Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  It was almost ten o’clock at night when Jane escorted Sadie out the front doors of the hospital. Sadie sat on a bench; she was exhausted. Although the rain had stopped, the darkened sky was heavy with the combination of moisture and summer heat. Sadie’s scalp tingled as her sweat glands woke up and went back to work.

  Jane leaned against a column as though waiting for someone.

  “Where’s your car?” Sadie asked after several seconds.

  Jane reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Sadie tried not to make a face. “I left my car at Jim Sanderson’s so I could come with you in the ambulance,” she said, putting a cigarette between her lips and digging a lighter out of the pack.

  “So, you called a taxi?”

  Jane looked at her and grinned that mischievous grin that made Sadie so nervous. “Not exactly,” she said, the cigarette bobbing up and down.

  The sound of a car engine caused Sadie to turn her head to the right as a pair of headlights swept into the pick-up area of the hospital. She was confused until she heard the transmission shift into park and the driver’s side door open. On the other side of the car, Pete’s head rose up, and his hazel eyes gave her a good look before he shut the door and came around the back of the car.

  Sadie immediately began smoothing her hair and wiping at her mouth again. “You called Pete?” she hissed, looking at Jane, who inhaled sharply on the cigarette, hollowing her cheeks as she sucked in.

  Jane blew out a steady stream of smoke. “Oh, come on, you’re thrilled he came for you.”

  Well, when she said it like that, Sadie was touched, but still, she looked like death warmed over right now.

  “Sadie,” Pete said, causing her to look up at him from where she sat on the bench.

  “Pete,” Sadie said, not sure how to act. Things hadn’t been exactly warm between them these last few days, and here she was, having escaped death . . . again . . . after going against his advice . . . again.

  Instead of helping her to her feet, he sat next to her on the bench and looked up at Jane. “Thanks for calling,” he said. “I think I can take it from here.”

  Jane nodded and started walking away.

  “Wait,” Sadie said, causing Jane to turn back as she took another drag from her cigarette. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m in Portland,” Jane said, as though that was answer enough. She pointed her face toward the sky and exhaled the smoke. “These are my people.”

  “Your . . . people? You’re from here?”

  Jane grinned. “I should be. The least I can do is my part to keep Portland weird, ya know?”

  “It’s getting late,” Sadie said, well aware that she sounded like an overprotective mother.

  Apparently, Jane thought the same thing. “I’ll be okay, Mom.” She smiled. “And don’t worry, I’ll be in touch.” She waved with her free hand as she melted into the parking lot on her way toward . . . wherever it was she was heading toward.

  “You have very interesting friends,” Pete said.

  “I do seem to be putting together quite a menagerie,” Sadie said. She turned to look up at him and managed to push all her thoughts about Jane away for the moment. “You came to Portland.”

  He smiled. “I came to Portland.”

  “To take care of me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t have to come,” Sadie said, asserting her independence and not certain that she liked the idea of being rescued. “I’m okay.”

  Pete took a deep breath and looked at her long and hard. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t need me?”

  “No,” Sadie said quickly. “I’m just saying . . . I don’t want to be a complication in your life, Pete.”

  “You’re not a complication,” he said, lifting a hand to tap her nose. “You’re a silver lining.”

  Sadie couldn’t hold back the tears that filled her eyes at the unexpected comment, and words failed her completely. But how was she supposed to trust that? It had only been a few days since she realized he’d been hiding their relationship from his kids.

  “You were right when you said I had moved on, Sadie. I know you understand better than most people that Pat will always be my first love, the mother of my children, and the woman I have always believed to be my soul mate. But she’s not here anymore, and my heart is wrapped all around you. If nothing else, this situation has shown me how silly it was to try to pretend my feelings for you weren’t something that changed my life.” He took another breath, and Sadie suddenly realized that his hand that had been on her knee was now holding her hand. “I won’t pretend that these things you keep finding yourself in the middle of don’t make me crazy, because they do, but you’ve filled in the nooks and crannies of my life, Sadie, and I can take the adventure you can’t seem to stay away from if it means I also get the meaning you bring into my life every day.”

  Sadie sniffed, ever so indelicately. “Aren’t you getting tired of us starting over all the time? We’ve been here before and—”

  “We’ve never been here,” Pete said. He leaned back on the bench, putting his left arm across her shoulders and drawing her toward him slightly. She couldn’t help but melt into him. “We’ve never been to Portland.”

  Sadie smiled at his attempt to lighten the moment. “I meant that we’ve been here before—at a crossroads in our relationship. I thought we’d already reached this understanding.”

