Sophie Medina: Ghost Image Part 23

"How's your mother?" Harry said as Tommy pulled our bags off the luggage carousel and set them on a cart.

"Like you'd expect. If she could lock Chap in his room, she'd do it. After she removed all the sharp objects first."

"Is he that bad?" I asked. "Would he really harm himself?"

"I don't know. He seemed pretty lucid to me, like his old self. If he's going to harm anyone, it's Mom. He's ready to kill her." He caught our alarmed expressions and said, "Sorry, bad choice of words. But she is driving him nuts."

"I'll handle her," Harry said.

"You can wait until morning," Tommy said. "When I left they were both dead to the world. I think the drive home from Connecticut wore Mom out and Chappy looked exhausted, though he still wanted me to go for a walk with him after dinner so he could take some photos of the Blue Ridge at sunset."

I dozed off in the backseat on the drive to Middleburg, catching murmured drifts of Harry and Tommy's animated conversation about the Sweet 16, the Final Four, and someone's basketball brackets being all shot to h.e.l.l.

I woke when Tommy slowed down for the turn to the private road that led to Mayfield, the house that had been in the Wyatt family since colonial times. The tires crunched on the gravel drive as Tommy pulled up to the brick walkway in front of the house.

"You two go on in," he said to Harry and me. "I'll put the car in the garage and bring your bags to your rooms. Anybody want a nightcap?"

"I think I'd better see your mother," Harry said. "If you kids want drinks, go ahead."

"What about it, Soph?" Tommy asked. "Join me for a quick one?"

He was tired, but it seemed as if he was pushing for a reason. Something he wanted to tell me that couldn't wait.

"Sure. I guess I'm wide awake again."

He drove off and I followed Harry up the terraced steps of the front walk. The lighted windows of my parents' bedroom on the second floor glowed pale gold against the moonless blue-black sky, and someone had left a light on in the front hall so the leaded sidelights and fanlight surrounding the front door looked like Gothic tracery. When Harry pushed open the door, Ella, our old black Lab, was waiting, her tail thumping as we scratched her head and Harry crooned in a soft voice that he had missed his good girl.

The house smelled of the lavender potpourri my mother used everywhere and the warm, sweet smell of baking, cinnamon and apples, no doubt Harry's favorite apple pie made with apples from our orchard. A vase of yellow daffodils, probably already cut from the garden, sat on the antique oak sideboard in the hall.

"See you in the morning, kitten," Harry said, kissing my hair. "You two get some sleep. I love you."

"I love you, too. I'll wait for Tommy in the kitchen."

He came in through the back door a moment later, maneuvering our suitcases inside. "I'll get these upstairs first," he said. "Pop probably needs his bag. What do you want to drink?"

"I'll have wine. What about you?"

"There's a bottle of Courvoisier on the bar in the library."

"I'll get the drinks. Meet me in the library."

There was an open bottle of red on the dining room sideboard, so I poured a gla.s.s and walked across the hall to the library as the silvery chime of the living room mantel clock rang. Two thirty. I switched on the table lamps on either side of the navy leather sofa to their dimmest setting so they gave off only small pools of light. A bowl of pink tulips on the coffee table, that I figured were more flowers from the garden, glowed in the otherwise shadow-filled room. The lingering scent of winter woodsmoke from the stone fireplace mixed with the musty old-leather tang of Harry's vast collection of books lining the bookshelves he'd built himself were comforting remembered smells of childhood and home.

Tommy found me curled up on the sofa, my shoes kicked off and my feet tucked under me. He sat down and leaned over to clink his cognac snifter against my winegla.s.s.

"What's going on?" I said. "Now that it's just us."

My brother swirled his drink, watching the dark amber liquid coat the sides of the gla.s.s like it was something that fascinated him. He was stalling.

"Mom told Chap tonight that she wants him to make her his guardian. That's why she came back here, to start the process." He looked up at me. "She doesn't want to deal with the courts in Connecticut because she says it'll take forever. She's planning to legally move him here so he'd be a resident of Virginia and sell his house up there so she can use that money to pay for him to be in a.s.sisted living."

I wanted to stamp my foot, hurl my gla.s.s against the stone fireplace. "That is heartless."

"I didn't say she was happy about it."

"I don't care. Jeez, Tommy. It'll kill him to leave his home, his studio. He's been there for more than forty years. What about Chappy? What does he want?"

Tommy shifted so he sat facing me. "What do you think? They had a huge blowup, both of them shouting at each other. It was pretty bad, Soph. That's why Mom wanted Pop to come home. She wants him to back her on this."

"I hope he doesn't," I said. "What about you? Whose side are you on?"

"Whoa . . . whoa, hold on there." He held up a hand. "I'm not on anyone's side, okay? I want what's best for Chap."

"Which is?"

"I don't know."

"It can't be stripping him of his life, his home, and his dignity," I said in a flat voice.

