Harbor Lights (7 page)

“You’re up early,” Kevin commented as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “You going back to the Habitat site this morning?”

“Nope. Getting up early’s a habit that’s hard to break. Thought I’d go over to the inn later. Jess has a few little projects that need doing.”

Kevin lifted a brow. “And she’s letting you do them?”

“As a matter of fact, she asked if I would,” Mick responded, clearly delighted about that. “Depending on how long that takes, I thought I might drive into town afterward and check on Bree.”

“Really?” Kevin said with undisguised skepticism. “Has she mentioned a few chores, as well?”

His father scowled. “Can’t a man visit his own daughter?”

“Of course, if that’s all you’re doing. Are you sure you’re not more interested in checking out the new bookstore, maybe seeing if I’m hanging around there again today?”

Mick gave him a bland look. “Might as well, as long as I’ll be in the neighborhood.”

“You are so transparent,” Kevin accused. “There’s nothing going on between Shanna and me.”

“Never said there was, but I wouldn’t mind taking a look at those shelves you put together. I consider that a civic duty.”

Kevin couldn’t help chuckling at that. “I think they’re safe enough, but it actually wouldn’t hurt to have a second opinion.”

Mick gave him a considering look. “Did I mention your mother’s coming into town tonight?”

Kevin stilled at the news. “Why?”

“She and I have plans, if you must know,” Mick said, though it wasn’t very convincing.

“You called her about me, didn’t you?” Kevin said flatly. “Dad, why would you do that? Don’t you think I have enough family on my case, as it is? I don’t need Mom chiming in with her two cents. She has no right.”

“Get over yourself,” Mick retorted. “Your mother and I are trying to patch things up. We talk every night. I try to lure her down here every chance I get.”

“Then she’s not developing some sudden need to be the mother that she stopped being over fifteen years ago?” he asked skeptically.

Mick flushed angrily. “She never stopped being your mother,” he told Kevin. “She stopped being my wife. Both of us made some lousy decisions back then, and you kids suffered because of it. That’s my fault as much as hers.”

“You weren’t the one who chose to date while you were still married,” Kevin said just as heatedly.

Mick’s fist came down on the table. “Dammit, she did not have an affair, Kevin. You know that.”

“Maybe not, but she was seen all over town in the company of some other man while you were away on business. How am I supposed to respect her after that?”

“You give her another chance, same as me,” Mick retorted. “Every one of us has made mistakes, Kevin. Your mother, me, even you, I suspect. All we can hope for after is that we’ll be able to make amends and be forgiven.”

Kevin thought of the mistakes he’d made with Georgia, not by betraying her, but by letting her go back to Iraq without a fight. How could he make amends for that? How could he ever be forgiven, when she was gone? To his regret, he could see his father’s point, but he wasn’t ready to let go of the past, not his own mistakes or his mother’s.

“I think maybe I’ll see if I can stay with Bree and Jake this weekend,” Kevin said.

“They’re practically newlyweds,” Mick objected. “They don’t need you and Davy underfoot. And Abby and Trace have little enough time alone as it is, in case that was your next excuse for getting out of here.”

“Then I’ll book a room at the inn,” Kevin said.

“Jess is all booked up. Told me so herself last night.”

Kevin resigned himself to staying put. Running was cowardly anyway. Why should he be the one to leave? This house was as much his home as it was his mother’s. More so, in fact.

“Dad, do you seriously think you and Mom will get back together?”

“I’m counting on it,” Mick replied without hesitation. “There’s never been another woman for me, Kevin.
Never.” He gave him a pointed look. “And there’s never been another man for her, either, in case you were about to offer your opinion about that.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Kevin said, wondering at the fact that a man as smart as his father could be so gullible.

“I
know
that,” Mick told him. “And if you took a few steps back from your own pain at having your mother move away, looked at the whole situation back then, you’d know it, too. Her seeing that other man meant nothing. It was a cry of desperation, but I had too much pride to see it for what it was. I reacted the same way you did, judging her without asking for one second if I was responsible for her needing a little attention from someone else.”

