by Nancy Holder
The man craned his neck forward and looked at her. The heat rose to her face and she grew even more ashamed, as if he knew she’d been checking him out.
“It’ll be over soon,” Barbara murmured. She was weaving on her feet; Holly doubted she had slept or eaten since the plane had touched down at San Francisco International Airport two nights ago. Holly had heard footsteps each night, and since her aunt was bedded downstairs, it had to have been Barbara walking up and down the hallway, steadily, for hours.
The minister raised a hand and intoned, “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ ”
As if on cue, a cloud trailed over the sun, and the sky above Holly and the others darkened. Heads looked up.
It began to sprinkle.
Soft murmurs spread throughout the crowd and the minister looked up, temporarily losing his place. Umbrellas fwapped open and people moved in close, some sharing with others, and one of the attorneys from Daddy’s office held his umbrella above the minister’s head, who said, “Thank you,” and pressed on.
The sky darkened as black, smoky clouds rose into thunderheads; lightning crackled inside them, and the sky rolled like a kettledrum.
It began to rain in earnest. A few people ducked bare heads apologetically at Holly and Barbara and began to leave. As Barbara accepted someone’s proffered umbrella and opened it, she muttered, “I should have thought of tents.”
It was Holly’s turn to squeeze her hand. She didn’t feel the rain; she didn’t feel anything . . .
. . . except the man beside her aunt, watching her more closely now. He smiled faintly at her, and she shivered and looked away again.
The flowers on the caskets were being drenched, the ink on the florist cards blurring. Holly felt a flash of unreasonable anger at Barbara. This is San Francisco, for God’s sake; why didn’t you think of tents?
Time passed, she didn’t know how much of it, but the rain turned into a storm; Holly couldn’t hear the words of the minister at all. Yet he droned on, completely ignoring everything else, oblivious that now most of the attendees were fleeing to their cars.
The clouds rumbled more intensely; then suddenly, without warning, a bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and hit an evergreen tree about a hundred yards away. To a chorus of surprised shouts, it burst into flame, which was quickly dampened by the oncoming torrents of rain. Nevertheless, Holly was jostled by the electric charge and felt the heat. Chaos broke out; there were screams as people ran in the opposite direction. Soon there was nothing but smoke to prove it had happened at all, and then a few burned limbs on an otherwise healthy tree. But the terror of the moment had ruined the service.
To the few stalwarts who remained, the thin, grayfaced funeral director in his black suit stepped forward with his hands extended.
“I’m very sorry,” he announced, “but we really must leave. It’s dangerous to be out here with the lightning.” He gestured at the tree. “Especially with the metal tips and spines on these umbrellas.”
He walked over to Holly and took her elbow. “I’m so very sorry.” He looked like he meant it.
All she could think of to say was, “Barbara has a covered patio.” She was thinking of the reception. She looked uncomfortably at the caskets.
“We’ll lower them after it stops raining,” he said.
Then she was being herded somewhere. It was the limo; and the person who was escorting her was the stranger, Michael. He put his hand gently on the crown of her head and said, “Duck down.”
She did so. The door on the other side opened, and Barbara Davis-Chin got in, followed by Aunt Marie-Claire. Michael slid in next to Holly and shut the door.
Barbara gathered her up and held her tightly. She was crying. “This is horrible. This is so horrible.” She brushed Holly’s sopping wet hair away from her face with a shaking hand. “Oh, my God, what a disaster.”
Marie-Claire nodded unhappily. She asked, “Do you think anyone will come to the reception?”
“Oh, God.” Barbara shook her head. “I can’t deal with that.”
“We’ll handle it,” Michael announced comfortingly. “Marie-Claire and I.”
Taking her cue from him, Holly’s aunt nodded. “Yes. We will.”
“Thank you. I think Holly and I will just go to my room and lie down.” Barbara pulled Holly more closely against herself.
“I’ll make you some tea,” Aunt Marie-Claire soothed. “I’ll keep the guests away from both of you.”
