Chapter 2
TWO
FRANKIE
Now
Frankie unbuckled in Estelle’s driveway and pulled the wad of cards out of her bag, sifting through it until she found the one with purple fields illuminated by a sunset. She put the others away, then opened it and read the message again.
“Forgive for what?” she mumbled. And since when was Mom undeserving of forgiveness? It was such a ludicrous thought that somewhere out there, someone had harbored ill will toward her mom. Estelle didn’t have beef with anyone as far as Frankie knew. It was a gift.
She got out of the car and rounded Estelle’s Tudor style home, eyes glued to the neatly written letters as she followed the stone-set path past the left gable where the roof sloped dramatically into a trellis overgrown with wisteria.
On the other side of the gate in the fence, she paused and repeated the words out loud to herself.
Then she crossed the lawn, pulling her key out of her pocket.
Her tiny house in the back of the garden had been a compromise.
After Frankie finished her degree in elementary education and was ready to start looking for jobs, Starview had just celebrated its tenth anniversary, and Estelle was looking to expand its part-time music program by adding a full-time academic curriculum for grades one through six.
She’d needed Frankie’s help, and the adorable cottage-style little house had been her graduation surprise for Frankie.
“I know you need your privacy now that you’re grown,” she’d said. “Ta-da. Your first house, my darling.”
There was a job in Charlotte that Frankie had been interested in at the time, but Mom had made it so easy to stay.
She’d already drummed up excitement in the community that Frankie might be joining Starview as a piano teacher and head of academics, the pay was good, the tiny house had everything she could ask for, and if she needed more space, she could head up to the “big” house whenever she wanted.
Plus, two months later, Mom had made them co-owners of Starview. Frankie had earned it, she’d said.
Frankie let herself into her home, flipping on the lights above the small kitchen counter before setting her bag down on the rolling cart that served as an entry table.
With white interior, wood floors and trim, an abundance of windows, and multiple hanging plants, the house normally had the ambiance of a much bigger space.
Today, the walls crowded her, and as soon as she’d washed up and had a glass of water, she fled back outside and inhaled deeply.
The setting sun reflected in the windows off Mom’s patio making it seem like someone was moving behind the panes.
Frankie hadn’t set foot inside the big house since Estelle’s death, but now, with that stupid card burned into her retinas, the building called to her as if Estelle herself would be there with an answer.
She hurried back across the lawn the way she’d come and let herself in through the side entry to the kitchen where the air hung thick with herbs and memories.
She counted to three before forcing her gaze to the remains of a life cut too short.
Grief stirred inside her, but she kept it at bay by focusing on action. The next step. Lavignes don’t idle.
The garbage probably needed emptying and the fridge sorting out.
Estelle had died on a Thursday, which was one of the days they both fasted until noon, so only an empty coffee mug sat in the sink from that morning—a clunky red thing that Frankie had supposedly made in some art program she didn’t remember.
“Does this go in the dishwasher?” she called out before she could stop herself.
Her cheeks heated, that incessant burn starting up behind her eyelids again. No. She had cried enough. “Don’t worry, I’ll handwash it,” she said in a lower voice, and then she did just that, drying it carefully and placing it back in its spot on one of the open shelves above the counter.
She glanced through the doorway to the living room beyond, wondering if today was the day she’d conquer that as well.
“Mom could be at work,” she whispered. Estelle was always at the school late.
Frankie could allow herself to pretend, for a brief moment, that it was a day like any other.
That she’d gotten home before Estelle and needed something from the house.
From her old room even. Maybe she could make it all the way up the stairs with a little make-believe.
At some point, she’d have to, and because of that card, sooner would be better.
“It’s only a card—it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Matt had said before they parted ways after the reception, but Frankie felt it in her bones.
It meant something, and judging by the way Orla had scrutinized the card, the reporter had known it too.
The question was what—a misunderstanding, a prank, or something more sinister?
Frankie strode into the living room with determined steps, purpose momentarily replacing her grief.
The more she thought about the card, the more it grated on her.
It was offensive really, sending a note like that to a funeral.
Estelle’s standing in Aspen Creek was beyond reproach, and that extended to Frankie.
They had earned their respect. Had worked hard to lift the town up. They were the Lavignes, dammit.
No, not “they” anymore. Now it was just Frankie.
The brief burst of resolve drained out of her as quickly as it had appeared, and she sank onto the couch as the emptiness around her pressed closer once more.
Smudged fingerprints on the corner of the glass coffee table where Estelle usually put her coffee stood out in stark relief in the low light from the window.
Frankie imagined Mom’s tutted disapproval and went to rub them off with her sleeve, but she stopped a few inches short, a surge of protectiveness rising in her chest instead—an impulse to preserve them.
“Get it together,” she said out loud, forcing her gaze to the corner of the couch instead where Mom would have sat, reading glasses on her nose and legs folded up underneath her if this had been any other Sunday. Frankie ran her hand across the cushion as a tremor coiled up her spine.
Oh, Mom.
She glanced over her shoulder as if to ensure no one was watching, and then she pulled a blanket from the back of the couch over herself and curled up underneath it, inhaling the faint whiff of Estelle’s perfume that still lingered on the knitted fibers.
Only a few minutes, she told herself. No one would have to know.
This wasn’t caving, it was… recuperating.
It had been a long day, and Mom would want her to be fit for fighting again tomorrow.
Frankie had every intention to make her proud, but if she could just press pause for a little, maybe things would start making sense again.
How many times had she rested her head on Estelle’s lap here as a little girl while they escaped into fictional worlds?
How many times had they played together on the piano over there?
Watched the butterflies arrive in their garden outside?
It was unfathomable that none of these things would ever take place again.
Estelle wasn’t supposed to be gone.
But now that she was, she was forgiven…
Frankie’s eyes drifted closed at the disconcerting thought as the ghost of Estelle’s fingers caressed her temples in that lulling place just beyond consciousness.
She was a grown woman and had long since outgrown this kind of comforting, but surely an exception could be made on a day like today.
One elongated moment of indulgence, of being little Frankie, of belonging to someone, then tomorrow she’d go back to being Ms. Frankie, now sole proprietor of Starview.
She would right the ship that had been knocked off course with Estelle’s passing, and soon the community wouldn’t know the difference.
Frankie usually dismissed her wake-up alarm immediately, but the next morning, the jaunty tune seeped slowly into her consciousness, a backdrop to kaleidoscopic dreams of packing for flights that were already departed.
It wasn’t until its gradually rising volume made the water glass on her nightstand tremble that she finally opened her eyes and realized where she was.
She’d managed to drag herself back to the tiny house and her own bed last night after falling asleep on Mom’s couch, but she was still wearing her funeral outfit, and her mouth tasted like vinegar.
The loft spun as she sat up and rubbed her hands across her face.
Her dark hair hung lank down her shoulders, so she pushed it behind her ears before gulping down what water was left in the glass.
Then she clambered over to the stairs, careful not to hit her head on the low ceiling, and hurried down the steps.
She was ten minutes behind schedule if she wanted to be the first one at the school, and anything else was not an option.
Not when today was the first day back to business as usual at Starview.
Last week, they’d cancelled all after-school classes and forgone regular daytime scheduling, letting their three classroom teachers plan their days based on their students’ needs.
In Kayla’s first/second grade room, they’d read a lot of books and drawn pictures of Estelle and the school.
In Beth’s third/fourth grade room, half the students had been out with a spring cold, so the remaining ones had picked a group project on famous musicians as their focus, and in Grant’s fifth/sixth grade room, the students had opted to continue their academic studies because “that’s what Ms. Estelle would have wanted. ”