Butternut Summer (6 page)

But Jack remembered now that he'd left the engine running in his pickup, and he went back outside to turn it off. When he came into the cabin again, he forced himself to go through it, slowly and methodically this time. He flicked the light switches on and off. Nothing. He turned on the water in the kitchen tap. There was silence, then an ominous gurgling sound, and finally, the faucet spit out something that looked like coffee. He waited until it ran clear, or as close to clear as it was going to get, and then he stuck his head under it, looking for some relief from the heat. But the tepid water didn't give him much. He turned off the tap, looked around for something to dry his face with, and settled for his T-shirt.

He finished inspecting the kitchen. There was a refrigerator and a stove, both disconnected, both covered with an ancient layer of grime. And that was about it. That and some old pots and pans, and some chipped crockery in the cupboards, and a box of macaroni on a dusty shelf in the pantry. Jack turned and left the little kitchen before he got too discouraged, but the living room wasn't much better. It held a couch with the stuffing poking through, a scuffed coffee table, and a lamp whose shade had an ominous burn mark on it. The corners of the room were full of dust bunnies and festooned with spider's webs as intricate as May Day streamers.

Jack remembered now there were also two bedrooms, and he went to find them. The smaller one was empty, except for an old box spring, but the larger one was the only room in the cabin that looked as if someone had put any care or thought into it. It had a bed with a patchwork quilt spread neatly over it, a doily-covered bedside table, and a rocking chair in one corner. There was a little framed needlepoint hanging on the wall, too. “God Bless this House,” it said.
Strange
, Jack thought. Wayland hadn't seemed like the religious type to him, and there certainly wasn't much to bless about this house, but still, you never knew about people. They could surprise you.

He left that bedroom, and, after poking his head into a small but apparently serviceable bathroom, he made his way back to the living room. He had some idea about bringing the rest of the gear in from his truck now, but he didn't. Instead, he went and lay down on the lumpy couch and stared up at the ceiling. Noticing a chink of blue sky between one of the rafters, Jack sighed. He'd actually brought some camping gear with him—a sleeping bag and a few lanterns. But now he was wishing he'd thought to bring a tent, too. It would have offered better protection from the elements than this cabin. Oh, well. What difference did it make, really. He closed his eyes. He hadn't come back for this godforsaken place, anyway. He'd come back for Caroline . . .

Caroline
. He'd told himself he was prepared to see her again today. But he'd been wrong. He hadn't been prepared at all. Because the moment he'd seen her, all his preparations had gone straight out the window. Maybe it was because she'd been so angry, much angrier than he'd expected her to be. Had he ever seen her that angry before? he wondered. But then he realized he had, a couple of times, when they were still married, and he'd stayed out all night drinking, playing poker, and . . . but he pushed the thought of the other women out of his mind. He would concentrate on the present, not the past. He wouldn't think about the past any more than was absolutely necessary. He couldn't; it was too dangerous for him.

So instead he pictured Caroline as she'd been today, angry, yes, but beautiful, too, beautiful in a wholly unexpected way. And he almost winced, remembering that, as a young man, he'd believed that as a woman aged she got less attractive, as if she were a carton of milk with an expiration date stamped on her. How wrong he'd been, how stupid. Not to mention shallow. Because in the years since he'd last seen her, Caroline hadn't gotten
less
attractive, she'd gotten
more
attractive. There had been some changes, of course. There were some tiny lines now around her eyes and mouth that hadn't been there before. But they didn't make her any less desirable. And the other changes, the changes that were harder to put his finger on, made her more desirable. Her face, for instance, seemed just slightly softer and fuller now than it had been before. And her strawberry-blond hair, her gift to their daughter, Daisy, was just a shade darker, her blue eyes just a shade brighter. He wasn't sure what it was, exactly, but whatever it was about her that had changed, she was lovelier now than she'd ever been before. And it was killing him.