“So cheating is okay, if she was feeling neglected?” Even as the words left his mouth, he knew the bitterness behind them had little to do with his mother. For weeks before she’d died, he’d worried and wondered if Georgia was being faithful to him. He knew what it was like over there, knew how hard it was to face the danger alone. He’d had not one shred of evidence to support his suspicions, but each time she’d mentioned another soldier’s name in passing, his jealousy had deepened. If his worst fears had been confirmed, he wasn’t sure how he would have handled it. It wouldn’t have been like this, that’s for sure. His mother’s behavior years ago had hardened his heart toward cheating, no matter the excuses behind it.

“I can’t believe you’d just turn the other cheek, Dad,” he said.

“Your mother never cheated,” Mick repeated emphatically. “She might have thought about it, might even have wanted me to think she would, but she never did. I believe that with every fiber of my being.” He looked Kevin in the
eye. “And even if she had, it’s in the past now. We’re moving on, finding our way back to each other. It’s what we both want, and if you can’t embrace that, then just stay out of our way.”

“So you don’t care what I—what any of us, for that matter—think about this reconciliation?”

“We care,” Mick said. “But it’s not going to be the deciding factor. You’re adults now, not children. Your opinions count, certainly, but you’re old enough to understand that love is what matters in this life, and we shouldn’t let anything stand in the way of that.”

“You let work get in the way,” Kevin reminded him.

“And I was a damn fool,” Mick replied without hesitation. “That’s a lesson I’m passing on to you here and now. If you’re lucky enough to love someone, make that your top priority.”

His father’s belated transformation was hard to buy, but there was at least some evidence to support it. “Is that why you’ve cut back on work, taken to volunteering?”

“Yes.”

Kevin tried to grapple with this turnaround. “And you don’t feel like you’re sacrificing your identity?”

“I have plenty of testaments to my identity as an architect all over this country,” Mick said. “The identity that matters is how well I’ve done as a husband and father. That one’s still evolving.”

Kevin looked into his father’s eyes and saw a serenity there that he couldn’t recall ever seeing before. He was at peace with the choices he was making lately. Kevin would give anything to find some measure of peace these days. He didn’t think he was going to find it in work, despite what everyone else seemed to be pushing him toward. As for love, what had that ever gotten him but a broken heart?

By midafternoon Shanna couldn’t stand it another minute. Beyond asking where she wanted things, Kevin hadn’t said two words to her all morning and only a half a dozen since lunchtime. The silence was making her a little crazy.

She poured two cups of coffee, frothed milk and added it to hers, then walked over to where Kevin was sorting the books for the nonfiction section according to category.

“Time for a break,” she announced, holding out the coffee.

He accepted it with obvious reluctance and eyed her warily. “What’s up?”

“That’s what I want to know,” she said. “You’ve hardly said a thing all day. Is something wrong? Is everything okay with your son?”

“Davy’s over at my sister’s playing with his cousins. Abby has a nanny who watches them during the summer.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then, if you’re not worried about him, what’s on your mind?”

He sat back, leaning against an overstuffed armchair she’d placed in the middle of the room. There were similar chairs scattered throughout. Most had been thrift shop finds, but all had been fitted with bright new slipcovers. Kevin’s gaze finally met hers.

“Why does something have to be wrong?” he inquired testily. “Don’t you ever have a day when you simply don’t have much to say?”

“Sure,” she said readily. “Usually when something’s wrong.”

His lips quirked up at that. “Okay, you got me there. Look, it’s nothing for you to worry about. My mood has nothing to do with you.”

“You’re here, so it does affect me,” she told him.

“I could leave.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” she said irritably. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to talk to me.”

“Shanna, I appreciate the concern. I really do, but you don’t get to try to fix what’s wrong with me. Believe me, others have tried and failed.”

“So, you’re a real hard case, is that it?”

Again, his lips twitched. “Something like that.”

“You know, I’m actually a good listener,” she said, not sure why she was so determined to get to the bottom of his mood. “I don’t even have to offer any advice, though that might be a test of my willpower.”

