The Taste of Air

by Gail Cleare

  Bridget looked relieved. “Well, what did you have in mind?”

  “Actually I was thinking of a little place…” Mary’s voice drifted off as she tried to figure out how to open the subject.

  “Like the new senior community in South Amherst? Maplewood?” Bridget leaned toward her and nodded. “We were thinking the same thing. It would be perfect, Mom. It’s close by, so you’d be near your friends. There are some two – and three-bedroom townhouses with nice little gardens. You’d have as much independence as you want, but if you need help with anything, there’s always someone around to call. No mowing the lawn, no worrying about trash pickup or whatever.” Bridget had obviously been doing her homework. “You could take your car too. They have garages.” She stopped to sip her wine, staring expectantly at her mother.

  Mary tried to be a good sport. “That sounds lovely, dear. Maybe we should drive over there tomorrow and take a look. I’ll see if I like it. One of your dad’s associates is a realtor. He can give us an appraisal on the house. Then we’ll see how it looks financially.”

  Bridget smiled, and it was like sunshine coming out from behind the clouds. Mary was struck, as always, by how beautiful her daughter was both inside and out, though the young woman didn’t know it.

  Nell came over and stood behind Bridget. “Are you talking about… what we were saying? What do you think, Mom?”

  “I think you two are going to take very good care of me.” Mary looked at her daughters with loving eyes. “But don’t worry too much, please. One of these days I just might surprise you.”

  But not now. I can’t tell them with all these people here. They’re both so intent on parenting me. It’s wonderful. Best to wait until the right time.

  Nell and Bridget exchanged a glance that communicated victory.

  “Let’s all drink to it, shall we?” Bridget raised her glass.

  “To Mom’s new home, wherever it may be.” Nell touched her glass to her mother’s.

  They clinked and drank, and the house throbbed with life as everyone who had loved or hated Thomas Reilly celebrated his passing, and his widow planned her next step toward freedom.

  Chapter 17

  Nell ~ 2014

  Nell kissed Mom good night and went outside as the sun slid down toward the rim of the mountains, making long shadows on the town green.

  Stopping by the little market in the center of town on her way home, Nell bought a pound of ground beef, salad greens, and a loaf of fresh-baked bread for dinner, which would happen whenever her sister might appear. Everything else she needed for spaghetti was already in the kitchen cupboards. She picked out a bottle of red wine, and on second thought, made it two.

  On the way home, she rolled down the windows of her car and let the sweet air flood the inside. Her mouth watered as the vibrant green scent filled her body. Feeling her eyelids flutter, Nell shook herself back alert.

  As she drove along the lakeside road, the bold orange sunset was shining on the water, and its dazzling rays bounced into her face. She pulled down the visor and held one hand over her squinted eyes, slowing down. A small, four-legged form scurried across the road right in front of her, silhouetted against the inferno.

  Nell slammed on the brakes, and the tires squealed. She felt a sickening thump.

  Her heart pounded as she shoved the gearshift into park, wrenched the car door open, and leaped into the road. Nell staggered around to the front of the car and stared at the wheels.

  In front of the car was a large tree limb.

  Nell’s relief was so enormous that her head spun for a moment. A small snorting noise came from nearby. She raised her eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath.

  Standing in the middle of the road, wagging his tail and smiling at her with his white teeth and pink tongue making a happy curve, was Winston.

  “Want to play?” his body language said. He ran over and tugged at the tree limb, tail wagging. He tried to drag it off into the grass.

  “Winston, what are you doing in the road? No, no, no. Oh, you bad little sweetie. Oh, my good boy,” Nell crooned, picking him up to hug him.

  “Sorry about that,” came a voice from the shore. “I should have kept a closer eye on him. Guess he saw you coming. You’ve got him charmed, you know.” Adam stood silhouetted by the fiery light. He’d been waiting on the dock across the street from Mary’s house. Nell noticed that his truck was parked at the curb.

  “How’s your mother?” He walked up to scratch Winston behind the ear as the dog snuggled in Nell’s arms. His hand smelled like furniture polish and lemons.

  “Good,” she said. “Improved.” Nell looked up at his face and felt that sense of déjà vu again. He must look like someone on TV.

  She admired his square jaw line and high cheekbones, his even white teeth and full lips. His eyes were bright, sky blue. And they were looking at her with a warm expression that comforted her like a badly needed hug.

  “I stopped by to see Ellie earlier, while you were out. She does seem better, I think.”

  She nodded, blinked back tears, and swallowed, unwilling to trust her voice at that moment.

  “Need some help?” Adam asked, looking at the grocery bags in her car.

  “Sure.” She got back into the driver’s seat to pull into the driveway. Winston rode the short distance as her copilot, sitting on her lap with his head poking out the window. Nell parked and unlocked the front door, bringing the groceries through into the kitchen.

  Helping her empty the bags onto the counter, Adam motioned toward the lake with his head. “You need to see this sunset. It’s outrageous.”

  “I’d love to,” she said, pulling out the wine. “Why don’t we open one of these? I got it for my sister, but there’s plenty.”

