The Sisters (44 page)

“Well,” said Lynn, pulling open the silver box on the desk to see if she’d left her reading glasses there. She hadn’t. “I’m glad Grace’s occupation has some value.”

“Oh, you ought to see the prices of the stuff she makes. Just one helmet. She says she’s got so many orders, she’s had to give up her farrier’s work—that’s putting shoes on horses—for all except her oldest customers.” Taylor still clutched her hair, but she tried a small smile. “You really ought to take her up on that offer of a sword, Mom. Sounds pretty valuable.”

Lynn folded her sister’s e-mail, pressing a crisp crease with her fingertips. “Thank you for bringing this in, sweetheart. I really do have to write my ruling now.”

Taylor looked down to the floor and hummed again. What was that tune? When Lynn caught the next phrase, she knew. It was the tune Taylor had invented herself, a tune she’d invented to turn her name, TannaRayla, into a musical pacifier. Even before they brought her home, Lynn and Sam had been teaching their daughter to think of herself as Taylor. It was for her own good, they told each other. To let her be TannaRayla would only make her an outsider once she started school. It was important she fit in. Lynn remembered bragging to a colleague that Taylor loved her new name: She answered to it immediately, Lynn said, and wore proudly the gold locket engraved with it. Months after that, on the nanny’s night off, when Lynn passed Taylor’s room, she heard a muffled tune. She thought Taylor had turned her CD player down low, so she opened the door to check. The music was coming from Taylor herself. She was lying with her face to the wall, curled up, the covers pulled up to her eyes, and she was rocking in rhythm to her tune, singing to herself,
TannaRayla … TannaRayla … TannaRayla
. Lynn stepped out into the hallway again and closed the door. She had never told Sam about it. She’d never told anyone about it.

But here was the tune again, just under Taylor’s breath.

“I better get to school,” Taylor said. She turned to go, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “Are you giving her back, Mom?”

Lynn held her arms open, catching Taylor by the shoulders as she approached. Looking into her daughter’s dark, dark eyes, she said, “I wish I could tell you, baby, but I really can’t. You’ll just have to wait to hear it on the news, like everybody else.” When Taylor reached up for her hair, Lynn caught her hand and held it gently in her own. “Now, just think about it,” she said. “Do you believe it’s right that you should know before the Howards and Mr. Ortiz do?”

Tears sparkled in the corners of Taylor’s eyes. She looked to the floor again and shook her head.

“All right, then,” Lynn said. “You go on to school and I’ll see you at dinner.”

When the door closed, Lynn sat down at her desk. Her computer had gone to sleep again. She tapped a key. She’d just write it on the computer this time, and if she got stuck, she’d go back to the legal pad.

Maybe she ought to anticipate her detractors and resign her seat, citing family reasons—no one questioned those. She’d talk to Sam about it next week, after the media had forgotten about this case and were busy mucking around in somebody else’s business. She would talk to Sam, yes, and Sam would tell her, just as he did every time she doubted herself, that her resigning would be a betrayal of the public trust. And of course he would be right. She couldn’t do that—wouldn’t do that—to the people who’d put her into office.

T
WENTY-FOUR

Gathering

June 2007

Pilgrim’s End, Indiana

BERTIE’S GIRLS

R
AINEY STOPPED THE CAR AT
the crossroads. Was she supposed to turn right, past the brown-and-white cows standing behind their fence, or was it left, between the two broad fields of ankle-high corn?

“Where did you put those directions?” Lynn said, sliding her hand along the space between the seats. “We could wander around out here forever. No road signs. Grace should have come out to the highway to meet us.” She punched the buttons on her cell phone. “No reception. Big surprise.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s this way,” Rainey said, turning past the cows, though she wasn’t sure at all. She hadn’t been out here since the day of Ken’s funeral—twelve, thirteen years now. Before that, she had been to Pilgrim’s End only twice, but the advantage of the house being so far out in the country—no doubt the only advantage—was that the landscape had changed very little in the twenty-five years Grace had been here—a place so completely nowhere that developers ignored it. Rainey caught herself nodding at the cows as she passed, wondering if it was the corn they were staring at, plotting somehow to open the gate and cross the road to feast on the succulent young shoots.

