Starlight On Willow Lake

No one moved. Mrs. Bellamy stopped, and the chair swung back. “Well?” she asked, eyeballing Ruby. “Are you coming?”

Ruby blanched. “Coming where?”

“To see where you’ll be living.”

* * *

The job posting had simply stated that the offer included “ample living quarters.” Cara thought she knew what was meant by ample, but this was definitely more than ample.

Mrs. Bellamy led the procession down the hallway and through the house. Each room they passed was pretty and sparkling with the light reflecting off Willow Lake. The rooms had old-fashioned names like the conservatory, the library, the card room, the solarium. The place at the end of the hallway was known as the quarters.

The quarters turned out to be bigger than most apartments they had lived in. It was a sunlit suite of two bedrooms, separated by a fancy bathroom with black-and-white tile, a deep claw-foot tub and a separate shower surrounded by clear glass. There was an antique-looking desk and, best of all, a deck on the outside, with a view of the lake. Everything was as elegant as a set on Masterpiece Theatre.

Ruby acted as if she had entered the Magic Kingdom, not that anyone in the McCallum family could afford to go to Disneyland.

“This reminds me of Mary Lennox’s house,” Ruby exclaimed. She turned to Mrs. Bellamy. “Mary Lennox is the girl in—”

“The Secret Garden,” said Mrs. Bellamy. “I’m a cripple, not an ignoramus.”

Cara wondered if it was politically incorrect to say cripple when you were the one in the wheelchair.

“Do you like books?” Ruby asked her. “I love books, and I can already read chapter books all by myself. I still like reading aloud, though.”

“So do I. We will have to begin reading together,” said Mrs. B.

“It’s beautiful, Mom,” said Ruby. “Do we get to stay?”

Mrs. Bellamy swiveled to face Mom. For the first time, the old lady seemed to smile. It wasn’t an actual smile but almost. A lightness in her eyes, like the sun reflecting off the lake. And Cara realized old Mrs. Bellamy really wasn’t actually old, and she wasn’t a total sourpuss, after all.

“I was just about to ask you the same question.”

8

Mrs. Bellamy promised to be a difficult, angry patient, but Faith had dealt with difficult and angry before. The emotional roller coaster was part of the job.

The house and grounds were expansive, like something out of a magazine fantasy. Ruby made no attempt to suppress her delight in the situation. The beautiful gardens were just starting to bloom, ducks were nesting along the shore and the spectacular setting offered dozens of places for a little girl to play, hide, imagine...escape. They wouldn’t have to change schools, after all. Cara could keep her job at the bakery, and Ruby was looking forward to the long, lazy days of summer by Willow Lake.

The household ran like a precision clock, thanks in large part to Mrs. Philomena Armentrout, the exotic housekeeper. The Balinese family—Wayan, Banni and Donno—kept the kitchen running, and Banni was the evening aide. The weekly schedule included a physical therapist, psychological counseling and a sports trainer.

It was late at night by the time Faith finally found time to put away the last of her things—a few books and keepsakes, memorabilia of life before it got so complicated. It was interesting how little one actually needed on a day-to-day basis—a few changes of clothes, a decent bar of soap, toothpaste and toothbrush. It was hard to believe there had been a time when she’d daydreamed of having a house of her own, maybe one with a garden and a tree where she could hang a swing for Ruby, and sending Cara off to any college she chose. The future Faith had once imagined for herself was a distant memory from another life, a life she’d nearly forgotten. These days she didn’t have time for hoping and planning. She’d nearly forgotten what that was like. Lately, all she had time for was the daily juggling act of trying not to drop all the balls she had to keep in the air.

But things were looking up. Instead of standing in line and filling out humiliating forms at the Ulster County Housing Authority, she stood in an opulent bedroom with an antique poster bed, with the French doors open to a view of the starlight on the lake. The girls were fast asleep in the adjacent room, and the only sound Faith could hear was the pleasant chirping of frogs outside.

She finished arranging a small stack of folded clothes in a drawer. Then she drew herself a bath in the big claw-foot tub. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper bath. As she settled back into a cloud of scented bubbles, the sense of indulgence was so intense, it brought on a vague feeling of guilt.