He laughed then, which was a breakthrough of sorts. She grinned back at him. “That’s better.”

“Can we consider your work here done?” he asked hopefully.

“For the moment. Laughter really is the best medicine, don’t you think so?”

He gave her a somber look, then. “If only it were that easy,” he murmured, putting aside his coffee cup and standing up. “I’m going to finish with these books now.”

She watched as he went back to the task, deliberately shutting her out.

“You might take a look at a couple of those books on positive thinking,” she called out as she went back to her own section of the store.

To her delight, he laughed again.

Maybe, she thought, if she worked at coaxing that laugh out of him, in time it would get easier. It might not chase away all his demons, but it could be a start.

She sighed at the thought. Here she was again, trying to save a wounded soul. She thought of her ex-husband.
She’d worked so hard to try to save him from himself, convinced that she could make things better for him and his son, but in the end alcohol had won.

It had taken a very long time, but she knew now it had never even been a fair fight.

W
ith all of the physically demanding work finished at Shanna’s store, Kevin needed to find an excuse to be away from the house over the weekend, so he could avoid an encounter with his mother. Despite his father’s willingness to let bygones be bygones, Kevin wasn’t interested in a reconciliation with the woman who’d left them. It still shocked him that his sisters seemed to be mellowing toward their mother, especially Jess, who’d suffered the most when she’d gone.

Friday evening, assured that Davy was welcome to spend the night at Abby’s, he’d called Jake and scheduled a guys’ night out with him, Will and Mack. The quick agreement to the last-minute suggestion was one of the few benefits of having everyone worried about him. Bree had immediately given Jake her blessing to join the outing. Apparently she considered the invitation to Jake a sign that Kevin was finally on the mend.

Kevin wondered what she would have thought if she’d known how little he’d had to say all evening. Jake and Mack had filled the conversational gaps, while Will had studied him with way too many speculative looks. That was the risk of having a shrink for a friend, though Will
was halfway decent about waiting to be asked for any kind of advice. If Kevin had been in a better frame of mind, he might have chuckled at the number of times he caught Will practically biting his tongue to keep silent.

Since Kevin had nursed a single beer most of the evening and gotten home early, he was up barely after dawn on Saturday and heading for Abby’s a half hour later. He was fairly confident that he’d be long gone before anyone else in the house awoke. He hadn’t formulated a plan for the rest of the day, but he definitely wouldn’t be spending it here waiting for his mother to pounce with advice or comfort.

Unfortunately, he’d just stepped off the porch, when he spotted his mother crossing the lawn, obviously returning from an early-morning walk on the beach. She offered him a tentative smile.

“You’re up early,” she said, her voice determinedly upbeat. “Going somewhere?”

“Over to Abby’s. I need to pick up Davy.”

He was about to walk on by, but she faced him with a penetrating look that halted him.

“Then you weren’t hoping to avoid me again this morning?” she inquired lightly.

He flushed guiltily. “So what if I was?” he asked defensively.

“I never took you for a coward,” she responded, her tone deceptively mild. “Certainly no one in this household raised you to be one, not your father or Nell or—”

He cut her off before she could add her name to the list. “At least you acknowledge it was Dad and Gram who raised me.”

The barb didn’t seem to humiliate her as he’d intended it to. Instead, she kept her gaze steady.

“Of course I do, Kevin, though if we’re both being honest and direct, I did have a hand in raising you until you were in your teens. It wasn’t until then that Nell stepped in.”

He was about to speak, but she apparently wasn’t through, because she silenced him with a hard look, then added, “And though I’m quite sure you think otherwise, I never intended any of it to turn out the way it did.”

“Oh, really? Then you just went to New York for the weekend and got lost? Maybe developed amnesia?”

She sighed and gestured toward the beach. “Let’s go for a walk, Kevin. We might as well have this out here and now. This fight has been brewing for years.”

She was right. It had been. He’d stored up plenty of things he wanted to say to her, but now that the opportunity had presented itself, he felt tongue-tied.