He thought about getting up now, and starting his life here, such as it was—bringing his gear in from the truck, making a run to the grocery store, maybe even stopping in at the hardware store to get some of the stuff he was going to need to get started on this place. But he didn't move. Didn't open his eyes, either. Instead, Jack was paralyzed by a new fear. He'd been afraid to see Caroline again, but he hadn't been afraid of failing, not in the long run. Now he wasn't so sure. It was possible he'd underestimated the depth of her dislike—no,
her hatred
—for him. And the way he and Daisy had set it all up might not have been the best idea they'd ever had.

Poor Daisy. She must be getting an earful from her mom now. He'd make a point, the next time he spoke to Caroline—and there
would
be a next time—to shoulder more of the blame. To shoulder
all
of the blame, if he possibly could. Because the last thing he wanted was to somehow interfere in Daisy and Caroline's relationship. He knew they were close. They'd had to be; for all those years, they were the only family either of them had had.

He felt a familiar stab of guilt now, so sharp this time it made him open his eyes and sit up on the couch. He blinked and looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time.
God, this place is hopeless
, he thought. And he'd been a fool to think it might be otherwise. But then something else occurred to him. Because if the cabin wasn't the way he remembered it being twenty years ago—what with all the basic amenities, like a roof that would keep out the rain—it also didn't have any of the fringe benefits that it had had back then. Like a refrigerator full of ice cold beer waiting to be emptied out. And that, Jack Keegan knew, was a very good thing.

D
aisy, what were you thinking?” Caroline asked that night, back at their apartment above the coffee shop. She was in crisis mode now, doing what she always did when she was in crisis mode: sitting at the kitchen table and drinking black coffee.

“I
wasn't
thinking,” Daisy admitted. “I'm sorry. In retrospect, it was a bad idea.”

“
In retrospect?
”

“Okay, it was
always
a bad idea. But, Mom? Tell me the truth. If I'd told you he was coming, would you have agreed to see him?”

Caroline closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. “No,” she said.

“I didn't think so.”

She opened her eyes again and looked at Daisy. Daisy, who suddenly seemed so young, so anxious, and so . . .
so hopeful
. And Caroline relented—but only a little. Because while she knew her daughter's intentions, however misguided they might seem, had been good, she was also hurt that Daisy had kept a secret like this from her, and kept it from her for so long. Still, feeling disappointed with Daisy was such an unfamiliar feeling to her that she tried to brush it away.

“Look, I'm not angry,” she said. “Or at least I'm trying very hard not to be. But, Daisy, there's a whole history between your father and me that you can't possibly understand. And I have to believe that if you did understand that history, you would know that it could never be erased over a single lunch.”

“Mom, I know that. I do, really. And I don't want you to erase it. I just want you to . . . to give him a chance, I guess,” she said, with a little shrug.

“A chance to what?” Caroline asked, immediately tensing.

“A chance to prove to you he's different. I mean, different from how he was when you were married to him.”

Caroline frowned. There was something about Daisy's choice of words that bothered her. And she was suddenly reminded of a movie that Daisy had loved as a child, a movie she'd watched over and over and over again. In it, twin daughters had schemed, successfully, to get their long divorced parents back together again. God, how Caroline had hated that movie, and its easy, fairy-tale ending.

“Daisy, your father and I have lived apart for eighteen years,” she said, carefully. “We've been divorced for more than sixteen of those years. And we got divorced because we were completely, and totally, incompatible.”
Well, that and your father was a serial adulterer
.

“So,” she went on, “even if I didn't already have someone else in my life whom I care about—and I care about Buster very much—there would be no possibility of your father and me getting back together again. None whatsoever. And I know your father feels the same way. You understand that, don't you?”

“Of course,” Daisy said, flushing with either embarrassment or disappointment, Caroline wasn't sure which.

“Because I've heard of the children of divorced parents fantasizing about their parents getting back together again,” Caroline continued pointedly. “And you need to know, that is not going to happen here.”

“Mom, please, I'm twenty-one. I'm old enough to know the difference between a Disney movie and real life,” Daisy objected. But her cheeks were still pink.

