Chapter Eight
Willow drew out her dessert for as long as she could. She hoped she could drop off her empty plate and sneak away, but Diana caught her eye the moment she slipped back into the restaurant, pointedly gesturing in the direction of the kitchen with her chin.
Willow gritted her teeth; once again, she was caught, and there was no escape.
As she entered the kitchen, the women helping with the food passed around knowing looks.
The word had gone around: Diana says Rina and the girl from Sue’s past need to have it out.
Within seconds, each found a tray for the restaurant or a bag of trash that needed carrying out.
Rina was silently arranging delicate cookies on a tray: a row of glazed butter cookies with rainbow sprinkles around the edge, next to another row of chocolate thumbprints with raspberry jam, for contrast.
The silence grew long, then longer; finally, Willow broke it.
“I never knew,” she said, all in a rush.
“She disappeared from my life fifteen years ago, and I never heard a single word from her again. My parents told me she didn’t want to be part of our lives—my life—anymore.
I thought it was my fault, something I’d done, but I never knew why, and now… ”
Her voice trailed off. Rina calmly continued arranging the tray as if she had not spoken, a row of bumpy golden pignoli cookies inside the chocolate row.
Finally, Willow said, “Anyway … I wanted to thank you. For being there for her. And to say how sorry I am for your loss.”
More silence. Willow awkwardly turned for the door.
Rina spoke at last. “And you believed them? After all the years, all the love she gave you—you believed that load of crap?”
“I was thirteen. I thought everyone hated me,” Willow answered. “Besides—what else was I supposed to think? She was just … gone.”
Rina slammed the tray down; the cookies jostled, their carefully laid concentric circles threatening to dissolve into a wild jumble.
“That’s crap too. You ignored her, the one person in her whole intolerant past life she thought she could count on.
You never answered her calls, you blocked her emails, you returned her letters unopened, you gave up on her. ”
Willow shook her head, still confused. “That’s what Mac said—but I never got any letters. I never heard a single thing from her.”
“Oh, please!” Rina exclaimed, banging her fist on the counter for emphasis; the cookies shifted again, a few of them breaking in half.
“She told me all of it. Every week for months, until your parents threatened legal action for harassment if she didn’t stop.
And even then, every birthday, every Christmas, she still wrote.
And every letter returned unopened—every single one.
She never forgot you, and she never stopped trying!
How dare you blame one bit of this on her! ”
Willow felt lightheaded as the carefully ordered pattern of her memories moved from order to chaos, shifting and crumbling like the cookies on the tray.
Sue had written? To her?
She groped back through the past to the surly self-absorbed teenager she had been. Surely her parents wouldn’t have—
In a painful flash, Willow realized they would. And they had. I was a naive idiot, she realized. It never occurred to me to even suspect.
Willow was starting to shake. “Rina—” she said, but all the words were gone. There was nothing to say, not a single sound or syllable in the universe that would undo the past.
Rina was done listening. She picked up the tray of cookies with a jerk, not caring that her careful rows were shifting dangerously or that she had not finished filling it; she needed to get away from the face of the girl whose big, wounded eyes threatened to suck the wind out of her righteous rage.
“It’s too late. It’s over. You lost your chance. She’s dead. She is dead.” And in a single fluid movement, Rina swept through the swinging door and out of the kitchen.
Until, with a thud, she tripped over Geralt Talbot’s cane, which he was waving around from where he stood behind the door. She fell, banging her left knee hard, sending cookies and crumbs skittering across the floor.
All sound in the room ceased. From her undignified position on the floor, knee throbbing and elbows planted in cookie fragments, Rina saw eyes opened in shock, frozen faces and open mouths.
When the silence broke, it was to the sound of Geralt Talbot cackling gleefully at her misfortune.
No, Rina realized, her rage still had plenty of wind behind it.
The room and everyone in it stood frozen in time, as though some child had created a life-size diorama and sprinkled cookie crumbs over it like glitter.
The stillness broke. Rina pulled herself up from the floor and lunged in Geralt Talbot’s direction, her hands clawed as though to gouge his eyes out.
Diana was able to snake an arm around Rina’s torso, holding her back and out of scratching distance; at the same time, Naomi Talbot and her assistant moved forward as well, trying to pull Geralt away from the furious little woman.
Then the shouting began.
“You horrible, evil troll of a man, I will have you clapped in jail, I’ll have you charged with assault, how dare you, how dare you—” Rina spit at him, struggling against Diana’s arm.
“Assault, my ass!” Geralt spit back, still waving his glass-topped cane, “If you touch me, you unhinged shrew, I swear to God you will be out of business and off this island so fast—”
Willow could see spittle coming from Rina’s mouth. “Unhinged? Go to hell, you disgusting misogynistic scumbag—”
Geralt was inching forward, shaking off his wife’s arm. “And if you believe for one second that you can intimidate me into letting your woke lefty friends take over that house—”
Their voices were overlapping now as Rina continued her tirade. “I don’t care how much money you have or how long you’ve been on this island or what property you think you’re entitled to—”
“It’s going to be my house, and when I tell you to get out, then out you will go!”
“I’ll see you dead first, old man!”
Silence fell as Rina’s last words rang out into the room—even Geralt stopped his stream of invective before her fury. Her face was livid, twisted with rage; Willow, standing in the kitchen doorway, understood in that instant what the expression had murder in her eyes looked like.
Into the thrumming silence, Geralt drew himself up to his considerable height, jaw clenched with anger. He curled his lip and growled menacingly, “Now you listen here, and listen good, you unhinged harpy, if you know what’s—” And he stopped.
His complexion suddenly turned gray; the blood left his face, and he sagged onto his cane.
Audra, ever the efficient assistant, quickly pulled over a chair, and Naomi helped Geralt ease down into it.
