Her heart fluttered softly, as she thought if I had a child…
No. Not if. When. When she had a child, she would wrap him in so much love he could never break. She had a sudden image of the blue-striped wallpaper of the nursery she’d begun at home. And the five bright bluebirds that circled on the mobile above the crib. Only three more months now.
Three months, and the cradle that had been empty for so long would be filled.
She considered telling Roland and Miranda. They would be happy for her, even if they didn’t know the whole story, even if they could never understand how much this new baby would mean.
Her heartbeat sped up at the thought. Still, she wasn’t ready to share the news yet. She felt guarded, superstitious…haunted by the memory of the last time she’d had news like this to share. As if something terrible might happen if she spoke of it too soon.
They were all silent for a few minutes, listening to the crackle of the fire and the muted piano notes of Chopin on the sound system. Her heartbeat settled down—the magic of the Eliots working on her as it always had.
Hayley had spent many hours just like this when she was a child—back then, Genevieve would have been the toddler scribbling at the coffee table. By the time she was ten, Hayley had hoisted her fat, laughing baby sister onto her hip, and started coming here to the refuge of this little house, with the foreman who understood her better than her own father.
She’d given Genevieve as many hours of peace as she could. But she always had to go home again, eventually.
Just as she did tonight.
The only difference was that, tonight, her father would not be there. She wouldn’t have to wonder, as she entered the house, whether this was a good night or a bad one. Whether he was drunk or sober. Whether, when her mother turned around from the kitchen sink, she would be crying, or bleeding.
Banishing the image, Hayley stretched, shaking off the sleepiness caused by the plane ride, the time difference and the emotional day. The funeral had been harder than she’d expected. And seeing Colby…
No. She wouldn’t think about Colby. She put her hand softly on Elena’s dark curls, then stood up from the cushy leather sofa.
“I guess I should head back to the big house,” she said, trying not to sound ten years old again, and scared. “Miranda, the casserole was fantastic. Thank you so much for—”
She swallowed, suddenly unable to find the words to thank them for everything they’d done, not only tonight, but all those years ago.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t call,” she said in an abrupt switch of topic. “Or write. But Mom was always terrified. Always covering our tracks. She said any contact with our old lives would be fatal. She was so sure Dad would find us.”
Miranda came over and hugged her. “We knew,” she said. “Your mother wrote us once, just so that we wouldn’t fear for you. She didn’t tell us where you were going, merely that you had to leave. We understood, maybe better than anyone, why it was necessary. We knew your father.”
“Did he start looking for us right away? He never tried to contact us, but obviously his lawyer knew where we were.” For a long time, she’d wondered whether all the subterfuge, the fake names and the prepaid cell phones and the cash-only living, had been required. Somehow she couldn’t imagine her father staying sober long enough to launch a serious tracking campaign. Her mother had feared he would hire someone to find them, but Hayley had her doubts about that, too. She’d never known her father to turn loose of an extra penny for anyone but himself.
“I don’t think he looked for the first several years. Not until his first heart attack, I’d guess.” Roland rose, lifted Elena into his arms and came to stand near his wife, who still had her arm around Hayley’s waist. “I got the feeling he was afraid that, if your mother came back, she might press charges against him. She wouldn’t have, for herself, but for you…”
His gaze was gentle, but worried. She wondered how much he knew about that night, the night they disappeared. Someday, maybe, she’d tell him, but not tonight. She was so tired, and she still had to face that house.
Would it be better, she wondered, knowing that her father was in a casket, six feet underground, never to come storming through the doorway again? Or would that make it worse?
“Why don’t you stay here tonight?” As if she’d read her mind, Miranda squeezed her waist. “I can put some sheets on the sofa.”
When Hayley started to protest, Miranda laughed. “Really, it’s quite comfortable. Ask Roland. He’s out here half the time. We call it the doghouse.”
Elena giggled, then buried her face in Roland’s shirt self-consciously. Hayley couldn’t remember ever meeting a shyer child. But Elena’s laughter was adorable, and even its echo filled the room with a sense of light and optimism.
Hayley thanked Miranda, but firmly insisted that she wanted to stay at the big house. Roland offered to walk her back, but she turned that down, too. He’d already done everything he could to make the place welcoming. They’d put her bags there earlier, before dinner, and Roland had shown her around the downstairs, just as if she’d never seen the place before. That brief tour had been enough to let her know that he’d cleaned up a little bit, and added a few homey touches, as if he’d guessed she might plan to stay there, at least for a while.
A vase of blue hydrangeas on the kitchen table, a casserole and a big glass pitcher of fresh milk in the refrigerator. Even a book or two on the end table.
The Eliots’ sensitive presence permeated the place—or at least it had this afternoon. It had been light outside, then, the storm passed and sunshine streaming in through the windows. A playful wind had teased the fluffy, October-brown heads of the grapevines.
But she’d lingered so long, coloring with Elena, that it was full night now. She shot a glance out the front window, where the silhouettes of trees moved darkly against the silvery sky, and thought of the still, empty rooms waiting for her.
She shook the feeling away. Dark or light, it was just a house. She would be fine.
The Eliots stood on the front porch and watched her walk up through the vineyard. She turned at the last minute, before the dip in the land would obscure the view, and waved merrily. She was fine. They waved back, and she thought she heard Elena call her name.
She waved again. She was fine.
Then she turned back toward the large, two-story adobe house, with its orange-tile roof and arched colonnades extending to either side like outstretched arms. Roland must have put some lights on timers, because several of the windows glowed, long rectangles of amber illumination that should have looked welcoming, but instead just looked unnatural, knowing, as she did, that no one was inside.
Weeds grew up at the edge of the rows of vines, making the path uneven. She kept her eyes on the ground and kept going, glad for a reason to ignore the strange tricks the moonlight played with the wire supports. In her peripheral vision, the metal winked randomly, giving the illusion that something moved among the leaves.
Ridiculous. She was fine. No matter how haunted the place might feel, she didn’t believe in ghosts. And even if she had believed, she wouldn’t give her father’s ghost the satisfaction of driving her out of the house again. He was gone. He had not found
