A Place to Call Home (39 page)

He thrust out a brawny, capable hand. It trembled. Beside him, his wife clasped her hands to her smile and began
to cry silently. Roan’s arm tightened around me. I felt the electric tension in him
. I won’t let you down
.

“I’m not going to shake your hand,” I announced. “I’m not a stranger. I’m your cousin. You’re part of my family.” I gazed steadily at the teary young woman beside him. “And your wife is part of my family, too, even if we haven’t been introduced yet.”

“I’m Mildred,” she said, almost sobbing. “But everyone calls me Tweet.”

“Hello, Tweet. I’m Claire. Your cousin-in-law.” Then, to Matthew, who was gaping at me, I said, “I’m going to
hug
you, if at all possible.” I lurched at him, hugged him voraciously, and after a stunned moment, he hugged me in return, carefully, as if I might crack. Then Tweet and I hugged each other, and finally I turned toward Roan, who stood as unmoving as a windswept statue on a summit only he could guard, his expression shuttered. I grasped his hand. See, I urged silently.

I thought the hardest part was behind us.

P
eople not only choose to live where they’re comfortable, they choose places that
give
them comfort, and my first goal was to learn what had drawn Matthew to Alaska. Matthew showed us around in a mud-spattered Bronco with the tip of a whale rib dangling from the rearview mirror. From my poor vantage point in the backseat beside Roan, I struggled to examine every detail about him, his wife, and the scenery, making mental notes.

Cold, gray oceanfronted Juneau and wilderness backed it; the city was secluded, to say the least. A summer honeymoon in Alaska had been one of Roan’s wedding gifts to Matthew and Tweet. Roan had bought a small vacation house in the city when Matthew was sixteen. Matthew loved to hike, photograph the wildlife, and fish for salmon. Roan simply liked the wildness of it all.

He had told me during our flight that everything in Alaska, except for a few dots of civilization, was backcountry tucked among ocean channels, cold rivers, or mountains. Where else would the suburbs include bears, moose, wolves, whales, enormous glaciers, and untrackable wilderness? “I like the honesty of places where a person risks getting bitten or eaten,” Roan said with a certain dark pleasure. “It keeps me from getting careless.”

Roan’s distrust of easy comforts was deep and pervasive.
I began to worry that he was hiding something else from me but convinced myself he wouldn’t do that.

I couldn’t see Uncle Pete’s pugnacious face in Matthew’s large-boned features, and had no strong recollection of any distinctive McClendon traits to pinpoint except Sally’s hard emerald eyes. There was something Delaneyish about the bulldog set of his jaw maybe, but physically he was a troubling cipher. I tried to shake the inventory from my overwrought mind. Sullivan. Matthew Sullivan. That was what Roan called him. What he called himself. That was how I’d think of him.

Dr. Matthew Sullivan and Dr. Mildred “Tweet” Sullivan. Both of them were veterinarians, fresh from the state university in Washington. Smart and motivated, obviously. Young, compassionate, hardworking, and not afraid of getting their hands dirty. Roan’s adopted son and
daughter-in-law
. But I couldn’t really imagine Matthew as Roan’s surrogate son. At twenty-four he was only eleven years younger than Roan. Only six years younger than me. If he ever called me
Mom
I’d thump him on the head.

Roan radiated satisfaction every time he discussed Matthew and Tweet with me. He’d confided that they were conservative and a little shy. They went to church, did volunteer work, and they planned—seriously—to have a half-dozen children. “Dr. Sullivan,” he had emphasized more than once. “I raised Matthew and now he’s a doctor. And he married a great, smart girl who’s a doctor, too. Isn’t that something? Sullivans who are doctors. It made me proud of the name finally.”

Such honor for the disgraced Sullivan name. I wanted to shake him and make him understand. He had redeemed his name already.

As we drove, Tweet kept turning to smile at me and wipe tears from her eyes. I felt sorry for her; she seemed so eager to be friendly and none of us knew quite how to act. I reached between the front seats and tapped her shoulder. “I hear that you and Matthew are veterinarians.”

