“He’s fine.”
Bacchus was Leah’s own horse. When Daddy had died, his polo ponies had been sold off to the Gracidas and to Uncle Bump, but Leah had been allowed to keep her horse.
She had been terrified Bacchus would be sold too. She would have died of a broken heart if she had lost him. After Daddy’s accident, she had felt like Bacchus was the only real friend she had in the whole world. He was certainly the only one who allowed her to feel what she was feeling without judging her or telling her she shouldn’t feel this or she shouldn’t think that. He never judged her when she wanted to blame Leslie for ruining all of their lives. She could always go to Bacchus and bury her face against his big, thick neck and cry, and he would nuzzle her hair and breathe his warm, velvety breath on her neck, and she would feel comforted.
“What time should I pick you up this afternoon?” her mother asked.
Leah took a deep breath and held it. Now was the time. She needed to ask. She dreaded asking. She knew her mother would say no. There was probably no point in asking. Really, she should just not even go there, and avoid the whole unpleasant experience. But even as she thought that, her mouth started moving and words spewed out in a rush.
“Wendy’s mom is going out of town and so she’s staying with Mrs. Leone and she asked me to come and stay too and Anne said it was fine with her, so can I? Please?”
Her mother looked at her as if she’d only just realized Leah was sitting there. “You want to do what?”
Should she just say never mind? Nothing?
But her lips began to move and words came out.
“Wendy’s mom is going out of town,” she said, her heart beating faster even as the words came out slower. “So Wendy is staying overnight with Mrs. Leone, and she asked me to come and stay too. Can I?”
She braced herself so she wouldn’t flinch when her mother snapped at her.
But her mother didn’t snap at her. She stared at Leah for a moment, then went back to staring at the toast. She was silent for so long Leah began to wonder if she was ever going to respond. Finally she did.
“Is it all right with Mrs. Leone?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Leah held her breath. She hadn’t been allowed to stay with a friend since forever. The prospect of having her mother say yes was like dawn breaking, like a cell door opening.
“I’ll have to speak to Anne directly,” her mother said.
She was thinking about it, Leah could see.
If she could have read her mother’s mind, she would have been coming up with counterpoints to every argument against letting her go, but she had no idea what her mother was thinking as she stared at her toast.
Finally her mother said, “All right.”
Leah practically gasped for air. The shock rendered her speechless.
“I’ll pick you up at the barn—”
“You don’t have to. Wendy is coming out this afternoon. Anne is bringing the kids out to watch her ride. We’ll all go back in Anne’s car.”
“I want you to call and let me know when you get there.”
“I will.”
Leah held her breath again, waiting for the change of heart. It couldn’t possibly be this easy after all this time of not being allowed to do anything.
After a moment, her mother found a faint smile, got up from her chair, and came around to give Leah a weak hug and kiss the top of her head.
“I’m glad you have a friend, sweetheart,” she said.
Then she walked out of the room, leaving her toast untouched.
13
The Thomas Center for Women near the center of Oak Knoll had been built in the late 1920s as a private Catholic girls’ school—which it had remained into the sixties.
The buildings had been modeled in the style of the old Spanish missions that studded the length of the California coast like jewels in a necklace. Gleaming white stucco and red tiled roofs; arched corridors and curved, pedimented gables; a terraced bell tower standing tall above the thick walls.
Lauren recognized the details as they had been lovingly described to her by her husband. Lance had been obsessed with the missions. He had visited all of them—most of them more than once. He had always talked about building a family compound in the same style, situating the main house and separate guest cottages and work studios in a ring around a fabulous courtyard garden.
Lance had toured the Thomas Center when he had been staying in Oak Knoll during the remodeling of Bump and Sissy’s house. Lauren remembered him talking about it, waxing rhapsodic about the architecture. A beautiful design had been like a beautiful woman to Lance. Bump had often teased him that buildings were like mistresses to him and that if he didn’t watch out, Bump was going to step in and adopt his family out from under him.
Lauren was very aware of the women’s center housed in these buildings now for the last decade or so. The woman who had founded the center had spoken to several of Lauren’s women’s groups in Santa Barbara over the years. She knew Jane Thomas well enough to recognize her and exchange pleasantries, and she admired her tireless hard work for the center.
The Thomas Center was a place for disadvantaged and abused women to reinvent themselves. A place for healing and rehabilitating, a place of hope. Women from all walks of life were welcomed.
Lauren parked in the lot on the side of the main building and sat there for a moment. She felt abused—by life and by herself. No doubt she needed healing.
Hope, at this point, looked like a lovely white bird just out of reach. She had held on to it once, held it too tightly, and it had escaped her grasp. Now she kept snatching at it, pulling the feathers from its tail, but never quite getting hold of it.
She dug a couple of Tylenol out of her purse and washed them down with Evian water. Eleven o’clock and her head was still pounding from crying and drinking and not sleeping the night before. She had taken the care to put makeup on, but knew it couldn’t do much to hide her exhaustion or the fact that she was hungover, or that she had spent most of the night beating herself up for being weak and stupid.
She didn’t bother to look in the mirror to confirm what she knew she would see. She put her sunglasses on and got out of the car.
Anne Leone kept an office here in the Thomas Center. Lauren asked for directions at the front desk and kept her head down as she walked past Jane Thomas’s office to the far end of the hall. It seemed a long walk. The heels of her shoes clacked against the polished Mexican tile, and the sound floated all the way to the top of the barrel vaulted ceiling.
She paused at the office door. It opened from the inside before she could change her mind and leave.
Anne greeted her with an easy smile, as if they had been friends for a long time.
“Hi, Lauren, come on in. The desk called and told me you were here.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to chat with you on the phone when you called,” she went on as she led the way back from a small reception area to her private office. “I had someone waiting for me.”
“No problem,” Lauren said. “I had errands to run anyway. Not a problem stopping by.”
She didn’t say that she had a suspicion this was a setup. Not a great idea to show paranoia in front of a mental health professional.
“Have a seat,” Anne said, waving toward a cushy gold chenille sofa and two matching oversized chairs as she went around behind her French antique writing desk. A coffee station was set up on the credenza beneath the bookcases. “Would you like something to drink? I’m having peppermint tea. A little morning sickness today.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Even with morning sickness, she looked the picture of glowing health.
