She did, however, put on a forest-green tunic that had wide sleeves and a deep slash down the neckline that opened across her collarbone, fell in a hood at the back and exposed her plum camisole.
She kept her feet bare.
In that time she also decided that Prentice had given her permission to be around the children.
Well, not exactly permission, as such, but pretty much, or, at least, she was going to go with that thought.
So Isabella wasn’t ever going to be Sally’s new best friend and watch her grow into a beautiful young woman whilst Sally shared her secrets about boys she had crushes on and Isabella imparted crucial wisdom on Sally like how to know when your mascara tube was drying out.
But Isabella at least didn’t have to hide from her and break her little girl heart by acting like a cool, remote, American bitch.
Isabella no sooner got out of her room when she heard a discordant plucking of guitar strings.
By the time she made it to the great room, she noticed three things. The first, Prentice was at a drafting board in his study with the double doors that led to that room off the great room open. The second, Sally was sitting on the floor by the huge, square coffee table in front of the big, fluffy royal blue couch, drawing. The third, Jason was lying on the couch plucking, and not very well, on Fiona’s guitar.
Isabella looked at the guitar and she felt tears crawl up her throat.
She’d forgotten about Fiona’s guitar.
Fiona didn’t take the guitar everywhere but she wasn’t often separated from it. She loved it. She’d strum it when they were sitting in a pub and she’d often play it while they were lounging on blankets around a bonfire on the beach.
Isabella was so impressed by (and envious of) Fiona’s talent that she’d taken secret lessons when she got home. Her father preferred her playing the piano and violin, both of which he forced lessons on her from the time she was six until she was eighteen.
She’d practiced a lot, sliding the guitar out from under her bed when her father wasn’t around but she’d never been as good as Fiona.
Eventually, she’d quit playing and, when she’d divorced Laurent and moved back to Chicago, she’d found her guitar and gave it to a charity to auction.
“Mrs. Evangahlala!” Sally yelled, Isabella looked at her, swallowed her tears and, with effort, smiled.
“I think I’ve figured out something you can do to help me with dinner. But we’ll need a stepping stool or –” Before Isabella could finish, Sally was up and racing down the hall, rounding the corner on one foot to disappear in the mudroom.
Isabella stared after her not knowing if she should follow when Sally reappeared dragging, with some difficulty, a stepping stool.
“She’s mental,” Jason muttered from behind Isabella and Isabella turned her smile on him.
He blushed.
She turned away from Jason, strode forward and helped Sally set up the stool by a counter in the kitchen.
“Get up on the stool, honey, you’re going to flour the chicken,” Isabella told her.
“I am?” Sally breathed, like flouring chicken was akin to walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
“You are,” Isabella confirmed and got out the marinading sliced chicken breasts and the Ziploc bag of seasoned flour she’d prepared earlier. Then she started to open and close drawers, looking for tea towels. “We just need a few tea towels in case it gets messy.”
“Third drawer down, by the sink,” Jason mumbled and Isabella’s head jerked to the side.
He’d joined them and was slouched in a stool across the counter from Sally. He was feigning disinterest but Isabella wasn’t deceived. His eyes (and, incidentally, his eyes were exactly like his father’s) were on the Tupperware of chicken. There was a spark of interest in them, not much, just a spark, but it was something.
Isabella figured boys liked food and not just takeaway.
She was pleased he’d joined them. She didn’t show this, however.
She wrapped a tea towel around Sally’s waist and one, bib style, around her neck and showed her what to do.
“Now, if you’ve got the buttermilk marinade on your fingers, don’t get it near your eyes. It’s got salt and Tabasco in it and it’ll burn,” Isabella warned.
“Okay,” Sally said, carefully pulling out a chicken slice and making a face at the squishy feel of it.
“If you don’t want to do it –” Isabella started.
Sally interrupted her by shouting, “I wanna do it!”
“All right, sweetheart,” Isabella murmured on a grin. “Have at it.”
Sally stuck her little tongue out the side of her mouth while she concentrated on wiping off the marinade before she tossed the chicken slices in the flour mixture and Jason watched her doing it.
Isabella moved away and started preparations for the rest of dinner.
Then, for some crazed reason that was beyond her to understand, she asked, “Is that your Mum’s guitar?”
Then she wished she could take the words back.
What was she thinking?
Why’d she ask that?
Why?
“How’d you know that?” Jason’s voice was gruff.
“It just looks like the one she used to lug around all the time,” Isabella mumbled, her mind tripping over itself to find another topic of conversation.
“You knew my Mum?” Jason queried, sounding surprised.
Oh Lord, now what had she done?
Of course they didn’t know about her, the awful American who screwed over their father before he met and fell in love with their mother.
That likely wasn’t bedtime story material.
Oh well, she started it, she’d have to go with it.
She turned from filling a pot with water at the sink to look at Jason. “Yes. A long time ago we used to be friends.”
“Did you ever hear her play?” Jason asked and Isabella couldn’t help her reminiscent smile.
She turned off the water and took the pot to the stove. “Yes, I’ve heard her play. She used to do it all the time. I was jealous of her. She was very talented.”
