Last Known Address

ELIZABETH WRENN

Last Known Address

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2008

Recipes copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2008

Elizabeth Wrenn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847560155

Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007334988

Version: 2018-06-19

To all my girlfriends; you know who you are! With special love to my first and most enduring girlfriends: Ali, Peggy and Jenny. And to girlfriends everywhere, of every age.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Part One Leaving

CHAPTER ONE C.C.

CHAPTER TWO Meg

CHAPTER THREE C.C.

CHAPTER FOUR Shelly

CHAPTER FIVE Purdy

CHAPTER SIX C.C.

CHAPTER SEVEN Kathryn

CHAPTER EIGHT Meg

CHAPTER NINE Shelly

CHAPTER TEN Meg

CHAPTER ELEVEN C.C.

CHAPTER TWELVE Lucy

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Shelly

Part Two Arriving

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Meg

CHAPTER FIFTEEN C.C.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Purdy

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Shelly

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Guy in the Tent

CHAPTER NINETEEN Meg

CHAPTER TWENTY C.C.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Purdy

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Guy in the Tent

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Shelly

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Meg

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE C.C.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Guy in the Tent

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Shelly

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Kathryn

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Lucy

CHAPTER THIRTY Kathryn

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Lucy

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Kathryn

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Shelly

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Meg

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE C.C.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Shelly

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Purdy

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Meg

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Shelly

CHAPTER FORTY Hatch

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE Azaad

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Kathryn

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE C.C.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Meg

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE C.C.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX Meg

Acknowledgments

E-book Extra

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Part One Leaving

CHAPTER ONE C.C.

C.C.’s huge suitcase lay open on her bed, looking like a collapsed buffet guest. It was already too full to close, primarily due to the brand-new velour sweatsuits, tags still on, neatly folded and fanned on top of the bulging mound. Even so, C.C. turned a slow circle, scanning for anything she might have forgotten. She could tuck an item or two into the trunk of Meg’s car.

Should she take the third of a bottle of Happiness perfume on her dresser? No. One orange foam earplug on the bedside table? She tossed it over the bed toward the wastebasket. When it arced right in, she grinned. ‘That’s a good omen!’ She bent to pick up an old paper bookmark lying forlornly on the floor. She walked over and dropped it directly in with the earplug. Bookmarks didn’t fly well, and if she missed the wastebasket, well…Best not to tempt the fates.

Looking around the room, she mostly saw what wasn’t there. The other earplug. The rest of the perfume. And most of all, Lenny, who had bought her the perfume, for whom she’d worn the perfume. And whose snoring had made her reach for the earplugs each night.

She stepped to her dresser, picked up the picture of the two of them, its chrome frame glinting in the stark light of the nearly empty room. She had already packed the smaller picture, the one of Lenny and Kathryn and Lucy on the couch on Christmas morning, Lenny’s long arms embracing both her girls amid a litter of colorful paper and ribbons. She’d wrapped it in a short-sleeve cotton top, placed it in the middle of her suitcase, safely tucking it away, ready for the trip.

The trip. That seemed too small a word for this big…adventure. She laughed a little, all by herself there in her quiet bedroom. C.C. and Shelly and Meg’s Big Adventure.

She stared at the picture in her hands. It wasn’t a great picture, but it was the last one taken of just the two of them, at the Iowa Accountants Labor Day picnic two years ago. They were in front of a big oak tree, had their arms around each other, hers on Len’s thin waist, his hanging over her shoulder like a friendly snake. The light around them was peach-colored, and lovely, but they were both squinting into the setting sun. Like they were trying to see into the future or something. She’d left this picture out of the boxes till the last possible moment, to keep her company, and give her resolve. She touched Lenny’s smile. She could imagine him telling her, Go ahead, be brave.

Her eyes moist, C.C. allowed herself half a moment to hug the frame to her chest, then hurriedly pulled the nearest unsealed box across the carpet toward her. But when she saw the contents of the box, she laughed. Her extra slips, lingerie and other ‘unmentionables’. She wouldn’t be needing those. She didn’t fit into most anyway. She tucked the frame in, burrowing it into the slinky depths.

