by Hillary Avis
None of it made sense. Except it did.
It made perfect sense. Myra and Elaine were friends. That’s why Elaine had picked her to become the next guardian of the memory library. They were close, close enough that Elaine had known Myra needed a place of her own after her husband, Al, died. Close enough that Myra hugged her like family.
As Myra fussed over Emily’s engagement ring, Elaine glanced at Allison, the corner of her mouth turned up in triumph. It was her turn to revel in Allison’s surprise. Her turn to gloat. Anger surged under Allison’s skin. She wouldn’t let Elaine have Myra, too. She stepped forward into the group.
“You didn’t tell me Emily’s Zack was Elaine’s boy!” Myra chastised her warmly.
“I didn’t know you were acquainted,” Allison fibbed.
Myra chuckled. “We’ve been friends for years. Hard not to be when you live in a town this small, I guess.”
Bewilderment bloomed on Emily’s face as she turned to Elaine. “You used to live in Remembrance? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mistake on Elaine’s part. Emily was no dummy. Pride in her daughter replaced Allison’s anger as she waited for Elaine’s excuse.
Elaine didn’t even bother to give one. Instead, she waved across the room to where Paul sat to get his attention. “Let’s go see your dad, Em. We don’t want to waste any more time.”
Paul stood up, and Elaine herded Emily and Zack toward him, leaving Myra and Allison behind.
“They’re just excited,” Myra said sympathetically. “She didn’t mean—”
Allison cut her off. “I know what she meant. And I agree. Paul needs all the time he can get with Emily. I see him every day.”
Myra shook her head. “It’s just wild that Emily ended up with Zack. Small world, I guess.”
“I guess. Not small enough that I knew her when she lived here, though.”
“Maybe she was gluten-free.” Myra winked.
“Or maybe I’m no good at making friends.”
“Be nice.” Myra gave her a gentle thwack on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “It’s not like you had much time for socializing when you and Paul were working dawn to dusk, seven days a week.”
“You don’t have free time either, and you still have friends.” Allison paused. “How did you and Elaine meet, anyway? Did you grow up together?”
Myra frowned, remembering. “No, I guess I met her maybe five or six years back. I was doing some volunteer work down at City Hall, setting up the Founders’ display for the 150th anniversary. You’ve seen it, I’m sure—all those old photos and such. She was helping out with that, too, and we got to chatting about our children leaving the nest and you know how it goes. We bonded. She moved to town a little while after that, I guess.”
“Wait—she didn’t live here, but she was helping with the Founders’ display? That’s weird.”
Myra shrugged. “She’s interested in local history. I think she was living up in Elkhorn or Mollala before that. You know how hard it is to find rentals here. Actually, she lived in the little green house before I did. She’s the one who set me up there when Al passed on. I guess she wanted to be up near Zack. Can’t blame her.”
Allison took a deep breath, every cell in her body wishing Myra remembered being the guardian. Then she could tell her the real reason Elaine moved out of the house on Rosemary Street. It wasn’t maternal love drawing her to Portland. She had to leave—her three years as guardian were up and her plan to murder the watcher had failed. Elaine may have passed the guardianship to Myra, but it wasn’t because of sympathy. Her hand was forced.
But, Allison reflected, she’d chosen Myra to be the guardian for the next three years. Myra, who would still be the guardian now—she’d only served two of her three years before offering the place to Allison—if Elaine had her way. That must have been part of Elaine’s shock when she pulled up to the little green house on Rosemary Street. She expected Myra would answer the door.
Her good friend, Myra. Someone who might be sympathetic. Someone who might bend—or break—the rules for her. Someone who might even give the guardianship back to her, if Elaine played her cards right.
Allison bit her lip and darted a glance at Myra. She’d taken Myra’s loyalty for granted—they were as close as friends could be. In fact, if Myra didn’t have so many other friends, Allison would be tempted to say they were best friends.
