Cloud Nine. Luanne Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ a way to make her father happy on earth and her mother proud in heaven, Sarah had named her store Cloud Nine.

      Cloud Nine. Leaning against her bureau, Sarah remembered designing her logo: a golden ‘9’ on a white cloud superimposed on a blue oval, tiny white down feathers drifting down like snowflakes. She had commissioned David Walker, a woodcarver on Elk Island, to make the sign. Naming the store had given her so much pleasure, such a sense of dreams coming true, of knowing exactly who she was. She hadn’t felt anything like it before and never would again until Mike was born.

      Michael Ezekiel Loring Talbot.

      Thinking her son’s name filled Sarah with so much emotion she had to grip the bureau top. She had always loved the name Michael. It was strong, and it had belonged to an archangel, and it sounded poetic. She had given her son the name of a leader and an athlete, someone who had fun and took risks.

      Sarah had wanted to name Michael for his father, but she had been free to give him ‘Loring’ only as a middle name. Michael, like Sarah, was a Talbot. Perhaps that was why he was clinging so tenaciously to the island and his grandfather, to the old farm and the refuge it provided.

      Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she blinked them away. No use crying about things she couldn’t change. Mike had made his decision. She couldn’t even say he had run away from home, because he hadn’t even hidden his plans. And his destination wasn’t New York or Los Angeles or even Albany: It was the family farm. Still, he was only seventeen, now living on Elk Island with the original recluse. In search of the truth about his own dead father. Mike would kill her if he knew she still thought of him as her baby, but she did.

      Sitting on her window seat, Sarah took a sip of herbal tea. She ate only healthful things now. She walked a little every day, as much as she felt able to. Some days she felt strong enough to run on the college track, like she had before getting sick, but she wasn’t ready to push it. Her doctor had told her to take it slow, and Sarah listened to what he said. She wanted to live. She had brought a boy into this world, and she wanted to live to see him safely moving on a shining path.

      Alice Von Froelich walked into her daughter’s bedroom and tried to determine by her breathing whether she was actually asleep or just faking it. Several blankets and a quilt were piled high, pulled right over her head. The radio was playing, but Susan had been falling asleep to music for as long as Alice could remember.

      Standing stock-still, hoping to catch her moving, Alice hardly breathed herself. She glanced around the room. The lamps were turned off, but the hall light illuminated certain things. Undeniably elegant, like the rest of Julian’s house, Susan’s room showed very few signs of being occupied by a teenage girl. Noticing this, as she did every time she entered, Alice crinkled her brow and exhaled worriedly.

      Susan loved the idea of England, so Julian had let her choose two Gainsboroughs from his collection: a little girl in a blue dress, and two spaniels on a satin pillow. Her furniture and accoutrements were English too: the Queen Anne bed and dresser, the antique rocker covered in Susan’s favorite shade of rose, the monogrammed sterling silver brush and mirror on the vanity. Julian had given them to her last Christmas, along with several sterling picture frames for her great collection of photos.

      Stooping down, Alice took a closer look at the photos. Susan certainly did love her father: Will was in every one. There they were, in the cockpit of his Piper Cub, when Susan was four years old. Sitting on his lap under an umbrella at the Black Pearl, the family’s favorite restaurant in Newport. Standing on the dock just before he’d shipped out for the Middle East. Alice remembered taking all three pictures. And then her eyes fell upon the fourth.

      ‘Freddie,’ she whispered.

      There he was, his last Christmas, standing in front of a tree with Will. Her lanky, sleepy boy, braces on his smile, so beautiful and tall. In this shot, Fred was nearly the same height as Will. How had Alice never noticed that before? Was it just the perspective? She couldn’t see their feet; had Fred been standing on a box, a stack of books?

      ‘Mom?’ Susan asked, shielding her eyes against the hall light.

      ‘Honey, you’re awake,’ Alice said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

      ‘You weren’t home.’

      ‘Didn’t you get my message?’ Alice asked, feeling that panicky guilt. ‘I called the machine.’

      ‘I got it.’

      ‘We had cocktails with Dean Sherry, and then a bunch of Julian’s friends decided we should all cook dinner together. So we went to Martine’s house and made Indonesian food and listened to Armando play some new pieces on his keyboard.’

      ‘God, how boring,’ Susan said, scowling.

      ‘Did you eat?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Alice worried. She stared at Susan, wondering what was going on in her head. She sounded so tense and sullen, almost as if she were trying to make her feel guilty. As if it weren’t already a fait accompli.

      ‘What did you have?’

      ‘Dad took me to Chedder’s. I had a salad.’

      ‘You called your father? Susan, you know there’s a whole pantry full of food downstairs. Pansy bought every single thing you put on your list. The refrigerator is loaded with lettuce, all those strange kinds you love. Susan …’

      ‘“Susan”?’ she asked, frowning. ‘If you expect me to answer you, you’d better call me by the right name.’

      Alice refused to play into Susan’s trap. She had been acting out ever since Alice and Julian had gotten married, and one thing she knew worked best was the name game. Alice felt her blood pressure mounting through the roof. She had a sneaking suspicion that Will was enabling this. He was so easygoing, he’d let Susan get away with anything. He had gone to pieces when Fred died, and he wasn’t even halfway put back together again.

      ‘Honey?’ Alice heard herself asking with an admirably even tone. She never spoke about Fred to Susan, not wanting to upset her. He had been her big brother, her hero. But she had to ask. The question just came out: Alice couldn’t have held it back if she’d wanted to. ‘Was Freddie as tall as your dad? Almost as tall?’

      Silence. Downstairs, she heard Julian and Armando laughing. Drinks were being poured. The clack of pool cues. The chime of the break.

      ‘Susan, answer me.’

      ‘There’s no Susan here,’ her daughter said dangerously from beneath her pile of quilts.

4

      The Fort Cromwell Fair was always held the Saturday midway between Halloween and Thanksgiving, to celebrate the harvest and the season of gratitude. Everyone went. The Old Fairgrounds were miles from town, in the middle of nowhere. Driving past at any other time of year, you might see a tractor chuffing down the road. You’d be lucky to see another car. But around fair time, traffic was backed up for miles. The now-bare fields surrounding the grounds swarmed with the expensive import cars of urban daytrippers in search of local color.

      Sarah had come with Meg and Mimi. They wandered around, gazing at prize pigs and champion steers. Clydesdales clopped by on their way to the horse pull. Since the fair was held so late, СКАЧАТЬ