‘How’s that, darlin’?’

Eighteen months after his funeral, she could now finally talk to him without bawling. She’d considered bringing his sealed urn down south, but realized it wasn’t practical; she’d be devastated if something happened to it while they were on the road, or after. Where would she put it, after all? There would be painting, construction–mess throughout the house down there. So, months ago, before her house even went on the market, Kathryn had taken it, checking with Lucy first to make sure it was okay with her to have the urn in their apartment. Kathryn had told C.C. that, every night, Lucy blew Lenny a kiss; she called him ‘Papaw-on-the-bookcase’. Blood may be thicker than water, C.C. thought, but sometimes love was thicker than blood.

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway drew her to the window. She knew without lifting the blind, from the glub-glub motorboat sound, that it was Kathryn’s old Pontiac. The engine cut as C.C. glanced at her watch. They were early. Meg and Shelly wouldn’t be here till six thirty for the ‘clean your fridge out potluck’, as Shelly called it. C.C. sucked in a breath. This dinner would be it, the big goodbye, to Kathryn and Lucy. And C.C.’s last chance to make things right with her daughter, which she had little hope of achieving.

They could have said their goodbyes in the morning, Meg having pointed out that they might as well wait till after rush hour to head out of town. But Kathryn had to work the early shift at the store, and Lucy had school, although C.C. knew both would like to have a reason not to go. But C.C. needed to say her goodbyes the night before; she didn’t want to be sitting in the back seat crying for the first hundred miles.

She stood, massaging her lower back. If fifty was the new forty, it still came with the old aches and pains of fifty. She reached up toward the ceiling, stretching, muttering a Hail Mary, but thinking it wasn’t quite fair that she felt fifty, six months before she turned fifty.

C.C. lowered her arms, found herself staring out the bedroom door, down the hall, at the blank wall, the nails and hooks poking forlornly out of the wall where the family pictures had hung. She’d decided to leave them; maybe the new family would use them. How odd it had felt, padding about her nearly empty house these last few days, knowing it wasn’t hers anymore. Most of the proceeds from the sale had gone directly into an account that, God willing, would be enough to buy a small place outright, when she returned. There wasn’t nearly as much as she had hoped; they didn’t have a lot of equity, and she’d gotten caught in a down market. If the housing market recovered before she was ready to buy, she’d be in a real pickle. Yet again, her security seemed inexorably linked to Dogs’ Wood, Aunt Georgie’s house–her house, now–in Tennessee.

The closing on her Iowa house had been weeks ago, but Shelly–real-estate agent extraordinaire–had put a clause in the contract for C.C. to rent it back till they left, and a few days beyond so that Kathryn could come to collect the bed and dresser for her apartment, and take the remaining boxes to storage. C.C. had had a flare of excitement when Kathryn had mentioned the new guy at work, Matt, who had a truck and was going to help her move the things. The maternal delight had once again been too obvious on C.C.’s face. Kathryn had quickly informed her, with stern emphasis on the words she clearly felt her mother needed to hear, that Matt was over ten years younger than she, a kid, nineteen, and she was going to pay him to help her on his day off from his job as sacker at the store. C.C., determinedly cheerful, had put her arm around her daughter and told her (not for the first time), ‘Your true love will come, darlin’, just you wait.’ But Kathryn had angrily shrugged her arm off. It helped not at all that C.C. knew that Kathryn’s anger was really frustration that she too could not leave town, have an adventure.

C.C. sat on the bed, her eyes closed. If only she hadn’t made things so much worse with what Kathryn called ‘the mall incident’. C.C. did regret what she’d done at the mall. But at the time, it had seemed nothing more than a mother’s pride spilling over. Helpful, even. She and Meg had been having lunch after doing some clothes shopping for the trip. When Meg had excused herself to the restroom, C.C. had felt conspicuously alone at her table, so had started chatting with the two handsome young businessmen lunching nearby. It seemed only natural, in the context of their conversation, to show them the picture in her wallet of her beautiful, single, very available daughter.