“You’re just back from a walk and I need to get to Abby’s,” he argued, but he could tell from her unrelenting gaze, she wasn’t going to give in. Maybe it was best to get this over with, let her know there was nothing she could do or say to make amends for the past. In fact, a part of him admired her for not backing down. In her shoes, he wasn’t so sure he’d have been as strong. Recent history certainly suggested quite the opposite. He was lousy at facing hard truths.

“I’m not so old that I can’t take a second walk on the beach, and those children over at Abby’s are probably still in bed,” she said, regarding him with amusement. “Any other excuses?”

“None,” he conceded and turned toward the beach. He strode off across the lawn, then went down the steps without slowing his pace. Let her chase him, if she wanted to talk to him.

To his surprise, she actually kept up with him, despite being several inches shorter and a good many years older. When he glanced over at her, she gave him a faint smile. “Everyone walks fast in New York,” she said with a shrug. “Do your worst. I can keep up.”

The knot in his chest seemed to ease just a little at her show of determination and defiance. He suddenly recalled that it had been a matter of pride to her that she could keep up with him and Connor. With Mick so often away, she was the one who’d even organized the occasional camping trip for the two of them, or gone with them on hikes. She might have looked out of place with her perfect hair and stylish outfits, but she’d never complained and she’d matched them step for step.

Because he didn’t want to dwell on the good memories and because the question had been nagging at him for more than fifteen years now, he finally blurted it out. “Why’d you do it, Mom? I know why you left Dad, but why us?” He couldn’t seem to help the pain that was revealed in that single question.

“Oh, Kevin, I never meant to leave any of you behind,” she said, reaching out to touch his jaw, but drawing back before she made contact. Her expression turned sad. “Not even your father.”

What the devil was she talking about, Kevin wondered. She’d left. What had she expected to happen? Suddenly it dawned on him. “Did you expect Dad to come running after you?” he asked incredulously.

She shook her head at once, then sighed deeply. “Okay, maybe at first I hoped for exactly that, but I knew your father well enough not to expect it.”

In an odd way he was relieved that she hadn’t been that delusional. “Then what did you expect?”

“To have my children with me in New York.”

She said it so wistfully that it stunned him, especially when he knew it was a lie. “Come on,” he scoffed. “You never wanted that. I overheard you tell Dad more than once that you hadn’t signed on to be a single mom. Am I supposed to believe that changed just because you’d divorced him? Did you suddenly get all warm and fuzzy over the idea of raising us on your own?”

She looked stung, then shook her head. “Sometimes I’m still astonished by how much you all heard, when your father and I tried so hard to keep our arguments private. You heard just enough to be hurt, but not enough to understand.”

“Come on, Mom, what’s to misunderstand? If you ask me, you made yourself pretty clear.”

“Actually the point I was trying to make to your father was that we’d agreed to be partners in our marriage, that if he wasn’t going to be around to share in the responsibilities of parenting, I might as well be a single mother. At least then I’d know that everything was up to me.”

Kevin knew she was trying to make a distinction, but he wasn’t sure he bought it. “What’s the difference?”

“I’ll give you an example,” she said at once. “Do you remember the first thing that would happen every time your dad came home from a business trip?”

Kevin thought back, but couldn’t think of anything specific. He shook his head.

“Then I’ll remind you. You or Connor or one of your sisters would greet him at the door with a laundry list of things you wanted to do that I’d already refused to let you do. Mick would automatically say yes, undermining my decision without knowing any of the relevant facts. He
loved being the good guy, which left me to be the hard-nosed disciplinarian. Then he and I would end up fighting about it.”

Though he hated admitting it, Kevin did recall exactly how they’d used Mick’s absences to their advantage. On some level, they’d known that their dad’s guilt at being away so much would keep him from saying no to anything. They’d also known that Megan wouldn’t overrule him.

“You’re saying it would have been easier to be the final authority,” he concluded.

“Pretty much.”

“Couldn’t you just have told Dad to butt out until the two of you had a chance to talk? Wouldn’t that have made more sense than divorcing him?”

She smiled at that. “We’re talking about your father. Have you ever known him to butt out? Besides, you know the divorce was about much more than that.”

