Buch lesen: «Coming Home To You»

CHAPTER ONE

MEL GREENE WATCHED through the plate-glass window of the Tim Hortons coffee shop at a traffic accident about to happen a couple hundred feet away. A motor home had stopped on the highway and signaled to enter the side street leading to Spirit Lake’s top shop for caffeine addicts.

But the turn was too sharp. Not much shorter than a railroad car, the unit would flip in the ditch or, worse, collect vehicles in the oncoming lane.

No one else had noticed. The other customers drank and ate, or stood in line. Coming up on seven o’clock on a sunny July morning, it was rush hour at the Tim’s—a couple dozen vehicles were likely funneling through the drive-thru at that moment.

“Mel.” Linda, his as-of-five-minutes-ago ex-girlfriend, sat across from him, her voice soft and confidential. “Are you listening?”

The motor home switched to the right-turn signal. Mel relaxed. Right led to a street of businesses for light manufacturing, and a minimal risk of injury or death, if the motor home crashed.

The unit swerved into the oncoming lane—empty at this hour—veered the other way before straightening and then trundled down a street that made no sense for it to go on.

Mel dragged his attention back to Linda and to the end of yet another relationship. His seventh, to be precise.

He managed a belated nod because it hurt too much to talk right now. Still, to show he was taking their breakup with grace, he sipped from his coffee with its swirl of whipped cream.

Linda tapped her upper lip, and he wiped the froth off his mouth. A routine exchange honed over the last eight months of starting most days with a simple forty-minute coffee together.

Not anymore.

“You’re a good man, Mel,” Linda said.

Not the first time he’d heard that. His third girlfriend had been the first to use that line when she’d dumped him for a guy who’d been arrested for stealing antifreeze at a convenience store.

After the fifth breakup, he figured he might be a good man, but also an unlucky one. He’d been engaged to that girlfriend. She’d had three kids from a previous relationship, and an instant family was convenient and predictable. Then she’d become pregnant with another man’s child.

“But—” Linda started.

Mel disliked the word but. It undid everything good just said. Nice try but... I see what you’re saying but... Thanks for applying but... You’re a good man but...

“—but I feel...I feel you want to be with someone, anyone, and you’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

He would do whatever it took. Marrying a good woman was what he’d wanted pretty much all his fifty years, and Linda was a good catch. A retired nurse with a good pension. A full-time volunteer and grandmother. A widow with a good head on her shoulders and beautiful blond hair, which she did up, even this early in the morning.

She straightened, establishing more space between them and said, “And I refuse to settle. I know what it is to love. I want it again. And...and so should you.”

He was willing to spend the rest of his life with her. If that wasn’t love, what was?

“I wasn’t settling,” he mumbled to his coffee, finally speaking.

“You’re taking it awfully well, then,” Linda said. “I mean, look at you. Even now, I’m breaking up with you and you don’t seem to care. You’re staring at your coffee, or out the window at traffic.”

He forced himself to make eye contact with Linda. He’d probably often looked away from her throughout their relationship, giving her the impression he didn’t care. In reality, he was afraid if he gazed too long, if he fixed too much attention on her, she’d get scared and leave. Maybe he’d done that in all his relationships: wanted, yet hid his wanting. In the end, they’d all left, anyway. And it was always the women who broke things off because he’d neither the heart nor the guts for it himself.

“It’s not that,” he tried to explain. “It’s... I do care,” he finished lamely. “I’m sorry I didn’t show it right.”

Whatever the right way was.

Linda ripped at her coffee lid, the soft brown plastic whitening before giving way. “I suppose I can hardly blame you for not being emotional. Tim Hortons is hardly the place—” she waved a hand over the crumpled wrappers and bags on the table between them “—for this. I didn’t intend to say this to you today. It just sort of...spilled out. I’d been thinking about Craig. I guess after Craig died... I guess I just wanted someone to fill the space. We’d been together for thirty-six years, after all.”

So. She wasn’t over Craig. As usual, he’d missed the signs. He wasn’t even sure what the signs were. Shorter kisses? A few less dates?

She gave a wavering smile, probably to show she bore him no ill will and hoped he felt the same. Which inevitably led to the other line all seven women had trotted out. He braced for full impact.

“I hope we can still be friends.”

