Lake News (55 page)

She wasn't alone now. She had friends here now. She even had someone she loved. But Maida was her mother, which made what she offered very special.

Poppy wasn't prone to tears, but watching Lily and Maida, she came close. She knew all too well that some things in life couldn't be changed. Others could. Grateful that this one had been, she wheeled her chair around and headed for the back of the hall. She was thinking about the improvement this would bring to Maida's life, thinking about how much better Lily would feel and how much happier holidays would be, thinking that Lily really
ought to stay in Lake Henry and marry John and how nice it would be to have her here, thinking about everything but where she was headed, when she turned the corner at the back of the hall and found herself face-to-face with a man she had never met—at least, not in the flesh.

But she knew who he was. He wore jeans, a sweater, and a fleece jacket. The jacket was a royal blue that picked up the blue in his eyes and was a perfect foil for hair that was thick, well styled, and red.

Where to go?
Turn back!
Where to hide?

But too late.
He knew
. She could see it in his eyes.

In the few seconds that it took him to approach, she felt guilty for not having told him, disappointed that the fantasy would end, dismayed that she was what she was when she wanted to be something so different.

He hunkered down so that his eyes were on level with hers. “Did you honestly think I'd care?” he asked so gently that, for the second time in as many minutes, Poppy nearly cried.

But Poppy Blake didn't cry. Crying accomplished nothing. She had decided that twelve years before.

So she lashed back at his gentleness with the bleak truth. “I can't run. I can't ski or hike. I can't work in the forest the way I was trained, because I can't get around in a chair on rutted dirt. I can't dance. I can't drive a car unless it's been specially adapted. I can't pick apples or work the cider press. I can't even stand in the shower.”

“Can you eat?”

Gruffly, she said, “Of course I can eat.”

“Can I buy you dinner?”

Her heart lurched. She fought the pull. “Yes, but if you think I'm talking about my sister, the answer is still no.”

“I don't want to know about your sister. I want to know about you.” He stood, briefly studied the handles of her chair, then looked at her with such endearing helplessness that she was smitten. “I'm a quick study,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”

Poppy had strong arms. They were used to propelling her and her chair through almost any wheelchair-accessible area, and the church had a very fine ramp.

She prided herself on being independent.

But her friends did push her chair when they were out together. They said it made them feel like they were walking in step with her.

Wanting to walk in step with Griffin Hughes, Poppy said, “I point, you push.”

She pointed, he pushed, and off they went.

The celebration was spontaneous, a gathering of friends—then more friends, then
more
friends in Charlie's back room. When reporters tried to join in, Charlie turned them away. “Sorry. Private party,” he said as he and his kids passed through the door loaded down with trays of the best the kitchen had to offer.

Lily didn't sing. It was even better than that. She talked and laughed and was part of something she hadn't known to miss but wouldn't have given up for the world. She half imagined that she knew what it felt like to win the lottery. Mixed in with joy was the fear that something so wonderful couldn't be real.

But it was. John was real; he rarely left her side. Maida was real; she smiled each time she caught Lily's eye. Lake Henry was real; it had come through for her when she needed it most. She couldn't remember a day when she had felt so strongly that every element in her life meshed so well.

Then the Cardinal called. She had just walked into the cottage when the cell phone rang. She assumed it was Poppy.

“Hey,” she said, a bit breathless, “was that
fun?”

“Hey, yourself,” he said, playfully sober.

She caught her breath. “Father Fran!”

“Your sister gave me this number. I'm off to Rome tomorrow, but I wanted to talk with you first. You're the only loose end I haven't tied up.”

“There's nothing—”

“There is.” His voice was as heavy as she had ever heard it. “I owe you an apology, Lily. I knew who Terry Sullivan was. I didn't know him personally, but I knew the name. When he broke that story, which was clearly so wrong, I guessed that he knew about his mother and was getting back at me for hurting her. I didn't know about the beatings until tonight when the first call came after your press conference.”

“They called you?” Of course they would. “I'm so sorry—”

“Don't be,” he scolded gently. “It's easily handled. I have no problem confirming that relationship. Jean and I were sweethearts, but I never hid from her the fact that I wanted to be a priest. My conscience is clear on that score, but not on the matter of what Terry suffered because
of it, and not on the matter of you. If I had acknowledged the connection, the whole thing might have stopped sooner, and you wouldn't have lost so much. I'm sorry, Lily. That was wrong of me. You deserve better.”

Yes. She did. She could be angry at the Cardinal for that, even for simplifying the story of his relationship with Jean. Knowing what he had left out, though, she understood. Knowing the predatory nature of the media, she
doubly
understood. Another person in her situation might have said that the Cardinal's apology came too late. But Lily wasn't another person. She was gentle, and she was forgiving.

“For what it's worth,” he said, “of all the doubts I've had about my worthiness since I was named a Cardinal, a great many of them relate to this mess.”

“Oh, no. That shouldn't be.”

“There's no place for pride in my work. Or for dishonesty by virtue of omission.”

“But the world
needs
leaders like you.”

“It isn't my job to cause suffering.”

“But I'm home,” Lily insisted. How to resent
anyone
when her life was this full? “So maybe the suffering had a purpose.”

He paused then. The tide of the conversation seemed to turn. “Are things working out for you there?”

“Very much. I think I've found me.”

