Blue Willow (53 page)

Lily sat down on the hearth across from her. “What do you mean?” Her question brought a moan of anguish from Elizabeth. “I drove my husband away because of it. I see that now. I shut him out, over and over, until he was so confused and hurt that he left.” She sobbed. “I couldn’t let him get too close. I hid. I loved him, and I didn’t want to drive him away, but I couldn’t help myself.”

Her ambiguous confession made Lily fear that she really had disconnected from reality. Moving beside her, Lily clasped her shoulder. “But if you still love your ex-husband—”

“I do. But the way I treated him was something I couldn’t control—and still can’t.” She swiveled on the couch and grasped Lily’s hands. “You have to swear to me you won’t repeat this. Whether you think I’m right or wrong, I think I’d die if my family ever found out. We went through so much when we were growing up.”

“You have my word.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. Then, in a small voice drenched with misery she whispered, “Yesterday brought back a lot of horror. I can’t ignore it anymore.”

“What horror, Elizabeth?”

Her eyes flew open; they looked bleak and terrible. “My father. He used me. He
molested
me, when I was a
child.” Elizabeth flinched. Lily quickly took her by the shoulders. “It’s all right. Keep talking.”

“I said it. For the first time in my life, I’ve told someone.” She sounded stunned.

Goosebumps scattered down Lily’s spine. “When did it start?”

“I was about seven.”

“Elizabeth, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Poor Artemas—I’d sneak into his bed at night, to sleep with him, for protection. He didn’t know; he was embarrassed to have his little sister crawling into his bed. He made me stop. It would kill him if he knew what Father had done to me.”

Elizabeth crumpled. Lily put both arms around her and held her as if she were still a heartbroken child. In many ways, she was.

But she thought of Artemas, too, and her throat constricted with fierce tenderness. He’d devoted himself to saving his brothers and sisters from their parents’ careless cruelty. She didn’t want him to know what had happened to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth leaned against her gratefully. Lily took a shaky breath. “ ‘How long did it go on?”

“For years. Until my father d-died.” Her body shook. “I thought I was free then. I thought I’d forget what he’d done and be just like other girls. By the time I entered college, I’d suppressed the memories so much that I was convinced they didn’t matter. But the first time I slept with a man, I realized I’d never be normal. Sex was the most terrifying, disgusting thing. I pretended to enjoy it, but it made me sick. I decided I’d never escape those feelings. I took a handful of pills and tried to kill myself.”

Lily rocked her. “And you suffered alone rather than tell your brothers and sisters, even then?”

“Yes.”

“You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”

Elizabeth leaned back and stared at Lily. Her eyes flickered with surprise. “How can you say that?”

“You’ve lived with a terrible secret all these years. And you’ve survived. You’re a good person, a gentle person. Your whole career is centered on helping others through Colebrook projects. You take care of your children devotedly And you tried to spare your family a lot of pain, at your own expense. That takes a rare form of courage.”

“But … I should have
done
something to stop my father. I let him use me. I was so stupid—the only way I fought back was by eating. I wanted to gain weight so he’d leave me alone. I wanted to be fat, like Cass. He thought Cass was repulsive.” Loathing and fury tortured her voice. “I was his
special
daughter, he said.”

Lily was frozen in thought. “What about Julia?”

Elizabeth winced. Pulling her hands away from Lily, she covered her face. “You think I’m brave? Julia asked me once, when we were older, if Father ever visited me at night. I
knew
what she meant. I knew he must be doing it to her too. But I said no.” Elizabeth moaned. “I let her think it was just her, because I was too ashamed to admit he did things to me.”

Lily died inside. What emotional scars had Julia borne? Suddenly Julia’s broken relationship with Frank took on new clarity What had Julia expected from men? Like Elizabeth, had she walked a tight line between fear and a desperate desire to trust them? Lily didn’t doubt that she’d loved Frank and had thought he loved her in return.

When his interest had cooled, it must have been an unbearable violation. Reacting with vicious, blind vengeance must have seemed reasonable—desperately self-protective—to Julia.

Elizabeth was watching her, Lily realized. She dragged her attention away from the tortured speculation and asked as calmly as she could, “Where is your ex-husband now?”

“He’s in Oregon. He produces documentaries. He has his own film company.” Elizabeth shuddered. “He’ll be coming back through Atlanta in a few weeks to see the boys. He’s never ignored them—he loves them so much. God, what can I tell him?”

