Pieces of the Heart (25 page)

Caroline came home to find her mother sitting out on the deck drinking hot tea. The late-afternoon sun slanted across the backyard, lighting on her mother’s hair and turning it from blond to gray. Caroline paused by the quilting table overlooking the picture window, the solitude of her bedroom pulling at her. But something in the slope of her mother’s shoulders and the way her hands looked so frail against the china teacup made her move to the back door.

Margaret tipped her head. “I was wondering if you’d come join me.” She smiled before reaching for her sweater draped around the back of the chair. It slipped to the ground and Caroline stooped to pick it up, staring into her mother’s face as she did. The wrinkles appeared deeper out here, showing a woman who’d lived her sixty-six years.

She settled the sweater around her mother’s shoulders; she felt how thin and vulnerable they felt and wondered how such an old lady could be her mother. Unexpectedly, Margaret set her hand on Caroline’s. “I’m glad you came out.”

Caroline dropped into a nearby seat, letting her shopping bag slide to the ground.

“What’s all this?” Her mother eyed the bag with speculation.

“Oh, I did a little shopping in town today with Jewel and bought a few things.”

“With Jewel, hmm? And who drove?”

Caroline dug into the shopping bag to hide her face, feeling the heat steal into her cheeks. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she did know that she didn’t want her mother drawing the wrong conclusions. “Drew did. I didn’t argue because I’m trying to be nice to him—as tough as that is. He’s probably the most annoying person I’ve ever met. But my company could make a fortune licensing his furniture designs.”

“So how did it go?”

“How did what go?”

“Being nice to him.”

“Oh. That. Well, it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

She thought she saw her mother smile as she dipped her head to take a sip from her tea. “I wouldn’t think it would be that hard to be nice to a guy who looks like that.”

“You think he’s good-looking? I hadn’t noticed.” She took out the pair of shorts. “I got these and a pair of hiking boots.”

“They’re pretty short. Good for you. I always said you had a great pair of legs. Don’t know why you always insist on hiding them.”

Caroline stared at her mother. “You never said that—at least not to me, anyway.”

Her mom tilted her head again, as if studying a puzzle she’d put all the pieces in but didn’t recognize the picture. “No, maybe I didn’t. I probably figured that if I told you, you’d hide them in long skirts or baggy pants.” She smiled softly and stared out toward the setting sun drifting over the lake. “Do you remember the time you were in that horrible bike accident with Jude and Shelby? I was so afraid you’d scarred your legs that I grabbed a bottle of that terrible red stuff—what was it called?”

“Merthiolate,” Caroline answered, unable to resist smiling back. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Back then you practically lived in your swimsuit. You with those long, perfect legs—you were gorgeous in and out of the water. And I couldn’t bear to think of you being embarrassed because of scarring.” She took another sip of her tea and turned to Caroline. “You tried so hard to be brave and not scream, but I know how that must have hurt. I was so proud of you—even though you didn’t speak to me for a week.”

Caroline sat in the silence, feeling a bit like she’d just caught the Tooth Fairy putting a dollar under her pillow. The money was nice to have, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know who the Tooth Fairy really was.

“I never would have suspected. I always thought you did it so we wouldn’t die of infection.”

Her mother waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Nonsense. You three were so healthy, you could have fought off anything. As it was, I felt obligated to coat Jude with that vile stuff just so he wouldn’t feel left out.” She looked down into her teacup as if expecting it to give her an answer to something she hadn’t yet asked.

Caroline leaned forward until her mother met her eyes. “I always thought you’d done it to punish me for hurting Jude.”

Her mother’s eyes widened and glistened with unshed tears. “I could never have picked a favorite, Caroline. I thought . . . well, when you became an only child, I thought things might be different.”

Caroline stood and faced the lake. “I guess I had too much evidence to the contrary to make me feel any different. Nothing really changed after Jude died—except for Daddy leaving.”

She didn’t hear her mother stand, but she knew it was her hand that rested gently on her shoulder. “You’re wrong, you know. It seemed to me that it became you and me against the world. Even if you didn’t need me, I needed you.”

The old hurt and disappointments kept Caroline from turning around.
What do you mean, I didn’t need you?
She felt herself stiffen, unbending like a giant oak in a storm. If it bent just a little, it made it easier to fall over. “I wanted us to be a family again—with a brother and father. But you sent Daddy away and I knew that nothing would ever be the way I wanted it.”

Her mother dropped her hand. “No, you’re right. Nothing could be. Jude was gone forever. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t something else for us out there—something to help us make a new start. I still think there is.” Her voice trailed off into the late-afternoon sky.

Caroline looked up and saw the pale outline of the moon, waiting its turn behind the sun. Something in its frail loveliness made her want to cry. But she didn’t. She hadn’t cried in front of her mother since before Jude’s death and she knew it was too late now.

The sound of Margaret’s heels walking away made her turn around.

“I like the place mats you did—you left them out on the craft table and I couldn’t resist looking at them. You have such a gift for color and pattern. I think they’ll sell well.”

Caroline nodded, feeling oddly pleased. “Yeah, I like the way they turned out.” She stared long and hard at her mother.
Even if you didn’t need me.
The words tugged at her like an insistent child, and she tried to make sense of them. She wondered what it had cost her mother to admit to that, and felt an urge to try to meet her halfway.

“I’m thinking about doing a quilt for auction. I mean, what else do I have to do while I’m here?” She shrugged, feeling the heaviness of her shoulders.