What to say to that? What did it really mean? He’d called up his second ex to ask her out to the theater a couple of weeks after they broke up and she’d said, “Mel, don’t you get it? We’re not together anymore.”

When he’d invoked the friend clause, she’d said that wasn’t how it worked. Decades later, he still wasn’t sure how it worked.

The motor home had reappeared on the highway, signaling once more its intention to come toward the Tim Hortons. He waited for the indicator to switch. It didn’t. The unit—a full thirty feet long—swung into the opposing lane, forcing an exiting truck to brake to avoid a crash.

“No,” Mel murmured. “No.”

Linda sighed. She must think he was answering her. He pointed out the window.

The RV slowed and entered the narrow two-way lane into Tim Hortons, and then headed right toward them.

People noticed now.

The early eastern light banked off the windshield of the RV and temporarily prevented Mel from seeing the driver. Whoever it was would have to make an impossible right to clear the restaurant on the left and navigate past the vehicles parked to the right.

This morning, the Spirit Lake Funeral and Crematorium hearse, with its extended rear, was right beside the entrance. Jim Creasley, the owner of the hearse and the funeral home, strode from the counter to the plate-glass window. Mel’s family had gone to him when their mom had passed a couple of years ago, and when Mel’s stepdad had died twenty years prior to that.

Jim was dressed like he was going to a—well, he was dressed for work, which, given the early hour, probably meant he had to drive a ways. He was known throughout central Alberta, hundreds of miles in all directions, for his compassion.

“If that brainless driver hits my vehicle,” he said, “there’ll be another coffin in the back.”

The RV clipped the back end of Jim’s hearse and knocked it into the adjacent red car, which triggered a shout from a beefy young woman in a safety vest at the coffee counter.

She tore outside, Jim a step behind.

“The driver’s a woman. A senior,” Linda said, her head cranked to see up past the painted brown tones of the coach to the driver’s seat. Sure enough, an older woman wearing aviator sunglasses was at the wheel, hauling on it for all she was worth.

Jim rounded the corner, waving and cursing as the motor home crept along like a giant steel sloth. As if watching an action movie, Mel stared, fascinated, disbelieving.

Around him, people found their voices.

“Get out of the way, Jim.”

“Brake!”

“She’s not going to make it.”

“Is she insane?”

The driver suddenly pitched to the side. Someone, another female, maybe the passenger, had pushed her and wrenched the wheel away. Mel caught a glimpse of a paperback, an arm covered in something white and lacy, and then the RV lurched to the left—too far to the left. The grille of the house-sized coach bore straight toward Linda and him.

The coach suddenly surged forward. Mel, half lifting Linda, ran for the safety of the counter. Brick, glass and steel groaned and splintered behind them. The impact brought the drama to a final, shuddering stop.

Mel shot from Linda’s side, through the still-intact side door of the Tim’s and ran to the coach door, slipping in ahead of Jim and the owner of the red car. Mel drummed on the door and rose on his tiptoes to see through the window at the top. No luck.

“Hello? Everybody all right in there?”

The door clicked a release and eased open, the running board steps automatically descending, to reveal the passenger. She stood on the top step of the coach and was clad in a full-length white nightgown, so long it trailed behind her like the train of a wedding gown. Her face was drawn and pale, and she clasped a black-and-yellow classic paperback to her chest.

He stepped onto the lowest step and tipped back his cap.

“Hello. I’m Mel. Let me help you.”

* * *

DAPHNE WAS COLD. The book trembled in her shaking hand, and the blood drained from her skin as it ran to her heart, which was pounding so loud that she could feel the vibrations in her ears. She was in shock.

Her gaze drifted to the green lettering on the man’s black baseball cap. Greene-on-Top. The logo showed a roof peak jutting up through the lettering. Beneath the cap, his hazel eyes were warm and steady. Was this what Elinor meant when she praised Edward Ferrars for “the expression of his eyes” in Sense and Sensibility?

“How can I help?”

Ah. Yes. He’d asked her that already. She needed to answer. “My godmother.” It sounded like an expletive, so she gestured to the driver’s seat.

The man—what was his name again?—looked past her to where Fran sat slouched, arms wrapped around the wide wheel, head down, in a kind of sitting dead man’s float. “I’ll be right back,” he said and disappeared inside the restaurant.

