The City Baker's Guide to Country Living (21 page)

Margaret dug into her handbag and fished out a tissue. “It's a sad day.”

“When did you lose Brian?”

“It's been three years.”

“Is that why you want to sell this place? Does it remind you too much of him?”

“You can never be reminded too much of someone you love.” Margaret traced her pearl necklace with her fingertips. “No, I've been thinking of selling because I'm ready to retire. But now that Henry has passed—I'm glad I went through it before Dotty did. I'll know what she needs.”

I poured the tea into pretty china teacups, one of the few things I'd kept from my grandmother's house.

“Milk?” I offered.

“No, thanks.” Margaret took a sip as I spooned sugar into my cup.

“Sorry I don't have anything else to offer. I usually eat in the kitchen.”

“I barged in on you at six thirty in the morning. I wasn't expecting breakfast.”

“Is it that early?” I wondered what time Martin had left.

“The wake has to be tonight so they can hold the funeral tomorrow—otherwise it will have to wait until after Christmas because the church won't have a burial during the holidays. Dotty didn't want to put the family through that.”

“Of course not. Will people have time to get here?”

“Most of the folks Henry knew are here in Guthrie. And the family is already here for Christmas.” Margaret's eyes glistened. “You know that man arranged to have his grave dug before the first frost? Can you imagine that? He was always so damn practical.” Margaret sat up in her seat and put her hands on her lap. “I'm headed over to the McCrackens' shortly. I was hoping you could box up the food for after the wake. I can have one of the boys come pick it up.”

“Sure, anything.” I stirred the tea with a spoon, even though it had already cooled. “I could drop it off.”

“Let one of the boys come get it. Everyone likes to feel useful in times like these.”

“Okay. I'll have everything ready by two?”

“Good. The wake is from four till seven. The funeral will be at nine tomorrow morning.” Margaret stood and buttoned her coat.

I stopped her before she reached the door. “Margaret, would you do me a favor?” I handed her the fiddle case. “Martin will want this later.”

Margaret gave my shoulder a little squeeze before taking the fiddle in her hands.

I leaned against the doorframe, watching as she stepped carefully into the newly fallen snow.

“Margaret!” I called.

She turned. “Yes?”

I ran down the snowy steps in my wool stockings. “I'm sorry about Henry.”

Her lips turned up in the gentlest of smiles. “You know, Henry was very fond of you.” Margaret reached her arms out and pulled me into her embrace. Her lilac scent surrounded me as I let myself rest in her arms. Her eyes were damp when she pulled away.

“I'll have everything ready by two,” I said.

“Good girl,” she said, and turned toward the inn.

 • • • 

The wake was held at Burke Funeral Home, in the center of town. When I arrived, the parking lot was already full, the line of mourners waiting to pay their respects spilling out onto the front steps. I took my place among them, picking fur off my black coat. I longed to be with Martin, to stand beside him. A wave of nausea flooded me when I stepped into the foyer and through a wall of lilies. I couldn't stand the scent of them since my own father's wake. I held my breath and moved forward. One of the undertakers took my coat and led me to the visiting room. It was a long room, softly lit, with flowers lining the aisle and Carter Family gospel tunes playing quietly in the background. The casket was up front, where Dotty and her three sons stood, receiving visitors. Martin looked different in his black suit—more urbane. His hair had been cut since last night, and he had shaved. For the first
time I could picture him in a city. He was leaning down to talk to an elderly woman. Tears threatened at the backs of my eyes. I moved with the crowd into the room.

I stepped out of the receiving line to look at the dozens of framed pictures of Henry that lined a table in the back. Pictures of him as a young man, looking so much like Martin, with his band in the grange hall. His and Dotty's wedding pictures. Holding each of his sons as an infant, his eyes full of wonder. Christmas photos with all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There was even one from this Thanksgiving of Henry, his grandsons, and me, all with stringed instruments in our hands.

“That's a great picture,” said a woman beside me. I dabbed at my eyes with a handkerchief before turning to face her. She was striking, and fashionable in an artistic way.

