The Stroke of Winter, page 15
Insurance! She hadn’t even thought of it.
Tess responded, “Got it,” to Wyatt before he pulled back onto the road. But that exchange with her father rattled around in Tess’s head for the rest of the drive. Something was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on quite what.
Joe stirred when they pulled into the driveway. He looked out of the window and smiled. “The old town looks the same,” he sang. Tess knew it was a line to an old song she had heard her dad sing from time to time.
She and Wyatt helped the old man into the house, then shook the cold off their coats and hung them up in the entryway.
“Look at this good boy,” Joe said, scratching Storm behind his ears. The dog happily curled around him.
“Pop is great with animals,” Wyatt said.
“This is one good dog right here,” Joe said. “He reminds me of a dog Sebastian had, back in the old days.”
“Is that so?” Tess asked.
“A white dog. Just like this one. He used to walk the dog all around town. At all hours.”
A tingle snaked its way down Tess’s spine. So that was how he got a look in people’s windows.
“Can I offer you gentlemen anything? Tea? Coffee?” she asked.
Joe’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a beer?”
Tess glanced at Wyatt. The old man had had one at the restaurant. Should he have another?
“Why not?” Wyatt said. “I’ll have one, too.”
He helped his grandfather get settled in the armchair by the fireplace and took a moment to stoke the fire as Tess poured their drinks.
“I’ve got something I’d like to show you, Joe,” Tess said. “It’s a painting of my grandfather’s. Wyatt and I came upon it during renovations.”
“I’d love to see it,” Joe said.
“I’ll go get it,” Tess said, locking eyes with Wyatt, who nodded back at her. “Two, actually.”
Tess hurried into the drawing room and opened the wall safe. The paintings were stacked inside, just as she had left them. At the utterly normal sight, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. No mysterious arrangements of the paintings today. She pulled out the portrait of the woman and the one depicting a view through her window on the rainy night. Okay, she thought. This is it.
If Joe had any information about this woman, who she was, or what—if anything—had happened to her, the mystery might be solved. As easy as that. As she carried the paintings from the drawing room to the kitchen, Tess hoped that Joe would recognize her and say she had lived a good, long life. But somehow, she knew that simply wouldn’t be the case.
Back in the kitchen, Tess set the paintings against the wall, facing out.
“Pop,” Wyatt said. “We’re wondering if you know who this gal is. The woman in the portrait.”
Joe squinted at the image for a moment that seemed to drag on forever. It was as though the house itself were holding its breath, listening.
“Why, yes,” he said, finally, nodding. “I believe I do know her. That’s Daisy. Daisy Erickson.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Wyatt and Tess locked eyes. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Wyatt said, “Do you remember anything about her?”
“You bet I remember,” Joe said, looking closer at the painting. “She was a schoolteacher. And a friend of your mother’s.”
Wyatt’s mouth dropped open. “Mom knows the woman in this portrait?”
Joe nodded. “They were great friends. All throughout school.”
Tess squinted at the painting to get a better look. She had assumed the woman was a contemporary of her grandfather’s. From his era. Joe’s era. But Joe was telling them this woman, Daisy, was much younger. Her parents’ age.
That shone a whole new light on things.
“Is she still here in Wharton?” Tess asked, raising her eyebrows. “She might like to see this painting by the great master.” Maybe this whole mystery would evaporate into thin air, just like that.
But Joe shook his head. “No, Daisy has been gone from here for a long time. Decades, I think. Kathy was upset when she left.”
“Oh,” Tess said, drawing out the word. “Do you know where she went? The Twin Cities, maybe?”
Joe looked off into the past. He shook his head. “That, I couldn’t tell you,” he said.
“What about this one?” Tess said, pointing to the second painting. “Is that her, too? Daisy? And her husband?”
Joe looked closely at the second painting. “You know, I think it is. That looks like old Frank right there.” He pointed to the dour, angry figure depicted in the living room.
