Petals on the Pillow (7 page)

Her finger stroked the woman’s cheek. “No wonder he can’t look at you, honey. You’re so exactly like her.”

“You noticed that? The way he won’t look?” Betsy asked. She stood next to Kelly in the position usually reserved for her father, arms banded tight across her chest and head ducked.

“Hard not to.” Kelly replaced the photograph in the spot where it clearly belonged.

“He never calls me Elizabeth anymore either.”

“Did he before
?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes he’d tease me and call me Little Beth. He never does that anymore either.” Betsy began the familiar plucking at her sleeve. “Are you going to tell?”

“About your hiding place? Of course not.” Kelly watched Betsy from the corner of her eye as she picked up the crystal horse. The child shuddered involuntarily almost as if she was physically restraining herself from snatching the little horse from Kelly’s hands. Kelly set it back down. “Are these all you have of your mother’s things?”

Betsy shook her head. “This side of the house is packed with her stuff.”

“This side?”

“This is the wing we used to spend most of our time in before. Daddy moved us over to the other side after.”

“After?”

“After Momma died.”

“He moved you to the dock side afterwards?”

Betsy nodded miserably.

Kelly shook her head in amazement. She knelt to sift through a stack of papers that leaned against a chair leg. “Hey! What are these?”

“They were my mom’s.”

“They’re beautiful, and there are so many.” Kelly leafed through the thick sheaf of watercolors. Among the florals, seascapes and still-lifes, Kelly counted well over 30 paintings, each signed simply with the name “Elizabeth” in an elegant, spiky handwriting. “Why are these back here? They’ll mold stuck away like this. Besides, these should be on display.” Another shrug. “Daddy put them all over here after.”

“He shouldn’t have. They’re really marvelous,” Kelly mur
mured, admiring a lovely representation of a bed of tulips in full bloom.

“Are they really good?” Betsy asked anxiously.

“Very good,” Kelly confirmed.

“Do you paint like that?”

Kelly inspected a particularly detailed painting of an iris. “No. Not like this. Watercolor takes a special personality. Someone patient. Someone willing to wait and plan and still make it all come off looking completely fresh and spontaneous. And these?” Kelly picked up a stack of sketchbooks. She turned them over in her hands. Each one was neatly labeled with a year.

“Daddy put those over here, too.”

Kelly cracked one of the books open at random. Three tickets to
Victor, Victoria
were pasted down on the page along with a rather decent caricature of Julie Andrews. The next page had a quick sketch of a younger Betsy asleep. It was hard to tell, but she seemed to be sleeping in a carriage like the ones tourists ride through Central Park. The following three pages were a collage of photographs of Betsy, Elizabeth and Harrison doing the Big Apple in style.

Betsy leaned over Kelly’s shoulder. “That’s the last trip we took. We went to New York. We did everything. The Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty. Rockefeller Center. Absolutely everything.”

Kelly turned another page to confront a profile sketch of Harrison. Seemingly unaware of being observed, he looked out the window of a cafe. The tenderness of the lines that captured his face and hands was as real as a physical caress to Kelly. She felt a tremendous sense of intimacy with the woman who had drawn that portrait.

As an artist, her fingers recognized the s
trokes used to create that face. They knew instinctively how to suggest the cast shadow from his high cheekbones and how to delineate the clean lines of his profile. As a woman, the hastily made portrait spoke to her heart. It was in her heart that she understood the respect given to Harrison’s uncompromising jaw and the softness around his lips. Underneath the sketch, Elizabeth had written his name and then signed her own in the same elegant, spiky hand she’d used to sign the watercolors. The writing was as distinctive as the drawing style, spare and graceful. The big sloping “E” dominating her signature again and again as Kelly leafed through the book. She shut the book with a snap, confused by the emotions the little sketches stirred in her.

