A Different Light (41 page)

The night Callie left for Florida, Athen rambled aimlessly from one room of the house to the next, unable to shake the anxiety that had engulfed her when her daughter’s plane became a shining silver dot that, seconds later, was devoured in one gulp by a monstrous cloud. Her only child having disappeared into the sky, beyond her control, beyond her reach, Athen somberly returned to the empty house, second-guessing her decision to allow Callie to fly—alone—to spend the last two weeks of summer vacation with the elder Morans. John’s parents had every right to expect Callie to make the trip, Athen reminded herself, and of course she agreed. They hadn’t seen her since John’s funeral. They needed the connection with her,
needed to see how like their son she had become. Athen simply had not anticipated the degree of angst she would experience as she watched a buoyant Callie, primed for adventure and savoring her independence, disappear into the unknown on the arm of the flight attendant who’d promised to take good care of her.

Vulnerability, thy name is Parenthood.

Athen fed Hannah and tried to stop pacing, tried not to watch the clock. Callie was to call the second she arrived at her grandparents’. The flight should take little more than an hour, and it had been almost that long.

She should be there by now. Why hasn’t she called?

Athen had checked the charge on the cell phone she’d gotten Callie for the trip. The knot inside Athen grew and twisted until the phone shook her out of a mild frenzy shortly after seven.

The plane had been on time. Grandma and Grandpop were at the gate waiting for her. They were going to stop for dinner on the way back from the airport. The flight had been completely uneventful, everything was fine. They were taking her to Disney World tomorrow, and, “Oh, don’t forget, I want my room to be
blue
blue, not
pale
blue.”

Relieved that her daughter had been safely delivered by US Airways into the waiting arms of her grandparents, Athen could relax. Callie was going to have a whale of a good time. John’s parents would guard her with their lives, spoil her rotten, show her off to all their friends, devote every waking minute to her every whim, photograph every move she made, and send her home with a whole new wardrobe to start school.

Athen ate a light supper, then took her coffee outside to accompany Hannah on an evening stroll around the backyard. The garden was almost spent now, the end
of summer closing in. A few flowers remained in bloom, some pale lavender phlox that contrasted nicely against the brooding dark monkshood, and some roses, deep red climbers, their fragrance still heady this late in the season. The side garden, given over to annuals, was still happily ablaze with the sharp hues of the zinnias Callie had planted from seed. Delicate cosmos, pink and white, swayed gracefully on tall stems, their feathery leaves neatly framing the birdbath, the base of which was encircled with red impatiens. Athen bent over to remove a weed, careful not to shake its seeds back into the flower bed.

She wandered around to the front of the house, where a single yellow daylily, bright as the July sun, stubbornly continued to bloom in defiance of the calendar.

Hemerocallis
. She smiled to herself as she repeated the name aloud, fondly touching the golden petals as she passed by. She had made a point to learn the names of all the flowers she and Callie had chosen, and was pleased that she remembered them all. Knowing their names had made them hers.
Knowledge is indeed power,
she mused.

Returning to the back of the house, she sat on the porch steps and drained a few drops of cold coffee from the cup that dangled from the fingers of one hand. The setting sun draped a pinky glow behind the trees and the warm evening air was thick with the scent of sweet autumn clematis. She leaned against the step behind her and inhaled deeply, thinking it might be good for her, after all, to have some time to herself. Meg always said that everyone should live alone for a while. Athen never had. Now, for two short weeks, she would have time to think about things she’d been avoiding, to do things she’d been putting off.

First thing tomorrow morning she would go to the
paint store, and with luck, she’d find a blue to match the one Callie had her heart set on. She was going to put her house in order, a prelude, she hoped, to putting her life in order.

Hannah thumped into a huge half-moon at her feet, and Athen leaned down to scratch behind her ears.

“Miss your playmate, do you? I miss her, too,” Athen confided. “But we are going to be very busy while Callie’s gone.”

She made a list of things she wanted to do. Clean the attic—that would be a weekend project. Not think about Quentin, or who he’s seeing now, or how she missed him more than she’d expected. How her hand still shook slightly when he entered the conference room on Wednesdays, how she still harbored a faint hope that one day, when she’d least expect it, he’d hang around after everyone else had left instead of bolting from the room the minute the press conference ended.

