Chapter Twenty-Eight
They’d decided to call for an Uber to get them from the airport to Kit’s home in Bryn Mawr once they landed in Pennsylvania.
Abby would take her car, which she’d left at Kit’s, and drop off Beth at her home, and then Abby and Benny would go on to Swarthmore.
It was a slightly roundabout way for Abby, but she didn’t mind.
When they arrived at Kit’s, the house was quiet, and empty, except for Wally, who was beyond joyous to see his favorite human again. He and Benny hugged and Abby let them both out into the fenced backyard to play for a few minutes.
“Are you going to be all right, Mom?” Abby asked.
“Of course.” Kit dropped her bag in the kitchen. “I wonder where your father is.” She looked around thinking perhaps he’d left a note, then remembered that he didn’t know she was coming home.
“Mom, can you watch Benny while I run upstairs and get our stuff?”
“Sure.” Kit walked to the back door and went out onto the porch, where two chairs and a small table stood in one corner.
She sat and watched Benny chase Wally from one end of the yard to the other.
Neither of them moved all that quickly, so they were a good match.
Her grandson’s laughter mixed with her dog’s occasional woofs were music to her ears.
She closed her eyes and soaked up the sounds of her home.
“I got everything into my car, so I just need to collect the kiddo and I can go,” Abby announced as she came outside. “When do you think you’ll be wanting to go back to Maine?”
“I’m not sure. I need to talk to your father, Abs.
” Kit had closed her eyes and tilted her head back to catch the sun’s rays.
She sat up, eyes open, and studied her daughter.
Abby was so eager to get on with the rest of her life, while Kit was content to simply savor the last remnants of the life she’d known for so many years.
“I know, I just meant . . .”
“Doesn’t he leave this week for his grand adventure?” Kit tried to recall Russ’s timetable.
“Oh, I guess he does. I forgot about it. I was wrapped up in my Maine cabin-in-the-woods fantasy.” Abby grinned. “I think he leaves in two or three days.”
“That sounds about right. If I heard a certain date, I don’t recall it.
” Kit closed her eyes again. The sun was comforting, and right then, she needed as much comfort as she could get.
She felt the storm brewing and wanted to fill up her reservoir with warmth and strength before the lightning struck.
“You sure you’re all right here, Mom?”
“Positive.” Kit opened her eyes and reached for her daughter’s hand. “Get Benny and be on your way. Take care of the things you need to do, and we’ll catch up when one of us knows what we’re doing.”
“Aunt Beth is going to speak with Ned to see if he wants the café.”
“I know.”
“What do you think he’ll do?” Benny laughed loudly from the garden and Abby craned her neck to see what was going on.
“I think he’ll take whatever she offers. I think he’s always wanted his own little place. I’ll drive over later today or tomorrow and see how he’s doing.”
“Come on, Benny. Time to go home.” Abby turned to her mother. “He’s been texting with Elly, did you know?”
“No, I did not know.”
“And the lease on his little apartment is up. I think he talked to Dad about staying at the house while Dad’s away.”
“Of course he can stay here. Whether I’m here or not.”
Abby appeared to digest what that might mean. “So if you go back to Maine, will you be taking Wally?”
“What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m taking Wally. You think I’d leave him here or kennel him while your father is off doing . . . whatever?” Kit replied indignantly. “Whether I stay in Maine or not, I do have unfinished business there. I can’t leave Wally behind.”
At the sound of his name, Wally raced to the porch and stood next to Kit, his front paws on her lap, his tongue flapping wildly as he attempted to lick her face.
“We’ll have to get you a really good tick collar,” she told the dog. “I hear the Maine woods are full of them.”
A little after five, Kit heard the front door open and the sound of more than one person laughing as they came inside. She walked out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, a bit confused at the scene unfolding in the living room.
“How ’bout a glass of wine before you go?” Russ was saying to a blond woman in tight bike shorts similar to the ones he was wearing.
Kit’s gaze met the woman’s, who grabbed Russ’s arm. “Russ . . .”
“Or maybe we could order a pizza,” he was saying, oblivious to the fact that his glaring wife was twenty feet behind him.
“Russ.” The blond woman’s face turned bright red as she repeated his name, then nodded toward the kitchen doorway.
A puzzled expression on his face, he turned. His eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline when he saw Kit. “Kit. I wasn’t expecting you. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming home?”