Inside the next book she found more of the same. Pasted down ticket stubs and scraps of fabric. Rapid pencil sketches of Betsy playing, and loving studies of her at rest. Notes for din
ner parties and guest lists. Endless studies of Harrison. Each one capturing a mood or an expression with a spareness that Kelly envied. The books were part sketchbook, part diary, part calendar. Even more, they were like a confessional. The love Elizabeth St. John felt toward her husband and daughter rang out in every stroke she used to capture their likenesses. “They’re marvelous,” Kelly said to Betsy. “It must be wonderful for you to look through them. It’s almost like you’re seeing the whole world through her eyes.” She touched a sketch of Betsy on a swing. “You can certainly see how much she loved you.”

Betsy snuggled up next to Kelly. “I can’t remember her ever going anywhere without one of her books. She always had one. I remember her sitting on the lawn and watching Daddy and me play. She was drawing and laughing, trying to get us to stop at certain times so she could have time to get something right. I remember ... I....” The words drifted off into a sniffle.

“What’s the matter, Betsy?”

“It’s just that there’s so much I’m starting to forget. I try not to. I try hard to remember every day. But I can feel her slipping away. I don’t want her to go.”

The green eyes brimmed over with tears and Kelly felt her own eyes start to fill. “That’s the way it happens, honey. Believe it or not, it’s the way it should be. You can’t hold on to every detail forever. You have to make room for new things all the time.”

“But I miss her so much still. How come I can’t always remember the way she looked?” Betsy began to shake and Kelly drew her closer.

“You may not remember exactly the way her chin looked or what her nose was like, but you’ll always remember what it was like to be her baby, won’t you? You can remember what it felt like to have her hold you and kiss you.”

Betsy shook her head and burrowed her face further into Kelly’s shoulder. “Not always. Not anymore.”

“And if for some reason you need to remember exactly what she looked like or what perfume she used to wear,” Kelly continued, “you can come here and look at her picture and wrap her sweater around you and feel a little closer to her.” Betsy pushed away from Kelly and looked up at her. Behind the tears, the green eyes shone with an acuity momentarily so like her father’s Kelly nearly pushed her away. “How do you know that?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“About the sweater and stuff.” Betsy’s eyes narrowed further.

“Let’s just say I’ve had some experience in the matter.”

“Did your mom die when you were little, too?”

Kelly sighed. “Not exactly.”

“How can you not exactly die?”

“Unfortunately, there are lots of ways.” Kelly stood up and brushed some of the dust off her jeans before she reached a hand down to help Betsy to her feet. “My mom got sick and
she never got better.”

“But she didn’t die?”

“No. She didn’t die.” Kelly tucked Betsy’s hand under her arm and started the winding walk back to the other wing of the house, but something caught her eye before she took more than a few steps. “What’s that over there?”

“What?”

“That painting over there under the sheet. Is that the one that used to hang over the fireplace in the drawing room?” Betsy nodded slowly. “How did you know?”

“It’s the right size. Right shape. And something clearly used to hang there. Can I look?”

“I don’t know, Kelly. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea. Daddy put that over here right away. It was the first thing he moved after Momma died.”

But Betsy’s protests once again went unheeded. This time, however, Kelly wished she had listened. She threw back the sheet to stare directly into the smiling face of a woman dressed in a filmy yellow summer dress. The woman in yellow. The woman who had shown up
in her dream. The one Kelly had never lain eyes on before she’d come to Hawk Manor. The woman whose tangled, sodden hair in Kelly’s dream had obscured the face of Elizabeth St. John. The face that now smiled serenely out of the portrait her husband had hidden away.

Kelly felt the wind rush out of her lungs and the room began to whirl. From far away she heard Betsy’s voice calling to her. “Kelly, are you all right?” She sat down hard on the floor.

***

“What exactly do you mean, Harrison?” Kendra’s voice rang out tight and sharp. Two bright spots of pink shone on her high cheekbones.

