A Katherine Reay Collection

by Katherine Reay

  James seated his grandmother and stepped back to Lucy. “Will you let me know if you find him? We’re on a flight out of Heathrow tomorrow.”

  “I may be right behind you. Who knows?”

  James leaned over and laid a kiss on her cheek, lingering there longer than necessary. Lucy felt his lips move against her skin, “Take care.”

  “You too.” She turned into his cheek. “And thank you again.”

  “Always.”

  Without another look or word, he dropped into the backseat next to Helen, and Dillon smoothly pulled the car across the gravel drive and onto the road. Lucy stood until she could no longer hear it rolling over the cobblestones.

  Bette bumped her shoulder. “Why don’t you head out for a walk and then we’ll have lunch together at noon. I’ll make us a couple sandwiches.”

  “I’d like that. I never did get to Top Withens.”

  Bette pointed to a path leading around to the back of the inn. “Follow that up behind the Parsonage and the signage will begin. You can’t miss it.”

  Lucy stopped. There wasn’t another path; she couldn’t have taken a wrong turn. She groaned, picked up her pace, and crested the next rise. She knew Top Withens was a ruin, and Bette said she couldn’t miss it. But it wasn’t anywhere! There weren’t even any signs. Lucy picked up her pace again, now cantering to the next pasture.

  Twenty more minutes and she reached a low stone wall. The ground beyond dipped into a field of amber tipping to green in the morning sun. It rolled in waves until . . . A gray stone blob glinting in the sun caught her eye. Top Withens.

  Lucy scampered over the wall and ran across the grass to the path. Clearly she’d missed a turn, perhaps several. The sign on the path delineated the entire walking circuit in a single line: Haworth to Ponden Hall, known to be Thrushcross Grange, the Linton home in Wuthering Heights, to Top Withens, the Earnshaw-turned-Heathcliff home, and back again. Lucy studied it briefly, certain she’d added a wrong turn within Stanbury Moor, then had doubled back through what appeared to be Haworth Moor. The four miles had spanned to six, possibly seven.

  But there it was, directly below her. A glorious ruin with only low stone walls showing where the home used to sit. She grinned and marched down the short slope. She grinned because it needed to be a ruin—just as it was. Even in fiction, nothing could have survived Cathy and Heathcliff. The house needed to die, with the time, with the story, and with their love—as if their deaths had felled everything around them and returned to the windswept and wuthering moor.

  There were a few other hikers walking around chatting, but no one broke the general stillness and no one approached her. Lucy stood, ambled, rested on a small wall, then circled the structure and did it all over again, running her hands over the stones.

  Her comment to Helen came to her. If I made it sound like it was for you, then I’d get my way and you’d never know. She tilted her head. How long had she lived like that? Her mom . . . Teachers . . . Friends . . . Sid . . . If everyone got what they wanted, were pleased with the result and with her for accomplishing it, why should they pay attention to the process? To her? Why, in fact, did the process matter?

  She sank onto the wall. Because it does. It mattered just as James’s regard mattered, Bette’s smile mattered, Helen’s health mattered, Dillon’s good humor mattered. The untouchables that reached into a life and defined it mattered. Every choice mattered. And respecting the best in each and what they called from within her—her best—mattered. And if all of those went away, vanished in the night, she’d be left with the sum of her actions, the life she created, and that mattered.

  Lucy tried to push away the battering ram of thoughts and enjoy the moment. She was here. Her own pilgrimage to her own sacred spot. She should be able to look across the moor and feel Cathy. Sense Heathcliff. Share with Helen or Agnes. Witness Jane fall down in a faint—emptied—having turned her back on Rochester and his tempting promises of love and travel . . . She’d made a choice . . .

  Lucy was right back where she started. She couldn’t escape into fiction because that’s what the Brontës did best—convey truth within their stories. They pushed characters through choice and change, making them pay the consequences for bad decisions and only giving them that elusive happy ending when they got it right and rose from the crucible cleansed, strong, and whole. They spared nothing. The crucible was hot. It was death for some. Enduring great cruelty for others. Fire for one. Illness for many.

