Meant To Be

by Неизвестно

  I stared. Not only was the question bizarre, but his tone bordered on defensive. "Of course not," I answered, flummoxed. "It’s just surprising that a girl so young would be willing to take on so much responsibility, that’s all."

  Fletcher dropped behind the cabinets and out of sight. I cast a glance at Tia, hoping she could shed some light on his behavior, but found hers equally inscrutable. She seemed to be fighting a grin.

  "Mom’s parents were anxious to retire and move south," she explained, collecting herself. "Besides, Mom was what you’d call a type-A personality. Very driven. Very successful. She loved children, and she had strong opinions about parenting. But she was also a businesswoman, and a perfectionist. Luckily, Dad was the easy-going type. Here he is!" she exclaimed, pointing.

  I gazed at a black-and-white class photo of Mitchell, looking much younger than his seventeen years. Baby-faced and sweet, with a full head of soft, wavy curls, he could have passed for thirteen or fourteen.

  "And here’s Mom," she said, tapping a picture on the next row.

  I started. Rosemary bore even less resemblance to the family picture I had seen; I doubted I could have recognized her. Her hair was short and unflattering, her dark glasses ponderous. Though her eyes were bright and her smile kind, the glasses tipped the scales toward a severe look.

  "Heavens," Tia chuckled. "This is even worse than I remembered. Mom looks like a wanna-be librarian."

  I reserved comment. We browsed through the activity pages, Tia trying to find particular photos she thought she remembered, including action shots of Mitchell in football uniform. But the award for number of appearances went to Rosemary. Not only was she valedictorian and editor of the yearbook, but she was a member of almost every school club and president of several: an overachiever of the first degree.

  My eyes scanned the pictures hungrily, looking for an image, or even another mention, of my birth mother. There was nothing.

  "I wonder if Sheila transferred in later in the year," Tia mused, noticing the same lack of representation. "Either that or she was a nonconformist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that," she clarified.

  When we reached the next-to-last page of the book, Tia let out a gasp. I followed her eyes and found my own transfixed. It was a picture of Sheila—and a stunningly beautiful one. Resplendent and smiling, she was dressed in a formal gown complete with sash and bouquet, her curled tresses swooping gracefully around her bare shoulders. Her eyes sparkled, her face shone with joy.

  "Maple Queen?" I asked in a whisper. "What was that?"

  "Is that," Tia corrected. "A beauty contest, for the spring Maple Festival in Meyersdale. Huge tradition—if you’re into that sort of thing. A major coup for a Turkeyfoot girl."

  I looked into my birth mother’s radiant smile and felt a rush of happiness. At least her life had not always been miserable. I turned to Tia. "Were you ever Maple Queen?"

  She narrowed her eyes playfully. "Now, come on," she chastised, "Can you really see me parading around in a bridesmaid’s dress batting my eyelashes at the mayor?"

  I chuckled. "Um, no. I guess not."

  "Damn straight."

  She closed the book and launched into a highly dramatized account of her days as the resident hellion of Turkeyfoot Valley Area High, and at times I laughed so hard my eyes began to water. But as joyful as the revelations of the evening had made me, I could not stop casting worried glances at Fletcher. He had finished cleaning the kitchen and had moved to stand by the French doors. There he remained still, staring out.

  He hadn’t spoken since his earlier outburst, and he didn’t speak until Tia had finished her story, at which point he announced his departure. "I’m heading back now," he said with a transparent attempt at lightheartedness. "You girls behave yourselves." He threw his sister a mock menacing glance, and she chortled back.

  "Not likely."

  His gaze moved to me, and as our eyes met, my heart sank. Not only was he preoccupied, he was sad again. I could feel his sorrow from across the room, and it gnawed at the pit of my own stomach. What was wrong with him?

  "Goodnight, Meara," he offered with a nod.

  Don’t go, Fletcher. Please. I wanted him to stay. I wanted him to trust me enough to talk to me. There had to be something I could do for him, if nothing more than to put my arms around him, to pull him close—.

  "Good night," I returned quickly, cutting off the thought.

  He opened the door.

