One Mountain Away (30 page)

“Ethan, it’s Charlotte. Do you have a minute?”

He hesitated, as if wary. “What’s up?”

“I have something I need to give you, and I’m in the neighborhood. Would you mind if I drop it off now? If it’s inconvenient…”

“Inconvenient, no. Surprising? Yes.”

“I know.” She sighed. “I was afraid you’d say no, so I didn’t call from home.”

“You used to do this. You liked to spring things on people, but at least you usually gave them a few moments to prepare.”

He didn’t sound angry, and she felt herself smiling a little. “I’ve changed. You have a whole four, maybe even five,
minutes
. It depends on how easy it is to park near your house.”

“Have you never learned to park a car?”

“I can park a car, just not to your standards.”

“You mean within marked boundaries? Close enough to the curb to get there with a flying leap?”

“Your expectations were always too high.”

“Come ahead. Shall I make a pot of coffee?”

That surprised her. She hadn’t intended to stay that long—she hadn’t expected to be invited to. “I’d like that.”

“You can park in my driveway. Just don’t run over my dappled willows.” He hung up.

The dappled willows created a hedge along the edge of his driveway, leaves of pink, green and white on graceful stalks. The house had once been something else, a simple ranch, but Ethan had obviously done a renovation. Instead of the usual wrought-iron railings or slim wooden posts holding up the porch roof, he had installed rich dark wood pillars with stainless-steel accents. The siding was a cool slate gray, and sleek unadorned windows ran nearly from ground to roof. The landscaping was Asian in style, with a curving path to the front door of crushed white stone lined with a thick border of river stone, and studded with clumps of ornamental grasses.

The effect was masculine and spare, without being overdone. Ethan had been considerate of his neighbors, and the result was innovative, but not overwhelming.

Very Ethan.

When she was nearly to the porch, he opened the door, as if he’d been watching for her. “Not taking any chances on backing out, are you?”

All these years later, he still knew her well. She hadn’t pulled in farther than a few feet from the street to save herself from plowing into a mailbox or landing in a drainage ditch on the way out.

“And I bet you got out the cream and didn’t bother with the sugar. Hello, Ethan. Thanks for letting me come.”

“The coffee’s perking.” He stood to one side so she could enter.

The floor plan was an open one, although she doubted it had started out that way. She walked directly into the living room and saw the kitchen straight ahead, separated only by a granite counter. The floors were old cherry, polished to a fine sheen, and the kitchen cabinets seemed to be the same cherry, extending to the ceiling and flanked by stainless appliances. The backsplash was tile that reminded her of piano keys.

“I bet it didn’t look like this when you moved in,” she said.

“It didn’t look this way when Judy lived here, either. I remodeled after she moved to Chicago. It gave me something to do.”

She felt a twinge, as she had the last time he’d mentioned his second ex. “And made the place yours,” she said lightly.

“Want a tour?”

The house was surprisingly spacious. Four small bedrooms had been turned into three, she guessed, with the enlarged master suite stretching across most of the back. The walls were earth tones and most often bare of adornment, the furniture basic and functional, with beautiful lines. Windows looked out on small gardens, one with a tiny waterfall, or clusters of slender trees that hid the neighboring yards. Several faced the rear and a large outbuilding.

Back in the living room, she congratulated him. “It’s wonderful. Simple but not stark. And I bet Maddie loves the little bedroom with the waterfall view.”

“She’s my biggest fan. Let me get the coffee.”

She followed him into the kitchen and took the mug he handed her. “What’s in the back? I’m surprised at how much space you have out there.”

“My workshop and office.” He seemed to consider. “Would you like to see that, too?”

“Can I bring my cup?”

He brought his, as well, and explained what he was working on as they crossed the yard.

“I bought the bottle factory at auction and almost didn’t win. After I did, I was sorry, because suddenly I realized what a commitment I’d made. That was three years ago.”

“Three years?” She’d built a fifty-unit condominium in less time than that.

