Sister's Choice (5 page)

“There’s not an apple anywhere,” she said. “It’s delicious just as it is, of course. And eye pleasing. Food that looks good is as important as food that tastes good. I can see you know that already, but where are the apples?”

“I don’t like Red Delicious, and that’s all they had at the grocery store. It’s too early for the local apples at the fruit stand.”

“I knew you had excellent taste. You have, after all, already become friends with my grandson, which means you can spot a diamond in the rough. But what apples do you like best?”

“Not too sweet. Firm and crisp.”

“Jonathans, then, and Ida Reds, although I’m not sure you can find them easily. Yorks aren’t so tangy, but you would like them, as well. At one time, we had five hundred or more. Nothing beats a York in the kitchen, although it’s a funny-looking thing. The Pennsylvania Dutch—and we had some around here, you know, although I suppose by rights we’d have to call them Virginia Dutch. Anyway—” she waved her words away “—they called it a
schepabbel.
Crooked apple. And the cider we made? That pie was from last year’s apple crop. But, of course, today people want apples that look like they’re made out of wax, even if they taste like sawdust.”

“Granny Grace and Grandpa Ben had an orchard,” Cash explained.

“
Have
. Ben’s gone, of course, God bless him, but the orchard still belongs to
me
.”

“We know that,” Cash said. “Nobody’s disputing it.”

“And nobody’s helping, either.” Her expression belied the words. She didn’t look angry. Jamie characterized the set of her lips as determined.

Jamie didn’t know what was going on, but she intervened, hoping to turn the conversational tide. “There’s an orchard on this property, or at least the remnants of one. I wonder if any part of it can be saved.”

“You could try pruning the trees over a period of years if the trunk is still firm. And I’ve seen trees topped, just lopped nearly in half, and brought back to life that way, but it takes years, too, and it’s not always successful. Still, if they’re old friends…You do whatever it takes for a friend, don’t you?”

“They were somebody’s old friends. My brother-in-law’s grandmother Leah lived on this property. Did you know her? Leah Spurlock Jackson?”

“I don’t recall. I was so busy with the orchard and my children…that’s the way my life went. It races by, you know. Remember
that
if you have a boring day. Boring is the period at the end of a run-on sentence. Meant for a deep breath and a nap.”

“We don’t have many boring days around here.”

As if to prove it, Alison jumped down from her chair. “Ready!”

“We’ll wait until everybody’s finished,” Jamie told her daughter. “But after you’ve asked to be excused, you may put your shoes on.”

“May I be excused?”

“You may,” Jamie said with a grin.

“May I please be excused, too?” Hannah asked.

“Yes. And as soon as we’ve finished, we’ll join you.”

Cash caught Jamie’s eye and flashed her a grin. “May I be excused, too, Miss Jamie? I’d like to unload the materials before we go for that walk.”

“You bet. The sooner that playhouse is finished, the faster my life improves.”

“Now, tell me about the fawn,” Grace said, once the girls had gone into their bedroom to get ready and Cash was outside. “Exactly what did you see?”

The fawn was in the same place Jamie and the girls had left it yesterday. Today, though, it was bleating softly, like a baby lamb.

“Girls, you stay here with me,” Jamie said, when they tried to follow Grace and Cash closer. “Too many people will scare the poor thing to death.”

“It was in exactly the same spot yesterday?” Cash stood behind his grandmother, who got down on her knees.

“I don’t think it’s moved,” Jamie said.

Grace was kneeling beside the fawn, examining it gently, and Cash backed away to join them, watching his grandmother as he did.

“She’s really a wildlife rehabilitator?” Jamie asked. She’d hardly believed it when Grace had told her so at breakfast. “That’s a stroke of luck.”

Cash spoke softly. “She always says it’s her life’s work to take care of castaways.”

“A good job, that one.”