  “And now we’ve reached another one,” Pete said. He faced her again. “I can’t control you or tell you what to do, and I need to learn to stop trying. And you need to find a way to follow this drive you have without endangering your life. Do you think you can do that?”

  “You won’t tell me not to do something?”

  Pete shook his head.

  “And your kids?”

  “Are okay.”

  Sadie blinked at him and then raised one hand to his face. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” she said quietly. “But I want it to work, I really do.”

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling as he leaned forward and placed his forehead against her own. “So do I, Sadie. Maybe we have been here before, but if all of this is part of the process of getting us to somewhere even better, if all these potholes and tangents are part of us working out the bugs and gaining assurance of where we want to be, then it’s not wasted time, right?”

  “Method to the madness,” Sadie whispered, feeling the intimacy of the moment. She lifted her mouth toward his, wanting very much to seal the evening with a kiss.

  “Exactly,” Pete said, his breath whispering against her lips. “Does it matter how we get there so long as we arrive?”

  Well, when he said it like that . . .

  Chapter 48

  So, your dad found out about our lunch and stuck you on a conference call so he could take your place at the restaurant?” Sadie said two days later as Richard was driving her to May’s house. They were almost there.

  “Yep,” Richard said. “I had no way to get out of the call, and I couldn’t find my cell phone because he’d locked it in his office.”

  “Cell phones are tricky things,” Sadie said, reflecting on how Lois had used May’s phone to lure her in. “And how are things between the two of you now?”

  “I had a lot to say when he got back, and no more reasons not to say it. I’ve agreed to stay on through the Jepson merger and the acquisition of S&S, but I’ve told Dad I need some distance. I need to have my own life. He says he understands, but I’m keeping my hand at the level of my eyes, and I’m going back to school so that by the time I leave the family business, I have what I need to make a new start.” He pulled up to the curb of Jim Sanderson’s house.

  Sadie tried to swallow her nervousness and rolled her shoulder, which was decidedly stiff after her fall. She’d have to go back to her doctor this week to see if she’d done anything serious.

  “A lot of changes coming your way, then,” she said.

  Richard was watching the ho
use. “I’m ready for change,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m ready to be the man I should have been before now. I hope she’ll believe it.”

  Sadie hoped so too. A quick glance at Lois’s house on the other side of the street didn’t reveal much; the average passerby would never know that the woman who so painstakingly tended her peace roses winding through the trellis was also a killer.

  Sadie pulled her thoughts away from Lois and looked at Jim’s house again, gathering her courage. She’d spent Friday talking to the police, Saturday enjoying the sights with Pete—he’d gotten his own room at Sadie’s hotel and returned her rental car for her—and now it was time to head home. She was still recovering from the near overdose, and she was anxious to see if Jane would be true to her word. So far nothing had shown up in the papers other than a small piece about Lois’s arrest.

  Regardless of what might happen next, however, Sadie couldn’t leave Portland without talking to May.

  Richard shifted into park. He’d been eager to be a part of this when she’d called him that morning. More importantly, he’d agreed to do it her way.

  “Give me a minute and then come up, okay?”

  Richard nodded as he wiped his palms on the thighs of his jeans. A car passed on the left—Pete’s rental—and pulled to the curb ahead of them. After this meeting, she and Pete were heading to the airport. Sadie didn’t feel ready to return to Garrison, but there weren’t any other options left. At least she and Pete were returning together.

  “I’m so nervous,” Richard said, ducking slightly to peek out of the passenger window at the house that held a lot of memories for him. “I feel like I’m in high school all over again.”

  Sadie smiled and patted him on the arm as she opened the passenger door. “You’ll be fine.”

  Sadie shut the door behind her and said a little prayer as she tapped up the front walk in the mini-heeled sandals she’d purchased yesterday from a boutique on 11th Avenue. Once on the porch, she knocked lightly and took a step back. She really hoped this would work. If not, she might be making an even bigger mess—if that was possible.

  She heard footsteps approaching, and she braced herself for May’s reaction. The door opened, and May just stared at Sadie. May’s eyes were swollen and her face puffy, further testifying of what the police had already told Sadie.

  “Can I talk to you?” Sadie asked.

  May blinked and stepped aside with a look of resignation on her face.

  Sadie looked over her shoulder and held up three fingers to signal how long Richard should wait. He nodded as Sadie stepped over the threshold. She left the door open a few inches and scanned the living room for May, spotting her sitting on the end of the couch. Sadie sat on the other end, facing May, who was staring at the outdated family photograph on the wall above the fireplace. The photo that had been taken before her mother died. Sadie wondered if May was reflecting on how much she’d lost since that photo had been taken. It must feel like everything.