They rode the rest of the distance in silence. Seated so closely beside Michael, Holly smelled the man’s leather shoes and the faintest whiff of after-shave. The limo was redolent with wet wool and mud, and Holly knew that for the rest of her life, those odors would remind her of this hideous day.
“When we get home, I’ll give you something to help you sleep,” Barbara murmured to Holly.
“Modern magic,” Michael said. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a tiny white stone box, opening the hinged lid. “This is an old family remedy.” He held the box open for Barbara’s inspection. “We boil it in water for tea. It’s very effective.”
Barbara merely said, “How nice,” and took the box from him.
Holly closed her eyes, trying to breathe. It was tight in the limo and the man was sitting too close to her. Their bodies were touching and she was embarrassed, but it seemed ridiculous to be upset about that now. Of course, so much of today had been ridiculous.
My parents are dead. I didn’t even get to say good-bye.
It seemed like forever until the limo driver rolled to a stop and opened his door. They were at Barbara’s house in Pacific Heights, with its mansard roof and its elegant white urns flanking the doorway. She had always loved the Davis-Chin home, with its soothing elegance and the happiness it contained inside.
Michael got out first; then Holly. She waited beneath Michael’s umbrella for Barbara to emerge, shivering with cold and terrified of having to face any questions from people waiting inside Barbara’s house. There were cars parking and the front door opened; one of her father’s colleagues glanced out awkwardly at her. He was holding a glass of wine.
“Ma’ am?” the limo driver said to Barbara as he stood behind the passenger door.
Holly glanced up at the limo driver, who shrugged and bent down to peer into the limo’s interior.
“Ma’am?” he said again, and then more urgently, “Ma’am?”
“What’s wrong?” Holly cried, craning to see around him.
There was a silence. Holly’s heart thundered.
“Call 9-1-1!” the driver shouted. “Now.”
A bird burst from the car, grazing the tip of Holly’s cheek with its wing. She recoiled with a yelp. Where the hell did that thing come from? She stared after the retreating bird as it flew high in the sky, turned, and then flew straight for the car, dive-bombing like a kamikaze pilot. It crashed into the closed passenger window on the side opposite the driver, splintering the fortified, tinted glass like a pane of candy.
With a horrible shriek, it collapsed onto the shard of glass, and was beheaded. Its body detached and thunked to the ground while the head must have rolled outside. Blood gouted from the creature’s neck as its legs jerked and danced in a nervous paroxysm of death.
Holly doubled over and threw up, and Michael put his arm around her shoulders and whispered, “Let me get you inside.”
Hours later, Holly managed to trudge from Barbara’s hospital room at Marin County General to the beautifully appointed waiting room. The doctor on staff was new and hadn’t known that Holly was “family.” She made no protest. She could barely speak as it was.
As she stumbled across the threshold, Michael and Aunt Marie-Claire looked up in unison. They were seated on an elegant chocolate leather sofa, and the two of them were very striking side by side. They looked very much like a couple, and Holly wondered what was going on between them. Since Marie-Claire was married to someone else—Holly had figured t
hat much out—she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Marie-Claire cradled a Styrofoam cup between her hands; Michael had been reading the San Francisco Chronicle.
“How is she?” Holly’s aunt asked.
Holly licked her lips and shook her head. Her stomach was churning. “They don’t know what’s wrong. She’s not doing all that great.”
She didn’t mention all the machines hooked up to Barbara, monitoring her vitals, helping her breathe. Nor did she mention the scratches that covered Barbara’s face and the fact that the doctors’ couldn’t positively link the bird attack to her condition. Or the pitying looks the nurses gave her as she sat helplessly by Barbara’s side.
“Oh, dear.” Her aunt reached out for a hug. Holly obliged. Her jewelry jangled in Holly’s ear. “I’m here, Holly.” She sighed and touched Holly’s hair. “Unless there’s someone else you’d like to call.”
“No,” Holly told her, although to be honest, the list of someone-elses was long. She was too tired and upset to deal with it.
“Would you like something? Some tea?” Holly’s aunt asked her, gesturing to the trio of vending machines against the back wall of the waiting room. “Don’t try the coffee. It’ll kill you . . . it’s horrible.”
