Regrets Only (8 page)

“I dusted your championship trophy in that game not long ago,” her mother remarked, and then paused as if lost in thought. “Speaking of which, we’ll have to clean out your room one of these days. If you’re really planning to stay in that Southern state after all, your father wants your room for an office.”

“Dad’s retired. And Pennsylvania isn’t the South.”

“Whatever,” Mrs. O’Malley said, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s too far, that much I know. No good can come of leaving your family. At the end of the day, that’s all anyone’s got. But you’ve wanted an adventure since the day you were born.” Turning her attention back to her granddaughters, she said in a louder voice, “Girls, did you hear me about those jacks?”

“Do you remember how much Aidan and I loved to play?”

Mrs. O’Malley crossed herself at the mention of her deceased son, but said nothing.

For Lucy, being home meant being with Aidan. It wasn’t just the visible reminders—the formal studio portrait that sat in a silver frame on the mantelpiece or his racing bicycle that gathered dust in the garage. It was that each room held memories of games, stories, and the daily events that marked the passage of life with a sibling. She could still hear his voice from upstairs accusing no one in particular but everyone in general of taking his Dire Straits tape. She could visualize the anxiety on his face when he left for his algebra exam in the seventh grade. How many nights had they lain side by side on a giant beanbag in the basement, watching reruns of
The
Mod Squad
and dreaming of being undercover cops? “Hippies,” Mrs. O’Malley had muttered accusingly whenever she saw Linc, Pete, and Julie on the television screen, but to Lucy and Aidan the threesome were heroes.

Now she closed her eyes, momentarily picturing the face of her brother as he lay in the morgue. Aidan had cuts over one eye and minor external bruising, nothing compared to the massive swelling that the coroner had found within his skull. Her brother had called her just that afternoon and asked her to call back as soon as possible, but the piece of paper with the message taken by her college roommate had blown off her bureau and under the bed. A breeze from an open window kept her ignorant of what might have been his final plea for help. More than a decade later, she still couldn’t look at the notation “ASAP” without feeling overwhelming numbness.

Lying on the metallic table was his lean, eighteen-year-old body covered by a blue tarp. She’d reached over and embraced him, begging for a response, a squeeze, a tickle, a tiny finger wiggle. But by the time she’d traveled from her college dormitory to Massachusetts General Hospital nearly ten hours had passed, a lifetime since the automobile accident, and she felt nothing but cold, hard, unresponsive flesh beneath her hand.

The clatter of serving utensils on a platter snapped Lucy out of her nightmarish fog. “I see you took the plastic off the sofas,” she teased, wanting to distract herself with the gaiety of the gathering rather than morbid times she couldn’t forget. “This must be a very special occasion indeed.”

As a child, she’d been mortified that her mother kept protective covering over the two couches and three armchairs in the first-floor parlor. But Mrs. O’Malley’s own childhood in Ireland had been frugal; even though her husband had provided well for his family and they now enjoyed a more than comfortable retirement, waste and carelessness simply weren’t in her lexicon.

“Mind your tongue,” Mrs. O’Malley replied, only half-amused. “You never did understand that luxuries have to last. This is quality upholstery fabric. One day when you have a home of your own, you’ll see.”

“Everything looks beautiful. Truly. You’ve outdone yourself.” She extended the dish. “Where do you want this?”

“Find a spot on the table if you can.” Opening a drawer in the buffet, Mrs. O’Malley pushed aside assorted napkin rings, half-melted tapers, and a stack of doilies in a hopeless search for matches. “You’d think I was mad all the talking I do to nobody but myself. Did anyone hear me about the candles?”

Lucy laughed. “Not likely.” There were a dozen people packed into the square kitchen and spilling out onto the back porch, not to mention the array of small children who seemed to weave in and out of feet, through legs, and over and under furniture. Her father presided over the crowd that included her brother, Michael, and his wife, Mary, plus her brother’s in-laws, a recently widowed cousin, the neighbors with their ninety-three-year-old grandmother, an aunt and her husband. And in the middle of it all, she’d left Archer Haverill with a perplexed expression on his face and a glass of sherry in his hand.

Who would have thought? They’d hardly spent a night apart since the Flower Show. “Love at second sight,” he liked to remind her.

