The Sugarhouse Blues Read online

  Like the morning Cara’d found Allie passed out in her bed after having had a few too many drinks the night before. Cara’d been this close to calling 911 when Allie finally came around. She’d made Cara promise not to tell anyone. It’d been very obvious to Allie that Cara had been genuinely worried about her, but she’d given a reluctant promise. She’d made it clear that she wouldn’t hesitate to call an ambulance if it happened again, though, and Allie had no doubt Cara would be true to her word.

  Allie resolved to be a little more careful, a little more conscious of how much she was drinking. The last thing she wanted was to have to explain herself to her sisters and her aunt. They’d never understand.

  Several times she’d considered asking Cara to join her for a nightcap, though. God knew the woman had reason to tie one on. That jerk of an ex-husband had really done a number on her. Allie hoped Cara understood that she was much better off without him. He clearly didn’t deserve her. She’d find someone better.

  Actually, Cara had already found someone better. Allie didn’t know Joe Domanski all that well, but it was clear that he was ten times the man stupid cheating Drew was. Joe’d never cheat on Cara, Allie just knew it.

  Allie drank a silent toast to Cara. And another to Joe. And a third to Cara and Joe.

  She checked her messages again, hoping to hear from Nikki, but there was no update on the shopping expedition. She pulled the blanket up to her chin, drained the glass, and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  “Des, do you have a minute?” Cara stood in Des’s doorway, her hands behind her back.

  “Sure.” Des closed the book she’d been reading and gestured for Cara to come in. “What’s up?”

  Cara sat on the edge of the bed, clearly struggling to get the words out.

  “Okay, spill it,” Des told her.

  “Ah, well.” Cara cleared her throat.

  “Cara, what’s wrong?” Des sat next to her. It wasn’t like Cara to be evasive. “Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, it’s just that . . .” Cara blew out an anxious breath. “I don’t know how to say this, Des . . .”

  “Then just say it.”

  “I think Dad was fooling around with someone other than your mother.”

  “Cara, that’s been established. It’s why you’re here.”

  “No, I mean before my mother. Before Dad and your mom were even married, I mean before they left for California, right before they left, Dad was involved with another woman.”

  “What? No. That was the time they really were in love. Things may have fallen apart later, but back then, they were solid.”

  “Maybe not so solid as you think.” Cara held up a box she’d hidden behind her back. “I found this upstairs in the carriage house, hidden in one of the window seat cushions. I’ve gone around and around with myself, trying to decide whether or not to share this with you.”

  She opened the box and handed Des an envelope.

  Des removed a packet of papers from the envelope and looked up at Cara, who said, “Go on. Read the first letter.”

  A puzzled look on her face, Des unfolded the single sheet of paper and read it aloud:

  J. ~

  It’s really hard for me to write this letter. I don’t know how else to say it, so I’ll just say that I’m leaving for California on Tuesday morning with Nora. I know you will hate me now and that is the worst thing about this. I know you will think I lied to you, but every word was true. You are the best girl I ever knew. I’m sorry I can’t stay and be with you.

  F.

  “I don’t understand . . .” Des whispered.

  “Read the other one,” Cara said.

  Des unfolded the second sheet of paper and read:

  F. ~

  I’m sending back your letter. I don’t ever want to see you or hear from you again. Not that I would anyway, since you’re leaving Hidden Falls with her. You’re just a liar and a cheat and I will always hate you for what you’ve done to me. I never should have believed you when you said you and she were just friends. It was just another lie, like “You’re the only girl for me.” I should have listened to my sister.

  J.

  “Who is J?” Des asked after she’d read the letters several more times.

  “I have no clue. Maybe Barney knows.”

  “How long have you had these?” Des held up the letters.

  “A month or so,” Cara admitted. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you, or when, but I couldn’t keep it from you any longer.”

  Des nodded. She’d have done the same thing if she’d been Cara. She’d have sat on the truth for as long as she could, but eventually, she’d share what she’d discovered.

  “What else is in the box?”

  “Gil Wheeler’s obituary from several local papers.”

  “So we need to talk to Barney.” Des folded the letters and returned them to the envelope. “I’m assuming you don’t want these back?”

  Cara shook her head. “You should have them.”

  “Did you tell Allie?”

  “No. I wanted to share them with you first.” She handed Des the box. “You might as well keep it all together the way I found it.”

  Des stood and opened the door. “Thanks,” she said, hoping Cara would understand she needed a few minutes alone.

  “Des, I’m sorry.” Cara gave Des a quick hug before leaving, closing the door behind her.

  Des sat back on the bed and reread both letters.

  So, Dad, you scoundrel, you had another girl—a girl you claimed to care for more than you cared for Mom—even as you and Mom were getting ready to run off to the West Coast together? Are you kidding me?

  The truth burned at Des like a hot poker. She’d understood that over the years, her parents had grown apart, but in her heart she’d believed that back in their early days together, they had been deeply in love.

  And now here, in Fritz’s own words, was proof that he’d lied to Nora, cheated on her, right from the very beginning.