Holly remembered Michael’s little box filled with tea. Had they retrieved it from the limo?
The last thing she did was examine that stuff.
“Honey? Some tea?” Aunt Marie-Claire prodded.
“Sure. Thanks,” Holly replied, more to give Aunt Marie-Claire something to do than anything else.
Her aunt got some change from Michael, then bustled over to the machines. Holly sat down on a leather chair at a right angle to the sofa. Michael folded the newspaper, stretching out his legs. His clothes and his loafers were wet from the storm, which still raged outside.
He was about to say something when a woman in a navy blue suit bustled into the room. She smiled too brightly and announced, “Hi, I’m Eve Oxford. I’m one of the social workers here.” She perched on the very edge of a chair identical to Holly’s on the other side of the coffee table. “Let’s talk about Holly’s living arrangements.”
At first, Holly refused to leave San Francisco. She insisted that she didn’t want to abandon Barbara, who was still in the hospital, and then she couldn’t bear to pack her clothes. But as the days slogged by, she realized that her aunt had a life back in Seattle, and she, Holly, was making her nervous by holding her up.
Michael Deveraux—that was his full name, and he was “a friend of the family”—had flown back to Seattle the day after the funeral.
And now, she and her aunt were on the same flight, a little over a week later.
Everything back in San Francisco had been handled by Holly’s aunt. A friend of Holly’s mother’s was house-sitting, and Holly had gone to say good-bye to the horses at the stables. It was then that the owner, Janet Levesque, had told her that her parents had been making arrangements to purchase a horse for Holly as a high school graduation present.
Now, seated in first class with her aunt, Holly leaned her head against the window and thought of all the dreams denied. She had a trust fund and she was going to be “very well taken care of,” as her parents’ attorney had put it. Once she reached eighteen, she could buy herself five horses if she wanted.
“Holly, do you want some champagne?” her aunt asked. In the time they’d been together, Holly had noticed that her aunt had a tendency to drink a little too much. Holly hoped it was because of the stress, and that she wouldn’t keep drinking in Seattle.
Holly wanted to tell her she didn’t drink, and that fussing over her was making her edgy. But when the flute of sparkling wine arrived, she accepted it with good grace, sipped it . . .
. . . and woke up as they were landing.
Startled, Holly jerked up her head. Over the roar of the descent, her aunt smiled and said, “Hey, sleepyhead. I was just wondering if I was going to have to carry you off the plane.”
The plane touched down and the brakes were squealing, and her aunt had shifted her attention to her makeup. She looked perfect, as she always did, and Holly wondered if her cousins spent as much time worrying about their appearance as their mom did. Her aunt’s carry-on luggage was bulky and heavy, containing lots of new makeup she had purchased at Nordstrom on Union Square. Holly found the woman’s delight in cruising the makeup counters—and her binge buying—completely bizarre. As far as Holly could tell, she bought nothing in San Francisco that she couldn’t get in Seattle—or, for that matter, online.
It’s a compulsion, Holly thought. She can’t stop herself.
As they deplaned and walked to baggage claim, her aunt sailed along, not giving Holly much opportunity to look around. She chatted lightly about inconsequential things—the nice day out, the guest room in her house, how much Amanda and Nicole were looking forward to meeting her. Her cell phone went off; it was Uncle Richard. He had just parked the Mercedes and would catch up with them.
Holly jerked as someone skittered their fingertips up her spine, then softly caressed the nape of her neck. Startled, she stopped walking and whirled around.
No one was there.
Holly frowned and touched the back of her head. She glanced left, then right, dodging an oncoming businessman who practically mowed her down.
“Honey?” Aunt Marie-Claire looked puzzled.
She couldn’t have touched me, Holly realized. She’s too weighted down with her carry-on luggage, and she was walking ahead of me.
Goose bumps broke out on her arms and chest. She murmured, “Sorry,” and started walking again. “I thought I dropped something.”
“Ah.” Her aunt perked up and began chattering again.
