Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

The boy’s exuberance was infectious, and Trace felt only a smidgen of guilt for lying to his son. But he didn’t want to admit the cold, hard truth to Eli. Nor did he really want to think it himself.

But the fact was, he’d been having trouble pushing Acacia Lambert out of his mind.

And that spelled trouble, plain and simple.

The kind of trouble he didn’t need.

Kacey didn’t like the place.

No matter how many “stars” or “diamonds,” or whatever the ranking was as far as retirement homes went, Rolling Hills just wasn’t her idea of “independent” living. But it didn’t matter. Her mother loved it here in this lavish, hundred-year-old hotel that had been converted into individual apartments. Her mother’s place, a two-bedroom unit on the uppermost floor, had an incredible view of the rooftops of Helena and, farther away, on the horizon, the mountains.

There was a pool and spa, exercise room, and car service, if one preferred not to drive their own vehicle, though each unit came with one parking spot in an underground garage.

The building was spacious, the amenities top-notch, and still, when Kacey walked through the broad double doors and signed in at the reception desk, she felt a pang of sadness for the home she’d once shared with her parents, a little bungalow with a big yard.

That’s what it is, she decided. There was nothing wrong with Rolling Hills other than it wasn’t the place she’d grown up and this was the place where her father, after suffering a stroke, had died.

“She’ll be right down,” the receptionist, a petite woman with narrow reading glasses and lips the color of cranberries, advised Kacey. “If you want to take a seat. .” She waved a hand toward a grouping of oversized chairs and a love seat near a stone fireplace that rose two full stories. Kacey crossed the broad foyer and stood before the glass-covered grate, where warmth radiated to the back of her legs.

For the past three years, ever since her divorce, Kacey had spent her Thanksgivings here, and she couldn’t help feeling a bit of nostalgia. Don’t go romanticizing your childhood. You know better. .

Maribelle, her mother, when invited to Kacey’s, had steadfastly refused, insisting Kacey make the trip to Helena instead.

“You must come here,” she’d intoned. “Chef Mitchell is a god when it comes to the menu, and neither one of us will have to spend hours cooking and cleaning. Besides, it’s just too much for me to get away.”

That had been a bald-faced lie. Why her mother wanted to play the age card when she was on the south side of seventy was beyond Kacey. Maribelle Collins had more energy than a lot of women half her age, and, for the most part, she was sharp as a tack. Kacey believed her mother was a bit of a queen bee at Rolling Hills Senior Estates and didn’t want to leave her position for a second.

But Kacey had decided making the trip would be simpler than insisting Maribelle come her direction.

“There you are, darling!” Her mother’s voice rang out across the grand foyer. Kacey snapped out of her reverie to spy her mother, shimmering in a silver dress and high heels, hurrying toward her.

Tall, thin, and striking, Maribelle smiled widely and clasped both her daughter’s hands as they met, which surprised Kacey as the last time she’d seen her, all she did was frown and complain. At sixty-five, she was spry and youthful, dressed as if she were going shopping on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Her hair was white, thick, and cut in a soft pageboy; her eyes were a sparkling blue behind fashionable glasses; her chin as strong as it ever was. “I’ve been so looking forward to this. Come, come!” She was already leading Kacey to the dining room near the back of the building. Garlands of pine boughs had been draped around the windows. White lights winked from beneath the long needles, while another fire burned brightly and the tables had been covered in white cloths and decorated with small poinsettias in red and white. A few other residents were scattered around the room, seated at tables, some as couples, a trio of friends, and a couple singles.

“Isn’t it festive?” Maribelle enthused. “They get a little jump on Christmas here, but why not? Oh, this is my table over here.” She motioned toward the windows, and as she did, she glanced around the seating area, her gaze skating over the few other diners.

“A lot of people are missing today. Off to see their children or siblings or whatever. So we have the table to ourselves!” For the first time in a long while she seemed excited and bubbly. “Sit, sit.” She waved Kacey into one of the cushy chairs as she took her own seat and unrolled a napkin that had been placed in her wineglass.

“So tell me,” she said, smoothing the linen carefully over her dress. “How’s work going?”

“Hectic,” Kacey said, trying to understand the change in this woman who was her mother. Gone was the dour, stubborn, glass-is-half-empty person, replaced by a smiling, happy woman who seemed to embrace life. Someone who was interested in her daughter. “Just the other day a woman was rushed into the ER. She’d been out jogging and had fallen over that short little guard fence up on Boxer Bluff, by the park, you know the one I mean. Just at the crest, near the falls, from what I understand.”

“Oh, what a shame. I hope you fixed her back up again.” Maribelle flashed a quick smile and effectively changed the subject. “Now, honey, check out the menu,” she said, pointing with a cranberry-glossed nail to the list of offerings on the menu left on Kacey’s plate. So much for her interest in her daughter’s work or the patient’s well-being. “Look. You can have roast turkey or baron of beef. Can you believe it, an actual choice? It’s because of the new chef. Mitch.” She rotated her hands upward, as if to praise the heavens. “He’s just what this place needed after that miserable Crystal. How she ever got the job here in the first place is beyond me. . Let’s see, well, I don’t know why I even care. I’m having the turkey, of course. Tradition, you know!”

Who was this woman? Kacey wondered as her mother flagged down the waitress, Loni, and they ordered. Maribelle took another scan of the room, then welcomed the glasses of Chardonnay that Loni poured.

As the meal was served, they sipped and chatted, making small talk and working their way through a squash soup, green salad garnished with hazelnuts, feta cheese, and cranberries, and eventually sliced, moist turkey served with buttered sweet potatoes, sauteed green beans, and a delicate oyster stuffing with gravy. The meal wasn’t as homey as the corn-bread stuffing, Campbell’s soup green bean casserole, and yams with a marshmallow topping that Ada Collins, Kacey’s grannie, had served every year, but it was a close second best.

Better yet, her mother was in a cheerful, almost festive mood, so unlike the times she’d either sulked or just “gotten through the day” at her in-laws’ farm, the very spot Kacey now called home.

Tonight her mother smiled and kept up the conversation, regaling her with humorous little anecdotes of “senior living.” As long as they talked about Maribelle, everything seemed fine.

Little did Kacey know that she was being set up, though she should have seen it coming.

After the main course was finished, Maribelle asked the question that had probably been on her mind all evening, or quite possibly the last three years. “So,” she said pleasantly as she stared across the table at her daughter, “what have you heard from Jeffrey?”

Ahhh, Kacey thought. The ambush. “Nothing.”

Maribelle’s eyebrows pulled together in concern. “Maybe you should give him a call.”