Starlight On Willow Lake

Thus began the work of finding the right individual to make life bearable for an angry, disabled woman with a major attitude problem. They met with the first group of candidates in quick succession.

The back-to-back meetings were brief and businesslike. Mason watched his mother closely as she questioned the visitors. She gave up nothing, holding her face in a benign, neutral expression, speaking in controlled, icy tones that highlighted her crisp diction. Alice Bellamy had been educated at Harvard, and although she claimed she had spent most of her college years skiing, she’d graduated with honors. She’d had a successful career as an adventure travel specialist and guide, which had nicely complemented her husband’s job in international finance.

Mason listened carefully to each applicant, wondering how the hell a person would go about helping someone like Alice Bellamy remake her life. Which candidate was up to the task? The military nurse built like a sumo wrestler? The motherly woman with a master’s degree in nutrition and food science? The spandex-clad personal trainer? The registered nurse with a rack Mason couldn’t stop staring at? The tough-as-nails Brooklyn woman whose last client had written a glowing three-page letter of reference?

He was glad Brenda had provided photographs along with the résumés, because the interviewees were all starting to blend together. Each one of them had outstanding qualities. Mason was sure they’d met the right person. They just had to pinpoint which one.

Afterward, he placed the résumés on the table and offered his mother an encouraging smile. “Brenda did a great job,” he said. “They were all excellent. Did you have a favorite?”

She stared out the window, her face unreadable.

He picked up the résumé on top—Chandler Darrow. “So this guy was great. He’s got an impressive list of credentials—top of his class at SUNY New Paltz, with references from grateful families for the past ten years.”

“No,” said Alice, glaring at the photo attached to the résumé.

“He’s perfect. Single, good personality, seemed really caring.”

“He had shifty eyes.”

“What?”

“His eyes—they look shifty. You can see it in the picture.”

“Mom—”

“No.”

Gritting his teeth, Mason arranged his face into a smile as he picked up the next one—Marianne Phillips, who also had flawless references, including the fact that she had worked for the Rockefeller family.

“She smelled like garlic,” his mother said.

“No, she didn’t.” Shit, thought Mason. This was not going well.

“I’ve lost most of my abilities, but not my sense of smell. I can’t stand garlic. You know that.”

“Okay, next. Darryl Smits—”

“Don’t even bother. I can’t stand the name Darryl.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

“I just said it—no.”

“Casey Halberg.”

“She was the one wearing Crocs. Who wears Crocs to an interview? They look like hooves.”

“Jesus—”

“I didn’t like him, either. Jesús Garza. In fact, you can cross all the men off the list right now and save us a lot of trouble.” She paused to gaze thoughtfully at the display of family photos on the baby grand. “I’ve never had much luck with men,” she added softly.

“What?” He had no idea what she was talking about. “Never mind,” Mason added, not wanting to get distracted. “Let’s go back over the female candidates.”

She sighed impatiently, then glared again at the photo display. There were pictures of her parents—Mason’s grandparents—who lived in Florida. Immediately following his mother’s accident, they had worn themselves out trying to take care of her. Then her dad had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and Mason had stepped in. His mom’s brothers, who ran a seaplane service in Alaska, were too far away to pitch in.

“Why is there a piano in here?” his mother demanded.

“You’ve owned that piano all your life. You love piano music,” Mason pointed out. “Everybody in the family plays.” He’d taken lessons as a kid and used to be really good, but he hadn’t played in years. Why was that? He liked making music, but he just didn’t bother anymore.

“Every time I look at that thing,” his mother said, “it reminds me that I used to be able to play a dozen Chopin nocturnes from memory. Now my piano is nothing but a display area for old photos.”

“We thought you might like having someone in to play for you every once in a while.”

“Like you?”

Touché. “I’m pretty rusty, but I’ll try to play for you whenever I’m around, Mom.”

“That’s just it, you’re never around.”

“Hey, check it out,” he said, brandishing one of the résumés, “the woman named Dodie Wechsler says she plays piano and put herself through school giving lessons.”

“She was the chatty one,” said his mother. “She talked too much.”

