Unfinished Business

by Inglath Cooper

  The flight was a short one, but there was ample enough time for worry to get a better foothold. Her mother was the strongest woman she’d ever known. Addy couldn’t imagine her sick. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her with anything more than a two-day cold.

  Right behind the worry came a surge of remorse for the fact that she hadn’t been home in nearly a year. She’d planned a couple of visits, canceled both times at the last minute when something else had come up. And the really terrible thing was that she’d been just the slightest bit relieved.

  It was easier not to see her. Easier not to look at the fractures in their relationship. Somehow, talking on the phone, they could pretend everything was normal. Ask about each other’s lives, work and friends. Gloss over the awkwardness.

  It was awful, but it was true.

  In Roanoke, she rented a car to drive the forty-five minutes to Harper’s Mill and pulled into the hospital parking lot just after two. It had been built in the sixties, a one-level redbrick building that had recently had a new wing added to it so that the hospital looked more like its modern cousin. Addy parked and jogged across the lot to the main entrance, stopped at the information desk to ask where she could find her mother.

  A young woman with round cheeks and a smile that reached her eyes pecked a few keys on the computer and said, “She’s been checked into room 115. To your right.”

  “Thank you,” Addy said and hurried down the hall.

  Outside the room stood Ida Rutherford, Claire’s best friend. Also Culley’s mother. Age had rounded Ida’s short frame, but as always, she was as neatly dressed as if she’d just come from a meeting at church. Ida was a woman who naturally projected comfort, and Addy was overwhelmingly glad to see her. “Addy, dear,” she said, opening her arms.

  Addy stepped into her embrace, and a small sob slid from her throat.

  “Claire’s going to be just fine. Your mama is a strong woman. Don’t you forget that,” Ida said, patting her shoulder.

  Addy stepped back, wiped her eyes with her thumb. “What happened?”

  Ida reached in her purse, handed her a tissue. “I’ll leave that to Dr. Moore. I hope you don’t mind, but I called Culley also, and he’s been by twice to check on her.”

  Addy tried to smile, nodded and said, “Thank you, Ida.”

  “Go in, sweetie,” Ida said, squeezing her hand. “You’ll feel better seeing her.”

  Addy stepped into the room, stopping at the foot of the bed. Another wave of emotion surged up at the sight of her mother.

  Against the stark white sheets, she looked tired and vulnerable. Addy had never associated either of those things with her before. To Addy, Claire had always seemed to have stores of extra energy. But strangest of all was to see her with her defenses down. The image she carried of her mother was one of determination and strength. Claire was a woman who took her knocks and kept going. When life got tough, she got tougher.

  Claire opened her eyes now, blinked once as if she doubted what she was seeing, then smiled. “Hi, honey.”

  Addy moved closer, took her mother’s hand. “Hi, Mama. What are you doing in here?”

  “The cruises were all booked.”

  Addy tried to smile. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay. You didn’t need to come all this way.”

  “Of course I did.” She fell silent for a moment, awkwardness making the words stick in her throat. “I haven’t spoken with your doctor yet. But as soon as he—”

  “Don’t worry. A day or two of rest, and I’ll be good as new.”

  “No doubt about that.” The comment came from just outside the room door.

  Addy looked up and met the kind-eyed gaze of an older man in a white coat. He walked across the floor, stuck out his hand. “I’m Dr. Moore. You must be the daughter Claire is so proud of.”

  Addy glanced at her mother and then shook hands with him. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Moore.”

  “Okay, Claire,” he said, sitting down on the stool at the foot of the bed and crossing his arms. “The good news is you’re lucky you didn’t have a stroke. The bad news is if we don’t get your blood pressure under control, you’re a prime candidate. I spoke with Dr. Rutherford a few minutes ago. He said you’ve been on medication for a year now, is that right?”

  Addy looked at her mother, tried to hide her surprise. A year?

  “Any unusual stresses in your life?” he continued.

  Claire glanced down at her hands. “Nothing unusual.”

  The doctor pinned her with his stare as if he were used to prying confessions out of patients. “Dr. Rutherford and I have agreed to alter your medication, but we need you to try and adjust some of your other risk factors. That’s your apple orchard out on Route 836, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re involved full-time then?”

  “I am.”

  “Any way you could cut back some of those hours?”

  “Not any way I can see.”

  The doctor put his clipboard on his knee and ran a hand around the back of his neck. “I don’t wish to alarm either of you, but sometimes that’s what it takes to make people create necessary changes in their lives. You are at risk for a stroke, Claire. You were lucky this time. And I’d like to see you do what you can to lessen that risk.”

  “I appreciate your advice, Dr. Moore.”

  He stood. “We’d like to keep you overnight. Let you go home in the morning. Either of you have any questions?”

  “No,” Claire said.

  Addy shook her head. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “I’ll check in on you later this evening, Claire.”

  Once he’d left the room, Addy looked at her mother. “How long has your blood pressure been elevated?”

