Lily Dale: Discovering Part 12

Calla thinks about Kevin. He changed. Drastically. He went away to college and six months later, broke up with Calla.

Remembering the numbing pain, Calla can't imagine what it would have been like if they had been together for years, were married, with a child.

Poor Dad.

"You know, Calla, your grandfather and I . . . there was a time when we were in love the same way your mother and father were."Her grandmother dusts off her jeans- which are rolled up to reveal her purple socks and orange gardening clogs- and sits beside her. "But then, right around the time I had your mother, Aunt Katie pa.s.sed away and left the house to me. So Jack and I came here."

Calla looks up at it in surprise-just in time to see a face in the second- story window, looking out at her. Not Miriam's. This time, it's an old woman with pince- nez gla.s.ses and a jet black bun.

"You mean, you didn't always live here?"

"In Lily Dale? No, I used to visit my aunt and my grandmother here in the summers. I always loved it-it felt like home. And when Aunt Katie died, Jack and I were living down near Pittsburgh, and I was pregnant and he was out of work, so we moved in. It wasn't supposed to be permanent."

"Kind of like with me."

Odelia smiles. "Kind of. When I got here, I really began to discover who I was."

"You mean . . . that you were a psychic. And could see the dead. And . . . all that."

"That's what I mean. Sound familiar?"

Calla nods. "Were you seeing spirits, then?"

"Yes. Especially Aunt Katie's."

"Did she have dark, dark hair and wear it in a bun?"

Odelia smiles fondly. "You've seen pictures?"

"I've seen her."Only in Lily Dale would an admission like that not raise an eyebrow.

"Here?"Gammy looks surprised.

"In the window. Just now."

"Really? She doesn't come around all that often anymore. I miss her. I loved our little visits."

Only in Lily Dale, Calla can't help thinking again.

Only in Lily Dale do people speak of spirits dropping in the way they might mention a friend coming for tea.

"Anyway,"her grandmother goes on with her tale, "Jack and I settled in here with the baby, and he found work at the steel plant down in Dunkirk. It wasn't long before I really found my calling- I discovered who I was and what I could do, and eventually, I accepted myself. Which is right about the time Jack also discovered who I was-and did the opposite."

"Rejected you?"

"Yes. He just couldn't take it- the spiritualism, and everything that went with it. He thought I was nuts- even when things happened, things he witnessed with his own eyes. Who knows? Maybe he thought he was nuts, too. Maybe when he left us, he checked himself into an asylum somewhere."

"You mean he just . . . took off?"

"In the middle of the night. Yup. Left a note that said You're better off this way. That was it. I thought the note was meant for Stephanie . . . but I guess it was for both of us. He left both of us. Your mother was too young to remember, thank G.o.d."

"She never talked about it. Or him."

"No. She never did. I was always worried that it damaged her somehow. And frankly, I was shocked that he left the way he did. Not just me-left her. Whatever happened between the two of us, he loved that child. Doted on her from the moment she was born. She looked just like him, and had so many of his mannerisms. He liked to say she was a chip off the old block. I guess I'm just lucky he didn't take her with him when he disappeared."

"You never heard from him again?"

"Nope."She shrugs, takes off her sungla.s.ses, wipes them- and then her eyes-on the hem of her denim shirt.

"Are you okay, Gammy?"Calla touches her shoulder.

"Sure. It's been a long time, you know . A lifetime. And this sort of thing does happen around here. Believe me, Jack's not the first person to ever take off and not look back."

Thinking of Darrin-and of her friend Blue Slayton's mother-Calla nods slowly. "Why do they leave, do you think?"

"Jack left because he was weak. Plain and simple. I can't speak for anyone else. Actually, I probably shouldn't even be speaking for Jack . . . but . . . well, I knew him. I knew why he left."

"What do you think ever happened to him?"

"Oh, he's back in Pittsburgh. Remarried, with grown kids and grandkids. Still a steelworker, after all these years."

"How do you know that?"

Odelia raises an eyebrow at her. "Let's put it this way. If someone like me really wants to find someone . . . they can usually be found. Capisce?"

Calla nods slowly. "Capisce."

If someone like me really wants to find someone . . . they can usually be found.

Someone like Odelia, Calla thinks. . . .

And someone like me.

Upstairs in her room, Calla types in her mother's e-mail pa.s.sword.

L-E-O-L- Y-N.