“Uh-huh, if what you’re trying to bring back ought to be rescued. My mother says people who lived around the orchard and beyond always brought injured animals to Granny Grace. I know when I was a boy she let me help raise a trio of baby coons who’d lost their mother to a redbone hound. Eventually, the authorities caught up with her, if you can believe it. Told her unless she had a permit, it was against the law to do what she’d been doing for years.”

“I guess they’re just trying to protect wildlife from people who don’t know how to help.”

“She could have taught them a thing or two, but being Granny Grace, she did what she had to and got the training.”

Grace stood and joined them. “We could leave the poor thing here another day or two, see if the mother comes back. But it’s my opinion that this mother hasn’t returned for some time. No need to go into why I think so—” she glanced at the girls “—but I’d say we’d be in our rights to take this little one up to my house and see what we can do with her. If we leave her, I don’t think she’ll fare well.”

Cash turned to Jamie. “What do you think?”

“I was so afraid you were going to tell me I had to take care of her. I don’t have a clue what to do.”

Grace glanced at the girls again. “It’s a delicate business. Best leave it to me. If things go well, the girls can come up and visit.”

Hannah had been unusually quiet. “Is she going to die, Granny Grace?”

“Not if I can help it, Hannah. But truth be told, she might.”

Hannah looked stricken. “I don’t want her to die.”

“Nor do I, which is why I’ll do my level best to help. You can count on me. But you know, child, some things are simply out of our hands. So we can feel sad, but we can’t feel responsible.”

Jamie knew that was a lesson every child had to learn, but she was sorry.

“The fawn’s very lucky good people found her,” Jamie said, trying to make Hannah feel better. “First Alison spotted her, then Granny Grace came along. And Granny Grace knows how to help, when almost nobody else would. That’s two times so far that fawn’s been lucky.”

“Lucky,” Alison said. “Her name is Lucky.”

Jamie knew naming an animal was the end of objectivity. But this time, objectivity had fled at first glance.

“Lucky is a good name,” Grace said. “Good names are important. Cash?” Grace nodded to the fawn. “Let’s get her home right away.”

Cash bent over and picked up the little deer. She hardly struggled. Jamie knew this wasn’t a good sign.

“Let Cash and Lucky go first,” she said, holding the girls back.

“I’ll have to visit your orchard another day,” Grace said, walking with Jamie and the girls once Cash had strode ahead. The girls were abnormally subdued, as if only now had they realized the gravity of removing the fawn.

“I hope you’ll come back as soon as you can,” Jamie said.

“As soon as things stabilize, I’d like you and the girls to come and visit. Will you do that?”

“You won’t be able to keep us away.”

“I think we’ll be friends. I’ve been away for some time, and a number of my old friends are gone. So I’ll be happy to have you coming in and out as often as you please.”

Jamie was surprised that somebody like Grace could ever be lonely, but she heard a hunger in her new friend’s voice and recognized it. It matched her own. “You may not be so happy if we hit you on a day when the girls are hot, tired and cranky,” she warned.

“Even children in fairy tales aren’t always well-behaved.”

“Why did Lucky’s mother leave her?” Hannah asked, as if the question had just occurred to her. “What kind of mother leaves her baby for somebody else to take care of?”

“I’ll let you answer that,” Grace told Jamie. “I’ll welcome your children into my home, dear, but I’ll be equally thrilled to turn the difficult questions over to you.”

Jamie shot her a smile, but as she fumbled through an explanation that didn’t include the dead doe on Fitch Crossing Road, she wondered in how many ways and how often she would have to answer the same question and all its variations if indeed even now she was carrying her sister’s child.

“S
he’s clearly not here.”

Kendra rounded the porch to the side of the Fitch Crossing cabin where her friend Elisa Kinkade was lounging in an oak swing. Almost two weeks had passed since Kendra left Jamie at the cabin. Now she and Isaac were back in Toms Brook to finalize the new house plans with Rosslyn and Rosslyn later that evening. Jamie had invited them to dinner, but Jamie wasn’t home.

Elisa patted the seat and stopped midswing so Kendra could join her. Kendra had left Isaac and their car at the house Elisa shared with her husband Sam, who was the minister of the Shenandoah Community Church when Elisa had volunteered to drop her here.

