Now, she reached out and pulled the door to Cynthia’s room closed, hoping that by blocking the view of her sister’s room, she could also block the pain of her mother’s words.
“Come on, let’s pack up whatever she’s going to need and get out of here,” she said to Matt, unconsciously repeating the same words he’d spoken a few moments before.
* * *
IT SEEMED NOTHING could thaw the icy chill that had settled over the Hapgoods’ dining room: not the fire that Matt had laid in the hearth, nor the dozens of candles Joan had lit to cast a warm glow over the family’s dinner. Though she’d cut the last of the fall flowers and set the table with the set of Limoges that had been given to Bill’s grandmother as a wedding present from the Vanderbilts, and though she’d carefully prepared only things she knew her mother liked, nothing had gone as Joan planned.
She’d felt a faint flicker of hope when she first led her mother into the room. Emily stopped short when she stepped through the dining room doors, her eyes moving through the room, lingering on the gleaming silver and crystal that shimmered in the flickering candlelight.
“I was just trying to make it nice for you, Mother,” Joan ventured as she helped the old woman into the chair opposite Matt.
“Why bother? You know you don’t want me here.” Emily peered balefully at her son-in-law and grandson. “And I don’t want to be here.”
Joan did her best to keep a conversation going, but no matter what she said, her mother either ignored her, disagreed with her, or changed the subject.
Emily glowered at the plate of food Joan set in front of her, and after objecting that she’d been served far too much, asked if the chicken was spoiled. “Nobody could eat this,” she declared.
“It’s good, Gram,” Matt said.
“It’s rotten,” Emily said, pushing her plate away. “Take me home.”
Joan silently appealed to her husband.
“You are home, Mother Moore,” Bill said. Seeing Emily’s eyes flash, he quickly added, “At least for a while, until we can decide what would be best for you.”
It was as if Emily hadn’t heard him. “Where’s Cynthia?” she asked. “Why isn’t she here? I want Cynthia!” She stood up, pushing her chair back from the table so abruptly that it fell over. As Joan and Bill leaped up to help her, she brushed them aside. “Leave me alone. I’m going to find Cynthia.”
Emily left the dining room and Joan started after her, but Bill caught her arm. “Let her go,” he said.
“But she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Joan protested. “She barely even knows her way around.”
“Matt can keep an eye on her,” Bill replied. Then, to his son: “Don’t try to argue with her, Matt, and don’t try to make her do anything. Just keep an eye on her and don’t let her hurt herself. Okay?”
Only when Matt was gone and he’d closed the dining room door did Bill speak to his wife again. “This isn’t going to work,” he said gently.
“I can make it work,” Joan began. “All she needs is a few days, and she’ll know her way — ”
Bill held up a hand to cut the flow of his wife’s words. “She won’t know anything. And she won’t get better.” His voice took on a slight edge. “You know she won’t, Joan. Every doctor we’ve talked to for the last two years has told you she’ll only get worse.” He hesitated, then pressed on. “We have to find a place for her. A place where they can take care of her.”
Joan shook her head. “Bill, she’s my mother! And when all this started — when she first got sick — I promised that no matter what happened, I’d never put her into a nursing home. I promised I’d take care of her myself. I can’t just put her away!”
“It wouldn’t be putting her away — it wouldn’t be anything like that. We’ll find the best place in the area, and we can hire around-the-clock care if you want. And you’ll be able to visit her every day.”
Joan shook her head. “I can’t,” she repeated, her voice trembling. “I promised her! She’s my — ”
Again Bill cut her off, and when he spoke this time, the edge in his voice had sharpened. “I know she’s your mother, but I also know how she treats you. Most of the time she has no idea who I am, and as for Matt — ”
“I know,” Joan said, breaking in before he could finish his indictment. “But what am I supposed to do? Could you have broken a promise you made to your father?”
As Joan’s tears overflowed, Bill put his arms around her. “I know,” he said. “I know how hard it is. But if she stays here, she’ll tear this family apart. I know it.” He looked deep into her eyes. “And you know it too.” Joan didn’t answer, but to Bill the conflicting emotions that struggled within her were written clearly on her face, and finally he held her close. “A week,” he conceded. “We’ll give it a week.”
They stood together, their arms wrapped around each other, each of them reflecting upon the words Bill had just spoken.
CHAPTER 3
THE WEEK WENT by.
Bill Hapgood steered his Audi through the gates of Hapgood Farm, slowing the powerful car to a crawl as he made his way up the familiar curves of the long, graveled drive leading to the house. Until this week, this had been the best part of any given day of his life; the time when he left all his problems outside the gates and slipped back into the safe and familiar comfort of the only home he had ever known. It had always been that way: from the time he was a child this house had always been the final refuge from everything.
Once — just once — he had doubted the house’s ability to offer him sanctuary from the world. That had been the day he was in school in Hanover and received the news that the boat his parents had chartered out of St. Lucia had been found abandoned and washed up on Macaroni Beach on the windward shore of Mustique. His parents had vanished. At first he’d simply refused to believe it — he and his parents had been sailing on Penobscot Bay every summer for as long as he could remember, and his father was an expert sailor. But he must have accepted the fact of their disappearance, for when he’d gone home that day, he hesitated before going through the gates, certain that the place would have changed, that it would feel hollow and empty with his parents forever gone.
Instead, to his surprise, it seemed to welcome him even more warmly than ever, and far from finding the house filled with memories that intensified his grief, it gave him comfort instead. It was as if the house, having already known the loss of four generations of Hapgoods, now knew how to deal with death, and the moment he’d passed through the gates of the Farm, his healing had begun.
But over the last week he’d actually dreaded coming home, and as he slid the Audi into the space in the carriage house next to Joan’s Range Rover and shut off the engine, he hesitated before reaching for the door handle, as he’d once hesitated so long ago. Had the car, rather than his home, become his refuge? That was ridiculous! All that had happened was that his mother-in-law had moved in, and even that was only temporary.
Yet as he walked out of the carriage house — converted just over a century ago into a garage to hold the very first car in Granite Falls — he could feel the change. Not that there was anything tangible, anything visible. The house looked exactly as it always had. Lamps had already been turned on against the gathering dusk, but even the light that spilled through the mullioned windows seemed to have lost its warmth, and when Bill stepped through the French doors of what had once been the porte cochere, the change that had been creeping through the house all week was more pronounced than ever.
