by Hillary Avis
“Maybe you had sympathy for a woman whose life hit the skids due to her husband’s sudden illness. You’re a generous soul,” she said sardonically. “It’ll improve your image if it gets out.”
“Well, it won’t improve yours. People will think we’re sleeping together. You made your bed and we’ll both lie in it, I guess.” He clucked his tongue and leaned back against the passenger side of his SUV, resting his hand on the side mirror. He held eye contact until she looked away, mortified by the intimacy of his gaze. It was only then, when she was studiously avoiding his face, that she noticed the dent in his fender. The smear of blood on his hubcap. A few yellow hairs stuck to the rim.
“Did you kill Jenny?” she blurted out.
He frowned at her. “What in the world are you going on about? No, I didn’t kill anyone. I’m not in the killing business.”
“She’s a dog,” Allison explained stupidly, pointing at the yellow fur stuck to the dry blood on his hubcap. “You have blood on your car.”
He whipped a handkerchief out of his back pocket and used it to swipe away the evidence. Then he flashed her a bright, chilling smile. “Problem solved. Thanks for pointing it out.”
She choked and scrabbled for the door handle behind her, yanking it open as soon as she found it. Leroy chuckled just as she shut the door. He was in a surprisingly good mood for someone who’d just made the worst real estate deal in county history. But apparently, he was the kind of man who could kill a dog and not even have the decency to stop and tell the owners.
She threw the real estate paperwork onto the passenger seat, jammed the car into reverse, and backed out, hardly looking to see whether anyone was coming.
It wasn’t until she was halfway to Golden Gardens that she realized that she’d won. She’d bought a darn hayfield for Zack and Emily, for better or for worse.
ALLISON LEFT THE CHAIR yoga session and hurried over to the entryway when she noticed Emily and Zack come in. She wrapped Emily in a huge hug. “I wasn’t sure you were coming!”
“I came to see Dad,” Emily said, her body rigid as she endured Allison’s embrace. Apparently, she was still mad about the visit Allison paid Elaine in jail. Hopefully, she’d get over it.
“I’m so glad you came, too,” she gushed to Zack over her daughter’s shoulder. She didn’t even have to work hard to feign happiness. She was still buzzing over her real estate victory.
Zack ran his hand through his dark curly hair, looking puzzled. “You are? Emily said you’d prefer if I didn’t hang around while you visited.”
Allison pulled back from the hug and shot Emily a disapproving look. “You told him that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Of course not. Anyway, I wanted to give you both something before you sit down with Paul. Stay right there.” She dashed to the back hall where her purse was and returned with a manila envelope. She’d stuck a pink gift bow on it and written Congratulations on your Engagement in huge, looping letters on the outside. She handed it to Emily. “It’s from me and Dad.”
Emily read the outside of the envelope and shared a dubious look with Zack. “You don’t want to wait for the engagement party?”
“No, open it now!” Allison held her breath as Emily undid the clasp and pulled out the paperwork, scanning the forms with a puzzled expression on her face. “That’s a gift deed. You just need to sign your names, and the property is yours! I’ll still have to file them this coming week, but otherwise it’s a done deal. You’ll have a little piece of Remembrance.”
Emily handed the paperwork wordlessly to Zack, who frowned as he looked it over. He looked up when he got to the bottom of the page. “What is this?”
“Your engagement gift! I thought, since both of you are descended from founding families, you might like to have a foothold here in town. It’s just a field now, but you could build on it in the future, if you ever move back. The property has water rights; it backs up to Timber Creek. It’s really pretty—you can’t buy a view like that in Portland.” Allison realized she was babbling and stopped herself.
“We’re not moving back here,” Emily said, shaking her head. “There are no jobs.”
“Well, you could sell it down the line. Or rent it out for grazing. Or just use it for picnics or camping by the creek. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Emily gave her a pained look. “I don’t know. I mean, thank you, but you have to admit this is a weird present, Mom. What in the world prompted this?”
