Unfinished Business

by Inglath Cooper

Addy looked down at her hands, guilt surging up. “I think I’ve just done the same thing to Culley. Mark was with someone on the weekend of our wedding, and Culley knew. But he never told me.”

  “Would you have believed him?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Maybe not.”

  Claire sighed. “Sometimes people do things for us because they care about us. But it’s not always what we want to hear. Ida was being my friend. And maybe Culley thought he was being yours.”

  She reached out and placed her hand over Addy’s. They sat that way for a long while, a new sense of understanding settling between them. And Addy wondered if sometimes out of loss came the greatest gain.

  * * *

  IT TOOK A WEEK to sort through everything she was feeling. It was still almost impossible for her to believe that Mark could have been someone so different from the man she had thought him to be. But he had. And Culley wasn’t to blame. Her mom was right. Maybe it had been easier to focus on what Culley had kept from her rather than the fact that Mark had been unfaithful from the beginning.

  The one thing she knew was that she owed Culley an apology.

  She drove over to his house around seven on Tuesday evening. Claire and Ida had gone to a movie together, so she was hoping he would be home. His Explorer was in the driveway, Madeline outside in the front yard, playing hopscotch.

  Addy got out, raised a hand and waved.

  Madeline ran over. “Hi, Addy.”

  Addy smiled. “How are you, Madeline?”

  “Good. How’s the deer?”

  “She has quite an appetite.”

  “Can I come back and see her soon?”

  “Anytime.”

  The front door opened, and Culley stepped out, his expression cautious. “Hey,” he said.

  She walked to the porch, stopping at the first step. She glanced down at the still-warm-from-the-oven plate in her hands. “It should have been humble pie, but I was hoping apple would do.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then offered a half smile. “Apple works for me.”

  She handed him the plate.

  “Smells good.”

  “It’s Mama’s apple-crisp recipe, but any deficiencies will be mine.”

  He beckoned her up the steps, calling out to Madeline that they would be in the kitchen. Inside, he set the pie plate on the table and said, “You okay?”

  She nodded, not quite able to meet the concern in his eyes. She bit her lip, and then said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, Addy.”

  “I do. I feel like such a fool. I guess the thought that you had known all along how clueless I was—”

  “Addy, don’t. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Yeah. It was.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said.

  She looked up then, met his gaze. “See, that’s the thing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He moved across the floor, stopping in front of her. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  She looked up at him, considered making light of the confession, then opted for the truth. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  They watched each other for a few seconds, and Addy was glad, really glad, that she’d found the courage to come over here tonight.

  The kiss was slow, easy, hello, I really did miss you. Her hands slid up around his neck, and he gathered her against him until it began to change direction, heating up fast.

  “Daddy! Can you come here?”

  Madeline’s anxious voice rang out from the front yard. Culley dropped his forehead against Addy’s, took a deep breath, and said, “Sorry. I’ll be right back.”

  She smiled.

  He left the kitchen and returned a few moments later. “Hopscotch emergency. Large brown spider on number seven. So where were we?”

  “Headed toward trouble.”

  He grinned. “Oh, yeah, right.”

  Addy moved across the kitchen, out of reach. “So. Let’s talk. What have you been doing?”

  He blew out a sigh and ran a hand to the back of his neck. “Wondering how long I should wait before I came over to ask how I could make it up to you.”

  She got serious then. “There’s nothing for you to make up.”

  “So why was Mark here?”

  “He said he missed me. Which seems a little odd since he has a lover in her twenties and a baby boy to be a father to.”

  Culley’s gaze widened. “Whew.”

  She shook her head. “I realized something about Mark. That he’s always looking to someone else for happiness. And maybe he’s going to have to find it in himself first.”

  Culley gave her a look of appreciation, then said in a low voice, “You’ve gotten a handle on this, haven’t you?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “I did a lot of thinking this week. I guess seeing Mark put me in a reassessing mode. I’ve decided I’m not going back to D.C. I changed my leave of absence status to resignation.”

  Culley’s eyes widened. “Wow. That’s great. Really.”

  “I’ve been doing some research, had some ideas on how to make the orchard more of a niche business.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “A lot of years of work have gone into it, mostly Mama’s work. I don’t want to see it go away.”

  He reached out, traced a finger along her jaw. “Neither do I.”

  The front door slapped open, and Madeline ran into the kitchen. “Was that apple pie?”

  “It was,” Addy said. “Would you like a piece?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Pull up a chair, honey,” Culley said, opening a cabinet and reaching for three plates. He settled a warm smile on Addy, and in a voice intended for her ears only, said, “I’d like to see if a woman who looks this good can cook.”

  * * *

  “THAT PIE WAS OUTSTANDING.”

  “Just outstanding?” Addy teased.

  “Scale of one-to-ten, nine-point-eight,” Culley said.

  “Very smart. If you’d said ten, naturally I wouldn’t have believed you.”

  “Naturally.”

  “So what was the two-tenths deduction for?”

