Seeking Carolina (30 page)

“Ah, Henny…” She squatted on her haunches again, pinching off a spent flower she hadn’t earlier noticed. “You make it very hard to leave Bitterly, but I have to. If I stay, everyone will know, and…well, anyway. I won’t be gone long, and it’ll be winter, so it won’t matter so much, right? I’ll come back after I figure things out. I just want to do it without everyone hovering. You know how my family is. And then there’s Dan—”

Benny felt tap on her shoulder, spun and thumped flat onto her bottom, looking for Charlie or whoever had snuck up on her while she confided in her dead husband, Benny found herself alone but for the tombstones. She looked narrowly in Mrs. Farcus’ direction.

“Are you playing games with me, you old trickster?”

No answer. Of course. Mrs. Farcus never answered, not once in all the years Benny had been talking to her grave. Neither did Henny, for that matter. Benny’s laughter sounded hollow, even to her own ears. She pick herself up, brushed herself off, and hurried to her motor scooter before either of them decided to finally oblige.

* * * *

Benny twirled her spaghetti with no intention of eating it. Tomato sauce gave her the worst heartburn in the history of heartburn. When she thought no one was looking, she shoved a forkful into her mouth as she rose from the table and headed straight for the garbage can in the corner of the yellow kitchen.

“Don’t even think about it, young lady.” Clarice Irene Grady descended upon her daughter with all the intensity of an Italian-mama intent upon feeding her young. She yanked the full bowl of spaghetti and meatballs from Benny’s hand. “You hardly touched it.”

“I’m not hungry. I—I went to CC’s on the way home from the cemetery. Charlie said there were a whole bunch of pie-pies left over. You know how I love them. I’m sorry, Ma. I couldn’t resist.”

“Ah, you should have brought one home for me.” Peadar Grady gazed heavenward, his hands patting his paunch. “There’s no bit of heaven like one of Johanna Coco’s pie-pies. You make me jealous, girl.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Benny kissed his forehead. “Next time. I promise.”

“What am I to do with all of this?” Clarice held up the plate. “I cook a good meal and you stop on the way home for—”

“Give it here, Ma.” Benny’s brother Peter held out his hand. “I’m ravenous.”

“And if you don’t stop eating like a horse you’ll be as big as your father.”

“Then throw it away. See if I care.”

Clarice plonked the plate in front of her son, glared at her daughter and huffed to the stove, muttering. Benny mouthed, thank you to Peter. He winked and tucked into her uneaten meal. Tall and lean and muscular, her baby brother didn’t have an extra ounce on his body and never had. Neither had their father, as Clarice was fond of reminding him. Still she fed him as if he’d been starved half his life, and would continue starving for the rest of it if not for her efforts.

Benny headed for the back stairs leading up to the second-story of the two-family house, to the apartment she and Henny had lived in all seven years of their married life.

“It’s movie night,” her mother called after her. “You coming back down?”

“Sure, Ma.” If having her way were actually an option, Benny would take a long bath, curl into bed, and be asleep before dusk gave way to dark. But—

All ways here you see, are the Queen’s ways.

The urge to push against every one of Clarice’s shoves had diminished. Benny just didn’t have it in her anymore. After a shower, Benny would be downstairs again, plopped on the couch she’d been plopping into all her life, to watch a romantic comedy starring one of the British Dames her mother was so fond of. Resistance was futile, and often not worth the guilt.

In the privacy of her own apartment, Benny smoothed her hands over her belly. She could imagine it rounding, swelling, exploding, but not her mother’s joy. Clarice had been dreaming of grandchildren since her own brood turned from childhood to adolescence. Grandchildren provided within a year of a wedding and at a rate of every other year thereafter. But Tim married and moved to North Carolina before the first was born. Peter hadn’t even had a serious girlfriend yet. And in the seven years of Benny’s marriage, there had not even been a suspected oops. She and Henny wanted to see the world first. They planned to backpack across Europe, to book passage on a cargo vessel sailing from California to Japan, to work the vines in Napa a full season. Seven years of planning adventures they never took.

Then he died.

No Henny. No adventures. No baby.

Until now.

Letting her hands drop, Benny moved like a ghost through her apartment, closed all the windows. The beautiful day was becoming a chilly dusk. Nights were usually cold in Bitterly, even when summer days spiked in the nineties. The trees, the river, the sheltering Berkshire Mountains absorbed the heat, stored it away for the long winter—a winter she would miss. Along with the autumn splash in the mountains. She would be in North Carolina with her brother, Tim, and his family. Where it was hot. Even at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And she would have a newborn Clarice didn’t even know about. A baby born in sorrow, whose daddy was not Henny…

Benny could not breathe. Grasping for the door, she yanked it open to pound down the exterior stairs leading to the yard. She jammed the helmet on her head, kicked her scooter to life, and sped off before her mother could shout her name, even if Benedetta saw her at the back screen door.

* * * *

The bakery was still open. During the summer months, CC’s North often hopped long after the posted six o’clock closing. It was only June and unseasonably cool, but it was still light enough to pass for daytime. The doors of the bakery were open wide.

Benny slipped off her scooter. Adjusting her getting-tight jeans, she followed the scent of baking into CC’s and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh.” She forced her feet to walk her into the bakery. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“How are…what have…Valentine’s getting so big.”