She worriedly checked his pulse as he gasped for air, and she murmured, “Geralt, honey, we talked about this; you need to try to stay calm. This isn’t good for you. ”
His face contorted as if he were trying to muster the strength to start shouting again. Instead, he sank back into the chair, defeated.
His left hand sagged toward the floor, still clutching one of Rina’s handmade cups.
Audra slipped it out of his hand and said, tension radiating from her voice, “He needs water. Or juice, or—can someone please get him something to drink?” She held the cup out to no one in particular, her eyes darting around the room.
It was Rina who stepped forward. The fury had left her face, which was now numb and stunned and pale as unglazed ceramic. “I’ll get some lemonade,” she said as she took the cup from Audra. She brushed by Willow and into the kitchen.
The tableau remained, a circle of staring faces, all directed at the old man in the chair.
Some of the onlooking gazes were sympathetic or worried; others had a satisfied air of self-righteous complacency—just deserts, reaping what he had sown, and so on—and a few looked nearly gleeful at the old man’s misfortune.
Willow slipped out of the kitchen to join a terrified Naomi by Geralt’s side.
The old man glared up at her and muttered, “For God’s sake, Sue’s girl, no need to gaze down on me like I’m some sad, pathetic, weak old man.
I’m fine. It’s probably that Mexican woman’s cooking making me sick; everyone else in here is next, I’ll be bound.
” His voice slurred a little, and he let out a violent belch.
It was enough to break the spell; the tableau broke, and people shifted, returning—or pretending to return—to their own conversations. A few took their cue that the gathering was starting to dissolve and slipped out quietly; others followed.
Naomi murmured to Willow, “This has been happening over the past few weeks, a little at a time and getting worse—the tremors, the slurring, the stomach upset … And he keeps refusing to go see a doctor.”
“Christ Almighty, woman, I’m eighty-three years old, and all those doctors do is tell me to stop doing the few things I have left that make life vaguely enjoyable. I’m fine.” But even as he said it, Willow noticed the quiver in the hand clutching his cane, the slight wobble of his head.
Naomi shook her head. “You’re not fine, and you know it,” she retorted, trying to keep her voice low. “Your kidneys are shot, you’re early-stage diabetic, your heart is doing things it shouldn’t, your liver isn’t doing what it should, and your blood pressure is through the roof. You’re a mess.”
“And you’re a meddling witch, and it’s none of your business.”
“I’m your wife, for God’s sake, and I have enough of a medical background to know this is not plain-old aging. Something’s—”
Geralt shushed her with a quelling glare as Rina came back into the room with the cup; without looking at him, she held it out.
He snatched it from her hands, downed it in two gulps, and held it back out to her.
“What’s the matter? Too cheap to make reasonably sized cups for the party? Clay too expensive for you?”
Seeing the rage begin to build in Rina’s face again, Diana swiftly moved in with a lemonade pitcher from one of the tables, took the cup from Rina, and refilled it for him. He gulped down the second cup, and a third. Diana eased Rina away, her arm around the trembling woman’s shoulders.
Naomi shook her head. “For God’s sake, Geralt, once or twice in the course of a day, you could simply decide not to say the most awful thing you can think of in a given moment.”
“Humph.” Geralt pried himself out of the chair into a standing position, irritably waving Naomi away as she tried to help him.
“Oh, piss off, woman. I’m taking myself out of here on my own steam.
” He set the ceramic cup down on the nearest table and walked out of the restaurant in a fair imitation of his usual swagger, though Willow noticed he was still using his cane for balance.
Audra, after a quick shared glance with Naomi, slipped out after him.
Naomi shook her head, letting the worry fully cloud her face. “I don’t know what’s happening; he won’t slow down or listen or even call his doctor. I’m afraid there’s something seriously wrong, but he absolutely refuses to—” She broke off before finishing the sentence.
Outside the restaurant, people started shouting; an air horn’s imperious honk cut through the voices.
Naomi and Willow ran out of the café to see Geralt in the driver’s seat of his luxury golf cart, peeling out onto the green toward the road away from the village.
Audra vainly attempted pursuit but quickly fell behind; before Naomi or Willow could even shout after him, he was halfway across the green, chugging from a plastic water bottle and tossing the empty out onto the grass behind him.
He rounded the corner and out of sight.
Audra limped back and shook her head. “Bloody heels. Turned my ankle. He’s gone to the mansion.
God knows why.” She looked helplessly at Naomi.
“He … still didn’t look good. But he swore if we sent anyone after him, he’ll—let’s see—” She thought a minute and nodded.
“Fire me, divorce you, and sue whoever sets foot on ‘his’ property.”
Oh, for God’s sake, Willow thought. She turned to Naomi, who looked ready to burst into tears, and said, “I’ll go.
The mansion is on my way back to the cabin, and he asked me to come by after the reception, anyway.
I can text you and let you know—hang on, my phone battery is dead. ” She frowned and shook it.
The dark-haired assistant nodded. “Happens to all of us, especially when we are moving around; battery drain is terrible around here. Turn off your Wi-Fi when you’re not someplace you’ll be using it, or it constantly pings back and forth and runs you down.
” She jotted down a pair of numbers on a card and handed it to Willow.
“Here, you can reach out once you’re charged again. ”
“Great, thank you.” Willow reached out and squeezed Naomi’s hand. “I’m sure he’s fine. And”—she gave a small, sad smile—“thank you for the wine.”
Naomi nodded and smiled back, understanding. “Thank you too.” She shifted to include Audra in the circle. “We cast-out women need to stick together, I guess.”
“We do.” Willow looked back into the restaurant, where Rina sat in the corner booth with Diana, Mac, and the red-haired woman gathered around her in solidarity and sympathy. And love—the love was obvious.
Willow remembered that kind of love. But it had been a long time.