Three Wishes (34 page)

It didn't to Tom. Nor did it sound like the voice of an unstable woman.

Reaching sideways, Julia bare-handedly tore a clump of weeds from the ground. She tossed the clump into a half-filled bag. Brushing off her hands, she asked, “Did she tell you about the trust fund?” Tom nodded.

“That
really
has them hot and bothered. Oh, they don't come out and say it. They say things like, ‘Isn't setting up a business risky at your age?' Like I have one foot in the grave,” she drawled. “It's my fault, I suppose. When we knew Teddy was dying and were trying to get used to the idea, I kept telling them about the trust fund because I wanted them to know that Teddy had provided for them. Here, too, they may not understand the truth.”

“Which is?”

“That Teddy meant for me to use as much or as little of that money as I wanted. He put it in writing. I have a copy of that paper. So does our lawyer. The children won't go to him, because he was a close friend of Teddy's and mine, and they're sure he'll side with me. But we both do have copies of that paper.” She ran her palm over a pool of orangy-pink impatiens. “I bought the house here with what I got from my house in Des Moines, but I dipped into the trust fund to set up the shop. There's plenty left for my children.” She turned beseeching eyes on Tom. “For years I gave them everything I could, even when there were things I wanted that I couldn't have. For years I put them first. Now it's my turn.”

“Have you told Nancy that?”

“In gentler terms. But she doesn't hear, and her brother goads her on.”

“Would you like me to talk to her? Explain a little of that?”

Julia grew hopeful. “Would you?”

“Should I mention the paper your husband left?”

“If you have to.” She smiled a silent thanks. “You're a good man, Tom. Bree is lucky to have you. Unless people are right and her father became so withdrawn that he couldn't see beyond himself, he would have liked you, too.”

“He was a tough man.”

“Unsatisfied. From what I hear.”

“Lovesick. From what
I
hear. He never got over Bree's mother.”

A distant roll of thunder drew Julia's head around. “Maybe if he'd been a stronger man,” she said when she looked back at Tom.

“Or if she'd been a stronger woman,” he countered. “What would possess a woman to walk away and never look back?”

“She may have had good reason.”

“Good
reason?”

Julia arched a brow at his sarcasm. “Things aren't always as they seem, Tom. Take your reasons for coming here now. My children say that because I left them and moved away, something's wrong with my mind. But the reasons I gave you make sense, don't they? So maybe Bree's mother had reasons, too.”

He scratched his head. “Yeah, well, it's hard for me to come up with a scenario that makes her a saint.”

“None of us are saints. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.”

He leaned back on the heels of his hands. “What's the middle ground here? What could possibly justify a woman's leaving her baby with its father and dropping off the face of the earth?”

Julia looked bemused. “Well, I don't know.”

“Guess.”

She frowned, shook her head, shrugged. “Maybe she had other ties, other responsibilities?”

“No tie could be as strong as the one between mother and child. Unless she already had a family. But if she did, she had no business carrying on with Haywood Miller in the first place.”

Julia responded sadly. “You do sound like my kids. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was talking to one of them right now.”

“Okay. So I'm being judgmental. I'm angry on Bree's behalf. If the woman wasn't free, she shouldn't have been with Haywood. If she was already married, she was cheating on her husband.”

“So it would seem. But we don't know the particulars.” Tom's face hardened. “I've been trying to learn the particulars. I've tried to locate her, but I can't. She's done one hell of a job covering her tracks.” “After how many years?”

He conceded the point. Thirty-three years was a long time. With most of those years predating the age of computers, a track wouldn't need much covering. It would easily fade on its own.

Another roll of thunder came, still distant, but louder than the last. Julia raised her voice. “So focus on what you
do
know. See if any sense comes from that.”

“All we know for sure is that the woman came from California, that she met Haywood in Boston, and that she gave birth to Bree in Chicago.”

“Were they together the whole time she was pregnant?”

“The grapevine says they were.”

“So where was her husband?”

Tom sighed in frustration. “You tell me.”

Julia took him literally. “Somewhere else entirely, I'd guess. Maybe he was a traveling salesman. Or in the service.” She frowned. “This would have been in the sixties?”

“Early sixties.”

A furrow of pain crossed her face. “The first of our men were already lost in Vietnam by 1962.”

Tom was drawn to her expression. “I thought it was later.”

“No. It started then.” She smiled sadly. “No great mystery how I know, Tom. My husband was among the first to be sent there. You can't imagine what it's like, the not knowing, the worrying. I knew women whose husbands were missing in action. That's a devastating thing. It leaves a woman feeling lost and alone.”

“And vulnerable? Is that what you're suggesting? Vulnerable enough to fall into another man's arms?”

“It's possible. Don't you think?”

“But even so,” Tom persisted, coming forward, folding his legs, elbows on knees. “Even allowing for the possibility of a war widow finding comfort with another man, why would she leave him once she had his baby?”

