Читать книгу A Mom for Christmas - Joan Kilby - Страница 11

Chapter 4

Nicola arrived home to a dark and empty house. Pushing aside thoughts of Aidan’s warm fire and delicious-smelling stew she peeled off her wet outer clothing and went to the kitchen to start dinner.

June seemed to have every gadget known to man lining her granite countertops, but from the pristine condition of the appliances, Nicola deduced she rarely used them. Luckily the ingredients for one of Nicola’s small repertoire of foolproof dishes—spaghetti bolognese—were on hand. Nicola got out onions, garlic and mushrooms, had a look at the food processor, and decided a knife and chopping board were easier to clean.

Aidan had been forthright about the rumors surrounding Charmaine’s death, she mused as she peeled the papery skin off the onion. Yet she had the feeling he was hiding something regarding Charmaine.

Six years was a long time. Aidan was a good-looking man. Why hadn’t he married again? Nicola didn’t think it could be due to a lack of interested and available women. Was he still grieving? Or did he find it hard to move on because he was guilty?

Tears from the onion vapors slid down her cheeks and she wiped her eyes with the cuff of her long-sleeved thermal shirt. She quickly chopped the mushrooms and green pepper and added them to the pot along with the hamburger meat and a couple tins of tomatoes. The big stockpot of water she’d set on the stove was boiling so she dumped in a package of dried spaghetti and gave it a stir.

That done she ran upstairs to get a book to read while she waited for June and Roy. Her footsteps slowed as she passed Charmaine’s closed door. The cuckoo clock on the wall behind her ticked loudly in the silence. Why wasn’t Emily allowed in her mother’s old room?

Nicola reached out and turned the handle. The room was dark and with no light on in the hall she could only make out the vague shapes of a bed and dresser, desk and chair. She felt for the light switch and flicked it on.

Nicola gasped.

Charmaine’s room looked exactly as it had in high school, from the frilly pink curtains and matching bedspread right down to old pop-star posters and her cheerleader pom-poms. Incredulous, Nicola went farther into the room, drawn to the dressing table where her cousin had spent hours practicing applying makeup and the latest hairstyles. Unlike in high school when the dressing table’s surface was a jumble of mascara tubes, lipsticks and hairbrushes everything was meticulously arranged like a…a shrine.

A large, framed photo of Charmaine’s graduation portrait, forever young, eternally beautiful, held center stage. She was heartbreakingly lovely, Nicola thought. Would it be any wonder if Aidan had fallen so deeply in love he couldn’t get over her, even six years later?

To the right of the photo was a lock of golden curling hair tied up in a pink ribbon, to the left a cluster of dried rosebuds—from her prom corsage? In front, a baby bracelet with the letters of her name picked out in black on tiny white beads. Bronze baby shoes, a heart-shaped locket, a smaller photograph of Charmaine with her mother and father, a cone of incense in a small brass slipper.

Nicola held the incense to her nose. Jasmine. She smiled, remembering Charmaine’s youthful passion for everything jasmine—incense, tea, perfume…she’d even wanted to change her name to Jasmine when she grew up.

Replacing the incense Nicola picked up the locket. Inside were tiny photos of Charmaine and her. Tears of sorrow and loss washed away the last bitter traces of the onion. In spite of their different personalities she and Charmaine had indeed been inseparable, confiding in each other all their girlish dreams and desires. Somehow she’d never found another friend that had been able to match the closeness she’d had with Charmaine. She snapped the locket shut with a small click and set it carefully back on the dressing table.

Nicola sat on the bed and picked up a teddy bear from the lace-edged pillow. She couldn’t imagine Uncle Roy, austere and remote in his insurance man’s suit, arranging teenage memorabilia or—Nicola wiped a finger across the polished maple bedside table—dusting regularly. No, June must have done this. She and Charmaine had always been close, the more so because Charmaine was the only child and took after June in looks and temperament.

The front door opened. Nicola heard footsteps moving between the hall and the kitchen and got up to go greet her aunt and uncle. As she came out of Charmaine’s room she heard a commotion of clattering pots and excited voices. Oh, no! The pasta.

Nicola raced downstairs and stopped dead in the kitchen doorway. The spaghetti was boiling over, froth and scalding water pouring down the sides of the pot and onto the floor. June was at the stove, sliding the pot off the heat.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Nicola exclaimed. “Where’s the mop?”

“It’s in the cupboard in the laundry room,” June called.

Nicola grabbed the mop and raced back to the kitchen. June turned around to face Nicola and her face went white.

“It’s all my fault,” Nicola apologized again. “I wanted to have dinner ready when you and Uncle Roy came—”

June shook her head, speechless, and pointed her finger at Nicola. Nicola looked down. She still had Charmaine’s stuffed bear clasped in one arm.

