Homeward

by Melody Carlson

  PRAISE FOR MELODY CARLSON

  "…any story by Carlson is worth encountering."

  –Booklist

  "Ms. Carlson's characters are realistic and facing issues that relevant in today's world. "

  –Romance Readers Connection

  Homeward

  By Melody Carlson

  Electronic Edition Copyright © 2011 by Melody Carlson

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  StoneHouse Ink 2010

  StoneHouse Ink

  Nampa ID 83686

  www.TheStonePublishingHouse.com

  First Hardcover Edition: 1997

  First Paperback Edition: 1997

  First eBook Edition 2010

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Homeward: a novel/ by Melody Carlson. -2nd ed. p.cm.

  Cover design by StoneHouse Ink

  Published in the United States of America

  www.TheStonePublishingHouse.com

  A special thanks to the Peart family, for sharing their cranberry bog with me one crisp fall day.

  This is a family who understands both the pain and the rewards of restoring a neglected cranberry bog.

  To Mike, Jim and Janet: thank you so much for taking the time to teach and show me the workings of your delightful family business.

  Table of Contents

  One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven,

  Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen

  Twenty, Twenty One, Twenty Two, Twenty Three, Twenty Four, Twenty Five

  Twenty Six, Twenty Seven, Twenty Eight, Twenty Nine, Thirty, Thirty One

  Thirty Two, Thirty Three, Epilogue

  Dear Reader, About The Author

  Even the sparrow has found a home,

  and the swallow a nest for herself,

  where she may have her young—

  a place near your altar,

  O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.

  —Psalm 84:3

  ONE

  From the corner of her eye, Meg noticed the flashing blue light in her rearview mirror. She glanced down to check the speedometer and exhaled an impatient breath. Just what she needed—a nice welcome home. She pulled off the freeway, tires skidding in the loose gravel.

  The patrolman sauntered up. “Howdy, ma’am,” he said with a slight drawl. She greeted him and wondered why some people in southern Oregon sounded like they were from Texas. And why was it that highway patrolmen all seemed to have mustaches?

  “License and registration, please,” he said. Rain coated his plastic-covered cowboy hat, dribbling down the brim and straight into her car. He obviously had no concern about the damage water could do to leather upholstery. She fumbled with her billfold, then handed him her card and registration with a forced smile.

  “Sorry, Officer. You see, I haven’t had this car for too long, and I’m still getting used to the cruise control.” Not completely true, but worth a shot. Meg smiled again.

  “Uh-huh. Nice wheels,” he murmured, then moved to the front of her Jaguar to copy the plates. A semi rushed past, spewing a dirty, oily spray onto the sleeve of her silk blouse and into her car. She clenched her teeth, but forced another saccharine smile as the patrolman returned to her window. Maybe there was still a chance he would go easy on her.

  “Thing is,” he began evenly as he handed her the ticket, “fancy cars like this smash up just the same as any ol’ junker. Sometimes worse. I see you’re from San Francisco; maybe you didn’t know these roads are extra slick up here today. We hadn’t had a drop of rain for two weeks. Unusual for March. But I clocked you at eighty-six.”

  She muttered a cold thanks, with no hint of a smile this time. He tipped his dripping hat and returned to his car. She stared at the name printed neatly across the top of the ticket—Alexandra Megan Lancaster. Someone else’s name. The Alexandra part was from her grandmother, something she’d once been proud of.

  Suddenly her chest tightened with the urge to scream. Not over the stupid speeding ticket; no, that would be too simple. This unwelcome rage was vaguely familiar, but it surprised her just the same. She had worked so hard all these years to forget such tiresome things. Was she inviting it all back now, simply by returning?

  In another lifetime, she had promised herself she would never return. But this was not the time to dredge up old memories. That would only send her back to San Francisco, and she wasn’t ready for that. She needed a break to clear her head, and perhaps it was time to clear up some other things as well. Or at least to try. So she pulled back onto the freeway and decided to blame it on Jerred. Fair or not, it really was his fault that for the first time in nearly twenty years she was going home—at least the closest thing to home she had ever known.

  To distract herself, she thought about Jerred. Had it been only two years since he had stepped into her life? It seemed like longer. But then she had just turned thirty-five when they met. How she had celebrated that milestone. Only thirty-five, and at the top of her field. She had carefully played the corporate game and climbed high in the San Francisco advertising firm. And her reward had been a luxurious office with a private bathroom and an assistant who was somewhat efficient. It was all she’d ever hoped for. Wasn’t it?

  She considered the brief spell in college when she had fantasized about a more creative career: she’d live in a loft in some interesting part of the city and pursue photography or maybe journalism. But she had quickly returned to her senses, reminding herself that such thoughts were probably just carried over from her unconventional upbringing. And by the end of college, money had become important. With bills to juggle and loans to repay, the field of advertising offered the financial security she longed for.

  When she first hired on with Montgomery and Tate, she had thought perhaps she’d stay on until her finances were in line, but it didn’t take long before she acquired an appetite for the things that money could buy. It was the first time she’d ever worn designer labels and real Italian shoes. And Meg liked being around people who had money. Even more, she liked the power that accompanied that money. It seemed to surround and insulate those who had it. Working twelve-hour days hardly fazed her because she came to believe it was her ticket into their world, a world she had only viewed by pressing her nose to the window.

