by Gayle Roper
A pair of koi huddled together as far from her as they could get. She looked up happily at me and scrabbled toward the side to climb out. I waited to see punctures appear in the lining and widen into Grand Canyons, all the water seeping out and the poor koi lying gasping on the exposed dirt.
No punctures appeared as Princess hauled herself onto dry land. I reached in and touched hard plastic and felt my shoulders ease. We wouldn’t wreck Aunt Stella’s lovely garden our first day after all. The dog shook, and the spray felt wonderful in the heat.
“If I were small enough,” I told her, “I’d climb in with you.”
Companionably we explored the rest of the small yard.
I sat in one of the wrought-iron chairs on the flagstone patio and felt more tension drain away. How wonderful it would be to sit here in the gathering dusk and relax, a can of Off! at my side. I was sure mosquitoes plagued Philadelphia just as they did New Jersey. The Delaware River might force man to take account of that boundary between states, but not those little flying bloodsuckers.
As I drank in the color and the peace, I found myself wondering who had planted the zinnias. The impatiens. The geraniums. The vinca. They were all annuals, and Aunt Stella had been too ill in May to have worked in the garden. Maybe there was a gardening service. Wouldn’t that be classy?
I could hear Tinksie say, “James will know. He knows everything.”
Smiling, I went inside and wandered back into the living room. Staring at me from the foot of the stairs were Chloe’s and my suitcases. I grabbed one of mine and lugged it up the narrow steps.
If Tori had already given Chloe the only room on the third floor, then I assumed I had a room here on the second floor. I walked the short hall and peered into the master bedroom. The antique Hepplewhite bedstead with its high posts and heart-shaped headboard and the tall cherry Hepplewhite chest I was willing to bet was early eighteenth century were amazing. I ran my fingers over the beautiful finish of the satinwood armoire. The value of the furnishings in this one room was enough to stop my breath.
The walls were covered with a crimson moiré; the white ceiling, woodwork, and antique bed covering and pillows were wonderful foils. Window treatments in red and white toile were repeated in the seat cushion of a balloonback chair and an overstuffed chaise lounge, and the rug was a vintage crimson Oriental.
Everywhere lay clothes carelessly tossed. On the chest sat an amazing array of bottles and vials, a strange combination of creams, perfumes, and cosmetics. I checked for anything that would leave a ring on the chest’s top and breathed more easily when I saw a slab of glass protecting the surface.
In the small private bath, towels hung askew or pooled on the floor. More bottles littered every surface, and a brush and curling iron sat on the back of the toilet.
Tori had staked her claim on the master bedroom.
I wandered back into the hall and looked at the two doors opening into rooms toward the back of the house. The first I checked was a bathroom fitted with an amazing clawfoot tub. It would be wonderful for soaking once the weather became cool enough to choose to sit in steaming-hot water.
I went to the last door, obviously my bedroom for the duration. I stopped dead in the doorway, staring in dismay. There was almost room to turn around on the ugly braided rug in the dim room’s center. An old, white iron bed that looked like it came from an ancient hospital’s going-out-of-business sale rested against one wall with a tipsy bookcase leaning against the wall opposite. An old Singer sat on a card table pushed into a corner. A bureau that was Early Salvation Army sat under the window, blocking part of the light. The rest was blocked by an old, ugly discolored shade. As with most early houses, there was no closet in the room, and there was also no armoire to stand in its stead.
I felt old resentments flair. I loved my sister, but much of the time I didn’t like her very much.
Tori, who always took what she wanted, regardless.
Tori, who assumed she deserved the best and me the leftovers.
Tori, who wasn’t even going to be here most of the time, yet who took the best room as her due.
Tori, self-proclaimed Queen of her World.
And Libby, bitter anchorite.
I thought immediately of my mother and grandmother. Mom and Nan felt life and their husbands had cheated them, and their pique and acerbity stung all who were close to them.
