One Mountain Away (17 page)

Now Ethan was punctual, too, but only because he knew Taylor and Maddie counted on him. Sometimes Taylor thought he was trying to be both father and mother, the best part of each.

The whine hadn’t left Maddie’s voice. “I don’t want to go back to school. The day’s almost over, and everybody will look at me.”

Taylor had saved good news, just in case Maddie needed cheering after her appointment. “You don’t have to go back. Since it’s so warm this afternoon, Papa’s taking us for ice cream.”

“Really?”

“Then over to Pack Square, so you can get good and wet. It
is
too late, and your teacher gave me your homework assignment, so we’re playing hooky.”

Maddie held up her hand, and they slapped palms. Just then Ethan drove up, avoiding cars and effortlessly squeezing into a small space just in front of the office. Maddie scrambled into the back as Taylor got in beside him.

“Everything go okay?” he asked.

“He’s cutting down one med and adding another. And thanks for getting us. The garage called, and my car’s ready, so if you don’t mind, after the park you can drop us off there.”

They chatted until he pulled into Ultimate Ice Cream Company, one of Maddie’s favorites. They dithered over flavors, discussing the pros and cons, but Maddie was the first to make a decision. After ordering one Moon Pie cone for her, lemon-mint sorbet for Taylor and goat cheese and cherry for Ethan, they made the short trip to the center of the city and Pack Square Park.

No matter where they were, Ethan always found a parking place. Taylor was never sure quite how he did it. She’d finally decided his karma was just good, and today it was stellar. Half a block from the park he pulled into a spot with a broken meter, so they didn’t even have to dig for quarters.

“You’re sure you don’t mind getting wet?” he asked Maddie. “You’re pretty dressed up.”

She flung her door open. “I’m just wearing jeans and a T-shirt.”

“But you look so pretty.”

She flashed him a smile before she went skipping toward Splasheville.

Pack Square Park was part of Asheville’s history, but a recent expensive and innovative update seemed destined to make it the heart of the city. Streets had been closed and the area expanded. The park was now divided into sections, with Roger McGuire Green, where they headed, directly in front of and between the extraordinary Neo-Classical Revival courthouse and equally extraordinary Art Deco city hall. The designers had made lavish use of native trees and shrubs, and constructed a fifty-foot stage, adorned by beautifully wrought ceramic tiles. For children they had also constructed an interactive water feature, with jets shooting intermittently from a circular tiled basin.

Taylor let her daughter run ahead. It was a pleasure to see Maddie come back to life. She’d been groggy and out of sorts since they’d started on the new medication, and Taylor hoped that the changes Dr. Hilliard had made today would make all the difference.

“She looks happy,” Ethan said.

“Ice cream, playing hooky and now this.” Taylor watched her daughter edge slowly into the spray. “She deserves to be happy.”

“So do you.”

“One follows the other. If I can get her life on track, mine’ll follow. Right now I need to get her stabilized before her stay in Nashville. I can’t imagine what will happen if Jeremy has anything major to deal with.”

They settled on one of the stone benches along the side and watched Maddie behave like the child she was, darting in and out of the water, and splashing with other children.

Taylor kept her gaze glued to her daughter. It seemed easy to slip in the water, but for most children the odds of staying upright were good. At least Maddie knew that if she began to feel different in any way, she was to quickly sit. She wasn’t always able to tell when a seizure threatened, but when she could, even in a place like this, she knew better than to stay on her feet.

“I’ve always loved this space,” Ethan said, “but never more than now. It’s a visual feast. Have you ever been to Pack Tavern?” He nodded toward the brick building at the corner to their right. “More historic architecture. Do you know it was a speakeasy during Prohibition? They say tunnels linked it to other downtown businesses, a great way to ferry illegal booze from one place to another.”

“I’m afraid I’m a big fan of their fried pickle chips.
Those
ought to be illegal.”

“It used to be Bill Stanley’s Barbeque and Bluegrass. Do you remember? A real honky-tonk, and the place to be if you liked either. When we were dating, your mom loved to go there.”

Taylor pondered how odd it was to hear “your mom” on her father’s lips. “I can’t imagine my mother in a place like that.”

