Leaves (21 page)

Deborah opened her eyes and slowly walked from station to station. They'd replaced nearly all the equipment over the years, but the basic layout of the room had remained the same. That made it very easy to envision her days as an apprentice under Chef Marco, or the way her hands shook as she sent out her very first amuse bouche as head chef, or the way she leaned her head against the door to the walk-in when she learned that her father was gone.

Would the new management decide that the kitchen needed a facelift, maybe an expansion into the storage space beyond the walk-in? Would Deborah ever come back here to see this kitchen in someone else's hands, even though she'd sworn to never set foot in the inn again? Right now, she couldn't think about such things. She just wanted to feel this place, this home, one more time.

Again, she closed her eyes, keeping them closed for an unknowable stretch.

Then she walked over to the cake. Sage was right; it looked okay. And it probably didn't taste too much like paste.

She rolled it out to the party.

Maria thought Deborah's cake was gorgeous, and she couldn't have been happier for her for the ovation she received when she brought it out. It was a nice moment for her and for the entire family. Now Maxwell was speaking. He was so much better at this sort of thing than Maria was. To her, a crowd was only addressable if there was a guitar between her and it.

Maria hadn't mentioned to anyone that she'd written a song for the event, though she'd snuck her guitar behind the front desk earlier in the evening. Maria assumed that Corrina would want to say something after Maxwell, after which she could get her instrument. She was very pleased with the way the song had turned out. It was less nuanced than “What If I Told You?” but she thought the chorus might be stronger. She could even imagine others singing along by the time she got to the third refrain, as she'd kept the message very simple and clear there.

The entire evening had run the spectrum of emotions for Maria. So many people had come up to her to share their favorite stories about the inn, and Maria found these warming, even if sometimes bittersweet. She also loved watching Olivia “work the room,” impressed with how her daughter had added an extra layer of polish to her social skills since going off to college. At the same time, though, it was impossible to forget the occasion behind the occasion here. Yes, this was the annual Halloween party at the Sugar Maple Inn. That was impossible to mistake between the costumed attendees and Tyler's very prominent decorations. But it was also a wake. Everyone here was in some ways paying their last respects to the Gold family's presence at this place that had been theirs for so long.

Corrina was speaking now, explaining to all in attendance how much effort went into putting on this celebration, thanking others in a way that made it clear that she'd masterminded everything. As Corrina continued, Maria noticed something she hadn't seen earlier. Corrina was holding court in the middle of the room, partygoers extending out from her in concentric circles. Maxwell had addressed the crowd from a spot near the buffet on the far wall. Deborah was still near the cake in the back of the room closest to the kitchen entrance. Tyler, camera around his neck, had one leg up on a chair near the wall opposite Maxwell. And Maria was situated closest to the exit out to the front desk.

Had she said much of anything to her siblings tonight? She'd kissed Maxwell hello when he came in with Annie and Joey, and she'd spent a minute with Tyler talking about his trip to South Carolina. Deborah was in the kitchen until now, and Corrina was, well, everywhere, but never in one place for long.

The chorus of the song she'd written for the party came to mind. It was all about the legacy of families and unbreakable bonds. She'd written it in major chords with a key change coming out of the bridge to give the entire thing the feel of a soaring anthem, and just a few minutes ago, she'd imagined the entire room singing it. The chorus had come to her so easily and had practically written itself. She thought she understood why now. She had written a song about the mythology of her family, maybe even about the family they once were.

It was not reflective of the family they were now, though.

As the room broke into applause, Maria's attention drew back to the gathering. Corrina was smiling and attempting humility. Then Corrina looked around the room and caught sight of Maria. Pointing in her direction, Corrina said, “Maria, do you want to say something?”

Heads swiveled in her direction. Maria considered the song one more time and then said, “No, I'm good, thanks.”

Tyler had been toting a camera around most of the night, snapping candids of the party, even though he'd never gotten good at that. He especially loved shooting the kids interacting with the flying bats. He had no idea what Corrina's issue had been with them, but he thought they were a great touch.

Now, as the last few partiers got ready to leave, Tyler went to his car to retrieve his tripod. He knew he couldn't let this event pass without a portrait.

He'd enjoyed himself at the party tonight, even though he'd spent much of it staying out of Corrina's way. He'd gotten the chance to tell a few gallery owners about what was going on with Joe Elliott, and they seemed genuinely happy for him. He also got the opportunity to have some hangout time with Ryan (though the girlfriend was nowhere to be found), which was a good thing. It would sustain them. It was so good not to be tussling with the kid anymore, though he had a feeling that Ryan would be engaging in a bit of tussle with Corrina and Gardner soon.

He half-expected Patrice to make an appearance tonight, if for no other reason than that she should have been here as an Oldham entrepreneur. It would have been nice to have some additional closure, but maybe it was right this way. Tyler wasn't an everything-works-out-for-the-best kind of guy, but that might just be the case here.

