by Susan Wiggs
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“No, I really want to hear this…”
“Fine. I’m just saying, it’s hard to picture you whipping out your boob and nursing a baby.”
“No offense,” Mom said, “but until a few months ago, it was hard to picture you doing it.”
“You’d think by now I’d know better than to argue with a lawyer.”
“I’m not arguing and I’m not being a lawyer.”
“Felt like arguing to me.”
“Now we’re arguing about arguing. Let’s not do this, Daisy.”
“Good plan.”
They fell silent. Down the hall, the faint beeps and sound effects of Max’s video game came from the study. The baby’s gentle, rhythmic swallowing could be heard. After a few minutes, Daisy switched him from one side to the other.
“So I guess we’re either arguing or we’re not talking at all,” Daisy said.
“Don’t be silly. We talk all the time. I learned IMing and text messaging just for you. Talk to me, sweetheart. I want to catch up on your life and your plans.”
Daisy felt a beat of caution. This could be dangerous territory for the two of them. Her mom was very opinionated about plans. About everything, but especially the importance of a good education. They had been arguing about that very thing the same weekend Daisy had gotten pregnant. She wondered if her mom had remembered that.
Her parents’ divorce had just been finalized and her mom had given her a lecture about how she didn’t need to allow it to change her plans, how it was more important than ever for Daisy to achieve great things in her education.
“Great things,” of course, being code for “getting into Harvard.”
Daisy had informed her mother that she didn’t want to go to college at all. Of everything she could have said, she knew that one would get under her mom’s skin most of all. To her mom, saying “I’m not going to college” was way worse than saying “I’m gay” or “I’m joining a cult.” The funny thing was, Daisy wasn’t even sure she meant it. But the fight had given her a reason to explode, storm out, and go crazy for a whole weekend, which included having sex with Logan multiple times. Protection optional.
So really, she owed her mom a debt of gratitude. Without that fight, Charlie might never have been born.
“Something funny?” Mom asked.
Daisy shook her head. “Just wondering if this little guy and I are going to give each other a hard time one day.”
“Count on it,” Mom said.
The tension eased a little. “I’m enrolled in a photography class at SUNY New Paltz,” Daisy said. “Classes start Monday.”
“That’s fantastic. Daisy, I’m excited for you.”
Was she? Daisy couldn’t quite tell. Not so long ago, Mom had expected Daisy to go to some famous, competitive school. The state college didn’t quite measure up to those standards.
“Do you think it’s too soon? Sometimes I worry that I’m ditching him for selfish reasons, like—” She stopped, but too late.
“Like I did to you and Max?” her mom queried.
Daisy looked down at the whorls of red hair on Charlie’s head. She used to stare at him for hours, watching the gentle pulse in his fontanel as though it was a measure of the moments of his life. Now she could barely see the soft spot, and somehow, it felt as if she’d missed something. “Mom, I’m sorry. It just came out.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m here now, all right?”
“Yes. All right. It’s just…sometimes I’m so scared I’m going to screw up with him, and Mom, I love him so much.”
“That’s why you’re so scared.”
“Sometimes I think I should completely blow off school and be with Charlie.”
“You could do that,” Mom agreed. “Then again, you could try not to feel so guilty about wanting—needing—something that doesn’t have anything to do directly with Charlie.”
Oh, God. Why did that sound so…Momlike? And why did it make so much sense? “I can’t help feeling guilty,” Daisy said. “On the one hand, I want to be the best mother I can to Charlie. But on the other hand, that means making a better life for us both.”
“I understand. And while I’m probably not the highest authority on the subject, I can tell you that no one is able to do it all. You just have to do your best. To be the best person you can and to let Charlie see who you are. I wasn’t perfect, Daisy. And I know you didn’t always like what you saw in me. I left you for a job that sucked down a good sixty hours of my week. I wish I’d balanced things better. You didn’t ask for my opinion, but I have one.”