“Mom, I get that you’ve lost your independence. We all wish you didn’t need a single soul to take care of you. But the reality is, you do. So we damn well better pick somebody, and soon.”

“All the people we met today are unacceptable. There’s not a single one in the bunch I can stand.”

“Mabel Roberts.”

“Too churchy.”

“What?”

“She kept mentioning what a blessing everything is—this house, the lake, the beginning of summer. I’d feel as if she were judging me all the time.”

“She had a positive attitude. That’s a good thing.”

Alice sniffed and looked away.

“I get it, Mom. The person you need doesn’t exist. Because the person you need is a freaking saint. Just not a churchy one.”

They had run through all the candidates his assistant had found, except one—a last-minute addition of someone named Faith McCallum. Her profile on a jobs website looked promising, though Brenda hadn’t scheduled a meeting with her yet.

What were the chances that she could be the one? Could she be strong enough to handle Alice Bellamy?

Though there was no photograph attached, Mason liked this candidate already. He liked the name—Faith McCallum. It was a sturdy name, even though his mother might think it sounded churchy. It was the name of a person who was organized, in control and classy. The name of a person whose life ran as smoothly as a Tesla motor, and whose saintly qualities would bring peace to the household.

4

“Shit.” Faith McCallum stabbed a finger at the keyboard of the ancient hand-me-down laptop. “Come on, you son of a bitch, work for me one last time.”

The job posting had finally brought results. As her email had flashed past, she’d seen the subject line: “Response to your posting.” But the moment she’d clicked on it, the damn thing had gone into blue-screen meltdown.

She had rebooted, but now the computer screen was frozen on its opening page—daily devotions for diabetics. Today’s thought was particularly annoying. Leap, and the net will appear.

Faith had done her share of leaping, but so far, she hadn’t accomplished anything but a bumpy landing. Leap of faith. Ha-ha.

She got up in frustration, went outside and refilled the cat’s water dish. It wasn’t her cat. It wasn’t even her dish, for that matter. The stray had started coming around a few weeks ago; it wouldn’t let anyone near it, so Faith named it Fraidy and put out food and water under the stoop.

Returning to the computer, she stared for a moment at the still-frozen screen, then tried clicking the link to the job-posting site she had been checking three times a day, without fail. Her search for a new position was getting desperate. The home health care agency she had been working for hadn’t sent anything her way in three months. Even when they did find work for her, the outfit didn’t pay her enough to sustain a pet gerbil, let alone two growing daughters. Faith was already two months behind on the rent, and the place was under new management.

In desperation, she had posted her résumé on every home health aide job site she could find, hoping to negotiate a living wage on her own rather than going through yet another agency that helped itself to a hefty percentage of her wages.

Finally, the sluggish browser responded. The mobile home park’s “free” Wi-Fi unfurled at leaden speed. She usually got several chores done while waiting for a page to load.

“Mo-oo-om!” Faith’s younger daughter, Ruby, stretched the word to several whiny syllables. The little girl stomped inside, slamming the door open wide. The impact caused the rented double-wide to shudder. “Cara forgot to wait for me at the bus. And she stole my lunch ticket—again.”

“Did not,” said Cara, following her younger sister into the room and flopping down on the tiny swaybacked sofa. With elaborate nonchalance, she opened her AP biology textbook.

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

“Then where did my lunch ticket go, huh?” Ruby demanded. She shrugged out of her backpack, depositing it on the built-in table.

“Who knows?” Cara asked without looking up. She twisted a strand of purple-dyed hair around her index finger.

“You know,” Ruby said, “because you stold it.”

“Stole,” Cara corrected her sister. “And I didn’t.”

“You’re the one who took it last time.”

“That was a month ago, and you were sick that day.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Did you eat anything for lunch?” Faith broke in, exasperated.

Ruby pulled her mouth into a pout that somehow made her look even more adorable than usual. Sometimes Faith believed Ruby’s cuteness was the only thing that kept her alive, she was so fragile. “Mrs. Geiger gave me half of her tuna fish sandwich and a carton of milk. And those yucky dried apple chips. I hate tuna fish. But then after school, Charlie O’Donnell gave me Bugles during soccer practice.”