  “A while. I didn’t want to worry you with that. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”

  Addy started to argue, but then when was the last time she’d made herself available to her mother for talks of any length? A wave of guilt washed up, and she pressed her lips together.

  Claire lay back on her pillow. “Do you mind if I close my eyes for a minute? I think they put a couple of martinis in that IV. I can barely stay awake.”

  Addy sat down in the chair by the window. “Sleep. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE STAYED UNTIL almost seven o’clock. Claire slept most of that time, waking up long enough to apologize for being so out of it and to insist that Addy go home for the night. “There’s nothing you can do here. And I’d feel better if you checked on Peabody. He has food, but he’ll be wondering where I am.”

  “I’ll be a poor substitute for you.”

  “He’ll warm up to the idea,” Claire said with a weak smile. “You know where the key is. Just let yourself in.”

  “Be back first thing in the morning.” She leaned down and kissed her mother’s forehead. “Good night.”

  “Good night, honey.”

  Addy left the hospital and drove through town, taking highway 220 south until she hit the secondary road that wound its way to Taylor Orchards. She turned off the air conditioner and rolled down the window. The familiar sounds and aromas seeped through her, settled deep. Cows lowing in the pasture off the left side of the road. The smells of spring, green grass and moist earth tinted with a whiff of Bowman’s dairy farm drifting through the window.

  A half mile or so down the road, she turned left again onto the gravel drive that led up Taylor Mountain. Her heart began beating faster. A wave of pure homesickness washed over her at the sight of the white farmhouse set against its backdrop of mountains. The house had been built at the turn of the last century by Addy’s maternal great-grandparents. They had farmed the land, raising corn and other crops. It was her grandparents who had planted the apple trees in the thirties, rows of Red Delicious and Granny Smith, shipping the fruit by train up and down the east coast, and the Taylor name had become a standard in the industry.

  She pulled in
to the driveway now, hit by a clash of memories. Summer days out in the orchard. Her mother ringing the big old bell at the back door every evening to call her in for supper.

  She leaned forward on the steering wheel, absorbing. She had once thought that like her mother, the orchard would be her life’s work. But Mark had other places, other things in mind, and she had convinced herself she wanted those things, too.

  She got out of the car, found the key under the terra-cotta flowerpot on the porch’s first step and let herself in the house. The smells were familiar here, too. The lingering scent of bread from the oven. The lemon furniture polish her mother had used for as long as she could remember.

  A meow sounded from the living room, a jump to the hardwood floor, and then Peabody trotted into the foyer. At the sight of Addy, he made an abrupt halt, tail straight up in the air. Black with four white socks, his expression was one of immediate disdain.

  “I told her you weren’t going to be happy,” Addy said, putting down her bag.

  The responding meow was cat for you-got-that-right.

  “She’ll be back soon. I’m just the temporary stand-in.”

  Peabody gave her a look of pure skepticism, then bounded off in a huff.

  Despite the fact that Claire had rescued the cat from a shelter as a kitten, there had no doubt been royal blood somewhere in his lineage. The sun rose and set on Claire, but as for the rest of the world, tolerance was the best he could do.

  Addy went into the kitchen. This part of the house had not changed from her childhood, and she was grateful for the fact that here, at least, life had its own comfortable predictability. The old-style silver percolator still sat on the counter beside a wood canister that said Coffee in bold black letters. The floor still squeaked in the same places beneath her feet.

  On the round table in the center of the floor sat a coffee cup still half-full and a slice of toast spread with apple butter.

  Addy stood staring for several long moments, hit with a very real fear of what it would be like to lose her mother. In a moment of clarity, she realized that she had never thought about it, had just believed on some level that Claire would always be there.

  She picked up the dishes, put them in the sink and rinsed them off, the faucet responding in its familiar way, one short gush, then a steady low pressure stream from the spring at the back of the house. Red-and-white-checked gingham curtains flanked the window above the sink that looked out onto Addy’s favorite apple tree. How many summer afternoons had her mother stood there peeling potatoes or canning green beans, watching her climb from limb to limb?

  Car tires crunched on the gravel outside the house. Addy went to the window in the front hall and looked out. A dark blue Explorer pulled into the driveway.

  Culley got out, tall and somber-faced. She anchored her hands to the windowsill, as though she would fall if she didn’t hold on to something. She could go upstairs and pretend not to hear him. How childish was that? And wouldn’t it only be delaying the inevitable? Sooner or later, she would have to see him, face up to what they had done that night in New York, get past it.

  She opened the front door, felt her heart thump hard in her chest. It was difficult to get used to this version of him, Culley as a man, lean and muscled, but with enough of the same qualities that had made girls in high school lose all sense of reserve when he turned his blue-eyed gaze on them.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  Silence held them in an awkward grip.

  “I just came from the hospital,” he said. “Your mom told me you were here.”

  She nodded. “Was she okay?”

  “Doing fine.” He hesitated and then blew out a whoosh of air as if forcing himself to relax. “Can we talk a minute, Addy?”

  “Sure,” she said, stepping back to let him in the house.