Daisy couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah?”
“You get to have a life, Daisy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m not saying the way I did it was perfect but somewhere in the middle, there’s a balance between having your own life and being there for Charlie.”
Daisy studied her for a few minutes without saying anything. “How come the older I get, the smarter you get?”
Mom smiled back. “We’re both so very gifted.”
Daisy hesitated. “I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do the class after all. My daycare arrangement fell through.” If her mom was here to stay, she might as well be brought into the loop, so Daisy explained about Irma. “I’ve got the rest of this week to figure something out. Dad and Nina said they’d watch him, but they’re going to start getting really busy with the inn, what with Winter Carnival coming up, so I don’t want to—”
“What am I, chopped liver?”
“Mom, I don’t expect you to hire someone—”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting. What I’m suggesting—from the bottom of my heart—is that I’ll take care of him while you’re at school.”
“Mom, classes go through May.”
“I’m planning to be around a lot longer than that.”
This was completely out of the blue. “I didn’t bring it up to get you to help.”
“It’s a sincere offer.”
Despite her mom’s words, Daisy felt a moment of distrust. “You just got here, Mom. Pretty soon you’ll get bored and be ready to move on.”
Mom looked down at her hands. “I deserved that.”
“Mom—”
“Perhaps you could take two classes, back to back,” Mom went on, looking incongruously excited. “I came here to be with you and Max and Charlie. So let me. Please.”
Daisy frowned. In spite of her doubts, she got the feeling her mom really wanted to do this. To take care of Charlie regularly, week in and week out, so Daisy could pursue a dream. “Excuse me. Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?”
Sophie didn’t know whether to feel insulted or amused by Daisy’s shock at her proposition. Sophie felt certain she wanted to do this. She hadn’t messed anything up with her grandson. Yet holding him, she felt a hint of apprehension. Her heart was as fragile and vulnerable as an object of blown glass, apt to be shattered by something as tiny as the doll-like fist curling itself around her finger. Could she really do this? Yes. She was determined to make good on her promise to Daisy, to support her daughter in this fundamental way, to be part of this family.
They drove to their first stop, a clothing shop called Zuzu’s Petals. A sign in the window proclaimed, “Fun Fashions for the Whimsical Woman.”
“Am I fun?” Sophie asked, eyeing a window display of drapey knits she could imagine a fortune-teller wearing.
Daisy said nothing. She didn’t need to.
“How about whimsical?”
At that, Daisy laughed. “Not hardly. But you’re fashionable and you look like you’re freezing to death. Let’s go.”
Max and the baby went to wait at the nearby Sky River Bakery, an institution in the small town.
Sophie was not a shopping snob. However, because she used to be extremely busy, she’d grown accustomed to places that offered personalized service, like a few select establishments on Fifth Avenue in New York, or the Grand’ Place in Brussels. When
confronted with an entire shop full of boutique racks and rounders, she was a bit overwhelmed by all the choices.
The shopgirl offered some basic layers, including thermal underwear printed with little frogs wearing crowns and lipstick. And flannel pajamas printed with chickens who were not, thankfully, quite so anthropomorphic. Like it or not, Sophie was well on her way to becoming a flannel granny.
“I’m kind of drawn to solid colors,” Sophie said to the girl.
Daisy grinned. “She means browns and blacks. Maybe the occasional charcoal-gray.”
It was more fun than it should have been, sifting through the racks with her daughter, getting each other’s opinion. Sophie caught herself wishing they had done more of this when Daisy was growing up. A girls’ shopping day—wasn’t that a rite of passage?
Stop it, she told herself. Regrets were a slow poison that had no antidote.
Daisy picked out a soft angora cardigan in powder-blue and held it up against Sophie. “Get this,” she said. “It matches your eyes perfectly.”
“It’s too young for me.”
“What do you mean, young? It’s a sweater, Mom.”
“This matches your eyes perfectly. I should get it for you.”
