Past, Present And A Future. Janice Carter

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      There had been some disagreement about where she would stay. Laura finally agreed that the local hotel was acceptable given that Clare’s publisher was footing the bill.

      “Probably for the best,” Laura had said with an emphatic sigh. “One of us might as well get some sleep.”

      “How’s she doing?”

      Another sigh. “Emma’s doing great. Dave and I are the ones slogging around in a zombielike state.”

      Clare had made the expected sounds of sympathy, then remembered to ask, “Who’s the godfather?”

      There’d been the slightest pause before Laura mumbled something about Dave not having yet made a decision.

      “Dave?”

      “We thought it was only fair if I picked the godmother, he should get to choose the godfather. But you know Dave.”

      “Still having trouble making up his mind?”

      “Tell me about it.”

      They’d laughed together and for a few moments Clare was transported to the old days when she and Laura had shared confidences as well as laughter. When she’d hung up, she realized that due to the isolation induced from finishing her book, it had been a long time since she’d had a giggle with anyone.

      Clare popped in a Tori Amos CD and let her mind slip into auto-drive. She’d spent the past two weeks in an increasingly heightened state of anxiety about the visit to Twin Falls. Once the decision to go had finally been made, she had tried to ease her jitters by reminding herself that Gil Harper had left town long before she had and she wasn’t likely to bump into him at the local convenience store.

      The music kept her free of the past until the first familiar landmarks of Twin Falls appeared—the white bulbous shape of the town’s water tower looming over trees and rooftops, the spire of the Catholic church and on the opposite side of the river that bisected the town, the bell tower of the Methodist. Clare eased up on the accelerator.

      She could either enter town from the first highway exit or take the winding road that afforded a panoramic view and led directly into the town center. Impulsively, she chose that route, and turned right onto the smaller, two-lane paved road. She stopped at the crest of the hill, pulling over onto the shoulder to survey the town.

      Twin Falls lay in the valley below, spanning both sides of the river. From Clare’s vantage point, it looked much the same as it had when she’d last seen it.

      Tempted to make a quick U-turn and hightail it back to New York, Clare forced herself to focus on the reason for her return—to see her old friend, Laura, and to meet Laura’s first child. Returning to Twin Falls wasn’t really going back, she reminded herself, but moving forward, to the next generation. Although, she wished the christening could have been held somewhere else. She shifted into Drive and angled back onto the road, pumping the brake as the Jetta made the downhill curve to the stop sign below.

      But now the stop was a three-way, accommodating a road leading to what appeared to be new houses. Good grief. Twin Falls has a subdivision. Clare didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled. The Jetta continued its descent to the two-lane bridge and Clare instinctively turned her head to the right to see the falls that had given the town its name.

      The twin watercourses were too narrow and sparse to be famous beyond the scope of the county. Still, their twenty-foot parallel tumble over a granite rock cliff was impressive enough to be an occasional draw for local daredevils or careless youngsters, resulting in a handful of tragic accidents over the years. Clare noticed that a sturdier and higher metal railing had replaced the original wooden one. She also noticed the new traffic lights a few yards past the end of the bridge and slowed to a stop as the amber light turned red.

      Clare was surprised at the line of traffic waiting on the other side and wished she’d taken a better look at the Welcome To Twin Falls sign at the top of the hill. The town’s population had obviously risen from three thousand.

      Navigating Main Street was as slow as it had always been, though, no longer due to the country gawkers, as Clare’s father had labeled them. Now traffic crawled because there were more cars.

      Clare felt she’d joined the gawker’s club herself, with her head turning from side to side. She had expected some changes in Twin Falls, but expansion hadn’t been one of them. At least two chain stores had opened branches on Main Street—small ones, granted, but the name brands must have set aflutter the hearts of the town’s teenage population. Clare and her friends had had to beg for shopping expeditions to Hartford.

      At the end of Main Street, she made a left into the older, residential area where Laura and Dave lived. When Clare was a teenager, she had often walked these streets, wondering what treasures or secrets the grand three-story Victorian homes contained. Set far back on manicured lawns, their elegant verandas and etched-glass front doors had symbolized an era and social class far beyond Clare and her circle of friends.

      The neighborhood, known as Riverside Park, had housed the descendants of the town founders, the original settlers who had parlayed their pioneering skills into commercial ventures that became the backbone of the town’s economy. After the Second World War, the population of Riverside Park had swelled as sons and daughters returned with their young families for a simpler way of life.

      Clare’s and Laura’s parents were among those who had purchased a postwar bungalow on the outskirts of the town near the highway leading to larger urban areas where many found work. Clare realized that the tract of homes where she grew up—the first subdivision in Twin Falls—must have been met with the same concern by the residents of Riverside Park as she had just felt driving by the new homes on the other side of the bridge.

      It was funny, Clare thought, that although she’d spent so many years of her adolescence fantasizing about what went on behind those etched-glass doors, it was Laura—who had always vowed to leave Twin Falls—who eventually moved into one of the stately homes. But Clare could hardly complain. Those same fantasies had inspired her to write the novels that were earning her a living.

      As she drove along the street memories flooded her mind. There was the house once owned by the town’s doctor and somewhere in the same block—she couldn’t recall the number—was the former mayor’s home. Judging from the sight of extra meter boxes attached to the sides of some of the homes, there had been a shift from single dwellings to apartments.

      The size of the homes diminished slightly as she neared the end of Riverside Drive. Clare slowed down, looking for Elmwood Drive, the side street where Laura and Dave lived. She hung a right and scanned the front doors for number fifty-four. It was midway along the street, and there was a free parking space right in front. Clare eased into it, turned off the engine and sat for a minute, studying the house.

      It was a two-story fieldstone with a small veranda—more modest than the grander homes closer to the center of town, but impressive all the same. Its wood trim had been painted a dove gray that complemented the stone of the exterior. A latticed trellis, painted the same color, was attached to one of the veranda’s fieldstone pillars and a thick climbing rose, now boasting clusters of rosehips, spread up and across it. Small clumps of evergreen shrubs filled the gap between veranda and lawn in front of the house.

      Clare stared at the glow of lamplight in the front bay window. She inhaled deeply, grabbed hold of the car door and pushed it open. No turning back now.

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