Kill Me If You Can

11

Candice watched as I studied each picture.

“I saved those for you,” she said.

“Where did you get these? Who took them?” I cycled through the photos again.

“They’re mine.”

“But how? Were you with us?”

She nodded. “Your grandfather and I were together then. Your mom was like the daughter I never had. And you . . . ,” she looked away, “. . . you were like my own grandchild.”

I searched my data banks once more. “Why can’t I remember having an Aunt Candice?”

She crossed her arms and leaned back against a filing cabinet. “I wasn’t Aunt Candice back then. You had a special name for me.” She grinned and a tear trickled out. “I told you to call me Aunt Candi and you said you’d call me by the name of your favorite candy.”

“Jellybeans.” I looked around in wonder. “Puppa and Jellybean. I do remember.” My childhood rose up out of the ashes of time, just snips and bits and impressions of people and smells and sounds. “You were at the lake house. Me and Mom would visit on dress-up day.” I closed my eyes in concentration. “We’d all eat together, then we’d do something fun.” Playgrounds and laughter, a walk along a pier, scooping up sand at the beach. The images were brief but real.

“Dress-up day. Is that what you called it?” Candice wiped at her cheek. “We always looked forward to weekends with you and Beth. You were such a bright spot in our lives.”

Candice opened a cabinet filled with camera equipment, and pulled a bulky metal box from the lowest shelf. “Look at these.” She opened the lid, revealing a heap of photos.

I knelt and began sifting through them. Some were color, others black and white. A drop of dew on a leaf, a wildflower bent in the wind, a rickety old barn, the burn tower with clouds rolling in across the bay, a pair of tiny sandals and beach towel left forgotten near the shore, a younger Candice perched on a rock and looking out at the waves.

“These are all so amazing. Who took this one?” I asked, passing Candice the photo of herself.

She stared at the picture, quiet for a moment. She cleared her throat. “These photos were all taken by your mother.”

My chest heaved. “My mom took those?” I squeaked. “They’re beautiful. I had no idea. Grandma never said anything.”

“I’m sure it was difficult for her to talk about your mother. There wasn’t a person on the planet that didn’t love Beth Amble.”

“Except my dad. What was his problem, anyway?” I didn’t expect Candice to answer my pity-coated question.

She sighed. “He loved your mother very much. But the Russo family flaws were too much for him. It’s good that he was never in your life. Perhaps you’ll be free of the curse that seems to follow the Russos through time.”

My throat balled up. “Why do you always think the worst of everyone? I don’t care what his flaws are. He’s my dad.” I felt the fortress guarding my heart grow stronger as I defended my father. Gasping breaths choked out of me. It took me a minute to gain control. “Someday I’m going to find him. He’s not cursed. You’ll see.”

Not caring if I seemed childish, I sank to the floor and tucked up my knees. My silky pants turned blacker with each teardrop.

Candice reached around behind me, rubbing her hand across my back in slow, soothing circles.

She spoke in a lulling whisper. “You must never look for him, Tish. Let him stay in a far-off place. Some things are better left alone.”

I knew as she spoke the words that I would go after my father someday. Her speech was the verbal equivalent of the “Don’t ask why” scribbled across my mother’s picture.

I stuffed my anger back into some hidden corner of my heart. When I felt calm, I stood. “I think I’d better get going.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you. Our lives are what they are. No sense trying to force them into something they’re not.” Candice turned toward a worktable scattered with photos. “I have a few prints for you to take home.”

She chose several shots of my mother and me from the assortment. “These are my favorites,” she said, handing them my way.

I took them without looking, my eyes caught up instead with some photos sitting on the top right corner of the table. The nature shots had thick black lines running parallel to the sides, forming a square around each central scene. A chunky black pencil sat next to them. A gooseneck lamp lit them from above.

“Why did you draw on those photos?” I asked, pointing.

“Those are crop lines. I use a grease pencil to mark how much of the photo I want to include in the finished product.” She demonstrated. “If I mess up, I can wipe off the pencil lines and do it over. I’m too old-fashioned to deal with all that digital stuff they’re doing nowadays.”

I looked around at all the paraphernalia in amazement. “You must really like to take pictures.”

“It’s what I do. It’s my profession.”

“Oh.”

“Your mother was studying photography with me when she died,” Candice said.

I took a deep breath. “She wanted to be a photographer? Wow. That’s so cool.”

“She had a good eye for it. She was an artist at heart.” Candice played with the pictures on the desktop until they were arranged in neat columns. “I’m betting you’re an artist at heart too, Tish.”

I shrugged. “I guess so. My medium is the houses I renovate.”

“Well, I hope you don’t plan on selling the lodge. I’m glad you’re fixing it up, but it really does belong in your family. And you belong in it.” She gave me a stern look.

I lifted a firm eyebrow. “Like you, my art is my profession. If I don’t fix up the cottage to sell it, then it becomes simply a hobby, and I’ll have to go out and get a job.” I wrinkled my nose. “And me and jobs just don’t work out.” I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t take orders very well.”