Face it,
she told herself sternly,
that is a closed chapter.

For whatever reason, Quentin wanted nothing more to do with her, and that was a fact she would have to live with, and it was her own damned fault. She’d come through worse times. She’d get through this.

“Come on, Hannah.” She stood up and stretched. “Let’s go inside and put some of this free time to good use.”

“NO, I DON’T THINK THAT’S
quite the shade she had in mind.” Athen leaned across the counter, sorting through the pile of colored strips spread before her by the young man in the paint store. “More like this one.” She nudged the chip from its place in the pile.

“That’s sort of strong for a little girl’s room,” the young man noted.

“She’s a strong little girl, and that’s what she wants.”

The salesman retrieved a can of the blue and set it upon the counter. “Anything else I can get you?”

“Well, I need something for my hallway. I’ve been thinking maybe something in this cream color, with maybe a bit more gold in it.”

He pointed to a sample that had been hidden toward the back of the pack, and she smiled. “Yes, that color. That’s exactly it. And now something for my bedroom—a green. No that’s too yellow. I want something soft. More sage. Yes, that one right there. …”

She purchased rollers and brushes and drop cloths, and wrote a check while Ed loaded up her car. When Mr. Parsons told her he wouldn’t have time to do her painting until October, Athen decided to do it herself. She wanted the entire house repainted before Callie started school at the beginning of September. The new school year always seemed like a time of new beginnings to Athen, and so she was determined to start the new season with a newly redecorated house.

On her way out of the paint store, a display of stencils caught her eye, and she stopped to inspect them. She’d never stenciled before, but she liked the look and felt confident she could figure it out. She bought three—a grapevine, an ivy, and a rose border—along with the requisite brushes and jars of paints. Painting the inside of the house was going to be a huge undertaking, but it would give focus to her days with Callie gone for two weeks. Maybe she’d take a few days off herself, she thought, and finish it all before Callie got home.

She strolled leisurely across Harmond Avenue to her
car, which she’d parked at a meter on the street. A sign in the window of the fabric shop two storefronts from the car caught her eye. She hesitated only briefly before redirecting her steps to the small shop.

“Your sign says you make slipcovers,” she said to the young woman behind the counter.

“Yes, m’am, we do.” The clerk barely looked up from her paperwork.

“Great.” Athen smiled. “Here’s what I want. …”

By the time she left, she’d selected fabric to recover the living room furniture as well as the dining room chairs, and she’d made an appointment for the measurements to be taken. She whistled as she walked back to her car. Over the past twenty-four hours, she’d not only come to terms with herself, but had laid the groundwork for revitalizing her home. What else needed to be done?

What else indeed? She paused in front of the pink stucco storefront closest to her car. She stood for a very long moment, pondering the possibilities. Having made up her mind, she placed the stencils in the trunk of the car and slipped a few more quarters into the meter.

“May I help you?” the perky receptionist asked.

“Do you take walk-ins?” Athen inquired.

“Sure thing. Did you have anything particular in mind?”

With her right hand, Athen reached to the back of her head and gathered her hair into a stream that cascaded almost to her waist.

“Shoulder length, I think,” she replied.

“Are you sure?” The receptionist raised both eyebrows.

“Absolutely,” Athen replied confidently.

“Have a seat.” The young woman motioned to a row
of chairs near the window. “I’ll see who’s free.”

She started to walk to the back of the room, then paused. “You know, there’s this program that makes wigs for young cancer victims out of donated hair.”

“Locks of Love.” Athen nodded. “I’ve read about it.”

“Our salon participates. Would you consider …?”

“Absolutely.” Athen ran her hand the length of her hair. “I’d say we have the makings of several wigs right here.”

“OH, MY GOD!” CALLIE DID
a double-take at the woman who reached out for her when she got off the plane. “Mom! Your hair!”

“Like it?” Athen hugged her daughter, grateful to have her home again.

“I … I don’t know.” Callie’s expression was somewhere between horror and admiration. “I mean, you look beautiful. But it’s so different. Why did you do that?”

