Tempting Fate

Thirteen

A lively discussion of the ailing Yankees had been going on for the past hour on Mattie’s front stoop. She was right in the midst of it, fiddling with one of her handmade kites as she maintained that pitching was to blame for the team’s latest ills. Not that she knew a thing about baseball. From argument over the years, however, she’d learned that a cry for more pitching was generally a creditable position to take.

She only half listened to the debate. A cab had turned down her street and slowed in front of her town house.

Before it came to a full stop, Dani jumped out.

Mattie quietly asked everyone on her front stoop to leave.

They complied. Nick had called a little while ago. She knew their son was now in the hospital in Saratoga.

A dark-haired man who had to be Zeke Cutler climbed out of the cab after Dani. He looked like his father, whom Mattie had known as a little boy. And like Joe. Naomi must have sent him, she thought.

Their eyes met. He was definitely a Cutler, and Zeke was the only Cutler left.

He came up onto the sidewalk. “It’s good to see you, Miss Witt,” he said.

“Hello, Zeke.”

Dani stiffened visibly. “So you do know him.”

Zeke looked at her, and Mattie instantly felt his attraction to his granddaughter. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk,” he said.

To talk, Mattie thought. Of course. She’d have to tell Dani everything.

“No. Don’t leave.” Mattie set her kite down. “This concerns you, too, Zeke. Come inside. Both of you.”

Her front room was cool, the ceiling fan whirring, and she served fresh-squeezed lemonade she’d bought from a small grocery around the corner and a few butter cookies she pulled from the freezer and let thaw on a plate. Zeke sat on the couch. Dani sat across from him. There was one other chair, but it was uncomfortable, and Mattie had no intention of going through this ordeal on an uncomfortable chair. She sat next to Zeke on the couch.

“How’s John?” she asked.

There was a moment’s silence as Dani and Zeke exchanged glances, obviously debating who was supposed to answer. Finally Zeke said, “He’s doing fine.”

“It was an accident?”

“He told the doctors he tripped and fell.”

Mattie suspected he’d told Zeke more. But Dani blurted, “Which isn’t true.”

“I see,” Mattie said, setting down her lemonade glass, untouched. “John doesn’t know anything of what I’m about to tell you. I didn’t want him to have to be in the position of holding back from his own daughter…” She inhaled deeply through her nose, just wanting this done. “I thought this information was no one’s business but my own.”

Dani didn’t say a word. That concerned Mattie, since her granddaughter had always been one to speak her mind.

“Zeke and his brother, Joe, came to see me in Saratoga about a week before Lilli disappeared. I gave them an old tent and let them camp out on the grounds-they chose a spot near the bottling plant, which of course was abandoned in those days.” She looked at Zeke. “You were what, thirteen or fourteen?”

“Thirteen.”

“And Joe was eighteen. I remember that.”

The room was so silent. She wished she’d turned on the radio in the kitchen or even had a grandfather clock, although she’d refused to have one in her house since leaving Cedar Springs. A ticking clock always reminded her of her father’s oppressive home. But the silence now was awful.

“He thought you were something,” Zeke said gently.

Mattie smiled, appreciating his gesture. “I’m afraid I wasn’t the glamorous movie star he expected to find. I dressed in Nick’s old clothes half the time, I said and did as I pleased-and I wasn’t as young as the woman he’d seen in the movies. Then again, maybe he wasn’t expecting Mattie Witt the film star. Maybe he was expecting Jackson Witt’s older daughter, I don’t know. But what he got was me.” She waved a hand. “Well, none of that matters. Joe was a tolerant young man.”

“Why did he come see you?” Dani asked.

“I’m getting to that. I want…” She swallowed, twisting her hands together in her lap. “I want to tell everything. Not long after Joe and Zeke arrived, Lilli came up to the cottage while they were there. I introduced them. There was an instant rapport between Joe and Lilli-nothing romantic. Lilli was confused about what her life was supposed to be, what she wanted it to be. When her mother died, her whole world came apart. She didn’t know if she wanted to be what she’d seemed destined to be. Joe understood. He helped her get some distance from herself and her problems-he encouraged her to see not just the obligations and responsibilities and restrictions of her life, but also its joys and meaning.”