“Ribs, beer, some of the best fiddle music you’ve ever heard. She knew how to clog, at least the rudiments. She’d tap her feet like she wanted so badly to get out there with the dancers, but I could never convince her it was okay.”

“It’s strange to hear you talk about her.” Taylor realized she was chopping off words, spitting them out, as if they tasted foul. “You never do.” She was afraid the rest was clear from her tone.
And I never want you to.

“Taylor, Charlotte and I were married a long time. And the three of us were a family for a long time, too. There were good times, more than you let yourself believe. Maybe we need to remember that.”

“You’re right about one thing.”

He turned to examine her. “What?”

“When it comes to my mother, I really
don’t
believe in the good times.”

Chapter Sixteen

First Day Journal: May 7

Harmony hasn’t shared many thoughts about her future. I think she’s afraid that if she does, I might disapprove. She doesn’t know how wrong she is, because when I tried to tell my sixteen-year-old daughter what to do about her pregnancy, I lost her, possibly forever.

Nor does Harmony know that many years before that, I, too, was faced with the same life-altering decision that she must make soon.

All too well, I remember how it feels to be twenty-five. I am older than Taylor and Harmony when I find I’m pregnant with a baby I haven’t planned. Ethan wants children, but when I’ve thought about it, I’ve seen a baby in the distant future, after I’ve settled on a career path. If we marry I want to establish myself and nudge Ethan toward a firm with clout and money, perhaps in bustling Charlotte or even Atlanta. I want to give any child of ours all the things I never had and separate myself from the past forever.

Frantic, I debate what to do. Since I’ve gotten pregnant while using birth control, surely a planned pregnancy in a year or two will be easy. With limited success I tell myself the fetus is just a speck, less than a tadpole. I can travel to a clinic out of town, and Ethan will never have to know. Later, if we marry, if we’ve considered the question of a child at length and carefully planned, then we can start our family.

I visit a doctor to confirm what I already know. He examines me carefully, then he tells me I’ve surprised him. I have severe endometriosis, which often causes fertility problems, and the fact that I’ve gotten pregnant is something of a miracle. He said I should carefully nurture this pregnancy, since it’s entirely possible it may never be repeated.

My entire world is turned upside down.

That night I finally tell Ethan the truth, unsure how he’ll react. First I tell him about my morning with his mother, about her almost palpable fear that I’ll destroy his chances for a promising future.

“And membership in the best country clubs,” he reminds me, with a remarkably straight face. “Don’t forget, Lulu, you may destroy that, too, because on weekends I’d much rather be in bed with you than out on the tenth fairway.”

“I don’t know how much time we’ll have in bed,” I tell him, tears welling. “I’m afraid we’re going to be changing diapers.”

His mother may not believe I’m good enough to marry her son and conceive his children, but Ethan lays all my doubts to rest. In the history of the world, no man has ever been more thrilled to learn he’s going to be a father. No woman ever loved a man more.

Almost eight months later, having been married by a justice of the peace in a ceremony Ethan’s family attends with strained good grace, we become the parents of a baby girl. Ethan chooses the name Taylor in memory of his Taylor grandparents. I agree, hoping it will lay all his mother’s doubts about our marriage to rest. I miss the first week of my baby’s homecoming because of an emergency hysterectomy.

My doctor was prophetic. Taylor will indeed be our only child. I was prophetic, too. I’m not ready to be a mother. By the time I arrive home, our baby is a stranger to me, but not to her father.

Chapter Seventeen

ON SATURDAY HARMONY and Charlotte had breakfast in the smaller dining room, because Harmony liked the light cherry dining set with the delicately curved legs. She had pulled back Charlotte’s heavy curtains to let the sun burst through multipaned windows to dazzle the table, and used cut-glass goblets for the orange juice.

When she had finished drizzling honey on her oatmeal, Harmony looked up with some unease and decided now was as good a time as any for an announcement. “Charlotte, I’ve decided to have the baby.”

She wasn’t sure what she would see on Charlotte’s face, joy or dismay, but, with relief, she saw neither. Charlotte looked interested, even supportive, but if she had an opinion about Harmony’s decision, she didn’t show it.

