7. Mike #2
“Got it.” I scan the menu, knowing it will be hard to decide. There’s a daily pizza and the mushroom ‘burger’ is the daily sandwich. Duck confit, too. Good thing I’m hungry.
“I’ll tell Mom you’re here, but she’ll be busy the next hour or so.”
“Looks like I will be, too.”
“I can get you a glass of water, if you like. Mom will have to serve any alcohol.”
“Water would be great.”
She nods and moves away, Sylvia in the purposeful swing of her hips. She’s taller than Sylvia and a little more slender, but the resemblance is unmistakable.
Funny how I could only see Luke in her before.
There are more people at the door and it’s a few minutes before anyone approaches the table. I watch Sierra for a bit, noting what a great job she’s doing, then consider the menu again. I see the glass of water first, then the woman delivering it.
Sylvia.
“So,” she says, markedly less friendly than Sierra. “You had to come here .”
“Sounds like it’s the place to be.” Candace is still talking non-stop about how fabulous the meal was. Dad’s been stomping and glowering, blaming me for the fact that the café is still open. “You can’t be surprised that I’m curious.”
“I can be surprised that you broke rank.”
There’s no doubt who we’re talking about.
“Even he came for dinner.” Once.
Her eyes narrow a little, looking like they could shoot sparks, but she doesn’t say anything more about my family.
Is all the softness really gone? I can’t believe everything has been easy for her but I hope Sylvia isn’t as hardened to everything as she seems to be to me.
She gestures to the seat opposite me. “Waiting for someone?”
I shake my head.
She considers me for a long moment, then lifts her pad. She is as inscrutable as ever, maybe more so. “What can I get you?”
“Actually, the main reason I came was to talk to you,” I admit and her wariness is back. “Just for a couple of minutes.” I wait a second. “Just enough time to apologize.”
That surprises her. Her eyes open a little wider. “For what?”
“For all that I said when I shouldn’t have.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I shouldn’t have even thought it. I was angry and should have kept my mouth shut. I’m sorry, and I should have said so sooner.” I meet her gaze. “I’m really sorry.”
Something flickers in her gaze, then Sylvia puts the pad into her apron. “Well, that’s done. No need to linger.”
“Sylvia.”
“Mike.” She braces her hands on the table, leaning closer to me.
I can smell the scent of her skin, a scent I’ve forgotten that I know as well as my own name, a scent that unfurls a yearning in me that is fierce in its urgency.
I see the twin halos of gold in her eyes, one around the outside of the iris and one around the pupil, piercing the green and hazel in between like beams of sunlight.
I could stare into her eyes forever. I see the freckles on the top of her nose that she always tries to cover over.
I see the sweet curve of her lips and I want to reach out, slide my hand around her nape and pull her closer.
I want to kiss her into remembering how incredibly good it was between us, but the fire in her eyes stops me cold.
“You can’t fix this,” she says with heat.
“You’ve had years to fix what went wrong between us and you chose not to bother. ”
But that’s not fair .
“How was I supposed to do that? I didn’t even know where you were!”
“You could have asked Una.”
“I did! She wouldn’t tell me.”
She blinks again, a sign of surprise that vanishes so quickly I might have imagined it. “Oh please. You could have just looked at the return address on my letter.”
I stare at her. “What letter?”
Her eyes flash. “It’s one thing to never answer me or acknowledge receipt, but don’t sit there and lie to me.
I wrote to you .” Her voice rises. “I wrote and you didn’t reply.
Ever. So, here we are, a whole bunch of years later, and you want to apologize.
Well, that’s lovely but you can’t be surprised that I think it’s too little too late. ”
I am stunned by this little soliloquy. “You wrote me a letter?”
“More than one letter.”
“Why wouldn’t you just call?”
She bristles. “Because I didn’t want to explain myself to anyone who answered the phone. A letter is a more private choice.”
We stare at each other, a whole lot of energy crackling between us as I try to figure out how we can both be right on this.
“There were no letters, Sylvia,” I say and she inhales sharply, as if I’m the one lying to her.
“Suit yourself.” A bell rings from the kitchen and she glances that way, then glares at me. “Are you eating or not?”
Until this gets sorted, I’m not going anywhere. She wrote me a letter. I didn’t get it. Maybe she wrote me another that I didn’t receive. Mail gets lost. We can solve this.
I will solve this.