“I know. But the best way to develop the property is slowly. We’re using elbow grease and reclaimed materials, a lot of it from the factory itself. We’ll end up with six loft units, the largest with four bedrooms. The smallest—mine—will have two. I’m tired of cleaning and taking care of a yard. But the building will have simple gardens around it, so there’ll be plenty of green space.”

“And somebody else will take care of it. That sounds good.”

“We’re leaving brick exposed, and we’ve opened ceilings right to the beams. We have a welding artist using old plumbing pipes to fashion stair rails, and a glass artist is taking old windows from the factory and colored glass from a neighborhood church that was demolished, and setting it in concrete for the countertops. I have drawings if you’d like to see, and photos.”

“I’d love to. I would love to know if you’re going to make any money, too, with all those craftsmen and artists doing the work.”

“That’s a very Charlotte question.”

Since he didn’t sound angry, she didn’t apologize. “But not a Charlotte indictment. I’m honestly curious. If there’s a way to have both, we need to tell everybody and make it happen.”

“Mass produce it, you mean?”

She thought about that. “No. But maybe it’s time we just think smaller and figure out how to do it without going broke.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“You don’t know what I sound like these days, remember? We’ve been divorced nearly as long as we were married.”

“No, we haven’t.”

She saw that he was watching her. “I’m not the woman you remember, Ethan.”

He smiled. Sadly. “Lulu, you never were.”

* * *

Ethan thought Charlotte was honestly impressed with the factory lofts. She asked good questions, avidly examined the plans and told him what she liked best about each unit. She walked through the workshop, and trailed her fingertips over freshly sanded hickory and bundles of copper piping waiting to be carted away by the welder. She stayed long enough that coffee had become glasses of wine shared in his living room.

During the early years of their marriage they had connected over blueprints and building materials, he from an artist’s perspective, she from a developer’s. In the long run their mutual fascination had both kept them together and hastened their separation. In the beginning conversations about architecture and community and responsible development, like the one they’d been having for the past several hours, had stoked the fire of their romance. In the end, their differing perspectives had smothered it.

“I wish,” she said, “that I had appreciated your talent more. I spent so much time trying to get you to see things my way.”

He poured the last of a bottle of good cabernet into her glass. “Some of that was okay. I was a dreamer, you were a doer. I needed a shove.”

“And I needed a muzzle.” She smiled the smile he remembered so well from their early years and had rarely witnessed in the later ones. “You’ve grown into your talent, though. You were wasted at Falconview, designing houses you couldn’t put your soul into. The lofts are going to be extraordinary.”

“Now I’m waiting for an offer to go in on the project with me. Let Falconview bankroll the remainder and speed it up. Then you can sell the units, skimming just a
tiny
bit for the privilege.”

She laughed. “You’ll have a long wait. I’ve lost the pit-bull instinct. I’d rather just watch from afar and wish you well.”

“Times are hard. We get by on long hours and dreams, but we get by. When the factory’s completed, I’ll probably move on to something completely different.”

“That fills your well. You need the variety.”

He contemplated how odd this was. He’d never expected to have a conversation with Charlotte again, much less one when she seemed to see him for the man he was and approve. He found it seductive in the most elemental of ways, as if something he’d longed for had been given to him at last. He had the curious desire to give something back, and he found himself wishing he was sitting close to her, instead of across the short expanse between sofa and chair.

Some wishes were best unfulfilled.

“Have you really changed so much? Or are you setting me up for something?” he asked.

She looked surprised, and for a moment he saw anger flickering in her blue-gray eyes. Then she sighed. “I guess I deserve that. But yes, I’ve changed.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, as if mulling over what answer to give, then she shrugged. “Life will do that to you.”

He didn’t know what she meant and didn’t want to know. He knew she wanted to reconcile with their daughter. He knew she wanted access to their granddaughter. But did she want access to him? If so, she seemed to have gotten a foot in the door. She was sitting in his house finishing her second glass of wine. His own head was spinning pleasantly, but there were warning bells clanging in the distance.