Mattie paused. Dani stared at the fireplace, her eyes shining. Zeke watched her, and Mattie wondered if he knew how close her granddaughter was to crying. She hid her vulnerabilities so well. But so did her grandmother.

“Did he know about Casino?” Dani asked without looking at her.

“Yes.”

“Did you?” she asked, her dark eyes on Zeke.

Mattie looked at him, too, and he answered, “No.”

“When Joe found the gold key out at the pavilion near the old bottling plant,” Mattie went on, “he decided to give it to Lilli. He could have kept it for himself, but he didn’t think that was right.”

“And she wore it ballooning with you,” Dani said.

“That’s right. She had it with her when we landed. Our trip took longer than she’d anticipated. We got a ride to the Pembroke estate, and I offered to drive her back to North Broadway, but she insisted on walking. She was already late. Why fret about a few more minutes?” Mattie’s voice cracked, and she had to fight off tears herself. It wasn’t easy. “I never saw her again.”

Dani’s hands, she noticed, were twisted together, shaking. Beside her on the couch, Zeke impassively sipped his iced lemonade. Yet Mattie sensed his anguish.

She forced herself to continue. “Before I realized she’d disappeared, I felt quite smug. I’d thought Lilli needed to give her father a good jolt, remind her family not to take her for granted. I remember every detail of that night. I took a bath and put on baggy jeans and one of Nick’s old sweaters-it came to my knees. It was cool, and I lit a fire.” She sighed. “Then Joe knocked on my door.”

“What time was that?” Dani asked.

Still no eye contact, Mattie said, “Around ten o’clock.”

“We’d decided to leave Saratoga,” Zeke added.

“Why?”

“Because Joe said so.”

Mattie shot him a look, sensing there was more. Her heart pounded. Did Zeke know something she didn’t? But he didn’t continue, and she had to get this next part done. “I knew he’d come to tell me why he’d traveled a thousand miles to see me. There had to be a reason.” She shut her eyes, feeling the tears hot against her lids. “He told me my father was dying of cancer. He’d been to see Doc Hiram-I knew him when he was a little boy-and he said the cancer was all through him. So I asked Joe-” Her voice broke, and she didn’t think she’d be able to go on.

Zeke placed his hand over hers. He didn’t squeeze or pat, just left it there. “You asked Joe if your father had sent him.”

She nodded, blinking back tears. She hadn’t cried because of her father in years. Decades. Even before she’d left Cedar Springs, she hadn’t permitted him to make her cry. “He hadn’t. He was an old man and dying, and still as far as he was concerned, I had never been his daughter. It wasn’t even as if I’d died at eighteen. It was as if I’d never lived at all. I was a stranger to him.”

“Your sister sent him?” Dani asked. Her voice was carefully controlled. She hadn’t moved. If she did, Mattie thought, she’d shoot up like a too tightly coiled spring.

“No. No, Naomi didn’t send him. It was Joe’s idea to come. He said he owed Naomi because she’d been a friend to him and Zeke, encouraged Zeke in his studies. He-Joe said his brother wanted to become a doctor.”

Dani’s eyes met Zeke’s, just for an instant. Then they were back on the fireplace.

“Naomi had my address here in New York,” Mattie said. But she didn’t care to explain the rest, how she’d tried through the years to get her sister to join her, first in California, then in New York. Her letters home were returned unopened, presumably but not necessarily by their father, and then Mattie heard her sister had married Wesley Hazen, a vice president at the mill, and finally gave up. A few years later Nick went to Tennessee, and he and Naomi had had their affair, and Mattie had tried one more letter. Naomi had sent back a postcard. You can relax now, Mattie, she’d written. I’m free.

