The Diary (22 page)

The town of Emory
wasn't at all what they'd expected when they arrived late in the day on Saturday of the following week. They'd pictured a sleepy little burg with a main drag made up of local eateries and mom-and-pop shops. Instead, as a result of the spur that had connected it to I-80 in the early '70s, the former backwater was now a thriving community. The only part that still matched their parents' description was the surrounding countryside, which was mostly cornfields stretching as far as the eye could see. Housing developments had encroached in the areas just outside town, and there were other signs of “progress” in the form of strip malls and a brand-new sports arena, but for the most part, the farmlands were intact. If the bulk of them had been swallowed up by large agribusiness growers, there were still quite a few small farmers, many of whom were carrying on the traditions of their parents and, in some cases, their grandparents.

One of those farmers was Quentin Findlay, who, along with his wife, Priscilla, and their two sons, Grant and Jerod, farmed the land that had been passed down to him by his folks. When the phone call came from a woman identifying herself as the daughter of Bob and Bets Marshall, Quent was somewhat taken aback by her request. He recalled the name, though. He'd been a young boy when the original barn behind his house had burned down, but he remembered it as if it were yesterday—the awful sight of the barn in flames, the night sky so brightly lit it might have been day. All these years later, it came as a mild shock to hear from the daughter of the man briefly suspected of setting that fire.

“Dad felt real bad about it afterward,” Quent told her over the phone. “He never meant to accuse the boy. He just thought it was something the police ought to look into. After that girl—your mother, was it?—come forward to vouch for him, Dad wanted to apologize for what he'd put him through and to thank him for helping rescue the animals, but he'd already left town.”

Quent went on to say that Sarah and her sister were welcome to have the run of the property. He insisted, too, that they come for lunch on Sunday. He wouldn't take no for an answer.

The sisters located the Findlay farm easily enough, using the directions Quent had given Sarah over the phone. As they pulled into the tree-lined dirt drive in their rental car, they found it to be just as they'd imagined: a foursquare white clapboard house with a deep screened porch, shaded by a majestic old elm. Several dogs lolled in the yard, and chickens roamed freely, pecking at the dirt. Out back stood the red-painted barn that Quent had referred to as the “new” barn, though it looked as weathered as if it had stood there forever. Cows and horses grazed in the adjoining pasture, beyond which lay the endless-seeming cornfields they'd driven past on their way in.

Sarah and Emily were greeted warmly by their hosts, who stepped down off the porch to meet them as they approached along the walk. Quent Findlay was a tall, rangily built man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, his lined face cured by the sun to the color and texture of rawhide. His wife, in contrast, was youthful-looking and rosy-cheeked despite the fact that she and her husband were about the same age. She was a tiny woman, but Quentin teased, “Don't let her size fool you. She can lift her weight in bales of hay and outwork most of the men around here.”

She also turned out to be an excellent cook. Emily and Sarah were treated to a feast of roast pork, homemade biscuits, corn on the cob, and a salad made from vegetables from the garden, washed down by gallons of sweet iced tea. For dessert, Priscilla had made a berry cobbler and homemade ice cream. The sisters couldn't remember when they'd last eaten so much in one sitting. It amazed them to watch Quent and Priscilla and their sons, a pair of strapping young men in their late twenties—neither of whom was married, Priscilla reported with an exaggerated rolling of her eyes—have two helpings of everything, as though the huge meal were nothing out of the ordinary. What also amazed the sisters was that there wasn't an ounce of fat on any of them.

“I would if I could get away with it,” said Sarah, declining the second helping of cobbler Priscilla offered her. She sighed, patting her belly with its roll of excess flesh. “Maybe I should take up farming. That way I could eat all I want and be as skinny as you.”

Everyone laughed, Priscilla grousing good-naturedly, “Skinny? I call it being worn down. After thirty-five years of taking care of this place and looking after these brutes—” She glanced fondly around the table at her husband and sons. “I'm surprised there's anything left of me.”

