Jennifer Greene - Wild in the Field

“I said it was totally stupid, too,” Simon affirmed.

“Then he got madder. You think that was fair?”

Camille gulped. “Hey, what are you asking me for? This is between you two and your dad. My opinion isn’t worth anything.”

“It is to us,” Sean said. “We think Dad should have been on our side. And we don’t see one single reason why we should have been nicer. Like what kind of excuse is that about needing space? ”

“It’s no excuse at all,” Camille agreed.

“You don’t leave people you love when it’s tough. That’s when you stay and stick it out. That’s always what Dad said before. Mom just left because she wanted to. Period. She didn’t care about us. That’s the way it is.”

“So why are we supposed to be nice?” Sean demanded.

Both of them looked at her, waiting. Camille threw up her hands. “Look, you guys. I’m the last person in the world you should be asking. I don’t claim to have any answers for anyone.”

“But that’s exactly why we’re asking you. You’re the only one who isn’t always telling us what to do. All we’re asking is what you think, for Pete’s sake. Sheesh.”

Sean sounded so disgusted with her that she felt compelled to at least say something. “Well…what I think…is that it’s about time your mom called and started to try to make amends. And personally, I don’t see any problem with you being honest with her. You guys have every reason to feel angry. And you have every right to let her know how you feel. It’s up to her to figure out what she wants to do about that.”

“See,” Simon muttered to Sean. “I told you Camille’d take our side.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Don’t be thinking your dad isn’t on your side. He just wants you two to take the higher ground. You don’t want to do the same thing your mother did, now do you? Run away because something was hard?”

“Hey, we’re not running from anything,” Simon protested.

“It’s not like we’re afraid to talk to her or anything like that,” Sean agreed.

“Well, good,” Camille said. “Because I think that’s probably what your dad’s trying to get you to see-that nobody’s winning the way it is. Your mom made a big mistake. Nothing she says or does is going to erase that. So maybe you can’t forgive her, and maybe you can’t accept what she’s done, at least right now. But if you can’t talk to her-at all-how can it ever get better?”

“What’s to get better? We don’t need her.”

“We don’t need women ever again.” Simon said. “Except you. We didn’t mean to include you with the creeps, Cam,” he said warmly.

“Yeah, Cam.” Sean slapped her companionably on the back, hard enough to make her rock forward. “You’re one of us. We’d never lump you with the women. We know we can trust you.”

Her heart froze. She’d seen this coming. Pete’s boys liking her, their wanting to depend on her. They needed to depend on someone-a woman-exactly because of what their mother had done to them. But if she couldn’t get her own life together, what kind of role model could she possibly be for them?

And if she couldn’t be the kind of role model that they really could trust, she simply had no business embroiling her life any closer with Pete and his family.

The next morning, Camille carted two armfuls of laundry to the house. Unfortunately, Violet caught her scooping up more dirty clothes from the hamper.

“What’s this?” Violet said in shock.

“Hey. I’ve washed clothes a bunch of times since I’ve been here. Yours, too.”

“I know you have. But suddenly you’re toting junk to the dump. And you’re washing sheets every couple days. And your windows are clean. Could it be…you’re starting to feel a little sociable again?”

“Not willingly. More like, I’m working outside so much that everything gets dirty faster.”

“Ah. So it isn’t about a certain guy half living over at the cottage-”

“Pete is not half living over at the cottage.”

Violet’s eyebrows arched. “Did I say Pete’s name? My, we are defensive.” A rusted heap of a truck pulled up in the yard. Vi glanced out, and then hustled outside to greet the visitors.

Judging from the conversation, Violet had hired the two men to do some heavy-duty landscaping around the front of the house and Herb Haven.

Camille had just been considering murdering her sister. Man, no one could tease more mercilessly than a sister, and Violet was even worse than Daisy. But now, she watched Vi change personalities from a completely normal, pain in the neck sister into Ms. Brainless Ditz again.

It was the men. They were both late-twenties. Sun-bronzed. Their shoulders and arms were ropey with muscles, their jeans riding low, their hair shaggy. Cute enough, but young, and nothing special, really. Just guys.

Yet Violet’s whole behavior changed around them. Her laughter came out trilly; her movements mimicked an airhead; she chattered nine for a dozen and acted dense as a thicket.

Camille cocked her hands on her hips, thinking soon . She could hardly interfere in someone else’s life when her own was still in pieces. But soon, she simply had to figure what the Sam Hill was going on with her sister.

But right then, she scooped up her clean sheets and towels and laundry and hustled back to the cottage. Her goal was to be out in the lavender before lunch. In her mind, she’d set a goal-she was giving herself a maximum of one more week to finish the pruning. Really, it was ridiculously late in the season to be trying to do this kind of work now, but she was close to the end. Once the pruning was done, she’d have essentially done a needed job for her sister-something to earn her keep. What Violet intended to do with the damn stuff from there wasn’t her business or her problem.

The lavender was only a symbol, though. Camille knew full well that Pete was welling into a crisis, in both her mind and her heart. But where she didn’t seem able to handle Pete, she was determined to handle the things she could. The lavender, for one. For another, she was determined to set the cottage to rights-all things thrown out from her old life, a keeper pile established, the cottage cleaned up for real. And then…

Well, then she needed to make decisions about her life.

She’d been coasting long enough. And if she still wasn’t sure where to aim from here, she resolved to stop babying herself.

By the time she reached the cottage porch, her arms ached from the weight of the two laundry baskets. She used her elbow to open the screen door…but then startling her, she heard a mewling sound from somewhere in the living room.

Killer must have heard the same sound, because he immediately initiated a howl worthy of a banshee.

“Shut up, you dolt.”

Sometimes he obeyed. This morning, he didn’t seem inclined, so she bribed him outside with a dog cookie and closed the door-the fresh air had been welcome on this warm morning, but she couldn’t hear herself think with all Killer’s howling. And then she turned around to face the towel-draped cage on the floor.

Warily she pulled off the towel, and discovered a mournfully panicked cat. At least, she thought it was a cat. It looked like a pumpkin run over by a tar truck, with a torn ear, a gimpy leg and a face only its mother could have loved.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Dream on. This is not happening.”

The cat prowled a circle in the cage, mewling pitifully.

“No,” she said. “Practice it. Because it’s the only word you’re going to hear from me.” Fuming, she stormed into the kitchen, slammed a bowl on the counter and foraged in the fridge. Almost nothing was in there, no surprise, but there happened to be a couple slices of cheese and the leftovers from a sandwich the day before.