Tea and Primroses (3 page)

The thought of his mother’s death agitated him, like the sore that never quite healed, and he paced the short distance between the window and the couch. For him there would be no closure or peace until the truth of her final hours were revealed. But as the years moved forward it grew less and less likely he would ever know the details of who and what killed her. Declan knew only this: his mother was murdered, whether the police agreed or not.

He set his phone on the coffee table. He turned on the teakettle in the small kitchen, more like a couple of appliances in a nook—Sutton would be appalled at the size of the kitchens in Italy. Tea, a habit he’d developed growing up with Constance as his second mother. “Always tea at four, Declan, rain or shine,” Constance said to him once when he asked for hot cocoa instead. “Hot cocoa will just make you fat anyway,” she’d added. Constance was petite, barely five-foot-two, and always worried about her weight.

The kettle whistled. Using a strainer, he poured hot water over the loose tea leaves and left them to brew. He went to the window and opened the wooden shades. The late afternoon light filled the room. He ran his hand over a bookshelf, seeing the dust there. The three most recent Constance Mansfield novels were in a neat stack; he’d read them all, of course, when they came out, but he liked to have them there to remind him where he came from. He placed his hand on the stack and closed his eyes. Again, the feeling of doom came over him. A tsunami? Had his dream been a premonition? He went back to his laptop, logged quickly onto the internet and clicked on a news app, scanning the front page for any news of natural disasters, but it was just the usual political reports, continued trouble in Syria, the latest movie star in rehabilitation.

His tea was ready. He took a sip, staring at the brown hills outside his northeast window, playing with the soft material of his shirt. This material was the same sort Sutton wore, feminine dresses made out of cotton prints, worn with sandals in the summer and cowboy boots in the winter.

Dammit, why hadn’t Constance answered? She kept her cell phone with her on her ride, didn’t she? Surely she would answer if she saw it was him?

Something was wrong.

He set his tea aside and crossed the room in two strides. His legs were long, all six feet of him too large for this room. His Italian friend, Juan Franco, teased him all the time about his height and his dark, wavy hair he wore slightly long. “You’re too big for this country and your hair makes you look like American cinema star.”

Picking up the phone, his breath came fast, like he’d run a mile. Do not think—just do, he thought. He pushed the contact button for Sutton.

It rang, once, twice, three times, and then she answered. “Hello?” There were tears in her voice. And fright. He was sure of it.

“It’s Declan.”

“Oh, God, Dec.”

“What’s happened?”

“My mother’s gone. She’s dead.”

He reached for the back of the couch. His legs began to shake and he pressed them together, leaning against the couch with his free hand. “No, I just got an email from her. Two days ago.” He realized as he said it that it was a ridiculous thing to say. Two days ago someone can be alive and two days later gone. Everyone knew that. He knew this. His mother had been alive one day and gone the next.

“She was killed, Dec. Someone ran her down in a car.”

He heard her shaking her head by the rustling coming from the phone. At this point Sutton’s crying turned to sobbing. It sounded almost like her laughter—a row of bells clanking in the wind.

“When did it happen?”

“This morning.” She was sobbing so hard now he could only just make out what she said. “A hit and run. Whoever did this just left her to die on the side of the road alone.”

“I’ll come, Sutton. The next plane out, but it could take me days, depending on flight schedules and layovers.”

“Where are you?” He heard Sutton breathing, the ragged little gasps that came out of her when she had been crying and was trying to stop.

“Italy.”

“Italy?” She asked this in a tone of disbelief, like he’d said Siberia.

“Yeah. A job. I’ve been here for a year.”

“I thought you were in Spain.”

“No. Spain was two years ago, then England, then Switzerland. Now Italy.”

“I don’t even know where you are.” The sobs had ceased and this was said in a tone of sad resignation. “How’s that possible? After everything?”

There was a long pause of silence between them. Finally he said softly, a catch in his voice, “How can she be gone?”

The crying started again on the other end of the phone. “I don’t know.” He heard her take in a deep breath before she spoke again. “I need the one person who loved her as much as me to help me say goodbye.”

“Sutton, of course I’ll be there.” He went to the window. The neighbor children were playing in the yard, drawing something in the rich soil with their sticks. His heart clenched with each of her sobs, aching to be there to hold her, wanting more than anything to take away her pain. This was all he’d wanted all his life—to take care of Sutton.

“Why did you call?” she asked, her voice hollow, like she stood in the back of a cave and called out to him from the dark.

“I had a dream of a tsunami. It swept you out to sea.”

The sobbing bells continued. He imagined the way her shoulders shook when she cried that hard. “I’m drowning, Dec, sure enough.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

JUNE 2013

Dear Sutton,

I guess I’m gone if you’re reading this. I write one of these letters every June just in case something unexpected happens and I die. I’ve been doing this for six years now, ever since Roma died and I realized you and Declan would be orphans once I go.

I know I won’t need to remind you how much I love you since I’ve said it to you every day of your life. I hope, despite my lifelong love affair with words and my unquenched ambition, my actions left no doubt in your mind that you were everything to me. I’m prouder of you than anything I ever did, professionally or personally. I was humbled and honored to be your mother. Thank you for being my lottery. That said, in mother fashion, I must leave a small list of instructions.

