Unlawfull Alliances Read online

  “A sight to see,” she said.

  “Oh, Aunt Winnie, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come sooner.” Or had she tried, in her own way? How had I missed the urgency in her first phone call?

  She shook her head. “You came soon enough.” She patted the bed. “Come, sit with me, my sweet one.”

  I sat on the side of her bed, just the way I had when I was a little girl, forgetting that there was a world outside of Winnie’s, and that I lived in that other world.

  She looked as frail as her voice sounded, but I looked past that to the spirit that was sparkling in her eyes. Was it the soul shining through, with the knowledge that it was eternal, unlike the body that was withering? Instead of sorrow, there was joy and celebration because as the body withered, the soul would take another step on its journey home.

  Winnie’s words, I was sure. Embedded in my memory.

  “How are you, my dearest Jenny? What’s going on in your life?”

  I waved my hand in a discounting gesture. I did not want to talk about my life. “Tell me about you, Wiinnie. What is it?”

  “Old age,” she said, then laughed which sent her into a spiral of coughs. I handed her a glass of water and propped her pillow a bit so she could sit more upright.

  “There is really not much to tell since you were here last,” she told me. “When was it?”

  “February.” I wished it had been more recently. How had time slipped away from me, time that was so precious?

  “I’ve mostly spent my time preparing for this,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me when we talked?”

  “I wanted your trip to be pleasant. I know how you love the ferries.”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “But tell me, I’m picking up some chaos in your life. How are things with Joe?”

  “Things are fine with Joe,” I told her.

  She looked at me hard.

  “Really, Aunt Winnie. They’re good. We’re feeling close to each other right now.” I would not tell her about Amy Morrison and the case I was involved with. There was no need for that.

  “Can I get you something? A cup of tea?”

  “Oh, no, dear. Just your company. Sasha will bring us tea shortly. She’s been dear. She’s been bringing her work to the house and sitting with me.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “She’s an artist too.” Ah, so that was the connection. “You’ll have to get to know her.”

  I didn’t tell her that, as lovely as she was, I had no interest in getting to know Sasha. I wanted every precious moment to be spent with someone I knew well, someone whose features and words I wanted imprinted on my memory forever.

  “No. I mean after I leave.”

  I tsked my aunt. “You’re not supposed to read people’s minds. It’s rude.”

  “I’m allowed. Besides, I seem to have gotten better at it, now that I’m on my way out.” She laughed and I couldn’t help laughing with her.

  “You see, Jenny, one of the reasons I wanted to see you, besides to say good-bye, is to tell you I’m leaving my property to you.” Winnie cleared her throat and pushed her wispy white hair away from her face. “You’re the only family member I can trust to take proper care of this home. It’s not just a house and a piece of property I’m leaving you. It’s a lot more you’ll be inheriting, a lot more.”

  “I know that.”

  “Yes.” She smiled her impish smile that I remembered so fondly. I took a mental picture of it, fully aware that this might be the last time I saw it. “And you’ll discover more as you get to know this place. Oh, I realize you live in Seattle, but this can be a retreat for you. And for Bryn and Cam as well.”

  “Of course.”

  “It could very well be a healing place for Bryn.” She looked me in the eye. She knew what had happened to Bryn when she was eight years old. I hadn’t told her that my sister had been molested by Sheralyn Walker’s father when she spent the night at her house, but she knew, somehow she knew.

  “I could not leave it to your mother, you know that. She would no doubt sell it and—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Anyway, that’s why you should get to know Sasha. She will look after the place when you’re not here. And she’ll be good company when you are here.”

  “Has she been for you?”

  “Yes, indeed. Not that I’ve ever needed company.”

  “No, but you always seemed to have plenty of visitors to this island retreat of yours, didn’t you?”

  “A few over the years.” The mischievous gleam in her eyes revealed her thoughts.

  I lay down with my head on the pillow beside her. I could feel her slipping into memories of the past, a lifetime of them. I joined her with reminiscences of my own.

  She broke the silence. “I’ve had a good life, Jenny, a good life.”

  “Were you ever lonely here, Aunt Winnie?”

  “On occasion, but you know, I found the greatest blessings came from those times. They were when I touched my deepest self. You must never fear being alone.”

  “No.”

  A few minutes later, Sasha came into the room carrying a tray laden with tea and sandwiches, and a bowl of broth for Winnie.

  “This is so kind of you,” I told her. “To spend your time here with my aunt.”

  “Selfish really,” Sasha said, her green eyes twinkling. “I love being with your aunt. She’s one of my favorite crones.”

  Aunt Winnie was right. Sasha and I should get to know each other.

  I held the cup of broth to Aunt Winnie’s lips so that she could drink. She only took a couple sips before shaking her head to indicate that she’d had enough.

  “That’ll do,” she said. “I just needed a bit of nourishment to face the afternoon ordeal.”

  “What ordeal?” I asked.

  “Your mother,” Winnie whispered on tired lips.

  Sasha finished for her. “An error in judgment by a well-meaning friend. Somehow your mother was called, thinking she was your aunt’s nearest and dearest relative.”

