two dozen loaves to the church for Christmas morning service. When she was finally able to take a day off here and there she would get more involved in the church, as her aunt had been. The new pastor—only there about ten years or so—had continued its commitment as first and foremost a place where community was built and preserved. He’d been over to visit Jamie, too, mentioning in passing that prayers had been said for her aunt at services after her death. Jamie did appreciate that. Considering the method she’d chosen for her death—well, some churches might have balked.

  She added cinnamon to the shopping list. All her regular suppliers had made their last deliveries before Christmas, so anything Jamie ran out of would have to come from the market. She decided she wouldn’t have enough whole allspice for the mulled cider either, and added that to the list. Val had promised to go between now and Christmas Eve morning, when the guests would arrive. That was Wednesday morning—just three more days.

  Stomping and scuffling at the back door heralded Val’s arrival. Jamie had shut out the sanding noise so successfully she hadn’t realized it had stopped.

  “It’s a drag going around,” Val said. “Jeff is going to finish mopping the floor to get the sawdust up. But he said he’d only do it if he had one of those cupcakes his dad made a point of eating right in front of the window where we could see him.”

  Jamie pointed at the tin. “My fingers are gooey. Help yourself. Take Jeff some soda, too. He doesn’t do coffee.”

  “And here I was thinking he wasn’t too bad for a guy.”

  “He’s a sweetie, just like his dad.” Jamie chopped dried cranberries in sugar, then set them next to the rest of the stollen ingredients. “Do you like rum sauce or lemon sauce?”

  “On what?”

  “Fruitcake.”

  “I hate fruitcake.”

  “Not my fruitcake, you don’t.”

  “Sure,” Val said, plainly not convinced. “Lemon sauce, I guess.”

  “Okay, lemon sauce it is.” Jamie rinsed her hands free of sugary fruit pieces. “This is the fruitcake batter, by the way. E
ggs, flour, the basic sweet cake ingredients. It also has lots of nutmeg and cinnamon, molasses and brown sugar. The molasses is my aunt’s touch.”

  “Molasses and brown sugar,” Val repeated. “I’ll remember that.”

  Jamie brushed one cutting board’s contents into the batter and turned on the mixer. She lowered the beaters into the batter. Just as Jamie turned away one beater slipped out of its holder and clanked into the batter, the other beater—then the mixer made a frightening groan. Batter splattered everywhere.

  “Crud!” Jamie hit the off switch, but not before she was liberally bedewed with the dark, sticky batter. It was in her hair, then dripped into one eye.

  Val was laughing hysterically. Jamie sent her the same one finger gesture Val had sent earlier.

  “Here, here,” Val managed, between chortles. “Let me help. Come over to the sink.”

  Jamie leaned over the sink while Val sponged goo out of her hair. Sawdust from Val’s clothes transferred to Jamie, clotting in the globs of batter. Under the sawdust was one of Val’s usual T-shirts, clinging to her trim stomach and waist. Val smelled of powdery wood and lightly of deodorant. It would take only a slight movement of Jamie’s head to rest against Val’s hip.

  The problem with fruitcake, Jamie reflected after Val had gone back to her work, was it had no chocolate. She ate the last cupcake. It didn’t really help.

  Val was truly nervous. The Warnell party didn’t arrive until the next day, but this evening she was giving a grand tour to Jamie and Liesel, their first opportunity to see everything as a newcomer would.

  All the tools were hidden, all the detritus from wallpaper, paint and stencils gone. Yesterday she’d had the nasty surprise of discovering the linens packed away by Bill were dirty and had lost several hours at a laundromat in Fort Bragg—who needed sleep anyway? But there had been a goodly store of serviceable coverlets for each bed, their simple utilitarian lines suiting the new decor.

  Her only worry was the lingering scent of varnish. She’d rented large heater fans to help dry the cold floor and combat the moisture from the unrelenting rain, but even so, the scent lingered, especially when the doors were closed. The yet-to-be-decorated Christmas tree and the cut boughs from a second tree were putting off lots of fresh, spicy pine scent. But Val could still smell the varnish.