He clicked off. Either she’d turned off her phone, or she was comatose in the hospital. He’d call the hospital. He stomped into the kitchen and pulled out a drawer with a violent tug. Onto the floor spilled a cascade of pennies, quarters, pesos, New Zealand twenty-cent coins with the Maori carving, pencil stubs, ballpoint pens, notepads, loose crumpled scraps of paper with penciled notes from ten years ago, a tattered checkbook, loose keys whose use had been lost with time, an old Wild Mountain town report, and a desiccated mouse, for God’s sake. No phonebook. What would the nearest hospital be, anyway? Rutland, it must be. But why had he regressed to the phonebook? He’d google it.
Frank went to his computer, but now there was no Internet connection. Damn backwoods rural lifestyle. Where was the phone-book? He rushed back to the kitchen and pulled out another drawer, but it held only potholders and kitchen utensils. He tugged on the final, top drawer, but found only flatware, then slammed shut all the drawers and charged into the bedroom. The phonebook was not on his desk. Back into the kitchen now, and as he crossed the threshold into the main room, he spied it—the phonebook—on the counter. He riffled through it, found the yellow pages and the section for hospitals, and scrolled his finger down to R for Rutland Regional Medical Center.
“Dad, what are you doing?” Erica stood in the doorway, serene and quiet in her black parka and black-and-white scarf, looking at him and the mess on the floor.
“Erica! Where have you been? And why did you turn off your phone?”
“Dad, I’m twenty-six years old. I’ve been living on my own for four years. You don’t have to treat me like a teenager.”
He stopped and stared at her, then slumped down into a chair. “Okay, but I didn’t know where you were.”
She took off her parka and scarf, threw them on the daybed, and came over to the table. She sat down and took his hand. “I’m sorry, Dad. But I was perfectly safe. I was with Jake.”
She smiled a smug and slightly condescending smile, and he felt suddenly helpless and angry at the same time. Safe? With that hawk-faced reporter? He pulled away, knelt down on the floor with a grunt, and started to put the debris back into the drawer. He was surrounded by all this stuff, overflowing and muddled. This was a symbol of his life, he thought. Out of control. He tossed the dead mouse into the trash. And now his little girl, his precious girl, out sleeping with some strange guy who was probably just using her for his own sexual pleasure. “Humph,” he snorted.
“Now, really, Dad, it’s not like that.”
“Like what?” He threw the coins and keys into the drawer in a heap. “Like I don’t know what a twenty-something guy is thinking? Don’t you think I was there once?”
“But do you know what I’m thinking?”
“No, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that he’s the nicest, most interesting guy I’ve met in a very long time, and that we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.” She smiled again, a smile he hadn’t seen on her in quite a while—like when she was five, and got a Fuzzy Bunny doll for her birthday. She looked happy.
Frank conceded a smile at this, then picked up the last of the paper scraps and stuffed them into the drawer. But still . . . there was something a little shifty about that reporter. Too smooth, too slick. He’d have to keep an eye on him.
He stood up. “Okay, let’s have some breakfast, and then I think we should take a bike ride. I’m a little sore, but it’s a beautiful day, and we should get out.” He took the frying pan from the hook above the stove and put it on the burner. “Fried eggs, scrambled, or Dad’s kitchen sink omelet?”
“Definitely the omelet. But I can’t go for a bike ride. I’m going to help Jake research an article he’s writing about the covered bridge.”
“The covered bridge? What about it?”
“We—I mean he—is going to describe the history of it, and then interview different people who want it restored or not.”
“Cool. I’d like to read that.” He took an onion out of the refrigerator and started to chop it on the cutting board. “But I thought we could do something together, since you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Actually, I’ve decided not to leave tomorrow. I have more vacation time coming, and we’re not too busy at my office right now, so I’ll stay another week.”
“Okay, but I have to go to New York for a consulting job, so I guess you’ll be on your own.”
“That’s fine with me.”
While Erica took a shower, he made the omelet, toasted some bread slices, and brewed another pot of coffee.
