“I ran into your mother in the cafeteria last week,” he said. “Almost literally. You know Rose, a hundred miles a minute. She said you were coming back. She seemed surprised that I didn’t know, but I reminded her that keeping in touch was never one of your priorities.”
“Yeah, well…you know.”
“Listen, before anything else, I’m so sorry about—Ted…”
“Thanks. Me, too.”
Something in her voice warned him to move on. “I want to see you,” he said. “Soon. Now. Damn it, I can’t…when are you available? What are your plans?” He could see Lucy in his peripheral vision; the wooden spoon in one hand had gone very still. “My daughter’s here with me,” he said. “Lucy. Fourteen going on thirty and about to set the theater world on fire.” Lucy flashed him a look over her shoulder and he winked at her. “And you didn’t hear this from me,” he stage-whispered, “but she’s a dead ringer for a young Elizabeth Taylor.”
“She looks like her mother then,” Sarah said.
An almost imperceptible change in her voice reminded him of the last time they’d exchanged anything more than polite formalities and he found himself at a loss for words. “Very much.”
“Don’t you owe me a Frugal burger?” Sarah asked.
“Frugals.” Smiling now, he leaned back against the wall. “Haven’t eaten one of those in years. I’m of the age where I have to think about cholesterol.”
“We both are,” Sarah said. “But you still owe me a Frugals.”
“Hold on.” He glanced at the calendar above the phone. “How about…tonight?”
“Dress rehearsal, Daddy,” Lucy said. “Remember? You promised.”
“Okay, tonight won’t work.” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m on call tomorrow night, but if we keep our fingers crossed that no one gets creamed on the 101 or mistakes their significant other for a shooting range, I could pay off my debt to you.”
“Great,” Sarah said. “What time?”
“Around six? I’ll pick you up.” He thought for a minute. “Guess I need to know where you’re staying. Your mother’s?”
“Actually, I just rented an apartment,” Sarah said. “Yesterday. At the foot of Peabody, just above Front Street. The Seavu. I was walking back to my mother’s, saw the For Rent sign, called the landlord and moved right in. I’m still bringing boxes over from my mother’s.”
He mentally located the place, a rambling multistory wooden building with fire escapes running up the sides and seagull droppings on the front steps.
“You don’t mean the old hospital?”
“Yep. I always wanted to live there. Especially after it became a place for shady ladies. Kind of appeals to the outcast in me.”
He was still laughing when he hung up the phone.
“That wasn’t very nice of you, Daddy,” Lucy said, her back to him.
“What wasn’t very nice?”
“What you said about people getting into accidents and getting shot at.”
“Oh, honey,” he said, still thinking about Sarah, “it was just a joke.”
“People dying is just a joke?”
“Give me a break, Lulu,” he said. “How’re the cookies coming?”
“They’re not.” She carried the pan to the sink. “Who was that, anyway?”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE that out of all the places in Port Hamilton, you actually chose this,” Rose said when she dropped by to see the apartment. She stood in the middle of the tiny living room, gazing out through the window. “Nice view, though.”
“Isn’t it?” Sarah stood beside her mother. Windows on this side looked out over the Straits of Juan de Fuca to the distant coast of British Columbia. From the bedroom, she could see the soaring Olympic Mountains, still covered with snow as they would be for much of the year. “Last night I watched the ferry until it disappeared out of sight.” She glanced at Rose. “Want some coffee?”
“Sounds good,” Rose said. “I’m going to check out the rest of the place.”
“Actually you could do it from where you’re standing,” Sarah said. “But go ahead.”
She filled the coffeepot with water, took a package of muffins from a basket on top of the refrigerator, and stuck two of them in the toaster oven. On the battered three-burner stove was a blue enamel kettle. Above it, on a shelf she’d tacked up that morning, she’d filled a yellow jug with wooden spoons and whisks, a couple of candles and a wicker basket. Just looking at the arrangement pleased her. Amazing how much better she felt than this time yesterday. Hearing from Matthew was another part of it.
She’d felt so terrific after talking to him that she’d thrown caution to the wind and gone on a shopping trip of sorts. At the Goodwill store, she’d found the coffeemaker, some floor pillows, a couple of rugs. Tomorrow, she would bring over the last boxes from Rose’s basement. Home. I’m home again, she thought. I have a home, she amended.
“I see you’ve erected your tent,” Rose called from the bedroom. A moment later, she was back in the tiny kitchen. “I remember you making tents in your room when you were a child. You’d crawl inside, close the flaps and shut out the cruel, nasty world.”
Sarah grinned. Her purchases had also included yards of pale gauzy fabric that she’d pinned on the walls and ceiling around her bed. It did feel rather tentlike, very cozy. Lying in bed last night, covered with quilts, she’d felt completely at peace.
“Long-term lease?” Rose regarded Sarah over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses, strands of steel-gray hair already escaping from the knot at the back of her neck.
“Just six months. I’d like it to have been longer, but apparently the building is up for sale. Actually, I’d like to buy it.”
“Why not just enjoy it while you have it,” Rose said. “Enjoy it for what it is. A place to stay for now.”
“Because I want…” To feel secure, she thought. She poured coffee into two mugs and spread the muffins with butter. In the fridge, she found the marmalade and blackberry jam she’d picked up from the farmer’s market.
“I still don’t understand paying rent for a place when I’m rattling around in a house that’s far too big for me.” Rose spooned sugar into her coffee.
Sarah said nothing. It was pointless to argue with Rose, cruel to voice what they both knew: living together would drive Sarah nuts because Rose was an exacting, demanding perfectionist given to dark, morose moods when things didn’t go her way. Sarah reluctantly conceded she’d inherited the trait herself and, so, found it doubly irritating to deal with in her mother. Ted had once suggested that everything she did was an attempt to prove she wasn’t like Rose. She’d fought him on that, told him he didn’t really know Rose. Later, she wondered if he really knew her.
“Have you spoken to Matthew yet?” Rose asked.
“He was in surgery. But I called him. Actually,” she tried for a casual tone, “we’re going out for a Frugals tonight.”
Rose smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She drank some coffee, set her mug down. “You should look at your face. You look like Queen of the Hop.”
Sarah laughed. “You need to update your terminoogy, Mom.” Through the window behind Rose, she watched a flock of seagulls circle, their cries faintly