But bringing a boyfriend home was something new. She hadn’t introduced a single male companion since she’d moved to Pennsylvania, and each year that passed added to her parents’ anxiety that she’d end up a spinster. Once she’d mentioned Archer’s existence, her mother wasn’t about to let him slip away. Even her father had insisted. “Give your mother a day of peace and bring the lad home for her to welcome,” he’d said on the telephone a week before. “She talks of nothing else.”

“But we haven’t been dating that long,” she’d responded.

“Your mother told me he answered your telephone at eight o’clock in the morning. That means you’ve been dating long enough.”

Archer had accepted her invitation without hesitation. “What about your father?” she’d asked. He spoke little of Mr. Haverill but she pictured an older man in a cardigan sweater alone with a TV dinner. Did Stouffer’s even make an Easter version with traditional fixings? That he would be alone on a holiday seemed too sad.

“He’ll go to his club for lunch,” Archer said. “Don’t worry. My dad was raised a Quaker. Although I don’t think he’s been to a meeting in forty years, the doctrine about no special celebrations seems to have stuck. We hardly celebrate Christmas. Easter’s a nonevent.”

Lucy moved the salt and pepper shakers to make room for the mint jelly and returned to the kitchen just as Mrs. O’Malley removed the roasted leg of lamb in a massive cast-iron pan from the oven. The smell of garlic and rosemary and the exclamations of the hungry observers filled the air, even as the cook elbowed her way to the sideboard. “Tell your father the party’s over if he doesn’t get inside right now to make himself useful.” She held up a large carving knife.

Lucy stepped out onto the porch, inadvertently letting the screen door slam shut behind her. Mary’s baby spit out his pacifier and started to cry. Archer and her father turned in her direction.

“A ladylike entrance as usual,” Mr. O’Malley remarked.

“Oh blarney,” Lucy said, imitating her father’s cousin who used the phrase as often as he could. She’d never understood what it meant but liked the sound of it. Walking over to her father, she hugged him. “I hope you’re not scaring him off.”

“To the contrary,” Archer replied quickly. “I can’t remember when I’ve had such a nice holiday.”

“Was it the traffic through the Sumner tunnel, the two-hour Mass in Latin, or the eye-burning incense? I want to keep track of what you love best.” Seeing Archer happy made her feel the same.

“I’m hearing from this young gentleman what a pesky bugger you are.” Her father pinched her cheek.

“Archer, what have you told him?”

“How hard it was to get you on a date. How I had to beg, plead, and cajole, and make promises of all kinds of riches before you’d agree to be seen in my company.” Archer winked, knowing his description wasn’t too far from the truth.

“You’ll fit right in around here if you keep fabricating stories,” Lucy replied. Turning to her father she instructed, “You’re needed to carve the lamb. Mum’s got the knife out already.”

“Very well then.” He took a step toward the door but turned back to face Archer. “My one piece of advice on the women in this family is that it’s best not to disobey when they’re brandishing a weapon.” With that he disappeared inside.

8:23 p.m
.

Most of the dishes had been cleared and the visitors had departed, leaving the O’Malley family still at the table too full and too content to get up. Mr. O’Malley produced a new bottle of Baileys and even Lucy, who’d never been a fan of Irish cream, enjoyed a few sips.

On her lap, Tara had fallen asleep. Her head hung back and her mouth was slightly open, just enough to let drool run out onto her aunt’s shoulder. Despite offers to assist in moving her to a bed, Lucy had resisted. The chubby body and hot breath felt warm, comforting. As Tara sighed in a dream, Lucy hugged her closer. Next to her, she watched her sister-in-law feed little Aidan, as he lay cradled in her arms. He sucked vigorously, his jaw moving rhythmically back and forth. She could see the perfect fingernails as his tiny hands gripped the bottle and could smell the wonderful mixture of baby oil and talcum powder.

“She’s made for motherhood,” Michael remarked to no one in particular. “If I get sent to the Market Basket at four in the morning for another bottle of Similac, I’ll lose my mind. But Mary’s patience is endless.”

“No surprise there. She married you,” Mr. O’Malley chimed in.

“I’m glad to see you finally recognize your wife’s many gifts,” Mrs. O’Malley said as she came in from the kitchen and settled next to her husband. She took off her shoes, exposing the reinforced toes of her pantyhose, put her feet up on the empty chair beside her, and sighed in relief. “Now, you must tell me, how does one get a name like Archer?” She reached for her husband’s glass of Baileys and took a generous sip.

