An Accidental Woman (39 page)

“He's right, Micah,” Billy said.

Micah shot the old man a dark look. Flippantly, he turned that dark look on Griffin. “You want to put in your two bits, too?”

Griffin considered it for a minute, then shook his head. “I just need to work.”

* * *

In another world, Griffin might have taken the rest of the day off. But Micah was in charge—more to the point, Mother Nature was, and she was closing in fast. There were still more than a dozen acres to tap.

But he needed an hour to himself, he told Micah. No. Two hours. He promised to be back then.

While he drove, he accessed calls from Prentiss Hayden, his editor, his brother Alex, and a pair of friends. When a message came from the magazine where he had seen what might have been Cindy's poem, he pulled over. That was the only call he returned. The editor was agreeable; she had recognized his name from his own work, hence had returned his call this quickly, but she had no name for the poet other than the one printed in the magazine. She had a post office box and a phone number, neither of which she wanted to give out, but Griffin could be persuasive when he set his mind to it. Within minutes, he had the phone number. He promptly stuffed it in his pocket.

With three minutes left in the truck, he called Aidan Greene's office and left a message on the answering machine. Mother Nature wasn't the only one closing in fast; so, Cassie said, was the attorney general of California.

“Aidan, it's Griffin Hughes. I'm hoping you've given some thought to what we discussed. California had a month to deliver a governor's warrant, and nearly half of that's gone. If you're ever going to help, now's the time. You have my number. Call any time.”

He punched off just as he pulled up at Poppy's.

* * *

Poppy would miss them. She had enjoyed the noise, the busywork, the company, and she had managed well. She had managed
quite
well.

Rose would have been pleased. Actually, Poppy decided with some satisfaction, Rose would have been
appalled.
She would have imagined the problems that might have arisen, and she would have focused on those.

Poppy's satisfaction ended with the sound of a truck—not just any truck, but Buck's old rattletrap. A minute later, the front door opened, and Griffin came in. His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes excited.

“We're nearly done,” he said. “Another day, and that's it.”

Poppy smiled. “That's nice.”

“What's going on here?”

She looked at the quiet phone bank, looked at the book she'd been reading before getting lost in her thoughts, looked at Victoria sleeping in a ball on the desk. She shrugged. “Not much.”

“When do you go for the girls?”

“In an hour.”

He raised both brows.

“What?” she asked.

He looked down the hall toward the bedroom. “I thought maybe . . .”

“Maybe what?” She wasn't making it easy. She had too many fears to just coast along with this. She couldn't take anything for granted.

He sighed. “I thought maybe you'd let me hold you.”

Her heart fell. “You did that last Friday night for all of four hours, and you haven't been here since then. That doesn't say much for what we had.”

“What did we have?”

“Great sex.”

“Great sex? I'd say there was more. I'd say there was love, because you haven't done that with another guy, not like we did it. I said I loved you. You didn't want to hear that. Tell me why.”

“I'm not ready. It's too soon. You haven't known me long enough to think you love me.”

“Are we eighteen?” he asked gently. “Are we naive? Are we inexperienced?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, honestly I don't,” he replied, looking hurt. “I just turned thirty-one. I've spent a long time looking for the right woman. I think I know what I want. I think you do, too, only you're afraid to go after it.”

“Why am I afraid?” she asked, unable to say the words herself and wondering if he would come up with the same ones.

“Because you're disabled. Because you think that has to matter to me, and you're afraid of rejection.”

“Everyone is. Aren't you?”

“Oh no. We're not talking about me. We're talking about you. You're afraid that I'll get tired of being with someone who can't do the things I can, so I'm trying to go through that list of yours. We danced, didn't we?”

“Yes.”

“And showered together?”

“Yes.”

“One of these days, I'll get you on a snowmobile, too.”

She couldn't rule it out. But keeping up with him wasn't her greatest worry. “There's still a lot that you don't know.”

“Well, that would be the accident,” he said. Tossing his jacket on the sofa, he pulled up a chair. “So tell me about it.”

“I have.”

He didn't blink. Patiently, he repeated, “So tell me about it.”

She didn't want to. She had meant what she'd told Micah, that some things brought too much pain to think about. But Griffin wasn't about to let this go, so she took the easiest tack.

“I was in the hospital for eight weeks. I was in a coma for the first one, not bad for me but a nightmare for my parents. Then I woke up and learned what had happened. It was difficult.”

He frowned.
Not being able to move?
she imagined him thinking.

“Knowing Perry was dead,” she corrected. “He'd been buried by then, and everyone tried to gloss over it and tell me how lucky I was, but it took me a while to see that. They got me up and around as fast as they could. The last few weeks of the eight, I was in a rehab center. I really am
lucky. Money wasn't an issue. My parents adapted one wing of their house so that I could get around, then they built me this one. It's a good thing you're not six six. You'd have to stoop to use the stove.”

“Tell me about the accident.”

“I thought I did once already.”

He was as patient as he'd been before and every bit as stubborn. “What do you remember of it?”

“Not much.”

“By design? Not
wanting
to remember?”

“Would that be so bad?” she asked in self-defense. “It was a horrible night.”