  “Not getting to kiss you after you’d had a bite.”

  “I can live with that, I guess.”

  They were sitting outside on lounge chairs with thick cushions. Culley had laid a stone terrace in the backyard at some point, and it made a nice centerpiece for the boundary of beech trees that circled out from the house. The evening air had cooled, the humidity dipping enough to make the temperature pleasant.

  They were quiet for a while, and Addy sensed he was preoccupied. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  He leaned back against the chair, hands above his head. “I went to see Liz last week.”

  Addy heard a new tightness in his voice. “And?”

  “I think she wants to do the right thing this time.”

  “What are her plans?”

  “I don’t know. She said she was still working on her road map.”

  “Will she come here?”

  “I didn’t ask her to.” He sighed. “Is that horrible?”

  Addy considered her words. “You’ve found a way to go on. Madeline has needed that. Seeing Liz must feel like opening the door to all the painful stuff again.”

  “I worry about Madeline. How this will affect her.”

  “She’ll be okay,” Addy said, reaching out and lacing her fingers through his.

  “I have to go to Richmond tomorrow for a couple of days. I leave in the morning. The Summer Festival’s in town this weekend. I had planned to take Madeline. Will you go with us?”

  Addy smiled. “I’d love to.”

  “Great.” He looked at her for a long moment, and then, “I don’t know what’s going to happen with Liz. But if the road gets bumpy for a while, will you hang on?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  He leaned in and kissed her in a way that said things words couldn’t.
He stood, pulled her to her feet and deepened the kiss. And there under the promise of a full moon, she kissed him back.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE REST OF the week passed in slow motion. Culley called each night, and they talked on the phone like two teenagers who never ran out of things to say.

  And she loved the way it felt. This man she had once known as a boy, as a friend, became more important to her every day.

  There had been a point, not so long ago, when her self-image had been flattened to a single dimension by the choices Mark had made.

  But she had come to realize that those choices were about him and his shortcomings. Not hers. And she had Culley to thank for helping her see that.

  It was a very good place to be.

  For the remainder of the week, Addy worked nonstop on a proposal for the orchard. Through the Internet, she had found a tremendous amount of information on organic farming. The more she read, the more excited she became about the possibilities.

  Over breakfast on Thursday morning, she laid the notebook she had compiled in front of Claire and said, “I think we can make this work.”

  Claire opened the cover and flipped through some of the pages. “Organic?”

  Addy nodded. “You were right. Competing with the big guys isn’t going to be possible for us. By converting our methods to organic, we could position ourselves in a niche market of specialty grocery stores and restaurants. I think we could find a large market in D.C. alone, and that’s only four hours from here.”

  Claire flipped through the remainder of the notebook without saying anything. “Addy, you’re a lawyer. And a good one. Are you sure you want to give that up? Because there aren’t any guarantees here.”

  “No. But if I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that there aren’t any guarantees anywhere. So we might as well try the roads that feel like they have something to offer.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?” Claire asked.

  “Then we will have tried. And I’ll be satisfied with that.” Addy hesitated, searching for words. “I’m glad I came back, Mama. That we’ve had this time together. That I understand some things I didn’t understand before.”

  Claire got up from her chair and hugged Addy. “Whether we’re successful with this venture or not, you will never know what it means to me that you want to try.”

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you.” She turned to leave the room, then swung back. “I forgot to tell you. Culley called this morning and said he would be late getting back tomorrow. He was supposed to take Madeline shopping for a dance recital dress and wondered if you would want to take her.”

  “I’d love to,” Addy said.

  “Ida has all the details.”

  “I’ll give her a call.”

  * * *

  ADDY PICKED MADELINE up from school at just after three Friday afternoon. The little girl got in the car, a shy smile on her face.

  “Okay,” Addy said, pulling out of the parking lot, “we’re on a mission. I know of three stores that carry great clothes for your age. What do you say we hit them all?”

  Madeline nodded with quiet enthusiasm. “Do you think they might have something in blue?”

  “Is that your favorite color?”

  “Yes.”

  Addy smiled. “Then we’ll definitely have to find something in blue.”

  They drove into Roanoke, stopped at the first store where, according to Madeline, the dresses had too much frill and lace. In the second store, they found one she really liked, but not in her size. It was in the third store, a quaint boutique-size shop called Puddles, where they found what she was looking for. She came out of the dressing room, a pleased smile at the corners of her mouth.

  “Oh, Madeline, you look so pretty,” Addy said.

  The dress was a Catimini, a French brand of adorable children’s clothes. Sleeveless, it was royal blue with skinny kiwi-colored stripes running through it.

  Madeline stood in front of the mirror, smoothing a hand over the waist of the dress. “Does it look all right?”

  “Better than all right.” Addy smiled. “It’s perfect for you. You’ll be the prettiest girl at the dance.”

  In the mirror, Madeline’s eyes were uncertain. “Do you think Daddy will like it?”

  “I think he’ll love it,” she said.

