Home Fires (18 page)

He placed his tools inside the shed. Tomorrow he'd tune up the lawn mower; he'd cut the grass over the weekend. It had gotten shaggy in just the last few days. Daisies were blooming like crazy this year.

On his way into the house, he picked a bunch. Sticking them in a mason jar on the kitchen counter, he thought of how casual they looked. Nothing special like roses or gladioli or tulips. They didn't convey much of anything. They were too simple an offering to indicate a fraction of the heart-pounding trepidation he was feeling right now.

Hearing Anne's car in the driveway, he had to force himself to not head outside to greet her. For the first time since they'd gotten together, he was holding himself back. He had so much to give her, and he knew she wanted to push it away. He felt scared. She knocked on the door, and reluctantly he went to answer it.

“Hi,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

“Hi.”

They stood in the living room, not saying anything. Thomas stared at her, willing her to face him, to look into his eyes and see all the love he had for her. But her gaze was focused downward.

“We'd better talk, huh?” he asked.

She nodded, and when she sat in the wingback chair, instead of choosing the sofa or heading for the kitchen, Thomas's heart sank further. It meant that she didn't want to be touched—either sitting side by side or crushed together in the cozy kitchen.

“I've been moving too fast,” Anne said, finally able to look in his direction.

“You have?”

“Yes. You swept me off my feet.”

“I didn't try—” he said, frowning.

“I know. That's not what I'm saying. You were—are—wonderful. You came into my life, and I felt the world change. Just like that. You brought me hope, and light, and the most amazing love.”

“I still feel it.”

Anne glanced away, her eyes full of pain. “This is so hard,” she said.

“It doesn't have to be.”

“The thing is, by being with you I was ignoring a whole lot else. I'm still married, for one thing. My sister said that to me today, and I practically told her to go to hell. But the fact is, it's true.”

“Do you want to go back to him?” Thomas asked, the hardest eight words he had ever spoken.

“No.”

“Then, what?”

“This office job I have is incredible. It's so simple—little tasks I could have done in my sleep a year ago. Not like collage—there my dreams just carry me along. But the job takes all my concentration. It's like I was in a terrible accident, and I'm just learning how to walk again.”

“I'd say that's pretty accurate.”

“Seeing your son so upset really shook me up,” Anne said. “It made me think that I'm not ready for this.”

“‘This'?”

“Us. It's too much for me right now, Thomas. I feel responsible for Ned. For how he feels about me, and for how that will come between you and him.”

“He's just a kid. He'll adapt if we're patient and give him time.”

“Ned's not the problem between us. I am,” Anne said slowly, as if she was assessing how much she should say. “But Ned
is
having a hard time.”

“It's just a silly rivalry.”

Anne gave him a long, hot look. She was in the grip of some strange passion, but it wasn't love and it wasn't lust. The expression in her eyes was intense and dangerous, and it spooked Thomas Devlin as much as it excited him. But presently it passed, and she was again calm.

“I disagree with you,” she said.

“Tell me your theory.”

“He wishes the fire had killed me, not his mother.”

Her words thudded in his brain as he tried to make sense of what she was saying.

“That's crazy,” he said. “He knows it's not possible, a trade, whatever you want to call it, like that. The fires were years apart.”

“Still, it's how he feels.”

“What you're saying doesn't make logical sense.”

“I didn't say there was anything logical about it. It's something he feels in his gut. I know, Thomas. Because every time I see a four-year-old . . . I would trade the life of that child to have Karen back.” She paused.

“Anne—”

“I think that's how Ned feels about me, and I'd say it must be very hard for him, knowing that you don't feel the same.”

“I don't,” Thomas said.

“I know.”

Thomas shrugged, tried to smile. His mouth felt set and grim, and his stomach was nervous.

“What are you telling me?” he asked.

“We have to stop seeing each other.”

“Anne, don't say that. We can take it slow, if that's what you need. If you don't want to stay overnight with me, I'll accept that.”

“I do want to, but I can't,” she said in a measured tone, her obvious need for control his only clue that she was finding this as difficult as it was for him.

“And we can't take it slow,” she said. “You must know that.”

“Why can't we?”

“Because we know we're rockets.”

