Laura's Shadow, page 14
Listening to her mother, Trixie could only imagine the flirtatious edge of the conversation in the church parking lot. Still, “My car got towed?”
“Well, it couldn’t very well sit in the church parking lot overnight, could it?”
She closed her eyes and bit back a retort as her mother too walked past her into the house. Up to this moment, Cam’s engine had been running, but he cut it and stepped out of the car, admonishing Samantha to sit back down and wait, just for a minute.
Trixie stepped off the porch and met him halfway in the yard. “Thanks for bringing them home.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“It’s a twenty-minute drive.”
“Which is not a problem.”
She looked over his shoulder to see Samantha bouncing on the car seat. “I guess this means I won’t be able to join you for your picnic.”
Cam opened his arms in broad invitation. “Come with us now.”
“I really shouldn’t.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she hadn’t given the idea a second thought since the moment he left. “I’ve learned something new about GG. Something about her past, and I’m hoping she’ll tell me more. If she has a few good hours, if she’s lucid and wants to talk, I want to be here.”
“I understand completely,” he said, and she knew that he did.
“But my offer still stands if you want to have lunch here. We’re roasting a chicken, but if Samantha has her heart set on pimiento cheese sandwiches, I can make those too. And I know it’s not exactly a park, but”—she gestured broadly—”we can sort of find a spot here to hang out. Spread a blanket, enjoy the afternoon.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“Please, if my mother thought I let you drive away without an invitation to stay for Sunday dinner, she’d kick me out and make me walk back to Minneapolis.”
“Let me check with Sam.”
He returned to his car and leaned in to talk to his daughter, giving Trixie a moment to fully appreciate the fit of his slacks. Good grief, the man was gorgeous from every angle. A minute later he opened the back door, and Samantha tumbled out. She was wearing a denim sundress and sandals, her hair fastened at each temple with pretty sunflower barrettes. He’s a good father, she thought to herself, thinking of the stories she’d heard about herself at that age, resistant to having her own hair brushed and her flair for mismatched outfits.
Samantha ran straight for her and asked, “Can I go exploring?”
The Gowan house, not visible from the main road, sat half encircled by a copse of trees and a wheat field that grew right up to the property line.
Trixie looked down dubiously at Samantha’s little toes. “I’m afraid your shoes won’t be the best for running around.”
“That’s why I have these.” Cam approached, dangling a pair of ratty Keds from his fingers. “The emergency car shoes.”
“Better,” Trixie said as Samantha took them, holding them out with a slightly wrinkled nose. “Go on inside and see if one of the nice old ladies in there will help you tie them. Or can you tie them yourself?” She had no idea what life skills such a small toothless girl might have mastered.
“I can tie them myself,” Samantha said with an attitude of indignation mixed with pride.
“Can you? Good, then run inside and tell them that I have invited you and your father to stay for Sunday dinner. And tell them I’ll be in shortly to help.”
Like a shot, Samantha was off, running with a sense of purpose.
“She’s thrilled,” Cam said once the screen door slammed behind her.
“Is she?”
“This is better than any park.”
“I used to have a tire swing from that tree.” She pointed. “But the rope frayed, and Mom took it down. Too bad. It would have been fun for her.”
“She’ll be happy with a walk in the wheat field. Just to touch it. And to go into the woods.”
Trixie laughed. “These are hardly woods.”
“To a little girl, where two or more trees are gathered together, there are the woods. She’s obsessed with Laura Ingalls, and I’m terrified that she’s going to ask me to build her a cabin or dig a well or hunt a bear or something. None of which I am qualified to do. She’s been begging me to let her use an outhouse. She wants a sunbonnet.”
Trixie started walking back toward the house, leading him. “It’s a phase. All little girls go through it. Like wanting a pony or being a mermaid. I remember it.”
“And you grew out of it. I don’t remember you ever having a pioneer vibe.”
“Tell that to my coworkers.” She felt a tiny tug of nostalgia, which was ridiculous since she’d been in the office forty-eight hours ago and would be back as soon as her car was fixed. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute? I have to make a phone call.”
“Okay, I’ll just …”
She heard Samantha’s excited voice coming from the kitchen. “Go on in there—they’ll be thrilled.”
She went upstairs to the landing where the telephone sat on a small table and the corner provided some protection from all the ears in the house. Nobody had a telephone in her own room, as none of their conversations required privacy. That was, of course, until Trixie herself was in high school dating Cam and had to cup her hand around the phone’s mouthpiece to whisper her good nights to him. Now she dialed her own phone number and was about to hang up on the fourth ring when Ron’s voice boomed across the line.
“Hello! Hello, Trixie Gowan residence.”
“What took you so long?”
“Trixie?”
“Of course. Is everything all right? You took forever to get to the phone.”
“Forever?”
“Long enough. It’s a tiny apartment.”
“How well I know that.”
“I can usually answer my phone on the second ring.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Sunday afternoon nap?”
“Oh.” She wound the phone cord around her finger. “You were sleeping.”
“I was. And do you have any idea how uncomfortable your bed is?”