  Who was J? Des wondered. Had she gotten over him and fallen for someone else, married and lived happily ever after? Was she still in Hidden Falls? Was she someone Des passed on the street?

  There was only one way to find out.

  * * *

  Barney looked as if she were about to fan herself with the sheaf of papers in her hand. “Oh my.”

  “You know who she is?” Des sat on the stool in front of the sofa in the sitting room where Barney’d been reading.

  “Well, as I’ve told you, your father was quite the ladies’ man. There wasn’t a girl in Hidden Falls he didn’t date at some point. I’m sure there was someone whose name began with J. Probably more than a few someones.”

  Des watched Barney tap her fingers on the arm of the love seat. “Jane Stevens, Joan Walsh, Joanne Whitney, Jill Nathan. That’s four right there and that’s just off the top of my head. Oh, and Jenny Nathan, Jill’s sister. JoBeth Watson.” Barney sighed. “At one time or another, Fritz probably went out with every one of them, and others besides.”

  “But this is someone he would have been seeing at the same time he was seeing Nora.” Des pointed out the obvious. “Like, even as he was planning on leaving for California with Nora.”

  Barney nodded. “I get that. But if he was seeing someone else, he never shared that with me.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that Dad chose to keep these letters when he could so easily have destroyed them? I mean, he was leaving town, turning his back on Hidden Falls and J, whoever she might have been. Why bother to keep the letters if only to hide them?”

  “I have no idea, but J must have been important to him. Not important enough to break up with Nora and stay in Hidden Falls, but important enough that he chose to hold on to what may have been his last contact with her.” Barney paused. “Of course, we have no way of knowing if in fact this was the last contact with her. For all we knew . . .”

  “I thought of that, too. He could have been seein
g her while he was married to Mom and Susa.”

  “That brother of mine.” Barney shook her head slowly.

  “There were copies of newspaper clippings about Gil’s death in with the letters.” Gil Wheeler, the love of Barney’s life, the man she would have married, had fallen from the rocks above the falls, ending Barney’s dream of happily ever after. What might her aunt’s life have been like had he not died that day?

  “May I see them?”

  “Of course.” Des handed over the box and watched Barney’s face as she opened it and removed the faded news clippings.

  “Funny, but there must have been at least a dozen news articles about Gil and his death and the police investigation, but I don’t think I read any of them. I just couldn’t bear to see any of it. I suppose I thought if I read about it in the newspaper, it meant it was really true.” Barney studied one article, then a second. “Then again, I recall so little of that time after he died. It had been such a shock.” She smiled wryly. “Sometimes I still feel blindsided by his loss.”

  When she finished reading, she refolded each clipping carefully, then tucked them back into the box. She closed it softly and handed it to Des.

  “Oh, I thought you might want to keep them.”

  “Honey, I don’t need a bunch of old newspaper stories to remind me what happened to Gil.” She patted her chest. “I know the story by heart. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it.”

  Des bit her tongue. She’d almost said aloud what she’d been thinking. Did anyone really know what happened that day, other than Fritz and Pete, who’d been with Gil at the falls? Of the three, only Pete was still alive. Des sensed there’d been more to the story than what the newspapers had reported: that Gil had been sitting too close to the edge of the rock, that he’d misjudged how close when he stood up, lost his footing, and fell. It seemed odd to her that someone who’d surely spent a lot of time at the falls over the years wouldn’t have had a better sense of where he was. After all, he’d grown up across the street from the Hudsons and had known Barney all his life. Maybe it was the fact that her father hadn’t given a statement, or that he’d left Hidden Falls within days of Gil’s death, not even staying long enough to comfort his sister, that had made Des wonder if there wasn’t more to the story.

  “When did Cara find these?” Barney asked.

  “She said about a month ago. She’s been keeping this to herself because she didn’t know how we’d feel about Dad being involved with someone else back then. The story we always believed was that Dad and Mom were so crazy in love they left Hidden Falls to seek their fortune in Hollywood together. And then there’s this.” Des held up the letters. “This doesn’t fit the narrative we’ve been told, what we’ve always believed about our parents. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about Dad after finding out that he was cheating on my mother, even back then.”

  “That was very sweet of Cara to want to protect your feelings, to preserve your memories.”

  “It was. But she did the right thing.” Des shook her head. “He really was a stinker, wasn’t he?”

  “You can do better than stinker, honey,” Barney told her.

  “I’m doing my best not to be crude. I wish I knew who this J woman was.” Des tapped her fingers on the lid of the box. “You’re sure no one stands out from that time?”

  Barney shook her head.

  “Would you tell me if you knew?”

  “Of course.” Barney thought for a moment, then asked, “Does it really matter who she was?”

  Des shrugged. “In a way, no. But I guess knowing might help it make more sense to me. Was she an incredible beauty? A brilliant wit? What about her made her ‘the best girl’ he ever knew?”

