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Ruffling Feathers Chapter 12 - A Mother's Wake
Kate Gilcrest took a sip of tea and then carefully placed her china cup in its saucer before answering Amy's question. "No, I didn't see the Donovans during their final visit to Colorado. We usually tried to get together when they came out, but the girls were busy with cheerleading and soccer that year and so we didn't make it up to Vail to visit them." Kate smoothed her skirt and repositioned the flower arrangement on her coffee table. "Let me say, Amy, how happy I am that you're seeing Paul Donovan. He's such a nice young man—so handsome and steady. Good businessman too, just like his father." Kate frowned at Amy's grimace. "You pretend that doesn't matter, but believe me, it does in the long run, and you know it." Amy held her tongue and let Kate continue, "George Donovan was a bear of a man, though. Made Anne look like a china doll when you saw them together. Even though he was born rich and scrambled to get richer on his own, he always looked surprised that Anne ever gave him the time of day. She was so stylish and polished and fun. You could tell he worshipped the ground she walked on and, bless her soul, she never took advantage of it." "When was the last time you saw the Donovans?" Amy asked. She had called up Kate and asked to come over, not really knowing what she wanted to find out. Unlike Paul, going over the facts endlessly didn't seem like the right way to find out why a plane had crashed ten years earlier. At any rate, she was learning about Paul's family, which was one way to find out about him. "Anne and I and a few other Delta Gammas got together every year for 'girls-only' Spring skiing. So I suppose the last time I saw her was March 1990 up in Vail." Kate sighed. "Anne was a beautiful skier. Tiny, but strong and fearless. She could pound the bumps on double-black diamonds even after she kissed fifty goodbye. And she was a workaholic even though she never held a paying job—taught me everything I know about fundraising. She could squeeze money out of the biggest tightwads you ever saw. And a perfectionist..." Kate smiled with tears in her eyes, "...every ski trip, Anne would work in a lesson—'just to stay on top of my form' she would say." The older woman shook her head and tabbed her eyes with a tissue, and smoothed her skirt, and repositioned the arrangement again. "I miss them so much, Amy. That dear sweet woman, and her grizzly bear husband." “Kate, my mother said that Anne Donovan saved her life. Do you know what she meant?” Kate looked at Amy steadily, clearly hesitating to
provide grist for the rumor mill. She
took Amy’s hands in her own and squeezed her fingers. “Call her. Ask
her. Your mother has an interesting
story once you get past the kitsch.” Amy had never been altogether successful in getting past the kitsch that enveloped her mother. Of course, she didn't try all that hard, but still, Jeanie Hutchins didn't made it easy for Amy to take her seriously. The crystals and caftans were more than mere trappings to Jeanie. In them, she found the most effective way to thumb her nose at the establishment she thought was trying to keep her in her place. It was a Sunday morning when she finally got up the nerve to call her mother. She made a pot of tea, rearranged the cats under the aspens on her back patio, and made the call. Lisa answered the phone. Amy thought her sister sounded even more militant as she brusquely told Amy that Jeanie and Roger Martinez had gone to Taos for brunch, and then they were "planning to go to Gallup to rob the Navajos of more pots and jewelry to sell to rich tourists." "Rob?" Amy repeated, unable to disguise her disgust. "Don't you think that's a little harsh, Lisa? Roger buys Indian art and resells it in a venue that commands top dollar. The Navajos and Hopis selling on the plaza can't sell the same item themselves for what he gets in his store, or rather what Mom can sell it for in his store. Believe me, the Indians who sell to Roger make more money than the ones who sit on the Plaza and sell." "Greg Hansen is right," Lisa shot back, "he said you were losing your edge. Everyone knows you're making a fool of yourself lusting after that Paul Donovan. You're jumping ship just because you want to get laid. Nobody's going to read your column if they know you're sleeping with the guy who wants to rape and pillage Colorado." "Watch your mouth, little girl. You don't know what you're talking about, as usual. And when did you see Greg?" Lisa didn't answer right away, as if it had dawned on her that she had already said too much. Eventually she admitted that she hadn't actually seen Greg Hansen but that Buck Simpson, 'the Colonel' as he liked his friends to call him, had phoned her from Albuquerque and he was the one who had filled her in on Amy's blossoming 'friendship' with Paul Donovan. "Why is Buck Simpson phoning you?" "Why shouldn't he? I'm front line now." "Earth First or ELF?" "Wouldn't you like to know? "Lisa, don't take everything the wrong way. I'm just curious. You're my sister and I care about what you're doing…" "You're spying for Donovan, aren't you?" Lisa interrupted. "Well you tell him that his number is up, baby." "Just tell Mom I called and have her call me
back," Amy sighed as she hung up the phone. It wasn't the first time that she and Lisa had argued.