That made him smile; he saw her try to smile back.

“This is wrong,” he said. “You do know it's wrong.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, rising. “I'm not going to stay for dinner. It would be too . . .”

“Painful,” Thomas said, and immediately he agreed with her: they couldn't take it slow. They couldn't go back to polite friendship. He couldn't sit across a table from her and make idle conversation knowing that she would be walking out his door that night and all the nights to come.

“Yes, painful,” she said. As they stood together by the door the moment seemed to demand a physical gesture. A kiss? A handshake? A smack on his own head for being so stupid in somehow making her want to go?

“I hope you come back,” he said. He heard his voice hiding so much. It sounded cordial, inviting. Nothing like what he felt inside: the north wind, a bullet whistling through the night, a ship sinking just yards from its home port.

“Thank you,” she said. Standing on her toes, she brushed his neck with her lips. But before he could hold her close, give her a last kiss, she was gone.

Thomas Devlin stood in the doorway, watching the woman he loved back her car into the street. She didn't even glance his way, to see him waving good-bye. When he walked into the kitchen, because even though he wasn't hungry it was dinnertime and his kitchen seemed the place to be, he saw the daisies. Simple flowers he had picked for her. Flowers that conveyed very little, certainly not a broken heart.

Chapter 15

T
here were negative actions and positive actions, and while the first kind brought confusion, the second kind brought power. When Maggie had turned away from Kurt because of what he'd done in Fritz's truck, she had felt confused. She doubted that she deserved better than he. Yes, his proposition had been despicable, but deep inside she had still cared for him, had still needed to have him for her boyfriend. Loathsome and despicable, but her boyfriend nonetheless.

This, her second and final time leaving him, was an example of positive action. For once, she was acting for her own good, not just reacting out of hurt. Maggie felt power blooming inside her. She had taken her SATs and left the test feeling damned decent. Her grades for the quarter following her breakup with Kurt were A's and B's, landing her on the honor roll. Things were becoming clear.

Walking home with Ned Devlin that Friday night, Maggie had realized there was more in the world to talk about than pot, keg parties, tattoos and body piercing, and what everyone might be doing that night. She and Ned had talked about What Things Meant. Characters in books and movies. If they had to be a fruit or vegetable, what kind would it be? (Ned would be an apple, Maggie would be beets. The redness of their choices had seemed to be significant, and they had talked about that.)

That night Maggie had felt more sure that she wanted an education. College. Maybe a master's degree. She had liked spending time with someone smart who took her seriously. She wasn't in love with him or anything, but she wanted to write Ned a letter, to let him know how the SATs had gone.

Her homework finished, she curled up on the love seat with some of the personalized stationery Anne and Matt had given her for Christmas two years ago, that she had once thought to be dorky but now considered classy.

“Hey, Princess,” her father said, heading straight for the TV.

She didn't say anything, but watched him tune in to the Red Sox game. He had his trusty Bud and a bag of pretzels. It seemed that her parents had traded places: her father had finished his work at the big house, and now her mother was there every night, turning it into a country inn. A commercial came on. Watching her father switch channels, just being himself, Maggie didn't feel as pissed off as usual. She was a woman on the way up.

Dear Ned [she wrote],

Thank you for walking me home that night. The SATs went really well, mainly because I didn't have a hangover, so thank you for that, too. I did forget to bring an extra pencil (wasn't that the last thing you said before you headed off into the night?). In fact, I forgot to bring
any
pencils. I had to borrow one from the girl next to me, and by the time the test was over, I had it worn down to the wood. I just hope the computer can read my little rubbings. (Unless they're wrong, in which case, what the hell?)

How does it feel to be graduating? I know you said graduation was in early June, so you only have about a month. Will you be sad leaving Deerfield? It sounds like a really pretty place. Sometimes the Ye Olde New England stuff can make you feel carsick, but it sounds like Deerfield knew to let well enough alone. At least, that's how you made it sound that night.

Let's see . . . Deerfield, Dartmouth. Both places begin with a “D.” That must mean something!

I wish I were graduating. I can't believe I have another entire year on this island. I know you love coming out here for vacations, but I think it's going to drive me crazy. Literally. I'll wind up in a loony bin, and with my luck it'll be right here, on the island.
Help!

