Distant Shores

Anita waved her hand in the air. "Of course, honey. "

Elizabeth carried the painting into the house and put it in the walk-in pantry to dry. "Dinnerll be ready in a while," she said to Anita; "go on upstairs. Take a hot bath. "

"Darlin, you read my mind. "

Elizabeth set the table and made the salad, then called for Anita. When there was no answer, she went upstairs and found her stepmother sitting on the end of the bed, holding a small lace-trimmed pillow. Her head was bowed forward. She was so still that for a moment Elizabeth thought shed nodded off.

"Anita?"

Anita looked up. Her face was pale; in the dull light, her cheekbones created dark hollows in her cheeks. There were tears in her eyes.

Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed. "You okay?"

"I guess. "

Elizabeth didnt know what to say. Grief was like that: One minute you were tripping the light fantastic; the next minute, an old blue pillow made you cry.

Anita smoothed her hand across the pillow. "Your daddy always tried to get me to take up needlepoint, but I never could master it. Such a feminine thing. "

Elizabeth glanced down at the pillow. It was one of the few mementos she had of her mother. She had often tried to imagine her mother in a rocking chair, working with all that beautiful silk thread, but all she could draw up was a black-and-white image of a young woman looking into the camera.

"Your mama made this pillow," Anita said. "I can tell by her dainty stitches. That time she came into the beauty salon? She stitched the whole time Mabel cut her hair. "

"I try to picture her sometimes. "

Anita set the pillow down and stood up, then placed her thin hands on Elizabeths shoulders and guided her toward the mirror that hung above the bureau.

Elizabeth stared at her own puffy reflection. Her hair was a mess, her face looked pale without makeup.

"When I first saw your mama, I thought she was the loveliest woman Id ever seen. She and Edward looked like a pair of movie stars together. " Anita pulled the hair back from Elizabeths face. "Youre the spittin image of her. "

As a girl, Elizabeth had spent hours searching through family photographs for pictures of her mother, but shed never found more than a few.

Shed been looking in the wrong place for years, and no one had ever told her. All shed needed to see Mama was a mirror. Now, as she looked into her own green eyes, she saw a hint of the woman shed spent all her life missing. "Thank you, Anita," she said in a shaky voice.

"Youre welcome, honey. "

Jack barely slept that night.

Bleary-eyed and hungover, he padded into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Unfortunately, the hot water couldnt wash away his regret. Hed slept with Sally again last night.

He wished he could believe it wouldnt matter; he and Birdie were separated, after all. But he knew better. This separation wasnt a license to screw around. It was a hiatus, a resting period in the midst of a long marriage. If he found out that Birdie had been unfaithful, he would kill the guy.

Shed forgiven him once, but that had been years ago, when they were different people. Back then, shed been willing to sacrifice a huge amount of herself for their family. Though hed hurt her, shed been willing to believe in him again. In them.

But those days were gone. The new Birdie was a woman he couldnt predict.

She might learn about this mistake and file for divorce.

Or maybe she wouldnt care anymore. Maybe shed drifted so far away that fidelity didnt matter.

He wiped steam off the bathroom mirror and stared at his hazy reflection. After a night of partying, the wrinkles around his eyes were more pronounced, and his skin had a sick gray tinge. It was easy to imagine himself as an old man, stooped by time and bad choices, tottering forward with a cane to steady his walk.

Hed always believed that Birdie would be beside him in those twilight years, still loving him when he had nothing to offer but a shaking hand and his heart. It had never occurred to him--not even in the past weeks--that they wouldnt always be together.

Now, suddenly, he was afraid. What if hed finally ruined it?