Lake News (29 page)

Lily had timed her visit so that she would arrive after the children were in bed. She didn't know whether Rose
knew she was back, whether Hannah had told, or Maida had told. She didn't know whether there would be a scene, in any case. Never a diplomat, Rose had always been the mouthpiece for Maida's most negative thoughts.

This wasn't a visit Lily wanted to make, but there was danger in Rose finding out from someone else that she was in Lake Henry. Coming in person seemed the decent thing for Lily to do, bearding the lion in her den, so to speak.

She knocked softly on the front sidelight. The footsteps she heard a minute later were heavy ones. She wasn't surprised when the heavy oak door was drawn open by her brother-in-law.

Art Winslow claimed to have fallen in love with Rose Blake on the very first day of first grade. He had been a sweet boy then, grown into a sweet man now. That he was far gentler than Rose might have been a problem if he had been anything but a Winslow, but his family owned the mill, which gave him a vehicle for authority. That meant he could take a backseat to Rose at home, which was the only reason Lily could figure why the marriage worked. Art was the quintessential gentle giant.

Lily might not have been surprised to see him, but he was clearly surprised to see her, which answered one of her questions. Hannah hadn't told.

She smiled, raised a hand, and waved.

“We were wondering if you'd be back,” he said, his voice friendly. “Come on in. Rosie?” he yelled over his shoulder, then explained to Lily, “She's with the girls.”

“I thought they'd be asleep. Mm-maybe I should leave and come back another time.”

“No, no. She'll want to see you. So will the girls.”

Art Winslow was kind. He was good with Rose, good with the girls, good with the mill. But no one had ever accused him of being swift. The possibility that Lily might not want everyone to know she was back didn't enter his mind.

So, by way of a hint, she said, “I'm lying low. I hate to ask the girls to keep a secret.”

“They
love
keeping secrets,” Art insisted, and Lily knew that Hannah, for one, did.

The foyer light suddenly came on. Rose stood at the far side with her hand on the switch. In the instant when she spotted Lily and held perfectly still, Lily was stopped as short. Same dark hair, same pale skin, same slim hips and ample breasts—looking at Rose was like looking at herself in the mirror. Granted Rose's hair was longer, cut bluntly, and tucked behind an ear, and her hips were covered with tailored slacks, standard evening wear for Lake Henry's young well-to-do. Still, the resemblance was marked.

“Well, hello,” Rose said, coming to stand beside her husband. “The prodigal daughter returns. The whole town's been speculating. When did you get back?”

Lily considered lying. Then she thought of Hannah, even of Maida, and said, “Saturday.”

“Saturday, and you're only now coming here? This is Wednesday. Who else knows you're back?”

“I'm in hiding.”

“Does Mom know?”

“Yes.”

“Poppy?”

“Yes.”

Rose let out a breath and said a hurt “Thanks a lot.”

“I've seen them each once,” Lily reasoned. “I didn't want to put the girls in the position of lying if someone asked. I thought they'd be asleep now.”

“You thought wrong,” Rose murmured smartly and turned. Sure enough, three faces were at the door. “Come say hi to your Aunt Lily.”

The girls straightened and ran forward—six-year-old Ruth first, with seven-year-old Emma on her heels. They were adorable little girls, with dark curly hair and sweet little flowered nightgowns that went all the way to their tiny toes. Hannah, in the same kind of oversized T-shirt she had worn at Maida's, looked chubby and plain beside them. She hung back, even when they were done with their hugs, and came forward only when Lily held out a deliberate arm. “It's good to see you, Hannah. I like your T-shirt.” She studied the cat on the front. “You don't have one, do you?”

Hannah shook her head.

“God forbid,” Rose put in. “I have enough trouble keeping
her
groomed. Forget a cat.”

“A cat grooms itself,” Hannah said.

“Cats shed. Do you want cat hair all over you?”

Hannah said nothing. Lily was sorry she had mentioned it.

Art said to the little ones, “Show Aunt Lily your teeth.”

