approach and simply asked to meet with Lydia. But the dead didn’t miss any opportunities, lucky for her.
Lydia gathered the photographs into a neat stack, then set them and the notebook aside. “I’m reworking some of the gardens. Those are notes and pictures from last summer. Harrison says I have fertilizer running through my veins—a gift from Mr. John. I prefer flowers over just about anything.”
But not children…or grandchildren. Anamaria could practically see the longing, dulled now after years of childlessness but still there. Still clinging to her like a distant hope, nearly forgotten.
“Do you volunteer here?” Anamaria asked as she filled her cup from the china teapot, then sniffed the tendrils of steam that drifted up. Chamomile and lavender—Mama Odette’s favorite blend.
“You could say that. I own River’s Edge—or, rather, it owns me. It belonged to the Calloways for generations, then passed into, then out of, my family. When it became available again a few years ago, I bought it, hired out the renovation and have been working on the landscaping myself.”
Lydia refilled her own cup, then breathed deeply of the aroma as Anamaria had done. “Your mother prescribed this for me. At first, she brought it to me in little paper bags, then she showed me how to mix it myself. I have a cup or two every day, and I always think of her.”
Even Anamaria couldn’t make that claim. Days went by when she couldn’t honestly say she’d thought of her mother even once. She’d loved Glory, but she’d done virtually all of her growing up without her. All of the usual significant mother/daughter moments in her life involved Mama Odette or Auntie Lueena.
“I was so stunned when I heard what happened,” Lydia went on, gazing into her cup as if she might read her fortune there. “All I could think was that poor child. She’d done nothing to deserve that. So young, so innocent.”
For a moment, Anamaria thought the poor child meant Glory. She’d been only twenty-seven when she died, and she possessed a childlike enthusiasm and wonder for all that life had to offer. But innocent? Mama Odette claimed she was born knowing more than most women learned by the time they were thirty.
“Did you find another advisor?”
Lydia shook her head. “I was better. Your mother helped me more than I can say. And then…” She shook her head again, then, with a deep breath, changed the subject. “I should warn you that my husband isn’t too happy that I’m meeting with you. He might do something foolishly overprotective.”
“Such as instruct his lawyer to investigate me?” Anamaria asked with a wry smile.
“Oh, Lord. He did the same thing with your mother—asked his lawyer to look into her background. Then it was Cyrus Calloway, my brother-in-law and Robbie’s uncle. We’re practically family, the Kennedys and the Calloways.”
“That’s what Robbie said.”
“So you’ve met him. Don’t let him charm your socks off.”
“I’m immune to charm.”
Lydia wagged one finger in her direction. “Only because the right man hasn’t tried. If I was thirty years younger, I’d take any one of Sara and Gerald’s boys. Though the older three have wives now who would snatch me bald if I even got too close.”
It was easy to see Robbie Calloway charming the socks—and everything else—off most women, but not her. He distrusted her. She had priorities. He thought she was a threat to Lydia. She was very good at guarding her heart. Someday she would experience that hot, passionate, greedy love—all Duquesne women did—but not now. Not here. Most definitely not with him.
“Why were you planning this trip?”
Another quick subject change, but Anamaria wasn’t flustered. She’d known the question would come up, and she’d chosen the simplest, truthful answer. “Curiosity. I’m a year older now than my mother was when she died. I want to see where she lived, to talk to people who knew her. Mama Odette and Auntie Lueena have told me a lot, but I want to hear what other people know that they don’t. I want to know her.”
Lydia nodded sympathetically. “It must have been hard for your grandmother, losing both her daughter and her grandbaby at the same time.”
“It broke her heart.”
“And yours.”
Anamaria nodded. She might not remember much of life with Glory, but she knew it must have been good, because living without her had been hard, even surrounded by family who loved her.
“You were a pretty little girl,” Lydia went on. “I didn’t see you often. Glory usually left you with a neighbor when she came to my house. But a few times, she brought you with her and you played in the garden while we talked. You wore frilly little dresses, and your hair was tied back with a bow. You’d say yes, ma’am and thank you and please just as solemn as could be. I told Glory she was blessed to have such a lovely daughter. And then she got blessed again.”
A lot of people hadn’t seen blessings anywhere around Glory. Instead, they’d seen a stereotype: an uneducated black woman, illegitimate children, no legitimate means of support. But Glory had fit nobody’s stereotype.
“You loved the flowers in my garden, especially the lilies. You have a sister named Lillie, don’t you?”
“I do. And another named Jass.” Lillie was five years older and lived in South Carolina. Jass was two years older and living in Texas. They didn’t miss Glory the way Anamaria did, but they’d never known her the way Anamaria had. They’d been raised by their fathers, by paternal grandmothers and aunts and stepmothers.
“And the baby would have been Charlotte.”
Anamaria looked up, surprised. “Charlotte?”
“Surely you knew that. Glory decided on it about a month before she passed.”
Another of those details that she’d shut out after the shock of seeing her mother dead. She tried the name in her mind: Charlotte Duquesne. My sister, Charlotte. Not just the baby, so generic and impersonal, but Charlotte, with café-au-lait skin, chocolate-colored eyes, wispy black hair and tiny features with the exotic stamp of all her mixed heritages. Having a name made her more real and made her absence sharper, more intense.
“So…” Lydia gazed across the table at her. “Glory used to say that you would follow in her footsteps. She said when you were three, you’d tell her someone was at the door a minute or two before they even stepped onto the porch. She said when you were four, all she had to do was think about fixing meat loaf for dinner, and you’d tell her no in no uncertain terms.”
Anamaria smiled. To this day she couldn’t stomach meat loaf. It was the Thursday special at Auntie Lueena’s diner, making Thursday her regular day off. “I wish I remembered more about her.”
“You were so young,” Lydia murmured. “It was so tragic.”
Before either of them spoke again, the front door closed with a thud. “Miss Lydia? Are you here?”
Robbie Calloway. Anamaria’s muscles tensed. Trust him to find them together; after all, less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d warned her to watch her step with Lydia.
The
