The Good Neighbor (7 page)

“She hasn’t slept well,” Harriet said, walking stiffly to the couch. She sat down just as stiffly.

I remained standing at the threshold of the living room. The air smelled faintly of rosewater and Nivea cream. I glanced down the dim hallway to the left and imagined Mia crying for her parents, cutting off her hair while Harriet slept. “Can I see her now?”

“Maybe when she wakes up.” Harriet gestured to a chair. “Want to sit? I should’ve offered you tea.”

I removed my shoes and padded to the chair in my socks, not wanting to smudge dirt on the pale pink carpet, although faint stains marred its original luster.

I sat in a worn armchair. “Is Mia okay? Are you okay?”

“We’re getting by.”

Across the room, a tall bookshelf held an assortment of novels, including a set of Miracle Mouse mysteries. As Harriet got up unsteadily and shuffled toward the bookshelf, she looked for a moment like Nana. My throat tightened, tears springing to my eyes. In her last days, illness had reduced my grandmother from a strong, outspoken artist to a quiet, brittle shell. Until now, I’d always had the portrait of Miracle Mouse to remind me of Nana in her better days.

When Harriet bent to retrieve an old photo album from the bottom shelf, the resemblance disappeared. Her hair was too dark, her shoulders too narrow. She sat on the couch again, patted the cushion next to her. I went over to sit with her.

“I had framed photos all over the house,” she said in a tremulous voice. “But I put them away. Chad is in nearly all of them. I feel like I’m betraying my little boy. But I can’t bear to look at them.” She took a crumpled tissue from her sweater pocket and wiped more tears from her cheeks.

Somewhere, a clock ticked away the hour. “I’m sure he would understand. We don’t have to look at pictures—”

“I’m feeling a little brave, now that you’re here.” Harriet’s fingers shook as she opened the album and pointed to a page-sized photo of a sleeping baby swaddled in soft blankets. “That’s my boy,” she whispered.

“He’s beautiful,” I replied.
Was.
How could she bear to look at her infant son?

“Always was.” As she turned the pages, Chad grew from a chubby, blond toddler into a robust, sandy-haired boy. But Mia didn’t look much like him. By early adolescence, he had acquired the husky body shape of a budding football player. Mia took after her delicate mother.

Harriet closed the album and heaved a sigh. Were her hands trembling from grief alone, or was it something else, too?

“Those are lovely pictures,” I said. “Mia must miss her mom and dad.”

Something hardened in Harriet’s face. “Her mom. Chad fell head over heels in love with that woman. Nothing I could do to stop him. At least I have Mia. That’s a blessing.”

“May I see her now?” I said.

“All right, but she’s done something naughty.”

“Oh no, what?” I feigned surprise.

“You’ll see. Come on.” Harriet beckoned me down the hall and pointed into an untidy bedroom, all painted blue. The room must’ve once belonged to Chad. Mia’s dolls and books and stuffed animals stood in stark contrast to the
Dukes of Hazzard
and
Star Wars
posters still plastered all over the walls. A worn desk and chest of drawers carried the nicks and battle scars of time.

Mia slept on a small bed by the window, splayed out on her back. Her chest rose and fell in an uneasy rhythm, her cheeks slightly flushed. She wore patched jeans and a pink T-shirt. A psychotic stylist had slashed at her golden locks, cutting at random. Her bangs fell in a jagged line.

“She got the scissors out of the drawer,” Harriet whispered. “Children can be quick when you’re not looking.”

I tiptoed into the room. As I approached Mia, the little girl sighed and shifted. In sleep, she bore an even more remarkable resemblance to Monique. Streamlined nose with a slight rise at the tip, a smattering of translucent freckles, delicate jawline.

I sat next to Mia and kissed her cheek. She smelled like baby powder. She took a deep breath but didn’t wake up. Her forehead felt cool and slightly damp to the touch. Since she’d cut her bangs, more of her scalp was visible. She did not appear to have any recent injuries—no bruises or wounds on her skin. A white scar sat up near the hairline, perhaps a healed cut or a birthmark similar to Johnny’s. Her eyelids fluttered open. She sat up, dazed, and threw her arms around my neck. She said something quiet, something muffled.

“What is it, sweetie?” I said.

