Chapter Thirty-Two
CALLIE
After clearing the last of my mural supplies from the bakery and tossing them into the back of my Subaru, I pinched the phone between my ear and shoulder. Straining to hear my sister’s voice over the sounds of small-town traffic, I slammed the hatchback closed.
“. . . came for you,” Clem said.
I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “What came for me?”
“Some small box. It was just delivered on the doorstep. Maybe the size of an egg carton.”
I let out a tiny squeal, knowing exactly what filled the contents of that box. I’d been waiting on its arrival for weeks. Crazy how the timing felt even more perfect now. “Wonderful, thanks! Would you mind having one of the kids take it to my house?”
“Sure, but now I’m curious. It’s stamped ‘Fragile’ in bright-red ink. What is it?”
“A gift.” Euphoria coursed through me at the thought of Davis’s reaction to the special-order glasses. I’d imagined the moment so many times since we’d left the lake last weekend—how I’d place them on his face and tell him everything I’d been holding back.
He’d spoken those three beautiful words to me a dozen times since our kayaking spill. My hesitancy to reciprocate hadn’t been because I didn’t feel the same way, but because I did.
I knew with unsurpassed certainty that I’d fallen in love with Davis Carter. And not a fleeting, flirty, flippant kind of love either. What we shared wasn’t a summer fling I could leave behind without consequence. This was a love that had drilled through the wall of my doubts and leveled my heart.
I wanted a future with Davis Carter.
Yet unlike him, I hadn’t kept the sentiment sacred. I’d said the words I love you many a time. To many a man. But even if I were able to combine all those moments into one, they still wouldn’t equal what I felt for him.
“I might need your help, Clem. The in-laws are taking Brandon out tonight since it’s their last evening in town . . . which means I get to take Davis somewhere, just the two of us. It’s my pick.”
“Hmm, okay. I’m on it. Just let me know what you’re planning.” Her renewed interest in this conversation was almost comical. I could just imagine her cleaning rag halting midstroke while she bit her lip in concentration.
I leaned against my car door, a nervous energy flipping in my belly. “I will. I should be home in the next fifteen or twenty minutes—just enough time to drop off the last of my paperwork to Mabel and take a shower so I can feel a little less painterlike and a lot more womanlike.”
She laughed. “I’ve been wondering how many more days you were gonna wear those hideous overalls.”
I glanced down at the paint-streaked denim. “Hey—these things might be ugly, but they’re awesome.” Sure, they were two sizes too big, but they were one of my best thrift-store finds to date.
“Well, just so you know, Chris is setting up a movie projector in the backyard for after it gets dark. Beware of the bright-orange extension cord running from your kitchen through the grass.”
“A movie night? On a weekday?” My, how things had changed in the Taylor household.
“Yep. It’s a celebration.”
I racked my mind for a celebration-worthy milestone. But there wasn’t a birthday in August. And their anniversary was in November. “For what?”
“Because today Chris told his boss that if they wanted to keep him around, they’d have to find something else for him to do in the local office, or he’d resign by September 1.”
My mouth gaped wide. Chris had given his boss an ultimatum? “Wow . . .” But even more wow was the fact that I hadn’t heard a trace of panic in my sister’s voice. “I’m shocked.” Until this moment, I wouldn’t have believed Chris would chuck aside the corporate climb altogether. But he’d been willing to. For the sake of his family. My throat constricted with pride in him.
“These last few weeks with him at home have given us both a new perspective. On everything, really.”
I squeezed my eyes closed before a tear escaped. “I’m so happy for you both.”
“Thanks, Sis. Now, get yourself home so I can help you with that mess of hair.”
I laughed. “Okay, I’ll be there soon.”
I pushed off the car and clicked off the phone before heading through the back door of the bakery to deliver my final invoice. I bit my bottom lip at the bright-pink box of crumble donuts with a card that read, To my favorite muralist. Mabel’s kindness hadn’t been the exception when it came to the residents of Lenox. The town was filled with people just like her.
And maybe I could be one of them someday soon.
With half a donut in my mouth, a pink-striped pastry box in my arms, and the bakery door closing at my backside, I stepped over the curb. And came to an abrupt halt.
Vivian Lockwood stood in the center of the alley, her gaze fixated on my finished mural.
I quickly removed the crumble donut from my mouth and set the box on the hood of my car.