  Then the “golden boy” joined his daddy’s firm, and Mr. Montgomery asked her to work with his son—to show him the ropes, so to speak. She’d been somewhat flattered, yet understandably cautious. This upstart wasn’t going to pilfer her job. But Jerred Montgomery, with his impeccable manners and boyish charm, quickly won her trust and later—she grimaced at the triteness—her heart. How had she been such a fool? She should have known better. For starters, he was almost ten years younger than she. Why hadn’t she recognized that red flag? But Jerred always assured her that “age was a nonfactor.” And Meg knew she looked better at thirty-five than ever.

  They’d gotten engaged on a picture-perfect New Year’s Eve. Jerred’s parents had invited them to Lake Tahoe for the holidays, and there was snow on the ground and stars in the sky. She immediately started planning a summer wedding, but then Jerred moved it back. First October, then Christmas—he always had another reason to postpone it. She was patient, turning her energy back to work, making her future father-in-law happier—and richer. Meanwhile, Jerred assured her that being together was what counted. Unfortunately, it didn’t count for anything last
week. That was when she discovered he was having an affair with his twenty-something secretary, Tiffany.

  In her more honest moments, Meg could admit she’d known it even before Tiffany. In some ways, Tiffany provided Meg with the perfect excuse.

  Mr. Montgomery had been so kind and fatherly about the whole thing. It only made it harder. The Montgomerys were a fine family, and she once hoped they would become the family she’d always longed for. Meg didn’t actually tell Mr. Montgomery about Jerred’s part in the breakup, but when he so quickly consented to her month’s leave of absence with no loss of position or benefits, she felt certain he knew. Just the same, he made her promise to return as soon as possible. “We don’t want to lose you to Crandale permanently,” he told her with a kind smile.

  Meg frowned as she turned off the freeway toward the coast. Suddenly, it seemed a pretty dismal choice—Crandale or Jerred.

  It was Meg’s sister, Erin, who had given her the final nudge. The note was actually three months old, something Erin had slipped into a Christmas card, and Meg had only skimmed it at the time. But right after the trouble with Jerred, Meg went on a full-scale cleaning binge in her tiny apartment. She discovered the wrinkled note underneath her sofa. Then suddenly, as she reread the part about her grandmother’s deteriorating health, it seemed the perfect excuse. It would allow her to escape San Francisco for a couple of weeks and thus avoid some messy confrontations.

  Meg had not warned her sister of this impending visit. She seldom wrote to Erin, and in almost twenty years never phoned her. This sparse communication was Meg’s stipulation a long time ago. She originally gave Erin her address with the clear understanding that Erin would never mention it, or their infrequent correspondence, to the rest of her family.

  This severing from the family had been important to Meg. And she liked the anonymity—at first. It made her feel free. Jerred had once questioned her lack of family connections, so unlike his close-knit clan. But then his family wouldn’t have understood hers, and that had been one more reason to keep them closeted.

  The rain stopped, and directly ahead, above the ridge of a fir-covered hill, opened a slit of clear sky so bright it almost hurt her eyes. Meg dug in her purse for sunglasses. The sunlight illuminated the lush fields, creating an almost unreal shade of green. Every leaf and blade of grass seemed to leap out. It was one of her favorite scenes—the rain-washed countryside backdropped by a leaden sky and then spotlighted by the sun. If only she had a camera handy, she would shoot this panorama over and over until she got it just right.

  Meg opened the window and let the fresh air blow in. The cool, wet smell reminded her of childhood. How many times had they trekked off to the coast in their rickety old Volkswagen Bug during spring break? Of course, it was only after she and Erin had spent days of strategic pleading and begging to entice Sunny to “please take them to Crandale.” Living on a college campus in the radical sixties had seemed less than ideal to Meg, but for some reason Sunny seemed to thrive upon the unrest and would have never considered giving up her professorship in the University of Oregon’s art department.

  Meg’s refuge came in the form of Grandpa’s house. They had always called it Grandpa’s house. Everyone knew the house belonged to Grandpa and the dress shop belonged to Grandmother. As a child, she never questioned the carefully divided ownership within her grandparents’ marriage, or even the nontraditional roles they both lived so naturally. But then nothing in Meg’s family had ever been what “should be.” Sometimes she imagined she was Alice, living on the other side of the looking glass, where everything was backwards.

  At Grandpa’s house there seemed to exist some magical element, and Erin and Meg always had high expectations when they went there. Maybe it was because Grandpa truly loved children, or maybe it was just the comforting familiarity of the small coastal town. The two girls spent every vacation moment in Crandale while Sunny took classes and finished graduate school and then started teaching. Grandpa always did the cooking, fixing special dishes they never saw at home. The little cleaning that was done in the big old Victorian house was done by Grandpa’s hand as well, but it never bothered Meg that there were cobwebs in corners or that you could write your name on the dusty end tables. Because the best part of staying at Grandpa’s was being outside.

