by Liz Flaherty
Kate was more relieved by Mrs. H-W’s approval than she expected to be. “Thank you. Since I’ve now slept in your guest room and officially messed up your gazillion-thread-count sheets, don’t you think you could call me Kate?”
Something relaxed and softened in the woman’s austere features. “Yes, I can do that.”
“It’s beautiful here.” Kate joined the older woman by the windows. “How can you stay away?” She laughed, abashed. “Of course, I have this little bias toward the Northeast Kingdom, since I’ve lived here my whole life. My idea of getting away is going to the movies in New Hampshire.”
“I do love it here. Max, my driver and the man who’s taken care of our family since it was just my husband and me, does, too—he wants to retire here. He says working for our family has taught him well how to drive in snowy mountains.” Mrs. Hylton-Wise hesitated. “You’ve seen the pictures?”
Kate nodded, wanting to know about the people in the pictures but not wanting to ask questions. It was one thing to be mildly insistent she be called Kate, but expecting reciprocal informality was something else again.
The woman pushed her hair back and lifted a frame from the slender-legged table behind the sofa. It was a front porch shot of Mrs. Hylton-Wise, the Paul McCartney look-alike and the three children. She pointed at the smiling faces with a clear-polished fingernail. “My daughter Regina is the oldest. James Junior is next. That’s my husband—his name was James Paul just like Paul McCartney’s. It was so amazing that he looked like him, too.” She stopped for a moment, looking at the photograph with softened eyes, then went on. “Jim died five years ago. We were packing up the apartment in Manhattan to move here permanently. He was so excited, because even though he’d grown up in Tribeca, he was a country boy at heart. It was the happiest he’d been since...well, in a very long time. But he went back to the office after dinner to do some paperwork and had a massive heart attack. He died sitting at his desk.”
“I’m sorry.” Kate waited for the rest of the story. And dreaded it. The pain in the room had become almost a palpable thing, with a heartbeat and a heavy ache of its own.
Crystalline tears sparkled in Mrs. Hylton-Wise’s eyes, dropping to land on the soft turquoise blouse she wore. She touched the picture of the little girl with Down syndrome. “This is our youngest child. She was born when I was forty-one—quite a surprise, I can tell you! Her name was Skylar Margaret, but we called her Bright Sky.” She laughed, a silvery joyous sound Kate hadn’t heard before. “When we bought this house, she and Jim considered it theirs, I think—the rest of us were only allowed to stay on sufferance.”
Something clicked in Kate’s mind. “Was her room the one without a door?”
Mrs. H-W nodded. “She and her daddy supervised every step of the renovations, and she was very upset that she didn’t get to have an outside door like Regina’s and Jamie’s. She loved going to church, so she asked if she could have a ‘church window’ since she couldn’t have a door. There was no way Jim was going to deny the request—Bright Sky never asked for anything—so he had it built just for her. You noticed it has a deep seat. She called it her jewelry window and would sit in it for hours at a time, touching the colors and naming them.”
“Did she name the house, too?”
“No, actually, Jamie and Regina did. They were both grown by then—in grad school—and only came here for the occasional weekend. They would tell people they were going to Bright Sky’s house, and it just caught on. It was such a happy house, and she was the cheeriest child.” Mrs. H-W’s smile was wide with memory, even as tears continued to slip down her face.
Kate handed her a tissue from the box on the table. “Would you like to sit down? You don’t have to tell me this if it’s painful.”
“It’s all right. I don’t talk about her very often. It feels rather good. Maybe enough time has finally passed.” Bright Sky’s mother sounded surprised by that. She moved away from the window to sit on the sofa. Kate joined her, feeling useless—this woman was crying and there was nothing she could do but listen to the splintery sound of heartbreak.
“We were devastated when she was born with Down syndrome, but when you have a child with disabilities you learn to cherish the aptitudes they do have, like Jayson’s abilities with growing things. Bright Sky was wonderful with animals. If she were at Kingdom Comer, she’d want to sleep with Lucy and Dirty Sally, and they’d be glad to have her. Jim found a riding academy with classes for disabled children and we took her there often. She loved it.” Her voice faded away.
