The Second Chance Café (A Hope Springs Novel Book 1) Page 14

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you?” She scooped up a bite of mashed potatoes and ate them before going on. “My dad left when I was four, and I think he did most of the parenting before then. It’s the only reason I can think of that my mother failed so epically after he was gone.”

  “You didn’t have grandparents helping out?”

  “I don’t even know if I have grandparents. Or cousins. Or aunts and uncles. I might as well have been Little Orphan Kaylie. Except for the orphan part.”

  He stabbed at his meat loaf, hating the way she tossed off something so wrong as a joke. Hating more that she’d been in that position at all. “You told me before that your mother was coming down off meth when the authorities showed up. That Ernest had called them.”

  She nodded, her focus on her food. “I’d been hungry. I went and knocked on Ernest’s door, but he didn’t answer. I think that’s why he took what happened so hard. If he’d been home, everything would’ve turned out so differently.” But that was all she said, and he wasn’t sure if she’d stopped because she didn’t want to go back there, or because she didn’t think he really wanted to know.

  He did. He wanted to hear her story, to understand what she’d gone through, to learn more about her. He got that opening a vein and spilling the past wasn’t easy. That’s why so few people knew the details of his.

  “You were hungry,” he finally said, prodding.

  One side of her mouth pulled up, though he wasn’t sure it was a grin. “You’re determined to make me talk about this, aren’t you?”

  “I seem to remember you saying part of coming back here was about facing your past. Can’t face it if you can’t talk about it.” Though he had no business lecturing her, when he kept the mistakes of his own past locked away.

  “I was hungry and Ernest wasn’t home and my mother was passed out on the couch. She’d been there all day, ever since I’d gotten up. The TV was on, so I’d climbed up by her feet and watched some kid stuff for a while. Sesame Street, maybe. I don’t remember for sure. I was a big fan of Oscar the Grouch. I liked that he lived in a trash can. It made me feel okay about the garbage all over our house.”

  “Kaylie—” he said, but it was all he got out.

  “If you want the story, you can’t stop me with that voice to tell me how sorry you are.”

  “I have a sorry voice?”

  “And a sorry look in your eye.”

  “I promise. No being sorry. At least out loud.” For her sake, he would bite back his anger at a young girl being so utterly failed by those who should’ve put her needs first, and hadn’t.

  “I was hungry,” she said for the third or fourth time. “My mother only groaned when I tried to wake her up, and as I said, Ernest didn’t answer when I crossed the hall and knocked.”

  “Five seems awfully young to cross the hall alone.”

  “Depends on the five-year-old, I guess. We were in an apartment building. All I had to do was open our door, take two or three steps, and ring his bell. I did it a lot, getting things for my mother, taking things to Ernest he’d called and asked for.”

  “Things like what?” Her mother had been a user, had gone to prison for intent to distribute. He was liking the sound of this less and less, Kaylie acting as a delivery service between a user and another man.

  “I’m never going to get this story told if you keep interrupting.”

  He held up a hand, promising to stop, and gave a single nod for her to continue.

  “Our refrigerator was pretty much empty. There was a milk carton and I drank what was left, but it wasn’t enough for cereal. And we didn’t have cereal anyway. No bread or cheese. No apples. Not that we ever had apples. Not even any potato chips.”

  “But we did have crackers and soup, and I knew which button to push on the microwave to heat it. Unfortunately, this was long before pull-top cans. I couldn’t work the can opener. I knew the mechanics, but couldn’t get it attached. And then I remembered having seen my father open a can of beans with his pocketknife.”

  “Kaylie. Crap.”

  She arched a brow, and her look said he was in trouble. “You’ve got that sorry face on again.”

  “Yeah, well, a sorry tale deserves a sorry face.”

  “Do you want to hear the rest?”

  He didn’t need to, but he nodded anyway.

  “I got out the soup, Chicken and Stars, and pushed a chair to the counter where I knew the knife block was. And, yes, I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch it, but I was hungry.”

