“I’ll be ready.”
After closing the door, she tucked herself behind the front drape and watched him drive away.
Something had changed between them. She didn’t understand what exactly, but tonight she’d find out what Finn’s family was hiding at Haven House. And then have dinner with the man who’d threatened to have her arrested for trespassing.
She reached for her phone to text Kelsey.
I think I have a date tonight.
You think?!?
It’s a bit unclear.
Girl! How exactly did that happen?
He asked about dinner out, and I offered to make it here.
Does this Prince Charming have a name?
Finn.
Like a fish?
Ha! Finn Sterling is his name.
I like him already.
And, while she’d never admit it to anyone, including Kelsey, she’d begun to like him a little too.
32:Isadore
OCTOBER 1943
A single road cut through Elms, shadowing the path of the old Miami-Erie Canal. The weed-choked waterway, long abandoned by the barges, soaked up the paper mill’s fumes and delivered the stench downstream, clinging to curtains, carpets, and bedclothes on its journey into a milky lagoon.
The railroad passed like wastewater through town, rattling the rails twice each day to transport carloads of timber and tank cars swimming with bleach. Every evening, the train hauled away stacks of newsprint, writing paper, and cardboard, bound for towns like Winfield that were far removed from the stench.
Passengers who disembarked almost always had mill business to attend along with departure tickets stowed in their briefcases so they wouldn’t miss the evening train. No one in their right mind wanted to spend the night in a haze of sulfur and smoke.
Residents had lived along the canal for generations, nursing smokestacks that brought both life and death. The mill paid their bills andput food on their tables, but it also chained them here for an entire lifetime.
Izzy had grown accustomed again to the wretched smell. Only when the wind stirred, did she remember she didn’t belong.
Someone might argue that Izzy wasn’t in her right mind when she’d arrived, but she was confident in her reasons. Simon had left Winfield more than a year ago and never returned. He didn’t say where he was going, but he probably joined his wife in Pennsylvania. The town of Catawba, she discovered later when Olivia sent her a letter with their phone number and address, in case Izzy needed anything while Simon was gone.
Why would Olivia want her to visit? Simon certainly didn’t want her there, and she couldn’t compete anyway with a novelist who had loads of money for him to spend. Izzy had nothing except two anchors to tie around his neck, and their second child, a boy, had been sickly from birth.
Not that Simon knew he had a son. Professor Farrow, that dear man, had promised to keep secret her news. After Jimmy was born, the professor purchased an old sedan and suggested that Izzy return to Elms. Once a month, he sent a check with enough to provide for her and her children. She had used a portion of it to build an addition to her parents’ house.
While she kept her books and magazines, she had no illusions now of leaving for Hollywood. Even if she was still learning to ignore the whispers about her and her children, Elms was home. And with food and family and a roof to shelter them, she was content enough in this ramshackle town.
Her parents were both working at the mill this morning, her brothers at school. She rocked Jimmy on the front porch as Greta played with her colorful blocks near the railing, a pillowcase at her daughter’s side filled with an odd assortment of Greta’s favorite things.Treasure,the professor had called it when he visited.
The house across the street was blackened from a fire, the canal on the far side covered in grime. But she was free here. No longer did she have to appease a man who’d never be happy with her.
A roadster with butter cream panels and shiny chrome crawled through town. Probably someone lost or a new client who decided to pay a visit. It didn’t matter much to her. Only a spectacle on an otherwise dreary, warm day.
She kissed Jimmy’s head, then fed him a bottle until he slept in her arms. Greta, at two and a half, already looked a lot like her father, but Izzy hoped this boy would look nothing like him—and act nothing like him either.
