Cora's Heart: A Cypress Hollow Yarn

by Rachael Herron

  “I have a savings account, too. I don’t think it has too much in it, but there’s probably something. Can you check?”

  “Sure, hon.” Mary punched at the keyboard, her fingers striking with force. “Nope. There’s no savings account.”

  Cora dug her fingernails into the wood. “But I have one.”

  “If an account stays at a zero balance for more than six months, it’s automatically closed.”

  “You closed my account without telling me?”

  “You should have gotten an email about that, too.”

  Cora sighed. “I can’t believe – this is impossible. I don’t do this kind of thing. Ever.”

  “Only by twenty-two thirteen. Looks like, yeah, right here, it dipped under when your fall property taxes got withdrawn automatically.’

  “Automatically? Oh, shit.” She had set that up, last year, when the state had offered a five percent rebate for automatic bank withdrawals. Saving money was good. But not having it? That was crappy. And there was still the second half of the year’s property taxes, which would be due after the new year. “Well, it’s not like I would have had it anyway, right? That one slipped by me.” It was painful to admit. “Guess it’s better that it’s paid.”

  Mary glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “I love those rosemary candles of yours. I could buy twenty-three dollars’ worth in advance. If you want me to.”

  Charity. Awesome.

  No, Cora would sell her clothes, her furniture, hell, she’d sell her own bed before she’d take charity. “No one needs twenty-three dollars’ worth of candles. Stop by the booth tomorrow and I’ll give you a couple, okay?” Charity, take that. “I’ll bring cash in to settle up.” Surely the change jar at home held at least that much. “You have a good day, Mary.”

  “Oh, you too, hon.” Mary waggled her fingers at Cora. “This too shall pass, I promise. I’ve seen lots worse, I can tell you that.”

  Mrs. Luby looked like she’d won the eavesdropping lottery. Cora only just prevented herself from hissing like a furious cat as she pushed open the door of the bank.

  Clementine was being perfect, still tied to the light pole, her wide orange head perched on top of her front two crossed paws. She jumped to her feet when she spotted Cora, her wiry tail beating the metal post rhythmically. Oh, she was a sweet dog, wasn’t she? Cora could get used to being welcomed so enthusiastically.

  “No, no, don’t look at me like that,” pleaded Cora. “I can’t even afford to feed you, dog-whose-name-is-obviously-not-Salt-anymore. I can’t keep you. There’s no reason to keep you.”

  Clementine didn’t care what Cora said. She leaned with abandon on Cora’s shins, panting in happiness.

  Cora was failing. Her business was failing. “And crap. I have a dog.”

  She straightened, holding the leash lightly between her fingers.

  No, it was possible that she’d failed. Already.

  Completely.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The person who mocks you for knitting deserves all the acrylic they get. – E.C.

  The sign on the door of the Independent read ‘Closed’, but Mac didn’t pay it any heed. Trixie’s car was parked in front – she had to be in there, and goddamn it, this couldn’t wait.

  “Trixie?” he roared.

  From deep inside a cluster of empty offices, he heard her call, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Mac. I need to talk to you now.”

  “Mac!” Trixie came around the corner, straightening her hair with her fingers. Passing a small wall mirror, she took a second to check herself. She pressed her lips together as if she’d just applied lipstick. “Fancy you both being here.”

  “Both?”

  Royal hurried around the same corner Trixie just had. He used the same mirror to adjust his hair.

  “Really?” said Mac. “At work?”

  “Well, it’s practically home to me,” said Trixie, no trace of apology in her voice. “What’s up?”

  “Who is Olivia’s father?”

  Trixie stumbled on her way to kiss his cheek and aborted the move at the last minute. “Shit,” she said.

  “I can’t believe you never told me,” said Mac. He sat in a swivel chair that sunk under his weight, and pushed the one next to it for her to sit in.

  “I couldn’t.” She sat, carefully crossing her legs at the knee.

  “You told me it was over. Did he ever know?”

