Entangled (29 page)

Knowing he cared was almost enough for me to
give up, crawl into his arms, and hope the future turned out
better. But I didn’t. I blinked back the tears and very gently
pushed his hand away. “I don’t need a protector, Handel. I need
someone to believe in me, to stand by me no matter what. Someone
who doesn’t doubt my mental state.”

“I never said that.”

“I know. But you were thinking it.” He didn’t
argue my point. I glanced toward the house and saw my mother at the
window looking out. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the symphony.” I
pushed open the door and stepped out on the sidewalk. He started to
get out to walk me to the door but I shook my head. “Goodnight,
Handel.”

At the front steps I looked back. He still
sat watching me. I went in and shut the door.

~~~

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
he following week
was uneventful as far as new memories cropping up or new evidence
surfacing. I finished cleaning out the cellar, going through all
the nooks and crannies, looking for proof that my dreams and
fragmented memories were sure, and not just a figment of an
overactive imagination. Even with the mask I’d found as tangible
proof, I still had my doubts.

The phone rang while I was at the house for
lunch Wednesday. Mother picked it up so I wouldn’t be disturbed
from my break. I thought at first it was her banker friend from
Minneapolis, the way she blushed and appeared flustered by the
call. Her voice chirped like a spring Robin looking for a mate.

I picked up my tuna sandwich and took a bite,
trying to hear what she was saying as she stepped around the corner
of the kitchen into the hallway. When she hung up and joined me at
the table, my curiosity was almost more than I could bear, but I
managed to swallow the food in my mouth and fork a dill pickle from
the jar on the table as though lunch was the only thing on my
mind.

“Do we have anymore of those pretzels I
bought the other day?” I asked, knowing perfectly well I’d finished
them the night before on one of my nightly walkabouts.

“Hmm?” Mother lifted her water glass, a smile
still hovering over her lips as though she were mulling a
secret.

“So, who was that?” I asked, patience
waning.

She patted absently at her hair with one
hand. “Oh, that was just Antonio. He asked if I’d like to go out
Friday night,” she said, not meeting my eye.

“Antonio? You mean that man at the
restaurant? The one Handel said is only forty-two years old?” My
tone implied he’d just been weaned from comic books and video
games.

“There is nothing wrong with dating a younger
man. They do it all the time here in California.”

“They who, Mother? Hollywood celebrities? I
didn’t think you took much stock in their anomalous lifestyles.”
The thought of my mother dating was bad enough, but to think of her
with a man young enough
not
to be my father was
excruciating. I set my sandwich down half eaten, my appetite gone.
“What did he say when you turned him down?” I asked, my words
pointedly obvious.

Mother’s brows flew up as her eyes opened
wide and innocent. “Why on earth would I turn him down? I haven’t
been out of this house except to get my nails done for days. I
don’t even have a garden to keep me busy. A night out will
rejuvenate my soul.”

I shook my head at her melodrama. “If you
date younger men, it’s not your soul that needs rejuvenating. And I
thought you wanted to be here. I said you should go home. Tend your
rose garden. Bond with the banker. Watch over Adam. But no! You
insisted that I needed you. Now you want to go out partying with
some wild Italian Stallion.”

“Billie, why would you begrudge me a night of
fun?” she asked, an inquisitive frown replacing her earlier smile.
She reached out and patted my hand and I felt a moment of confusion
as though the tables had been turned and I was now the mother.
“Perhaps if you went out with a younger man you might not come home
so depressed.”

She’d been hurt when I wouldn’t go into
detail about my date with Handel and what caused me to come home in
a darker mood than when I left. But I still couldn’t bring myself
to tell Mother what she already surmised, that my father had
shielded her and lied to her that day twenty years ago to protect
me. His thoughts must have been muddled; basic emotions blown to
horrific proportions at the sight of me crouched in the cellar,
crying. Perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud what he
suspected with near certainty, even to my mother. Instead, packing
us up, and taking us away from the source of the pain was his quick
fix. No need to ever talk about it again. What my mother didn’t
know wouldn’t hurt her, and what I couldn’t remember wouldn’t haunt
me for the rest of my life. But quick fixes seldom hold.