The old man turned to Tess and Wyatt then, a look of confusion on his face. “What a funny thing for Sebastian to paint. It’s not a very happy scene, is it?”
No indeed, thought Tess.
Joe sighed and leaned back in his chair. He looked from Wyatt to Tess. “It’s been a nice day, kids.”
Wyatt glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly two thirty. “We should get you home, Pop,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll bet you’re getting tired out.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Joe said, looking at his watch. “Sophie will want me home for dinner. You’re both welcome to have a meal with us, of course. You know how she loves company.”
His sweet face tugged at Tess’s heartstrings. She knew from Wyatt that Joe’s wife had been gone for many years. But who could say she wasn’t still with him? Watching over her vulnerable, kind husband as his mind slowly faded. Tess brushed away a tear.
Wyatt turned to her as he helped Joe into his coat. “Why don’t you ride along?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “We can call my mom on the way back. Maybe she can shed some light on the situation. She might still be in touch with Daisy, for all we know.”
That was a good idea, Tess thought, but she had something to do first.
“You warm up the car and get Joe buckled in,” Tess said. “My dad wants me to take some photos of the paintings. I’ll go do that now and get them back into the safe. Then I can join you.”
With that, she carried the two paintings back into the drawing room, pulled the others out of the safe, and propped them up against the wall, side by side. In order. If she was going to send these photos to her dad, she wanted him to get the full impression of the “storyboard.”
During the drive, the three of them chatted about the weather, how odd it was to have so much snow in Wharton.
“Back in my day, we used to shovel a path on the ice all the way to the island,” Joe said. “We used to skate back and forth. Drove our mothers crazy. The ice was never safe, you see. But we were rascals.” He gazed out the window with a slight smile on his face, remembering. “Where are we going?” he said, finally.
“We’re going back to your apartment at Bayview,” Wyatt said, his voice tender. “We had a nice lunch, took a drive to Wharton, and now we’re headed back to Salmon Bay.”
“Salmon Bay?” Joe asked. “But . . . why are we going there? We’ve always lived in Wharton. On Front Street. Sophie is waiting for me.”
“No, Pop,” Wyatt said. “You live in a nice place in Salmon Bay now. It’s real swanky. You’ll see when we get there.”
Confusion washed over the old man’s face. All at once, he wasn’t the impish flirt he had been all day. Tess’s heart broke a little bit to see it. Wyatt had warned her about the dementia. She hadn’t seen too much of it during their lunch. But now she knew what he had meant.
“Don’t worry, Pop,” Wyatt said. “We’ll get you home just fine.”
“Okay, son,” Joe said, turning his trusting eyes to Wyatt. Tess could see he was still confused, but, almost like a child, he trusted his grandson to get him home. Wherever that home might be.
When the conversation lulled, Joe nodded off.
Tess remembered how Eli used to do that, as an infant. He’d be gurgling and smiling one minute, drifting off to sleep the next. It wasn’t so different with elderly folks. It was almost as if, the nearer people are to the other side, whether they’ve just come into the world or are close to leaving it, the more sleep they need. And she wondered, too, if it was really sleep at all. If it wasn’t simply their way of touching what was behind the veil. Infants reaching back to where they had been. Seniors reaching forward to where they were soon going.
As she watched Joe, his head back, his mouth slightly open, a faint snore wafting through the car, Tess wondered what his spirit was doing. If he was talking with Sophie about dinner that night; if she was giving him a glimpse of where he might go, soon enough.
Back at the senior complex, Joe perked up. “Brrr!” he said as they walked into the building, a big smile on his face. Connie still sat at the front desk. “There she is!” Joe chirped. Tess was learning this was a favorite greeting. Maybe his way of compensating for not remembering their names.
“Welcome home, Mr. Wharton,” Connie said as Wyatt signed him in.
“Thank you!” he said. “I go by Joe. All of my friends call me Joe.”
She nodded. She’s heard that before, Tess thought.