But just because Myra was her closest friend didn’t mean Myra felt the same way. She’d known Elaine for longer than she’d known Allison. She was probably grateful to Elaine for providing her with a home when she needed a soft place to land, a safe place to grieve for Al. A place to remember him, although Myra wouldn’t recall that part now.
Next to her, Myra clucked her tongue. “I better get back to work. Enjoy your visit.”
Allison flashed her a smile as she headed off on a circuit of the room to check in with each of the residents. The instant Myra’s attention was elsewhere, Allison’s smile faded. This wasn’t her visit. Every time she so much as looked in Paul and Emily’s direction, Elaine moved to block her view. She’d meant it when she’d told Allison to stay in the background.
Lilian sidled over and tugged on her sleeve. “Did you bring us any balloons?”
Allison was grateful for the momentary distraction. “I’m not working today, just visiting. How are you doing?”
“Bored,” Lilian snapped. “You don’t look like you’re visiting, standing here by your lonesome. If you’re going to visit, you might as well visit with me. Pull out that chair, I need to sit—and you sit next to me so I can see you. I don’t want to squint across the table.”
Allison chuckled to herself as she followed Lilian’s instructions to the letter. It was futile to resist the force of her personality when she was like this. Lilian started in on a colorful story about when she was a small child during the war and her uncle stole their sugar ration coupons to make wine. Allison listened politely, though she was only half paying attention, distracted watching Elaine fawn over Paul across the room.
“He was always tipsy by noon,” Lilian explained. “He and his other brother were too young to be soldiers and too young to drink legally so they’d sneak into orchards after dark and pick up fruit off the ground to make their own.”
“That’s enterprising of them.”
“A waste of the creative spirit if you ask me. They could have done anything and here they were doing their darnedest to be drunkards. What a shame.”
Allison murmured her agreement, although she couldn’t help admiring the ingenuity of teenagers who learned to make wine without the help of a YouTube tutorial. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Zack leave the building. He returned just a minute later with the cardboard box from his car. On the other side of the room, Elaine held out her hands for the box, like a child waiting for Santa, her greed seemingly unchecked by the presence of Paul and Emily.
What in the world was she up to?
Chapter 21
Allison stood up abruptly, interrupting Lilian in the middle of her sentence.
“Sorry—I’ll be right back.” She followed Zack over to the sofa, where he’d set the box on the coffee table. Elaine was already on her knees beside it, slitting the tape on top of the box with her thumbnail. “What are you doing?”
Emily looked up, noticing Allison for the first time. “Mom just thought—Elaine just thought—that maybe looking through his old things might help Dad remember.”
So Emily was calling her “Mom” now. Allison clenched her teeth to quell the anger rising in her chest. Obviously, helping Paul remember was not what Elaine was after. She probably wanted to go through the box before Emily took it home and shoved it in a closet.
Elaine ignored Allison and opened the flaps on the box. She pulled out a newspaper-wrapped bundle on top and fumbled the paper off, unwinding it until she revealed a snow globe, the tiny dog inside standing on its hind legs next to a fir tree. She shook it and handed it to Paul. He sta
red at it as the snow settled on the tree branches.
“Recognize it, Dad?” Emily asked eagerly.
He shook his head slowly. Of course, he didn’t. Allison got it at a garage sale when Emily was still riding in a stroller. That was the only way to get her to nap some days, so Allison would make long circuits on the streets around the bakery, perusing the gardens and garage sales of the neighbors as she waited for Emily’s eyelids to grow heavy and close for a blessed couple of hours. The snow globe had caught her eye because the dog reminded her of their Yorkie, Tiny. She’d paid a quarter for it and it came out every Christmas, much to little Emily’s delight.
“If you ever have kids—” Allison began, but Elaine cut her off.
“How about this?” she asked Paul, swapping the snow globe in his hands for the stuffed lamb. A few notes chimed as she jostled the music box inside, and Paul nearly dropped it, his forehead creasing with confusion.
“No—I don’t—I’m sorry,” he said, handing it back.
