Now You See Me (21 page)

She palmed away a tear. He took the last step to stand beside her and slowly traced the still-damp track on her cheek. When she didn’t push him away he reached for her hand, holding it close to his chest.

“It came out wrong, I know, but I meant all the important parts. I love you, Lyddie. And I think, maybe, you might love me, too.”

She shook her head, mouthed a silent “No,” but the fact that she was still with him, still holding tight to his hand, made him think she might be trying to convince herself more than him.

“We don’t have to decide anything now. All I’m asking you to do is think. Remember those nights in the cottage. The way you needed me when you were scared about Sara. Think about how good we are together, about that night we sat outside and you said I meant something to you.”

At last she turned toward him. Her river-blue eyes were liquid now, flowing with pain.

“Lyddie,” he whispered. “Lyddie, tell me you don’t feel anything. Tell me it meant nothing to you, that you haven’t been walking around like the living dead just like I have. Tell me that, and I’ll walk away from here and never bother you again.”

She closed her eyes and turned away.

“Or,” he said hoarsely, “tell me you love me and I’ll wait forever.”

He’d thought she was frozen in place before, but now she seemed to turn to stone. The seconds ticked past.

At last she opened her eyes. She inhaled, a catching breath that cut straight through him. She stroked his bristly jawline, the way she always did after they made love.

Then she turned away from him.

“Ben,” she called, with a hitch in her voice that stabbed him. “Your ride’s here.”

* * *

S
HE
MADE
IT
THROUGH
the rest of the week, forcing herself to sling coffee with a smile, hiding the hurt as Ben gushed over the fishing trip. She silently endured Ruth’s pointed comments and judgmental stares. She even slept at night—that is, if dozing off between bouts of staring at the ceiling could be called sleep.

At last, it was Sunday. Lyddie kneeled in front of the remains of the old tree trunk, pouring her emotions into her saw as she sliced through the last hunks of roots. Her movements were jerky, much like her breath. She was too distracted to be doing this safely and she knew it. But she couldn’t sit in the house and wrestle with thoughts of Tuesday’s planning board meeting, wondering if J.T. would be there. And if he was, could she stay?

No, better to be outside, forcing her attention on the blade cutting through the splintered wood. She could do this. She could rip these roots from the ground and haul them away. She could look at the gaping hole where the tree used to stand and tell herself she would fill it with daisies and petunias and make the yard better.

While she was at it, she could tell herself that the salty liquid burning her eyes was just sweat.

She paused, backhanded her bangs out of her eyes, checked her progress. She’d burnt and hacked her way almost to the end of the job. She could finish it up tonight with just another hour or so.

And forty-eight hours after that, the meeting would be over. She would never need to see J.T. again. On Thursday, he and Iris would drive to Ottawa and get on their plane and all this...insanity would be over. She could get her real life back.

If only she could silence the voice inside her that insisted there weren’t enough daisies in the world to fill the hole J.T. would leave in her life.

She adjusted her position, leaned forward, grabbed another hunk of root.

“Mommy!”

Tish ran across the lawn, phone in hand. Lyddie considered straightening, then decided she didn’t have the strength and plopped back on the grass, not caring where she landed. She needed a shower, anyway. What difference would a bit more dirt make?

“Who is it, Tish? Aunt Zoë?”

Tish shook her head hard enough to make her pigtails fly across her face. “Nope. It’s Sara. She’s crying.”

Lyddie scrambled to her feet, reaching for the phone. “Sara? Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Mom...tell me...say it...isn’t true.” Sara’s voice was so choked by tears that Lyddie could barely make out the words. She frowned in concentration.

“Sara, sweetie, take a breath. I don’t know what you’re saying. What’s the trouble?”

“I...had...my...last lesson...today. Ms. Rasmussen said...she said...”

Lyddie closed her eyes, holding back the words she couldn’t say in front of Tish. The nitwit teacher had told Sara everything.

“She said...she said they wanted me for the advanced music school...that I could get in there this year, that I could be good...and you said no!”

The words ended on a wail of such agony that Lyddie had to hold the phone away from her ear. She checked on Tish, motioned her away from the saw and pushed herself upright to pace in tiny circles around the remains of the trunk.

