Her Mother's Shadow (12 page)

“My brother Clay will pick us up,” she continued. “He knew your mother, too. He was a few years older than your mom—mother—and me, but we hung around together sometimes.” That was certainly an exaggeration. The year Jessica got pregnant, Lacey and Clay had not gotten along at all. There had been a deep love between them, certainly, but it had not been reflected in their adolescent banter with one another. And although she and Jessica would sometimes show up at the older kids' parties where Clay was in attendance, he would have a fit when he saw her there and tell their father about it to get her into trouble.

“Clay recently got married to a woman named Gina, and they adopted a little girl from India. Her name is Rani. So you'll have a cousin.”

Mackenzie rolled her eyes. “No, I won't,” she said with a nasty edge to her voice. “She's not related to me.”

Take it slower, Lacey warned herself.

“And we have a dog named Sasha.”

She thought she saw a spark of interest at that piece of information.

“I wasn't allowed to have a dog,” Mackenzie said. “Mom was allergic.”

Lacey remembered that Jessica had never been comfortable around animals. She had not been allergic, though, or at least not to Lacey's knowledge.

“Well, you have one now,” she said. “He's a black lab, and we all live together in this wonderful old house where the lighthouse keeper used to live.”

“Weird,” Mackenzie said.

“And your grandmother only lives a short distance away,” Lacey said. “I go right past her street on my way to work at the animal hospital my father owns. He's a vet. Your grandmother should have gotten home yesterday, so tomorrow we can go and visit her.”

“I don't want to,” Mackenzie said, and Lacey was surprised.

“You don't want to see your grandmother?”

She shook her head and unbuckled her seat belt. “I need to get out to go to the ladies' room,” she said.

Lacey got out of her own seat to let Mackenzie pass by her.

“Do you feel all right?” she asked, but the girl didn't answer her.

Lacey sat down again and stared at the phone that was built into the seat back in front of her. When she first got on the plane and saw that phone, she'd wondered who in their right mind would make a phone call that probably cost sev
eral dollars a minute. Now she knew: desperate people. She read the instructions, then dialed the emergency room in Kill Devil Hills and asked the receptionist if she could speak to Dr. Simon. “This is her stepdaughter,” she said.

It took a few minutes, but she finally got Olivia on the phone.

“How's it going?” Olivia asked.

“Terrible,” she said. “We're on the plane and she's in the rest room and I'm about to tear my hair out. She doesn't want to be with me. She hates me. She's…I think she might be getting sick in the rest room. I am not cut out for this, Olivia.”

“If you think she's sick, you should be with her.”

Lacey pictured trying to work her way into the tiny rest room, holding back Mackenzie's hair as she got sick. Oh, God. She was relieved to see Mackenzie in the aisle, walking toward her.

“Oh, she's coming back,” she said. “I'll get in touch when we're home and settled in a little, Olivia.”

“Yes. Bring her over to meet Jack and Maggie.”

“Olivia?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I'm sorry if I was difficult when you first met me.”

Olivia laughed. “You were pretty easy, Lace, but then you weren't being uprooted like Mackenzie is.”

“True,” she said. “I've got to go.”

Mackenzie was very pale. There were dark rings around her eyes, and as she pushed past Lacey to return to the window seat, Lacey thought she could detect the faint smell of vomit.

“Did you get sick?” she asked.

“I'm okay,” Mackenzie said, cutting off the conversation with the curt tone of her voice.

Lacey patted her arm. “Only another forty minutes,” she
said. “Then we'll be in Norfolk and you can meet your new family.”

Mackenzie turned her head toward the window, eyes glistening.

“I don't want a new family,” she said. “I just want my mother.”

A
s soon as they stepped off the plane, Mackenzie was on her cell phone. Veronica and Mary had chipped in to give it to her, along with unlimited minutes of talking time, so that she could stay in touch with her Phoenix friends. At the time, Lacey had thought it was a thoughtful gift and criticized herself because she never would have thought of it. Now, though, as Mackenzie walked several paces in front of her, jabbering away on the phone, using more words in ten seconds than she had used with Lacey in the past five days, she was not so sure.

She followed the girl to the baggage area to begin watching for their suitcases and Mackenzie's boxes. They had not brought her computer, and Mackenzie had been upset about that. Lacey promised that Mary would ship it to her quickly, but the truth was, they would not need it. That had been Clay's kindness. He'd bought a computer Mackenzie could use and had reinstalled the second phone line to the house so she could have her own access to e-mail and the Internet. Yet another one of Mackenzie's needs that Lacey had not thought of.

Standing next to the girl at the baggage area, she felt alone and helpless, much as she had on the plane. Mackenzie was talking in hushed tones into the phone, and Lacey figured the conversation was about her—how she had forced Mackenzie to go away with her, how the only good thing about the trip had been getting to see Elijah Wood in
Lord of the Rings
again. Lacey bit her lip and studied the bags, which were thumping along on the conveyor belt. Either Jessica had lost her mind, or she knew something about Lacey's strength and resilience of which she, herself, was unaware.

