One Mountain Away (50 page)

Taylor pulled her hand back, and Harmony smiled sadly. “I’m going to make so many mistakes, Taylor. I gave up believing in God when our preacher stood in church and said men have a duty to keep their women in line. But I pray every night that a better God than that one will help me. Because there are going to be so many times when I don’t know what to do, and so many times I’ll do the wrong thing, even when I realize it’s wrong. I just hope my baby forgives me.”

“There are mistakes, then there are
mistakes
.”

“Maybe that’s true, but I’ve had a good role model these past weeks. I hope I’ll be like your mother and able to admit mine when I make them. If this baby’s a girl, I’m going to name her Charlotte and hope she’ll live up to it.”

When Taylor didn’t answer, Harmony turned to go. “I don’t know why she let this go on so long, why she didn’t try to set things right before now. Maybe it was just too painful. Maybe she didn’t know how to begin.”

Taylor spoke, before she even realized she needed to. “No, she called. Even after she kicked me out, my mother called every year on my birthday.”

Harmony faced her again. “She spoke to you?”

“I screened the calls, and I never listened to her messages. I never told anybody she was calling, not even my dad.” Taylor moved to the picnic table and dropped to the bench.

“I wasn’t there when things fell apart for the two of you. I’m not trying to judge.”

Taylor wondered if the seventeen-year-old Taylor, who
had
been there on that terrible night, had heard only what she’d expected to.

It was all so long ago, but maybe she really
had
looked for a way to get even with her mother for what had seemed like a lifetime of interference. Maybe, as Ethan had said, she’d even had unprotected sex with Jeremy just because she knew how much Charlotte would hate it.

“She always knew what was best for me,” she said out loud. “She never wanted to hear my opinion. In the end that seemed to be all our relationship was about.”

“She was
afraid
for you. She was so afraid your life would be as hard as hers was. She didn’t have to tell me, because that’s how
I
feel. I know that’s how she must have felt, too.”

Taylor understood that only too well. Hadn’t she almost decided what was best for Maddie out of fear, shutting out everyone else’s opinion until Jeremy threatened legal action?

Hadn’t
she
refused to listen?

Just like her mother.

“We all watch and learn from our parents,” Harmony said. “Now that you have something important, something healing, to learn, please don’t shut her out again.”

“Leave the plant.” Taylor couldn’t manage more.

“Your father’s hoping to bring your mother home from the hospital. Maybe as early as tomorrow. He doesn’t want her to die there.”

Taylor closed her eyes. When she opened them some time later, Harmony was gone and the tomato plant was on the bench beside her.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, but finally she went inside. Maddie was sound asleep on her bed, and Taylor tiptoed past her daughter’s door before she closed her own behind her. At the closet she stood on tiptoe and felt for a shoebox, edging it toward her until she could pull it down.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and lifted the lid. Charlotte’s letter to her wasn’t lonely. Inside were family photos Maddie had never seen, dozens of snapshots of Taylor at different ages, and Charlotte was in every one.

Charlotte beaming over a birthday cake she had made for Taylor’s fourth birthday. Charlotte building a sand castle with her daughter at the beach. Charlotte and five-year-old Taylor in matching dresses on their way to church. Charlotte taking her fairy princess daughter trick-or-treating.

Taylor had never been able to throw the photos away, even though she had tried once, rescuing them just before the trash went out. To justify her failure of courage, she’d told herself she didn’t have to throw away her childhood just because her mother had shared it. Instead, she had compromised by shoving the box and her memories out of sight in the top of her closet.

For so many years she had been certain she was right, that everything that had happened eleven years ago had been Charlotte’s fault, that a woman who exiles her pregnant daughter is always beyond redemption. She had worn that conviction like armor, rejecting anything that might pierce it.

But what kind of person erects barriers around her heart? What kind of person shields herself from love?

Deeply ashamed she opened the envelope, took out her mother’s letter and began to read.

