Lily Rose

by Deborah Robinson

  One of the women from church, Karen, had sung next to Lily in the choir. She had the voice of an angel and was a ringer, which meant she was a paid professional singer who helped the choir to sound more harmonious. Sometimes, when they were singing a hymn at church, Lily would stay silent and just mouth the words, so as not to muddle Karen’s clear, pure voice. Other times she would forget to sing and just listened to Karen out of sheer awe.

  When Karen sat by her bedside, she would often sing one of Lily’s favorite hymns, “Morning has broken like the first morning, the blackbird has spoken like the first bird.” Lily would feel a sense of solace, even if just for a few minutes. She would be reminded again of her father, Alexander, singing in the choir as she and her mother looked on in the pew together. In those moments, Lily felt closer to her parents than ever, but this time with an ominous edge. No longer did she wish they were still alive so they could be with her. Instead, she was starting to wish that she could join them on the other side. She dreamt of walking into her childhood church, this time as an adult. Her father beamed down on her when he noticed her, and her mother held out her hand so that Lily could join her. Lily awoke, tears streaming silently down her face when she realized where she was, in the darkness of her bedroom.

  The second woman from her church, Christine, was fighting a deadly battle with ovarian cancer. Lily knew she had a husband and young daughter, and she seemed to exude the warmth of family life. When she came and sat with Lily, Christine would talk to her about her everyday doings, a new craft project she had taken up or a delicious recipe she was trying. She spoke of the flowers she grew throughout her apartment, trying to create an oasis in the concrete jungle, and her next family vacation to the Caribbean where her parents had a small place on St. Kitts. Christine confided that she wanted to retire there, where she and her husband could live a simple, slow-paced island life. Not once did she allude to the possibility that she might not live long enough to see that happen.

  Together, Karen and Christine were Lily’s stranger angels. Once, when she was in a lucid moment, Lily overheard Karen say to Christine, “When do you want to go on the death watch tomorrow?”

  Death watch. Did they think Lily was going to hurt herself? Of course, she would never do anything like that. Who would take care of Sable and Hollywood if she wasn’t there? Yet the thought hovered: If only she could take Sable and Hollywood with her, death seemed like a peaceful option . . . and Lily drifted off, unaware that she was letting the darkness pull her in deeper. The depression, the despair she felt, was dragging her down unremittingly without her being aware of it. It was truly like being drawn into a black hole.

  * * *

  At the end of the week, Christine knocked on Lily’s bedroom door.

  “Someone’s here to see you,” she said softly.

  Lily’s eyes strained to identify the person standing in the doorway. A man, standing tall and erect. For a moment her heart beat a little faster, thinking it was Peyton. But then the man spoke, and she realized it was his father.

  “Lily, my dear.” Richard Reynolds approached her and sat down at the end of the bed.

  At this proximity, she could see the shock on his face. For the first time since her confinement, she wondered what she must look like. Karen and Christine had persuaded her to take a shower, but her normally shiny blond hair hung limp on her shoulders, since she could not find the strength to wash it. Her face was sunken, her body thin. He’d never seen her this low before, not even the night she arrived on his doorstep with bruises spreading across her face and arms.

  The shock turned to sorrow as he added, “I’m very sorry to see you this way. But I had to come to tell you something.”

  Lily’s heart quickened again as she wondered if Peyton had asked his father to speak with her.

  “He wants to come back?” she croaked out. She hadn’t spoken in so long that she almost didn’t recognize her own voice.

  Richard shook his head. “I realize this is hard for you, Lily, but Peyton is living with that other woman now.” A look of disgust crossed his face. “Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do. She seems like a—” He caught himself before he could go any further. “Well, who knows how long that’s going to last. The point here is that Peyton wants a divorce. I wanted to let you know before the papers are served.”

  Lily nodded, looking down at the blanket twisted in her hands. So there really wasn’t any hope for her and Peyton anymore. Although she had known it for many days from somewhere deep down inside, hearing the words from someone else drove the dagger in further.

  “This probably isn’t much comfort,” Richard continued, “but since my son foolishly insisted on not having a prenup, you could stand to gain quite significantly. As much as half the company.”

  Lily nodded again, without emotion. While she understood the magnitude of this information, it meant nothing to her in the wake of the grief she felt.

  “I want to make you an offer, Lily. I can’t pretend that you haven’t worked hard and contributed significantly to the company for these past twelve years. That’s why I’m willing to give you The World of Lily Rose boutiques—the name, the brand, everything and a significant cash settlement—in exchange for your stock in the company.”

  Richard sat back as if he’d made a particularly clever business deal, waiting for her reply.

  Something stirred within Lily, a spark of self-preservation. “That’s not fair. My stock in the company is worth millions. I’m entitled to that as Peyton’s wife.” Which she still was, she reminded herself.

  Richard sighed heavily. “I think it’s a very generous settlement. But if you refuse, I only have one other choice. If you’re entitled to half of Peyton’s assets, he’s entitled to yours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Peyton’s never been to Red Rose Farm and he doesn’t care about it, but I know how much you care about it, Lily. If you make things difficult, I can take that farm away from you—completely. Do you want that?”

