Night Road

Lexi knew that; she’d known it from the first time she walked in the Farraday house. Mia could afford to make mistakes. Lexi couldn’t.

“I’ll be careful. ”

“Good. ” Eva looked at her. “And about that boy. I seen the way he ran after you. You be careful there, too. ”

“He doesn’t like me. You don’t have to worry about that. ”

Eva studied her carefully. Lexi wondered what she saw. “You just be careful around him. ”

Four

Jude loved her garden in October. It was a time of organization, of planning for the future. She lost herself in the work of planting bulbs, imagining how each choice would alter the garden next spring. And she needed that now, to find a kind of peace.

The past five days had been stressful for her, although she couldn’t exactly say why. She hadn’t wanted the kids to go to the party, but they had, and it had gone uneventfully. Zach had come home right on time, and she’d hugged him tightly (smelling his breath) and sent him to bed. She’d seen no evidence of drinking, and Mia had spent the night with Lexi and come home smiling the next day. Apparently, nothing had gone wrong. So why did she think something had? Maybe Miles was right, and she was seeing problems where none existed.

She sat back on her heels and clapped her hands together to release the dirt clinging to her gloves. Tiny black particles rained down, creating a lacy pattern on her thighs.

She was just about to reach for the clippers lying in the dirt beside her when she heard a car. She looked up, tented a gloved hand across her eyes, and saw sunlight glint off the silver hood of a brand new Mercedes.

“Crap,” she muttered. She’d forgotten about the time.

The car pulled up in front of the low stone wall that outlined her front garden.

Jude pulled off her dirt-caked gloves and stood up as her mother got out of the car. “Hello, Mother. ”

Caroline Everson walked around her bullet car and into the vibrant garden with the bearing of an ice pick. She was dressed, as always, winter or summer, in a pair of black wool pants and a fitted blouse that showcased her toned, fit body. Her white hair was drawn back from her angular face; the severity of the style offset her bottle-green eyes to perfection. At seventy, she was still a beautiful woman. And successful; that was what mattered to Caro. Success. “Have you agreed to be on the garden tour yet?”

Jude wished she’d never revealed that little dream to her mother. “It’s not ready yet. Soon, though. ”

“Not ready? It’s beautiful. ”

Jude heard the derisiveness in her mother’s tone and tried not to let it wound her. Caroline saw no point in hobbies. The end game was what mattered to her mother, and until Jude showed this garden on the island tour, she would somehow be a failure. “Come inside, Mother. Lunch is ready. ” Without waiting for a response, Jude led the way toward the front door. On the porch, she slipped out of her gardening clogs, brushed the dirt off her pants, and then went inside.

Sunlight poured through the home’s twenty-foot-tall windows, made the exotic wood floors glow like burnished copper. An immense granite fireplace dominated the great room, which was decorated in soothing neutrals. The real star of this room was the view: soaring glass panels captured a swatch of emerald grass, a layer of steel blue Sound, and the distant Olympic Mountains.

“Can I get you a glass of wine?” Jude asked.

Her mother set down her purse so carefully it might have held explosives. “Of course. Chardonnay, if you have it. ”

Jude was glad for the excuse to leave the room. She passed through the dining area, created by a long bird’s-eye maple table and ten chairs, to the open kitchen beyond. The only time she couldn’t see her mother was when she opened the wood-paneled door of the Sub-Zero refrigerator.

When she returned to the great room, her mother was standing at the end of the sofa, looking up at the huge canvas that hung above the fireplace. It was a gorgeous, abstract work of art—swiping, curling streams of amber and red and black that somehow managed to convey a buoyant happiness. Mother had painted it decades ago, and Jude still had trouble reconciling the work’s glorious optimism with the woman standing in front of it now.

“You should replace that piece. The gallery has some lovely work now,” her mother said.

“I like it,” Jude said simply, and it was true. This piece had been her father’s favorite—she remembered standing with him as a little girl, her small hand tucked in his bear-paw grasp, watching Mother paint it. Look at the way she does that, it’s magic, he’d said, and for a time Jude had believed it, believed there was a kind of magic in their home. “I remember watching you paint it. ”

“A lifetime ago,” her mother said, turning her back on the painting. “Why don’t you go clean up? I’ll wait. ”

Jude handed her mother the glass of wine and then left the room. She took a quick shower and changed into a pair of comfortable jeans and a black V-necked sweater and returned to the great room, where her mother was seated on the sofa, her spine straight, sipping at the wine like a hummingbird.

Jude sat opposite her mother. A large stone coffee table separated them. “Lunch is ready anytime you’re hungry,” Jude said. “I’ve made us a Waldorf salad. ”

At that, they lapsed into their usual silence. Jude couldn’t help wondering why they continued this pretense. Once a month, they met for a meal—trading locations back and forth as if it mattered where they were. During a lunch of healthy food and expensive wine, they pretended to have something to talk about, a relationship.

“Did you see the article in The Seattle Times? The one about the gallery?” her mother asked.

“Of course. You sent it to me. You said how important motherhood is to you. ”