“Sara, honey, take a breath. Breathe, okay? Can you hold it together for a minute and let me explain?”

“No! I don’t want to listen to you! You ruined everything! I worked so hard, I practiced and practiced, and I did it, Mom, I got in, and you won’t let me go!”

“Sara, that’s not true. I told them you could do summers there but not—”

“I hate you, Mom. You’re going to make me stay in that stupid, stupid place, and there’s nothing there, and no matter how good I am they’ll never let me be a musician because Glenn Brewster’s daughter
has
to be just like he was, and I can’t do that anymore, I can’t and I won’t and I’m not coming back and you can’t make me!”

Lyddie ceased her pacing, stopped by the sheer intensity of Sara’s words. She felt like she’d been swallowed by an avalanche and had no idea how—or where—to begin digging her way out.

“Sara. Did you hear what I said? You can go back for the summers. We’ll sign you up for the Ottawa youth orchestra. And when you’re done with school, if you want to go to college there, you can.”

“Oh, stop it! Stop pretending you’re going to let me go! You want me to rot there, just like you. Everyone thinks it’s such a great place, but I hate it there, Mom! I hate who I am when I’m there and I hate you!”

“Sara—wait—” Damn! Lyddie glanced at the sky, but there were no answers to be found in the deepening shadows. She cursed the miles separating her from her child. “One thing at a time, okay? I know you’re upset and don’t want to listen to me now, but once you come home we can—”

“No! Don’t you get it, Mom? I’m not coming back. I’m not! I won’t get on that plane. You’ll have to tie me up and kidnap me, and then I’ll run away, over and over. And no matter how many times you find me, I’ll keep going. Because I can’t live there, Mom, I—”

There came the sound of other voices, a brief discussion that left Lyddie pulling at her hair in frustration while shooing Tish back inside. The crying and screaming faded and Zoë’s voice came over the line.

“Lyddie? Are you okay?”

She blew past the lump of distress in her throat. “No. This sucks. Where’s Sara?”

“Kevin took her out back. She’ll be okay, I can see them out the window. She’s pacing and crying but it looks like she’s calming down.”

“I’m going to kill that teacher.”

“I’m right behind you in the line. But, Lyd...it’s not just the teacher.”

Dear God, what else?

“She’s been like this almost from the moment she came. All I’ve heard, all summer, is how much more she likes it here. First I thought she was just being polite. And hey, when you’re fourteen, everybody thinks home sucks, right?”

“I guess. Maybe.”

“But she made friends, got to know folks around the neighborhood. And she’s always talking about how it’s so much easier here. She says things like, she can tell people her name and not get
that look
—whatever that means.” Zoë sighed. “I think the music is only the symptom, Lyd. I think there’s something bigger bothering her.”

Why couldn’t life ever be easy? Why did the simplest, most foolproof plans always backfire and get complicated and rip your heart out?

“What’s she doing now?”

“Still outside. I think—yep, it looks like he has her smiling a little. She’s crying, but she’s not hysterical anymore.”

“Thank God.” Lyddie dropped to the grass. She lay on her back and stared at the sky and wondered how she was supposed to hold things together when they all seemed destined to fall apart.

“I wish I was there with you,” Zoë said.

“Me, too,” Lyddie replied, even while she kept remembering the way J.T. had held her when she had her last Sara-induced panic attack. What she would give to be able to go to him now....

But she couldn’t. Not anymore.

“Zo? Do you think she means it?”

“I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I was fourteen, but as I recall, most of my emotions changed about as fast as Dad used to flip through the TV channels. For her to be so adamant about this for so long... It makes me wonder.”

“Me, too.”

“Lyd, I know why you moved there. You needed all the support you could get after Glenn died, and by God, those folks came through for you big-time. But I wonder if, maybe, it’s time to let that go.”

“But how else am I supposed to keep his memory alive for them?”

“Maybe... Don’t freak on me, okay? But maybe you’re not. Not anymore. I don’t mean you should never talk about him or anything like that,” she added quickly. “But, honey, maybe it’s time to move on.”

Move on?