After lunch, while Priscilla was washing up, Quent took Sarah and Emily on a tour of the property. He showed them around the “new” barn, from which they entered the fenced-in pasture, high with grass at this time of year. After they'd walked at least a quarter of a mile, they arrived at a spot where the pasture sloped up to meet a flattened knoll ringed with trees. Beyond that lay the cornfield. “This here's the spot,” announced Quent, pointing up at the knoll.

“You're sure of it?” asked Sarah.

“Sure, I'm sure,” he said. “My dad took me out here himself the day the police came to investigate.”

Emily shivered a little under the warm sun, feeling the past encroach on the present.

Sarah felt it, too. She had to clear her throat, not once but twice, before she could reply, “Thank you. For everything. Not just for your hospitality but for allowing us to—” She broke off, unable to finish the sentence, she was so choked up. She looked down at the rosewood urn she was carrying, which contained her mother's ashes. The matching one was cradled in Emily's arms.

“All right, then. I'll leave you to it,” he said somewhat brusquely, sounding a bit choked up himself, as if the occasion were stirring up memories of his own.

As soon they were alone, Sarah turned to Emily, giving her a long, meaningful look. The time had come for them to see this through.

They hiked to the top of the knoll, where they stood looking out at the grassy, sun-struck pasture rolling away on one side and the cornfield, with its rows of head-high stalks, on the other. From this distance, the barn and farm-house below looked exactly as they must have in their parents' day.

“It feels like we're in church,” said Emily, speaking in a hushed voice. The silence was broken only by the hum of insects and the distant lowing of cattle. “Do you think we should say a few words?”

“It doesn't have to be formal,” said Sarah. “Just say what's in your heart.”

Emily squeezed her eyes shut and tried to summon words worthy of the occasion. But the only ones that came to mind were, “Mom, Dad, I wish you were here. I miss you.” A tear leaked from under one closed eyelid.

“They are here, in a way.” Sarah spoke softly. “Can't you feel it?”

Emily concentrated hard, but all she could feel was the sun on her face and the fly tickling her arm. After a moment, she opened her eyes to fix her sister with a mournful gaze. “It's weird, but in one sense, I feel like I've only just gotten to know them. All these years, I never thought of them as being anything other than our parents. But they had lives of their own apart from us. They were passionate. They took risks. How could we not have known that about them?”

“I think all children feel that way about their parents,” observed Sarah as she gazed out at the fertile land of their ancestors. “We don't want them to be like the rest of us. Otherwise we'd have to see them as fallible, and think how scary that would be.” She thought of her own two boys and how she had sought to protect them when they were young, to keep them from finding out how scared she'd felt at times, how utterly ill-equipped to mold these two living, breathing lumps of clay committed to her care. If she possessed an extra measure of strength today, it had come from repeatedly patching over those areas of weakness.

“I suppose you're right,” said Emily. “But it would've been nice to have known Elizabeth and AJ.”

“Maybe that's why Mom kept the diary. She knew we'd come across it one day.”

Emily saw them juxtaposed in her mind—Bob and Bets, AJ and Elizabeth—like overlapping images in a double-exposed photo. Now that she had the missing pieces of the puzzle, it all made sense. She had a better idea of why her parents had been less than forthcoming in sharing their history. Elizabeth wouldn't have wanted to be reminded of her fraught relationship with her mother or the turbulent episode leading up to her decision to marry “AJ.” For her father, it hadn't been just the war. He'd had a hard life before then: the tragic deaths of his parents, his life with cold and unloving grandparents, the uncle who'd physically abused him. No doubt he'd wanted to shield his daughters from that ugliness. So he'd created the impression of an ordinary childhood—not unlike Bob Miller's—in much the way she imagined he'd once sketched his caricatures: a line here, a suggestion there. He'd poured everything else into his family, to whom he'd given all he had to give: his heart and soul, his tender, loving care, his undying devotion.

With a certainty just as deep and true, she knew this was what he'd have wanted. For him and his beloved wife to be joined in death, in this place, as they had been in life: two halves of the same whole.