‘Let me ask your opinion on something,’ she’d said, and they’d both been very willing. ‘Honest, now, don’t you think she looks like a young Meg Ryan?’ They’d nodded, smiling, good-natured. And C.C. had told them with unreserved pride that it was her daughter. Immediately one had said that she, C.C., didn’t look old enough to be that woman’s mother, always the hoped-for response. C.C. had blushed and beamed and given her usual reply: ‘I’m not old enough to be her mother. But I am!’ And when she found out that both men were single, what was she supposed to do? C.C. had only wanted to give Kathryn’s number to the lawyer, the one with the steady job, not the one who was starting an adventure travel business. But how could she politely exclude the entrepreneur?

She’d realized almost immediately afterward that she’d overstepped, confirmed by Meg on the drive home. It was just that C.C.’s heart broke for her daughter. Kathryn was hardly old at twenty-nine, but she wasn’t exactly prime dating age, either. And she had what that lowlife Jordan had called ‘the genetic ball and chain’. Imagine calling a child that! Especially, darling Lucy. C.C. knew she would have to tell Kathryn what she’d done, just in case one (or both!) of the men called. But despite her numerous apologies to her daughter, Kathryn had been madder than a swatted-at hornet. She’d been giving C.C. the silent treatment ever since.

C.C. clicked the lamp off, then peeked out the blinds again, wondering why they hadn’t come in yet. Down below, mother and daughter were sitting in the car, illuminated by the glare from the floodlight above the garage. Lucy was slumped far down in her seat, the heels of her hands on the cushion on either side of her. Her head was tucked turtle-like into her shoulders, her chin down. C.C.’s heart twisted. She hoped something hadn’t happened at school again. She watched through the crack, keeping herself hidden behind the blind. Kathryn took Lucy’s small hand, kissed it, held it to her chest. Lucy wiped at her cheeks with her other hand. C.C. let go of the blind, wanting them to have their private mother-daughter moment.

Until recently, she and Kathryn had always been close too, for much the same reason: they were just twenty years apart in age. Of all the ways C.C. would have wanted her daughter to emulate her, getting pregnant unmarried at twenty was not one of them. For one, it had made C.C. a grandmother at age forty. But she would never call sweet Lucy a mistake, unlike that fool Jordan. He and Kathryn had been dating only two months, but it was two months too long, in C.C.’s opinion. How she wished Kathryn would show that leather-clad lowlife the north end of her boot, send him out of town on that noisy motorcycle of his.

The front door opened, then slammed shut. ‘Meemaw? We’re here! Where are you?’

‘Be right down, Lovebucket!’ C.C. yelled as she headed across her bedroom. She stepped quickly into the bathroom, to the only remaining mirror, to check her hair. It was up, as always, curled, pinned, sprayed and clipped into not quite a beehive, but close. She tucked a curl in, then pushed her palm under it admiringly. Her hair was, and always had been, her best feature. Though she didn’t mind telling people that she now achieved her naturally light blonde color unnaturally.

‘Where are you, Piece-a-pie?’ C.C. called out as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘Coming!’ Lucy ran from the living room into C.C.’s outstretched arms. They hugged and C.C. kissed the top of her head, inhaling the child’s sweet scent. Kathryn took a long time hanging their coats among the empty hangers in the hall closet.

Lucy pulled back, beaming. ‘We brought you a present!’ Whatever she’d been crying about in the car was forgotten. At least for the moment. C.C.’s heart gladdened at Lucy’s words, specifically ‘we’. She glanced at Kathryn, but Kathryn spoke only to Lucy.

‘Shhh!’ she gently admonished. ‘We were going to do that at the end, remember?’ Kathryn had not, and would not, look at C.C.