Before she could turn to Fran, two more people approached the door. A man dressed nicely with a tie and polished shoes, and a young woman in jeans and a neon yellow safety vest.

“You hit our vehicles,” the woman said, pointing a thumb to her fellow complainant.

Oh. Oh. He must be the owner of the hearse, the undertaker. Daphne had wrenched the wheel from Fran after she hit the hearse, only to ram into the building. She decided not to point out to the woman that Fran was the one in the driver’s seat, as they could very well see for themselves. Or that she was clearly not well. Instead, she pressed Sense and Sensibility to her chest. “Thank you for pointing out the obvious. You may go now.”

The woman looked ready to storm the steps, but the man touched her arm. “Let’s give the lady some room. She’s not going anywhere.”

Daphne was only too happy to let the man edge the neon-clad warrior away. Through the open door drifted a male voice on a phone. “Right away. Traffic’s backed up a quarter mile in both directions, the parking lot’s a mess...Okay, thanks.” Oh. A call to the police.

A long horn blast burst out, and Daphne whirled to see that Fran’s head had fallen against the steering wheel.

“Fran!” Daphne lifted her godmother’s head, easing off her thick sunglasses. Fran was deathly pale and her eyes fluttered shut. Was she having an attack? Had she mixed up her medications? What? What?

A young man in a Tim Hortons shirt appeared at the door. “Everyone okay here? Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

At the mention of an ambulance, Fran straightened in her seat. “Nonsense. I’m fine.”

“A man said he was going for help,” Daphne said. Wait. He’d said he’d be back, and she’d assumed he was going for help, only—

“I got this.” Mr. Greene-on-Top had reappeared with a blonde woman around Daphne’s age. The other woman made a beeline up the steps to Fran. Mr. Greene took up a position on the top step, while the Tim Hortons fellow scuttled back into the restaurant. Would he call an ambulance?

The woman crouched beside Fran. “Hello. My name is Linda and I’m a nurse. How are you feeling?”

Fran groaned. Daphne recognized it as a sound not of pain but of aggrievement. Fran had acquired the same pained tolerance with nurses that she had with her academic peers, and they with her.

“Not bad for stage-four terminal pancreatic cancer. And you?”

Linda’s mouth twisted in either humor or annoyance or pity. With Fran Hertz, likely all three. “Not bad either, considering you nearly ran me over.”

She turned to Daphne. “Did she lose consciousness at any point?”

“Just now, she closed her eyes. I don’t—”

Fran slapped Daphne’s hands off her head, one of which still clutched the paperback. “I didn’t lose consciousness. I didn’t get the chance before you nearly shook the teeth out of my head.”

A blatant lie.

Linda tossed out another question. “When did you first notice signs of impairment?”

“Impairment?” Fran said. “I haven’t been drinking!”

Daphne didn’t know how to answer except with the embarrassing truth. She held up her book. “I’m unable to comment. I was...reading.”

“The same story for the tenth time,” Fran said. “Can’t get enough of Elinor and Edward.”

More like the fiftieth. “Nothing seemed amiss until she attempted to negotiate the turn onto the street. I strenuously advised against it but she—”

“Wouldn’t listen. Story of my life. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.”

Mr. Greene looked out the windshield at the RV lodged in the restaurant wall.

Fran grunted. “I guess we’ll have to sort things out.”

“I’d like to see you lie down,” Linda said. “Do you want help to your bed or can you manage on your own?”

Fran opened her mouth in protest but the wail of sirens preempted her, and she sighed. “All right. Let’s do this.” She turned to Daphne. “You still not in clothes?”

Oh. Daphne glanced at Mr. Greene-on-Top, who suddenly found a great interest in the geometric floor tile. Oh! She clapped the book over her chest. To assist Fran, Linda edged closer to Daphne. Daphne shuffled out of the way, only to bump against her hide-a-bed, which was still folded out. Off balance, she plunked down on it, or more precisely, on a bag of chips, which crunched ever so finely under her bottom.

Linda eased her hold on Fran to lower her onto the bed.

“I’ll sleep here over my dead body!” Fran said. “Granted, that won’t be long from now, but still, I will not lay my bones on this refuse heap. My room’s at the back.”

More crunching, rolling and crawling of the three women ensued, ending when Daphne pressed against the small dining table to allow them to pass down the hallway.

