The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel) (2 page)

She continued through the house and found the kitchen tidy, with dishes washed and draining next to the sink. The floor looked swept and mopped, so Deirdre Gifford seemed to be doing well at the job she was hired to do. Amy realized that except for Deirdre, she didn’t know who the other two boarders were. The lawyer had shown her a list but she hadn’t paid attention to the names. Based on the chambray shirts and long underwear hanging from the line on the enclosed back porch, at least one of them was a man.

A Maytag washing machine, so new the paint still gleamed, stood in one corner. An amazing luxury she had never seen before, this appliance would provide an additional source of income, she thought. She could charge extra for laundry service, something that Mrs. Donaldson hadn’t been able to provide when she lived there.

She walked back into the kitchen and poked around in the cupboards, finding the same dishes, glassware, and silver she remembered, which now belonged to her. What a welcome change from the meager utensils and mismatched dime-store table settings sh
e’d
known for the past few years.

Amy was about to head for the back stairs to check the bedrooms on the second floor when she heard the front door open. She bit back a sharp breath, worried about how her presence, uninvited, might look.

“Deirdre? Are you here?”

Amy froze. She knew that voice. Light footsteps crossed the living and dining rooms, drawing closer to the kitchen.

“Deirdre? I’m just on my way to the druggist’s to pick up—”

With nowhere to escape to, Amy found herself face-to-face with her sister, Jessica.

“Oh, my God,” Jessica uttered, the color draining from her face. “Amy? What are you doing here?”

She pulled her shoulders back. “I—I own this house now, Jessica. Mrs. Donaldson left it to me when she died.”

“What? When did you come back?” Her arms dropped straight to her sides. The tension between them arced like St. Elmo’s fire.

Amy intertwined her fingers into one tight fist, trying to hide their trembling. “Today. I stopped to see Mr. Parmenter about the deed.”

“And your . . . husband?” Jess’s loathing for him was unmistakable in her voice. “Is the good reverend fleecing a new flock?”

Though she both feared and now loathed him as well, she refused to let her sister know that. She dodged Jessica’s sarcasm and replied, “Adam is involved in important business in Portland now. He might join me—”

“
Really?
In Powell Springs?”

Amy backtracked at the horror of the idea. “No!” Her sister’s appalled incredulity made Amy’s insides wither like an old bouquet. “I-I mean we haven’t made any firm plans just yet.”

Jessica looked her up and down, taking in her dilapidated appearance. “What has happened to you?” she whispered, as if viewing the astonishing aftermath of a gruesome roadside accident.

Pity was an attitude that Amy could not bear. This conversation only made her more aware of how far she had tumbled from the respectable, sheltered young woman she had been, loved and befriended by all, including her sister. She had squandered everything and everyone, and sacrificed her once-promising future through a series of selfish, ill-conceived plans that had backfired. Again she was made aware of her thin, charity-barrel clothing and wilted hat. Amy had never looked like this until she married Adam.

“The train trip wore me out.” She fingered the glass knob on the cupboard door. “You are looking tidy and prosperous.” Jessica’s dark-blonde hair was swept into a practical but attractive style beneath a smart wool hat, and she wore her striped clinic dress under a fashionable camel coat. She seemed to have suffered no damage from the events of four years earlier. “You married Cole, I assume. But your office shingle still says Layton.”

Jessica gave her a hard, sharp look. “Yes, we were married just after the war ended. I’ve never bothered to have it repainted.” Her expression softened. “You have a niece, you know. Her name is Margaux. She’s eight months old.”

Strange that Mrs. Donaldson hadn’t mentioned it. But perhaps by then sh
e’d
been distracted by her own failing health. Amy tried to swallow around the lump that formed suddenly in her throat. “No, I—I didn’t know.”

“Do you have children?” Jessica asked. The conversation was stilted and uncomfortable. Two sisters wh
o’d
been close—different, but close—now knew nothing about each other. They could have been strangers who stopped in the street to chat.

