Rhanna pressed her lips together, managing to look chastened. “It wasn’t snark, Lizzy. I swear. It’s just that she’s . . . unexpected.”
Lizzy had to give her that one. Her own first impressions had been similar. Now, here she was, defending Evvie like a mama bear, wanting Rhanna to see her as she did: generous and wise—an extension of the Moon clan. “If we’re talking unexpected, you should see her with her bees. She doesn’t wear a stitch of protective gear. No gloves. No netting. Nothing. She just sings to them.”
Rhanna squinted one eye. “Did you just say she sings to them?”
“I did. It’s eerie, but beautiful too. They swarm all over her, and not one sting.”
“Peter, Paul, and Mary . . . ,” Rhanna said softly, as if unable to imagine such a thing.
The expression brought a smile to Lizzy’s face. It was Rhanna’s signature expletive—a hippiefied version of the ever-popular Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, which Althea had forbidden her to utter, asserting that the Moons did not take the name of anyone’s god in vain. Apparently, she’d had no such compunction about taking the names of sixties folk singers in vain.
“You like her,” Rhanna said.
“I do. And I’d appreciate it if you’d show her some respect. She was good to Althea, and she’s been good to me.” She took a sip of her coffee, eyeing Rhanna over the rim of her mug. Coffee. Chitchat. What was she up to? “I’m surprised to see you. I didn’t think you were up yet.”
“I’ve been up for hours, actually. I got some meditation in, did a little yoga, then went out to the orchard.”
Lizzy paused, mug halfway to her mouth. “Why?”
“You said it burned. I needed to see it.”
“You didn’t believe me?”
“Of course I believed you. I just needed to see it for myself. To get a vibe, you know.”
“A vibe?”
“It was on purpose, wasn’t it? Someone set it?”
“You got that from a vibe?”
“No, from the way you were acting last night. I could tell there was something you didn’t want me to know. So what’s the deal? Why were you trying to keep it from me?”
Well, that certainly hadn’t taken long. Lizzy blew out a breath. “Because I was exhausted and I didn’t want you flipping out.”
Rhanna nodded. “Fair enough. So what happened?”
“The investigators found two bottles in the rubble. One still had a rag stuffed into the neck. It was soaked with kerosene. That’s all we know at this point.”
It was mostly true. That was all they knew for certain. The rest was just speculation.
Rhanna was staring at her, horrified. “They have no idea who did it?”
“It was the day before yesterday. They’re working on it.”
“After all these years,” Rhanna said softly. “They still can’t leave us alone.”
Lizzy lifted a brow. “It’s us now?”
Rhanna’s shoulders sagged. “You’re determined to make this weird, aren’t you?”
“I’m not making it weird,” Lizzy replied. “It is weird. You. Here. Acting like nothing happened. And I’m supposed to just play along. Why? For Althea’s sake?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Althea’s gone, Rhanna. And the farm will be too, in a few months’ time.”
Rhanna’s shoulders sagged. “You’re selling then? You’ve decided?”
“That’s the plan. There’s just one problem. The place is falling apart, and there’s no money for repairs.”
Rhanna peered into her mug. “It’s hard to see, isn’t it? Everything looks so tired. The gardens are all dead and wasted. I’m almost glad Althea isn’t here to see it.”
Lizzy shot her a hard look. “This didn’t just happen, Rhanna. It’s been happening for years. There was no money and no one to help her. And she was here to see it.”
Rhanna set down her mug and stepped away. “I couldn’t stay, Lizzy.” The words tumbled out in a rush, as if she’d been holding them in since she climbed out of Andrew’s truck. “I just . . . I couldn’t.”
Lizzy couldn’t look at her. She reached for the sheet of Bubble Wrap on the worktable and began smashing the tiny blisters, one at a time, between her thumb and middle finger. Anything to keep from making eye contact. Perhaps because acknowledging her mother’s regrets—her pain and her guilt—would mean acknowledging her own.
“I know,” she said softly.
Rhanna looked away, sighing heavily. “You don’t. You couldn’t. Though I suppose you have your own reasons for hating this place.”
