River’s End

carried that scent, and when she’d hug me or pick me up, it was strongest just . . .” Olivia touched her fingers to her own throat just under the jaw. “I liked to sniff her there, and she’d laugh.
    “She was so beautiful.” Her voice thickened as she turned away to stare out over the sea of flowers. “You can’t know, really. I’ve seen her movies now, all of them. Countless times. But she was so much more beautiful than they could capture. She moved like a dancer, as if gravity were simply something she tolerated. I know she was a brilliant actress. But she was a wonderful mother. Patient and fun and . . . careful. Careful to be there, to pay attention, to let me know that whatever else there was, I was the center of the world. Do you understand that?”
    “Yes. I was lucky in that area, too.”
    She gave in and sat beside him. “I suppose I was spoiled. I had time and attention and a houseful of toys and indulgences.”
    “To me the only spoiled children are the ones who have no appreciation or respect for those things. I’d say you were just loved.”
    “She loved me very much. I never had any cause to doubt that, even when she scolded me about something. And I adored her. I wanted to be exactly like her. I used to look at myself in the mirror and imagine how I would grow up to be just like Mama.”
    “You look very much like her.”
    “I don’t.” She pushed off the rock in one sharp movement. “I’m not beautiful. I don’t want to be. And I’ll never be judged on my looks as she was, too often was. That’s what killed her. In this fairy tale, the beast killed beauty.”
    “Because she was beautiful?”
    “Yes. Because she was desirable. Because men wanted her and he couldn’t stand that. He couldn’t tolerate the very thing that had drawn him to her in the first place. Her face, her body, her manner. If it appealed to him, it appealed to other men, and there would be no other men. The one way he could keep her only to himself was to destroy her. No matter how much she loved him, it wasn’t enough.”
    “Did she love him?”
    “She cried for him. She didn’t think I knew, but I did. I heard her one night with Aunt Jamie after I was supposed to be in bed.
    Earlier that summer when it stayed light until late. They were in Mama’s room, and I could see from where I stood beside the door, in the mirror, the reflection of them as they sat on the bed. My mother crying and Aunt Jamie with her arms around her.”
    And just like that, she took both of them back.
    “What will I do? Jamie, what will I do without him? “
    “You’ll be fine, Julie. You’ll get through this.”
    “It hurts.” Julie turned her face into Jamie’s shoulder, felt the sturdiness, longed for it. “I don’t want to lose him, to lose everything we have together. But I just don’t know how to keep it.”
    “You know you can’t keep going on the way you have been these last few months, Jule.” Jamie eased back to brush the deep gold hair from her sister’s face. “He’s hurt you, not just your heart, but you. I can’t sit by when I see bruises on you that he put there.”
    “He doesn ‘t mean it.” Julie rubbed her hands over her face, drying the tears as she rose. “It’s the drugs. They change him. I don’t understand why he started them again. I don’t know what he finds in them that I haven’t given him.”
    “Listen to yourself.” A whip of anger in her voice, Jamie pushed to her feet. “Are you taking the blame for this? For him finding his kicks and his ego in cocaine and pills and alcohol? “
    “No, no, but if I could just understand what’s missing, what he’s looking for that isn’t there . . . Oh God.” She squeezed her eyes tight and raked back her hair. “We were so happy. Jamie, you know we were happy. We were everything to each other, and when Livvy came it was like . . . like a circle completed. Why didn ‘t I notice when he started to crack that circle? How wide was the gap before I saw what was happening? I want to go back. I want my husband back. Jamie.” She turned around, one hand pressed to her belly. “I want another child.”
    “Oh God.Oh, Julie.”She was across the room, wrapped around her sister in two strides. “Don’t you see what a mistake that would be now? Just now? “
    “Maybe it is, but maybe it’s the answer. I told him tonight. I had Rosa fix us this wonderful dinner. Candles and music and champagne. And I told him I wanted us to have