  “Your sister?” Adam pulled open the cooking-tools drawer to get a corkscrew. Nell realized he knew this kitchen much better than she did.

  “Bridget is flying up to join me tonight.” She watched for his reaction.

  His eyes sparkled, and he grinned, one eyebrow raised. “Another beautiful Reilly woman? Can’t wait to meet her.”

  “Yeah, well, she wants to meet you too. You should join us for dinner.”

  “Bring it on.” He popped the cork out of the bottle.

  Nell found some plastic cups and held them while he poured. She checked to make sure her mobile phone was in her pocket. The nurses had promised to call if there was any change.

  “You want to come watch the sunset too?” she asked Winston. He broke into a grin and wagged his tail. “You have to be good, you know. You cannot run into the street.”

  His ears flicked down, and he hung his head, peeking up at her from under his eyebrows. She picked up the leash just in case.

  She grabbed her sunglasses as they went out the front door to stroll across to the dock. The narrow, sandy road was quiet, not a car in sight. “There’s a lot more traffic where I live.”

  Adam followed her across the street. “New Jersey?”

  “You know a lot about my family, don’t you?” She turned to see his reaction.

  “Ellie used to show me your pictures all the time when I was young. We talked about you.” Adam led the way toward two folding chairs perched on the end of the dock.

  “I wish we had known about you too,” Nell said. “I feel really weird about that. Kind of… mad.”

  “At your mother?”

  She nodded. “For keeping it all such a secret, not sharing this place with us. We would have loved to come here. I just don’t get it.”

  “I didn’t realize for a long time that she had kept the house a secret. It did seem funny that you girls were never here, even in the summers, but I didn’t think about it much. Kind of got used to it.”

  The sky had darkened to glowing crimson streaks, reflected in th
e glassy water below. The pines surrounding the lake looked flat and black, like jagged paper cutouts. Their zigzag shape etched a double-edged horizon that separated the two mirrored worlds.

  Adam and Nell looked out at the flaming vista. The air itself was tinted red. Nell took a deep breath and let the magic wash over her. Her mind still flickered with intense images of her mother’s pale face, but she could smell the rich, dark soil, the water, and the coming night, cool and soothing. A loud plop in the grasses near the dock reverberated across the ripples. There were no mosquitoes to bother them yet, but fish were rising to feed. The voice of a distant frog sounded, quickly answered by many others.

  Sipping her wine, Nell basked in the glow. Adam did the same, and they sat in easy silence for a while. Winston lay at their feet, gazing out over the lake.

  “Why do you think she did it?” Nell said.

  “Your mom? I never asked.”

  “Me, neither. Yet. But I will, soon as she can talk. And what’s the deal with your dad and my mother?”

  “What do you mean?” he said, turning to look at her. “He’s known her a long time. Always been dazzled by her, I guess. So was my mom. So was I. When Ellie was around, we were always celebrating holidays, birthdays, at my folks’ house or down at the town beach, with all the neighbors and a big gang of kids. Everybody loves her.”

  They sipped and lounged a while longer. The air grew cooler as the sun went down, and Nell rubbed her arms but was reluctant to leave the view.

  “What was your father like?” Adam said.

  “Dad? Sweet, wonderful, super smart, kind of melodramatic sometimes.”

  “Family man, eh?”

  “Exactly. There at every basketball game and school play, cheering us on.” Nell remembered how her father used to whistle and hoot when the team scored, leading cheers from the parents in the stands. He had gone even crazier if the basket was hers, and she always knew he was proud. It was worth the long hours of practice and training just for that.

  “Chasing away the boyfriends, Nell?” Adam teased.

  “Yes, mostly Bridget’s, though. Mine were pretty mild mannered.”

  Adam laughed and raised one eyebrow. “No bad boys on your dance card?”

  “No, only honor students with glasses and sweaty palms.” Nell smiled.

  “Those are the most dangerous guys,” he said. “All that pent-up sexual tension.”

  They both grinned.

  “Dad was great,” Nell continued, “if a little on the strict side. He was kind of a big shot in town, and I was proud of him. I worked hard to do as well in school as he wanted. His confidence in my ability spurred me along. I got into a great college on a scholarship. I won a summer internship with the New York Times. Then he started to get sick. After that, things got really bad, and it was hard to go home.”

  “How old were you?”

  “About eighteen at the beginning. A freshman at Vassar.”

  “So you weren’t living at home?” he asked.

  “Only on vacations and holidays. I noticed it first that summer.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a thunderstorm coming.” Nell stared out across the water, remembering it so clearly that a sudden pang of loss twisted her stomach. “He kept nagging me to put the convertible into the garage before it rained…” Her voice faltered. “He wouldn’t stop asking me, over and over, so finally I went out to do it. But the car was already in the garage.” She looked at Adam.

  “You mean he’d done it himself?”

  She took off her sunglasses to look at him more directly. “There was nobody else home.”

  “So he’d just spaced out?”