“Why don’t I make some tea?” Kate got up. A natural-born hugger, she’d have loved to put her arms around the other woman—it was the kind of comfort Kate herself understood—but she was sure the embrace wouldn’t be welcomed. “You have that pretty Fiesta tea set I’ve been itching to use ever since I got here, but Ben and Mr. Hayes look down their noses at tea.” She grinned, though it felt shaky. “Much as I love Jayson, I’m not ready to trust him with china.” He was very careful, but things still slipped away from him.
“Oh, let him use the Fiesta. We got that because Bright Sky loved the colors—you’ll notice there’s only one turquoise cup. That was her favorite color and I’ve never replaced the broken ones—they’re an old color and not always easy to find. I’m sure he’ll have a favorite, too.” Mrs. H-W’s gaze met hers. “Thank you. I’d like some tea.”
Kate was surprised when the other woman followed her into the kitchen. “I love this room.” Kate put the kettle on the commercial-sized range. “Working at the inn, I’ve gotten used to cooking on six-burner stoves and having more than one oven and a prep sink. There’s even a baking station. The kitchen in the living quarters at A Day at a Time is about the size of a place mat, though it’s arranged very conveniently.”
“You probably won’t live there very long, will you?”
Kate thought she probably would. Marriage and family weren’t looking all that likely, nor was winning the Vermont Lottery—she’d heard she’d have to buy tickets to win. But she didn’t think Mrs. Hylton-Wise was familiar with the paycheck-to-paycheck financial concept, and now didn’t seem to be a good time to educate her.
“I don’t know. If I stay a long time, I’ll build on. The lot’s plenty big enough.” Though she didn’t want to live there at all—one night in a guest room in Bright Sky had shown her that. Starting a company was exciting, as was the new building that housed the business, but she didn’t want to live in it. She thought she would always smell fire there.
Kate carried the tea tray outside, and they drank Earl Grey and ate snickerdoodles in the shadow of Wish Mountain. They made desultory conversation about cookie recipes and Kate’s preference for electric ovens over gas, but eventually Mrs. H-W picked up the threads of her story she’d started telling earlier.
“Bright Sky went to a private school in the city. Max drove her on inclement days, but the rest of the time, someone walked with her. It was only eight blocks, and she loved being outside. Usually Jim took her when he went to work, or sometimes Max’s wife did—she’s our housekeeper.” Mrs. Hylton-Wise stopped to sip her tea and gaze at the mountain. Her hands trembled when she set down her turquoise cup.
“Please.” Kate covered the other woman’s shaking fingers. “You don’t have to.” Please don’t. I don’t want to hear this.
It was as though the other woman didn’t hear her, though she turned her hand to hold tight to Kate’s. “I picked her up that Wednesday—we went for manicures and vanilla shakes. She was so excited and proud of her nails. There was a dog walker ahead of us on the sidewalk with a whole starburst of little dogs, and she was excited about that, too. One of the leashes broke and Cedric, the Pomeranian who lived in the apartment above ours, ran toward the street.”
Mrs. Hylton-Wise stopped for a moment. She released Kate’s hands, sipped more tea, stared once again toward the mountain that rose like a sentinel behind the house. Kate fancied she could hear the other woman’s heart beating. The t
hought made her lay a protesting hand on her own chest.
“Even now, fifteen years later, I see it all in slow motion like in a movie. So many things were happening. A bicycle rode right into the cluster of dogs. A taxi came to a stop just as another car pulled out of a parking space. A tour bus, one of the hop-on-hop-off ones, was across the street. People were loading onto it. A horse-drawn carriage came around the corner. The dog walker remained calm, but it seemed as though everyone else on the sidewalk was screaming and shouting. Bright Sky got away from me and caught Cedric. She cried out, ‘Look, Mama, I got him’ and then got the most confused look on her face. She took a few more steps toward me, then she just collapsed.” Her voice grew scratchy and quiet as she talked. By the time she finished, it was scarcely more a scrape on the silence. Kate had to lean toward her to hear.
