Chapter Twenty-Two
Benny flew through the opening and hit her legs like a two-year-old freight train.
“Oh my goodness, Benny!” Surprised but delighted, Kit swept him up in a hug. “How did you get here?”
“Airpwane!” he exclaimed.
Kit looked beyond the door to see her daughter and her sister coming up the steps. “Abby! Oh, and Beth!” Kit held out her free arm to enclose them. She was so happy to see them, she was all but speechless. “How—when—”
Abby laughed. “I decided I was coming on Thursday night after that . . . party.” Her expression told Kit in no uncertain terms what she’d thought of Russ’s retirement “surprise.”
“And when I told Aunt Beth, she wanted to come, too.”
“Of course I did.” Beth hugged Kit. “I’ll probably never have the chance to see this place again. Oh, and it’s some house, isn’t it?” She looked upward. “It’s so big, and the ceilings are so high.”
“I’m more than happy to give you a tour.” Benny struggled to get down and she let him. “But come in and take your coats off. How long are you staying?”
“How long are you staying, Mom?” Abby handed her coat to her mother. There wasn’t a closet in the front hall, so Kit placed Abby’s coat over her own on the bench seat in the inglenook. Beth added hers to the pile.
“That remains to be seen,” Kit told her. “There’s so much to do here. Abby, does your father know you’re here?”
“Boy, does he. And he’s none too happy about it.” Abby thought for a second. “I don’t think he cared so much that Benny and I were leaving, but I told him what I thought of his antics at the party and he was really annoyed with me.”
“What antics?” a cautious Kit asked. Had something happened she hadn’t been told about?
“Oh, you know, the whole springing this trip on you in front of everyone, planning it all and paying for everything so you’d feel obligated to go.
I heard his end of his conversation with you yesterday, Mom.
I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but he didn’t even bother to leave the kitchen.
And when he got off the call, I told him. ”
“Told him what?” Kit noticed Beth was standing by quietly, which meant she’d already heard this part.
“That he was being unfair and disrespectful to you and to your family. I reminded him how nice Nana always was to him and it was just downright mean of him to be so callous about the situation between her and her sister. And just evil to be so mean about that poor baby.” She looked at Kit and said, “That was just disgraceful, what he said, and I told him so.”
“Did he tell you to leave? Because if he did . . .”
“No, no. I told him I couldn’t stay under the same roof with him until he apologized to you for the way he spoke to you and for him blindsiding you in front of everyone, including his biker friends.” She helped Benny with his jacket and murmured, “Especially his biker friends.”
“Abby, I appreciate you sticking up for me—”
“Someone had to.”
“But he’s still your father.”
“He’s being a jerk. He’s my dad and I love him, but he’s being a jerk and he treated my mother unkindly.”
Old habits had Kit about to reprimand her daughter, but she hesitated for a moment.
“You’re right, Abby. He is being a jerk.
” She folded her arms around her daughter.
“I’ve always hated to hear anyone speak badly of their spouse, especially in front of their children, but I can’t argue with you.
He knows how important it is for me to be here, and I’ve tried to explain it to him, but it’s going right over his head. ”
“No, Mom, it isn’t. He understands perfectly well why you need to be here. If he admits that, he’ll have to agree he was wrong. He’s just being selfish because he wants to do what he wants to do. There’s no excuse for the way he spoke to you, so don’t defend him.”
Kit took a deep breath. “You’re right. I won’t.”
Beth spoke up. “So, what can we do to help you, Kit?”
“I guess mostly deciding what I want to keep—and what either of you would like to have—before arrangements are made to send the rest to a thrift shop. The house is so full of stuff, and it seems I’ve been spinning my wheels. Every day I have a plan, but then something happens to disrupt it.”
“Like finding little remains in a blanket chest?” Abby said.
“Exactly like that, except none of the other disruptions were anywhere near as disconcerting.” Kit gestured for them to follow her. “Let’s go into the kitchen. Have you had lunch?”
“No, but right now I’d love some tea if there is any.” Beth followed Kit while Abby tried to corner Benny, who was busy exploring the furniture in the living room that had yet to be uncovered.
“Oh, we have tea.” Kit opened what she’d designated the tea drawer. “Lots and lots of tea.”
Beth looked into the drawer. “Oh, Bigelow English Breakfast Tea. That’s what Mom always drank. I haven’t had that in a long time.” She removed a packet from the box and started to unwrap it.
“Mugs are in the second cabinet from the window on the right,” Kit told her as she filled the teapot with fresh water. “I’m delighted that you’re here, but shouldn’t you be at the café?”