‘Oh. Yeah. I forgot,’ said Lucy, lifting her shoulders apologetically.

‘It’s okay,’ said Kathryn. She at least gave Lucy a smile. ‘You want to go get it? It’s on the back seat.’

Lucy rushed outside without answering, or donning her coat, leaving the wooden door wide open. The storm door slammed behind her and the frigid air blew in through the screen. Lenny had been the one to put the glass panes in each fall. C.C. hadn’t even found them till last week, bringing the last of the boxes from the basement. She’d decided to just leave them there. The new family wouldn’t want them in now anyway. It was almost April, nearly spring.

C.C. smiled, closing the big wooden door. ‘Land, that girl can’t remember to shut a door to save her life!’

‘You and your doors, Mother. She’ll be right back in.’ Kathryn looked past her, her jaw tense.

C.C. nodded, wondering if she should open the door again. She didn’t know how to get off these eggshells with Kathryn.

‘Sweetheart,’ began C.C., ‘I’m glad we have a quick minute alone here. I just want to say, again, that I shouldn’t have given those men—’

‘No! You shouldn’t have. But I don’t want to discuss it anymore.’ Kathryn looked out the small window of the door. ‘So, this present?’

‘Yes?’ C.C. said hopefully.

‘It’s not really a present for you. It’s for Lucy. Mrs Diamont suggested it. I had to go in for another conference and—’ Kathryn caught her breath. ‘She’s way behind in spelling, writing in general. And she can’t–read.’ Her voice cracked, she placed a hand over her mouth briefly, then removed it, placing her palm on the door. ‘Mrs Diamont thinks she’s going to have to be held back, repeat second grade.’

‘Oh, darlin,’ said C.C., stepping toward her daughter, her arms open. But Kathryn spoke without turning. ‘Mother, no. Please. Just–leave it. I don’t want this to come up. With Lucy. But that’s all this present is about.’

‘Of course.’ She got it. She’d gotten it at ‘Mother’. Kathryn called her that only if she was angry, inaccessible. She called her ‘Mom’ casually, ‘Momma’ in a tender moment or when she most needed her. It had been a while since she had heard the tender moniker. C.C. lowered her arms to her sides, then clasped her hands in front of her, then put them back at her sides, suddenly wishing that arms came with some proper storage system. The doorbell rang. C.C. looked at her daughter, asking with her eyes if she could open the door. Kathryn nodded, stepped away, and C.C. pulled the door open.

‘Trick or treat!’ Lucy burst into giggles as she stood outside, her hands behind her back.

‘Land sakes, child! It’s only the end of March. Y’all come back in October!’ C.C. pretended to close the door.

‘It’s a treat for you, Meemaw!’ Lucy laughed, pushed the door open with one hand and brought the gift from behind her back. She jumped up over the threshold. C.C. gently closed the door behind her.

The gift was wrapped in colorful Sunday comics and had an inordinate amount of tape on it. It also had an impressive amount of pink ribbon, wrapped around several times, tied into several floppy bows, all with curly ends. Lucy handed it to C.C. ‘Here. We got me one that—’ She clapped her hand over her mouth, glanced up at her mother.

Kathryn gathered her in her arms, kissed the top of her head. ‘Good catch.’

‘Shall I open it now, or wait till your aunties arrive?’ asked C.C.

‘Wait for Aunt Meg and Shelly,’ said Lucy. ‘But you have to guess what it is now!’ She bobbed up and down on her toes.

C.C. looked at the box, hefting it. ‘Let’s see…It could be a big, fat book, but it’s too light. And I guess we can rule out a basketball, huh?’ She grinned at Lucy, who grinned back, almost filling C.C. up. She held the box near her ear, shook it gently. There was a soft rattle. ‘Umm, is it a goldfish?’ She sucked in her cheeks and crossed her eyes, giving Lucy her fish face. Lucy dissolved in giggles.

‘Nooo, Meemaw! Guess again!’

‘Knock, knock,’ said a voice, as the door pushed open.