“We knew she had heart issues, even though she’d had the surgery that was recommended when she was a baby. She’d done so well and we tried to take such good care of her. There hadn’t been any symptoms of anything out of the ordinary. It was a blessing, I suppose, that she never suffered. But you always think there will be profound last words or thoughts when you lose someone. Jim had that—his last words to her were that he loved her. Mine were ‘Hold my hand, Bright Sky. We need to get home.’ I’ve never quite forgiven myself for that.”
Kate refilled their teacups. She knew if she tried to talk right that minute, she’d be in a wallow of unhelpful tears. This then was why Mrs. H-W had reacted so negatively when she first met Jayson—he reminded her of what she’d lost.
They sat in silence for a moment; grief was the elephant in the room. Finally, when her cup was empty again, Kate cleared her throat. “The manicure and the vanilla shake. Those were treats for her?”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Hylton-Wise smiled brightly, though her eyes were still tragic. “She loved ice cream, and having her nails done made her feel so grown-up. Regina used to do them for her, but I was always too clumsy and would end up cutting her fingertips, so I took her for manicures instead.”
“Then I think that’s pretty profound. Like Jayson. He loves anyone who will ride bikes with him, and he doesn’t care if it’s only around the block and that he falls off on the corners. He doesn’t remember what’s in the funny pages, but he remembers that you read them to him. They might not have been the last words you’d have wanted to say to her, but taking her for ice cream and nails—that was perfect.”
Kate got up, placing the cups on the tray with the empty teapot. “Are you staying out here tonight, Mrs. H-W? I’ll be glad to prepare dinner for us if you are.” That wasn’t exactly true—as things were, Ben was taking her out to dinner—but she didn’t want to leave the house’s owner alone.
“No, I’m going back to the inn.” Mrs. H-W got up, too. “But thank you for listening to me.” She smiled at Kate. “I think you should call me Maggie.”
* * *
“HOKEY SMOKES, SHE’S wearing a dress.” Ben stood inside the front door of Bright Sky, staring as Kate came down the stairs in something short, black and sparkly. She was even wearing stockings, sheer and black, and they had sparkles in them, too. Oh, yeah, hokey smokes at least and roaring crazy bonfire at most. Her hair was clipped back, though strands had already worked their way loose to fall in shiny tendrils on her neck, forehead and the sides of her cheeks. She wore more makeup than she usually did. Her eyes seemed bigger, her cheekbones just...wow, cheekbones. Her lips looked glossy and inviting. Even her jewelry—all delicate silver—looked inviting. He thought, watching her walk down to him, that he knew how the chain would feel between his fingers, warm from her skin. And how that skin would feel.
“Isn’t it great?” She did a little spin that set the dress shimmering around her legs. Narrow jeweled straps crossed her bare, golden-skinned back to hold the front of the dress in place. Whoa, make that a forest fire instead.
“Yeah,” he said. “Great.” Yes, sir, eight years of post-high-school education and twelve years in a metropolitan hospital had lent him such an air of sophistication. His eloquence was downright amazing.
She did a little Bojangles Robinson–Shirley Temple dance on the stairs.
“Do you have a curfew, Cinderella?” he asked, taking her hand when she reached the bottom of the stairs. “Seems to me a dress like that calls for dancing somewhere besides the steps.” What was he saying? He only danced at McGuffey’s. But the woman with the silky caramel-colored hair and the—hokey smokes, what a dress—yeah, dancing would be good.
“Why, no, I don’t. We’ve rewritten the story for the occasion.” She gave her head a little toss. “My wicked stepsisters—that would be Penny, Joann and Marce—are taking care of the ashes for me.” She looked past him at the grandfather clock near the door. “Of course, I do have a tendency to fall asleep along about ten o’clock, so we might want to get going.”
He wished he’d driven Patrick’s turning-forty-panic present from Wendy, a shiny red convertible that would have looked really good with the woman in the sparkly black dress inside. But his older brother would have wanted Ben to sign over the contents of his retirement account before handing him the keys. At least his black SUV was clean and a color-coordinated foil for the woman in the shimmery dress.