I sighed. “I don’t want to begrudge you
anything. I just don’t know if it’s such a good idea to go out with
a man you haven’t even met. He could be a serial killer for all you
know,” I said, tossing one of her favorite fears back at her.

Mother laughed as she stood up and went to
the sink to refill her glass. “Well, do you think if we’d had a
proper introduction first he would have said, ‘hello, I’m Antonio,
a serial killer and restaurateur’?”

I threw my hands up and leaned back in my
chair. “Fine. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

A glance at the clock reminded me there was
work to be done. I helped Mother clean off the table and gave her a
quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for lunch. I’ll probably be in the
office till five. Don’t start dinner. It’s my turn tonight.”

Before I was out the door, she called me
back. “Billie, wait.” She hurried off down the hallway but returned
momentarily, a familiar manila envelope in her hand. “I found this
jammed up under the footrest on the recliner when I vacuumed the
rugs this morning. I don’t know how it got there but it has your
name on it.”

I shook my head as I took the envelope.
“Can’t believe I forgot about this. Must have dropped it the other
night.”

“Well, you’ve had lots on your mind,
honey.”

Mother’s words were a definite
understatement. I nodded. “Thanks.”

I took the envelope and headed out the back
door. On my walk to the winery I spotted Sean Parker standing on a
ladder, painting one of the sheds. He didn’t acknowledge me,
although I lifted a hand in greeting. The man was infuriating, and
I wondered how Handel could stand to live with him in the same
house.

Sally beckoned me over as I tried to slip
past her desk to my office. She had the phone pressed to one ear
and was writing something on a pad of paper. I leaned with one hip
on the edge of her desk, idly swinging my foot back and forth while
she finished up the conversation.

She finally put the phone down and smiled
across at me. “Guess what?”

I made a face and shrugged. “Why don’t you
tell me. My sixth sense doesn’t seem to be working today.”

“You’re not going to believe this. The Post
wants to do an article about us. They’re interested in small,
family-owned wineries. Not super-rich multi-million dollar places,
but little struggling businesses that have something no one else
has. A special wine, only made in small quantities, perhaps never
even sold in the outside market.”

I narrowed my eyes as I listened. “How would
they know we had a small quantity of wine never sold in the outside
market?” I asked

She opened her mouth and shut it again, her
gaze fixed on something over my left shoulder. I turned and saw
Charlie standing there. He cleared his throat, a sheepish look on
his face. “That would be my fault, Ms. Fredrickson. I took a bottle
of Jack’s wine the other day. I was curious to know if it was
everything he always bragged about, and if it was why didn’t he put
it into production? I had a friend over for dinner. She thought it
was fantastic.”

I straightened up and faced him, hands on my
hips. “Let me guess. This friend of yours works for The Post.”

He nodded. “Yep.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you owe me
for a twenty-year-old bottle of burgundy?”

“I guess I do.” His look of chagrin was
almost more than I could bear. The man was a miniature horse and
Teddy bear all rolled into one.

“Then I’d say we’re even. Free publicity
beats cash any day of the week.” I picked up the envelope and left
them both staring after me as I retired to my office.

Five message slips greeted me from the
surface of my desk, two from Handel, three others from Jody. Jody’s
cryptic words were full of doom and gloom. In my absence, the law
practice was coming apart at the seams. I never anticipated staying
away this long. Clients were getting antsy. They expected
face-to-face time, and assurance that I was in their corner. The
time had come for me to think about handing them off to another
attorney. I hated to let go, but I no longer knew when, if ever, I
would return to practicing law.

I called Jody and set things in motion. The
tone in her voice assured me that she was not pleased. Her hope lay
in my return and everything resuming, as it should.

“I’m sorry, but things are still unresolved
here, and I’m seriously thinking of making a permanent move.” I
pushed the hair back from my forehead and set my elbows on the
desktop. “I’ll call Hank Ingebretsen and see if he’ll take on some
of the clients.”