They walked down the hallway, and Joe stopped at his door. So, he did remember. Wyatt fished the keys out of his pocket and unlocked it, ushering the old man inside.
Joe shrugged off his coat and hung it up neatly, placing his hat on the shelf above it.
“Pop, it’s been a good day,” Wyatt said, enveloping him in a hug and patting him on the back in the way men did.
“Yes,” Joe said. “Yes, it has.”
“Thank you for including me,” Tess said, hugging him. She hoped it would be the first of many visits with the old man.
With Joe settled in his armchair in front of the television, they said their goodbyes. As Tess looked back at him from the doorway, she saw his expression droop. He seemed impossibly tired, as though he felt every one of his ninety-plus years.
Walking down the hallway with Wyatt, she threaded her arm through his.
“What a wonderful man,” she said, her voice cracking. Tears were stinging at the backs of her eyes, and she didn’t fully understand why. “Thank you for today. It was a real treat.”
“No, thank you. Pop had a great time.”
“So did I,” Tess said.
“He was the mayor of Wharton for many years,” Wyatt said. “You probably didn’t know that. He was involved with city government all of his life. He was one of the first people to push for the zoning ordinances that keep Wharton the way it is now—no tall buildings, no chain stores or restaurants. Developers tried to come in many times, and he blocked them. Sometimes singlehandedly. So we’re the sleepy little tourist town with all of the charm. That’s because of him.”
Tess smiled. “Not only did his family found the town, he preserved it,” she said. “He had a lot of foresight.”
“He always has,” Wyatt said. “I’ve learned so much from him. Not just about the ways of the world, preserving our history, keeping this town’s magic alive, but he taught me how to not just live, but to live well.”
Wyatt’s eyes were welling up with tears. Tess could almost see the love he had for the old man, as if it were a tangible thing, floating in the air around them.
“As you probably noticed, he is the very definition of living in the moment,” Wyatt continued. “Every dinner is the best he’s ever had. Every beer or glass of wine is more delicious than the last. Every day is a cause for celebration, whether it’s a holiday or any random Tuesday. I don’t know anyone who enjoys life more than he does.”
“It sort of makes you realize that the little things—a glass of wine, a great meal, the company of friends—are actually the big things,” Tess said.
“They’re everything,” Wyatt said. “I learned that from him. His perfect day would be sitting on the deck at the house in Wharton, looking out over the lake, steaks on the grill, with family and friends gathered around the table. Laughter, good food, storytelling. Nothing better than that, for him.”
“Or for anyone. What was your grandma like?”
“Wickedly funny and highly intelligent. I’ve never met anyone as smart as she was, and she never went beyond high school. And, wow, their marriage.”
“Good?”
“The best. Don’t get me wrong, my parents have a good marriage. But Pop and my grandma—that was a love story for the ages. He worshipped her. And she loved him right back.”
“He must miss her so much,” Tess said. “You too.”
“It’ll be ten years this spring,” he said. “It’s still hard to believe she’s gone.” But then he shook his head. “It’s such a cliché. Everyone says that. But it’s true. I can’t believe he survived one day without her. They were soulmates. Yet another cliché.” He chuckled. “But they were. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was like they were two halves of a whole. You couldn’t imagine one without the other.”
Tess looked into Wyatt’s eyes. “I’ve never had that,” she said. “I thought I had a good marriage to Eli’s dad. He thought otherwise.”
“I’m divorced, too,” Wyatt said, shaking his head. “We haven’t had this conversation. It’s weird, isn’t it? It seems like we should know all about each other already.”
It did seem like that to Tess, oddly enough. It was as though they had skipped the getting-to-know-you stage and gone right to just being together. And they had only known each other a couple of days.
“We’ve been sort of busy with other things, I guess,” Tess said. “We really should have those conversations sometime soon.”
“We’ll do that,” Wyatt said. “When we’re not trying to solve a mystery.”
They climbed into the car, and as Wyatt started it up, he turned to Tess. “So, should we call my mom?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The call came through the car’s speakers.