“I still think you’re revising history,” he said bitterly. “It’s easy to say now that you wanted us with you. How are we supposed to prove otherwise?”

There was a quick flash of hurt in her eyes at his remark, but then she said, “Don’t you really mean how am I going to prove that I’m telling the truth? Okay, fair enough. Do you remember my first visit back here after I left?”

Kevin shook his head. He’d made it a point to be away from the house as much as possible whenever he knew she was coming. He’d been so angry then. And Gram and Mick had let him get away with it, buying whatever excuse he’d offered. They’d gently tried to coax him into sticking around, but the minute he’d balked, they’d given in.

“You spent the weekend with Jake,” she reminded him.
“On a camping trip.” She let that sink in, then asked, “How about my next visit?”

He tried to think back, but nothing specific came to mind. “How do you expect me to remember something from that long ago?”

“You seem to remember pretty clearly that I supposedly abandoned you.”

“Well, of course, because that’s exactly what you did.”

Her gaze steady, she said, “No, Kevin, I didn’t, not the way you’re implying, anyway. I was here, time after time. You were all so angry, and who could blame you, but I kept coming back. I encouraged all of you to come to New York. I was supposed to share custody with your father. Mick and I had agreed to that. He provided enough alimony and child support for a place big enough for all of us. My apartment was filled with empty bedrooms intended for you. I had schools picked out. Ask Abby if you don’t believe me. When she moved to New York, she visited the apartment, saw the room I’d decorated for you and Connor with all sorts of sports posters, the one for Bree and Abby with a computer, the perfect little girl’s room for Jess.”

Shaken, Kevin regarded her with disbelief. “Why did you do all that, then never take us with you?”

“Because I was convinced you’d be miserable if I took you away from here. It was the wrong decision, no question about it, but I did what I thought was best for you at the time. Your friends were here. You had family here. In New York, with me working, you all would have had too much time on your own in a strange place, even if I’d arranged for a housekeeper. And, on top of all that, most of you were barely speaking to me. Eventually I had to face the fact that you all wanted to be here, rather than with
me. I finally gave up that ridiculously expensive apartment and got one I could afford without any help from your father.”

He hated the image that came to mind of his mother sitting all alone in that large, empty apartment. For an instant, his heart filled with compassion, but it took only a moment before it hardened again. He’d had years to perfect the anger and no time at all to absorb this other side to the story.

Apparently his mother wasn’t expecting a response or even a reaction, because she continued, each word another blow to the wall of defenses he’d erected.

“Instead, I settled for being the outsider,” she said. “I settled for coming again and again for uncomfortable visits, trying to chip away at all that anger.” She gave him a rueful look. “Every one of you kids inherited the O’Brien gene for stubbornness in spades. Not one of you ever cut me any slack.”

“Did you expect us to?”

“I hoped, with time, you would. That’s why I never stopped trying.”

The conversation made him look back from a different perspective, see that period of his life in a new light. Maybe she hadn’t been quite the monster he’d turned her into in his own head.

She looked at him thoughtfully. “Now that I’ve answered your questions, will you answer one of mine?”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

This time when she reached out to touch his cheek, she didn’t pull back. “Tell me why you’re in so much pain?”

He stared at her incredulously. “I lost my wife! How do you expect me to feel?”

“Oh, Kevin, I know grief when I see it, and that’s not what I’m seeing with you, not entirely, anyway.”

“You think you know what it’s like to grieve for someone?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “I grieved for you children every day of the past fifteen years.”

“Not the same. You could have had us back. All you needed to do was move home, or at least back to Chesapeake Shores. There’s nothing,
nothing,
I can do to get Georgia back.”

To his dismay he saw something in her eyes that scared him, an apparent understanding of every emotion that was in his heart.

“If you could wave a magic wand and bring her back, would you?”

“Of course,” he said at once, stunned that she’d even ask such a ridiculous question.

She waved off the quick response. “I don’t just mean having her safe and alive,” she amended. “Of course, all of us want that. I meant here, with you.”