The Second Sister (24 page)

He laughed and held up his hands. “Whoa! Let's just slow down for a second. I already
do
help people. I'm convinced that I have a bigger impact here locally than I ever would at the statewide level. Do you know why? Because you don't need to ascribe to any particular ideology to figure out how to fill potholes or keep the library open. Right now, it's very clear where my loyalties should lie—with the people of this town, those who voted for me as well as those who didn't. But when you start taking money from a party or from big donors, it's natural that they are going to expect you, if not precisely to vote how they want you to, then at least to champion their ideology. I don't want any part of that, Lucy.”

“Look,” I said, “I agree with you. The whole system of parties and money in politics is really messed up. But it's the only system we've got, and until it changes—”

“Until it changes,” Peter said, taking a last bite of coleslaw, “I'm going to keep serving at the local level, where I know I can get more done in one year than I could in a decade of partisan bickering in Madison. The other thing I'm going to do,” he said, putting his fork down on his plate, “is see about getting us some dessert.” He looked up, craning his neck as he searched for our waitress. “Do you want your pie plain or à la mode?”

 

After a little bit of wrangling, Peter finally did let me pay the check—our dinners, delicious and served in a beautiful atmosphere, ran only about twenty dollars each. A similar meal in DC would have cost twice as much. More things to appreciate about life in a small town, I thought as we headed out to the truck. I was starting to wonder if I shouldn't take a little bit of the money from the sale of the cottage and buy a condo here in Door County. Nothing big or elaborate, just a place that I could rent out now and use as a second home someday, when Ryland was out of office and my life was less complicated. Something to think about.

The sun sets early in winter, and once we left the relatively populated domain of Fish Creek and headed east across one of the county roads toward Bailey's Harbor, the drive home was pitch-black and a little bit spooky. Peter was quiet, focused on driving, and I said nothing to distract him. At this time of year, on a dark and potentially treacherous road that could be hiding black ice around every curve, you're suddenly very respectful of the awesome power and danger of nature.

We drove that way, which is to say in silence, for some time. But when we rounded a curve I spotted a quick glint of something unidentifiable in the headlights and shouted, “Look out! On the right!” and instinctively braced my arms against the dashboard.

Peter shot a quick glance in my direction, then took a tighter grip on the wheel and steered the truck deliberately to the left without swerving while pressing his foot on the brake pedal firmly enough to bring the truck to a stop, but not so hard that he risked going into a skid.

We came to a stop in the middle of the deserted road. “What was it?” Peter asked.

“I'm not sure. I couldn't see anything but a flash in the headlights. Maybe the eyes of a deer?”

At that moment, I was startled by another flash, a glimpse of something moving in the darkness. I gasped and clapped my hand instinctively against my chest, and then slumped with relief when the something stepped out of the shadows and into the bright beam of the headlights.

I opened the door and jumped from the cab of the truck. Peter grabbed the emergency blanket he kept under the seat and followed right behind me.

“Celia!” I cried. “We almost hit you! What in the world are you doing out here in the freezing cold?”

“Sorry,” she said, hanging her head as Peter wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “Pat kicked me out of the car.” She sniffled. “And the house.”

Chapter 32

I
t was too late to do anything about Celia's predicament that night, so I made her a sandwich and a cup of hot tea and put her to bed in my parents' old room. In the morning, I phoned Daphne and Rinda and scheduled an eleven-o'clock strategy meeting in my living room.

Celia had been living with Pat since the previous May. She paid him eight hundred dollars a month in rent, but Pat owned the house, so even though it was lousy of him to throw her out with no notice and in the middle of winter, he was within his legal rights to do so.

Rinda clucked her tongue at Celia, who was sitting in the corner of the couch, in something close to the fetal position, looking small and miserable.

“Didn't I tell you that this would happen?” Rinda asked as she paced from one end of the living room to the other, never taking her eyes off Celia. “Didn't I warn you about him? And didn't I tell you that living in sin with a no-good, worthless man—and, honey,
any
man that asks you to live in sin is worthless—would lead to nothing but heartache and shame? Didn't I?”

Celia nodded and Rinda resumed her harangue.

“A man who loves you, truly loves you, will offer you a ring and a
home
. ‘And the two shall become one,' ” Rinda said, lifting her chin high and pointing an index finger at Celia.

“That's what the Word says, and that is what is
right!
But you wouldn't listen to me, would you? No, ma'am. You had to do it your way, just ignoring God's good word and my good advice. And now look at you! Tossed out on your behind in the middle of winter. Hmph.” Rinda crossed her arms over her chest and took a deep breath.

Daphne, taking advantage of the momentary silence, looked at Celia and sighed. “Poor thing. Don't be so hard on her, Rinda. ‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.'
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
act one, scene one.”

