Look to the Rainbow (27 page)

      She said, “Kel sent it.” She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He was strangely silent throughout the entire half hour that the interview ran.

     “Julia, “ Lily said, “did you
see
that interview?”

     Julia had called her as soon as it was over. “I did. They are so perfect together. Why can’t they just admit it?”
    “What did Michael say when he saw it?”

     “Nothing to me. He’s covering the debate so he’s watching it with Tara.”

      “That should be interesting.”

      Julia laughed. “It will be, but not in the way you think.  She called in tears after the interview. Michael started in after we hung up about how he had broken her heart and that’s just what expected from James O’Brien’s son.”

     Lily gasped. “He did not say that!”

     “Oh but he did. Then I pointed out that if things had worked out differently he wouldn’t even have a daughter to be worried about. At least not this daughter. Or, for that matter his wife and son. I told him it was time to let the past go.”

     “What do you think he’ll do?”

     “I have no idea. I’ll be on pins and needles until he gets back.”

     Michael watched the debate and watched Tara. The interview had taken him aback. Why had he not noticed when they were in the same room with him how obviously in love with each other they were? Viewing the interaction between them would have made anyone watching feel as if they were a fly on the wall listening to a private conversation. Tara had done her job, she’d earned ratings for her station and votes for Kelly O’Brien. She had also fueled the flames for the tabloids again. He had no doubt the paparazzi would be all over them again by this time tomorrow. Julia had said a few choice words about the situation last night. She had more than put him in his place and he’d done nothing but think about what she had said during his flight. Tara and Kel might indeed be finished, but he had made a decision. He wasn’t going to be one of the reasons he daughter didn’t find happiness with a man she clearly loved. He would do his part, then hope and pray that it worked out.

     He followed Tara to the front where Kel was standing with Janet and Jim and John. He greeted John and then shook hands with Kel, who in turn introduced him to Janet.

    “I would have known who you were,” he said, “without and introduction. You are the image of your grandmother.”

     She smiled at him and said, “You knew my grandmother?”

     “Well, yes, I did. At one time I was engaged to marry her.”He caught them all off guard with that remark, but he didn’t expand on the subject, instead he said to Kel, “I think we need to have a talk.” He had turned to Tara, given her a kiss and said he would drop by on his way to the airport and he and Kel had left together.

     Tara said, in a panic, to John, “Please find out what they talked about.”

     John laughed at her and said, “That was some interview.”

     She blushed. “I hope it helps put him over the top.”

     “If it does where does that leave you?”

     “Oh, John, I wish I knew.” She hugged him and hugged Janet. As she drove home she tried to figure out what her father was discussing with Kel. Kel’s mother had been engaged to her father? She clearly needed to think about something else. The DVD was still on the coffee table and she picked it up. It had been a long time since she had seen it. She kicked off her shoes, put it in the player and settled in to watch it.

     Kel was finding it difficult to sleep, again. He’d been losing quite a bit of sleep lately. He knew he needed to stay well rested, because it always caught up with him when he wasn’t. But tonight sleep would not come. He had too much to think about. Tomorrow they would go back to Florida to campaign one more time before their primary. If they did well there and in the other big primaries, he would be assured the nomination. Then the whole campaign would change. At that point, they would focus on beating the incumbent president. But it wasn’t the upcoming super Tuesday that was causing him to lose sleep. Instead, it was the conversation he’d had after the debate with Michael McCaffrey.

     Michael had shocked them all with his announcement. He tried to imagine Fiona with anyone else beside his father and couldn’t. They’d been the model for everything he had wanted out of his marriage and failed to achieve. He had done his best to be as good a father as James had been, even if Alise hadn’t been at all like his mother.  But even Michael’s announcement wasn’t what stood out from the conversation. Instead, it was that Tara’s father had essentially given the relationship his blessing, if indeed there was still a relationship at all.  Tara had him thoroughly confused. One moment she welcomed his embraces and kissed him passionately, the next she ran away. Michael had told it was obvious to both he and Julia that their daughter was in love with him and that he no longer wanted to stand in the way of anything that might develop in the future. He urged Kel to give her time. Perhaps he suggested, after the campaign was over it would be easier for her. Kel knew that he would be willing to wait forever for her. She would be worth the wait. But waiting wouldn’t be easy.