Mia repeated the word, louder this time. “Mommy.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“You could adopt Mia,” Natalie said on the phone as I drove back to the cottage. “Get the wheels turning before Grandma kicks the bucket.”

“Natalie! Harriet loves Mia. She’s her only living relative. They need each other.”

“How old is that lady? Ninety-five?”

“Closer to eighty, I think.”

“The average life expectancy for a woman in America topped out at eighty-six last year.”

“You’re a bottomless well of important facts.” I turned onto Cedar Drive, which led to Shadow Bluff Lane. “We can’t adopt Mia, Nat. We’re homeless. I still have headaches. And I’m jumpy. Not my usual self.”

“Your reactions are understandable. Just because you had some bad luck doesn’t mean you would be a bad mother.”

“When Mia realized I wasn’t her mom, she started bawling.” I’d rocked her, humming “Bright Morning Stars,” the song my own mother had sung to me long ago.
Where are our dear mothers? They’ve gone to Heaven shouting . . .
Mia had quieted a little, but she could not be easily consoled.

“What are you going to do?”

“Harriet has to go into the hospital for some tests on Friday. She wants me to watch Mia for a few hours.”

“Tests for what?”

“She mentioned ‘remission’ and feeling like whatever it is has returned.”

“She has the big C? What did I tell you?”

“Natalie.”

“There is no right answer. Follow your heart.”

I hung up feeling oddly unmoored. Natalie had always been spontaneous, following her heart, while I weighed the pros and cons of every decision. She and Dan had fallen in love on their first date, while I’d been cautious with Johnny. I collected coupons, while she threw them into the recycling bin. She cooked elaborate meals, making huge messes, while I prepared simple dishes, cleaning up as I went along. If I wasn’t writing late into the night.

At least, before the fire.

When I arrived at the cottage, a blue truck sat in the driveway, a Toyota Tundra, the logo on the side printed in bold yellow letters: Severson Home Repair and Remodeling
.
A tall, wiry man stood on the porch in a tool belt, work boots, a crisp white T-shirt, and a baseball cap.

“Can I help you?” I said, walking up to him.

“Todd Severson. I’m here to fix the flush and the living room window latch.” His eyes looked slightly bloodshot, dark rings beneath them, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“The latch is broken?”

“Yeah. Ms. Coghlan sent me.”

Could that be true? Would Eris have sent a man who looked so strung out? But he was suitably dressed, and he carried the proper tools. “She didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I apologize for the intrusion, ma’am,” he said, stepping back. He looped his left thumb over the top of his belt, like a cowboy. “I’ll come back another time.” He turned to leave.

“No, wait. I’ll call her to make sure.”

He nodded, tipping his baseball cap. I recognized him now, recognized the truck. I’d seen him around town, here and there, then again in Eris’s driveway, when Johnny and I had moved into the cottage.

Eris answered after the first ring, and when I said “handyman,” she gushed with apologies. “I should’ve called you first. I’ll be over in a bit.”

“You don’t have to come,” I said. “I just needed to be sure—”

“Not another word. And yes, I did hire him.”

“Okay, good.” I hung up and ushered him inside. “Sorry.”

“No problem, ma’am.” Mr. Severson stepped past me into the house. He emitted a faint whiff of some unusual herb, maybe sage. He gave me a penetrating, almost worried look, frown marks creasing the center of his forehead. Then he smiled, revealing slightly yellowed teeth, one chipped incisor, a dimple in his right cheek. He reached out a grimy hand to shake mine, then withdrew his hand quickly, seeming to notice for the first time that it was dirty. “Just came from another job.” He wiped both hands down the thighs of his jeans.

“That’s all right,” I said, resisting the urge to wipe my hands, too.

“You’re the new renter, then.”

“My husband and I are,” I said, hyperaware that I was alone in the house with a strange man.

Mr. Severson nodded again, his gaze traveling down across my body. Since the fire, none of my new clothes fit exactly right. “Wanna show me the faulty window?” he said. He had close-set eyes of indeterminate color, perhaps dark gray or brown.

“I didn’t know there was a faulty window,” I said.

“She said it was back here.” He strode through the living room, jiggled the back window, then opened and shut it. “Latch doesn’t work. See?”