  “Oh, dear. When will she be arriving?”

  “On the afternoon ferry.”

  I looked at my great aunt. She smiled her impish smile once more and winked at me. “However, if I’m as in control of this dying thing as I’d like to believe, I won’t have to see her.” She motioned toward the window and the apple blossom tree outside. “It is, after all, a lovely day for a journey.”

  Chapter 9

  I stood on the country porch in the afternoon sun, watching my mother pound dust out of pillows. Was it her way of grieving or was it her way of taking over her aunt’s home in the belief that it now belonged to her?

  “Help me with this, Jennifer.” Her voice had not changed. It was as commanding as ever.

  Natalie McNair. Or had she finally changed it back to Wright? Yes, I think so. Several years after the divorce. She had liked Charlie’s last name. It was one of the few things she did like about him.

  My mother had changed since I had last seen her. The occasional grey strands of hair had taken over and she had cropped it short. Easier to care for. She was wearing a pair of plain olive colored slacks—sturdy cotton if I knew her at all—and an oversized jacket to hide the bit of weight she had put on. That surprised me. She was in such control of her world and herself that she was not someone who would tolerate being overweight.

  I would have liked to know her parents better, my grandparents. Then I might have known what had made her so hard and so harsh. “A need to control her world,” Winnie had once said. “It comes from being out of control as a child.” The best she could figure was that my mother was an abused child. Not by her mother, Winnie’s older sister. She was the meek one, the kind who would have allowed her husband to abuse her daughter.

  My mother had never spoken fondly of her stepfather, nor often of her mother. She had adored only her father, at least the memory of him. He had died when she was four. How much could she remember
? Not as much as she could imagine. Other than recreated memories of her father, my mother’s childhood was a taboo subject.

  “Still prone to daydreaming, I see.” Disapproval filled the space between us.

  I smiled. It didn’t bother me anymore.

  She looked at me for a moment, then went back to her self-appointed chores. Keep busy. Don’t stop to catch your breath. Don’t stop to feel. She was still very much the woman who had raised me, no matter how different she looked.

  I almost had not recognized her. Surely it had not been that long since I’d last seen her. Maybe it had been. My mother had aged. Her countenance had turned to stone, as if her inner rigidity had worked its way out through her skin to harden her complexion. It was as if a sheath of plastic were layered upon her skin, cutting her off from the world, both its pain and its joy.

  It has been six years, I realized. She did not hug me when she arrived. Was she that afraid of me?

  “Well, if you’re going to daydream, at least make yourself useful.”

  Slowly I crossed the porch to help her turn the mattress on the swing, then walked back to my post by the railing where I could see the orchard and smell the rose garden, undisturbed by the dust that my mother seemed determined to spread. I would not allow her to inflict guilt on my grief.

  I was glad Sasha and I were the ones with Aunt Winnie when she died. It had been an honor to be present with her as the portal between two worlds opened to welcome such a beautiful soul. I had to wonder if it was coincidental that she departed for distant pastures only minutes before my mother had arrived. I knew my aunt well enough not to believe in coincidence.

  Sasha pushed open the screen door and set a pitcher of lemonade and glasses on the old pine table. I pulled up a chair beside her, smiling as I rubbed my hand across the flat surface. I had grown up with this table. Aunt Winnie must have known that when she refused to get rid of it, instead putting it out to pasture on the country porch where it could bask in the sunlight. It had, after all, once upon a time, been a tree. This was the only thing my house in Seattle was lacking, an old fashioned porch with a swing and hanging fuchsias and old furniture that could tell stories. Maybe I would talk to Joe about adding an old fashioned porch onto our house. Surely there was a way to do that without jeopardizing the integrity of the house’s design. Or maybe it was enough to come here, to Winnie’s porch.

  “The cremation is set for tomorrow,” Sasha said softly.

  “Cremation!” My mother’s broad shoulders shook as she crossed the porch. “Nonsense. We will have a proper burial.”

  Sasha and I looked at each other, as if to decide who should speak. “She left instructions for a cremation,” I told my mother. I did not mention that she wanted her ashes to remain in the house for a time, a time to be decided by me. And then, when it felt right—I would know, she assured me—I was to free them to the Strait and anywhere else and with whom I deemed appropriate.

  My mother’s shoulders had fallen in defeat. “Why does this surprise me? I wonder how long it took her to figure out the best way to upset me even in death.”

  “Mother, this has nothing to do with you.”

  But she had not heard me. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she left instructions on what I should do with this dreadful home of hers as well. She’ll probably require me to keep if for ten years or some ridiculous thing before selling it. Not that anyone would want to buy this white elephant.”

  I took a long sip of the cool lemony drink and then a series of quick breaths. Sasha’s look was one of compassion, and, if I read her correctly, gratitude that she was not in my place.

  I put down my glass and walked over to my mother. Softly I placed a hand on her back. This was as familiar as my mother and I ever got. I did not want to shock her with an arm across her shoulder or, God forbid, a hug.

  “Actually, Mother—”

  “What?” She turned abruptly, knocking my hand from her back. “Don’t tell me. I can’t ever get rid of it, and I have to live in it part of the year to keep possession! That woman! Why did I bother coming?”