  Madeline smiled. “Okay.”

  They bought the dress and a pair of strappy white sandals to go with it. On the way home, they stopped for a sandwich at a small diner just short of the Franklin County line. The place was busy, and they were given the last table for two in a back corner by the window. The waitress came and took their drink orders, returning a couple of minutes later with Addy’s iced tea and Madeline’s milk.

  Madeline took a sip, then stared out the window. “You know about my mom?”

  Addy emptied a pack of sugar in her tea, stirred it with a long spoon, the ice clinking against the edges of the glass. “Yeah,” she said.

  “Pretty awful, huh?”

  Addy nodded.

  Madeline fiddled with her straw, bit her lower lip, and then said, “I wasn’t very good that day. Mama said I was driving her crazy. I saw her get the bottle out of the closet where she kept it hid. She didn’t think I knew about it, but I’d seen her get it before. Maybe if I’d been better that day, she wouldn’t have done that. And maybe none of it would have happened. Maybe she wouldn’t be in prison.”

  “Oh, Madeline. That’s a huge burden for a little girl to be carrying around. And you know, that’s the thing I never realized until I got to be a grown-up. When I was twelve, my daddy left. He just went away one day and never came back. I couldn’t even begin to understand why. I thought I could say something, do something that would make him change his mind. Be better, look better, blame my mom. What I didn’t understand then was that he made that decision all by himself. And it wasn’t because of anything that I did or my mama did. People don’t always do the right things. But children aren’t supposed to feel bad for the decisions that grown-ups make. It’s hard not to because sometimes it’s not easy to make sense of the things that happen. But you were just a little girl. And still are.” She reached across and put her hand on top of Madeline’s. “You weren’t responsible for what happened.”

  Madeline looked up at her, her eyes darkened with what looked like relief. “Thank you,” she said.

  * * *

  THEY ATE GRILLED cheese sandwiches and homemade peach cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

  On the way out to the parking lot, Madeline thanked Addy for the meal. “It was really nice of you to take me today.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Addy said. “What’s more fun than shopping for clothes when they look as great on you as that dress did?”

  Madeline beamed, and something squeezed at Addy’s heart, a connection forming between the two of them that felt like an unexpected gift.

  She hit the remote, and they got in the car. Addy backed out of the parking space.

  “Addy, look!” Madeline pointed at the trio of green Dumpsters separated from the restaurant by a tall wooden fence.

  “What is it?”

  “A puppy. He went behind the middle Dumpster.”

  Addy pulled back into the space and cut the engine. “Let’s go see.”

  They walked to the back of the Dumpsters. Huddled beside one of the big containers was a dog about the size of a half gallon of milk. He was solid black with a thin strip of white down his chest. His ribs stuck out, and he was holding one paw off the ground as if he’d injured it.

  Addy dropped to the ground beside the puppy, held out a hand. “Hey, little fella.”

  The puppy shrank from her, leaning against the Dumpster as if it might somehow absorb him.

  “Do you think he’s lost?” Madeline asked.

  “Someone probably dropped him here.”

  “Why?”

  Addy sighed. “Because sometimes
people don’t live up to their responsibilities.”

  “You mean like finding a home for him?”

  Addy nodded. “I think I have some crackers in the console of the car. Would you get them for me?”

  Madeline bounded off and was back in a few seconds. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you. Let’s see what kind of an impression these make on him.” Addy opened the pack and placed one in front of the puppy. He gave her a wary look, leaned closer to sniff, then gobbled it up in one bite.

  “He likes it,” Madeline said, delight in her voice.

  Addy gave him another which disappeared with like speed. By the third cracker, he was sniffing out of Addy’s hand and wagging his tail. Addy lifted his right paw. “Ooh. He’s got a nasty cut on one of his pads. That must really hurt.”

  Madeline leaned in for a closer look, made a sound of sympathy. “What should we do?” she asked.

  Addy leaned over and scooped him up. “We can’t leave him here,” she said. “Looks like we’re going home with a puppy.”

  Madeline’s eyes went wide, her smile one of delight. “Really?”

  “Really,” Addy said and smiled back.

  * * *

  SHE CALLED CULLEY from the car phone. He’d just gotten home. She told him what had happened.

  “And let me guess,” he said, his voice warm, teasing. “You’re on your way to Doc Nolen’s.”

  “He’s not in great shape.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “No. But is it okay if I’m a bit late with Madeline?”

  “Sure. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hey, want me to call Doc and tell him you’re coming?”

  “That would be great.”

  “Done.”

  They arrived at the clinic in less than twenty minutes. Madeline had spent the duration of the drive throwing yearning glances over the seat at the puppy who had curled up in a ball and fallen asleep.

  “He looks so tired,” she said.

  “I’m sure he is. He’s too young to be fending for himself.”

  Addy lifted him out of the back seat, and they walked across the parking lot. Doc stood at the front door of the clinic, shaking his head.

  “I see you’ve recruited the youngest Rutherford,” he said.