Suspicion

“Cute. He kind of looks like Rob.”

“Please say you didn’t tell him the ‘twin princesses’ story,” Ingrid said.

“Of course I did,” Ava said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s so damn misleading.” Ingrid shook her head. “So you told him about the Boston Whalers, too?”

“And the Shetland ponies.”

Ingrid groaned.

“Well, it’s true,” Ava protested.

“It’s also true that Dad was always so busy being St. Sam to everyone on the island that he never had time for us or Mom.”

“Mom didn’t feel that way.” Ava felt her heart speed up. “She was happy. I know she was.”

“You don’t know. No one really knew what was going on in Mom’s head.”

“Ingrid—”

“No, I’m sick of you always painting this fantasy world. Did you tell this reporter that throwing money at us was Dad’s way of making up for all the things he didn’t do? Did you talk about how it was always his family who ended up paying for his generous impulses?”

“That’s your perception,” Ava said. “You’re still angry at Dad because of Quicksilver—”

“Quicksilver.” Ingrid hooted. “God, how could I have thought I was in love with a guy called Quicksilver? He was such a jerk.”

“See?” Ava said, eager to redeem their father in Ingrid’s eyes. “Dad was right.”

“Maybe he was right that the guy was a jerk, but Dad stepped over the line by booting him off the island. Dad’s like some kind of benign dictator. He needs to learn he can’t go around orchestrating everyone’s lives.” Ingrid wrapped her arms around Henri’s neck. “By the way, did you find those papers yet?”

“I tried to look last night,” Ava said. “But you know how Mom’s study is. There’s so much stuff everywhere. Books and magazines all over the place, stacks of papers—”

“She had these diaries,” Ingrid said. “They had red covers—”

“I know, Ingrid.” Ava felt a surge of irritation. “You’ve only mentioned it half a dozen times already. If it’s so damn important, you look for them. Ask Dad to get them for you.”

“Right,” Ingrid said. “The day I ask Dad for anything will be the day I walk to the mainland.”

AN HOUR LATER Ava could still feel Ingrid’s anger, like a blanket weighing her down. She was standing on the deck of the old bougainvillea-draped cottage that had once belonged to her grandmother and taking deep breaths to stay calm. She didn’t want to deal with Ingrid’s anger at their father, or Scott Campbell’s condescending smirk, or her own bad dreams and panic attacks. All she wanted was to feel peaceful again. Peaceful and safe.

“I really want to rent this place, Lil,” she told her friend from Lil’s Lovely Island Real Estate. “Actually, I’d like to buy it. I want to move in today, though. Henri would, too, right, Henri?”

Henri’s tail thumped and he gazed up at Ava in much the same way Ava gazed at pints of rum-raisin ice cream. Liquid-eyed, drooling slightly. Henri had been her mother’s dog and wasn’t coping very well, either. After Diana’s accident, his nonstop howling had driven her father to distraction. Either keep the dog with her, he’d said, or it was going to the pound. Ava felt a very strong bond with Henri.

“What’s your dad going to think about you living here, then?” Lil asked in the Eliza Doolittle accent that thirty years of living on Catalina had done little to change. “He’ll be all alone in that big house of his, won’t he?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” Ava said, already gearing up for her father’s resistance. After Rob died, at her parents’ urging, she’d sold the house she’d bought with Rob and moved back home. “Right after my mother…after the accident, he needed me there, but he’s fine now. Busy. You know my dad, he’s always on the go. Up at the hospital, running the asthma camp. Busy, busy.”

God, she was starting to babble. She took a breath. Henri sat so close to her leg she could feel his warmth, and she reached down to tangle her fingers in the curls on his head. My father’s fine, she thought. I need to save myself. And she felt she could do it up here in this cottage, which nestled like an overgrown shrub in the scrub-covered hillside on Middle Terrace Road. Up here, the sun was soft and filtered, and the breeze from the ocean rustled the leaves of the eucalyptus that sheltered the cottage.

Up here she’d get her life back together again. The dreams would stop and she would be able to work. Up here where, like a bird in a nest, she could see all of Avalon spread out below. The familiar sites that were part of the tapestry of her life: the Casino’s round red roof, the boats in the harbor, the Catalina Express on its daily runs to and from the mainland. The play of light and shadow. Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed. Up here maybe she could make some sense of it all.