  “Out here’s good,” he said, sitting down on the porch’s top step.

  She came out and sat down a couple of feet away, the space between them deliberate.

  He sat with his legs spread apart, elbows on his knees, hands dangling. He turned his head and gave her a direct look. “Did you fire that secretary who sent all my messages to voice-mail heaven?”

  She started to speak, then stopped. “Culley—”

  “So you actually did get the messages. Okay, let’s just go ahead and let the elephant out of the living room. This is awkward as hell.”

  Her face flushed. She laced her fingers together, unable to look at him. “And then some.”

  “Addy, look, I’m sorry if—”

  “Don’t,” she said, wincing and holding up a hand to stop him, meeting his gaze now. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Really. You don’t.”

  “I wish you hadn’t left that way,” he said, his voice low and laced with an intimacy that sent something warm coursing through her.

  “I wish I hadn’t dragged you into my misery that night. I don’t know what I was thinking. My divorce was final that day, and I was in such a—” She broke off there, shook her head. “I’m not going to make excuses. It was unfair to you, and if I could go back and do it over again—”

  “Addy. I take full responsibility for what happened between us.”

  She put an elbow on her knee, rested her forehead on one hand. “Generous as that is of you, I think we both know I put you in an awkward position and—”

  “As I recall,” he interrupted, “it was a pretty amazing position, and my mouth is perfectly capable of forming the word no.”

  She looked over at him, her face warm. So much for any illusions of Sex and the City sophistication. Had she been Ellen, this would have been one of those conversations where she tossed out some witty banter to the effect that it had been no big deal.

  But she wasn’t Ellen, and she was way out of her league. If she could erase that night from their history, she would. And not because it hadn’t given her a new standard by which to compare her very stale sex life with Mark. It had. But because she didn’t see how they could ever be friends again.

  And right now that felt like a huge loss.

  “While you’re casting that net of blame,” he went on, “make sure you don’t miss me. I had a chance to be a friend to you when you really needed one. That’s what I should have been.”

  “I didn’t give you a lot of choice on that,” she said.

  He looked at her, his blue eyes intent. “There was never a moment when I didn’t have a choice. I guess I have to believe something was supposed to come out of that night. The two of us meeting up in New York City? Life isn’t that random. Or at least, I don’t believe it is.”

  She looked out at the overgrown yard, at the board fence dividing it from the first lane of apple trees. “I might have once believed that.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m not sure.”

  They were quiet for a while, and then Culley leaned forward, one forearm on each knee. “So why did you leave like that?” he asked.

  She glanced at him, the familiarity in his voice bringing back other memories of him. Culley as he’d looked the morning she’d left him sleeping, a single white sheet pulled to his waist, the muscles of his back lean and defined beneath strong shoulders. “I didn’t know what to say. It was crazy. We both know that. That’s not like me. I—”

  “You forget we’ve known each other a long time,” he said when she floundered. “I know what kind of person you are.”

  “But that night never should have happened.”

  “Maybe. It’s been real hard to regret certain parts of it.” He stood then, took the steps to the stone path that led to the driveway and turned just before he reached the Explorer. “I’ll check on Claire in the morning. Good night, Addy.”

  He backed out of the driveway and headed down the gravel road. Peabody came to the screen door, offered her a disdainful meow, then disappeared again. She sat there on the step until darkness swallowed the twilight, and a full moon rose in the sky.

  * * *
/>   ADDY FELL INTO BED, exhausted.

  She awoke to a ringing phone, propped herself up on one elbow and fumbled for the receiver. The clock on the nightstand showed 2:06 a.m.

  Her first thought was her mother. The hospital. Something was wrong. She answered with a breathless hello.

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “You and the other complainers in this county need to get out of the way of progress.” The voice was low and threatening.

  A shiver ran down Addy’s arms. She sat up in bed, flicked on the lamp. “Who is this?”

  “No one cares about that old orchard. A new interstate is what this county needs. Some good advice? Sell out.”

  A click sounded in her ear. She stared at the phone for a moment, her heart thudding. A prank call? But why would anyone say such a thing? Had her mother gotten calls like this before?

  Addy lay back against the pillows, leaving the lamp on. She heard the voice on the phone again and again. And it was a long time before she finally turned off the light and went to sleep.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, Addy arrived at the hospital just after nine. She stuck her head inside the door of her mother’s room. Claire was sitting up in bed.

  “You look like you’re feeling better,” Addy said, pleased to see it.

  “They’ve given me the green light to go home,” Claire said.

  “That’s great.”

  “How’s Peabody?”

  “Missing you. He refused to eat the food I put in his bowl this morning.”

  Claire shook her head. “Don’t be offended. He pretty much runs the house.”

  Addy sat down on the chair next to the bed. “There was a strange call during the night.”

  Something that looked like alarm flitted across Claire’s face, then quickly vanished. “What was it?”

  “Something about selling the orchard, I think. What’s going on, Mama?”

  Claire sighed, looking suddenly weary. “You know the interstate they’ve been talking about building for years?”