The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge (139 page)

“Guilty,” he’d acknowledged, and sat at the table to see where this conversation was headed.

“I put Liz’s muffin in the refrigerator,” she said. “I think you forgot that she was off today.”

“You’re right. I did.”

Violet tended to the coffeemaker in silence for a few moments. After she poured in the water and set the machine to “brew,” she turned to him and said, “I have the list of friends and clients completed. I’ll print it out for you.”

“Thanks, Violet. I really want this to be a great time for him. I want him to have everyone there he cares about.”

“Will that include your father?” she asked.

Jesse paused. “I don’t know how much he cares about my father.”

“To tell you the truth, neither do I.” Violet took the chair opposite Jesse. “They always had a tumultuous relationship. Craig always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, and no one could ever figure out why. The things that boy did when he was growing up …”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you.” Violet got up, taking the sugar bowl with her to the counter. She opened a cabinet and proceeded to refill the bowl with packets of the artificial sweetener that Liz preferred and the sugar that she favored. “But how Curtis feels now …” She shook her head. “I don’t really know for certain.”

“If it makes you feel better, I hadn’t planned on inviting him.”

“You’d leave your father off the guest list?”

Jesse shrugged. “It’s not my party.” He paused, then added, “I don’t know if I’d invite him to a party for me either.”

“That brings me to the next quandary. Whether or not to invite the others.”

“What others?”

She took a deep breath. “You are aware that your father was married to someone else before he married your mother.”

“He was married to Delia Enright, the novelist.”

“Did you know that he had three children with her?”

“I know he had them, but I never met them. Apparently the divorce was not a friendly one.” He smiled wanly. “Neither of my father’s divorces were all that friendly, to tell you the truth. I’m thinking the next one won’t be, either.”

“Delia was a lovely woman. Your grandparents adored her. Craig’s split from her was the last straw as far as Rose and Curtis were concerned. They’d doted on their grandchildren, and were distraught when Delia cut them off completely.”

“She did?” Jesse frowned. “I thought Pop just didn’t want to have anything to do with them.”

“Rose confided in me once that she’d called on Delia in person and asked her to let her spend some time with the children, but she said that Delia told her that she didn’t think it would be a good idea since their father had rejected them.”

“That’s the word she used,
rejected
?”

“Her exact words. When Rose asked Delia what she meant, she told her to ask Craig, but when Rose pressed her son, he refused to talk about it.”

“So all this time, there’s been no contact between Curtis and Delia’s children?”

“Not as far as I’m aware.”

Not that Jesse was especially surprised. Curtis hadn’t had much contact with Jesse or his sister since Jesse’s parents’ divorce. There’d been Christmas cards, but the birthday presents had stopped when his grandmother Rose passed away.

“I was wondering if I should add them to the list,” Violet was saying.

“You know their names? You know where they are?”

Violet nodded. “Your half brother’s name is Nick. He’s a marine biologist in New Jersey. Your half sisters are Zoey and Georgia. Zoey is a host on one of those TV shopping channels, and at one time Georgia danced with the Baltimore Harbor Ballet Company. She’s retired now, lives on a farm over toward the western part of the state. They’re all married and have young families.”

For reasons he might never understand, Jesse’s throat tightened. He had siblings—a brother and two sisters he’d never met—well, half siblings. He repeated their names inside his head, and couldn’t wait to share them with Sophie.

“I’ve long suspected that Curtis has regretted having cut himself off from them, particularly after Rose died and he started losing touch with you and your sister. He never said, but I think he’d like to establish something while there’s still time. I’m just not sure …” Her voice trailed away.

“You’re not sure if we should be the ones to decide that for him.” Jesse pondered the situation. “It could be a wonderful reunion and he could be very happy. Or”—he met Violet’s eyes across the table—“it could go very badly and he’d be really angry.”

“Exactly.”

The coffeemaker beeped to signal it had completed brewing, and Violet rose and took two mugs from the cabinet. She filled them both and sat one in front of Jesse.

“I suggest we both think long and hard before we send out those three invitations,” she told him.

