Shore Lights (22 page)

A burst of pleasure flooded Maddy at her mother's words. “Thanks,” she said. The truth was, she hadn't taken a lot of care with her appearance in quite awhile. It was a relief to discover she remembered how.

“Something special?” Rose repeated.

“Sort of,” Maddy said, opting unexpectedly for the truth. “I'm meeting Aidan O'Malley at the coffee shop. It turns out he's the one who was trying to buy the samovar I bought for Maddy on that auction, and he says he has a picture of something his grandmother used to own and—”

You're rambling, Maddy. You sound like you're making it up as you go along
.

“Anyway, we're going to compare the samovar and the clipping at the coffee shop. I would've shown it to him yesterday afternoon, but with Hannah around and—”

“You could bring him back here for coffee,” Rose said. “God knows we always have enough.”

“No,” Maddy said, a trifle sharply, then caught herself. “I mean, thanks, but this isn't a big deal or anything. We'll just duck across the street after the school bus leaves and compare the teapot to the clipping.”

“And then what?” Lucy piped up. “What do you expect to find?”

Maddy stared at her aunt as if seeing her for the first time. “I don't actually know,” she admitted. “It all made sense yesterday. Now I'm not quite sure what the point is.”

“Curiosity,” Rose said. “Just so long as you don't let him talk you out of Hannah's Christmas present.”

“Your mother's right,” Lucy said. “Those O'Malley men can be extremely convincing when they set their minds to it.”

“I don't think I'm in any danger,” Maddy drawled. “He can look all he wants, but he can't touch.”

Her mother and aunt burst into laughter and were still chuckling when Maddy and Hannah left for the bus stop.

“Why can't Priscilla come?” Hannah asked as they walked slowly down the ice-frosted street. “She always goes to the bus with us.”

“I had to leave her home with Aunt Lucy today,” Maddy said, “because I'm going someplace where dogs aren't allowed.”

“Where's that?” Hannah asked. “You're not going away?”

“Remember Julie's, the coffee shop across the street from the bus stop?” Hannah shook her head. “Grandma Rose and I took you there for a hot chocolate when we first moved here. Remember now?”

“I dunno.” Hannah wrinkled her nose. “Maybe sort of.”

“I'm meeting Billy's uncle Aidan there for a cup of coffee.”

“Why are you meeting him?” Hannah asked. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“You know I don't have a boyfriend, Hannah.” Maddy's cheeks reddened—the brisk wind, most likely—and she thanked God they were still a block away from the bus stop. Her cousins would have a field day with that question. “He wants to show me a photograph of his grandma's old restaurant.”

“Is that why you're carrying that bag? Are you going to show him pictures of my grandma's restaurant?”

“Yes.” Maddy winced inwardly. She could almost hear the ghost of Dr. Spock telling her that good mothers never take the easy way out. They always answer a simple question with the longest, most convoluted, too-much-information answer possible, all in the interest of being honest with their kids.

Too bad
, Maddy thought.
It's Christmastime
. Any mother of a young child could tell you that all bets were off in December, at least until your kids were old enough to know who Santa really was. The samovar was going to be Hannah's big surprise or she'd know the reason why.

“You know, Hannah, Grandma Rose doesn't really own a restaurant.”

“People eat food there.”

“Yes, but that's because they're guests in Grandma Rose's house.”

“Grandma says they pay her money to stay there.”

“That's right and for their money Grandma Rose gives them a beautiful room and some delicious meals.”

“I thought that's a rest'rant.”

“You don't sleep in a restaurant, Hannah.”

“Lisa says Grandma doesn't like you.” Hannah looked up at Maddy, her blue eyes wide with curiosity. “I hear you fighting sometimes.”

I need a road map, God, and fast
. Something to point out where the land mines were hidden before she stepped on one. Who knew the mother-daughter dance began so early?

“Grandma Rose loves me very much,” Maddy said, “same as she loves you. It's just that we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.”

“Lisa's mommy says you ran away from home when you were little.”

The
National Enquirer
had nothing on Paradise Point, where gossip was an art form cultivated in the cradle.

Maddy smiled at her daughter. “I think I must have run away a thousand times.”

“Really?”

“Really. I had a little Barbie lunchbox—”

“You had a Barbie?”

“I had two Barbies,” she said, enjoying the look of astonishment on her daughter's face. “And I used to grab my Barbie lunchbox and my crayons and my
Grease
coloring book and storm out of the house.”

“They had Barbies when you were little?”

“Barbie's been around a long time.”

“Did Grandma get mad at you?”

“Sure she did, but I didn't care. I was going to run far away where she'd never find me.”

Hannah fell silent and Maddy's heart felt ready to burst through her rib cage with love. Hannah was seeing Maddy as a little girl for the first time, a little girl who maybe felt just like Hannah was feeling.

“Did you run far away?”

Maddy laughed. “Remember that spot on the beach that I showed you?”

“The spot near the fence where Priscilla—”

“That's the one. When I was little there was a big boulder there, and I'd tuck myself between the boulder and the dunes and pretend I was invisible.”

“But you weren't.”

“Nope, I wasn't invisible at all.” Grandma Fay and Rose and all of her sisters had been watching her every step along the way. She learned later that the telephones rang off the hook every time she ran away from home as a posse of aunts and cousins kept their collective eye on her.

“Were you scared?”

“A little.”

“But being in your secret place was good.”