“I’m not sure where she’s gone,” Kendra said. “Jamie knew we were coming.”

“Maybe she’s doing some last-minute grocery shopping.”

“It probably gets lonely with only little girls to keep her company. I guess she likes to get out at least part of every day, just to see grown-ups again.”

“I hope I’ll have the chance to meet her, so I can see her when I’m in town.”

Elisa, an obstetrician in her home country of Guatemala, was completing a second residency across the mountains in Charlottesville so that she could practice in Virginia. Today was one of her infrequent days off. Kendra was glad for even this brief opportunity to catch up.

“We wanted to have a peaceful dinner together before Jamie goes back to the fertility clinic for the pregnancy test on Friday. We don’t want her to think that everything hinges on whether the in vitro worked.”

“Would she think such a thing?”

Kendra wondered. Until today, she hadn’t checked on her sister. If there was any problem, Jamie knew how to reach her, and Kendra knew hovering was counterproductive. Still, she had spent every day worrying.

And about what? The list was so long, she could hardly keep track.

Kendra knew Elisa and Sam wanted children, too, although they were tabling it until Elisa was finished or nearly finished her residency. But even with Elisa’s credentials, even though her friend yearned for a child, no one could understand the ache of infertility until she had experienced it herself.

“It’s uncharted territory, this surrogacy thing,” Kendra said, starting with the obvious.

“Surrogacy is not so uncommon anymore. Unfortunately, the problems make the newspapers but the success stories are less likely to.”

“Have you had experience yourself? As an obstetrician?”

“My area of practice took me in other directions. But from observation, I know the most important marker for a positive outcome is a strong emotional and personal commitment by all parties. There is a sense of mission, of something meant to be. No one should feel coerced or desperate.”

“Jamie’s offer came out of the blue. It never occurred to me that anyone would do this for us. It’s so huge…” Kendra glanced at her friend, who, with her shining black hair and slender figure, was pretty enough to walk a runway instead of a hospital corridor. “It’s so overwhelming.”

“Can you list your worries? Because I sense you have more than one.”

After a nearly fatal carjacking two years ago, Kendra had come to this land, to Isaac’s grandmother’s long-abandoned cabin, in search of answers, and she had found them in the peaceful countryside and in her friendship with Elisa and Sam. She still had very few people with whom she felt comfortable sharing her innermost thoughts, but she knew she could be truthful with Elisa.

“Well, first and foremost—and not yet answered—is the big zinger. Is my sister pregnant with my child?” She put a finger to her lips. “It seems so odd even to say that out loud.”

“And if she’s not?”

Kendra shrugged. “Then it’ll be up to her what we do next. I can’t make her try again.”

“And that worries you.”

“I’ve trusted her with my dreams, Elisa. And I hardly know her, because we were estranged for so long. I’d given up hope of having a baby, and now I’ve opened myself up to heartbreak again.”

“Or wonder. Wonder is the other side of that coin, isn’t it? A baby of your own? The baby you and Isaac created together?”

Kendra tried to send her mind down a more productive path. There were signs that Cash had been here. A nearly finished playhouse existed in the woods just beyond the cabin. He was building it where Jamie could keep an eye on the girls without appearing to, which Kendra approved of.

Alison was daring and imaginative. But what would happen if Jamie didn’t keep her eye on her? The little girl might take it in her head to go down to the river on her own. Last summer, a child just about her age had fallen in near the bed-and-breakfast where Kendra and Isaac stayed now whenever they visited the Valley. Gayle, the innkeeper, had told her the story, which luckily had a happy ending. But now Kendra worried that history might repeat itself.

“I’m a mess.” She turned back to Elisa. “Apparently I’m eaten up with anxiety. I look at that wonderful playhouse Cash Rosslyn is building the girls, and all of a sudden I’m worried that Jamie won’t keep a good enough eye on Alison and she’ll end up in the river.”