They opened their mouths wide to show gaps, Ruthie's in front, Emma's on the side.

“Impressive,” Lily said. She squeezed Hannah's hand. “Boring for you. You've been through this.”

Rose sighed. “Her teeth came in crooked. She'll be getting braces soon.”

“I had braces,” Lily told Hannah, who raised her brows in interest.

“I didn't,” Rose said. “Neither did Art. Speaking of teeth—” She looked at the younger two and pointed at the stairs. “Go brush. Daddy'll watch. I need to talk with Aunt Lily.”

“What about Hannah?” cried Ruth.

“Hannah has
big
teeth to brush,” cried Emma.

“Hannah doesn't need watching,” Rose said. “She's ten. I can't be yelling at her for everything. Her teeth are her responsibility. If she wants to have brown teeth, that's her choice.”

“I always brush,” Hannah said, but she might as well have saved her breath, because Rose was looking at Art, conveying silent orders that had to do with the two little ones.

In the next instant Art was corralling them around and up the stairs. Hannah stayed beside Lily.

“Did you finish your homework?” Rose asked and, when she nodded, said, “Go on up then and read. I have to talk to your aunt.”

Lily hugged her. “Go on up,” she said softly. “I'll see you another time.” She watched the girl plod up the stairs, sensing an ache there, wondering if anyone else saw or cared.

Rose leaned against the wall right there in the foyer. “I should have realized you were back. Mom's been in a foul mood. She's
been in a foul mood since this whole thing began. Newspaper headlines, pictures, phone calls—it's been awful for us, Lily. She was terrified when you left here and went to New York. She knew no good would come of it, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine it would be this bad. She refuses to go into town now.”

“Refuses?”

“Well, she thinks twice about it. She's convinced that everyone's talking and watching, and that makes her nervous, and when she's nervous, she takes it out on me.”

Lily found that hard to believe. Rose had always been Maida's pride and joy.

“Who
else
can she yell at?” Rose went on. “She can't yell at Poppy, so she yells at me. I'm the one who's here all the time. I'm the one taking care of her.”

“She's self-sufficient.”

Rose sputtered out a laugh. “Not as much as she thinks. I'm always bringing meals up to the house or picking things up for her in town. Fine, she runs the business, but she wasn't raised to be doing that.”

“It keeps her busy.”

“She's not getting any younger. She should be relaxing. She should be traveling.” The phone rang. “She should be enjoying her grandchildren.”

“Wasn't Hannah over the other night?”

Rose shot her a look. “Hannah is not a child one enjoys. She'll be the death of me yet.”

“How so?”

“Ornery.” The phone rang again. “Headstrong.
Fat.”

“She isn't fat.”

“She's on her way.”

“She'll be growing taller soon. She'll slim out then. She has a beautiful face.”

The phone rang again.

“Get that, Art?”
Rose yelled, then returned to Lily. “Why are you back?”

Lily knew that the edge she heard might be left over from the yell, but it sure sounded like indignation. Indignant right back, she said, “I have a home here.”

“How long are you staying?”

“As long as I need to.”

“What if the press follows you here? Mom will flip out.”

“I didn't do anything wrong, Rose.”

“If she flips out, I'll be the one to suffer.” She looked around when her husband trotted down the stairs.

“That was Maida,” he told her. “Two of the Quebecois were doing night work in the meadow when the backhoe bucked and overturned. She called an ambulance. I'd better go up.”

“Seriously hurt?” Rose asked.

He was already taking his jacket from the closet. “One maybe. But she's frightened.”

“I want to go, too,” Rose said quietly, and for the first time Lily saw caring.

“I'll stay with the girls,” she offered.

“They're in bed,” Art said, handing Rose her sweater. “They won't even know we're gone.”

“We'll be fine,” Lily said and softly shut the door after them. Feeling awkward, too much a stranger to want to wander around her sister's house, she crossed the foyer to
the staircase and sat on the bottom step. With her chin propped in her hands, she listened, but there was no sound from either upstairs or outside. There wouldn't be a siren, of course, no need to clear already empty roads. She imagined that the ambulance crew was only now being alerted by beepers and climbing aboard.