  "Well, I suppose I should hit the hay, too," Tia announced, rising with a stretch. "I’ll need an early start tomorrow if I’m going to tackle that desk. Dad was a top-notch house husband, but his administrative skills were nil. The paperwork’s been piling up ever since Mom died."

  I glanced back at Fletcher and found him stopped in the open doorway, looking at me. Our eyes connected for only an instant before he turned away, but I could swear I perceived a reluctance to leave—a look of longing equal to my own.

  He stepped out and closed the door behind him.

  I told myself I had imagined it.

  Chapter 24

  Evidently, Tia was a morning person. I had thought that I would be the first one up, given that I had rolled out of bed with the sun and headed straight for the shower. It had been another long and relatively sleepless night, and I had gotten tired of trying unsuccessfully to turn off my brain. But as I walked down the hall toward the kitchen to put some water on, I heard the tea kettle already whistling.

  "Do I have great timing or what?" Tia praised herself, turning off the burner. She was dressed in a colorful spring dress, sleeveless, straight, and very flattering to her lithe form. Aside from the fact that her newly washed hair was still damp, she looked as though she had been up for hours. "I heard you in the shower, and I thought you’d be ready for some tea soon."

  "Thank you," I said gratefully, collecting my cup and tea bag.

  She moved away to the main table, which was covered with stacks of loose papers and piles of envelopes, and sighed. "I loved my father dearly," she muttered. "But if I’d had any idea what a pathetic job he was doing keeping up with the household affairs, I’d have smacked him upside the head." She picked up an envelope and waved it in exasperation. "Look at this! A fourth notice on a septic tank service call—for a lousy sixty dollars he could have paid any time. I swear, unless something was tacked to the man’s forehead, it was as good as forgotten."

  I poured my tea and came to lean against the counter near her. "My father was like that, too. Mom always handled the finances."

  She returned to her work, and for a few minutes we didn’t speak. But as the warm tea began to circulate through my body, the questions I had been formulating all night loomed heavy in my mind.

  "Tia," I said finally, unable to wait any longer. "Did you notice how preoccupied Fletcher seemed last night? I mean, after you brought down the yearbook?"

  She didn’t look up. "Yes, I noticed. But you can’t push Fletch when he gets like that. Once he retreats into the proverbial man-cave, you can’t follow him with a bulldozer."

  Her answer disturbed me. "What do you think was wrong?" I asked fearfully.

  Catching my tone, she put down the paper she was holding and studied me.

  My pulse quickened. "He just seemed so troubled," I explained before she could answer, "like there was a war going on inside him. I hate that."

  "You’re really worried about him?" she asked softly.

  "Of course I am!" I returned, seeing no reason not to be honest. "I can’t stand to see that horrible pain in his eyes. I noticed it the day I met him. And even though I knew he’d just lost his father, it seemed like more than that. It was like he’d lost his last friend in the world."

  The night’s tossing and turning must have worn me down more than I thought, because hot tears threatened as I spoke. "I keep seeing that pain, Tia—and I don’t know where it’s coming from. But more and more, I’m beginning to think it’s me. He’ll seem to be in a perfectly good mood, and then
he’ll look at me, and he’s miserable again. I thought I could help him somehow, but now I’m beginning to wonder if my presence here isn’t making things worse. If maybe the best thing for him would be if I just packed my stuff and moved on."

  The last words came out with a choke, no doubt making clear just how horrible the thought was to me. I rose and snatched a tissue off the counter.

  Tia’s dark eyes bored through me. "You think he doesn’t want you here?"

  "I don’t know what to think," I answered, fighting a sniffle.

  She studied me for another moment, and then, to my surprise, she smiled. "Sit down, Meara," she ordered. She pushed her papers to the side.

  I sat.

  "Fletch is going to kill me for this, but it’ll be worth it," she began. "You’ve got no reason to beat yourself up. I promise that that look you’re seeing has nothing to do with anything you’ve done." She offered a smirk. "Well, at least not on purpose."

  My worry lines deepened.