Ruby had a little-girl crush on Charlie O’Donnell, an eighth-grader who helped coach the primary school soccer team.

“Get some water and sit down,” Faith said. “We’ll check your levels in a little bit.” A familiar knot of tension tightened inside her. Every day, Ruby’s type 1 diabetes brought a new worry, and a new challenge. She turned to Cara. “You’re supposed to wait for her at the bus stop.”

“I forgot.”

“How can you forget something you’re supposed to do every day?”

“She knows the way home.”

Faith suspected the real reason was that Cara didn’t want people to see where they lived. Lakeside Estates Motor Court wasn’t all bad, but no kid wanted to admit she lived in a trailer park. Despite its name, the place was not beside the lake, and it was far from an estate, but it was safe and close to the girls’ schools.

The page finally loaded, and Faith turned her attention to navigating her way to the job-posting response. Outside, the Guptas’ dog went crazy barking, heralding the daily arrival of the mailman in the central courtyard. Ruby, who was scared of dogs, cringed at the sound.

“I’ll go.” Cara shoved aside her homework and went to check the mail.

The response to Faith’s carefully worded posting, offering her services as a skilled caregiver, looked promising. She leaned toward the screen, her interest piqued. “We’re looking for an experienced individual to supervise all aspects of in-home care for a wheelchair-bound lady with a spinal cord injury. Salary and benefits package to include on-site living quarters.”

Okay, so maybe not. Faith and her girls couldn’t all fit into a closet-sized guest room in some woman’s house. Still, the position was right here in Avalon, which made it worth looking into, because the girls hated the idea of changing schools at the very end of the school year.

She wrote down the contact information in case the laptop crapped out again. Then she replied to the interview request, suggesting a meeting the following morning. Tomorrow was Saturday, so Cara would have to miss work at the bakery to watch Ruby, which meant squabbling, but that was too bad. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Cara came in from the motor court, sorting through the mail. “Bills and junk,” she said.

“You were expecting maybe we’d won the Publishers Clearing House?”

Cara dropped the bills on the counter next to Faith and put the rest in the recycle bin at her feet.

Faith picked up a glossy brochure. “What is this from Johns Hopkins? It’s addressed to you.”

Cara shrugged and turned away. “Like I said, junk mail.”

Faith regarded the beautiful photograph of a college campus. A letter on university letterhead slipped out. There was a personal note at the bottom—“Cara, you have a bright future ahead of you”—and it appeared to be signed by hand from the director of admissions. “It says here that based on your test scores, you’re invited to apply early, and the admission fee will be waived.”

Another shrug. “Not interested.”

“You didn’t tell me you got your scores back.”

“Oh. So I got my scores back.”

Cara drove Faith crazy as if it were her job to do so. Daily.

“And?” Faith demanded.

“And I did okay.”

“Cara Rose McCallum.”

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Cara dug in her backpack and came up with a printout.

Faith scanned the numbers, assessing her elder daughter’s verbal and quantitative achievements. If she was reading it right, her daughter had crushed the hardest standardized test given at Avalon High. “And you were going to show me this...when?”

“It’s just a bunch of numbers.” She flopped down again and went back to her homework.

“Numbers that tell us you’re in the ninety-ninth percentile of students who took the test.”

“Does that mean she’s really smart?” Ruby asked.

“Really, really smart,” said Faith. Pride, exasperation and frustration mingled together. When a girl was as smart as Cara, she should be proud of her own potential, not blasé or, worse, defeated. Faith wanted to give her the world. She wanted to give both girls the world. Instead, she had them living in a trailer park while she held on by the tips of her fingernails.

“If she’s so smart,” Ruby mused, “why does she keep forgetting me after school?”

Faith ignored the question as she looked through the bills—two ominously thick packets from St. Francis Hospital and Diabetes Center. She had been paying a dead man’s bills for six years. The vows said “until death do us part,” but clearly the hospital billing system still believed that even in death, the bills didn’t have to end.

The next envelope gave her a jolt. She opened it, read the single page. “Oh, come on,” she muttered under her breath. “Really?”

“What now?” asked Cara.