  Her throat tightened and she wanted to cry, even though so much time had passed since that day. Her voice came out with an emotional crackle in it. “Adam, it’s more than just spacing out when you completely forget something physical you’ve done just minutes before. It’s a blackout.”

  “My father has had those, too, but he always did it on purpose.” He punched her gently on the arm then slid his hand around to pat her on the back. “That must have been rough, Nell.”

  “He had Alzheimer’s. It got much worse. That day was the beginning of the end. He was never the same.” Nell closed her eyes. There was a blazing red world of light behind her eyelids.

  “Maybe that was why she did it.” His voice came out of the flames.

  “Because it was so awful?”

  “Yeah. To get away.”

  “From Daddy?” Nell demanded, her eyes flying open. A spark of anger toward her mother smoldered again. “She could have done that and not lied to all the rest of us. And anyhow, the worst of Daddy’s illness was much later. She had been coming up here for a while by then. There are earlier dates stamped on some of those photographs.”

  Adam sat back in his chair and sipped wine. “Maybe she saw the signs before you did. Maybe she wanted to get away from the fact that it was happening.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Nell snapped. Obviously, her concerns about her mother’s secrecy weren’t important to him. “What’s your point?”

  “What I mean is…” He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Up here where nobody knew about it, she could pretend it wasn’t true.”

  Nell’s anger deflated in the face of that statement. He could be right. Every time her mother had looked into Nell’s or Bridget’s eyes, she’d have seen their pain and her own. There was no escaping it when they were all together. And everyone in their hometown had known about the situation after a while. Mary couldn’t even go to the grocery store without facing her neighbors’ kind expressions of sympathy.

  With Nell off at college and Bridget interning at a design firm in Connecticut, Mary had been at home alone with Daddy to bear the brunt of his care and the horror of the disease. There were kind people who helped, of course, personal-care assistants. Occasionally, when Nell called home back in those days, one of them would answer. When Mom went on jaunts with her girlfriends or alone to a spa, everyone thought it was healthy for her to have a little fun.

  “I wonder…” Nell mused. “Mom used to go on little trips with her friends. Every few months or so.” She and Adam exchanged looks.

  “You think she came up here instead?”

  Nell nodded, sure of it. “It’s all starting to add up. Somebody must have covered for her, probably our neighbor Charlotte Morris. She was Mom’s friend and another army nurse. They served in Vietnam together. But she died a few years ago, so I can’t ask her for the juicy details.”

  “I’ll bet if anyone knew the whole story, my mother did,” Adam said. “They were so close. It was like Ellie was part of the family.”

  At least Mom had not been alone in her time of fear and despair. She had found a safe place to indulge her grief privately without the whole town watching. A haven of solace, where her friend Ginnie helped her mime normalcy and where Mom, by acting as if everything was okay, made it so. At least for a little while.

  Had Jake been the stalwart and dashing protector of the two women? Perhaps he’d been jealous and resented sharing his wife with Mom, who needed so much attention.

  But why did Mom come up here in the first place, before things got so bad at home? Part of the mystery had been explained but not everything. And something that Adam said had rung a bell in her mind… what was that? She couldn’t remember anymore.

  The sun had gone all the way down behind the trees, and the air was cold. Their cups were empty. Winston had run off to bark at some creature in the shadows along the shore.

  “What time is Bridget coming?” Adam asked.

  “Her plane lands at around eight thirty if it’s on time. She’ll let me know.”

  “Does she need a ride here?”

  “No, she’s renting
a car.”

  “Independent, like you?”

  “You’ll be amazed.” Nell laughed. “I am a total pussycat next to my daring sister.”

  Adam looked at her and raised one eyebrow. “Can’t wait to meet her.”

  “You said that already.”

  “But now I mean it,” he said, grinning. “Before, I was just being polite.”

  They both laughed, and she squeezed his arm. “Come on, then.” Nell got up out of her chair and reached out her hand to him. “You’d better come inside and help me cook dinner. Besides, we need more wine.”

  He stood up and tightened his grasp on her, pulling her in for a quick hug.

  “Sorry this is all so hard for you, kid,” he said in a gruff voice. She felt it rumble in his chest.

  “Better quit being so nice, or I’ll cry again.”

  He kissed the top of her head. An alarm went off in the back of her mind, and she stiffened. The image of David’s face flashed in her mind, and guilt confronted her. Nothing had really happened, but the circumstances were definitely borderline suspicious. No more hugging, she vowed.

  She pulled away and took a few steps down the dock, whistling for Winston and trying to look casual. He came bounding out of the bushes and looked up at her expectantly, tail alert.

  “Time for puppy supper?” she said.

  His eyes shone, and he trotted along by her side as they crossed the road and went inside. Adam followed and closed the door behind them, flipping on the lights.

  “Want some music?” he said, walking over to the CD player on the sideboard in the living room. “Your mom has some great jazz. She used to play it at parties.”

  “Sure, I didn’t even know she liked it.” Nell frowned. “But then, apparently there are lots of things I don’t know about my mother.” She was starting to get used to that concept though it still made a swell of anxiety pulse in her chest.