  And Lucy found it. A character that made sense; a journey with enough profundity to grasp. EdwardFairfax Rochester. She’d pushed away comparisons to James. That wasn’t his story—it was hers. Rochester couldn’t move—could never move—forward because he hadn’t gone back. He hadn’t laid down his sin and accepted that there was an absolute right.

  But he found it. He ran across the ramparts. He reached for Bertha, accepting all that he was and all he had been, and he paid with his eyes, with his hand, and with his heart. And to show her approval, her seal upon his life and choices, Charlotte had given him the glorious ending.

  Lucy reached in her bag and pulled out the book, knowing exactly where to search. I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto.

  There it was. Mercy. Grace. And just as she’d told James, fiction conveyed change and truth and was loved and digested again and again because it reflected the worst, the best, and all the moments in between of the human experience.

  Lucy pushed herself off the wall and strode down the path, heading straight back to the inn, without faltering to the right or the left, with another of Jane Eyre’s words in her mind.

  Resurgam . . . I will rise again.

  Chapter 28

  The bus crested the hill and Lucy sat straight as the village opened beneath her. Bowness-on-Windermere. It was tight, quaint, and cute snuggled against the water. It danced in dappled sunshine, let kids run through its streets, and maintained its decorum. It was Wordsworth; it was Potter; it was Austen.

  The brakes squealed to a stop right at the water’s edge and Lucy felt as if the final step would dump her into the small harbor. There were at least a hundred petite wooden boats docked on piers waiting for tourists to paddle out into the waters in search of swans or adventure. She turned away from the water. Where to begin?

  Her eye lit upon a large bunny hanging from a window. It wore a robin’s-egg-blue coat and sported straight, tall ears. Peter Rabbit. She strode toward it and found herself at the bottom of steep stone stairs looking up to The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction. Across the street she found The Old John Peel Inn. She checked in, left her bag with the doorman, and within a quarter of an hour, found herself back at Beatrix Potter, hopping up the steps. She briefly wondered if her search might wait—just for a moment. After all, there were friends to be met and adventures revisited.

  But the moment she reached the exhibit’s green lattice gate, she discovered only one question emerged. “Do you know an Anthony Alling?”

  “Here, love?” The woman waved a finger around the gift shop. “I don’t know the name.”

  Lucy added a few details, received the same reply, and then wove her way back through the shop. Down the stairs she ducked into The Tailor of Gloucester Tea Room and ordered a scone and a cup of tea.

  When it arrived, she tried again. “Do you know an Anthony Alling? He lives here and has green eyes and dark, maybe gray hair.”

  The older woman shook her head, laid down the plate, and walked away.

  She returned, once a few customers left, to wipe down a nearby table. “Are you looking for lost family?”

  “Not lost,” Lucy replied. “He knows exactly where he is.”

  The woman laughed. “Isn’t that the way of it? A boyfriend? A brother?”

  “A father.” Lucy took a sip of tea.

  The woman balled the rag between her hands. “Once you finish y
our cup, you should head to the Belsfield Hotel on Kendal Road. You’ll not miss it. Most people pass through there one way or another, either for accommodations or for work.”

  “Thank you.” Lucy burned her throat as she threw back the last of her tea, grabbed the rest of her scone, and charged out the door.

  On the way up the hill, she stepped into several shops and received the same blank looks and solemn head shakes. Two shopkeepers suggested the Belsfield as well, so she kept on. But between three waiters, two receptionists, and the Belsfield’s concierge, she was no closer to finding him.

  The sun dipped over the lake as she headed back down the hill. She stopped at a bench near the water and pitched the last crumbs of her scone to the swans. How tall is he? Do you have a picture? What does he do? When did you last see him? She closed her eyes. There were so many questions she couldn’t answer. And so many she didn’t want to. When one receptionist had asked precisely about his height, she’d replied, “When I was eight, he was this much taller than me.” She had held her hand about a foot over her head before realizing how ridiculous it looked.