“Do you think he still cares about you?”

“I don’t know. He’s always kind to me. But I never give him anything to hope for.”

“Then give him a chance. Don’t wait. Take your children and go see him. Tell him what happened to Jonathan. And what happened to you. If he’s worth loving, he’ll respect you. He’ll understand so much about the way you’ve behaved. It’s a place to start. You’ve already proved you can do it by telling me.”

Elizabeth sagged back on the couch. There were glimmers of amazement in her eyes as she considered what Lily had just said.

Elizabeth stayed for the next two hours, talking, reworking everything in her mind, trying to believe she’d come to a turning point in her life. When she rose to leave, she hugged Lily. “I’ll walk back. I feel stronger in a way I never expected. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t know why you did this for me. But somehow, it’s not surprising.”

“I only said what you needed to hear. The rest is up to you. I know you can do it.”

They went out to the porch. Lily sat down on a step and watched Elizabeth stride through the yard. Elizabeth stopped, turned to face Lily once more, and called, “I want things to be right between you and my family. I’m going to work on it.”

Lily inclined her head slightly, acknowledging the sentiment without revealing the pain it caused. A door had opened slightly, enough to let her glimpse possibilities but not reach them.

Twenty-six

Mr. Estes had dredged up a talent as sly as a fox’s. Sitting beside Lily in a little Queen Anne chair that looked incongruously elegant for his bulky, grizzled self, he hunched over an office desk strewn with wholesale price lists, their project proposals, and Lily’s landscape designs. Lily kept her back straight and remained calmly aloof. The fact that the man sitting across from them was intent on keeping a clawlike hold on every penny of his investment in the restoration of one of Victoria’s largest inns only infused her with a sense of challenge. Parts of her life could be solid with confidence and enthusiasm again, and if she nurtured that, it helped overcome the bleakness when she thought about the rest.

“Me and my partner may have to go outside and arm-wrestle over this, Mr. Malloy,” Mr. Estes told the man, sighing. “She can argue the horns off a brass billy goat.”

Malloy looked at his watch. “We’ve been haggling for thirty minutes. I have other concerns besides landscaping to take care of. Your budget’s too high. That’s all there is to it.”

Lily shook her head solemnly. “If we cut our overhead on installation, we can’t justify bringing in a full crew.”
A full crew
was only the difference between Mr. Parks and
two sons or Mr. Parks and one son, but it sounded important. “I just can’t do it,” she added, crossing her arms over her chest and sighing.

Mr. Estes jabbed a blunt forefinger toward their prospective client. “Lily, you are bein’ too hard on this feller. He’s got two whole acres he wants torn up and redone from the word go. We’ve got to cut him some slack.”

“Nope. If we can’t budget a full crew, we’ll never get the job done before winter. We’ve got to recontour the back section before we do any planting. We’ll run into cold weather before we can set all the shrubs and bulbs out.”

Mr. Estes rolled his eyes. “I say we can still make the schedule and give Mr. Malloy the budget he wants. I’m willing to go along and drop the bid by four thousand dollars.”

She shook her head again. “We’ll end up with a bunch of frostbitten plants that won’t look decent next spring.” She sighed heavily and gazed at Mr. Malloy with regret. “No can do. We have our reputation to think of.”

The man threw up his hands. “Could you come down two thousand?”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“Aw, Lily, don’t be hardheaded,” Mr. Estes interjected.

She pretended to study the proposal for a minute, tapping her fingers on her forehead, tugging at her hair, chewing her lip. Finally she exhaled in defeat. “Okay. I can manage that.”

Mr. Estes pounded the desk. “Thank the Lord!” Malloy shot Lily wary glances as he grabbed the contract they’d provided. “Let’s get this deal signed and sealed before
someone
starts arguing again.”

Lily tried to look abashed.

When she and Mr. Estes were safely inside her truck, he slapped his knees and began chuckling. “He never knew what hit him!”

Lily clamped her hands to the steering wheel. She felt weak with relief. Colorful autumn leaves floated down from the roadside trees, and she watched them skitter across the truck’s hood. For today, at least, she wasn’t like
them. She wasn’t aimless, frantically searching for a safe place to land. She smiled with satisfaction. “He wanted good, fast work at rock-bottom prices. He got a fair deal, and so did we.”