When he got back to the main function room, Corrina was calling out to Ryan from across the room, Maxwell was chatting up Mike Mills while Annie sat in a chair watching Joey run in circles, Deborah and Sage were in a corner making love with their eyes (
get a room, will ya? – there's a dozen of them upstairs
), and Maria, Doug, and Olivia were preparing to head out.

“Wait up, guys,” he said, foisting the tripod. “I want to take a couple of shots.”

Doug sighed deeply, but they all halted and Olivia shouted, “Hey, everyone, Uncle Tyler wants to take a picture.”

Slowly, the family coalesced from various spots in the room. Mike Mills said goodnight and exited. Sage tried to stay on the sidelines, but Deborah pulled him into the group. Tyler liked Sage and he especially liked Deborah with Sage; he hoped it worked out for the two of them.

“Where's Gardner?” Maxwell said.

Corrina's reply was terse. “Buried under a deposition in all likelihood.”

Tyler arranged everyone and then looked through the viewfinder. In spite of how tired everyone must be, they seemed to pull themselves together for this one last thing.
They all look so beautiful right in this moment
, Tyler thought.
Like leaves in the fall.

Though they'd been taking timer pictures since before Tyler was a photographer – Dad used to love to bring out the old Nikon – he explained how things were going to work. Then he hit the timer button and ran to his place.

The timer counted down and the flash went off. Rather than a quick explosion of light, though, it rose slowly from the bulb, cascading outward. At the same time, Mom's voice resonated in Tyler's ears as though she were calling everyone into the dining room.

With that, the flash reached its apex. Tyler stood stock still, momentarily bewildered. Then he ran behind the camera to check the shot. In it, others reflected the confused expression on his own face. What had that been about? There had been other weird stuff like this in the past month. Maybe they were all going crazy together. They tended to do things very well as a unit; they'd be world-class lunatics.

He thought about taking another shot, but then realized that he couldn't possibly get a better one.

“We're all set,” he said.

Tyler took one last walk around the inn as the cleanup crew set about prepping the place for the new owners. They'd be at it all night. It was a wreck in here.

He stopped nearly every ten feet to recall something that happened in a particular spot. There had been lots of goodbyes lately. He was looking forward to some hellos.

Finally, he went out to his car. He'd just placed his camera and tripod in his trunk when Corrina walked over to him. His first thought was that she was going to let him have it for whatever he'd done wrong with the decorations, but he could tell from her relaxed gait and posture that she wasn't on the attack.

“The party was great, Cor,” he said as she got closer. “People are going to remember this one.”

She stopped a few feet from him. “I think so. The decorations were fantastic, by the way.”

“Thanks. Hey, sorry about the screw up with the bats. What was the problem?”

“A stupid detail about our insurance. Nothing major, really. It was just my thing to freak out about at that moment. I guess I'll need a new outlet for my anxiety now, huh?”

She smiled and he smiled back at her. It had been so long since they'd had a conversation that wasn't contentious, that Tyler wasn't sure how to proceed.

After the silence stretched a bit, he said, “You heard that thing from Mom, didn't you?”

Corrina's eyes widened. “You heard it too?”

“Based on the picture I got, I think everyone heard it.”

Corrina laughed. “Now we're having joint hallucinations.”

“Well, we always were a close family.”

His sister smiled warmly. It was an image he'd nearly forgotten. “She's right, you know. There are always going to be times.”

“I know. I think we all do. We'll get that part right.”

Corrina nodded, and they stood together quietly for a moment.

“I guess this is a good time to tell you I'm going away. I've decided to move to Columbia, South Carolina. Things are happening for me down there and I want to be in the middle of it, at least for a while.”

Corrina's expression toggled through four emotions in a blink. “Wow. Other than college, I think the furthest any of us have ever gone to live is Manhattan.”

“It's not that far. I'll be back for Christmas. Maybe I can crash at your place.”

She stepped toward him and hugged him. “You're welcome any time.”

Tyler held Corrina tightly and then took a step toward his car. He looked up at the inn one more time.

“This was a good sendoff,” he said, opening the door. He had a long drive ahead of him.

Deborah's internal clock woke her somewhere around six thirty. She was still in Sage's arms and immediately snuggled closer. She hoped she never took for granted how good this felt.

There was work to do, though. Upon leaving the inn last night, she officially became an entrepreneur. If she was going to succeed in the food product business, actually coming up with a food product was a fairly important part of the process.

She started to slide her left arm out from under Sage. As she did, he stirred and she stopped for a moment to let him settle down. It took a bit of effort in her attempts not to wake him, but she eventually rolled over to her other side and pulled the sheets back.

“Where are you going?” Sage said.

She turned to him; his eyes were still closed.

“Sorry, I was trying not to disturb you. I need to get started. I'm going to give that hot rod kitchen of yours a whirl.”

“Tomorrow.”

