LIZ
BY THE TIME KENT AND MACY wandered over, Liz was nearly done cleaning up the evidence of her party. She woke at dawn, weary and confused but certain that she had been wrong about some things. Okay, a lot of things. Obviously, the hangover that never materialized, but about bigger matters, too. More significant ones.
The party had been her attempt to ease the symptoms of a disease that Liz was starting to believe she could cure. Why pop a Tylenol if she had access to the antidote? Even if it was a tough pill to swallow. But things had spiraled out of control and she had been left raw and aching, convinced of her own complicity in sins of the past. Sins of omission—ones she once hoped she would never have to atone for.
Now what? At the very least she had set the ball rolling. Bennet Van Eps knew that she had a granddaughter. A granddaughter who was shrouded in mystery and secreted away like something filthy, obscene. It made Liz sick to her stomach. But, damn it, something would happen. Liz had spent too much time letting other people chart the course of her life to settle for the back seat now.
“I think I have a God complex,” Liz said when Macy handed her a to-go cup with a stamped Sandpoint sleeve. She sipped it immediately. Still piping hot, just the way she liked it. But she wasn’t comforted. Liz was convinced she didn’t deserve even the littlest of pleasures.
Kent laughed, oblivious to her mood. “You’re just figuring this out?”
“Don’t be mean.” Macy smacked his bottom good-naturedly.
“I’m serious.” Liz took another sip of her toffee latte and fixed Kent with a grave look.
“Me too.”
Macy swung at him again, but he twisted away from her and grabbed a full garbage bag in each hand. “I think I’ll leave you ladies to it,” he said. “Looks like Liz has this thing in the bag.”
Kent laughed at his own bad pun all the way around the side of the house and until he was out of earshot. Liz had no doubt that he would continue to cackle over his quick-wittedness for the rest of the day. How exasperating. For once, she didn’t envy Macy and her whole, hale husband.
No, Liz poked at that idea, worrying it like a loose tooth. She had never envied Macy and her living, breathing spouse. Not even in the immediate aftermath of losing Jack Sr. Being alone wasn’t so bad; she rather liked the independence. In fact, saying goodbye to her husband had been a relief.
But what a terrible thing to think! Liz would have gasped, but there was hot coffee in her mouth and she ended up swallowing it too fast. It burned all the way down and she coughed and sputtered, her eyes watering.
“You okay?” Macy thumped her friend on the back, then took her by the elbow and led her to the low brick wall that flanked one edge of the patio. “Sit down, I don’t think you’re quite yourself.”
“I’m a monster,” Liz managed when she had caught her breath. Her throat stung and she had to dab at the wetness that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.
“That’s ridiculous! You’re perfectly lovely, Liz. In every way.”
“You have to say that. You’re my best friend.”
“I am?”
“Of course you are. See? How could you not know you’re my best friend?”
“Well, it’s just—”
“Clearly I’m a terrible person.” Liz didn’t realize she was flinging the cup around until a little splatter of camel-colored coffee exploded on Macy’s white blouse like an act of violence. “Now look at what I’ve done!”
Macy ignored the stain, wresting the cup from Liz’s grip and placing it carefully on the ground behind her. “What in the world has gotten into you?” she asked, taking Liz by the arms. “Pull yourself together!”
But Liz found she didn’t much want to pull herself together. She felt off, to be sure, but it wasn’t as bad as she imagined it would be. It was actually rather freeing. A bit intoxicating. She felt the need to confess, to unburden herself of some of the many ways in which she tried to play God. The ways she had covered up and pretended and downright lied. “I watch people through Jack’s old telescope,” she blurted.
“Is that what you’re upset about?” Macy pursed her lips, making her laugh lines deepen. “That’s hardly a secret. Everyone knows what Jack really bought it for. And your windows aren’t as opaque as you think they are.”
Well, that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Liz had hoped it would be. She tried again. “One of the reasons I threw the party last night was because I hoped that Quinn and Bennet would reconnect. I thought that maybe . . .” She couldn’t finish. Apparently she had already exceeded the limits of her newfound boldness.
But Macy wasn’t fazed by this either. She pulled Liz’s hands into her lap and patted them soothingly. “Bennet is a good boy and it broke your heart when Quinn left him. Those kids don’t stop to think about how much we come to love their circle of friends. Bennet was like a son to you. For years.”
Liz blinked. “He was.”
“I know he was, honey. And then he was just gone. It was practically like a death in the family.”
“It was.” Liz’s eyes filled with tears and she didn’t even bother to whisk them away. They hovered, heavy and indulgent against her lower lashes. Thank goodness her mascara was smudge proof and waterproof.
“And then Quinn took off to California and came home with a new husband . . .” Macy tsked, shaking her head. “A stranger.”
