Carmen.” She moved across the room and took the tray. “But I don’t need to be waited on.”
“Maybe just for today.” In the woman’s eyes, Annie read understanding.
Annie set down the tray. “Will you call me when Geneva is awake?”
“Sí. Your visit, it is bringing her joy.”
“What have her doctors said?”
Carmen shook her head. “Better to ask her. It is not for me to tell.”
“I need the truth.”
“She is strong. She is not afraid of that truth.” Carmen nodded at the tray. “If you want more, come to the kitchen.”
“Thank you.” Annie closed the door behind Carmen, then sat with her breakfast in a chintz-covered armchair. The scone was buttery and delicious and the coffee strong and hot. Neither, however, filled the empty place within her.
LATER THAT MORNING when Annie entered the living room, Geneva looked up and smiled. “Good morning, petunia.” She gestured toward the bay window. “Nice day for ducks.”
“Typical Oregon.” Taking the chair across from her aunt’s, she noticed that Geneva was wearing a colorful Moroccan-style caftan. “How are you? Did you eat your breakfast?”
Geneva gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’d rather not dwell on my health, but I did eat a poached egg.”
Annie tried to match her aunt’s bantering tone. “And that’s a cause for celebration?”
“Bells, whistles and firecrackers.” Geneva cocked her head, studying Annie. “Did you sleep well?”
“Fine,” Annie lied. No point mentioning the hours she’d lain awake listening to the wind and wishing Geneva still felt like trotting around the globe gathering information and anecdotes for her travel books.
“I don’t believe you.” Her aunt hesitated. “Everything must seem strange to you. The town, the cottage—” she gestured airily “—and me. No wonder. I feel strange to myself. I keep thinking I can run upstairs, walk on the beach, drive a car.” She sighed. “I guess I should be thankful I’m still breathing, because we have work to do.”
“Work?”
“See that chest over there by the piano? Bring it to me.”
Annie pushed the heavy container across the floor to Geneva, who leaned over and, with effort, opened the lid. Inside were sheafs of paper, along with photo albums.
“This, my dear niece, is Greer family memorabilia. You are my only descendant, and I don’t want our history to die with me.”
Annie picked up a packet of letters tied with binding twine. “You’re the only Greer I really know. I have sketchy memories of my father, but I was only five when he died. It’s as if he’s the star of a long-ago movie that I can scarcely remember, no matter how hard I try to rewind.”
“We can’t bring him back, but we can certainly flesh out some of those memories and more. If nothing else, Greers have always been unique individuals. Look at me. I’ve been to six continents, had lovers on three—”
“Auntie G.!”
“Don’t look so shocked. Just because I never married doesn’t mean I didn’t have good times. But more about that later.” She paused to cough wetly into a tissue. “I thought each day we might make some headway with what’s in the chest. You can work in the afternoon while I rest.”
“I’d like that,” Annie said quietly.
“You know, this house is falling apart. The porch railings are loose and there are water spots upstairs. I don’t want to even think about dry rot around the doors and windows. Would you mind going through the place to check for problem areas?”
“Not at all.”
“I’ll phone my neighbor Frances Gardner for recommendations for a repairman—it’s been so long since I lived here. I want to get this done.”
Annie recognized the steel in Geneva’s voice and the implied message: before I die. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Good. Then after my nap, I’m challenging you to a game of gin rummy. Winner gets an extra glass of wine.” Her eyes glinted mischievously.
“Are you even supposed to drink?”
“One glass. But that’s if I lose. Which I won’t.”
Annie wanted to argue, to implore her aunt to do exactly what the doctor had ordered. Yet, if her days were numbered, what harm could a second glass of wine do in the big scheme of things?
The phone rang and Annie heard Carmen answer it in the kitchen. After a few moments, she appeared in the doorway, her expressive eyes filled with tears.
Geneva stretched out her hand. “Carmen, what is it, dear?”
“My daughter. She’s had her baby. A niño, a boy. Too soon. Three months soon. I…She needs help with my granddaughter.”
“Of course, you must go.” Geneva’s tone brooked no argument. “As soon as you can.”
“But you are sick and—”
“Annie is here and she will take care of me.”
Carmen wiped her eyes. “Gracias, señorita. I go now and pack. Annie, you come and I tell you about caring for your tia.”
The rest of the day passed in a blur of instructions and arrangements. At Geneva’s insistence that she could be left alone, Annie drove Carmen to catch a shuttle at the nearby beach resort.
When Annie returned to the cottage in the late afternoon, she noticed there were no lights shining from the house. She found Geneva asleep in her chair, her skin ashen and her breath labored, despite the oxygen tank.
Annie panicked. What did she know about caring for a dying woman? With Carmen away, Annie would be forced into the community—to the grocery, the pharmacy, the gas station. There would be no avoiding people. People who would not welcome her presence. People who would blame her.
MONDAY MORNING Kyle dragged himself into consciousness, battling images of his recurring nightmare. Drenched in sweat, he sat on the side of the bed cradling his aching head in his hands. Damn it, damn it, damn it! The dream always started so innocently, luring him into the vortex of horror. The details might change, but the ending never did. Dressed in period costume, he stood on a scaffolding, holding in his hand a long-handled ax, dripping with blood. And staring up at him with a gentle but distorted smile was Pete, his head severed from his neck.
It didn’t take a shrink to get the symbolism. The hell of it was, he lived it every day, with or without the dream. Each time he passed the field where he and Pete had played American Legion baseball, reported to the National Guard Armory or shook hands with Bruce.
Why couldn’t it have been him? What did he have to live for compared to Pete? A mother who’d abandoned