Lil seemed dubious about the cottage’s charms.

“Mind that rotted bit in the wood, luv,” she said. “Catch your heel in that and you’ll fall head over teapot into the brambles. Need to replace the whole thing, I should think.”

Ava glanced down at the worn wood. The deck wouldn’t be all she’d have to replace, she suspected. In the twelve years since her grandmother died, the cottage had changed hands a number of times, and with each new owner it looked a little more forlorn. Now it was for rent again, which meant she could move in right away. But she really wanted to buy it and bring it back to life. Mend the house and mend herself and Henri.

“I’m afraid you’ll be buying a headache.” Lil delved into her shoulder bag and pulled out a candy, which she unwrapped and threw to Henri. He caught it in his mouth, dropped it on the deck and barked at it. “All right.” She shot him a reproving look. “Don’t make a song and dance of it—it’s just a sweetie. Honestly, Ava, you don’t want this house.”

Ava smiled. “Honestly I do.”

“There’s a lovely little house on Marilla that I just listed. Let me take you there.”

“I want this one.” She heard herself tell Scott Campbell the Catalina-princess story about stamping her foot to get what she wanted. Now she wished she hadn’t. He didn’t like her. But so what? Scott Campbell was the least of her concerns.

“The Marilla house has a lovely kitchen,” Lil persisted. “All modern. You’d love it.”

“Lil, I want this one,” Ava said again. “Let’s go back in.”

Lil followed her back into the cottage. The living room was small and square, roughly the size of the pantry in her father’s house, half the size of the guest bathroom in her fiancé’s oceanfront condo. For a moment she pictured Ed and her father—the pair tended to see eye to eye about most things—standing in the tiny room, incredulous looks on their faces. She shut out the image, walked over to the fireplace and crouched down in front of it.

“See these?” She traced her finger over the bright, blue-glazed tiles that surrounded the hearth. Every fourth tile was a vividly painted scene of activity. Under yellow suns or silver moons, stick-figure girls and boys played ball, fished, flew kites or lay tucked in bed reading a book. “I was ten when I painted these,” she told Lil. “My grandmother had a wood-burning kiln out back, and I molded the clay, painted the tiles, glazed them, the works. That’s pretty much how I got started.”

Lil bent to take a closer look. “Clever girl. They’re lovely. Like little rays of sunshine.”

“See that one with the kite? Ingrid and I got kites for Christmas one year, and our dad took us down to the beach to fly them. The sky was this brilliant blue the way it gets in December after a rain, and our kites were red, and I think Ingrid was wearing yellow shorts. But we were racing and laughing and watching the kites high up in the sky… I was trying to capture that feeling.”

“You did, luv.” Lil glanced at the door. “Well, then, shall we go?”

“This house has all kinds of good memories,” Ava said, reluctant to leave. “When Ingrid and I were little, our grandma would bring us out here and we’d watch the boats down in the harbor and she’d tell us about steamships and Charlie Chaplin and movie stars who came over. Happy memories.”

“Sometimes it would be nice to go back, wouldn’t it?” Lil’s smile was wistful. “I often think that. And then I say to myself, silly old fool, ’course it wasn’t that much better than it is these days. All you do is remember the good and forget the not-so-good.”

“Maybe.”

“’Course you’re young yet. You probably still remember everything like it was yesterday.” She patted Ava’s arm, then delved into her bag again. “Here, have a sweetie. Make you feel better. Good for your throat, too. Helps my voice, I always say.”

Ava took the candy. When she and Rob were married, Lil had sung “Ave Maria” at the wedding. She’d sung again at Rob’s funeral. “I’ll Remember You.” God, she was going to cry. “Lil, please don’t look at me like that, okay? I’m fine, I really am. If I buy this place, I’ll be so busy fixing it up I won’t have time to be sad.”

“Well, if you’ve made up your mind, I don’t suppose there’s much I can say.”

Ava smiled. “Exactly.”

“On the bright side, though, I looked up your horoscope this morning. I like to do that before I show a house. You’d be surprised how many times it’s steered me into a new direction. Like the time I was showing a gentleman this property up on Chimes Hill Road and his horoscope said, “‘Not a good day for scaling new heights.’ Well, if that isn’t telling you something. I immediately rescheduled for the next day.”

“You sold it?”