“Mom—”
“Indulge me,” Sophie said. “Come on, just try it.” She pulled Daisy into the dressing room and made her put it on. The sweater was adorable on her, as Sophie had known it would be. And like all nursing mothers, Daisy looked incredibly womanly. Sophie wondered if boys ever called her daughter or if she felt like dating. She might ask, but not right away. Now that Sophie was here for good, there would be plenty of time to talk about such things. She insisted on getting the sweater for Daisy.
“It’s beautiful, Mom, thanks. Now. What size jeans do you wear?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t bought jeans in forever.”
“How could you not have jeans? That’s just wrong. It’s like not having breakfast in the morning.”
“Fine, I’ll get some jeans.”
Daisy made her try on a few pairs, frowning in concentration as Sophie came out of the curtained changing area to model the selections.
“Well?” Sophie asked.
“You have a freakishly good figure for someone your age.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Sophie said. Could a remark with the words “for your age” tacked on ever truly be counted as a compliment? Sophie thought not, but she didn’t let herself dwell on it. She and Daisy had been together a whole two hours and hadn’t gotten into a spat yet.
She tried on a second pair. “These are too tight.”
Daisy took a step back, subjected her to a frank once-over. “They’re supposed to be formfitting,” she said. “Just look at Jennifer Aniston.”
“Jennifer who?”
“The actress. You’re about the same age as she is. You’re allowed to look sexy, Mom.”
Good to know, thought Sophie, particularly given the way she had endured being snowed in.
“Is it the swimming?” Daisy asked.
The swimming. The very words caused Sophie’s stomach to clench to the point of pain. Unexpectedly, the physical reaction came in a wave of nausea. Sophie ducked back into the dressing room as the shivers came over her. There was no way Daisy could know that this was one of her triggers—a memory of swimming. “Is what the swimming?” she asked sharply through the curtain of the dressing room.
“Jeez, take my head off, why don’t you?” Daisy said. “I was just wondering if it’s the swimming that keeps you in such good shape.”
“Sorry. Yes, it was,” Sophie said. She fought to quell the tightness in her chest. “I need to find a new sport.” Although it seemed minor, swimming was another thing the terrorists had stolen from her. Swimming fast and far had been her sport ever since high school. After The Incident, she never wanted to go near the water again.
She glared at herself in the mirror, dabbed at the sweat that had broken out on her face. She’d been warned that certain prompts would be a trigger for her. She took a minute to shake off the memory and put on a smile. Within a short time, she had picked out cashmere sweaters in chocolate-brown, beige and deep heathered moss. Daisy insisted that Sophie needed a jacket called a fleece to wear under her ski parka.
“I don’t have a ski parka.”
“Not yet, you don’t.”
They went into an establishment a few doors down—the Sporthaus—and added mittens, a muffler, a parka, snow boots and a hat to her wardrobe.
“That was fun,” Sophie said, stepping onto the sidewalk, laden with parcels, already wearing the new jacket and boots. “Thanks for the fashion advice, Daisy.”
“You’re welcome.”
They loaded the parcels into the trunk. As they walked along the sidewalk, Sophie took a good look around. It was her first serious look at the place she had chosen to live. Avalon was a classic old-fashioned small town, with the main square formed by buildings of red brick and figured stone, a municipal park in the middle, tree-lined streets radiating outward and a quaint train station. Twilight was coming on, the sinking light painting the snow on the rooftops a deep, mysterious indigo. The shop fronts glowed with golden light. In addition to Zuzu’s and the Sporthaus, there was a Christian Science reading room, an old-fashioned drugstore and soda fountain, a jewelry shop and toy store, and a five-and-dime. Above the Camelot Bookstore was an office with a name painted on the window behind horizontal blinds. M. L. Parkington, Attorney-at-Law.
