Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (31 page)

Compressed within the photographs, the years seemed to have flown by. There was Daisy as a towheaded toddler, standing on a chair and bending forward to blow out two birthday candles. Pages later, there was a shot of her at Camp Kioga on Willow Lake, celebrating her grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. Sophie was in many of the shots, but often hovered on the periphery of things. An observer rather than an active participant. Often she was dressed for work in a suit, her briefcase placed somewhere nearby. Because of the way she dressed—dark suits, tasteful pumps, pulled-back hair—she seemed to have changed little over the years. She'd always looked forty, even when she was twenty-five.

Seeing the photographs one after another, she could sense the gradual erosion of her marriage. Here was a pictorial chronicle of a relationship slowly and painfully wearing away. In the early shots, when the kids were little and she and Greg had tried so hard, the smiles had been bright with determination and hope. Bit by bit, the feeling had been lost, eroding so gradually they didn't notice its absence until it was gone and impossible to recapture. Eventually the strain of the effort showed; the smiles were less genuine, seldom reaching the eyes. There were fewer and fewer shots of the two of them in the same frame. Early on, they had used the camera's shutter timer, one of them leaping into the shot at the last second. As time went on, they didn't bother with that so often.

Some of the best—and most revealing—pictures had been taken by Daisy herself. Even with the first point-and-shoot camera she'd had as a little girl, she had shown talent and passion for her art. As a teenager, she'd observed the demise of her parents' marriage through the viewfinder of her camera. In the shots of Sophie and Greg together, they looked almost like any couple, but there was often some little telling detail in the shot, like a hand gripping a purse handle too tightly or shoulders that touched as they leaned toward each other for the shot, and then turned rigid on contact.

Eventually, Sophie and Greg as a couple all but disappeared from the pictures. Or, if they were together in a frame, they were separated by a gulf filled with relatives or friends in a group shot. Was there something they could have done, should have done? Or was the erosion inevitable, like the constant battering of waves against rock? There were things she would always miss about being a family. She'd miss looking around the dinner table at their faces, or skiing down a mountain together, or getting dressed up to attend a play. Yet she had to admit that there were things she didn't miss at all—the taut feeling in her chest when she woke up in the morning and tried to figure out how to leave the bed without waking Greg. The lines of unhappiness pulling at his mouth when he didn't know she was watching him. The way Max used to work too hard to act as though everything was fine, and the way Daisy used to act out just to get a response from someone.

Hearing a sound at the door, Sophie looked up. There stood Daisy, still dressed for outdoors in her parka and boots.

“Hey, Mom,” she said, pushing back her hood.

“Hi.” Sophie brushed at her cheeks. She hadn't even realized she'd been crying. “I came in here to check my e-mail and give Logan some time with Charlie. I didn't mean to go snooping around.”

Daisy checked out the open photo album on the drafting table. “I've got nothing to hide. What are you looking at?”

“Your family album.” Sophie studied the final images in the book. The second-to-last one showed the four of them on the dock at Camp Kioga two summers ago during the celebration of Charles and Jane Bellamy's fiftieth wedding anniversary. Greg and the kids had spent the entire summer there while Sophie traveled for work. The photograph was a portrait of a woman who simply didn't belong, who was uncomfortable in her own skin. Greg, Max and Daisy were grinning and tan, their hair sun-streaked and windblown, their feet bare. By contrast, Sophie was indoor-pale, wearing crisply ironed Bermuda shorts and a buttoned-down camp shirt.

There were shots taken a year after that, at another Bellamy family gathering—Olivia's wedding. All four of them, though dressed for the formal occasion, appeared to be on edge—for good reason, as it happened. Later that same day, Daisy had gone into labor. They had come together as a family for a brief time after Charlie's birth, but even that heady state of shared wonder was only temporary.

“What a day that was,” Sophie murmured.

“For all of us.” Daisy paused at a shot of herself, clasping hands with her father. The quality was more amateurish than Daisy's work, having been taken by Sophie herself. “Dad was a surprisingly good coach that day.”

“I'm not surprised,” Sophie admitted. Greg had dutifully attended a full round of childbirth classes with Daisy, determined to see his daughter through the most difficult transition of her young life. “Tell me something,” she said. “Did you ever think about asking me to be your coach?”

