As You Wish (The Summerhouse 3)

Instead, it was as though she had been energized. Her foremost thought was that if after three weeks she forgot what had happened, then she’d have to fix things so they couldn’t be changed. She’d make them legal. Permanent, meaning marriage, and if she was to study psychology, she’d have to enroll in college.

Three weeks before Kit had been picked up by the military would probably be sometime in July, but she wasn’t sure of the date. The children had been there and those dear old men, and Bill and Nina, and... She took a breath. Her beloved parents were still alive. But back then, she and Kit hadn’t noticed anyone else. They were young and in love, and they’d sneaked away at every possible opportunity to have glorious sex.

Olivia closed her eyes tighter. She never wanted to open them, didn’t want to see Arrieta’s face, didn’t want to hear her say, “I don’t know what went wrong.” That’s what all charlatans said, didn’t they? Then they asked for more money.

And there’d be poor Elise, crying because all hope of escaping what was coming with her father was gone. How did one prove sanity when you had people who supposedly loved you telling the world that you were flat-out crazy?

Kathy was facing a life of being labeled as Ray Hanran’s castoff. After having met him, Olivia was sure that no one would believe that Kathy had been the one to want to get away from him. No, everyone would believe she was inadequate. Couldn’t hold her man. That was going to destroy her self-esteem.

Olivia squeezed her eyes very tight, knowing that she was deepening the lines that radiated out across her face. Ah, old age. The things you have to worry about.

“The cat broke them,” said a child’s voice.

“It was a demon cat,” said another child. “Green with purple spots that glow in the dark.”

“And it flies,” the first child added.

Olivia didn’t open her eyes, but at the memory of those deliciously familiar voices, the tears started coming. She let them find their way out and run down her cheeks.

“We’re sorry,” Ace whispered.

He always did have a soft heart, Olivia thought. Her face was wet and she was much too scared to open her eyes. Had she wished so hard that she’d conjured them? Like in some voodoo spell?

“Livie!” It was Letty’s voice of command. She had always been the leader of the two children.

Olivia swallowed hard and very slowly opened her eyes. But they were so full of tears she had to blink several times before she could see.

She was sitting under the big magnolia tree on an old oak chair that had been left outside for years. In her lap was a bowl of green beans that she’d been snapping into pieces. To her right was the garden, lush with vegetables that were to be harvested. She could see the corner of the house. It needed to be painted.

In front of her were the two children, Ruth and Kyle, aka Letty and Ace. Letty had on her look of defiance, her dark brows drawn together, while Ace looked a bit guilty for not telling the truth about the broken eggs in the basket.

How beautiful they are! Olivia thought. Why hadn’t she remembered what extraordinarily good-looking children they were? She could see Tate, the child Letty would someday give birth to, in the girl’s face. Under her sweetly rounded cheeks were Tate’s sculpted cheekbones.

As for Ace, he was blond and blue-eyed, and he’d grow up to be an excellent doctor. He cared about every one of his patients, about all of Summer Hill.

“What’s wrong with you?” Letty demanded. Her pushiness was covering her guilt that she and Ace had yet again broken every egg they’d collected.

Slowly, Olivia put the bowl of beans on the ground.

The children were watching her odd behavior and she could read their minds. Were they going to be punished with no brownies, or would Livie run off with Kit and forget about their latest transgression?

When Olivia stood up, she gasped. There was no stiffness in her joints, no catch in her left knee from where she’d hurt it while trying to slide a washing machine out of the way.

She took a quick step to the side. Her body was all suppleness and grace, easy of movement. Lifting her arms, she did a pirouette. Laughing, she held out her hands to the children.

They were puzzled, but Letty dropped the basket of broken eggs, nodded to Ace, and they took Olivia’s hands. She danced all the way around the tree with them. “Can I still sing?” she wondered aloud. When growing up, when she’d been absolutely, totally sure how her life was going to go, she’d taken voice lessons.

Arrieta had said that songs and stories wouldn’t be remembered, so she started singing “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen. The children quickly picked up the tune and the words. Letty yelled the lyrics with great feeling. Ace sang his line about not minding the cold with a funny little flip of defiance. And when the three of them belted out the title, the rooster and the peacock joined in so loudly they sounded like barnyard musicians. Livie and the children leaped and twirled and sang at the top of their lungs.

It wasn’t until the fourth chorus that Olivia saw that Uncle Freddy and Mr. Gates were at the edge of the shade and watching them in astonishment. Abruptly, Olivia halted.

When she’d been young, she’d thought the men were very old, ancient even. But now she saw them differently. Late seventies, early eighties. Not that old. And they looked healthy. She knew that both of them would live another eleven years—and they’d leave the earth within months of each other. She also knew that at their funerals the town would hear of all the good the men had done. All the fruits and vegetables that Olivia had paid no attention to had been given to anyone in town who needed them.

Uncle Freddy had quietly helped several high school students get into college. One of the reasons he hadn’t been able to keep a housekeeper-cook was because his big house was an unofficial way station for people in abusive situations. At his funeral there were a dozen weeping women telling how Uncle Freddy had helped them escape terrible lives. As for Mr. Gates, he was the one who made sure everything got done.

When she’d been twenty-two and angry at the world for delaying her plan of becoming a Broadway superstar, Olivia had been unaware of what was going on with these people. All she’d cared about were her own wants. And Kit. And more Kit.

But now, at her age, she had learned that people don’t exist alone. She hadn’t been aware of it when Kit abruptly left, but the grief hadn’t been hers alone. It had been deep for all of them.