An Accidental Woman (31 page)

Micah grunted. “Well, I'm getting tired of it. I have emotions, too. I have feelings. I have two little girls, and I don't know what to say. These things are starting to come out, and all I can think is that I don't know the half.”

Poppy might have said the same thing herself. She hadn't expected all this. Nor had she expected to feel guilty on Heather's behalf, but that did explain why she felt such a need to defend her. “About the baby, I'm sure she thought you'd be hurt.”

Micah obviously had considered that. Silent as he usually was, he was eloquent now. “She could have said it was a hard pregnancy and that she couldn't survive another one. She could have said that after giving one baby up she couldn't bear to have another. I wouldn't have agreed with
her, but it would have been better than her saying nothing. And you—you were her friend, Poppy. Woman to woman, she couldn't tell you? Doesn't that bother you?”

“Yes,” Poppy said. It bothered her a lot. “But I don't know the circumstances surrounding that baby's birth.”

“Because she won't say.”

Poppy sat back. She didn't know where to go with the discussion, particularly with Griffin sitting right there. He was staying out of it, and wisely so, but she knew he was listening.

So she felt she couldn't say more, certainly couldn't make the kinds of arguments that might convince Micah. Besides, defending Heather was one thing; moving ahead was another. And they did need to move ahead.

Facing Micah with a new resolve, she said, “Maybe she needs help. Maybe we need to say the words for her. Break the ice. Let her know it's okay.”

Micah went to the table and gathered sandwich wrappers. “I don't know if I can say it's okay,” he confessed, but more quietly.

The statement disturbed Poppy. She turned her chair to follow him. “You can't forgive her?”

He crumpled up the wrappers.

Micah was a good person. He was honest and decent and loyal. Poppy needed to believe that he was capable of forgiveness—and if he wasn't, she didn't want to know. Besides, Star was waiting. “Can we talk about this again another time?” she asked.

He pushed the crumpled wrappers into the trash can. Straightening, he frowned. Finally, he gave a short nod.

She gave his arm a squeeze, then turned and wheeled out the door.

Griffin followed her to the Blazer. He didn't push the argument, didn't ask how she understood Heather so well, didn't mention Poppy's accident, though she knew that he knew there was a connection. Seconds before she was on the lift, he cupped her head from behind, tipped it back, and kissed her forehead. “You're a very kind person,” he said.

She didn't say a word. She couldn't. Her throat was too tight.

* * *

Star was more interested in the cat than the TV. “Does she sleep with you?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” Poppy said. “Every night. I think she likes the down comforter. See how it makes a little nest around her?”

“If her eyes are closed all the time, how do you know she's sleeping?”

“See the way she's curled up with her head on her paws? It's a safe bet she's napping.”

“Her ears are moving.”

“She's listening to us talk.”

Star whispered a dramatic, “Shhhhhhh,” and lightly, very lightly, stroked the cat's orange fur. She giggled when Victoria nosed around to her palm. Moments later, the cat was up, wading across the comforter to the foot of the bed. “Nap's done,” the little girl sang, then gasped when the cat seemed to fall off the end. Star scrambled up on all fours, crawled to the edge of the bed, and looked over.

“She's okay,” she reported to Poppy. “I think she wants to be closer to the TV.”

Victoria went up on her hind legs against the bureau. Seconds later, she tried to jump up. Her claws missed by a fraction of an inch. She missed a second time, but made it the third. Leading with her whiskers, she explored the TV.

Star snuggled up against Poppy again and, considerately, whispered, “Does she know she's blind?”

“Not like we would,” Poppy whispered back. “Not consciously.”

“So she doesn't feel bad about it?”

“What's to feel bad about? It looks to me like there isn't much she can't do.”

“She can't see birds.”

“But she can hear them, better than we can. I watched her yesterday. She was at the window listening to a big old crow outside.”

“Daddy hears the crows. That's how he knows the sap's coming. Poppy, the kitty's eyes are always closed. Does she have eyes—I mean,
real
eyes—inside?”

“I think so,” Poppy said, though she doubted it. She assumed that Victoria's lids had been sewn shut precisely because there was nothing behind them, but she feared the starkness of that would upset the child.

“If her lids are down,” Star mused, “everything's dark all the time. That would scare me. I don't like the dark. But she doesn't seem scared. She just keeps trying things.” Star squealed then. “Look, she's up on
top
of the TV. She isn't scared
at all.
”

“Cats are curious—more curious than scared.”

