Return To Little Hills

Ray smiled. “But you’d buy something down in the Historic District, wouldn’t you?” he persisted. “If you ever settled down and came back home, I mean. Every time Viv and I go down Roosevelt, we see this old Victorian place that’s been for sale forever and she always says, ‘That’s what Edie would go for.’”

Edie shrugged, thinking of the astronomically priced bungalow off Sunset Boulevard she’d once been tempted to buy, mostly because it reminded her of some of the older homes in Little Hills. For what it cost, she could have bought two of them and had change to spare.

“It’s a moot point, Ray, because I’m not about to settle down and come back home. Married to my work,” she said. “Kind of like your new principal.”

“Goddamn butterfly collector.” His expression darkened. “Thanks for mentioning him again, Edie. Now you’ve ruined my mood altogether. Head stuck up in the clouds. Hasn’t figured out that we’re dealing with a bunch of loser kids. They’re not going to be Rhodes scholars, for God’s sake. Get ’em in, get ’em out, that’s the best you can do with them.”

“So what?” She asked and then, too late, remembered Vivian’s admonition. She pushed on, anyway. “He thinks some of them might have potential or something?”

Ray narrowed his eyes at her. “You haven’t changed a whole lot, have you?”

“I guess not,” she said. “Neither have you.”

“See, that’s what I mean. With you, everything has to turn into some goddamn battle. You really don’t give a damn whether I’m right or wrong about this guy. You just want an argument. Well, I’ll tell you. Give Peter Darling six months around some of those kids at Luther and I bet you a six-pack he won’t be collecting butterflies for long.”

“God, Edie,” Vivian said from the doorway. “I told you not to get Ray fired up. Now you’ve ruined the whole evening.”

“THE LAST THING I want to do is interfere in your life,” Peter’s sister, Sophia, said as they sat on a park bench watching the children play. “But it’s nearly two years now and, quite honestly, as much as I adore the girls, I do have a life back in England. This popping back and forth for extended visits is getting a bit much.”

“Has George complained?” George was Sophia’s longtime companion, but Peter gathered that the relationship was problematic. So much so that when Sophia first volunteered to come and look after the girls, she’d intimated that it would be a relief to put some distance between herself and George. In the last few weeks though, George had been calling quite frequently.

“He’s grumbling a bit, but it’s not that, really. I don’t quite trust anyone to handle the nursery as well as I can. It’s silly of me—I’m sure Trudy does a perfectly competent job—but I envision the assistants selling half-dead flowers and not offering the kind of variety people have come to expect.”

“I don’t expect you to stay forever, Sophia. The girls know that, too.”

He stretched his legs out. His oldest daughter, Natalie, was pushing the twins on side-by-side swings. Natalie was eight; Abbie and Kate were four. Delphina, the seven year-old, sat off to one side, her expression wistful. A quiet and solitary child, she seemed always in the shadows of her sisters’ play. He worried about Delphina. He worried about them all. Natalie was saddled with too much responsibility for a child of her age; the twins still sucked their thumbs. Last night, Abbie had wet the bed—the third time in a week.

“Peter—” Sophia knocked on his temple “—are you in there somewhere?”

“Thinking,” he said.

“Not about a sudden sighting of the swallow-tailed thingamajig, I hope.”

“Painted swallowtail.” He grinned. “Actually it was rather unusual to spot one so far north this late in the year…but no, I was thinking about what you were saying. You’ve been an incredible help with the girls, but I do understand that you need to go home.”

“What will you do?”

“Look around for a live-in nanny, I suppose. I’d planned to do that after Deborah died…”

Sophia rubbed his arm.

“I’m fine.”

“Still miss her?”

“Of course.”

“Life goes on, though.”

“Please spare me the homilies, Sophia. I’ll work things out in my own way.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Deborah was always very pragmatic and unsentimental,” he said. “As soon as we knew how ill she was we discussed what would happen with the girls. She was convinced I’d be married within the year. Quite adamant really that I should be married, that it would be better for us all.”

“I always did admire Deborah’s intelligence,” Sophia said. “Pity that her husband is less gifted in that regard.”

Peter shot her a sideways glance.

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Peter. Look at that Amelia woman you were so besotted with. The girls didn’t have the foggiest idea what to make of her. And she was obviously quite bewildered by them. Honestly, sometimes I want to grab your shoulders and shake you very, very hard. How could you not have seen that this woman was all wrong for you? It was apparent to me the moment you introduced her.”

“Perhaps you should have warned me.”

“I did.”

“Oh.” He grinned. “Perhaps I should have listened.”

“Why won’t you find a nice woman?”

“Amelia was nice.”

“Amelia was an actress.”

“Actresses can’t be nice?”

“I wouldn’t know firsthand, Peter, my life being considerably less exotic than yours, but Amelia struck me as…a tart.”

“Sophia,” Peter said, “Amelia wasn’t a tart. Perhaps not a candidate for marriage, but not a tart.”

“Well, that’s as may be,” Sophia said darkly. “But why are you drawn only to unsuitable women?”

“Because,” Peter said honestly, “as much as I’d like to meet a woman who could love the girls and create the sort of home Deborah and I had, I want more than a mother replacement. I want to be in love.”

“Of course you do,” Sophia said. “And?”

“And I’ve discovered that I’m not particularly attracted to nice women who want to settle down and have children.”

“Rubbish.” Sophia dismissed the comment with a flap of her hand. “You simply have to put your mind to it. What we need,” she said briskly, “is a plan. Now, wipe that stupid grin off your face and think very carefully. Not about the kind of woman to whom you’ve typically been attracted… We’re looking for wife material. Start naming names. We’re thinking sweet, potentially maternal and absolutely not flighty. Come on, there must be someone at school. Think hard.”

“Betty Jean Battaglio,” he said after five minutes of not very hard thinking.

“Good.” Sophia smiled. “Tell me about her.”

“She’s my secretary,” he said.

Sophia looked dubious. “Hmm. Not always advisable to dip the pen into the company inkwell, as it were, but if you’re discreet… What does she look like?”

“Dark hair, blue eyes. Pictures of cats all over her desk.”