On the way to Burlington, they talked about A Day at a Time, why he was a doctor instead of a has-been downhill skier and how they would change Bright Sky if they lived there.
“I like that it’s a log structure and that there’s not a single piece of furniture in the place with a sharp corner on it. It’s kind of retro, in the best possible way.” Ben grinned over at her. “I think that fireplace in the kitchen screams to get rid of the dishwasher and that big stove. They modernize the room way too much. And that three-season room off the kitchen? Perfect place for storing bicycles and skis and snowshoes.”
She pushed at his arm, the warmth of her fingers flowing soft and inviting through the fabric of his shirt. “You couldn’t be any more wrong, tall guy. Although, now that you mention retro, that huge flat-screen TV and pool table in the family room in the basement would have to go, wouldn’t they?”
“Not far, they wouldn’t.”
“So.” She turned a little sideways in the seat, drawing her knee up so that the shimmering stockings glinted against the leather. “What are you going to do at summer’s end? Do you know yet? Go back to Boston? Stay in Fionnegan? Become an aging ski bum who practices medicine in his off time?” A shadow crossed her expression so quickly he might have imagined it. “Summers end, whether we like it or not.”
And we don’t like it. Not the least little bit. “I don’t know,” he said, although he thought he probably did. “I like what I’m doing just fine, you know. A day or two a week in the big city. I can spend time with the folks when they get home and help at the bar even after Dylan’s had to go back to work and Morgan’s back in school.”
“But you’re going to get tired of the traveling back and forth. I know it’s not that far, but it adds up when you do it twice a week. It’ll get old.”
It already had, Ben thought, but didn’t say. He’d given serious thought to getting his pilot’s license just because he was tired of making the drive to Boston and back. Going on the train was fun, but it was a long ride and got lonesome. He’d taken flying lessons in recent years—finishing the process wouldn’t take too long. But he knew himself well enough to realize that if he had a license to fly, he’d want a plane, too, which would really be a mortal blow to his retirement account.
“It’s okay. It’s a pretty drive and I get to sing real loud with the Beatles—I’ve learned all the words to the songs on the White Album. I listen to some course work, too, for when I get to be a real doctor.”
She raised her eyebrows. “As opposed to a fake one?”
“As opposed to one who doesn’t keep up with things that change. There’s way too much of that going around.” He slowed as they reached Burlington’s city limits. “Want to shop a little on Church Stree
t before we eat? You’d be the best-dressed person in the sock store, guaranteed.”
“Sure.”
It was the best date he’d had in years, other than the evening walks around Fionnegan with Kate and Lucy. In the shops on Church Street he bought her a wind chime and a signed Will Moses print. She got him two new pairs of his favorite kind of wool socks.
They ate at an Italian restaurant whose name had multitudinous stars and dollar signs assigned to it on the internet, finishing off a half bottle of wine that cost more than a case of McGuffey’s biggest seller. They ordered different entrées, forking samples from each other’s plates, and shared a dessert.
“I wonder if the chef here would like to moonlight at A Day at a Time,” she mused, scraping the last of the truffle banana cake from its plate. “He could do birthday parties for adults and I would be his first customer.”
Ben snorted laughter. “Come on. Let’s go find someplace to dance.”
They walked on the well-lit sidewalks, her heels clicking soft and rhythmic beside him, her hand in his. When they laughed, which they did often, her head bumped against his arm. He thought he could still feel the day’s sunshine in her hair.
When they got to a club where the music was loud but inviting, spilling into the street so that people who were walking by did so with some bounce in their step, Ben and Kate went inside, paid the cover charge and looked around for a table. There wasn’t one available, so he swept her onto the dance floor.
“How often do you wonder where we’d be if it hadn’t been for that night in McGuffey’s when I was so sure I was doing the right thing for both of us?” he asked, when the music became quieter and slower but still beat hot and sweet between them at every spot where their bodies touched.
She shrugged, a move that sent an echoing shimmer right through him. “Not often,” she said in a voice so quiet he had to bend his head closer to hers. “Only every single day.”
