Through the Darkness (3 page)

“I'm
running the day care center, Aunt Ruth,” Emily said. I half expected her to add
and not you
, but I'd brought my daughter up with better manners. “And I'm certainly willing to listen to anything you have to say, but you have to realize that it's too late to change it now!”

“You're right, of course,” Ruth admitted. “But it's just so frustrating! If Dante had listened to me in the first place, Puddle Ducks would have been built where the gift shop is now.”

I was about to put in my two cents about conversion plans as recommended by highly paid D.C. architects who were
not
disciples of the Compass school of feng shui—naturally, they'd given the east side of the building, with its expansive view of the Chesapeake Bay, to the spa's dining room—but thankfully, Ruth had already moved on.

“We can add a light fixture over there…” She gestured toward the west wall. With a wink at me, she added, “Phyllis can certainly afford it!” Without drawing a breath, she forged on. “And maybe a mobile. Something light and a bit whimsical. I think I know where to get one.”

“Okay, Aunt Ruth.”

Hands on hips, Ruth turned, scrutinizing the room. “You should put the stereo equipment on the northeast wall,” she said, waving her hand in a vague, northerly direction, “and it'd be better if you moved the tables and chairs closer to the east wall,” she said. “Wisdom and education go there.”

“Okay.” Emily, again, being diplomatic.

“And put that Little Red Hen bulletin board on the south wall!” she finished triumphantly.

“Of course,” Emily managed from between clenched teeth.

“I'll ask Dante about the mobile.” Ruth wandered over to the windows and adjusted the curtains to admit the early afternoon sun in all its glory. My sister had finally run out of steam.

“I wish you luck getting his ear,” Emily said, squinting into the glare, ignoring her aunt's instructions, at least for the moment. “The ad for the accountant came out in Sunday's Baltimore
Sun
. The phone's been ringing off the hook. Dante's got interviews scheduled back-to-back until almost eight o'clock tonight.”

“Last time I saw him, Dante was helping Ben fish a chair out of the swimming pool,” I offered helpfully.

Connie's paintbrush hovered over a bright green radish top. “What? How'd that happen?”

With a sideways glance at Emily, whose bland expression gave no hint of what I suspected was major responsibility for the “accident” to the chair, I said, “Who knows? When one enters Garnelle's massage therapy room, all brain functions cease.”

Ruth grinned. “Thanks, I'll check the swimming pool first, then.” She turned on her sensible black heels and started out the door. “A green dragon, Connie,” she called back over her shoulder.

“What?” I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly.

“A green dragon on that east wall.” She pointed.

Back on her stepladder, Connie rolled her eyes.

“And a white tiger over there. Those children need some guardians.” And then she was gone.

Once Ruth was out of earshot, Connie said, “A tiger? What do you think Beatrix Potter would say if I painted a tiger stalking among the cabbages in Mr. McGregor's very proper British garden?”

“It never bothered Rousseau,” I commented dryly, dredging up a factoid from an Art History course I'd taken at Oberlin. “Remember his jungle paintings? Rousseau let on that he had firsthand knowledge of the jungle from time spent in the army, but I'm quite sure he never left Paris. He once painted a Native American, headdress and all, fighting off a gorilla. And I remember a painting of monkeys with back-scratchers and a milk bottle.”

While Connie and I nattered on about art, working our way through the decades to Jackson Pollock and Willem DeKooning and wondering how anybody in their right mind could call those splattered canvases works of genius, Tim had tossed the block aside and pulled himself to his feet. He clung to the playpen railing with both hands, making cheerful grunting sounds while his untrained legs wobbled unsteadily beneath him.

I saw the problem at once. Lamby, his well-loved plush toy, lay spread-eagle on the carpet. I retrieved Lamby, handed it back to him. My grandson promptly plopped to his well-padded bottom and began chewing on Lamby's tail.

Having exhausted the topic of modern art, I concentrated on helping my daughter fold, crush, and stuff boxes and packing material into an oversized trash can. Still worrying about the argument I'd almost overheard, I asked if everything was all right between her and Dante.