“What did you want to drop off?” he asked. “We seem to have forgotten the real purpose of this visit.”

“I wrote a letter to Taylor. I brought it with me.”

“Do you want me to read and critique?”

“No. I’d like you to give it to her, if you will. I don’t want to complicate your relationship, but I’m hoping if it comes through you, she’ll be less likely to rip it up the moment it touches her hand.”

He thought about that, about what an imposition this was, about the way it was bound to widen the crack that had surfaced the moment he told Taylor he’d communicated with her mother.

But he didn’t say those things. He told a different truth. “Our daughter’s angry at you, but you aren’t the only one. She’s angry at Jeremy, too. And now she’s angrier because she thinks I’m taking your side.”

He held up his hand to stop Charlotte’s apology. “No, the point is that Taylor has problems with forgiveness, and I haven’t been good about confronting her. I never was good at confronting her. I left that to you.”

“You did,” she said, but not as if it pleased her.

“Everybody who loves her walks a line, and if she feels they’ve wronged her, they’re out of her life. She’s forced to interact with Jeremy, but she lashes out at him in subtle ways. She tries to keep him away from Maddie. She never gives him credit for anything. She knows, on some level, that they have to cooperate for Maddie’s sake, but on a deeper level, she fights it.”

“I’ll find another way to get the letter to her.”

“No, I’ll give it to her. And I’ll tell her what I’m telling you. She has to learn to forgive. Carrying this kind of anger for so long will weigh her down and keep her from moving forward. It would be different if you weren’t trying to find a way to be in her life again, but you are. Now it’s her turn to find a way to accept that.”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “Believe it or not, I still understand her. Taylor feels things deeply. She always did, even as a little girl. So she pushes everyone who hurts her away so she won’t be hurt again. I don’t think it’s anger so much as pain.”

They were talking about Taylor, but he thought Charlotte was talking about herself, as well. Like mother, like daughter. He’d noticed the similarities between them before and hoped he was wrong. Now he knew he wasn’t.

She glanced at her watch, then up at him, blinking back tears. “I should go.”

He thought she was right. This intimacy was uncomfortable. It was also, like her compliments, seductive.

She got to her feet, and he joined her. “You’re okay to drive home?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” But she didn’t move. Instead, she reached out and touched his arm, her fingertips featherlight. “Do you know what I regret?”

“Apparently lots of things.”

“I was thinking of one in particular. Our lot at Falcon View. The lot we never built on.”

“The land you sold right after the divorce,” he said.

“The lot I bought back three years ago, after the new owners decided not to build, after all.” It was the one piece of her father’s land she hadn’t sold, a piece she’d kept just for them.

He hadn’t known. “You probably got it at a bargain.”

She shook her head slowly. “I wish we had built the house you envisioned there. Every time I see that land, I think of that house.”

“The one you didn’t like? The dream house that was my idea and never yours?”

“If we’d worked on those plans together, we could have found a way to make it ours. I’m sorry we never did. It would have been a masterpiece.”

After all the things he had expected her to say, this was a complete surprise.

“There were a lot of things we should have done and didn’t,” he said.

She smiled a little. “Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

She looked as if she wanted to say more, but instead she started toward the front door, scooping up her purse on the way. She took out an envelope and set it on the entry table, then opened the door, turned and lifted her hand in farewell.

When she closed it behind her, he continued to stand there until he heard her drive away.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

TAYLOR WAS FUMING, and she knew it. Yoga helped her understand the way her body and moods entwined, but sometimes she wished she could just fume, anyway. As she packed the last of Maddie’s clothes for the trip to Nashville, she imagined herself in a shaded forest beside a creek. She could hear the water lapping against rocks at the edge and the splash of a waterfall just out of sight. From a nearby tree birdsong…

“Stupid bird.” She slapped the sleeves of a striped T-shirt together and rolled it into something resembling a sausage, tucking it into a corner of the Disney Princess Wishes rolling suitcase that Maddie would probably decline to use next year when she was a grown-up eleven.