  “Not to be cavalier, but maybe she really wasn’t all that special to him. Remember, your father was a playboy. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d used that line on more than one girl. Not to paint an unsavory picture of your father, but he really did like the girls, Des.”

  “I guess without knowing who J was, we’ll never know for sure. And I keep going back to the fact that he kept the letters.” Des paused to reflect. “Maybe he hid them so he could reread them whenever he came home.”

  “Does Allie know?”

  “No. I wanted to talk to you first, to see if you knew anything about this before I told Allie.”

  “I would tell you if I knew, Des.”

  “I know. I appreciate that. I wish I could say it doesn’t bother me, but it does. Theirs was supposed to be this great love affair. I guess for Dad exclusivity wasn’t necessarily implied.” Leaving the box on the floor next to the stool, Des rose. “I think I’ll take Buttons for a walk.”

  * * *

  She’d thought to keep moving until the burning in her chest subsided, but even after walking the entire perimeter of Hidden Falls, Des still ached. She paused at the entrance to the park, then followed the path to one of the benches. After tying the dog’s leash to the back of the bench, she sat, shoulders slumped, with her head resting against the wooden back.

  She’d forgiven her father’s “marriage” to Cara’s mother—in whatever form that had taken—because she’d understood the marriage between her parents had fizzled out before Fritz met Susa. At least, that was the story she told herself. She’d forgiven her father wanting to marry Susa because it was obvious he’d loved her deeply.

  That secretly he’d been fooling around with another girl before he’d left Hidden Falls—back when the fairy tale was supposed to have been true—hadn’t been part of the legend.

  Fritz’s declaration, “You are the best girl I ever knew. I’m sorry I can’t stay and be with you,” wasn’t part of her parents’ love story.

  Nor was J’s response: “I never should have believed you when you said you and she were just friends. It was just another lie, like ‘You’re the only girl for me.’ ”

  How long had J carried a torch for the man who’d claimed he’d cared but left her anyway for someone else? Someone he’d said was “just a friend.” Des couldn’t help but feel sorry for J.

  The mysterious J was right about one thing: Fritz was a liar and a cheat.

  “Hey, is everything all right?” The deep voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Des raised her head just as Seth and Ripley were approaching the bench.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Des forced a smile. “It’s all yours.”

  Seth sat next to Des, who was unhooking Buttons so the dogs could romp.

  “I was asking if you’re okay.”

  “Sure.” She tried to nod convincingly. “Why?”

  “You looked so sad when I was coming up the path. A million-miles-away kind of sad.”

  “Oh. Well, yeah. Maybe I am.” She wasn’t even able to convince herself.

  “Anything I can do?”

  Des shook her head. “Nothing anyone can do at this point, I guess. I just wish . . .” She let out an exasperated breath.

  “You wish what?” He sat leaning forward, his arms on his thighs, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes on her.

  “I wish my father was alive.” She watched Buttons follow Ripley across the grass.

  “Oh, hey, I understand. I mean, him dying without you having the chance to say good-bye, not being able to tell him how much he meant to you . . .”

  “That isn’t it.” She laughed ruefully. “That’s the furthest thing from my mind right now.”

  Des told him about the letters, about the woman who’d only identified herself as J who’d had something going on with Fritz at the same time he was getting ready to leave town with Nora.

  When Seth opened his mouth to speak, Des jumped on him. “And don’t say something like ‘Boys will be boys,’ okay? Because that doesn’t ever excuse anything as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I was only going to say I’m sorry. I can see how upset you are. I’m just trying to understand why.”

  “Why am I upset? Are you kidding me?” Des stood, her eyes
still on him. “My parents had a lousy marriage by the time it was over, but back in the beginning, back when they left Hidden Falls together, they were supposed to have had this great love for each other. That was supposed to have been real. Now I don’t know what to think.”

  Seth reached out and took her hand, gently easing her back to the seat.

  “Look, I didn’t know your parents, and God knows I’m no one to give anyone advice where anyone’s family’s concerned. And don’t take this the wrong way, but that all—whatever was going on—was between them. It had nothing to do with you back then. And it has nothing to do with you now.”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “What I mean is, that was something that happened long before you were born, right? If your parents married and then they had you and your sister, and you were a family and you were happy, what difference does any of the rest of it make?”

  “That’s just it. They weren’t happy. He may have wanted Allie and me, but she never did. I knew that before I was ten years old. So there was no happy family. We were four people who lived under the same roof—sometimes—who pretended to be happy. My mother pretended to be a good and loving mother when there were cameras around, but otherwise, she barely gave us the time of day. My father spent as much time away as he could.” She forced a wry smile. “You can ask Cara about that period of his life, since she apparently knows more about it than I do.”

  “If you know all that, then why are you so upset to find out he had another girlfriend when he was dating your mother?” Seth asked.

  “Because that was when the fairy tale was supposed to be real.” Her eyes welled with tears, and she forced a patience she didn’t feel. “The only time it was true. If that wasn’t true, then none of the rest of it makes sense to me. Why did they leave Hidden Falls together? Why did they even bother to get married?”