Chapter Four
Geralt Talbot’s face broadened into a self-congratulatory smile; he’d gotten Rina Montalto’s goat, which had of course been his aim all along. Artsy-fartsy hippie shrew, he thought with grim satisfaction. Sue Davis had deserved better than people like that in her circle.
He regarded the girl who stood gaping after the Montalto woman’s exit, pale and nondescript with her tousle of dark hair and rumpled black dress and tights.
It wasn’t that she was particularly thin, he mused; no, the girl was narrow, compressed, as though she were trying to take up as little space in the world as possible—to be unseen, unnoticed.
And yet. Something in the eyes …
He jabbed his cane in Willow’s direction. “And who in the hell are you?”
Willow tensed. “I’m Willow Stone; Aunt Sue—honorary aunt, no real relation—was my godmother. I saw in a newspaper article that she’d passed, and I’m here for her memorial.”
Geralt regarded her, one enormous eyebrow raised. “So, you’re the one. Sue’s girl from way back. Heard about you.” He looked at his ostentatiously expensive watch. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you? Service starts in a couple of hours.”
“You heard about me?” Willow asked. “From whom?”
“From Sue. Believe it or not, we got on very well together.” He paused. “She spoke of you often. Never stopped hoping you’d come back one day. And here you are.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “A little late, but at least you got here.”
The girl’s mouth trembled; in another few seconds, the tears would overflow. Geralt rolled his eyes. “Oh, good God,” the old man said. “You’re going to cry now. I can’t abide crying women; I’d rather they just shout at me.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she shot back without missing a beat. She sniffled. “I’ll work on it.”
Oh, I like this one, he thought.
With a cynical grin and a small, ironic bow, he said, “See you at the service. There’s a reception afterward, thrown by that antiques dealer who fancies herself a pastry chef.
Health inspector’s paradise.” He tossed his cane up and caught it in the middle.
“It’ll be a hellscape. See you there, Sue’s girl.
” He exited the shop and started back up toward where he had left his state-of-the-art, luxury golf cart parked haphazardly between the bandstand and a tall pine tree.
Willow impulsively followed, calling after the old man. “Mr. Talbot, can I ask—”
He turned back to her, the same sardonic glint in his eye as before, waiting.
Willow said, “A newspaper article I saw said Aunt Sue was getting married, but not anything about who the groom is—was—” She cleared her throat awkwardly.
“I feel like I should meet her fiancé, pay my respects…” She trailed off as Geralt Talbot began to chuckle.
Within seconds, he had burst into cackling laughter, ignoring nervous looks from passing tourists.
He reined himself in, dabbing the corners of his eyes. “You want to meet the fiancé, you say? A little late for that, Sue’s girl; you already have.”
At Willow’s confused look, he smirked and gestured to the back of the shop. “Her. That foul-mouthed Italian shrew somehow persuaded your normally sensible godmother to marry her, God knows why.” He cackled again. “Welcome to Little North Island. Enjoy your stay.” He turned away and resumed walking.
Willow followed and called after him again. “Mr. Talbot?”
He called back over his shoulder, still walking, “What is it now, Sue’s girl? I have things to do.”
She took a deep breath and asked the question she had been holding inside since she saw the clipping, the question no website had answered. “How did Sue die?”
Talbot stopped abruptly; then he sagged a little and looked down at his feet. He said flatly, “She fell. Doing repairs or something. Must have lost her balance.”
Willow frowned. “Yes, that’s what the newspaper said; I only wondered if—”
“Well, if you read it in the newspaper, it must be true,” he interrupted, and he began to walk again. Then he turned back to Willow. “Come over to my mansion this afternoon after the reception. Beautiful view from the widow’s walk. We can have another little chat.”
The corner of Willow’s mouth twitched. “Your mansion, sir?”
Another wicked grin; he turned and leaped behind the wheel of the golf cart with a spryness that belied his need of a cane and, with one more blast of the air horn, took off down the road from the village.
Rina retreated down to the sandy strip of beach below the tide line.
She left her shoes at the trailhead and walked along the water’s edge, letting the wet sand squish between her toes.
When she came to the stone jetty where she and Sue used to watch the sun set over Bald Hill, she brushed the sand off one of the great rocks and sat.
So that was Willow, she thought. The girl wasn’t Sue’s real niece, yet something in Willow’s eyes reminded her so much of Susan that it felt like a fist squeezing her heart.
Since Sue’s death, Rina had often come to this rock, imagining Sue sitting with her, perched on the boulder, arms around raised knees.
Rina listened to the lapping water and the familiar clunk-clunk of round cobblestones shifting against each other in the water, picturing Sue listening too—just the two of them, comfortable in each other’s presence.
Sue had been Rina’s calm, her stillness; with the image of Sue here with her, Rina felt the knot in the center of her gut begin to release a little.
You were unkind, you know. That’s not like you.
It was very like Sue, Rina thought, even the Sue of her imagination, to wait till she was starting to relax and only then come at her with whatever was really on her mind.
“But—what is she doing here?” Rina retorted as Sue-in-her-mind picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the placid water. “She has no claim on you, no right to decide, now of all times, that she suddenly wants to be family again.”
That’s not the point, and you know it. Or maybe it is the point.
Imaginary Sue managed seven skips; real Sue had rarely gotten more than four, or maybe five on a good day. But if Rina was bringing Sue back in memory, she could have the flat piece of basalt skip as many times as she wanted.
But she couldn’t seem to stop the words she knew Sue would say to her if she were here. You lied to me. That’s not like you either.
“She has no right to you, no right to your affection or forgiveness, no right to anything of our lives here on the island. God, Sue, it’s been fifteen years—she had plenty of time to come back if she wanted to.”
She came as soon as she could.
“Not quickly enough, was it?” Rina’s voice was hard.
And whose fault was that? Not hers, I think.
Rina’s breath caught, the guilt threatening to swamp her; now the tears came. “Jesus, Sue, how can you welcome her back? How could you even think of writing to her, asking her to come, after what she and her parents did to you?”
And what did she do?
“They broke your heart!”
Imaginary Sue turned her face to Rina and smiled, that rich, full, vulnerable smile so few people had ever seen. And you made it whole again. But that’s not what this is about.
Rina wiped snot from her nose and crossed her arms over her chest; she had never been a woman who could weep attractively and had long since stopped caring.
But she wasn’t ready to let go of this. “Why would you have reached out now? Invited her—them—to a day that was supposed to have belonged to us? Why can’t you be happy with the new life you have—had—” She heard the past-tense verb from her own lips, and the tears ran harder.
“Dammit, Sue, weren’t we—wasn’t I—enough? ”
Sue gave her the Look, the one she remembered, the one that halted every argument in its tracks. Rina called it Sue’s cut-the-crap look. Stop it. Just stop. She was a child when all this happened. And now she’s an adult. She came, she’s here. And you were cruel and hurtful to her.
Rina drew breath to retort, then dropped her head. “Okay. Yes. You’re right. Do you ever get tired of being right?”
The corner of Sue’s mouth twisted in a familiar half grin that made Rina’s heart ache. Evidently not.
Rina gave a watery chuckle. “Okay. Okay, I’ll try to—well, to not be horrible to her. It was—oh my God, that bastard Geralt—”
Sue was looking out at the sea again. Rina, please. You know I don’t like that word.
Rina leaped up from her rock, clenching her fists in a sudden burst of anger. “Come back from the dead and tell me to my face, and maybe I’ll—”
But Sue was gone.
And one day, Rina would have to accept that no amount of imagination or memory would bring her back.