  Lily was dumbstruck at the very thought, and lay silent for a long moment. “No,” she finally whispered.

  “Then I advise that you take into careful consideration the proposal that I’ve laid out for you.”

  “I thought,” she said quietly, “I thought that we were family.”

  “I regret losing you as a daughter-in-law,” Richard replied, “but I have to think of what’s best for my company.” He paused and looked around, as if just noticing not only her physical appearance but the state of her bedroom. “I also think you could use some professional help. I know a place you can go to and will contact them immediately.”

  Barely hearing the last of his words, Lily fought back tears. She hadn’t cried when she’d learned about Gracie, she hadn’t cried when Peyton had told her their marriage was over—she hadn’t cried all week—but now she was crying over losing someone whom she had trusted like no one else.

  “Am I ever going to see you again?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” Richard said, “but I don’t think so.”

  The last she saw of her father-in-law was him pulling out his phone from his suit pocket and stepping out of her room to make a phone call. She didn’t care where he was sending her. All she knew was that the darkness was pulling her under again, to a place from which she might never return.

  Chapter 18

  WHEN SHE FIRST ARRIVED AT Golden Woods in Connecticut, Lily tried to focus on her present rather than reflect on the past or speculate about the future. Thinking about the past brought up raw memories, most recently of Peyton leaving her. She especially tried not to imagine how he must have met his mistress, in a rehab center that probably wasn’t that different from the place where she was now. Her future remained amorphous, hazy at best. She simply couldn’t think of where she should go or what she would do after she left this place.

  As one month passed into two, however, Lily found that she was able to resume some semblance of living, as much as was
possible given that she was basically in the modern version of a psychiatric hospital, hopefully without the dungeons in the basement. After the first week it was determined that she was not a danger to herself, and she was no longer subjected to the hourly check-ins from a nurse at night. She was allowed to take part in group therapy, and recreational activities such as tennis and swimming. In another world, she might have been at a country club—the facility certainly looked like one. The white clapboard buildings with their gray-shingled roofs and wide porches could even have been part of someone’s rambling country estate, and she could have been a guest, as country clubs are apt to call their usually well-heeled clientele.

  But, she reminded herself, she was a patient here, among other patients, all with their own paths of pain and suffering. Whether it was alcohol and drugs, an eating disorder, or depression, it had led them to the same place. She wasn’t interested in hearing these stories during group therapy, of taking on the burden of someone else’s past. Her own was enough to endure; she didn’t have the energy to absorb any more emotions. Although she sat in the circle during group therapy, and spoke when it was her turn, she closed herself off from getting to know the other patients.

  The only thing Lily looked forward to each day was taking long, solitary walks on the facility’s generous, wooded grounds. The towering oak and maple trees felt comforting to her, and the flowers—the white hydrangeas that turned light green, then almost purple—were like old friends. She had always been soothed by nature, and this place provided the peace and calm that her soul needed.

  The last time she had been to this part of Connecticut, she remembered, was for the photo shoot she had done with Eric Langvin, five years ago. She had thought about how wonderful it would be to have a summer house in the country, where she and Peyton could take their children. There was no hope for those children now. But, looking at the abundant greenery surrounding her, she wondered if it might be possible for her to live in this kind of place someday, where she could escape from the city. She could see how a photographer like Eric might find inspiration in the lushness here, and idly she wondered if he lived nearby.

  Since letting her friends know that she arrived safely at the hospital, she hadn’t been in touch with anyone from the outside world. No one, least of all any of the Reynolds, had officially checked in on her, although she suspected Richard might be keeping tabs on her condition from afar. While this might have troubled some people, Lily knew her friends were giving her the time to heal. One of them had offered to take Sable and Hollywood to her country home upstate, and although Lily missed her pets terribly, she knew they would be well taken care of there and would be ready for her when she decided to return.

  Six weeks into her stay, Lily still had no idea when she would be going back home, or even if she was ready. She had been assigned a psychiatrist, Dr. Hermann, who was the opposite of her old psychiatrist. Where Dr. Atwood was chic and elegant, Dr. Hermann was unkempt and rumpled, but he treated her kindly.

  “How are you doing, Lily?” he asked when she entered his office one day.

  “I’m feeling better,” she replied cautiously. “But I’m still wondering what’s wrong with me?”

  “From what you’ve told me, I don’t think you have clinical depression,” he said. “You’re simply suffering from pure grief, from all your losses. Sometimes it can just be too much for one person to bear, and it overflows.”

  “So what do I do about it? What medicine do I take?”

  “Medication isn’t always the answer, Lily. While yes, it can help you, I don’t think that’s what you need here. You just need time to process what’s happened.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Dr. Hermann paused. “I think that’s for you to decide. You can stay here as long as you need to, but I would advise you, for the sake of your own health, and for the sake of your outlook on life, do not stay here any longer than is necessary. The clinically depressed people are going to want to group around you, and it’s not going to be good for you in the long run.”

