It used to be that Barb and everything associated with her—their life together before she abandoned Libby, and the intriguing possibility of how things might have worked out differently—were the hardest things to think about. Back then, Libby thanked her lucky stars for Rick and the life they’d established together.
Funny, these days she thought about Barb when she wanted to forget about Rick.
“Things worked out best for me,” she told Meghan, talking about her childhood, not about her divorce. As far as Libby was concerned, that story didn’t have an ending. At least not yet. “Instead of being raised by a woman who probably didn’t have the skills or the patience to be much of a mother, I got to live with Grandma and Grandpa P. And Grandma and Grandpa P…well, I think the only person they love more than me in the whole wide world is you.”
Meghan took that much for granted, but that didn’t keep her from smiling. Before the Palmers had retired to Arizona, she’d spent a great deal of time with them, and even though thousands of miles now separated them, there was no doubt she was still the light of their lives. “But doesn’t that make you wonder…?” Meghan’s dark brows dipped into a vee, the way they always did when she was considering something beyond her years or her understanding.
“What?”
Meghan shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s just that…I dunno…” She twirled one curl of her shoulder-length hair. “I just wondered, you know, why if Barb never even saw you, if she never talked to you since you were little, why she left you her business.”
Libby might never have lied to her daughter, but that didn’t mean she had always told the whole truth and nothing but. There were some details Meghan wasn’t old enough to hear yet. Some details Libby didn’t like to bring out into the light of day and examine, and rather than do it now, she stuck to the matter at hand. “I don’t know why she left me her business,” Libby admitted. “Maybe she felt guilty.”
“About leaving you with Grandma P, you mean.”
Libby nodded. “About that. About never calling or writing or—” She coughed away a sudden tightness in her throat. “I’ve told you all that, too,” she said, feeling safer skirting the subject than she did being smack-dab in the quagmire. “I don’t have any answers. Nobody does. I’m grateful she did leave the business to me, though. It’s given us a place to start over. And I’m sorry that Barb’s life was so out of control.”
“Except if it was…” She shivered and hugged her arms around herself. “How did she ever keep the business going?” she asked. In spite of Libby’s warning that, no matter what the calendar said, it was too damp and cool for summer clothes, Meghan had chosen to wear a pair of khaki shorts and a bright yellow tank.
Another look around the shop at the cobwebs and the dirt, and Libby found herself wondering the same thing. “I’m hoping we find some ledger books or something so we can find out how the business was really doing. Something tells me it wasn’t doing well. Barb sure didn’t keep this place in shape.” As if to prove the theory, Libby saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. A mouse. Rather than freak Meghan out, she ignored the critter and promised herself a trip to a hardware store and a lifetime supply of traps. “This place is a mess.”
“Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Meghan looked up toward the water-stained ceiling, and Libby knew exactly what she was thinking.
The day before, they had ventured no farther than the dining room, where the tattered teddy bear had been waiting for them. Today it was time to check out the apartment upstairs. She wondered what she’d find in the place Barb had called home. As to how she’d handle the glimpse into her mother’s private world, Libby knew there was only one way to find out.
“Feeling brave?” she asked, and before Meghan could answer—and before Libby herself could listen to the voice inside her own head that asked if after all this time she was ready—she headed through the kitchen and to the stairway near the back door.
She took the steps two at a time, partly to make Meghan think this was all part of the adventure she’d promised but mostly because she knew if she dawdled, she’d lose her nerve.
She paused at the top of the steps, bracing herself. After Meghan arrived, though, there was only so long she could stall. A quick breath for courage, and Libby pushed open the door.
They found themselves in the kitchen, a small, tidy room painted sunny yellow with red accents. There was a maple table surrounded by four chairs against the windows to Libby’s left, and a ceiling fan overhead. There was more dust, sure, but it wasn’t what she saw that caught Libby’s attention. It was what was missing from the room that piqued her curiosity.
Anxious to see if her initial suspicion was true, she did a quick survey and made a trip through the kitchen and into the small spare dining room. From there, she peeked into the living room, the bedroom and the bath.
The apartment was orderly. The furniture wasn’t flashy, but it was sturdy and well cared for. The colors were pleasant, brighter and clearer than what she’d expected, though she had to admit she honestly didn’t know what she’d expected.
“It looks like no one ever lived here,” Libby mumbled, testing the theory on herself. Just to be sure she wasn’t imagining it, she looked around again. There were no pictures on the walls or on the end tables flanking the living room couch. There were no books on the shelves in the one corner of the bedroom that had apparently been used as an office. There was nothing in the way of mementos or knickknacks. No plants or candles or magazines left lying around.
Barb had died suddenly and certainly unexpectedly in an auto accident, and when she’d imagined this moment—as she had so many times—Libby had envisioned stepping into the apartment and directly into what had been her mother’s life. There would be books, and the books would give Libby a clue as to whether Barb enjoyed romances or mysteries, thrillers or history. There would be magazines, and she’d find out if her mother was the Newsweek type or a woman who read People. There would be little clues in the kinds of photos Libby had expected to find dotting the apartment: vacations, friends, pets. Maybe a picture of Libby as a child?
The very thought clutched at her heart, and she turned her back on Meghan and cleared her throat. “Somebody’s been here,” she said, though she suspected Meghan hadn’t thought of that. Nor did she think her daughter cared. “No way could anyone live without anything personal at all. Somebody must have come in after Barb died and cleaned the place up. I wonder what they took?”
“You’re not going to start that again, are you?” Meghan tried to keep her question light, but Libby couldn’t help but notice the undertone of worry.
She turned and pinned her daughter with a look. “Start what?”
“You know…” Meghan shrugged, body language designed to let her mother know how little she cared. It didn’t work. As soon as Meghan failed to meet her eyes, Libby knew something was bothering her. If she needed more proof, it came in the singsong bitterness of Meghan’s voice. “You get the Subaru, I get the Lexus. I get the piano, you take the silver. You and Daddy…” Meghan kicked the toe of her sandals against the blue-and-white-tile floor. “Dividing up everything like it was the money and those little houses in a Monopoly game. Is that how you got stuck with me?”
As if she’d been punched, Libby sucked in a breath. “Where did that come from?”
Meghan turned away.
“Look…” She reached for her daughter’s hand, and though Meghan tried to be aloof and adult she was, after all, just a little girl. When Libby tugged her, she melted into her mother’s arms. One arm around her shoulders,