Oh, Lord, I don’t want to be like them! I don’t! I want to be honey to You and others, not vinegar.
I knew the Lord heard the panic in my thoughts and understood. He knew of my desperate fight to escape where I’d come from because He walked the road with me.
I left my suitcase beside the bed and went downstairs to retrieve another. This time I took Chloe’s and climbed to the third floor to see what terrible accommodations Tori had stuck her with.
The stairs decanted me into a bright, lovely room done in warm yellows, golds, and greens. Chloe’s living inside a large daffodil! She’ll love it up here.
She had a lovely antique bureau and a good reproduction armoire for her clothes, more than enough space even for her overblown wardrobe. And it was so cozy here, with the dormers narrowing the room even as the sunny colors kept it open and airy.
I sat on the edge of the queen-size bed and smiled. I lay back, and the mattress embraced me. Delightful. I shuddered as I imagined what my bed would feel like.
With a sigh I walked down to my room. As I stood in the doorway, I knew that if I had arrived first instead of Tori, I would not have taken the big bedroom. It would have felt selfish. I’d have left it for Tori. And I’d have known the moment I saw the third-floor aerie that it was perfect for Chloe. I’d have ended up with this room anyway.
So what was bothering me so much?
The lack of choice, I realized. I had to stay here.
Lord, can You help me see one nice thing about this room?
I wandered over to the Singer. I knew very little about sewing machines, but it looked old enough to be interesting, yet seemed to be in pretty good condition. I stashed it in the hall for the time being. I’d have to do my research, but I bet I could get a good price for it on eBay.
I folded the card table and put it on the bed. Then I put my shoulder to the bureau and pushed it over to the now-empty corner. It slid into the space between the foot of the bed and the wall.
I walked to the window, now fully exposed, and pulled up the utilitarian shade. I gazed down at the yard and felt much better.
The bookcase along the wall opposite the bed called to me, and I went over to browse. I counted fifty Reader’s Digest Condensed Books and well over two hundred mystery, suspense, and romance paperbacks. There were also numerous hardbacks on the history of World War II, several quite expensive according to the dust jackets. The topic was something of a surprise. The paperbacks seemed more like Aunt Stella. Fun, optimistic, happy ending-y. The unpalatable statistics and horrors of war, even the Good War, seemed at odds with the sanguine woman I remembered, however dimly.
I had one of those flashes of understanding that strike every so often. It wasn’t just her unfettered life and her handsome salary that made Mom and Nan jealous of her. It was also her positive outlook on life. They lived with such grimness after Dad and Pop were arrested that Stella’s ability to laugh and be happy rubbed like coarse sandpaper on tender skin.
I pulled out one of the war books and flipped through it, looking at the photos. I found them fascinating, a record of events long gone. Aunt Stella had unexpected depths, but then, no one was simple. Even the most straightforward person was complex and full of contradictions. Romances and war histories. Priceless antiques in the master bedroom, Reader’s Digest Condensed Books in my bedroom.
I wasn’t sure I liked the symbolism inherent in that last thought. I was not the cheap version, the abridged version of Tori. If anything, she was the shallow one and I more complex. I was the one who thought about the big questions of the universe. She was the one who went to all t
he parties. I was the one who yearned for something for my soul. She was the one who longed to be on everyone’s Most Popular list. I was the one who turned to God and redeemed my life. She was the one walking that broad road to destruction.
And I’d better guard my thoughts. They were turning ugly.
Chloe came home from Jenna’s, and we ate out on the patio, enjoying the slight lessening of the oppressive heat. I’d brought a pedestal fan with me, and I set it in the doorway and blew air-conditioned air out onto us as we ate taco salad and fresh fruit cup. I loved being able to do such foolish things as blow cool air outside, things that Mom never let us do growing up.
“Shut that door, Elizabeth,” she’d order. “This is not a barn. All you ever do is let the hot in in the summer and the cold in in the winter.”