Don’t be stupid, she told herself. This is where you live now. You have a bathtub. There’s no shame in using it. She noticed a bit of blood still caked under her fingernails. She found a brush and scrubbed away the last of it.

After the bath she slipped on an old jersey nightshirt and checked on the girls. Their room adjoined to hers through the bathroom and dressing area, and at the moment it was a minefield of their belongings, hastily hauled in from the van. As usual, Ruby’s bedside lamp was on, because she was afraid of the dark.

Cara had fallen asleep the way she always did, with a book still open to the page she was on. Faith picked it up and angled it toward the light—a novel called Saving Juliet. Cara was always interested in saving things that were doomed.

Faith bent down and quietly switched off the lamp. Moonlight streamed in through two dormer windows, and the shadows outlined the twin beds against the opposite wall. Ruby slept with her Gruffalo clutched in the crook of her arm, her sweet face pale in the bluish glow. Faith reached down and, with the lightest of touches, brushed the hair away from Ruby’s forehead and placed a kiss there.

Look at our girls, Dennis, she thought. Look how beautiful they are.

Studying Ruby’s face, she could still see him in the shape of the little girl’s mouth and the tilt of her eyebrows. You’re still here, Faith said to Dennis. Then why do I feel you slipping away? Time, said the widows in the grief group she’d attended for a while. It was both a healer and a thief. As the months and then the years passed, the pain of missing him faded—but so did the memories.

She returned to her own room, but she was too keyed up to sleep just yet. She walked outside, her bare feet soundless on the cool surface of the deck. Taking a deep breath, she gazed up at the stars and then broke down and wept with relief.

It wasn’t like her to cry; she wasn’t by nature a crier, but the pent-up tension of her past struggles had been sitting inside her like a time bomb waiting to go off. And now that the waterworks had been unleashed, she found she had no power to turn off the flood of relief.

After a few moments, or maybe it was an eternity, she heard a door open and shut; someone cleared his throat.

“Oh, hey...” She stood and turned, seeing Mason Bellamy silhouetted against the lights coming from the main house. She quickly wiped her cheeks with her bare hands. “Is everything all right? Does your mother need something?”

“No,” he said. “Everything is great. How about yourself? Is there something in your eye? Or are you just glad to see me?”

“I’m okay.” She knew she didn’t sound okay. Her voice shook. “These are tears of relief.”

He gestured at the glider placed at the edge of the deck, positioned for a view of the lake. “Have a seat. Stay there, and don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute. Ninety seconds, tops.”

She complied, pleased that he didn’t seem too freaked out to find a woman in a state of meltdown. Dennis hadn’t been good with meltdowns, so she had learned to control them, keeping her emotions in a tightly wrapped box and enduring her darkest moments in private.

The beauty of the moon and the stars reflected on the lake was so intense that she nearly cried again. Instead, she inhaled deeply, tasting the fresh sweetness of the air and listening to the chirping of frogs down by the water’s edge.

True to his word, Mason returned a moment later with two short glasses, clinking with ice. “Are you a whiskey drinker?” he asked.

“Not often enough. What are you pouring?”

“Scotch. I figure with a name like McCallum, you’d have a taste for it.”

“That’s my married name. But I’ll try the Scotch.”

“This one is called Lagavulin. I found a bottle that’s been waiting sixteen years for someone to open it.” With the dexterity of a seasoned bartender, he poured a shot into each glass. “Cheers,” he said, touching the rim of his glass to hers.

The whiskey was remarkably smooth, its flavor unexpected. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve never tasted anything quite like it.”

“Essence of peat smoke. They use peat to roast the barley.” He stirred the wooden glider with his foot, and they sat together in the nighttime quiet, savoring the whiskey.

“Well, thanks. I like it... I think. Warms my chest.”

“So about those tears.” He shifted around to face her.

She wondered if he actually cared about her tears. Unlikely. He was simply trying to make sure he hadn’t engaged an unstable person as his mother’s caregiver.

“Like I said, it was a rare meltdown. Nothing to worry about. You didn’t hire a wacko.”

