Discovering (9 page)

“I was just thinking the same thing about you,”she says, and together, they continue on to school on this beautiful morning after the storm.

EIGHT

Lily Dale
Tuesday, October 9
3:32 p.m.

Evangeline had to stay after school for extra help in English, and Jacy had to run with the track team, so Calla walks home by herself beneath a gloriously blue, sunny sky. It must be eighty-five degrees out.

Everyone at Lily Dale High was buzzing about the weather today, even the teachers. Last year at this time, the area was in the midst of its first snowfall.

Calla—who has never seen snow and is looking forward to it—kept her disappointment to herself. She figures it will arrive soon enough, and when it does, it’s notorious for sticking around through late spring.

“Calla! You’re back!”

She looks up to see Paula Drumm waving from the front- porch steps of a gray two-story mansard- roofed cottage with scalloped shingles and green trim. A pair of crutches are propped beside her, and her right ankle— which she broke tripping over her sons’ toys—is outstretched and wrapped in a bandage.

“Hi, Paula! Hi, boys!”she adds, spotting Dylan and Ethan poking little plastic shovels into the grass near the porch. Above their heads is a shingle that reads
MARTIN DRUMM, CLAIRVOYANT.
The yard, like so many others in the Dale, is crammed with fall- blooming flowers and lawn decorations ranging from garden gnomes to weathervanes.

“Calla! Want to help us dig to China?”Dylan shouts, lifting his white-blond head.

“China!”little Ethan echoes.

She smiles. “Not today, guys. Some other time, though.”

“I heard your dad came back with you,”Paula calls, shifting her heavyset frame to lean forward, “and he’s living in the Taggarts’ guest room.”

Still unaccustomed to small- town living, Calla nods. “News travels fast around here.”

“You know it.”

Yes, she sure does.

She wonders if the Lily Dale gossip mill is already speculating about a romance between Dad and Ramona. If they aren’t, they will be.

“I heard something else, too.”Paula beckons her closer.

Just like I thought.
Calla sighs inwardly and crosses to the front steps, pausing on the way to hug the boys and inspect their hole to China.

“Looks like you’ll be there pretty soon,”she solemnly tells them.

Dylan nods. “Maybe not in time, though.”

“In time for what?

“In time to help.”

Something in his expression sends a chill through Calla. She crouches beside him. “What are you going to help with, Dylan?”

“I have to help all the people. They’re going to get hurt when all the buildings crash down.”

Shuddering inwardly, Calla says, “You’re just pretending, right, Dylan? You’re just playing superhero again, right?”

He hesitates. Then he nods. “Right!”

“Right!”Ethan agrees, bobbing his blond curls emphatically. Calla stands, brushes the dirt off her legs, and goes over to Paula.

“They’re so cute,”she says.

“Yeah, they are. So, Calla, listen, a couple of detectives came to see Patsy Metcalf a little while ago.”

Caught off guard, Calla manages to say only, “Um . . . really?”

Already?
is what she should have said.

“I heard they were from Florida.”

Lutz and Kearney. Wow. She’d known it was coming, but somehow, she had put it out of her mind.

Calla feels like sinking onto the step beside Paula, but she doesn’t dare. She doesn’t trust herself not to spill the whole story—and in a town like this, that would be a big mistake.

“I heard it had something to do with you,”Paula says, “and I wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

She’s not being nosy—just concerned. And Calla can hardly blame her. After all, she’s Paula’s children’s babysitter. If Paula suspects she’s in some kind of trouble with the law, Calla can kiss her part- time income good- bye.

“It’s kind of complicated,”she tells Paula, “but it’s about this woman who broke into my father’s house back in Tampa over the weekend.”

“Really?”

Paula seems to be waiting for her to elaborate.

When she doesn’t, Paula asks, “What does Patsy have to do with it?”

Calla weighs the truth and quickly decides to offer a version of it. “Someone in Patsy’s Saturday class had a vision involving the woman, and I mentioned that to the police. I guess they want to check it out.”

“Oh, I see.”That seems to make perfect sense to Paula, who looks relieved. “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious.”

Calla forces a smile. “Like me being wanted for bank robbery or something?”

“Exactly.”Paula chuckles. “So, listen, now that we know you’re not a wanted felon, can you come babysit tomorrow after school? The boys have been asking for you.”

Calla hesitates.

The last time she was there, Dylan drew a picture of her scribbled over in blue crayon and calmly informed her she was under water. And a few weeks ago, he correctly foretold that a man with “a raccoon eye”was trying to hurt her.

“Sure,”she tells Paula.

After all, she can’t be afraid of a five-year- old. Even one who specializes in making dire predictions— involving Calla— between Candyland moves and story time.

Calla arrives home to find her grandmother in the front yard.

No surprise there.

In Lily Dale, when the weather turns nice, people rush outside to enjoy it from their porches, yards, and gardens.

Odelia—who frequently says her skin is fairer than a baby’s keister—is on her knees in a flowerbed, wearing a big, floppy
Little House on the Prairie
–style sunbonnet, enormous aviator sunglasses, and a patch of protective white zinc on her nose.

“Calla! Is it three thirty already? How was school?”

“Same as usual.”Calla dumps her heavy backpack on the steps, then sinks down beside it. She plops her chin in her hands and wonders whether to tell her grandmother about the Florida investigators talking to Patsy.

For all she knows, Odelia has already heard.

If she hasn’t, she will soon enough. No need to bring it up now.

