Home to Harmony

“Let’s just get through a week or so,” Aurora grumbled, shooting her a look. “Bogie’s not up to much in the gardens and someone should supervise the animals—feeding, milking, collecting eggs. Plus, you have your own work, don’t you?”

“If I can help your business, I want to.” Aurora’s dismissal of her ideas hurt, but she refused to let that show.

“We’re fine as we are, Crystal.”

Behind Aurora, Lucy shook her head. No, we’re not.

“We were fine before you came, we’ll be fine after you’re gone. Because you are going…right?”

Before she could answer, the plea in her mother’s question stopped her cold. Her mother wanted her to stay?

Christine felt her jaw drop. That made no sense. Aurora was as uncomfortable around Christine as Christine was around her. They’d be lucky to survive the summer without tearing into each other and Aurora wanted her to stay? She must be more frightened than Christine realized. Her heart squeezed at the thought.

“How about this? Before I leave, I’ll be certain any change is dialed in tight. What do you say?”

“I don’t know….” Her mother’s pride surely would keep her from admitting she needed help.

“Marketing is my profession, Aurora,” she said gently. “I’m good at it. Why not let me see what I can do for you?”

Aurora heaved a sigh. “No changes without approval from me or Lucy. We can’t have a bunch of crazy stuff disrupting our operation.”

“Of course not,” she said, irritated by her mother’s insult. Crazy stuff. Really. Enough already. She wanted to say so, but then she remembered what Marcus had said.

Focus on the work. He was right. The important thing was that there were improvements she could make here. And Aurora was feeling weak and out of control in the place she usually ran. “I won’t do anything you don’t approve of, Aurora,” she said.

“As long as we’re clear, then all right.”

Behind Aurora, Lucy did a yes fist pump, which made Christine smile. Aurora lowered herself onto one of the benches, her breathing shaky. Was she too tired? “Lucy can show me the operation from here,” Christine said. “Maybe you need to head back inside.” To bed, to rest. Please.

Aurora waved off the idea. “You ever throw a pot, Crystal?”

“Throw a…?”

“Work with clay. Create something with your own two hands.” Her mother’s eyes were bright now, and full of mischief. “You want to see the operation, you gotta get your hands dirty.”

“Okaaay…”

“I didn’t start in until after you left, you know. It took a while to develop my style. Better late than never for you.” Her mother pushed to her feet, arms trembling, and led Christine to a half-dozen pedal-powered potter wheels and motioned Christine onto a clay-splattered stool. “Now sit.”

In for a pe

“BUT I CAN’T do MY homework,” David whined as Christine drove him into New Mirage for his first appointment with Dr. Mike. “Dial-up’s too slow. It freezes all the time.”

“You don’t need the Internet once you’ve downloaded the assignments. Look, do you want to be a junior when school starts or not?” She gritted her teeth and twisted her hands on the steering wheel. Losing her temper wouldn’t help a bit. “You made a deal, David.”

“I’m sick of the deal. Let’s go home. I hate it here. It’s boring and stupid. There’s nothing to do.”

“There’s plenty to do. You’re just not doing any of it.” He’d been assigned to work in the garden with Marcus and help Bogie in the greenhouse, but he was constantly wandering off. Sullen with her, full of complaints, he stayed mostly in his room, except when he talked to Brigitte, and he was sneaking in extra calls, Christine was certain.

David showed no improvement, but at least Christine had made progress at the clay works in the past week. The agency’s designer was putting together the Web site using digital shots Christine had sent of Aurora’s most beautiful pieces and Christine had been contacting previous clients about new orders, as well as generating new business with cold calls to tourist boutiques around the state. Maybe boosting the commune’s income made Christine a slave to the capitalist overlords, but she didn’t care. Aurora and Bogie must have huge medical bills to handle. This was a way Christine could help.

Aurora came out to the barn each morning to issue opinions, question everything and generally slow things down. The first two days, Christine steamed with a

Christine had downloaded heart surgery postoperative instructions and read them out loud to Aurora, over her strenuous objections. She was supposed to rest every day, take breaks between activities, avoid stairs, not cross her legs, not lift anything over five pounds and not drive.

The good news was that if she followed the rules, in six to eight weeks, she’d be back to normal, with decades of life ahead of her, which relieved Christine immensely.

Christine parked in front of Dr. Mike’s office, which used to be a Laundromat, crossing her fingers that this visit would change things.

Dr. Mike wore an Indian tunic and flowing pants, and his office smelled of patchouli and was ringed with shelves of crystals, stoppered bottles of herbal remedies and books on alternative medicine. Okay, so not traditional therapy, but if the man helped David, Christine didn’t care if he used a Ouija board and danced under a full moon.

Leaving David in his hands, Christine headed to Parsons Foods to pick up a few things. She saw that Susan Parsons was “filling in” at the register again and she reminded Christine of the di

On her second day, Christine and Marcus had gone on a grocery run together and Susan had insisted they both come to supper and bring David to meet her twin sixteen-year-old sons. To get David friends, Christine would endure a night of Susan showing off her husband—she’d mentioned that he was the mayor at least five times before the groceries got bagged—and her, no doubt, perfect princess home.

Back at Dr. Mike’s office, Christine wrote a check and walked a smiling David out to the car. Her hopes soared. Maybe this would help. In the car, she asked, “So how was it?”

“He looked into my eyes and told me my nutrition is bad.”

“He what?” Christine’s hopes dropped like stones. “Didn’t you talk about your problems?”

“I don’t have any problems. He said my irises were muddy, which means my bowels are blocked.”

“Just great.”

“He gave me some breathing exercises to clear my heart chakra.” He demonstrated, huffing while patting his stomach. “Then we talked about the Phoenix Coyotes. He likes hockey.”

Dammit, Aurora. Dr. Mike was no more capable of counseling David than he was of doing Aurora’s heart surgery.

“You’re not going back there.”

“Why not? It’ll get the principal off your back.”

“More roughage is not going to help us here. We’ll have to find someone in Preston.” Which meant a two-hour round-trip.

“Come on. He said he’d hypnotize me next time.” David was clearly loving this. Christine shook her head. Now what?

“NOT THAT PLATTER, the swirled glaze one,” Aurora ordered Christine, whose only wish was to keep the couscous as moist as her own skin in this boiling-hot kitchen.

She and Marcus had kitchen duty, instructed by Bogie and Aurora, who were supposedly resting, though Bogie had been up and down seasoning things and Aurora had been barking commands.

“If you’d keep the trays in the same place, it would be easier,” Christine said, forcing herself not to snap at her mother. She was dying to say, Go lie down, for Pete’s sake.