Amy shuddered at the thought of having children with Adam. An image of a Lysol bottle flitted through her mind, along with a red rubber water bag. A woman in the neighborhood had told her it was a surefire way to avoid pregnancy. Adam had exploded when h
e’d
learned she was using it, and sh
e’d
heard some frightening stories about the harsh chemical, but it didn’t stop her. “No, but we’ve moved around so much it’s probably best . . .”

“Hello?” a new voice called from the entry hall.

“Here in the kitchen, Deirdre,” Jessica called.

Red-haired Deirdre Gifford walked in carrying a package from Bright’s Grocery. She took in the scene, and it seemed as if she might turn around and walk out again. She blanched and looked like a trapped rabbit searching desperately for an escape. “Oh . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—it’s Amy Layton, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m the new owner of this house. I don’t know if Mr. Parmenter told you about that.”

“He did—”

“We should probably talk about what the new arrangements will be.”

“And I’ll be going,” Jessica said. “I stopped by to see if you needed anything, Deirdre, but I guess you’ve already been out.”

“Um, yes, I—”

“Good-bye, Amy.” Jessica turned and, walking out, left a faint scent of vanilla and carbolic in her wake.

Amy ran a self-conscious hand over her rumpled clothing and nodded without a reply.

Jessica Braddock stood before her glass-fronted supply cabinet, making an inventory. Sh
e’d
opened the doors to see around the red crosses painted on the panes. Gauze, morphine, sutures—some of the things sh
e’d
already gotten directly from Powell Springs Drugs this afternoon, but others had to be ordered and she needed to allow time for shipping.

She tried to keep her mind on her work, but it was impossible to concentrate. Seeing Amy had almost jolted her out of her skin. Beyond the utter surprise of discovering her in the Donaldson kitchen, sh
e’d
hardly recognized the pale waif dressed like a scrubwoman. The Amy Layton she knew had skin like rose petals and cream, never went anywhere without gloves, and wore well-made clothing. The woman she saw today was a worn-out stranger with gray circles beneath her eyes and hands that were chapped and fiercely red. She hadn’t expected her sister to have a fairy-tale life with Adam, but this—it looked as though things had gone even worse than sh
e’d
imagined.

Seeing her also brought up a lot of memories sh
e’d
successfully pushed to a dark corner of her mind. Now they seemed as vivid as if the
y’d
happened last week. The scandal . . . the betrayal . . . Adam Jacobsen’s attempt to assassinate her character. The list was long.

So lost in thought, she stared at her inventory list without really reading it and barely noticed the overhead bell ring out front in the waiting room. It was just after six o’clock, past clinic hours, so she imagined her husband, Cole, had come by to give her a ride home. Jess had her own car, but it was at Jarvis Automotive after suffering another mysterious engine ailment. She swore that car was jinxed. Sh
e’d
had nothing but trouble with it from the first day Cole brought it home to her.

“I’ll be right there,” she called absently, but quick footsteps sounded in the hallway, and they weren’t Cole’s.

Granny Mae Rumsteadt, as breathless as a winded old nag, appeared in the back room with Jessica’s daughter, Margaux, in her arms. The baby’s cheeks were rosy with the chill, but sh
e’d
been dressed well, bundled in a blanket, and tucked inside the old woman’s shawl. Granny Mae owned the café across the street from the clinic and often took care of Margaux when Jess’s sister-in-law, Susannah Grenfell, could not.

“I thought Cole was going to pick up Margaux. Is anything wrong?”

Granny Mae had grown more rangy and rawboned over the past few years, and her white hair had thinned enough to show her scalp, but she was as strong and as opinionated as ever. Occasionally the two of them still clashed over Jess’s modern medical training versus Granny’s home-remedy approach. Right now, though, she looked as if sh
e’d
seen the bottom of her own grave. Jessica took her daughter into her own arms.

“God in heaven, Jessica, I can’t believe it. I just can’t—”

Jessica’s heart felt like it flipped in her chest. “What? Has something happened to Cole? Is someone hurt?” She looked at Margaux, but the baby gurgled and smiled.

