One Mountain Away (16 page)

He looked as if he didn’t believe her. “I’m glad I found you in.”

“Well, that’s good, because who knows how you’ll feel by the end of the conversation. I’m sure this isn’t a social call.”

“I saw you at the park on Thursday.”

She was silent so long he must have realized she wasn’t going to answer.

“It
was
you?” he asked.

“I was there, yes.”

“You were watching Maddie.”

She wanted so badly to explain, yet the words eluded her. “Yes, and Sam’s daughter, Edna, and a boy named Porter, who’s well on his way to becoming a bully, except that Edna’s trying to change him and very well might.”

“I gather that’s your way of saying it wasn’t your first visit.”

She turned to look at him. She saw the same changes he must have noted in her, but Ethan was aging well. The years stripped away nature’s most lavish flourishes, but they left the essence of a man behind. Ethan’s bone structure would still serve him well at eighty, but his eyes, a golden-brown that took in everything around him and didn’t judge, would serve him best.

Those eyes served him well now, although she thought that on this rare occasion, they were not judgment-free.

“She’s a beautiful little girl.” Charlotte turned away. “Well worth watching.”

“You’re not one to do anything without thinking it through. So what do you think will happen when Taylor finds out what you’re doing?”

“I don’t know for sure, Ethan.”

“Then I’ll tell you. She’s going to be furious.”

She wasn’t surprised—after all, Samantha had made that clear, as well—but somehow, stupidly, she had hoped otherwise. She nodded, but the nod hid a wealth of feeling.

“I was hoping that wasn’t going to be your answer, but Sam agrees. She says it won’t be easy.”

“Sam Ferguson?”

“We’ve talked. She recognized me at the park.”

He looked surprised that Samantha had been willing to talk to her. “How could you think Taylor would feel otherwise?”

“Time changes things, and people, too. I guess I hoped…” She realized she was still wearing garden gloves, and she began to slowly strip them off for something to do, because she couldn’t go on.

He had no such problem. “Taylor had to grow up quickly when she realized she was going to be a mother, and she’s done an admirable job. But she hasn’t gotten past her anger yet.”

“Yet?”

“I hope it will come.”

“Do you keep it alive?” She made certain the question didn’t sound like an accusation. She really wanted to know.

He didn’t look happy, and his answer was as distasteful as the question. “We don’t talk about you at all. She won’t allow it. But if we did? I would try to point out that in your own way, you were trying to protect her.”

“In my own way…” She folded the gloves and placed them in the basket. “In my own way I
was
trying to protect her, Ethan. I was sure I knew what was best for her. Knowing what was best for everybody was something I was good at. I prided myself on it.”

“What to do about the pregnancy was
her
decision. Without more pressure than the situation already called for.”

“Of course it was.”

He seemed surprised she hadn’t argued.
She
was surprised their conversation brought back such vivid memories of the day Ethan had walked away from their marriage. She had known it would, and yet the ferocity of her feelings made her close her eyes for a moment.

“I want to find my way back into Taylor’s life,” Charlotte said, when he didn’t respond. “And I want to know my granddaughter. I need to find a way. Asking you to help is the definition of audacity, I know, but here you are, sitting right beside me. If we can say anything conclusive, it’s that I never miss an opportunity.”

“Audacity doesn’t cover it.”

She turned so she was looking right at him, and this time she was sure her feelings were plain. “I’ll grovel. I’ll do anything it takes. I made a terrible, terrible mistake, and I want to rectify it for their sakes.”

“Do you? Or is this all about
you
and what
you
need?”

“It’s both and everything. Taylor needs a chance to put this behind her, and I think Maddie might need her grandmother. I need my family. I need to do the right thing. I love Taylor. I never stopped.”

“I can tell you what your daughter will think, because it’s the same thing I do. You’ll try to run things. You’ll want to do this for Taylor and that for Maddie, all things that you think need to be done and have nothing to do with what she wants.”

She took a moment before she spoke, as if she was thinking about what he’d said, although she really didn’t need to.

“I understand why you feel that way, but I can assure you it won’t be true.”