Elaine dropped it carelessly to the floor and dipped inside the box again. This time she drew out the marble clock. It was heavy—too heavy to just hand to someone. Elaine raised her thin eyebrows at Paul as she hefted it up a few inches. He shook his head wordlessly, his jaw tight.
“That was always on the mantel at home,” Emily prompted. “Don’t you recognize it?”
Paul let out a burst of air in frustration and stood up. “I don’t, all right? I don’t! I’m trying, but it’s like looking into a closet without a light. There’s just nothing there.”
Emily was at his side in an instant, patting his arm. “Don’t worry about it, Dad. It’s fine. We can stop. What are you doing?” This last question was directed at Elaine, who was still doggedly pulling things out of the box. She took out the slim cardboard box that held the set of pearl-handled steak knives and cracked it open, then put it aside, the lid half askew. She didn’t seem to hear Emily’s question.
“Mom?” Zack asked. Both Allison and Elaine turned their heads toward him as he spoke. “That’s enough.”
Elaine froze, seeming suddenly self-conscious. She looked at the items strewn around her as though she hadn’t realized what she was doing. Allison saw her eyes dart to the moving box and then back to them, assessing whether she could finish what she’d started. She was dying to get to the bottom of that box.
“All that’s left in there is a tea set,” Allison said pointedly. “It belonged to Paul’s great grandmother.” It didn’t, but Elaine didn’t need to know that.
“Which side?” Elaine asked, as though it mattered.
“His mother’s.”
“So Grandma Zelda’s grandma?” Emily asked. Allison nodded. It was a white lie. It could have been hers. It was old enough, anyway. It didn’t matter that it came from an estate sale. Allison had purchased it herself for her bridal shower tea party before she and Paul married.
To her surprise, Paul kneeled beside Elaine, hovering over the open box. He reached inside and removed the lid of the hat box that held the tea set, then took out a single cup and held it, turning it over in his hands to examine the pattern and the marks on the bottom, the gold-leafed handle and delicate rim. He frowned and replaced the cup in the box. “I thought I remembered her tea set from when I was a boy. She made me cambric tea when we visited—you know, with a lot of milk in it. But maybe I’m wrong. I don’t recognize this one.”
His expression broke Allison’s heart. She hated that her fib made him doubt himself.
“She probably didn’t let a little kid use her good china.” Emily supplied the excuse so Allison didn’t have to come up with one. She was such a tenderhearted girl—not even a girl anymore, a young woman who’d soon be a doctor. If she had as much compassion for her patients as she had for her dad, she’d be a good one, too.
Allison’s pride was tempered with a little guilt. She’d assumed Emily’s reticence to visit Paul since his memory loss was because Emily was somehow better at accepting reality than she was. Better at moving on, better at closing off her heart to who Paul was, since that person was mostly gone. But Emily had stayed away for a different reason—it was just too painful for her. She was sensitive, not detached.
Elaine shifted the things she’d pulled out of the box around on the floor, looking under the newspaper wrappings and muttering to herself. “Is this it? Is this everything?”
Emily frowned down at her and slung an arm around Paul. “I said stop—really, Elaine. That’s enough. Put everything back, please. Dad and I are going outside to get some air.” She and Paul left, still linked, headed for the sliding door to the patio. Allison bit back a smile—it was Elaine again, not Mom, at least for now.
Elaine stared after them, and Zack quickly dropped to the floor and began repacking the box. But rather than help him, Elaine gave Allison an accusatory glare. “Where’s the rest?” she demanded.
“Mom!” Zack sat up, surprised.
“This isn’t everything.”
“It is,” Allison said simply. “I don’t know what you were expecting.”
“Yes, you do,” Elaine snapped. “You know exactly what.” She moved to rise, but Zack grabbed her arm.
“Don’t. You’re acting crazy.” His voice held a low note of warning that Elaine seemed to ignore.
Her eyes blazed. “This is Emily’s birthright! I’m just supposed to sit by and let her keep it?! Let her lie about it? She just wants it for herself!”
