Fox River. Emilie Richards

entirely without hope. And despite his better instincts, Christian could feel hope stirring. Despite a past that railed against it. Despite the friends who had deserted him and the detractors who had silently nodded their heads. Hope was light pouring through the broken pieces of his heart.

      7

      Maisy was a good cook, but Jake was a better one. Together they fixed a dinner that tempted Julia out of her self-imposed fast. She had Callie to think about, a vulnerable daughter who did not need another anorexic role model. Television already supplied too many.

      She decided to address her own embarrassment upfront. “This is delicious. But I bet I’m making a mess.”

      Callie giggled. “You have gravy on your chin.”

      Julia felt a napkin dabbing around her mouth. She let her daughter take care of her, grateful that Callie seemed more interested in than frightened by her predicament.

      “I’m going to try eating with my eyes closed,” Callie said.

      “One messy eater at a table, please.” Julia smiled in her daughter’s direction. “Poor Maisy will have enough to clean up as it is.”

      “Another biscuit?” Maisy spoke from across the table. “Julia?”

      Julia shook her head. “This is more than I’ve eaten in a week. It’s wonderful.” And it really was. Maisy had always been an eclectic cook, quickly tiring of one cuisine and moving on to another. Thai lemon grass soup or Salvadoran pupusas had been as commonly served as country ham. Tonight she and Jake had prepared Southern classic. Fried chicken, biscuits and cream gravy, green beans cooked with salt pork and Jake’s famous sweet potato pie for dessert. A heart attack on a plate.

      “Pie after I clean up?” Maisy asked.

      “I’ll help,” Julia said. “I can dry dishes.”

      Maisy didn’t argue or fuss. “I’ll help you find your way.”

      “I want to see Feather Foot.” Callie’s chair scraped the floor beside Julia. “He might be lonely.”

      “I’ll take you.” Jake’s chair scraped, too. “Then we can close up for the night. I could use your help.”

      “Can I, Mommy?”

      “You bet.” Julia got to her feet and slid her hands along the table until it ended. Maisy took her arm, and, shuffling her feet so as not to trip, Julia followed her mother’s lead.

      The kitchen was large enough for a table of its own, enameled metal and cool to the touch. Julia rested her fingers on its edge. Whenever she had needed help she had done her homework here as a young girl, letting Maisy drill her on spelling words or Jake untangle math problems, step by step. She had abandoned this warm family center as she grew older, preferring her own company to theirs. Her room had become a haven, the telephone her lifeline.

      Again she thought of Fidelity, and, inevitably, of Christian.

      “You have the expression on your face you used to get as a little girl.” Maisy released Julia’s arm. “You’re a million miles away. I used to wonder how to travel that far.”

      Julia was surprised. Maisy, for all her love, her sneak attacks into intimacy, rarely expressed what she was feeling. She decided to be honest. “I was just thinking about Fidelity.”

      “What brought her to mind?”

      “Being here, I guess. I feel like a girl again.”

      “She was a big part of your childhood. Christian, too.”

      Julia couldn’t touch that. “And Robby. So much sadness.”

      “You saw too much sadness.”

      “I’ve wondered if that’s what this is about. If I’m blind because of that. If everything finally caught up with me. Fidelity’s murder, Christian’s conviction, Robby’s accident.”

      “Did you ask the doctor?”

      “Would you share the time of day with that man?”

      “Julia, do you want me to see if I can find you a good therapist, somebody you’d feel comfortable talking to?”

      Julia could imagine the sort of therapist her mother might choose. An escapee from Esalen, a guru who started each session with ancient Hindu chants or a fully orchestrated psychodrama.

      Maisy laughed a little, low and somehow sad. “This is interesting, but I really can almost see your thoughts now. You’ve always been so good at hiding them, but that’s changed.”

      “Maisy, I—”

      “There’s a woman in Warrenton who is supposed to be excellent. No fireworks or instant revelations. Just good listening skills and sound advice.”

      Julia wondered what choice she had. Did she want to call her own friends for recommendations and open her life to more gossip? Could she trust Bard to find someone more suitable?

      “Why don’t you give her a try? If you don’t like her, we’ll look for someone else.” Maisy took her arm. “I’ll wash in the dishpan, and I’ll put the clean dishes in the other side of the sink to rinse. You can dry them and stack them on the counter.”

      Julia joined her mother at the sink, but the first dish she picked up slipped and fell back into the sink.

      “Don’t even say it.” Maisy adjusted the water to a lighter flow. “I won’t put you to drying the good china just yet.”

      Julia picked up the plate again and started to rub it with the towel Maisy had provided. “We did this when I was little. Remember? Of course, then I could see what I was doing.”

      “From the time we moved in here. When it was just you and me.”

      For Julia, those early days seemed like centuries ago. She remembered little before Jake joined their lives and almost nothing of living in the big house with her father. “Why did you move here, Maisy?” She had asked the question before, of course, but she hoped now she would get a more detailed answer.

      “Truthfully? Ashbourne’s too large to manage without help, and I thought we needed the time alone to heal after your daddy died.”

      “How about later?”

      “By then I’d grown to love this place. I couldn’t imagine the two of us rattling around the big house. Then Jake came along…”

      Julia couldn’t imagine Jake at the big house, either. Ashbourne had been built by and for people who assumed that they, too, were somehow larger than life. Jake had no such illusions.

      Since the conversation was going well, Julia ventured further. “Ashbourne almost seems like a museum. A record of life on the day my father died.”

      “Ashbourne belongs to you. I never saw the point of changing things or selling the antiques. I like living here. It will be up to you to decide what to do with Ashbourne once you’re ready.”

      “Bard would like to live there.” Ashbourne was grander than Millcreek, although Millcreek had been in his family since the Revolutionary War.

      “I always thought as much.”

      “But not until you open the property to the Mosby Hunt. It would be too embarrassing for him to live there if you didn’t.”

      “And I won’t.” Maisy plunked more dishes on Julia’s side of the sink. “Not as long as the land’s in my name.”

      Maisy’s objection to foxhunting at Ashbourne was legendary. Her determination to keep foxhunters off her land had made her the butt of many a local joke and the occasional prank. Julia, by default, had suffered, too.

      “Speaking of Bard…” Maisy turned off the water. “I think that’s his car.”

      Julia had been waiting all evening