“Maddie has seizures. You know that?”

She nodded.

“Taylor makes all the decisions about Maddie’s health and treatment. She doesn’t want advice, and she doesn’t want interference.”

“Does she need them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said. “Maddie is her daughter, and she has the right to do what she believes is best.”

“And Jeremy?”

“He loves Maddie. They got off to a rough start, and Taylor’s never quite forgiven him for not wanting the baby at the beginning, but he did step up to the plate. And his parents have been great.”

“I’m so glad.”

Charlotte was sure that wasn’t the response Ethan had expected. She had despised Jeremy, who in high school had played in a rock band called Insidious Pagans and challenged any and all authority. She had forbidden Taylor to see him, guaranteeing that not only would Taylor sneak behind her mother’s back, but that she would also find Jeremy even more attractive and succumb to his charms.

“I don’t know what I can do for you, Charlotte.”

“Or what you
want
to do.”

“That, too.”

She knew she had little time left to convince him. She tried to make every word count. “I can imagine how you feel. I can even imagine how you feel about
me.
Please, just know I have such deep regrets, starting well before that final terrible fight. I can’t change the past, but maybe I can change the future. At least a little?”

They sat that way for a full minute. She fanned herself and waited. Her hands were trembling.

“She won’t appreciate a go-between,” he said at last. “I can tell you that for sure. Taylor takes no prisoners and wants no mediators. If you stand even the smallest chance of making amends, you’ll have to do it directly.”

“Sam said the same thing. What would be the best time, do you think? When she’s not feeling harried or worried?”

“I’ll get back to you.” He stood, and she did, too.

“Will you?” she asked. “You’re not blowing me off?”

“Would it do any good?”

“If you don’t want to see or talk to me again, I’ll understand. Why would you? Why
should
you?”

“Because we share a child, even though she would rather forget that. And a grandchild, too. At least we did that much right.”

She smiled a little at his admission, and he returned it. Despite herself, she felt the warmth curling inside her like wood smoke drifting skyward on an autumn afternoon. “You look well. Are you happy?”

“Does it matter?”

“I want you to be.”

“Are
you?
” he countered.

“I may be finding my way in that direction, even if I lost the map a long time ago. It’s a path over mountains, isn’t it?”

“A very steep climb.”

She touched his arm. Briefly, gently. “Thank you for this, Ethan. For coming, for listening, for thinking it over.”

He nodded, then he started back toward the house.

She wondered if he would walk through the kitchen, the shortest route to the front. Framed on the wall beside the refrigerator he would see three familiar finger-paintings, the first Taylor had done as a preschooler. They had been framed to hang in the home their family had shared together. She imagined he hadn’t thought about them since the divorce.

But Charlotte had never forgotten.

Chapter Fourteen

First Day Journal: May 4

Ethan and I have lived apart nearly eleven years, but for a few moments today while he was here, I almost felt we had never parted. Marriage demands a level of intimacy that permanently changes us. In some ways it feels as if Ethan left an imprint on my heart. All those years ago, that’s exactly what I was afraid might happen. I tried to prevent it, but love will find a way.

In my memories I am twenty-three again, and my relationship with Ethan seems impossible, yet impossible not to continue. He calls me Lulu and drags me to bluegrass bars or south of the city to sliding rocks and waterfalls. I take him bicycling through the Biltmore Estate on paths the King boys and I called our own.

At Christmas we go to his home in Roanoke, Virginia, and my guesses about his family and upbringing are confirmed. He and a younger brother are the products of private schools, of summer camps in New England and special tutors when their grades are less than perfect.

I’m welcomed with interest. His physician mother makes time to have tea, and shows me Ethan’s childhood photos and portraits of ancestors rooted deeply in Confederate aristocracy. His attorney father brags about Ethan’s golf game.

We attend a Christmas Eve party at their country club, and Mrs. Martin loans me a silver fox stole to wear with my perfect consignment shop dress. Ethan, of course, asks me to leave the stole at home, since he doesn’t approve of fur—nor, for that matter, of his parents’ country club, which is segregated.