“She told Zeke he was wasting his time because I’d never return to Cedar Springs.” The tears had vanished, and Mattie sniffled, removing her hand from under Zeke’s. She went on in a strong, clear voice. “She was right. As I stood there talking to Joe, I knew that if I didn’t go home soon, I’d never see my father again. That chance would be gone forever. At first I didn’t know what to do. For years when I’d think of home, it seemed as if nothing should have changed since I’d left. If I went back, I’d still be eighteen, Naomi would be eleven, and our father would still be strong and unyielding. But he was dying, and I knew I’d never be able to step back into Cedar Springs-into my childhood-as it had been. Everything had changed after all. Time hadn’t stopped. I’d left home at eighteen and had never gone back.”

Dani, she saw, was staring at her with her wide, black eyes as if seeing her for the first time.

Mattie didn’t have it in her heart to feel guilty. “I thought leaving home would make everything perfect, and of course it didn’t. But it made living possible.”

She paused, again aware of the silence. Even in the distance-and here they were in the city-she couldn’t hear the wail of a siren or the honking of cabs.

“I know I must sound heartless-I don’t expect anyone to understand. But Cedar Springs is quicksand for me. If I’d gone back to see my dying father, I’d never have extricated myself again. I’d have suffocated. So I told Joe to say hello to Naomi for me, to tell her I’d missed her. And I told him to tell my father-if he’d listen-that I’d never judged him. That I’d always loved him in my own way. And I did. And do.” She didn’t know if Dani or even if Zeke beside her heard her last words. She added, “I wrote and I tried to call, but the letters were returned and he refused to take my calls.”

“Joe wanted to make things right between you and your father and Naomi,” Zeke said. “He just couldn’t understand what had gone wrong and stayed wrong between you. It didn’t make any sense to him that a father would disown two daughters. Do you wish we’d never come?”

She shook her head. “No. Never. Joe wrote to me after he enlisted. He sent me a copy of my father’s obituary-and the photograph of Lilli and me in the balloon.” It was her turn to touch Zeke’s hand. “I came to care about him a great deal. I’m sorry about what happened to him.”

Zeke nodded but said nothing.

Dani jumped to her feet, almost didn’t land before she started to pace. “So you know about Quint Skinner’s book?”

“I read it in one sitting at the New York Public Library when it came out. I refused to have such a book in my house.”

“Did you believe what it said about Joe?”

“It doesn’t matter what I or anyone else believes. It only matters what Joe was. To me, he was a friend.”

But that answer didn’t satisfy Dani, and she continued to pace, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Zeke stretched out his long legs, watching her without comment. Her volatility didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

“And until this week I’d never even heard of him.”

Mattie leaned back against the soft cushions of the couch. “Darling, I was in my forties when you were born,” she said, hearing the rhythms of her southern upbringing in her voice. “In my fifties when Lilli disappeared and Joe was killed. I’m eighty-two now. I’ve had many years to develop the habit of not talking about certain parts of my life. I don’t like to think of myself as keeping secrets, but simply as keeping my silence.”

“Maybe,” Dani said, “if you’d told someone about Joe Cutler twenty-five years ago, before he was killed-” But she stopped herself. “I’m going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on. I don’t run away from my problems.”

Mattie was stung by her granddaughter’s anger, but she understood it. She said quietly, “Be glad you’ve never faced a problem that left you no choice but to run.”

Without replying, Dani banged out of her grandmother’s town house.

Zeke stayed put. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Mattie nodded. “I knew I’d have to face this day at some point. It’s better off behind us.”

“You told her everything you know?”

“Yes.” She studied him, sitting so stolidly beside her in the cool, dim room. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

He was on his feet.

“Zeke-”

Stopping in the doorway, he turned to her. “I’m also used to keeping my silence. You’ll be okay here?”

“I always have been.”

She let him go to her granddaughter, which, she thought, was as it should be.

Now that he knew he’d live, John was chafing to get out of bed. It was late afternoon, and two nurses had just finished picking and poking at him. He was sitting up cursing the entire medical profession when his father-in-law strode into his hospital room.