“There was a party. There was drinking.” His tone urged her to go on.

“There was an accident.”

He waited, but she was done. She didn't want to think about this, certainly didn't want to talk about it. She was paying the price of irresponsibility by living in a wheelchair. She didn't owe Griffin further penance.

But he was looking her in the eye. “When I first got back here after Heather's arrest, I said that you trusted me on some level. You argued, but I believed it then, and I believe it now. Only, that level doesn't reach as deep as I thought. I think you have a problem with trust.” He rose from the chair and went for his jacket. “You and Heather are two peas in a pod. Neither one of you trust that someone can know everything about you and still love you.”

“That's a lot of trust,” she argued. “Many people have trouble with that.”

“I'm not talking about many people,” he said, “and I'm not really talking about Heather, either. I'm talking about you.”

“What do you want me to
say?”
she cried.

He shrugged and pulled on his earband. “I have to get back,” he said, and left.

Had he been asked, he might have pinned the start of the run down to the hour, and that, without actually seeing the telltale slide of liquid down the tubing—first a drop, then several, then enough to half fill the tubing, then all the way. He spent the morning tapping trees on the north-facing slopes, and there was no sap flow there, probably wouldn't be for a week, but he could feel the other. It was as if the pulse of boyhood memory kicked in, and he heard those first
pings
of sap dripping from the spile into the bucket. He had grown up with that excitement. Though there were no buckets now, the sound still echoed in his blood. Spring was on its way. This first crop of the year marked a rebirth.

He wished Heather were there. She had loved this. He wished the girls were there right then, too, so that they could share the excitement. Later, they would come. Poppy would bring them from school, and they would help. It used to be that school came second to sugaring. He had been younger than Star when he had first been involved. Sugarmaking was a family affair.

At least, it used to be. And now? He and Billy were family, but Griffin was not. Nor was Pete, though he had surely proven himself a friend. He had put in the energy and the hours, and had put up with Micah's pique.
At some point, Micah would thank him. At some point, perhaps, when the resentment was gone.

He figured he had four, maybe five hours to tap. It would take that long for enough sap to run from tree through lateral line to mainline to sugarhouse, to warrant firing up the evaporator. With Pete back being a cop today, Billy and Griffin were a team, while Micah worked alone.

He would have liked to team up with a son. He had told Heather that. One of the girls might marry a fellow who would be interested, but it wouldn't be the same. Micah couldn't expect a son-in-law to feel the excitement in the same way.

He didn't have a son. But he did have his trees. They would be here for him whether the girls married, Heather was convicted, or old Billy died. They were his issue, in that most archaic sense. He had raised them and nurtured them. He had protected them from others that would have stolen their sun, had let them grow until they were mature enough to tap, had trimmed them back when they got greedy and staked them when they needed support. He had relieved them of excess sugar one year, so that they might thrive to produce more the next.

They were his children. He took pride in their performance now.

* * *

At least, that was the way it had been in the past. This time, the reception Poppy got was only lukewarm.

“Oh?” one said. “Well, it's time, I guess.”

From another there was a mildly concerned, “Is Micah ready? I heard he still had tapping to do.”

And from a third, “I hope it's a good year for him. He's had a rough spell.”

Indeed, Poppy's mother was the only one who expressed any of the
usual excitement. But then, Maida was a cidermaker. She knew what it was to approach the finish line with the fruit of one's labor. She also loved to cook.

“I'm already in the kitchen,” she told Poppy. “Let me make a few more things. Midafternoon, I'll be at Micah's.”

“Why don't I pick you up?” Poppy suggested.

Maida sounded surprised, and rightfully so. Poppy wasn't often the initiator in their relationship. She didn't have to be. Maida jumped in first, pampering ad nauseum. If anything, Poppy usually ran in the other direction to avoid being smothered.

She didn't know why she didn't now. Perhaps it was that Maida was back from her vacation early, or that she was in the big house all alone, or that Poppy wanted a chance to talk with her. Whatever, she felt an odd reward when Maida seemed pleased with her offer.

“Oh, Poppy. That's a
nice
idea. But aren't you getting the girls?”

“I'll pick you up on the way. Can you be ready by three?”

“I surely can,” Maida promised, and she was. Poppy had barely pulled up under the porte cochere in front of her mother's handsome fieldstone home, when Maida came out for the first time. She deposited one wicker basket of foil packs in the back of the Blazer, ran back in for a second, then a third. Breathless, she slipped into the passenger's seat and gave Poppy a satisfied smile. “There. That'll go a little way toward feeding the hungry.”

“You must have emptied your freezer,” Poppy remarked as she put the Blazer in gear and drove off.

“Not entirely. I've been at it since you called. I learned how to cook while cooking for large groups.”

“You mean us?”

“Before you. Before Lake Henry, even. Back in Maine. My mother was working, and there were all of my uncles to feed.”

“Three uncles.” Poppy had seen a picture. Lily had shown it to her, having found it among their grandmother's things when Celia died. Up to that point, none of them had known there was any family at all back in Maine. It was not a subject that Maida usually discussed.