“Thanks,” I said. “He was teaching me to play the dulcimer.” I could feel Henry's hand on mine, sliding across the strings.

She swept her asymmetrical blond bangs out of her eyes. She wore a vintage black dress and knee-high black leather boots that skimmed her slim calves.

Not from Vermont
, I thought to myself.

“Have you signed the guest book?” she asked, gesturing to the podium in the corner of the room. “I'm in charge of it.” She glanced back at the family and then at me. “I'm a little nervous about messing it up,” she confided, leaning in toward me.

“Don't worry, the McCrackens are sweethearts,” I said gently. “No one is going to mind if you miss a few names.”

She smiled slightly, but it didn't reach her eyes. “You don't sound like you're from here. Have you known the family a long time?”

“Only since September,” I said, looking over at Martin, “But I've grown very attached to them. They've made me feel very welcome.” I smiled. “I'm from Boston originally. That's the accent,” I clarified. I held out my hand. “Olivia Rawlings.”

“Sylvie Ford,” she said, her slender hand cool in mine. “From Seattle.”

I felt an itch at the back of my memory.

“Martin's fiancée.”

The noise of the room grew muffled as if my head had been pushed underwater.

At this time yesterday, he had been in me.

“I'm sorry.” I didn't know if I was asking a question or making a statement. My palms began to sweat.

She dropped my hand and rubbed hers together. Her eyebrows pinched slightly. “Martin, the youngest. You must know him if you know Henry.”

At that moment I didn't know if I knew Martin at all.

“This is only my second time out here.” She smiled apologetically. “I haven't had the chance to get to know the family. That's why I feel so stressed about the guest book.”

“The McCrackens are very kind,” I said as I turned from her to look up to the front, where Martin was talking to Tom. I was too far away to read his expression. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Sylvie swept her hair out of her eyes. “Thanks.” Her gaze followed mine toward Martin.

The look of affection in her expression made me blanch. I turned my head away in a lame attempt to hide the fact that my heart was breaking. I felt myself flush and wobbled a bit on my feet.

Sylvie looked at me, her face awash with concern and then confusion.

“Oh, God—I'm being so selfish, blabbing on. I'm so sorry for your loss. Who are you in relation to the family?”

“I'm nobody,” I said, turning away from her. “Please excuse me.”

I walked out of the room, cutting through the line of mourners, and pushed my way out the door, gulping for fresh air.

“Livvy?” I heard Hannah's voice through the static buzzing in my ears. She put her hand on my shoulder. “I was hoping to run into you here. I'm sorry I haven't—are you okay?”

I looked up at her, my eyes burning, and shook my head. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what? Look, you're freezing. Let's get you inside.” Hannah threaded her arm through mine and led me toward the door, asking a waitress from the diner if we could cut in line. “I've felt terrible since we argued. I—”

“Did you know that Martin was engaged?”

“What? No!” Hannah looked around, smiling apologetically to the people around us. “I mean, there was some talk years ago, but I haven't—who is it? Is she here?”

I couldn't form the words.

“Livvy, you should—”

Hannah's husband stepped up to us, wrapping his arm around Hannah's waist. “What are you doing out here? I dropped you off so you could sit down. You know what the doctor said.”

“I'm going to stay here with Livvy for a minute, sweetheart,” she said. I looked down and saw that she had left the bottom three buttons of her coat unbuttoned to accommodate her growing belly.

“I'm okay, Hann. Go on in.”

“You sure?”

I nodded but couldn't make eye contact. Her arm slid out of mine just as we reached the door. Jonathan led her down the aisle, his hand on her lower back.

If Hannah hadn't known, it was possible that it wasn't known all over town, either. Yet. By now half the town would be speculating about who the pretty blond woman was by the guest book. And if Sylvie was as candid with everyone else as she had been with me, word that Martin was engaged would be spread before dawn.