“Oh, that,” she said, relieved no further harm had been done. “It’s just a teddy bear.”

June swallowed with apparent difficulty. “No one. No one,” she emphasized, “is allowed in my baby’s room.”

Oh, dear. “I didn’t move anything except for the bear,” Nicola told June apologetically. “I’ll put it back right now.”

“I’ll do it.” June crossed the kitchen and took the bear from Nicola’s unprotesting grasp.

Her uncle Roy, solid in blue pinstripe, came into the room. “When will dinner be ready?” Silence followed his query. He looked over his glasses at his wife holding the bear. “Never mind.”

Nodding vaguely, he went to the glass-fronted cabinet beside the fridge and took out a crystal tumbler. “Er, Scotch, anyone?”

June brushed past him into the hall without reply.

“No, thanks.” Nicola ran upstairs after her aunt then paused in the doorway to Charmaine’s room.

June was bent over the bed, carefully positioning the bear in his place atop the satin-cased pillow. Tenderly she adjusted the pink bow around his neck so the loops were perfectly flat and not twisted.

“Aunt June…”

June straightened and turned, her face calm. “It’s all right, Nicola. No harm done. I should have mentioned that this room was off-limits. I thought the shut door was indication enough.” She glanced around as if checking that everything else was in place. Apparently satisfied, her shoulders relaxed.

Nicola stepped inside the room and shut the door. “Can we talk?”

June stiffened again. “Dinner—”

“It can wait a few minutes.” Nicola took her hands. “Please.”

“Your uncle is allowed one drink before dinner,” June informed her, maintaining her erect posture. “If the meal is delayed, he’ll have two. It’s not good for his heart. The doctor said—”

Nicola dropped her aunt’s hands and pulled her into a hug. “You poor thing. Losing Charmaine must have been so awful for you.”

June sagged in her arms and drew in a long ragged sigh. “Oh, Nic, I miss her so much. She was my beautiful little girl. Why did she have to die?”

“It was an accident,” Nicola said, holding her. Even as she spoke, she wondered if that were true.

June drew back, shaking her head. “Aidan was right beside her when she went off the cliff. Why couldn’t he have saved her?”

“I don’t know,” Nicola said miserably. “Didn’t anyone ask him?”

“He said it all happened too quickly.”

“Maybe it did. If she slipped and lost her balance…” She trailed off, shuddering at the image those thoughts conjured. Charmaine falling off the cliff onto rocks. A powder-blue ski suit, stained red. Golden hair matted with blood.

“Why was she off the groomed ski trail?” June went on doggedly. Nicola got the impression she’d asked these same questions a million times. “Why was she even in the permanently closed area?”

“Was she?” Nicola said sharply. “I didn’t know that.”

Her aunt nodded. “Aidan knew better than to take anyone there, even an expert skier like Charmaine.”

“Why did he?”

“He says he didn’t. He says he found her there and was trying to get her to come out.” June plucked a tissue from the box on the dresser and blew her nose. “Charmaine wouldn’t have gone out of bounds. She never did anything against the rules.”

Nicola thought of the times her cousin had coaxed her into skipping school to hitchhike into Squamish and hang out at the Dairy Queen. “We don’t always know people as well as we think we do.”

“I know my little girl,” June said firmly. “She was a loving wife and devoted mother. I know that if Aidan had taken proper care of her she would be alive today.”

There was a long silence during which Nicola worked up the courage to ask in a cracked whisper, “Do you believe he pushed her?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. Oh, I don’t know what to believe. He should have taken better care of Charmaine,” June complained. “He left her alone too much.”

“Could she have committed…” Nicola could hardly bear to say the word suicide. She didn’t need to. One look at her aunt’s horrified expression told her June knew what she was trying to say—and disagreed vehemently.

“Absolutely not,” June said. “Charmaine had it all—a devoted husband she adored, a brand-new baby she loved to distraction. Even with Emily’s health problems—”

“Emily had problems?” Nicola asked. “Dad never told me that.”

“It was nothing serious,” June said dismissively. “I didn’t tell Stan—what could he do down there in Australia?”

“He’s family, and would want to know,” Nicola demurred quietly. “What was wrong with Emily?”

“Oh, I hardly remember,” June said. “Something to do with her spine, a developmental thing. She’s fine now.”

“Still, Charmaine would have been upset,” Nicola said. “She was so squeamish about sickness or injury.”

“Charmaine was strong,” June contradicted. “She was devoted to that baby.”