“Of course!” she insisted, dismissing my concerns.

“Emily?” I prodded.

She laid a reassuring hand on my arm. “Everything is
fine
, Mom. We're just under a lot of pressure right now. Besides, we're always snapping at each other. It's just our way.”

If Emily and Dante's recipe for successful marriage had always included lighthearted bickering, I wouldn't have known. This was the first time since they'd left college in Pennsylvania that our daughter and her family had lived close enough for Paul and me to play a significant role in their lives. Frankly, bickering or no bickering, I was relishing it.

After a bit, I said, “Thanks for being patient with your aunt. I love Ruth, but sometimes she can be a royal pain in the ass.”

“You noticed? I half expected her to whip out a deck of tarot cards and offer to tell our fortunes.”

I chuckled. “Do you think marrying Hutch will settle her down any?” After three years, Ruth and her live-in boyfriend, a prominent Annapolis attorney, had set a date for the following November.

“I don't know, Mom, but taking on a moniker like Mrs. Maurice Gaylord Hutchinson the Third would certainly slow
me
down!”

“Speaking of husbands,” Connie said as she stepped down from her stepladder, wiping her paintbrush with a dry cloth, “I promised Dennis I'd meet him for a late lunch.”

“Call the
New York Times
!” I said.

Connie finished cleaning her brushes, slipped them into a wooden box, and began closing up her paints. “They've made an arrest in the Bailey homicide, Hannah. Finally the good lieutenant will get an afternoon off.”

“Until the next case comes along.”

“Let's pray for a crime-free weekend, then,” Connie said, shutting the lid on her paint box. “There are a lot of things that need doing on the farm.”

“As soon as we get the spa on its feet, I'll come help,” I promised, feeling a genuine pang of guilt for neglecting Connie, who was more than a sister-in-law; she was my best friend.

“How are you at roofing barns?” Connie teased.

“I let my fingers do the walking through the yellow pages, just like everyone else,” I said.

I was hugging Connie good-bye when Dante stomped into the room wearing a fresh blue oxford cloth shirt, his ponytail dripping.

“Can you give me a hand, Emily?”

I prayed it wasn't with the lounge chair, but from the sodden looks of him, Dante had that situation well under control.

Emily glanced from her husband to the playpen where Tim had picked up the block and was pummeling Lamby with it. “What's wrong?”

“Don't worry about the baby,” I cut in. “I'll be happy to watch him.”

“On that note, I'm outahere!” Connie blew everyone a kiss and disappeared.

Emily checked her watch. “Tim will be wanting to eat in a few minutes.”

I knew better than to volunteer for
that
. Emily was breast-feeding.

Dante still looked dark, angry. “Hauling that chair out of the pool put a deep scratch into it, right across the logo.”

Emily winced.

Those chairs had cost a pretty penny. Paradiso hadn't opened yet, and already the snake had entered the garden. “Throw a Paradiso towel over it the night of the opening,” I suggested. “No one will ever notice.”

Dante threw me a half grateful smile. “That'll have to do. Come on,” he said to Emily. “You need to sign something. It'll only take a minute.”

“Go ahead,” I told my daughter. “Tim's not going to starve to death in the time it takes you to sign a few papers.”

To tell the truth, ever since I entered the room, I'd been longing to pick up and cuddle my grandson, but since he had been happily entertaining himself, I knew Emily wouldn't have seen the point of it.

Once Emily and Dante were gone, though, I leaned over and lifted Tim from the playpen, adjusted his legs until he was comfortably straddling my hip, and carried him over to the French doors. A squirrel, looking thoroughly out of place in the Japanese-style garden, dropped from the branch of a fir tree and scampered across the flagstones.

“That's a squirrel,” I told my grandson as I opened the doors and carried him outside into the spring sunshine. “Can Tim-Tim say ‘squirrel'?”