“I’m already convinced of that. You said you were feeling relief. Because...?”

“The past few months have been a tough spell for us. I wasn’t getting anywhere with the placement agency I’d been working for. Just before you got in touch with me, I was looking at having to move right at the end of the school year. The idea of uprooting the girls yet again was awful.”

“Your daughters like it here in Avalon, then.”

“We all do. Small town, good schools, beautiful area. But I think they would like anywhere that feels stable to them. We’ve had a lot of upheaval since their dad died. Sometimes I think most of my life has been spent in some sort of upheaval or other.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He added a tiny splash more Scotch to her glass. “Care to talk about it?”

She smiled shakily into the glass and took another sip. “Depends on which upheaval you’re talking about.” She fell silent, traveling back through the years to the first big shock of her life. When she was just a schoolgirl, her grandparents both died in a single, tragic moment, leaving behind their only daughter—Faith’s mother. The tragedy had occurred in Lockerbie, Scotland. They had not been on the tragic Pan Am flight that day in 1988, but on the ground, visiting friends in the town, on a tiny loop of a street called Sherwood Crescent.

Faith’s grandparents had saved for months for their overseas visit, planning to spend Christmas with the Henrys, whom they knew through an international church group.

It would have been long dark when they sat down for dinner on that dreary December eve, but inside, there would have been a cheery fire in the grate and probably something warm and comforting to eat. Surely they never knew what hit them, but the investigation determined that it was a giant Pratt & Whitney engine, and the impact was so enormous that some of the Henrys’ blue garden paving stones flew three blocks away, landing on the roof of the police station.

Faith came home from school the following day, flush with excitement for the upcoming holidays, to find her mother sitting in the dim afternoon light, twisting tissue after tissue in her hands as she stared at the breaking news on TV. For months afterward, Faith always felt a chill of horror when a plane passed overhead.

Between sips of whiskey, she related this to Mason, who sat motionless, not even blinking. “So I guess,” she concluded, “it’s not surprising I have a strange connection to things from Scotland.”

Mason moved at last, tossing back his drink. “That’s... Man, that’s incredible, Faith. I’m really sorry. A shock like that. It can turn your life upside down. It’s like you can’t escape the memories. They’re always there, intruding whether you’re asleep or awake.”

She nodded, startled by his insight. “You’re right. Even now, walking into a dark house with nothing but the TV on takes me back to that day. I never told the girls. I figure they’ve been through enough in their own lives.”

“What sort of things? If you don’t mind saying.”

“I don’t mind.” She had no use for deception. Never had. Secrets and lies had never done anyone any good, least of all her. “Dennis was sick for a number of years. He was diabetic, and there were complications. Including the fact that he was foreign—Scottish—and had never bothered to get a green card. He was facing deportation, and we couldn’t afford to fight it. The medical debt from his treatment is a hole so deep, I doubt I’ll ever dig my way out. And now there’s Ruby’s care and her meds... I won’t bore you with all the details.”

“You’re not boring me.”

She smiled, had another sip of the strange-tasting whiskey. “I must be. I’m boring myself.”

“Come on.”

“We should be talking about your mom, not about me. I’d like to talk more about your mother’s situation,” she said. “The more I know about her, the better I can help her.”

“Oh, sure.” Something in his reply told her he wasn’t expecting that. “Mom will tell you everything you need to know—implicitly if not explicitly. She had an amazing, vibrant life as an athlete and a world traveler. Now she has to figure out how to live with quadriplegia. There’s really nothing I can add. Except that she doesn’t seem to be doing so hot in the attitude department. I totally get why she’s so pissed off all the time. You and I can’t imagine what it’s like, living with this level of disability.”

“That’s true. We grow up hearing we have to play the hand we’re dealt, but we are always looking for a way around that.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping the whiskey and watching the reflection of the stars on the lake. “We really have no idea what it’s like to be paralyzed,” said Faith. “The loss of privacy and independence are huge. Your mother might still be going through a grieving process for the loss of her old life.”

“Yes. You’re right. I feel so damned bad for her, and then it pisses me off, because there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“There is. You can’t fix her spinal cord injury. You can’t give her back her physical abilities. But there’s plenty to be done.”

