Chapter 2 #2
“Sure, but…there’s not much time.” His throat convulsed so hard it hurt. He tried to swallow, failed, and when he spoke again, his voice was strained. “You want to meet me at the hospital in the morning? I usually get some breakfast at the diner around the block before visiting hours start.”
“Wow. Every day, huh?”
“This week. The last two I went after my shift at work.”
“You’re a good son.”
“Yeah, but whose?” He lowered his head, shaking it slowly. “Sorry. I promise I won’t wallow in self-pity for more than a few hours. I’m just…still reeling. I don’t even know what questions to ask you.”
“Don’t ask me anything. Let me tell you everything she told Dan and me. In the morning, over breakfast. And in the meantime, you’ve got journals to go through. What time? In the morning?”
“Eight a.m. too early?”
“Eight’s good,” she said. “See you then. Or, if you need me sooner…” She didn’t finish the sentence, just nodded at the card she’d set on the coffee table’s doily, gathered the lined hood of her jacket up around her ears, and headed out into the gently falling snow.
Willow Brand, Sky Dancer Ranch
“He was perfect in every way,” Uncle Garrett said in his low, deep voice.
Willow was dying to hear the story of her brother, but she was also worried about her mom. She’d never seen her look the way she’d looked when Willow had uncovered the cradle.
“His name was Jonathon Wolf Brand,” Garrett went on. “Johnny Wolf, we called him. He was born on September first, just two years before you, Willow.”
Her throat tightened painfully and her eyes burned. “I had a brother.”
Aunt Chelsea came closer and hugged her, but that meant Jeremiah had to let go. “He was gone before you came along, honey,” she said.
“Flash flood came through that year,” Garrett went on.
“Your mamma, she was on her way to the clinic, taking Wolf for his first checkup. He was just two weeks old. The water came on like a demon. No warning. It just came. It took the car, smashed it into a tree. She got him out of the back as it filled with water, but then another wave came and swept ’em both right out into the river.
She tried to hold onto him. She fought to hold onto him.
But the current took that baby right out of your mamma’s arms.”
“Ohmygod,” Willow whispered as her cousins closed ranks around her.
Ethan, the eldest, asked, “How could you not tell us this, Dad?”
It was his mom, Chelsea, who spoke up, though, not Garrett. She said, “Taylor couldn’t get over it. I don’t know how anyone could. She…had what they used to call a nervous breakdown and wound up spending six months in-patient in a psychiatric hospital.”
Willow’s throat spasmed and made her gulp aloud.
“We never found his little body,” Garrett said, and his voice broke on the words. “Every police department up and down the border was looking for him, too, but…discreetly. If it’d hit the press, it would’ve done Taylor in.” He lowered his head slowly. “I had the power to keep it kinda quiet.”
“We held a memorial,” Uncle Ben said. “But Wes didn’t want a marker. He thought it would be too much for your mother, and he didn’t want to lose her again.” Ben hugged his wife Penny a little closer. He’d lost her once, long ago, so he knew the pain of that.
“We just never talked about little Johnny Wolf after that,” Uncle Elliot said. It was clear the way he was looking at Aunt Esmeralda that she was hearing this for the first time, too. “It was easier that way, and pretty soon all of us fell into silence about him.”
“It was never meant to be a family secret,” Uncle Adam added. “It just became one.”
“I think that’s how all family secrets work,” Ethan’s bride, Lily, said softly.
Maria-Michelle was shaking her head at her mom and dad, Jessie and Lash. “I can’t believe this. And nobody ever found him?”
Drew, the youngest, smallest, and blondest cousin, rose from her spot on the hearth and looked around the room. Her hair was in a high-riding ponytail that whipped so hard when she turned her head that it should’ve had a sound-effect. “How’s everybody so sure he’s dead, then?”
“Because a newborn rescued from floodwaters would’ve made the news, hon,” her mom, Penny, said.
“Yeah, and so would a dead baby pulled from the floodwaters, wouldn’t it?” Drew shot back. “But there wasn’t one. Was there?”
The elder Brands shook their heads, exchanging worried looks.
“What if he floated to shore across the border?” Drew went on. “No, no, people, I’m sorry, but if there’s no body, there’s no proof of death. No way.” She surged toward the front door like her feet were on fire but stopped and turned. “Willow, you okay?”