  When the swans devoured the last nibble and waddled after a Dutch family, she pulled out her phone.

  “Good morning. Hmm . . . It’s evening your time. Are you back in London?”

  “I’m in Bowness-on-Windermere, Mom.”

  “Your e-mail said you were going back to London. Isn’t that a little hard on Helen?” Lucy had to give her mom credit. She was working hard to keep her tone light—only the slight flattening of the vowels gave her tension—and disapproval—away.

  “James arrived and took her back to London. He sent me on.”

  “James. Is. There.” She said it slowly, chewing through the implications.

  “He took Helen to London this morning. But yes, he was in Haworth with us and I told him everything—even that I had successfully manipulated his old, sweet, sick grandmother into coming to the Lake District. It’s not like he could think less of me.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s not true.”

  “He could think less of me?”

  “Lucy.” Her mother moaned as if their age-old game was too tiring. Perhaps it was.

  “I’ll stop. He was decent about it, Mom. I don’t know what he thinks, but that doesn’t matter so much. I’m beginning to think it’s more important that I told him for me. I can’t control what he does next.”

  “I agree with that.”

  Her mom fell silent again and Lucy knew she was waiting. She was a master at waiting, drawing people out by being still, being quiet, and truly listening.

  “I can’t find him. I’ve wandered all over this town and it’s tiny, by the way, asking people all these stupid questions, and I can’t find him.”

  “He may not be there. What if he was passing through?”

  “He wasn’t. It’s Rio, Mom. He’d stay.” Lucy crumpled the scone bag in her fist.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s from Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, one of his—our—favorite books. The town is called Rio in the story, but it’s Bowness. I think if he mailed the package from here, it’s because he’s here. He wouldn’t pick some other random lakeside village. He’s either here or all Europe opens up, the whole world opens up, and I need to give up now.”

  “How long will you look?”

  “Today was pretty frustrating and it’s only been a few hours. You should’ve heard me. It was basically”—Lucy raised her voice to a baby-doll pitch—“ ‘Have you seen my daddy? He’s got green eyes, but that’s all I know ’cause he left me when I was eight and he’s never written a letter, but I got a book, with a postmark . . .’ It was pathetic.”

  Her mom chortled softly. “I’m so sorry. That does sound horrible. Do I tell you to quit?”

  Lucy skipped the question to ask her own. “What if he knows? What if he’s heard me asking or heard about me asking and doesn’t want to see me?”

  “Lucy.” Her mom’s tone signaled a lecture. “I need you to hear me. I’ve let you romanticize your father for a long time now, maybe too long, because I thought it was important. Every girl needs a dad, even if he’s terribly flawed. And there were the books. He reached out every year and I thought that was good, but it’s not healthy.”

  She drew a long breath; the exhale blew across the ocean. “You are the one searching for him. He hasn’t come back ever for you. Remember that. It’s harsh, but it’s true. And if by some miracle, you’re right and you find him, then you must accept him for who he is and not who you want him to be—and not as someone who can have any power over you. You don’t need his approval. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” Lucy whispered.

  “And if you don’t find him, are you willing to let it go, come back, and live your life?”

  Lucy closed her eyes and saw James. Call me crazy, but I say we leave it all here. We take none of this home. “Yes.”

  “That lacked conviction.”

  “I’m borrowing some, but it’s enough.” Lucy rushed on, not willing to explain. “If there aren’t any leads by tomorrow, I’ll catch an afternoon train to Heathrow.”

  “I wish I could help you.”

  “You always help, Mom.” Lucy gazed out across the water. “I feel like if I could see him, I could put all this behind me and stop making the same mistakes. I’d get unstuck and I want that, Mom. I need that now.”

  “He won’t be able to give that to you even if he’s cleaned up his act. And what if he hasn’t? Lucy . . . Have you thought this through?”

  “Sort of.” Lucy wiped under her eyes with the palm of her hand then flipped it over to wipe her nose. She knew her mom heard the snuffle when an “Oh, sweetheart” danced lightly to her ear.