“Yes,” I say, hearing the determination in my own voice. “ I’ll have the paté and then the lamb. A glass of red house wine. Maybe dessert, too. I’m going to be here a while and I’d like to talk to you again when things get quieter.”
“Whatever,” she says, sounding a lot like Sierra, before spinning away.
I seize the water glass and take a drink, my thoughts churning.
If Sylvia wrote to me and I never replied – mainly because I never received the letters – she has every right to be angry with me. I’d be annoyed in her place.
Why wouldn’t those letters arrive? Our family has lived on the same piece of dirt for over a hundred years. Even if Sylvia wrote the address incorrectly, the post office would have delivered any mail to us.
Assuming the letters got to our house, why didn’t they get to me ?
I was at university for four years, so not around all the time. They could have been set aside for me, then – what? disappeared before I came home on holidays. How?
I can’t believe Sylvia is lying about this. She’s too mad.
I drum my fingers on the table, thinking.
We had a housekeeper back in the day, when my mom was pregnant with Abbie.
Mrs. Wilson. She was protective of all of us, especially after Mom died, kind of a surrogate mother or kindly auntie.
I can’t believe, though, that she would have discarded personal letters.
She died a few years back so I can’t exactly ask her.
Would Candace tell me anything? My stepmom is so absorbed with her own concerns and comforts that I doubt she would notice anything that didn’t directly affect her.
The smartest thing I ever did was move out of the monstrosity she’s been making of that house – we can justifiably call it Casa Cavendish now, given that it has turrets – but I didn’t move far enough for complete seclusion from my family.
I live in the original house that’s still on the property, the one my great-grandparents built when they started the farm, the one we were living in when I went to university.
It’s old and draughty but it suits me well enough, plus the commute to work is non-existent.
Would Dad know? I doubt that anything happens in his vicinity without his knowledge. I can’t believe, though, that he’d interfere with the mail. That seems sacred somehow.
Limited possibilities, that’s for sure. Would Jake or Austin have taken the letters to play a trick on me, then forgotten all about it? Not out of the question.
Sierra sets the paté down in front of me and I forget everything except the smell of it.
One bite and I’m blown away. It’s fantastic, the best I’ve ever had.
I know the serving is too big but I can’t stop myself from having one more bite.
And the chutney is perfect with it, a little sweet, a little tart.
It even looks good together, the red chutney and the crusty bread.
I’ve finished the paté when Sierra slides into the chair opposite me. She leans over the table, her expression intent. “I need your help,” she confesses in an undertone, her gaze clinging to mine. “In a non-dad specialist kind of way.”
“A what kind of way?”
“I need to know about greenhouses. Actually, about growing plants in greenhouses.”
I sit back to survey her, wondering what her scheme is. “Well, you’ve come to the right person.”
Her smile is triumphant. “I know . I have to head home to do my homework soon, so you need a plan ASAP.” She throws a glance toward the kitchen and bounds to her feet, a sure sign that Sylvia is looking at her.
Then she bends closer to whisper. “Merrie wants fresh herbs all year around. I told her she needs a greenhouse and she said she could maybe put one on the roof. ”
“That’s a good idea. No trees close by, so the sunlight would be great.” I nod approval. “That could work.”
“The problem is that neither she nor Mom have time to do it. I thought I could make it my project.”
I nod, liking her initiative.
“But I don’t know how to grow plants at all, so you have to teach me.” She nods at the perfect logic of this. “On the weekends, but not when I have guitar lessons or when I’m working here, at least until school is done.”
I think this is an admirable impulse and I want to encourage it.
I remind myself that I can take a day off once in a while.
“Maybe tomorrow we could do a research trip,” I suggest.
Sierra nods with enthusiasm, her eyes alight. “The café will be closed so Mom can come, too. You just have to convince her.” She pivots, smiling brilliantly at Sylvia who is bringing a steaming plate to my table, then hurries to the door to greet a pair of new arrivals.
I can’t take guests into our greenhouses when we’re in full production.
The risk of introducing a biological souvenir is too great.
But I’m thinking of Rupert’s little greenhouse and how he might enjoy talking to Sierra.
Sylvia looks disinclined to be convinced of anything I say, but maybe, if the expedition is for Sierra and Merrie, I can make it work.
I have to try.
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Maybe the way to a woman’s heart is through her daughter.
I see Sylvia heading for my table and call Rupert quickly. I want to have my plan ready to present to Sylvia after dinner.