Willow Pond

Chapter One

Laura Kingsley Austin was Jean Harlow beautiful.

Men first noticed the butterfly tattoo, its saucy wings peeking from her cleavage; it was quite the conversation piece. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what Laura had intended. It had first appeared one crazy night when she’d gone with some friends to Bacchanal, her aunt’s speakeasy, and had too much to drink. One of them dared her to get a tattoo, so she did. Ever since that night, she’d shied away from having too much booze.

Years later, everything in her life had changed. After separating from her husband three months earlier, Laura had moved into an apartment on Patchin Place in Greenwich Village. She loved the village and its diversity of people, and felt a kinship with the artists and writers living there.

Her whole apartment could have fit into one corner of Willow Pond, the huge colonial mansion she’d left, but it was all hers. She loved every cramped inch of it.

The front door of the apartment opened into a long hallway. To the left was a good sized living room, which she had decorated in the English country style. Her writing table sat in the northeast corner of that room, and it was there she often sat, surrounded by writing pads, pens, pencils and an old Remington.

Since she’d moved to the village, her life had changed more than she’d ever imagined it would. For the first time since her marriage, she felt her life was her own. She wasn’t being controlled by her husband or anyone else, and neither was her son, Todd. Like her, he smiled and laughed a lot more these days.

Each day she discovered new things about herself, both as a woman and as a mother. When she’d been living with Phillip, he’d always discouraged her desire to be a writer, saying she should spend her time and energy on more “important” things. Now she pursued her goal with zest; she’d already had a short article published in The Villager, a community newspaper. She felt as though she were coming awake after a long sleep.

The village offered excitement, with all its places to go and people to meet. Phillip had never encouraged her to make friends. He’d preferred to keep her to himself, though he’d never had trouble sharing himself with as many people as possible. Especially women. Laura had been afraid to confront him about that particular issue until the day she read about him and the actress with whom he was co-starring.

Almost from the beginning of their marriage, there had been rumors about Phillip with other women. She had tried to ignore them, tried to believe she could make her marriage work, but reading about his affair in the newspaper was just too much. She couldn’t ignore it anymore. She and Todd deserved better. The day after the article appeared in the newspaper, she went to see a lawyer.

“Are you going to leave me?” Phillip asked a few days later. He’d just gotten out of the tub and stood in the middle of the bedroom, tying the sash of his white terrycloth robe.

She glanced out the window, then returned her gaze to him. He stood absolutely still, waiting. She nodded. “I can’t live with myself any longer if I keep letting you treat me this way. Todd and I will be out of here by the end of the week.”

Phillip scowled, bringing a crease to his handsome brow. “I’ll never let you keep that boy from me. Do you understand?”

She sighed. “I would never do that to you or to him, Phillip. But tell me, just how much time do you spend with him now? He hardly knows he has a father.”

“We know whose fault that is, don’t we?”

Now Laura sat on the edge of her very own bed, weary of thinking about their petty arguments. She stretched her arms over her head, then smiled at the sound of tiny footsteps padding along the hallway. After a moment, Todd appeared in the doorway, clutching his favorite teddy bear in one hand and rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the other.