Allison grimaced, fumbling for an explanation. “We—I mean I lost the bakery. I wish I could give you that instead, but I can’t. I hoped this land would be some consolation, so you still feel like you belong here. I know you didn’t grow up here, Zack, but your people are from here, and I think it would be nice if you had a connection, too. But if you don’t want it, that’s fine. You can always sell it. Just sign the gift deed now and figure out what you want to do with it later.”
Behind her back, she crossed her fingers tightly. Maybe Zack wouldn’t realize the implications of having an address in Remembrance. The way Elaine had spoken about him, she hadn’t told him much about his family history or how the library worked. At least, not enough to be suspicious, she hoped.
Emily rubbed her forehead. “Can we please deal with this another time?”
Allison pasted a cheery smile over the panic rising in her chest. “It’ll just take a sec.”
Zack nodded, putting a hand on Emily’s shoulder, his face sympathetic. “Come on, hon. It clearly means a lot to your mom.” Allison’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected that he’d be an ally in this. If anything, she’d worried he’d sabotage the whole thing.
Emily sighed and gave a reluctant nod as Allison hurriedly took the envelope and spread the forms out on the end of one of the large activity tables, then scuttled over to the nurse’s station to grab a pen. She only caught the tail end of Zack’s sentence when she returned.
“...just a matter of time.”
“What is?” she asked pleasantly, handing the pen to Emily.
Emily bent over the forms and answered for him as she scribbled her name on the highlighted lines. “Accepting your apology. Zack says to give it time for my feelings to catch up.”
“My apology?”
Emily straightened and gestured at the table. “This bizarre gift—obviously, you feel guilty for meddling in Elaine’s case and are trying to make it up to us.”
“I didn’t say that,” Zack corrected. “I said emotions are high, and it will take time to sort out the ugly realities of the legal situation. We all need to stay calm and remember we’re family. We need to give each other grace.” He gave Allison a level look that she wasn’t sure how to take. Was he implying that Emily’s loyalties were with him, as his new fiancée? Or was he reminding her that he and Elaine were a united front?
Allison held her breath as he took the ballpoint pen gently from Emily and added his name to the forms. Then he handed it back with a small smile. “I’m off to see Mom now. I hope you guys have a good visit.”
He dropped a peck onto Emily’s cheek and strode out while Allison was still speechless.
“Don’t look like that.” Emily shuffled the papers back into the envelope.
“Like what?” Allison rearranged her expression into something other than relief that Zack had signed the forms.
“I don’t know—like you’re surprised that he’s a good person. Just because his mom did something bad doesn’t mean he’s bad.”
But he might have committed murder, Allison wanted to scream. Maybe this was the right time to tell Emily everything. She was operating in the dark, and that wasn’t fair to her. Allison stole a glance at Paul across the room. He caught her eye and, seeing Emily standing next to her, lit up and started toward them.
“But what if he is?” Allison asked quickly, testing the water. “What if there are things about him that you don’t know?”
“Of course there are things I don’t know! The whole point
of marriage is that we have a lifetime to learn about each other.” Emily flicked her long, caramel waves over her shoulder in annoyance. She caught sight of Paul’s approach and, eyes on him, said, “You don’t know everything about Dad, and you’ve been married forever.”
It was true. Allison learned something new about Paul every time she cracked open a memory book. His dreams. His secret thoughts. But he wasn’t hiding a crime like murder. “There’s something I need to tell you. About Zack and his mom.”
Emily’s laugh rang out as Paul picked her up and spun her around. When he put her down and tugged her toward the seating area, she said over her shoulder to Allison, “Can you just be happy for me, please? The way Dad is?”
Paul stopped in his tracks, frowning at Emily. “Your mother and I are both very happy for you, sweetheart. That’s all we want for you—happiness.”
Emily’s mouth gaped open as she looked back and forth between them. “You remember Mom?” she asked weakly, sinking down on the nearest chair.
