Part 23 (1/2)

”How's your mother?” Harry said as Tommy pulled our bags off the luggage carousel and set them on a cart.

”Like you'd expect. If she could lock Chap in his room, she'd do it. After she removed all the sharp objects first.”

”Is he that bad?” I asked. ”Would he really harm himself?”

”I don't know. He seemed pretty lucid to me, like his old self. If he's going to harm anyone, it's Mom. He's ready to kill her.” He caught our alarmed expressions and said, ”Sorry, bad choice of words. But she is driving him nuts.”

”I'll handle her,” Harry said.

”You can wait until morning,” Tommy said. ”When I left they were both dead to the world. I think the drive home from Connecticut wore Mom out and Chappy looked exhausted, though he still wanted me to go for a walk with him after dinner so he could take some photos of the Blue Ridge at sunset.”

I dozed off in the backseat on the drive to Middleburg, catching murmured drifts of Harry and Tommy's animated conversation about the Sweet 16, the Final Four, and someone's basketball brackets being all shot to h.e.l.l.

I woke when Tommy slowed down for the turn to the private road that led to Mayfield, the house that had been in the Wyatt family since colonial times. The tires crunched on the gravel drive as Tommy pulled up to the brick walkway in front of the house.

”You two go on in,” he said to Harry and me. ”I'll put the car in the garage and bring your bags to your rooms. Anybody want a nightcap?”

”I think I'd better see your mother,” Harry said. ”If you kids want drinks, go ahead.”

”What about it, Soph?” Tommy asked. ”Join me for a quick one?”

He was tired, but it seemed as if he was pus.h.i.+ng for a reason. Something he wanted to tell me that couldn't wait.

”Sure. I guess I'm wide awake again.”

He drove off and I followed Harry up the terraced steps of the front walk. The lighted windows of my parents' bedroom on the second floor glowed pale gold against the moonless blue-black sky, and someone had left a light on in the front hall so the leaded sidelights and fanlight surrounding the front door looked like Gothic tracery. When Harry pushed open the door, Ella, our old black Lab, was waiting, her tail thumping as we scratched her head and Harry crooned in a soft voice that he had missed his good girl.

The house smelled of the lavender potpourri my mother used everywhere and the warm, sweet smell of baking, cinnamon and apples, no doubt Harry's favorite apple pie made with apples from our orchard. A vase of yellow daffodils, probably already cut from the garden, sat on the antique oak sideboard in the hall.

”See you in the morning, kitten,” Harry said, kissing my hair. ”You two get some sleep. I love you.”

”I love you, too. I'll wait for Tommy in the kitchen.”

He came in through the back door a moment later, maneuvering our suitcases inside. ”I'll get these upstairs first,” he said. ”Pop probably needs his bag. What do you want to drink?”

”I'll have wine. What about you?”

”There's a bottle of Courvoisier on the bar in the library.”

”I'll get the drinks. Meet me in the library.”

There was an open bottle of red on the dining room sideboard, so I poured a gla.s.s and walked across the hall to the library as the silvery chime of the living room mantel clock rang. Two thirty. I switched on the table lamps on either side of the navy leather sofa to their dimmest setting so they gave off only small pools of light. A bowl of pink tulips on the coffee table, that I figured were more flowers from the garden, glowed in the otherwise shadow-filled room. The lingering scent of winter woodsmoke from the stone fireplace mixed with the musty old-leather tang of Harry's vast collection of books lining the bookshelves he'd built himself were comforting remembered smells of childhood and home.

Tommy found me curled up on the sofa, my shoes kicked off and my feet tucked under me. He sat down and leaned over to clink his cognac snifter against my winegla.s.s.

”What's going on?” I said. ”Now that it's just us.”

My brother swirled his drink, watching the dark amber liquid coat the sides of the gla.s.s like it was something that fascinated him. He was stalling.

”Mom told Chap tonight that she wants him to make her his guardian. That's why she came back here, to start the process.” He looked up at me. ”She doesn't want to deal with the courts in Connecticut because she says it'll take forever. She's planning to legally move him here so he'd be a resident of Virginia and sell his house up there so she can use that money to pay for him to be in a.s.sisted living.”

I wanted to stamp my foot, hurl my gla.s.s against the stone fireplace. ”That is heartless.”

”I didn't say she was happy about it.”

”I don't care. Jeez, Tommy. It'll kill him to leave his home, his studio. He's been there for more than forty years. What about Chappy? What does he want?”

Tommy s.h.i.+fted so he sat facing me. ”What do you think? They had a huge blowup, both of them shouting at each other. It was pretty bad, Soph. That's why Mom wanted Pop to come home. She wants him to back her on this.”

”I hope he doesn't,” I said. ”What about you? Whose side are you on?”

”Whoa . . . whoa, hold on there.” He held up a hand. ”I'm not on anyone's side, okay? I want what's best for Chap.”

”Which is?”

”I don't know.”

”It can't be stripping him of his life, his home, and his dignity,” I said in a flat voice.

My brother's face flushed in the lamplight, but his mouth hardened into a thin, determined line. ”Look, we have to find out if anything's wrong with him, first of all. Known fact: He was wandering around Topstone Park confused and in his pajamas. There isn't a doctor on the planet who would overlook something like that without trying to figure out what's going on. If Chap's sick . . .”

”Are we still talking about Alzheimer's? Has it even been determined that's what he has?”

”Mom wants him to see a different doctor,” he said, still in that stubborn voice. ”Someone from around here. Come on, Soph. She's just getting a second opinion. I think it's a good idea.”

”Oh, for G.o.d's sake.” My voice rose. ”You mean a doctor who'll back her up?”

”Not so loud. You're not being fair and you're going to wake everyone.”

I threw down the last of my wine and banged my gla.s.s on the coffee table. ”I don't think-”

”Look,” he cut me off. ”You know better than anyone else in the family that Chap has a collection of photographs, a body of work, in that Connecticut house that museums and libraries would kill for. Mom says he hasn't done any planning or thinking about what he wants to do about it, and she's worried he's already been giving away some of his photos to anyone who asks him. She thinks-with his memory lapses-that he's being taken advantage of, and she wants his legacy preserved.”

”I thought you said he seemed fine when you saw him today. Now you're talking like he's one step away from being bundled off to the loony bin.”

”No, I didn't-”

”Let Chap worry about his legacy. It is his legacy, after all, isn't it?”

”Of course it is, but I can see Mom's point. She's already found some of his stuff for sale on the Internet, other people profiting off his work. He could make a small fortune if he decided to sell his entire collection.”

”So this is about money,” I said. ”I should have guessed.”

”Come on, that's not fair. It's about him.”

”Then why doesn't he get a vote?”