They got their bags and she met Uncle Richard. She was surprised that her flashy, pretty aunt was married to a man like him. The only word she could come up with to describe him was “gray.” He was dressed in gray, his hair was gray, and his demeanor was gray—not happy, not warm, not anything. He might as well have been the invisible person who had touched her.
No one touched me. I just imagined it, she told herself as the three slid into a black Mercedes. Still, as they pulled out of the parking lot and joined the traffic, she scanned the pedestrians and replayed the moment. Maybe it was my mom or my dad, she thought, tears welling. The nightmare face of her father rose up in her mind, and she exhaled sharply and sat back against the leather seat, exhausted.
And maybe I’m just having a nervous breakdown. It’d be nice to stop feeling for a while, check out mentally and just veg. Maybe I’ll do that.
They wound down a highway lined with trees and through beautiful old neighborhoods that reminded her of home, with trees everywhere, so many, and then rain so heavy, she could see nothing. Then she dozed off again until her aunt said, “I hope you’re not coming down with something, honey. We’re . . . home.”
Holly took a deep breath and climbed wearily out of the car. As she stepped onto the porch, her aunt bustled ahead and opened the door. “Girls! We’re here!” she cried. “Your cousin’s here!”
Aunt Marie-Claire led the way into a charming foyer of red Victorian flocked wallpaper, white wood wainscoting, and white marble floors. It looked a little like an ice-cream parlor, and Holly had to shut her mouth tightly to keep from voicing her observation; she wasn’t sure her aunt would appreciate it.
Everything was thick with the odor of smoke, as if they had had a terrible fire.
“Nicole,” Aunt Marie-Claire said. “Your cousin Holly’s here.”
“So I heard,” the voice drawled.
Then the girl rose slowly from the couch and turned around. With a pang, Holly saw the family resemblance, seeing in her cousin’s perfect oval face her father’s coloring and his eyes. Nicole was incredibly beautiful, the kind of beauty that made people stare. Her black curls had been pulled into a thick bundle at the crown of her head, then tumbled down her shoulders and back. Her eyebrows were thick too, but nicely shaped.
Like her mother, she had on a lot of makeup; her eyes were heavily lined and her lashes were so long, they looked fake. Her lips were a deep, dark red, her fingernails and toenails perfectly matched.
Barefoot, she wore black jeans and a red tank top with the word TROUBLE embroidered in silver and black threads. She appraised Holly coolly, taking in her jeans and peasant blouse, and said, “Hi. I’m Nicole.”
“Hi,” Holly replied, let down. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t such total indifference.
“We had a good flight,” said Aunt Marie-Claire, as if Nicole had asked. “Bumpy near the end. Turbulence. Where’s your sister?”
“Holly?” a new voice cried.
Holly looked beyond the living room to a sweeping stairway as footsteps thudded down it. In a few seconds, a second girl appeared. She didn’t look at all like her glamorous twin. Her hair was short and mousy brown, and her features were pleasant but nothing more. She didn’t have on any makeup at all, and there were freckles across her nose. She smiled brightly at Holly, dashing toward her. She had on a navy blue T-shirt and a pair of plaid pajama bottoms, and in her arms she carried a tiny white kitten.
“This is Amanda,” Aunt Marie-Claire said.
“Hi.” Amanda bounded over to Holly and put her right arm around Holly’s shoulder. She hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here! How was the flight?”
“She slept most of the way here,” Holly’s aunt said, sounding amused. She turned to Nicole. “Sweetheart, any calls?”
Nicole nodded. “Yeah. I made a list by the phone in the kitchen.”
Amanda gave the kitten a scratch on the head and held it out to Holly. “She’s for you. To welcome you to Seattle. We all have one. All us girls, I mean. Nicole and me. It’s a little girl.”
Holly blinked and took the cat. The soft little creature weighed next to nothing, and she stared up at Holly with large blue eyes.
“Her name’s Bast,” Nicole said. “I named her.”
“That’s the Egyptian goddess of cats,” Amanda filled her in. “You can tell her all your secrets.”
Nicole snickered. “She’s deaf, Mandy.”