She swiveled and peered at me gratefully, nodding. “Brand-new doctors! This summer in Alaska is our combination graduation-and-wedding present from Roan, but it’s a working honeymoon, too. We’re sorting out our options. We’re going to set up a practice together. Matthew’s big animals. I’m small animals.”

“How do you feel about chickens and llamas?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “I’m planning to specialize in house pets. But Matthew wants to work with livestock. Why?”

“Just curious,” I said, and smiled.

“We’re hoping to intern with an established vet for a couple of years first. Maybe in Oregon. Or Washington. We’re doing some volunteer work for a conservation group up here this summer. Wildlife rehab.”

“Rescue work,” Matthew added crisply. “Eagles who’ve swallowed fish hooks, wolves hit by cars, that kind of thing.”

I glanced poignantly at Roan. He nodded almost imperceptibly. He was very proud.

“I’ll tell you the major reason we picked this place for the summer,” Matthew said. “Roan said he’d probably have to tell your family about me, and I wanted to be someplace where it wouldn’t be easy for them to find me unless I wanted them to.”

Painful silence. Tweet faced forward and clamped a hand over his forearm atop the Bronco’s center console. The way her fingers dug in, I assumed she was urging him to keep his cool.

“The plan was my idea,” Roan told me quietly. “And I never meant it to exclude you. Which is why I brought you here.”

“I see.” I swallowed hard and nodded. “You deserve to make up your mind your own way and to keep your privacy, Matthew. Just keep an open mind, please.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he agreed tightly.

Tweet swiveled and forced a fresh smile. “Claire, we hear that you’re a newspaper reporter.”

“Used to be,” I said, and stared out the window.

“I, hmmm, we … Roan told us all about …” Her voice trailed off. Uncertain and blushing, she looked toward my legs then quickly away. “What you were doing was very heroic. I hope you’re … recovering okay.”

“Doing better. Can’t complain.”

I didn’t deal well with discussions like that. Roan took one of my hands and cradled it in both of his. “I know what I want,” he announced. “I want Claire to have a little longer tour of town.” He rubbed my hand with soothing motions. “Drive around for a few minutes, Matt. Just keep it simple.”

“Simple?” Matthew repeated grimly, as if nothing could be simple now that I had found him. But he swung the Bronco up a tree-shaded street that climbed gracefully higher.

Matthew drives as badly as Evan, I thought, as he nearly sideswiped a mailbox. Evan’s driving habits had remained notorious in the family since his teen years. Matthew whipped the Bronco along narrow streets that snaked up steep, crowded hills. My head swam. Roan and I had been traveling for hours, fueled by adrenaline, airport food, too much coffee, and uneasy catnaps. Dazed and bleary, I leaned against him in the backseat of the Bronco, my loafers off. He lifted my feet onto his thigh and slid his hand under the hem of my long skirt, massaging my ankle and knee, squeezing and releasing with silent communication. His dark hair was wildly ruffled; his mouth was set in a perfunctory line of control.

“Tweet and I got the guest room ready for you, Bigger,” Matthew announced, darting a clumsy look at us in the rearview mirror as he downshifted up a hillside where tiny flower gardens clung desperately to maniacally terraced yards. “It’s nothing fancy, Claire, but it has a private bathroom and a big …” His voice trailed off.

“Big what?” I mumbled. “Bigger what?”

Tweet pivoted in her seat, blushing again. “A bed that’s
big
enough for both of you,” she finished. Her face was very red. “And
Bigger
is Roan’s nickname.”

I glanced at Roan. “My goodness, R.S., how many nicknames do you have?”

“When Matthew started elementary school he figured out that I wasn’t old enough for him to call me his dad around the other kids,” Roan explained with gruff exasperation. “And
brother
wasn’t exactly right. So he decided to call me his
Bigger
. It just stuck.”

“Bigger,” I repeated softly. “It’s good. It sounds funny, but it suits you.”

“I didn’t think it sounded
funny
when I was a kid who needed somebody to look up to,” Matthew said with a sudden edge in his voice. He studied me in the rearview mirror and I saw anger in his eyes. Okay, under his polite exterior he was tense and defiant. No surprise in that. “As far as I’m concerned,” Matthew added stiffly, “he’ll always be the biggest man in the world.”