Deborah knew that one of the traps of self-employment was thinking you could always put things off because you didn't have a boss standing over you. She wasn't going to let that happen to her.

“I can't, Sage. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot.”

He opened his eyes now and propped his head up on his arm. “You can get off on the right foot tomorrow. My store is closed today, remember? I was hoping we could take a ride up the river.”

With everything that was going on in her head, she'd forgotten that the store was closed on Mondays. “I don't want to fall into a –”

“– Deborah, do you really think you're suddenly going to become a slacker? You've had an intense month. A drive up the river will be restorative. I promise to show you a very good time.”

He was right, of course. There was no way Deborah was going to take this enterprise anything less than seriously. However, a one-day break before launching into her new career wasn't going to hurt her.

She slid back under the sheets. “Did you say a
very
good time?”

Maxwell awoke to his son doing a belly flop on his chest. No matter how many times it happened, he never got used to that. Joey started playing with Maxwell's face, contorting it and laughing.

He slipped out of bed and grabbed the boy up in his arms. If Maxwell got Joey some milk, the kid would calm down a bit. Then they could take a shower together and give Annie a few more minutes of sleep.

Except that Annie wasn't there.

Worry prickled at Maxwell instantly. He thought they'd made a breakthrough last night. What was going on?

Joey was now banging the side of Maxwell's head. He really needed to get the kid some milk. Maxwell carried his son into the kitchen and set him down. The note was waiting for him.

Maxwell took in a deep breath and let it out very slowly. He guessed he was going to have to get used to complicated.

Then he went to the refrigerator.

There were times when Maria wished the Old Saybrook Amtrak station weren't so close. She hated sending Olivia back to school. Fortunately, Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away and Olivia would be home for winter break not long after that.

“Are you sure you don't want to stop for breakfast?” Maria said as they got on the highway.

“If we stop for breakfast, I'm going to miss my train.”

“What's your point?”

Olivia gave her a soft push on the shoulder. “So what's on the agenda today?”

“You mean after sobbing for an hour on the steering wheel when the train pulls away?”

“You know that this doesn't make me feel guilty, don't you?”

Maria grinned at her daughter. “I have a meeting with Martha at eleven. We're going to talk about her setting me up with some more gigs.”

“You're really gonna go for this, huh?”

Maria gave herself a moment to feel herself back on stage at Mumford's last Thursday night. “I really love this, Liv. All of it: the writing, the practicing, the performing. I think I might even look into doing some recording. That whole process is so much easier than it used to be.”

Olivia squeezed her arm. “I think this is great, Mom. It might take Dad a little while to come around on this, though he seemed pretty proud of you Thursday night.”

Maria took the Old Saybrook exit. The Amtrak station really was too close. “He did, didn't he? Eventually he'll get used to having a pop star in the house.”

It wasn't even eight and Corrina was already on her second cup of coffee. She thought maybe she'd be able to relax a little now that the party was behind her, but her mind was still racing. She'd spent the entire night fidgeting in bed, amazed that she hadn't awakened Gardner. Surprisingly, he'd actually been asleep when she got home last night. Maybe he really hadn't been feeling well.

Ryan had blown in and out of the kitchen ten minutes ago before going to school. At some point soon, she was going to have to tackle him on his way out the door and force him to reenter the family orbit. It was obvious that Gardner wasn't going to do it, and it was unhealthy for them to continue the way they'd been for most of the past year.

Gardner was usually out of the house by now as well. He never even used an alarm clock, since he naturally woke up around five thirty. Obviously, he needed to recharge a little. Corrina thought about letting him sleep in, but she knew he'd be furious if she did. Even if he were under the weather, he'd insist on spending all day and all night on court prep. Maybe when this case was over, she'd convince him to go away with her for a week in Cancun. They certainly could use it.

Taking one more sip of coffee, she rose from the kitchen table and headed toward the bedroom to wake her husband. Even though he could still make it to his office by nine, he would complain about losing so much time.

She jostled him and he didn't move. She jostled him again. That's when she noticed his body didn't give the way it normally did.

Corrina's blood chilled and tears sprang to her eyes. She sat on the side of the bed and put her head in her hands.

Tyler woke up in a motel near Baltimore and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Eight twenty-four. He needed to get going. He'd driven more than five hours last night after the party and then crashed here for a little sleep. Now it was time for a quick shower and an even quicker stop at the coffee shop down the block that he'd noticed on the way in.

Then it was back on the road. He'd be in Columbia by the evening.

A brisk breeze blew through the streets of Oldham. It was like this every year. The moment the calendar turned to November, the air grew sharper and the wind more insistent.

All along Hickory Avenue, shopkeepers prepared for a quiet few weeks as they dressed their windows for the holiday season. The tourists were gone now, but things would pick up again after Thanksgiving.

Sanitation crews were out in force today, gathering the last of the leaves that had been piled at roadsides all over town.

And a moving truck pulled up to the inn at the corner of Oak and Sugar Maple.