She emerged from the bathroom smelling like orange blossom and wearing skinny jeans and a shapely green cowgirl-style shirt, her hair in wet ringlets. She sat down at the table. “Mmm.” She took a bite. “Vermont cheddar, onions, basil. And something else?”
“Curry.” He slathered butter on the toasted pumpkin seed, gluten-free spelt bread that Erica liked, and poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Excellent,” she said with her mouth full. “You know, I really like it here in Wild Mountain. I’m thinking of looking for a job up here.”
“What? You just met this guy, and already you’re moving in?”
“I’m not going to live with Jake, Dad, but I want to give the relationship a chance.”
“Why don’t you wait until you go on a second date to decide that?”
“Well, yes, I suppose you’re right. Anyway, it’s just a thought. I do like Vermont, like we talked about the other night. And I’m getting sick of all the traffic and noise in Boston. I guess that means I’m getting old.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He raised his eyebrows inwardly, and felt a mixture of delight and dread. To have his little girl living near him again, that would be lovely—but not here, not in his cabin.
After breakfast, Frank changed into his biking gear and went outside. A cloud obscured the sun, and the mood of the day transformed from warm and glorious to cold and gloomy. He lugged his bike out of the shed, checked the tires, filled both of them with air from the little pump, and took off down the driveway. Basically a dirt track, the driveway was an obstacle course of ruts and mud. This is a challenge, he thought, like doing the Tour de France. He had to concentrate, balance on the ridges, and not slip. But whoa, he did slip. As the bike wheels slid and wobbled, he twisted and slammed the bike, and a chain reaction of pain cut into his back and chest. Well, Greg LeMond had weathered worse than this, and Frank MacFarland could, too. He pushed on and reached River Road.
Now the sun was out again, and the air was suddenly warm, the sky a brilliant cobalt, the clouds lofting into thunderheads. The river was high, and the road was lined with last year’s weeds and grass, all dead and brown—but the sun and the air conspired in a fine-tuned vibrancy that sang the mountains from early spring into summer. The rain might come, his back might hurt, and his ankle might throb, but he soldiered on. Frank was never happier than when he had a cause to fight for. Was it the restoration of the Wild Mountain covered bridge, or the winning of Mona’s heart that took priority here? Well, maybe one could lead to the other.
After his ride, he’d call Heather Brae and set a meeting.
15
MONA TURNED INTO THE DRIVEWAY, and two llamas stared her in the face. Big heads and long lashes drooping over soulful eyes, a mother and baby, both a pale butterscotch color, standing in the driveway and masticating peacefully. How had they gotten outside their fence? She pulled over, hopped out of the truck, came near, and reached out to pet the baby, who gave a little hop and huddled in closer to suckle the mother. Mona searched with her eyes up and down the fence for an opening, but couldn’t see one, so she took the mother by the collar and led her up the hill toward the farmhouse, the baby following. The pasture behind the fence stretched out across the hillside, and on the other side stood an apple orchard, the spiny trunks and branches of the trees bare except for a few apples from last season. The lonely fruits hung shriveled and discolored, like little old people hanging o
nto life no matter what.
When Mona was growing up, the Allingworth farm had been a symbol of sound farming, lofty ideals, and an elegant life, something beyond the imagination of the average person in Wild Mountain. The Allingworth men had been senators and congressmen in the nineteenth century, and Roz’s father had been a diplomat to India before coming back home, settling into dairy farming, and running for state senate. Roz and her brothers had all gone away to prep schools and then on to the Ivy Leagues, and her mother, who now tottered along on her walker and accused the attendants in the nursing home of stealing her nonexistent jewels, had run the library, played the organ at church, and directed all the school plays.
“You’ve got it all,” Mona had said to Roz one day as they were lounging in the bamboo porch chairs, sipping lemonade and gazing out at the cows in the late summer fields. She wasn’t envious of Roz herself. She just wanted to move into Roz’s life, be a part of her family—even when Roz’s favorite brother, Albie, with the blond, floppy hair and the melt-your-heart blue eyes, was caught selling pot to the local high school kids and sent to jail, and her dad, the senator, was stopped for his third DUI. The DUI got swept under the rug, of course, and mysteriously disappeared from the police record, but everyone knew about it.