At the sound of a distant giggle, she considered going upstairs to check. But it was a happy sound. No knowledge of accidents there. Her presence, rather than Rose and Art's, might upset them. Better to leave well enough alone.

Then the stairs creaked and she glanced up. Hannah was there on the top step, looking hesitant and unsure. When Lily waved her down, the hesitancy vanished. Quickly and lightly, she ran down the steps and sat beside Lily.

At first, neither of them spoke. Finally, in a soft whisper and with the shyest of smiles, Hannah said, “I'm glad you're here.”

For a split second, looking at that face—yes, a beautiful face—Lily was glad she was, too.

As accidents went, this one was middle of the road. Neither worker was seriously injured, though both suffered enough fractures and contusions to count them out for the rest of the harvest. Since the orchard made two-thirds of its yearly income during the months of October and November, the loss was serious. Compounding the problem, one of the injured workers was a cider house fixture.

That was why Lily rose at dawn the next morning, put
on jeans and her warmest layers, and drove around the lake again. She went all the way up the wide drive this time, turned right after the big house, and followed the road around a bend.

The cider house was a squat stone building, covered with ivy and surrounded by hemlock, actually pretty for a place of hard work. The insides had been gutted and rebuilt twenty years before to shore up the structure and allow the addition of new equipment. Apart from a larger, more efficient refrigeration unit and a faster bottling system, though, the process of making cider hadn't changed much since the Blake family had bottled its first quart in this very same spot four generations earlier.

The instant Lily slipped into the cider house, she was enveloped in the sweet smell of apple. She had come here often as a child, intrigued by the working of the cider press and eager to help. By the time she was sixteen and big enough to do that, she was too busy with music and school. Besides, her father believed that the orchard was man's work.

She pictured him, larger than life in a long rubber apron and high rubber boots, fishing an inferior apple from the wash bin and tossing it aside, scooping the rest through the water toward the lift that took them up to the chopper. Another worker, standing on a platform five feet off the ground, ushered them along the conveyor belt and into the chopper. Two other men stood on similar platforms, layering racks and cloths and apple mash one on another until there were eleven layers in all—always eleven, she remembered that.

“Oh my,” came a voice from behind, and Lily turned
to the startled face of Oralee Moore. Oralee was the widow of George's foreman. It was ironic, given George's view of women, that Oralee was now Maida's foreman. Tall and sturdy, with ashy skin and wiry gray hair, she had to be nearing seventy, but she was dressed the same as Lily, ready to work.

Lily liked Oralee. Even in the worst of earlier times, the older woman had always had a kind smile for her, a compassionate look. She gave both to Lily now—but Lily's gaze quickly moved past her to the young man entering the cider house on her heels.

In that instant, Lily realized what she'd done. She had come here to work for many reasons, the most urgent being that Maida needed help, but it had been an instinctive response, with little time to ponder or doubt. Oralee wasn't a concern; she was loyal and discreet. But the young man behind her was only one of many who would see Lily in the course of a day here. Some lived in the dormitory. Others lived in town. Those others would go home after work and spread the word. Her secret would be out.

After an initial moment of panic, she suddenly relaxed, a bit surprised to realize that she wasn't sorry. Her stomach still knotted when she remembered the hounding of the press, but she'd had to face them on her own in Boston. She wasn't in Boston anymore. She was in Lake Henry. She had been born and raised here, and if the town had treated her poorly once, now was the time for them to make up for that. She was tired of hiding.

Besides, it was done.

“How are André and Jacques?” she asked in reference to the injured men.

Oralee's mouth went crooked. “They'll be home in two days, sitting up there in the dorm, pleased as punch to have time off with pay.” She waved the young man into the cider house. “This is Bub. He's from the Ridge.”

Bub was tall, solid, and not a day over eighteen. He made such a point of not looking at Lily that she knew that he knew just who she was. Trusting Oralee to tell him anything else he needed to know, she went outside to wait for Maida.