That was last week. But the very next day, something unexpected happened. I was stunned by the joy I felt, and it wasn’t just an initial pop and fizzle. It lingered, giving each day since a little glow. I might have attributed the glow to autumn in Devon, which was a time of crisp apples, fields full of pumpkins, and leaves every shade of fire, if this glow hadn’t come from deep inside.
I felt it even now, cradled in the hammock on our back lawn, where the river flowed more slowly now that summer was done, and the scent of drying leaves was strong. It was late Sunday afternoon. With barely two hours of daylight left, the sun slanted low over the dried leaves that littered the lawn. My head rested on Edward’s arm. Behind me, his brow to my nape, he snored softly.
Slipping the cell from my pocket, I held it high for a selfie, then looked at the shot and smiled. Sweet, it showed two partial heads, Edward’s lone visible eye shut, mine open, his cheek whiskered, mine clear, our jaws lined by a ruff of fall scarves, mine fuchsia, his heather blue. The air held a chill, though I was perfectly warm where I lay.
Pleased with the moment, feeling strong, I opened Photos and thumbed backward in time through a raft of construction shots. With the bulk of the inside work finished in the main house, the crew had moved on to the carriage house, garage, and mudroom, wanting to frame, roof, and rough those in before snow fell. For the sake of a before-and-after collage, I was documenting it all.
The shot I was looking for had nothing to do with home renovation. Swiping forward, then backward again in search, I found the one I wanted. It showed a clay piece, certainly construction but of a totally differentkind. It wasn’t a bust exactly, certainly wasn’t a lifelike representation of Lily. It was more vague than not, more suggestive than exact, but it was definitely our child, whose life had never been static and whose memory mirrored that.
I hadn’t been able to sculpt her before. So this was new. But I wasn’t glazing this piece. I planned to bronze her and, after the last of the dust settled on the work in the house, find a special place for her to sit. It wouldn’t be on a pedestal. Neither of us wanted a mausoleum. What we wanted was that Lily mix with our current life, because that life was rich.
Ten years ago, rich meant money. Neither of us had been rolling in it growing up, which may have been a way of rationalizing the lifestyle we had—and, hey, I’m not saying money can’t buy happiness. When it means having a home, enough food, or medical care? Seriously. But wealth isn’t wealth without family and friends. In that sense, we were rich now as never before.
Thumbing through pictures from the last few months, I stopped at one of Grace and Chris, and brought it full-screen. I had caught them from behind when they were leaving the courtroom after Chris’s hearing. Chris seemed taller, perhaps simply standing straight, and his arm was around Grace’s shoulder in what could only be interpreted as protectiveness. That was what I loved about this shot. Having learned who he was, he could finally appreciate what his mother had done for him all these years. Moreover, after spending the week with Carter Brandt, who was also in the courtroom that day, Chris seemed neither impressed that the guy was in Congress nor, though he had little say as yet, particularly eager to be in his care. Call me perverse, but that pleased me.
The resolution of the case was equally satisfying. Given Chris’s age, he had been charged with an act of juvenile delinquency. After studying the psychologist’s reports, statements from Chris’s teachers, and a plea of leniency from Ben, the judge suspended any finding pending a two-year probation, with the understanding that if Chris stayed clean during that time, all charges would be dropped.
Grace’s case was more complex. She spent several nights in lock-upwhile Jay scrambled behind the scenes. He did manage to get her released on bail—huge victory there. Granted, the level of bail was high enough to terrify her. And Federal agents watched her day and night. Not that she would have run. Chris was the ultimate pawn. Short term, he was with his father. She knew that any attempt to flee meant she would never see him again.
If the analogy was to chess, though, she held the all-powerful queen. Her evidence against Carter Brandt was so strong—and Brandt’s desire to keep it hidden so desperate—that he agreed to a deal. Kidnapping charges against her would be dropped and a reasonable custody arrangement agreed to in exchange for her surrendering the incriminating evidence.
Did she actually hand it all over without keeping any proof of its existence? Maybe, maybe not. No matter that she had Jay on her side, Ben on her side, so many others of us dying to testify on her behalf, she didn’t trust Congressman Brandt. He had money and power, both of which held sway in a court of law, unless one had a weapon against them. I was guessing she kept a little something, just in case.