Granny shook her head, still trying to catch her breath. Although trained to remain calm in emergencies, panic began to creep up on Jess. “What’s happened?”

“Amy . . . it’s Amy. She’s back in town.”

She sighed. “I know. I talked to her.”

“What?”

“I was on my way to the druggist’s, so I dropped by to see if Deirdre needed anything. She doesn’t get out much, you know, and running that house keeps her busy. Instead I found Amy in the kitchen.” She went on to describe their conversation and her sister’s appearance. “How did
you
learn about it?”

“This is a small town. You know news like that travels fast. Virgil Tilly saw her not more than two hours ago walking toward Laura Donaldson’s place.”

Margaux squawked and waved her arms, reaching for the pencil tucked behind her mother’s ear. Jess pulled her hand away and settled the baby on her hip.

“It doesn’t sound like Adam is with her. At least Virgil Tilly didn’t see him.”

“He isn’t yet—she says they have no firm plans. I don’t know how that horrible man could show his face in this town again. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him after what he did to me and so many other people.”

Jess sank down on a stool at the worktable and settled the baby on her lap. It wasn’t that sh
e’d
never expected to see Amy again . . . well, maybe she hadn’t. Their parting had been bitter, fueled by deceit and disloyalty that had left her feeling as if sh
e’d
been kicked in the chest.

“I knew that Laura willed her house to Amy. Sh
e’d
hinted that it was her plan.” Granny sat on the other stool.

“You didn’t think to tell me?” Jess snapped.

“I didn’t think much of it at all. Just because she inherited the property didn’t mean sh
e’d
come after it. I didn’t suppose anyone even knew where Amy was.” The old woman retied her apron and adjusted her shawl—she was becoming as thin as her hair. “What are you going to do?” Granny asked.

Jess pushed a pair of forceps out of Margaux’s reach and began fiddling with them herself. “I don’t know. In all the time she’s been gone, I’ve never heard from her. You’re right, I didn’t know where she was, either. She said they’ve moved around a lot.”

Granny Mae put in, “Probably always one step ahead of the law.”

Jess shrugged. “Maybe. I thought she might at least send a note to apol—to let me know—I never—I just didn’t—” She was at a loss for words. The sister she had cared for and supported, and sent money to while Jess was working as a public health doctor in New York, had returned the favor by fabricating a story to make Cole and Jess each believe the other no longer wanted to marry. Then Amy had moved right in to have Cole for herself. She went so far as to win an engagement ring from him. But the truth was discovered during the influenza epidemic, which, for all its tragedy, forced the postponement of Amy’s wedding, and Cole and Jessica learned how they had been maneuvered.

“I’m as surprised as anyone else,” Granny Mae said. “There has already been grumbling about her, and especially about that humbug Jacobsen. They left a lot of hard feelings behind them when they ran off in the middle of the night. It’s hard to believe he was the minister here. His father must be turning in his grave.”

Once again, Jessica’s voice dropped, as if she were talking about someone who had died. “Mae, Amy looks awful. She’s so thin and worn looking. She’s dressed like a washerwoman. I don’t know how people will react to her.”

The woman folded her bony arms across her chest. “Yes, you do. She’s a disgraced outcast and she’ll be treated like one.”

Jessica sighed again. The past few years had been busy ones in Powell Springs. Progress, Prohibition, an epidemic, war, and even peace had brought killings, births, deaths, marriages, and mayhem to a town that had once been little more than a sleepy rural village. The population had grown, and now Amy had come home to throw her own as-yet-unknown trouble into the mix. Unknown perhaps, but trouble, surely.

The bell out front rang again and Jessica recognized immediately the long strides of her husband’s boots on the hardwood floor. “Jess? Are you back here?” He carried with him the familiar scents of horses, rain, hay, and leather, scents that would let her find him even if she were blindfolded. “I went by Mae’s but she and—” He stopped and eyed them suspiciously. “What’s going on?”