One Mountain Away (37 page)

Glenda, who had blue hair the length of toothbrush bristles, gave a short nod and went back to chopping onions.

“Charlotte?” he asked.

“She’s probably with Rilla and the puppies out by the pool. Now that their eyes are open, they’re absolutely capable of making for the water if somebody doesn’t watch them every second. Would you like something to drink? We have cold soda in the fridge and outside, and white wine and beer.”

When he turned he found a woman wearing black shorts and a bright red T-shirt standing behind him.

“I’m Analiese Wagner,” she said. “Charlotte’s minister.”

Since he hadn’t set foot in the church in the past dozen years, he introduced himself, then left her in Harmony’s care and went to find his ex-wife.

Charlotte was poolside, chatting with a woman in a wheelchair who was holding a squirming golden bundle on her lap. Charlotte looked up and motioned for him to join them.

“Ethan, this is Rilla Reynolds, the puppies’ breeder. And that’s Violin on her lap.”

Ethan squatted down to see the puppy and say hello to Rilla.

“Isn’t she adorable?” Rilla asked. “The whole litter’s adorable.”

“Where are the rest of them?” he asked.

Charlotte nodded toward the corner, where Edna and another girl Ethan didn’t recognize had set up an ersatz pen with folding chairs. They were sitting inside the enclosure with a golden retriever looking on. The dog didn’t seem in any hurry to get her offspring back.

“Rilla breeds the puppies to be service dogs.” Charlotte hesitated. “Some of them may be seizure dogs.”

He began to get the picture. “Were you thinking about Maddie?”

“That’s how I met Rilla.”

Rilla explained what had looked to be Velvet and the puppies’ fate. “Then Charlotte and Harmony volunteered to take her instead, and raise the puppies until they’re weaned and can go to puppy-raisers,” she finished.

He had decided to quit comparing the Charlotte he’d been married to with this mystery woman beside him. “How does that work?” he said, with no comment on how strange this was.

Rilla looked happy to continue. “When they’re around nine or ten weeks old, the puppies are separated and a different family takes each one. They socialize them, do obedience training and prepare them for whatever service area they’re suited for.”

Charlotte took over. “Rilla was just telling me that the puppies are tested along the way for things like confidence, the way they recover from loud noises or new experiences and how social they are.”

“It’s counterintuitive,” Rilla said, “but often the bossiest puppies don’t make good service dogs, because they always want to be in charge. Instead, if we can’t find an area they’ll fit into, they’re placed permanently as pets with families who agree to give them lots of exercise and training. Quiet, fearful dogs usually don’t make it, either. The testing’s done on their forty-ninth day, when they’re fully developed but still young enough to mold.”

“Could one of these dogs really help our granddaughter?” Ethan asked.

“In a variety of ways,” Rilla said, and explained that, too. “We really don’t know why some dogs can sense seizures coming on. Ordinary family mutts sometimes do it on their own. We can’t train for it very well, but the dogs in Velvet’s family have had a fairly high success rate, although nothing like a hundred percent.”

“I didn’t know if Taylor would allow me to get a dog for Maddie,” Charlotte said. “I just went to Capable Canines to see what I could find out.”

“And look what happened,” Rilla said. “By the way, I put my money on Violin here. She’s the kind of pup we hope for. Villain, now? And what’s the little one’s name?”

“Vanilla,” Charlotte said.

“Time’ll tell, but I suspect those two may end up as pets somewhere.”

Ethan went to visit the pen, and Charlotte accompanied him. “Rilla’s husband and sons will be over in a little while,” she said. “I haven’t met the boys. They can’t stay with her during the week until she’s more mobile.”

“So you took the puppies to help out?”

“That was my plan. Except they’ve been a delight. So I’m not sure who’s helping whom.”

They stood and watched the puppies and the girls. Edna liked Villain the best, and she was trying to teach him manners by pulling him away from the others when he got too aggressive. Her friend Katie, a blond-haired charmer, was checking each pup to see how good they were at cuddling. Vanilla won hands down, since she fell asleep on Katie’s knee almost the moment she was put there.

“Are you going to swim?” Charlotte asked him after a minute.