Daisy frowned. “You were overseas. I knew you wouldn't drop everything and attend six weeks of classes with me.”

“You knew?”

“I assumed. Would you, Mom? Would you have done that?”

Sophie stared out the window, watching a droplet of water form on the tip of an icicle, refusing to look away until the droplet fell. “I honestly don't know,” she admitted, “but I wish you would have asked.” She studied the final shot of her and Greg standing awkwardly on either side of Daisy holding the baby. She was worried now that Daisy had never learned the most critical lesson a child gleaned from her parents—the sustaining power of love.

She closed the book with a gentle thud. “I wish these pictures had shown a different story. I didn't realize…What I didn't think about when it was happening was how observant you were, and what my troubles were doing to you. You saw it all, didn't you? Every minute of it.”

“Well, yeah.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wanted better memories for you—”

“I wanted to remember, Mom. Everything, the good and the bad. Why wouldn't I?”

Sophie hugged her daughter and shut her eyes. Although they were two adult women, holding each other, she felt herself being pulled back through the years. She could perfectly imagine Daisy at every age, from fragile newborn to laughing little girl to independent young woman. “I remember, too,” Sophie whispered. “I remember every minute of it.”

Daisy stepped back, then smiled. “I was just thinking about that today. This is the longest we've been together since I was in eighth grade.”

It was all so bittersweet. “You kept track?”

“It's just something I noticed. But I was always proud of you. Max, too, even though we didn't always show it. We both know working for the ICC is a bigger deal than being on the band uniform auction committee.”

“Still, I wasn't there.”

“Max and I were surrounded by people. It's not like we were raised by wolves.”

“I hate that I was gone so much. I wish I'd been there for you every single day. Maybe if I had, things would have been different for you.”

“Mom. Listen, my mistakes are my own. Not yours or Dad's or anybody else's.” She peeled off her jacket, draped it over the back of a chair. “You're not busy enough.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You need more to do, besides worry about stuff like this. You went from sixty to zero, moving back here.”

“That's the point.”

“It's possible to do something besides be around for Max and me. You're still a lawyer, right?”

“I'm not practicing.”

“You could, though, if you wanted to.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I want you to be happy in Avalon. Because I want you to stay. Doing work you like—that makes you happy.”

“I
am
happy—”

“When you're helping people, not just me. I don't want to be your full-time job. All kinds of people need help. Call Uncle Philip.”

Philip—Greg's brother. “Why on earth would I call him?”

“He's a volunteer with the chamber of commerce, and he knows, like, everyone in town. He could introduce you to people. You know, other lawyers and stuff.”

“You're an amazing daughter, Daisy.”

“Yeah, that's me. Come on out and say hi to everybody.” She lowered her voice. “Sonnet and Zach were weird with each other, you know. But I did a Sophie Bellamy.”

“What's that?”

“Your peacemaker-diplomat thing. Sonnet said she didn't want to see Zach, but back at the train station I talked them into getting along, or at least acting like they do.”

Sophie blotted her face with a tissue. She could hear voices from the living room. She took out a compact to check her makeup. Since she was wearing very little, there wasn't much damage from the crying. She snapped the compact shut, then went to join Daisy and her friends. Charlie was happily ensconced in Sonnet's lap.

“Hi, Sonnet,” she said, putting on her best smile. “It's good to see you again.”

“Thank you. It's good to see you, too.” Sonnet jiggled Charlie in her lap. He was a good prop, shielding them both from having to shake hands or embrace. Sophie did not dislike Sonnet. In fact, she admired the girl. She was brainy and ambitious, enrolled in a competitive college. The awkwardness came from the fact that Sonnet was Nina Romano's daughter. Nina Romano
Bellamy
's daughter. Stepsister to Daisy and Max. Charlie's aunt. All of which made her someone who would be in Daisy's life for a very long time, probably forever.

Sonnet had her mother's vivid Italian-American features. Her father, a colonel in the army, was African-American. The girl had smooth, caramel-colored skin, deep brown eyes and abundant corkscrew curls. Was she too perfect? Thinner, maybe; her lovely skin seemed to be pulled more tautly across her cheekbones. To Sophie she looked older than her years, troubled, perhaps.

