One Week In December (20 page)

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Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: One Week In December
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Becca smiled. “To death?”
“Well,” Alex said, “to smotheration, if that's a word. They mean well and I appreciate them. I just need to live out of easy visiting distance or I'd have no personal life whatsoever.”
“They must have been very upset when you got divorced.”
“Of course. According to my mother and sister, the divorce was all the fault of my former wife. But then again, she—her name is Bridget—never really cared for Mom and Anna, so I suppose for the women it all worked out nicely.”
“And for you?” Becca could barely believe the boldness of her question.
Alex grinned. “I'm doing pretty good. I could be better, but maybe I will be before long.”
Becca wondered if he meant something—pointed—by that remark but decided that he couldn't have. “When was the last time you saw your family?” she asked.
“Oh, this past summer. Late July, I think it was.”
“That's a long time ago.”
Alex smiled. “You should talk. You haven't been here since last December.”
Becca looked off at a large crow perched in the naked branches of the ancient oak that in summer held a tire swing. Crows, she'd always thought, were frightening birds, too black and sleek to be friendly. The bird shifted on the branch and seemed now to be staring at her. She turned away.
“Any particular reason for the long absence?” Alex was asking.
Though Alex's tone betrayed no prurient motive, his question made Becca feel threatened. There it was, that old, powerful fear of exposure.
“I've got to go,” she said, already heading for the house. “I have to check in with my office.”
“I'm sorry.”
Becca stopped and turned to look back at Alex.
“For what?” she asked, struggling to meet those intense blue eyes without flinching.
“That the office can't be left at the office.”
Again, his tone was neutral, but Becca didn't know if she could trust that neutrality. What, exactly, had Alex meant? Was he criticizing her devotion to career? “Yeah, well,” she said, “that's just the way it is.”
Becca again turned toward the house. “Just the way it is.” The words and the attitude behind them were more evidence of her failure of imagination. Why did anything in her life have to be “ just the way it is”? Besides, the truth in this case was that the office could very well be left to fend for itself. The empty e-mail box and the silent phone attested to that.
Behind her the crow in the ancient oak tree cawed loudly.
“Besides,” she said, turning back once more to find Alex watching her with those penetrating blue eyes, “I'm cold.”
35
Later that afternoon, Rain came upon her aunt Becca alone in the kitchen. She was making a pot of tea the old-fashioned way. At least, water was boiling in the kettle. Julie didn't care much for microwaves; she thought food tasted “funny” after being nuked. She did, however, concede to the convenience of tea bags.
Rain held out her long, well-manicured hands for inspection. “Aunt Becca, you haven't mentioned my nails once since we got here. Do you like the color?”
Like mother, like daughter, Becca thought. Rain had inherited Becca's strong, natural nails and her penchant for wearing them long, no matter what the current fashion. “I think the color is fantastic. What's it called?”
“Blue Moon. When it first came out a few years ago I bought a couple of bottles, even though it's pretty expensive. I just love it, but I save it for special occasions.”
“Like Christmas with your family,” she suggested, pouring steaming water into another of the cups that Naomi had crafted. This one Becca actually liked. Naomi had used a striking teal glaze and done away with further decoration, like doggies and kitties and smiling pumpkins.
“Sure. It's always special when we all get together.”
The obvious honesty of that reply touched Becca. “Come, sit with me,” she said.
“Dad, of course, hates this color,” Rain said as she plopped into one of the chairs at the table. “He says he doesn't know why I can't wear pink. He says if I want blue nails I should just spill a bottle of ink on my hands.”
Becca laughed. “Well, no one ever said my brother had much of a fashion sense. He spent all four years of college in what I'm pretty sure were the same pair of gray sweatpants.”
“That's gross,” Rain said, making a face. “Well, Alex has a fashion sense, even if he does need a haircut. He told me that he likes my nails.”
“He did?” Becca was startled.
“Yeah. He told me he doesn't know many women with nice nails. He probably likes yours, too.”
“Was he flirting with you?” Becca demanded. Because if he had been flirting with her teenaged daughter, she would destroy him. End of story. They could put her in jail, but they'd have to find her first. They could—
“Ugh, no!” Rain cried, interrupting Becca's silent fury. “He's so old! Anyway, he's not like that. He's nice. I know because Dad likes him.”
It was true. David had always had a good instinct about other men.
Too bad he hadn't met Rain's father,
she thought.
Maybe he could have warned me to stay far away from him.
Yeah, right. Becca knew that if her brother had warned her to stay away from the guy, it only would have made her run to him even faster than she had under her own impetus. She'd been a heedless girl. She'd become a cautious woman.
“Wait, let me show you something in here.” Rain grabbed one of the fashion magazines she'd left strewn across the table and flipped it open. “There's an incredible pair of jeans in here you've just got to see.”