“Ahhh,” he said. From the sound of it, he was smiling at last. “That does my heart good. It doesn't forgive my selfishness—God will have to forgive that—but it does make me happy. Not surprised, mind you. I always said you were strong.”

She was smiling now, too. “You did.”

“You finally believe it, then?”

“I'm… getting there.”

“Will you keep me up on the progress?”

“That depends,” she said. “Will Father McDonough put me through?”

The Cardinal chuckled. “You bet. Peace be with you, Lily.”

“And with you,” she said and, ending the call with a sense of warmth, realized that a loose end had been tied up for her, too.

They had to be crazy, coming out on the lake. The night was stark, and in the third week of October, the air too cold for canoeing, but Lily wouldn't have been anywhere else. The past hours had been chock full of so many different emotions that she was on overload. Now, here—even in a chilling breeze—things were simpler.

There was no moon. The spot where it would have been was obscured by thick clouds. Farther west, the clouds were spotty. They were moving at a clip, judging from the appearance and disappearance of stars.

“Winter's coming,” John said. “You can smell it.”

Lily smelled wood smoke from a chimney on shore, and the piney clean scent of John, against whom she nestled, but the leaves were too dry and cold to exude a scent, and the predominant aura on the lake was of something else. “Snow?” she asked.

“Soon. Then comes ice. In another month, there'll be a skim coat. A month after that, it'll be more'n a foot thick. We're a small body of water. When it happens, it happens fast.”

The canoe rose and fell with the wind on the lake. They were thirty feet out from the island in whose shallows John's loons lived. Lily searched the darkness for the birds.

“I can't see them.”

Gently he cupped her head, wool hat and all, and turned it left. “There. Those moving things.”

She was a minute separating reflection from wind waves from loons. Then she saw, but only two. They floated close together, finding solace in each other, she fancied. In the next instant she understood.

“Mom and Dad have left,” John confirmed. “Headed south.”

“Will these two ever see them again?”

“Not for three years, at least. That's when they return here to mate. Whether they return to our lake or to another one in the area remains to be seen. Whether they'll recognize their parents, and vice versa, is anyone's guess.”

“Sad,” Lily said. She was thinking about Maida, and about how…
rich
she felt now that they had bridged a gap.

“Let's be honest here,” John chided. “These guys may be whizzes at survival. They have to be, to have made it for so many million years. But sensitive? Sentimental? I don't think so.”

“No? Aren't you the one who said they came out to see you all the time?”

He mocked himself with a chuckle. “Yeah, well, I liked to think that, but the truth is if you wait here long enough and invisibly enough, they just float into range.”

She tipped her head back. Even in the dark, with just
the outline of windblown hair on his brow, a straight nose, and a square jaw gentled by just beard enough to cover it, his face was handsome. Taking care not to tip the canoe, she shifted sideways so that she was cradled in the crook of his arm and could more comfortably look up. “I like the other explanation. I think you do, too. You're sensitive. You're sentimental.” Then, because she had been wondering for hours, she asked, “Did you mean what you said about not writing a book?”

John didn't have to give it much thought. As no-brainers went, it was right up there. He was perfectly comfortable, entirely confident, saying, “I meant it.”

“No book at all?”

“Not on this topic. Enough of the Blake story's been told as I want to tell.”

“What about Terry's story?”

“Lake News
covered it.”

“Someone else will do it in depth.”

“That's okay by me.”

“What about money and fame?”

Looking at her as she lay so trustingly in his arms, John couldn't even
spell
the words, much less crave either one. “Funny thing about money and fame. They can't go canoeing with you in the freezing cold or warm up in bed with you afterward. They can't talk. They can't
sing
. They can't have kids.”

Her eyes went a little wider. The darkness couldn't hide that. He hadn't meant to throw it out yet, but there it was. Must have been tucked away more shallowly than he thought.

“I can have kids,” she said.

“I know you can, but you gotta want them.”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“You wouldn't if you were still hoping to go back to Boston; at least, you wouldn't want to have them with me, because I really don't think I want to leave here. So. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Still want to go back to Boston?”

Lily hadn't made a conscious decision, but that didn't mean the decision wasn't made. It was made. It was easy. “What in the world is back there for me?” she asked, unable to think of a single thing that mattered more than what she had right here.

“Your car. Your piano. Your clothes.”

“Funny thing about that,” she said. “A car can't go canoeing with you in the freezing cold. A piano can't warm up in bed with you afterward. Clothes can't talk or sing or have kids.”

“But they're your things. They stand for something.”

She wasn't letting his eyes go, not for a minute. “So do moving companies. Besides, how can I be with you in Boston, if you won't leave here?”

“But I shouldn't be the reason you decide to stay here.”

“Why not?”

She had him there. He opened and closed his mouth several times, then finally left it shut and just grinned. The grin warmed its way through her.

“Lest your ego get too big,” she cautioned, “there are
other things keeping me here. There's Maida.” She broke eye contact with him to look out toward the part of the lake where the orchards would be. “She hadn't worked a day in her life until Daddy died. Now look.”

“She doesn't like me.”

Lily looked back at him. “She doesn't know you. But she has an open mind. She proved that today. So there's Maida, and Poppy. And Hannah. Maida is on her side now, but if Rose doesn't come around, I want to be there, too.”