“I’m sure she was,” Nicola said soothingly. She thought of the letters her cousin had written during her pregnancy, full of happiness and anticipation. Nicola had thought it odd the letters had stopped once Charmaine had given birth but had attributed it to the heavy demands of a new baby. Now the lapse made even more sense; Charmaine was busy caring for a sick child with no time to write.

“Well,” June said, blotting her eyes with another tissue. “Let’s have dinner before Roy gets sloshed. I don’t want to lose him, too.”

Nicola went out and waited for her aunt to turn off the light and close the door behind her. “He’s a grown man. Can’t he self-regulate?”

June rolled her eyes. “My dear, he’s a baby. If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t get dressed in the morning.”

Nicola said nothing, thinking it was sad that June overestimated her late daughter and underestimated everyone else.

Aidan dished up beef stew on bone-china plates; Charmaine had refused to eat off anything less and Aidan had never gotten around to buying stoneware. The plates, like the crystal figurines, weren’t to his taste, but he kept them. The self-help books his mother had given him after Charmaine’s death suggested he not make major changes in his life for at least a year. One year had turned into six and Aidan had fallen into a deadly inertia, oblivious to his surroundings.

“Stew again,” Emily complained with a quiet sigh. “Nicola said she was going to make spaghetti for their dinner.”

“We had spaghetti last week,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but not like Nicola’s.”

“What is Nicola’s spaghetti like?” he asked patiently.

“I don’t know. It’s just different.”

“Eat up, sweetheart, or we’ll end up having stew tomorrow, too.”

Emily sighed and went back to her meal. Aidan’s thoughts went back to revolving around his dilemma. Should he apply for the assistant manager’s position or should he let it go? He wanted the job, rather badly, he realized, for the recognition of his expertise and experience. Also it would give him a chance to implement his ideas for improving conditions for the patrollers and safety for skiers. Last but not least, he could use the extra money the promotion would bring.

He leaned over and twitched back the lace curtains, another legacy of Charmaine, to reveal the snow-covered expanse of Alta Lake visible under a rising moon. The neighborhood children had cleared a makeshift skating rink complete with two battered, netless goals. Sometimes he wished he was a kid again, with nothing more on his mind than looking forward to playing hockey after school.

“Can I, Daddy? Nicola told me I should ask you,” Emily said in her soft voice.

“Sure, honey,” Aidan replied automatically then realized guiltily he’d been so lost in thought he didn’t know what she’d said.

Before he could find out what he’d just agreed to there was a knock at the door. A second later it opened and his brother Nate called out. “Anybody home?”

“In the dining room,” Aidan said. “Grab a plate from the kitchen.”

Nate, his dark hair tousled from pushing the hood of his heavy parka off his forehead, appeared in the doorway. “Can’t stay. Angela and I just got back from Vancouver and I wanted to drop off the book on tropical fish you ordered.” He tugged on one of Emily’s blond braids. “How’s my girl?”

Emily dimpled up at him. “Fine, thank you, Unca Nate.”

“How’s the new store doing?” Aidan asked. Nate’s Whistler Village mountain-bike shop had proven such a success that he’d recently expanded his business with a second store in Vancouver. Due to Angela’s job as marketing director at a businesswoman’s magazine, they spent a few days a month in the city, staying at an apartment Angela had before she and Nate got back together.

“Turnover is brisk thanks to a great location and Rachel’s proving to be an excellent manager.” Nate started to leave then paused. “Almost forgot. Angela wanted me to ask you and Emily for dinner tomorrow.”

“I don’t know about a late night for Emily,” Aidan began.

“It’s Friday and Emily can always go to sleep in our bed if she gets tired. I’ve got to warn you, though, Angela’s trying out a new recipe.”

“Uh-oh.” Aidan knew all about Angela’s disastrous cooking attempts and considered his health-food-conscious brother not only brave but lucky to have survived so far unscathed. The problem in Aidan’s opinion was that Angela was too ambitious, cooking complicated dishes while lacking basic skills.

“She’s getting better, honest,” Nate said, grinning. Outside, a horn tooted. “She ran into Nicola at the school and invited her, too. So will you come?”

The prospect of meeting Nicola there tipped the scales. If she got to know him in the context of his family and friends she’d see he wasn’t the bad person June had no doubt painted him. Maybe he shouldn’t care what Nicola thought, but he did.

“All right,” Aidan said. “Thanks.”

In bed that night Nicola reread Charmaine’s letters from start to finish, looking for any evidence, no matter how slight, that despite June’s assurances to the contrary, her cousin might have been tempted to take her own life. The notion was far-fetched but not completely implausible. If Aidan had witnessed his wife’s suicide that might be what he was covering up. But Nicola could find nothing to suggest Charmaine had contemplated such a thing for even one second. Nicola sighed and put the letters away.