Anyway, good luck with your finals. Did I tell you that I made honors last quarter? I know, big deal. Good luck with graduation, also, and have fun. I guess I'll see you when you get out here in June. Until then—

Maggie Vincent

P.S. Thanks again for walking me home. I've been thinking, and I was wrong about Vanessa. She'd only think she's a pomegranate. Actually, she's lettuce.

Maggie addressed the envelope with the post office box Ned had given her that night. She took a stamp from the rolltop desk that had come off the Grace Line ship her father's father had captained. Licking the stamp, she glanced at her father. She had heard a hundred romantic tales of her grandfather, Captain Twigg Vincent, all from the lips of her mother. She wondered why she had never heard any from her father.

“Did you like your father?” she heard herself asking.

“Sure, I did. Everyone likes their father.”

Dream on, Maggie thought, but instead of feeling sarcastic, she felt sad.

“What was he like?” she asked.

“Very stern. Never saw him without a coat and tie. Not once that I can remember. He loved my mother.”

“And you, right? He loved you, too.”

Her father slugged some beer, newly absorbed with the baseball game.

“Two outs, Princess,” he said, intent on the screen. “Bottom of the third. Let me root for my team, okay?”

Maggie had left the room before her father had even noticed that she hadn't answered.

N
ED
Devlin kept having dreams of children on trapezes. Flying high above the ground, laughing and soaring, knowing for sure that they would be caught if they fell. In the dreams he'd see his face, Josh's, Mike's, and Maggie's. But when he woke up, sometimes with a smile on his face, he'd be thinking of Karen.

Maggie had talked about her a lot on their long walk home.

He had never known Karen Davis. It was possible that he had met her; the island was small, the summer season short, and during her lifetime he had worked at the carousel, the Ben & Jerry's shop, and the ferry snack bar. He'd seen a thousand little kids. He wondered about it now, the likelihood that their paths had crossed.

Final exams were upon him. It was strange, taking the last tests of his high-school career. Accustomed to studying hard, to trying his best, he balked this time. He had already been accepted to Dartmouth. What could happen? If he got straight F's, if he blew every essay question, would Dartmouth renege on their word?

The truth was, he didn't want to find out. He studied his ass off for finals as if they were the sole factors to determine his future. Even Mike, his roommate extraordinaire, the man who during all four years had never once gone to bed before finishing every single assignment, even if it took until three
A
.
M
., had slacked off for senior finals.

Not Ned. He didn't want to curse his dream. One afternoon he took time out to address invitations for his graduation. To the Wades; to distant relatives; to Maggie (what the hell—she'd never want to come); and to his father.

He had considered including a note along with his father's invitation, asking to please invite Anne. But in the end, Ned did not. He didn't want Anne there.

As nice as she seemed, as much as his father obviously liked her, he didn't want her to come to his high-school graduation. That was a place for his mother. His mom would have been so proud of him. She would have stood in the crowd, the light of her love for Ned shining in her eyes. God, he knew that was true.

He wanted his father to be happy. Ned, who had never been attached enough to a woman to rely on her, had imagined how hard it was for his father. His father had loved his mother so much. He had lived with her, made her pregnant with Ned, been present with her in the delivery room when Ned was born. Ned had heard the marriage vows, and when it came to his parents, he believed the promises: to love, honor, and cherish.

His mother wasn't going to put in a surprise appearance at his graduation. Ned knew that. He didn't believe in the supernatural. When he sent his father the invitation, he knew that he should write:
Please ask Anne to join us
.

He couldn't do it.

Anne had made an impression on him. She had looked at him as if she could read his mind. She had told him, without speaking out loud, that she loved his father. That she was ready to love him, too.

“Shit,” Ned said out loud. He'd gotten himself so churned up thinking about everything, he couldn't concentrate on his physics final.

Balmy May air rustled the papers on his desk, tempting him outside. You could hear voices drifting over from the playing fields. Grabbing his lacrosse stick, Ned loped down the dorm stairs. He didn't see another soul; his dorm was deserted, as if a plague of spring fever had wiped everyone out.