Rinda put a hand on her hip. “ ‘Let marriage be held in honor among
all,
' ” she countered, “ ‘and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.' Hebrews, chapter thirteen, verse four.”

“I know,” Celia said in a piteous voice, looking from Daphne to Rinda and back again. “I'm sorry. I'm an idiot.”

Rinda's expression softened.

“Oh, honey. Aren't we all? Idiots and sinners and hopeless romantics—wishing for something better. Well . . .” She sighed. “What's done is done. Learn from it, but don't dwell on it. We've got other problems to deal with now, like finding you a place to rent.”

Celia shrank even farther into the corner of the couch and looked at me, her eyes begging me to intervene.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “That could be a problem. Celia doesn't have money for a rental deposit. Seems she loaned Pat twenty-three hundred dollars last month, everything she had in her bank account, and he hasn't paid it back.”

“What!” Daphne exclaimed. “Celia, are you crazy? ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be'! Why would you lend money to a man who hasn't worked steady in three years?”

“He told me that if he got his car fixed he'd
get
a job,” Celia said. “He said they were hiring at the winery.”

“And you gave him every dime you had so he could get a job selling liquor,” Rinda said sarcastically. “Makes perfect sense. Because people who own a winery are going to be anxious to hire the town drunk. And
did
he get his car fixed?”

“Well . . . he told me that he bought a new set of plugs and belts and was going to put them in himself, but . . .”

Celia moved her head slowly from side to side and sniffled.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Pat's car isn't working? Whose car was he driving last night?”

“Mine.”

“So . . . he kicked you out of your
own
car and then drove off and left you by the side of the road in the dark and freezing cold?”

Celia nodded.

Rinda stopped her pacing and stood right in front of Celia. Now she had a hand on each hip.

“Didn't I warn you? Didn't I tell you that you can't trust an alcoholic? That he will break your heart and drink it dry? Didn't I tell you how I nearly bankrupted my family and destroyed my marriage before I finally put down the bottle? ‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.' Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse one.”

Daphne, who had been nodding in agreement as Rinda spoke, added her two cents. “ ‘O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.'
Othello,
act two, scene three.”

“Amen!” exclaimed Rinda.

“I just thought it would be different this time,” Celia whimpered. “I really thought he was trying to get his act together. I just wanted to help him.”

Tears formed in Celia's eyes and her shoulders wilted, making her look even more pitiful.

“Oh, I know you did,” Rinda replied more gently. “You meant well. But, honey, believe me when I tell you that Pat has got to help himself. He's got to
want
to change. Nobody can do it for him. Not even you.”

“You're right,” Celia conceded. “I just . . . never mind. You're right. If I didn't know that before, I do now.”

Daphne sat down on the couch and put her arm around Celia.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be,” she sighed. “You deserve better, sweetie. You deserve someone who will love you and cherish you and treat you like a queen.”

Celia laid her head on Daphne's shoulder.

“Right now I'd just settle for getting my car back and getting my stuff out of his house. I don't even care about my clothes so much. I can get new ones, I guess. But I want my paintings and quilts and photo albums. Pat texted me in the middle of the night. He said he changed the locks on all the doors.”

“Celia,” I said, “when you loaned him the money, I don't suppose you made him sign anything saying how and when he'd pay you back, did you?”

She shook her head. I'd expected as much. Celia was far too innocent and trusting; she really believed that Pat would use the money to fix his car and then pay her back when he had a job.

“Well,” I said, “unless Pat suddenly grows a conscience . . .”

“Hmph!” barked Rinda, making clear her opinion on the chances of that happening.

“. . . I doubt you'll ever see that money again. He'll probably claim you gave it to him as a gift. But he can't keep your car and he can't prevent you from getting your stuff.”

I picked my cell up off the coffee table. “Let me call Peter. I'm sure he'll know what kind of paperwork we'll need to fill out to get a judge to force Pat to give back Celia's car and let her collect her possessions.”

“Paperwork? A judge?” Rinda shook her head in disgust. “Isn't it just like you to go running off in search of a lawyer and begging the government for help instead of taking matters into your own hands? I say we just drive over there, bang on the door, and tell Pat he'd better open up.”

“And if he won't?” I asked.

Rinda sniffed and scowled, considering the question. “Then we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. Maybe he'll let us in and maybe he won't. But if he does, it'll be a lot cheaper and faster than dragging Pat into court. Anyway, we don't lose anything by trying.”

“Rinda's right,” Daphne said, “ ‘The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves.' ”

Rinda put a hand on her hip. “Now, isn't that what I just said?”

Daphne patted Celia on the arm and then stood up. “C'mon, girls. Let's drive over there and try to reason with him.”