“How do you like being back in Avalon?” Sophie asked.

The troubled expression dissolved into a smile. “There's no way I'd miss Winter Carnival. It's a big deal in this town.”

“So I hear.”

“Mom, this is Zach Alger,” said Daisy, indicating the other boy in the room.

“I'm Sophie,” she said, holding her hand out to the quiet, extremely blond boy.

“Ma'am,” he said, getting to his feet. “It's nice to meet you.”

He was a remarkable-looking boy, pale to the very tips of his eyelashes. Extremely serious looking. Daisy had told her a little about him. Zach's dad, Matthew Alger, embezzled city funds in order to sustain his Internet gambling addiction. In turn, Zach had tried to cover up his father's crime by stealing from the bakery where he worked. It was filial obligation taken to extremes. Zach had thrown himself under the proverbial bus in order to save his father. This was something Sophie understood so completely. It was something she herself had done, perhaps not so directly or recklessly. But she had sacrificed her own desires for the sake of her parents.

Sophie sensed a tension in the room but suspected it had nothing to do with her. “Well, I need to be going. I'm sure I'll see everyone around.” She leaned down and took Charlie in her arms. She gave the baby a hug and kissed him on the cheek, then handed him back to Sonnet.

Daisy walked her to the door, and they went outside together.

“I was watching Logan and Charlie today,” Sophie said. “He's very good with him.”

“I think so, too.” Daisy tugged her sweater around her. “How does Sonnet look to you, Mom?”

“She's a beautiful girl.” Sophie was stating the obvious.

“I know that,” Daisy said. “But how does she look?”

“Thinner, maybe,” Sophie said.

Daisy nodded, shivered again. “That's what I thought, too. Do you think she's okay, or is she scary-skinny?”

Sophie hesitated. On the one hand, here was a chance for her to be a mom, to offer advice to Daisy. On the other hand…“Sweetheart, she's Nina's daughter, and because of that, I have no business discussing her.”

“Okay. I get it. I think I just answered my own question.”

Sophie gave her a hug. “You know how to be a good friend, Daisy. And I'm glad we talked today.”

“Call Uncle Philip. I want you to belong here, Mom. Really.”

“How did you turn out so smart?”

Daisy went to the door, turned back with a smile. “Must be I get it from my mom.”

S
ophie knew her daughter was right. If she was in this for good, if she wanted Avalon to be her home, she was going to need to deepen her ties here. She had come to this town as some sort of penance, expecting to endure it for the sake of her children. Instead, she'd found the unexpected—a new chance to remake her life, to fill it with the rich textures of real connections. It was true that she'd grown closer to her children in the past weeks than she'd been in years. That alone was enough to hold her and make her grateful to be alive.

It was also true that whatever was going on with Noah Shepherd—she didn't want to label it—became more important to her with each passing day. She wasn't sure this was such a good thing, though. It had never been her aim to come here and meet someone special. Her children and grandson were special enough, thank you very much.

Still, as Daisy had pointed out, Sophie had room in her life for more. She used to be defined by her job; her identity revolved around the sense of purpose and validation of working for an ideal. She understood now that matters of justice existed on many levels. They could involve whole nations—or a lone military wife like Gayle Wright.

The prod from Daisy was all the motivation Sophie needed. Today she had a meeting with Philip Bellamy, her former brother-in-law. He wanted to introduce her to Melinda Lee Parkington, a local attorney who was about to go on maternity leave and needed a part-time associate.

Sophie arrived early at Blanchard Park, where Philip was working with a team of chamber of commerce volunteers. She passed a group of people installing a temporary stage for the upcoming Winter Carnival. Noah's band would be performing in one of the time slots. Sophie had become a fan of their music. They were better than they had to be, and hugely fun to hang out with. In the past, she'd never done much hanging out. Noah and his friends had shown her there was an art to it, a way of attending to rhythm and melody that was unexpectedly fulfilling. Did that make her a band groupie? How odd to think of herself in that way.