“Think about it, Lyddie. You said it was getting to you, seeing how people had turned Glenn into the next thing to a saint. You were feeling stifled by it. Maybe the kids are feeling that, too.”

“But this is our home. The only one Tish knows. Not to mention Ruth is here, and I promised her I would never—”

“Stop. Just stop. Don’t you dare tell me you’re staying there because you promised Ruth you wouldn’t leave.”

Lyddie blinked at the sudden vehemence in Zoë’s words. “No. Of course not. But I—”

“You don’t go back on your word. I know that. I also know that your duty to your children goes far and above what you owe Ruth.”

Hard words. Harsh, even. But Lyddie knew they were true, even if she didn’t like to hear them.

“You really think I’m doing the wrong thing, keeping them here?”

Zoë made a sound that could have been a sigh or could have been a laugh. “I don’t think you could ever do the wrong thing, because you’re there with them, and you will always give them what they need. But I wonder. If you were to go someplace else—someplace where they weren’t the kids of a saint—maybe they wouldn’t need you quite so much.”

Lyddie fell silent, thinking of Tish and her teacher, Ben and the school, Sara’s painful outburst. “I know there are things that bother them. I just thought the good outweighed the bad.”

“Maybe it does. I don’t know. I’m not living there, and heaven knows I might be way off base. But listening to you, and Sara, and all the things you’ve said about Ben and Tish, I wonder.” She paused. “Would you ever go back to—”

“Not Peterborough. No. Not an option.” That part of her life belonged to Glenn.

“Someplace else, then, with no memories. A fresh start for all of you.”

“Have you forgotten I’ve just gone through hell and back making it possible to buy my building?”

“Oh. Right. That.” Zoë fell silent, and Lyddie could easily imagine her sprawled over her sofa, chewing on her pinky fingernail. “You said there was another buyer. It’s not like you would be leaving the seller high and dry.”

“No.” Lyddie picked the words carefully “No, I think J.T. would survive.”

“Wait. J.T.? Hang on. Isn’t he the one you were thinking of...”

“He was.”

“And did you?”

The sudden excitement in Zoë’s voice was enough to make Lyddie smile, if only for a moment. “Um...”

“Lydia Stewart Brewster, you’ve been sitting on this all this time and you said nothing?”

“I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why the hell not? Damn, girl, I am stuck here in the ’burbs doing the 24/7 dairy-cow thing, and you were having a nooky adventure and didn’t tell me?”

“Sorry. I didn’t think—”

“Oooh. So good you couldn’t think straight, huh?” This time, Zoë’s sigh reeked of happiness. “I am so proud of you.”

Proud of her? The irony was too much. Before she could stop herself, Lyddie started to cry.

“Lyd? Honey, I thought I was the one with the raging hormones. Why are you crying?”

“Oh, Zoë. If you only knew... There’s nothing to be proud of. I...I hurt him. Horribly. I said the most awful things, and told him...he said he loves me, Zo. And I can’t...I don’t...”

“Holy crap. You made a guy fall in love with you in a month?”

“It was longer than that, and I didn’t
make
him do it. I wasn’t trying to do anything but, just, you know. Feel like me again.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “And then he did that.”

“So you feel nothing for him?”

“Of course I do! He’s a wonderful guy. I like him a lot. But I don’t—you know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not making any sense. Go check on Sara.”

“Sara is fine and you are avoiding the issue. Which, I have noticed in my thirty-six years as your little sister, is exactly what you do when you don’t want to talk about something.”

“You’re crazy, Zo.”

“Yet you’re the one crying because you hurt a guy you claim to not love.”

Lyddie pushed upright, all the better to scowl at the phone. “Of course I don’t. I’ve only known him two months. He’s funny and sweet and I like spending time with him, but that doesn’t mean I love him.”

“You do realize you’re tap-dancing like hell to avoid saying the actual words.”

No. She couldn’t be.

“Lyddie?”

It had to be something else. Yes, she had longed for him to comfort her, but that was just an association, because he had helped her the last time. Sure, she had spent the past few days in misery, but it had been a horrible ending to a wonderful time. And of course she felt awful about the things she had said. No one wanted to hurt someone they—

“Oh, my God.”