Housebound (21 page)

Aunt Lillian was, at best, a mixed blessing. On the plus side, there was the seclusion of her small farm in southern Vermont, the security of knowing that although her family knew exactly where she was, they were far too intimidated by Aunt Lillian's legendary temper to try to interfere more than once. Anne had the space and freedom to paint, to play the piano, even to cook. Unfortunately she only painted very pretty, lavender-hued, rain-drenched landscapes, she only played and sang lilting, mournful dirges, and everything she cooked she ate, swiftly adding ten pounds to her slender frame.

The drawbacks to Aunt Lillian's hospitality were equally manifold. Lillian Westerby was, in actuality, Anne's great-aunt, her mother's father's sister. She had been a suffragette as a teenager, a flapper in the twenties, a factory worker in the forties, a civil rights worker in the fifties and sixties. In the seventies, crippled from arthritis and filled with a profound disgust at the modern hedonism, she retired to her farm to raise chickens. What she'd done instead was raise hell. She was now on the board of selectmen of the small town, and she struck terror into the heart of every bureaucrat from Brattleboro to Burlington. She enjoyed herself tremendously in her trouble
making and relished having her favorite niece join her, even if it was to nurse a broken heart. Most of all she enjoyed prying into Anne's past, exhorting her to seek a new life or, failing that, revenge. Her version of the facts was extremely garbled, since Anne steadfastly refused to discuss it, and she had to glean her information from the various disgruntled Kirklands.

“Heard the weddings went well,” Aunt Lillian cackled as she wheeled herself into the kitchen one morning. By afternoon she could get around quite well with a walker, but first thing in the morning her joints were too stiff and swollen to allow her much mobility. “Got a cup of that fancy coffee of yours?”

“Sure thing.” Anne slid off the stool and poured her aunt a cup.

Lillian took a deep, soulful sip. “Yes, it was a great success apparently.” She eyed her niece with a sly expression. “Even if it rained on them in the rose garden.”

At that Anne smiled with faint, unaccustomed malice. “Good,” she murmured, biting daintily into a freshly baked croissant. “They deserved it.”

“I still say we should have gone down there. After all, how often do your father and sister get married in one afternoon?”

“No, thank you.” She finished the croissant in two bites, reaching for another without hesitation.

“Still angry about the house?” Lillian queried shrewdly. “I would have thought you'd realized that was no life you were living. You always struck me as the sensible one in your family.”

“That's me,” she said bitterly. “Sensible Anne, adrift in a family of peacocks.”

Lillian watched her out of troubled eyes. “They don't realize how much they've hurt you,” she said. “You've always
been a tower of strength for the bunch of them. I can't imagine they're doing very well without you.”

“A tower of strength!” Anne mocked. “You must be kidding.”

“Hell, no. You've been so strong all your life that the others have been happy enough to let you do everything. They're learning that they have to take some responsibility now, and it's good for them. Good for you, too.”

“Sure it is.”

“You never used to feel sorry for yourself, my girl,” Lillian snapped. “I may have to revise my opinion of you being the strong one in your family.”

“I don't feel like the strong one,” Anne said quietly.

“And you never used to eat so much,” Lillian continued, ignoring the little pang of pity that filled her at Anne's woebegone face. “Put that croissant down—you'll burst your jeans at this rate.”

The goad had its intended effect, banishing her self-pity and replacing it with a healthy anger. Defiantly Anne shoved the entire croissant into her mouth. Lillian watched her with mixed exasperation and affection. “Though I did wonder if it's the house you're sulking about,” she added sagely.

“I'm not sulking.” Anne washed down the croissant with the last of her coffee. “I'm leading a very productive life.”

“And what does that productive life consist of? Driving a crippled old woman around, making up depressing songs, watching sad movies on television, and crying. Heavens, I even saw you cry over a baseball game!”

“It was a very touching game,” she defended herself weakly.

“And did I mention eating? I believe I did. First you won't touch a speck of food for almost a week, and then I never see you without something in your mouth or well on its way
there. If I didn't know you better I'd say you were in love or pregnant.”

“Not pregnant,” Anne said morosely, having ascertained that fact the morning of the lachrymose baseball game.

“Thank heavens for small favors. Not that I wouldn't welcome a great-great-niece or nephew, but I don't think it's the best possible thing for you right now. So you're in love.”

“What? Strong, sensible Anne in love? Don't be ridiculous.”

“Tsk, tsk. That self-pity is cropping up again. Ugly emotion.” Aunt Lillian shook her grizzled white head. “Not that we're not all prey to it every now and then, but it should be resisted most strenuously, Anne, dear.”

Anne reached for another croissant, caught her aunt's glare, and withdrew her hand, settling for another cup of rich black coffee. Her jeans were getting a little snug, and she wasn't in the mood for clothes shopping.

“So are you still in love with that dull stick your sister married? What was his name? Winston?”

“Wilson.” Anne allowed herself a small sigh at the absurdity of the thought. “No, I'm not still in love with Wilson. I doubt I ever was. I hope he and Holly will be very happy.”

“That's good. You deserve someone with a little more fire than that stuffy old banker.”

“Lawyer,” Anne corrected, and the word sent an unexpected shaft of pain through her.

“Almost as bad as a banker. I hold no brief for lawyers,” Lillian announced, chuckling to herself. The terrible joke brought a fresh searing through Anne's heart, as unwillingly she imagined Noah's diabolical appreciation. “You know, I'd hate to think of you settling for anything less than you deserve,” Lillian continued, oblivious to Anne's flinch.

“It doesn't appear that I will.”

