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Beyond the Roses

By Mary Cantell

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Chapter One
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
January 8th, 2005


A mound of boxes the color of creamed coffee took up half of the tiny living room, all of them labeled in bold black marker as to their contents. Bittersweet thoughts surfaced in Lissa’s mind at the eyesore cluttering the formerly pristine space. In the last-minute hustle before the moving van came, a nagging thought hit once more: Unpack everything and forget the whole idea. She didn’t really need to transfer to a new office, a new position, a new state along with her boss. Administrative jobs were plentiful in the Philadelphia suburbs. No need to uproot her life and her daughter’s. Lissa hated new beginnings.
She parted the blinds and opened the window. The rich scent of wood smoke slipped through in the cool air and felt good against her damp skin now overheated from shuffling and stacking boxes all morning. At the same moment, the doorbell rang. Lissa took a deep breath before she lowered the window, leaving it open just a crack, before answering it.
“Hey, Robin,” There stood her best friend from church, along with her little boy. Her mood lightened. “What brings you here?”
“Hey, woman. Just came to say g’bye.” Robin held up a tiny purple gift bag topped with a mound of silver and purple ribbons. “For Lacy.”
“How sweet of you, come on in.” Lissa lifted her hand to sweep the bangs out of her eyes and pulled open the door. “I apologize for the mess.” She moved toward the hall and called, “Lacy, Miss Robin is here. Alex, too. Come say goodbye, honey.” She took the shiny gift bag and placed it daintily on top of the entryway table. “It’s lovely. Lacy loves anything purple, thank you,” she said with a smile and gestured toward the sofa. “Have a seat.”
Robin plopped herself down and helped Alex unzip his coat. “So where’s the job? Did you find out which office you’ll be working out of?” Robin asked, tugging on the zipper.
“Gaithersburg. It’s one of the satellite branches. Near Pinewood, where I grew up.”
“That’s great,” Robin said with little enthusiasm and a strained smile. “But we’ll surely miss you and Lacy, won’t we buddy?” She glanced briefly at Alex still working the awkward zipper.
“Same for us, Robin,” Lissa said, her lips drew downward. Merka and Company’s decision to merge with its competitors, Marcogen Clinical Labs and another biotech firm, Azeta Technologies, was good for its shareholders but bad for the employees who’d been laid off in the process. A glimpse of sadness came over her as she looked around the room at the glut of the ugly brown boxes. They soaked the character right out of the room. She bit her lip, hoping she was doing the right thing. This move was for her future, she assured herself. For Lacy’s future. A new home was waiting for them. No pain no gain as they say. She took a deep breath. This too, shall pass.
Robin’s face morphed into a palette of emotion.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Lissa consoled, knowing her friend’s sensitive nature. Lissa understood what it was like to wear your heart on your sleeve. She was the same way and could well up with emotion just witnessing someone’s good fortune at winning the grand prize on a TV game show.
“Nothin’,” she replied, shaking her head which sent her long cascade of dark tendrils quivering across her cheeks.
Her expression tugged at Lissa’s heart. “Aw…” She reached out to give Robin a hug as Robin’ extended her chubby arms around Lissa. “…you’ll be all right.” A trace of Robin’s White Shoulders perfume sifted the air.
“Well, for one, I’ll be losin’ a friend.” She lifted her eyebrows then dropped them, seeming resigned to the loss. The sweet southern drawl in her voice along with a sniffle made the words all the more depressing.
“After all you’ve done for me since my mama passed away and taking care of Lacy?” Lissa playfully slapped Robin’s arm. “Pfft, no way. Friendship isn’t out of sight out of mind with me, you know that. I’ll keep in touch with you until you’re sick of hearing from me.” Lissa gave a mock chuckle and then looked at Alex, kneeling down to meet him eye-to-eye. “Hey, buddy, why don’t you go to Lacy’s room and play together for a while?” She pointed toward the hallway and then tussled the top of his head. “Sound good?”
Alex brightened and shrugged off his coat. In a heartbeat, he darted down the hall. Half-way there, he turned. “Can I go to the bathroom?”
Lissa stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “Of course, little man, it’s on the left,” she said, pointing. Turning to Robin: “Can I get you something?”
Robin shook her head. “Nope, we’re all good. Just wanted to say our last farewell is all.” She brought out for a half-crumpled pack of tissues from her purse. “I didn’t know you grew up in Maryland,” she said, lifting one out and wiping her eyes.
“Yep, good ol’ Pinewood.” Lissa plunked herself down on the sofa.
“That’s such a coincidence. We lived in Maryland, too... Baltimore. Just for a while, me and my folks, after moving up from Charlotte. And then it was off to—oh, now where did we move next?” She poked her cheek with a freshly manicured fingernail painted brick red. “Oh, well, there must have been a half-dozen places Daddy was relocated to… and then we ended up here. Small world, huh?”