“Four uncles,” she said now in an offhanded way. She was looking out
the front windshield as Poppy negotiated the ups, downs, and turns of the road into town. “Celia had four brothers, and she raised them all. They were younger than she was, the youngest, Phillip, by twenty years. He was more my age than hers. He was my best friend.”

Poppy continued to drive, but she was unsettled. Not only didn't Maida usually talk about her childhood, she rarely used that breezy tone. It should have connoted nonchalance, but that wasn't what came through to Poppy.

But Maida kept at it, stayed focused on the road, while the tires hissed on the melt from the hillside snow. “We used to go everywhere together. We'd talk for hours.” She glanced at Poppy. “Was that the kind of relationship you had with Perry?”

“No,” Poppy replied with caution. She didn't know where her mother was headed.

“Then with Griffin?”

“That's still very new.”

“Well, Phillip was family,” her mother went on. “He's right there in my earliest memories. My father was a hard man, and we didn't have much money. Phillip and I gave each other comfort through that. We grew up together. Then we were lovers.”

Poppy's hands twitched on the wheel—not a muscle spasm as much as shock. She darted Maida a glance before pulling her eyes quickly back to the road. They were approaching town. She had to take care. “Lovers?”

“Yes,” Maida said, but the breeziness in her tone was gone, as though this was the point of her talk all along. “He was sent away when people found out, but he didn't know where to turn, and he felt lost. He killed himself.”

Poppy drew in a sharp breath. “How awful. I'm so sorry.”

“Sorry that we were lovers?” Maida asked, sounding nervous.

“Sorry that he died.”

“And the lover part?”

Poppy sent her mother another fast glance. Maida appeared almost frightened, which made a statement about how times had changed. It wasn't that Poppy thought incest was more common now, just that it was
discussed more openly. Indeed, Poppy's shock had more to do with the unexpectedness of Maida making a confession than with its content. Poppy hadn't known her great-uncle, hadn't known any of the four. Nor did she know the woman who had lived in Maine, but she was intrigued. The Maida whom Poppy did know wouldn't have mentioned having sex with her own husband, much less an uncle.

The center of town sparkled with sun that shimmered off the melting snow. Poppy distractedly raised a hand to acknowledge one of Charlie's sons, who was sweeping melt off the general store walk. “I think,” she said, feeling a kind of release, “that . . . it's a hoot.”

“A hoot?”

“Well, immoral. But emotional. And very human.
And
a long time ago. I wouldn't exactly call the life you've lived since then debauched.”

“Your father never knew,” Maida challenged, seeming to invite Poppy's censure. “I lived with the guilt of that. And the fear.”

Poppy wasn't about to censure her mother. The pot didn't call the kettle black. “Fear that he would find out?”

“Yes. It was not a fun way to live. I worked twice as hard to make everything in our lives twice as good.”

“I think you succeeded,” Poppy said.

“It was not a fun way to live,” Maida repeated. Slipping down in her seat, she turned her face to the window, effectively ending the conversation.

Poppy couldn't let that happen. She sensed there was a message here for her. She wanted to know more. “What brought this on?” she asked as they passed Cassie's office.

“I saw someone in Florida.”

“A man?” Poppy asked. It was the first thing that popped into her mind. George Blake had been dead three years. If Maida had met someone new, it would follow that she might view the old from a different place.

“A therapist.”

Poppy was shocked again. “You did?”

“Yes. I was starting to feel old. Then I got down there in January and
realized that I was younger than many of the people around me. I'm only fifty-seven. That isn't old by today's standards. So I started asking myself why I felt so old, and when I couldn't find an answer, I got a name.”

“Of a therapist?”

“Yes. She's helping me see what I want.”

“Which is?”

Maida turned to her. “Happiness. Enjoyment. Lily said she told you that she's pregnant.”

Excited at the mention of Lily's baby, Poppy nodded.

“Well, I want to enjoy that baby,” Maida said. “I want to do things for that baby that I didn't do for Lily. I wasn't a good mother to her.”

“You
were
a good mother,” Poppy corrected as she turned onto the road that led to the school. She was directly behind a Suburban driven by a friend who was there to pick up her four kids. “You just weren't always . . . understanding.”

“You're being very kind, Poppy, and I won't argue with you. But the truth is that I was obsessed with where I'd come from and what I'd done back there. I was obsessed with compensating for the guilt I felt, and I overdid it when my first child was born. Lily, being that child, took the brunt of all that I was trying to hide. But trying to hide things like that just doesn't work. You think that you've tucked your dirty laundry away in a safe place, but after a while, inevitably, the smell escapes.”

“That's a disgusting analogy.”

“But it's true,” Maida insisted. “Or think about Micah's sugaring. I've been here in town more than thirty years, so I've been watching sugaring that long, and things have changed. Dale Smith used to use a single large pan for the boiling. When the syrup started to sheet, he'd pour that off and add fresh sap to the pan, but there was always a little of the old left, and it would keep boiling, just keep boiling, and the finished product was never quite as pure or sweet, with that faint taste of old sap. Micah uses three pans. Sap moves from one to the next as it condenses, and when it starts to sheet, the whole of that batch comes off. It's fresh. It isn't tainted by old boil.”