That said, old habits die hard, meaning that she did consider leaving town. Well after the legal issues were settled, the notoriety of the case made her paranoid when we left to shop the Manchester outlets or the Hanover boutiques. But Chris wanted to finish high school in Devon; he had become something of a hero among his friends. And besides, she feared that her past would be waiting for her wherever she went. At least here she was assured of a job, relative safety from gawkers, and a solid client base. She often disappeared when Chris was in Washington with his dad, though whether she was out looking for a new home or holed up with Ben, I didn’t know. Our relationship still held secrets.
I did finally give her raven-black hair, though. I figured she had the right to look the way she wanted after the hell she’d been through. And it wasn’t all bad, that raven hair, especially with a body wave to soften the starkness. Now, I studied the picture we’d taken when that session was done. She was a seriously striking woman. It was a miracle she had stayed hidden so long. Had it not been for the press…
But I couldn’t go there. I had sworn to put that particular resentment behind me.
Yes, I received a probation-surrender notice soon after Grace’s arrest, and, yes, I had to appear in court in Boston. But it was different this time. For one thing, my family was there rooting for me, as were not one, not two, but three carloads of friends from Vermont. For another, five years after my initial trial, the attorney general who had made headlines of me was out, and the new one didn’t bother to come to court that day, which gave little incentive for press coverage—particularly after kidnapping charges against Grace were dropped, which made the case against me iffy at best.
Shanahan was humiliated. Was I sorry? Absolutely not. To this day, I’m convinced that his motivation in filing the probation-violation order was jealousy of Edward, whom I had chosen over him. His vindictiveness had caused me emotional and monetary pain. So no, I did not count Michael as a friend. He had proven himself neither reasonable nor loyal.
Cornelia Conrad, our savvy postmistress, was both. She sat front and center that day in Boston, exchanging smiles with the judge and greeting court officers like the long-lost friends that it turned out they actually were.
Everyone has a story,my mother remarked after the fact, because Cornelia certainly did. We knew she had been a professor in Boston. What we didn’t know was that her professorship was in law and that she taught evenings. By day, she was a clerk-magistrate in Boston, presiding over probable cause hearings, issuing warrants, and setting bail, any of which promised less stress than the law firm from which she’d come. And for twenty years as a clerk-magistrate, she was fine. Then, one day, she set bail in a domestic violence case, only to have the defendant go home and kill his wife. Cornelia hadn’t been any more responsible than the prosecutor or the defense attorney, neither of whom asked for greater bail. Still, she blamed herself. Soon after, she moved to Devon.
That total absence of wrinkles that I had speculated about? Definitely genes.
A movement caught my eye—a flash of beagle and the rustle of grass. Jonah was chasing a rabbit. The snap of my fingers brought him back, but it also woke Edward. He called Jonah’s name in a groggy voice, which was probably what settled the dog under the hammock again. Did Jonah like it here? Honestly, I think he would have liked it anywhere Edward was. He had become man’s best friend, which wasn’t fair, since I was the one who rescued him in the first place, but there it was.
The cats, bless them, were all mine. Had we dared let them out, they would have been up here on the hammock, tucked against my body as I was tucked against Edward’s. I had waited until two weeks ago to move them here, fearing either that they would escape through ever-opening doors, or that the construction noise would freak them out. Now, even with kitty condos placed in strategically sunny spots, I knew that if I craned my neck and looked back, two cat faces would be at the glass sliders, waiting for us to come in.
Edward’s arm around my middle pulled me in deeper. “Feeling okay?” he murmured, still sleepy.
“Totally.”
“Why am I so tired?”
It might have been that being an innkeeper was more time-consuming than he’d expected. The same addiction to the possibility that had made him a successful venture capitalist hadn’t just gone away. It manifested itself in how he had dealt with the hacking crisis with an umbrella approach involving technology, personnel, and client incentive. As soon as the books showed stability, he started seeing other things in town that he could improve. There were three mansions on Cedar that, with renovation, could be turned into boutique B&Bs for large family groups. There was a mountain behind the current ski slope just begging to be developed. There were the elementary school, which needed a new playground, and the high school, whose tech lab was obsolete.
For all that, his group needed money. So Edward Cooper, as leader of that group, was now, again, heavy into client development. That meantentertaining investors at the Inn, basically putting on full day show-and-tells. Exhausting? For sure.
But Edward loved his work. I appreciated that. So I gave the exhaustion a different cause. “Uh, maybe because you were binge-watchingThe West Winguntil two in the morning?”
“Mmm.” His breathing lengthened again.
I matched mine to it for a bit, but, me, I had slept right through Netflix. Sleep was easier for me these days, now that my probation had ended and the future was free. I still had the occasional nightmare, but with Edward close, they had lessened.