With great relief, she spotted Gina walking toward the baggage area. Rani was with her, pushing her stroller instead of riding in it, and the brown baby doll was sitting in the seat.

“There's Gina,” Lacey said, although she knew Mackenzie was too involved in her phone conversation to hear her. She tapped the girl on her shoulder. “Could you please tell your friend you'll call her back later?” she asked. “Clay and Gina are here and they'll want to meet you.”

“It's a him, not a her,” Mackenzie said. Then in a voice tinged with annoyance, she spoke into the phone. “I have to go,” she said. “TTYL.”

“What does that mean?” Lacey asked, trying to sound interested rather than nosey. “TTYL?”

“Talk to you later,” Mackenzie said, her tone flat. She stood on her toes to look for her suitcase and boxes.

“Hello!” Gina called cheerily as she neared them. Clay was right behind her, pushing an empty baggage cart.

“Hi.” Lacey wanted to grab Gina, hug her and scream into her ear, “Help me!” Instead, she motioned toward Mackenzie. “This is Mackenzie,” she said, her hand light enough on the girl's shoulder that she hoped it would not be felt and shrugged off. “Mackenzie, this is Gina and Clay and their daughter, Rani.”

Mackenzie muttered her hello, then turned her attention back to the conveyor belt. Lacey gave her brother and sister-in-law a pained look and they smiled at her with sympathy. She bent over to pick up Rani, who molded her little body easily into her arms with a pliability so welcome it nearly brought tears to Lacey's eyes. “Hi, baby girl,” she said to her niece. “I missed you.”

Rani pointed to the conveyor belt. “Boxes come fast,” she said.

“That's right,” she said. “They do.”

Clay pushed the baggage cart forward.

“Point out your stuff,” he said to Mackenzie, “and I'll load it onto the cart.”

“How was your flight, Mackenzie?” Gina asked the girl.

“It sucked.” Mackenzie didn't shift her gaze from the conveyor belt.

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Gina gave Lacey a sympathetic smile. “Nothing worse than a flight that sucks.”

Mackenzie glanced at her then, but only for a second.

“It was a little bumpy,” Lacey said. “But they showed
Lord of the Rings,
which is one of Mackenzie's favorite movies.”

Mackenzie uttered an exasperated sound, as though Lacey had revealed some secret information about her. When the girl turned away again, Lacey mouthed
I can't win
to her sister-in-law. Gina leaned forward to kiss her cheek in sympathy.

When all the suitcases and boxes had been accounted for and piled onto the cart, the entire entourage started walking toward the exit. Rani insisted on getting down from Lacey's arms to push the “baby” in the stroller again, and Lacey let go of her reluctantly. Mackenzie walked ahead of them all, pulling her phone from her waistband again and lifting it to her ear.

“Whew,” Clay said, as he walked next to Lacey. “She's a tough one. Is she at least crate-trained?”

Lacey laughed, and it felt as though it had been months since that sound had left her mouth. Although Clay had quickly become a loving father to Rani, his skill in fostering creatures truly lay with dogs. And “Is the dog crate-trained?” was always his first question about any animal he took on.

In the parking lot, Lacey was glad to see that Gina and Clay had brought the van. They would need the space for Mackenzie's luggage.

“Why don't you ride in the front seat so you'll be able to see the area better?” Lacey suggested.

“My mother never lets me ride in the front seat,” Mackenzie said.

“Well, you can now.” Lacey enjoyed the feeling of being a permissive parent, but it lasted only a second.

“I guess you don't care if the air bag takes my head off,” Mackenzie said.

“They really suggest children ride in the back until they're twelve,” Gina said quietly.

“I didn't know that,” Lacey said. “Okay, you and I can sit in the back with Rani.”

Mackenzie watched Gina buckle the little girl into her car seat. “She sure doesn't look like any of you,” she said. Apparently she had not been listening when Lacey told her Rani was adopted.

“That's because she's Indian,” Gina explained. “We adopted her last year.”

“What's her name again?”

“Rani.
R-A-N-I.
”

“She's so cute.” Mackenzie actually smiled and the expression made her look exactly like her mother.

“Thanks,” Gina said.

“She doesn't look anything like the Indians on the reservations in Arizona, though,” Mackenzie said.

Gina straightened up, her task with the car seat completed. “She's from India,” she explained. “She's not a Native American.”

“Oh, I get it,” Mackenzie said, and she walked around the car to climb into the middle seat so she'd be next to Rani.

Lacey had never appreciated Rani more than she did on the trip from Norfolk to Kiss River. The little girl was impossible to ignore. Mackenzie chatted with her about her baby doll and actually taught her a song about a rabbit and a fox. For the first time Lacey saw a softness, a goodness in the girl that gave her hope for the future.

Still, the drive was a long one, and when Rani dozed off, the car grew quiet. They stopped briefly at a Wendy's for some dinner, but Mackenzie only ate the top part of her hamburger bun, nothing more, and Lacey felt a little twinge of empathy, remembering how her own appetite had disappeared after her mother's death. Gina tried asking a few questions of Mackenzie, the same questions Lacey had already asked her—what did she like to do, what were her hobbies—but Mackenzie's monosyllabic answers made the conversation too exhausting and most of the ride was spent in silence.