“Only a little,” Paul said, eyes darting to Allison as his square chin quavered the slightest bit. “A little, but it’s enough.”
Allison felt her own tears rise and she flew over to kneel in front of Emily. Grasping her hands, she waited until Emily caught her breath. “We are going to get through this, together.”
Emily nodded, blinking away the tears that beaded on her long eyelashes. “I just can’t believe it. It’s been so long since we—”
“Since we were a family.” Paul’s voice rumbled behind Allison, and she felt his hand on her shoulder, saw him reach for Emily’s shoulder, too. She let herself exist there in the moment, in the circle of their family, soaking in the feel of their connection, however tenuous it was.
And she couldn’t bring herself to shatter it with any ugly realities.
Maybe next time.
Chapter 16
Sunday
All night, Allison dreamed about Emily and Paul. Sometimes they were in her house, arguing over what to name the puppies. Other times they were gone—so far away, she had no hope of seeing them again. Myra texted in the early hours on Sunday, waking Allison from her fitful sleep. It was a relief to open her eyes to the fuzzy gray dawn and squint at her screen to read the message.
“I can’t make it to the restaurant this morning, sorry. Crystal’s not ready to be alone with the baby and the big kids.”
Kara’s reply came before Allison even finished reading. “Bring them!”
“Be careful what you wish for. I will see y’all next week.” Myra ended her message with a purple heart.
A moment later, a message buzzed in from Kara to Allison alone. “Don’t you cancel on me, too. I need this brunch.”
Allison chuckled. How did Kara know she’d been thinking just that? “You better bring Pogo, then,” she replied.
“Be careful what you wish for.”
Allison grinned at her phone for a moment and stuffed it under her pillow so she could catch a few more precious minutes of sleep. The puppies were doing great, but they still needed to go out to pee every few hours, so she’d been up and down with them, in between her weird dreams. But when she closed her eyes, she could hear their high-pitched yips filtering up through the floorboards, and a hammering sound that could only be Everest digging at the wire pen in his millionth attempt at an escape.
Wrapping her cozy bathrobe around her shoulders, she dragged herself downstairs to make a pre-brunch coffee. On the way, she let the puppies out in the back yard and watched them romp around the grass through the kitchen window while she filled the kettle and put it on the stove. They were going to be dew-damp and grubby when they came in; the back yard was still full of holes from Willow’s diligent excavations.
Coffee in hand, she sat down at the table to check the books for Zack and Emily’s memories. Family Dinners seemed the best bet for finding anyone’s memories. But neither “Kirkpatrick, Zack” nor “Rye, Emily” appeared in the table of contents. Her heart sank and her stomach rebelled against her last sip of coffee. Maybe it wouldn’t work until she filed the paperwork for the gift deed transfer.
Or maybe it wouldn’t work at all.
A knock at the back door startled her, and she sloshed her coffee on the book. She hastily wiped it off the table of contents with the sleeve of her robe and looked up to see who it was. Taylor peered back through the glass, motioning to her to open the door.
Checking her robe to make sure she was decent, she went to unlock it. “I’m not working today,” she told him.
He shook his head. “I’m not here for that. I just came to tell you Grandma’s on her way over to talk to you. She’s not in a good mood.” His eyes welled and threatened to spill over as he gazed stubbornly at her bare feet.
Allison crouched down in front of him so she could look him in the eye. “Hey. What happened?”
He shook his head, biting his lip as his chin crumpled and his tears finally overflowed down his cheeks. His head jerked up when a knock came at the front door. “I better go,” he hiccupped and then darted back toward his house, easily clambering to the top of the fence. Allison made sure he had a healthy head start toward his second-story bedroom window before she went to answer the door.
“Morning, Michelle,” she said as she opened it and stood aside for the woman-shaped thunderstorm on her front porch to enter. Taylor wasn’t kidding that she was in a bad mood.
