I groaned and rolled my eyes. "And that's what hooked you? The fact that she wouldn't sleep with you?" It was Woolley and Abigail all over again. Men are such morons, such easily manipulated morons.

"No," he said firmly, "it wasn't that. It was her confidence that drew me. So many women are so desperate, willing to agree to anything because they think having a man will validate them as a woman. Desperation is not attractive. Not to me.

"Beth wasn't looking to me or anybody else to 'complete' her. She was already complete and she knew her value. She made me court her and, in the process, taught me about romance, and intimacy, and respect, and what real love looks like."

The headlights of an oncoming car illuminated Jake's face and I glanced over to see if he was crying, but his eyes were dry.

"She helped me realize that the real thing is worth the wait."

I looked out the window, relieved to note we were nearly there. I wasn't in the mood to hear any more about Saint Beth. It was nice that Jake's third marriage had been happy, but weren't we supposed to be talking about my grief?

Jake made a right turn onto the street that led to the farm. "Beth didn't let me get away with anything, but she was also very gentle. She showed me how to be her hero, then treated me like I already was that guy-even when I fell short."

"She sounds wonderful," I said brightly, hoping to bring the subject to a close. I was starting to suspect that Jake's mental trip down memory lane was really a subtle tactic to bring the conversation around to my own shortcomings and perhaps he had a point, but really? Was this the time? I'd just cremated my husband.

I shifted in my seat and crossed my left knee over my right. "You were very lucky." I sighed. "Sterling was never supportive. All he knew how to do was-"

Jake kept talking as though he hadn't even heard me. "I was lucky, very. You know, Madelyn, it's the easiest thing in the world to tell somebody what they want to hear, but it takes a real friend to tell somebody what they need to hear."

There it was. I knew it.

I should have driven back with Lee and Tessa after all. I didn't care for this conversation and was trying to communicate that through my words and body language, but Jake wasn't taking the hint. So much for subtlety.

"All right, Jake. Come out with it. What are you trying to say?"

Jake frowned as he turned the van onto the farm's gravel driveway. "Nothing," he said with an utterly unconvincing expression of innocence. "I was talking about Beth."

"Oh, you were not. I mean, yes. You were talking about Beth, but your message was directed at me. All that 'somebody who cares says what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear' stuff. That's your lead-in for trying to say what's wrong with me, isn't it? Okay, so fine." I crossed my arms over my chest. "You want to point out my faults, go right ahead. I'm listening."

Jake pulled the van up to the side of the house, turned off the engine, and yanked the handle of the parking brake. "Madelyn, I swear I don't know what you're talking about. But if I had planned on listing possible areas for your character improvement, I might begin with your realizing that every conversation isn't about you."

"See? I knew it. All right. Go on. What else is wrong with me?"

With his mouth slightly open and his head shaking, Jake looked up at the ceiling of the van. "I don't understand women, I swear I don't. Madelyn, nothing is wrong with you."

"Well, we both know that's not true," I puffed. "I'm broke, miserable, alone, and friendless. My life is a complete train wreck. The only people who care what happens to me are the ones who read the tabloids hoping I'll implode."

"Madelyn. You are not friendless. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Well, all right then!" I exclaimed in exasperation. "You say you're my friend, then be my friend. Quit avoiding the issue and tell me what's wrong with me!"

Jake took in a big breath, puffing his cheeks out to the size of Ping-Pong b.a.l.l.s before blowing it out again, then pulled reflectively on his nose.

He looked at me skeptically. "You really want to do this?"

I bit my lower lip and asked myself the same question.

"Yes," I said quietly. "I need help, Jake. I've been so miserable for so long that I can't remember what it feels like not to be miserable. When I was standing there today, watching them load Sterling's body into that furnace, I . . ." I stopped to catch my breath, pressing my fist against my lips.

"I don't want to end up like that. But I don't want to go on living like this either. Tell me what to do," I begged. "I just want somebody to tell me what to do."

"Maddie," Jake said. I've always hated for people to call me Maddie, but somehow, I didn't mind it coming from him. "Are you trying to tell me that . . ."

"No. I'm not planning anything desperate. But there are an awful lot of days when I wake up and wish I hadn't. I just want things to be . . . different."

"Things happen, Maddie. Life isn't always fair and there isn't a whole lot you can do about that. But I don't think that's the problem." He paused for a moment, reading my expression. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

I nodded.

"All right," he said doubtfully, "but remember that everything I'm about to tell you is something I've had to tell myself too. You and I are a lot alike. There are shelves of books written about what's wrong with people like us. I've read a bunch of them and I'm glad I did. They helped me understand a lot about who I was and why I did some of the things I did. They just didn't help me do much about it."

"What did?"

"At the risk of sounding simplistic, not focusing on it so much," he said, rushing ahead to stem the tide of protests he saw forming on my lips, clarifying his point.

"Not focusing on myself so much. Beth helped me realize how much energy I wasted feeling sorry for myself. I'd stopped drinking years before, but one day I realized that I'd just exchanged one addiction for another, alcohol for self-pity, and the one was making me just as miserable as the other. So"-he shrugged-"I gave it up."