Philip was supervising a crew of college students in the construction of a life-size ice castle. This was the centerpiece of the upcoming festival. It was made of giant blocks of ice by people working around the clock to get everything ready.

“I'm amazed,” she said, surveying the glittering walls. “I didn't quite know what to expect.”

“It's a marvel of engineering.” He took off his hard hat. “You ready to meet Melinda?”

“I really appreciate this,” she said.

“It's no trouble.” They started walking together toward the town center, a few blocks from the park. She could feel a peculiar tension pulsing between them. “Is this completely awkward?” she asked. “Because of Greg and me, I mean—”

“It's not awkward,” he assured her. “I know what it's like after a divorce. It happened to me twenty years ago, and I still remember the pain and uncertainty. The sense of freedom, too.”

She nodded. “Sounds very familiar. Just tell me it gets easier.”

“You go on. And I hope like hell you do a better job of that than I did. For years—during and after my marriage to Pamela—I thought about a girl from my past, someone who didn't even exist.”

He was referring to a local girl he'd known decades ago when he was in college. She had been his first love, but she'd abruptly disappeared from his life, never telling him that she had borne his child. “She existed for you, right?”

Philip stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yes, and when you're pining for someone who's long gone, you can turn her into anyone you want. No wonder I had no luck dating and moving on. I already had the perfect woman in my mind and no one else could measure up.”

The conversation felt surreal to Sophie. Here she was talking to her former brother-in-law, whom she'd known for years, and this was probably the most honest conversation she'd ever had with him.

“Well. There's no danger of me pining away for some mystery man.” There was nothing mysterious about Noah Shepherd. Except perhaps her desire to keep him secret.

“Everything's so good now,” he said, “it's almost scary. Both my daughters are married, and Laura and I just set a date. First Saturday in May.”

Sophie admired him for taking a leap of faith after so many years of being by himself, and for never giving up on love. “That's fantastic. I'm so happy for you, Philip.”

He grinned. “She and I are proof that love takes its own time. Someone we've known for years suddenly becomes the center of our world.”

They cut across the bustling town square. The law office was located in an old brick building with three stories and a figured concrete facade, with a bookstore and coffee shop at street level. Sophie was surprised to feel a tug of apprehension. What if this M. L. Parkington was friends with the Romano sisters? As the thought tried to settle in, she realized it was the old-Sophie way of thinking—to assume the worst and run away. She wasn't that person anymore. All right, she was trying not to be that person anymore.

“You all right?” Philip asked. “You got quiet all of a sudden.”

“Just taking it in. I know you and Laura are going to be great together.”

“And you?”

“I'm going to be fine.”

Melinda Parkington went by “Mel.” She was Asian, with a law degree from a place Sophie had never heard of, a thousand-watt smile and an air of total confidence as she greeted her visitors. She was eight months' pregnant with her third child. She had a law practice that, very soon, was going to have to do without her for a while.

“Don't get up,” Sophie said, reaching across the desk to shake hands with her.

Mel smiled, propping a file folder on her protruding abdomen. “Thanks. I've been looking over your résumé,” she told Sophie after Philip left. She indicated the file folder. “It's very impressive. I think I'm jealous.”

Sophie scanned the wealth of children's artwork on one wall of the office—drawings in crayon, a clay impression of two little hands, plenty of snapshots. “Don't be. Your family is beautiful. Who takes care of your other children?”

“My mother-in-law. I'm very lucky to have her nearby, but I'm planning to stay home six months with the new one.” Mel set aside the folder. “Is there some reason you're switching from international justice?”

She'd prepared for this question. She'd known it was bound to come up, and her prospective partner deserved to know what had happened. Yet even though she'd expected the question, she hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to answer. Even now, her mouth went dry.

“There was an incident in January, a…violent incident in The Hague, and I found myself caught in the middle of everything.” She passed Melinda a dossier. “Here's the State Department's official report. You can read it and let me know if you have any questions.”

Melinda scanned the document. Then she closed the folder, studied Sophie's face, long and hard.

“I can't afford to take a full-time family leave,” she admitted. “I need to keep my practice going. Let me show you around.”

