Distant Shores by Kristin Hannah Page A

so gentle. “We missed you something awful.” He glanced back down the hallway. “Hurry up, Mother, our little girl is home.”
    There was an immediate response. Elizabeth heard the gatling gun sound of high heels on marble flooring. Then she smelled flowers—gardenias. Her stepmother’s “signature” scent.
    Anita came running around the corner, wearing cherry red silk evening pants, stiletto black heels, and an absurdly low cut gold spandex top. Her long, platinum blond hair had been coiled and teased until it sat on top of her head like a dunce cap. When she saw Elizabeth, she let out a little screech and barreled forward like Bette Midler on speed. “Why, Birdie, we didn’t expect ya’all so soon.” She started forward, as if she were going to hug Elizabeth, but at the last minute, she came to a bumpy stop and sidled up to Daddy. “It’s good to have y’ home, Birdie. It’s been too long.”
    â€œYes, it has.”
    â€œWell …” Anita’s painted smile came and went. One of those awkward pauses fell, the kind that always punctuated Anita and Elizabeth’s conversations. “I better check my cider. Daddy, you show our Birdie up to her room.”
    Elizabeth tried to keep her smile in place. Of all her stepmother’s irritating habits (and they were legion), calling her husband “Daddy” was top of the heap.
    He grabbed Elizabeth’s garment bag and led her upstairs to her old bedroom. It was exactly as it had always been. Pale, lemony walls, honey-oak floors, a big white French Provincial four-poster bed that Daddy had gone all the way to Memphis for, and a white bookcase and desk. Someone—Anita, probably—had lit a candle in here; the room smelled of evergreen. There was still a framed, autographed picture of Davy Jones on the wall by the bureau. It said:
To Liz, love always, Davy.
    Elizabeth had found it at a garage sale out near Russellville one Saturday afternoon. For three years—between seventh and ninth grades—it had been her prized possession. After a while, she’d practically forgotten that it hadn’t been signed for her personally.
    â€œSo, where’s golden boy?” Daddy asked as he hung up her garment bag.
    â€œHe broke a big story and needed another day to wrap it up. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
    â€œToo bad he couldn’t fly down with you.” He said it slowly, as if he meant to say more, or maybe less.
    She couldn’t look at him. “Yes.”
    Her father knew something was wrong between her and Jack. Of course he knew; he’d always seen through her. But he wouldn’t push. If there was one thing a Southern family knew how to keep, it was a secret. “Your mother made us some hot cider,” he said at last. “Let’s go sit on the porch a spell.”
    â€œShe’s not my mother.” The response was automatic. The moment she said it, she wished she hadn’t. “I’m sorry,” she said, gesturing helplessly with her hands.
    There were other things she could say, excuses and explanations she’d tried on like ill-fitting sweaters over the years, but in the end, they amounted to empty words, and she and her father knew it. Elizabeth and Anita had never gotten along. Simple as that. It was years too late to change it … or to pretend otherwise.
    Daddy heaved a big-chested sigh of disappointment, then said, “Walk your old man outside. Tell me about your excitin’ life in that heathen Yankee rain forest.”
    As they’d done a thousand times before, they walked arm-in-arm down the wide, curving mahogany staircase, crossed the black-and-white marble-floored entry, and headed for the kitchen, where the cinnamony scent of hot apple cider beckoned.
    Elizabeth steeled herself for another round of stiff, awkwardly polite conversation with her stepmother, but to her relief, the kitchen was empty.