“Same as usual,”Odelia echoes. “Sounds like that’s a bad thing?”

“Actually, it isn’t.”On the contrary, it was comforting to go through a predictable school day after a weekend that was anything but.

“Then why do you look so depressed?”

“Because I stink at math, and I had it last period. Mr. Bombeck hates me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does. He wasn’t exactly loving when he handed back my test.”She sighs and leans both elbows back against the top step, legs outstretched to the bottom. “What are you doing, Gammy?”

“Dividing my hostas. Want to help?”

“Dividing?”She groans. “No more math today. Sorry.”

Odelia laughs. “It can’t be that bad.”

“I got a D.”

“Minus?”

“No. Just a D.”

“Look on the bright side. That’s better than a D minus. Or an F.”Her grandmother hacks away at a stubborn root.

“Somehow, I don’t think the college admissions boards are going to see it that way. My father won’t, either. I guess I’d better go tell him.”She hoists herself off the step, picks up her backpack, and starts to head inside.

“Calla? If you’re going to go tell your father anything right now, you’re going to need a boat.”

“Why? Where is he?”

“Out on the lake.”She gestures vaguely at the patch of blue at the end of the road.

“What?”

“He’s fishing . . .”

“He doesn’t fish!”

“. . . with Ramona.”Odelia looks her squarely in the eye as if to ask,
What do you think about that?
“They took a picnic lunch and a lot of bait.”

“Oh. Well, that’s nice.”

“Mmm-hmm.”Her grandmother continues to watch her.

“What, Gammy?”

“Are you okay with . . .”She sweeps a dirty gardening glove–covered hand toward the Taggarts’ house, “all of this?”

“You mean Dad sleeping in their guest room?”
And the
whole town buzzing about it?

“That. And him maybe . . . starting to move on.”

“Are
you
?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know . . . . She was your daughter.”

“She was your mother. And his wife.”Gammy shrugs. “I’m fine with it. He’s gone through hell. He’s in a better place than he has been in a long, long time.”

“I know . . . . It’s been three months.”

“Since your mother died.”

“What else would I be talking about?”

Her grandmother shakes her head and goes back to chopping the hosta’s root.

“Gammy . . . did something happen to my father before my mother died?”

“You tell me.”

She knows,
Calla realizes.
She knows what Mom did. To Dad.
With Darrin
.

“You mean . . . the affair?”

Her grandmother goes still, then sets aside her trowel and looks up at her. “So I was right.”

“You mean you didn’t know for sure?”

She shakes her head. “My guides were showing me things . . . but I guess I didn’t want to believe them.”

“What did they show you?”Calla asks, still not certain her grandmother knows it was Darrin.

“The details aren’t important.”

“Did they show you who my mother was with?”

“It wasn’t even that specific. I just got that there was another man, and secrets . . . and guilt. Terrible guilt, on her part.”

“Not enough to keep her faithful to Dad, though.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, I do.”

When Dad was visiting Lily Dale back in September, he told Calla that for months before she died, Mom had become increasingly detached from him, more absorbed than usual in her work.

Yeah, right. She wasn’t traveling on business. She was having an affair.

“It was Darrin Yates, wasn’t it,”her grandmother says grimly.

“I thought you said your guides didn’t show you the details.”

“No, but you told me that you’d seen him at the house back in March, and at the funeral. He was obviously back in her life.”

“Do you think Dad knew, Gammy?”

“About Darrin?”

“Or just . . . that she was in love with someone else?”

“I doubt Stephanie would spell it out for him, but if that was the case, I’m sure he sensed something was going on. You don’t have to be a psychic to know when things aren’t right in a marriage.”

She’s speaking from experience, Calla knows. She can’t see Odelia’s eyes, but her voice is taut with pain.

“My father told me things weren’t the same lately,”Calla tells her. “He told me that my mother had taken a big step back from him before she died. Maybe it was more than that. Maybe he just didn’t want me to know the whole story.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. If
he
even knew the whole story.”

Calla shakes her head sadly, feeling terribly sorry for her father . . . and for herself.

“I really thought she loved him.”

“Honey, she did. She loved him more than anything— they were good together. When they were first married, when you were born, when you were little . . . the last time I saw them . . . they were crazy about each other. I couldn’t imagine that would ever change, but . . . things do. People do.”

Feeling sick inside, Calla sinks onto the steps again. “I know people change, but . . . that much?”

“That much.”

Calla thinks about Kevin. He changed. Drastically. He went away to college and six months later, broke up with Calla.

Remembering the numbing pain, Calla can’t imagine what it would have been like if they had been together for years, were married, with a child.

Poor Dad.

“You know, Calla, your grandfather and I . . . there was a time when we were in love the same way your mother and father were.”Her grandmother dusts off her jeans— which are rolled up to reveal her purple socks and orange gardening clogs— and sits beside her. “But then, right around the time I had your mother, Aunt Katie passed away and left the house to me. So Jack and I came here.”

Calla looks up at it in surprise—just in time to see a face in the second- story window, looking out at her. Not Miriam’s. This time, it’s an old woman with pince- nez glasses and a jet black bun.

“You mean, you didn’t always live here?”

“In Lily Dale? No, I used to visit my aunt and my grandmother here in the summers. I always loved it—it felt like home. And when Aunt Katie died, Jack and I were living down near Pittsburgh, and I was pregnant and he was out of work, so we moved in. It wasn’t supposed to be permanent.”