Zack held her shoulders with both hands. “Mom, you’re making a scene. You need to snap out of it. Now.” He turned his face apologetically to Allison, who did her best to swallow the bile that was rising in her throat. “I’m really sorry. This isn’t like her. I appreciate that you packed these things up for Emily—we will treasure them.”
Allison smiled tightly, keeping a wary eye on Elaine. “I think I’d better go. I left the dog in the house.”
“She can’t go home!” Elaine said sharply.
“Come to lunch with us,” Zack said, his eyes pleading Allison’s forgiveness. He was clearly eager to repair any damage his mom’s bizarre behavior had done. “We’re taking Paul out.”
She shook her head. “You go. Enjoy. And take care of Emily—please.”
Chapter 22
Allison speed-walked home and let Willow out in the back yard, although the dog didn’t even need to go out—it’d barely been an hour since she’d left. Of course, she’d known that Elaine would be disappointed when she realized that Emily’s box didn’t contain whatever she was looking for. But she didn’t expect that Elaine would unpack the box right in front of everyone and paw through it like a raccoon in a trash can.
Elaine was rattled—more than rattled—by what had happened today. She hadn’t even wanted Allison to leave. Why, when she knew she wasn’t going to get what she wanted? Maybe because she knew Allison was coming home to the library. The library was her unforeseen advantage, though what advantage it gave her, Allison didn’t know. She couldn’t see Elaine’s memories, since she didn’t live here in Remembrance. She didn’t have evidence Elaine had done anything wrong, and any accusation she made would need to be airtight, or she risked losing Emily’s good graces.
The answer was on her kitchen table. It had to be.
She sat down in front of her notebook for the twentieth time that week and reviewed the list she’d made. But before she could get past the first few entries, she heard Willow scratching at the back door. Allison sighed and let her in, then went back to business, reading the details of the next item on the list.
Rolling pin, fourteen inches long, wood, Paul’s favorite daily use pin. Vintage, maybe his mom’s? Two pounds.
She hefted the rolling pin from its place on the table in the largest group of items, the mass produced ones. It was comfortable in her hands; she’d used it many times herself to roll out dough at the bakery. She didn’t know the brand or where it had come from, and it didn’t have any distinctive markings. While there was nothing extraordinary
about it, she might have been wrong about it being factory-made. It could have been hand-turned on a lathe. She added a question mark by the listing and moved the rolling pin to the other side of the table, with the few one-of-a-kind items. On to the next one.
Willow sat next to her and fixed her with a stare. When Allison ignored her in favor of the notebook, Willow put a giant, heavy paw on her leg.
“What?”
Willow pawed again and then stared down the hall in the direction of the front door, a not-so-subtle signal that it was time for a walk.
Fine.
She let Willow have free reign of the leash at first, but the dog was already accustomed to the route to Golden Gardens and headed straight there—the last place Allison wanted to show her face today. She tugged Willow down a side street instead. They crossed the highway and put some distance between themselves and home before Allison remembered that Zach planned to take Paul out for lunch, probably at the Feast and Flower. She veered northeast to avoid the restaurant and before she knew it, they were in Founders Square.
Her old stomping grounds, the closest thing Remembrance had to a downtown. The bakery bordered the open, grassy square on one side, so over the years working there, she’d spent many hours watching people visit the gazebo on the other side of the park as she kneaded dough or washed baking pans and spatulas. The gazebo was a favorite place for locals to celebrate milestones—anniversaries, birthdays, graduations—because it seemed to make every memory more vivid, like watching a movie play in your head.
She’d always believed it was just a local superstition, a funny small-town tradition, until she became guardian of the library. Now she knew that the magic that had imbued the original Founders Tree was in everything that had been made from the tree after it was hit by lightning. Each founding family got to choose what to do with some of the wood, and one founding family chose to build the gazebo. Myra had mentioned when she’d passed the guardianship to Allison.