My brother's face flushed in the lamplight, but his mouth hardened into a thin, determined line. "Look, we have to find out if anything's wrong with him, first of all. Known fact: He was wandering around Topstone Park confused and in his pajamas. There isn't a doctor on the planet who would overlook something like that without trying to figure out what's going on. If Chap's sick . . ."

"Are we still talking about Alzheimer's? Has it even been determined that's what he has?"

"Mom wants him to see a different doctor," he said, still in that stubborn voice. "Someone from around here. Come on, Soph. She's just getting a second opinion. I think it's a good idea."

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake." My voice rose. "You mean a doctor who'll back her up?"

"Not so loud. You're not being fair and you're going to wake everyone."

I threw down the last of my wine and banged my gla.s.s on the coffee table. "I don't think-"

"Look," he cut me off. "You know better than anyone else in the family that Chap has a collection of photographs, a body of work, in that Connecticut house that museums and libraries would kill for. Mom says he hasn't done any planning or thinking about what he wants to do about it, and she's worried he's already been giving away some of his photos to anyone who asks him. She thinks-with his memory lapses-that he's being taken advantage of, and she wants his legacy preserved."

"I thought you said he seemed fine when you saw him today. Now you're talking like he's one step away from being bundled off to the loony bin."

"No, I didn't-"

"Let Chap worry about his legacy. It is his legacy, after all, isn't it?"

"Of course it is, but I can see Mom's point. She's already found some of his stuff for sale on the Internet, other people profiting off his work. He could make a small fortune if he decided to sell his entire collection."

"So this is about money," I said. "I should have guessed."

"Come on, that's not fair. It's about him."

"Then why doesn't he get a vote?"

There was a complicated, unhappy silence as my brother finished his cognac. Finally he said, "I didn't mean to get you torqued up, but I figured you should know what's going on before it all hits the fan tomorrow . . . or today, since it is tomorrow." He reached for my wrist and squeezed it. "Calm down, okay? It's late. Try to get some sleep. We're not going to solve anything tonight."

I nodded. "I know. And I didn't mean to snap at you. You know I love you."

"Yeah, I love you, too." He stood and picked up my gla.s.s. "I'll take care of these. Chappy's sleeping in Lexie's room, by the way. Not the guest room. Mom said it was closer to her room. See you in the morning."

The guest room was on the third floor, across the hall from my old bedroom. I kissed Tommy good night and climbed the stairs, avoiding the two creaky treads the way I'd done when I used to sneak in after my curfew. I paused at the door to Lexie's room and listened. From the other side I heard the faint regular sound of my grandfather's light snoring.

I almost didn't recognize my bedroom. My mother had redecorated since the last time I'd been home, this time in sophisticated shades of moss green and royal purple. My suitcase sat on a tufted mauve-and-lilac ottoman next to the fireplace where Tommy had put it. I found my nightclothes and toothbrush-it seemed like a century had pa.s.sed since I'd packed them in such haste at the Connaught-and washed my face and brushed my teeth in the bathroom across the hall.

When I finally lay down in my old four-poster bed, sleep wouldn't come. The time zone change, the booze, that last conversation with Tommy. I tossed and turned for hours until finally I threw back the covers and went to the bathroom for a gla.s.s of water because my mouth tasted like I'd been chewing nails.

The floorboards creaked on the floor below as I stepped back into the hall. Someone else was awake, probably Tommy or Chappy using the bathroom. Or maybe Harry let Ella out of their bedroom because she was restless. I paused midstep and waited for a door to click shut. Instead I heard footsteps on the stairs. Not Ella, who'd step on the squeaky treads. Everyone else knew how to avoid them.

I returned to my room and checked the clock on my bedside table. Already six a.m. My bedroom was at the back of the house above the kitchen. The windows faced south and west, the south windows overlooking my mother's rose garden and the west windows looking out on the patio and swimming pool and, in the distance, a long expanse of woods and fields that ended at the Blue Ridge Mountains.

My throat tightened and I ran to the windows. I didn't see anything at first because he kept to the shadows, but I finally caught a flash of snow-white hair as he walked onto the open lawn by the pool. For someone in his mideighties, my grandfather moved with spry agility. He opened the back gate, slipped through, and closed it again.

Then I lost him.

My clothes were in a heap on the chair next to the ottoman. I pulled them on as fast as I could and took the back staircase down to the kitchen, grabbing Tommy's old football letter jacket off a hook in the back hall as I let myself out the kitchen door.

Chappy had a good head start on me, and there were any number of places he could have gone.

If he had a destination in mind.

If he didn't, or maybe he was disoriented and thought he was still home in Connecticut, he could be anywhere. I took off running.

19.

Mayfield is just over four hundred acres-four hundred and fifteen, to be precise-on a parcel of land given to one of Harry's ancestors by Lord Fairfax, which in turn was part of the original five million acres he received from his mother in 1719 when Virginia was still a colony. Over the centuries, generations of Wyatts have added on to the original farmhouse and built numerous outbuildings-barns, stables, a springhouse, a guesthouse, even slave quarters-most of which are now in picturesque stages of ruin.

