“I have Tylenol,” she said to Claire, “if you don't mind reaching around Priscilla and digging through my shoulder bag.”
“Bless you,” Claire said with a grateful smile. “Bless you and all of your descendants!”
Fran and Gina were engaged in a lively debate on the relative horrors of dental surgery versus hard labor that had the other women cheering them on. Claire pulled a sports bottle of water from her tote bag and washed down a pair of Tylenols with a healthy gulp.
“Thanks,” she said to Maddy. “I owe you.”
Claire launched into a very funny story about her first experience with nitrous oxide that had the other women literally holding their sides with laughter. Beneath her own laughter, Maddy found herself inexplicably close to tears.
This was the life she would have lived if she had stayed in Paradise Point, the same world her cousins had never left. She tried to imagine herself married toâand probably divorced from, given the DiFalco luck with menâa local boy, popping into Upsweep every other Saturday as much for the gossip as for maintenance. Denise, Gina, and her other cousins had all stayed put down there in South Jersey, digging their roots even deeper into familiar ground. They shopped in the stores where they had worked as teenagers, shared baby clothes and strollers, carpools and covered-dish suppers at Our Lady of Lourdes R.C. Church. Their children played together. Their husbands and ex-husbands bowled together and shouted themselves hoarse at Giants games up at the Meadow-lands. They knew each other's secrets and sore points, and they understood without being told why Maddy had chosen to build a life for herself on the opposite side of the country.
What they couldn't seem to understand was why she had come home again. Who could blame them? Since leaving Seattle, Maddy had asked herself the same thing every hour on the hour.
“Look!” Denise pointed in the direction of an old Honda whizzing past them. “Isn't that Kelly in the passenger seat?”
“Couldn't be,” said Claire. “Kelly usually doesn't get out of class until four.”
Maddy quickly scanned her mental database. Claire had married one of the O'Malley brothers whose family owned the bar/restaurant on the pier for as long as she could remember. By all accounts Claire had enjoyed a happy marriage until her firefighter husband was killed in a warehouse collapse a few years ago.
“Your daughter?” she asked Claire.
“Don't I wish! My niece.”
The image of a lovely young girl pressing a kiss against the faintly stubbled cheek of a teenage boy seemed to linger in front of the young mothers, even though the car had long since turned off Main Street.
“I think that was Kelly with Seth Mahoney,” Gina said. “That's his brother's Honda.”
The sound of the wind off the ocean filled the silence that suddenly surrounded the women.
“They should still be in class,” Claire said after a long moment.
“It's genetic,” said Fran. “O'Malleys skip classes. Always have, always will.” Fran had gone to school with the O'Malleys' second son, Aidan, four years ahead of Maddy.
“Not to worry,” Gina said to a frowning Claire. “Your niece is set to be valedictorian. She's National Honor Society, a scholarship winnerâI think she can skip social studies without too much of a problem.”
“Besides,” said Pat, “knowing Kelly, she's probably headed to the library.”
Of course they all knew it wasn't school that had them worried. It was young love.
“I don't know about the rest of you,” Denise said, “but I'm feeling old right now.”
“Nothing lasts,” said Gina. “That's the one thing you can count on. A year from now she'll be walking across a campus somewhere with a new guy by her side.”
“Right,” said Claire. “And we'll still be here, waiting for the school bus.”
Maddy burst into laughter and a second later the rest of the women were laughing, too, but Claire's remark had struck a nerve. They had all been Kelly's age once. Maddy had been bursting with dreams at seventeen, so eager, so ready to meet her future that she had never once stopped to consider that her future might not end up being the one she'd planned. She had the feeling most of the women standing there on the corner with her would say the same thing. There was an almost palpable sense of relief when the bright yellow school bus rolled to a stop and their kids exploded back into their lives.