“I will if you will.”

At the poolside Charlotte struggled with the zipper to her sundress, and without thinking Ethan stepped over and undid it for her.

“Force of habit,” he said, when he realized what he’d done.

She gave a low laugh. “I wonder if the dishwashing habit stays alive and well that long, too.”

“Dishwashing gets more practice at my house.”

“Too much information.” She stepped out of her dress and folded it over her arm. She was wearing a two-piece suit with a tiny little skirt covering a few inches of her thighs, nothing nearly as seductive as he remembered from their past. But it suited her, revealing just enough to remind him of other times.

“That’s a nasty bruise on your thigh,” he said. “Are you doing your own car repairs these days? You’ve got a smaller one on your wrist.” He put his finger just above the crook of her arm. “And another up here.”

Charlotte stood perfectly still, then she looked around and down. “I didn’t know. I hadn’t noticed.”

“You must have whacked yourself good.”

“Must have. Maybe while I was scrubbing today.”

“They look older.”

“Are we going to jump in, or walk in slowly?” she asked.

“You’re kidding, right? I jump, you walk. It’s always been that way. Taylor used to time you, remember? I would be ready to get out, and you would still be inching in.”

“Life’s too short.” Charlotte walked to the pool, sat on the edge and slipped right in. He whistled softly and joined her.

Someone switched on the outdoor speakers, and Glenda hooked up her iPod. She entertained them with an enormously eclectic playlist, which surprised everybody, since she didn’t look like someone who would mix Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney with Lady Gaga and Mindless Behavior.

The food was just as eclectic. Everyone pitched in to get it to the table. The red beans were fabulous, and so were the burgers on whole-wheat buns. Analiese contributed German potato salad, and Rilla had brought fresh berries. Samantha and Edna brought a variety of chips and dips, and Harmony had made a green salad adorned with toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Time slipped lazily by; then as shadows deepened, people began to leave. First Analiese, who had to prepare for the Sunday service. Then Rilla and her family, because the boys were nodding off. Glenda left to attend a Jello wrestling match, taking her iPod. Finally Samantha and Edna. When Harmony began to cart puppies back to Charlotte’s closet for the night, Ethan knew it was time to go, too.

Charlotte, covered from neck to toe in a white gauze beach robe, walked him through the house.

“You put on a great party,” he said.

“No fuss, no bother. I always thought you had to slave for days or pay a king’s ransom to hire help. All this time it was as simple as asking people to come and let the arrangements take care of themselves.”

“I had fun.”

“This is the way it’s supposed to be, you know. Easy entertaining. Laughter. Music. Good, simple food. Friends.”

He knew she wasn’t really talking about “is” but “was.” She meant their years together, when it hadn’t been like this very often. “Well, you’re getting the hang of it.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

They stopped at the door. “Tell me about Taylor,” she said, making it easy for him to begin.

“She’s angry. We fought. She has your letter, but I haven’t spoken to her since the day I gave it to her. I don’t know what she’s feeling.”

“I wasn’t trying to come between you.”

He put his hand on the door and leaned against it, facing her. “You aren’t the only one with regrets. I can see things more clearly now. I sided with Taylor against you too often. I was more comfortable just letting things go, and sometimes that was right. But sometimes that was lazy, or worse, a need to be the parent she could count on. I left you to pick up the slack. We got into a bad cycle, and I’m sorry for my part in it.”

“Ethan.” She smiled a little, then she touched his cheek. “Thank you.”

She dropped her hand quickly, but he still felt her fingers on his skin. “I confronted her,” he said. “She needed to be confronted, and unfortunately for me, you’re not around to do it anymore. So I guess this time I had to step up to the plate.”

“She has a strong will.”

“Yeah, and we wonder where it came from.”

“I just want…” She shook her head. “Even if she’s still furious, I hope she’ll agree to talk to me.”

“I’m not counting on anything, but it’s in her hands, Lulu. We just have to back off and wait.”

“Thank you.” And she kissed his cheek where her fingertips had rested. “For everything.”

