Hard Truth

by Mariah Stewart

  In the end, Lorna did what she felt was best for their mother. The money from the sale had given Mary Beth fifteen months of treatment in a fine hospital thirty minutes from Lorna’s house. Lorna wouldn’t have traded those fifteen months for all the Palmer land. In the end, her mother had lost the fight anyway, and the loss of a few acres was totally irrelevant, as far as Lorna was concerned.

  She got out of the car, marveling at how quiet it was even for a Sunday afternoon in late summer. She inhaled deeply, recognizing the familiar smells of earth after a rain-wild roses and ripe grapes. A few daylilies were still in bloom along the fence that surrounded the field across the drive from the house, and Lorna wondered if someone had been tending them. When Lorna first moved Mary Beth to Woodboro, where Lorna’s home and business were located, she’d asked Gil Compton, a neighboring farmer, to keep an eye on the property and let her know when things needed to be done, and had offered to pay his son to mow the grass. Mr. Compton had kept the property as neat as Lorna’s father had, made sure the heating oil in the tank never ran out and the timer never failed to turn the lights on inside the house every night, but he refused every attempt she’d made to pay him for his troubles.

  “No trouble at all, Lorna,” he’d insisted. “Your mother was a godsend when our oldest was in that car accident a few years back, driving my wife down to Wilmington three times a week to the hospital. If it weren’t for her, neither of us would have been there when Kevin died. Thanks to Mary Beth, at least Kim was with him at the end. So you just go on and do what you have to do for your mother, and don’t you give a second thought to what’s going on down here. I’ll take care of the farm as if it were my own.”

  And he had, bless him. From looking at the farm, no one would ever guess it had been uninhabited for almost a year and a half.

  Lorna stuffed her hands in her pockets and shuffled up to the front door. An old habit had her checking the mailbox, but of course it was empty. They’d been having mail forwarded to Lorna’s house ever since Mary Beth had moved in with her.

  The key slid into the old lock and stuck in the same place it always had. She had to pull the doorknob toward her and hold it while she turned the key again. She pushed on the door and stepped inside, and immediately punched in the code to disarm the security system her mother had had installed six years ago. The foyer was dark, the afternoon sun having moved to the other side of the house, leaving the front in shadow. Lorna closed the door behind her and looked around.

  Virtually nothing had changed since Lorna’s childhood. Her grandmother’s upright piano still stood along the back wall of the living room, a faded shawl of burgundy velvet tossed over its top. The dining room furniture was the same her grandparents had purchased as a wedding gift to each other. The old oriental carpets were worn in spots, but the colors hadn’t faded too much over time. The china cupboard was bare-Mary Beth had packed up its contents and had insisted on taking everything with her to Lorna’s-china, silver, and crystal that had been in the family for generations-just in case the burglar-alarm system failed.

  The house was as dry and stuffy as a tomb. In spite of the heat and the high humidity, Lorna pushed open all the windows on the first floor. Out with the bad air, in with the good air-Lorna’s CPR instructor’s favorite chant, she recalled as she ran her fingers through the thick layer of dust on the hall table on her way back out to the car.

  One of the barn cats came running toward her, and though it wasn’t one she recognized, she welcomed it, enough to offer entrance to the house, but the cat declined after Lorna’d scratched it behind the ears for a minute or two. She brought her bags in and dropped them all in the foyer, then went back to the car and returned with the staples she’d picked up at the new supermarket ten minutes down the road, and spent the next half hour putting things away and making iced tea. She wanted to sit on one of the old rocking chairs that used to line the front porch, but they’d been stored someplace, so she had to content herself with a seat on the front steps. Tomorrow she’d look for the rockers.

  The air was heavy with moisture and the smell of steamy August. Nostalgia washed over her and she ached with the need to cry, but no tears came. She drank her tea and watched the occasional car pass by. When her stomach told her it was time for dinner, she went inside and settled on the rest of the sandwich she’d picked up at a deli earlier in the day. She had bought lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers from a Mennonite farm she’d passed on the way into Callen, but was too weary to make a salad. She poured another glass of iced tea and ate the sandwich standing up, looking out the kitchen window.

  When she finished, she went back outside, the local phone book under her arm. She thought of looking up some high school classmates, but decided against it after locating several names. She’d lost track of so many people over the years, she felt foolish just calling out of the blue.

  Hi, I’m home for a while… No, don’t know how long, probably not too, though. I’m only here because my mother wanted her ashes divided between the family plot, her garden, and the pond on the other side of the woods.

  In typical Mary Beth fashion, she had wanted to be everywhere.

  “You want a third here, a third there…?” Lorna had asked. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not kidding.” Her mother had smiled weakly. “You can divide them up any way you want, doesn’t have to be in thirds. And if you want to keep some, you know, a tiny bit in a cute little box, that’s okay, too. I think in the cartons we brought from Callen there are a few of those Limoge boxes that Gran used to collect.”