“What? No, it isn’t.”
“It is. You’re a grown woman, Trixie. Why does a grown woman have a twin bed with a swirly iron headboard and footboard? You know I got my foot tangled in that stupid footboard last night and lost circulation. I woke up, panicked, because I couldn’t feel my foot, and the only reasonable explanation I had was that your cat chewed it off while I was sleeping.”
She giggled. “I’ve seen your feet. It would take House three days to chew one off.”
“But you’re almost as tall as me. Don’t your feet stick out?”
They did, in fact. “I curl up.”
“I’m too big. If I curl up, I’ll hang over the edge.”
“Can we please stop talking about how well you fit in my bed?”
At that moment, Cam poked his head around the corner. “Sorry. Just thought I’d pop in on Ms. Mariah while I’m here.”
Trixie covered the mouthpiece. “Oh, cool. Yeah—I mean, yes. Great. You should.” As he climbed the second flight of stairs, she closed her eyes and banged the earpiece against her forehead. Three times. “That was the doctor,” she said, returning to the conversation. “Checking on GG.”
“How is she?”
“She’s good, actually,” Trixie said, shoving aside the tiny lump that formed in her throat at Ron’s tone of genuine care. “Better than I thought I’d find. We talked for quite a bit last night and … I learned something. Something fascinating.”
“Really?”
“You’ve heard of Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
“I’m from Wisconsin, so, no. Never. Who is this person?”
“Shut up. My great-grandmother knew her. Not heard of her or knew about her but knew her.”
“That’s really not so hard to believe. They lived in the same area around the same time, right?”
“Right. But do you remember me telling you how I grew up with my great-grandmother’s all-consuming antipathy for Laura Ingalls?”
“I don’t recall that coming up at any of the staff meetings, but we can try to work it into the next agenda.”
“Don’t be such a brat.” In truth, though, she rather appreciated his comments. He took her off guard, kept her from getting all twizzled up in her own tension. “Anyway, it’s a huge revelation. Like, this big family secret that, frankly, I don’t know why she kept it a secret all these years. All these Happy Golden Years.” She grinned at her own joke. “Get it?”
“No.”
“Anyway, it’s too complicated for a phone call. I’m hoping she tells me more today. Or tomorrow.”
“So you won’t be back?”
“I told you I might not be. It’s okay. I’m caught up. You probably won’t miss me until Wednesday at the earliest.”
“You’d be wrong.” There was nothing light or teasing in his voice, and for a moment neither said anything. She pictured him gripping her pretty white princess phone in his massive hand and wondered how in the world either of them would start up a conversation again.
Then she remembered her car.
“Besides, I’m having a bit of trouble with my car. The starter. Just died in the church parking lot. The guy says it might be a few days before it gets fixed.”
“Oh? Well, if that’s what the guy says.”
“So, are you okay? Staying at my place a little longer?”
“I’m fine.”
“You can always sleep at your place and kind of … check on House. How are you two getting along?”
“We are each other’s soul mate.”
The twinge of jealousy took her by surprise. “Good. Then everything is working out exactly as I planned.”
His laughter rumbled through the line, and she felt it. She could have stayed in that moment for the rest of the afternoon, bantering until she came up with the perfect quip to make him laugh again, when Cam’s shoes appeared on the first step.
“Look, Ron. I should go. Mom and Grandma are fixing dinner.”
“Is it a roast? I picture them making a Sunday roast.”
“Chicken, actually. But yes, roasted. And I should go help get everything together.”
“Okay, well, keep me posted, Prairie Girl.”
“I will. Bye, Ron.” She was hanging up the phone when his voice beckoned her back. “Yes?”
“I’m glad to hear you’re getting more time. You know, with your grandmother.”
“Great-grandmother, but, yeah, me too. I’ll tell you everything soon.”
An hour later, after much nudging and winking from Alma and Eugenie, Trixie and Cam found themselves sharing a blanket on a small patch of green lawn, a platter of chicken and roasted potato wedges between them.
“So you draw the pictures in the newspapers?” Samantha asked with the solemnity of a lifelong subscriber.
“Not all the pictures. Just the advertisements. And sometimes I draw or use photos or find pictures in a big book and paste them.”
“I guess I never realized it was an actual person doing that,” Cam said, peeling a shred of meat from the chicken bone.
“There’s an actual person behind almost everything,” Trixie said, trying hard not to feel trivialized. She wondered what he would think of her burgeoning career with Lost Laura. If he realized that behind every comic strip, every panel of Peanuts and Beetle Bailey was a beating heart and a hand grasping a pencil.
Samantha had scarfed down a cheese-and-ketchup sandwich, only after Cam convinced the Gowan women that, yes, she ate such a thing on a regular basis and considered it the height of culinary satisfaction. Rather than being disappointed at not going to the park in De Smet, she was—as Cam predicted—entranced. Already she had collected nine different leaves and eleven different rocks and was sure she would find an arrowhead before the end of the day. Trixie felt a little guilty for that one, having planted the idea in the girl’s head to keep her occupied so she and Cam could eat in peace. No such artifact had ever been found on this land or anywhere surrounding as far as she knew.