“Oh, my gosh, yes,” Lissa replied brightly, distracted by the sight of her own unpolished nails while picking at a piece of loose cuticle. “We moved away from Pinewood and came to Bryn Mawr when I was around ten. Mom thought it best to move back to the area after my dad died—something about better schools and it was near her family—actually, my grand mom, who wasn’t doing too well.” She envisioned the first time her mother drove them back to their new apartment after going to a movie in town. The atmosphere was so dark, they could barely see the road after getting off the Schuylkill expressway at the Gladwyne exit. “Is there a road here?”
“I was so scared and homesick for Pinewood… so heartbroken that we had to leave.” Lissa mused the day she went back for a visit. “My friend, Deb, from college drove me down to Pinewood during spring break eleven years later in her ‘78 Ford Pinto. She’s from Baltimore. Barry Manilow’s greatest hits crackled through the worn speakers for most of the way, and the motor rumbled like a bucket of loose nuts. “That car of hers…” Lissa grinned. “I wasn’t sure if we would make it.”
Pinewood’s pastoral charm, nestled between Cherrydale and Pleasantville just south of the Mason-Dixon Line, lent a portal to a simpler time and simpler values. To even a casual eye, the blessed, rustic ambiance held an unspoken reverence. Over the years, the enchanting town shaped itself into a model of goodness and light, a portrait no less worthy than one Norman Rockwell would have painted.
“I don’t remember ever hearing a police siren the whole time we lived there,” Lissa added breezily. “But don’t get me wrong, we had our troubles, pranksters and stuff. Like the time this kid, Billy Underwood—wild kid, for sure—anyway, he let a snake loose inside the lingerie department of Starn’s Bridal Shop.” With a giggle, Lissa slapped her thigh. “Can you believe it? Oh, and at Fielding’s Feed and Farm store, this rambunctious dog got away from his owner and knocked over an entire rack of packed egg cartons. Splat… right on the floor.”
“That’s it, just snakes and dogs?” Robin gave her a curious look.
“What can I say?” Lissa managed a shrug. “It was a backwoods town.”
With a half-smile, Robin slowly shook her head. “You led a sheltered life, girl.”
Lissa threw her hands up. “Just lucky, I guess.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Dust motes floated by the window, and Lissa took a mental snapshot of the moment. Robin’s friendship. The sweet notes of jasmine sifting from her perfume. The absence of the usual mild chaos emanating from Lacy’s bedroom. Apparently, the children were playing quietly for a change.
“Well,” Lissa said, filling in the gap. “You’ve been such a good friend, Robin.” She let the words settle. “I don’t know who could have been more help to me after my mom…” She bit back the rest of her words.
“That’s what friends are for,” Robin said, her lilting voice going soft. She scanned the room. “While I’m here, is there anything I can help you with?”
Lissa glanced around. “Actually, I think we’re pretty good. Oh, wait.” She held up a finger. “On second thought, there is something you can help me with. That is, if you wouldn’t mind taking some food.” She went to the kitchen. Standing at the refrigerator, she called, “Would you have need of this?” She thrust an unopened quart of 2% milk out for Robin to see at the doorway. “I have some other things in here that you might want. Come take a look,” she beckoned with her hand. This food will only go to waste if someone doesn’t use it.” Lissa pawed through and discarded the remains of old mustard and jelly jars taking up space on the door shelves along with a out-of-date carton of yogurt.
“Mom, Mrs. Logan,” Alex’s tiny voice sounded urgent as he ran up the hallway.
“We’re in here, Buddy,” Lissa called from the kitchen.
Alex approached the threshold and looked up with a question on his face. He cocked his head like a puppy, slipping his hands into his back pockets. “I don’t know where Lacy is… I can’t find her.”
“You can’t find Lacy?” Lissa said, perplexed. “Are you guys playing Hide-and-Seek?”
Alex slowly shook his head, his big blue saucer-eyes forlorn.
Lissa stepped into the hall, put her hands on her hips and shouted, “Lacy?”
Silence.
“Honey, where are you?” She struggled to keep worry from her voice.
Lissa moved down the hall to her daughter’s room. Finding it empty, she checked her own room, the bathroom, and then the hallway closet before coming back to the kitchen. Her stomach hollowed. Lissa hustled to the living room and yanked up the blinds. A stream of dust floated in the sun-filtered air. She opened the window wide. This time, the woodsy scent wasn’t so sweet as she peered out, canvassing the back yard. The woods beyond the backyard fence loomed ominously like silent warriors. Did Lacy go for a walk? Or somehow get lost? There were too many hiding places for a small girl or predator. With all that she’d lost, she couldn’t lose Lacy, too.
“She’s not here,” Lissa said, worry choking her words, as she rushed to the front door and opened it.
“Where could she be?” Robin asked, trudging behind her.
“Maybe, she’s out back,” Lissa called from outside the door as she searched the yard and street from the portico. The winter-brown lawn edged in twiggy bare barberry bushes spread out before her. In the semi-quiet of mid-morning, the only noticeable sounds came from the occasional rustling of the squirrels perched high in the trees.
Lacy often played alone. As an only child, it was something she’d grown used to. Lissa often found comfort in looking out the window to see her daughter playfully engaged by herself, either having a pretend picnic or tea with her Barbie dolls on the hammock in the summer. Had she been too lenient to allow it? Everyone believed the neighborhood to be safe.
Outside in the front yard, the tire swing hung still. The hammock, empty.

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