In Roz’s house, there were leather-bound books from the 1900s jumbled in with art books, farming journals, and paperback novels. The furniture was covered in rich, though faded, fabrics, and there were Persian rugs everywhere and real paintings on the walls.
Mona led the llamas up the driveway. When she came within sight of the house, the door opened, and out burst Roz, in jeans and a purple sweater, her face red from the woodstove. Roz was holding a phone and pushing buttons as she bustled up to Mona. “Where did you find the llamas?” she cried.
“Down on your driveway.”
“Well, c’mere, Karma.” Roz took the mother llama’s collar and nuzzled the long neck with her nose, then petted the baby. “How do you like our new cria?” she asked.
“Cria?”
“Baby llama.”
“She’s adorable.”
Roz led the llamas into the barn, and after she got them settled, the two women crossed the barnyard and walked to the house.
The gray stone house, which had been in Roz’ family for generations, was massive and imposing. Constructed of rock that had been quarried and cut from the mountain beyond, it appeared rooted to the earth, an ancient stone dwelling.
They stepped between clumps of green shoots—crocuses, tulips, daffodils—in the dooryard path and up onto the veranda, a wide porch that extended the width of the house. This porch had always reminded Mona of a southern mansion, like something out of Gone with the Wind: a generous space where the gentlemen would sit and drink their bourbon and discuss matters of state.
In fact, Roz’s father, Senator Allingworth, had entertained politicians here. And once, when they were seniors in high school, Mona and Roz had been allowed to sit in when Governor Snelling of Vermont was a guest. Mona, who had assumed the girls were supposed to be quiet and unobtrusive, had sat in the corner, in the wicker chair that was still there, though now faded. But Roz, her eyes flashing, had stood up like a Viking woman and confronted the governor. “What are you going to do about this uranium mining bill?” Roz demanded. Governor Snelling, taken aback by this combative teenager, waffled. He turned to the other men and bragged about the businesses he’d started, waxing on about the importance of industry and how mining would create jobs; but Roz kept interrupting, spewing out words like “pollution” and “toxic,” and citing facts about uranium. As her mother nodded encouragement, she demanded that he veto uranium mining in Vermont.
How had Roz known so much about these things, and how did she have the guts to speak so boldly to the governor?
Twenty-five years older, but still bold and expansive, Roz opened the royal blue front door, and they stepped across the threshold and into the living room, a large open space that had been renovated by Roz’s brother before she’d moved back from California. It had a low ceiling and deep windows that cut through the stone. At one end of the long room, the huge fireplace gave it a cave-like, primitive feeling. The windows were open today, and sunny spring air beamed into the room with a freshness that cut through the dank smell of the plaster walls. In the middle of the room, holding center stage, sat a massive mahogany table piled with papers, folders, books, a laptop computer, a plate of half-eaten corn muffins, and several used coffee mugs.
“Looks like I interrupted your work,” Mona said.
“Oh, that’s fine, I need a break.” Roz leaned over her computer and pushed it to the middle of the table. “I think we’re gaining ground,” she said, looking at the folder next to the computer. “We’ve finally got Pat on our side, and Bernie is going to do some phoning and talking.” Roz, as usual, was on a first-name basis with politicians like Pat Leahy and Bernie Sanders. “It’s still iffy, but we’re hopeful.” She picked up her mug and went over to the kitchen island. “Coffee?” she asked, pouring herself some.
“Sure,” Mona said. “You’re working on the gay marriage bill?”
“Freedom to marry. Yup, it’s about all I’ve been doing for the last week. Luckily, the center is understanding, and I’m taking some earned time.” Roz was director of home care at the local community health center.
“So, you really think it might happen?”
“I think it really might!” Roz, the optimist as usual, believing something that almost nobody else did.
Mona sat at the table, her shoulders slumped. Roz was so confident and excited about this bill. How could she tell her about the petition?
Roz took a big gulp of what looked like cold coffee. “Hey, know who I saw yesterday? Your ex.”
Mona’s slump deepened as her head sank down. “Yeah, he’s back in town.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Oh, God. I don’t know,” she groaned, her face on the table. “Where did you see him?”