When they pulled into the Kiss River parking lot, the world had taken on the pink-gold tint of sunset. Clay turned to look at Lacey. “Why don't you and Mackenzie get out and stretch your legs and I'll cart this stuff into the house,” he said. “You can give her a tour.”

“Thanks.” She was grateful for the offer. “Come on, Mackenzie. Let's walk over to the lighthouse.”

Mackenzie shrugged her way out of the car and stretched,
looking around her. “This is where I'm supposed to live?” She sounded incredulous. “This is the middle of nowhere.”

“We're not all that far from things,” Lacey said, although she knew that after Mackenzie's heart-of-Phoenix home, Kiss River would be a major adjustment. “And there are some great advantages to living out here. First of all—” she kicked off her sandals “—you don't ever have to wear shoes. Come on. Really. Take 'em off.”

Mackenzie slipped out of her tennis shoes and stood on the sand-covered macadam of the parking lot. Lacey took the girl's shoes from her and set them next to her own at the edge of the lot.

“You were about eight the last time you visited the Outer Banks, right?” Lacey asked, one hand resting briefly on the girl's back to turn her in the direction of the lighthouse.

“Yeah.”

“Did you like the ocean?”

Mackenzie shrugged. “It was full of jellyfish,” she said.

“You must have been here during the red tide,” Lacey said. “That's when all the jellyfish wash in. Not too pleasant, I admit. But I haven't seen any yet this summer.” Not that she'd looked. “Do you like to swim?”

Mackenzie turned to look back toward the house. “Where's the pool?” she asked.

Lacey laughed. “Out there.” She motioned toward the sea.

“You don't have a pool? Everyone in Phoenix has a pool.”

“You and your mom—mother—didn't have one.”

“But all my friends did.”

“We don't need one here,” Lacey said. “The ocean's a lot more fun. And if that's too rough for you, there's always the bay. There's so much to do here, Mackenzie. You'll be amazed.”

“I don't want to do anything,” she said, more to herself
than to Lacey. “What's the matter with that lighthouse, anyway? What happened to it?”

They were getting close to the lighthouse, which was surrounded by a pool of nearly motionless ocean water. The sea was quiet this evening, the waves small and smooth. “The top broke off in a storm years ago,” Lacey said. “But you can still sit up there. You can see forever and get a real feel for where we are. Come on.”

Lacey started walking through the water toward the steps leading into the lighthouse.

“Ugh, the water's cold!” Mackenzie said, as she waded into the pool of seawater.

Lacey chose to ignore the complaint. She climbed the stairs to the interior of the lighthouse, and the marble tiles felt cool beneath her feet as she walked into the octagon.

Mackenzie stood next to her in the middle of the octagon and looked up. The black stairs, backlit by the pink evening sky, formed an ever-tightening corkscrew above them.

“Let's go up,” Lacey said, grasping the railing and starting up the winding staircase. Mackenzie was moving far more slowly than she was. She took a few steps up the stairs, then hesitated.

“This is stupid,” she said. “Why'd they leave it here if it's broken? It can't be used.” She looked up at the dizzying, circular stairway above them, and Lacey picked up the chill in the girl's voice. She was afraid. Many people felt disoriented on these stairs.

Lacey turned and began to descend the stairs. “You can come up here some other time,” she said. “We don't have to do everything today.” She walked out of the building and down the steps, Mackenzie close behind.

Once back on the dry sand, Mackenzie slapped her shoulder, then her knee.

“You have mosquitoes here.” She sounded accusatory.

“Afraid so, especially around now, when the sun's going down,” Lacey said.

“There aren't any stupid mosquitoes in Phoenix,” Mackenzie said.

“I'll give you your own personal bottle of repellent,” Lacey offered. “But for now, let's go into the house. You can see the rest of the outdoors tomorrow in the daylight.” They stopped to pick up their shoes at the edge of the parking lot, then walked toward the house.

Lacey pointed to one of the upstairs windows. “That will be your room,” she said.

Mackenzie looked up and shook her head slowly, and Lacey didn't bother to ask what was bothering her now. She really didn't want to hear.

“How am I supposed to meet other kids, living out here?”

“It will be hard during the summer, I admit that. Maybe I can arrange something, though.” Mackenzie could at least meet Jack and Maggie, although Jack, who was eleven himself, did not think much of girls. “Once school starts, you'll meet lots of kids. And we can actually only live in this house until sometime early next year, when it's being turned into a museum. Then we'll move someplace closer to civilization. I promise.”

“Wait till I tell my friends I'm going to live in a museum,” Mackenzie said, and the tone of her voice let Lacey know this was not a good thing.

“What's that fence there for?” Mackenzie pointed to the large dog pen near the woods. “Is that where your dog lives?”

“No, Sasha lives in the house. But Clay trains dogs for search-and-rescue work. That's a holding pen for them.”