Vera #2
“Better get cooking,” I say. “It’s late.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Soon. I love you. I’ll come tuck you in when I get back.”
“Love you.”
She ends the call, and I consider turning around, leaving Ana to handle her own mess and face Lisander alone. But I keep driving,
thinking about my daughter and what she meant by “can I help?”
Lisander’s sprawling Victorian is dark. But as I approach a light goes on upstairs. I know that there is a motion sensor camera
at the gate through which I just passed. Her phone would have chimed, alerting her to my arrival. I envision her climbing
from bed, putting on her robe, and heading downstairs.
As I bring the car to a stop, Lisander’s generous form fills a downstairs window. By the time I’ve stepped onto the porch,
she opens the door. Clad in a long nightgown and flannel robe, she reminds me startlingly of Agnes. Maybe it’s the long unapologetically
gray hair, the fragrant softness of her embrace, the cool discernment of her dark-eyed gaze.
She idolized my Aunt Agnes. So maybe it’s no surprise that she emulates her.
“What is it?” she asks with concern, ushering me through the door. “What’s happened?”
She’s always been good to us, even though our arrival into Agnes’s life disrupted hers.
Before we came, Agnes was her mentor, giving Lisander all her knowledge.
Lisander doted on Agnes, more like a daughter than a student.
But after we came, so broken and in need, Agnes’s attention was necessarily diverted to us.
As we grew, Lisander graciously became our teacher, as well.
Even later, when Agnes made a choice that clearly showed her favoritism, Lisander never faltered in her care of us.
If she missed what she had with Agnes before we arrived, she didn’t show it, was Agnes’s devoted friend and student until
the end.
In her warm kitchen, I sit at the long wooden table where we’ve gathered for meals and meetings over the years, and tell Lisander
about Paul and Iggy while she brews a pot of tea, listening.
We stay silent with it as the kettle comes to a boil, both of us thinking. The copper pots hanging over the oven gleam, picking
up the dim light. Over by the big bay window, there’s a small indoor greenhouse where Lisander grows herbs in winter, the
glass fogged with humidity. Along the counter there are large glass jars of dried flowers, leaves, sprigs, berries—lavender,
elderberry, white sage, licorice root.
In a stack, by the big cauldron that always sits on the stovetop, are her leather-bound volumes of recipes, drawings, notes,
so like Agnes’s. Lisander’s specialty is healing teas for all ailments from anxiety to indigestion, from women’s troubles
to the common cold. If you have a problem, Lisander has a brew. I’ve come here often for the blend she makes for flu, which
she calls Flame, because it heats away illness. It’s her proprietary recipe of elderberry, echinacea, licorice root, lemon
balm, yerba santa, slippery elm, and other herbs that even I can’t discern just by taste. With its immune-boosting and antiseptic
properties, it cures what ails you—from sore throat to lingering cough.
Tonight, it’s a simple blend of fresh spearmint and peppermint, reviving, refreshing. The aroma fills the cozy kitchen.
“So, Paul, Ana’s ex,” says Lisander finally as she pours the brewed fresh mint tea into dainty porcelain cups. “Iggy, Ana’s
best friend.”
“That’s right,” I say as she comes to the table with a tray, sets it on the old wood.
“Who was at the brunch?”
“I was there, of course. Ana, Esme, Payton, Iggy. April was there to serve.”
“And the menu?”
I run it down. The quiche, the Waldorf salad, the elaborate charcuterie board, all catered from local places in town. Ana’s
cassoulet. Esme’s special meal. Iggy’s cookies.
Lisander drops a single sugar cube into my cup, just the way I like it. The scent of mint wafts pleasantly. She sits across
the table from me, chair creaking. She has the bearing of an earth mother, welcoming bosom, high color in her cheeks, powerful
arms. She was Agnes’s most beloved student, her best friend. What is she to us now? We’ve called on her help more than once
since Agnes has passed.
“Any issues between Ana and Iggy?”
“Not that I’m aware,” I say. “I mean other than Iggy married Ana’s other ex, Brock. And Iggy just had a baby that’s annoyingly taking attention from Ana.”
I think of Iggy’s baby, Noah, still breastfeeding, his mother in a coma, and feel a crush on my heart.
Lisander raises her eyebrows at me.
“She wouldn’t,” I say quickly. “She loves Iggy.”
Loves. Whatever that means to Ana, who can love you and still manage to dislike you sometimes, become magnificently annoyed
with you. Betray you. Then save you.