  "You see," she began, her voice gentle. "In a way he has lost his last friend in the world—except for me, of course, but I’m poor consolation." She took in a breath, then let it out with a sigh. "It’s like this. When our mother died, Fletch was engaged. Her name was Isabella. She was a sculptor; they met in San Francisco and had been dating for a long time."

  My heart pounded; unjustified ire swelled in my chest.

  "Fletch was madly in love with her, though I’m still not sure why. They were opposites in most ways; all they really had in common was their craft. Isabella was intelligent, beautiful, and charming, but she was also sophisticated, particular, and self-absorbed. I suspect she reminded Fletch of Mom a little bit, because she was so driven and headstrong. But Mom had values; Isabella just had Isabella."

  Tia took a sip of coffee, her eyes deep in thought. I dared not interrupt her.

  "I never thought she was right for Fletch, and neither did Mom, but she kept her mouth shut. I think she’d been waiting so long for Fletch to get married that she was afraid Isabella might be her only chance for a daughter-in-law, and she desperately wanted grandchildren before she died. But me being me, I couldn’t help but tell him what I thought. As soon as he told me he was thinking about marriage, I laid out my suspicions. I told him I didn’t think Isabella would ever come back to Pennsylvania."

  She paused. Her eyes darkened. "Turns out I was right. The woman was a complete fake, and she knew exactly how to play him. When they first started dating she acted like Suzy homemaker, telling him how wonderful his home in the mountains sounded, how beautiful it must be, how lovely it would be to raise a family in the midst of such natural splendor. Maybe she meant it originally and maybe she didn’t. Either way, she didn’t have a clue. She was born in Los Angeles; she’d never lived anywhere but in the city. I think she had this romanticized view of the bucolic life—like it was something from the great American novel.

  "She visited here exactly once, and she couldn’t get away fast enough. She made it up to the cabin finally, but then Fletch had to drive her back down in the truck. She wouldn’t even spend the night there. Gave him some song and dance about how charming the inn was, and how much she’d love to sleep in one of the antique beds." Tia shook her head in disgust.

  "She wouldn’t stay at his cabin with him?" I asked incredulously, unable to restrain myself. "But it’s so cozy! With that gorgeous fireplace, and that loft—who on earth wouldn’t want to crawl up there and snuggle into that feather—"

  I cut myself off, but I was too late. Tia’s eyes glinted with amusement.

  "Isabella didn’t seem to appreciate it," she said tactfully, though still with a grin. "Which should have set off Fletcher’s warning bells right then. But he was in love with her, God help him, and he was born loyal. So when she started modifying their plans, bit by bit, he allowed himself to compromise."

  "What plans?" I asked, my breath held.

  Tia smiled at me again, but this time there was a sadness to it. "All Fletch has ever wanted is to live on the ridge, preserve the forest, and raise a family—a big family, just like he grew up with. The carving has always been secondary; if he couldn’t make a living with that, he would have looked for a forestry job somewhere, but he never wanted to run the inn. He’d much rather do something with that old campground, like turn it into some sort of nature center."

  My heart leapt. So he did have plans for the campground. Why wouldn’t he tell me that?

  "At first," Tia continued. "Isabella led him to believe she admired his aspirations—even shared them. But after a while she started talking about keeping an apartment in San Francisco, just for visits. By the time the wedding plans were final, she had him down to summers on the mountain. The rest of the year would be spent in some posh Sausalita townhouse with a view of the bay."

  My jaw dropped. "But—"

  Tia smirked again.

  "But he would have been miserable!" I finished. "Even I can see that." My face felt hot; my fists clenched under the table. "And what about wanting a family? Was she lying about that, too?"

  Tia’s face was hidden behind her coffee cup. "That we’ll never know," she answered. "Because they never got married. Fletch broke off the engagement."

  "Well, thank God," I proclaimed, rising. I needed another cup of tea. "He owes you plenty. How did you finally make him see reason?"

  "Oh, I didn’t," she confessed. "Not that I didn’t try. But he was too far gone." She paused. "In retrospect, of course, I wish I’d tried harder."

