Family Tree (35 page)

Annie was calling him. She'd finally decided to return his messages.

The doorbell rang again, so he tugged on a pair of jeans and hurried to the door.

Annie
.

“Hey,” he said, holding open the door. “Come on in.”

She slipped inside and stood in the foyer, her hands gripping a recycled shopping bag with undue tension. Her gaze felt like a butterfly unsure of where to alight as it moved over his damp bare chest.

It didn't suck to have her checking him out. She looked beautiful tonight. Different . . .

“I was in the shower,” he said, taking his time as he did up the top button of his jeans. “Just got in from mountain biking.”

“I tried calling first, but you didn't answer.” She offered a shy grin. “Okay, I called you from the driveway.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “I don't mind you dropping in. Not one bit.”

“You're sure? I mean, Friday night—”

“You're not interrupting a hot date.”

“Maybe I
am
the hot date,” she said. His reaction must have been transparent, because she quickly added, “Don't panic. I'm kidding.”

He wished she wasn't. “Come on in.” He led the way to the big living room, which connected to the open kitchen.

“You bought the old Webster place,” she said, looking around at the fireplace, the bookcases, the leaded-glass windows and skylight over the kitchen, the French doors leading to the back deck. “It's really beautiful, Fletcher.”

“We picked it out together, remember?”

“Of course I remember, even though it was forever ago.”

“Olga did the decorating.” He ducked into the laundry room and found a T-shirt in the dryer. He didn't want her thinking he was some tool who walked around the house with no shirt on.

“Olga's great.”

“She says the same about you. Ever since she heard you created her favorite show, the woman hasn't stopped talking about you. She's obsessed with
The Key Ingredient
.”

“It's not my show anymore,” she said.

“Olga says it's gone downhill lately.”

Annie winced, and he was sorry he'd said anything. “It's Friday night,” he said. “Let me get you something to drink.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I brought something.”

“Yeah? Now, that's service.”

“It is not,” she said. “I just didn't want to drink alone. Is Teddy here?”

Fletcher shook his head. “With his mom.”

“Okay.” She paused, bit her lip in a way that made him want to grab her and kiss her. She set out a bottle of bitters and an orange. “I need ice and a shaker. And a muddler, if you have one.”

“Pretty sure I don't have a muddler.”

“A wooden spoon, then.” She instantly made herself at home in the kitchen, reminding him of the Annie he used to know—smart and a little bit bossy, sure of herself. She found a cutting board and knife, and helped herself to a pair of glasses, the fancy lowball ones a client had given him back when he had the law office.

“We're having old-fashioneds,” she said. “Pam and I came up with a special recipe to highlight our barrel-aged maple syrup.” She took a bottle from the shopping bag. “Here, open this. And have a taste while you're at it. We just finalized a deal to distribute it.”

On impulse, he touched the tip of her finger into the syrup and licked it off.

Annie gasped and snatched her finger away. “Hey.”

“Wow,” he said with an unapologetic grin. “I didn't think you could improve on maple syrup, but this is out of this world.”

“Sugar Rush has gone gourmet,” she said. “We already have standing orders for the new batch.”

We. Did that mean she was back to the family business?

Working with complete focus, she mixed the drinks, finishing with a brandied cherry and a twist of orange peel. The drink was amazing. He was usually a beer-and-pool kind of guy, but this one seduced him totally—the bite of Pam's whiskey, the remnant of syrup coating the bottom of the glass, and most of all, the way his eyes met Annie's as she tapped the rim of her glass to his.

“To . . . new beginnings.”

“Are you getting the help you need from Gordy?”

“I think so. It can't be fun for him, dealing with a piece of work like Martin Harlow,” she said.

“I'm sorry you're going through this,” he said. “I don't know what else to say.”

“That's okay. It's been strangely easy to get over him.”

“Because he cheated?” Fletcher would have cheerfully flattened her ex if the coward would show his face.

“Yes. Also because . . .” She set down her glass and folded her arms in front of her. “Because I didn't love him enough. And this is going to sound crazy, but I feel guilty about that. We were a good team, working together. The marriage part . . . it was a little stale. It happened gradually and I didn't realize there were problems, or maybe I was in denial.”

