“This would be your mother? It’s unexpected to meet you here, Miss Hardy.”

“Where else would I be when my daughter’s been hurt? The new love interest?” She scoped him head to toe. “I’ve heard a little about you. Not from you,” she said with a glance at Cilla. “We’ll have to talk. But now, just wait with Mario.”

“No. He’s no Mario, and he won’t be hanging back at heel like a trained lapdog. Don’t give them that, Ford.”

“I’m going to go in and get some coffee,” he decided. “Want me to call the cops while I’m at it?”

“No. But thanks.”

“Isn’t he all southern-fried and yummy,” Dilly commented as Ford continued toward the house. “Your taste’s improved.”

“I’m so angry with you now.” Indeed, the anger vibrated and pulsed inside her chest. “Be careful, very careful, what buttons you push.”

“You think this is easy for me, coming to this place? I’m doing what I need to do.” Dilly lifted her chin, the brave mother, supporting her injured child. Questions hurled out, but Dilly walked through them, a soldier stoically braving the front line.

“Please. Please.” She held up a hand, lifting her voice. “I understand your interest, and even on some level appreciate it. I know your viewers and your readers care, and that touches me. But you must understand that our family is, once again, going through a difficult time. And this is… painful. My daughter has been through a terrible experience. I’m here for her, as any mother would be.”

“Dilly! Dilly! When did you hear about Cilla’s accident?”

“She called me as soon as she was able. No matter how grown up, a child still wants her mother when she’s hurt. Even though she told me not to come, not to break off rehearsals for my cabaret act, not to expose myself to the grief and the memories this place holds for me, of course I came to her.”

“You haven’t been back, by your own statements, to this house since shortly after Janet Hardy’s suicide. How does it feel, being here now?”

“I can’t think of it. Not yet. My daughter is my only concern. Later, when we’ve had time to be together, in private, I’ll explore those feelings. My mother…” Her voice cracked, on cue. “My mother would want me to give my daughter, her granddaughter, all my energies.”

“Cilla, what are your plans? Will you open the house to the public? There’s speculation you hope to house memorabilia here.”

“No. I plan to live here. I am living here,” she corrected, cold, clear-voiced, while the temper beat and beat. “The property has been in my family, on both the Hardy and the McGowan sides, for generations. I’m restoring and remodeling it, and it will be, as it’s always been, a private home.”

“Is it true that you’ve been plagued by break-ins, by vandalism during your restoration?”

“There have been incidents. I don’t consider them a plague.”

“What do you say to the claims that Janet Hardy’s spirit haunts the house?”

“My mother’s spirit is here,” Dilly said before Cilla could answer. “She loved her little farm, and I believe her spirit, her voice, her beauty and her grace remain. We’re proof of that.” Dilly drew Cilla closer. “Her spirit’s in us. In me, in my daughter. And now, in some way, three generations of Hardy women are here. Now please, I need to get my daughter inside, where she can rest. I ask you, as a mother, to respect our privacy. If you have any more questions, my husband will try to answer them.”

Tipping her head close to Cilla’s, Dilly turned and walked with her toward the house.

“A little heavy on the mother card,” Cilla told her.

“I don’t think so. What happened to the tree?”

“What tree?”

“That one, with the red leaves. It was bigger. A lot bigger.”

“It was damaged, dead and dying. I replaced it.”

“It looks different. There were more flowers.” Dilly’s voice shook, but Cilla knew it was uncalculated this time. “Mama loved flowers.”

“There will be more when it’s done.” Cilla felt the dynamic shift with every step until she supported Dilly. “You’ve trapped yourself. You have to go inside now.”

“I know it. The porch was white. Why isn’t it white?”

“I had to replace most of it. It’s not painted yet.”

“The door’s not right.” Her breath quickened, as if they were running instead of walking. “That’s not her door. Why is everything changed?”

“There was damage, there was mold and dry rot. My God, Mom, there’s only been the very minimum of maintenance in the last decade, and not much more than that for twenty years before. You can’t neglect without incurring damage.”

“I didn’t neglect it. I wanted to forget it. Now I can’t, can I?”

Cilla felt her mother quiver, and would have soothed, but Dilly nudged her away as they walked inside.

“This is wrong. It’s all wrong. Where are the walls? The little parlor? The paint’s the wrong color.”

“I made changes.”

Eyes hot and gleaming, she whirled toward Cilla on her fabulous shoes. “You said you were restoring it.”

“I said I was rehabbing it, and I am. I’m making it mine, and respecting what it was.”

“I’d never have sold it to you if I’d known you’d tear it apart.”

“Yes, you would,” Cilla said coolly. “You wanted the money, and I want to live here. If you’d wanted it caught in amber, Mom, you had decades to do it. You don’t love this house, it’s a jagged edge for you. But I do love it.”

“You don’t know what I feel! I had more of her here than anywhere else. Second to Johnnie, of course, always second to her beloved son.” Tears ripped through the words. “But I had more of her when we were here than anywhere. And now it’s all changed.”

“No, not all. I had the plaster repaired, and the floor will be refinished. The floors she walked on. I’m having the stove and refrigerator she used retrofitted, and I’ll use them.”

“That big old stove?”

“Yeah.”

Dilly pressed her fingers to her lips. “She’d try to bake cookies sometimes. She was terrible at it. She’d always burn them, and laugh. We’d eat them anyway. Damn it, Cilla. Damn it. I loved her so much.”

“I know you did.”

“She was going to take me to Paris. Just the two of us. It was all planned. Then Johnnie died. He always did spoil everything for me.”

“God, Mom.”

“That’s how I felt then. After the shock, and that first awful grief because I did love him. I did love him even when I wanted to hate him.

But after that, and when she wouldn’t go to Paris, I thought, he’s spoiled that for me.” Dilly took a slow, hitching breath. “She loved him more dead than she did me alive. No matter how hard I ran, I could never catch up.”

I know how you feel, Cilla thought. Just exactly. In her way, Dilly loved her mother dead more than she could love her daughter alive.

Maybe this was about redemption, too. So Cilla took another step. “I think she loved you very, very much. I think things got horribly twisted and broken the summer he died. And she never fully mended. If she’d had more time-”

“Why didn’t she take it, then? She took the pills instead. She left me. She left me. Accident or not-and I’ll always, always believe it was an accident-she took the pills, when she could’ve taken me.”

“Mom.” Moving to her, Cilla touched Dilly’s cheek. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that before? How you felt?”

“It’s this house. It upsets me. It dredges everything up. I don’t want it. I just don’t want it.” She opened her purse, took out a silver pill case. “Get me some water, Cilla. Bottled.”

The irony, Cilla thought, would forever be lost on Dilly. The daughter who grieved because her mother chose pills over her, perpetuated the same behavior.

“All right.”

In the kitchen, Cilla pulled a bottle of water out of her mini fridge. She got a glass, added ice. Dilly would have to live without her usual slice of lemon, she mused. Pouring the water, she glanced out.

Ford stood with Brian and her pond expert by the choked waters. He held a mug of coffee, and the thumb of his other hand was hooked through one of the belt loops of his jeans.