The school grounds were all trimmed and blooming, in shape for graduation. Running along the brick walk, Ned passed two junior girls with their boyfriends. They were sprawled on the grass, sort of entwined with each other. Ned wondered how it was that guys even younger than he could seem so relaxed with girls.

That got him to thinking about Maggie Vincent, and he quickened his pace right up to a sprint. Walking her across the island that night had been really fun. At first he'd felt nervous, afraid that she'd think he was too much of a nerd. But she was so nice. Really sweet and funny, a little shy about telling him her ideas at first; very playful, getting right into the game of determining the vegetable counterparts to people they knew.

At one point, when they'd scrambled up the bluff, she had stumbled. Wanting to steady her, Ned had held her hips, and electricity had flashed all through his body. It knocked his knees out from under him, and he actually wobbled. He'd been afraid, for just one second, that he was the one who needed help. But then he planted his feet and knew he'd be okay.

The shock came back, again and again, when he remembered the feeling of her soft hips beneath his hands. It radiated almost stronger in memory, until he thought it would drive him crazy. Even now, running at top speed, he had to clench his fists a few times to convince himself that he wasn't touching her.

Maybe she actually would come to his graduation. Stranger things had happened. He smiled, imagining the look on Mike's face if she showed up. The smart thing for Ned to do, if he really wanted Maggie to come, was to tell his father it would be okay to invite Anne. But Ned had just wasted an hour of study time deciding he didn't want that, and he wasn't one to compromise his principles just for the sake of romance.

Romance, what a joke! Maggie had probably forgotten all about him by now anyway. Ned ran along, past clusters of kids he'd spent the last four years with, and not one of them realized that his hands and the part of his brain that dared to call it romance were on fire.

F
ITZGIBBONS
' was really shaping up. Starting a bed-and-breakfast wasn't much more complicated than setting up your own home. Except for two rooms' worth of stuff upstairs, they had lost very little to the fire. Gabrielle's first order of business had been to wash, and wash again, every piece of fabric in the house. She went through a gallon of bleach. Steve and his crew had given the rooms fresh coats of whitewash, and they smelled brand-new.

The house had been in the family for forty years, and it was already furnished in the comfortable New England summer style that was very much in vogue. Her guests didn't have to know that the house's character had evolved from the fact that her family had had no money.

The stuff she had once considered dowdy was now being written up in all the house magazines. People actually paid extra for sun-faded chintz love seats, for well-washed white chenille bedspreads, for paper-thin white curtains with ball fringe, for comfy white wicker.

The dining room had corner cupboards with painted pale pink interiors, like the inside of conch shells. Stacked on the shelves were countless pieces of Blue Willow china. At the time her mother bought it, it was all the family could afford. But now Gabrielle saw pieces of Blue Willow at antique stores for twelve dollars a plate.

She bought new sheets for all the beds, gave them a good washing in fabric softener, and hung them in the sun to dry. The entire time she was working in the house, she had big pots of fruit simmering on the stove: wild island strawberries, wineberries, and blackberries for the preserves she would serve at breakfast.

The window boxes were given a fresh coat of sea-blue paint, then filled with red geraniums, white petunias, and cascades of English ivy.

As Memorial Day drew near, when the first guests would arrive, Gabrielle asked Maggie to stop by after school every day. Naturally Maggie had put up a fuss, but in the long run she did as she was asked. She'd have the bus drop her off at Salt Whistle Road instead of her usual bus stop, eat her snack, and get to work.

Today Gabrielle had plans to resurrect the herb garden that she and Anne had started as young girls. Overgrown and choked with weeds for many years, it now showed signs of promise. Gabrielle had been hacking away at it all week. Just yesterday she had uncovered the flagstones her father had laid so his daughters wouldn't have to get their feet muddy weeding it.

Anne was coming out to see the house, and to help with the herb garden. The whale business was in full swing, and she worked both days on the weekend. Her only time off was Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday, when she would hole up with her collages, but Gabrielle had staked a claim on her time after lunch on Tuesday. Crouched by the circular stone wall that marked the garden, planting a ring of lemon-drop marigolds because they supposedly discouraged slugs, Gabrielle heard Anne arrive.