Oh, man. Fletcher knew what that was like. He had been determined to make his marriage to Celia work. They both wanted the best for Teddy. He had cultivated their family like a master gardener, planting roots in this town, encouraging Celia to surround herself
with the things that made her happy. In the end, he came to the same realization about the marriage as Annie had—there was love, but not enough.

“Don't beat yourself up over it.”

She offered a fleeting smile. “Do I look like I'm beating myself up?”

“You look like you're enjoying a delicious cocktail.” He took her hand. “Let's go out back, enjoy this weather. And there's someone out here you should meet. His name is Titus.”

Titus, the Bernese mountain dog Fletcher had adopted soon after the divorce, greeted them with snuffles and sneezes of joy.

“He's beautiful.” Annie handed Fletcher her drink, then sank down on one knee and cradled the dog's big head.

Celia had deemed dogs messy and smelly—which they were—and refused to have one. The moment Fletcher was on his own, he'd acquired the messiest, smelliest dog he could find. Titus had a broken tail and a crooked smile, and he'd been abandoned at the edge of town. Fletcher and Teddy loved him like crazy.

Annie stood and brushed the dog hair from her dress. She stopped abruptly as a soft gasp escaped her. “You have a swing.”

“I have a swing.”

“It looks exactly like . . .” Her voice trailed away. She slipped off her sandals and sat down on the swing, causing the chain to quietly click.

“It's no coincidence.” He sat beside her, not close enough to touch.

She tucked one leg up under and dangled the other on the porch floor, turning to face him. “You remembered.”

“I did.”

“The other things, too,” she said softly. “Bookcases in every room. Windows and skylights and a fireplace. A garden full of tomatoes and herbs. You remembered everything.”

“I did.”

She swirled her drink in the glass, then set it on a side table in a nervous gesture. “My brother's going to start growing pot on our property.”

“That's awesome.”

“How can you say that? You're a judge. You're supposed to frown on things like that.”

“Not if he's operating lawfully. Kyle is doing it lawfully.”

“And you know this . . . how?”

“Because I know Beth Rush and her crusade to transform the lives of every kid who comes through the doors of her school. No way she would jeopardize her mission.”

“Good point.” Annie surveyed the yard. It was surrounded by a tall fence and a taller hawthorn hedge to contain Teddy and Titus.

Annie settled deeper into the cushions of the swing. “My parents are getting back together.”

“Hey, that's great,” he said. “Isn't it?”

“I don't know. They're moving to New York City. They took the train down from Burlington after lunch today to check out warehouse space, or so they said. Something tells me they just wanted to get away together. So I'm . . . I guess I want to be happy for them. Still processing it.”

He was full of questions. He wanted to know why she was here. He didn't ask, because he didn't want to scare her off. So he waited. Listened. It was something he'd learned on the judge's bench. Get quiet and listen, and the story would come out.

“They're going to do what they're going to do, and I'm okay with that. But then I asked them when this grand plan was going to unfold, and they said after I'm better. That's passive-aggressive, right? I'm already better. I can drive. And drink—not irresponsibly. I can think. What are they really waiting for?”

She set the swing in motion with a nudge of her foot. “My world has
changed many times since the accident. I'm finally coming out of the fog, and I don't need anyone hovering around, worrying that my head is going to explode. My head is fine.
Fine.
”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Fletcher said. “I'm glad you're better.” He got up and lit a few citronella candles to stave off the bugs as the twilight deepened.

“I need to make a plan,” she said. “That's the part that scares me. Every time I make a plan, something happens to screw it up.”

“Come on,” he said. “Look at everything you've accomplished. College, then your own show right out of school, now this new syrup—”

“That's one way of looking at it. But remember, I made a plan to be with you, the summer after high school, and it turned out your dad needed you more. And then we tried again, and it seemed like it was really going to work, and I went to California, and by the time I came to my senses, you were having a baby with Celia. So I don't see the point of planning anything.”

“Then don't make a plan,” he suggested.

“Thus proving you don't know me at all,” she said.

“I know you too well,” he pointed out.

“Oh, I'm sure.”

He carefully set down his drink, turned to her, and took her face between his hands. “I know you,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I know you like porch swings and bookcases and fireplaces. I know you can make sugar cookies without looking at a recipe. I know you had a secret hiding place in your bedroom where you stored your keepsakes, and some of those keepsakes have amazing stories. I know what you see when you point your camera at a subject. I know that when you smile, it makes your lips look even softer. And by the way, I know exactly what those lips feel like. And taste like, and how they feel when they kiss me anywhere on my body . . .”