I adjusted my chair to better feel the cool air from inside. Mom, I’m letting the cool out this time.
“Jenna doesn’t have a mother,” Chloe announced as we neared the end of the meal. “I mean, she has a mother, of course, but her mom left her and her dad. Just up and walked out one day. After she dyed her hair red and green and met some motorcycle guy.”
My first thought was to wonder whether she left at Christmas, what with the red and green hair. “Poor Jenna!” And things probably weren’t too great for her father either.
Chloe frowned at what was left of her taco salad. “Is it harder not to have a mother or not to have a father?”
My heart tripped, and I swallowed my guilt with my mouthful of fruit cup. I didn’t want to let Chloe see my distress at her question. The less she knew and asked about her father, the better. “That’s a hard one to answer, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Both are bummers.”
“That they are.” Life was loaded with bummers.
She studied me for a minute, and I held my breath at what was coming next.
“Or is it harder having your father in jail?”
Since I had no answer, I just shrugged and kept eating. For a while, the only sound in our little Eden, into which our blighted pasts intruded, was the scrape of our forks on the dishes.
“Life isn’t fair,” my daughter suddenly pronounced. “And that’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” I agreed. “It can be hard and it can hurt.”
“It is hard, and it does hurt.”
“But God is good.”
“Then why’s He let all the bad stuff happen?”
I looked at my kid in delight. Considering her gene pool, I often worried that the real issues of life might not seem relevant to her. “Philosophers and theologians have debated the good God/bad stuff conundrum forever, and I certainly don’t have the answer. When you figure it out, be sure and let me know. It’ll look good on your application to Harvard.”
She rolled her eyes at me, and I grinned. I loved that she was thinking about more than clothes and being popular and who her favorite celebrity was, but it often scared me that I might not be able to give her satisfactory answers that turned her toward God. When I was growing up, no one in our house thought about stuff like this but me. When I asked a question like Chloe’s, they looked at me half in anger, half in confusion that such questions occurred to me.
“Get a grip, Libby,” they’d say. “And who cares?”
So I stopped asking, but I didn’t stop wondering. I didn’t want Chloe to ever stop asking about whatever she wondered. “What I do know, Chloe, is that we make choices. We choose to do things God’s way or turn from His way. We choose to believe He is in control, or we write Him off.”
She nodded. “I want a laptop like Jenna’s.”
I reminded myself that she was thirteen, and I should be glad she had even asked the question, though apparently we weren’t securing her admission to an Ivy League school tonight. “Is it a Mac or a PC?”
Chloe looked at me blankly. “I don’t know. It’s just cute.”
Given my limited knowledge of the inner workings of computers, cute was as good a reason as any to buy.
“I have to leave for an estate sale tomorrow morning about five,” I said as we finished dishes of chocolate marshmallow swirl ice cream. “You’ll be okay with Aunt Tori?”
“Oh, Mom.”
“And be sure you say thank you about fifty times at least, okay? A hug and kiss or ten wouldn’t be out of line either.”
She giggled.
I’ve always been very careful about how much time Chloe spends with Mom and Nan and Tori. We live in the same small town as Mom and Nan, so we can’t avoid them. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to deny my daughter her family, but I don’t want them to overly influence her either. I go with her when she visits, and I try to counter the negativity that lives at their home.
With Tori, the visits are rarer. She’s so busy she only comes home at Christmas if we’re lucky. I try to take Chlo down the shore for a couple of days each summer, and we visit Tori then. Limited access always meant limited influence.
But now that we were living with her for six months, how would I ever be able to counter bright and shiny Tori who has so much money that she could run out and buy my daughter a laptop without denting her bank account?
“I should be home about the time Tori leaves for Atlantic City, so you won’t be alone. If I’m late, just lock the front door and stay inside.” I cringed at how much like an overprotective mother I sounded. I shrugged. I was an overprotective mother. So sue me.
Chloe gave me a look. “I can take care of myself, Mother.”