Julie appeared just then. She came into the kitchen and stood with her arms folded, giving Becca a look that could only be interpreted as a warning. Becca couldn't help but wonder if she was being followed, watched. Had someone alerted her mother to the fact that she was alone with Rain? It seemed entirely possible.
“What do you want, Mom?” she asked, meeting Julie's eye.
Julie laughed, though there was nothing funny about Becca's question or tone. “Can't a woman come into her own kitchen for no reason at all?”
“Of course. I certainly didn't mean to imply—”
“So, what have you girls been talking about?”
“Nothing,” Becca said.
“Rain?”
She looked up from her magazine. “Yes, Grandma?”
“What were you two talking about?”
Rain looked at Becca. “Uh, like Aunt Becca said, nothing.” She shrugged. “A pair of jeans I want that Dad won't let me get.”
Julie shot another warning look at her daughter. “I'm sure your father has a good reason for not wanting you to have them.”
“Yeah. They're too expensive.”
“Well, I hope you're not asking your aunt for the money to buy them.”
Rain looked embarrassed.
“Mom.” Becca's tone was firm. “She didn't ask me for anything. We were just talking.”
Julie hesitated a moment. “Fine,” she said then. “Well, I'll leave you two to talk about—jeans.”
Her mother left the kitchen. Becca wondered if anyone in the Rowan family would trust her ever again. She doubted they would. She doubted that any of her relationships with the family would ever be the same.
Even her relationship with Rain? Becca watched her daughter flipping through the magazine. Suddenly, she felt—uncomfortable. And she wondered if she'd already, irrevocably destroyed something good between them, between her and her daughter, simply by considering breaking the family's agreement. God, she hoped that she hadn't.
Rain looked up from the magazine. “Are you okay, Aunt Becca?” she asked, frowning.
“Fine,” she said quickly. “Why?”
Rain shrugged. “You seem a little, I don't know, distracted. Everyone seems a bit strange this week. I mean, what was up with Grandma just now? She was quizzing us like we'd done something wrong. Is there something going on I don't know about?”
“Of course not,” Becca lied. “I mean, if there is something going on, I don't know about it, either. No.” Careful, she warned herself. It's stupid to protest too much.
“Whatever. Just that Aunt Olivia seems angry all the time and Uncle James looks so sad and my parents are all tense. Even Grandpa and Grandma seem—different. I mean, I know Lily has a reason to be upset because of that Cliff guy, who, by the way, I met once. What a jerk.”
“Sometimes people get emotional during the holidays,” Becca said, desperately hoping that her daughter would believe her and not continue to pry. When had she become so curious about her relatives? “Adults, I mean. They feel—pressures. That's all.”
“Well, I think it's pretty sad. If you can't be happy during Christmastime, then when can you be happy?”
Yes, Becca thought, taking a sip of her lukewarm tea, then when? “Adults are often stupid,” she said. “We know we shouldn't be, but we are. We're always doing things we know we shouldn't do. Things that hurt us.”
“Like smoking?”
“That wasn't exactly what I was thinking about,” Becca admitted, “but yes, I suppose.”
Rain rolled her eyes. “Well, I just don't understand why people do things they know are bad for them. I mean, it makes no sense! There's this guy in my school, he's a senior, he's kind of cute, but he gets drunk every Saturday night and then brags about how bad he was hung over on Sunday. That's just so lame!”
“Yes,” Becca said, “it is.” At least she didn't have to worry about her daughter developing a smoking or drinking habit.
“And this girl in my history class,” Rain went on. “Amanda. She's really overweight and she knows she is, her doctor told her she has to lose, like, thirty pounds, but she can't stick to a diet. Every day at lunch she eats four Hostess cupcakes. She could get diabetes or have a heart attack or something! I don't understand why she doesn't just do what her doctor tells her to do.”
No, Becca thought, Rain doesn't at all understand how hard life can be for some people. And Becca was struck now by how young her daughter really was, how simply she saw the world, how she didn't seem able to grasp human complications. How would Rain react to the truth of her birth? Maybe David and Naomi were right. Rain was still very young, levelheaded but naïve, ill equipped to handle such a startling truth.
Becca wondered. Had she been that innocent, that unknowing when she was Rain's age? It didn't seem possible. But if she had been, no wonder her parents had acted so forcefully to remove Rain from her care. And no wonder Becca had wanted them to help—and though she didn't remember that time very clearly, she had been told that she'd been eager for David and Naomi to take the child. And—she could admit this now, at least to herself—thank God that they had.
