Elaine looked at her hands for a moment. “What she said next haunts me. Gena said, ‘I’m going to do the same thing to you. Whatever it is that you want, I’m going to see that you don’t get it.’”
Elaine took a moment to calm herself. “Gena left after that. She walked out with her head up and her shoulders back, like she’d won a battle. Cheryl and I hadn’t said a word. When Gena was gone, I reverted to a whimpering bag of mush and started crying. I was so afraid of her wrath. But Cheryl put her hand over mine and said I wasn’t to worry. She said she had a secret weapon that no one, not even her mother, knew about, and that everything would be all right.”
Jack, Sara and Kate were quiet for a moment, absorbing the story, then Sara said, “Your last name is Pendal, so I take it that you and Jim married. Still together?”
“Very much so. We have three beautiful children—two girls, and a boy born last year.” Elaine paused for a moment. “When I said I owed my entire life to Cheryl, I meant it. Jim and I went to UCF and I told him what Cheryl said I should do. He thought it was a great idea. We both majored in business but he was much better at it than I was. My mind was mostly on designing and sewing and selling.
“After we graduated, we went to New York, and I got a job with a designer who eventually let me open my own label. Jim runs the business side of the company.” She smiled. “Remember Cheryl’s little red Mark Cross case? When I branded my line, I used half of that name.”
Kate gasped. “You’re Elaine Cross?” She stood up.“Elaine Cross!”
She smiled. “I am.”
Kate turned, as though she meant to run to her own room, but she stopped. “Oh, no! You’re going to hate me. I copy... I mean I...” She sat back down. “I love your designs.”
“I’ll send you this year’s collection. Anybody who cares about Cheryl is my friend.”
All Kate could do was nod.
After Elaine left, the three of them stayed in Jack’s room. For a while, they just silently stared out the windows.
Kate was the first to speak. “Do you think this Gena murdered Cheryl?”
“Looking at it from a writer’s point of view,” Sara said, “I’d say no. She’d want Cheryl alive so she would suffer.”
“But she didn’t get a chance,” Jack said. “Someone else wanted Cheryl out of the picture completely.”
“Or Verna.” Kate stood up. “I’m going to see what needs to be done with the other people. Wonder if your mom found any more interesting notes.”
Kate left, then soon returned to signal that it was okay for them to come out. The girls who’d pestered Jack and the people waiting for autographs had left. There were no more notes that had anything but platitudes on them. On the kitchen counter were the names and addresses of people who still wanted their books. Janet from church said she’d mail them out once Sara had a chance to sign them.
“She’s a godsend,” Kate said absently as she started clearing up the debris from the party.
It was after seven when it was done. Heather and Ivy had left, both of them hugging Kate and Sara, and exchanging cheek kisses. Jack was filling a bowl full of ice cream.
Sara looked at her niece and said, “I don’t know about you but I could stand some Kelly.”
“As in Chicago?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Smiling, the two women went to the big couch in the family room. Sara picked up the remote.
Jack put down his crutches, made his way to sit between them and took the remote. “What are we watching?”
“Severide,” they said in unison.
Groaning, Jack turned on the TV and brought up Hulu. The women directed him to chooseChicago Fire.
“Yet another man,” Jack mumbled.
He started to eat his ice cream, but when he looked at the women curled up at the ends of the couch, their legs drawn up, he lifted his bowl.
They stretched out, their feet in Jack’s lap. He pulled a soft lap robe off the back of the couch, covered their bare feet and put the ice-cream bowl on top. They settled in to watch back-to-back episodes of the TV series they all enjoyed.
Sort of watched it. In their minds was the story they’d heard that day. Cheryl had done a very good deed for a girl she hardly knew. She had changed Elaine’s and Jim’s lives. And in a way, she’d changed the world. The Elaine Cross line of clothing wasn’t necessary to the earth’s health, but it provided jobs and gave pleasure. More couldn’t be asked.
Yet Cheryl hadn’t been allowed to live to see what she’d done. The question of “where do we go from here?” hung in the air.
