Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“The man I loved?” Zoë said. “He’s so much like him that sometimes it’s freaky. I’m mad about him. But you! You’re the great success! I had no idea that Indigo was yours. I’m truly impressed. But it’s a good thing I didn’t know or I would have looked you up on the Internet and found out who you married.”

“Who I didn’t marry,” Faith said. “Zoë, I don’t know how you’ll take this, but my company has a new product line coming out and I’ve named it ‘Amy.’ I’m giving her a lot of the proceeds to do with as she wants.”

“She’ll give it to charities,” Zoë said. “I hope you didn’t think I’d be jealous of that. You and I owe Amy everything. If she hadn’t taken us back with her…” Her eyes widened.

“I don’t want to think about it,” Faith said. “I would have married Tyler and had a second miserable life.”

“And I would have spent my life feeling sorry for myself. By the way, I already sent Amy a letter saying she gets a portrait of her family from me every five years for life.” She raised an eyebrow at Faith. “What if I start to do a portrait and see that she has a son who looks just like a certain famous American author?”

“I know just the herb to give you to keep you from laughing,” Faith said. “I’ve had to use it at several board meetings.”

Laughing together, they went to their bedrooms.

Twenty-six

“I will not be disappointed,” Amy said to herself as she waited in line to get off the plane. “I won’t be disappointed or feel cheated. I did what I went there to do and that was all I needed to do. If I were a selfish person, I would have asked for something for myself, but I’m not so I didn’t.”

The man in line in front of her turned to glare at her.

“Sorry,” she said, apologizing for talking out loud to herself.

When she got to the airport, as soon as she saw Stephen and the boys, all thoughts of getting “more” left her mind. The boys ran under the guard tape and nearly tackled her. She fell back against her rolling bag, and threw her arms around them, kissing them profusely.

“Can I get in here?” Stephen asked as he gave her a quick kiss, then took her bag and ushered the three of them back under the tape. “Is this it?”

“Are you kidding?” Amy said. “I have three more bags full of…” She leaned down to the boys who were clinging to her. “Presents!” They yelled so loud that people frowned at them.

Stephen put his lips close to her ear. “I’d tell them to calm down but I feel just as they do. I’d like to yell with joy that you’re home at last.”

“I was gone just a few days,” Amy said.

“I know, but for some reason it seemed like you were gone forever. It’s like it’s been a lifetime since I saw you.”

“I’m here now,” she said. “And I’m not going to leave again.”

/> Stephen laughed. “That would mean you’d have to go camping with us next year and you know how you hate that.”

Amy’s mind filled with images. She had cooked over an open fireplace for over a year. She could stick her hand inside a wall oven and tell the temperature within a few degrees. She’d had to deal with weevils in the flour and maggots on the meat. She’d had to use an outhouse.

“I think I might be persuaded to go camping with you guys next year.” She smiled at the expression on Stephen’s face. “If I’m not a good camper, you can send me back after one day.” They had reached the baggage claim area. “There are my bags,” she added before he could say anything.

They got the luggage to the car and Amy opened one of them to give the boys what she thought of as “car toys.” They’d keep them quiet on the trip home. This time they were those plastic boxes filled with hundreds of dull-tipped nails. The boys could make images of their body parts.

When they got in the car, Stephen took her hands in his to kiss them, then he drew back. “What in the world have you been doing?” He turned her hands palm up and looked at them in horror. There were cuts, half-healed blisters, calluses, scars, and skin so rough it could have been used to sand the paint off the car.

She pulled her hands out of his grasp. “Just because I went ridin’ without my gloves one day…” she said in imitation of Scarlett O’Hara.

Stephen started the car and backed out of the parking space. “Wasn’t the truth that she’d been working like a field hand?”

“And that’s what I’ve been doing,” Amy said as she reached in her bag and got out the jar of Indigo cream Faith had given her. When she’d handed it to her, Faith whispered, “All my products will always be free to you.”

“You look different,” Stephen said, driving and glancing at her. “Besides your cotton picker’s hands, that is. Have you lost weight?”

“I lost weight before I left, but you never noticed,” she said, lying. “I’ve had time to get over my sadness, and that’s a big change.”

“No, it’s more than that. There’s something different about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s there.”

“I’ll let you try later.”