Mr. Estes looked positively elated. “We’ve finally got ourselves a big foot in a big door. You were right, Miss Tiger Lily. This is goin’ to be a success. And it’s fun too. I didn’t expect anything to be this interesan’ again.” He rubbed a hand over the sheepskin vest that covered his flannel shirt. “Whew. I got indigestion from all the excitement. I got—” His ruddy face began to pale. Sinking back on the seat, he said in a tight voice, “I got chest pains.” He winced and shut his eyes.

Lily cranked the truck quickly. Trying to sound nonchalant, she told him, “We’ll just run by the hospital.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that.” His lack of bluster and protest scared her.

Little Sis bounded into the examining room, took one look at Mr. Estes lying on a gurney with EKG electrodes nestled among his fuzzy gray chest hair, and gave a little shriek of dismay. Lily rose from a stool beside the gurney and waved both hands at her in warning. Mr. Estes, ashen-faced and worried, lifted his head and stared at Little Sis. “You think I’m dying,” he said out of the corner of his mouth to Lily. “You called the vulture.”

“
Shush
,” Little Sis said. She slipped past Lily and bent over him. “You’ll short-out your wires if you start fussing.” Her distraught tone softened the tart words. She put a trembling hand out and stroked the graying hair back from his forehead. “You old fart,” she added tenderly. “You’re not having a heart attack. I won’t let you. You haven’t even asked me out on a date yet.”

“His blood pressure’s high, but not too bad,” Lily interjected. “They gave him a nitroglycerin tablet. That eased most of his chest pains.”

Mr. Estes rested his head on the pillow and stared up at Little Sis with fading bombast. “I feel like I’ve used up all my chances,” he said in a gravelly little voice. Little Sis
mewled sadly and tugged at his hair in reproach. “Old fart.”

Mr. Estes looked wistful at the endearment. Clearing his throat, he said in a stronger tone, “Lily, come ’ere.”

Lily stepped closer and laid a hand on his bare, freckled shoulder. “Yes, sir?”

“Get me a piece of paper and a pen. I want you to write out a change in my will.”

Little Sis scowled tearfully. “That’s negative self-talk. Think positive. Close your eyes. Concentrate—”

“For God’s sake, woman, if I die, you can tie a crystal around my neck and say bad energy done me in. But not right now. Lily. Get that piece of paper.”

Because he was growing agitated again, Lily fumbled in a pocket of her nylon jacket and grabbed the notepad and pen she always carried. “Go ahead.”

“Just write out something that says I leave the old MacKenzie place to you, and everything on it. I can’t die knowing that I kept it from you just because of revenge for what Colebrook done to Joe.”

She lowered the pad. “No, sir. I can’t be a party to this.”

His eyes flickered with shock. “Why?”

“Little Sis is right. It’d be bad luck.”

“What do you care? It’s
good
luck for
you.
”

“I don’t want my luck that way.”

“Why?”

Little Sis moaned with disgust. “We like you. Can’t you get that through your thick head?”

Mr. Estes looked teary and unnerved. “Helluva time to find it out.”

“I ought to skin you alive for being such a fool,” Little Sis said, crying. She grabbed him by both ears. Lily tried to pry her hands off.

A dusky-skinned middle-aged woman in a white lab coat came into the cubicle. “Good gracious, don’t threaten my patient,” she said when she saw Little Sis hovering like a ferocious honey bee. She spoke cheerfully, with a lilting
Indian accent. Lily gently guided Little Sis out of the way as the doctor began studying the EKG printout.

“How is he?” Little Sis asked plaintively.

Scrutinizing the graph, the doctor grunted mildly. “What did you have for lunch, Mr. Estes?”

He glanced at Lily accusingly. “Turnip greens, peas. Corn bread. Lily and me stopped at a diner. I wanted fried chicken but she talked me out of it. Said it’d clog my arteries.” His lower lip trembled. “I’m already clogged. Now, you see. There ain’t no hope. Might as well have had the chicken.”

Lily frowned at him. “He ate about a gallon of hot onion relish, too, even though I told him not to do it.”

The doctor sniffed in amusement and laid the EKG printout down. “Mr. Estes, please promise me that you’ll take your blood-pressure medication regularly from now on. You know you have angina. You must have aggravated it today.”