My face felt hot, flushed with equal parts annoyance and embarra.s.sment. "So you're saying I'm the problem? That my misery is of my own making? You don't know what I've been through, Jake. Your parents may not have been the Cleavers, but at least you had parents! You didn't have to live with a-"

"Hang on!" Jake raised his hands to stop my barrage. "I know you've had some tough breaks, Madelyn, but you've had a lot of things your own way too. Look around you, Mrs. Baron," he said, inclining his head toward the darkened windows of Lee and Tessa's house. "A lot of people have had a lot of tough breaks lately."

"What? If that's what you thought, Jake, then why did you bother to drive me home? I might as well have ridden with Lee, or Aaron Fletcher for that matter! Well, don't worry," I said coldly. "You won't have to do it again."

I wrenched open the door and was about to jump out of the van, but Jake grabbed my forearm and wouldn't let go.

"Hang on a minute, Maddie."

"Don't call me Maddie!"

"Fine, Mad-e-lyn," he said impatiently, enunciating each syllable of my name. "But before you go getting p.i.s.sed and running off, you're going to sit still and listen."

I tried pulling away again, but Jake wouldn't release his grip on my arm. With my eyes blazing and my arms crossed over my chest, I sat still and listened; I had no choice.

Jake took a breath and let it out.

"I am not laying all the misery of the world at your doorstep. I'm saying that stuff happens. It happens to everybody. Sometimes it's our own fault and sometimes it's not. What I'm trying to tell you, because I care and because you asked me," he said with a pointed look, "is that you're not the only one who's suffering at the hands of other people. You're so busy blaming everybody else for everything that's wrong with your life that you can't see anything else. You're selfish and self-absorbed, Madelyn, and it's making you miserable. Just like it did me.

"You want to know how to change?" he asked. "Be grateful for what you've got instead of constantly focusing on what you don't. Quit keeping score. Forgive people and the past and let it go. Start looking for ways to make others happy. If you make a habit of that, you won't have time to be miserable."

He loosened his grip on my arm. "That's it-my CliffsNotes prescription for life. It's not real deep, but it works for me."

I glared at him. "Are you done now?"

"Yeah."

"Good." I reached up and removed his hand from my shoulder, brushing him off with deliberate disgust before climbing out of the van. "Go to h.e.l.l, Jake!" I spat and then slammed the door.

I stormed off toward the empty house. Behind me, I heard the mechanical hum of a car window rolling down and Jake's voice, laced with laughter.

"No thanks, Maddie. Already been there and back. I'm not planning a return trip. Never again."

I went into the guest room and lay down on the bed without bothering to take off my black funeral dress. A few minutes later, I heard the popping sound of tires on gravel and got up to close my door and turn out my light. Tessa whispered something to Lee as they pa.s.sed my door on the way to their room, but I couldn't make out what she said.

Eventually, after the sound of murmuring voices and running water stopped coming through the walls and the house settled into silence, I took off my clothes and got in under the covers, but sleep eluded me for many hours. My dreams were muddled and nonsensical. I only remember part of one, a bearded image of my father standing before me, gripping my shoulders with both hands and saying, "That's the deal, Maddie. That's the deal."

33.

Tessa Idumped my purse and the mail onto the bench near the back door and paused for a moment to sniff the air. Something smelled good.

"Madelyn?"

"In here!"

I slipped off my shoes, kicked them under the bench, and padded toward the kitchen in my stocking feet, following the scent of orange peels and baking b.u.t.ter.

Madelyn pulled a baking sheet from the oven. "I made scones."

She set the pan on the stove and I broke a point off one of the hot, crumbling scones and blew on it before popping it into my mouth and groaning with pleasure. "Oh my gosh! Fabulous. Is that rosemary I'm tasting?"

"And orange." Madelyn nodded. "You had all that rosemary in the refrigerator and a half jar of marmalade. I figured it was worth a try."

"You figured right."

Madelyn smiled. "I made a pot of minestrone soup too. You had quite a few vegetables in the crisper that would have gone bad in a couple more days. I couldn't sit around here doing nothing. I figured I might as well make dinner. You don't mind, do you?"

I pulled two gla.s.ses out of the kitchen cabinet and filled them with merlot and handed one to Madelyn. "Are you kidding? Keep this up and I'll be begging you to move in permanently."

"Busy day?"

I shook my head. "Absolutely dead. It was exhausting. Much more exhausting than a day spent on my feet waiting on long lines of customers. At least, I think it is. I've never had long lines of customers. When you ring up only three sales in eight hours, you've got plenty of time to sit around and worry. That will wear you out. I know this for a fact."

"Is it that bad?" Madelyn asked and then went on without waiting for an answer. I think my face said it all. "I just don't get it. I tried some of the lavender hand cream you left in the bathroom and it was incredible. How much do you charge for that?"

"Fourteen dollars."

"Is that all?" Madelyn puffed in disbelief. "The hand cream I used to buy from a little boutique in Manhattan cost four times as much and it wasn't half as good. If you were selling this in the city . . ."