“Why don’t you just put all your fears out to air?”

Kendra didn’t have to think long or hard. “Will the girls be happy enough here that Jamie will stay where I can share in the pregnancy? Will the neighbors understand and support what we’re doing? Will Jamie’s pregnancy—if there is one—be problem free? If we have to try in vitro again and again, will Jamie be willing? Or is this a one-time impulse, something she’ll grow tired of quickly?”

“What makes you think the last might be true?”

“Jamie’s always been flighty.” Kendra shook her head at her own words. “But that’s not really true. Jamie was flighty as a child, but aren’t all children flighty? And after a disastrous adolescence and beyond, she did pull her life together.”

“You don’t say that like you believe it’s true.”

Kendra was ashamed, but she couldn’t pretend otherwise. “Of course that’s the real question, isn’t it? Everything comes back to that. How much of what I see in my sister is really just the normal difference in our personalities, the kind sisters everywhere have to deal with? How much is my own unwillingness to believe that Jamie really cleaned up her act? And how much is my profession? Investigative reporters aren’t trained to believe what we see on the surface. I’ve been suspicious since the moment she reentered my life. I know I have to trust her now—not just for the sake of the baby she might be carrying, but because trust’s the only way to keep Jamie and the girls in my life.”

“But if you do trust Jamie, how will you survive if your trust is betrayed?”

“You do know how to get to the heart of the matter.” Kendra tried to smile, but it was a weak attempt. “But other than that, life is simple, huh?”

“You’re making a start just by admitting your mind is running wild. That’s a step. And I’m glad to see you can still smile about it.”

“I think I’m going to need my sense of humor in the next months. Add it to a long list of things I have to do. Rein in my feelings. Concentrate on being logical.” This time the smile was surer. “Rent a straitjacket.”

Elisa squeezed her hand. “You might also consider letting go a little. Worrying never heads off a crisis, and it doesn’t prepare you for one.”

The sound of an engine halted their conversation. In a moment, Jamie’s van came into sight, and in a few more, the girls were spilling out of it.

“Here they come,” Kendra said, rising to greet her nieces.

“We have salmon and rice and lettuce that came right out of a field!” Hannah ran up the steps to give Kendra a huge hug, then made way for Alison’s smaller arms.

“And shortcake!” Alison shouted.

Kendra hugged them back, then stood to introduce her sister and the girls to Elisa.

“I am so glad I get to meet you at last,” Elisa told Jamie. “I’m not around as much as I would like, but if you ever need anything, please call our house. If I’m at the hospital, Sam will help.”

“I’ve heard so much about you. I feel like we’re already friends.”

Elisa rummaged through a fabric bag and pulled out two small gaily wrapped gifts, and handed one to each girl. “And for you, a welcome to Toms Brook.”

Hannah thanked Elisa politely, as Alison forgot and tore into her gift. It was a small doll dressed in Guatemalan clothing. Hannah had received one, too, dressed in a different color.

“They are worry dolls,” Elisa explained. “If you have something that is worrying you, you tell it to your doll, and then you put her under your pillow or right beside it. While you are sleeping, she will think of a way to help you. And if you aren’t worried, then she will be glad just to play with you.” Her gaze flicked to Kendra’s, and she smiled.

“I like it!” Alison held hers up high.

“Maybe she will help us find friends,” Hannah said.

“Hannah’s concerned she’s not going to meet anyone her age until she goes to school in the fall,” Jamie explained. “So far, we haven’t had much luck.”

Elisa closed up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Our church will have a vacation bible school at the end of July. It’s nondenominational. Some of the children from La Casa will be coming, too.”

“La Casa Amarilla’s a community center the church sponsors,” Kendra said. “That would be a good way for the girls to make acquaintances.”

“I will ask Sam if he knows anyone the girls can play with in the meantime. So many are in and out of town this time of year, but maybe we can find you some friends,” Elisa promised Hannah.

“Then I can save my worry doll for something else.”

