ZORA DROVE THE DARK winding road from Katarina’s house back to town. She gripped the wheel tightly. She’d driven a pickup before, but this rental model was far larger than she was used to, and she hadn’t been able to resist the appeal of its outdoorsy, independent image. She sank her teeth into her upper lip and squinted.
Oh, who was she kidding? It wasn’t the driving that had her on edge. She was anxious about coming back to Grantham, to her mother. To her daughter.
So why had she come home?
Guilt for one. How long had it been? About a year? Not that bad, really. No, it was a different kind of guilt that gnawed at her. Despite all her university appointments, prestigious research grants, the accolades from her colleagues, Zora felt restless, unsettled. She found herself searching for a sense of inner peace in her life that she had never really needed before.
Okay, so she was having a midlife crisis. Somehow, she had hoped coming back to Grantham would provide a certain ease that came with the familiar. Yet despite the outpouring of love from her mother, Zora couldn’t help noticing the ever-present vertical crease that bisected her brow. Then there was Katarina, her daughter. She never said a critical word, but Zora could feel the resentment bubbling beneath the surface. And she could also see the strong bond between Katarina and Lena. If anything, they seemed to share what would be a classic mother-daughter relationship, which of course, meant Zora was the odd man—or woman in this case—left out of the equation. That hurt. Not that she’d ever admit it. Or should she?
But then she could imagine their retort.
“What do you expect if you spend more time with rocks than with your own daughter, not that I am not proud of you,” her mother would say, damning her with faint praise.
“It’s not personal,” Katarina, ever the pragmatic survivor would reply. “It’s just that she was there and you weren’t.”
They needed to have a heart-to-heart even if Zora didn’t do heart-to-hearts. Too much emphasis on past decisions that couldn’t be changed anyway. Too many recriminations for old offences that were best forgotten. Still, she should talk to her mom. Her daughter. And she would. She really would. Just…just…not right now.
Now she just wanted to take it easy. Find pleasure in just being. Regain that sense of confidence that had always come so naturally, but now seemed to have given way to doubts and unnamed desires.
Zora parked the truck on the street near the high school and grabbed her knapsack. She hiked the short distance to the school, passing along the familiar tree-lined sidewalk, the football field and tennis courts. The building had changed since her day. Heck, a lot had changed. Her daughter was married and had a son. And a stepson. God, that made her a grandmother twice over. No wonder she was depressed. Then her mother had gone and gotten a roommate—her old high school math teacher Wanda Garrity, no less. When she came down late to breakfast in the morning, Zora had almost expected to find a detention notice.
She headed toward the main entrance of the original brick building with its Gothic tower. The course listing gave a second-floor room number, and Zora honed in on a stairway down the hall and to the left. The hallways were teeming with adults, some chatting, some seemingly lost. A few officials from the program and what looked to be students from the high school were there to give directions. She spotted the familiar face of an imperious older woman at the central crossroads. It had to be Iris Phox. Great! Another person from her past she’d just as soon forget. She had always felt the woman looked at Grantham as her personal fiefdom.
“I can’t stand her. She’s such an elitist snob,” Zora had announced one day when she’d stopped by her mother’s hardware store after high school. She had just witnessed Iris Phox lecturing Lena on the inferior quality of the hot water bottles she was now carrying.
Zora would have gladly told the woman where she could put her water bottle, if Lena hadn’t shot her a warning glance. She waited until Iris had glided out the door like the Queen Mother—she even carried a pocketbook over her wrist the same way—before turning to her mother. “I can’t stand her. The way she treats you like a peasant.”
“That’s just her way. Besides, we should all be grateful to her,” Lena had argued. “Most rich people keep all their money to themselves. Iris gives away to people who need. And that makes her feel needed, too.”
Zora, with the black-and-white perception of the world that only an eighteen-year-old could bring, had shaken her head defiantly. “And if she gives away money, it’s because she likes to control people.”
“Sometimes that’s the same as being needed,” Lena had said with a shrug of her shoulder before turning to serve the next customer.
And now Iris Phox was approaching her. Zora tried to pretend she didn’t see her making a beeline in her direction and tucked her chin down into her coat. She swerved to the right toward the stairway.
“Zora! Zora Zemanova!” Iris called out. Her high brow tones carried above the anxious din of the crowd.
Zora stopped. There was no point in pretending she hadn’t heard. She turned around and only marginally masked her irritation. “Mrs. Phox, a voice out of my past, a voice that one might say carries an unmistakable quality.”
Iris pursed her lips. “Yes, my son Hunt once said I sounded like a Boston Brahman foghorn, which I always took as a mixed compliment.”
Zora smirked. She never really knew Iris’s son, but she had a newly found regard for him.
“I see you’re taking advanced Italian conversation,” Iris went on.
Zora raised her eyebrows. “You memorized all the class lists?” She saw the sheaf of papers stacked neatly atop the folder in Iris’s arms.
“I am the president of the Adult School, you know.”
“No, I didn’t, but why would I have thought otherwise,” Zora said.
If Iris had felt the criticism in Zora’s words, she didn’t show it. “I wanted to welcome you back to Grantham and commend you on your choice. It’s been one of the more popular offerings over the years, one we’re quite proud of. In fact, I personally recommended that Julie Antonelli enroll in it. You know Dr. Antonelli, of course? I believe that besides your dear mother, her family practically raised your daughter, Katarina, over the years?”
She had felt the criticism, Zora realized, feeling the sharp blade of Iris’s words. “I’m forever grateful to them,” Zora responded, knowing when she had been bested.
“Yes, well, it’s always good to see one of our own return. Here in Grantham, we like to think our little town has much to offer in the way of scholarly stimulation as well as personal guidance.”
“A little bastion of academic exclusivity to nurture the soul?”
“I prefer to think of it as intellectual chicken soup for the heart.”
Zora wasn’t sure if Iris had just made a joke. She wasn’t really sure if Iris Phox even had a sense of humor.
“But don’t let me keep you from your class,” Iris said before Zora had a chance to make up her mind. “Do you need my help to find where you’re going?”
Zora shook her head. “No thank you. I’m sure there’re others who need more guidance.”
Iris studied her. “You’d be surprised.” Then she dismissed Zora with a serene nod and honed in on a lost-looking man.
Talk about judgmental! Zora fumed. But she pushed thoughts of Iris to the back of her mind as she headed up the stairs to the second floor of the school. She checked out the numbers above the doors, until she found the right one. She pushed open the door and entered a world in which she felt entirely comfortable.
During the day it must have served as a Spanish classroom because there were posters of Machu Picchu and a map of