The Beautiful Daughters

by Nicole Baart

“Stateside?” Caleb asked. “Of course. Why not? I had planned to go home for Christmas, but it seems to me like you could use a little support.”

  “I’m fine, really.”

  “It’s not far,” Caleb went on, undeterred. “I grew up in Florida, but my family is in La Crosse now and it’s hardly home to me. I’m a beach bum, not a farm kid. And La Crosse is like, what? A couple of hours from you?”

  “Six, maybe more. A long way,” Adri said. She didn’t want to encourage him, even though she was almost girlishly breathless at the thought of seeing him. It was ridiculous, and Adri struggled to get a grip of herself. “Just stop, okay? You’re not coming here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Whatever.” Caleb sounded unfazed. “How did the memorial go?”

  “It hasn’t happened yet.” Adri pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing back the headache that came hand in hand with the topic of Victoria’s memorial. The impenetrable Mrs. Galloway had been buried in a small, private ceremony only days after she died, but Adri was still working on the particulars of her service. Victoria’s wishes were outlined in a second document that she had put in Clay’s hands for safekeeping, and after he determined that Adri had gotten over the initial shock of her inheritance, he handed over the instructions. Just another one of her duties.

  Victoria wanted a public ceremony on the estate, and had included a number of specific details that were proving to be more work than Adri had expected. A trio of violins on the terrace. Long stems of calla lilies tied with white ribbon. A reading by Adri’s father of Kipling (though Adri couldn’t begin to imagine why Victoria had been so enamored of “If”). The lady who had always catered meals at the estate was going to provide a veritable banquet of Victoria’s favorite finger foods, from petits fours to slivers of artichoke with prosciutto, goat cheese, and mint, and there were two cases of New Zealand sauvignon blanc chilling in the wine cellar for the occasion. It seemed more like a party than a funeral, especially because Victoria had gone so far as to suggest a dress code. Adri suspected that the entire town would show up, if only to see Piperhall one last time.

  The only thing Victoria hadn’t done was set a time for the event, and her brother-in-law, James Galloway, was difficult to accommodate. After several terse phone calls, he had finally agreed to fly in the following Saturday—and Adri was effectively trapped in Iowa until at least then.

  But she didn’t feel like explaining all of that to Caleb. “I’ll do my job,” she said. “You do yours.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  After that it was all business. Adri asked for updates on specific kids and projects, as well as a review of the medicine cabinet and what supplies they were running short of. When the board visited every fall, she sent a detailed order form outlining exactly what the clinic needed in order to keep running, from Band-Aids to HIV test kits. She was about to launch into a prepared speech about how to cull the list, when Caleb interrupted her.

  “It’s done,” he said happily. “Done and done. Already emailed to the director.”

  Adri was struck momentarily speechless. “What do you mean, it’s done? How could you possibly know what to do?”

  “You keep meticulous records, Adri. I saw the past request forms and spent most of the night last night going through inventory. I couldn’t sleep.”

  She didn’t know whether to be happy or put out. “Guess I’m not as irreplaceable as I thought,” she joked.

  “Just wait till you get back,” Caleb said. “You’re going to have to fight me for Lucia, too. I think she likes me best.”

  He was teasing her, but Adri’s heart sank anyway. She was used to being second best. Or worse. In elementary school she had always stood in Will’s shadow. He was smarter, more athletic. Making friends and getting good grades just came naturally to him, while Adri had to work for everything she got. By the time she graduated from high school, she was a 4.0 student with a small circle of friends, but she’d had to fight for every tenth of a point on her GPA, and the group she hung out with was comprised of the girls who didn’t fit anywhere else. They easily drifted apart after graduation.

  And, though Harper had chosen Adri that very first day of college to be her confidante, there were times when Adri felt like little more than a generic sidekick in the shadow of her spectacular best friend. Once, at one of their Piperhall parties, Adri overheard someone say, “Who’s the dark-haired girl?” He was talking about her, of course. Never mind that she was one of The Five or that it was practically impossible to spot Harper or David on campus without Adri being close by.