“What,” John said, “no roses?”

Eugene Chandler sniffed. “The police say it’s a wonder you were found. You could have died out there.”

“Well, the Pembroke luck will kick in at the oddest times. Never when I’m calling a bluff, of course. I haven’t called a bluff in ten years but my opponent’s holding a straight flush.”

“I’ve never been more wrong about anyone in my life than I was about you. You’re every bit your father’s son.”

John shrugged. “Some things in life are just givens. Roger’s done a better job for Chandler Hotels than I ever could.”

“Perhaps.”

And John saw-or, more accurately, let himself see-the disappointment in Eugene’s eyes, and he remembered the affection they’d had for each other, even after Lilli had disappeared. They’d seen in the other what they’d wanted to see in themselves. Overlooking Eugene’s rigidity, John instead had focused on his father-in-law’s pride and sense of honor and duty. Eugene had seen in him an engaging personality and determination and energy, the same qualities that so frustrated him in Dani. With his own daughters, he’d believed their hopes and dreams would be determined for them simply by having been born Chandler women, rich and privileged, their roles set for them.

Eugene ran a trembling hand through his thin white hair. “John…what’s going on?”

“I fell in the woods.”

“You know what I’m talking about. One thing after another’s been happening. Danielle’s cottage is robbed. She decides to join us on Friday and turns up at the track yesterday. You’re here. I also understand a private security consultant has been seen with her.”

“Zeke Cutler.”

There was a flicker of recognition. John let it pass. No doubt the legions of Eugene’s private detectives had checked out the Cutler brothers. Eugene did like to play his cards close to his vest. He said scathingly, “Next it’ll be Mattie and Nick.”

“Nah. They’re getting too old to tramp over the countryside.”

“I wouldn’t place a wager on that if I were you.”

John grinned. “You know, Eugene, I’ve never met anyone more capable than you of slicing someone into ribbons without getting a drop of blood on his hands.”

Color rose in his pale, dry cheeks. “I didn’t mean to be insulting-”

“Yeah, you did.”

Eugene clamped his mouth shut.

“You’re worried about Dani,” John said. The levity had gone from his tone, and he realized his head was throbbing.

“It would be a tragedy if…” He lifted his bony shoulders, letting John finish his thought. He’d already been caught once at being slyly derogatory.

“If she ended up like me and Nick, you mean.”

Eugene pursed his lips. “It’s not just recent events that have us-Sara and Roger and me-worried, although clearly they do. We are also deeply concerned that Danielle has overextended herself in business. Naturally we know nothing of the particulars of her affairs, but we’ve heard talk.”

“You could advise her,” John said.

His father-in-law smirked, incredulous. “And get my advice shoved right back down my throat? Thank you, no. If Danielle wants my advice, she can ask for it. I’d be glad to help her in any way I’m able.”

“Does she know that?”

“If she doesn’t, she’s more stubborn and idiotic than even I think.” Surprisingly, there was no condemnation in his tone. But John had never understood his father-in-law’s relationship with Dani. It had been a complicated mess since the word go. Eugene straightened, inhaling through his nose. “Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing. If there’s anything I can do-”

“Thanks, and no, there isn’t, except to be a friend to my daughter.”

He looked away. “She doesn’t make that very easy, I’m afraid.” Then he added formally, “A speedy recovery to you, John.”

When his father-in-law retreated, stiff-backed as ever, John found himself pitying the repressed old fart. He and Lilli-and Dani-could have been a part of a happy old age for Eugene Chandler. But he’d made one mistake too many with his granddaughter, and Lilli had been gone a long time, and John couldn’t even remember how to tie a tie, it’d been so many years.

Then a well-dressed, solidly built man walked into his room. “Hello, Mr. Pembroke,” he said, putting out his hand. “I’m Sam Lincoln Jones. Zeke Cutler asked me to look in on you.”

John shook the man’s hand. There seemed to be no other choice. “To look in on me,” he said, “or to watch me?”

Jones smiled. “Either way, I’m here.”