“Honestly, Tom, how would
I
know? All I'm suggesting is that you're doing just what my kids are doing. You're assuming the worst. Like the story between me and my kids, maybe there's more to this one that would make you see her choice differently.” She waved a hand. “I mean, for the sake of the argument, what if a woman was told that her husband had died at war, and then it turned out that the report was wrong, that he wasn't dead and was coming home, just like in the movies. It happens, you know, and stranger things than that. Would you still be so angry?”

Tom softened, but only a tad. “Even so, even if there was something as far-fetched as that to explain it—thirty-three years without a word? We're back to square one. Even if she had reason to leave, how could she abandon the child without a trace?”

Julia nodded sympathetically. “You're right. We're back to square one. There are endless possibilities—we could speculate for days. Without more details, we can't ever know for sure why she left her child.” She paused, seeming again to want to stick up for the woman, as she had done for herself minutes before. “Have you considered the possibility that this wasn't solely the woman's choice? Maybe the baby's father had a say. Maybe he made her leave.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Hurt. Anger. You're a man. You tell me. Maybe refusing her contact with the child was his way of punishing her.”

“But Haywood died three years ago,” Tom argued. “If that were it, wouldn't she have shown up now that he's dead?”

“Maybe she's dead, too. Or maybe she
has
shown up.”

“Ah. The woman in the diner. But you were there. You overheard what she said. You were convinced she wasn't Bree's mother.”

“Maybe
she
wasn't. Strangers are in and out of the diner all the time. Bree's mother could have been one of them. For all we know, she's passed through here every summer since Haywood died just to look at Bree and see how she's doing. For all we know, she passed through here summers for years
before
that, too.”

“Without identifying herself?”

“Sure. It'd be risky to come forward after all that time, don't you think?”

“Because of Bree? Bree is the kindest, most gentle woman in the world.”

Julia replied slowly. “You didn't see her with that woman, Tom. She was very angry. I've never seen her like that before.”

“Do you blame her?”

“Not at all. She missed having a mother. She has a right to that anger.”

“I'll say,” Tom avowed. With the first large, spattering drop of rain, he unfolded his legs.

Rising beside him, Julia brushed at the seat of her pants. “I don't envy the woman. It's a sad situation. Truly.” She bent to retrieve her weeding fork.

Tom grabbed the bag full of weeds, and they set off for the shop. When the raindrops came faster, they quickened their steps, running at the end. They were laughing by the time they were inside.

“Look at it
pour,”
Julia said, giving her hat a good shake as she peered through the rain. “But this is good. My flowers need it. I'm doing a wedding in Montgomery next week. I want the lilies to look their best.”

“Business is good?”

“Business is fine.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yes. I've always been a flower person. Put me in a room with fresh roses, and I get a little high.”

Free association took Tom from picturing Julia high on roses, to seeing her dancing through flower beds, to recalling the original reason for his visit. “I'll give Nancy a call and tell her we've talked. I can probably convince her to ease off a little. It would be even better if you two sat down together. If it's her brother who's getting her wound up, she needs someone giving her the other side. When will you be seeing her again?”

“Thanksgiving.”

“Don't want to do it sooner?”

Julia shook her head. “I'll warn you now. She's upset because I told her I wouldn't come for Christmas, too. I have every other year. But this year I want to be here. I wouldn't miss the birth of your baby for the world.”

Thinking of Christmas, Tom felt alternately exhilarated and terrified. “Bree's delivering by cesarean section. I thought the doctor might set a date, but he wants her to go into labor on her own. She could be late. Maybe you should rethink that.”

“No. I want to be here.”

Tom didn't argue this time. Something in her eye said she wasn't budging.

 

As soon as he returned to the house, Tom called Nancy Anderson. He described his visit with Julia and did his best to paint a picture of the contentment he had seen. When Nancy mentioned the trust fund once, then a second and third time, he told about the paper her father had signed. She seemed almost relieved. Tom imagined she was grateful to have an argument to give her brother.

A good lawyer never became personally involved with his client. It was a basic rule. But Nancy wasn't actually his client, since no money had exchanged hands, and he cared deeply for Julia. So he offered to meet her at the airport, if Nancy chose to come for a visit.

15

D
ear Dad, Tom wrote in early September.

Hard to believe that Labor Day has come and gone. I took the enclosed pictures at the town's celebration
—
a huge barbecue held in a pumpkin field. The pumpkins weren't quite ready for harvest, but that was the point. The whole town showed up to cheer them on. That's Bree in the first picture, with our friends the Littles and their kids. That's Bree in the second picture with the troika who run the town
—
left to right, the police chief, the postmaster, and the town meeting moderator. In the third picture, Bree is with her friends Angus, Oliver, and Jack, and her boss, Flash. Flash is a good soul. You'd like him. He isn't thrilled with Bree right now, since she's cut back to working only a few hours a day, but I don't like her on her feet all day when there's no need for her to work at all.