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too used to it.” Adri tried to sound lighthearted, but her enthusiasm for the conversation had died. She excused herself quickly after that and hung up.

  The house was quiet. Too quiet. Sam was doing chores; Will and Jackson were at work. Adri wasn’t used to having so much downtime, and even though there were a dozen small things on her to-do list, it was all busywork that required little skill or even attention. She couldn’t stand the thought of picking up the phone for another series of calls to automated services. Canceling cable, disconnecting the landline, putting a halt on Victoria’s subscriptions. It felt like an exercise in futility, for even though Adri would do her best to dot every single i on her seemingly never-ending list, mail addressed to Mrs. Victoria Galloway would still be delivered to the estate. It was the sort of emotional land mine that would wreck a loving husband or unsuspecting son when he opened the mailbox months later. Except that there was no husband, no son to mourn Victoria’s loss. And Adri felt decidedly unqualified for the job. She had admired Victoria in her own, careful way, but there would be no weeping or gnashing of teeth.

  Adri needed a break, and, twenty minutes later, Mateo was saddled up. It had been a bit of a chore, and Adri’s hands shook as she tried to tighten the cinch, because Mateo was notorious for holding his breath and making the saddle slip sideways halfway through a ride. When she finally straightened up and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, she surveyed the horse before her with a sort of awe. He was beautiful. And so strong. It had been a very long time since she had surveyed the world from the vantage point of his tall back, and she was so eager to do so now, she could hardly stand it. But there was a vein of fear beneath her excitement. Riding Mateo wasn’t exactly like riding a bike. She hoped she remembered how.

  He shied a little when she put her foot in the stirrup, but Adri swung up anyway. A few sidesteps, a quick, sinuous turn, and Mateo tossed his head like he was either just as anxious to run as she was, or he hadn’t been ridden in a long time. Adri guessed both were true.

  “Shhh . . .” She gathered the reins tight in one hand and patted his neck. He fought the bit for a minute, twisting from side to side and nickering softly to his sisters in the pasture. They were all standing against the fence, watching Mateo and Adri like a trio of gossipy neighbors gathered on the front lawn. It made Adri smile in spite of herself and she saluted the mares before turning Mateo’s head in the direction of the driveway and the trail that David had cut through the trees so many years ago.

  It was overgrown with tall grasses and weeds that had crept over fallen trees and the jagged, slate stones of the prairie woodland. At first Adri tried to lead Mateo, but when she realized that he remembered the way better than she did, she slackened the reins just enough to let him pick his way through the sun-dappled grove.

  The path was so thick that Mateo couldn’t even trot along the forgotten trail, and Adri tried to relax into the worn saddle and the gentle sway of his gait. Riding was a familiar tune, something that resonated in her soul but that she couldn’t quite remember note for note. She gripped the reins too tightly, held herself too rigid, even though the leather creaked pleasantly and birds sang overhead. It was almost idyllic. But something thrummed just beneath her skin, a feeling of impending disaster. Worlds colliding. The promise of a fall. Mor
e heartbreak.

  She felt sometimes like that afternoon had been an explosion, a bomb that had gone off in the center of her universe and flung everyone from her. David had been killed, but no one escaped unscathed. Will and Jackson wore that day like black bands around their arms. And Harper was never the same. A light had gone out in her eyes, and when Adri finally mustered the courage to look into them in the waiting room of that hospital in Hope, British Columbia, she saw that their friendship had dissipated like smoke. What could they possibly say to each other?

  As for Adri, when the debris finally settled, she dragged her thumb through the ashes of her life and stained her own forehead. The rest of her days would be her own unending Ash Wednesday, an unholy offering of repentance and discipline. Of course, no one else could see the mark that she had given herself, but Adri couldn’t look in the mirror without being reminded of exactly who she was and what she had done.

  And now, in the delicate peace of her disciplined exile, to be given such an unwanted gift. To remember Victoria. To know that her home was neither here nor there. To miss Harper.