“Hi, Vivian.” Had she come for her grandson? “Were you looking for Brandon? Because he rode his bike home about thirty minutes ago. It sounded like Davis had a few chores for him before your dinner tonight.”
Vivian’s regal pivot had me checking for any specks of crumble on my mouth. How did this woman always look as if she were ready to teach etiquette school? Her chin-length bob was perfectly layered and hair-sprayed in place, the same way her teal slacks and cream blouse were free of wrinkles. Glittery accessories dangled from her ears, neck, and wrists, catching the sunlight just right as she clasped her hands near her waistline.
And then there was me, going on day four in my crusty painter’s overalls.
“Actually, Callie, I came to see you.” She smiled prettily and gestured to the wall like a game-show model. “And your mural, of course. Brandon said you asked him to sign it today.”
“Yes, he earned a signature spot for sure. He’s been a wonderful assistant.” I pointed to the place on the wall where Brandon had scribed his name in navy paint. Right below mine. The moment had felt far more monumental that I’d expected it would.
My first Lenox mural had been completed with Davis’s son—a memory I’d cherish.
“Davis wasn’t wrong about you.” Her heels clicked against the rough pavement as she approached the wall. “Your talent really is quite remarkable. The details you’ve included are so . . . full of expression.”
“Thank you.” At her words, something surfaced from the back of my mind, something Davis had told me the first night we’d talked about Stephanie. “Didn’t you pursue painting for a while, too? I know Stephanie was an art history major, but I feel like I remember Davis telling me that you also had an interest in the arts.” The second I spoke her daughter’s name aloud, I wished I could take it back. This was Vivian. It was one thing to feel comfortable speaking to Davis about Stephanie, but I’d yet to have a single comfortable conversation with her mother in the entire week she’d been in Lenox.
“Oh? Davis told you that?” She sounded flattered.
“Yes, he did.” I could recall almost every detail of that particular conversation. That was the night I learned Davis had willingly married a woman with a terminal illness. What kind of man did that?
I could think of only one.
Unblinking, she continued to examine the mural. “I did enjoy painting in my youth. Though, sadly, nothing ever came of it—not like what you’ve created for yourself.” She peered at me from the corner of her eyes as something like a chuckle escaped her throat. “But that’s the price of marriage and kids, I suppose. Hobby time becomes family time. You’re lucky you’ve been able to work so freely—coming and going as you please. You must go a bit stir-crazy when you stay in one place too long.”
“Well, sometimes . . . although, there are a lot of disadvantages to traveling so much, of course.” Disadvantages I’d only begun to uncover this summer. Along with the loneliness I’d never given a name before.
“Oh, of course, but you seem to manage it all so well. On the drive to the lake last weekend, the kids filled me in on all your accolades. Impressive.” She cocked her head to the side. “Amazing, isn’t it, how we’re all equipped so differently in life?”
Whatever she must have seen in my expression encouraged her to keep going. “Take Stephanie, for instance. That girl had a brain for learning and recalling historical facts like nobody I’ve ever known. She could read a textbook from front to back, and by the time she was done telling us about it, we’d all felt as if we’d read it right alongside her.”
“I’m sure that ability must have come in handy during her school studies,” I offered.
“Oh, it did.” She patted the back of her hair, sculpting it with her palm. “It also came in handy during her cardiology appointments.” Again with her light laugh. “My daughter was sweet as sugar when she wanted to be, but goodness, she was stubborn. Every time those doctors told her something couldn’t be done, she was obsessed with proving them wrong.”
What had they told her couldn’t be done? I wondered. “She sounds like a very courageous woman. I’m sure you miss her very much.”
“I do.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip before turning back to me. “We’ve managed to create a wonderful foundation in her honor, which has helped ease the sting on the hardest days, watching donors give and auction off items to sell for the purpose of helping other patients with her condition. But I’ll be honest with you, we struggled when she told us the choice she’d made.”
“The choice?”
“Yes.” Vivian touched the post of her pearl earring and dropped her arm to her side. “Above and beyond my daughter’s love of history, she desired nothing more than becoming a mother. It was her greatest wish in this life, to have a baby of her own.”
Her words rattled inside my rib cage.
Mural forgotten, she narrowed the four-foot gap between us, her focus fixed on me. “I spent most of Stephanie’s childhood wishing I could give her my healthy heart, give my life in exchange for hers. But in the end, it was Stephanie who gave her life for her son’s.”