“Agreed.”

Jesse got up to get the half-and-half from the refrigerator and handed the carton to Violet to use first. When she finished and returned it to him, she thanked him and left the room.

But a moment later, she reappeared and stuck her head through the doorway.

“By the way, I saw you dancing with our Halloween queen on Saturday. She’s a lovely girl, Jesse. It looked to me that she just might be crazy about you …”

Violet backed up the file she’d named
Curtis’s 85th
, saved it, and turned off the computer. She wasn’t so very far from her own eighty-fifth, she reminded herself. Today she was feeling every bit her age.

It had certainly been a day for surprises. It started when Curtis had shown up at seven forty-five that morning. In the old days, he’d always walked through the door at that same time, never earlier, never later. Rose used to say that Curtis had a clock in his head and it was set to do certain things at certain times. He definitely was a creature of habit, and he’d made one out of Violet as well. She’d unlocked the office door at seven thirty every morning for almost sixty years, went straight back to the kitchen, and got the coffee ready. Curtis always said knowing she’d have a perfect cup waiting for him when he arrived made up for the fact that Rose had never learned to brew a decent pot. Even now, on those days when she was scheduled to work, she still arrived at the same time.

No one should follow the same routine for sixty years, she admonished herself. If she were wise, she’d follow her boss’s lead and retire this year.

Old habits indeed died hard.

That morning, when Curtis came through the front door, she had a déjà vu moment. For just a flash, she remembered how it used to be, and she got up from her desk apologizing for not having his coffee ready. Now she was trying to be honest with herself—had it been memory, or confusion, that had caused her to hurry into the kitchen and begin to fill the pot with water?

Maybe it was time to retire. She rolled her eyes at the thought. Who in their right mind wanted to be working at her age?

And since she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that the real reason—the only reason—she insisted on coming in was to keep an eye on Jesse Enright.

When he arrived in St. Dennis that first time, she’d been convinced that he was up to no good. After all, hadn’t she known his father from the day he was born until the day he cut ties with his family? She knew the havoc he’d caused. Havoc and heartbreak, that was Craig. He’d been such a sweet little boy, she recalled. Up until he entered his teens, that is. She’d watched along with his family as a sort of restlessness had begun to take over the boy. What had caused it, she’d never known, and she suspected no one else did either. Maybe not even Craig.

The real sin of it all, in Violet’s eyes, was Rose dying so suddenly before she had a chance to reconcile with her son. Oh, they’d tried to track Craig down, but hadn’t been able to locate him until his mother was already buried. By then, Curtis had nothing left to say to his firstborn, and he’d never forgiven him. All ties
were severed, and had stayed severed, until Jesse showed up in St. Dennis that morning about ten months ago.

Violet sighed at the memory. She’d assumed a lot of things about Jesse that had turned out to be so wrong. She’d thought he was a clever gold digger from the time he arrived until just that morning, when she’d seen the genuine affection and respect in Jesse’s eyes when he came into his office and found his grandfather waiting for him.

And then there was this matter of a surprise party for Curtis. Jesse would have no way of knowing that his grandfather hated surprises.

Which put Violet right in the middle. Jesse had confided his plans in her, but there was a real possibility that Curtis might not react the way Jesse thought he would. And then there was the question of Craig’s other children. What to do about them? It was one thing not knowing how Curtis would feel about being surprised, but where those three were concerned, might he not feel he’d been blindsided? On the other hand, perhaps he’d see this as an opportunity to become reacquainted while still allowing him to save face.

“Well, there is only one way to deal with this,” she murmured. She grabbed her handbag, put on her coat, and turned out all but the hall light. It was time to pay a visit to the boss.

There had been a time when she’d been a regular visitor at the big house at the end of Old St. Mary’s Church Road. Back in the day, she and her Allan and Rose and Curtis had been such close friends. It had been Rose who’d helped them to make the arrangements
to bury their daughter, Amelia, who’d fallen off the bridge linking St. Dennis to Cannonball Island, and Rose who’d convinced her that Curtis needed assistance in the office, someone he could trust implicitly. It had taken Violet several years to figure out that offering the job was Rose’s way of helping Violet move on after Amelia’s death, but she’d never regretted one day she spent working for Enright and Enright.