  “I’ll do the pond and the garden and the plot,” Lorna had replied, forcing herself to smile back, as if they were discussing nothing more important than what stores to stop at on their next shopping trip. “We’ll hold off on the Limoges.”

  “It’s up to you, sweetheart.” Mary Beth had closed her eyes and added, as she nodded off, “But we used to have a porcelain box shaped like a fancy little shoe. I think that would be highly appropriate, don’t you?”

  Lorna had smiled in spite of herself. Her mother’s love of shoes was legendary.

  The phone rang, startling her. She went inside and picked up the kitchen extension, but by the time she got there, the caller had hung up.

  “Probably a wrong number, anyway,” she muttered as she replaced the receiver.

  She walked from room to room, wondering what to do with herself. The television she’d brought with her was in the back of her SUV, but there was nothing she felt like watching. She’d been debating whether to go to the expense of having the cable connected, since she wasn’t sure how long she’d be staying, but decided that was just one more decision to put off until tomorrow.

  In the meantime, she’d bring in her laptop, check her email to make sure there was nothing from a client that needed to be handled immediately, and then she’d turn in early. She was tired from driving and from the emotional ordeal of coming home for the first time since her mother had moved in with her. So far she’d been okay-a little unsettled, but okay. She wasn’t sure how the rest of the night would play out, though. She’d never slept alone in this house that she and her siblings had long ago accepted as having unseen occupants.

  “You still here, Uncle Will?” Lorna called from the front hall. “ ’Cause I’m going to be around for a while and I’d appreciate you letting me get some sleep, okay? I’ll mind my business if you mind yours…”

  She was grinning as she went outside to bring in her computer and a few other items, the television included, just in case she was unable to sleep and needed an electronic diversion. The entire family had long recognized that her great-uncle Will Palmer had remained in the house since his passing in the 1940s. His was a benign if sometimes disconcerting spirit, and over the years they’d all come to accept his presence. Actually, for the most part, they ignored it. Though it had been such fun as a teenager to tell the stories about his sightings. Invitations to sleepovers at the Stiles’ house were prized by Lor
na’s and Andrea’s friends-especially slumber parties where there was safety in numbers. There were those who even today would swear to having encountered Uncle Will in the upstairs hall or in one of the bedrooms, but whether such sightings had really taken place had not seemed to matter. Uncle Will’s ghost had found a place in local legend.

  The phone started to ring again while Lorna was setting the television onto a kitchen counter, and she grabbed it on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “So how is it?” True to form, Lorna’s sister, Andrea, didn’t bother to identify herself, but jumped immediately into conversation. “What’s it like there?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Still in the back of the car.”

  “You haven’t scattered the ashes yet?”

  “Christ, Andi, I’ve only been here a few hours.” Lorna was grateful that her sister couldn’t see her face at that moment. “Let me get unpacked, okay?”

  “Well, I’d have thought that would have been the priority.”

  Easy for you to say, since you’re there and I’m here.

  “My priority was unlocking the front door, getting something to eat and something cold to drink. There’s no air-conditioning here, you might recall, and the temperature is-”

  “Okay, okay, so you’ll take care of it tomorrow. I don’t know how you can stand having them just sit there. The whole idea makes my skin crawl. I wish she had wanted to be buried, like Dad did.”

  “Well, she didn’t, so we have to respect that, don’t we?” Lorna replied tersely.

  “I suppose.” Andrea sighed as if somehow she’d made a huge concession on Lorna’s behalf. “Where are you sleeping tonight?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Is Uncle Will still there?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been here long enough to find out.”

  “Let me know if he prowls around tonight. He might not like anyone being in the house, now that he’s had it to himself all this time.”

  “I doubt he’ll notice.”

  “Are you all right there by yourself?”

  “Sure. I’ll be fine.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you while you’re there?”

  “I don’t know what you could do from Oklahoma, Andi.”

  “What do the new houses look like?” Andrea said, changing the subject abruptly.

  “I haven’t seen them yet. I thought I’d walk across the field tomorrow and take a look.”

  “I hope they’re not tacky boxes.”

  “I doubt they are. The builder told Mom they’d be selling for a lot of money.”

  “That’s good. How was the ride to Callen?”

  “Long and hot. I’d forgotten how far a drive it is.”

  “You figure out yet how long you’re going to stay?”

  “I have no idea. Andi, we talked about all this. I don’t know what’s the best thing to do with the farm. I hate to sell it, but none of us wants to live here. You have your home and your family out there in Oklahoma, and Rob has his life in L.A. I have my business out in the western part of the state-”

  “Which you can run from Callen. You do it from home, as it is. Why can’t you run it from Callen?”

  “I can, and I will, for a while. But just because I don’t have a husband and family in Woodboro, or because I don’t have to go into an office every day, doesn’t mean I don’t have a life there. I have friends, I have a social life, and I’d appreciate it if you’d respect that.”

  “I do respect that,” Andrea soothed. “I just meant that right now, you’re the logical one to deal with all this. Neither Rob nor I are in a position to take off for a few weeks. We’re lucky that your accounting business is such that you can work from anywhere.”

