Keepsake (11 page)

Since he had me flat on my back and
I
liked it,
she thought about saying. But maybe not just then.

"From all I've heard, the man has been been perfectly friendly to everyone he sees," she said. "Mrs. Dewsbury has told half the town that she worships the ground he walks on. He even makes a point of shopping locally for everything. Ask Mike at the hardware store."

Olivia was getting up a head of steam now, and she couldn't resist taking a potshot at her brother. "And another thing that you probably don't know about Quinn:
He
managed to pick himself up by his bootstraps.
He
owns his own business.
He—"

"Business? He's a stonemason!"

"He's an artist. An architect in stone. You know how much those people make? And anyway, that's beside the point! The point is, he has integrity and ambition and he's the kind of man you'd appreciate if you weren't blinded by the same
stupid
prejudice as whatever idiot is behind these horrible events!"

"I don't care if he owns a fleet of ships and the stars to steer them by," her father said, cutting through the air with the back of his hand. "I want Leary out of Keepsake!"

Olivia planted a fist on each hip. Her chin came up. "Just like that;
you
want Leary out of Keepsake. Who're you, the Sultan of Brunei? Quinn can stay if he wants!"

Too far. She watched her father's face turn a ruddy shade of rage. "Don't even
think
about crossing me on this," he said in a low and dangerous tone.

"Of course I will! You're being ridiculous. This is
America
. This is
New England
.
People here have the freedom to—"

"He wants your cousin exhumed, goddammit!''

He might as well have slapped Olivia in the face. She blinked and shuddered from the blow of his words and then stared speechless as Eileen whispered a pained, "Oh, no," and
Rand
looked stunned.

"You forced me to this, Olivia," her father said, obviously furious over his own indiscretion. "I haven't said anything to your mother and I don't intend to, so—"

"Oh, he can't
do
that," said his wife from behind him. "It's
... it's
... oh, it's
wrong
!"

Everyone turned. Teresa Bennett had come in from the hall and was standing there looking deeply scandalized. Her still-unlined face, so like Olivia's in its expressiveness, was ashen and filled with sympathy for Alison, a niece whom she had loved. Her dark eyes were glazed over with tears, her full lips crumpled with grief and horror.

It's like looking at a medieval painting of Mary mourning her son,
Olivia thought, touched by the depth of emotion that she saw in her mother's face.

"It's not going to happen," Owen said gruffly.

"But what if it does? What if it
does?"

Olivia's father scowled and said, "This is why you
shouldn't have been told." Grudgingly, he went over to his wife and put his arm around her. "Come on. Into the den—where you can compose yourself."

Olivia watched in profound distress as her exasperated father shepherded her mother out of the kitchen.

Teresa Bennett was so unlike her husband that Olivia often wondered how they'd lasted thirty-six years together. Her mother was as soft as her father was hard, as emotional as he was rational, as yielding as he was domineering. It was her mother, never her father, that Olivia ran to when she needed hugs and comfort. If Olivia were ever to find herself in trouble, she could count on her father to find the best lawyer in the country to defend her—but it would be her mother who'd be standing on the other side of the bars with a toothbrush, clean pajamas, and Olivia's favorite pillow.

"Perfect,"
Rand
muttered. He turned around and slammed the flat of his hand on the marble-topped island, sending his wife and his sister jumping back. "That son of a bitch! How
dare
he?"

"You heard Dad," Olivia said, wincing. "Nothing will come of it. And besides—"

"Besides,
what
? What can you possibly have to add to this hideous scenario?"

Olivia stared at the fine blond hairs on the back of
Rand
's manicured hand. In a bare whisper, she said, "What if Francis Leary
is
innocent? At least we would know that."

She raised her head and looked straight into her brother's piercingly blue eyes, startled, as always, that he could be her twin. Surely he was a changeling. Surely her real twin, dark-eyed like her, was being raised by mistake in a Scandinavian household somewhere in
Minnesota
.

"Listen to me," he said to her in a controlled fury. "Alison is dead. Whether Leary killed her or the milkman did it, Alison will still be dead. How can you think of putting her through the indignity
... the desecration
... on the slim chance that you can disprove a dead man's guilt?
She's
the victim here—not Leary. And it makes me sick to think that you can't seem to understand that."

But you have an agenda
, Olivia couldn't help thinking.
You want Quinn to suffer in any way he can. So how can I be convinced by your all-too-emotional argument?

Olivia wanted so badly to say that out loud, but she was far too aware that if she hadn't shot off her mouth earlier, she wouldn't have provoked her father into telling them about Quinn's intentions. As it was, her mother was now in a state, her brother was aghast, her father was more outraged than ever, and worst of all—Alison.

"I'm sorry," Olivia said humbly, recoiling at the inevitable images induced by the thought of exhumation. To disinter a human being
... it was something you read about in Gothic novels or in newspaper accounts of mass graves; it wasn't something that happened to a member of your family.

Olivia remembered her cousin—gorgeous, dreamy, naive, and yet so obviously secretive and troubled—and tried to fix a positive image in her mind to blot out thoughts of her grave. Her memory obliged with a snapshot of Alison smiling and happy at the animal shelter. Alison loved animals, and before her father made her quit her job as a volunteer at the Keepsake Kat Shelter, she had lived for Tuesdays and Thursdays when she could groom the animals, clean their cages, and change their water.

A smiling, gentle Alison coaxing an abused, hand-shy cat out of its cage—that was what Olivia wanted to remember.