  Royal leaned over the low cubicle wall. “You’re Olivia’s father?”

  Mac and Trixie both stared at him.

  “No,” said Mac.

  “Of course not,” said Trixie. “You think I’d let Mac get away with that? No way in hell.”

  “I’m confused,” said Royal. “But I’m thinking this sounds like none of my damn business, so I’m gonna go to the Rite Spot and see if I can make some money on pool. Find me there afterward, buddy?” He tapped Mac on the shoulder, and then surprised Mac by kissing Trixie on the lips. “Call me later.”

  “You’re later,” she said with a smile.

  Royal left, the ‘Closed’ sign flapping against the door behind him.

  “But you let him get away with no child support.” It wasn’t a question.

  She straightened a pile of papers on the desk. “Logan was always different from you.”

  “Did he ever know?” repeated Mac.

  “He suspected,” said Trixie. “He asked me point blank once if she was his.” A pause. “Or if she was yours.”

  “You and I never even slept together.”

  “He didn’t know that. He just assumed like everyone else did. And I told him no, she wasn’t either of yours. I thought for a long time he believed me.”

  “How long were you together?”

  “Not long.” Trixie rubbed her eyes. “A few weeks, just before Cora found out she was pregnant. I thought for a little while I was just trying to get back at you for leaving, but then I realized that Logan was the right one for me, that he always had been. I fell in stupid, stupid love. I’d probably been halfway there a long time.” Her voice cracked and she coughed to clear it. “I broke it off as soon as he said she was pregnant, that they were getting married. I think I was the only one in town who didn’t come to the wedding, but I couldn’t watch that, especially because by then I knew I was pregnant, too. God, he was stupid about some things. But then once, at Tillie’s, I saw him looking at Olivia. You know how when we played poker, we teased you about that tell where you tilt your head and pull on your earlobe? You remember Logan’s tell?”

  “Where he blinks twice and then looks to the right?” It had allowed Mac to win more teenaged hands of penny poker than he could remember. He remembered Cora and Trixie had played with them, too.

  “He caught me staring at him as he looked at her, that weird look on his face. Then he blinked twice and looked out the window. The next week a bike with a red bow showed up on the porch with her name on it. She broke her wrist falling off it. We were uninsured. It took me three years to pay off the emergency room bill.”

  “Goddamn him.” Mac had to consciously uncurl his fingers. “How could you keep it up? Keep it going?”

  She shrugged, and for the first time Mac saw the person underneath her perfectly made-up eyes and freshened lipstick. The girl he’d known was still there, the girl who had argued with her father about staying out late, the girl he’d had rock-skipping competitions with late into the nights when everyone in town thought they were doing something else.

  He’d just never suspected that she was getting her rocks off with other guys. Other guys like his cousin. Mac had been too hung up on Cora to even notice.

  But then again, Trixie had always been tough. Strong. A fighter. She went for what she wanted. He’d admired that about her, and still did.

  She laced her fingers together. “Do you think Cora knows? The only thing I could give her out of this whole stupid mess was the gift of keeping it a secret. We just messed up, Logan and I, him by
screwing me, and me by falling in love with a man who could never be mine. I never wanted her to know, and then when I heard about her miscarriage after they got married, I knew I’d been right to keep it a secret from everyone. I could never, ever have done that to her.”

  “She thinks I’m the father,” said Mac.

  Closing her eyes, she said, “Oh, crap.”

  Mac told the truth. “I have no idea what to do now.”

  He waited for her to say something, anything, and when she didn’t, he realized that she was waiting for him. To what? To say he understood? He didn’t. He couldn’t even come close to understanding the way her brain must have been working for so many years.

  “She’ll find out,” he said.

  “You can’t tell her,” said Trixie. “Don’t leave it to Logan to screw up, again. Please.”

  “But he did screw up. That’s the shitty part of this. Yet another of Logan’s fuck-ups. I covered for him in school when he hadn’t studied, letting him copy off my exams. I even covered some of his debts a couple of times. Cora doesn’t know that. He’d call, looking for money and I’d wire it to him. That was to help Cora. If he’d been on his own, I never would have done it. Yeah, I loved him. But he was a jackass way too many times in his life.”