“It was time for a change.”

“Do you like it?” Callie was still staring at her mother.

“Very much.” Athen nodded.

“It sure is different.”

“I admit I didn’t recognize myself the first few days, and it took me a while to get over the shock.” Athen laughed. “But I’m used to it now and wonder why I didn’t do it sooner. And you’ll be glad to know that my hair was donated to make wigs for children who are undergoing treatment for cancer. The program is called Locks of Love. So my hair is worth much more off my head than it was on it.”

“That sounds like a good thing.” That quickly, Callie was reconciled to Athen’s new look.

Her mother’s hair was not the only thing that had undergone a drastic change while Callie was in Florida.

“Well, what do you think?” Athen asked after Callie had gone from room to room and back again.

“Everything’s changed,” Callie said slowly. “I went away for two weeks and now everything’s changed.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s all so pretty, but it doesn’t look at all like our house anymore.” She sat down on the sofa. “This sofa doesn’t go with the room now. And neither do the chairs.”

“The new slipcovers will be done in about two more weeks,” Athen told her.

Callie nodded and looked around, taking it all in.

“Did Mr. Parsons do all this?”

“No. He didn’t have time.” Athen smiled with satisfaction. “I did it.”

“The stenciling, too?” Callie’s eyes widened, following the tendrils of ivy that wound from the front hall through the living room.

“Yes. That, too.” Athen beamed.

“Was it hard?”

“Harder than I thought it would be.” Athen spared her daughter the details of her frustration the first day she wrestled with the stencils, all of which had three or four parts to the designs. It had driven her crazy until she had gotten a feel for it.

Callie’s eyes rested on the watercolor that hung over the mantel.

“Did you paint that, too?” She pointed to the painting with its splashes of color depicting a summer garden as seen through a garden gate.

“It’s one I started a long time ago, but never completed.” Athen slid into a chair, wondering if perhaps
she should have been a little less zealous in her drive to refashion their surroundings. “I found it in the attic, and after I finished it I decided to bring it down here.”

“Where are Dad’s pictures?” Callie asked uncertainly.

“In your room. I thought you might like to have them.”

Callie nodded without comment.

“Are you all right?”

“It’s just that everything’s so different.” Callie frowned.

“Change is not necessarily bad, Callie,” Athen told her quietly. “As a matter of fact, it can be very good. Nothing can, or should, always stay the same. The house looked tired and gloomy, and I felt tired and gloomy living here. I wanted a pretty and bright house for us to live in. I felt that it was time for me to change the way I look, too. Do you understand?”

“I think so.” She looked around the room again. “It is very pretty, Mom. So’s your haircut. Did you do my room too? Is it blue?”

“Of course.” Athen laughed. “
Blue
blue. Not
pale
blue. Go take a look.”

Callie shot up the steps and Athen held her breath.

“Wow!” exclaimed Callie. “Wow!”

Athen smiled when Callie leaned over the second-floor railing and called down to her, “It rocks, Mom. It’s just the color I had in my head. Everything looks great. It’s like getting a new house without moving. Boy, oh, boy, will Aunt Meg be surprised!” Her voice trailed off as she went off to inspect her mother’s room.

Leaning back against the chair, Athen relaxed. Callie would adjust to her new surroundings just as Athen had become accustomed to her own new look. Putting a bit
more of the past behind somehow made the future seem a little closer. She could not foresee what it would bring, but she knew with certainty that whatever it was, she was ready for it.

LATE SUMMER EASED INTO A
glorious autumn, followed, inevitably, by the first touches of frost. Athen and Callie spent a long weekend cleaning up the flower beds and preparing them for winter. They cut back the perennials and mulched the beds and treated themselves to a night out for pizza and a movie after they completed their work.

Dan Rossi lay low throughout September and early October, much to Athen’s relief. She wanted nothing more than to serve out her term and step aside, leaving Dan to his devices. The voters who reelected him would only get what they deserved. The city seemed unusually quiet, and she began to wonder if the UCC had abandoned its efforts to obtain their shelter or if perhaps they were considering alternative sites.