Fireside

“I thought you owned the house free and clear after Grandma died.”

“I did. I do. But then I needed money, so I agreed to an ill-considered equity loan. I’m afraid it was a rather bad decision on my part.”

It felt strange, talking with her mother about finances. Kim’s father used to handle the money exclusively, and she and Penelope never heard a word about it. “How bad?” Kim asked. “Are you saying you can’t afford to live here without taking in boarders?”

“I’m saying I can’t afford to live at all without doing something,” her mother said, her voice quiet and resigned.

“This is crazy, Mom. What happened? We had everything. Dad earned a ton of money.” Kim studied her mother’s face, wondering why she suddenly felt like a stranger. “Didn’t he?”

Penelope paused, set down her cloth and took a seat at the table. “Kimberly, perhaps I was wrong to keep this from you, but I didn’t want you to fret about it. I knew you’d worry if I explained my new circumstances.”

“Worry?” Kim said. “You think?”

“No need to be sarcastic, dear. We’ve both kept our secrets.”

“I’m sorry. What part of ‘my boyfriend gave me a black eye’ is the secret part?”

“Oh, Kimberly. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Just level with me, Mom. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

“Well, the truth is, your father left behind a great deal of debt.”

That simply didn’t compute. They hadn’t lived like a family in debt.

“I don’t get it,” Kim said.

Her mother smiled, but without amusement. “I had some notion of preserving your memory of your father, but I suppose that was naive of me.”

“I don’t understand. Did he have some secret life you only discovered after he was gone?”

Penelope folded her hands on the table. “In fact, he did, in a way. When he was alive, he never said a word about his debts. I had no idea and to this day, I still don’t quite understand. He invested in a number of hedge funds that were called in, and had to mortgage and remortgage all our property. It’s not that I didn’t love your father,” she said. “I did. Very much. We enjoyed life and I had no idea how much we were living beyond our means. Sometimes I think that’s what killed your father. The stress of it. The strain of pretending.”

“I never knew.” Kim shut her eyes, trying to conjure a picture of her father, always so distinguished and reserved. The two of them had always had a turbulent relationship. This only made him seem more distant, as though she’d never even known him at all.

“In settling his affairs, it all came to light,” said her mother. “I’ve had to take measures in order to cover his liabilities. I had to … liquidate some things.”

The quaver in her voice caused Kim to feel a clutch of apprehension. “What things, Mom?”

“Well … everything.”

Everything. That was inconceivable. They had a home in Manhattan and a weekend place on Long Island and a condo in Boca Raton. There was an extensive stock portfolio. Wasn’t there?

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“That was what I asked the lawyer and the probate judge. There was a subprime second mortgage on the apartment, about to balloon to twelve percent. The house in Montauk and the condo in Largo were in foreclosure. Our equities and savings were nonexistent. I own this house free and clear, because my parents left it to me, but that’s the extent of it.”

“Mom, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She felt betrayed now by two men she’d trusted, two men she thought she knew.

“Nor did I.”

“Are you sure? While Dad was alive, you had no idea?”

Her mother’s smile was tinged with bitterness. “None. I feel so foolish for keeping myself in the dark about our finances.”

“You weren’t foolish, Mom,” Kim said. “You had every reason to trust him. But … are you sure taking in boarders is the answer?”

“Believe me, I left no stone unturned. But, Kim, just think of it. I majored in women’s studies a hundred years ago. I’ve never had a career and I have no marketable skills. I had to do something desperate or I would have fallen in arrears and been forced to sell Fairfield House.”

“I can’t believe Dad left you like this. How could you not have known?”

“Because,” she said, getting up from the table, “I didn’t realize I should have been looking.”

“You should have told me sooner.”

“Yes. It just seemed so cruel, though, to burden you with this. It was bad enough your father died so suddenly. I didn’t want to add this to your grief.”

“What about your grief?”

“I beat it into submission with anger and resentment,” Penelope said simply.

Kim wasn’t quite sure whether or not her mother was joking. After all she’d heard this morning, she wasn’t sure of anything.

“Richard was a master of deception, of making people see what he wanted them to see.”

That was true, Kim reflected. Everyone, across the board, had the same opinion of Richard van Dorn—that he was a refined and monied individual. In Manhattan, they had lived in the “right” area and she had gone to the “right” schools. They’d taken luxurious vacations, and her parents had hosted and attended the sort of parties and events that were written about in the society columns the next day. Her parents belonged to exclusive clubs, took part in charity fundraisers. How had he managed to hide the fact that he’d run them into a world of debt?

How her father would have hated this, she thought. He would have despised the idea of his wife taking in tenants, opening her home to paying strangers. Maybe he should have thought about that before driving himself into debt and then dying and leaving all the humiliation and heartache to his wife, who never did anything but believe in him. Except her mother did not appear to be humiliated. Rather than spiraling into despair like a latter-day Jane Austen character, Penelope van Dorn had embraced the new project.

Racing in a taxi to the airport last night, Kim had hoped to find a sense of peace and security, home with her mother. Instead, she’d found a house filled with strangers and painted all the mad colors of the rainbow. She realized she had a lot to learn about her father. At the moment, however, she could barely think straight.

Now that she understood the financial fiasco that had necessitated her mother’s move, Kim wondered if Penelope was only pretending to like it here. Pretending that turning her home into a boardinghouse was some kind of delightful, quirky adventure.

Finally, in the dead of winter, Kim could fully appreciate how radically her mother’s life had changed two summers ago, when she lost her husband. The contrast between her Manhattan lifestyle and the winter wilderness of upstate was sharply pronounced. Yet it struck Kim that she didn’t know her mother very well. She had never bothered to look beneath the surface of Penelope Fairfield van Dorn. Instead, she’d taken her at face value, the way the rest of the world did.

If she accomplished nothing else here, Kim thought, at least she could remedy that. She would help her mother sort out her finances. Now Kim understood the reason why Penelope had not urged her to visit. Her mother hadn’t wanted to burden her with the knowledge of her true circumstances. Hadn’t wanted to poison a daughter’s memories of her father with something so inconvenient as the truth.

Things happened for a reason. Kim would do whatever it took to help her mother. If this meant moving to a tiny mountain town and rolling up her sleeves, so be it. This was hardly the life Kim had planned for herself, but her own goals and plans and hard work had led to a dead end. She’d been driven by a need to impress her father, burnishing his reputation by making a name for herself. In a way, that was exactly what she did for her clients—made them look good. Clearly there was a flaw in that strategy.

She wasn’t likely to find the answer to her dreams here, but maybe coming here would yield something more precious—the chance to reconnect with her mother. To give back to the one person who had given Kim unconditional love. And maybe, if Kim was very lucky, to figure out a direction that didn’t lead to disaster.

Four

There were some papers for Bo to sign before the airline could officially release its unaccompanied minor.

“See you around, AJ,” said the flight attendant, handing Bo duplicate copies of the paperwork. She was a pretty woman in her dark uniform and sweater, and in a different situation, Bo might flirt with her, offer to buy her a drink—which he now needed worse than ever.

She offered a smile that somehow hinted she might be open to such an offer. In general, women tended to like him. Now was hardly the time for flirting, though. “He did great,” she reported. “You must be very proud of your son.”