The Story Keeper (38 page)

Stop.
That.
The words in my head were a reprimand, strong and determined like my mother’s voice.
You are not your father.

But occasionally over the years, I had wondered . . . was there, inside me, the same demon that had taken him from us before I was six years old? Before I was even old enough to know him as more than a feeling, a snatch of sound, a mist of memory?

Could I, without even seeing it ahead of time, come to a place where giving up seemed like the best option?

How was that thought even possible for me, knowing firsthand the pain a decision like that left behind? Knowing what happened in the aftermath when someone you loved entered the cold waters and swam out to sea with no intention of ever coming back?

Someone should tell the dead that saving the living isn’t as simple as leaving a note to say,
It’s no one’s fault.
For the living, it always feels like someone’s fault.

Turning onto the cabin road, I cleared my head and felt the tears beginning to come, seeking to cleanse. Sometimes in helplessness tears are the only thing you have left. They swelled and pounded in my throat, like the tide coming ashore, as I drew closer to the little lake cabin that had been home for over five years now. Fortunately, Mrs. Doyne, who lived in the house out front, kept her three rental cabins at 1950s prices. She was more interested in having responsible tenants who wouldn’t turn the places into party pads than she was in making money off the property.

Dressed in her nightgown and probably just about ready to turn in, she waved from behind a picture window as I passed by
the house. One of her ever-present crossword puzzles dangled in her hand.

I had the random realization that even Mrs. Doyne would be hurt if I walked out onto the softening ice however far it took to fall through into the water.
Get your act together, Whitney Monroe,
she’d probably say.
Life goes on.
Mrs. Doyne had survived the death of her husband of fifty years, her one true love. She worked in her gardens and volunteered all over the area and mentored a Girl Scout troop. She had the best attitude of any person I’d ever met.

There was a time when I was more like her
 
—better able to take life as it came, to appreciate the subtle joys of an ordinary day, to let the future fend for itself. I’d worked in high-end kitchens, kept up with the pace, never let myself get rattled when an assistant on the hot line scorched a sauce or a waiter dropped a tray. I’d dealt with bosses who weren’t much different from Tagg Harper
 
—bloated, self-important personalities bent on showing the world how special they were.

I usually handled things well. I usually had things under control.

But what I’d never dealt with, what I’d avoided my entire adult life, was the very thing that had been squeezing me dry these past months. I’d never allowed someone else’s well-being to depend on my own. I’d never had to live with the knowledge that my choices, my actions, my failure would destroy another person’s life.

Turning off the car, I rested my head against the steering wheel as cold pressed through the windows and the engine’s last gasps settled into dull metallic pings. A sob wrenched the air and I heard it before I felt it. The wheezing, hopeless sound seemed as though it must have come from someone else, but the hot moisture trails slowly tracing my skin said otherwise.

A breath heaved inward, stung my throat, and another sob
pressed out. I lifted my head, let it bump against the steering wheel, thought,
Stop, stop, stop!

The knock on the window shot through me like an electrical pulse, making me jerk upright. Beyond the blurry haze, I made out Mrs. Doyne’s silhouette against the security lamps, the fur-lined hood of her coat catching the light and giving her a halo.

My emotions scattered like rabbits, leaving behind only two that I could identify
 
—horror and embarrassment. I didn’t want
anyone
to see me like this, least of all Mrs. Doyne. She had been an angel about the rent the last several months, accepting it whenever we’d had an especially good day at Bella Tazza #1 and could spare the money from the till.

But like everyone else in town, Mrs. Doyne didn’t know the whole story. All she knew was that we’d had some trouble with the inspections on the new restaurant. She may have been an angel, but she was also related to Tagg Harper, and she clearly thought a lot of him. Her deceased husband had been one of his ice-fishing buddies. In this county, the locals were closely connected.

Pretending to reach for my keys in the ignition, I wiped my eyes and then rolled down the window, hoping she wouldn’t notice what a mess I was.

“Oh, honey.” She touched my shoulder, and I gritted my teeth against another rush of tears. “I guess you heard.”

I nodded, a rueful puff of laughter forcing itself past my throat and into the air. I watched it billow and disappear. She
knew
? Had she known all along? Had she been in on all of this, offering a good deal on the cabin, being so understanding when the rent was late, as a way of . . . what? Keeping an eye on me?

Was she just one more local helping to make sure that this county and everything in it continued to belong to people with ties to the Harper family?

“I’m sorry . . .” She seemed to leave the sentence unfinished. I wondered what that meant. What was she sorry for?

I hated myself for that question. Over the last eleven months, I’d come to think of her almost as a replacement for my mother. They liked all the same things. They even had the same Upper Peninsula accent. Being around Mrs. Doyne was almost like having my mother back again. Mrs. Doyne was even a breast cancer survivor. Someone strong enough to defeat the disease that had taken my mom five years ago. It was after her funeral that Denise and I reconnected and spent a long night talking about life, dreams, and Denise’s struggle to pay Maddie’s medical bills after her ex-husband refused to keep up the child support on a teacher’s salary. Suddenly, the unexpected offer on my restaurant in Dallas seemed to make sense. All of it seemed meant to be.

“Come on inside.” Mrs. Doyne’s hand circled under my arm, as if she meant to forcibly lift me out the window. “You look like you need a spot of hot tea.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the energy. I just went along.

Inside, the house smelled of cats, baseboard heat, and the earth of plants in fresh pots. When spring finally came, Mrs. Doyne would have a garden half ready in her sunroom. How could anyone who understood growing things and loved them possibly be in on Tagg Harper’s dirty dealings?

