Free Petals on the Pillow by Eileen Rendahl Page B

could make out the elegant profiles of tasteful couches and reading chairs, lamps and tables, bookcases and armoires. It was in about the seventh room that she spotted a shape she couldn’t identify. It looked like a tent made of white sheets draped across chairs.
    “What the heck is that?” she asked as she strode across the floor to peek under the sheet.
    “No! Don’t go in there!”
    Betsy’s plea came too late. Kelly had already lifted the sheet. One glance told her more than enough about the spot and why Betsy didn’t want her to see it. In one quick look, Kelly recognized it for exactly what it was.
    It was a hiding place. A very special hiding place. One that hid more than just the body. A place where you could hide a sore and aching spirit. Kelly instantly recognized it because she’d had one like it. Well, not exactly like it. She hadn’t had an entire wing of a mansion and all its furnishings with which to work. Her hiding place had been a tiny little thing, tucked away behind a couple of ladderback chairs in one small corner of the attic in her parents’ old house on Diversey, not a grand tent in the middle of a palatial bedroom.
    Aside from scale and furnishings, however, there were many similarities. The photographs lovingly arranged. Articles of clothing. An old sweater that might hold a familiar scent. A special scarf. Bits and pieces of ornament that undoubtedly held great significance: a miniature crystal rocking horse, a heart-shaped jewelry box, a string of amber beads.
    All in all, the perfect spot for a little girl to go when she needed to privately mourn a mother for whom she wasn’t allowed to publicly grieve.
    Kelly picked up one of the photographs. A lovely dark-haired woman smiled up at her. A shiver passed through her. Something about the woman struck a chord of familiarity in Kelly’s mind. Hazel eyes, just a tad slanted like a cat’s, glowed with an intelligence that still spoke. A brace of freckles scattered across her nose brought a mischievous touch to the knowing smile that curved her full and sensuous lips. A beautiful woman. Kelly wished they could have really met.
    Her finger stroked the woman’s cheek. “No wonder he can’t look at you, honey. You’re so exactly like her.”
    “You noticed that? The way he won’t look?” Betsy asked. She stood next to Kelly in the position usually reserved for her father, arms banded tight across her chest and head ducked.
    “Hard not to.” Kelly replaced the photograph in the spot where it clearly belonged.
    “He never calls me Elizabeth anymore either.”
    “Did he before ?”
    “Sometimes. Sometimes he’d tease me and call me Little Beth. He never does that anymore either.” Betsy began the familiar plucking at her sleeve. “Are you going to tell?”
    “About your hiding place? Of course not.” Kelly watched Betsy from the corner of her eye as she picked up the crystal horse. The child shuddered involuntarily almost as if she was physically restraining herself from snatching the little horse from Kelly’s hands. Kelly set it back down. “Are these all you have of your mother’s things?”
    Betsy shook her head. “This side of the house is packed with her stuff.”
    “This side?”
    “This is the wing we used to spend most of our time in before. Daddy moved us over to the other side after.”
    “After?”
    “After Momma died.”
    “He moved you to the dock side afterwards?”
    Betsy nodded miserably.
    Kelly shook her head in amazement. She knelt to sift through a stack of papers that leaned against a chair leg. “Hey! What are these?”
    “They were my mom’s.”
    “They’re beautiful, and there are so many.” Kelly leafed through the thick sheaf of watercolors. Among the florals, seascapes and still-lifes, Kelly counted well over 30 paintings, each signed simply with the name “Elizabeth” in an elegant, spiky handwriting. “Why are these back here? They’ll mold stuck away like this. Besides, these should