Tim's tiny brow furrowed.
Who is this person and why is she talking so goofy?
But when he caught sight of the squirrel, Tim stretched out his arms and squealed in sheer delight. His smile lit up my heart.

What is so special about grandchildren? I wondered. I loved my daughter, of course, but I was absolutely
crazy
about my grandkids. Was it because I felt a sense of failure in raising Emily? Emily had been a sullen and willful child, leaving home after college for a life on the road, incommunicado, learning everything the hard way—from her mistakes, and there had been quite a number of them. Maybe with this child, Tim—or with her older ones, Chloe and Jake—I'd have a second chance.

Tim wrapped his chubby hand around my finger and latched on tightly. He had bright green eyes and a fuzz of fine, peach-colored hair, inherited, I'm proud to say, from my side of the family. Our baby sister, Georgina, had been blessed with hair like that: it was the color of buttered sweet potatoes. I kissed the top of his head thinking,
And just as sweet-smelling, too
.

A Welsh poet once said that perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild. As Tim and I stood in the doorway watching that squirrel scatter a family of sparrows into a clump of ancient boxwood, flapping and cheeping, I knew exactly what that poet meant.

Paul extracted the business section from the Sunday
Capital
, smoothed it out, rested his elbows on the table and began reading. “Well,” he said, glancing from the paper to me over the top of his reading glasses. “It looks like Paradiso's grand opening was an unqualified success.”

I turned the burner under the oatmeal to low and wandered over to check out the paper. Unbelievably, the
Capital
had devoted almost the entire front page of the section to Paradiso's debut. In addition to the article, the editors published three pictures, all in color, all above the fold.

Dante and Kendel Ehrlich, the wife of the Maryland governor, looking radiant as usual, cutting the ribbon.

Emily and Dante grinning broadly, raising glasses of champagne with a group that included Annapolis mayor Ellen Moyer.

A shot of the swimming pool, sparkling like topaz, surrounded by dozens of tuxedo- and evening-gown-clad partygoers.

“That wide-angle lens makes the pool look big as a football field,” I commented.

“It
is
big as a football field,” Paul snorted. “Glad I don't have to maintain it.”

I tapped Dante's photo with my fingertip. “Our son-in-law looks handsome, doesn't he? Black tie was a good call.” I probably sounded smug. Black tie had been my idea.

“Apparently.”

“It was a
fantastic
party.” I sighed, remembering.

“Dante's investors have deep pockets, Hannah.”

Indeed, they had. The guests at the elaborate, invitation-only gala had spilled over from the open bars and hors d'oeuvres tables that surrounded the swimming pool, flowed into the elegant, wood-paneled reception area, and trickled into the gift shop where Alison, Ben, and some of the other guides had taken turns handing out souvenir mugs, pocket calendars, and gold mesh bags of sample-size beauty and health-care products, all emblazoned with the spa logo.

On the veranda, using a sauté pan over a gas ring, François cooked up tortellini to order. Next to him, the sous-chef carved wafer-thin slices of prime rib, turkey, and ham for the guests, who could eat on the veranda, if they chose, or amble down to the beach, where tables and chairs had been set out. At surfside, illuminated by luau torches, another of François's acolytes prepared Mongolian barbecue, using oversized chopsticks to toss personalized meat and vegetable mixtures over a sizzling grill, all to the appreciative oohs and ahs of the hungry crowd.

On the day before opening, though, I feared it would never come together. For weeks the concrete slab had been ready for the gazebo, but it wasn't until late on Friday that a tractor-trailer delivered it—in four parts. Dante freaked when he saw the pieces until the workmen demonstrated how easily the whole thing could be assembled. By the time Tuxedo Junction arrived late Saturday afternoon, set up their instruments, and swung energetically into “String of Pearls,” the orchestra had no clue that the gazebo they were playing in had been moldering in the rose garden for years. And how they played! Big Band music drifted out over the Chesapeake Bay until one o'clock in the morning. Paul and I were among the last to leave the dance floor.