  Grandpa’s grandfather had purchased the several hundred acres right after the turn of the century. He named it Briar Hedge because there was a slight rise between the property and the ocean where a long, thick wall of wild blackberries had grown profusely. Those particular blackberries had been removed long ago, but there were always more than enough blackberry patches to be found close by. The real purpose of Briar Hedge was cranberries. And Meg’s favorite thing as a child was to help Grandpa in the cranberry bog. He always made sure a pair of big rubber boots was waiting for her. And when they made the trip into town for supplies, he always let her drive the old truck down the beach road.

  Maybe going back wouldn’t be so dreadful. Why had she put it off all these years? Sure, some ugly things had been said at Grandpa’s funeral, but that was almost twenty years ago. The accusations had been cruel and hateful, spoken in the heat of anger. Some by her, some not. But Grandmother could be dying now. It was time to forgive and forget. Perhaps this would help the old woman go in peace—even if it meant Meg’s taking the brunt of the blame. She knew Grandmother would gladly allow that. Besides, it might be worth taking the blame if it would help her avoid that debilitating feeling of guilt, the kind she’d experienced after Grandpa’s death.

  Meg turned off the main road when she saw the old sign before her. It looked just the same as in the old days, only now it was freshly painted in bright, cheerful colors: Welcome to Crandale, Home of the Cranberry Carnival.

  She hoped the sign was right. Would she really be welcome?

  TWO

  The street looked cleaner than she remembered. The old iron lampposts were now painted dark green, and flower boxes swayed in the breeze. Most tourists probably relished the fresh sea air, but to Meg, the familiarity was unsettling. Scents were like that with her; they could penetrate and take her places she had no intention of going.

  It was hard to believe she was really here, walking down the same street in the same town she’d once loved. But things looked different now, and of course, she was different, too.

  She noticed her reflection in the bakery window. At least the bakery hadn’t changed. It even looked like the same old dusty Styrofoam wedding cake sitting in the window with the ever-present dead fly lying feet-up next to the plastic groom.

  But she was no longer Meggie, rushing in to buy fresh donuts. Over a decade ago, donuts had been replaced with rice cakes, and she’d put her stair-stepper machine right in front of her TV. Within a year, pudgy Meggie had slowly transformed into a very slender Meg. After losing more than forty pounds, she’d discovered that her legs were actually long, and although she had never considered herself tall at five-foot-six, she suddenly began to hold her shoulders back and to stand up straight. Even her face had changed with the weight loss. Cheekbones had magically appeared, and a nose that had at one time looked too small now fit in rather well.

  It had taken time to adjust to her weight loss, and at first she’d found herself thinking from time to time that she was still pudgy Meggie. But over the years she had adapted to her new image, and although she hated to admit it, her confidence level had increased dramatically. Suddenly, the thought of being in Crandale seemed to shatter that confidence, and a deep-rooted fear squeezed her as she imagined herself turning back into pudgy Meggie. Only now she would have wrinkles in place of freckles.

  She shoved those ridiculous thoughts aside and crossed the quiet street over to Grandmother’s shop, or rather what used to be Grandmother’s shop. The faded candy-striped awnings were gone now. What had become of those pasty-faced mannequins and their stiff, shiny hair? Were their rigid bodies heaped together in the back room? Fine gold lettering now swept across the clean plat
e-glass window, announcing the shop to be Sunny’s Gallery.

  From the outside, it looked exactly like the sort of place Meg would normally be drawn to, a place where she might browse undisturbed, perhaps pick up an odd piece or two to add to her eclectic collection of objets d’art. Jerred had advised her to select one style and plan around it. But she could never settle on just one; instead she had fallen back into her bohemian way of accumulating what he called junk. Looking back, it seemed the only real part of her life anyway. She was glad she’d ignored his advice.

  She hesitated before the beveled glass door. Her hands were actually shaking. It still wasn’t too late to change course. Jerred or no Jerred, she could still make it back to San Francisco by tomorrow and be back to work the next day. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it had to be easier than this.

  It was funny; after all these years, and all those fights, she couldn’t recall one specific thing that she and Sunny had fought about—perhaps because there were so many. Eventually they’d all piled up until she could stand it no longer; the funeral had been the last straw. Meg gave herself a mental shake. Enough remembering!

  She squared her shoulders and pushed open the door. A bell tinkled, followed by muted strains of classical music. Sunny had always professed a passion for Mozart, but then she had liked the Beatles almost as much. Behind the counter, a man of about fifty with long, thinning hair pulled into a ponytail stood leafing through a glossy magazine. He nodded in her direction without speaking, and Meg wandered through the gallery just like any other tourist. Yet her heart beat furiously, and her eyes refused to focus on a single piece of art.

  The smell in the shop hadn’t changed. It was altered somewhat by the scent of a jasmine candle burning on a low, hand-carved coffee table, but that old musty aroma of decaying wood and damp sea air still clung to the seasoned building like a tired old woman hanging on to her last breath of life. With the smell came the unmistakable ring of Grandmother’s voice…