The Orchard House Page 13

  He went toward the stairs, Victoria’s gaze following him, something cold—or maybe just sad—within her eyes. Was she mad we’d been alone, or was it the same thing that I caught the other night at dinner, the thing I heard in Will’s hard tone, that feeling that something wasn’t quite right between the two of them?

  She turned to me, put on a sunny expression. “Ready?”

  I looked back up the stairs, to where we’d last seen Will, and blinked. “Yeah. I was just getting some coffee.”

  I didn’t think there could have been a more peculiar situation if I pulled it from one of my books. I followed her out the door to her car.

  “Victoria, are you guys all right? I mean, if me staying here is going to create—”

  “Everything’s fine, okay?” She gave me a tight smile. “Let’s just have a great day. This is my favorite week at Orchard House and Maddie’s excited. Let’s have fun.”

  I slid into the passenger seat, said hi to Victoria’s daughter, who nodded at me but didn’t bother taking out her earbuds.

  Victoria put the car in drive. “So what did you think of the book? It’s basic, but I think it works for our purposes.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s perfect, but I have to admit I’ve never taught kids before. Only adults. I’m a little nervous.”

  There. I’d admitted vulnerability. Surely that was some sort of healthy relationship marker. Maybe I didn’t need to keep seeing a counselor after all.

  “Oh, you’ll be great! The staff is so excited that the Casey Hood is going to teach, and I know the kids will be floored as well.”

  “Floored, huh?

  She gave me a guilty grin. “I’m a dweeb, yes. Some things never change.”

  “So who usually teaches the classes? I don’t want to usurp anyone.”

  “That would be me, so no need to worry about that.”

  I wanted to ask her if she still wrote or if she’d traded in dreams of publication for those of marriage and children, but I couldn’t bring myself to voice the question.

  She stopped at a light. “I’m serious about not imposing on your time, though. There are two classes. One first thing in the morning and one after lunch. If you want to borrow my car, you can go back home, or . . . well, I had Luke set up a little something special for you in the school.”

  “School?”

  “Bronson Alcott’s School of Philosophy?”

  “Really? Wow, that’d be great. Who’s Luke?”

  “The groundskeeper.”

  She pulled into the driveway beside Orchard House and drove her van up the hill. When she parked it at the top, we grabbed our stuff and the three of us trooped down the stairs. When we reached the school, she turned to Maddie. “Go on inside, honey. We’ll be right in.”

  Maddie obeyed, though she didn’t seem happy about it.

  I followed Victoria to the school, where she pushed open the door. We climbed the stairs, and a chill from the barnlike structure raced up my legs. “I wish we could find you a quiet place inside the house, but I thought this might do.” She gestured to a corner on the back side, where a fire burned. A small desk and swivel chair sat atop an area rug. “I thought it might be neat for you to write some of your book here . . .” She shook her head. “But don’t feel like you have to. Maybe it’s a stupid idea. Something I would have liked to do, but we never were the same in that—”

  I stopped her words by putting a hand on her arm. “It’s perfect. I can’t wait to write here.”

  She slumped over in what appeared to be relief, smiled at me even as her bottom lip trembled. “I’m glad.”

  There was more to say, and for the first time I wanted to say it, but she turned and led us back outside, then on the path toward the Orchard House entrance.

  True, I didn’t understand all that stood between me and Victoria, both the good and the bad. And true, I’d come here thinking if I gave Victoria anything, it would be the cold shoulder. But there, in that old room that represented so much of what had brought us together in the first place, seeing all the effort she was going through to make me comfortable, something small changed within me. As if a piece of the hard exterior I’d buttressed around my heart got chipped away.

  I didn’t want to wade. I didn’t want the ugly. But like it or not, it seemed it wanted me all the same.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I live in my inkstand, scribble, scribble from morning till night, and am more peckish than ever if disturbed.