Dear Taylor,

The first time I saw your face, I realized how much my life had changed. I was overcome by love, afraid to breathe because of the perfection of the moment. Sadly, in the next I was paralyzed by fear. I wanted to lay the world at your feet, yet I had no idea how to begin. I vowed then that I would give you everything you deserved and more. You would lack for nothing, and for the rest of our years together, I set about making that happen.

What I never realized, until it was too late, was that you had been born with everything you needed to find your own way. All I had to do was love you enough to let you.

My regrets are so many I can never hope to atone for all of them….

Taylor’s vision blurred, and she couldn’t read the rest. Just as Harmony had reminded her, she was a mother, too, like Charlotte. How could she not understand?

She held Charlotte’s letter against her chest and baptized it with her tears.

Chapter Forty-Four

EVERY TIME SHE awoke, Charlotte had to concentrate harder to establish where she was. She wasn’t afraid. It was almost like the games of hide-and-seek she had played on clear summer evenings with the children of families who came to call on her grandmother. She remembered fireflies twinkling like stars and calls of “Ollie, Ollie, oxen freed.” The sky would darken until she was no longer sure how to find her way home.

Somehow she always did.

This time when she awoke she saw she was in her own room at home, and wildflowers sprouted from a clear glass vase beside her bed. She suspected Harmony’s hand in that, even, perhaps, the fields behind Capable Canines. She felt herself smiling.

“You’re awake.”

The voice was familiar. She turned her head a little and found Analiese sitting beside her bed. This time she was sure she smiled.

“How do you feel?” Analiese asked.

Charlotte didn’t know. She took stock before she answered. “Alive. Still.”

“Good call. And we’re all so glad you are.”

“I’m not…in great pain.”

“There’s no reason you should be. You have a good doctor, and he’ll make sure of it.”

“They called…hospice.” She seemed to remember that.

Analiese took her hand. “You’re all right with that?”

“Yes.” Charlotte knew exactly what that meant, that now everyone was more concerned with the quality of her death than with prolonging her life. She also knew it was time. Whenever she opened her eyes, the world seemed farther away.

“What can I do for you now?”

“Raise the dead?”

“I don’t think that’s in my contract.”

Charlotte squeezed her hand. “Thank you. For your support. Your frankness. For…listening.”

“Charlotte, I’m so glad I had the chance to really get to know you. It’s been a privilege.” Analiese leaned in closer, as if she didn’t want anyone else in the room to hear her. “Has Gwen been to visit you?”

Charlotte nodded slowly. “She’s getting…pushy.”

“Goddesses are like that.”

“I have seen them in action…without always knowing. I count you among them.”

“May this very ordinary goddess pray with you?”

“That would mean…everything.”

* * *

She woke up twice more, used to finding that she was in her own room. The first time Ethan was by her side, but she fell back asleep before she could speak to him. The second time it was a woman dressed in cheerful yellow scrubs who introduced herself as the nurse who would help take care of her.

The third time when she awoke her head was clearer and the room didn’t spin. She lifted herself a little, sliding higher on the pillow, and while she was ridiculously weak, she was able to move enough to take in her surroundings.

Ethan materialized out of the shadows. “Want me to prop you up, Lulu?”

She licked her lips. “I think so.”

He helped her, his body warm and more solid than her own, as if his was real and hers an imitation.

“See what you…got yourself into?” she asked, when she was settled.

“I’m exactly where I want to be. Do you think you could drink a little water?”

She sipped from a glass he held to her lips, proud she didn’t dribble. “What time is it?”

“Dinnertime. Harmony made soup. Feel up to a little?”

She was trying to die, and they were giving her food and water, as if that would stave off the inevitable. It almost made her smile. “A few bites.” She knew that would please Harmony. “But not right now.” She patted the bed beside her, and he sat, then he reached out to smooth back her hair.

“Are you in pain?” he asked.

“Mostly my body feels…a million miles away.”

“You have to let us know. But they don’t want to give you more meds than you need.”

She knew enough about what was coming to understand that as the end drew closer, the nurse or someone would help relieve her suffering. She was glad, though, that for now her head was clearer than it had been.

