Custody (42 page)

The shades were down in René’s bedroom, which, Kelly decided, was a blessing. The room was a sty. The bed had no headboard, the bureau screamed
tag sale
, and clothes were piled everywhere. The air was fragrant, though, and Kelly found a bottle of Poison on the bureau, next to a tangle of jewelry that even in this light gleamed its authenticity: heavy gold, real diamonds.
No doubt the charming Elizabeth. This time René had, literally, struck gold. She felt no sense of her mother in this room, and she left, pulling the door closed behind her.

The kitchen was her mother’s, she could tell. Or had been. Crusted dishes towered in the sink, and wineglasses with lipstick stains lined the counters along with mugs of cold coffee. But copper-bottomed pans once belonging to her grandparents hung in neat lines behind the stove, their bottoms, after all these years, still gleaming. African violets sat on the windowsills. Her mother had loved African violets, docile, patient creatures like herself. Now the leaves hung limp, desperate for water if not already dead. Kelly found a box and set them inside.

The dining room table was buried beneath piles of magazines, newspapers, mail, and a stack of black-and-white glamour shots of René. A glint of silver caught her eye. From beneath phone books, calendars, and
TV Guides
, Kelly unearthed a double frame: Felicity, about seven years old, in a
Lion King
sweatshirt, her black hair gathered in a scrunchie, clutching a stuffed lion, laughing. And Kelly, also about seven, her blond hair in neat braids tied with tartan ribbons that matched her smocked cotton school-dress.

Her mother’s daughters. Together in this frame, which might have sat at the end of the table where Ingrid could see them while she paid the household bills.

She tucked the frame into her purse.

Off the kitchen, in a kind of mudroom/pantry, Kelly found a pillowcase stuffed with discarded clothing, too old and out of style to belong to Felicity. Quickly she sorted through it: stained, torn underwear; a terry-cloth robe with a ripped pocket; jeans worn at the knees, sweaters stretched out of shape and shabby. Sadness and a terrible guilt filled Kelly at the thought that her lovely mother had had to resort to wearing clothes like these. Perhaps Felicity had already taken the good things to the thrift shop. Perhaps these were meant to be thrown out.

At the bottom, a treasure. A sweater hand-knit from fine strong wool, dark blue with red hearts and white flowers across the bodice and around the hem of the sleeves. She could remember her mother knitting this, so many years ago. Bringing the sweater to her face, she inhaled its scent and thought she could detect her mother’s fragrance, as faint and pale as a rose in November.

“Kelly? We’re ready!”

Felicity’s voice snapped her back to the present. Sweater in hand, Kelly rose, leaving the other abandoned garments behind.

Randall braked his Jeep to a halt, threw himself out, and raced into the house.

“Dad?”

His father wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Randall took the steps to the second floor two at a time.

He found Mont lying on the bedroom floor. He’d crawled into the room and pulled the phone down next to him. He’d dragged Madeline’s old pink robe down on top of him as a covering. He lay curled and still and gray.

“Dad.” Randall’s heart was galloping.

Mont opened his eyes. “I’m all right. Don’t fuss. Just help me up, will you? I need to go to the bathroom.”

Randall moved behind his father, bent, and put his arms under his father’s arms, lacing his fingers together across the old man’s chest. He heaved. Mont grunted and, staggeringly, rose.

“Does anything hurt?”

“
Everything
hurts,” Mont groused. “I ache all over. And I’m cold. It’s just the shock of the fall. I need a pee and a shot of whiskey and a hot bath and a long nap, and then I’ll be as good as new.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to drive you over to the hospital? Have a doctor look at you?”

“You’re a doctor. You’re looking at me right now, for God’s sake. Now get me into the bathroom before I embarrass myself.”

Randall half carried him into the bathroom. “Want some help with your clothes?”

Mont growled a negative. The right side of his face was bruised and swollen.

“I’ll get your whiskey.”

In the dining room Randall found the Dewar’s and two heavy cut-glass tumblers. He poured a stiff drink for his father and one for himself as well: preventive medicine. He tossed back a swallow before heading back up the stairs. It had given him quite a scare, seeing his father like that. He just wasn’t ready for the man to be feeble. Not yet.

Upstairs, he knocked on the bathroom door.

“Just a minute.” The toilet flushed. “Come on in.”

Mont leaned against the bathroom wall. He took a tumbler from Randall and drank. “Good.” He shook his head. “Don’t look so terrified, Randall. I’m all right.”

“You’ve got a contusion along the left side of your face.”

“I imagine I’ve got bruises all up and down my entire body,” Mont told him. “I’ve got
some Epsom salts in the cupboard. If you’d be good enough to run me a hot bath and fill it with salts, I think I’ll be just fine.”

“You’re sure? The hot water might make you woozy.”

“If it does, I’ll go to bed. I want to go to bed, anyway. I need a good rest. But a bath and a drink and a nap are all I need, Randall, so relax. I’m just an old man who fell off a ladder and feels a little discomposed. That’s all.”

Randall scrutinized his father. His eyes were clear, and the gray was slowly seeping out of his face, replaced by a healthy pink.