  Unable to stop more tears, Lucy pressed her thumb and finger into the inside corners of her eyes. “I have to go, Mom. I’ll call you later.”

  She tapped off her phone and shoved it into her bag. She then strolled back up Crag Brow and bought a ticket for The World of Beatrix Potter, wanting nothing more than to push through the green lattice gate and get lost for an hour.

  Lucy wandered through the displays, delighted with the life-size replicas of Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, and all her childhood favorites displayed in diorama fashion. She patted Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle on the head, walked the lane toward Mr. McGregor’s garden, and caught a glimpse of Squirrel Nutkin scurrying away without his tail. The exhibit ended at the statue of young Beatrix Potter releasing Jemima Puddleduck to the sky, looking happy and free. Lucy patted that too. You did good, Bea.

  “Lucy?”

  She froze, instinctively understanding the moment’s significance. Twenty years in the making and she couldn’t turn to face him too quickly. She felt her heart pound in her ears. If he’d said something more, she missed it within the roar inside her head.

  She slowly spun and there he stood—only inches taller than herself and slighter than she’d remembered. He was delicate, like a distance runner, and smaller boned than even herself. His dark hair was cut short on the sides with gray dusting above the ears. She studied his mouth. He had the same mobile thin lips that she remembered always moving, smiling, curling around a new accent, or pursing in concentration.

  “It’s been a long time,” he said. His voice too—she recognized it with such clarity that he might have called her name yesterday and every day for the past twenty years.

  She glanced up to his eyes and startled herself with the reflection of her own. Her mother had never said anything—and yet she had to have seen. Each and every time she looked at Lucy, she must have seen him. The similarity went beyond color. Identical arched brows—the right forming a V rather than a U at its apex—framed their deep-set green eyes.

  He nodded at her. “I’d recognize you anywhere.”

  “And me you.” She bit her lip, slowly letting it drag through her teeth. “How did you find me? Who told you I was here?”

  “Joyce, at the tea shop, said
someone was looking for me. She said, ‘your daughter.’ It could only be you.” He tilted his head back to the exhibit. “And this was a fair place to start.”

  “She said she didn’t know you.”

  “She wasn’t sure. I go by Montrose now. It was my mum’s maiden name.” He stared a few seconds more. “Where are you staying?”

  Lucy pointed across the street. “I got a room at The Old John Peel Inn. I liked the name. I had reservations at the Belsfield, but . . . Plans changed and their rooms were too expensive for just me . . . I’m babbling.”

  “The John Peel is clean, but the food . . . I’d rather take you somewhere more comfortable. You . . . You will have dinner with me, won’t you?”

  “You’re the reason I’m here.”

  “I’m glad.” He spread his arm before him. “Come on then. We have some catching up to do.”

  She fell into step beside him, saying nothing, simply glancing at him every few moments to convince herself he was real, and that he was handsome and trustworthy looking. She noted the incongruity of linking those but found she didn’t care. He could be all three, but she only required the first and the last.

  He walked down the hill to Ash Street and turned right. “It’s a little touristy, but Don’s a good man. He saves me a table when he can.”

  Lucy followed him under the black awnings of Hyltons to a table in a side alcove. She thought back to Domestique in Chicago, with the one alcove and its incongruent 1950s wooden table amidst the sleek postmodern decor. That alcove matched this entire restaurant. The whole place held the same warm and worn aesthetic. Servers moved in between tight tables while at least three different languages mingled in Lucy’s ears. “This really is a tourist town.”

  “Plenty of visitors, tours, tearooms, and treats. You name it, we’ve got it.” Her father raised his brows as he walked around the table and took the chair in the corner, looking out into the restaurant. Lucy sat across from him.

  “You’ve grown so much. Look at you, you’re an adult.” He leaned forward and rubbed his fingers across the tabletop. “I knew you were, of course, but in my mind, you’re still eight. Each and every year on your birthday, you are eight.”