Jody’s silence lasted a good twenty seconds.
When she spoke her words were clipped and angry. “You never said
this was forever, Billie. What happens now? Am I out of a job?”

I knew her true concern was taking care of
her family. Three teens to feed and board, put through college, and
send out into the world was a heck of a lot of responsibility for a
single mom. People lost their jobs every day but I didn’t like
being the catalyst.

“I won’t lie to you, Jody. I’m still not sure
if the winery business is for me, but at this point I’m equally
unsure of law. I have some serious thinking to do and I’m sorry you
are left hanging, waiting for my decision. I won’t hold it against
you if you put your resume out there. In fact, I’d be glad to write
a glowing reference.” I paused but she didn’t say anything. “Look,
I know this isn’t the news you want to hear, but it’s the best I
can do at this point. You’re not just a secretary; you’re my
friend. Believe me, if there was a kinder way of doing this, I
would.”

Jody sniffed and then blew her nose loudly.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a hard week.”

I silently conceded.

The rest of our conversation went better.
Fifteen minutes later I hung up, confident that things would work
themselves out. Without further ado I picked up the manila envelope
and slit the top with a letter opener, then tipped it upside down
and watched the contents slide out. A small stack of Polaroid
pictures, held together by a rubber band, hit the desktop along
with a folded piece of notebook paper. The pictures were facedown,
black squares framed in white. The rubber band was old and brittle
and fell apart when I lifted the bundle and pulled on it. The
pictures slipped from my fingers, scattering across the top of the
desk, some landing face up, others down.

Before my brain registered what I was seeing,
I picked up the nearest photo and stared stunned into the eyes of a
young girl. Completely naked, she sat on the edge of a bed, her
eyes wide and pleading, staring back at me with the look of an
injured animal, not quite sure if help would be forthcoming but
still innocent enough to beg. Along the white edge of the Polaroid
was a name printed in block letters. ANGIE

I gasped, and stared fearfully down at the
remaining photographs. Half a dozen young girls somewhere between
the ages of eight and twelve, blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes,
all staring back with the same beaten despair. Names like: CINDY,
TINA, LORI, and…

Tentatively, my hand shaking, I reached out
and flipped one, SARAH, and then the remaining picture right side
up.

“Oh God,” I breathed out, the words escaping
of their own volition, a desperate prayer for strength.

An eight-year-old, dark-haired cherub, curled
naked on the floor of the cellar, eyes scrunched tight to block out
the sight of the photographer holding her down, his arm caught in
frame. My finger rubbed across the image as though somehow to erase
her pain. A tear fell at her feet and I wiped it away, the dampness
smearing the name printed along the edge. BILLIE

I don’t know how long I sat there, memories
rising in revolt, segments of time born anew, the resurgence of a
virus, aching and angry. But a glance at the clock on the corner of
my desk confirmed that the afternoon was waning.

I made a conscious effort of separating
myself from the moment as I scooped the pictures into a pile and
slipped them back inside the envelope, no longer able to bear the
look of anguish in those six pair of eyes. The folded notepaper
still lay unread. With hands trembling, I picked it up and smoothed
it open. The Polaroid images were by all accounts at least twenty
years old, but the note was much more recent. Jack dated it just
two weeks before his death.

Dear Billie,

I made a visit to the doctor on my last trip
to Germany. He said my heart was worn out and needed replacing. I
guess your father and I suffer from the same ailment. Since there
is little chance of a timely replacement, I am tying up the loose
ends of my life.

The past haunts me still, as I’m sure it does
you. I certainly don’t blame James for beating me that day. Not
knowing the facts, I probably would have done the same.

I’ve kept these pictures hidden away, but now
it’s up to you. Do with them what you will. I’m so sorry for any
suffering I may have caused you, and beg your forgiveness. Setting
things right was probably the honorable thing to do, but I couldn’t
bear the thought of more children being hurt because of it. I hope
you can forgive me.