Lies That Bind

As she got out of bed to freshen up, April was touched to see that Eliza had unpacked for her. Her clothes were put away and her suitcase tucked into the closet.

After she’d changed her clothes, April went downstairs. The phone sat on the table at the foot of the stairs. She remembered how she’d argued and argued for an extension, one located somewhere a little more private. Obviously, Maddie still felt that one phone was enough.

Wandering into the kitchen, she stopped in the doorway. Eliza was cooking and the aroma made her mouth water.

“That smells divine. What is it?”

“Gumbo. We’re having it for dinner, but I want it to simmer all afternoon. Cade’s coming.”

“Am I going to be in the way?” April asked.

“Not at all. We’re mature adults,” Eliza teased. “We can behave around others.”

“Hmm, like that kiss earlier?”

Eliza beamed. “I love him so much I ache with it.”

“He seems to feel the same. Tell me what happened to split up high school’s couple-most-likely-to-succeed.”

“He blamed me for Chelsea’s death.”

“Hey, wasn’t that the same day Jo got beaten so badly? And Maddie had a fit because I was caught smoking in school and was suspended? And you cut classes? The day we were separated.”

“The day from hell,” Eliza agreed, stirring the gumbo. “Cade and I have cleared things up…finally.”

“Yeah, I guess so, from that kiss.”

“Want something to eat before we go to the hospital?” Eliza asked.

“A sandwich will hold me. Maybe we should wait until tomorrow to go to the hospital.” She felt oddly nervous about seeing Maddie again.

Eliza put down her spoon and shook her head. She went to the refrigerator and pulled out cold cuts and mayonnaise. “Maddie is so looking forward to your visit. I told her the minute I knew you were coming. She can hardly wait.”

“How do you know that? I thought she couldn’t talk.” April sat at the table, in the place that had been hers so many years ago.

“She has limited mobility in her right hand, so she squeezes once for yes and twice for no. It’s hard coming up with conversation that requires a yes or no response, but it’s the best I can do. The speech therapist is working with her. She says Maddie’s making progress, but I don’t hear it.” Eliza quickly made a couple of sandwiches, cut them and handed one to April.

“Thanks. I’m still not sure about this.” It was silly of her to feel so scared of seeing Maddie again.

“She wants to see you.”

“I know. I want to see her, too, but I’m nervous.” There, she’d admitted what was bothering her. Their parting hadn’t been amicable. Her aborted visit to Maraville a year later had not gone well. Would their reunion be any better? April hoped so. Otherwise she wouldn’t have made the trip from Paris.

“I’LL JUST POP in to say hi,” Eliza said as they walked down the hospital corridor a little while later. “Then you’re on your own.”

April wasn’t sure what she would say, but her nervousness fled when they entered the room and she saw Maddie. The woman had aged as Eliza said. Her hair was gray and thin, her cheeks hollow, her skin wrinkled and parchmentlike. But Maddie’s eyes were bright and they seemed to light up when she saw April. One side of her mouth lifted up in a smile and garbled sounds came out.

“Hi, Maddie,” April said softly. How could she have been worried about seeing her foster mother again?

She leaned over and gathered the older woman into a hug, squeezing gently. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said, blinking back tears. It was true, April realized. She had missed Maddie. And Eliza and Jo. Only now that she was back could she admit to herself it was good to be home.

Just for a visit.

CHAPTER TWO

“WHAT I CAN’T FIGURE is what you’re doing in this backwater town. If you had to leave New Orleans, why not choose a city that at least offered some diversions? What do you do here for fun—watch trees grow?” Jack Palmer leaned back in the rocking chair—rocking chair, for God’s sake—on Sam Witt’s front porch. Maybe when he was eighty he’d want a rocker, but not now. He looked at his friend in bafflement. What had happened to change the man so much? Sam used to have a fire in his belly that only constant work could assuage. Now he was content to sit on a blasted porch in a bucolic town as unlike New Orleans as Jack had ever seen.

Sam smiled. “The town grows on you.”

Jack sighed loudly. “Maybe. I won’t be here long enough to find out. I came to see you, hoping for some action. If I wanted to sit around and do nothing, I could have stayed with my parents.”

“Why didn’t you?” Sam asked. He took a long drink of his beer and studied his friend.

“Too much coddling,” Jack growled. He had hated every moment his mother had fussed over him. Sure he’d been injured by a land mine, but injured wasn’t dead. And he was mobile. What more could they expect when he’d been covering Iraq?

“Probably scared them to death when they got word you’d been blown up,” Sam said reasonably.

Jack wasn’t in the mood for reasonable. He was antsy.

“I was injured, not blown up.”

“The guy with you died,” Sam reminded him.

He hardly needed reminding. Not a day went by that Jack didn’t think about Pete and fate and that blasted mine. Why had he been spared and not his cameraman?

“Anyway,” Jack continued, “until I’m one-hundred percent again, I’m grounded. No reporting.”

“Relax, Jack. You’ll heal at your own pace. Once you’re fit, you can head back into the line of fire.”

“In the meantime, I’m supposed to do what?”

“Did you visit your sister?”

“Yes. Alice said to tell you hi if I saw you. And her brood was wild. If she and Ed don’t rein in some of that energy, they’re going to have a pack of hellions by the time the kids are teenagers.”

“So, can’t stay at your mother’s, can’t stay at your sister’s. I’m next best, right?”

“I thought you were still in New Orleans.”

“I told you after Patty died that I was leaving. I should have done it before her death. She hated my job. She wouldn’t have minded it so much here in Maraville. It’s a quiet, slow-paced town.”

“She’d have been bored to tears,” Jack said, looking across the lawn at the street. He hadn’t seen a car drive by in twenty minutes. “And you’re happy here?” he asked with some skepticism.

“Content, I’d say.” Sam took another swallow of beer.

For a split second, Jack envied him the cold beer. Still on medication, he wasn’t drinking. He’d tried to kick the pills a week ago, but the knife-sharp pain in his foot and ankle had kept him up all night long. He’d cut back, but sometimes the meds were the only thing that helped.

He hated being dependent on drugs of any kind. Or on the hospitality of friends, no matter how far back they went. And he and Sam went back to early childhood. They’d started elementary school together in Baton Rouge. They’d enrolled in college together, and enlisted into the military as a team. Then their paths had separated. Sam had married Patty and become a New Orleans cop.