She kept the mental photo propped up against her wineglass all through dinner, which ended up being a grim affair. The adults said little and the children, picking up on it, were almost scarily well behaved. There was no talk at all of the New Year's gala. Olivia's mother kept her red-rimmed eyes aimed at her plate and every now and then let out a sigh. Much to Rand's chagrin, the sporadic discussion that did take place was all about
Mexico
.

Olivia's parents left directly after dinner, but Olivia couldn't make herself go. Home was alone. Home was dark.
  Home was cold.

In contrast, the children seemed to explode with pent-up energy the minute their subdued grandparents walked out the door. Hoping somehow to inhale their high spirits, Olivia volunteered to help Kristin with her bath and then to bed.

The bath was a noisy and splashy affair; both aunt and niece ended up getting scolded for making a mess. After that, Olivia kicked off her sh
oes and sat on top of the pink-
quilted bedcovers with Kristin—all clean-smelling and damp and so astonishingly innocent—nestled under her arm. They read together from
The Book of Dinosaurs
while Olivia absently stroked the child's damp hair, until finally, reluctantly, Olivia said, "Time to go to sleep now."

She hugged her niece—clung to her, really—and said, "I just love you so much I could smoosh you."

Kristin's squeaky giggle was light and rippling and so enchanting that it brought tears to Olivia's eyes.

What happens? What happens between her age and ours?

She buttoned a missed button in Kristin's Madeline pajamas and pulled the cover up to her niece's chin. Then she stole one last kiss, one last hug, to last her through the dark, cold night. On a whim, she reached for the
American Girl
doll that sat in a child-sized rocking chair and said, "How about if we let her sleep with you tonight?"

"No, I don't like dolls," Kristin said succinctly.

"Oh! I didn't know that." This was new. "Well... your mom can save them until you have babies of your own someday who can play with them."

There was no answer. Olivia turned off the bedroom light and was about to close the door when she heard Kristin say, "No babies."

"No babies?"

The child's voice was very firm. "Babies are messy. Too much work. You hafta change their diapers... and they're always crying... and pooping some more... and you can't even hear the TV sometimes. I want to be like you. No babies. I want to be a doctor. I asked my mom how can I not have babies, but she won't tell me."

Oh boy.

"Well, you won't have to worry about that for a long, long time yet," Olivia said, ducking the hint that had come sailing her way. "You just go to sleep now. Sweet dreams, Kristin. I love you!" she sang out softly.

"I love you, too, Auntie Liv."

Olivia closed the door gently and hightailed it out of the children's wing. No, no, no. Uh-uh. Eileen could handle that one. Wow. Five years old, and she wanted to know about birth control.

I want to be like you. No babies
.

Somehow, that stung. Olivia had to wonder whether she gave off such strong vibrations. True, she was obsessed with her business, but that didn't mean she didn't
ever
want children. Necessarily.

Did she? When she came right down to it—did she?

Her mother certainly didn't think so. They'd argued many, many times about the just awful implications of Olivia remaining an old maid. The best furniture would go to the sibling who was married with children, not to the one who lived alone in a townhouse. The folder bulging with recipe clippings would g
o—naturally—to the daughter-in-
law who cooked, not to the daughter who didn't. And as for the estate house at the top of upper Main—that house was meant to stay in the family, which meant that there had to be an actual family in order to stay there. So far, Olivia was a little light on that front.

Because she was nowhere near ready. It would be absurd—immoral—to have children just because her mother's clock was ticking, even
assuming
that Olivia had a sperm donor lined up for herself. Which she did not.

Blame it on
the American Girl doll
. Olivia drove home in a mood as dark and brooding as the starless sky that hung overhead.

On Christmas Eve, Olivia closed Miracourt at noon, gave her employees at Run of the Mill the rest of the day off, and drove her trunkload of trophies, packed as carefully as Dresden china, over to Mrs. Dewsbury's house.

How ironic, she thought. Keepsake's keepsakes were all but ruined, while Quinn's looked good as new. Well, Quinn could do whatever he wanted with his trophies—use them for target practice or eat Cheerios out of them; it made no difference to her. As long as they were out of the cottage and out of her life.

She'd saved those keepsakes for seventeen years. He could have been more grateful. He could have been more pleased. He could have been a lot of things, but mostly he could have
called.
Olivia had just spent five of the most miserable days of her life waiting for the phone to ring.

At first she thought, he doesn't want to seem eager. Then she thought he was visiting his uncle in Old Saybrook. After that she began grasping at straws: He has laryngitis; he's forgotten my name; he's in a coma. But she spotted him, alive and well, driving his rental truck through town that very morning, and that's what had prompted her to close the stores early and load the trunk of her car.

The obvious reason that he might be avoiding her wasn't a reason at all. Olivia had learned from her father that the district attorney, a man indebted to her father for his reelection, had immediately denied Quinn's request to have
Alison's body exhumed, making it a non-issue. Everyone in the family was relieved, especially Olivia. It was
Christmas,
for pity's sake. Did Quinn have no sense of the season at all? He and his father had lived under a cloud for seventeen years. Was it really necessary to go off on a rip right now?

She was wasting her time on him. He wasn't worth defending, and he was an ingrate besides. The hell with him. He was making a shambles of her good will toward men.

Forty-eight, forty-six, forty-four—forty-two Elm. Yes, there it was, a big white house, great bones, needed paint. It looked very much like the home of a pensioned and widowed schoolteacher. Olivia hadn't been down Elm in years; she was surprised to see how tired Mrs. Dewsbury's old house was looking, but she was glad to see an evergreen wreath with a big red bow hanging on the black panelled door. Besides giving the house a much-needed shot of color, it told the world that Mrs. Dewsbury hadn't abandoned
her
Christmas spirit.