As You Wish (The Summerhouse 3)

She would never have predicted it, but she was glad to find out that he’d had some joy in his life. Heaven knew she had never given him any. She’d fulfilled all the work and duties, but nothing she did came near to achieving true happiness—for him or herself.

Willie came to the hospital, her pretty daughter drove in from Florida, and Alan’s son, Kevin, put his arms around all of them. In an instant, Olivia became the outsider.

She wanted to walk away and leave them alone, but Willie was as incompetent as Alan was. The two of them, Alan dying and holding on to Willie with her endless tears, looked to Olivia to take care of everything.

And she did. Doctors, medicines, alternative treatments that for a while gave them hope. They all fell onto Olivia.

After Alan’s death, she made the funeral arrangements, and she was the one who held Willie while she cried herself to sleep.

At the funeral, Olivia knew there would be questions about who Willie and her daughter were. If she told the truth, all sympathy would go to the wife. Olivia was the wronged woman. She’d given her life to Alan and his son, Kevin—and everyone in town knew that. And what thanks did she get? Her husband had set up housekeeping with a woman who was older, plainer, and less intelligent than Olivia. Unappreciative bastard!

Yes, Olivia could have made people hate Alan Trumbull. She could have played the martyr and gained lots of sympathy.

But only she knew the truth about her part in it. She decided not to sully her husband’s memory.

It was only when the will was read that Olivia got a true shock. With the help of a prestigious law firm in Richmond, starting the moment he knew he was dying, Alan had managed to get everything put into his name—and he’d left the entire business to his son. Olivia got the house that she had found and remodeled, and she got the retirement plan that she had set up. But everything else went to Kevin. As for Willie and her daughter, Alan had made a trust fund for them years before.

For a while, Olivia had been so angry at how he’d tricked her into signing papers, that she was tempted to tell people about his second family. To destroy the memory of Alan being a “nice guy” would get him back in a big way.

For the second time, she didn’t do it. Alan, so very cowardly in life, had found the courage to tell Olivia what he thought of years of being on the receiving end of her managing his life. In death he’d taken away what had kept Olivia so occupied that she couldn’t think about the summer of 1970—and the aftermath of it.

She turned the keys over to her stepson, then tried to occupy herself. Gardening, church work, cooking for fund-raisers. She did them all. She became the person who was asked for help whenever anything was needed.

The town considered her a saint. She’d done so much for Alan and Kevin, and now she was dedicating herself to the town. Did the woman ever think about herself? they wondered.

As for Kevin, Olivia did her best to stay out of his life. When he left the stores to run themselves, she said nothing. When he married a woman who ordered him about, Olivia felt it was her fault. It’s what she had made Kevin think a wife should be.

Nor did she speak out when she saw Kevin and his wife, Hildy, spend masses. House, cars, trips, lavish wardrobes. The appliance stores faltered, then failed—and Kevin was left deeply in debt.

When Olivia sold her house, cashed in her retirement plan, and bailed her stepson out of debt, the townspeople began to speak her name in whispers. A true saint of a woman.

Olivia moved into a back bedroom of Kevin and Hildy’s big house—the one Olivia had paid off—and “helped out,” meaning that she more or less became their unpaid servant.

That had lasted for fourteen months, then Kit Montgomery had returned to town, put up his theater, and everything changed.

Except for the damaged lives, Olivia thought. Broken lives could never be fully healed.

Chapter Three

“Hi.”

Startled, Olivia sat up and saw young Elise standing a few feet away.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was out walking and I saw a bit of

yellow and...” She shrugged.

Olivia’s blouse was a pale yellow, her slacks a dark brown, not bright enough to be a beacon that was easily seen through the trees. It looked like Elise had been searching for her. “Are you hiding from Ray or your husband?”

Elise smiled. “Both. Ray is stomping around, looking for something, but I can’t imagine what. And...” She hesitated. “By now my family knows I’m missing. They’ll be searching for me.”

Olivia tried to imagine the enormity of being pursued by... What? The police? Had the girl been labeled as an escapee from a mental institution? Said to possibly be dangerous? “What will happen if they find you?”

“I don’t know. Jeanne said that what they’re doing is illegal, but my father paid for a wing on the clinic, so I don’t think anyone will listen to me. I have no money of my own, and—”

She broke off because Olivia put her arm out to the side. Elise sat beside her on the little stone wall and let Olivia hold her.

“What did your husband do to make you so angry?”