In fact, she and Lisa did nothing but argue anymore, it seemed.
Lisa had always been feisty and defensive, and Amy, though she regretted
her own selfishness now, hadn't bothered to try to understand what was behind
her little sister's behavior. Maybe
she had been preoccupied figuring out how to stay focused after Jeanie had
walked out on the family, maybe she had simply been too busy being her father's
favorite daughter to take the time to help her younger siblings cope. Jenn and Amy, being only a year apart and extremely
compatible, clung to each other after their mother abandoned them.
In retrospect, Amy felt she could have done more to help her father raise
Lisa and Martin. She could have
been more like Annie Edgerton, she thought, taking on the mother's role when her
own mother died. Amy sighed again.
All she had wanted to do was to talk to her mother about Paul's mother,
not conjure up a first-class guilt trip. Jeanie called her back that night. Brunch in Taos had been lovely—"but why these people have to put chilis in everything is beyond me. If I live here much longer I'll have no taste buds left at all. They'll all be burnt to a crisp." And Gallup had been hot and dusty, but a success nonetheless—"Roger and the Navajos are totally sympatico, I tell you. Those Indians are a lot shrewder than they act, but Joe, that's the chief Roger deals with, is straight up. Knows what side his bread is buttered on, that's what. And talk about good looking! Whew! Amy, sweetheart, if I wasn't with Roger I might consider an Indian. I've heard they're good lovers. I think I'd go for a wolf spirit myself—I find the eagle and raven spirits to be too quiet, and there's no telling what a bear will do. Oh yes, I do like a man with wolf in him. Your dad now, he was pure raven—there's no getting around that—not a drop of wolf in that man, more's the pity, because he wasn't bad to look at and wasn't bad in the sack, but no wolf." As Jeanie Hutchins paused to sigh, Amy asked whether she could talk to her about Anne Donovan. "I told you that I don't want to talk about her." "I know you did, Mom. But I'm not just being nosy." Amy struggled to find the right words. Usually she couldn't get Jeanie to stop talking. Maybe if she knew how Amy felt about Paul she would open up. Since her mother had walked out on the family when Amy was sixteen, Amy had made a point of never confiding in her mother. They exchanged birthday and Christmas presents and cards at the other holidays, but Amy never shared her hopes and dreams, her fears or sorrows with her mother. Amy took a breath and went with the one pitch she thought might touch her mother's heart, "I think I'm in love with Paul Donovan, Mom. And I think he maybe could love me back, except he thinks his parents were murdered and I don't think he can love anyone until he finds out what happened. Paul might really be the right guy for me, Mom," she pleaded, "So can you please tell me a little bit about his mother so that I can help him figure out how to put this thing to rest. I don't want to pry, believe me, but just tell me something that I can tell him." "You never want to pry, sweetheart. For a reporter, you're a damn lousy snoop. You never even ask me how I'm doing." "How're doing, Mom?" "Don't be a smart aleck, sweetie. It doesn't suit." Before Amy could try another angle, Jeanie continued, "Anne Donovan picked up strays and feed them and nursed them back to health. She missed her true vocation—that woman could have given Saint Teresa a run for her money." "What do you mean?" "I was a junior at Courtland, and I was pregnant. It was your dad's first year as a teaching assistant, and he swept me off my feet, literally. Anne found me throwing up in the restroom on the third floor of the science building. I was scared to death. I was ready to get an abortion or commit suicide or anything other than face my parents. Anne took me home to her apartment—she and George Donovan had just gotten married the year before, and he was getting his masters. She made me soup and we talked half the night. She made big, burly, rich George Donovan sleep on the couch so that I could get a good night's sleep in their bed. The next day she went to see your Dad, and a month later we got married. Seven months later Jenn was born. That woman saved my life—marrying your dad might not have been the smartest thing I ever did, but it was the only thing I could have done. And Anne, bless her soul, saw that, and she made it happen." Amy heard her mother blow her nose. She wished she could hug her. "If I thought somebody had killed Anne Donovan, I would strangle that person with my bare hands. Now listen to me, baby. You help Anne's son. You do whatever it takes to help that poor boy figure out what really happened. And you tell him to look after that sweet little sister of his because he'll be answering to me if he doesn't." "I love you, Mom." "I love you, baby."
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