A silence ticked slowly between them, but it was a comfortable silence. A thoughtful one.

He tipped his head back to look at the sky. “I’m not used to it being so dark at night,” he said.

“I like the dark,” she said. “It lets you see more stars.”

He nodded. After a while, he said, “I want you to know, you can always call me or ask me anything. I’m here to help, as limited as I am in the nursing skills department.”

“Good to know.” She felt a pleasant warm buzz from the whiskey. “That’s powerful stuff.”

His smile—a little crooked, eyes crinkling at the corners—was way too charming. She could look at him all night. “It coats the nerves with happiness,” he said.

“Well put. So I do have a question. You said I could ask you anything. Where does your mind go when it wanders?”

“I wasn’t expecting that kind of question.” He finished his drink and rattled the ice in his glass. “My mind never wanders,” he stated. “I have laser focus.”

She couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking. “Must be a gift.”

“How about you? Where does your mind go?”

“My girls. Their well-being. Their future. See? I’m boring myself again.”

“But you’re not boring me.”

Faith was surprised by all these flickers of attraction toward Mason, but she quickly and systematically extinguished each one. They came from different worlds. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, while Faith’s background was unequivocally blue-collar. Or pink-collar, as it was known. Her mother had worked when she could, selling sewing notions and quilting supplies at a small fabric shop, but most days, she was too sick to go out. As a girl, Faith used to dream of growing up and becoming a doctor and finding a way to cure her mom’s congestive heart failure. As she grew older and truly grasped their dire financial situation and the enormous cost of education, she had surrendered that dream. She just wished Cara didn’t have to surrender it, too.

She watched the play of the moon and the stars on the lake. “It’s so beautiful here. Did you grow up in Avalon?”

“No. We have family in the area, and my brother, Adam, lives here. He’s the reason we brought Mom here after the accident.”

“Will I meet Adam?”

“Sure. He lives in the quarters above the boathouse. But he’s away now, attending special training for his job. He’s a firefighter, going for his certification in arson investigation. You’ll meet our sister, Ivy, too, one of these days. She lives in California, but she’s moving to Paris for a two-year art fellowship.”

“Paris. How exciting to be in Paris. Have you been?”

There was a beat of hesitation; then he said, “Yeah. I’ve been to Paris.”

“And?” She wanted him to elaborate. One of the things she loved about her job was the people aspect. You could live a lot of lives just listening to other people’s stories.

“And what?” he asked.

“City of light? Movable feast? Everything it’s cracked up to be?”

His hand twitched around the whiskey glass; then he tossed back the rest. “A big, busy city. A place to get lost.”

He didn’t seem interested in talking about Paris.

“Tell me more about your mother’s accident,” she said. “How did you get word?”

“I was at work—a Thursday just after the closing bell of the stock market. It was last summer, so that meant it was winter where they were, in New Zealand. My brother, Adam, called. Mom and Dad were on a ski trip to their favorite place. They’re both— They were both expert skiers. But something went wrong that day. There was an avalanche. Dad died on the mountain. Mom survived, probably thanks to an airbag device in her jacket. There was a scramble to get to her. Adam and I landed just before she went into surgery, then Ivy a few hours later.”

Faith could too easily picture the frantic journey. He’d just been going about his business, when the news had dropped on him like a bomb. “I’m sorry. It must have been like a nightmare.” Without thinking, she reached out and gave his shoulder a squeeze. She felt his muscles contract under her hand and quickly took it away. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s the nurse in me. It’s a very hands-on profession.”

“I don’t mind, Faith.” He rested his elbows on his knees, steepled his fingers together and stared into the darkness. “Yeah, it was surreal, especially at first. We didn’t tell our mom that Dad was dead, but she knew. They were prepping her for surgery. And she just said something like, ‘He’s gone, isn’t he?’”

“Oh, my gosh. What an awful time for your family.”

“I told her yes. She didn’t go into hysterics or anything. I kind of expected her to, because she was completely... I mean, Dad was pretty much her whole world.”

“I’m sorry. He must’ve been wonderful.”