‘Auntie Meg! Shelly!’ Shelly had long ago told Lucy to just call her Shelly, but Meg liked being an unofficial auntie, as long as there was never a ‘great’ or ‘grand’ in front.

Both women bent, Meg setting a heavy-looking tote bag on the floor. Shelly gave Lucy a quick but sturdy hug. Meg, however, kneeled, wrapped her arms around Lucy. Her eyes closed as she held her, as if feeding on the life force all little girls have to spare. A small smile appeared on Meg’s thin, pale face as Lucy grunted happily, her little arms squeezing Meg back. C.C. didn’t know whether to smile or cry. What that little girl lacks in males in her life, she makes up for in maternal love, she thought.

‘Scooch back, please, you two, so I can close the door,’ said Shelly. When Meg and Lucy had moved, she pushed the door closed with a thud. ‘Don’t want to let the cold air in.’

C.C. smiled at Kathryn, gesturing with her hands to say, ‘See? I’m not the only one.’ Kathryn quickly moved to embrace Shelly, then Meg.

‘Look!’ said C.C., holding up her gift, trying another tack. She winked at Meg and Shelly. ‘Lucy gave me a goldfish!’

Lucy fell to the floor, laughing. Kathryn exhaled in a way that only her mother would hear.

‘Oh, a goldfish is just the ticket!’ said Shelly. ‘He’ll come in handy on our road trip. He can point the way.’ Shelly shrugged off her coat, threw it over the banister. She wiggled her hand like a fish in front of Lucy, alternately swimming and pointing. Then she gave her a little poke in the belly, eliciting more giggles.

They all made their way into the kitchen, with C.C. bringing up the rear, her gift in her hands, but a heaviness in her heart, too aware for days now of ‘the last time’ they’d be doing one thing or another. The last time we’ll all walk into the kitchen together. Their last meal in this house. It made it feel like she was never coming back to Wisataukee, which she was. She just didn’t know when. But not to this house. She’d likely buy a condo or something. A condo for one. She saw herself with a cat, tending too many plants, eating baked beans out of the can, standing over the sink. She didn’t even like cats much. A little sigh escaped as she joined the others in the kitchen. How often had the five of them gathered like this, for an impromptu meal, or a trip to the museum, or shopping? All happy events. But like the cold wind circling outside, a chill pulled at the edges of the group tonight.

Meg set the bag on the counter, began to unpack. ‘Shelly’s contributing caviar, believe it or not. How old is this, Shel?’ Meg stared at the small round container, intently studying the lettering of the black and red label, an uncertain look on her face. ‘Is this Russian?’

‘Yes. It was a gift from Sergei.’

‘Who?’ asked C.C.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Meg knowingly. She turned to C.C. ‘You know, tall, dark and handsome, in a pointy kind of way? The one before the one before…the last one.’ She bobbed the caviar through the air as she counted.

Shelly shoved Meg’s hand playfully out of the air, grabbing the caviar from her. ‘I don’t know, maybe six months,’ she said, studying it. ‘A year?’ She lifted the top and sniffed, made a face. ‘How do you tell when smelly fish eggs have gone bad?’ She pushed an errant, graying bang back behind her ear. C.C. knew Shelly had stopped coloring her hair for budgetary reasons, and had told them she wanted to try long hair again. The poor thing had gone from being the most well-off of the three of them, to avoiding creditors, all by way of one disastrous, overreaching business deal.

‘Have you ever had caviar, Lucy? Little fish eggs?’ Kathryn asked. Lucy had her back against her mother’s legs and Kathryn held her with crisscrossed arms over Lucy’s chest. Lucy made a face, shaking her head and sticking out her tongue. Kathryn laughed. ‘I think we’ll pass on the caviar, thanks. What else you got in there?’