Yeah, she was so city savvy. I didn’t correct her, just determined to be back by noon.
“Did Aunt Tori tell you that a limo is picking her up?” Chloe’s eyes were wide. “The SeaSide is sending one for her. Is that not the coolest thing you ever heard?”
“Very cool.” I was impressed in spite of myself. At least the question of why I hadn’t seen her car was answered.
We went up to bed around ten, and when I turned off my light, Chloe’s was still on, spilling out back. I wasn’t bothered. It was summer, sleeping-in time. What did bother me was that Tori didn’t come home until I was getting up at four thirty. I heard the thump of the front door.
But what bothered me most was the man I tripped over when I went out the front door a half hour later.
4
I FROZE, HORRIFIED. Was the man dead or just unconscious? Gritting my teeth, I made myself bend over him and feel for a pulse. I had never done anything so creepy in my life.
You’re a cop’s kid. You can do this.
And just how many cop’s kids find dead men on their doorsteps?
There was no pulse, but the body was still warm. My head began to buzz, and my vision blurred a little. I had to lean against the flower box and swallow several times. Dead bodies on TV were very different from dead bodies at your front door. For one thing, there weren’t flies flocking on TV.
Then, just as I felt fairly confident I wasn’t going to pass out or throw up, I saw the folded paper resting on his shirt. TORI was written on it in square black letters. Coincidences happened, sure, but I doubted this was one of those times.
So what did the dead man have to do with my twin?
I looked right and left to see if anyone was watching, but I was the only one about in the gray, suddenly eerie dawn. I grabbed the folded paper, hunching my shoulders, as if that would keep anyone from seeing me snitch what was undoubtedly a major clue in the coming investigation. Even if the man had died of a heart attack, which he clearly had not, he had died by himself, and that fact alone demanded a police presence. I did know that much.
I opened the note, braced for I didn’t know what. Something ugly. Something threatening. Something perverted. Instead I stared in surprise at a crossword puzzle, the free-form kind you can create with online programs. The tidy little squares sat above a list of clues, across and down. Frowning, with unsteady hands I refolded the paper. Who would be sending crossword fanatic Tori a puzzle, and more to the point, why was it lying on a dead man?<
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I was just stuffing the paper surreptitiously into my shorts pocket when a tall brown-haired man in jogging shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off stepped from the house with the red door. It had to be Jenna’s father. Drew Canfield. He saw me and nodded.
I just stared at him. I have no doubt that my eyes were wide with shock and fear, and I probably didn’t look much better than the poor man at my feet. I felt like a great, red neon arrow was suspended in space right over me, blinking on and off, on and off, pointing to my pocket.
Drew frowned. “Is something wrong?” He walked quickly toward me.
Was something wrong? I had an insane desire to laugh as I tried to look less wild-eyed and unnerved than I felt. How could I answer his question without sounding like a heroine in a badly written melodrama? Yes, something’s wrong. There’s a dead man on our doorstep sounded too weird, no matter how true. My sister is involved somehow in the death, and I’m scared for her sounded even worse.
So I said rather stupidly, “I tripped and fell.” I pointed to my bleeding leg.
By now he was close enough to see what I’d tripped over. He stilled and stared. “Is he—”
I looked back at the dead man in his gray shirt and black shorts. “He is. No pulse, at least that I could find.”
But Drew bent to check anyway. I stuffed my hand in my shorts pockets and felt the paper, heard it crackle as my fingers brushed it. I froze, half expecting him to stand and demand, “What was that strange noise? Are you hiding a clue?”
He did stand, but he said, “‘Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.’”
I stared at him. “What?”
He seemed embarrassed. “Just a Bible verse.”
I nodded. I knew that. I just wasn’t used to people quoting the Bible quite so freely.
Drew cleared his throat. “Who is he?”
I shook my head. “I never saw him before.” My voice sounded thin and shocky.
“Have you called the police? That’s what you do when you find someone dead of unknown origins.”