“Outside the hotel. Looked like he was arguing with Charlie Perry, getting all excited and waving his arms up and down, and he had this rifle on his shoulder that kept swinging around so Charlie had to keep ducking.”
From Mona’s slumped position, a giggle started to bubble up and build until she was shaking with laughter.
Roz grinned. “I guess it is kind of funny now, but at the time, it was a little scary.”
Mona’s laugh was verging on tears as she gulped for air. “He keeps turning up wherever I go.”
“Sounds like he’s stalking you.”
“Stalking? Johnny? No, he’s not that bad.”
Roz pulled herself up to her full seated height and launched into lecture mode. “Do you know how stalkers operate? They get obsessed, and can’t stop thinking about a person. They have to follow them. All rational behavior goes out the window, because everything is geared toward being near that person. And if they feel wronged at all, then any actions are justified. What’s he carrying that gun for, anyway? It’s nowhere near hunting season. Maybe you should get a restraining order.”
“Oh, Roz, I know you’re in social work and all, but Johnny is not one of those types you work with. I mean, he’s been nasty, but he’s not going to shoot someone. You’re overreacting.”
Strangely, Roz’s reaction had the opposite effect on Mona. She realized that she, too, had been overreacting. This was her ex-husband, after all, not some crazy maniac. She sat up straight and shook off the fear, letting it dissipate into the atmosphere. That petition was more of a real concern, and she’d have to find a way to tell them about it. “Is Heather around?” She needed both of them here for this announcement.
“She’s out in the greenhouse.”
“Well, hold the coffee, I’ll go get her.” Mona got up and walked through the kitchen toward the back door.
Roz gave her a quizzical look, shrugged, and sat down at the table, pulling the computer back in front of her.
Mona stepped
out the door. The dooryard was washed in the pale light of early spring, the trees bare and the grass a vivid green, a new softness seeping into the sharp air. Beyond the yard to her right, the pasture extended toward a distant field in a gentle upward slope, and the llamas, mother and baby, stood and stared at her as she walked to the greenhouse. Llamas were so beautiful, with their steady, unselfconscious gazing—like a six-month-old baby, simply looking, simply taking in the world.
The greenhouse was one of two that Heather managed as part of the organic vegetable farm, Worthy Produce. The small farm didn’t bring in much income, but Roz’s social work job supported them, and the arrangement seemed to suit both of them. Heather was the more introverted and homey of the two, while Roz, outgoing and executive, needed to be involved in the wider world. They had been together almost nine years now, since Heather’s divorce when she’d moved in with little Eli.
Mona unhooked the wire fastener on the plywood door, opened it, and stepped into the tunnel-shaped greenhouse. The air, warm and humid, smelled of compost and growing things, and the room was bright with the green of a tropical spring. Lettuce, spinach, and arugula were crowded together in flats, almost full-grown and ready to sell, while further along both sides and down the center lay trays of sprouting seedlings in all shades of green. Above, flowering petunias, geraniums, verbena, and thunbergia hung from the ceiling, wild cascades of pink and purple with delicate trails of yellow, orange, and fuchsia.
“Hi, Mona!” Heather, in jeans and a big denim man’s shirt, called from the back of the greenhouse. She tipped the long spout of a watering can over a magenta cloud of blooms on a hanging verbena, put the can down, and walked up to the front. Heather pushed a clump of frizzy hair out of her face with the back of a freckled hand, her fingernails black with dirt, and smiled. Her delicate face seemed to emanate the very light of spring, here where she was in her element. “Can you believe it?” she exclaimed. “It’s almost time to open the farm stand.” Worthy Produce had expanded over the years into a place of abundance, filled with the colors and smells of fresh greens, tomatoes, eggplant, corn, apples and berries, hanging flowers and herbs. Heather drew whimsical sketches of all the new varieties of plants she introduced, like Green Fingers cucumber, Purple Passion asparagus, and Golden Mama tomato, hung them on the walls, and hand-wrote recipe cards for people to take home. Just the mention of Worthy Produce brought a smile and a sigh of pleasure from locals and flatlanders alike.
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