Tall and slim, Barbara had rich sable hair, worn long with a heavy fringe of bangs. Most teenagers would have killed for that porcelain complexion. Barbara was a beauty, give or take the adolescent garb. Newly budding breasts were concealed under a voluminous old sweatshirt; the jeans, by contrast, undoubtedly took her a half hour to get out of; she had probably put them on wet and let them dry. The only feature of Griff’s that Barbara had inherited was a pair of beautiful dark eyes, accented-five minutes after her father had left the house-with four coats of mascara.
Those eyes kept darting over to Susan, slipping past her favorite dinner, dancing past Susan’s utterly innocuous gray wool pants and bright red sweater, glancing into Susan’s compassionate gray eyes, flitting around the dining room, taking in the deacon’s bench and long oak table and crystal chandelier…and apparently disdaining all of it.
Susan made every effort to send over her own share of silent messages: Honey, I’m sorry Griff isn’t here; you know how much he values time with you. Yes, I know the last thing you want is to be stuck here alone with me. I’ve seen all those intimidating looks you keep giving me, but I’m not raising any white flags yet. And, yes, you little vixen, I’ve noticed the eye shadow and mascara, but you’re going to have to wait until hell freezes over before I make any comments about the appropriate age at which to wear makeup. First of all, I have no interest in playing Wicked Stepmother, and second, if I’d had an asset like those big, beautiful eyes I would probably have worn mascara when I was five. Perhaps not quite that thick, but…
“Want some chocolate cake?” Susan stood up with her plate in her hand.
“No, thank you,” Barbara said stiffly.
Susan juggled a few more dishes in her arms before heading toward the kitchen, ignoring Barbara’s glacial voice. “Your dad said he’d call around eight. Barbara, you know he had no idea until four this afternoon that he was going to be anywhere but right here with you. It wasn’t his fault that-”
“You told me.”
“He’s still hoping to be here by noon tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Barbara unfolded her long legs from under the table, a very odd mixture of feminine grace and early teenage clumsiness. She followed Susan, taking no dishes, and stood in the doorway while her stepmother started storing the leftovers. “Dad’s probably just as happy anyway. Like I was expecting something like this. A setup, you know?”
Susan turned startled eyes to her. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on, Susan. Here we are, getting to know each other. I mean, like, you’re supposed to be part of my family now, too, right? So you’re taking us on, one at a time. First Tiger, now me. Then Tom.”
Susan closed the refrigerator with a little thump, well aware what the girl thought of that particular program. An elephant couldn’t have missed the sarcasm. She ran the sink full of hot water and added enough soap to wash the dishes forty times over. “It’s rough for you, isn’t it?” She briskly put the dishes into the sink. “You were used to having a lot of private time with your dad. Naturally, you’re afraid I’m going to cut into that and interfere in your relationship with him in other ways, too. On top of that, of course, you have a mother already, you don’t need two. I think if I were in your shoes, I’d feel just as uptight as you do.” She added casually, “I don’t mind washing, but I hate drying.”
Barbara’s stricken look might or might not have resulted from her resentment at being expected to dry the dishes, but she took up the towel anyway. Silence returned like an unwanted friend. Susan thought with wry desperation that she must have scored at least a minor hit; what fun is it to attack an enemy who won’t fight back? The silence was no fun, either, though.
For Susan, the worst part of being stared at was that she couldn’t dry her hands and finish off the single fingernail she’d started unobtrusively biting five minutes after Barbara walked in. Having beaten the horrible habit when she was fifteen, Susan suddenly clearly remembered what it felt like to have a half-gnawed nail that craved to be evened up.
Griff called a few minutes later from Duluth, only to tell them he couldn’t possibly be home until late Sunday morning. He talked to his daughter for more than twenty minutes, while Susan finished the dishes, desperately missed her husband and sweated out how on earth she was going to entertain Barbara for two evenings and an entire day.
“Darling, is it going all right?” he asked Susan when his daughter finally handed her the phone.
“Just fine,” she told him blithely.
As they walked out of the kitchen a few minutes later, Barbara complained, “I don’t understand what’s so important to Dad about that stupid land, anyway. It’s not like it’s worth anything. Mom told me ages ago that all the real money comes from the plants in St. Paul. There’s no reason why Dad still has to go up there all the time.”
“It’s the land your great-grandfather homesteaded,” Susan answered. And that he destroyed, Griff had told her. He and the others of his generation pillaged the forests, and no one had thought to replant them until thirty years ago. Griff’s father had planted jack pine, a tree that grew fast enough to provide a regular income, yet Griff had different dreams for the land. He was meeting forestry people over the weekend. Busy people, like him. There was no other time.
“So what does that have to do with anything?” Barbara insisted petulantly. “If it doesn’t make money, what’s the point of it?”
Susan sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like giving Griff’s ex-wife a good kick in the chops for engraining in her offspring such a materialistic attitude. “The love of the forest is the point,” she said patiently.
Barbara seemed momentarily diverted as she started roaming from room to room. Susan followed, hoping the girl would find some of the spirit of “home” that she and Griff saw in the house. Not everything was finished, of course. They’d hurried through the big jobs, the repairing and painting and tearing up that were needed to make the house livable. Tiger’s and then Barbara’s room had been Susan’s top priorities, and the downstairs was still skimpily furnished. But there was enough, surely, so that Barbara could see that the goal was comfort and space? A place she might want to come home to…
The girl paused at the threshold to the library. Russet carpet led up to the small fire Susan had laid in the hearth. The bookshelves were filled now, and Griff’s antique maps hung on the walls. The silver sconces above the fireplace had been polished, and they gleamed in the firelight. Nubby cream-colored couches faced each other, their cushions begging to be sunk into. Where Griff had uncovered the treasure, Susan didn’t know, but he’d converted a small semicircular gaming table into a writing desk; its dark patina shone in contrast to the original oak paneling and the rich russet of the new carpet.
“Mom likes blue,” Barbara remarked.
“I’m sure she does.”
Barbara subjected the living room to the same intense scrutiny. “You are going to get some furniture sooner or later, aren’t you? I mean, not just this old stuff?”