“I’m sure I’ve worn the wrong shoes,” Lynn said, looking down at her strappy high heels.

Taylor leaned up from the backseat. “Mom, I told you to wear flats or running shoes.”

“I don’t own any flats. Or running shoes.”

Lynn was still angry with her daughter, but more angry with her sister for having cooked up the plan for this gathering. A few weeks ago, without any warning and in the middle of their Saturday-morning breakfast, Taylor had said, “Aunt Grace wants to have the family in to celebrate my graduation. And my scholarship.”

There were so many explosive possibilities in those few words, Lynn hadn’t known which to defuse first.
Family,
as it turned out, was meant to include Aunt Alma and Sarah, the granddaughter become daughter. In Lynn’s mind, they hardly counted as family, as she hadn’t seen either of them since the first Christmas after her cousin Milton and his wife had gone to prison. While Lynn was in the spare bedroom wrapping the gifts she’d hidden in her suitcase, Alma came in, closed the door, and said, “I need you to tell me what I have to do to get permanent legal custody of Sarah. Every step.”

Lynn flushed with panic. Only days before, she had filed as a candidate in the judge’s race—no one even knew about it yet besides Sam. But if she helped Alma, it wouldn’t be long before her political enemies found out about Milton, and then all it would take to ruin her career would be a few artfully edited ads and speeches linking her name with Milton’s misdeeds. Lynn turned from Alma and began gathering the scraps of paper and ribbon, speaking mechanically about state laws and licensing and how she couldn’t adequately advise on a case in another state. She ended by saying, “I’ll have my secretary call you with a list of phone numbers for lawyers near you who specialize in family law.”

Alma would not give up. “I could do as well looking in the Yellow Pages,” she said, and when Lynn tried to leave the bedroom, the packages in her arms, Alma blocked the door. “You owe me a favor, Lynn. You wouldn’t have found your father without me.”

So Lynn had done what she could. After the holidays, she shut herself in her office and spent half a day phoning through her contact list until she found an advocate for Alma’s suit. After that, she worked on her own time as a shadow consultant, studying all the documents the Ohio attorney faxed her, offering advice over the phone, being careful to destroy her paper trail. Even though everything had worked out—her campaign had moved forward without so much as a whisper of impropriety, and she had won handily with 62 percent of the vote—she had not forgiven Alma for holding her to an ancient obligation. Other than the printed card of acknowledgment for the flowers Lynn had sent when Uncle Gordon died, she and Alma had had no contact since that Christmas. Sarah, just a baby then, must be thirteen by now. A complete stranger. What could they possibly find to say to one another?

Lynn felt similarly disconnected from Grace, who made it to Mother’s house in Newman for maybe one out of every three Christmases, always using the excuse that she couldn’t find anyone to tend her animals long enough for an overnight trip. “If you ever decide to have Christmas at your house,” Grace had said to her a few years ago, “I can make it a day trip. It’s only a little over an hour for me to Indianapolis. Of course you’re all welcome here anytime you want to come. If it snows, it’s gorgeous, and not too tricky to drive unless it’s right after the snow. One thing we aren’t short of out here is plows.”

Presumptuous, that’s what Grace was. Practically inviting herself to Indianapolis, then implying everyone else ought to defer to the complexities of her life. What on earth could Grace know about complexities? And now this party. How dare Grace take it upon herself to make plans for Taylor? The two barely knew each other, except for sending messages over Facebook and talking on the phone now and then. Well, this proved what Lynn had long suspected: Grace had been stirring up and encouraging Taylor’s starry-eyed ambition to become a composer. Lynn and Sam had always believed Taylor would grow out of her fantasies, as little girls grow up to recognize they aren’t really princesses, and so they had worked hard and put enough by to pay Taylor’s tuition to any school she wanted. Taylor herself had given them reason to believe everything would turn out all right, for, in spite of her repeated claim that she cared for nothing but music, she had kept her grades up in every subject and had scored high enough on the SAT to guarantee admission anywhere in the country.

