October Snow (16 page)

Jo stood on the walkway, trying to ignore her while talking with Liz, who–with her back to Max–didn’t see her pour the rest of the whiskey into the hydrangea by the front door.

Jo rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to Liz. “Don’t you have any idea who did it? Enemy in the neighborhood, maybe?”

“Jo, my dear, you know I don’t have…not one enemy
any
where.” She finished most of the glass. “Heavens, s’most empty again.”

“Have you eaten anything?” Jo was watching Max study the paint on the front door.

“I did…Yes, I had some soup.”

“When?” She took Liz’s arm, walking her to the front door.

“F’lunch.”

“Let’s get you a meal.” She took the glass from her. “And coffee.”

“Jo.” Max was waving her over.

She left Liz in the foyer. “Go rest for a while. We’ll come in and make you an omelet or something.” She closed the front door quietly behind her, then turned to Max. “Yeah?”

She pointed to the strange, orangey paint on the front door. “Where have you seen that weird color before?”

Jo’s eyes widened as she recognized it. “Sammy’s dining room.”

“That Jack painted.”

“For
two days
, did the erstwhile Jack labor to paint that room, Maxine.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Jo whistled softly. “Interesting.”

“Yeah,” Max sighed. “Wonder what else he has in mind.”

Two hours later, the sun was setting, and they took their coffee out back to Liz’s patio. Liz smiled sheepishly as she sat at the round, wrought-iron table, her hands trembling slightly as she sipped from a white china cup. “I suppose I had too much scotch,” she sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I’m frightened to be here by myself tonight, knowing there’s someone out there targeting my house.” She looked mournfully at them, then jumped when, as if on cue, the kitchen phone started ringing. “Oh dear,” she sighed. “I’ll just let it go to voicemail.”

“We do need to talk to you, Liz.” Jo took the chair closest to her, so Max could take the chair farther away, across the table. “How are you feeling?”

She gave a dismissive wave. “I’m fine. Well,” she smiled again, “I’m
better
, anyway.” She took a delicate sip. “Samantha is staying with you?”

“She is. She’s okay.”

Liz raised her eyebrows nonchalantly. “I’m sure. She always makes certain of that.”

Max was about to speak, but thought better of it and looked toward the house, tapping her foot.

Jo was losing patience, as well. “Okay, Liz. Here’s the thing: that orange paint on your house…We know where it came from.”

“Which means we know who did it,” Max was monotone, not really caring how Liz would feel about hearing the news. The biggest part of her hoped she would be upset.

Liz set her cup down hurriedly, suddenly completely sober, and Jo wondered just how drunk she had truly been. “Okay, tell me.”

“It was Jack.”

Her eyes shifted to Max, then back to Jo. “
Jack
? What? How on earth would you know that?”

Jo explained the paint matching the color of the dining room in Jack’s house. “It’s an unusual color, Liz. You haven’t seen it?”

“No. Jack wasn’t much for having people over. Curious, with how much time he spent making the house just-so.”

Not so curious
, Jo thought.

Liz was looking around nervously, running her hands through her short, silver hair. “Do you think he’ll come back tonight?”

“I don’t know.” The phone started ringing in the kitchen again.

“I’m going to answer that, girls. I’ll be right back.”

They sat silently while Liz was gone. Max, hoping to leave soon, was still tapping her foot; Jo leaned her head in her hands, and then remembered that they needed to retrieve Sam’s work clothes. She mentioned it as Liz came back outside.

“I’ll go get her stuff,” Max said, grateful for the chance to get away.

Liz watched her leave for Sam’s room, not asking where she was going. “Strange girl,” she mumbled. She smiled at Jo then. “That was my friend Rhonda on the phone. I’m going over to stay with her tonight. I really don’t want to be here alone.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“And I’m getting an alarm system installed as soon as possible. That first call–that was Jack.” She looked at Jo anxiously. “He wants me to call him back.”

“Are you going to?”

She looked doubtful, then nodded and said, “I do want to know what he wants, especially if he’s the one who vandalized my house.”

“Would you mind giving him a message from Max and me?”

“Not at all.”

“Tell him that if he stays away from us, I’ll won’t be turning him in for violating the restraining order.”

Liz opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, then asked, “What happened?”

Jo explained everything, finishing just as Max appeared with Sam’s things. “But you can’t let him know that we specifically
asked
you to give him the message–just tell him we told you about it, and that’s what we’ve decided. Like you’re just giving him a friendly warning.”

“I’ll tell him,” Liz said. Jo thought she had never seen Liz so unsure of herself. “Would you stay until Rhonda gets here?”

“Sure. And thanks, Liz.”

Jack’s phone went straight to voicemail. Jo was glad to hear Liz keep her voice steady, even firm.

She hung up, motionless for a moment in front of the phone. The doorbell rang then, and she gasped, putting her hand to her chest. “I need to get out of here,” she said. She looked through the small pane at the top of the front door, smiling in relief. “It’s Rhonda,” she said.

After introductions all around, Jo said, “Okay, Liz, we need to take off. You’re all set?”

“I suppose…” Her voice trailed off, then she added, “Tell Samantha I said hello.”

“We will.” Jo waited; Max was watching Liz with some interest. It seemed that she wanted to say more.

“Just tell her…I said hello.” She gave Jo a brief, awkward hug, and then–in a moment that Max thought must have been mere nerves–reached over to her and lightly touched her cheek. “I’ll see you soon, girls.”

They were almost home.

Waiting at the intersection before the turnoff to their building, Jo thought that she had never been quite as worn out as she was at that moment. She rolled her shoulders, backward and forward, watching the people on the street. It was unusually crowded, even for a Saturday night–apparently, there was an important event going on at the Opera House. Women in expensive dresses, and men in suits and tuxedos were exiting there, milling about, greeting each other.