  “Well, hell,” said Trixie lightly. “I should have called you asking for money.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “You know I would have given it to you. You wouldn’t have had to give me a reason. I can’t believe I never suspected, this long… Goddamn it, I should have.”

  She smiled thinly. “I was fine, though. I’ve always been fine.”

  “Does anyone else know?”

  “I don’t know how they don’t. She looks so much like him. But no one’s ever said a word. Not to me, anyway.”

  Mac could see it now, how both Olivia and Logan were short, thin and compact, yet put together with that wiry strength that seemed to emanate from just under their skin. That long nose. That stubborn way of scowling.

  “You did everything all by yourself.”

  Trixie shrugged. “Whatever. You do what you have to do.” She paused. “It wasn’t fair that I was pregnant at the same time. By the same man. And my child made it, while hers didn’t. I warned Logan if she found out, I’d kill him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. I hated him for that.” Trixie’s voice broke on the last word, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Mac, what are we going to do?”

  Mac reached forward and took her hand. His fury melted into something different, something softer with a ragged edge of pity. Trixie’s hand was cold, her fingers long. Holding her hand felt nothing like holding Cora’s warm, soft one. “I don’t know, Trix. But I think Pandora might be lifting the lid on this box at some point. All those demons are fixing to get loose. We have to tell her.”

  She clutched his hand, her grip almost painful. “I can’t. I’ve spent almost sixteen years not telling her. It would destroy her.”

  Cora? Destroyed?

  “She loved him, I always knew she did. God, the first time we ever really talked, she said she was interested in him, and that was at the beginning of our senior year, before anything started for any of us. All Cora ever wanted was someone to lean on. A real home. A family of her own.”

  Mac pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. Then he said, “How did you know that?”

  “Mac. Come on. Everyone knew that. She gave up college to stay home and take care of Logan. Could she have been any more Anne of Green Gables?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Orphan finds a home? Never mind. The girl needed a place of her own. She made one. It was good for her. Good for them both. Logan’s the type of guy who couldn’t handle getting his own car insurance. You think he could have handled the complication of trying to balance an out-of-wedlock kid that made his wife a step-mother?”

  “No,” said Mac. It was true. Logan would have frayed at the seams of his western shirts, taking everyone else apart with him.

  “It was the only respectful thing he ever did for her.”

  “After you, when they were married, did he… ?”

  Trixie pulled her hand away from his and pushed her hair behind her ear. She folded her lips tightly, and then said, “I don’t know. But I think he did. With a couple of others. But maybe I was wrong.”

  Mac spun on his boot, headed for the door, then turned around again. He had to go somewhere, do something, but he had no clue what. What he really wanted to do, he knew, was punch Logan so hard that he had cartoon birds spinning around his head for days. But Logan wasn’t here to give him that satisfaction, was he?

  The fury wrenched in his gut was hot. Pure pain.

  “Trixie –” He shoved his thumbs through his belt loops and then pulled them out again.

  “She can’t know,” Trixie said softly.

  Yeah. He’d figured that out. That was the worst part of this whole fucked-up mess – where it placed Cora. Right in harm’s way. Again. “Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “No matter what, though, I’m going to start sending you money every month.”

  Trixie laughed, a peal of delighted laughter that startled him. “Honey. You’re always the savior, but in this case, you don’t need to be. I don’t need your money. I’m just fine. I’ve been doing it this long. But you’re sweet to even mention it.”

  “If things had gone… another way, Logan would have been giving you money. I’m his kin. It’s my responsibility.”

  “Oh, Mac. If things had gone another way, the way they should have, you and Cora would have been together, the way you always wanted. But we can’t change the past, can we?”

  “No,” he said impatiently. “That’s not –”

  She interrupted him. “It’s true. We all knew it, Mac.”

  It was a soft hit to his solar plexus. He lost his breath.