With each step toward the open casket I felt as if I were shrinking, my insides growing tighter. Martin's eyes met mine briefly as I moved forward in the line. Soon it was my turn to pay my respects. I reluctantly climbed the three steps up to the stage and dropped slowly to my knees in front of the casket.

He looked gone. Everyone always talks about how good the dead look, what an amazing job the undertakers did. All I could see was Henry and the absence of him, his face hidden under layers of pancake makeup, as if he were onstage. I fingered the white handkerchief in my hand, fighting the temptation to spit into it and wipe his face clean. His suit looked all wrong. I wished they had dressed him in his robin's-egg blue cardigan, let his shock of white hair be windblown, as if he had just stepped in from the fields.

I could feel the push of the people lined up behind me, the McCrackens waiting to receive me ahead. I leaned in toward the casket.

“I'm trying to remember everything you said the other day, but
I can't seem to remember any of it. What did you tell me I should do?” I pressed the backs of my hands roughly to the corners of my eyes. “When you said to be patient, I wasn't expecting this.”

I imagined Sylvie at the back of the hall, beside the guest book, introducing herself to one of the guests. From behind me I heard someone clear his throat. I stood up, smoothing down the skirt of my dress. I reached into the bodice and extracted the wooden noter I had tucked into my bra strap. I placed it into the pocket of Henry's suit. “If there's a heaven, then there'll be tunes to play,” I whispered as I kissed his cool, papery cheek.

It was time to face the family.

When I turned away from the casket, the McCracken family was standing, watching me. Dotty, Mark, Ethan, and Martin. I wrapped my arms around Dotty and pressed my face in her neck.

“I'm so sorry,” I whispered.

“I know.” Dotty looked down the line of her children at Martin and whispered, “I am too, dear.” She took both of my hands in hers and looked at me for a long time. “He thought of you like a long-lost daughter,” she said urgently.

I looked down at my shoes. “He was a very special man.”

She squeezed my hands before letting them go. I hugged her tightly and moved on to Mark. He clasped my shoulder, his eyes soft. “Thanks, Livvy. You brought Dad a lot of happiness over these past few months.”

Ethan threw his arms around me and gave me a bear hug. “You're one of us now, Livvy,” he said into my ear, “no matter what happens.” He kissed my temple. “Come have a tune with us anytime, you hear me?”

I turned to face Martin.

His arms hung heavily at his sides, as if he didn't know what to do with them.

I folded mine, not trusting that I could refrain from reaching out to touch him. “I'm so sorry—” my voice broke.

“Livvy—”

It was only the second time he had called me that. I felt my insides crumble and my heart began to race.

Martin drew me into his chest, his cheek resting on the top of my head. I breathed him in, but he smelled different somehow. It might have been just a trace of cologne, but to me it was the scent of Seattle, and of a Martin I didn't know.

“Liv—”

“Not here, okay?” I said, not looking at him.

Martin looked over my head at the long line of well-wishers waiting patiently.

He let me go. I stood still, not wanting to pull away. Martin cupped my cheeks in his hands. “Henry really loved you,” he said, his voice strained. “We all do.”

I squeezed his arm once and stepped away, biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from crying. With my eyes fixed on the exit sign, I walked straight through the crowd and pushed out the door into the cold, dark night.

I passed Margaret in the driveway, on her way in.

“Olivia,” she called.

I turned to face her. “How could you do this to me?” I said. I could feel myself shaking with anger.

Margaret looked taken aback. “What on earth did I do?”

“You knew. You had to. You're Dotty's best friend, for God's sake, which you loved to remind me of all the time. How close
you were, how I was just a blip in the McCrackens' life but
you
were family. Well, I might have believed I was just a blip if I'd known that Martin had a fucking fiancée!”

Margaret grabbed me by the elbow and moved us down the path. “Watch your tongue,” she snapped.

“Don't you mean hold my tongue? Isn't that what everyone does around here? Everyone talks about everything unless it's to a person's face. Please, just put me out of my misery and tell me how long I've been making a complete ass out of myself. How long have you known? Does everyone in town know? They will by dinnertime, right?”