Gina's two little girls were first off the bus. Heather and Saylor were five-year-old twin firecrackers, much like their mother had been at their age. Their father, Gina's second husband, Frank, had contributed the silky black hair and huge brown eyes, but his quiet, calm personality was nowhere to be found. Denise's only son, four-year-old Peter, leaped down from the top step, then burst into tears when Heather hit him in the head with her Barbie backpack. Fran's son and daughter neatly stepped around the melee while Delia's and Pat's daughters giggled and ran to their mothers.
Hannah was the last off the bus. She stood for a moment on the top step, her enormous eyes scanning the knot of women and children until her gaze rested on Maddy's face. Hannah's look of relief almost broke her heart.
Smiling broadly, she waved at Hannah and struggled with the powerful urge to run over to the bus and scoop the child into her arms. This was only the beginning of Hannah's second week in preschool at Our Lady of Lourdes. Gina and Denise had convinced her that putting Hannah on the small parish school bus was the best way to help her little girl settle in, but so far it didn't look like the idea was working. Still, you couldn't expect a miracle in only six days. Unfortunately, patience didn't come naturally for her. She wanted her daughter to be happy now, right this minute. She wanted Hannah to feel safe and protected in her new hometown, surrounded by family and friends and so much love that nothing, not even her father's absence, could hurt her again.
She maintained her smile as Hannah slowly descended the metal steps.
“She'll get used to it,” Claire said as her own seven-year-old son barreled up to them. “A new school is always hard, no matter how old you are.”
“Ma!” Billy O'Malley tugged at his mother's sleeve. “Hurry! I gotta pee real bad.”
“Emergency, ladies,” Claire said with a good-natured shrug of her shoulders. “I'll see you all tomorrow morning.”
“We're off!” cried Denise as she rounded up her tribe.
The rest of the women called out their goodbyes and, kids in tow, headed their separate ways.
Hannah slipped up next to Maddy the second Claire and Billy disappeared down the street. She reached up and tickled one of Priscilla's back paws. Priscilla shot her a look of regal indignation.
“So did you have fun today?” Maddy asked as she reached down for Hannah's hand.
Hannah shrugged. “I guess.”
She was so small, so vulnerable. What idiot came up with the idea for preschool anyway? Her baby was barely out of diapers, and already they were telling Maddy it was time to start letting go when what she really wanted to do was hold on tight.
They turned onto Main Street and waited to cross to the other side. “Did Susan bring the butterflies to class?”
“She forgot.”
“That's too bad. I know how much you wanted to tell them about the butterflies in Grandpa Bill's yard.”
Hannah seemed fascinated with the workings of the traffic light swinging overhead. Maddy regrouped and tried again.
“Did Mrs. Shapiro tell you what character you'll be playing in the holiday pageant?”
That elicited a nod. It wasn't much, but it was something.
“Will you need a costume?”
“I guess.”
“Did Mrs. Shapiro send home a note for me so I know what to make?”
“I forget.”
She looked so small and forlorn that Maddy's impatience disappeared as quickly as it had come. “I'll call Mrs. Shapiro and ask her.”
If Hannah had an opinion one way or the other, she wasn't sharing it with Maddy. Mother and daughter walked up Main Street in silence, past the Cheese Shoppe, Upsweep, the Paradise Point Savings and Loan. Maddy called out hello to Ethel Santori, who was sweeping her front porch. Ethel owned the Captain's House, the second-highest-rated B&B in town. Ethel managed a tight smile and nod of her head, but if Maddy had been expecting a display of neighborly effusion, she would have to look elsewhere.
They reached the Candlelight and walked up the driveway toward the backyard. Maddy put a squirming Priscilla down on the grass, and she and Hannah waited for the puppy to take care of business. Hannah carried the dog into the kitchen.
“That poodle has two more legs than I have,” Rose observed as Maddy closed the door behind them. “Put her down, Hannah, before she forgets how to walk!” Rose's expression was pleasant; her tone, amused, but it didn't matter.
Aunt Lucy chuckled as she chopped carrot coins in half at the counter. Maybe on a different day, with a different set of characters, Maddy might have chuckled along with her, but the look in Hannah's eyes as she stepped off the school bus still tore at her heart. In her gut she knew Rose was teasing, trying to smooth over the bruised feelings of a few hours ago, but Maddy wasn't ready to let go of the bruises.