“They’ve been best friends since college. Even if anything, that’s against the code.” I’m talking too much. Anxiety.
“Our Ana,” says Lisander with a grim smile. “Not exactly a rule follower.”
This is true. Lisander and I have had to clean up her messes before. Last time, Ana was nearly expelled from The Cove.
“It wasn’t her,” I say, that powerful instinct to protect and defend rising. “She was over Paul. And she dumped Brock long before he and Iggy got together. They asked her blessing. She was happy for them, in her way. As happy as Ana can be for anyone but herself.”
The chime sounds and Lisander glances at her phone. “She’s here.”
I feel a tension I didn’t know I was carrying release from my shoulders. Ana’s here, where I can protect her from herself.
Lisander leans across the table and grabs my hand. “You won’t be able to defend her to The Cove again. You know that. And
you’ll have to answer for it, too, if you’ve involved yourself with her mess.”
I nod, a dump of dread in my gut, a cold finger of fear down my spine. Anger at Ana is an eternal flame. I love my sister,
but she’s put us all in danger too many times.
We sit in silence a moment before Ana blusters in. She brings in with her a burst of anxious energy, the scent of a homemade
floral perfume made from essential oils. She looks frazzled, hair a wild raven cloud, still wearing what she had on at brunch
today.
“I know what you two are thinking,” she says, dropping her bag on the counter. She gets a cup from the cupboard. “I did not
do this. I swear.”
Again, I find myself believing her. The truth is since the last time, she’s been on the straight and narrow. She has been
building her business, is slowly getting her finances in order with our help. Until he turned up dead, she seemed to be taking the breakup with Paul
pretty well.
“There are plenty of people who hated Paul,” says Ana, sitting heavily beside me.
“Like whom?” I ask.
“Like everyone. In fact, I can’t think of a single person who liked him except for his new girlfriend. And it was only a matter of time
before she realized he was a malignant narcissist.”
“But who specifically might want him dead?” I press. “To what end?”
She makes a point of counting off on her manicured fingers, blue eyes flashing. “Esme hated him. Payton had multiple run-ins with him. Didn’t Brad have some kind of professional dispute with him?”
“Don’t even,” I say, putting up a palm. I need to keep Brad and the business as far away from this as possible. We have our
own problems.
But. Yes, that’s right. Paul did use his relationship with Ana to try to pitch his advertising firm to Brad. There was a meeting,
but Brad declined his services. Mainly because I said no; never a good idea to get into bed with Ana’s boyfriends. There’s
no telling what the blowback will be. Obviously.
Paul didn’t take it graciously. Started badmouthing Brad and the company to clients. So, no, Paul wasn’t Brad’s favorite.
Or mine. But when I told him about Paul’s death, he didn’t even know who I was talking about at first. My husband doesn’t
hold a grudge.
I, on the other hand, do.
“I’m just saying,” she says, looking at me sheepishly. She’s tapping her finger annoyingly on the table. I put my hand on
hers to stop it. A little too hard. She gives me a pout, pulls her hand back.
“His sister,” she says, eye widening. “She immediately put the police onto me. But Paul and Regina were in some kind of a
legal tangle over their parents’ will.”
“Oh?” Lisander and I say in unison, both leaning forward.
That could be something. People get more murderous over money than over almost any other issue. And speaking strictly from
experience, there’s not a person alive who can press your buttons like your sibling.
“What was the dispute exactly?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. But they were fighting about it.” I note the circles of fatigue under her eyes,
the worried set of her mouth. This is not like her. Usually, she’s ice. “He owed her a lot of money, too.”
Lisander is watching Ana carefully. I’m not sure I love the expression on her face. Distrust, concern. She wrings her hands, seems to catch herself, then folds them on the table in front of her.
Ana is tapping again. “Also! One of the women Paul was accused of harassing at his old firm couldn’t drop it. She was social
media stalking him, leaving angry messages on his voicemail. She took a payout from the firm and signed an NDA, but apparently
that didn’t do it for her.”
“Yes, so inconvenient when victims won’t be easily bought off,” says Lisander darkly.
“But she did take the money,” says Ana.
Lisander scowls. “Maybe she needed the money because she couldn’t get a job in her industry after the harassment case. Because that’s what happens when women
come forward. The men skate away, and the women are psychologically damaged, find their earning potential decreased, other
companies suddenly reluctant to hire them.”
“Okay, she was still pissed. Rightly so. So maybe she killed him.”
“What was her name?” I ask.
“I don’t remember.”
“Find out.”
She nods.
“And what about Iggy?”