Lakeside Cottage. Susan Wiggs
felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Though she’d told Tanya her pen was for hire, she had no material to offer. Not yet, anyway. She needed to write, that was true, but she wasn’t sure what to write.
A few minutes later, Callie came shuffling out, dressed for the day in her customary sweats. Her face was puffy from sleep. “Morning,” she said, stifling a yawn.
“Hi,” said Kate. “Tea?”
“I think I’ll go straight for breakfast,” Callie said, helping herself to a bowl of Total. She held out the box to Kate, who shook her head.
“I’ll wait for Aaron,” Kate said.
Callie indicated the window. “He’s been waiting for you.” On the lawn, he and Bandit were playing tug-of-war with what she hoped was an old towel.
“I didn’t even hear him get up.” Kate shook her head. “So what’s on your agenda for today?”
“Yolanda is picking me up. We’ve got three houses to do on Lake Sutherland.” She grimaced. “I so don’t feel like working.”
She looked a bit peaked, Kate observed, though there was nothing wrong with her appetite. Teenagers, Kate thought. They stayed up too late, no matter what time they had to get going in the morning. Kate had no complaints about the girl, though. She helped around the house, Aaron adored her and she seemed to be behaving herself.
She poured a second helping of Total and noticed Kate watching her. “I shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m getting fat as a pig.” But she added milk and sugar anyway. “What about you? Do you have plans today?”
“I might take Aaron hiking up to Marymere Falls. Have you seen it?”
“No. I’ve heard it’s pretty up there. Maybe I could go on my day off.”
“I should also get some work done,” Kate said, glancing at the silent black rectangle of the laptop.
“Have you figured out what you’re going to write yet?”
“I’ve got a few ideas.”
“I still think you should do Walden Livingston,” Callie said. “He’s like, this totally famous cult guy.”
“I know. He still gets mail from some of his fans,” Kate said. “Just a few, every year.”
“He’s the reason I picked this house to stay in, you know,” Callie said. “When I saw the Annie Leibovitz photo of him and figured out that this was his place, I was totally blown away. His books are, like, sacred to people who care about the earth.”
Kate never failed to be startled by this girl. She was a combination of streetwise runaway and naive idealist, incredibly well read in some areas and completely ignorant in others. “Not many young people are aware of Walden Livingston. How did you hear of him?”
“I was placed with a couple who made environmentalism,like, their whole life, and old Walden was their number one man. They had a signed copy of the book he wrote and a book of his collected quotations. You know, ‘Leave no trail for a future traveler, let him find his own way’ and all that. Did he really talk like that?”
Kate rested her chin in her hand and studied the Leibovitz portrait, which hung on the wall by the door. The picture captured the twinkle in his eye, the dramatic sweep of his snowy hair, which he’d told her was once as red as her own. His face had a geography as distinctive as the land itself, and Leibovitz’s eye brought that out. I miss you, she thought, then turned to Callie. “I’m not even sure he said all those things.”
“Did he seem, like, completely different from other people, in real life?”
“Good question.” Kate smiled, remembering. “Maybe he did. To me, he was just Grandpa. That’s about as special as it gets for a kid.”
“I’ve only met my grandparents one time.”
“Do you think you’d like to visit them again one day?”
Callie took a big bite of cereal and regarded Kate with wariness.
“I don’t mean to pry,” Kate said.
“Then why did you ask?”
“I’m curious, I admit it. I want to know about your life.”
Callie considered this for a moment. She set down her spoon and pushed the bowl away. “Here’s what I know about my grandparents, the ones on my mother’s side. They never did find my dad, so his parents were out of the question. When Brother Timothy got busted and the commune broke up, my mom and I came to Washington. She was so broke, she went to her folks in Tacoma and just ditched me there. Didn’t even say goodbye or say where she was going.”
Kate ached for her. “I’m sorry, Callie.”
The girl shrugged. “No big deal. I’m totally over it. Anyway, they called CPS—Child Protective Services. They said they couldn’t take me. I bet your grandfather wasn’t like that.”
“No,” Kate said. “He was … magical. I feel so lucky to have known him.”
“Did you know he was different?”
“I don’t think I really concerned myself with his life’s work. I know he had a lot of demands on his time. He traveled pretty much all during the school year.” She went to the bookcase and got a leather-bound album, the one devoted to her grandfather’s career.
Together, she and Callie perused the photographs, magazine clippings and newspaper articles. There was an entire page devoted to pictures of Walden posing or shaking hands with U.S. presidents, from Lyndon Johnson through Ronald Reagan. He had managed to get each one to sign some sort of legislation to help the environment.
“Man,” said Callie, “I wonder what it would be like to do something so big, so important with your life.”
“I don’t think he could imagine doing it any other way.” Although Walden had always been beloved by activists concerned with saving the earth, he had disappointed his parents by failing to take up the reins of the family business. When the family business was timber, and the eldest son’s passion was conservation, it must have made for some unhappy times, especially when he spent most of the family fortune on his cause, but all that had happened before Kate’s time. She studied Callie, whose coloring looked better now that she’d eaten. There was a question beneath Callie’s question about Walden—Am I anybody? Do I matter?
“Callie, what’s your mother like?” Kate knew it was risky to broach the subject, but she sensed that it was at the heart of the girl’s troubles. “That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“It’s fine. I don’t have much to say, though. She’s a loser and I don’t miss her one bit.” A car horn sounded, and Callie jumped up. “Gotta bounce,” she said. “I’ll be back by seven.”
“Don’t forget your lunch.” At the door, Kate handed her a paper sack.
Callie gave her a stark look of gratitude, then headed for the door.
Kate knew the girl didn’t have much kindness in her life. Even the smallest act of thoughtfulness came as a surprise to her. Kate found herself wishing that someone had loved Callie as a little girl, had fixed a sack lunch for her and told her goodbye in the morning. She was convinced that if everyone could have that in their life, the world would be a better place. The thought made her glance at the computer. No, she thought. No. One crusader in the family is enough. She needed to get her own act together before saving the world.
She closed the album, and used a soft cloth to clean the old leather covers and the edges of the pages. Her grandfather had led an important life. She was supposed to do the same, with her big plans for a big career. Things had worked out differently for her.
Just then, Aaron came bursting into the house, dancing around at the boot tray to kick off his shoes. “Mom!” he yelled. “Hey, Mom!”
“I’m