The Widow's Watcher by Eliza Maxwell

Author:Eliza Maxwell [Maxwell, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503901049
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2018-05-28T22:00:00+00:00

33

The lamplight was burning low and casting shadows when Ms. Soderholm padded through the room on quiet feet.

Jenna had taken a blanket and pillow to the sofa and left the spare room to the older woman. Sleep had proven elusive anyway.

Beverly Soderholm was quiet as she rummaged around the kitchen.

“Join me for a nightcap?” she asked Jenna.

“Of course.” Jenna folded her legs beneath her to make room for the small woman at the other end of the couch.

“Can’t sleep,” Ms. Soderholm said, though she looked done in. She passed Jenna a glass with an inch of dark liquid sloshing around the bottom and took the offered seat.

“Lars told me a bit about you, Mrs. Shaw.” A hush hung over the cabin that seemed to amplify every creaking sound the old house made. The two women kept their voices low.

“I apologize if we were out of line. Accusatory,” she went on.

Jenna waved her hand. “Not necessary,” she replied, swirling the liquid in the glass.

She was strangely comfortable with this woman she’d only just met.

“I suppose you’ve all had your fill of reporters,” Jenna said.

“Vultures, the lot of them,” Ms. Soderholm agreed unapologetically. “Are you going to go through with this? Do as Lars asked?”

She peered at Jenna closely, measuring, judging.

Jenna sighed. “I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out a way to say no and still be able to face myself in the mirror.”

Not to mention how to deal with her daughter, who had a decided opinion on the matter.

Ms. Soderholm had no answer for that, and the two women sat in an almost companionable silence, each lost in their thoughts.

“Audrey was a beautiful baby,” Ms. Soderholm said suddenly with a wry twist of her lips. “Not easy—Lord, never that—but beautiful.”

Jenna studied the woman’s profile as she stared into the embers of the fire that burned low behind the grate.

“I was a single mother,” she went on. “Told everyone I was a widow. It wasn’t true. He was married. To someone else.”

“Ms. Soderholm—”

“Beverly, please. Call me Beverly.”

“Beverly. You don’t have to—”

“I’m not ashamed,” the older woman broke in. “He, on the other hand. He should have been. I was just a kid, drunk on the attention of an older man.” She took a sip of her drink. “I’ve paid for my sins.”

“Somehow, I doubt he ever did,” Jenna ventured to guess.

Beverly gave a short stab of laughter. “Oh, he paid plenty. Through the nose he paid, like clockwork.” She raised her glass in salute. “All I had to do was forget I knew him, which wasn’t nearly as hard as it should have been. Audrey never wanted for a thing. Neither did I, come to that. A situation I won’t apologize for.”

“It couldn’t have been easy, though,” Jenna said, with a new respect for the woman sitting next to her.

“Not easy, no,” Beverly agreed, shaking her head. “But looking back, perhaps it was right that it was just the two of us. Audrey . . .”

The woman’s face clouded.

“She was seven years old when I realized there was something about her.

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