“Good,” Caroline said, only slightly mollified. “Now, if you want to continue the . . . the friendship you and your father have begun, then obviously, that's different. I can't tell you what to do with your own life.”
Although God knows, in this case, I'd like to
. “But I can warn you, Daisy, that your father is not reliable. Or trustworthy.” Here Caroline flashed on a memory of Jack coming home at six o'clock in the morning. Still slightly drunk, still reeking of perfume—some
other
woman's perfume. “When it comes to your father,” she added, “you should proceed with caution.”

“I will,” Daisy said. But then her chin jutted out stubbornly, and she said, “But I'll remember what you taught me, Mom. That everyone deserves a second chance.”

Well, not everyone
, Caroline thought, but didn't say.

Daisy, sensing her skepticism, persisted. “I mean, you thought Frankie deserved a second chance. And Frankie's an ex-con.”

“Frankie was a very special case,” Caroline said.

“Mom, he
killed
a man.”

“Yes, he did,” Caroline said, calmly. “But you know as well as I do, Daisy, that there were extenuating circumstances.” Extenuating circumstances that Frankie had only recently told her about. “Frankie did what he did in self-defense. He was trying to protect his sister from an abusive husband, and that husband, it turned out, had a knife. Even so, Frankie paid the price for his actions. He did his time. And there's nothing now he wouldn't do for you, or for me, or for Pearl's, for that matter.”

Daisy nodded. “You're right, Mom. When it comes to second chances, Frankie
is
a special case. But, Mom, people change.”

Caroline sighed. Daisy was just young enough, and just naive enough, to actually believe this. And now she worried that all the time Daisy had spent in libraries over the last several years had taught her a lot about academic subjects, but not a lot about the real world. Because in Caroline's experience, most people didn't change; most people stayed the same. And, as she poured herself another cup of coffee, she remembered an old adage about this.

“Daisy, do you know what my grandmother Pearl used to say?”

“What?”

“She used to say ‘a leopard never changes its spots.'”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Mom, this is the same woman who made her husband drink cream every day because she thought it was good for his heart.”

“Well, yes. She did do that,” Caroline admitted. “But she had a point about those spots.”

“Maybe for some people that's true,” Daisy allowed. “But Dad's changed, Mom. I know he has.”

“
Dad?
” Caroline echoed. The surprises just kept coming today.

“Yes, Dad,” Daisy said, a little defensively. “Because that's what he is, Mom. My dad.”

“Well,
biologically
, yes,” Caroline started to say, but something about the set of Daisy's chin made her stop. Instead, she sipped her coffee.

“I didn't call him that right away,” Daisy said, after a moment of silence. “I didn't call him
anything
right away. But that felt strange. So after I'd seen him a few times, I started calling him Jack. And that felt wrong, too. Then, one day, this spring, I just . . . I just called him Dad.” She blushed again but added stubbornly, “And despite what you say, Mom, he
has
changed.”

“Okay, then,” Caroline said, changing tack. “How has he changed?”

“He just has,” Daisy said evasively. “I'll let him tell you how.”

“But that's where you're wrong, Daisy,” Caroline said. “Your father's not going to tell me how he's changed. He's not going to tell me
anything
. Because I'm not going to ask him anything. I'm not interested in him, or his life, anymore, except as it pertains to you.”

Daisy started to say something, then stopped. She knew Caroline well enough to know that they'd reached a stalemate on this topic. “If it's okay with you, Mom,” she said, after a moment, “I think I'll go to bed early.”

“Of course it's okay.”

“And you and I . . .
we're
okay?” Daisy asked.

“We will be. Just . . . just give me a few days. And, Daisy . . . no more surprises, all right? Not for a little while, anyway.”

“You have my word on that,” Daisy promised, reaching for Caroline's hand on the tabletop and giving it a quick squeeze. They stood up then, Caroline to take her coffee cup to the sink, and Daisy to leave the kitchen. But in the doorway, Daisy stopped and turned back.