“You were jealous of Mum?” Jason sounded incredulous and Isabella, surprised at his reaction, looked over her shoulder at him.
He looked as incredulous as he sounded.
She turned and walked up behind Sally, doing what she’d wanted to do since the moment she laid eyes on the girl. She pulled Sally’s long, soft hair back in both of her palms and then ran its length down Sally’s back through her hands.
While she did this (and repeated it then repeated it again), she said with utter truthfulness, “Yes, Jason. Your Mum was hilariously funny and incredibly sweet and very, very talented. There was a good deal to be jealous of.” Isabella’s voice went quiet when she said, “She was also lovely. You and Sally got the best of her. I can see it all over you.” Then she paused before she finished on a smile, “But you have your father’s eyes.”
“Daddy says I have Mummy’s eyes,” Sally announced and Isabella gave her a teasing tug of her hair as her heart lurched.
“Yes, you do, sweetheart. You’re the spitting image of her,” Isabella told Sally, starting to look down at the child when she saw movement to her side.
She looked to her right, saw Prentice arrive, resting a hip against the counter, crossing his arms on his chest and giving her a look filled with thunder.
Before the breath could entirely evacuate her lungs at that look pinned on her, Jason shouted, “Sally, you’re supposed to –!”
Too late.
When Isabella looked down, she saw that Sally had started to shake the chicken in the Ziploc bag but hadn’t locked it shut. There were flour and chicken bits all over the counter, down the cabinets, all over the floor and also, top-to-toe, all over Sally.
Isabella stepped to the side as Sally slowly turned toward her, the mostly empty Ziploc bag still in her hands.
Sally was covered in white.
Is
abella stared down at her and Sally, head tipped back, stared back.
Then, Isabella couldn’t help it, the girl looked too adorable for words and the situation merited it, she threw back her head and burst out laughing.
She heard Sally’s giggles and Jason’s muttering of, “Totally mental.”
His words made her mirth boil over again and, with eyes nearly shut with laughter, she leaned down, put her hands on either side of Sally’s head and dipped her face to the child’s.
“You look like a snow angel,” she told her.
“I do?” Sally asked.
Isabella nodded, still giggling, then reached out and picked a chicken strip off Sally’s shoulder and showed it to her. “A snow angel with chicken bits.”
Sally giggled harder and so did Isabella.
“I take it we’re not having chicken anymore,” Jason asked dryly.
Isabella looked toward Jason and burst into renewed laughter, catching his tentative grin before she took a step back and wrapped her arms around her aching sides.
She hadn’t laughed this hard since…
Since…
“Sally, come here, baby, let’s get you cleaned up.” Prentice had walked forward two steps and was holding his hand out to his daughter.
He was smiling warmly at his daughter but he wasn’t amused. How Isabella knew this, she didn’t know.
But she did.
Isabella’s laughter died away.
Sally dropped the bag on the counter, hopped down, still giggling and trailing flour, and took her father’s hand.
Isabella watched them turn the corner to walk down the hall to bathroom.
She decided she couldn’t worry about Prentice.
So he thought she was playing a game. He would think that, of course.
But she wasn’t and that was the truth.
So, she’d just ignore him and focus on the children.
And Prentice would just have to…
Well…
Deal.
Isabella looked at Jason, tipped her head to the counter and suggested, “Let’s see what we can do about this chicken, shall we?”
Without further coaxing, Jason jumped off the stool to help.
* * * * *
Fiona
Fiona floated crossed legged above the floor next to Isabella’s bed while Isabella slept.
She poked and poked again and poked again, her finger going through each time, at the leather-bound book on the top of the pile on the nightstand.
She’d gone back to hating Isabella Austin Evangahlala.
Not because Isabella had said she’d been jealous of Fiona, and sounded like she meant it.
Not because she said all those nice things about her, and sounded like she meant those too.
Not because she looked good in yoga pants, that arse would look good in anything, even a muumuu, and those shoulders… and her arms! Bitch.
No, because she’d filled Fiona’s house with laughter, she’d made Jason grin and she’d also not only miraculously rescued dinner, the children had loved it and even Prentice, who looked like he wanted to rip Isabella’s head off all night, though he was careful not to show it in front of the children, cleaned his plate (twice).
Fiona wanted her family to have a decent meal and she wanted them to start laughing and smiling again.
Of course she did.
But she also didn’t.
Not with Isabella or any other woman, for that matter, except her sister Morag, or Prentice’s sister, Debs, but especially not Isabella.
Throughout dinner (and pudding), Sally had chattered, a far more relaxed, almost but not quite like Bella of old Isabella had encouraged it and even Jason had entered the conversation whenever there was a lull in Sally’s prattle, which wasn’t often.
Her family had eaten the food like they’d never get another meal, the sundaes had been a huge hit and Isabella, who surprised Fiona, she wouldn’t have expected fancy, American heiress Isabella Austin Evangahlala capable of it, left the kitchen spotless clean.
With all her anger at being dead (which was a lot) and all her anger at Isabella Evangahlala being alive (which was also a lot), Fiona poked at the book.