“Fletcher. Are you coming on to me?”

“Absolutely. I thought about you when I hung this swing,” he said.

“Thought of me. How?”

“Well,” he explained in a low voice, “kind of like this.”

“Fletcher!”

“Shh. I've got neighbors.”

She laughed softly. “A reputation to uphold. Maybe we should go inside.”

“Or not.” He turned her just so, and the swing became a slow carnival ride, and she made a gasping sound that was probably audible next door, but he didn't care.

S
pending the weekend with Fletcher had not been Annie's plan when she'd knocked on his door. But she was beginning to think the best things that happened weren't part of any plan. They just happened. She disappeared into the experience as though diving into a stream, following the current wherever it took her.

He was different, all these years later. She was different. But the deep, powerful connection that had always existed between them was still there.

Now that her marriage had ended, intimacy took on a special significance. After being with one partner all this time, she found herself wondering, Am I still good enough? Desirable enough? Can I still please someone new?

But Fletcher wasn't new, was he? There were things about him that she'd never forgotten. There were things he knew about her that no one else had ever known, from the smallest of secrets to the grandest of truths.

After the old-fashioneds and the porch swing, she'd raided the mostly unfortunate supplies in his kitchen—boxed mac and cheese, white wine, a handful of cherry tomatoes and basil from his garden—and put together a dinner from his humble ingredients. Afterward, they curled up in bed together with bowls of maple-walnut ice cream and listened to Serge Gainsbourg songs drifting from a hidden speaker. Then they made love again, and later they half woke in the night and went at
it yet again, and in the morning, they greeted the dawn with fresh ardor. It was marathon sex, unflagging and voracious, as if they had been flung back to their teen years, just discovering each other.

On Saturday, they walked to the farmers' market, loaded up on fresh food, then brought it back to Fletcher's. Annie fixed fresh mint martinis, a tomato tart with Cabot cheese, buttery lady peas with charred onions, and for dessert, huckleberries drowning in crème fraîche flavored with nutty Frangelico liqueur.

“I'm never letting you leave here,” Fletcher said, bringing a second helping of berries into the bedroom after dinner.

The berries and cream sweetened their lovemaking, and they lay together deep into the night, listening to the peepers singing in the garden. Miles from sleep, Annie got up and made a batch of salted maple popcorn, then climbed back in bed with him, bringing along her laptop.

“I want to show you something. These are the very earliest tapings I did with Martin, back when
The Key Ingredient
was in its formative phase. The segments never aired because they cast someone else.”

She felt as though she was looking at a different person. Yet despite the rough quality of the reel, the Annie in those pieces was eager and bright, bursting with passion for the topic. It felt strange, seeing Martin by her side. She was able to regard him with dispassion. There was no ache of loss, just a sense that he was someone she used to know. She wondered why losing him didn't hurt more.

Because she'd never loved him the way she'd loved Fletcher.

“Is it just me, or are you stealing the show here?” Fletcher asked, touching the pause button.

“I'm stealing the show,” she said in a quiet voice. “I didn't realize it at the time. That's why they didn't want me on camera with Martin. It might be why
Martin
didn't want me with him. I'm a scene stealer.”

“That's you,” he said with a chuckle. “The camera loves you, and you're a thief. You steal things. TV shows. Hearts . . .”

“Knock it off,” she said, secretly delighted. “I showed you that for a reason. I want you to see what I was doing when I first got started.”

“You miss doing that show in L.A.”

“Yes.” She could not lie to him. “I try not to look at the trades too much,” she said, “but it's hard to resist. That was my life not so long ago.”

They spent a lazy Sunday morning eating cereal from oversize bowls and browsing through the
New York Times
. She wanted to lie on his Chesterfield sofa and watch old movies and forget the whole world. Probably not the best idea. He had work in the morning, and she had . . . what?

“I know that face,” Fletcher said, placing a soft kiss on her temple. “What are you worrying about?”

Annie bit her lip, trying to force herself to think things through. She wanted to explore what was restarting between them, but the stakes were high. She knew what would happen if she stepped through this door.

She wasn't sure she wanted to go there. She'd left Fletcher—not once, but twice. Why? Because her father had left? Because she never wanted to experience the devastation and loneliness she'd felt after her father took off?