  There was a disturbing somberness to her voice. I poured more water over my tea bag and sat back down. "What happened?" I asked, almost afraid to hear.

  She sighed. "When Mom got sick, Fletch started coming home more often. Dad was a wreck, things were going crazy at the inn—it was a difficult time for everybody. I tried to help out, too, but... Well, when it came to making important decisions, Fletch was the one Mom counted on. She had lupus, and she had suffered with it for a while, but in the end it attacked her kidneys, and from then on it was touch and go. As soon as Fletch thought things were under control here, she would take another turn for the worse, and Dad would call him in San Francisco, convinced that she wouldn’t survive the night."

  "That must have been tough," I said with sympathy.

  "It was," Tia answered, a bitter edge creeping into her voice again, "but Isabella managed to make it worse. All this happened right when they were supposed to get married—in fact, they ended up postponing the wedding once. But the whole time Fletch was flying back and forth across the country, trying to keep Dad from losing it, Isabella was giving him grief about not being there for her, not taking their relationship seriously." Tia’s voice turned grim. "The wedding was rescheduled for a few months after Mom died. Then, just three days beforehand, Fletch’s friend Rob, who he'd worked with at Herrington’s for years, had an attack of conscience and decided to tell him everything."

  I waited, a sick feeling growing in my stomach.

  "Turns out that Isabella got a little lonely when Fletch left town—couldn’t take the deprivation. So she decided to share her sorrows with his best man. And that wasn’t all she shared with him."

  A wave of heat shot through me. My tea cup slammed onto the table. "No," I protested. "She couldn’t have."

  "Oh, but she did," Tia confirmed. "And on a regular basis. Rob was her own personal fan club—the perfect therapy. She would complain about how much Fletch neglected her; he would tell her how gorgeous and desirable she was."

  Tia took another sip of her coffee, staring daggers over the cup’s rim. "You see, Rob was idiot enough to believe that Isabella had fallen in love with him. He was certain she would break off the engagement herself—that after the dust settled, the two of them could get together and Fletch would never have to know when it started. But Ice-a-bella had no intention of giving up her meal ticket—her free pass into the kind of celebrity circles she couldn’t penetrate with her own measly talent. When the wedding date became imminent, an
d Isabella showed no signs of telling her fiancé anything, Rob finally caught a clue. He told Fletch the truth himself. At least he thought enough of him to keep him from making the worst mistake of his life."

  My stomach roiled as everything I had gone through with Derrick came screaming back to me in all-too-vivid detail. The moment of reckoning, the disbelief, the horror. The endless X-rated visuals that had haunted my imagination every waking moment for weeks. The incredible pain I had carried with me everywhere, as heavy and unwieldy as a bowling ball. The inevitable self-doubt. A healing process that was as protracted as it was imperfect.

  I had been able to stop caring about Derrick—that much had not been difficult. And within a few months I had reached the point where I could think about and even share the experience without crumbling. But the sting of being betrayed by a man I loved was not so easily overcome. Long after all our emotional ties had been severed, the mere thought of his infidelity could still revive the same nagging, inescapable question. Was it me?

  I had eventually made my peace with the situation. But even now, eight years later, I could remember the pain of it with a clarity that made my gut twist. And Derrick and I had not been engaged.

  I swallowed uncomfortably. "Fletcher told you all this?"

  "Of course not," she retorted. "Fletch wouldn’t tell me a thing. All I knew was that the wedding was off, and that he was devastated. So unbeknownst to him, I hied myself to California and confronted Isabella. I squeezed enough out of her to know that Rob was involved, and he was only too willing to confess the rest."

  I rose from the table with a jerk and paced by the French doors, my face still scarlet. But the pacing didn’t help relieve the pressure within me, and my emotions soon burst to the surface. "How could she?" I railed, practically stuttering. "How could any woman do that to a man like him? To be loved by someone like that—and to hurt him so much!"

  I wasn’t looking at Tia, but her voice sounded almost as if she were smiling. "You’re preaching to the choir, here," she said softly. "I nearly scratched the wench’s eyes out. I’m still afraid to go back to California—there may be a warrant out for me."