‘Bagels…cream cheese…Cheddar cheese…’ Meg lifted containers and bags out, one by one, but stopped on a large round one. ‘Some, um…’ She held it to the light, tipping it this way and that, the bright red, lumpy contents slopping back and forth inside, ‘…Jell-O. With fruit, one would hope.’ She set it on the counter and dug back into the bag. ‘Pickles, an apple…’ She paused for a fraction of a second, her hand still in the bag. ‘Some fried chicken…’ She set the container on the counter, as if it were a small wounded creature she’d been caring for. She stared at it for a few seconds, then dug back in the bag. ‘…A box of crackers…and…some leftover wild rice.’ Meg set the last items on the counter. Shelly rearranged everything.

‘My stuff’s right here,’ said C.C., pulling several containers out of the refrigerator. ‘Some leftover tuna casserole, some cheese, bread, watermelon pickles and tapioca pudding.’

‘Let’s eat!’ said Shelly, grabbing the stack of paper plates and handing one to Lucy.

‘Can Meemaw open the present first? Please?’ Lucy handed her plate back to Shelly.

‘Oh, yes!’ said C.C., lifting the box from the counter again. ‘I want to open my present!’ She undid the ribbon, handing it to Lucy, then tore off the paper, revealing a creamy yellow box with bright illustrations on the top. ‘Butterflies! What could this be?’ She set the box on the counter and lifted the lid. Inside, was a thick stack of pale yellow stationery bound up in a bright yellow silk ribbon. C.C. fingered the soft, ragged upper edge of the sheets as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

‘Look under!’ shouted Lucy.

C.C. did, finding two neat stacks of matching envelopes, also tied with yellow ribbons. In the middle were two long strips of colorful butterfly stickers.

‘Look at this envelope!’ said Lucy, pulling one from the stack. She held it in front of C.C., her small hands gripping either edge. ‘See? We already addressed it!’

C.C. read Lucy’s uneven scrawl aloud. ‘Lucy Prentiss. Thirty-one twenty Clemmons Way, Wisataukee, Iowa.’

‘And read the other, up here!’ said Lucy, pointing excitedly to the upper corner.

‘Meemaw Byrd, seven thirteen Raven Road, Fleurville, Tennessee.’

Damn. C.C. could feel her eyes welling up. Something about seeing that address printed on an envelope, especially in Lucy’s labor-intensive hand, took her aback. That address was both more than and less than home; it was the place she had landed, the place that had caught her, after a long, hard fall. She felt like her body was being stretched forward and back in time, all at once.

‘You have to send the first one to me!’ said Lucy, putting her finger on her chest. ‘And we got another box for me! Mine has dolphin stickers and it’s blue and I already wrote to you!’

C.C. kneeled, quickly gathering Lucy up in a hug, hiding her tears behind her granddaughter’s head. ‘Oh, my darlin’ girl.’ C.C. swallowed again, hearing her southern accent creep into her words. Emotion always brought it out of her. ‘I will write to you. And I can hardly wait till I get my first letter from you!’ She had to struggle to get her words out. ‘I am going t’miss you, Lovee.’

‘Will you fill me up with brave, Meemaw?’ asked Lucy softly.

‘Well, of course I will!’ Shelly gave her a hand, helped her stand, as Meg retrieved a small empty ceramic pitcher from the sill above her sink. She handed it to C.C., who held it above Lucy’s head, and began to pour. ‘Show me where your fill-line is, Lovee.’ Lucy held her hand near her stomach, then let it rise. C.C. poured till Lucy’s hand was at the top of her head. ‘Full of brave?’ C.C. asked her. Lucy nodded, and they hugged again.

Still clutching Lucy, C.C. looked up at Kathryn, then at her two best friends, all of whom were teary. But Kathryn turned away from her. C.C. could hear her daughter’s sharp intake of breath, but she didn’t know how to read it. Kathryn held her hand out to Shelly for a plate.

Only her granddaughter enjoyed the picnic dinner on an old sheet on the floor of the empty living room. For C.C., and she suspected for the others as well, all the leftovers of their lives made for an odd and bittersweet meal.