“Harmony thought you might like a puppy visit.”

She imagined one of the little goldendoodles squirming on her bed, and the thought made her smile.

“Yes. Maybe…Vanilla?”

“I’ll tell her.”

He leaned over and kissed her, then got up and disappeared from view. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again sometime later, she heard squeals and saw Harmony standing beside her with Vanilla clutched against her.

“Oh…” Charlotte smiled. “Sit down…and let’s see what you’ve got.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Harmony lowered herself to the bed, and Vanilla, tail wagging hard enough to wrinkle the top sheet, dove for Charlotte and began to lick her face.

Harmony grabbed the puppy. “I’m sorry, but she’s such a people dog. And she’s always loved you.”

“She’s a cuddle dog…if she can’t be a service dog.”

“I’ll make sure, no matter what, she finds just the right home, Charlotte. I promise.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve found one, too.”

Charlotte listened as Harmony explained her plan to work and live at Capable Canines.

“And I’m going to keep Velvet for myself,” she said at the end. “No more litters for her. She can be my pal, and the baby’s.”

Charlotte felt tears on her cheeks. “I’m so glad. I made sure you could stay here…as long as you needed. It’s in my papers, but this…will be better.”

Vanilla jumped out of Harmony’s arms and licked Charlotte’s face again. Charlotte laughed and managed to wrap her arms around the puppy, although she was surprised at how leaden and unresponsive they felt as the puppy wiggled happily.

Harmony straightened her covers. “Charlotte, if I have a girl I’m going to name her after you.”

“Lottie Lou?”

Harmony laughed. “Charlotte Louise, but I’ll call her Lottie. I really like it.”

Ethan stepped into view, and Charlotte saw an expression on his face she couldn’t identify. There were tears in his eyes, but he was smiling.

“More visitors,” he said.

“We’ll have time later,” Charlotte told Harmony. “I want to hear…more.”

Harmony reached out to get the puppy, but Ethan stepped over and put his hand on her shoulder. “Leave Vanilla a moment, would you?”

Harmony got up. “Sure, but…” She turned, and whatever she saw made her fall silent. Then she stepped to the end of the bed and waited.

Charlotte was confused until she saw the reason. A brown-haired girl was coming toward the bed, blue eyes sparkling. “Oh, what a cute puppy!”

“I thought you might like her,” Ethan said. “So did your grandmother.”

Maddie stopped beside the bed and held out her hand. “Can I pet her?”

Ethan looked at Charlotte. “What do you think?”

“I think you…should probably sit on the bed.” Charlotte slid a little more to the middle to make room for her granddaughter. “Her name is Vanilla.”

Maddie pulled the puppy close, and Vanilla, immediately transferring her affection, licked the girl’s face. Maddie squealed.

“Are you really my grandmother?” Maddie asked. “I have two?”

“I…really am.”

“Where have you been?”

“Just waiting…for you, sweetheart.”

Maddie looked at her closely. “Maybe you waited too long.”

“I’m sure I did.” Charlotte looked past Maddie, who was absorbed in the puppy again, and saw Taylor moving to her bedside.

Ethan stepped in, scooped up Maddie and the puppy without a word, and made room for his daughter.

Taylor collapsed on the bed beside her mother, put her arms around Charlotte’s neck and began to cry. “I’m so sorry, Mom. So terribly, terribly sorry.”

Charlotte put her arms around her daughter, and their tears fell together.

* * *

Half an hour later Taylor brushed her mother’s hair off her forehead with the backs of her fingers. Maddie and Ethan were in the family room with the puppies so Taylor and Charlotte could be alone for a little while.

“Do you remember the time I was twelve and I fell off my bike on the way to school, and scraped my elbows and knees, and everything in between? You stayed home from work, even though you had a big meeting, and after lunch we lay on the sofa eating ice cream and watching soap operas all afternoon. You made me promise I wouldn’t tell anybody, and you said if I did, you would deny it.”

Charlotte laughed a little. It felt so good to be able to. “I release you from your promise.”