  ~ LMA

  Taylor

  “DID YOU KNOW that Louisa May Alcott moved to Concord when she was just about your age?” Victoria addressed the small group seated around the classroom. “That’s the first time she had her own room, and that meant so much to her because she finally had a place of her own to start writing. You see, you are never, never too young to write. Or too old for that matter.”

  Her gaze caught mine and something passed between us, though I couldn’t say what it was. Did Victoria think it was too late to revisit childhood dreams?

  She skimmed through Louisa’s publishing history, ending with the publication of Little Women one hundred fifty years ago. Then she put her hands together. “Now, I have a very special guest for you today. While we may not be able to talk to Louisa May Alcott in the twenty-first century, we have other authors who know a thing or two about writing a good story. This is my sister, Taylor, and she writes under what we sometimes call a pen name. Her pen name is Casey Hood, and chances are you’ve seen her books around. And today she’s going to be your teacher and tell you a little bit about what it takes to be a writer.”

  The group clapped, and I rose to stand beside Victoria. A sea of young faces and eyes looked expectantly up at me, and I dragged in a deep breath. I’d done plenty of public speaking before, but never in front of my sister and niece, never with such a young audience.

  I greeted them and thanked Victoria. “This is a special place. I remember coming here as a girl and sitting in the very bedroom where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women and thinking, ‘Wow, I better write something great here.’ But you know what? I learned something since then. Writing . . . in a way, it’s all great. No matter what other people think of it, no matter how many times it doesn’t win you a contest or get you published, every word serves a purpose. And none of them are bad.”

  I dragged in one more deep breath, tried to think what I needed to hear as a young girl, a young writer. For so long, I’d felt trapped, not good enough, as if I didn’t fit in. What had set me free?

  “Louisa May Alcott felt strongly. She had a little bit of a temper, and she was known for doing things other girls didn’t like doing—like running. I think I didn’t learn to write until I allowed myself to feel. It’s when I unleashed that thing inside of me that I was always stuffing down—when I became honest in my writing . . . that’s when things started happening.”

  I met Victoria’s gaze, and she nodded encouragement. I took it, opening the book. “So let’s start our time by talking about what every good writer needs to do—read!”

  I finished out the lesson, and we led the young writers back down to Orchard House.

  Victoria squeezed my arm. “You did great.”

  I wasn’t completely sure she wasn’t just being nice, but I decided to take the compliment at face value.

  We ushered the campers through a quick tour of Orchard House, my own limbs tingling at being back in the same rooms where the Alcotts lived and breathed. Then, up to Louisa’s room, where they sat on the same carpet with their notebooks. I stood near Louisa’s desk, letting Victoria encourage them to release their pens to their imaginations.

  I closed my eyes, soaking in the room that had always represented something magical to me. I remembered that long-ago day of Jo March Writing Camp, how Victoria and I had reinstated the Pickwick Club. She’d always been twice as determined as me. What had happened?

  The room quieted as the kids began to write, and Victoria came beside me. “We’ll be here for a l
ittle while. I like to give them a lot of time. Feel free to get to your own writing.”

  I nodded. While part of me could have stayed forever in that room with all that young enthusiasm and creative juices flowing, another part of me longed to tuck myself away and hide within black words and white screen and make-believe people.

  I slid around the children, felt Maddie’s gaze heavy upon me, but stopped at the raised hand of a little blonde girl who couldn’t have been older than eight. I crouched beside her.

  She leaned close to whisper into my ear. “What if we don’t know what to write?”

  I tucked my hands around my knees, looked at her blank page. “Sometimes, one word will do it.”

  She looked at me, her brow furrowed.

  “What’s your favorite time of day?”

  Her gaze darted sideways at the rug before dragging back to me. “Morning, when Mommy makes me pancakes.”

  “There’s your word . . . morning. Or try pancakes. Make one sentence out of that and see where it takes you.”

  Her face lit up and she thanked me, started writing her sentence. Truthfully, I didn’t know if it was the best advice, but she was writing.