  Fine. But the only thing that mattered now was cushioning the blow for Cora. He wouldn’t let Logan hurt her again. If that meant letting her think Mac was Olivia’s father, well, he’d cleaned up Logan’s messes before. This one would just be harder.

  Okay. Exponentially harder.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Some people keep their handknits wrapped in plastic, stored in bins, safe from moths and all other disaster. But knitting is like skin: it breathes. It’s prone to wrinkles and blemishes and tears. Scars are just proof of survival. – E.C.

  The next day, Cora sold her ass off at the farmers market. If she could have shilled her own blue boots, she would have, but they were pretty beaten up. She made the money she needed first for booth rental, then to get out of the hole, then for the dog food she needed – Clemmy could only eat chicken and rice for so long. She even made a hundred dollars extra, which was astonishing given the state of her product level. It helped that she’d raided her personal stores, selling the canned green beans she’d put up last fall and the cashmere she’d been saving for knitting into a heavy lap blanket someday. It was a luxury she didn’t need. She had blankets already. And the two tourists she’d sold the cashmere to, Jeremy and Leon from Ohio, had been over-the-moon in love with the fact that she told them the names of the goats the fiber came from.

  She sold all Valentine’s pies, too, which made her happy. However, when she called to tell Valentine she had money for her, Valentine had said, “You keep it, honey.”

  “No way. I’m bringing it over tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll still insist you keep the cash. But yes, come over. We’ll have dinner. We need to… talk. Can you come over?”

  “Let’s get together somewhere else,” she’d said. She’d heard, in Val’s halting tone, what she wanted them to talk about that night. Money. Selling the land. No, she couldn’t have that conversation, not in the house, not on the family land. Not near the property they wanted her to give up. “What about Tillie’s?”

  A pause. “We should be somewhere private, honey.”

  “The beach?”

  “It’s getting cold a
t night.” In the background, she heard Louisa squawk.

  “A bonfire, then.”

  “Oooh,” said Valentine. “We haven’t done a bonfire in a long time. No, hush, Louisa, you’ll be fine. Wear a coat.” It sounded as if Valentine had covered the mouthpiece of the phone – Cora heard garbled whispering. Finally, Val came back on, hissing, “You can wear mine, then. Okay, sugar. We’ll be there. You’ll build it, right? What time?”

  Now, on the beach as the sun finished setting, Cora set the last pieces of driftwood on top of her carefully built pile. It was perfect. Because if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was how to build a damn fire. It was on the second or third page of her book, in fact, and she had Eliza Carpenter to thank for it. After the knit and the purl stitch, beach bonfire building was the next task that Eliza had taught her. She had obtained the rarely granted permission for Cora to leave Windward after dark and had led her to Thousand Steps beach by the light of a real, old-fashioned oil-powered lantern, which Cora had coveted, instantly. Imagine, even if the power went out for a week – more – you’d still have a perfect light, indoors or out, banishing the dark, pushing it back by force.

  That night, Eliza had showed her where to look for the right kind of driftwood – high, at the edges of the ice plant. Anything on the sand was too wet, having just come in on the last tide or two. Small pieces, the kindling, then the larger ones. “They’ll spark different colors. That’s the gift of the seawater. The fire will burn as if sunlight is bouncing off the surface of the ocean,” said Eliza. Cora had felt almost overcome with joy, stumbling over half an old fishing float she hadn’t noticed. “Then you use the newspaper you’ve brought with you” – Eliza pulled the paper out of her knitted bag – “and you start to ball up the pieces that you don’t like. I, personally, love the obituaries because I like thinking about peoples’ lives, and I like the opinion section because I never agree with any of them, and it pleases me to argue at them over breakfast. But the news? Let’s burn it! Tomorrow, who will care about today’s troubles? Small, tight twists, and then make some bigger, looser balls for the base. Remember, Cora, everything good needs to breathe. You, me, my favorite sheep, the lavender bush in front of my house, those two cousins who follow you everywhere, this fire.”