Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

Roz shifted on the bed, angling so she could rest Hayley’s head on her lap. And sat in silence, staring at that thin lance of light through the curtains.

“She didn’t deserve it,” Hayley started.

“No. She didn’t deserve it.”

“Whatever she was, whatever she did, she didn’t deserve to be treated that way. She loved the baby, but . . .”

“But what?”

“It wasn’t right, the way she loved it. It wasn’t a healthy sort of thing. She wouldn’t have been a good mother.”

“How do you know?”

“I felt . . .” Obsession, she thought, hunger. Impossible to describe the vastness of it. “It had to be a boy, you see? A girl wouldn’t have mattered to her. A girl wouldn’t have been just a disappointment, but an outrage. And if she’d had the boy and kept it, she would’ve twisted it. Not on purpose, but he wouldn’t have been the man he was. He wouldn’t have been the one who loved his dog and buried it with a marker, and loved your grandmother. And none of this would be the way it is.”

She turned her head so that she could look up at Roz. “You, Harper. Nothing would be the same. But it doesn’t make it right. It still doesn’t make what happened right.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if everything balanced in the world? If right came out on top and wrong was punished. It sure would be simple.”

Hayley’s lips curved. “Then Justin Terrell, who cheated on me in tenth grade, would be fat and bald and asking people if they want fries with that instead of being part owner of a successful sport’s bar and bearing a strong resemblance to Toby McGuire.”

“Isn’t that just the way?”

“Then again, maybe I’d go to hell for not telling Lily’s biological father about her.”

“Your motives were pure.”

“Mostly. I guess doing what’s best isn’t always doing what’s right. It was best for that baby to be raised here, at Harper House.”

“Not the same thing, Hayley. No one’s motives were pure, or even mostly, in that case. Lies and deceit, cold cruelty, and selfishness. I shudder to think what might have become of that child had it been a girl. You feeling better now?”

“Lots.”

“Why don’t I go down, fix you something to eat? I’ll bring you food on a tray.”

“I’ll go down. I know Mitch wants to record all this. I know Harper’s probably told him by now, but it’s better if I give it to him firsthand. And I think I’ll feel better yet when I do.”

“If you’re sure.”

She nodded as she pushed herself up on the bed. “Thanks for sitting with me. It felt good knowing you were here while I slept.”

She glanced in the mirror, winced. “I’m going to put on some makeup first. I may be possessed by a ghost, but I don’t have to look like one.”

“That’s my girl. I’ll go let Stella know you’re up and around.”

HAYLEY FIGURED SHE owed Roz another one when she realized everything had been arranged so that just she and Mitch would sit in the library to document the experience.

It was easier, somehow, to talk only to him. He was so smart and scholarly, in a studly kind of way. Sort of Harrison Fordish, in hornrims she decided.

With the leading edge of the fatigue and the shock dulled by a little sleep and a lot of TLC, she felt steadier, and more in control.

In any case, she loved this room. All the books, all those stories, all those words. Gardens outside the windows, big cozy chairs inside.

When she’d first come to Harper House she’d sometimes tiptoe down at night, just to sit in this room—her favorite of all of them—and marvel.

And she liked the way Mitch approached the whole Amelia project. With his work boards, his computer, his files and notes, he made it all rational, doable, grounded.

She studied the board now, with its long lists and columns that comprised Harper’s family tree.