by Ruth Hay
“Well, she’s very nice. She’s knowledgeable about business, works hard and wants to be helpful to us.
Braden sure likes her but the funny thing is that she has a niece who lives in the house too. All the women are of different ages but it seems strange to include a teenager as well. There will be a good story behind that choice, I do not doubt.
Mandy adjusted the cool-pack on her mother’s head. It was a new idea to prevent hair loss. Maureen had jumped at the chance to try it as she had a head of gorgeous, shiny, dark hair, much like her daughter’s hair, that was truly her crowning glory. The experimental program for this type of breast cancer required Maureen Lennox to remain in the hospital, during in its early stages. Later, if all went well, Mandy and Braden would be able to take her for outings and for overnight rests. For now, she was subjected to blood tests and scans on a daily basis which restricted her movements and tired her body. The lively events at Harmony House occupied her mind and gave her something to think about other than the worries the treatment caused.
“Remember I told you about the woman with the dogs? Right, the same one who invited me and Braden to Jamaica and arranged this whole exchange thing? Well, it seems her romance with the hunky younger guy in the beach villa has fallen apart. I don’t know all the details, yet, but there was something about a house that disappeared and caused disappoint for her. The strange thing is, he comes by once in a while and cuts the lawn and takes the dogs out to his place in the country. Mavis tells me this Andy is a great guy who runs an animal shelter and training program but she won’t say more than that. There’s a lot of loyalty in Harmony and that’s a good thing. I can’t wait until you can get out of here and meet them, Mama.”
“Whenever that happens, I will be well prepared with all your stories. It’s better than a soap opera on television, believe me!”
* * *
As Mandy emerged from the hospital parking lot she was faced with multiple lanes of fast traffic on Commissioners Road. She went with the flow and connected with Oxford Street eventually. As time went by, she tried other exits and soon became familiar with White Oaks Mall and, by heading in the opposite direction, with downtown London.
She was invited to have lunch with Hilary’s son, Desmond, one day in May, and looked forward to the outing.
They ate at The River Room, a charming restaurant within Museum London with a delightful view over the conjunction of the three forks of the Thames River.
Desmond Dempster was a man on a mission, as Mandy soon discovered. He wanted to know what the cousins had been working on in Manitoba with a view to incorporating anything useful into his present employment situation.
“I was at the heart of many business ventures in Toronto for most of my career but I lost touch with the movers and shakers when I made the move to London to be closer to my widowed mother.”
“That would be Hilary? I can’t imagine her needing much support. She strikes me as a very capable and energetic lady.”
Desmond quickly backtracked. This exotic-looking young woman was, apparently, more observant than her youth would indicate. She would not be easily fooled.
“Of course, you are right about my mother, but there was a period during which I had some concerns about her decisions around the co-housing matter as it required a considerable investment of my father’s money.”
Okay, now I have the true picture! Greed was your motivation.
“Again, Desmond, I think you have no need to be worried. Harmony House is well named. My cousin and I have experience of several types of co-housing establishments and I can assure you this one is a credit to the whole idea of mutual support and friendship.”
“Oh, of course! Of course! But, you must admit, some of the residents are not your typical co-housing types. There’s a young girl in a room I know was set aside for a guest suite, and others who I would say are too young to mix with my mother’s older age group.”
“I hope you are not including my cousin and myself in that category, Desmond? We are a similar age and working type as Honor Pace who runs her business successfully from Harmony House and contributes financially, both for herself and for her niece.”
Desmond now knew he had gone too far in his attempt to justify himself. He delivered his final blow to attempt to divert his lunch companion back to business matters.
“I believe you and Braden are, of course, temporary residents, occupying a room recently vacated because of the death of one of the original six women in the house.”
This comment served to turn Mandy Lennox totally against one Desmond Dempster. He was trying to shock her into compliance by revealing a secret. Little did he know, Hilary had informed the cousins about Eve’s story shortly after their arrival.
Now she felt both annoyed and played for a fool. The lunch ploy was not worth spending more time with this nasty man. She quickly made her excuses and left the museum to walk rapidly along the footpath by the Thames River where she could calm herself down in the more amenable company of ducks and geese before hailing a cab to take her to the hospital. She was determined never again to accept an invitation of any kind from Hilary’s son and she would tell the same to Braden.
How on earth did a fine, upstanding woman like Hilary Dempster produce a man like Desmond?
Braden Santiago left most of the hospital visiting to his cousin, at her request. He planned to be more active once his Aunt Maureen, known as Mo in the family, had survived the initial intense period of treatments. Mandy was so good with her mother. The two of them were thick as thieves and always had been. He knew his aunt was in the best hands to speed her recovery.
In the meantime, he was happy to have the chance to confer closely with Honor Pace who had spent her work life in isolation and who was, as a direct consequence, further advanced in internet communication skills than either he or Mandy. Honor had regularly-scheduled, face-to-face business conferences with experts in investing. She attended online seminars given by entrepreneurs from all over the world. All this was accomplished from her office desk where there were several screens supplying multiple types of information simultaneously.
