The Long Way Home

“No...not right now. I’m settled, thanks.” From the corner of her eye, Natalie noticed Maureen’s mom picking the baby up and sniffing at his diaper. The exaggerated grimace on her face told the story. Quickly, Mrs. Cole wheeled the carriage toward the restroom at the rear of the church, leaving Natalie and Maureen alone.

She might as well face the issue head-on.

Smiling, Natalie held out her hand. “Hi, I don’t know if you remember me, but I was a year behind you in high school. I’m Natalie Kimball.”

“Kimball?”

The real estate agent gave a sarcastic, unfriendly smile and pointedly neglected to shake her hand.

Natalie wiped her palms against her already damp raincoat. She knew what this treatment was about: her father’s involvement with Maureen’s brother Bruce, and what had happened that last summer he was in town. Part of Natalie was dying to ask about him. She would never do that, though. As far as she knew, Bruce Cole had never come home, not once, and was never likely to again. She remembered how much it had hurt Maureen when he left.

Maureen’s gaze traveled up and down Natalie’s body. She had the curl to her lips of a former “in girl” judging and dismissing an “out girl.” Natalie felt deflated, well aware of every physical flaw she had.

“Nope,” Maureen drawled. “Your name doesn’t ring a bell. I didn’t go to school with any of Asa Kimball’s kids.”

She said “Asa Kimball” as if the words tasted bitter. And then she turned away.

Natalie nodded. She understood why Maureen was acting this way. Indirectly, her father had made Maureen’s life hell. Lawyers in general had made Maureen’s life hell.

Bruce’s life, too.

But Natalie wasn’t that kind of lawyer and never would be. She saw herself as a helper, not an adversary. Her father, and his father before him, and for all she knew, his father before that, had run the family firm in the traditional way, which had, in her opinion, often caused problems. Years of standing on the sidelines, watching and observing, had convinced her she could make a place for herself, that she had a unique talent to contribute.

Natalie may not have been one to speak to people much, but she noticed things about people, and that was important, too. Maybe it was time to take a chance on the new style she envisioned. She had always thought that if given the opportunity, she could make a difference.

Natalie cleared her throat and approached Maureen again. “I know it was a long time ago, but you and I were...friends, actually—at least I thought so—your senior year in high school.”

Maureen’s lips pressed together, as if she was reliving the hell of being a popular girl who was suddenly ostracized by her peers. Natalie had seen it happen firsthand.

Hopefully Maureen would understand that her intentions weren’t harsh. “We had study hall together on Fridays, final period,” Natalie said. “I always looked forward to it. I...drove you to the bus station once in the fall.” Remember?

For a split second, she looked bludgeoned and she abruptly sat on the nearest pew. And Natalie felt guilty. She hadn’t wanted to use that particular memory, but it was the incident Maureen was most likely to recall. Maureen had planned to run away to visit Bruce, who was in his first year as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Natalie had never forgotten that day for many reasons, the most important of which was that it was the second most daring thing she had ever done.

“You were nice to me,” Maureen finally said, albeit grudgingly. “Not too many people were nice to me that year.”

“At least they talked to you,” Natalie said with a joking tone. “I was always so shy.”

Maureen cocked her head and studied her. “You look pretty.” Her voice was softer, as if she was starting to warm up. “You cut your hair. It flatters you.”

By reflex, Natalie touched her head. “Thanks. I found a really great stylist when I lived in Boston.”

“You lived in Boston?” Maureen actually seemed interested.

“I went to law school there. And then afterward, I had a clerkship.”

Maureen squinted.

“It’s...a job I had, at the Federal courthouse on the waterfront. I clerked for a judge there.”

Maureen smirked. “And now you’re back to work with your father on small-time wills and real estate closings.” Her laughter was unkind, all trace of the former softness now gone.

Natalie smiled gently, refusing to take the bait. “It’s always been my dream to go solo.”

Maureen’s eyebrows rose. “So the old man is retiring?”

“Not...yet anyway.” Therein was the crux of her dilemma. Natalie fiddled with the button on her coat. Her father wanted to sell the law firm and retire to Florida by the end of summer. She wanted him to pass control to her and take a cut of her future earnings, but he didn’t believe she had the ability to make future earnings.

This mission with Maureen was part of Natalie’s plan to establish a bottom line for the summer, to prove to him she could.

And if she couldn’t, well...

There was no couldn’t. The law firm had been in her family for five generations, and she wanted to be part of that link, too. If she didn’t stay and fight for her connection to that legacy, then it would be lost forever.

She would make a go of it here. And Maureen could help her, at the same time that she helped Maureen.

Natalie smiled and looked Maureen in the eyes. “If I can’t convince my dad to keep the law office in the family, then he’ll sell to a big firm from Portsmouth or Concord. If that happens, then they’ll make his place into a satellite location to theirs.”

With lawyers who wouldn’t know anybody in town. Not personally, anyway. Outside attorneys wouldn’t be likely to float a loan for legal work for a small business starting out, or to spring a local’s miscreant son from the drunk tank at the beach on a Saturday night. Her father’s firm did, often without charge. As a local businesswoman, Maureen would understand the implications.

Maureen leaned against the pew and chewed her bottom lip, thinking. Then she rubbed her hands over her face, and Natalie couldn’t hear what she said.

“...such a big problem...the wedding...” was all Natalie caught.

And then Maureen moved her hands away from her mouth, and stared at her, waiting for Natalie to reply.

The familiar panic crept over Natalie that she’d missed something essential, that she’d be found out. And she’d been careful to stand face-to-face with Maureen so she could lip-read what she couldn’t hear.

You communicate so poorly, her parents had always told her.

No one wanted a hard-of-hearing lawyer. Natalie knew it made them uncomfortable. It made them think she was either a snob or incompetent when she missed something important.

Sometimes both.

“I’m...sorry,” Natalie said carefully. “Could you please repeat what you just said?”

Maureen’s scowl deepened. Natalie got a bad feeling, as if Maureen was holding her response against her.

“Do you still have any ill-feelings toward my brother Bruce?” Maureen demanded bluntly.

“What? No! I never blamed him.” On the contrary, Natalie had always thought she understood him better than most people did. “I knew your brother once—I talked to him, and I...”

She felt her face flushing. She could never tell Maureen about that night. She had never discussed it with anyone, even when she should have.

She was fiddling with her buttons again, and Maureen was staring in curiosity.

Oh, why not admit she’d had a crush on him? It was so long ago, surely it couldn’t hurt. Most likely Bruce was married anyway, making beautiful babies and saving the world somewhere as a navy pilot or intelligence officer, something heroic and swashbuckling and passionately emotional, like he was.

“I had a huge crush on him, truth be told.” Natalie laughed, but knew it came out strangled. “Me and about a hundred other girls in town.”