“Okay.” Turning, he fitted the rubber plug into the drain of the old claw-foot bathtub, then turned on the taps full blast, adjusting it to make it hot but not scalding. He took the Epsom salts from the cabinet and dumped in a good dose. “I took Tessa for breakfast this morning,” he said. “Sarah phoned and asked Anne and Tessa to visit next weekend, and Anne can’t because of the campaign, so I’m going to go and take Tessa.” When the water was almost at the top of the tub, he turned it off. “There.”

Mont shook his head. “I didn’t hear a word you just said. The water drowned you out.”

Randall grinned back. “Sorry. I’ll tell you later. Want me to help you undress?”

“No, thanks. I’m okay now.”

“Tell you what. I’ll wait outside the door. You give a call if you need help getting in or out of the tub.” At his father’s expression he hurried to add, “The hot water might make you dizzy.”

“All right,” Mont said. “Go on. I’ll call you if I need you.”

While his father bathed, Randall used the bedroom phone to pick up messages from his answering machine. Kelly’s half sister was moving into her apartment today? So much for time alone with Kelly. He’d known that real life with all its complications would have to intrude on their idyllic relationship. He just hadn’t thought it would happen so soon.

“Toss me my pajamas, would you?” Mont called.

Randall found his father’s blue-and-white-striped cotton pajamas from beneath his pillow, opened the bathroom door, and laid them on the closed toilet. “Okay?”

“Fine.”

“More Scotch?”

“That would be good.” Mont’s scrawny arm appeared, an empty glass in his hand.

Randall went back downstairs, filled the glass half-full, and brought it back up.

Mont was propped up in bed, waiting. Wearing his pajamas, and over them, Madeline’s old pink robe.

“For God’s sake, Dad. You look like an idiot.”

Mont grabbed the glass of Scotch, swigged a hearty swallow, and set the glass on the bedside table. “Look. I’ve fallen. I’m tired. I ache all over. The air-conditioning makes me feel chilled. Madeline’s robe comforts me. If the Governor and his wife pay a call, I’ll take the robe off, but just for the next hour or so, I’m going to wear the damned thing. All right?”

Randall smiled. “The fall doesn’t seem to have affected your mind.” He went out of the room. “Call me if you need anything. I’m going to clean up Tessa’s room. It looks great, by the way.”

Mont slid down in the bed, pulling the soft old cotton sheet and the light quilt Madeline had made by hand fifty years ago up to his shoulders. “You’ll be here till I wake up?”

“I will. And you
will
wake up, Dad.”

Eleven

K
ELLY REALIZED THAT MOST PEOPLE WHO CAME TO
N
ANTUCKET
at the end of August wanted the time to pass slowly.

But then, most people who came to Nantucket were not there for work, and were with the people they knew and loved—husband, parent, friend—rather than their volatile, emotional, newly discovered, hyper-intense half sister.

There were moments when Kelly was glad Felicity was around, moments when she thought she could get to like the girl. Certainly moments when she felt a kinship with her.

But there were also moments when whatever was the most aggravating about René—his dramatic self-interest, his inability to see another point of view—seemed to flare up inside Felicity, making her irrational and intractable.

After much negotiation, the hotel clerk managed to give Kelly a small room with two twin beds rather than the larger room with one queen-size bed that Kelly had reserved. It wasn’t exactly cheap to add another person to a hotel bill at the end of August. The least Felicity could
do, Kelly thought, was to enjoy the sunshine and sparkling water, the fresh air and golden beaches.

But every morning Felicity dressed and accompanied Kelly to the courthouse. The first day they argued all the way there.

“You should go swimming,” Kelly insisted.

“I want to see the courtroom,” Felicity replied. “I want to see you at work.”

“You’re on Nantucket, for heaven’s sake. People come here for fun.”

“So, watching you in court is my idea of fun.” At Kelly’s indignant sidelong glance, she added, “I don’t mean
amusing
. I mean
interesting
. How many people have a judge for a sister?”

“You can watch me any other time, on the mainland.”

“No, I can’t. I’ll have to start school.”

“But Felicity, it’s the end of summer! Your last chance to be at the beach! You could meet people your own age.”

“I already know all the people my own age I want to know.”

As they went up the sidewalk to the small brick town building, Kelly sighed. “I just don’t understand you.”

“You don’t?” Felicity held the door open for her. “Well, where would you rather be? On the beach or in the courtroom?”

And what could Kelly do then but smile?

The Nantucket court was the smallest one Kelly had yet entered. The probate court didn’t have its own building—it didn’t even have its own courtroom, but shared with the superior and district courts the courtroom on the second floor of the town building, a modest two-story brick building next to the police station, across from the Whaling Museum.

It was an easy walk from the hotel, fortunately, since Kelly hadn’t been able to get a reservation to bring her car over on one of the ferries. Each morning as she set off, stepping carefully over the cobblestones and bricks in her suit and heels, she was aware that everyone else on the island wore shorts or wispy summer dresses. Women congregated on Main Street to buy fresh vegetables from the farm trucks. Families rolled past with helmeted children on tandem bikes. Men in Nantucket red trousers and polo shirts carried bags of wine and imported cheeses
down to their boats. Laughter filled the air as friends greeted one another. Truly this was a holiday world.