* * *

Charlotte was beyond exhausted, but she couldn’t seem to stop smiling. The day had been good in so many ways. She had miles to go, but maybe she was moving forward. And being here today? With the children and the puppies underfoot, with new friends and an old husband?

She smiled at that last.

Somewhere deep in the pockets of her cover-up her cell phone rang, and she didn’t even check the number, foolishly hoping it was Ethan. She snapped it open and put it to her ear. “Charlotte Hale.”

“Charlotte? It’s Phil.”

She knew which Phil. Phil Granger, who didn’t sound upbeat. She almost asked him to call back tomorrow, so she could keep this day separate from the news he was bringing. Keep it separate so that the warmth would last and see her through.

But she had learned that denial was toxic.

She carried the phone twenty yards and sank to a sofa before she answered. “It’s Saturday. This can’t be good news.”

“I don’t like doing this on the phone, but time’s an issue. We rushed your last set of lab tests through, and I checked the results this afternoon. We can’t wait any longer to start more chemo. I just got off the phone with your physician at Duke, and he’s on board. We can do it here and continue consulting with him, the way you’ve asked, but, Charlotte? The secret’s going to get out this time if you’re doing it at the hospital. I can’t believe you’ve kept the leukemia under wraps this long, but you have to prepare your friends and family.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you really understand? This might go well, but there’s no guarantee. Your case isn’t simple, if there is such a thing. There aren’t any really good answers here.”

She couldn’t help herself. She closed her eyes and squeezed them tight, but her voice was shaky. “I get it. You can stop trying to warn me. I’ve looked up my odds, and I’ve made my will. Just do your best, okay? I’m not ready to die.”

“Trust us to do whatever we can, and keep fighting. That can make the difference.”

“Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle.”

“I’m sorry?”

She thought of Samantha. “Somebody younger and wiser told me that. I’m not done fighting. I still have things to do here.”

She closed the phone and held it to her chest. And she thanked God for giving her a nearly perfect day before the storm that was coming.

Chapter Thirty-Three

TAYLOR WASN’T A fan of self-pity. She wasn’t a fan of self-congratulations, either, but silently, for years, she had patted herself on the back for the ways she had triumphed over difficult circumstances.

Now she knew she had taken too much credit. The only reason she’d been able to stand and fight was because her father had stood beside her. From the beginning Ethan had been there. On top of everything else, he’d never once reminded her what a burden she had dropped in his lap.

Now he
wasn’t
there, and the fault was hers.

A week had passed since their fight, and she’d spent the early part of it holding firm to her conviction that this, too, was her mother’s fault. Then, as her anger wore away and the time neared for Maddie’s return, the truth crept in.

She had shown a surprising lack of respect for the man who had nurtured and supported her. She had accused him of being a puppet, and she had actually felt a zing of pride when her carelessly launched arrows had drawn blood.

Who was she, anyway?

Without Maddie filling the holes in her life, Taylor had felt like half a person. Now, without Ethan, she felt like a ghost, someone without substance and form, someone who walked through a room and left a cold feeling of dread.

The problem was she had no idea how to make things right without agreeing to read her mother’s letter. And the letter, still unopened, was in a box in her closet, where she would probably leave it until it turned to dust.

A bedtime phone call from Maddie upped the ante. Her little girl would be home by dinnertime Sunday, and ten seconds into the call Maddie wanted to know if Ethan could come and eat with them. Taylor hung up wondering how she could possibly explain their recent estrangement.

Early the next morning, when she found herself standing on Ethan’s doorstop, she still wasn’t sure what she should say. She had stopped for bagels and cream cheese and steaming hot coffee from a place that really knew how to make it. As a peace offering, the combination wasn’t bad, but she knew the right words had to accompany breakfast for it to be worth anything.

When he opened the door dressed in shorts and a Laughing Seed T-shirt from her favorite vegetarian restaurant, she thrust the bagels into his hands. “Maddie’s coming home Sunday afternoon and I’m sorry.”

He still looked half-asleep and, worse, mystified. “You’re sorry she’s coming home?”

“No. She’s coming home Sunday, and I’m sorry I said things I shouldn’t have last week.”

“Good news all the way around. Come in.”