“Shall we?” Sarah interrupted her sister's reverie.

Emily looked at her and gave a solemn nod.

Each, in turn, pried open her urn.

The wind had picked up, and it snatched at the handfuls of ashes before they could be tossed, scattering them into the air. The finer ashes gathered into funneling clouds that rode the currents, dipping and swaying with each new gust, skimming over the rustling green corridors of corn before swooping up high to kiss the treetops. Almost as though they were dancing.

Author's Note

I've led a storied life in more ways than one. I've gone places and done things that astound me, looking back on it. Where did I ever find the courage? The willpower? Much of it I would advise against, were I to go back in time and have a heart-to-heart with my younger self. But good or bad, it was all grist for the mill, so I regret none of it. (Though I feel fortunate not to be haunted by compromising photos of myself online, having come of age in the pre-Internet era). The beauty of fiction is you can reshape past events however you please. I wasn't popular in high school but got to hang out with the cool kids when I wrote for the phenomenally successful teen series Sweet Valley High in the early years of my career. Trust me, you wouldn't have wanted to live through some of what I lived through, but hopefully you've enjoyed the novels that came of it.

If you Google my name, you will see my Cinderella story: welfare mom to millionaire. Every word is true, though the reality is I was a starving artist for a much longer period of time than I was on welfare. With two young children to support on my own, I often had to forgo purchasing the office supplies and stamps needed for submitting the articles and short stories I wrote on spec. Instead I used that money to put food on the table.

The lean years were the making of me, though. When I wrote my first adult novel,
Garden of Lies
, the story of babies switched at birth, one of whom grows up rich, the other poor, I knew what it was to go hungry. I knew what it was like for Rose putting on the skirt she wears to work every day, ironed so many times it's shiny in spots.
Garden of Lies
went on to become a
New York Times
bestseller, translated into twenty-two languages. I attribute its success in part to my having suffered.

I've also had my share of romantic ups and downs. More grist for the mill and the reason my fictional characters tend to be of the folks-this-ain't-my-first-rodeo variety. I've been married more than once. At one point, I was married to my agent. His client list boasts some notable names, and just recently I was struck by the realization that I had dined with two of the famous people depicted in the movies
The Theory of Everything
and
Selma
: professor Stephen Hawking and Coretta Scott King, respectively. How extraordinary! I witnessed history and saw it reenacted on film.

I met my current and forever husband, Sandy Kenyon, in a Hollywood meet-cute, which seems fitting given he's in the entertainment business, as a TV reporter and film critic. He had a radio talk show in Arizona at the time. I was a guest on his show, phoning in from New York City, where I live. He called me at home that night, at my invitation, and we talked for three hours. It became our nightly ritual, and when we finally met it was love at first sight, though we were hardly strangers. We married in 1996, and he became the inspiration for talk-show host Eric Sandstrom in
Thorns of Truth
. Though, as Sandy's fond of saying, he never killed a coanchor while driving drunk.

I have many people to thank for the support and guidance I've received along the way.

First and foremost, my husband, Sandy, who's been there every step of the way and who reads multiple drafts of my novels. He's patient, kind, and wise. He understands when I'm there in body but somewhere else in my mind, and doesn't get too upset at having to repeat himself more than once to get through to me. From him I learned the true meaning of romantic love, which has enriched my fictional love stories immeasurably. He's also partly the reason I'm still walking this earth. More than once it was his hand on my arm, pulling me to safety, that kept me from stepping into the path of a moving vehicle while in one of my preoccupied states.

To my children, Michael and Mary, for being the quirky, loving individuals they are. Whenever I beat myself up for having been a less-than-perfect parent (which pretty much describes every single parent), they tell me they couldn't love me any more than they do. They also both have a wicked sense of humor, which they get from me. When I was exploring the idea of having another child, with Sandy, I was told I'd need an egg donor. Which led to the what-if scenario that would have me giving birth to my own grandchild (and writing the bestseller that would come of it!), at which point my daughter remarked dryly, “Mom, would you like that overeasy or sunnyside up?”