Granny said that even people with jobs like yours deserve a vacation and then Mommy said that it’s NOT THAT SIMPLE.
Yours (for now),
Abigail
Laundry, laundry, laundry. Even on vacation it never ends. The stack of Matty’s running shorts is so high Louisa wonders if Matty is running more than once a day. She’ll have to pay better attention, make sure he doesn’t get an eating disorder—anorexia isn’t just for girls! She almost leaves the shorts on the bed for Matty to put away, but she can foresee him not noticing the pile and knocking the whole thing to the floor, undoing her work. He is a boy, after all.
Plus, she’s desperate to do something nice for Matty. He’s been annoyed with her lately. Louisa can tell he blames her for Steven’s absence. She pulls open the drawer, and she sees a piece of paper, folded carefully into squares. She picks it up, perplexed and curious. A love note from Hazel?
Louisa shouldn’t look—she knows she shouldn’t look!—but the same impulse that forces her to read Abigail’s letters to Steven visits her here. She’s a mother. Hazel is a very pretty girl. Louisa doesn’t want Matty to get hurt. She wants to know if his heart is in danger. She unfolds the note.
Martin,
My name is Kristie Turner. I just want to talk to you. I’m not looking for anything more than that.
There’s a phone number too, with an unfamiliar area code, 814. Google tells her that cities served by the area code include Altoona, Bradford, DuBois, and Erie. Where has she heard someone talking about Altoona recently? She thinks back, and then—yes. She has it. Back in June. The same place she heard someone say her name was Kristie.
She finds Annie sitting with her cross-stitch.
“Mom?” says Louisa. “This was in Matty’s room.” Annie snaps the magnifying glass off her glasses, takes the note, and reads it. Her expression doesn’t change. “I can’t figure out what it means...?”
“My goodness, how should I know what a note in Matty’s drawer means?” Annie touches the necklace at her throat.
The moment feels wrong, or maybe not exactly wrong—momentous. Louisa holds her voice steady, but something in her is starting to wobble. “Well. I checked the area code for that number, and it’s Altoona, Pennsylvania. The name there, Kristie, is the same name as that server at Archer’s—and I remember thatshesaid she was from Altoona. And that all seems like too much of a coincidence to be nothing.”
Annie hesitates, then seems to gird herself for something Louisa doesn’t understand.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” demands Louisa. “Becausesomethingis going on.”
“Come with me,” Annie tells Louisa. “Out on the porch. I need to talk to you. Alone.”
“Why?”
“Hang on. We need to see where everyone else is first.”
They peek into Martin’s study. He’s sitting at his desk, reading a law book. Barbara is in the chair near him, knitting. The children are playing Monopoly in the playroom, with Otis watching them and sighing every now and then at how long the game is taking.
Louisa follows Annie to the porch. “Sit down,” says Annie, indicating one of the two wicker chairs that sit beside the swing. She takes the opposite chair. She gets back up almost immediately and says, “I can’t do this without a drink. Do you want anything? I’ll bring you something.” She returns with two gin and tonics and hands one to Louisa. “Drink up,” she says. “I have quite a story for you.”
Louisa drinks. The drinks are strong; the gin burns going down. Her mother drinks too, then puts her glass on the table between the chairs.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” Annie says. “So I’m just going to come right out with it.”
“Please don’t tell me,” Louisa whispers. “I don’t want to know.” She wants to stop time—no, more than that. She wants to travel back in time, to a safe age, when nobody has something they need to tell her, when she’s not fighting with her husband, not watching her father slip away, not preparing to say goodbye to the house.
“Nonsense,” says Annie. “Whether you want to know or not, I’m going to tell you.” She takes a sip of her drink, and her hand, putting the glass back on the table, is steady. Louisa presses her knees together and braces. And her mother begins to talk. Once she starts talking everything else flies out of Louisa’s mind: Steven and the money, Franklin and Phoebe Richardson, Detective Mark Harding standing wistfully by his car. “When you were nine years old, your father met a young woman through work. Her name was Sheila Turner.”
“No,” whispers Louisa, because she doesn’t feel good about what’s coming next. “No no no no.”
“Yes,” says Annie firmly. “Sheila Turner. She was from Philadelphia, but was up in Portland for school, working as a courier at a law firm. They began a relationship. It went on for a few months. Sheila Turner became pregnant. When you were ten, she gave birth to a little girl. That little girl, Kristie, wrote this note.” Annie holds up the paper from Matty’s drawer. “How Matty got ahold of it, I don’t know. But I know that Kristie is in town. She waited on us that day at Archer’s. She must have brought it by here with the intention of giving it to your father and somehow Matty ended up with it.”
Louisa thinks back—it seems like that lunch at Archer’s was a thousand years ago. “You were short with her, about the mayonnaise. So that’s why...”
Annie sighs. “I wasn’tshortwith her. She forgot, and I was simply letting her know. You know I can’t eat mayonnaise!” She takes another sip of her drink. “All right, yes, Louisa. Perhaps I was less than gracious. I’ve known her name since she was born, butof course Kristie is not an uncommon name. I always wondered when she might come back into our lives. All these years, I’ve been half waiting. I heard her name, and I know she grew up in Altoona. Then I got a good look at her eyes, and I was certain. They’re exactly your father’s eyes, Louisa.”
“Myeyes are exactly Dad’s eyes.”
“Yes, I know. And Kristie’s are too.”