Faith sent her a warning look. “E-V-I-C—”

“T-I-O-N. You don’t have to spell it in front of me,” said Ruby. “I know how to spell it, and I know what it means.” She got up and crossed the room, leaning over Faith’s shoulder. “And I know what final notice means.”

The new management company gave her no quarter. She had tried reasoning with them and had held them at bay for several weeks, but apparently they were done waiting. She hated the tone of the letter. Did they think she actually had the money and was holding out on them?

Cara slammed her book shut. “It means we’re moving again,” she snapped. “That’s great. Just great. Two weeks before school lets out. Maybe we could go for a record—how many times do we have to change schools in one year?”

“Cara, I’m not doing this on purpose.” Faith felt sick. “I know you like Avalon High. I’ll try my best to see if you can stay in the district.”

Cara yanked her bike helmet from a closet by the door. “I’m going to work. I guess I’ll have to give notice at the bakery.”

“Come on, Cara—”

“It says we’ve got twenty-four hours.” Cara snatched up the letter and shoved it under Faith’s nose.

“I’ll figure something out,” said Faith. “I always do.”

“She always does,” Ruby said loyally.

Faith gave her a hug, drawing Cara into it. “What did I do to deserve you two? You’re not in the ninety-ninth percentile. You’re in the one hundred and tenth percentile. A hundred and ten percent awesome.”

“Right,” said Cara, stepping back and cracking a smile for the first time just before she went out the door. “That’s us. A hundred and ten percent pure, unadulterated awesome. I’ve got to go.”

“Bring me a kolache,” Ruby piped up.

“Sure thing.” The Sky River Bakery, where Cara worked, made delicious sugar-free kolaches. Faith’s daughter liked working there. She liked her school.

She hated being broke all the time.

But not nearly as much as Faith hated it. She watched her elder daughter ride away on a bike she’d snatched from the donation pile at Helpline House, a local charity. Other kids had cars, but Cara didn’t even have her license yet, because the driver’s ed fees were too high, not to mention insurance for a teenage driver.

She sat down and drew Ruby onto her knees, holding her close. Then she tightened her arms around the child in her lap, feeling her younger daughter’s impossibly small frame. Ruby felt as fragile as a baby bird. “Let’s check on your sugar bugs,” she said. The endless routine of testing her levels, administering insulin and managing her diet and exercise was always at the forefront of their lives.

“My meds cost the moon,” Ruby said.

“Where did you hear that?”

“The school nurse. I wasn’t supposed to hear, but I heard. So I asked her what the moon costs and she said it’s just an expression, but I know it means it costs a lot of money. Which we don’t have.”

“We have exactly what we need,” said Faith.

* * *

When the girls were asleep, that was when the demons came to visit. The ones that promised Faith she was drowning and taking the girls down with her. Sometimes in her more lunatic moments, she silently raged at Dennis, as if all this were his fault. And it wasn’t, of course. It wasn’t his fault for having a severe form of diabetes with fatal complications, any more than it was Faith’s fault for loving him.

It wasn’t his fault their younger daughter had the same disease.

No one’s fault, but Faith was left to deal with it.

Late that night—their last night in Unit 12 of Lakeside Estates—Faith realized it was preferable to stay awake with her own thoughts than to sleep with demons, so she got up and finished the last of the packing. It wasn’t much. The unit had come fully furnished, so it was really just their clothing and personal belongings, which fit easily into the paratransit van.

The van was from Dennis’s final year, when he’d been in a wheelchair that had to be raised and lowered by the van elevator. He had known he was terminal and had made the rash decision to spend the last of their savings traveling across the country from LA to New York, seeing the sights of America in the midst of a long, sad farewell. Faith had known it was a reckless move on his part, but how did you say no to a dying man?

Most of their mementos were digital photos, but there was one framed shot Faith cherished, showing the four of them lying on a hill of grass somewhere in Kentucky. A friendly local had gamely climbed a tree to take the unusual shot. They were laughing in that moment, their faces full of love. The joy in Dennis’s eyes was palpable. On their unforgettable family trip, they had learned to steal moments like this, to wring every drop of happiness from them.