“Come to dinner at the farm,” she said, surrendering to impulse. “I'll make a fantastic Sunday supper.”

“Say no more. I'm there. What can I bring?”

“Just your good self.” She jumped up and began pulling on her clothes, and she laughed as his eyes devoured her. “Maybe a flak jacket. It's my family, after all.”

Annie's parents had just returned from the city when she burst through the back door, toting bags from the market. “I'm making Sunday supper,” she told them.

“Yay,” said her mother. “How can I help?” Mom looked preternaturally young. She was wearing well-fitting dark wash jeans and a crisp white shirt, with cork-bottom sandals, a colorful scarf that resembled a Kandinsky watercolor, and dramatic hoop earrings. She also wore a dewy flush, and Annie tried not to let her mind go there, but she couldn't help observing that her mom had the look of a woman who had just gotten laid. Then she worried that she had that same look.

“You could set the table,” Annie suggested. “I'll get the roast in and then I need to jump in the shower.”

“I'm going to put the leaf in the table,” Mom said. “Now that we're nine for dinner . . .”

“Make that ten,” Annie said, hastily unloading the groceries.

“Who's the tenth?”

“I invited Fletcher.”

Mom's head snapped around to face Annie. “You did?”

“Be nice, okay?”

“Of course I'll—” Her mother broke off. “You were wearing that on Friday.”

Annie looked down at the coral-colored shift dress she'd worn to the meeting. It was slightly wrinkled from having been slung over a chair at Fletcher's house all weekend. “I'll change after my shower” was all she said.

As Annie fell into the as-yet-undefined affair with Fletcher, she remembered something she used to believe with all her heart—life had grace notes. These were moments so sweet that they could be tucked like the smallest of keepsakes, never to be forgotten. She discovered many such moments with Fletcher. She felt a glow of warmth just looking at him. She was so smitten. She almost didn't trust how happy she felt.

She grew stronger every day, and floated through fresh summer days
that held sweet echoes of her own childhood, when her family was still whole and the world felt completely safe. They took Teddy on picnics and got drenched in peach juice running down their chins. They even got him to jump into Moonlight Quarry from a dizzying ten-foot-high granite outcropping.

They went creek hiking and lay in the grass, looking at clouds. They brought produce home from the farmers' market and had elaborate cookouts, listened for the tinkling bells of the ice cream truck trolling through the village. They stayed out late, running around after dark barefoot on the damp, dewy grass, catching fireflies.

She and Fletcher visited all their old favorite places, but this time they didn't worry about curfews or future plans or anything but being together. From time to time, Annie would catch a piercing sentiment when she saw Teddy's delight at finding a bird's nest, his pride at catching a trout, his gentle affection for the dogs when he came up to the farm, or his unadulterated glee with the water slides at the quarry. She couldn't help thinking about the baby she'd lost in the accident. She grieved for all that potential that would never be reached, the sweet little body she would never hug, the eyes that had never glimpsed the wonder of the world.

Then the wave would recede, and she would count herself lucky to be alive, to have this unexpected time with Fletcher, to have her family and the farm and everything exactly as it should be.

There were moments when she felt a happiness so complete it didn't even seem real to her.

At the same time, the idyllic summer joy felt fragile, as if the least little shift could cause it to disintegrate.

To guard herself against those worries, she nurtured a fantasy of staying holed up right here in Switchback, falling back in love with Fletcher, getting to know his boy, one day having a baby with him. Yes, she dared to think it. To imagine it. To
want
it.

Her parents made their move to the city. Kyle and Annie worked
long hours, launching the barrel-aged syrup with more success than they'd ever imagined. “Consumers are a mystery to me,” Kyle said, more than once. “They squawk at paying ten bucks a quart for regular syrup, but they're happy to throw down fifteen for a fancy pint bottle of barrel-aged.” The rate at which they had to step up production gave new meaning to the name Sugar Rush.

“This is fantastic,” said Beth, joining Annie and Fletcher in the newly installed teaching kitchen at the school. “The students are going to go crazy when they see this place.”

“The good kind of crazy, I hope,” Annie said. She felt a surge of accomplishment as she looked around the finished space. Funded by Sanford's foundation, the kitchen was designed to prepare students with both life and job skills. Annie had set it up so that lessons could easily be filmed, with a big console in the middle of the room and mirrors angled to show the action.