“If you’d returned my calls, you’d have known, and this little—” She gestured from Russ to the woman and back again. “This would still be your secret.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Russ hurried to say.
Ignoring him, Kit looked the woman in the eye. “I’m Kit Porterfield. And you are?”
The woman backed toward the front door. “Russ, I’m going to call an Uber. Just get my bike from your car, please.”
“No need. I’ll drive you.” Russ could not have been more eager to leave the house.
“No, no. You—” The woman looked back at Kit and nodded her head to no one in particular. “Just the bike.”
“This isn’t his first rodeo, you know. You’re not his first,” Kit said to the woman in the doorway.
Russ flashed a dirty look in Kit’s direction and followed the woman out of the house. Kit remained standing where she was, still processing, waiting to see if Russ would come back into the house to face her. She hadn’t waited long before he blew through the front door.
“Was that comment necessary?” Russ played the indignation card.
“I think it was.”
“Obviously you think this is something that it’s not,” he said archly. “We were out on a ride with the club and I told her I’d drive her home because she didn’t have her car.”
“How did she get to the ride?” Kit asked calmly.
“How did—? Oh, I think one of the others picked her up and brought her.”
Kit could see him mentally congratulating himself on his quick thinking.
“After all these years, I can finally tell you how I know when you’re lying.
Your left eye goes a little wonky. Like sideways, while your right eye is still looking straight ahead.
” Kit walked toward him slowly. “I don’t mind telling you now because I’m not going to have to worry about you lying to me ever again. ”
“I haven’t been sleeping with her,” he protested.
“Yet. You forgot to say yet.”
“And whose fault would it be if I did, huh? Ask yourself that.” He raised his voice.
“Oh, please, don’t pull that nonsense on me.”
“You left me, Kit. You left me to try to root out some long-dead family secret. ‘Oh, my mother lied to me! She told me she was an only child and now I have an aunt! Why did she lie? Why? I must find out! Oh, a dead baby! Whose?’”
Russ’s mimicry of her was so ridiculous she laughed out loud.
He ignored her laughter and went on. “I planned this fabulous trip for us, a once-in-a-lifetime trip through Europe, and you act like I asked you to go on a hike through Fairmount Park.”
“I’d already told you I would not want to go on such a trip, but you went behind my back and booked it anyway.”
“Because I thought you’d enjoy it.”
“I’d already told you I wouldn’t enjoy it. You booked it because you’d enjoy it.”
“Oh, so I’m the bad guy for wanting to take my wife on a leisurely jaunt through Italy and France.”
“No. You’re the bad guy because you didn’t listen to what I was telling you. If you’d been the good guy, you’d have come to Maine with me and helped me through all this.” She almost broke down then.
“Through all what? The finding-your-aunt thing? That’s old by now, Kit. The reasons don’t matter. And the dead-baby thing? You’re never going to know whose baby that was. Why does it even matter?”
“Because that baby was my brother,” she snapped at him, her words falling like a bomb inside the quiet house.
His jaw dropped. He tried to speak, but nothing came out of his mouth but a squeak.
“And the thing is, we still don’t know who his mother is.” Kit started toward the stairwell. “Don’t know for sure who mine is either at this point.”
Kit quietly climbed to the second floor, leaving Russ with his mouth still open.
She went into the guest room, closed the door, and stretched out on the bed.
She wondered why she wasn’t crying. Surely there was no doubt that she’d just left the scene of the death of her marriage.
That Russ had a girlfriend or whatever that woman was to him didn’t upset her as much as she’d thought it would.
The last time he’d had an affair, she’d been devastated.
She’d cried for weeks. She’d barely eaten and hardly slept, even though it seemed Russ had apologized to the point of groveling every moment of every day.
But she’d been younger then, and now she was more resilient, and it had been years since Russ had groveled over anything.
She knew who she was now, and it wasn’t the same woman she’d known before she’d gone to Maine and that huge jack-in-the-box of family secrets had sprung open unexpectedly.
Russ could have his blond biker girlfriend. Kit no longer cared. He could offer her Kit’s place, her tickets, her hotel reservations, and she could ride the bikes he’d reserved for Kit. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn her name was already on the plane ticket Russ had intended for his wife.
Kit fell asleep with an ache inside that had little to do with the fact that she’d skipped lunch and dinner. When her phone rang, she groped for it, disoriented, and answered it sleepily.