Dinah McCall - White Mountain

Larry Marshall floored the accelerator, taking small pleasure in the fact that Mike Butoli’s skin looked like it was turning green.

White Mountain Cemetery, Braden, Montana—The Same Day

A stiff wind lifted the hem of Margaret Watson’s dress, then tugged at the black wide-brimmed hat she’d been determined to wear. She grabbed at her skirttail with one hand and her hat with the other as she leaned toward her best friend, Harriet Tyler. Lowering her voice, she glanced toward the young woman in black sitting near the open grave.

“Poor thing. With her father dead and all, she’s all alone now. No husband. No kids. Just that big old hotel outside of town.”

Harriet stared at the woman in question as she whispered back.

“She’s not exactly alone. Her uncles are still there.”

Margaret sniffed. “They’re not really her uncles, you know.”

Harriet shrugged. “Well, yes, I suppose, but I don’t hold with blood being the only tie to family. They were Sam Abbott’s friends and colleagues. They’ve lived at Abbott House for as long as I can remember. When Sam’s wife, Isabella, died, they all did their part in raising that little girl. If she wants to call them her uncles, then who are we to argue?”

Margaret sniffed again, disapproval evident in her posture.

“It just doesn’t seem right,” she muttered. “All those men. You would have thought at least one of them would have married again.”

Harriet grinned. “You’re just peeved because Samuel Abbott didn’t return your affections.”

This time Margaret’s disapproval was directed at Harriet.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered. “Now do be quiet. The preacher is about to say a prayer.”

Isabella Abbott was numb. If it hadn’t been for the firm grip of her Uncle David’s arm around her shoulders, she might have thought she was dreaming. For the past fifteen minutes she’d been looking at a clump of dirt on the toe of the pastor’s shoe, trying to ignore the shiny bronze casket suspended over the open grave beside him.

Her father was dead. It had been so sudden. One minute he was laughing and talking, and the next he’d been clutching his chest. With two doctors beside him, he’d still died before the ambulance had arrived. For the past three days he’d been lying in state at the Jewel Funeral Home, and now they’d come to lay him to rest.

Her gaze slid from the toe of the pastor’s shoe to the mound of white roses covering the casket. Her vision blurred as she drew a deep, shuddering breath.

Oh, Daddy…how am I going to face life without you?

David Schultz felt every one of his seventy-eight years as he stared at the long bronze casket. One of these days he would meet a similar fate. They all would. And when that happened, Isabella would be alone. Worry deepened as he pulled Isabella a little closer within his embrace. Samuel’s death had caught them all unaware. Changes were inevitable, and he hated change.

Suddenly the preacher was saying Amen and people were starting to move. Isabella stood abruptly. He stood with her, looking around for the other uncles, but he need not have bothered. Like him, they were there—beside her, behind her—as always, sheltering her since the day she’d been born.

“Are you all right, darling?” Isabella looked up into the dear, familiar face of her Uncle David and nodded.

“I will be,” she said, trying to smile through tears. “I’m just sick about Uncle Frank, though. He will be so upset when he comes home and learns that Daddy died.”

“It’s his own fault for not giving us a way to contact him,” David said, still a bit miffed that his old friend had been so secretive about the trip he’d taken.

“I know, but it’s still too bad. He’s going to be riddled with guilt,” Isabella said.

“As he should be,” Thomas Mowry said, adding his own opinion to the conversation as he gave Isabella a hug.

Isabella let Uncle Thomas’s warmth enfold her, but the moment was brief, as well-wishers began gathering around her, anxious to pay their condolences. She glanced at her Uncle David, giving him a nod.

David quickly stepped forward and raised his hand as he made a brief announcement.

“Please,” he said. “We thank you so much for coming. Samuel loved this community and the people in it. Isabella is exhausted, so we are taking her home, but she has asked me to invite all of those who care to come to Abbott House. There is food and drink. Please make yourselves welcome.”

Isabella tried to smile, but the faces around her had become a blur. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and let herself be led to a waiting car. Moments later they were driving away from the cemetery toward White Mountain, the place that she called home.

She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the hours ahead. It would be nightfall before she would be able to shed the duties of hostess. Then she would grieve.

The grandfather clock in the hotel lobby was striking the hour as Isabella came out of her room. It was already midnight, and she still had not been able to sleep. Luckily the hotel was almost empty, although two guests had arrived to check in during the wake following her father’s funeral and she hadn’t had the heart to turn them away.

Her head ached. Her eyes were swollen from crying. Every time she closed them, she saw her father’s casket being lowered into the grave. Unable to lie still in her comfortable bed when she knew her father was in a box six feet under the ground, she’d crawled out of bed.

But it wasn’t sorrow that had pulled her out of her room. It was hunger. She felt guilty—almost ashamed of the fact—but it was the first time in three days that she’d felt like eating.

The family quarters were on the lower floor of the house, behind the main staircase, and as she came around the corner, she stopped at the foot of the stairs beneath the painting on the opposite wall. It was a massive canvas, almost life-size, and the first thing to be seen upon entering the hotel. Isabella paused in the shadows, looking intently at the first Isabella. The woman who’d been her mother, and who had died giving birth to her, was little more than a face with a name.

She stared at the painting, accepting the fact that, except for the different hairstyle and clothing, it could very well have been a portrait of herself. She sighed, the sound little more than a soft shifting of air in the silent room.

But for a vague longing for something she’d never known, she had no emotional ties to the woman, although her father had never been able to look at that painting without coming close to tears. At the thought of her father, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to cry. At least one positive thing had come out of this nightmare. Her parents were now together.

When her stomach rumbled again, she dropped her gaze and headed for the kitchen. The large commercial-sized refrigerators were full of leftovers from the wake, so she had a wide variety of foods from which to choose. Getting a plate from the cabinet, she settled on a piece of cold chicken and a small helping of pasta salad. The silverware drawer squeaked as she opened it to get a fork, and when it did, she winced. The uncles’ rooms were on the top floor, which was two flights up from where she was, yet it wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d gotten caught during a midnight snack attack.

She stood for a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps coming down the staircase, and when she heard nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock out in the lobby, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to talk any more today—not even to them.

She went onto the back stoop and sat down on the steps, balancing her plate on her lap as she took her first bite. The pasta in the salad was perfectly al dente and coated with a tangy vinaigrette. When the first bite of food hit her stomach, she inhaled slowly, allowing herself to get past the guilt of self-satisfaction and admit that it was good. As she ate, her gaze moved beyond the backyard of the hotel to the mountain looming on the horizon.