“Sit.” She left me a sofa space between three curled-up cats. “Let me put the water on.”

Sinking down with my cold fingers tucked between my knees, I let my head fall back, closed my eyes, tried to think. A cat crawled into my lap, nestled there and toyed with the zipper on my coat, its soft purring a strange comfort.

“I tried to call you earlier when I got the message.” Mrs. Doyne’s voice seemed far away.

Another month . . . Can we hang on another month? There has to be some way to get the money. . . .

My mind was racing again. Turning over options and options and options. Running into brick wall after brick wall after brick wall. And then the biggest one of all
 
—the fact that if we went any further with all of this, we risked losing everything.

You can’t do that to
Denise
. You can’t do that to
Denise,
and
Maddie,
and Grandma Daisy.

“I say . . . I tried to call you on your cell phone when the message came.”

Mrs. Doyne’s words broke through the din.

“Message?”

The teakettle whistled, the high, shrill sound causing the cats to stir.

The whistle died, a spoon clinked, the refrigerator door opened and closed. Cream and sugar. Mrs. Doyne knew. We’d shared a few cups of tea in the past months.

“It sounded as if the man had no idea where else to call. I would’ve just passed your mobile number along to him, but he phoned while I was out at the market. I didn’t find the message on the recorder until I came back. You must’ve had the ringer off when I tried to get in touch with you. I suppose the man found your number and called you directly?”

Her slippers shuffled across the kitchen, and I sat up, opening my eyes as she reentered the living room and handed over my tea. I wrapped my hands around the cup, let its comforting warmth and chamomile scent sink in. “I’m sorry you couldn’t reach me. I left my phone in the car all afternoon.” The truth was, I couldn’t deal with calls while we were facing the parceling up of Bella Tazza #2.

Mrs. Doyne gave me a perplexed look, settling into her
recliner, the mug balanced in her hands. “Well, I know it isn’t the sort of news you need right now, what with your restaurant struggles. Are you close?” Her head inclined sympathetically. She leaned forward, her eyes compassionate behind her glasses. “

“Close?”

“To your stepfather.” Frowning, she looked into her teacup, as if she might find the answers there. “I assumed not, given that the neighbor couldn’t find the number to your cell phone in his home.”

“My
stepfather
?” The words struck like a ricochet baseball drilling some unsuspecting fan in the head. I hadn’t seen my mother’s late-in-life husband since her funeral. It was no accident that my stepfather’s neighbor couldn’t find my new cell phone number among his belongings.

“Mrs. Doyne, I’m completely lost here. I haven’t heard from my stepfather in almost five years. There’s no reason he’d be getting in touch, believe me.”

“Oh . . .” Pressing a hand to her chest, Mrs. Doyne blinked in surprise. “When I saw you crying in the car, I just assumed the message had gotten through to you. I’m sorry to be the deliverer of such news. The call was from your stepfather’s neighbor in North Carolina . . . the Outer Banks, I believe he said. He thought you should know of the situation. Apparently your stepfather took a fall in the bathroom, and he lay there for nearly four days before anyone found him.”

Discussion Questions

1. In the beginning of the story, Jen feels as though she has finally achieved her dream, but the dream is about to take an unexpected turn. Have you ever stepped through an open door expecting one thing, then found something completely different?
   
2. Jen’s adult life is in many ways a facade, in that it involves denying and concealing her past. Do you ever feel the need to conceal parts of yourself in order to fit in or advance in a career or social situation? What price do we pay for such choices?
   
3. When Jen finds the
   Story Keeper
   manuscript, she is compelled to read it, even though she knows it’s both a personal and a professional risk. Why do you think she makes that choice? Describe a time when you were driven to take a risk personally or professionally. Did it pay off? What happened?
   
4. In Sarra’s day, women were given far fewer options in life. Are there stories in your own family of women who faced difficult circumstances and survived or triumphed? How did they overcome their trials?
   
5. Faced with either helping Sarra or preserving his own safety, Rand chooses to take the risk. In the moment of crisis, he steps forward, even while imagining how a bullet would feel. Do you think we all have the capacity to become heroes? Have you had a heroic moment in your own life? Or can you identify a situation in your past for which you now regret not stepping up?
   
6. Evan finds himself limited by the persona that has been created by his success. Have others’ expectations of you ever made you feel the need to “play a part”? How can we
   get real
   in front of the world?
   
7. In Helen Hall, Jen sees the “quiet festering of a dream” that was sacrificed in favor of family and business needs. Are there any dreams in your life that have been shelved by necessity? What would it take to go after those dreams? Will you be able to pursue them at some point in the future?
   
8. Evan Hall’s fans have taken literary love to the point of borderline mania. Have you ever been so enthusiastic about a book that you wanted to visit the setting, contact the author, or “live the book” in some way? What characteristics captivate you and draw you into a story?
   
9. Because life among the Brethren Saints caused religion and abuse to become hopelessly tangled in Jen’s mind, she has pushed faith aside. Have you dealt with “wounded believers” in your life or been one yourself? How can we separate what we’ve been told about God from authentic truth?
   
10. Sarra lives in a world that is limited by abuse and prejudice, yet she remains hopeful, determined, and faithful. Rather than blaming God, she looks to God. Where does this attitude come from? Do you think Rand’s faith is “softer” because he has not been tested?
    
11. Despite the difficult history between Jen and her sisters, the ties of sisterhood still bind and tug. Are the bonds of siblings
    always
    lifelong bonds? When those bonds are broken and tattered, what are the results? Have you ever wished a relationship could be different from what it was?
    
12. The mountains are a touchstone to Jen’s childhood. Where are the touchstones to your childhood? What do they mean to you?