“Honey!” Wyatt’s mother said, laughter in her voice. “You called your mother! What a good boy. How’s tricks?”
Wyatt chuckled. “Tricks are good, Mom. I took Pop to lunch today.”
“Oh, bless you,” she said. “I’ll bet he loved that.”
“We went to the brewpub near the hospital,” Wyatt said. “He had a beer!”
“Now I know he loved that.”
“It was fun. How’s Dad?”
“Keeping himself out of trouble,” she said. “He’s out playing golf with some of the guys. He’ll be sad he missed your call.”
“Tell him to give me a buzz later when he gets home if he wants to chat,” Wyatt said. “And how are you, Mom? Everything good?”
“I’m great! Can’t complain. So, what’s up, honey? I know you’re not calling to inquire about our health. I just talked to you last week.”
Wyatt caught eyes with Tess. “Mom, I have someone in the car with me, and the call is on speaker.”
“Okay, I won’t swear, then, or blurt out my Social Security number,” she said.
“A good policy all the time,” Wyatt said, smiling broadly and shaking his head. Obviously, this man loved his mother. “Mom, this is Amethyst Bell. Tess, meet my mother, Kathy.”
“Hi!” Tess said.
Kathy was silent for a moment. “Tess! I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Tess and Wyatt exchanged a curious glance.
“You’ve met Tess before?” Wyatt asked his mother.
“Of course, honey,” Kathy said. “I knew Indy and Jill back in the day. We went to school together and sort of lost touch after they moved down to the Twin Cities. But we’ve gotten together on and off when they’ve been in Wharton over the years.”
It made sense, Tess thought. Wharton was a small town. Of course, people of around the same age would know each other. She had only vacationed in Wharton but wondered if she and Wyatt had crossed paths in the past. That would certainly explain the instantly familiar feeling between them.
“I’m doing some work for Tess at her house,” Wyatt went on. “La Belle Vie. She’s turning it into a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Oh!” Kathy said. “How nice. Giving the old place new life. I love it. So, you’ll be in Wharton permanently?”
“That’s the plan,” Tess said.
“Wonderful,” Kathy said. “I’ll stop by when we get back in the spring.”
“Please do,” Tess said. “My parents will be coming to Wharton around that time, too.” She stopped short of telling her why.
“Great!” Kathy said. “It will be great to catch up with them.”
“Mom,” Wyatt said, his words coming out slowly. “While we were doing some renovations, we came upon something that has created a sort of mystery. I think you might be able to shed some light on it.”
“Well, that sounds intriguing. What is it?”
“Do you know someone named Daisy Erickson?”
Silence, then.
“Mom?”
“I’m here,” she said. “That just took me off guard. I haven’t thought about Daisy in years. What about her? Why would you bring her up?”
Tess winced. She and Wyatt hadn’t talked about what, if anything, they were going to tell his mother about the paintings. Her father had given her strict orders to keep their existence under wraps until he could make the trip to Wharton in the spring. It was sketchy enough showing the paintings to Joe, but really, who was he going to tell about them? Wyatt’s mother was another matter.
They exchanged a quick glance, and somehow Tess knew Wyatt was on the same page.
“Daisy came up in relation to something going on at La Belle Vie right now,” Wyatt said. “Pop said you and she were friends, and she left Wharton many years ago.”
Kathy was silent for a moment. “Okay, so you’re not going to tell me exactly what it is, right?”
Wyatt smiled and shot Tess a look. “Well. Right. Not at the moment. It’s sort of a mystery we’re trying to solve. Very hush-hush.”
“Okay, Hercule Poirot,” Kathy teased. “What do you want to know?”
“Pop said she left town,” Wyatt said. “Do you have any idea how to contact her?”
Kathy was silent for a moment. “I haven’t thought about this in a long time,” she began. “But no. I don’t know how to contact her. I haven’t heard from Daisy since the last time I saw her in Wharton.”