Lizzy’s brow furrowed. Something about the remark rankled. “I don’t hate it. I never hated it. I just wanted a different kind of life. A normal life. And I have that. I live in New York now, and work for a perfume designer.”
Rhanna turned back with a quiet smile. “Of course you do. You always knew what you wanted, even as a girl. And always so serious. You practically lived in that barn when you were a kid, always concocting something or other. I still remember how it smelled, the flowers and herbs drying in bunches or on screens, all the smells mingling together. I used to think of it as a single fragrance, but not you. You could pick each one out of the air—basil, tarragon, rosemary, sage. Do you remember?”
Lizzy nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”
“So this job of yours—you’ll have your own line of fragrances?”
“I don’t actually design the fragrances. I work on the idea side, creative concepts, marketing campaigns, that sort of thing.”
Rhanna’s brows lifted. “Don’t you miss it? The hands-on part, I mean? You used to love that stuff.”
Lizzy couldn’t argue with that. She had loved the hands-on part. But Chenier had a stable of highly paid noses for that part of the process. Her job was to put a face on their creations, to give each signature fragrance a distinct personality, then build a marketing campaign around it. It wasn’t where she’d seen herself all those years ago, but the work wasn’t without its rewards. And maybe someday it would turn into more. She was good at what she did. Very good. But she missed the creative part of the process, the delicious serendipity that had first drawn her to making perfume—the magick of scent.
“I enjoy what I do,” she told Rhanna evenly. “I was lucky to get my foot in the door at Chenier five years ago. Now I’m their creative director.”
Rhanna shook her head, her eyes suddenly shining. “It wasn’t luck, Lizzy. You’ve had perfume in your blood for as long as I can remember. You were always experimenting with fragrances, giving them cool names. What was the one I liked?”
“Earth Song,” Lizzy said quietly. “You liked the one called Earth Song.”
“Yes! That was it. It was so calming. Cool and earthy, like a walk in the woods.”
“Juniper, pink peppercorns, clary sage, and vetiver,” Lizzy recited from memory.
“You actually remember it?”
“I remember them all.”
Rhanna nodded. “I get it. Like my paintings. Each one special in its own way. I guess that’s why the whole desk-job thing surprised me. I’d go crazy. But as long as you love it . . .” She let the words trail, quiet for a time, then narrowed her gaze on Lizzy again. “You do love it, right? New York and the title, and everything?”
“Of course I do,” Lizzy replied, hating how sullen she sounded. “Why are you suddenly so interested in my career?”
“I just want you to be happy. Fulfilled, you know. Because you deserve it. You were such an amazing little girl. I remember thinking, How could one little head hold so much information? You made me wish I’d paid more attention when I was a kid and Althea was trying to teach me.” Her mouth turned down at the corners, her expression somber again. “At least she had you. You had so many wonderful gifts—and you were nothing like me. I was always glad of that.”
Lizzy wasn’t sure which of Rhanna’s revelations to respond to first. “I’m surprised you remember me as a girl.”
“I remember more than you think, Lizzy. More than I ever wanted to.”
Lizzy stared at her, annoyed. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’re not the only one with terrible memories. I live with them too. I’ve been living with them since before you were born.”
“They weren’t all bad,” Lizzy reminded her. “There was the barn. You loved doing that mural.”
Rhanna’s face brightened at the mention of the mural. “Of all the paintings I’ve done, I never loved any of them the way I loved that mural.”
Lizzy couldn’t help grinning. “You loved it because it freaked people out.”
Rhanna’s eyes shot wide. “That’s what you think? That I painted it to freak people out?”
“It’s why you do most things, isn’t it? Like the peace sign on the church. And the night you went skinny-dipping in the fountain.”
“All right. You’ve got me there. But the mural was different. It was . . . personal. It’s how twilight felt to me when I was a kid. That sliver of time between day and night, when the sky looks like velvet and the stars are just coming out. It always felt so magical, like the world was holding its breath, waiting to see what happened next.”
Lizzy was too astonished to reply. She’d never seen Rhanna so filled with . . . What was it? Happiness? Yearning? Was it possible that beneath all that angst, her mother had actually tucked away some pleasant memories?