  I cringed at her telltale words. “Why did you come?”

  Realizing what she had said, she collected herself and shook off her words as if they were in error to her true feelings. “I meant, why did I bother coming to see her when she was so spiteful toward me?”

  “Just because you and Aunt Winnie were very different, doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. Nor does it mean she did anything to spite you. She just did things the way she believed in doing them.”

  My mother backed away from me, shaking her head in refusal of Sasha’s offer of a glass of lemonade. I exhaled in relief that the distance between us had increased. Apparently there were still unresolved issues here.

  I stayed in the silence for a few moments, asking for the correct words. In the end, I said the ones that were the simplest and the most direct. “Mother, Aunt Winnie left her property to me.”

  Grasping her waist as if to keep the life inside her body, she sank down onto the mattress that we had just turned. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. It was the closest I had ever seen my mother to crying.

  Sasha took it as her cue to leave. Smart woman.

  “She really must have hated me.”

  “She didn’t hate you.” I sat down beside her on the swing. Memories of my aunt holding me flooded back, filling my throat with tears of my own. She was gone. She was really gone.

  “Why else—?”

  “Because she knew I would look after it. This land and this house”—that was neither dreadful nor a white elephant to Winnie or to me—”meant a great deal to her. She knew I understood that.”

  My mother pulled herself upright to meet my eyes. I knew what was coming.

  “It was always you, wasn’t it? You were always your father’s favorite. But that wasn’t enough, was it? You had to make sure you were my aunt’s favorite too.”

  I took several deep breaths before allowing myself to speak. And when I did, I stood up so that I could walk away when I was finished. “I was a child. I loved Charlie and Winnie very much. And I’m grateful that they loved me.”

  * * *

  I didn’t know how I had survived two days in the same house with my mother. We hardly spoke, except when necessary. I was very indebted to Sasha. Not only did she help with all the painful details of a cremation and a service, but she allowed herself to be a human buffer. As usual, Aunt Winnie was right. She was someone I wanted to know.

  Charlie had wanted to come, in honor of Winnie and in support of me. I told him not to. With my mother there, it only would have increased the tension. Joe too had offered, but I sensed the hesitation in his words. He had a heavy caseload, he would have to pull Holly out of school. But still he offered. Matthew too would have come. I told him not to. He would miss his exams. He didn’t tell me that, but I knew.

  Bryn and Cameron would have come as well, but they would not have made it in time to see Winnie. I told them, as she had suggested, to make a trip to the island sometime when the three of us could spend a glorious week together remembering the magical summers we had spent here with Winnie. They had promised. I took that promise to heart.

  It surprised me that my mother asked me to drive her back to Seatac. I had thought she would prefer a cab, or even a bus, to my company. But she was thrifty, I reminded myself. Still, it meant two ferry rides and over an hour’s drive with her daughter.

  Charlie called just as we were locking up the cottage. “Are you okay, luv?”

  “Barely.”

  “You come home to us. We’ll look after you now.”

  “How’s the case going? Have they performed the autopsy?”

  “Yesterday. They found valium in her.”

  “Enough to knock her unconscious in a hot tub?”

  “The police seem to think so.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I think she made it easy for someone, doping up with valium and relaxing in the Jacuz
zi. No signs of force used.”

  “And no bits of hair on her clothing to I.D.”

  “Aye, right you are.”

  “Any other discoveries?”

  “Apparently the young lass grew up as poor as a church mouse.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Kitsap Peninsula. Her father died when she was a wee thing and her mum supported them by waiting tables.”

  “Where’s her mother now?”

  “In a supervisory care residence near Silverdale. Apparently she had a mental breakdown some time back and has never fully recovered. I’m going to see her today.”

  I could hear in his voice that there was more. “And?”

  “Amy was married before. Her ex-husband lives up in Bellingham.” This surprised me as much as it did to hear that she was poor.

  “I’ll take a detour on my way home. What’s his address?”

  “You’ve been through enough, luv. I can handle this on my own.”

  “Since when?”

  Charlie smiled. I could feel it through the telephone. “I mean it. I want you to come home to your family and take care of yourself.”

  “So, you don’t need me anymore, eh?”

  “You know better, Jenny.”

  I closed my eyes tight against the tears. “I need to do this, Charlie. Please. The distraction will do me good. And . . . I need to help in some way.” Other than her murderer, I was most likely, the last person to have spoken to Amy Morrison.

  “You’re not still feeling responsible in some way—?”

  “Please. Just let me do this.”

  “Okay, Jenny. But then come straight home to us.”

  “I promise. When is the funeral, Charlie?”

  “Tomorrow. We’ll go together.”

  “And Jake’s?”

  “Late this afternoon. I’ll cover it.” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.

  After I hung up talking to Charlie, I wiped my eyes and headed for the door. Before locking it behind me, I said one last good-bye to my beloved Winnie. “I’ll be back soon. I’ll look after it for you.” I smiled. “But then you know that, don’t you.”

  And with that, I headed for my car . . . and my mother.