"But I'm not."

"If there was some way to get the word out," Madelyn mused. "Do you have an advertising budget?"

"I did. My original business plan included a three-thousand-dollar advertising budget. But when the price of display shelving turned out to be more than I'd bargained for, it got cut." I tipped my gla.s.s up sharply and took a good-sized gulp.

"I do make good products," I said defensively. "I know I do. But the things I sell are seen as expendable, luxuries. And in times like these . . . Let's face it. I picked a lousy time to open a business. If he were trying to start up today, I doubt Bill Gates could make a go of it. It's just impossible. . . ."

I clamped my mouth shut, suddenly remembering the task Madelyn was about to undertake. "Don't listen to me. The wine has gone straight to my head."

"It's all right. I know the odds are against me. But I don't have a lot of other options. And who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky. Sterling always said if he had to choose between smart and lucky, he'd pick lucky every time."

Madelyn's eyes started to fill. I grabbed the wine bottle and made a move to top up her barely touched gla.s.s, but she waved me off.

"It's all right. I'm not crying about Sterling. I'm just crying. I have been all day. First I couldn't cry and now I can't stop. It's really irritating." She laughed and wiped away a tear on the back of her hand.

"Enough of that," she said. "Speaking of husbands-yours, by the way, is a really sweet guy. You may have won the husband lottery, Tessa."

"I know, but don't tell him. I've convinced him that I picked him out of a crowd."

"Right. Anyway, he's out there hammering away on a project, so I told him I'd handle dinner. Do you think soup, salad, and scones will be enough?"

"Plenty," I a.s.sured her. "But you didn't have to go to all this work."

"I didn't mind," she said. "I wanted to do it. There's something else too. Come on. I'll show you."

I followed Madelyn to the back of the house, and I took a deep breath as we entered the workroom, relishing the sweet perfume of dried herbs, flowers, and essential oils. I could pick out the scent of rose petals and rosemary, calendula and peppermint, orange and lemon peels and, of course, lavender. Too much lavender. Usually the smell soothed me. Today it just added a deeper shade of purple to my already darkened spirits.

Lavender hung from the ceiling beam in bunches and sat on the tables in sealed jars, waiting for me to do something with it. But what was the point? My store was already stocked with lotions, balms, and soaps that no one was buying. Why make more?

Madelyn led me to the far side of the room, to the corner cabinet where I kept my small stash of quilting fabrics and notions. The cabinet has a lot of empty s.p.a.ce I'd love to fill with more of that gorgeous fabric I drool over every time I go into the quilt shop, but I can't afford to buy more fabric. Not now. Maybe it was a waste of time anyway.

I doubt I'll ever be a really good quilter. My quilts are tidy and neatly pieced and, thanks to Virginia's tutelage and a lot of practice, my hand-quilting isn't bad for a beginner. But my quilts lacked something. I'd said exactly that to Madelyn when I showed her my most recent project, a basket quilt that I was sure I'd love but didn't.

Madelyn stopped in front of the cabinet. "I hope you don't mind," she said as she opened the door. Without explaining further, she reached inside the cabinet and pulled out my quilt, my dull, uninspired, by-the-book, st.i.tch-by-numbers basket quilt that I'd worked on so hard and been so dissatisfied with.

Not anymore. Madelyn had transformed it.

Doing that thing that she does better than anybody, Madelyn had gathered up little bits of this and that from here and there, castoffs and toss-outs that most people wouldn't have given a second glance, and turned them into something beautiful.

My dull little basket quilt was now a one-of-a-kind creation. The previously empty patchwork of purple and green baskets brimmed with an a.s.sortment of flowers, as varied and vibrant as a display window in a florist shop.

One held a bouquet of blue and bluer morning glories veined with long silver beads I recognized as coming from an old and out-of-fashion necklace that I'd tossed into the Goodwill box in the laundry room, the place we collect unwanted household items before donating them to charity. Madelyn had made ingenious use of that old necklace and many other items I'd thought useless.

Another basket brimmed with pink and yellow dahlias whose ruffled petals seemed familiar but not entirely-until I remembered the dusty basket of silk flowers I'd recently removed from the guest bath. Madelyn had washed them off, layered them one on top of the other, and st.i.tched the layers together with a pink pearl in the center that I recognized as coming from an old earring that was missing a mate. The other blocks were similarly adorned and embellished with sequins and sparkles and b.u.t.tons and bows, but my favorite was the lavender: four fat, fuzzy purple patches tied into bunches with bright celery-green ribbons at each of the four corners of my beautiful, utterly delicious, and entirely unique quilt. There wasn't another one like it in the whole world. Madelyn had seen to that.

"Madelyn, this is . . . well, I just don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

"I just love it! Especially the lavender-where did you ever get the idea? And how did you do it?" The downy stalks of lavender were gorgeous and full, st.i.tched from lengths of fluffy, wispy yarn in variegated shades of purple and pink.

"Oh," she said. "Those are from an old sweater I brought along."