  I went down the stairs, glimpsing the portrait of Louisa’s niece in red—May’s daughter, nicknamed Lulu. Not for the first time, I thought about Louisa’s relationship with her youngest sister—the one portrayed in Little Women between Jo and Amy.

  No doubt, like many sisterly relationships, it was a complicated one.

  “I detest rude, unladylike girls.”

  “I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits.”

  I smiled at the long-ago memorized exchange between Amy and Jo but sobered at the thought of Amy throwing her sister’s beloved book into the fire. I remembered reading it for the first time, feeling the horror of all Jo’s hard work . . . gone.

  Without some shame, I recalled the softball bat I’d used on Victoria’s laptop that day sixteen years ago. At the time, I thought the punishment just and well deserved. Now, with each day that passed where Victoria didn’t mention my last transgression, with each day that I realized she didn’t intend to guilt me over what I’d done, a sharp sense of shame grew in the pit of my belly. My time with the Bennetts—and Victoria—seemed to water it.

  There’d been hope for Jo and Amy and for Louisa and May. After Amy fell into an icy pond, in part because of Jo’s neglect, Jo realized how much her sister meant to her. The real Jo and Amy—Louisa and May—had grown up to support one another in their creative endeavors. May even named her only child after Louisa. And weeks after the youngest Alcott gave birth to her child in Europe and realized she would not survive, she had requested her husband send their daughter to her sister back in New England, that Louisa might be the small girl’s mother when May could not.

  Yes, there’d been hope for the two sets of sisters—both real and fictional. But what of Victoria and me? Our bond was different, the fracture that had separated us seeming more severe.

  I thought of Will in the Bennett kitchen that morning. Seeing him had stirred a million things inside me, and yet, in the end, none of it mattered. He was my sister’s husband. Maddie and Caden’s father. Wasn’t it selfish of me to come back into their lives, harboring a sixteen-year-old grudge? Their betrayal hurt, but like it or not, it had produced a marriage, a beautiful family.

  I thought of Laurie marrying Amy, how despite Jo’s insistence that Laurie not love her, she was still hurt over his love for Amy. The thought made me feel a smidge better. Healing would take time. Still, Jo had met her Professor Bhaer, and I had yet to meet mine.

  I slid out the door of the gift shop and up the path to Bronson’s school, tried to correct my thinking. Kevin. Kevin was my Professor Bhaer. My perfect match. We suited one another. No matter if I couldn’t admit vulnerability to him, if I couldn’t give him my full heart. This was real life, not fiction. Sometimes love wasn’t perfect. Best to save perfect for the novels.

  I opened the door of the school. The fire, though beginning to die down, still gave off a toasty warmth into the cool April morning. I rubbed my hands together and approached the corner Victoria had arranged for me.

  I used to think this place—Orchard House and its grounds—held some sort of mystical power for writers. Now I knew. It wasn’t so much the place as what we brought to it. If Louisa Alcott and Little Women hadn’t already captured the hearts of those who visited, the place wasn’t half as meaningful.

  What did I bring to this place all these years later? This place that in many ways felt like home to me?

  I lowered myself to the office chair, grateful for the rug under my feet instead of the hard wood boards that lay beneath it. I slipped my laptop from my bag and opened it to the document I had begun last month.

  I looked at the words, at the characters I’d created that now echoed back at me flat and lifeless. Sudden panic seized me.

  Leaving this place, clinging to my anger, was what had enabled me to write and write well. What if, in coming back to Concord, in slowly mending the rift between me and the Bennetts—maybe even me and Victoria—what if I was giving up my ability to write a great story?

  I looked out the window to the steep slope in the back of the school.

  Feel deeply.

  That’s what I believed made a good writer. Perception. Honesty. Authenticity and feeling. If anything, coming back to Concord should make me a better writer.

  I dove in for the next half hour, forcing words onto the screen because that’s what I did—I wrote. Even when I wasn’t inspired, even when I felt like the words were no good. Wasn’t that what I encouraged that little girl in Louisa’s room to do?