As soon as Braden grasped the scope of this operation, he realized Honor’s dedication to working alone was one of her chief advantages. She had few interruptions and a supremely quiet environment around her. She overlooked a serene garden and restful patio. If she chose to connect with someone in the middle of the night, on the other side of the world, she could pop out from her bedroom and commence working without one other person being disturbed.
Compared to what he had known with Mandy by his side, in a lively building housing many others with diverse interests, this was business heaven. Not only was the space perfect, but Honor was also provided with most of her meals from the superb kitchen on the second level of the house. She helped out with clean-up duties in return for healthy food. If she was working through mealtimes there was always a plate left for her in the capacious refrigerator. She also had the usual coffee station and snacks, available in her mini fridge, and was happy to share those with Braden.
To his further surprise, he discovered Honor was a yoga fan. This accounted for her healthy complexion and trim figure. She was not tall but she packed a lot into that neat body and mind.
In fact, as the weeks passed, he grew increasingly aware that Honor was more than happy to share her expertise and time with him. He wondered if she was, basically, a lonely person?
During a break, she proudly told him part of the extraordinary story about her niece, Faith Jeffries, who was the young girl he had seen around the house occasionally. He responded that it was a story worthy of a book to be a useful supplement to the good work Faith was doing with teenagers.
She did not disagree with him about this idea, but insisted she was not going to be the one to write that book.
In spite of this family connection, there was no one else who entered Honor’s conversation with him. She was always welcoming when he appeared, mostly when Mandy
was with her mother.
They had a quick stroll around the garden, on his insistence, and Honor pointed out the changes effected by Mavis Montgomery.
Once they sat together in a bower at the top of the garden, facing the house, where rose buds were waiting for June’s heat to burst into full bloom. It was here he told her how he and Mandy had travelled from South America to find a new life in Canada. She said it was a brave act to set out into the unknown, but privately he thought her own life was far braver and more risky. Perhaps all those who left the familiar behind them and ventured afar were duplicating the journeys of our ancestors who moved out of Africa millennia ago to seek new homes. Today’s world travellers had it much easier in his opinion.
He began to speculate about the possibility of winkling one Honor Pace out of her office to venture into London for a meal sometime. It would require delicate manoeuvring, of course, but it would be interesting to see her in a different setting.
Mandy’s recent lunch fiasco in the downtown restaurant had drawn his attention. It sounded like an ideal spot for a tête-à-tête.
He imagined he could provide much better company than the dreaded Desmond Dempster, any day of the week.
Chapter 19
When Braden Santiago scheduled his meal times to coincide with those of Honor Pace, the rumours began to fly.
“Normally, I avoid the laundry facilities during daytime while Honor is working, but I had muddy jeans from the veg patch I was weeding and they needed immediate soaking.
When I went in through the open glass patio doors, they were head to head over one of the screens and I swear their faces were touching.”
“Well, now, that is something different for Honor. How did they react when they saw you?”
“That’s the strange part, Hilary. They didn’t even budge an inch. I walked past and it was not until Honor heard the water running into the washing machine that she turned her head to see me. She just smiled and went back to her conversation with Braden.”
“Really? Our shy little Honor? Our workaholic?”
“I hesitate to predict, but it may be we have a romance on our hands.”
“Who could blame her? That Braden is absolutely gorgeous! What surprised me is that he hasn’t been snatched up already.”
“True! Good luck to them I say. Honor could use a happy connection in her life. She works too hard.”
Something of the same conclusion had occurred to Braden. One sunny afternoon when they were sitting in the shade on the stone patio sipping frosty coffee drinks, he ventured to ask a personal question.
“So, Honor, what do you do for fun?”
The question stunned her. Her mouth fell open and her brain raced to try to come up with an answer.
What did she do for fun?
This was a new concept. What she did to earn money would have produced a swift response. What she did to support her niece ….no problem with those details.
But fun? Where did fun fit into her life?
This was embarrassing. She pretended to choke on the cold drink and occupied herself with mopping up the spilled coffee that dripped down her chin.
Braden was not deceived. Her lack of an answer gave him all the information he needed.
“I think it’s important to balance out the hours we spend in mental activity with something to feed the soul. Something creative. For me, it’s music.”
“Really! Do you sing?”
“Like a frog, I’m afraid! Mandy has a sweet voice. I play the pan pipes; a kind of flute. They’re very popular in South America and easy to carry from place to place. This garden would be a great spot to practise in.”
Braden’s words revived a memory Honor thought was buried in her distant past. When she was packing her case to run away from home, the last thing she stuffed in among the clothes was a thin, silver, treble flute, in its leather case. She bore no great love for the instrument. She had disliked the lessons shared with her twin, but the flute was the only item of any value that Felicity might sell for drugs. Some vague idea of protecting her sister by removing it made her take it away with her.
