Tribute

“It’s the talk of the town.”

“I imagine so.” She gestured toward the road. “Traffic’s increased. People slow down, even stop, to look. I had a call from the local paper for an interview. I don’t want pictures yet. Most people can’t see what it’s going to be while it’s at this stage, so I gave the reporter a quick hit over the phone.”

“When’s it going to run?”

“Sunday. Lifestyle. Janet Hardy still has the switch.” Cilla pushed back her cap to swipe the back of her hand over her forehead. “You knew her, Dad. Would she approve?”

“I think she loved this place. I think she’d be pleased you love it, too. And that you’re putting your mark on it. Cilla, are you building that railing yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“I had no idea you could do that. I thought you had the ideas, then you hired people to work them out.”

“Some of that, too. Most of that, I guess. But I like the work. Especially this kind. I’m going to go for my contractor’s license.”

“You… Well, how about that?”

“I’m going to start a business. This house? Talk of the town, and that’s going to turn into revenue for me down the road. I think people might like to hire the woman who rebuilt Janet Hardy’s little farm, especially if she’s Janet’s granddaughter. And after a while?” Her eyes narrowed and gleamed. “They’ll hire me because they know I’m good.”

“You really mean to stay.”

So he hadn’t believed it. Why should he? “I mean to stay. I like the way it smells here. I like the way I feel here. Are you in a hurry?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want to walk around a little, play landscape consultant?”

He smiled slowly. “I’d like that.”

“Let me get my notebook.”

Walking with him, listening to him as he gestured to an area, described the shrubs and groupings he suggested, Cilla learned more about him.

His thoughtful way of listening, then responding, the pauses between while he considered. His ease with himself, the time he took.

He paused at the edge of the pond, smiled. “I swam in here a few times. You’re going to need to get these lily pads and cattails under control.”

“It’s on the list. Brian said maybe we’ll do some yellow flags.”

“That would be a nice choice. You could plant a willow over there. It’d make a pretty feature, weeping over the water.”

She scribbled. “I thought a stone bench maybe, somewhere to sit.” Remembering, she looked up at him. “So, is this where you kissed Ford Sawyer’s mother?”

His mouth dropped open in surprise, and, to Cilla’s delight, a flush rose up into his cheeks. He chuckled, and began to walk again. “Now how’d you hear about that?”

“I have my sources.”

“I have mine. I hear you kissed Pe

“Buddy.”

“Not directly, but he’d be the root of it.”

“It’s a little weird.”

“A little bit,” Gavin agreed.

“You haven’t answered the question.”

“I guess I’ll confess I did kiss Pe

He smiled when he said it, and had Cilla smiling in return. “High school is hell.”

“It sure can be. The heartbreaking took place here, too, as it happens. And back there, near the pond. Pe

“You dog.”

“Most boys are dogs at eighteen. Then I saw Pe

“Friends don’t move in on exes,” Cilla said. “It’s still the code.”

“Joh

There was no smile now, and in its place, Cilla saw old grief. “He died two days later. And so did another of my friends, and Jimmy He

“I didn’t know that.” Something squeezed inside her. “I’ve never heard that.”

“I was supposed to be in that car, but Pe

“God.” A shudder snaked down Cilla’s spine. “I owe Ford’s mother quite a bit.”

“I went off to college the next fall, like I pla

“We had you hardly a year later.” He draped his arm around Cilla’s shoulders. “We did our best. I know it wasn’t very good, but we did our best.”

“It’s hard, knowing so much of what happened, what was done, was rooted in death at worst, on mistakes at best.”

“You were never a mistake.”

She didn’t respond. How could she? She’d been called one often enough. “You were still in college when Janet died?”

“I’d finished my first year.”

“Did you hear anything about a man, someone out here, she was involved with?”

“There was constant speculation, constant gossip about Janet and men. I don’t recall anything out of the ordinary, or any talk of someone from here. Why?”

“I found letters, Dad. I found letters written to her from a lover. They’re postmarked from here, or a lot of them are. She hid them. The last one, bitter, after he’d broken off the affair, was mailed only ten days before her death.”

They’d walked back to the house, stood now at the edge of the back veranda. “I think she came back here to see him, to confront him. She was desperately unhappy, if even half of the accounts from the time are true. And I think she was in love with this man, this married man she’d had a passionate, tumultuous affair with for over a year before it cooled.”

“You think he was local? What was his name?”

“He didn’t sign them by name. She-” Cilla glanced over, noticed how close they stood to the open window. Taking her father’s arm, she drew him away. “She told the man she was pregnant.”

“Pregnant? Cilla, there was an autopsy.”

“It might have been covered up. It might not have been true, but if it was, if it wasn’t a lie to get him back, it could’ve been covered up. He threatened her. In the last letter, he told her she’d pay if she tried to expose their relationship.”

“You don’t want to believe she killed herself,” Gavin began.

“Suicide or not, she’s still dead. I want the truth. She deserves that, and so do I. People have talked murder and conspiracies for decades. Maybe they’re right.”

“She was an addict, sweetheart. An addict who couldn’t stop grieving for her child. An unhappy woman who shone in front of the cameras, on the stage, but who never really found her happiness away from them.

And when Joh

“She took a lover. And she came back here. Joh