Cam had restricted Samantha to bringing home exactly three rocks, so she zoomed about, trading them out when she found something bigger, shinier, swirlier, or smoother. He and Trixie spackled conversation between each exchange.
“I’m so sorry you weren’t blessed with an energetic, inquisitive child,” Trixie said after promising to hold on to two rocks in case Samantha changed her mind.
Cam laughed. “I am exhausted all the time. But she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You haven’t told me anything about her mom,” Trixie said, and followed quickly with, “and that’s fine. If you don’t want to. It’s not really my business.”
“It’s okay. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it, really. Her mom is in Chicago.”
“So, you’re divorced?”
“No.”
“So … you’re married?”
“No.”
His answer sat between them for a moment while Samantha displayed a shiny brown pebble and debated its value against a slightly larger shiny brown pebble.
“Tell you what,” Trixie said, “I know your dad said you could only take three home, but maybe you could go inside and ask Miss Alma or Miss Eugenie if they have a box or a tin and you can keep as many as you like here.” She looked at Cam. “Is that okay with you?”
“Genius,” he said, and Samantha was off, running with the thrill of the new challenge.
“Want to change the subject?” Trixie asked as soon as Samantha was out of earshot.
“Not at all.” Cam switched positions, stretching out his legs and resting on his elbows. “Simple story. Boy meets girl—Cassandra, by the way—boy and girl lose themselves in all the free love happening around college campuses, girl gets pregnant.”
“You didn’t want to get married?”
“No. We talked about it once, but we’d actually broken up before Cassandra knew she was pregnant. I mean, she was beautiful—is beautiful—and smart and kind. She was a stewardess, but now she works as a ticket agent because it’s too hard to be a single mother flying all over the country.”
This was a moment when Trixie should have spoken some innocuous response. Oh, I’m sure. Or How great that she has that option. Instead, she indulged in a tiny twinge of … jealousy? Competition? Loss? Whatever it was, the silence lasted long enough to catch Cam’s attention and bring him sitting up again.
“What is it, Trix?”
“Nothing.” Another pause. “Only, I’m having a hard time seeing you as this free-loving guy having a passionate affair with a stewardess. Especially because, when we were dating, you were such a … gentleman, you know? You never, never even tried anything. With me.”
“That’s because I was a good kid and you were a good kid and we were—kids. Do you have any idea what I’d give to be that kid again? That’s why I came here. After I got back from the war. I needed that peace and innocence again.”
Trixie reached over instinctively and rested her hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry. I know it must have been—well, I don’t know. We say that when we have no idea. Do you want to talk about it?”
He’d been staring at the space of blanket between them, but when he lifted his eyes, she saw that familiar guarded emptiness that came across any man with the war in his shadow.
“I’d rather talk about Samantha.”
“I’d rather hear about her. And, I mean, it’s a little weird that I’m just now hearing about her. For a while, my mother called me every time you popped your head into town. You’d think she’d tell me you had a daughter.”
“She might not have known.”
“Are you kidding? This town? People know when you switch toothpaste.”
“Let me just say … my mother wasn’t exactly eager to spread the news.”
“Oh.”
“And not to brand my daughter as some secret love child, but if we lived in a different time and place, my mother would have had both of them whisked away to some sort of home for wayward girls and their natural daughters.”
“Your own little Fantine et Cossette,” I said, wondering if he remembered how I tutored him through Les Misérables when he was three grades ahead of me in high school.
“Yes. Without the misery. I knew Mom was worried enough about the war. So at first I didn’t want to add to that burden. Samantha was born while I was over there, actually. I didn’t get to meet her until she was almost three. But she saved my life, Trix. Whenever I thought I might not live another minute or might not want to live another day, I’d think about meeting my daughter. And I’d pray for God to give me that. In a sense, she brought me back to God too. Because before that I hadn’t prayed in a long, long time.”
At some point, he’d taken her hand, and their fingers had entwined. “You don’t know how much I’ve always wanted that to be my story,” Trixie said. “All my life, knowing I had a father out there somewhere. Fighting. And never even knowing about me. Not knowing to come home and find me. Not even knowing if he came home at all.”
Cam brought their joined hands to his lips and placed a kiss. It felt soft and familiar.
“I know. When Cassandra first told me—well, she wasn’t planning to tell me at all. We lived near each other, and I ran into her at one of our old places, and she—I could tell she’d been crying. And she just blurted it out. And was saying that she didn’t know if she even wanted it.” He looked up, straight up into the trees, and they both said nothing for as long as it took for the awful truth to manifest. What might have silenced the beautiful voice streaming through the open window. “So, I told her your story. About you and your mom. And how you were this amazing girl and how your mom did such a great job with you. Alone. Without a father, I mean. And I promised her there in that diner that I would be this kid’s father in every way.”
“And you are.”
“I try. And for good or for ill, Samantha isn’t going to grow up with the same sort of stigma that you must have felt sometimes.”