Ringing the doorbell brought back more than a few memories. Seeing an aged Curtis open the door brought her back to the present.

“Violet.” He smiled. “Twice in one day after not seeing you in weeks. Come in, come in. It’s too cold for either of us to be standing in that wind.”

He ushered her into the sitting room that looked exactly the way it had when Rose was alive, and gestured for her to have a seat.

“Can I take your coat?”

“No, I’m not going to be staying that long.”

“What brings you by? Did I leave my glasses at the office again?” He patted his shirt pocket. “Nope, there they are.”

“I just wanted to have a chat with you, Curtis. Something’s bothering me.” She took off her gloves and held them on her lap. “It’s about Jesse.”

Violet watched the color drain from Curtis’s face as he slowly sat on the chair that faced hers.

“What about Jesse?”

“Oh, nothing like that,” she assured him when she realized he was expecting something really bad. “No, no, he’s a fine young man, Curtis. It’s something quite
good, actually, but it’s something I feel I need to discuss with you.”

Curtis visibly relaxed. “Go on, Vi.”

“First you need to promise that you won’t tell him that we had this conversation.”

“All right. I promise.” Curtis looked wary, so she decided to just throw it out there.

“Jesse wants to throw a party for your birthday. A surprise party.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in.

“Oh,” Curtis finally said. “That’s … that’s very … 
thoughtful
of him.”

“You can’t let on that you know, Curtis. You promised. And he took me into his confidence. He’s trusting me.” Violet paused. “You may not have noticed, but we—Jesse and I—haven’t always gotten along.”

Curtis nodded. He’d noticed.

“Well, it’s entirely my fault. I didn’t give him a chance. I’m not proud of that, but there it is. But he’s won me over.”

“Good. I was hoping—”

“—that I’d judge him on his own merits, not permit the sins of the father … oh, all that.”

“I’d harbored a lot of the same prejudices, Violet. We all did. Even Mike has come around.”

“So. The party. Jesse has asked me to help with the guest list. Which of course, I’m happy to do.”

“No one better,” Curtis agreed. “You know everyone—friends, clients, family. The nieces and the nephews and the grandchildren.”

“Yes, well, that’s part of the reason I’m here. It’s about inviting your grandchildren.”

“Well, of course, Jesse will invite his sister. And
there are Mike’s kids, you know how to get in touch with them.” Curtis stared at her for a moment. “What’s the problem, Violet? Out with it.”

“It’s the other ones I’m not sure about.”

“The other …” She was several feet away, but she heard the soft intake of his breath as he realized who “the other ones” were. “Delia’s children.”

Interesting, Violet thought. Not Craig’s children with Delia, or Craig’s children with his first wife, but Delia’s children.

“What about them?” he asked gruffly.

“How would you feel about inviting them?”

The silence was almost overwhelming.

“They’re your grandchildren, just as much as the others, Curtis,” she reminded him.

“I’m aware of that.”

They stared at each other for a long time, until Violet began to think that this time she’d really overstepped. But finally, Curtis said, “I haven’t seen those children since they were … well, children. Delia’s choice, not ours, Violet. God knows that Rose and I tried, but Delia’s a stubborn cuss. She wanted nothing to do with us after Craig walked out on them.”

He got up and began to pace back and forth across the room. Funny, she thought, how Jesse had the same habit when something was bothering him and he was searching for a solution.

“I don’t know them, Vi.”

“Then I suppose you’ll need to decide if you want to know them. If you do, now’s your chance.” She smiled. “And Jesse inviting them even lets you save face.”

“What if Jesse invites them and they won’t come?”

“Then you’re no worse off than you are right now.”

Curtis rubbed his chin. “What if it just opens up a lot of old wounds? For them, I mean, and for their mother.”

“They’re adults, Curtis. I suspect they can deal with it, if they haven’t already.”