Spotting the sign, Sophie felt a small thrum of possibility. Eventually, she was going to have to make a living. Her parents, when she called them in Seattle to explain her big move, had warned her that she would find small-town life horribly oppressive and stifling. They said she would smother beneath provincial attitudes and mundane details of small people living out their small, unimportant lives.
And fool that she was, Sophie had allowed doubts to creep in.
Now, looking around at the picture-book scenery, she regained a sense that this was the right thing to do. Avalon represented something she’d never had before—a home-town. And with that thought came a flood of doubts.
What in the world am I getting myself into?
She put on a bright smile as she and Daisy went into the bakery. It was warm and bright inside, the air rich with heady fragrance. The Sky River Bakery was a community hub, where people could sit down over a cup of coffee and read the paper, pick up a loaf of bread or a berry pie for dessert and probably run into a friend in the process. When Daisy had first moved to Avalon, she had an after-school job here. Some of her best prints—framed photos she had taken around the area—were on display, beautifully lit like the works of art they were and marked for sale. There were a few customers at the small round café tables by the window, and a woman picking out pastries from the curved front glass case.
Charlie was, predictably, the center of attention, being held by Laura Tuttle, the manager of the bakery, and admired by Philip Bellamy—Greg’s brother. Get a grip, Sophie warned herself. You knew this was a town of Bellamys. Get used to it.
The eldest of the four Bellamy siblings, Philip was about a dozen years older than Greg. They shared the same clean-cut good looks, though. The same air of easy confidence.
Spying her, Philip stood up. “Sophie,” he said with just the right touch of friendliness. “It’s good to see you.”
Probably not, she conceded as they embraced oh so briefly, then stepped away from each other quickly, before awkwardness could set in.
“You remember Laura Tuttle,” Philip said. “Bakery manager and first-class baby-holder.”
Laura had a smile that eclipsed her unflattering haircut and dowdy outfit. “I was just admiring this incredible baby,” Laura said.
It was exactly the right thing to say. Since Charlie had been born, Sophie had discovered a universal truth: A woman was a fool for her grandchild, every time. All someone had to do to fall into her good graces was compliment her gran
dchild, and Sophie considered that person a friend for life.
She went to order a cup of tea, and was startled to find Philip at her side. “You’re all right,” he said. “Right?”
“I am,” she assured him. “I promise.”
He grinned. “Why do I get the idea I’m the eighty-ninth person today to ask you that?”
The counter girl served the tea in a small white china pot. Sophie carefully measured a level teaspoon of sugar into her cup. “You’re not. I’m just not used to—” She stopped. Not used to what? People caring what happened to her? That was simply pathetic. “I’m fine,” she stated. “I’ve got a place at the lake, and I’ll be looking for a permanent home soon.”
“So you’ll be practicing law?” he asked.
“Why, do you need a lawyer?”
To her surprise, he nodded. “No rush, but as you know, my circumstances have changed in the past couple of years.”
A slight understatement there. Practically out of the blue, he had discovered the existence of a grown daughter—Jenny Majesky, the bakery owner. Unbeknownst to Philip, his former girlfriend, Mariska, had had his baby, never telling him.
She lowered her voice. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh, yeah. But both my daughters—Olivia and Jenny—are newlyweds now. And I’m about to become a member of that club myself.”
She whipped a glance at Laura Tuttle. “Philip!”
He was grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll call you, okay?”
She studied Laura more closely. She was about Philip’s age, the sort of woman with a warm heart, a soft body and a ready smile who seemed completely comfortable in her skin. Sophie sipped her tea, wondering if she would ever feel that way about herself. She stood back and watched her son and daughter talking animatedly to their uncle and, apparently, to their aunt-to-be. This community seemed so tightly woven together that Sophie wondered if there was room for her to squeeze in.
She finished her tea and pulled on her new parka. “We should get going.”
Max was leaning against the counter, devouring a frosted butterhorn.
“It’ll spoil your dinner,” she warned.
“Not even close,” he assured her.
