Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(21)

“I’m sure he doesn’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does. He wasn’t exactly loving when he handed back my test.”She sighs and leans both elbows back against the top step, legs outstretched to the bottom. “What are you doing, Gammy?”

“Dividing my hostas. Want to help?”

“Dividing?”She groans. “No more math today. Sorry.”

Odelia laughs. “It can’t be that bad.”

“I got a D.”

“Minus?”

“No. Just a D.”

“Look on the bright side. That’s better than a D minus. Or an F.”Her grandmother hacks away at a stubborn root.

“Somehow, I don’t think the college admissions boards are going to see it that way. My father won’t, either. I guess I’d better go tell him.”She hoists herself off the step, picks up her backpack, and starts to head inside.

“Calla? If you’re going to go tell your father anything right now, you’re going to need a boat.”

“Why? Where is he?”

“Out on the lake.”She gestures vaguely at the patch of blue at the end of the road.

“What?”

“He’s fishing . . .”

“He doesn’t fish!”

“. . . with Ramona.”Odelia looks her squarely in the eye as if to ask, What do you think about that? “They took a picnic lunch and a lot of bait.”

“Oh. Well, that’s nice.”

“Mmm-hmm.”Her grandmother continues to watch her.

“What, Gammy?”

“Are you okay with . . .”She sweeps a dirty gardening glove–covered hand toward the Taggarts’ house, “all of this?”

“You mean Dad sleeping in their guest room?”And the whole town buzzing about it?

“That. And him maybe . . . starting to move on.”

“Are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know . . . . She was your daughter.”

“She was your mother. And his wife.”Gammy shrugs. “I’m fine with it. He’s gone through hell. He’s in a better place than he has been in a long, long time.”

“I know . . . . It’s been three months.”

“Since your mother died.”

“What else would I be talking about?”

Her grandmother shakes her head and goes back to chopping the hosta’s root.

“Gammy . . . did something happen to my father before my mother died?”

“You tell me.”

She knows, Calla realizes. She knows what Mom did. To Dad. With Darrin.

“You mean . . . the affair?”

Her grandmother goes still, then sets aside her trowel and looks up at her. “So I was right.”

“You mean you didn’t know for sure?”

She shakes her head. “My guides were showing me things . . . but I guess I didn’t want to believe them.”

“What did they show you?”Calla asks, still not certain her grandmother knows it was Darrin.

“The details aren’t important.”

“Did they show you who my mother was with?”

“It wasn’t even that specific. I just got that there was another man, and secrets . . . and guilt. Terrible guilt, on her part.”

“Not enough to keep her faithful to Dad, though.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, I do.”

When Dad was visiting Lily Dale back in September, he told Calla that for months before she died, Mom had become increasingly detached from him, more absorbed than usual in her work.

Yeah, right. She wasn’t traveling on business. She was having an affair.

“It was Darrin Yates, wasn’t it,”her grandmother says grimly.

“I thought you said your guides didn’t show you the details.”

“No, but you told me that you’d seen him at the house back in March, and at the funeral. He was obviously back in her life.”

“Do you think Dad knew, Gammy?”

“About Darrin?”

“Or just . . . that she was in love with someone else?”

“I doubt Stephanie would spell it out for him, but if that was the case, I’m sure he sensed something was going on. You don’t have to be a psychic to know when things aren’t right in a marriage.”

She’s speaking from experience, Calla knows. She can’t see Odelia’s eyes, but her voice is taut with pain.

“My father told me things weren’t the same lately,”Calla tells her. “He told me that my mother had taken a big step back from him before she died. Maybe it was more than that. Maybe he just didn’t want me to know the whole story.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. If he even knew the whole story.”

Calla shakes her head sadly, feeling terribly sorry for her father . . . and for herself.

“I really thought she loved him.”

“Honey, she did. She loved him more than anything— they were good together. When they were first married, when you were born, when you were little . . . the last time I saw them . . . they were crazy about each other. I couldn’t imagine that would ever change, but . . . things do. People do.”