It was an odd mixture: well-dressed couples, strolling in and out of the swankier restaurants; and then the blue-collar types, standing in the doorways of the taverns, smoking their cigarettes and calling out to their friends. A couple of teenage boys hurried past the front of the truck, heads down, talking about something that was obviously very grim. One of them–the older one, in a gray hoodie–swiped at his eyes a couple of times, holding his hands out in front of him as though pleading for something.

The hardware store still had its Christmas lights strung along the storefront overhang. Jo thought of her childhood Christmases: the colored lights strung between the lampposts over Main Street, and the snow glittering in the early twilight of December, when the days in her mountain town–the tiny village in northern Pennsylvania, which she hadn’t seen in decades–were only a few hours long.

Her mother used to bake apple turnovers in the winter, every Sunday after church; she would wake her up with a cup of hot cocoa when it was snowing, and Jo would have to walk to school in the snow.

Max yawned, ending with a loud groan. “We forgot to get dinner, Bim.” She looked over at her. “Hey, you’re tugging on your hair again.”

Jo, unaware that she was twirling and pulling out strands of her hair, quickly dropped her hand to her lap. She rolled her neck around, stretching her legs as best she could behind the wheel. “That’s right.” She took a sudden left turn. “Burgers. Good enough?”

“Anything. I’m starving here.”

“Max?”

“Hmm?”

“Let’s get our stuff packed and hit the road.”

Max grinned at her, then held out her fist.

Jo rolled her eyes, laughing as she bumped her. “It’s time.”

.

chapter 8

I
T SEEMED TO
Jo that Sunday morning erupted more than it dawned. It arrived in brilliant, almost blinding sunshine and a rushing, warm breeze that blew the new leaves in circles on their branches.

Although not uncommon in the Pennsylvania mountains where she grew up, she hadn’t seen many days like that in New Hampshire. There was no languishing overcast waiting to dry up, not a cloud anywhere at all as the day moved beyond the night, with the sunlight cutting through the dawn as if it took the night by force. The clarity, that early in the day, cast an odd light that illuminated shadows normally untouched, giving the world an ethereal, crystalline glow.

She and Daisy went for a long walk that morning, just after sunrise, when no one else was on the street yet. There was something golden about that morning, and it was a memory that Jo wanted to keep just for herself.

She took a long shower when she got back to the apartment, and spent extra time putting on makeup and styling her hair. She posed in the mirror, pleased with the fact that she looked far younger than her years; then, she made a face at herself and turned away, recalling Shelly’s preening in her car that night at Barley’s.

It was almost nine o’clock, and she hadn’t seen Max yet. She grabbed her phone to call, and there was a text there from the night before. It was from John:

We’ll be there at 6 tmrow nite

“That’s right,” she mumbled.

It seemed odd, that they both wanted to see her that way: the three of them hadn’t been in the same room since Christmas; and then, for only a couple of hours before they had made their excuses to leave.

The boys never got together on their own, just the two of them. John had gone reckless, almost thuggish, for a couple of years after he bolted from the house. Matt had gone as far as possible in the other direction until he, too, left home, and then he seemed to be challenging John for the bad-boy title. He went there only briefly, though, until he saw that it would likely cost him his college degree if he didn’t get back on track. For a while, he lived in the apartment building next door to John, obviously trying to regain the closeness they had once shared. One of the only things that Jo had a hard time forgiving John for was the way he consistently, cruelly rejected any attempt by his little brother to be a part of his life. He had moved on to other people, and to a different way of living, and he left Matt behind to mourn the losses that John himself didn’t have the guts to face.

Jo was sure he had assumed that she and Matt would stay close. They hadn’t, because Matt blamed her for the pain he felt; as a result, she had wound up alone–and that was one of the only things she had trouble forgiving Matt for.

She closed her phone, forgetting about Max for a moment, deciding not to answer John’s text since it had come in twelve hours earlier. A more honest reason, had she thought about it, was that with all of the times she’d had no idea where one–or both–of her sons were, and how they cared nothing about that fact, she simply didn’t want to respond.

The even deeper truth was that she felt the slightest movement inside of her. Something painful, something like hope–but she quelled it fast, too quickly to allow it change her perspective.

Daisy was sniffing and pawing at the door.

“Maxine out there, Daize?” The door opened then, just a few inches, and a dog biscuit appeared. Daisy grabbed it and trotted off to the bedroom.

“Morning, hon.” Sam gave her a quick hug as Max went past her, straight for the coffeemaker.

“Good morning, Bim,” Jo said, her hands on her hips.

Max grunted, “Coffee first.” She stood at the counter, her hands around her mug, drinking deeply. “Oh, good coffee…”

Jo took her usual chair at the table. “Having any, Sammy?”

She took Max’s chair, propping her legs across the corner of the table, crossing her ankles. “Nah. I don’t know. Oh, just a half-cup, maybe.” Max was already setting a filled cup in front of her. She picked it back up and chugged half of it before she set it down again.

“Sammy’s all dolled up today, Jo, didja notice?” Max was pulling her cigarettes out of her pocket.

“I did. You look great.” She got up to put the exhaust fan in the window. “What’s up with that?”

“I’m going to Boston today. Going to talk to Dave.”

“Picking up Tyler, or leaving him there?”

Sam didn’t seem as upset as Jo would have expected as she answered, “Leaving him there. For the summer, probably–Dave’s parents will be there from mid-June until the end of July. It’ll be a nice time for him. And I need to get away.”

Jo frowned. “A whole summer without Tyler? Really?”

Sam swung her legs down, resting her arms on the table and leaning toward her. “I wanted to ask you if it would be okay for them–just Dave and Tyler, I mean–to come up to the beach house a couple times.”