Her hand trembling on the key, she hits Enter, then waits for the mail files to load.

It doesn't take long.

Her breath seems deafening in her own ears as she scrolls up through the archives, back to last winter.

She forces herself to reread the first exchange between her mother and Darrin, when they were rediscovering each other after all those years, and making secret plans to meet in Boston.

Then she opens the first contact that came after. The one she couldn't go on reading the other day.

Darrin (like I told you, I can never call you Tom, no matter what you want me to do, sorry!)- seeing you yesterday was incredible, despite everything. You said you wanted me to think about what you told me, about what happened back then, and I've done nothing but that since you left me at the airport. A part of me can't believe it really even happened, but I know you wouldn't lie. Yes, you made some mistakes-terrible mistakes- but I understand why you did what you did. You were a kid, and afraid, and you thought you were doing what was best for me, and for you, and for our child.

That was where Calla left off before.

Now, she takes a deep breath and keeps reading.

Do you remember what a nightmare it was, the two of us alone in Leolyn Woods, with me giving birth to a baby no one even knew we were expecting? Sometimes I can't believe it really happened. I was scared out of my mind. I was in so much pain that I couldn't think straight. I don't remember much of it, other than when you told me the baby hadn't made it.

Calla gasps and covers her mouth with her hand.

The baby hadn't made it.

Oh, no. Please, no.

She rereads the lines again, and then again, just to be sure.

Her eyes fill with tears for the loss of a sister or brother she had never even known.

And now I never will.

I told you I was devastated, and I really was-but there was a part of me that might have been a tiny bit relieved, too. I've never forgiven myself for that. How could I feel that way? How could I be so selfish? Now that I'm a mother, I question that every day of my life. If anything ever happened to my daughter, I wouldn't want to live. I would give my life for her. Yet there was a time when I was secretly grateful that I wouldn't have to be a mother.

All I could think was that no one would ever have to know . We could go back to our normal lives. We had managed to hide it all those months, but I knew once the baby came, the whole town would be talking. Now no one would ever even know I had been pregnant.

But we didn't get back to normal. When you left, Darrin, my life was over. How could you just disappear?

I know you want to tell me all about it. Maybe I should have let you keep talking the other night, but I just couldn't hear any more. Even now, I look into my heart for a way to forgive you. The only way I can do that is to forgive myself, too, for the relief I felt when you told me our baby had died.

I don't know if I can forgive myself. I know I can never forget. Even now. Every day, when I lived in Lily Dale, I looked out at that lake and remembered what you had done. I kept picturing you wrapping our dead baby in a blanket and weighing it down with rocks and tossing it into the water. You said you did it to protect me, and I believed that-until you left. Then I felt like you had done it to protect only yourself. I knew I had to leave Lily Dale. I felt like everyone in town knew what had happened, like they were all looking at me.

I have to end this here. My daughter just came home from school. I hear her downstairs. I'll talk to you soon. I do love you. And I will try to forgive you. Stephanie Through eyes blurred with tears, Calla reads the e-mail again, and again, and again.

Then she closes the screen.

That's enough for today.

Maybe it's enough, period.

Now she knows why her mother left Lily Dale and never looked back.

Now her dream-or memory- of the argument between Mom and Odelia makes sense.

The only way to know for sure is to dredge the lake.

That's what they were talking about. Dredging the lake to look for the baby's remains.

Calla shudders.

So.

Her grandmother knew about the baby.

When-and how-did she find out?

Why didn't she tell Calla? She's had plenty of opportunities.

Well, she can't stay silent about it forever.

I won't let her, Calla thinks, jaw set with grim determination.

NINE.

Lily Dale

Tuesday, October 9

7:28 p.m.

"What's the matter, Calla?"

She looks up from her mashed potatoes- artfully arranged around the edges of her plate, the better to hide the fact that she's not eating them-to see both her father and grandmother watching her across the kitchen table.

"Nothing,"she lies, and cuts off a tiny chunk of meatloaf with her fork. She pops it into her mouth, chews, and smiles brightly.

See? I'm not quietly freaking out about my dead sibling being dumped into the lake that's right outside the doorstep.

Obviously not fooled, her grandmother presses a hand to her forehead. "You don't have a fever."

"I'm not sick, Gammy."

"You don't have to have a fever to be sick."Dad, his face tinted bright pink from his afternoon on the lake, looks concerned. "You haven't said two words since we sat down."