They were all gathered in the drawing room just as they had been the night before. Kelly felt a conspicuous sense of deja vu, especially since she was wearing the exact same dress as she had the previous night. Kendra, of course, was not. Tonight’s num
ber was a jade green gown, sleek and fitted. Kelly could tell from subtle details in the cut and design of Harrison’s tuxedo that it was not the same suit as the night before either. Even Betsy wore a different dress, although she still twisted and fidgeted at its lacy collar.

“Do you intend for us,” Kendra continued into the silence, “to take trays to our solitary rooms?”

“Of course not, Kendra. Don’t be ridiculous.” Harrison dismissed Kendra’s protest with a wave of his hand, not bothering to rise from where he sat on the stiff sofa.

The color rose higher in Kendra’s cheeks. Kelly cringed a lit
tle. She wished Harrison had had this conversation with Kendra in private. It made Kelly uncomfortable to see the hurt in Kendra’s eyes, which she was clearly trying to cover with a little show of indignation.

“We’ll eat in the smaller dining room and the meals will be simpler. Fewer courses, plainer fare.” Harrison ran a hand across his flat stomach. “There’s no need for these lavish pro
ductions every night. They’ve become a farce.”

“They weren’t a farce when Elizabeth was alive,” Kendra burst out.

At the sound of her mother’s name, Betsy ducked as if dodging a blow. Kendra’s hand flew immediately to her mouth as though she would stuff the words back in if she could.

“No, Kendra,” Harrison’s eyes glittered, “it wasn’t a farce then. But if you’ll recall, it was rarely just our family at dinner.”

Harrison stood and walked stiffly to the fireplace. His eyes strayed to the pale square over the mantle and then darted quickly away. A shadow passed over his face and Kelly felt her heart clutch.
Not your problem,
she reminded herself.
Keep your nose out of other people’s business for once. It only gets you into trouble. Of course the man misses his wife.

“I’m sorry, Harrison,” Kendra said. Her lips trembled in her pale face. Harrison’s displeasure affected her far more than Kelly had expected. “I know that. It’s just I’ve become accus
tomed—”

“Exactly my point,” Harrison interrupted.
“We’ve all become accustomed to these dinners. They’re a habit we’ve gotten into, and an empty one at that. Besides this discussion is moot. The decision’s been made. Dora and I have already talked about it and decided on menus and the rest. This is the last of these absurd formal dinners.”

“Yes, Harrison,” Kendra said meekly, head bowed like a novitiate awaiting a blessing.

“Fine, then. Now that we’ve settled that, let’s go in.”

Kendra kept her head bowed as Harrison walked past her, but as Kelly made her way across the drawing room, Kendra’s head rose. She fixed Kelly with a stare. Her eyes suddenly seemed so cold they sent a shiver up Kelly’s spine.

***

Kelly only made it halfway through the dinner. By the time the entree had been placed in front of her, her head had start
ed to throb again. She’d excused herself and then made a beeline to her room. Curled up under the fluffy quilt with a biography of Frida Kahlo, she’d fallen asleep with the light shining in her face.

That was one of the reasons she felt so confused when she woke in pitch blackness. Then she realized that she was in the woods again, with no idea of how she’d gotten there or why she was running for the dock. She had to reach the dock. She stumbled free of the pulling branches from the ragged, grasp
ing trees. The old wood of the dock glimmered in the faint moonlight ahead of her. The boathouse made only a darkened hulk against a horizon just slightly lighter than itself. There was no wind this time. No storm ravaged the shore. The waves lapped gently against the pilings.

But the woman was there again, standing at the end of the dock in her sodden yellow dress with her face hidden by tan
gled hair and rotting weeds. Kelly knew now what face would be revealed if the hair and weeds were brushed back. Mist wreathed around Elizabeth although the rest of the sky was clear.

“What?” Kelly panted at her. “What is it that you want of me?

Elizabeth’s voice burst into her head again. “Find the truth. Heal his wounds.”