“So what was Emily’s reaction?” Michelle asked as she stumped down the hall. Allison stayed quiet, unsure how to answer. When Michelle reached the dining room, she turned around accusingly, the breeze from the still-open back door sending her silvery strawberry hair flying around her shoulders. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Coffee?” Allison asked.
“I knew you wouldn’t.”
How could Michelle know that, when Allison hadn’t known it herself? She’d absolutely intended to tell her. Well, she’d dreaded telling her, anticipated telling her—but the decision not to tell her hadn’t come until the moment she felt Paul’s electric touch on her shoulder. “I have better news.”
Michelle raised an eyebrow and pulled out a chair. “You’re going to get me that coffee you mentioned?”
“Right.” The kettle in the kitchen was still hot, so Allison returned only a few minutes later and set down a steaming mug in front of Michelle, along with the creamer and sugar.
“Well?” Michelle blew on her coffee and took a tentative sip before adding some cream.
“I think I got Zack’s memories into the books.”
Michelle froze, the cream still swirling into her mug. Only when the coffee lapped the rim and slid down the side of the mug did she seem to remember what she was doing and set down the pitcher. Allison handed her a napkin. Michelle took it, shaking her head as she lifted the mug to wipe up the small spill. “How’d you manage that?”
“I gifted Zack and Emily a piece of property here in town so they’d have a Remembrance address.” Michelle didn’t need to know about all the memory-hacking she’d done with the pen. Those were just details—details that would certainly not improve Michelle’s mood nor her opinion of Allison.
“So...where’s the storage unit?” Michelle leaned forward eagerly, her hands wrapped around her mug. “Where’s the paper?”
Allison winced. “I don’t know yet. I think I need to file the gift deed transfer before their memories show up, so it’s legally theirs.”
“So his memories aren’t in the books.”
“Not yet. But they will be very soon. At least, I think so.” Allison felt as nervous as she had as a fourth grader when her teacher gave a pop quiz.
Michelle made a noise of disgust and rose to her feet, using her cane to straighten the last few inches. She lifted the cane and pointed the tip at Allison. “Another thing. Stop giving money to my grandson.” She dug in the pocket of her house coat and slapped a handful of bills on the table.
Startled, Allison stared at the pile of m
oney. At a glance, it looked like every dollar she’d paid Taylor that week. “I didn’t just give it to him. He earned it. What’s wrong with that?”
“If he needs something, I’ll provide it, thank you very much.” Michelle frowned at her still-full coffee cup, picked it up to slurp a healthy amount, then stalked back down the hall to the front door and let herself out, leaving Allison behind, speechless.
Michelle was such a crab. What was the harm in Taylor earning some pocket money? Shaking her head, Allison rounded up the puppies, toweled them off, and herded them back to their pen to sleep off their morning romp while she met Kara at the restaurant.
She needed this brunch, too.
KARA PINNED A WRIGGLING Pogo on her lap with one hand as she attempted to sip her second Irish coffee. It looked downright dangerous. The hot coffee was in definite danger of spilling all over Kara’s lap—and all over the little Yorkie—if she wasn’t careful.
“Want me to hold him?” Allison offered, pushing back her plate.
Kara set down her coffee, giggling. “Would you? He won’t stay still.” When Allison nodded, she handed him over. Pogo turned around a few times in Allison’s lap before tucking his tail and laying down with a minute sigh of satisfaction. Kara threw up her hands. “Why won’t he sit still for me?!”
“I guess I’m giving off that grandma energy.” Allison winked at her and resumed her breakfast. Kara used the opportunity to drink with both hands and finished off her boozy coffee in a matter of minutes. When she waved down the server and ordered a third, Allison raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t judge me,” Kara shot back. “I’m medicating.”
“Medicating? Why?”
“A certain inmate entered a guilty plea, which means a certain law enforcement professional”—she said the word in a tone that indicated she definitely did not find this person professional at all—“is still on my case. Once the DA schedules Elaine’s sentencing, she’ll be transferred to prison and they’ll both be out of my hair.”