“And if that doesn't work,” Rinda said brightly, as if the idea had just come to her, “we can try snipping the electrical connection to the house so it'll get so cold and dark that he
has
to come out and talk to us.” She slipped her arms into her coat. “I've got a pair of wire cutters in the glove box.”

Rinda marched out the front door with Celia in tow. Daphne and I brought up the rear.

I whispered to Daphne out of the side of my mouth, “She's just kidding, right? About the wire cutters?”

Daphne shrugged. “Could be. With Rinda, you never can tell. ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce.' ”

 

Thankfully, we didn't have to resort to Rinda's wire cutters.

When we knocked on the door, Pat peeked out through the curtains, but wouldn't open the door. Fortunately, I'd been quietly texting Peter during the drive to Pat's house, telling him what was going on, and he arrived on the scene about the time Rinda was rifling through her glove box.

He knocked on the door but, like us, got no answer. Raising his voice loudly enough for Pat to hear, he told Pat that if he didn't open the door, give Celia her car keys, and let her collect her things, he was going to take Celia to the police station and help her press charges against him.

“For what?” Pat shouted back.

“Auto theft and attempted murder.”

“Attempted murder! I never laid a hand on her!” His words were slurred, not a lot, but enough so I knew he'd been drinking.

“You shoved her out of her own car and left her by the side of the road, miles from the nearest house and inadequately dressed in subfreezing temperatures. If we hadn't come along when we did, she might have frozen to death,” Peter said calmly. “In all fairness, I probably wouldn't be able to make an attempted murder charge stick, but I'm pretty sure we could get a conviction for attempted manslaughter. Either way, it's going to cause you a lot of problems and some time as a guest of the state.”

“Are you crazy? We had a fight is all! It's not a crime to have a fight with your girlfriend. And I didn't shove her out of the car! She yelled at me to stop the car and then jumped out on her own! I told her to get back in, but she wouldn't listen.”

“That's not what Celia says,” Peter said, leaning casually against the door. “So I guess it'd be your word against hers, but, Pat? I gotta tell you, Celia is going to be a much more believable and sympathetic witness than you.”

Pat started to curse a blue streak. When we heard a big
thwap
sound followed by more cursing, Celia shook her head and explained. “He punched the wall with his fist. He does that when he's mad.”

After the cussing died down a little, Peter said, “But, you know, we really don't have to go through any of that. If you'll just open the door and let Celia get her car keys and anything else that belongs to her, everybody can go on with their day and leave the police out of it. Whaddaya say, chief?”

For about a minute, nothing happened. We just stood there and waited, our breathing creating clouds of vapor in the air. But then we heard the sound of a key being turned in a lock and Pat opened the door. There was black stubble on his face and he was wearing the same clothes he'd worn the night previous, but he didn't seem quite as burly or as menacing as before. His eyes were red—not bloodshot, but red on the rims, as if he'd been crying.

Without looking her in the eye, Pat put a set of car keys in Celia's hand and stood aside so we could file past. I could smell liquor on his breath.

In the end, what might have been a potentially dangerous drama was played out in relative calm. Pat sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, not saying anything to anybody, while the rest of us, with Peter standing guard, helped Celia pack her things and carry them to the cars.

It was too much for one vehicle, so we loaded the clothes, books, cosmetics, and whatnot into Celia's trunk and the art supplies and paintings into Rinda's van. After a quick discussion in the driveway, it was decided that Celia would move in with me for a while.

“Are you sure?” she asked when I made the offer. “I mean, you don't really know me that well.”

“You were one of my sister's best friends,” I said. “What else do I need to know? Alice was an excellent judge of character.”

“I'd love to have you stay with us,” Daphne said, “but with me and the girls . . . we just don't have any extra beds.”

Rinda didn't say anything, neither offering to let Celia stay with her nor giving an explanation as to why she couldn't. That surprised me a little. I know that Rinda loves Celia like another daughter. So does Daphne. They're both very protective of her, which is good. Celia is a doll, but a little naïve; she could use a little protecting.

“I really don't mind,” I said. “In fact, I'll be happy for the company. And it would be a help to have somebody stay in the house and take care of the cats after I go back to Washington.”

“I can pay you,” Celia said stoutly. “Eight hundred a month, just like I did Pat.”

I waved off her proposal. “No. You can help with the groceries, but that's it. You need to save up money for a rental deposit. You're welcome to stay for a few months, but you'll need to find a new place after I sell to Mr. Glazier.”

“It's so sad to think of you leaving and selling Alice's cottage,” Celia said.

“I know. But it just doesn't make any sense for me to hold on to it anymore. And like I told you before, the cottage will still be there. Mr. Glazier promised that he'll leave the exterior walls of the cottage intact. It's pretty amazing that he was willing to agree to that.”

Celia bobbed her head, conceding my point. “But it won't be the same.”