The next morning there are gifts for me under the tree, and his family seems genuinely pleased with my small gifts to them. Still, I sense his mother watching and judging, as if she can see past my thin veneer to guess that I’m not good enough to bear her grandchildren.

All conversation in Ethan’s house is surprisingly tepid, as if anything of interest is purposely omitted. I ask Ethan if they’re being particularly polite, and he says no, what I’ve seen is his family with their hair down.

He sneaks into my room late that night, and we make love with surprising passion. Suddenly I understand that while his home and family seem perfect to me, they have never seemed perfect to him.

This is the first time I realize that Ethan and I aren’t going to simply drift apart, that we’ve created a bond that will be messy to sever. Is it possible to have a long-term relationship when we want such different things? I want the life he lived as a child, the one his parents still live and he disdains. If Ethan and I marry, can’t we have everything?

That winter and spring I take classes, and work dinner and lunch shifts. Although Ethan begins to casually mention marriage, I’m just glad to be with him, to cook a meal or nap while he does. At least half our nights are spent in my bed or his. He, too, is working hard, and for the moment we’re content just to be together when we can.

Summer is pivotal. His mother arrives unannounced on her way to Highlands to visit a friend, and I’m at Ethan’s having supper. She seems surprised we’re still together, although she covers it quickly. The next morning she takes me to her favorite Asheville boutique. She knows so little about me, she says, as she probes for details. I know she’s hunting for confirmation of her suspicions.

I tell her only a little more, that my ancestors settled in the mountains generations ago and I was raised by my grandmother. I tell her that life in Madison County was never easy, but my family worked hard and prayed harder. I don’t mention Hearty. Even Ethan knows little about my father.

As we shop she subtly corrects most of what I say and do, looking vaguely sympathetic, as if she realizes she’s wasting her time. At the end of the morning, as I say goodbye, I’m fighting tears. Then, surprisingly, on the way home, I’m fighting nausea.

A week later my suspicions are confirmed. I don’t have the flu, I am going to have a baby.

Chapter Fifteen

ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON Taylor Martin juggled prescription slips, along with samples and literature about Maddie’s newest medication, and still managed to smile at Dr. Hilliard’s nurse, a woman who had been with his practice since the day it was established. Rhonda had once told Taylor she was ready to retire, but loyalty to Dr. Hilliard kept her from taking the final plunge. He was that kind of person. Inspirational, compassionate, involved. Taylor wasn’t sure what she would do when he, too, decided it was time to call medicine quits.

“Maddie, you’re growing so fast,” Rhonda said. “Your mother must be feeding you all the time.”

Maddie didn’t smile. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and although she hadn’t had any more full-blown seizures during daylight hours, Dr. Hilliard thought it was possible her sleep was being disturbed by smaller ones. After the grand-mal seizure on the day of the cookout, he had changed one of her medications, and today he’d added another. He was hopeful this new combination would give her more rest. So was Taylor, although she was afraid that once she looked over the new drug’s potential side effects, she was going to feel less so.

“She hardly ever lets me have dessert,” Maddie said, with an uncharacteristic whine in her voice.

Rhonda, a woman who looked as if dessert might be her first course, shook her finger playfully at the girl. “Whatever she’s doing is working. Next time I see you, you’ll be a foot taller.”

Taylor ushered her daughter into the overly air-conditioned hallway, then the elevator. She hoped Rhonda’s prediction was true, but as often as she and Maddie came to this office, she suspected her daughter wouldn’t have grown a millimeter.

Outside the building Maddie scanned the cars parked diagonally along the curb. “Papa’s not here.”

Taylor checked the time. “We finished early. Cut him some slack.” Her father had agreed to do transportation today while she got new tires on her car.

Ethan could be relied on to be where he said he would,
when
he said he would, but it didn’t come naturally. Growing up, Taylor’s mother had always been the punctual one, tapping her foot like the ticking of a clock if anybody kept her waiting. Back then Ethan had been the dawdler, the creative spirit who lingered in front of every unfamiliar house to imagine how space was divided or whether a no-talent remodeler had installed fake ceilings and slapped white paint on precious mahogany paneling.