Sixteen was far too young to be a parent, at least a good one. Sure, at sixteen you could drive your mother's car to school, but did that mean you should be allowed to commandeer the controls of a jumbo jet? At sixteen you might be pretty good at feeding and brushing your dog, but did that mean you should be allowed to operate on his liver? At sixteen you could have sex, but did that mean you really knew anything about sexuality? No. It did not.
“Aunt Becca? You're staring off into space again. And your tea is probably ice-cold.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I was thinking about work stuff.”
Rain groaned dramatically. “That's another weird thing about adults. They go on and on about how they hate their jobs—well, some of them do—and then they can't stop thinking about them when they're away from the office.”
Becca smiled. Yes. A sixteen-year-old might have a part-time job, but that didn't mean she understood anything about bills and mortgages and insurance payments and severance packages and shrinking retirement accounts and . . . “Yes,” she said, “it's another one of our more annoying habits.”
36
“I thought we might exchange our Christmas letters today, Liv. What do you think?”
James and Olivia were in their room, the one Julie had designated the Queen Anne's Lace Room. James was fond of his mother-in-law and of her little fancies. She was formidable at the same time that she was lovable; she was strong at the same time that she was whimsical.
Olivia, sitting in the room's only chair, hadn't answered his question. She continued to study a report she had brought with her from the office. James had tried to get her to agree to leave work behind just this once, but she'd refused.
“Liv?” he said again.
Now she raised her head. “What?” she asked.
James repressed a hint of irritation. “Our letters. I thought we might exchange them now.”
It had been Olivia's idea originally. Every Christmas of their marriage, each wrote a letter to the other, and then they exchanged the letters with some ceremony. In the letters they took the time to assess the health of their relationship—and to celebrate the firm fact of their love.
This year, it had taken James several months to write his letter. It had been difficult to write, difficult to find words to express both his love for his wife as well as his concern for the state of their relationship. The last thing James wanted to do was to put Olivia on the defensive by implying that his unhappiness was her fault exclusively. He knew it wasn't—but he also knew that something was wrong with Olivia. And as long as she was troubled by whatever demons were troubling her, he, too, would suffer. And their marriage, which had once been so strong and the source of so much contentment. . .
Well, James didn't like to think about what might eventually happen to the marriage if things continued in the way they were heading. For the first time, he was both eager and afraid to read what his wife had written to him about the state of her feelings.
When Olivia didn't reply, just continued to stare up at him blankly, James took action. He handed her a folded piece of thick, creamy-white paper on which he had written, in his own hand, his thoughts for his wife.
Olivia immediately put the letter on the old pine dresser beside her and sighed dramatically, as if she'd been terribly put-upon. “I've been so busy. I meant to write your letter, but I just didn't get around to it. Don't worry, James. I'll get to it after the holiday.”
James felt as if he'd been struck across the cheek with the back of her hand. “I'm not worried about the letter, Liv,” he managed to say after a moment. “I'm worried about what it means that you chose not to write it.”
“I told you,” she repeated. “I've been busy.”
“And I haven't been?” James felt the anger rising in him. He was unused to anger and struggled to keep it under control.
Olivia shrugged. “Well, it's not like I forgot about the letter.”
“Frankly, I think it would have been better if it had slipped your mind. Everybody forgets things on occasion. But to deliberately ignore a cherished ritual . . .” James laughed bitterly. “And you say you care so much about family and tradition. I guess in your mind that leaves me out.”
Olivia felt slightly shaken by her husband's anger, but only slightly. She sighed again, exasperated. “I really don't understand why you're making such a big deal about a silly little letter, James. I told you I'll get around to writing it in a week or so.”
There was a sound from the hallway. Olivia turned toward the door, but she didn't seem at all concerned that someone might have overheard the argument. James, on the other hand, was concerned.
“Lord,” he whispered, “someone's out there and probably heard everything. I'm sorry, Liv. I didn't mean to raise my voice.”
Olivia looked back at her husband. She didn't read the pain and embarrassment on his face. She did, however, see that he'd shaved badly that morning. His carelessness annoyed her. “It's fine, James,” she said, rising from the chair. “I'm going to go downstairs for a while.”
Olivia opened the door. Naomi was only a few feet down the hall.
“Naomi,” Olivia called. “What do you want?”
Naomi turned back. Her cheeks were a bit flushed. Olivia wondered why.
“Nothing,” she said. “I was . . . I was just passing by and I knocked into the hall table and . . .”
“Do you know where Nora put that old family Bible, the one that belonged to her mother? She told me it was in the den, but I couldn't find it. It's a mess in there to begin with and now Becca's got her stuff all over the place.”
“What? The old . . .” Naomi shrugged. “I'm sorry, Olivia. I have no idea.”
Of course not,
Olivia thought.
You're not really a Rowan. It was stupid of me to ask.
“That's all right,” she said, heading for the stairs. “I'll ask Mom if she's seen it.”

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