  To see David in every shifting shadow. To remember all that they had been.

  The sound of her sob startled Mateo, and he laid his ears back as if in solidarity. The world felt like a mean, ugly place to Adri, and because she wanted to flee it, when they reached the flatlands at the bottom of the Galloway property, she leaned low over Mateo’s neck and hissed. He ran.

  For a moment Adri was sorry that she hadn’t worn boots. Her foot almost slipped through the stirrup, but she hauled herself up and grabbed the saddle horn. Lifted herself out of her seat slightly and gripped Mateo with her legs. Within seconds her arms ached and her thighs burned, but she didn’t care.

  There was a service road that wound near the river, and when Mateo reached it he smoothed his gallop into a run. Adri’s heart throbbed in her throat as she struggled to maintain her seat. Grasping for purchase, she caught Mateo’s mane in one hand and kept a vise grip on the saddle horn with the other. Then it was nothing but the pound of his hooves and the wind in her hair. Her cheeks stung, but she didn’t know if it was because of the hot tears or the whip of her ponytail.

  Mateo ran for a long time. Adri lost track of where they were and how far they had gone, but the horse eventually tired and slowed to a gallop, a canter, a trot. Then he simply turned and walked back the way they had come, headed toward home and a handful of oats. Adri slumped in the saddle, as exhausted and spent as he was. His coat was damp with sweat and his mouth frothed on the bit, so Adri looped the reins around the saddle horn and gave him all the slack he needed. Adri knew that the gelding needed to cool down after such a rigorous workout, and she forced herself out of the saddle when they were still a good half mile from the stable. It took some serious effort to swing her right leg over his side. She was numb and trembling all over, and when she slid to the ground, her knees almost buckled. Mateo paused and nudged her with his head and she grabbed his halter for support. They walked back like that, Adri with her fingers looped through the cheekpiece, her legs bowed and aching.

  When they made it to the stable, Adri removed Mateo’s saddle, blanket, and bridle. She slipped on a nylon halter and clipped a short lead shank to the tie ring. She didn’t bother coiling a quick release knot around the stall gate. Instead, Adri held the end of the lead rope like a lifeline in both hands and backed up until she felt the wall of the stable behind her. The bricks were cool and rugged against her shoulders, and Adri tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

  David had kissed her for the very first time right here.

  It was in the middle of one of Harper’s parties, though it was really more of a friendly gathering than a true party. A small group of people had been invited for a night of stargazing, and Harper had hunted down blankets from all over the estate and spread them out across the floor of the tower. There was wine and David’s father’s Scotch, and everyone was well on their way to getting good and drunk.

  Except Adri. It was the beginning of their senior year, and though the worst of her classes were behind her, she had two semesters of core requirements, clinicals, and some straightforward ethics and foundations of nursing classes ahead. She felt like she was on the brink of something, the beginning of an era that would be entirely different from the one that had come before, and it wasn’t unwelcome. In fact, she fairly hummed with excitement. She didn’t know what the real world held, but she was ready for it.

  Harper, on the other hand, seemed prepared to strangle her final year of college into submission. It would obey her: nothing would change. And so, constant parties and drinking and fun.

  It felt thin to Adri. She loved Harper—she loved them all—but she was starting to wonder if anyone was ever going to take life seriously.

  She didn’t sneak out of the tower, not really, but she felt almost delinquent as she crept down the stairs. One didn’t leave a Harper party. But Adri just had. It struck her as the tiniest bit dangerous. Something small had been severed, but it wasn’t a loss that she mourned. It was freeing.

  A cool October night, a soft quilt around her shoulders, the stars. Adri hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet there was a delicious thrill in the air as she stepped out onto the quiet lawn in front of the Galloway mansion and peered up at the glittering windows of the tower high above her. They couldn’t see her beneath a cloak of darkness, but she could just make out their silhouettes as they lounged in the flickering candlelight of a dozen glass lanterns. She wondered if they would miss her. And if they did, who would be the first to sound the alarm. Would they come looking for her? Did she want them to?