Air whooshed from my lungs in a hard exhale, my mind too stunned to formulate a reply.
Vivian splayed a hand over her heart. “Forgive me. I assumed with how close you and Davis had become that he would have told you that part of the story. It’s been a sore subject between us for quite some time.”
Confusion swirled inside me, causing me to sway on my feet. “No, I . . . I didn’t know.”
“When she was in her teens, the doctors told her she should never get pregnant. It would weaken her heart and very likely shorten her life. But after she married Davis, she fought those worst-case scenarios with trial studies and research, unbeknownst to anyone else.”
Completely enraptured, a small whisper escaped me. “What happened?”
“She showed up at our house one Tuesday morning with a blueberry muffin in one hand and Davis following behind her. And she just . . . made the announcement. She said, ‘Mom and Dad, I’m pregnant. And it wasn’t an accident.’”
Compassion pricked behind my eyes, and I found myself gripping her hand in my own, wanting to console her. “Oh, Vivian . . .” I wasn’t a mother. Might not ever be a mother. But my heart ached for the fear she must have felt in that moment just the same.
“Her cardiologist was beside himself with worry—told her that if she kept the pregnancy she’d cut fifteen or twenty years off her life. She wouldn’t hear any of that, though. And neither would Davis. Their decision had been made. She died five years later.”
Throat clogged with tears, I couldn’t speak. Not a single word. It felt wrong to apologize when I loved Brandon so much, and I couldn’t begin to imagine Davis without him, but Vivian’s loss . . . it was nothing short of heartbreaking. “I don’t know what to say.”
Her face was unflinching as she said, “Please say you’ll think long and hard before taking on a role as my grandson’s stepmother.”
“What?” It was a cry more than a question, and my hand dropped away from hers. “Vivian, that’s not even in—”
She halted my protest with a shake of her head. “I realize he hasn’t proposed to you yet, but he will soon enough. And when he does, you’ll be making a decision not only for you and him but also for my only grandson as well.”
“Vivian.” Nausea rolled within me as my body flushed hot. Was the alley getting smaller? The walls closer? “I think we’re still a long way off from—”
“My daughter gave her life for her son. She made the ultimate sacrifice. And I would hope that if you had even the slightest reservation about becoming a wife and mother to Davis and Brandon, that you would walk away now before it’s too late.” Vivian shot one final glance at the mural. “You really are extremely talented, Callie. I’d hate to see that go to waste.”
After she drove away, I pressed my back to the brick wall and slid all the way down to the asphalt, unable to stop the memory her words had provoked.
My father knelt before me, wrapping my arms in his rough potter’s hands. “You and me—we’re the same. We’re the dreamers. We weren’t created to be boxed in or limited by anyone or anything. That kind of life will only bring unhappiness in the end—for us, and for everyone we love.”
His gaze flickered back to our front porch where, only a few doors in, my mother sobbed on their bed.
“I know it will be hard when I’m gone. But you are brave, little Fire Dancer, braver than I’ve ever been. You must do everything your heart yearns for, okay? You explore and create and try a million new things. And never, ever limit yourself.” He tapped a pointed finger to the center of my chest. “And remember this—always remember this: For us, there is nothing more important than our freedom. Not even love.”
With glossy eyes, he kissed my forehead, his rusty beard rough against my skin. And then he stood to leave.
“Wait! Daddy, please, you don’t have to leave.”
Tears glistened on his cheeks, and for one long second, his gaze held our house—the only home we’d ever known as a family. His eyes spoke a silent goodbye before turning to me one last time. “Don’t ever forget what I told you, Fire Dancer.”
When he climbed into the driver’s seat of his car, I darted after him, not caring how childish I looked as I clung to his door handle and beat on his window with a hard fist. “No, Daddy! You can’t go!”
If not for Clementine bursting out of the house to restrain me, I would have run alongside his car, thrown myself on the hood, done whatever I could to stop him. I thrashed against my sister’s hold on me. “No! Don’t go!” Wild with fear, I turned to Clem. “We can’t let him leave! He can’t just leave us!”
Tears streamed down her face as she cradled me in her arms.
When fatigue had finally weakened my cries, I buried my face in Clem’s denim jacket, the wholeness of my heart gone forever.
Just like my father.
And no matter where I lived or who I loved . . . I would never be able to outrun the truth about myself.