Kendall had never forgiven her mother for how hard she’d been on her father for the accident, and she rarely came to San Francisco now. It depressed her to see the house where she and Justin had grown up. His room was kept as a shrine, and her mother was shut away from the world and living like a ghost. The two caretakers, Jack and Debbie, gave her the creeps, and acted like they owned the house, which her mother didn’t seem to notice. And as a result of Kendall staying away, Meredith treated Debbie almost like a daughter. Debbie was only four years older than Kendall. Meredith could easily have been her mother, and they lived in the same house and saw each other every day. Her contact with Kendall was minimal, and they had drifted apart, much to Meredith’s regret.
* * *
—
Meredith’s immensely successful career had ended when Justin died. She remained behind closed doors for two years, mourning her son’s death. It was another three before she felt even remotely like herself again. She never forgave Scott for not keeping his promise not to let Justin sail the boat alone. He had obviously ventured too far from the shore, and when the storm came up suddenly, the boat had capsized in huge waves, far from the coast, and he drowned. She’d had nightmares about it for years, and finally, slowly, achingly made her peace with it.
By then, making movies was no longer of any interest to her. She and Scott had invested her money wisely, she had few needs and didn’t have to work. Pursuing her own stardom seemed like a travesty to her after her son’s death, and without actually intending to, she became a recluse. She went for days without speaking to anyone except for a few words to Jack and Debbie, who efficiently kept the world at bay, as she had instructed them to. They shielded her from the public life she no longer wanted any part of.
For the first five years after Justin’s death, Meredith noticed little of her surroundings and didn’t care about them. She never noticed that a few paintings had disappeared from the walls of her living room since she rarely entered the room, and paid no attention to what was there. When Debbie told her that several of her fur coats had been stolen by a maid she’d hired, Meredith didn’t care and let Debbie fire the maid. She couldn’t imagine wearing anything that glamorous again. She lived in blue jeans now, and old parkas when it was cold, and she sat in the garden. She wore sneakers or her gardening boots. When she went for her long walks, no one recognized her. People in the area knew who lived in the house, what had happened, and that she almost never left the grounds anymore. It was one of those tragedies that happen in life, and from which some people don’t recover. Apparently, Meredith was one of them.
Her career had come to a screeching halt when she was forty-nine, and the rest of her life with it. She shut out her friends, had no family except Kendall, who lived three thousand miles away with her husband and daughter, had her own busy life, and almost never came to San Francisco anymore. Kendall remained close to her father, and excluded her mother from her life. Her husband’s betrayal with Silvana, her son’s death, and her daughter siding with her father and abandoning her were cruel blows for anyone to weather, and drove Meredith deep into solitude.
Fourteen years after Justin’s death, at sixty-three, Meredith lived quietly and was content to do so. Her agent died before she ever spoke to him again, and she had refused to see him before that. She had no interest in working again or being the star she had been.
She was no longer tormented by Justin’s death. She had learned to live with it, and accept it. She believed she would see him again one day. She didn’t travel, and was content to stay in San Francisco, in the house where Justin had lived his whole short life. His room was untouched, on the top floor of the house. She rarely went into it now, except to look for something, a photograph or something of his. She just liked knowing that the room was there, and still looked the same as it had when he lived. Nothing in the house had changed in fourteen years. It gave her the illusion that time had stood still after Justin’s death. But the years drifted by nonetheless.
* * *
—
Jack and Debbie had become Meredith’s protectors, her shield against the world and prying eyes, and took free advantage of it, for their own benefit, which Meredith didn’t question or even notice. They had decided to let the hedge grow taller, and no one could see behind her walls. For the first five years, Meredith had been morbidly depressed. Now she was a quiet woman with a famous past, a tragic story, content to walk in her own garden, or drive herself to the beach on blustery days, for fresh air, with the wind on her face. She had no desire for companionship, or the friends she hadn’t seen in years. Their lives were too different from hers now.
Meredith had watched some of the movies Scott had directed recently, and was surprised by how good they were, and relieved that he wasn’t in them. She had no desire to see Scott’s face again, all the photographs of him in the house had long since disappeared. There were photographs of Justin everywhere, at every age, for his brief fourteen years, and of Kendall, though more of him. Debbie spoke to Meredith of Justin with reverence, and made herself essential for Meredith’s comfort. She knew how she liked everything, what she liked to eat, and when, and how she liked it served, how she liked her bed turned down, the kind of books she liked to read, and supplied them. Debbie introduced her to several new TV series, and watched them with her. Debbie had become a filter for her, screening out everything Meredith didn’t want to deal with and making her life easy, while Jack assured her that he kept her safe, and she believed him. The world seemed dangerous and unfamiliar to her now. Meredith hadn’t meant to become dependent on them, but without intending to, she had. They made everything so easy for her, and she was grateful to them. They hadn’t abandoned her, which Scott and Kendall had. They had even woven heavy netting through the main gate, so the curious couldn’t look in. She was something of a legend in the neighborhood, the big movie star whose son had died and had become a recluse.
“They probably think I’m some kind of witch by now,” Meredith said sometimes, laughing about it. At sixty-three, she was still beautiful, with the huge blue eyes her fans had loved and remembered, sandy blond hair, and the elegant, delicate face. She was still very attractive, energetic, and in good shape, and didn’t look her age. She spent hours gardening, which she enjoyed, and reading.
She had been in the garden all morning, trimming her roses, despite the heat. Heat waves were rare in San Francisco, and she had enjoyed it. She was wearing a big floppy straw hat when she came into the kitchen for something to drink, and smiled at Debbie, who was making Meredith’s favorite chopped salad for lunch. She had kept her figure, although in the early years of her seclusion she had been too thin, and Debbie had to coax her to eat. Everything the devoted couple did proved to Meredith again and again how much they cared about her, and how kindhearted they were. More so than her daughter, who hardly even called her, sometimes not for months at a time. Meredith felt her loss acutely.