  “How badly did you hurt yourself?” he asked, and braced himself for her answer.

  “I didn’t. Not at all. My mother came into the kitchen and screamed at me. I dropped the knife on the floor and curled into a ball in the chair, trying to hide inside my nightgown. She just looked at me, like she was imagining what could’ve happened. And then things got really weird.”

  He waited, waited, his heart in his throat, choking him. She took her time forking up the rest of the green beans from her plate, her eyes downcast and frowning, as if disapproving of this memory more than the rest. He looked down at his own food, the tomato sauce from the meat loaf seeping into what was left of his mashed potatoes. He didn’t need to hear the rest of this. He knew enough.

  “Kaylie—”

  “She came closer and picked up the knife. Then she looked at me. She was sad. I remember that most of all. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were red and her face was…haggard. I couldn’t have told you any of this at the time, but she looked exhausted and miserable and lonely.”

  He remained silent, the air so still he expected a clock to tick, a pin to drop. Then Magoo sat up to scratch and broke the spell.

  Kaylie went on, tapping the tines of her fork to her plate as she did. “I don’t know what she was thinking, my mother. I doubt she was thinking at all. She’d been out of it for days. She hadn’t bathed or dressed. She barely managed to open an eye and see that I was okay. Ernest had been checking in, and I’m sure he would’ve stopped by that day, too.”

  “But you were hungry.”

  “Have I mentioned that?” she asked, giving him a wink before sobering. “She took the knife and ran her thumb over the blade. I remember wincing when I saw the blood, but she didn’t even react. Next thing I knew, she’d cut both of her wrists, and then she looked at me and smiled, and collapsed on the floor. Her blood…”

  “Kaylie—”

  “It was like a faucet trickling,” she said, her voice steady, though tears ran down her cheeks. “Like spilled Kool-Aid. Or the colored water from the end of a paintbrush. Except it was thicker and darker. The puddle kept getting bigger and bigger and I just sat in that chair, watching. I didn’t start screaming until I saw the drops of blood on my bare toes. They were poking out from the hem of my nightgown, and it was like little red polka dots were everywhere.”

  “Kaylie—”

  “I must’ve left the front door open enough for Ernest to hear me crying when he came home. He scooped me up and took me out of there. He was crying harder than I was. He called the cops, then sat with me in his lap on the steps, just rocking back and forth. And we were still huddled up together when the ambulance got there. I don’t know why he didn’t try to help her, wrap up her wrists or something to stop the bleeding. It was like getting me away was the only thing that mattered.”

  No doubt it was, if Ten’s suspicions were correct. Ernest Flynn had most likely preferred her mother not be around to incriminate him as her supplier. But Ten wasn’t going to share what he was thinking with Kaylie. This wasn’t the time, and he had no proof, and what good would it do her twenty-three years later when she had so few positive memories of that time in her life?

  “It’s good they got to her in time,” he said, and her head came up sharply.

  “Is it?”

  “Kaylie—”

  “No. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t think that way. She was a terrible mother. Neglectful and selfish.” Her eyes were angry now, red and wet
, but mad like a wild dog’s. “I went days without a bath. My clothes were always dirty. I didn’t mind that they weren’t new, because anything she picked up from rummage sales or Goodwill was new to me. But I hated the dirt. And it was everywhere. Everywhere. The floors and the coffee table, and you don’t even want to know about the bathroom.” She shuddered, pushed her hair from her forehead, and buried her face in her free hand.

  Ten’s appetite was gone. He’d made her go back there, and for what reason? To satisfy his curiosity? To fill in the blanks the gossip had left? He was no better than those who chattered behind Kaylie’s back. So what if he’d asked her directly? It wasn’t his business…and yet it felt like it was. Like she was his to protect.

  He thought about the night he’d stopped by to look at her shutters. “That’s why you’ve got the bowie knife, isn’t it?”

