of his grandmother’s before he’d sold her house.
“Did you ask the boys if they want any?” Lucy asked.
“They’re still out back digging worms. It’s disgusting. They smell like dirt and sweat.”
“You used to love digging worms.”
“Yuck.”
Lucy smiled. “Well, I’ll go ask them. And since you made the lemonade, they can clean up.”
The two boys were still hard at work on the edge of the vegetable garden, precariously close to Lucy’s tomatoes. Not that she minded. She wasn’t as enterprising a gardener as Daisy had been. She’d added raised beds and mulched paths to take up space and had cultivated a lot of spreading plants, like pumpkins, squash and cucumbers. She had little desire, however, to can and freeze her own fruits and vegetables. This was enough.
“Madison made lemonade. You boys want some?”
“Later,” J.T. said, too preoccupied with his worm-digging to look up.
He, too, had Colin’s coppery hair and clear blue eyes, although his sturdy frame was more Blacker than Swift. Lucy smiled at the thought of her kind, thickset father. She had inherited her mother’s slender build and fair coloring, and both her parents’ love of the outdoors. They’d recently retired to Costa Rica to run a hostel, leaving behind long careers at the Smithsonian. Lucy planned to visit them over Thanksgiving, taking Madison and J.T. with her and working on the details of a Costa Rica trip she wanted to offer to her clients next winter. It was a long, painstaking process that involved figuring out and testing every last detail—transportation, food, lodging, contingency plans. Nothing could be left to chance.
Flying to Costa Rica to see them, Lucy thought, made more sense than flying off to Wyoming to see Sebastian Redwing.
J.T. scooped up dirt with his hands and piled it into a number-ten can he and Georgie had appropriated from the recycling bin. “We want to go fishing. We’ve got a ton of worms. Want to see?”
Lucy gave the can of squirming worms a dutiful peek. “Lovely. If you do go fishing, stay down here. Don’t go up near the falls.”
“I know, Mom.”
He knew. Right. Both her kids knew everything. Losing their father at such a young age hadn’t eroded their self-esteem. They had Colin’s optimism, his drive and energy, his faith in a better future and his commitment to making it happen. Like their father, Madison and J.T. loved having a million things going on at once.
Lucy left the boys to their worms and returned to the front porch, where Madison had brought out cloth napkins and a plate of butter cookies to go with her lemonade. “Actually, I think I’m more Anne of Green Gables today.”
“Is that better than John-Boy Walton?”
Madison wrinkled up her face and sat on the wicker settee, tucking her slender legs under her. “Mom—I really, really don’t want to go to Wyoming. Can’t I stay here? It’s only for the weekend. Rob and Patti could look in on me. I could have a friend stay with me.”
Lucy poured herself a glass of lemonade and settled onto a wicker chair. Her daughter was relentless. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get out of Vermont.”
“Not to Wyoming. It’s more mountains and trees.”
“Bigger mountains, different trees. There’s great shopping in Jackson.”
She brightened. “Does that mean you’ll give me money?”
“A little, but I meant window-shopping. It’s also very expensive.”
Her daughter was unamused. “If I have to sit next to J.T. on the plane, I’m inspecting his pockets first.”
“I expect you to treat your brother with respect, just as I expect him to treat you with respect.”
Madison rolled her eyes.
Lucy tried her lemonade. It was a perfect mix of tart and sweet, just like her fifteen-year-old daughter. Madison untucked her legs and flounced inside, the sophisticate trapped in the sticks, the long-suffering big sister about to be stuck on a plane with her little brother.
Lucy decided to give her the weekend to come around before initiating a discussion on attitude and who wouldn’t get to do much driving until she changed hers.
She put her feet up on the porch rail and tried to let the cool breeze relax her. The trip to Wyoming made no sense. She knew it, and her kids at least sensed it.
The petunias needed watering. She looked out at her pretty lawn with its huge maples, its rambling old-fashioned rosebush that needed pruning. She’d just gone to town with her fifteen-year-old behind the wheel, inspected a can of worms and dealt with her daughter’s John-Boy/Anne of Green Gables martyr act and a bullet on her car seat.
The Widow Swift at work.
Lucy drank more lemonade, feeling calmer. She’d managed on her own for so long. She didn’t need Sebastian Redwing’s help. She didn’t need anyone’s help.
* * *
J.T. permitted his mother to help him pack after dinner. Lucy kept her eyes open for firearms, bullets and secret antisocial tendencies. She found none. His room betrayed nothing more than a twelve-year-old’s mishmash of interests. Posters of Darth Maul and peregrine falcons, stuffed animals, Lego models, sports paraphernalia, computer games, gross-looking superheroes and monsters, way too many Micro Machines.
He didn’t have a television in his room. He didn’t have a computer. Dirty clothes were dumped in with clean on the floor. Drawers were half open, a pant leg hanging out of one, a pair of boxers out of another.
The room smelled of dirty socks, sweat and earth. A dormer window looked out on the backyard, where she could still see evidence of the digging he and Georgie had done.
“You didn’t bring your worms up here, did you?” Lucy asked.
“No, me and Georgie freed them.” He looked at her, and corrected, “Georgie and I.”
She smiled, and when she turned, she spotted a picture of Colin and J.T. tacked to her son’s bulletin board. Blood rushed to her head, and she had to fight off sudden, unexpected tears. The edges of the picture were cracked and yellowed, pocked with tack holes from the dozen times J.T. had repositioned it. A little boy and a young father fishing, frozen in time.
Lucy smiled sadly at the image of the man she’d loved. They’d met in college, married so young. She stared at his handsome face, his smile, his tousle of coppery hair. It was as if she’d gone on, propelled forward in time, while he’d stayed the same, untouched by the grief and fear she’d known since the day his shattered father had knocked on her door and told her that his son—her husband—was dead.
The searing pain and shock of those early days had eased. Lucy had learned to go on without him. So, in their own ways, had Madison and J.T. They could talk about him with laughter, and remember him, at least most of the time, without tears.
“You can pack the extra stuff you want to take in your backpack,” Lucy said, tearing herself from the picture.
