Susannah's Garden (Blossom Street #3)(48)

“Are you busy?” Susannah asked.

“Not particularly, why?”

“Want to meet at He’s Not Here? I need to talk.”

“Sure.”

Susannah was grateful for a friend willing to meet her at a moment’s notice. As soon as she hung up the phone, she grabbed her purse and car keys. If Chrissie returned while she was out, fine. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to let her daughter worry about her for a change.

The parking lot outside the tavern was almost empty. Susannah chose a booth and ordered a Diet Coke while she waited for Carolyn, who showed up a few minutes later. She slid into the seat across from Susannah.

“What’s up?” she asked, getting directly to the point.

Susannah pulled the letter out of her purse, and in as few words as possible, told her what it was about. Then she added, “I went to Mom to see if she knew anything.”

“Did she?”

Susannah sighed. “Well, if she ever did, she’s forgotten it now.” More and more Susannah realized that her mother had slipped into a fantasy world and had trouble identifying what was real and what wasn’t.

“Do you honestly think your mother would tell you even if she did know?”

Susannah couldn’t be sure and made a dismissive gesture. “She promised to ask my father the next time he visits.”

Carolyn gave her a worried look. “Oh, dear.”

“Oh, yes.” She rested her chin on her hand. “I said that was a good idea and that I’d be eager to hear what Dad had to tell her. What else could I say? Sometimes, it’s like my own mother is a stranger to me.”

Carolyn nodded and ordered a glass of merlot when the waitress swung by. “I imagine there are days when Vivian’s a stranger to herself.”

Susannah suspected that was true. Her mother didn’t understand what had changed or why. At least some of the time, she recognized that her husband of nearly sixty years was dead, but at other times—because she needed him, because it comforted her—she brought him back to life.

“I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating and painful it is to learn that my father would do something like this,” Susannah cried, brandishing the letter. Her voice shook with emotion; she felt betrayed and sad and wronged all at once. “I didn’t think he could hurt me anymore after he died, but…he did.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Carolyn asked.

“Do? What can I do? That was over thirty years ago. It isn’t like I can turn back the clock.”

“True, but…”

Susannah’s eyes widened as the possibilities came to her. In her excitement she half rose from her sitting position. “I could find Jake,” she whispered. She’d been toying with the idea for weeks and hadn’t acted on it because…because she was afraid. Now she saw that she had the perfect justification, a real reason to seek him out.

Carolyn didn’t immediately endorse the idea. “You’re married,” her friend reminded her. “Jake probably is, too. Are you sure this is a box you want to open?”

Susannah recalled the ancient Greek story about Pandora and her box of troubles—as Carolyn had no doubt meant her to. “I don’t know….”

“Why is it so important to find Jake?” Carolyn asked next. “Think about it, Susannah.”

“Because we were both betrayed by our parents,” she said. “His father sold him out and my father offered Mr. Presley the one thing he couldn’t refuse. Can you imagine how much money five thousand dollars would’ve been to a man like Allan Presley?” It hurt to know, to have proof, that every bad thought she’d ever had about her father had turned out to be true. He was cunning, devious, heartless. “That wasn’t the only large check he wrote, either,” she blurted out.

“What do you mean?”

Susannah slouched down in the booth. She hadn’t intended to say anything, but now that she had, she felt relieved. “As I was going over Dad’s bank statements, I found that he’d withdrawn several large sums of money through the years. All the checks were made out to cash, so there’s no way of tracing what he did with the money.”

“Investments?” Carolyn suggested.

“If so, I didn’t find any evidence of it.”

“What about vacations?”

Susannah shook her head. “My parents rarely traveled.” In fact, she didn’t think her mother had flown more than a couple of times in her entire life. That driving trip to California was probably the only long vacation they’d ever taken.

Carolyn was very quiet. “There might be another reason.”

“What?” Susannah had been angry and upset with her father all day. His reasons for withdrawing so much money and doing it in such secrecy were incomprehensible to her. Susannah knew that, until recently, her mother had hardly ever written a check. She had no knowledge of managing finances or how her husband spent their money. She hadn’t considered it her sphere of duty; it was his, while she handled household routines and entertaining.

Carolyn hesitated, and when she spoke her voice was low. “I mentioned that my father asked to talk to me before I moved back to Colville, didn’t I?”

“You said he wanted you to take over the business.”