  After another moment, Lily asked, “Does that mean I can leave?”

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  * * *

  AS REASSURING AS DR. HERMANN’S words were, Lily didn’t think she was ready to leave Golden Woods just yet. Time here seemed to stand still. She was no one to the other patients, and they were no one to her. For the first time in many years, she was able to focus solely on her own well being—not Peyton, or her work—but herself.

  She was also able to recognize that there was nothing to look forward to if she went back to the city. She was sure that Richard was actively looking for her replacement at the department store, and while the boutiques were still hers, their day-to-day running was being done by her assistants, with one of them, acting as a kind of point-person, getting in touch with her, but only as needed. All said and done, she didn’t need to actually be in New York at the moment. Thinking about being back in the city made her stomach turn, the possibility of running into Peyton and that woman, or anyone that would remind her of them. Her mind reeled at the idea of being confronted daily with the tabloid headlines about the future of R. R. Peyton’s now that it had lost its crown jewel.

  No, Lily wasn’t ready to leave, but at the same time she was starting to feel lonely. There was no one she could talk to inside or outside Golden Woods, not even her friends. As close as she was to them, her friends from the city had not known her in her griefstricken years after her parents had died. The only person she had felt she could depend on back then—whom she could still depend on—was her first boyfriend, Finn Macarney. They had lost touch over the years, and the lasting memory she had of him was the conversation they’d had on the phone fifteen years earlier, when she told him that she wasn’t going to follow him to Houston after graduating from college but would be moving to New York. She wondered if he was still in Houston, whether he’d gotten married and had children. He would be a wonderful husband and father, just as he’d been the ideal first boyfriend.

  There was only one way to find out what had happened to him. Lily pulled out her phone and did an Internet search. It wasn’t long before his name came up as “Finn Macarney, Director of Aeronautical Engineering at SkyTech,” which appeared to be a large aerospace company he’d help start. So he’d risen up in the world and done well in his field, just as she’d thought he would. Calling him would be too intrusive, so she sent him an email, keeping the tone light and impersonal. He replied within a few hours, sounding delighted, and asked if they could find a time to chat that evening.

  At 7 p.m. that night, Lily sat in her room as if waiting to be taken out on a date. Although this wasn’t a video chat, she had put on makeup for the first time since arriving at the hospital, if just to feel more confident. The hour on the dot, Finn called. The sound of his voice, deep and familiar, thrilled her to her fingertips. After exchanging a few awkward pleasantries about how many years had passed since they’d gotten in touch, he asked, “So how is it in New York right now?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Lily said. “I’m actually in Connecticut right now. At Golden Woods.”

  “Is that a spa?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “It’s a psychiatric hospital.”

  There was a short period of silence on the other end of the line, in which she guessed Finn was trying to figure out what to say. But what came next was completely unexpected. “Are you allowed visitors?”

  “I haven’t had any before, but yes.”

  “Then I’m going to come see you this weekend.”

  “Finn, I—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer, Lily.”

  After they hung up on each other, Lily sat for a while in her chair, looking out the window at the dark woods beyond. Although the last thing she had dreamed of was seeing Finn again, for the first time in many weeks she felt a spark of anticipation, of life; maybe even hope.

  On the day that Finn was set to arrive, Lily went for a long w
alk on the grounds to settle her nerves. As she entered the main building through the lobby, she saw a man dressed in a handsome tweed jacket, jeans, and cowboy boots, waiting at the desk for the attendant to return.

  “Finn?” she asked. “Is that really you?”

  He turned and gave her that wide grin that only belonged to him, and embraced her gently. Lily buried her head in his jacket, holding onto him as if he were a life preserver. Then he pulled back and said, “For the crazy girl I’ve always known you to be, you don’t look half bad!”

  Lily laughed like she hadn’t in a long time. After Finn checked in at the front desk, they went to the visitors’ room, which looked more like a den with its couches, armchairs, and television. They sat down next to each other on a couch, not really looking at each other, although Lily couldn’t help secretly taking peeks at her former boyfriend. Finn’s hair was longer than in the past and he had a well-kept beard, looking more rugged and manly than she remembered. Although he had said she didn’t look half bad, she knew she had changed significantly from the girl he’d known in high school and college. She might still have the same blond hair and blue eyes, but what she had experienced since then had hardened her beyond mere physical aging.

  Finn reached over and took her hand in his. “So, how did you end up here?”

  For the next hour, Lily poured out the past eighteen years to Finn, from moving to New York and the death of her Aunt Martha (“She was a wonderful woman,” Finn remarked), to rising in the ranks at R. R. Peyton’s and launching her namesake boutique. She spoke about her marriage with Peyton, his struggles with substance abuse and infidelity. If Finn thought anything of how Peyton had treated her, he reserved judgment, merely nodding at times to punctuate her words. Finally, tears welling in her eyes, she told him about her years of yearning to have a baby, only to have to give up on her dream once Peyton had left her.