Roan leaned forward, his jaw set. “Take it easy,” he ordered quietly. “Claire isn’t here to—”

“Believe me, Matthew,” I interjected. “He’s the biggest man I know, too.”

Roan settled back, frowning. Matthew exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, Claire. I just don’t know what to say to you. You came here because you care, and I appreciate that, but Bigger and I’ve done pretty well on our own all these years without anybody’s concern.”

“You said hello to me,” I replied softly. “You made me feel welcome. That’s all I need right now, and all I expect.”

“You need to rest,” Roan said.

He was worried about me but also probably none too eager to promote a full-blown discussion. There was so much tension in the air. I took deep breaths to find oxygen. “I hop around like a one-legged duck. Until a few weeks ago I was a basket case. I spent more time in bed than
anywhere else. Roan changed all that. I may not be Wonder Woman yet, but if you feed me dinner and give me a place to prop my feet up, I’ll answer any questions you want to ask about our family, Matthew.”

“Your family, not mine,” Matthew countered.

“Your family, whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t have many questions. They didn’t want me. They didn’t want Roan either. He’s the only family I care about. Him and Tweet. So why should I want to learn anything about the Delaneys? I’m sorry, Claire. You’re welcome here because Roan loves you. I know all about you. He told me. But about me … If you came here just for my sake, you came a long way for nothing.”

“We’ll see,” I said. I watched Matthew scrub a hand over his hair and then tug at both earlobes as if settling his head firmly on his shoulders, and I thought with amazement: My brothers do that when they’re worried. So does Mama. So do I. It’s obviously an inherited Delaney trait. I was certain then that I could coax him home to Dunderry, and he would sit on the veranda and eventually he’d smile a Delaney smile. “But you know,” I said suddenly, all charm and patience, “all I really want to do right now is hear all about the two of you.”

“What a sweet thing to say!” Tweet exclaimed, turning in her seat again and reaching back to grasp my hand on her shoulder. Tweet was a frequent crier, apparently. She was teary-eyed every time she looked at me. “I’m so glad you’re here! You’re Matthew’s cousin! His cousin! It means so much to … we really do want to know about you, too! We do! Matthew does, he really does!”

“It’s okay to dislike me, Matthew,” I said patiently. “I understand what I represent to you.”

“I don’t … dislike you,” Matthew said, tugging at his ears again. “I’m even glad to meet you. You’ll always be welcome in my home.”

“Thank you, that means a lot to me,” I said. I realized I had begun tugging on my ears as I spoke.

I glanced at Roan, who was watching me closely through narrowed eyes. I smiled innocently. He lifted one hand and tapped his forefinger to my right earlobe, then my left.
He’d caught on. He remembered
. I was planning to sugar his boy, and he knew I’d made up my mind.

Juneau was more of a big, picturesque, old-fashioned town than a metropolis. Quaint old buildings shared the streets with modern state government offices. The original waterfront district hugged a broad plaza dotted with benches and tourist kiosks, merging with long concrete docks where two megalithic cruise ships were berthed. Turn-of-the-century shops crowded the streets near the docks, catering to the cruise-ship tourists.

Almost everything farther inland was uphill; the Governor’s Mansion was set above the city in a neighborhood of pleasant houses with manicured yards, tall fir trees, and pretty flower beds; I studied a cluster of bleeding-heart plants in one yard, their long, delicate green stems dripping rows of the tiny red and white valentine blooms. The Governor’s Mansion was amazingly humble: a pleasant, large house with no security walls around it, no gates, not even much of a yard. A pickup truck was parked under the porte-cochere in front, and I could have walked a few yards off the tree-lined street and peered in a downstairs window if I’d wanted to.

So I decided Alaska had practical priorities to Matthew and Roan, very little pomp and circumstance about its human habitation; the grandeur was all in the place, and that appealed to me. Bald eagles swooped in flocks over the scraps from a salmon cannery on the waterfront. People took bald eagles for granted there.