1. I would like to be cremated and my ashes spread in the sea foam on our beach—just you and Declan.
   
2. I want a huge party thrown in my honor and for everyone to make nice speeches about me. I’m just kidding about the speeches part. No one is left that really knew me except for you and Declan, Louise and Aggie. Regardless, I would like a party where you invite all the townspeople who have wished to see inside the house for twenty years now. Please ask Louise to help you, because you’ll probably be sad and not thinking as clearly as you normally do. But, Love, make it a really good party, the kind most of the people of Legley Bay wouldn’t normally be invited to. Spend gobs of money. Over-serve them top shelf alcohol and provide buses back to town so nobody drives drunk and hurts anyone. And hire a good caterer from Cannon Beach, for God’s sake, and not Myrnas (no apostrophe—never ceases to amuse me) Fish House. Make sure there’s some kind of potato dish—the kind I never ate and which I’m probably regretting now wherever I am. Hire servers in crisp white aprons that carry around trays and offer delectable little treats like shrimp and those bacon-wrapped dates you’re so fond of. Gosh, it sounds lovely and so civilized! My mother would have hated it. But she’s dead too so we don’t have to worry about her. Anyway, the party is a way for me to say I’m sorry to all the good people of Legley Bay for never hosting any parties at the house—completely selfish of me, I know, but I hate all the mess and fuss and the small talk—please, kill me now. Ha! I’m already dead, so that’s really not so funny. Clearly I don’t really think there’s any chance I’m dying this year since I make such light of it in this letter. Remember, I’ve been doing this for six years and I haven’t died yet. After the party, invite the gang over and play darts and dance in the basement like you all used to in high school. Sometimes at night when I’m here alone I think I can hear you all down there but then I realize it’s just the wind.
   
3. Don’t marry Roger. You don’t love him. He’s weird. I never understood one thing he’s ever said.
   
4. Call Declan. Get him to come home. You love him and always have. For Heaven’s sake, this whole nonsense between the two of you has gone on too long.
   
5. Invest some of the money I left you. I was surprised how it grew over the years and you will be too. That said, please don’t hesitate to spend a small amount frivolously, like on lovely clothes or a trip somewhere or even a ridiculous little sports car. I want you to have whatever you want. I did it all for you anyway.
   

I know you won’t mind how much I left for Declan. He was like a son to me, as you know. But, as it turns out, there was so much to go around. We have the thirteen bad movies to thank for that.

Okay, I must close. I have to get my word count in before 4 or I don’t get to have a glass of wine. Love you, always, Mommy

SUTTON ARRANGED FOR HER MOTHER
to be cremated, per her wishes. Four days after Constance’s death, Sutton had a memorial at the house, arranged with Louise’s help, complete with food and drink and buses.

That afternoon, as the house filled with townspeople paying their respects, Sutton wandered out to Constance’s yard in an attempt to breathe. Since the news of her mother’s death, Sutton’s chest was tight and she felt breathless, like she’d run a hill. She stood for a moment at the bottom of the deck’s stairs, taking in the view and the air into her lungs. It was then she saw him.

A man, a stranger, stood at the fence, his long, delicate fingers holding a petal of one of the yellow primroses he must have plucked from the tidy row planted along the white fence. The sea and sky were a mass of blue beyond the fence.

How often her mother had stood in the exact same spot, her eyes fixed on the water. “The plots come to me in the sea breeze,” she’d said to Sutton more than once. And Sutton knew her mother’s expression when she was in the mist; it was a look of contemplation, yes, as one might expect, but also of languid peace, an easing of sadness permanently etched in the lines of her face.

Sutton’s gaze returned to the man. Who was he? Legley Bay was a small town. She knew everyone, at least by appearance. But not this man. No, he was not recognizable to her. She walked toward him. When she was near, he turned from the water to meet her gaze. She held out her hand. “Thank you for coming. I’m Sutton.”

He enclosed her hand in his own for a brief moment. His palms were rough and callused. “I know who you are.” He smiled in a way that reached his sad eyes, as if her identity delighted him. “I’m Patrick Waters.” He was tall and slender, startlingly handsome despite the rugged lines in his face and forehead, and dressed in a beautiful black suit, the jacket of which hung on his arm. His eyes were green and intelligent.

“Did you know my mother?”

He glanced toward the ocean before returning to her. “Yes. I was your mother’s first editor, sort of.” His voice caught. He cleared his throat, placing his hand over his mouth, his gaze on the grass. Then, he took in a deep but shaky breath. “And her greatest fan.” He loosened his tie, blue with yellow dots, colors her mother loved.

“I’m afraid I’m her greatest fan.” She said this lightly as she stared at him, trying to place him in her mother’s stories, but he was nowhere. Her mother had had the same editor, Janie Morton, for all Sutton’s life—thirty years. Janie was a plump, dewy woman with round cheeks and little black glasses, usually dressed all in black. Janie was in the kitchen now drinking wine with Louise.

“Janie Morton’s her editor.” She hadn’t meant it to sound accusing but it came out that way, like she was somehow interrogating him.

“I know.”

“Oh.” This stopped her.

“I know your mother from a long time ago. We’d lost touch until recently. You know, we’re old and unsure how to use the internet.” It seemed as if he was trying to be funny but instead he sounded pained. His eyelids fluttered as he turned back to the ocean. He reached up and wiped under his eyes.

Sutton searched her memory. Patrick Waters. Had her mother ever spoken of him at all? “When did you know her?”

“Vermont.”

“Vermont?”

“She lived there for a year.”

She stared at him. Surely this wasn’t true. “She always lived here.”

“She was twenty-four. I knew her then.”

“Are you in the book business, then?”

“No. I make clocks. Waters Clocks. Have you heard of us?”

“Of course. I have one in my home, actually. My mother got it for me last year for Christmas when I moved into my new place.”

For the first time, his face lightened. “Which one, do you know?”

“I believe it’s called ‘October.’”

“I use mahogany for that model. The red hue reminds me of the leaves in Vermont during October.” Mr. Waters pushed his fingers into his eyes. Then he put both hands on the fence and leaned over, his back rising and falling. “I met your mother in an October.”