“Yeah, I hear kids do that.”

Benny felt the color rising in her cheeks, quelled the need to press her palms to them. Dan Greene shifted the toddler in his arms. Waiting? What could he be waiting for? Benny pretended she didn’t know exactly what and instead moved to the counter, her back to him.

“Jo!” he called, startling both her and the baby. “Come get your kid. I have to go home.”

Johanna Coco McCallan pushed through the swinging door, arms outstretched. Flour on her cheek, long hair in a knot on top of her head, she swooped past Benny with a look of surprise and a wave before scooping her daughter from Dan’s arms.

“Sorry, Dan. I didn’t realize—”

“No worries.” He kissed the baby’s round cheek. “See you and Charlie for my niece’s graduation party?”

“We’ll be there. Caleb will be watching the bakery, but we’ll have Tony and Millie with us.”

“I’ll let my sister know. See you, Jo. Benedetta.”

Benny waved over her shoulder, eyes resolutely on the menu board.

“Curiouser and curiouser.”

Johanna’s voice turned Benny around, and only then did she realize there were others in the bakery. They sat at tables, sipping coffee out of to-go cups from the coffeehouse next door. It was a deal Johanna struck when first she opened her bakery in Bitterly. She wouldn’t serve coffee if the coffeehouse didn’t serve baked goods. The result was a sort of co-op suiting not only the two businesses, but the town as well.

“What’s strange?” Benny held out her arms for Valentine, a chubby little cherub as fixed an icon in CC’s as Johanna’s mud cookies and shepherds-pie-pies. Johanna handed her over.

“Dan. I usually have to pry Valentine from his arms before he’ll give her up.”

“She’s a special girl.” Benny’s heart pounded, her face burned. “I don’t blame him.”

“Well he was sure in a hurry to hand her off just now.” Johanna pulled the elastic from her hair, piled it high again and secured it in place. “Did someone say something to him?”

“I only just walked in.” She bounced the baby, avoiding Johanna’s eyes. “Dad was hoping for some of your pie-pies. Any left?”

“One or two. Charlie said you turned him down.”

“I did. Out at the cemetery. When I got home, Dad was inconsolable that I would pass up a pie-pie.”

“Then I’ll go grab one for him. You mind holding her?”

Benny clutched Valentine closer. “Try taking her.”

Johanna scooted around the counter and into the back. Valentine watched her mother vanish, but did not cry. Smiling a wet, baby smile, she reached for Benny’s turquoise pendant.

“No you don’t.” She tapped it away from the baby’s mouth, but not out of her hand. Valentine studied the blue stone, her baby brow furrowed with thoughts Benny couldn’t begin to guess at. Would she dream in blue that night? Holding the baby closer, Benny closed her eyes and allowed her own tremulous joy rumble through her.

A boy. She was positive. Already, she loved him so much.

“Here you go,” Johanna came at her, the bagged pie-pies outstretched and already spreading buttery patches in the paper sack. “Tell him he got the last two.”

“I’ll trade you.” She offered Valentine, who reached for her mother with a little squeal. Benny grabbed the sac. “Crap. I didn’t bring any money.”

“I’m not charging you for leftovers, Ben.”

“They’re not leftovers until tomorrow.”

“They’re leftovers the minute lunch is over. Seriously, don’t be weird.”

“Thanks, Jo.”

Johanna waved away her thanks. “Now if I can get these laggers out of here, I can go home. I should have gotten Dan to do it before he left. He’s good at clearing a room.”

Benny laughed along with Johanna, even if it made her woozy. Funny-man, Dan Greene. Always joking, lightening even the darkest moments. Dependable. Loyal. Kind. Everyone’s favorite plow-man in winter, landscaper the rest of the year even if he liked to pretend he was an ornery old bachelor and dedicated grouse. It was part of his charm, and Benny had always liked that about him—until she more than liked him for it, which was unacceptable.

“How are you doing, Benny?” Johanna asked

Startled, Benny bit her lip. “I’m okay. Just—you know. Same old, same old. I—I hear Nina is coming back to the States for the holidays.”

“You heard right. And she’s bringing back a surprise.”

“Nina? A surprise? That doesn’t sound like her.”

“I know, right?” Johanna laughed. “But she’s not talking. I’m dying of curiosity.”

While those stragglers finished up and left, while Johanna tidied up the front and her stepson did the same in back, Benny listened to her talk and talk and talk. About Nina and the Curiosity Shop that would finally open in New York City. About the honeymoon Johanna and Charlie finally took, meeting her sister and brother-in-law in Bora Bora, sailing those South Seas islands that never stopped being exotic. As long as Johanna kept talking, Benny did not have to. Any wondering about Daniel Greene was safely off topic, even if the conjured image of him so tenderly holding Valentine would not quit. Then there was the way he looked at her the moment she first walked in…

She rode her scooter home in the dark, the only light coming from the stars overhead.

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight.

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight.

Benedetta revved the tinny engine, pretended the tears instantly drying on her cheeks came from forgetting her goggles in her rush to be out of the house. They had nothing to do with Dan, or the gentle way he held Valentine, or how her heart had stuttered that moment before she forced it to still.