“If you let Ma grill him, Lucy, you may never see the guy again,” Michael teased.

“He can take the Fifth if he needs to,” she replied.

“It’ll take more than a curious mother to keep me away,” Archer said, as he rested his hand on Lucy’s thigh and gave her a squeeze.

“You make a grown girl blush,” Lucy said. “Not that modesty has been one of my particular virtues.”

“Lucy O’Malley, I’d send you to your room if you weren’t old enough to resist,” her mother said, only partly in jest.

“I’m named for my father, Rodman. But it seemed so pompous. ‘Famous man’ it means in German. Do you think that’s me?” he asked, smiling at Mrs. O’Malley. “Anyway, I started calling myself Archer. Sort of a pun, or at least I thought so at the time. I was about ten and into bows and arrows, cowboys and Indians stuff. It stuck.”

“I see.” Mrs. O’Malley looked a bit confused. Name variation within the several-block radius of the O’Malleys’ Somerville network was limited. And nobody was named after someone in the family who was still alive. That honor came with death. “You have an interest in garden ornaments, I hear. How interesting,” she said, obviously struggling to change the subject.

“It started when I was trying to find furniture for my bar. I wanted small tables—bistro, but sturdier—and I looked at a lot of old wrought-iron stuff, most of which had been used outside. It was beautiful. The patinas, the mosses, the age, each piece was so different that I thought it would make my bar unusual. So I started buying it up. Then I got into stone birdbaths, statuary, and fountains. I’m quite sure I violated the fire code, although I guess I’m not supposed to admit that in this company.”

“Violating an ordinance is fine. What you’re not supposed to admit is that you like decorating—or shopping for that matter.” Mr. O’Malley laughed. “Now I’m going to have to excuse myself from this scintillating conversation. My wife has declared an end to my cigar smoking indoors. I say something’s got to get you, but to show my gratitude for the exquisite meal she produced, I’ll head outside.” He leaned over and kissed the top of his wife’s head. “If anyone cares to join me . . .”

Archer rose quickly. “I’d love to. I’ve a couple of Macanudos in my coat. I wasn’t sure I’d have any takers.”

Mr. O’Malley patted Archer on the back and grinned back at the group as they walked outside. Lucy watched with a mixture of delight and apprehension. How could it be that Archer was this comfortable? “Just relax,” she could imagine Aidan’s voice as if he were sitting beside her. “He’s a hit.”

9:15 p.m.

Lucy leaned against the butcher block, waiting with a dishrag. Mrs. O’Malley, wearing yellow rubber gloves, stood at the sink, slathering her platters, bowls, and crystal with soapsuds, scrubbing them vigorously with a bristle brush, and then rinsing them under fresh water before passing them off to her daughter. It was a familiar scene. Despite the pride her parents took in their daughter’s accomplishments on the police force, women still did the dishes in the O’Malley household.

Lucy didn’t mind. She enjoyed listening to the sound of Archer and her father talking outside on the porch, and smelling the cigar smoke that wafted in through the screen door. Her brother and his family had left, and she welcomed the few minutes alone with her mother.

“Aidan would’ve liked your gentleman friend,” Mrs. O’Malley remarked, as if reading her mind.

“Did the police ever question the circumstances surrounding Aidan’s death?”

She heard a clatter as her mother dropped a handful of flatware she was holding. “What are you talking about?” she asked, burrowing beneath the suds to retrieve the forks, knives, and spoons that still needed washing.

“Was there ever any doubt about the accident?” Perhaps it was the several glasses of wine and the bit of Baileys she’d drunk, perhaps it was the birth of her nephew, his namesake, perhaps it was her own sorrow that Aidan wasn’t outside with her father and Archer, or, perhaps, it was her recent promotion to the Homicide Unit that spurred her to ask what she’d wondered for years.

“I don’t know what you mean. Your father looked at the report. Go ask him if you need to be raising skeletons. It could have been written in French for all I remember.”

“I spend a lot of time thinking about it, about what happened, about what might have happened. It never made sense to me,” Lucy replied. “And I truly wish I understood.”

“It was a long time ago. May he rest in peace,” her mother said, crossing herself. Water from her gloves left dark spots on her chest and shoulders. “But it would make sense to you if you’d recognize that God has a plan for all of us. We don’t need to understand the particulars of why. It just is.”