  “Oh, the wonders of technology and computer systems that interface.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You said your computer hooks into your clients’, so you can travel back and forth. When was the last time you went into any of your clients’ offices?”

  “I do an in-house audit twice a year for each client.”

  “And you have how many clients?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Well, there you go, then. Your business is a success, you only have about a month and a half when you need to be on-site. The rest of the time, you can work from Callen.”

  “I don’t plan on being here long enough to worry about it. You wouldn’t be having second thoughts about selling the farm, would you?”

  Andrea’s hesitation spoke volumes.

  “I just want what’s best for everyone,” she said. “Maybe we could keep the house and a few acres.”

  “I thought we already agreed that it would be best for everyone if we sold the entire property.”

  “I think we need to discuss it a little more.”

  “If you were undecided, you should have said something before I drove across the state to get the ball rolling on the sale.”

  “I simply think we shouldn’t be too hasty.”

  “Andrea, I will stay here long enough to take care of our business and to carry out Mom’s last wishes. But I have a life in Woodboro, and I intend to return to it. This is a temporary stop for me. If you want to hold on to the farm, I suggest you and Jerry find a way to buy both my and Rob’s shares and move yourselves out here.”

  “You know we’re not in a position to do that.”

  “Well, neither am I.”

  “But-”

  “Enough, Andrea. I’m exhausted. I’m not going to continue this discussion anymore tonight.”

  “Well, fine, Lorna. We’ll talk about it after you’ve had a few days to rest up from your trip. Maybe you’ll feel differently after being there. Let me know when you’ve put Mom to rest.”

  Andrea hung up before Lorna could respond.

  “And thanks for your support,” Lorna muttered as she dropped the receiver in its cradle.

  What had gotten into Andrea, she wondered. Two weeks ago she thought selling the property was the best thing to do. She and Rob had both agreed that, with no one in the family interested in running the farm, the smart thing would be to sell it off, pay the taxes, and split the proceeds three ways, as Mom’s will had decreed they should do if and when they decided to sell. Why the sudden change of heart on Andrea’s part?

  “Well, no change of heart for me,” Lorna said, reminding herself to call a Realtor tomorrow and make an appointment to have the property appraised. She had no idea what it was worth, but she suspected it would be quite substantial.

  She started to lock the front door, then remembered the three urns in the back of the car. She went outside and lifted the box gently, carefully carrying it up the front steps and setting it down on the top of her grandmother’s piano. She didn’t know what to do with it overnight, though, so she locked the front door, turned out all but the hall lights, and carried the box holding her mother’s ashes up to the second floor. She placed it beside her mother’s favorite chair.

  “Sorry, Mom. I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing.” Somehow, she knew her mother would be amused.

  But when it came time to sleep, Lorna lay on her old bed in the room she’d shared with Andrea from the time they were little until Lorna had left for college. The pillow felt like a rock, the mattress like a bed of nails. After an hour of tossing and turning, she went down the hall in the dark to her mother’s room, and climbed into her mother’s bed.

  You are ridiculous, she told herself. Thirty-four years old, and you’re curled up clutching your momma’s pillow.

  But in spite of her best efforts to shame herself into returning to her own bed, somehow it felt right. Within minutes, Lorna was sound asleep, and if Uncle Will was on the prowl, he didn’t bother to disturb her.

  2

  Lorna woke to the sound of voices being carried from a distance. She roused herself and went to the window and leaned out. At the far end of the prope
rty-the parcel that had been sold-three police cars were lined up along the side of the field.

  The builder must have forgotten to apply for his permits, she thought. God knows, anything passes for high drama in Callen.

  She pulled on a pair of gray knit shorts and a red tank top, and tried to brush her light brown hair into submission. Finally she pulled it back into a ponytail and searched her suitcase for her flip-flops. Before she went downstairs, she peered out the window again. An ambulance was just pulling up beside the cruisers.

  One of the workmen at the development must have gotten injured somehow was her first thought. She took the stairs two at a time and went into the kitchen to look for coffee, but came up empty. The convenience store a mile down the road sold coffee, she recalled from her last trip home, so she grabbed her purse and headed out the front door. She could deal with just about anything if she had her coffee first.

  Twelve minutes later, Lorna was returning home, a twenty-ounce cup of coffee in hand, when a black car bearing the words County Medical Examiner on the door sped by. She pulled over to the side of the road and watched the car turn right onto Conway Road, the road that ran behind the farm. The road one took to reach the new development that was growing across the field.

  She hesitated only a moment before heading toward Conway. If there had been an accident of some sort on her property-on what had once been her property-she wanted to know. She made the right turn, then followed the narrow two lanes around to the entrance of the development.

  Welcome to the Estates at Palmers Woods.

  Ugh, she thought. She wished they hadn’t done that. Then again, the builder had bought and paid for it. He could call it anything he wanted. She slowed at the foot of the service road and watched the county car disappear in a cloud of dust on the unpaved road.