 
Chapter Twenty-Three

     The sun was getting lower on the horizon and they would need to take the boat in soon, but it had been a beautiful day for sailing and neither Evan or Mary Katherine were in a hurry to end it. Mary Katherine watched as Evan stood on the bough, Titanic-like and laughed, thinking, not for the first time, that had he been born in another time, he might well have been a pirate deserving of the boat she had given him. There was quite a breeze and they moved along without much effort. She went up join him, sitting on the polished wood floor. She wasn’t scared, not at all, to be out on the boat, but she preferred a little more caution in moving around. She remembered in years past how he’d held Seamus on his shoulders in the same spot and she had worried that he’d fall overboard. Casey, too, and Skip and Sara, had always joined him in the most precarious places and they had always trusted him to keep them safe. Occasionally a memory of a day sailing with his father would come back to Evan, and they would talk about that. The two of them had always talked of sailing from Annapolis to Key West. A few years previously, Evan and Mary Katherine had done just that, with Skip and Sara and Casey and Seamus in tow.

     He came and sat beside her. “We should have planned to stay out overnight,” he said. “I don’t want to take her back in.”

    “I know. It’s been a wonderful day at sea.”

     He lay back on the deck and pulled her into his arms. Laughing she lay next to him. “You looked deep in thought,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

     “Nothing really, I was just thinking about the trip we took to Key West.”

     “That was a great trip. I was thinking we needed to sail to Bermuda.”

     “That would be fun. Alone, or with assorted O’Briens in tow?”

    He considered that. “We could do make the trip either way, but we haven’t been anywhere alone in a while, and you know, sailboats can be very romantic.”

     “Can they now?”

     He gave her a long slow kiss. “I wouldn’t know from experience mind you. I’m just going on what I’ve heard.”

     “Maybe this summer,” she said.

     “For going to Bermuda, or just being romantic?”

     “Bermuda. You may indulge in a little romance now if you like.”

      He checked the angle of the sun, pulled her close for another long kiss and dropped anchor before taking her down to the cabin below.

     Evan handed Mary Katherine an enormous bowl of popcorn and plopped down on the sofa beside her, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

     “Good grief, did we need this much?”

     Evan gave her a boyish grin. “You’re the one who wanted to watch Dr. Zchivago on television rather than rent a nice regular length movie.”

    “So this is payback?”

     “Nope. Just rations for the long evening.” She threw a piece at him. As he dodged, a humane society commercial came on the television. Evan sighed. “I hate these commercials.”

     “They’re so sad. But sadly, there’s no way to save all the homeless dogs out there.”

     Evan hesitated. “Maybe not, but we
could
save one.”

    Mary Katherine stared at her husband. “You want a dog? Since when?”

     Evan shrugged. “Since always. But Dad never would let us have one.”

     The movie had been her choice, but she wasn’t able to keep her mind on the long drama. Instead of watching the characters on the television screen, the images that kept playing in front of her were Evan with the O’Brien children; dancing with Casey standing on his feet, swinging Seamus around, playing chess with Skip, piano duets with Sara. He was a man who should have had children. For selfish reasons she had deprived him of something else that would have made him happy.
She
had wanted a career,
she
had held on to memories of Harry and had never wanted offspring, no matter how many times he had asked her if they couldn’t consider having just one baby. And now, thanks to her illness, it was an impossibility.

     Halfway through the movie, she told Evan she’d had enough. It was way too long a film following a day in the sun on the boat. They cleared away their popcorn and drink glasses and climbed the stairs.

     Evan turned off the light and Mary Katherine was still thinking about the conversation they had before the movie started. One thought kept coming back to her. What if something happened to her? Suppose the cancer came back and she didn’t make it. Evan would be all alone.

     She put her head on his shoulder and even though he was almost asleep he put an arm around her. She didn’t keep him awake by talking, but a plan was already forming in her mind. They would never be able to have children, and truth be told, even though that would have brought him so much joy, she wasn’t the most maternal person. But they could have a dog. She fell asleep knowing how she would spend the next day.

     Mary Katherine followed the human society volunteer through the maze of cages looking for just the right dog. If Evan had been here, she thought, they would have had to take them all home. Poor things, they were so sad looking. But so far one hadn’t stood out. Hadn’t called to her and made her want to adopt it. As she listened to the volunteer sharing stories about this dog and that, a small whine made her turn and look behind her. A miniature shaggy gray dog with a streak of white down his face looked up at her. His eyes seemed to say “please take me home.” He tilted his little head to one side and looked amazingly intelligent. Mary Katherine asked what his story was.

     “This is Socrates,” she was told. The volunteer said that he had been left alone for over a week when his owner , an older gentleman, had passed away while on an overnight trip. “He has abandonment issues,” she said. Perfect, Mary Katherine thought. So does Evan.