Taylor had run into the house, screaming and waving the acceptance letter from the state university over her head. Though Lynn had forced herself to smile and give her daughter a congratulatory kiss, Taylor must have caught her look of dismay. “It’s tops in composition, Mom. They hardly let anybody in as a freshman, but they picked me.”

Later, when Lynn and Sam were alone, he said, “It could be worse, Judge. It could be one of those arts schools without any general-education requirements.” He hugged her to him and laughed. “Don’t forget—I thought I wanted to be a gym teacher.” Lynn had smiled at that, the image of Sam in too-tight short shorts advocating for push-ups instead of for fair hiring practices. “Let’s just give her a chance,” he said, “She’ll take those other classes and find out there’s a lot more she could be interested in.”

Sam was right: Just being in college—all that opportunity to recognize her potential—would get Taylor back on the right path, and then in a year Taylor could transfer to a college more worthy of her gifts. But that didn’t mean Lynn was going to forgive Grace’s meddling. She’d tried to defuse Taylor’s enthusiasm for going to Grace’s by saying, “We’ll have a graduation party here. As grand as you like.” Ignoring her daughter’s downcast look—a ploy—Lynn said brightly, “Invite anyone you want. You can invite Grace. Think of all the trouble you’ll save her by asking her here.”

Taylor wiped tears from her eyes and spoke without looking up. “I don’t want a fancy party, Mom. Just my friends over for pizza or something.” She wiped her tears again and took three deep breaths. “It’s just…” As if suddenly gaining courage, she raised her eyes to meet Lynn’s. “It’s just that Aunt Grace is the only one who is happy for me about the scholarship.”

Lynn had left Taylor with a promise to talk over the matter with Sam, fully believing her husband, who could discuss Grace without having to cut through a tangle of emotions, would offer a way to avoid the invitation by suggesting a plan so reasonable that even Taylor would have to accept it. To Lynn’s astonishment, Sam had said, “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all. Maybe seeing how her ‘artist’ aunt really lives is just the wake-up smack Taylor needs.” Sam said he could excuse himself from going to Grace’s, citing an engagement to speak at a Lions Club meeting, but what he would really do with the day was shop for a new car for Taylor. Their daughter would find it upon her return, parked in the driveway and adorned with a giant bow.

Rainey slowed the car, watching for mailboxes. “Somebody please tell me again how Grace managed to persuade Alma to come.”

“I’m not exactly sure how they first hooked up,” Taylor said. “Probably Aunt Grace’s Web site or Facebook—like we did. Anyway, somehow Sarah found out that a Girl Scout troop was visiting the farm for different projects, so she asked if she could come for a week or two. She can do enough there to earn about a million badges—arts and crafts, organic gardening, small business operation, wildlife, botany—she sent me the list.”

“Fine,” Rainey said. “If that little girl wants to run around in the woods and get eaten up by bugs, that’s her business. But why does Grace have to torture the rest of us?”

Taylor slumped back against the seat. “She’s doing this for me. For my party.”

“There are a lot of other places to have a party besides the wilderness.”

Lynn could have backed up her mother, whose obvious annoyance with Grace pleased her, but she didn’t want to add fuel to her disagreement with Taylor. Silence was the best choice. Even after fifteen years, the bond she had with her mother remained tenuous. Being together in the hospital room when Grandma died, weeping as one when they realized what had happened, had changed things. From that day forward, whenever they spoke, they silently agreed not to talk about Carl, each of them taking care not to detonate the mine that lay between them. And then came Taylor, their love for her becoming a natural barrier against hidden trip wires.

“Oh my God,” Lynn said, pointing up the road. “That’s got to be it.”

A great painted shield, bright gold—at least nine feet high—stood several yards ahead of a gravel road. A strange design, painted in red, filled the upper part of the shield. At the center, a large scrolling letter
F
split its stem into an
M
on the left and a
B
on the right. From the joined initials hung the words
Grace Vincent, Artisan & Armorer.