I followed him. “I didn’t realize. She didn’t say.”

“Dangerous in these times.” He opened his toolbox and began to work on the latch with a wrench.

“It’s pretty safe here, isn’t it?” But then, I’d thought Sitka Lane was safe, too.

“We get break-ins now and then.”

“On this street?”

“Don’t know about this street. I got motion sensor lights out at my house. Did it for my wife, when she was living there.”

“She’s not there now?”

“She moved out a year ago. She was there when I went to work, gone when I got home. Just like that. Packed a bag and left me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“We were married nine years. Coming on our anniversary. She took up with some carpenter in Bellingham. She broke my heart. My heart would still be broke, if I’d let it. But I moved on. You gotta move on, right?”

“Yes, you do,” I said, not knowing what else to say. Although I had seen this man around town, the truth was, I didn’t know him at all. Shadow Cove was big enough to allow anonymity, but small enough for the post office and grocery store clerks to recognize familiar faces, to allow the same people to cross paths more than once.

“Life. Gets you one way or another.” He tried the window again. This time, the latch worked. “Good as new, if nobody don’t throw a rock.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problemo.” He looked out toward the woods, but he wasn’t looking at the trees. He was looking past them, at something invisible. Then his eyes cleared and he looked at me. “Flush?”

“Down the hall. Hang on, let me make sure it’s decent in there.”

“I don’t care about decent.”

“But I do.” I felt silly rushing ahead of him, but I managed to hide a bra beneath a towel before ushering him inside.

I stood in the doorway while he removed the lid from the toilet tank, stuck his hands in the water, and played with the flush contraption.

“Needs a new intake valve,” he said.

“I have no idea what that is.”

“Lucky for you, I do. Might have an extra one in the truck.” He left and came back with a package and set to work on the toilet. “You should get motion sensor lights, too. On account of the break-ins.”

“Well, we don’t have anything to steal,” I said. “Our house burned down. This is all we have.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He straightened and looked at me again, a spark of recognition in his eyes. “You the one
. . . 
?”

“I’m Sarah. Sarah Phoenix.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. His mouth dropped open, and he tottered a little, almost as if the utterance of my name had pushed him backward. He recovered quickly. “Sarah Phoenix, huh? The writer?”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“You and your husband, the skin doctor.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I was there.” As he spoke, a cloud crossed over the sun, plunging the room into shadow. Todd Severson’s face darkened, the hollows and angles becoming more pronounced.

“What do you mean, you were there?” Ripples of apprehension traveled up my spine.

“I mean, I’m a volunteer firefighter for the seventh station.”

“Oh.” I exhaled. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” He closed the toilet tank and we stepped out into the hall. He looked at me in a different way now, with sadness in his eyes. “Ms. Coghlan didn’t tell me it was you. That you were renting this place, I mean. She just mentioned renters. Damn.”

“You were on Sitka Lane that night. Which means you saw what happened, after I went to the
. . .
hospital.”

He looked at the floor, then up at me again. “My unit was called out last. Volunteer station. We’re close to Sitka Lane but we’re not staffed twenty-four seven. Budget cuts and all. The central station was staffed. They went out first, but they’re a ways off.”

“But you did get there eventually,” I said.

“Yeah, eventually,” he said with deep regret. “But your neighbors
. . .
Damn.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” I tried to picture Todd Severson in a firefighter’s uniform.

“Nobody should’ve died,” he said, shaking his head.

A black SUV rumbled up the road and parked at the curb. We both looked out the window, then Mr. Severson reached out to rest a hand on my shoulder. “If you need anything
. . .
If you have anything that you want help with
. . .
”

“We’re okay. Thanks.”

His eyes searched mine. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly.

“You need to be careful. That night
. . .
”

His cell phone rang in his back pocket. His mouth worked, as if he tasted something sour. “I got another job. Good to meet you, Sarah Phoenix.” He strode to the front door before I could stop him and ask what he had been about to say. He stepped outside as Eris emerged from her SUV in an elegant, beige silk pantsuit and matching pumps. She hurried up the driveway. “Todd! Sarah!”

“Ma’am,” Todd said, walking to his truck.

I stepped out as Eris strutted up the walkway in heels. “Todd! Is the flush fixed?”