“She thought so.”

Faith was bemused by that statement. But you didn’t.

“The emergency treatment was top-notch as far as we can tell. She was given a drug—a kind of steroid in the ER—methyl...”

“Methylprednisolone?”

“I think that’s it.”

“It can reduce the damage to nerve cells if it’s given right away.”

“That was the idea. There were a lot of meetings and consultations. Surgeons and specialists. Decisions to be made. It was crazy, the way the world changed in a split second. The most important thing was to get Mom stable enough to travel, and then settled in a place where she could figure out her new, completely unexpected life. Of the three of us, Adam is the most settled. He wanted her in Avalon.”

“It’s lovely here. She’s lucky you all rallied around to help.”

“Yeah, just don’t tell her she’s lucky, or you’ll get an earful. Since she moved here, she’s been getting all the treatment that’s available. You have the list, right?”

She nodded. Mrs. Bellamy was getting physical therapy, which included muscle movement, respiratory exercise, massage, electrical stimulation of nerves by neural prosthetic device—anything that would keep her as healthy as possible. “I haven’t seen all her medical history, but it sounds as if everyone’s working toward the goal for her to regain as much function as possible.” She paused. “What about emotional support?”

“She has a shrink.”

“That’s her support?” Faith sensed that Mason didn’t seem too eager to stick around for his mom. Faith missed her mother every day. It was hard to relate to a guy who kept his distance like this. “So do you come up on the weekends?”

“Not very often. Do you think I need to?”

She hesitated, determined not to judge. “That’s up to you.”

“My mom’s got an entire staff, and now she has you. I don’t think she needs me hanging around, too.”

She took a moment to digest that. Coming in cold to a family situation was always challenging, because she had to scramble to figure things out. She had the impression that Mason loved his mother, was devoted to her, even. But he was holding himself back, and she hadn’t yet figured out why.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’m glad you’re on board to help her.”

“I’ll make it my daily mission.”

“Good. Thanks. So are your girls settling in?”

“Sleeping soundly. Ruby’s already in love with the place. And Cara... She likes it as well as a teenager can like any place. I’m just relieved to have a roof over their heads.” She glanced over at him but couldn’t see his face in the darkness.

She finished the whiskey, enjoying the sleepy warmth it imparted. “I should get to bed. I’ve got to get up early with the girls. Their school buses don’t come out this far, so they will have to hike a half a mile to make the first pickup on the route.”

“They don’t have to take the bus,” he said. “Donno can drive them.”

A driver? “That’s not necessary.”

“But totally doable.”

She pictured her girls getting into the shiny black SUV and being chauffeured like foreign dignitaries to their schools. “I don’t think—”

“Donno is on call whether he’s driving or not. You might as well use his service.”

It would mean the girls could sleep in an extra forty minutes. “All right,” she said. “I’m sure they would love it.”

“Good. I want you to be comfortable here. I want this to work, Mrs. McCallum.”

“So do I. And please call me Faith.”

“Okay. Faith it is. But only if you call me Mason.” They both stood to go inside.

She was surprised to feel so comfortable around a guy like this. He was obviously crazy rich, like Bruce Wayne in the Batman series, the kind of guy who took it for granted that a staff of servants and workers would look after things. Yet for no reason she could fathom, she felt completely at ease in his company.

“What’s a good time to go to the hospital for the blood tests?” she asked him.

“Early is better for me. I was planning to get an early start to the city,” he said. “Regina needs to get back to the city for work. So do I, for that matter.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, feeling like an idiot for forgetting the perfect girlfriend. “Thanks again for the whiskey. Good night, Mason.”

“Good night, Faith.” He hesitated. “It’s good to have you here. Really. I hope you enjoy the peace and quiet of Willow Lake.”

* * *

In the morning Faith waited for Mason in the foyer, wanting to get the hospital visit over with before Mrs. Bellamy was up for the day. Regina appeared, heels clicking, Chanel briefcase in hand, smartphone held to her ear as she spoke about some kind of marketing strategy. She looked so polished and stylish that Faith wondered if they were on hidden camera. How did some women do that? How did they get every hair and stroke of makeup in place?