  The room was full of boxes, some full, some partial, attesting to the fact that life as May knew it was over; all of her sanctuaries were gone.

  “Jolene was hospitalized early this morning,” May said while Sadie tried to remember the opening lines she’d practiced. “Apparently all of this was more than she could take. She hasn’t eaten since she found out about Gary and Lois. She’s in and out of consciousness, and I’m too upset to go see her. I don’t want to make it worse.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sadie said. “I had—”

  May cut her off. “Hugh’s agreed to go into treatment, and Keith Kelly has agreed to pay off Hugh’s debts as part of the purchase of S&S.” She looked at Sadie with heavy eyes. “I guess Keith will end up with my father’s legacy after all.”

  Tears spilled over and began trailing down May’s cheeks as she looked down at her hands in her lap. “I’ve worked hard all these years to keep my faith in a loving God alive, Sadie, but I’m not sure I want to believe any more. I’m not sure it’s worth feeling abandoned by one more person.”

  Sadie blinked quickly to keep May’s face from blurring through her own falling tears.

  “Why did you hire me, May?”

  May didn’t answer, allowing Sadie to clarify her question. “You could have hired another PI up here. Someone who knew what they were doing. Why me?”

  May shrugged.

  “Didn’t you tell me you felt drawn to me?” Sadie offered. “Didn’t you feel like I was the person who was supposed to help you?”

  “This is not what I wanted,” May said, looking up at Sadie quickly and waving her arm through the air. “I didn’t want any of this.”

  “You wanted truth, and you wanted closure. I can’t imagine what it feels like to face this all at once, but I’ve been asking myself why I came—especially after I hurt you so badly.” Sadie forged ahead, even though her voice quavered. “And the only answer I can come up with was that I was supposed to. I felt it before I called you back that very first time, and I believe you felt it too.” She took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so, so sorry this happened.”

  May dropped her head into her hands and gave into the sobs that had been rumbling below the surface since Sadie had first come inside.

  Sadie slid closer to her on the couch, unsure if the other woman would accept her comfort but willing to try. She put her arms around May’s shoulders. May resisted at first, but when Sadie put a hand on her hair and attempted to pull her closer, May crumpled into her, desperate enough for comfort to accept it from anyone, even the woman who had forced her to face things she didn’t want to. She was so different from the confident woman who had approached Sadie at the Latham Club dinner. The last few days had peeled back her layers, and she seemed more like a girl than a woman right now.

  A moment later, Richard poked his head into the doorway. Sadie waved him out before May could see him and put up two fingers for two more minutes. Sadie lifted May’s head from her shoulder, and pushed her tear-drenched hair from her face so that she could look her in the eye. “There’s one more thing,” Sadie said. “Something important I need you to hear.”

  May pulled back, and Sadie hurried to assure her that it wasn’t bad. Sadie slipped her hand into her purse and removed the digital voice recorder she’d taken with her during her first meeting with Richard. She’d already cued it to the part she wanted May to hear and pressed play.

  Sadie: You’re in love with her.

  Richard: Have been since I was fifteen years old.

  Sadie: You have children.

  Richard: I do.

  Sadie: Are you married?

  Richard: Not anymore.

  Sadie: What happened between you and May, then?

  Richard: I’ll tell you everything. I’ll answer every question you have about my father, but I need you to promise me something.

  Sadie: What?

  Richard: I need to be face-to-face with May at some point. Promise me. Promise me you’ll help me see her. It won’t be as easy as it sounds.

  Sadie: Why? Is she afraid of you?

  Richard: Yes. No one has hurt her the way I did.

  Sadie: Hurt her?

  Richard: I broke her heart to the point that I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for it, but I have to tell her how wrong I was and how truly sorry I am for everything.

  Sadie turned the voice recorder off, and May closed her eyes as though unable to listen to any more. Sadie held the younger woman by the shoulders until May opened her eyes again.

  “Richard Kelly loves you,” Sadie said. May began to pull away, and Sadie shook her slightly. May met her eyes, more tears leaking over. “I understand why you don’t want to risk being hurt again, and no one can blame you for that. People aren’t perfect, and Richard certainly wasn’t, but he’s grown up and become a man who, I believe, deserves the chance to make things right.” She kept talking to May, realizing she was advising herself as much as she was sharing her thoughts. “Life is too short to not be loved, May
. You deserve to be loved; you deserve to be cherished.”

  May looked away, shaking her head. “Too much,” she whispered, raising a hand to wipe at her tears.