“Walker was a stranger!”
“How were you supposed to feel?”
“Betrayed,” Liz confided. “I thought of all my kids Quinn would stay in Key Lake and marry someone local and get regular manicures with me at Halo.”
“I know.” Macy nodded. “But he’s very handsome, isn’t he?” She tipped her head and looked away, a thoughtful expression settling over her features.
Liz could almost see the wheels spinning in Macy’s head, and it suddenly made her feel defensive. Almost possessive. She felt her emotions spin on a dime. “Very handsome,” Liz confirmed, sniffing away her tears. “He’s an artist, you know.”
Where had that come from? Jack didn’t like artists. He said they were freeloaders and hacks; that a five-year-old with finger paints could do a better job than most of the famous prints that hung in the Art Institute of Chicago. They had gone at her insistence during a long-ago family vacation and stayed for less than an hour. His sneer had come as she had studied one of Van Gogh’s bedroom paintings. Blue walls, red bedspread, hat hung askance on a hook. The windows were cracked open and the sun was shining. For one sparkling moment Liz could imagine herself sweeping the shawl that hung near the door over her shoulders and stepping out into a world all green and gold. It seemed both a fairy tale and a distinct possibility. She could live in that painting.
“Let’s go,” Jack Sr. had said. And though they had barely scraped the surface of the treasure that was the Institute, they went.
“I love art,” Liz said, more to herself than to Macy. “I love it.”
“Good for you,” Macy said, still stroking Liz’s hands like a lap dog.
Liz pulled away and sat up straighter. Jack Sanford had not been a good man. True, he was steady and levelheaded and hardworking. He had made a way for himself in a world that favored the lucky, the people who were born with privilege and a place at the table. Jack Sr. had none of those things. But he took a small farmer’s inheritance and made something of it, built a legacy for his wife and kids and fought for it every day of his life. If he argued the validity of a bootstraps philosophy, it was only because he pulled himself up by them. A success story.
But for all his vim and vigor (piss and vinegar, as Liz’s father always said), Jack had not been a man who recognized beauty. Who loved deeply. Who gave extravagantly. When Liz thought of him, she thought of his big hand swallowing hers. Pinching. She thought of his arms around that teenager, the look in his eyes. Most of all, her heart seized at the memory of his confession, so many years ago, and the way that it wasn’t a confession at all: it was a proclamation that things would remain exactly as they had always been. Period.
And she had let it be so.
“I have to go,” Liz said, standing up. She was being abrupt, obtuse, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “Thank you for your help.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Macy followed her lead, but she rose slowly, confused.
“Yes, you did.” Liz turned to go but thought better of it at the last moment and spun to envelop Macy in a hug. A real hug, not the halfhearted, light-fingered, skimming caress that they had perfected over the years. That so-called embrace was anemic and ineffectual. Liz squeezed Macy until she felt the air go out of her lungs. And then she backed away as tears filled her eyes. “Go for a walk with me later today?”
Macy’s eyebrows seemed permanently knit together. “But it’s Saturday.”
“So what?” Liz choked.
“Where are you going?” Macy called as Liz strode away.
“I have to talk to Quinn.”
“You might want to call her first. Or text?”
“Not this time.”
“Oh! Liz!”
She turned at the French doors to see Macy still framed in the shadow of the pergola, the trumpet vines arching over her in a chorus of green and orange. Her friend was digging in the back pocket of her white Bermuda shorts, reaching for something that she had tucked there. It was a piece of paper, folded several times over until it was a fat little rectangle.
“Here,” Macy said, walking toward Liz and waving it in front of her. “I almost forgot. Kent and I found this stapled to the light pole in front of your house.”
“What is it?”
“A flyer.”
Liz took the paper and unfolded it quickly. There was no sense of foreboding, no premonition that alerted her to the fact that everything was about to change. The truth was, Liz was as buoyant with a fierce, defiant hope as she had ever been—and spreading out that innocuous sheet was little more than an indulgence. She didn’t want to be bothered by minutiae right now, but because she loved Macy she decided to acquiesce. What could it possibly be? A page of coupons? A notice for an upcoming concert? An advertisement for a local boy who hoped to procure some summer lawn-mowing jobs?
It was a picture.
A little girl with long blond hair and eyes the color of sandstone and moss. Of Key Lake before a storm. Of the buds on Liz’s hydrangea bush on the day before they unfurled in full bloom.
Liz knew those eyes.
She felt her heart flutter and fail, the oxygen leaching from the tips of her fingers and the furthest edges of her toes so that she was faint and unstable.
What now? she thought. But the only thing that she could do in the moment was sink to the ground in front of her French doors, her back pressed painfully against the cool glass.