Margaret smiled, turning her into the young mother of Caroline’s memory, and a flash of her mother picking her up after she’d fallen down when she was a child illuminated her mind. She had reached her arms up to place around her mother’s neck and remembered her tears soaking into the cool linen of Margaret’s dress. She hadn’t been afraid to cry then.

“Wonderful. Well, I guess I’d better get dinner started. Would you like brown rice or couscous with your baked chicken?”

Caroline looked up at the moon again. “Why don’t we go out for pizza instead?”

There was a slight pause. “All right. Pizza it is. Let me go change.”

“Can I use the phone while you’re getting dressed?”

Her mother had already opened the back door. “Don’t push your luck, Caroline.” She gave Caroline her stern-mother look but ruined it with a lift of her lips. “Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you at the car.”

Caroline quietly laughed and followed her mother inside.

C
AROLINE SLID ON HER NEW HIKING SHORTS AND STOLE A glimpse in the tall mirror standing in the corner of her bedroom. She’d never call herself hot, but she didn’t think she looked too bad, either. For no reason other than that the sun was shining and nobody was bothering her, she rolled the cuffs of her shorts up an inch, showing more thigh than she had since she’d last worn a bathing suit.

She searched for the ponytail holder she wore every day, then remembered she’d lost it in the store the day before when she’d been trying on clothes. A search through her dresser drawers didn’t yield another, so she satisfied herself with tucking her hair behind her ears. She paused at the mirror, hardly recognizing the woman who stared back at her. This woman had soft hair that floated around a face that had a pinch of color to it and eyes that didn’t seem so hollow. Maybe coming to the mountains had been the right thing. Or maybe that woman had always been there in the mirror and Caroline had never taken the time to really look at her. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

She grabbed her new hat, water bottle, sunscreen, and a sack lunch, then attempted to let herself out of the house without waking her mother. Drew had suggested meeting at Rainy’s again, but after yesterday’s conversation with her mother, she didn’t think it would be so bad if her mother knew about her hikes. Her mother’s words hit her again, warming her as they’d done when she’d first heard them.
Even if you didn’t need me, I needed you.
The words had surprised her, and made her wonder what other secrets her mother had never shared with her. And how could she have never guessed that at one time in her mother’s self-sufficient, independent life, she had actually needed her? Caroline shook her head as she fumbled with the back-door latch. She was almost thirty years old. Old enough to let some of the things hidden inside out in the open and see what the sun and light did to them.

“Take an apple with you!” her mother’s voice called from the front of the house.

Caroline stuck her head back inside the door. “I got one already. And a power bar, too. I’ll be with Drew, so you don’t need to worry, okay?”

“I know—Rainy told me. You have fun. And don’t forget your sunscreen.”

Rolling her eyes, Caroline stepped out into the morning sunshine.

Drew was leaning against the passenger-side door of his truck when Caroline spotted him. So maybe her mother was right about him being good-looking—if you liked the annoying lawyerly carpenter type. She felt a momentary flash of power as his gaze swept her from head to toe then back again.

“I like those shorts.”

“I believe you mentioned that yesterday.” She allowed him to open the door, and as she climbed in, she said, “You might want to keep those eyes inside your head or else you might lose them.”

He laughed, then made his way to the driver’s side and behind the wheel. “Please promise me that you’ll never be completely nice to me. It’s too much fun this way.”

Snapping her seat belt into place, she said, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. If you find me straying too close to nice, let me know and I’ll happily adjust my attitude.”

“I’ll make sure to do that.” He cranked the engine. “So, which way? I’m at your command.”

“Now, that’s tempting. There’re lots of crevasses around here where a body would never be found. But I digress. How about Hart’s Peak? You mentioned it yesterday, so I thought today we could go see Ophelia up close and then eat our lunches under her large nostrils.”

“Wow—sounds like a Kodak moment.”

“So would a picture of a lawyer being tossed off the edge, but I’ve only got two hands and I need at least one to hold the camera. Take a left up here.”

Caroline sat back in her seat for the rest of the drive, actually enjoying herself for the first time in a very long while. She didn’t ruin the feeling by trying to think of why it had been so long. She directed Drew up the winding roads, pointing out different paths they could take later, and even sharing a few of the adventures she had shared with Jude and Shelby along those same paths. She wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to share them with Drew, only that it seemed to easy to say Jude’s name in his presence. It was almost as if by having loved and lost Shelby, he could somehow share a measure of her own grief. And, like Rainy, he didn’t seem to expect her to cry.

He parked the truck on the side of a narrow road, edging it as close as he could to the outcropping of rock just on the off chance that a car would need to get by. Brightly colored leaves covered most of the nonpaved areas, reminding her that fall wasn’t far off. It came earlier in the mountains, but always signaled an end to summer. It saddened her, the way the screen credits rolling at the end of a movie saddened her; the end had been announced, but nobody had bothered to tell her what happened next.

Feeling the early-morning chill to the air, she zipped up her sweatshirt, then reached inside the truck to get the rest of her stuff. The floor mat where she’d dumped everything was empty except for her water bottle. She looked up at Drew, who was in the process of strapping on a large backpack.

“Don’t worry—I got it all. I figured you didn’t need the extra weight of carrying a pack, so I just brought one that would fit everything.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not trying to be nice to me, are you?”

“Absolutely not. I just wanted an excuse to make you go ahead of me so that there wouldn’t be any sudden pushing from behind.”

“Smart man.” She pointed up a narrow leaf-strewn path. “Let’s go this way. It’ll take longer, but it’s not as steep. Until I’m in shape, I think we should stick to the gentler slopes.”