  But for the first time, the words—the story—felt all wrong. I sat back, pondering how I could fix it. If I could fix it.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Come in!” I yelled, almost welcoming the distraction.

  A man pushed through the door, his arms laden with wood. “Thought you could use some more. It’s cold out there for April.”

  “Oh!”

  I went to help him, but he shook his head. “I got it.”

  “I don’t mean to be any trouble. But thank you, I appreciate it.”

  He laid the wood beside the fireplace, took up a poker, and stuck it into the glowing coals. “Boss’s orders. Besides, you’re helping the kids without pay—it’s the least we can do.”

  I discreetly studied his profile beneath a black-and-yellow Bruins hat. Specks of gray danced at his temples, faint but pleasant lines hugged his eyes. He stood after adding a log to the fire, and when he backed up a step, I noticed a slight limp.

  “You’re Luke, right?” I held out my hand. “I’m Taylor.”

  He grasped it and I noted how calloused and worn his hand was. So large it enveloped my own. I couldn’t help but think of Kevin, of his soft hands. Not that I cared. Kevin used his brain for work, probably never mowed a lawn in his life. It suited him.

  “Nice to meet you.” He stood there relaxed, slipping his hands into his pockets.

  “You too.” I gestured out the window. “You do a great job. The place looks beautiful.”

  “I do what I can.” He nodded toward my laptop. “Hear you’re some big-name author. How’s the writing coming?”

  I scrunched my nose in the direction of the screen. “There’s things being written but I’m not so certain they’re good things.”

  “What do you write?” He adjusted his hat, giving me a better glimpse of his face, his still-full head of hair, definitely beginning to gray in a distinguished sort of way.

  “Fiction. Small-town romances, that sort of stuff.”

  “What’s your last name? I’ll have to check some of it out.”

  I flopped down in my chair. “I’m not sure it’d be your sort of thing . . .”

  “How do you know? Maybe it’s just my sort of thing.” The corner of his mouth twitched, and I couldn’t help but find it charming.

  I raised my eyebrows. “You
read a lot?”

  “I’m not part of a book club or anything, but yeah, I do my fair share. Mostly classics and nonfiction. Reading Lord of the Rings now.”

  I was intrigued. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. So what’s your last name so I can look you up?”

  I dipped my hand in my bag, searching for a bookmark. “It’s Bennett, but I write under a pen name.”

  With sharp clarity, I remembered Lorraine coming to me sometime in the middle of the adoption process. She needed to know if I wanted to keep my birth mother’s last name or change it to theirs.

  “What do you think?” twelve-year-old me had asked, lifting my quivering gaze to where she sat beside me on my bed.

  “Honey, we’d be honored to share our last name with you, but we understand if you want to keep your mom’s.”

  I’d thought for a long time, all too aware that I was taking her time from making cookies or working in her flower beds, all too aware that she had already spent more time than she should have with lawyers and social workers and paperwork on my behalf.

  “You can think about it awhile if you’d like,” she’d said.

  But I shook my head. When I spoke, it was with a slow start. “When you adopt me, then . . . you would be my mom, right?”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Victoria’s mother’s eyes were especially wet and shiny in that moment.

  “That’s right. Is that okay?”

  I bit my lip, nodded. “Then I guess I should have the same last name as you?” I tried out the thought on her, didn’t want to appear presumptuous that I could share such a special thing as a name with people providing me with so much undeserved acceptance already.

  She smiled. “I think that would be fitting.”

  “Okay, then.”

  She touched my face, cupping it in her cool hand. “Okay, then.”

  I had a new name. A name that meant I belonged with a special unit of people.

  A family.

  Little did I know that truly fitting in, truly belonging, would require so much more than a simple name.

  I sighed, looked at the bookmarks my publisher had printed for me, my pseudonym prominently displayed on my newest release. Casey Hood.