“Of course she’s not okay,” Maria-Michelle said, pulling Willow right out of Jeremiah’s arms. “We’re taking her home. Lily? Drew?”
Drew glanced almost desperately at her brother. Orrin, reading her mind, nodded so subtly that nobody else noticed. But Willow noticed. Her aspiring sleuth cousins, Drew and Orrin, were planning something.
“I think I’d better go after my mom,” Willow said. Then she looked at the cradle, and regret swamped her as she realized she’d just stuck a knife into her mother’s broken heart. “Somebody please put that thing back in the attic.”
Camellia Rio
Camellia went home to the cute little Cape Cod in Hobbsville, Texas, where she’d grown up.
It was her mom’s place, with a matching two-car garage and a vacant 2nd story apartment she did not want to have to rent.
She was in between places now. She’d wanted to be with her mom after her dad had passed away unexpectedly. Heart attack a year ago.
She’d let her old apartment go, because Earl knew where it was, and God knew how many keys he’d had made. She just figured when her mom didn’t need her anymore, she’d find a new place, maybe even in a new town. Though it would be tough to leave her mom all alone.
The house was white with dark green shutters, window boxes, and green roof shingles. When she opened the front door, the scent of roasting potatoes and herbs wrapped around her like a welcoming hug.
“Is that you, Camellia?” her mom called from the kitchen in exactly the same tone she called it every night.
“Yeah, Mom, it’s me. Dinner smells great.”
“New recipe. It’s Monday, you know.”
“Right, Meatless Monday.” Her mom’s latest awakening was underway.
Erica Rio had one every three or four years.
She liked to say she was in a constant state of evolution.
She’d taken art classes, and there was a roomful of her watercolors to prove it.
She’d taken belly dance classes and had the abs to prove that.
Now she was inching her way into veganism a meal at a time.
When her only daughter had been born, Erica had been earning her certification in flower essence therapy. Hence the name. Camellias were peaceful, patient, accepting, and aligned with their true nature.
The name hadn’t really taken, then, had it?
She was neither peaceful nor patient, and it had taken her twenty-six years to get aligned with her true nature as an independent, single woman. Her most recent and worst boyfriend of all time had shown her the light. Hallelujah, amen.
She dropped her keys into the bowl by the door and thought again about Wolf Travail. The poor guy, losing his mother and his identity all at the same time. The pain in his eyes had reached straight into her heart.
She went into the kitchen and hugged her tall, lean, quirky mother. For some reason, she felt tears threaten as she did. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, honey,” she said, but softly, and then she turned, clasped her face, and stepped back to examine it. “You okay?”
Camellia shook her head. “Hard case today. How about you?”
“Better all the time. It’s taken a year, but I think I’ve finally stopped waiting for life to go back to normal without your dad. Set the table, hon. The big bowls for this.”
The topic switch gave her whiplash, but Camellia caught up, grabbed the big bowls, plus spoons and napkins, and took them to the dining room table.
Her mom followed with a large bowl of rice and another of roasted vegetables.
“I’m settling into my new normal,” she said.
“It’s not the same. It’s different, and it will always be different.
I’ve accepted that. But I’m going to make it as good as I can. ”
She sat down. Camellia covered her hand. “That’s a huge step, Mom.”
“Here’s another one,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about selling the house.”
Camellia felt her face react but tried to hide her surprise and dismay. She had expected to inherit the house. And either live in it or sell it and explore new places. She was making decent money investigating for insurance companies and attorneys, but even then, mortgages were huge.
But that was not, she reminded herself, her mother’s problem. So she wiped the disappointment off her face and nodded, and said, “I see.”
“The property taxes, school taxes, and all the maintenance are more than rent would be in a nice apartment,” her mother said. “And I’d be closer to people. I feel like I’m keeping you from living your life just because I don’t want to be alone.”
“I love being with you, Mom. And it’s given me time to save some money, too, so I can have my own place someday.”
“I know,” her mom said. “If the house sells, I’ll give you half. It’s your inheritance, after all.”
“That’s really generous.”
“Well, like I said, I’m only thinking about it.” She sighed. “I’m also thinking about a new town. What do you think?”
“I’ve been feeling a little bit of wanderlust myself, Mom. I’d be open to a new town,” she said. “It’d be an adventure.”
Her mom smiled, clearly relieved. “I’ll miss you on my cruise.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she told her mom.
“So, tell me about your day. Is this the dying woman with the secret identity?”