The office consisted of Mel, another attorney named Wendell, who wore a bow tie and was so shy he could barely look at Sophie, and the office manager, Daphne, who had bright pink hair and a collection of anime figures on the shelf by her desk, alongside the reference and bookkeeping files.

“Don't be fooled by Daphne,” Melinda said. “She's nearly thirty and smart as a whip, but part of her seems to be stuck in junior high.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” Daphne pointed out. She lifted the lid from a glass jar of licorice sticks on her desk. “Red vine?”

“No, thanks.”

“This way,” Mel said. “We're a little short on space, but this office has a view.” The space for the new part-time associate was a tiny enclosure with only the basics—a desk, computer, bookcases and a pair of chairs for clients. A window with Law Office spelled out backward on the glass faced the main street of town which, at the moment, was being festooned with banners announcing the Winter Carnival.

Sophie could barely remember the view outside her window in the angular glass-and-concrete box of the International Criminal Court. Tidal flats, she supposed, wet pavement lined with buildings and the inevitable waterway. Fields of flowers in the springtime. And bridges in the distance, perhaps the very one she'd traveled that night.

“I won't waste your time,” Mel was saying, and Sophie realized she had allowed her thoughts to drift.

“I'm sorry, what's that?”

“You're more than qualified, and I'd love to have you,” Mel said. “I'll show you what we bill and what you can expect, and then you can let me know if—”

“I'm letting you know now,” Sophie said. “This arrangement will work very well for me.”

She understood Mel's expression. “In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you—I consider myself a very good lawyer, but I've never worked in a small town. There's some…baggage, I guess you'd call it, that might affect clients' comfort level with me. Did Philip explain that I used to be married to his brother Greg?”

“Is that what you're concerned about?”

“In a place like this, it could have an impact on business.”

Mel laughed. “In a place like this,
every
body is somebody's ex. Right, Daphne?” She addressed the office manager, who stepped in to deliver a dossier.

“Absolutely,” Daphne said. “Mel used to date one of the county prosecutors.”

“It never affected our job performance. Honestly, Sophie, don't worry about it.” Together, Melinda and Sophie ironed out the details. Two days a week, Sophie looked after Charlie. The other three days, she would come in to the law office.

“We're not specialists,” Melinda explained. “I take whatever comes through the door.”

“I'm fine with that.”

“Good. It keeps things interesting.”

Rather quickly, Sophie found out how interesting. Her first case involved a man bringing suit against an exotic dancer in Lake Katrine. He claimed that, during a lap dance at a bachelor party, she kicked him in the head with a stiletto heel. Dancing in “a reckless and negligent manner,” as Sophie was forced to write in a brief, was hardly a crime against humanity. But the man's injuries were real.

She also met with a woman, married for forty-seven years, who wanted to sue her husband for opening her mail, a poodle breeder seeking damages from a vet for docking a puppy's tail too short (she was relieved to know Noah Shepherd was not the culprit) and a boy who wanted to force a teacher to give him an A instead of a B+, to keep his perfect GPA intact.

All right,
she thought,
so we're not saving the world here.
But then she'd come across someone like Mr. and Mrs. Fleischman, a long-married couple who became victims of a mortgage scam. Or a young couple whose insurance company was denying coverage of their baby, newly adopted from overseas.

There were several family law cases still pending when Mel left. Sophie found herself in the odd position of sitting across the desk from a man named Alfie Garner, who was divorcing his wife. The consultation felt odd to her, because the sense of déjà vu was jarring. She had nothing in common with this man. He drove a truck for a living and his wife was a stay-at-home mom, yet every word he spoke, the defeated expression on his face and the sadness in his eyes—it was all familiar to her. Familiar, but…distant. Yes, she'd been there to that dark place, but she was able to look Alfie in the eye and say with complete honesty, “It gets better.”

She quickly realized that, to be good at family law, she had to have a solid understanding of family—how it worked and all the ways it could fail, and the very delicate balance between the two. She found herself flip-flopping between the former Sophie—sharp, judgmental, always in control, and the woman she was trying to be now—understanding, flexible, compassionate. Interestingly, she discovered some combination of the two styles seemed to benefit her clients. She still didn't trust the new Sophie, didn't like being that vulnerable.