I tried to sound as matter-of-fact as possible—like heading to my mother’s house in Woodstock was something I did all the time.
“Oh?” Mark looked truly perplexed.
“The funeral home director called me wanting to make plans for Paul’s service. I didn’t have a clue what to tell him. I need to go to the carriage house, look through his things. Maybe I can find information about any family he may have? Or a will? The man is kind of a mystery to me and the only way I’m going to learn anything is to search through his stuff. And I need to check on my mother’s house. Grab whatever mail is there and do whatever I need to start having it forwarded here. See if there are bills that need to be paid, trash that needs to go out, plants that need to be watered, a housekeeper who needs to be paid. All the stuff Paul did.”
Mark frowned, rubbed his chin. “Makes sense. It’s just…”
“What?”
He took my hand. “You’ve got so much on your plate. I just wish there was someone else to do all of that.”
“Me too,” I said. “But I’m it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mark said. “We can have Penny come stay with your mother and the girls.”
“No need,” I told him. “I’ll be fine on my own. But if you could take the day off and hang out here with my mom, be on dad duty when the girls get home from school, that would be great.”
“No problem,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I talked with Gregory, told him what was going on here with your mother, and he says I should take off all the time I need. We’ve got a couple of great subs who are more than capable and always looking for more hours.”
I nodded. Gregory, the head of school, was a good friend of Mark’s—not only did they work together, but they played racquetball twice a week after classes ended. I wondered how much Mark had really told him—if he’d shared details about my past with my mother, his worries over what having her here might be doing to my mental health.
“I’d love to spend the day with Mavis,” Mark said. “It’ll give me a chance to redeem myself in cribbage.” He smiled, but it was soon overtaken by a look of concern. “Are you sure you’ll be okay going to Woodstock on your own?”
“Of course. I’ll be in and out as fast as I can. Paul was a super organized guy, so I have to believe all his paperwork will be easy to access. And I’m sure there isn’t much to do in my mom’s case—it shouldn’t be that difficult.”
I gave him a reassuring smile, then stood and gathered up my shopping bags. “Now I’m going to go hide these gifts before the girls get home.”
“Good plan,” he said. “I’ll get dinner started. I’m making burritos. But first, I’m going to see what happens with my heroine and her two men.Does she stay with the arrogant, ridiculously wealthy guy she’s engaged to back in the big city, or end up with the ruggedly handsome one from a small town who owns a Christmas tree farm?”
“Gee, I wonder,” I said sarcastically.
“Don’t be a hater,” he said.
I shook my head as I carried my bags up the stairs. How had I ended up marrying such a sentimental sap?
I hid the gifts for the girls in our closet. And I slipped the box with Mark’s tie and a poetry anthology he didn’t have yet into my underwear drawer.
HEADING DOWN THEhall, I passed the open door to Izzy’s room. The screen on her laptop was glowing as if someone had just been using it. Odd.
I went in, looked around. Nothing. No one.
I listened for flies, even pulled back the heavy blackout curtains. No bugs this time. Only the view of our backyard through her window. I looked out at our little vegetable plot, now covered in snow, at my studio. To the right, around the corner, I knew the pear tree stood, its branches bare.
Feeling as if the computer was beckoning me somehow, I sat down at the desk and checked the laptop screen.
It was open to editing software. Izzy had been editing clips of interviews with my mother.
Curious, I clicked on the first one, keeping my ears pricked for Mark—I knew he wouldn’t approve of me snooping like this without her permission. And he was right, of course—the need for privacy is a normal part of adolescent development. I knew that; I knew that teenagers needed to individuate from their parents. But still, I was dying to see what sorts of things Izzy had been filming, what persona my mother might have shown her.
I pushed play.
There was my mother lying in bed, grinning.
The camera was focused on her face. There was a ring of light in both her eyes—Izzy must have set up special lighting.