Elisa extended her hand to Jamie. “I have to go. Sam has a meeting tonight, so we need to have an early dinner. Make sure Kendra gives you our phone number.”

On her way to get the rest of the groceries, Jamie walked Elisa to her car. Kendra stood with an arm around each of her nieces and knew that the next time she saw Elisa, she was probably going to be the recipient of a worry doll herself, maybe even a set.

And it would be up to her to learn how to let them do their job.

While Kendra listened to a blow-by-blow description of everything the girls had done that day, Jamie retrieved two more bags to bring up to the house. She had hoped to have things ready by the time Kendra and Isaac arrived. Now she felt a sliver of annoyance. Kendra had arrived earlier than expected, with a guest in tow for Jamie to meet, and of course she hadn’t even been home. She felt as if she’d failed some odd sort of test, as if she had proved once again that she couldn’t be trusted to be on time or live up to her end of a bargain.

Of course ninety-nine percent of what she was feeling was probably caused by the hormones zinging through her system. But she was bigger than progesterone. Better than estrogen. More than chemicals. She told herself to shake this off, and by the time she got back to the house, she’d nearly convinced herself she had.

On the porch, Kendra took one of the bags and followed her inside.

“This looks like you’re cooking a feast. I told you not to go to any trouble. We’d be happy to take the three of you out for dinner.”

The sliver of annoyance widened. “I know
you
view cooking as a chore, but I’ve told you before, cooking is my joy. I do it because I love it. Always.”

“Can I at least help?”

“You can slice the strawberries and sprinkle them with sugar while I unpack. And you can monitor Hannah. She’s a strawberry sneak, and too many will make her sick.”

“I will eat five,” Hannah said. “Six will be a problem.”

Inside, Kendra admired the personal touches that Jamie had added to the cabin. “I love those place mats. Did you bring them with you, or did you find them here?”

Jamie hoped the praise was real and not just her sister’s way of apologizing for her early arrival. “They’re great, aren’t they? I found them in a shop in Strasburg. They’re denim strips, hand woven on a loom. I wish I had time to work with my hands. I’ve always wanted to do something. Knit, crochet, paint.”

“Be careful what you wish for, and keep your voice down.”

Jamie turned. “What? Who’s listening?”

Kendra lowered her voice. “They’re everywhere.”

“Are you nuts? Who’s everywhere?”

Kendra lowered her voice even more. “The quilters.”

“Quilters?”

“Now you’ve gone and done it. They’ll be here momentarily. Bolt the doors.”

Jamie was relieved to see this more playful side of her sister. “Explain yourself.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find out soon enough. Let’s just say that if you ever had a yen to learn how to quilt, you’re in the right place. Toms Brook is crawling with them.”

“Does that have anything to do with the old quilts in your house?”

“I collect, they quilt, although I’ll confess they’ve taught me a little. Call it survival.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“They’ll sniff you out.”

In the kitchen, Jamie lifted a package from the bag. “Have you ever seen prettier salmon? If I marinate it and light the grill, do you think Isaac will do the honors? The grill’s great, by the way. State-of-the-art, like everything else here.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you’re in the middle of nowhere with two young children and a lot to think about.”

Jamie wasn’t sure she liked hearing her days characterized that way, as if she was serving some sort of prison sentence—even if her sister’s words mirrored some of her own thoughts. But again, she managed to keep her voice light.

“So far, those two young children have been completely enchanted with a certain playhouse. I don’t know if they can possibly like it as much once it’s built as they’ve liked helping build it, but I can’t thank you enough, Ken. That was absolutely brilliant.”

“It sounds like that’s been the center of everybody’s days.”

“That and the deer.” Jamie told her about the fawn.

“So Cash and his grandmother took it home?” Kendra asked.

“Grace is licensed and trained. It was the right thing to do.”

“And how has it fared?”

“Not well at first, apparently. She almost lost it. But the crisis seems to have passed. We’re invited to see her tomorrow. The girls are beside themselves. They spent the day making collars out of ribbon for Lucky.”