Candice humphed and shook her head. “Just like the rest of the clan.”

She packaged my photos in a black faux-leather box and sent me home with the promise that I’d come for tea again the following Thursday.

I lay in my droopy twin bed that night flipping through the pictures from Candice. I’d been so happy in all of them. My mother smiled with me in each photo she was in. I could tell by my age in a few of the shots that some were taken just before my mother killed herself. How could those eyes that seemed so filled with happiness lie to the camera? What terrible thing had happened to take away her smile and make the bottom of Mead Quarry seem a better place than the cottage on Valentine’s Bay and the arms of her little daughter?

I was doing the very thing I was warned not to do. I jerked upright, the black scribbles across my mother’s graduation photograph flashing through my mind. DON’T ASK WHY. I scrambled for the two halves in the bedside drawer. I pulled them out and stared at the writing. I scratched at the D with my thumb. The black lines rubbed off, leaving a greasy residue behind.

Candice.

She’d known which bedroom was mine when I was a kid. She must have been the one to make this room comfortable for my arrival. And she was the only one who could have written those words across my mother’s photo and left it on my pillow. Hadn’t my grandfather accused her of being on Russo land? Joel must have seen Candice’s car down here right before I showed up.

I flopped back on my pillow, holding one side of the torn photo in each hand. But Candice had loved my mother. And she’d loved me. Why would she so cruelly rip my mother’s face to shreds?

From somewhere downstairs came the ringing of my cell phone. Brad. I hadn’t given him a thought since our brief exchange Tuesday night. I jumped up and raced downstairs. One missed call, the display read by the time I found the phone. I checked caller ID and sighed. It wasn’t Brad. A message came through and I listened to it. The heating guy. Just wanted to remind me that he’d be here around ten the next day.

I dragged back up the steps, placing the phone by the bed in case Brad should call.

The heating guy arrived as scheduled and prescribed a new high-efficiency forced-air unit. Between the crawl space and the generously thick walls, the ductwork would go in with minimal hassle. He wrote up the estimate and handed it to me.

“Can’t get to you until April, though,” he said. “I’m putting in under-floor heat at a new build down the peninsula. Takes awhile to install, but, boy, is it nice.”

I took the slip from him. “Thanks. I’ll get back to you with my decision.”

Now, I sat at the counter, sipping coffee and staring at the proposed bill. The figures in the bottom right corner soared far beyond my imagined total. I wondered what genie in a bottle would make that wish come true.

I crumpled the paper. A woodstove or corn burner would be better suited to my budget. But they wouldn’t exactly contribute to the resale value. The wealthy Chicagoan who would pick this place up wanted effortless heat. No cutting, chopping, or hauling required.

I sighed. I could always put off the decision until next fall. Warm weather was only a few months away.

In the meantime, I’d keep doing what I could.

I sanded a section of cedar paneling in the downstairs bathroom. The wood had been damaged by water from the sink area and was nearly black. When my efforts yielded little gain, I rounded up some bleach, diluted it, and applied it to the wall. Gradually, the original color reappeared. I added polyurethane to my list of things to purchase during my next trip to Manistique. A thick coat on the bathroom walls should prevent future damage and look crisp next to cabinetry painted bright white.

At dusk, I cleaned up my project and puttered around in the kitchen trying my hand at homemade chicken noodle soup. I’d been entirely spoiled back in Rawlings by the neighbor’s scrumptious blends. Her yummy varieties had sustained me through the whole Victorian ordeal.

I stirred celery and onions into the chicken and broth, remembering Brad’s humorous attempt at homemade soup a few days after I’d discovered the body in that basement. Nothing had lifted my spirits more than seeing him in a checkered apron that barely covered his broad form. The soup had boiled over, sending up a cloud of steam that filled the room. We’d laughed and cried and hugged while he helped me work through the whole killer-in-the-neighborhood trauma.

I chopped the carrots and added them to the boiling pot. Brad had always been there for me. He’d cared so much, even when I pushed him away. He could have kept his distance and let me pout over the holidays, my least favorite time of year. As crabby as I’d been, I certainly deserved to be left alone. But instead he’d made the two days I dreaded most, Thanksgiving and Christmas, so special. We hadn’t done anything spectacular, just turkey or ham and all the fixings with his sister Samantha and a few other friends. But the fact that he’d included me, that he’d wanted me with him, made my holiday season the best I could ever remember.

Then there was New Year’s Eve, and the toast at midnight, and the way our foreheads leaned together and stayed that way long past when the others had given a celebratory kiss and been done with it. His hands had lingered on my shoulders and things unsaid were spoken between us. His kiss was gentle but momentary, nothing that required a response. But the touch of our lips held all kinds of promises and commitments and questions and dreams. Afterward, our eyes met and conversed unblinking . . . until Samantha had broken between us to lay a smooch on her brother.

And in one panicked moment, one slam of my car door ten days ago, I’d ended it.

I at least owed him a phone call.

I put the lid on the pot and went in search of my cell phone.