It moved.
She stared at it.
She’d been poking at things, pushing things, trying to blow on things now for over a year and she’d never made even one of Sally’s drawings on the refrigerator so much as sway.
But that book was half an inch off-kilter from the rest of them and that was not how Little Miss Tidy and Perfect Isabella Evangahlala left it.
Then she heard it and her ghostly head snapped to the side.
Jason.
She dematerialized and materialized in his room.
She should have known when he got out the guitar. It happened every time he brought out her guitar. It hadn’t happened in awhile, so long, Fiona thought it was over.
He was screaming.
Nightmares.
He’d had them since before she died. So, when she was just sick in bed and too weak to get to him, she’d heard that screaming with her true ears and she’d detested it but detested it more that she was the cause of it.
She still detested it.
Prentice was in the room in a flash and he knew the drill.
Hands on Jason’s shoulders, he sat on the side of the bed, his naturally deeper than deep burr rumbling with sleep and emotion. “Jason, mate, it’s a dream. Just a dream.”
“It’s not a dream!” Jason shouted. “She’s gone, isn’t she? Gone!”
And so it began, the battle, loud and agonizing.
Jason would often get physical and tonight was one of those nights.
Fiona hovered and watched for awhile then she floated through her bairns’ bathroom to Sally.
Sometimes she slept through it.
Tonight, unfortunately, wasn’t one of those nights.
Sally was sitting up in bed, her head turned in the direction of the noise, her little face pale.
Then she threw back the covers and Fiona knew where she was going.
She always went to Prentice’s bed, got in, pulled the covers over her head and waited until it was over and Prentice was back. Then she’d cuddle close, his arms would wrap around her, and she’d sleep with her Daddy.
When this happened, Fiona would stay with them for awhile and then she’d spend the rest of the night hovering next to Jason.
Sally jumped out of bed and Fiona floated with her.
But Sally didn’t go to Prentice’s room.
She ran to the stairs. Then she ran down them. Then she ran through the great room, down the hall and she turned to the stairs to the guest suite.
Fiona’s ghostly bottom half kept floating forward even as her ghostly torso locked in place and she stared with ghostly eyes at what she saw.
Sitting on the stairs, leaned nearly double, her elbows at her knees, her forehead resting in the palms of her hands in a pose that screamed anguish, was Isabella Evangahlala.
As Fiona’s legs settled back, Isabella’s head came up and her eyes locked on Sally.
Then she opened her arms and legs and Sally, who had halted, raced into the woman’s arms.
Those arms closed around Fiona’s daughter.
And they closed tight.
They held onto each other while the muted sounds of Jason’s shouts drifted toward them.
Finally, Sally’s head tilted back.
“Can I sleep with you?” she asked in a timid, sad voice that tore at her mother’s ghostly heart.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Isabella answered softly.
And, even though Fiona knew Sally had to weigh a ton, Isabella picked her up and carried her to bed.
Fiona floated next to the bed as Isabella tucked Sally’s back to her front, cuddling her close, cradled in her arms and she started singing Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” softly into the back of Sally’s hair.
Sally fell asleep.
Isabella curled her neck so h
er face was in the top of Sally’s hair.
Then Isabella fell asleep.
And Fiona decided that yes, she was back to hating Isabella.
Because now, Fiona was jealous of Isabella Austin Evangahalala.
And Fiona had a lot more to be jealous of.
* * * * *
Prentice
Prentice was surprised to go back to his room and see his bed empty.
He thought after that episode with Jason (likely made worse by Isabella foolishly, and unkindly, talking about his dead mother), Sally would have woken and climbed in his bed.
In case she was awake and upset in her own bed, Prentice went to her room. She wasn’t there either.
He felt fear slice through him and he moved out of her room, checked the playroom and then went swiftly down the stairs.
She wasn’t on the couch in the great room or the one in the television room. He looked in his study and then stood in the hall wondering where the hell his daughter was.
Then, slowly, his head turned to look down the hall.
Sally would go there. No doubt about it.
The door to the guest suite was open but Sally wasn’t on the couch.
The door to the bedroom of the suite was open as well and Prentice stood in it seeing Sally’s dark hair and Isabella’s blonde against the pillows.
He walked to the side of the bed and looked down at them in a room bathed in moonlight.
His daughter was nestled snug in the curve of Isabella’s body, her arms tight around the girl. Isabella’s hair was blended with Sally’s, dark and light. The sheet was down at Isabella’s waist and he could see she had some lacy nightgown on.
Prentice’s first demented thought was to climb in bed with them.
He had no idea where that thought came from and he cast it aside instantly.
His second thought was to rip his daughter from that bitch’s arms and take her far away.
Instead, he strode from the room, went to his study, poured himself two fingers of whisky, walked to his bedroom, put on a sweatshirt and walked onto the balcony.
Dinner had been interesting.
The woman he’d fallen in love with twenty years ago had come back, though not completely.
There was no fidgeting energy and mile-a-minute conversation, not that Isabella could get a word in edgewise.