As You Wish (The Summerhouse 3)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When Olivia opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was. As she stared at the desk with the empty bookshelves behind it, memories began coming back to her. Alan and Kevin and Hildy. No! It was Kit and Tisha and the boys. It was Summer Hill and washing machines and huge delivery trucks. No! It was embassies around the world.

She lifted her hand and looked at it, saw the lines and the spots on her skin that all the sunscreen in the world couldn’t prevent.

Beside her were Kathy and Elise, still in their chairs, their eyes closed, both of them smiling. Wherever they were—whenever—they looked happy.

As Olivia got up, her joints seemed to creak, and her body felt stiff and slow. Age, she thought. Gradually, her mind began to unclutter. Her life with Kit was getting a bit clearer than her life with Alan. A vision of her father riding a camel came to her. He learned to cross his legs on the saddle and push to make the animal keep its head down and go forward. Her mother used to giggle in delight at her husband’s gorgeous new thigh muscles. As their daughter, Olivia should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. But then, her mother said that marriage to Kit had changed Livie into an old soul.

Kit said he’d made her grow up. Olivia said that having to deal with his life wore her out so much that she’d become old early.

Smiling at the thoughts, she stretched, trying to flex her muscles, taking note of the changes in her body. Her stomach was bigger, the skin more loose. She put her hand on it and closed her eyes for a moment. Having four children had stretched her. How she’d complained to Kit! But of course she’d really wanted reassurance that he still loved her even if the beautiful twenty-two-year-old body was gone. He always proved it by making love to her. Like his hair, that part of him had never faded in strength.

She opened the office door and leaned against the jamb. Too much was in her mind! Giving up Tisha was clear, but so was holding her daughter as her family and Kit’s looked on. A top hospital and staff had been able to save Olivia’s reproductive system after the difficult birth. At the time, Kit was still in Libya, but they managed to get word to him that his daughter and wife were well.

Right now her memory of tears was mixed with thoughts of joy. Thoughts of traveling with Kit were intertwined with memories of trying to manage appliance stores. Kevin’s inactivity even as a child was twisted around the blazing energy of her and Kit’s three sons.

When Olivia opened her eyes, Arrieta was standing there looking concerned. “Are you all right?”

Olivia pushed away from the door. “I think I will be, but my mind needs to settle.”

“Come and have some tea. I made some cream cookies.”

Olivia sat down at the table and sipped her tea. Her head came up. “My father! He didn’t die at his workbench!” She began to remember. “I threw a fit and made him have his heart checked. Kit’s family got him really good treatment. It’s slowly coming back to me.” She ate a cookie. “Kit and I own the whole Camden estate. It was a wedding gift from his parents. And the cottage is my office. Oh! I have a degree in psychology. I see patients.” She smiled. “After our little wedding, my pare

nts were very happy when I told them that until Kit returned I was going back to school to study psychology. My father said that half of the world was crazy so I’d always have work.” She couldn’t help the tears that came to her eyes. “I miss them so much!”

She put her hands to her head. “If I think of a person or a place, the memory comes to me. But my life with Alan is still clear. Did he marry Diane and have Kevin? Did she die? What about Willie? What happened to all of them?” She rubbed her forehead. “I seem to remember that Trumbull Appliances was sold. I think it’s now a furniture store.” She was thinking hard. “Wait! Alan and Willie did get married. I was in Richmond then, living with my parents and I was hugely pregnant. I was very pleased to hear of the wedding. Mom said she didn’t know I knew them, and I didn’t. Not in that life.”

Olivia looked up at Arrieta. “They divorced! Now I remember. Willie left Alan and married the man who built those ticky-tacky houses near us at Camden Hall. Kit said he wished he’d bought that land in memory of...” Olivia smiled. “Of our naked scurry across there. Young Pete still has my bra in a frame in his house. I wonder if Elise’s is there too? Did that happen with her? Or was that wiped out like my marriage to Alan was?”

“Beats me,” Arrieta said. “I’m new at this.” She gave Olivia a hard look. “But you need to know everything since you’re going to take over Dr. Hightower’s job.”

“Oh,” Olivia said. “There is that memory buried under all of them. I don’t know if I can do that.”

“You have to,” Arrieta said. “And you have to keep what you do a secret. The reason I moved here is to be near you.” She look so frightened that she might pass out.

Olivia got up, put her arm around the girl, and led her to sit down. “Everything will work out—you’ll see.” She glanced at the door. “How long will they stay in their trance?”

“Until I pull them out. I just think very hard and tell them to come back and they do. But those two are so happy they could stay forever. They don’t want to wake up.”

“But I did?”

“I don’t think you’ve solved everything in your life. Aunt Primrose told me this might happen. When people only go back a few years, it’s easier, but you went back a long time—and you had two complete lives. It’s harder for you to sort things out.”

“I don’t understand why Alan and Willie didn’t stay together. You should have seen them in the hospital when he was dying. She cried incessantly. She kept begging me to find a way to cure him.”

“How could you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “They seemed to think I could do anything.” She paused. “I need some answers. I know where Willie and her second husband live. I need to go see her. Now. Can you...?”

“Can I keep them asleep until you get back? I’ll try, but they’ll want you to be here after they wake up. Elise especially. That girl has grown to love you.”

“It’s mutual.”

“Take your time. Do what you need to.”

Minutes later, Olivia was driving down FM 77 toward the town. Willie and her husband lived in a huge house on the outskirts. Olivia had seen the house only once, and it had been the talk of everyone. It’s like that awful place Kevin and Hildy lived in, Olivia thought. But now that was in a time that had never happened.