If I had to guess, I'd figure Chappy had headed for the old stone barn. The structure itself was long gone, but the foundation still sat on a rise of land overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains, just off the gravel road between the house and the new stables. Years ago my mother had turned the floor into a patio, using the stones from the barn itself for the surrounding wall and persuaded Harry to buy the statuary of a falling-down villa she'd seen in Tuscany to grace the flower gardens she planted around the patio.

He was there, just as I suspected, sitting on the wall with his back to me where he could stare out at the mountains. In the east, the sky looked like someone had lifted the edge of a curtain, letting in a sliver of pale yellow light that had begun to dissolve the monochrome shadows into hard-edged objects. If Chappy heard me come up behind him, he didn't let on. I climbed onto the wall, swung my feet over, and sat down next to him.

The cold stone penetrated my jeans, and my sneakers were soaked from running through the wet morning gra.s.s. I snapped Tommy's jacket closed and pulled the cuffs of his sleeves down over my hands.

My grandfather was bundled up in a heavy jacket, wearing work boots and a pair of fingerless gloves. He turned to me and said as though we were continuing an unfinished conversation, "Where's your camera?"

I gave him a sheepish look and covered my mouth with Tommy's sleeve to hide a yawn. His camera was cradled in his lap. "Back at the house."

"A lot of good it's going to do you there."

"Chappy, what were you doing sneaking out of the house just now?"

With a perfect deadpan expression, he said, "I never sneak. And I didn't want to wake anybody."

"You could have left a note. I just happened to hear you when I got up for a gla.s.s of water. What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like? Waiting for the sunrise. The last time I was here I got some incredible shots of the mist shrouding those woods and the mountains. There's enough moisture in the air so the conditions ought to be right this morning . . . you can already see the fog in the trees across the meadow. If the clouds clear out or even open up a little, the light could be just about perfect."

A lot of people think professional photographers-especially the legendary ones like my grandfather-have some kind of sixth sense, knowing exactly where and when to be to make the amazing shots they get. That's crazy. What we have is pa.s.sion, commitment, and the dogged determination to just keep showing up and taking pictures. There is no magic fairy dust, no special insight, just a lot of planning, perseverance, and trial and error.

That's why Chappy was here right now.

"You've got time to go back and get your camera, you know," he said. "According to the almanac, the official time for sunrise today is six fifty-seven."

For a moment I was tempted to run back to the house and do just that-I didn't even have my phone with me-and it would be like so many times over the years when I'd gone shooting with Chap, and he'd explain why he was doing something a certain way, teach me, educate me.

But his white hair was sticking up in wild tufts, and something in his pale blue eyes, the way they darted back and forth as though he were a little anxious, made me decide it was better to stay with him.

I leaned my head on his shoulder. Even through the fabric of his jacket, I could feel the sharp contours of his bones. "It's okay. I'll just watch the master at work. I was worried about you. That's why I left the house without it."

It was the wrong thing to say. He jerked away and turned to me.

"Are you checking up on me? Is that why you're here? You've been talking to your mother, haven't you? d.a.m.n it, Sophie, don't tell me she's brainwashed you, too."

Chappy had a temper, which he usually kept in check. But when someone said or did something stupid or mean-spirited, it flashed quick as a whip and then it was gone. He was angry now, but the level of anger seemed unwarranted and uncharacteristic.

I said in a mild voice, "I haven't been talking to Mom. At least, not yet. Tommy filled me in on what's been going on. I know you two had an argument last night. I'm on your side, Chappy. How could you ever think I wouldn't be?"

"Caroline's convinced I'm losing my mind," he said in that same harsh voice. "We all get forgetful as we get older. It's called aging. It'll happen to you, too, someday. Wait and see."

In the soft, gray predawn light, his jaw was set and his profile could have been carved out of the same cool stone as one of the garden statues. Though he looked more fragile than the last time I'd seen him, my grandfather's mind seemed as sharp and focused as ever. At eighty-five, he woke before anyone else in the house, studying the weather and checking the time of the sunrise to do what he'd done all his life. Show up for a photo he wanted to get. But there was something else, something that was different about him.

"I know, Chap, I know," I said, rubbing his jacket sleeve. "Tommy told me Mom's worried because you've been giving away some of your old photographs recently. She thinks you should keep your work intact and sell it to a library or a museum."

He looked perplexed. "What are you talking about? What photographs?"

"I'm not sure which ones. Photos you've taken over the years, I guess. She says she's seen them for sale on the Internet."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about."

For a moment I wondered whether he'd blanked out about our conversation or whether he meant he didn't know which pictures I was referring to.

"It's okay," I said. "We can discuss it another time."

"Discuss what?"

"Nothing. Look, it's starting to get lighter in the east. Do you want to take your sunrise pictures?"

"I don't think so," he said in the stiff, formal voice of a stranger. "It's rather chilly and we ought to be getting back to the house, don't you think? Gina will be waiting. I wouldn't like to worry her."