Like everything connected to that desperate period of her life, she had done all she could to forget it, to bury it deep. Until Faith’s unexpected arrival, she had been successful in that attempt. Dredging up a past of which she was bitterly ashamed had been painful but, with respect to Faith, it was ultimately worthwhile.
Was this latest reminder to be another positive, or just a brief distraction along the way? In either case, she had no intention of sharing her sordid past with Braden Santiago, a man who had breezed into the life of Harmony House and was just as likely to breeze out of it again as soon as his purposes were met.
She looked up and found his dark gaze intent on her face.
He was still waiting for a response.
Flustered, she rushed into a sanitized version of her thoughts.
“You reminded me that I have a treble flute somewhere in the storage area locker. I used to play … but not very well! It’s years since I thought of it at all. It’s probably beyond recovery by now.”
“So, a fellow musician! Wouldn’t this lovely garden benefit from the strains of pipes once in a while? It would make a nice break from our more intellectual pursuits. Please do have a root around and see if you can find your flute, Honor.”
She gave a noncommittal half-smile in response and fervently hoped to hear nothing more about it. The last thing she wanted was to be distracted from serious work by an outdoor concert consisting of two flutes and Mandy’s flute-like voice. What a spectacle that would be?
She shuddered. A lifelong habit of trying to avoid public scrutiny was not about to be discarded on the whim of one man, even one as good-looking as Braden Santiago.
She meant to add no further fuel to his fire. She sprang to her feet and headed back inside the house, leaving him with the impression she was keen to start the search for the flute at once, but she was firmly settled behind her computers and hard at work by the time he followed in her footsteps.
Ah, well! There’s still the chance of a nice lunch downtown one of these fine days. I won’t give up that easily. Honor Pace does not yet know how persistent I can be. I owe her something in return for all she has generously shared with me in her work area.
Jannice O’Connor was keeping secrets from the others at Harmony House.
This was not difficult to do. For one reason or another, the house was in such an uproar most of the time these days that one small person’s silence was hardly noticeable.
It seemed as if Life was rushing ahead to fill in the gap left by Eve’s passing. Her room was given over to two strangers, her bed was gone, and her paintings were dispersed. Even in her kitchen, cupboards had been rearranged and her systems changed. Jannice still expected to find Eve busily mixing ingredients or storing supplies, or pulling something tasty out of the oven with those massive red oven gloves she wore, but the kitchen now lacked her cheery presence and it could never be replaced.
Jannice realized the whole period during which Eve was dying under her care, was traumatic for her.
Of course, it was not the first time she had watched over a dying client’s last days and comforted the family members, but, this one was too close to home. She knew Eve in a way she did not know her assigned clients. Every stage of deterioration she observed in Eve was one she could expect, and for which her training prepared her. But Eve was more than just another client. Eve was one of the adopted family members Jannice had acquired when they all entered Harmony House together. Eve was one of the younger members. If Eve could be gone so soon and so completely, it meant anything could happen at any time. It meant life was truly uncertain and unpredictable.
This realization was slow to grow but when it did, it threw Jannice into a tailspin. Her general distraction was noticed at work and she was asked if she needed some compassionate leave.
“This kind of work often takes a toll on carers, Jannice. Take some time
off. I know you have been helping a friend to do some research in the Toronto area recently, but perhaps it’s time for you to concentrate on yourself for a change. Travel or sit quietly. You will soon know what you need. We’ll be here when you are ready to return.”
Her supervisor was a compassionate woman who knew what was needed before Jannice did. She took off her uniform and hung it away in the back of her closet. Then she stopped.
What next?
She needed something, or someone, to fill the gap.
Her thoughts went to Vilma but Vilma was not readily available these days. She was immersed in some drama of her own related to Andy, and Jannice knew she did not have the strength to take on Vilma’s troubles as well as her own.
She thought of Mavis, who was the most comforting and calming person she had ever known, but Mavis was busy rescuing the three poor children next door at the Ridleys, when she was not in the garden.
For lack of an alternative, Jannice roamed out of doors and into the garden. At first, the flowers Eve had loved and painted so often, brought back the loss in even sharper focus, but as she walked slowly from pathway to raised beds and on into the shade of the forest edge, she felt a calmness descend on her. It was external and physical only, but she was glad to have that, at least.
She brushed the hair back from her forehead and searched for a downed log where she could rest unseen. She found one, leaning against the trunk of a stately fir and plopped down on it, drawing her knees up and clasping them to her. The intervening brush and thin new growth served as a curtain to partially-obscure the rear of the house. From this perspective, the house was less imposing and she was able to view it more impassively as just a building rather than the place holding so many painful memories.
She was reminded of the small house in Old East London where she had lived for most of her life. With Vilma’s help, she was able to leave that massive part of her life behind and it had not haunted her since then. Indeed, it impelled her forward to something better at Harmony House to fill the gap.