“I’ve thought about it a lot…well, actually I haven’t thought about anything else,” Harmony continued. “And even though it seems like I’m not ready to have a baby, I’m even less ready to have an abortion, you know? I went to a clinic and talked to a nurse there, just to understand my options, and five minutes into it, I knew that wasn’t the answer. Because I’m already imagining what this baby will look like, whether it’ll be a boy or a girl, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what most of the other women were thinking. They were thinking they needed to close that door behind them, and fast.”

“And you want to leave your door open?”

Harmony liked the way Charlotte asked. There was no hint of judgment in her voice.

“I do,” Harmony said. “That doesn’t mean I know what I’ll do after the baby comes. But that’s one choice out of the way.”

Charlotte reached for the pot of tea Harmony had put in front of her and poured a thin stream into a delicate white cup. Harmony liked to set the table with Charlotte’s china, and today she had chosen dishes so thin they were almost iridescent in the sunshine. Charlotte had four sets, and Harmony had free rein to use them any way she chose, so she mixed and fussed and set unnecessary pieces, just because she could. She was like a little girl giving an elaborate tea party for her dolls and best friends, but she didn’t care. Her childhood hadn’t included many hours of play, and one of the bright memories was her mother pouring tea for them from her grandmother’s teapot.

“I…I just wanted you to know,” Harmony said. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

Charlotte set the pot back on an embroidered doily discovered in a drawer overflowing with beautiful linens. “I think you’re doing all the right things. You’re taking your time, giving it a lot of thought, consulting professionals. I think you have a good head on your shoulders, and you use it to make good decisions.”

Harmony realized she was having trouble taking that in. It seemed so wrong. “I made a whopper of a bad decision. I got pregnant, and I’m not ready to be a mother. That’s not even in question.”

“You are in excellent company.” Charlotte didn’t go on.

“It wasn’t easy to figure out the baby thing. I grew up in a family where everything was black and white. There was no room for interpretation. Our church was very strict, and my father was even stricter. Especially with my mother and me.”

“It sounds like you might have a brother or sister?”

“I
had
a brother.”

“So now you’re trying to find different ways of making decisions,” Charlotte said. “Ways that aren’t quite so cast in stone.”

“Maybe the other way’s easier,” Harmony said, thinking of all the decisions that still faced her.

“But not half as fruitful.”

“Fruitful?”

“Because every time you make a decision, good or bad, you learn something. Right? If you just do what you’re told, you don’t learn a thing.”

The telephone rang, and Charlotte went to answer it. Harmony finished her oatmeal and thought of her mother, who’d never had a chance to think for herself. Then she thought about Davis, who, like her father, had definite ideas about the way other people should live.

If
she
could change, could
he?
Did men like Davis ever turn themselves into good husbands and fathers? She was afraid that might take a magic wand, and despite a plethora of New Age stores downtown, that was something she didn’t have in her possession.

Charlotte returned just as Harmony was about to reheat the older woman’s oatmeal, and sat again, but she didn’t pick up her spoon. “It’s your day off, isn’t it? Are you busy?”

“I’m going out for dinner, but nothing before then. Is there something I can do for you?”

Charlotte reached over and put her hand on Harmony’s. “Be my friend. Would you like to spend a day in the country? I promise we’ll get back in time for your date.”

* * *

Charlotte wasn’t sure why she had asked Harmony to come along today. But, of course, she
did
know, she just didn’t want to admit it. She had asked Harmony to join her not only because her young friend needed support but also because Charlotte herself needed some.

Harmony clearly believed in destiny, and Charlotte thought that had to be the most plausible explanation for this trip. She had two reasons to drive up Doggett Mountain on this glorious Saturday, and she was too practical not to see how aiming one stone at two birds might pay off in the long run.

“So, why are we going up a mountain?” Harmony had dressed for the occasion. Faded jeans hanging low on her hips, a long-sleeved shirt tied just under her breasts, a gold chain belt that drooped over the bare skin of her waist, which didn’t yet show the pregnancy.