“Just so you know,” Fran said as Linda ushered her through the bedroom door, “the second you leave, I’m back at the wheel.”

“That’s fine,” Linda said, “since I will have the keys.”

Oh, heavens. Fran thrived on adversity. Her fragile health always seemed to rally just so she could rail against someone who dared to oppose her. Which probably explained her deteriorating state on this trip, since Daphne avoided controversy the way a mouse skirts open spaces. Still, Daphne now had a reprieve to face—

Mr. Greene-on-Top was gone. Breathing a sigh of relief, she slipped inside the bathroom, which doubled as her dressing room.

She set her book by the sink. It wasn’t easy; her hand had gone into a kind of rigor mortis, and she had to pry her fingers from the cover and then flex her hand repeatedly to regain motor control.

She peeled off her nightie. Yes, the apparel was unseemly and impractical, but Daphne had been in desperate need of inspiration. Writing a book required some.

Unfortunately, all the nightie had served to do was embarrass her. Which was par for the course. Nothing on this sweaty, bumpy, boring, mosquito-tormented, quarreling, pill-driven, five-week and are-we-there-yet? excursion across the True North Strong and Free had turned out as intended.

She’d spent the past month secretly hoping they’d head home to Halifax. Back to her university office, crowded with shelves of silent, stationary books. Back to her apartment, with its full bookshelves and thick curtains and a quiet so profound that the starting of the fridge fan could jar her.

Well, with their means of transportation now stuck in the wall of a Tim Hortons in some Albertan town, her wish had partly come true. Not exactly a return to Halifax, but they wouldn’t be moving forward. At least, for a day. Longer, if at all possible. If not for Daphne’s sake, then for Fran’s. The accident had proved that neither of them were in any shape to continue.

Over the loud sirens outside and through the thin wall between the bedroom and the bathroom, Daphne heard Fran’s voice. “Rest with you here, ready to rob me blind? I might be dead tomorrow but neither was I born yesterday.”

Oh, dear. Maybe if the nurse could get Fran to the hospital, the doctors there could make her stop this insane trip. Maybe the police could strip Fran of her license. Surely, it was clear she was a hazard on the road.

The sirens cut out, signaling the police’s arrival.

“The cavalry’s here,” Daphne muttered. Still in her underwear, Daphne scanned the littered bathroom floor for suitable clothing. The university tracksuit she’d bought on a whim before leaving to wear in a pinch was lying in a heap on the floor. Five weeks in, every day was a pinch. The tracksuit reeked of campfire smoke, mosquito spray and her deodorant.

“Hello?” Mr. Greene again.

Daphne scrambled into the tracksuit, its stench wonderfully clearing her muddled mind, and then she exited the bathroom to the front.

This time, Mr. Greene was accompanied by a police officer.

“Hello. I’m Corporal Paul Grayson,” the officer stated from the other side of her bed. “Daphne, is it?”

He must’ve got her name from Mr. Greene. Daphne wished she remembered his first name. She never could remember names when they were spoken to her, which made the first day of classes excruciating. She’d invented a mental game of rhyming names to hurry the memorization process. Hopefully someone would mention the man’s name so she could use her trick. “Yes. That’s right.”

“Daphne,” he repeated in an extra calm voice, “do you mind stepping outside with me?”

Was he going to arrest her? Was carelessness a crime? Perhaps so, particularly since there’d been property damage. But she hadn’t been driving. Was she an accessory?

Her breath caught in her throat. Negligence. Yes, she knew that was a crime, one she’d magnificently demonstrated.

Then again, her arrest would stop the trip.

Had things so unraveled that she was actually welcoming the chance to be placed in cuffs?

“Very well.” With a straight back, she scooted across her bed and down the steps. Mr. Greene was already waiting beside the coach, like a flight attendant. When she reached the bottom step, he pointed at her bare feet with a thick, strong workman’s finger. Not too many of those on the university campus. Or on Edward Ferrars, for that matter.

“You need shoes. There’s broken glass out here.”

She blinked at him in the new morning light. “Oh. Yes. Of course.”

She mounted the steps, searching her mind for where she’d left her shoes. Any shoes. “I saw a pair under the bed,” he called after her.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

As she got on her hands and knees, Daphne was quite sure she would beat Fran to death’s door and expire here and now from incurable mortification.