settled on the mundane, unless it involved sugar or sex, horses or art.
The Honda chugged around the final curve. Hannah’s ex had insisted on this ridiculous gravel drive despite the acres of pasture that lay between the house and the road. He’d pronounced it authentic and likely to deter bikers from joyriding up to their house after spilling out of the redneck bar opposite. Of course, that could have been Inigo’s secret wish all along, since he’d upped and left six years earlier for a gay ménage à trois in rural Chatham County. A midlife crisis with not one younger lover but two. Both guys.
Hannah searched the top of her head for her reading glasses and had a flashback to stuffing them into the seat pocket of the airplane. Oh well, another pair lost.
Poppy parked and flung open the door decorated with a prancing mare. She painted horses on every surface except paper. Take the norm, turn it inside out and flip it backward—that was Poppy’s thought process.
“Hey, girl.” Poppy emerged, bottom-first. “Thought you might need a sugar fix.”
“At seven in the morning?” Hannah and the dogs walked down the steps.
Poppy jiggled a Whole Foods bag, and her silver horse earrings danced a rhumba. Then she took out her gum and dumped it in the car’s trash can. “Never too early for chocolate.”
“Come here. You’ve earned a hug.” Silly move caused, no doubt, by sleep deprivation. Even drunk, Poppy wasn’t a hugger.
Poppy stiffened, and Hannah tried to cover her mistake with a pat on the shoulder blade.
“Thank you. For looking after the animals, the house and—” Hannah pulled back and chewed the corner of her lip. She hadn’t cried in two and a half weeks. Why now? She sniffed. “But you should not be shopping at Whole Foods, not on your budget.”
“I know, I know, but I figured you needed first-rate treats. Chocolate croissants, still warm.” Poppy sniffed the bag. “Mmm-hmm. And extra chocolate supplies. Had no idea Brits understood chocolate, but this, girlfriend, is the real deal.”
Poppy reached inside the bag and waved two long, thin sticks of chocolate wrapped in twisted yellow foil. They resembled emaciated Christmas crackers, the kind Inigo had introduced to Christmas dinner when the boys were little. Such a fraud, the ex, flooding their lives with all things British—or rather Celtic—when he’d left Wales as a two-month-old. A Christmas memory snuck out: Inigo, Galen and Liam popping crackers and giggling. Her guys, the three people she thought she’d known best in the world. Turned out she hadn’t known them at all. If her mother were still alive, how would she label this bottomless emotion Hannah refused to name? Was it grief? Was she mourning her before life?
Think better, Hannah.
“Cadbury Flakes, they’re called,” Poppy continued. “The Brit section in Whole Foods is opposite the dog food, but don’t let that put you off. What time d’y’all get back last night?”
“Late. Or early, depending on your definition. And it’s just me.”
“Our boy?”
“Couldn’t spring him from the post-hospitalized program. Another twelve days and then he can come home.” Hannah paused. “I need to find him a therapist here. And an A.A. group.”
“On it, babe. I know a shitload of drunks.”
“Somehow, I never doubted that.”
Poppy disappeared into her car, muttering about a lost cell phone. She bobbed back out. “Sleep on the plane?”
“I rested.”
“The answer’s no, then.”
“Welcome to my brave, new world.”
Poppy took a bite out of one of the chocolate croissants, then shoved it back into the bag. Her eyes flicked toward the house; clearly she was thinking, Coffee. But talking about Galen was easier in the dark surrounded by sounds of the waking forest rather than under the glare and hum of kitchen halogens.
“I just need to get him home,” Hannah said. “Out of California, away from the ex-girlfriend and the mental hospital. Home to the cottage, so I can help him heal.”
“Think that’s a good idea—leaving him unsupervised in the cottage?”
Acorns splattered the cottage porch in a series of pops as if fired from a muzzled BB gun, and the Crayola-colored spinners she’d hung for her father the week before his death swirled in a sudden breeze, whirring softly.
“He’ll be home,” Hannah said. “And he won’t be unsupervised. I’ll be watching over him, which is better than right now. His therapy ends at four and then he returns to an empty apartment for the rest of the day. He spends every evening and every night alone.”
Poppy sucked chocolate off her fingers. “And the whole heavy-duty meds thing isn’t freaking out your inner holistic-ness?”
“Sometimes medication is the cure.”
“And sometimes it makes things worse. People in pain do painful things, Han.”
The downside of exposing secrets to a friend: she knew how to hurt you.
“So.” Poppy rustled the bag closed. “You figure out what happened? I mean, the whole sequence of events?”
“Not entirely, since Galen didn’t want us in any of the therapy sessions. It still makes no sense to me. How can you return to grad school, drop out of classes and decide to die in a matter of weeks? I was hoping, when he came home, he might talk to you.”
Poppy broke eye contact. “Sure.”
In the forest, a pair of coonhounds bayed, a nasty reminder that at least one of the fancy new homes on the ridge was now occupied.
“On to happier things. Fill me in on your life,” Hannah said. “What have I missed?”
“I met this guy.”
“Poppyyyyy. Not again.”
“Eighty-year-old guy. You’d approve.”
Hannah slapped the side of her head. “Argh, sorry. Completely forgot about Hawk’s Ridge. How’s it working out?”
“You were right about the whole art therapy thing. Love hanging out with the old folks. Don’t think it’s going to turn into a paying gig, but the director and the staff stay clear. Let me do my own thing. There’s this sweet guy, Jacob. You, missy, would love him. Knows a shit-ton about plants and trees. A real woodsman. Such a shame to see him cooped up in that place. Has this grandson who’s on an amazing European adventure. I took Jacob to Walmart the other day and we bought a huge map and colored Sharpies so we could plot the kid’s route. They’re not supposed to tape stuff to the walls.” Poppy grinned. “So we stuck it up with half a roll of packing tape. Bwah-hah-hah.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“Rules, Han, are for breaking. Especially when you’re eighty. Can I borrow the truck today? I found a kiln for sale. Thought I’d check it out.”
Poppy already had two kilns but barely used one. The recession was strangling her ceramics business.
“And where are you going to put another kiln?”
“Lordy, a girl can never have too many kilns!”
“Okay, sure.” Hannah meant no. No, it’s horribly inconvenient; no, I need the truck for work. But no was such a difficult word. It always gummed up her mouth like sticky toffee. Still, good to know your greatest weakness, even if, at forty-five, it was more of a fluorescent tattoo inked on your forehead.
Hannah stretched her right arm, then her left. Fanning out her hands, she released the tension needling at her fingertips and imagined it floating up into the sky. Disintegrating into the earth’s atmosphere.
“Galen’s going to be fine.”