“You’ll act surprised when he tells you, but Ned has taken over running the coffee shop to give me a breather. The chef he’s been working for just promoted someone else ahead of him—again.” Beth looked over the mugs in the cupboard.
“Third time that’s happened. And we know he’s a great cook. Wonder what that’s all about.” Kit tried to decide how concerned she should be. Was Ned thinking about changing careers? “Wait, are you saying he quit? Just like that? Without giving notice?”
“He left on the spot.” Beth took a seat at the table.
“He walked out two nights ago and came to the café. He’s taken over the baking, muffins, cookies, crumb cakes.
All the early-morning treats. He’s a better baker than the guy I had been buying from, and hopefully he’ll be more reliable.
The other guy didn’t always show up early enough for those crack-of-dawn customers, and sometimes the orders were short. ”
“So you have reliable help and decided to get out of town for a few days. Smart move.”
“Yeah, not that I think Ned’s flaky, but what if he decides to go back to restaurant cooking? I figured I should take the time while I could.”
Abby came in, Benny in hand. “Oh, you’re due some fun, Aunt Beth.
And for the record, no way is Ned going back to being a line cook or whatever it was he was doing.
He’d never leave you hanging. Plus he’s always been a good baker.
I am not at all surprised.” She lifted Benny and put him into a chair.
“Mom, by any chance, is there anything Benny could eat?”
“How about a PB and J?” Kit asked Benny, who nodded enthusiastically.
“Our favorite, right, Benny?” Abby smoothed his hair from his face. “Mom, isn’t it wild? You and Aunt Beth and me and Benny—three generations in this kitchen that’s been how many years in your family?”
“Well over a hundred,” Kit replied.
“And Nana grew up here.” Abby stepped to the back door. “She played in that yard. I bet she swam in that lake in the summer and skated on it when it froze over. Do you think about things like that while you’re here?”
“Oh, every day.” Kit started to make Benny’s sandwich.
“Do you ever ‘feel her presence’?” Abby grinned.
“I think about her more than I ‘feel’ her, and I wonder why she hid all this from us. I’d have loved it here as a kid. If anything, I wonder if Mom is angry with me for coming here, considering the pains she took to hide the fact that she had a sister,” Kit admitted.
“She even told us the camp was sold after her parents died, remember, Kit?”
“I do. So it weighs on me. I’m here trying to find out something she doesn’t want me to know. Am I somehow disturbing her—I don’t know what to call it. Her eternal rest?”
“I think she’d be okay with what you’re doing,” Beth said softly. “I’ve never known Mom to be vindictive.”
“Neither of us ever defied her like this.”
“Is that what it feels like to you? That you’re defying her?”
“Yes, and I am. But there’s something that feels like I have to be here.”
“Maybe it was to find the baby.” Abby corrected herself. “The remains.”
“Kit, do you think there’s a chance . . . that Mom . . . I mean, could it possibly have been—”
“Mom’s baby? That she didn’t want us to know about?
” Kit shrugged. “I have wondered if it was hers. But she and Dad were married, so it can’t be like she was protecting some big family scandal.
If she’d had a child that died, there wouldn’t be any reason to lie about it.
And why would she have wrapped it in a blanket and left it here with her sister, who she later stopped speaking to?
That’s so not a Mom thing for her to have done. ”
“I agree, Kit. There has to be something bigger than that.” Beth took a sip of her tea, blew on it, then took another sip. “It has to be something to do with Maxine.”
Kit nodded. “You know, she lived here for eighty years. She never left, even after her parents died and she lost the love of her life, and her sister left and to the best of our knowledge never came back. Through all that, Maxine stayed. Never lived anywhere else. So being here, in her house, handling her things, I feel as if I’m slowly getting to know her. ”
“That’s a good enough reason for haunting a place,” Beth said. “Do you feel like she’s watching you?”
“Ah, gosh, I’d been avoiding thinking along those lines, but thanks for putting that in my head, sis.”
“Well, if she’s here, I bet she’s pleased that you’re here, too,” Beth said.
“More importantly, are you glad you’re here?” Abby asked. “Which drawer was the tea in?”
Kit pointed at the drawer and Abby opened it. She took out a tea bag and closed the drawer. “Cups or mugs?”
“Second cabinet from the window,” Kit told her.
“On the right,” Beth added.
“To answer your question, I am very glad I’m here. I am slowly falling in love with it. All of it. The house, the lake, the cabins—”