She carefully wrapped the framed photo in her favorite Dennis artifact—an impossibly soft woven blanket in the traditional McCallum tartan from his native Scotland. For months after his death, the blanket had held his scent, but by now it was faded, and she couldn’t even remember what he’d smelled like.

She placed the wrapped photograph in an old duffel bag. The useless laptop emitted a soft chime, signaling an incoming email.

Faith jumped up to check it.

She had a job interview, first thing in the morning.

5

“She’s a no-show.” Mason’s mother glared at the clock on the mantel.

“That means she’s out. Fired before she’s hired. If she can’t show up on time for her first appointment, then Faith McCallum is not the one we’re looking for.” Mason raked a hand through his hair. “Damn. She was the last one on the list.” He glanced over the printed résumé, which he’d found so impressive when Brenda sent it to him. “Hasta la vista, Miz McCallum.” He crumpled the page in his fist and tossed it in the wastebasket.

Regina, who had arrived on the late train from the city the night before, got up and walked over to him, trailing her hand across the back of his shoulders. Her high heels clicked on the hardwood floor. She always dressed in expensive suits, as if she had an executive board meeting on her calendar. He found it sexy, but a bit much for a lake house.

“That’s too bad,” Regina said. “She seemed promising on paper.” Gorgeous, accomplished and smart, she was eager to help Mason find someone so they could get back to the city.

He nodded. “Yeah, now what?” He grabbed his phone and tapped out a message for Brenda to cast a wider net as she trolled for the ideal caregiver. “Hey, Reg, how about you stay with Mom? The two of you make a great pair.”

The two women regarded him with such horror and disbelief that he laughed aloud. His mother and Regina got along all right, but the idea of both of them living under the same roof clearly made them both mental.

“To be honest,” Regina said, “I wish I did have the skill set to help you, Alice.”

“If you had the skill set to help me, I’d force my prodigal son to set a wedding date immediately,” said Alice.

Mason kept a poker face, knowing his mother was trying to get a rise out of him.

“We’re in no hurry,” Regina said soothingly. “I always knew I wanted a long engagement.”

“When did you become such an adept liar?” asked Alice. “No woman ever born wants a long engagement.”

“Mom—”

“She’s right,” Regina agreed. “I don’t want that.” She genuflected in front of the wheelchair. “It would be lovely to have the wedding right away, but Mason and I want to make sure the timing is perfect for everyone involved. Now, what can I bring you from the kitchen?”

“A vodka martini. Dirty, three olives.”

“Very funny.”

“Oh. Too early? Make it a Bloody Mary, then.”

“I’m on it.” Regina went toward the kitchen.

“She’s too good to be true,” Alice said once she was gone.

“You think?”

“Yep. That’s how I know she’s a big fat phony.”

“Why do you assume any woman who wants to be with me is a phony?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Mason eyed the crumpled résumé in the basket, wishing Faith McCallum had worked out. As Regina had pointed out, the candidate had looked great on paper—midthirties, years of experience as a home health aide, glowing references, able to start immediately, willing to live on the premises. He shouldn’t be surprised that she was a no-show. People were never what they presented themselves to be.

“Ever think maybe I’m just lucky?” That was what everyone said when they met Regina. He was a lucky stiff. They had been introduced by Mason’s father. When Mason had taken charge of the New York office of Bellamy Strategic Capital, his father had brought Regina on board, presenting her like a rare delicacy acquired at great expense. Mason couldn’t argue with his father’s taste. She was every guy’s dream—beautiful, sharp, successful, exuding a WASP-y, private-school self-confidence. Best of all, she didn’t have that nesting thing going on, that persistent need to set up housekeeping, spend hours decorating the place with fragile things and have three babies. In some respects, she was the female version of Mason—with one notable exception. He wished she liked sex as much as he did. Sometimes trying to convince her to have sex felt like talking her into attending an insurance seminar.

“You still haven’t told me about your trip,” Alice said, regarding him with narrowed eyes.

He read the challenge in her gaze. “Oh, you mean the trip to scatter Dad’s ashes? The one where we had to make a pilgrimage to the same avalanche zone that killed him? The one that was cut short when we got a phone call about you falling down the stairs? Is that the trip you mean?”