“Not if you keep on this way. You've got to do more with your life than sit around baby-sitting an old woman and eating yourself into a stupor. You either have to go after your lawyer and tell him you want him, or forget him and find someone new. You can't spend the rest of your life moping.”

“I told you I couldn't care less about Wilson!” Anne shot back, reaching for a croissant.

Lillian smacked her hand, and the croissant crumbled into a flaky pile onto the plate. “I'm talking about the other one, you ninny! Noah, isn't that his name?”

Anne stared at her, openmouthed. “Who told you?”

“Who do you think? You're a big-mouthed family. Proffy, Holly, even Ashley made sure I knew all about it. I just wish you'd tell me your version of the story. Their three versions were confusing, to say the least.”

“What's the use? It's all ancient history by now.” Very daintily she licked her fingertips and picked up a few stray crumbs from the plate.

“It doesn't have to be.”

“Darling Aunt Lillian, I'd really rather not discuss it.” With her usual lithe grace Anne slipped off the kitchen stool, carrying her refilled coffee mug with her. “I'm going to finish this out on the porch.”

“Put on some shoes!” Lillian shouted after her. “It's still cool out there. I don't want to have to nurse you through pneumonia along with your broken heart.”

“I do not have a broken heart!” Anne yelled as the screen door slammed shut behind her.

Lillian, never content to let a young upstart have the last
word, wheeled herself over to the door. “And what do you have planned today, missy?”

“I'm going to repair the east wall of the stables. The bottom boards have been resting in the mud and they're rotted through.”

“You're the best carpenter this place has seen in many a year,” Lillian admitted grudgingly. “Not to mention plumber and electrician. You ought to do something with all that experience.”

“Like what? I can't really see me building condominiums in Bennington,” Anne said, digging her toes into the cool spring earth beneath her.

Lillian's eyes softened for a moment as they surveyed her niece's bowed head. “We'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if something could be found for you to do.”

“I have plenty to do. When I'm finished with the wall, I'm going to fix the overhead light in the pantry, and then I'll probably work on my music for a while.”

“Saints preserve us!” Lillian moaned. “That song is enough to make a Pollyanna slash her wrists.”

Anne grinned over her shoulder. “Okay, I'll spend the rest of the afternoon eating.”

“Strong is one thing, Anne Kirkland, stubborn is another,” Lillian grumbled as she wheeled herself away.

Anne leaned back, sipping her rapidly cooling coffee, contemplating Lillian's words with a distant interest. The strong one in the family, was she? She had never felt less strong in her entire life. She felt weak and miserable and unhappy, and totally incapable of doing anything to stir herself from the miasma that had settled over her when she left New Jersey.

Even the glories of the late Vermont spring couldn't shake the massive depression that had engulfed her. The smell of the damp earth, the daffodils poking their heads through the fresh
green grass, the warmth of the sun on her shoulders, all should have contributed to the easing of the hard knot that lodged between her breasts. But they brought no more than a faint, fleeting smile. Lillian was right, of course. She could only spend so much time hidden away in Vermont, keeping herself busy with a dozen useless projects. But she still couldn't decide where she could go, what she could do.

Edmund Jolles had begged her to return to the small publishing house in Bucks County whenever she felt like it, had also promised her glowing recommendations if she wanted to find an editing job elsewhere. But still she sat, eating too much, singing dirges—much to Lillian's disgust.

Because, of course, Lillian was absolutely right. Despite Anne's years of possessive love for her pre-Revolutionary War farmhouse, what really tore her apart was Noah Grant's betrayal. The loss of her home and her family's deviousness were nothing compared to the loss of Noah Grant.

Not that she'd ever had him, she mused. Nialla had him firmly chained to her memory, chained by guilt and love, and Anne couldn't begin to guess which was stronger. From the very first Noah had warned her, as obliquely as possible, that he was nothing but trouble. Why hadn't she believed him? Why had she made the incredibly stupid mistake of falling in love with him anyway? And why couldn't she find even a scrap of comfort in the peace surrounding her?

Sighing, she drained her coffee, rose and went in search of more croissants.

 

N
OAH
G
RANT SHOULD HAVE
been enjoying his freedom. He was walking away from the law firm that had employed him for the last six years, the firm that had just offered him a part
nership if he'd stay, that had treated him as well as anyone could expect to be treated. He was walking away without a backward glance or a single regret, heading toward a future that was, at best, nebulous.

He still couldn't quite figure why he thought being a public defender in a thriving Connecticut city would be any more rewarding than finding tax dodges for obscenely wealthy corporations. Maybe he was just nostalgic for the past, for the year he'd spent doing the same work for the City of New York. He'd had a sense of purpose then, a feeling of involvement that had been lacking for too long. He wanted that feeling back; he wanted life back. He'd been only half alive for too long, half of him in the grave with Nialla.

Nialla was gone now, had been since that night at the Elgin Hotel less than a month ago. No longer did she hover at his shoulder, dark eyes reproaching his anger. He remembered her with love and sorrow, the rage absent now, but she was fading fast, not much more than a sweet memory.

He had a new ghost now, one that was going to prove much harder to exorcise. He had steeled himself for the Kirkland weddings, determined to back Anne into a corner and force her to listen to him. He had been in a white-knuckled panic during the drive down to Lambertville, and all for nothing. Anne was gone, and it had taken nothing short of threats to get her address from the disapproving Wilson.

Not that it had done him any good. The old dragon who had taken her in steadfastly refused to put her on the phone, to relay his messages, to give him any help at all. It wasn't the slightest bit encouraging to realize that Lillian was sympathetic and longing to be helpful. Her opinions were strong on the subject—Anne needed time and distance, and she
didn't need to be bothered before she could make up her mind what she wanted.