  Adri found herself at the stable almost by accident. Her feet had followed a well-worn path, and since she hadn’t been paying much attention to where she was going, she ended up exactly where she wanted to be. A midnight ride? It was too dangerous, but she heaved open the stable door anyway and wondered what it would feel like to ride sidesaddle in a Western saddle. In a skirt.

  Fumbling for the light switch, Adri laughed nervously at herself and the unexpected chill that had crept up her spine. What had been so safe and innocent only seconds before took on the pallor of unease when she couldn’t immediately find the switch. It was black in the stable and filled with the muted sounds of animals, a whisper of a breeze in the eaves. And something Adri couldn’t quite place.

  Footsteps.

  She would have gasped, but her throat was cinched tight, and before she could even contemplate running, his hand was on her arm.

  “Did I scare you?” David had caught her just above the elbow. His mouth was against her ear, his breath warm and sour-sweet with Scotch.

  Adri spun and slapped him on the chest. “Don’t do that!” She would have hit him again, but he was still hanging on to her arm through the blanket she had wrapped around herself. It was slipping off her shoulder and David lifted a thumb to graze the place where the creamy fabric of her blouse peeked from beneath the quilt. They were so close she had to lift her chin to look him in the eye, but there was something intimate about his body above her and she took a step back.

  “What’d you do that for?” Adri asked, mildly breathless, though she couldn’t tell if it was from the shock of David’s appearance or his confusing proximity.

  He grinned in the darkness and she could see the gleam of his perfectly straight teeth. “I followed you,” he said simply. “I saw you creeping away from the party.”

  “I did not creep. And it’s not really a party.”

  “Not a good one, anyway.”

  “Hey, party foul.” Adri couldn’t stop herself from sticking up for her best friend, even if she was the one who had left in the first place. And claimed it wasn’t really a party. “Harper throws lovely parties.”

  “Did you just say that?” David’s laugh was rich and genuine. It was one of the things Adri secretly adored about him. “Lovely parties? You so
und like you belong in the Hamptons.”

  “Do I?”

  “You’re a regular Jackie O.”

  “Shut up, David.” Adri’s eyes had gotten used to the dark, at least somewhat, but it seemed strange to her that David didn’t just flick the switch. He certainly knew where it was. But maybe he didn’t want to draw the attention of the stargazers in the tower.

  “Why’d you leave?” David asked after a few breaths.

  “I’m kind of over it,” she said. David nodded as if he understood completely. But she pressed on all the same. “We’re seniors, you know? Aren’t we . . . past this?”

  “Some of us are.”

  “You, too?” Adri joked. But David was serious. “I thought you loved this stuff.”

  “Harper loves this stuff.”

  “And we love Harper,” Adri finished.

  “Of course we do.”

  It was a pinprick, nothing more. The nick of a tiny thorn. Adri had long suspected that David and Harper would one day, when they could stop being part of The Five, be simply The Two. She would be the maid of honor at their wedding and she would cry tears of joy. And just a couple for herself. There was an unwritten rule that they were not supposed to fall in love with each other. But how could they not? Everyone knew that the best kind of love was born of friendship.

  “Why aren’t you up there?” Adri said, turning David’s question on its head. She nodded in the direction of the tower and Harper. There was a certain sad fondness in the asking, but she had come to terms with the inevitable. She almost told him that she knew, and that it was okay. Almost.

  But he said something so unexpected, Adri didn’t know how to respond.

  “I’d rather be here with you.”

  The silence this time was laced with words unspoken, and questions hung like spirits in the air. Adri tried to blow off David’s comment, but it hit too close to the heart of what she wanted. Hope made her tremble.

  “Come on, Adri.” David moved close to her, and when he reached for her this time his touch was entirely different. He was tentative, as if he expected Adri to slap his hand away. Or laugh and break the sudden spell that had been cast in the darkness of the stable. For there seemed to be magic in the air.