  She sat straight again and glanced over, her eyes doll-like and curious. “Does that seem crazy to you? That after all of that it’s a knife that makes me feel safe?”

  “Not crazy at all.”

  “I had to work up to it. The owner of the shop who helped me find one to fit my hand was amazingly patient. I must’ve gone in there a dozen times. But I wasn’t going to order online and hope I’d get something I could handle. And I took lessons.”

  “So if you’d thrown at me that night in the yard, you wouldn’t have missed?”

  “I can split a hair if I have to,” she said, and then she laughed, the tension easing. “I’m kidding about the hair, but not about knowing how to use the knife.”

  “Have you ever had to?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  But knowing how wasn’t the same as being able to. So he asked, “Do you think you could?”

  “If someone broke into my home and was threatening me or my dog?” When he stayed silent, giving her a single nod as encouragement to go on, she gave him honesty instead of bravado. He could see it in the way she held her mouth, sense it in her hesitation.

  “I want to think so. And that’s not about my mother and the other knife. That’s about me not believing violence is an answer.”

  He probably understood that better than anyone. Hadn’t he watched his brother do what he’d been unable to? “Let’s hope you never have to find out.”

  “Let’s hope. And DX Security is coming next week to put in the security system, so as long as I can hold out until then, I shouldn’t have to. I think the squatters have moved on, and since there’s nothing here of any value to take, there’s no reason for anyone to break in.”

  “Thieves don’t always know that until after they’re inside.”

  “Magoo won’t let that happen.” At the sound of his name, the dog raised his head and began to pant. “I have one blade. He’s got a whole mouth full.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Luna stood in the darkened barn, a shed, really, the room still retaining the smells of the feed once stored inside. It had been fully converted to a temperature-controlled and beautifully lighted space for her weaving, but she liked to keep the twenty-by-twenty-foot room dark. At least while she was working, using only enough light to see flaws. Even then, she left some of them. Why should anything be perfect? The world wasn’t perfect. Life wasn’t perfect. She sure wasn’t perfect.

  A perfect person would never keep the sorts of secrets she was keeping from a woman she was rapidly coming to think of as a very good friend. Not only was she keeping secrets from Kaylie, she was perpetrating a huge deception, and doing so because of something she wanted to see happen. Could she be any more selfish? She should’ve kept what she’d learned to herself, never told Mitch, or at least talked to her father first, asked his advice. Now it was too late.

  Mitch knew about his daughter. He’d gone to see his daughter. His daughter thought he was simply a cook come to inquire about a job. What must that meeting have been like? Had Kaylie suspected anything? How in the world had Mitch not given himself away? Luna ached with the burden of what she’d set in motion. How was she going to make up for her hubris when everything came tumbling down around the people involved? And it would. Of that she was certain.

  Mitch had been desperate to find his girl, looking for her for nearly twenty years, giving up only when the dead ends left him lost and raw. And she doubted he’d given up at all. The more likely truth was that he’d only hidden his efforts from those close to him, those who’d watched him suffer disappointment time after time.

  What Luna had done had the potential to ruin so many lives. She thought back to her dinner with Will, his insistence that she owed the same truth to Kaylie that she owed to Mitch, especially since she knew that each had been looking for the other, wondering about the other, for a very long time. Maybe he’d been right, and she should’ve told both. Maybe he’d been right, and she shouldn’t have told either.

  “You standing in the dark for a reason, sweetie?”

  Luna blinked away the dampness welling in her eyes and smiled as she glanced over her shoulder. “Hi, Daddy. I’m deciding on colors for a new project.”

  “I’d think a little light on that subject might help. Otherwise you’ll end up with something that looks like a box of melted crayons.”

  “I already made one of those, remember? I think it was in last November’s issue of People around Daniel Craig’s neck.”

  “Right. I forget how much the paparazzi love you.”

  “Oh, Daddy. It’s not me they love.”