“Seriously,” Beth said, “this is beautiful. Fletcher, let me know when you and your father can come for the dedication after school starts.”

“Will do,” he said. “Glad you like it. Who knew my dad—a high school dropout—would end up funding education?”

“I have a feeling he got a nudge from the judge,” Beth said. That was how she referred to Fletcher's work in juvenile court. When dealing with at-risk kids, he tended to nudge them toward better alternatives instead of having them sent up to the juvenile facility at Woodside.

“Speaking of which—the judge has an early meeting tomorrow,” he said. “I need to go prepare.” He brushed a swift kiss on Annie's forehead. “See you tonight?”

She smiled and nodded, turning to watch him go.

Beth gave her shoulder a gentle shove. “So. You and Fletcher . . . ?”

Annie nodded. “Me and Fletcher.”

“I'm glad, Annie. He's great, as I'm sure you know.”

She did know. Fletcher was amazing. He could go anywhere, do anything, but he stayed here in this town, where he'd set down roots after a peripatetic childhood he rarely spoke of. He had come here with his father, and now he stayed for Teddy. And probably because he'd never had that in his life, a permanent home, a community. His son was happy here. He felt safe.

“The foundation has been so generous with the school,” Beth added. “He is such a good guy.”

“I hear that all the time, from everyone.”

“The main point is, do
you
believe it?”

“With every cell in my body.”

“But . . . ? I can hear the ‘but' in your voice.”

“You have sharp ears, then.” Annie turned and looked at the setup they'd created for the school. She could so easily picture a video production here, and the thought of working again excited her. Yet another part of her wanted to devote all her energy to Fletcher. “I'm falling in love with him. Again. Hard.”

“And this is a problem?”

“It's awesome. I can't even believe it's happening.”

“Let it happen, Annie. Let yourself be happy.”

“I want to. I do. But my life imploded, and I don't even know if I can trust my own judgment. The show . . . I had a whole life in California. It was taken from me.”

“Do you want it back?”

“I don't know what I want.”

“Are you trying to talk yourself out of it? Are you trying to get me to talk you out of it? Because if you are, you're barking up the wrong tree.”

“It's not that. I want this to happen. But maybe . . . not so fast. I need to sort myself out before I get tangled up in a relationship. I want to be
independent again. I have to start all over from scratch. Is it possible to do that while I'm in a free fall?”

Summer ended in Switchback the way it had for generations. The whole town gathered at the lake for a Labor Day picnic. It was the last chance for kids to swim in the cold clear water, the last chance to sit around drinking beer, relaxing and soaking up the sunshine before autumn descended, the last chance for watermelon and corn on the cob and thick slices of Brandywine tomatoes fresh from the garden.

“They say if the tomatoes don't ripen by Labor Day, you'd better get out the chutney recipe,” Annie told her eldest niece, Dana, who was helping her make blackberry crisp for the picnic. More accurately, Dana was looking at Annie's laptop, which sat open on the counter, while Annie made the dish. At seventeen, Dana was awkward and adorable, far more interested in boys and makeup than in cooking. She was also a smart cookie, even more interested in traveling the world than in boys and makeup.

“What's chutney?” asked Dana.

“It's a kind of relish,” Annie explained. “Originated in India and Nepal.”

“Have you been to India and Nepal?”

“Both.” Annie went back to chopping. “We filmed there for the show—India, Nepal, and Bhutan. If you click the tab for my remote server files, you can see pictures.”

Beth always said Dana was her wanderlust child. “Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?” Annie asked.

“Everywhere,” Dana said. She leaned into the computer screen. “Starting with Bhutan. It looks amazing.”

“You sound like me at your age. I hope you do get to go everywhere.
We made Ema Datshi in Bhutan—hot peppers and yak's-milk cheese over red rice.” The shoot had gone well, even though Melissa had complained nonstop about the muddy mountain roads, the lumbering bus rides, and the bathroom facilities. Annie remembered feeling nothing but enchantment, which emanated from the snowy peaks and shadowed gorges, the lush forests cloaked in every shade of green and flickering with the unreal colors of exotic birds. The air had a clarity she'd never before sensed, and the villages were redolent of woodsmoke and frying chilies.