Star tipped her head back in the hollow of Poppy's shoulder, so that her eyes met Poppy's. They had lost all humor. “Momma says I shouldn't be afraid, but I can't help it sometimes.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“The dark.”

“What else?”

“Daddy leaving.”

Poppy was about to assure her that Micah wouldn't leave, when Star went on. “I'm afraid of Missy locking me in the bathroom and no one knowing I'm there. If I was a cat, I could climb out the window and jump down and then go around the front and come in the front door and scare Missy. I wish I was a cat.”

Poppy gave her a hug and held on, because Star was the most beautiful child in the world, making this moment sweet when so much else was sour.
Not sour,
Poppy reminded herself.
Scary.
If Poppy were a cat, she might be handling things better. She might be confronting Heather, or telling Maida the truth. Or kissing Griffin.

Star gave her an excuse to put off these thoughts. The child was warm. She demanded nothing but Poppy's arms—gave Poppy the same kind of unconditional love that Victoria did. Just then, she seemed perfectly content, and that was important to Poppy. She needed to know that she could do this right, if only for a little while. She needed to focus on Star so she didn't fixate on Griffin or Maida, or Perry, or Heather, or the baby that had been given up for adoption. Especially not on that.

Had things been different, Poppy might have liked to have a baby. She could admit that to herself. It would have been nice, had things been different.

* * *

But Tuesday nights were for the Lake Henry Hospitality Committee, which meant that Marianne, Sigrid, and Cassie were coming. Poppy half wished it wasn't so. She knew they would be talking about Heather, rehashing old stuff, imagining new, getting nowhere. She half wished she could spend the evening with Griffin.

Instead, she gave him a rain check for Wednesday night, though when the time came around she was having second thoughts. She had showered in advance, had put on a silk shirt, black jeans, and boots, had fiddled with her hair and her eyes and her cheeks—all things that she absolutely should not have done, lest he think this was a date.

But she owed him for helping Micah, which he continued to do, and he was coming here each day to shower anyway, with or without news to report about Heather, and he had a right to see his cat, though Poppy had absolutely no intention of letting him take the cat to Princeton.

Besides, Poppy liked him.

So she set two places in the kitchen, using the brick red placemats, napkins, and coasters that Sigrid had woven for her at Christmas, and had just finished checking on the Rock Cornish hen in the oven when he showed up fresh from the shower. He looked delightfully damp, smelled decidedly good, produced a bottle of wine that was definitely a grade above her usual, and promptly uncorked it.

“We're celebrating,” he announced, filling two glasses. “Aidan Greene's been found.”

Poppy's eyes opened wide. There were so many things to ask, along
with the fear of asking
any
of them. So she settled for a simple, “Oh my.”

Griffin smiled as he handed her a glass. “Micah had the exact same ambivalence on his face, like finding Aidan Greene is at the same time the best news and the worst.”

Quietly, Poppy explained, “I feel an affinity for Heather.” She didn't want to hear anything bad. But there might be something good. So she asked a cautious, “Is Aidan Greene someone we want to acknowledge?”

“My guess is yes. He was Rob DiCenza's best friend.”

Poppy's heart sank. A best friend would take Rob's side. “Well then, he
won't
help.”

“He wouldn't at the time of the accident.” Griffin opened the oven and peered inside. “Did you make this?”

“My mom did. I just put it in the oven.”

“It smells incredible.” He closed the door and straightened. “At the time, Aidan Greene said he was in the men's room that night and nowhere near the field of cars when the accident happened. Later, when the police questioned him about the relationship between Rob and Lisa, he gave the party line. Less than a year after that, though, he pretty much disappeared.”

“Disappeared,” Poppy asked, “as in
he
had something to do with Heather's baby?” The baby remained foremost in her mind.

“Disappeared,” Griffin corrected, “as in left Sacramento and slipped off the radar screen. He had a great job with the DiCenza Foundation, but he quit it, moved away, let friendships die. That's why we had a hard time finding him. People suggested he might be in different places, but no one knew for sure.”

“So where is he?”

“Minneapolis. He's a school counselor there. He has a wife and two kids, and lives the kind of quiet, careful life that keeps his name out of newspapers, social circles, police blotters. Ralph tracked him down through a cousin who accidentally bumped into him in an airport.”

Poppy took a drink of her wine. She didn't want to know. But she
had
to know. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. Ralph hasn't approached him yet. He thought I might want to do it myself, but I can't—at least, not for another two or three days, until the tubing's all up. So he'll approach the guy himself tomorrow.”