  “Well, they should.” Harry Meadows walked up beside his daughter, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and faced the pegboard stocked with yarn sheared and woven from the sheep he raised. “What were you thinking about?”

  “I had lunch with a friend on Tuesday. She’s a baker, and she’s opening a café in Hope Springs.”

  “The one Mitch was telling me about?”

  “I imagine so, since there’s only the one.” But did that mean Mitch hadn’t told Harry who Kaylie was, or about the rolling stone of lies Luna had set into motion? These new untruths eclipsing the others about her accident she’d kept now for over ten years?

  “And you’re wanting to make something for her?”

  An apology, an atonement, a plea for Kaylie to understand and forgive. None of it seemed possible. Luna’s shame seeped from her pores like the scent of hot rain on asphalt, pitchy and raw as it steamed. She reached for a skein as black as her heart.

  And her father chuckled at her side. “Black?”

  She started to put it back, then thought better. It had to be there, the remorse, the shame. Kaylie would be unaware, but Luna would know. She would always know. When the other woman was no longer a part of her life, still she would know what she’d done. She would see these threads as she wove others. She would never forget.

  “An accent only. Like pepper on a salad of mixed greens.” Celadon, moss, and willow. Bice blue and burgundy wine. She reached for them all, seeing them in a bowl, tossed and seasoned and dressed, and then she reached for a skein of sunflower, too.

  “I don’t know how you do that,” her father said, looking at the collection she held and shaking his head.

  Honestly, neither did she. To this day she could not explain how the colors came together in her mind. How one flowed into another as she sat at her loom. How the different strands of story became a whole. “I just see it. I don’t know where it comes from. Any of it. It’s just there.”

  Her father leaned over and dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “That’s what makes you such a great artist.”

  Was she? Great? Was she even an artist? Or was she simply exploring the darkness that haunted her, pouring out her emotions in a way that allowed her to see them and deal with them but kept those close to her from knowing the truth?

  “Have you ever wondered about the accident? If something happened then? A bump on the head, maybe, that flipped some artistic switch?”

  Her father never spoke of the accident. To have him do so now, when she was overwhelmed with
what the choices she’d made had wrought on others, seemed the worst kind of foreboding. She reached for a final skein the color of bitter kale.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have any interest in weaving before then, and may not ever have wanted to if not for being confined to bed.”

  “It was smart of your mother to see what you needed. I was worried we’d never get you back.”

  She hadn’t been sure she wanted to return. Not with Sierra gone. Not with the guilt. “It wasn’t easy, knowing I was still alive and Sierra wasn’t.”

  “Your mother saw that a long time before I did.”

  “She’s the real artist, you know. She does all of this.” Luna waved her free arm in a half circle in front of the wall holding a palette of colors. “It’s like a menu of every food combination possible. The ingredients to any recipe that comes to mind. I mean, look at it. Chocolate and cherries and salmon and vanilla-bean ice cream and vichyssoise and honey-fried chicken and—”

  “Stop,” her father said, laughing and groaning at the same time. “You just made me hungry and Mitch hasn’t taken the wings off the grill yet.”

  “I saw the dishes you left in the sink. You ate enough food at breakfast and lunch to feed Snow White and all seven dwarfs.”

  “But lunch was just a sandwich, and breakfast was before dawn.”

  Her father loved farming, but had always hated having to get up with the sun. “Seems I remember hearing that you’re the one who chose to be a farmer. That you didn’t care how early your days started. Working up a sweat and feeling your muscles ache and the success of the farm made it worth it.”

  He got a grumpy, pouty look on his face. “I take it back.”

  “You can’t take it back, but speaking of hungry—”

  “Uh-oh.”

  That made Luna laugh. “I invited a couple more friends to Easter dinner. I know there’ll be enough food, and that you don’t care, but I wanted to tell you.” To come clean.

  “You don’t have to tell me. Well, unless you invite a hundred of your friends.”

  “Daddy. I don’t have a hundred friends.” And she would most likely be losing the newest one she’d made.