Hannah clutched the puppy close to her chest. “Mommy? Did I do something wrong?”
“Don't worry,” Maddy said through clenched teeth. She thought the top of her head was going to explode. “Grandma Rose was making a joke.”
Rose opened her mouth, but Maddy shot her a look that said,
One more word and we go back to Seattle
.
Rose's cheeks turned a violent shade of red, but she said nothing. Aunt Lucy concentrated on her carrot coins. Hannah hugged Priscilla tight and stared at the floor.
A victory
, Maddy thought. A small one, maybe even an unfair one, but a victory just the same. Fifteen years ago it would have been cause for celebration, but today it just made her feel like crying.
Chapter Six
KELLY O'MALLEY BELIEVED things happened for a reason. Like when you were thinking very hard about a friend you hadn't seen in a long time and the phone rings and it's that very friend calling just to say hello. Some people might call that a coincidence, but Kelly knew better. There was a reason for everything, a pattern that you couldn't always see the first time you looked, but it was there.
Like the other day when she answered the phone at the bar and it was Grandma Irene asking for that photo of her and Grandpa Michael taken at the old restaurant just before the hurricane. It was one of those old black-and-white photos, kind of stiff-looking and unnatural the way old family photos always were, but it still brought tears to Kelly's eyes. They looked so young and happy as they stood in the lobby of the old restaurant, surrounded by Irene's collection of teapots. Beautiful English teapots, delicate French teapots, sturdy American pots with utilitarian handles and spouts, and one spectacular samovar that looked straight out of a tale from the Arabian Nights.
She'd taken the photo from the drawer under the cash register, then headed right over to the nursing home to deliver it. Irene had been sleeping when she got there, but she'd left the photo with one of the nurses, then forgotten all about it until she was browsing through the auction site yesterday afternoon and discovered a teapot that looked an awful lot like Grandma Irene's samovar. The most perfect Christmas present Kelly could possibly find for her great-grandmother.
It was meant to be. How else could you explain it?
Just like today when her weekly meeting with the staff of
The Chanticleer,
the Paradise Point High School newspaper, was postponed until tomorrow. Seth didn't have to clock in for work at the Super Fresh until six o'clock, which gave them three hours, three blissful miraculous hours of their very own.
Meant to be.
She left her car in the school parking lot and climbed into Seth's brother's Honda and flew toward the lake where they parked at the edge of the woods, behind a stand of trees, safe from the prying eyes of family and friends who had known them all their lives.
Maybe even longer.
The lake nestled in a clearing, deep in the woods. In the summer months families with toddlers in tow vied with young lovers, retired couples, and students for a piece of emerald grass to call their own. But now, in December, with the trees stripped of their leaves and the sun moving lower in the sky they were alone, clinging to each other in a combination of terror and bliss.
“You're worried.” Seth's breath was warm against her cheek.
“No, I'm not.” Kelly snuggled closer to Seth. “I'm over it.”
“So what if your aunt saw us. We didn't skip a class, Kel. The school canceled the newspaper meeting. We didn't.”
“I know, I know.” He smelled so wonderful. Did he have any idea what the smell of his skin did to her brain? She felt buoyant, weightless, as if the slightest gust of wind might send her sailing up over the lake, over the trees, through the cream-colored clouds, headed straight for the stars.
“Are you sure?” His words tickled against the curve of her throat. “Really sure?”
She kissed his neck, the sharp line of his jaw, and giggled at the faint scratch of stubble. “I'm sure,” she whispered. “I love you, Seth. I've never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“This isn't how I wanted our first time to be.” His fingers swiftly unbuttoned her jeans and worked them down her hips. “You should have candles and flowers andâ”
“I have you. That's all I've ever wanted.” One day in the big unknowable future they would have flowers and candles every night, but right now they had something more important. Something rare and beautiful.