“Yes, it was.”

Hannah considered that idea for a few moments. “I have a secret place.”

“Behind the curtains in my bedroom.”

Hannah made a face. “That was in the old place.”

“I could hear you giggling back there.” Was there really a time when her little girl had been so filled with happiness that there was laughter to spare?

Hannah looked up at her, and for an instant Maddy didn't quite recognize the look in her daughter's eyes. Hannah looked older and sadder. More knowing. She looked the way Maddy had looked after her father went back to Oregon.

“Do you have a new hiding place, honey?” she asked. “I could show you—”

But Hannah's eyes were no longer dancing with curiosity. She had withdrawn into sadness once again and Maddy knew all she could do was wait for her daughter to reach out again.

No matter how easy you tried to make it for them, no matter how you tried to cushion the blows, there was nothing you could do to keep your child's heart from breaking when her home was split in two. All the Saturdays in the park, all the Sunday brunches—they couldn't begin to equal going to sleep each night, knowing that both of your parents were right outside your door.

 
“YOU DON'T HAVE to do this,” Claire said as they waited while Billy Jr. ran back upstairs for his homework. “I can make it to the bus stop.”

“How much sleep did you get last night?” Aidan asked, taking note of the dark circles under her eyes and her swollen right jaw.

“I don't know,” she said, stifling a yawn. “An hour . . . maybe two. Percocet puts everyone else on earth to sleep. On me it works like six cups of espresso.”

“So go back to bed after we leave. Take it easy. Root canal's a bitch.”

His sister-in-law might be sleepy, but she wasn't stupid. “Okay, spill,” she said, giving him a variation of the look she used to shoot at Billy. “What's with all of this brotherly concern? The last time you treated me this nice was when I went into labor during Midnight Mass.”

“You were the one bitching about squeezing twenty-five hours into twenty-four. I thought I'd cut you some slack. Give you a chance to veg out one more day.”

“Yeah? And who's going to do my work at the bar?”

“We can go another day. It'll be rough, but we'll manage.”

“Wiseass.” She popped him in the forearm with a softly clenched fist. “Just tell me what the deal is with doing school-bus duty and I'll leave you alone.”

It wasn't like ten other people wouldn't tell her before he and Maddy Bainbridge ordered their first cup of coffee.

“I don't get it,” Claire said, shaking her head. “She's not your type.”

“She doesn't have to be,” Aidan said, suddenly irritated. And what the hell was
his type
anyway. “We're having coffee at Julie's, not a three-way at the No-Tell.”

Claire's eyes almost popped from her head. “A three-way? Sweet Jesus! Did you ever—”

“No,” he said, grinning. Then, “Did you?”

She started laughing, then placed a hand over her swollen jaw. “You bastard. Don't make me laugh when I'm in pain.” She met his eyes. “So why are you having coffee with Maddy? Are you looking for some of her mother's secrets to success?”

“Remember that rusty teapot I was bidding on?” He told her the whole story, about the auction, Maddy's win, Kelly's annoyance, his visit to Grandma Irene, then his discovery.

“So you really think it might be the same teapot?”

“Probably not, but it's possible.”

Claire shrugged. “Hope you don't mind me asking, but so the hell what?”

“You don't think it would be pretty damn incredible to find something you lost almost fifty years ago?”

“That's what I was afraid of.” Claire's expression darkened. “What is wrong with you anyway? When are you going to get it through your fat skull that nothing short of a visit from God Himself will change that old bat?”

“It's part of our family history.”

“Bullshit. Since when did she ever share any of her family history with any of you? I've been around this crew a long time, brother-in-law, and I know that old bat hangs on to her secrets the same way she hangs on to her bank books.”

“She had a tough life.”

Claire's tone was fierce. “Don't start that crap again, please. I love you too much to fight over that bitch. I just wish she would die already and leave us all the hell alone.”

“I didn't want to get into this, Claire,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “You asked what was up and I told you.”

Billy Jr. bounded into the room before she could respond. “I'm gonna be late,” he said, fidgeting like an over-caffeinated hummingbird with a buzz cut. “We better go.”

Claire ran a hand over his shorn head, then pulled him close and kissed him. “Did you pee?” she asked.

“Did you?”

The kid flung down his book bag, then ran for the downstairs john off the laundry room.

“Forgot how it used to be, didn't you?” Claire said with a sly look.

“Jesus,” Aidan said, remembering the early days. “How did any of us survive?”

“At least Kelly's almost on her own. I still have a good twelve years ahead of me.”

Aidan knew what she was going through. He knew it in his bones. There was a reason it took two to make a baby. Once the fun was over and the baby was actually there, it took at least that many hearts and hands to get the job done.

His brother and Claire had been there for him from the start. After Sandy died, they had driven up to Pennsylvania where he sat, shocked into numbness, into immobility, into a grief so far beyond tears that it scared the hell out of everyone except for Kelly, his beautiful baby girl who depended on him for everything but the air she breathed.

Billy and Claire cleaned them both, fed them, then bundled them up into their station wagon and drove them back down to New Jersey. When sorrow had him so deep in its grip that he couldn't come up with a reason to face another day, it was Claire who had listened to him, held him, then finally told him it was time to get a grip because his baby girl needed him.

And it was Claire who had picked up the slack when he was working double-shifts at the firehouse, taking Kelly to school and picking her up in the afternoon, helping her with her homework, listening to her prayers. He could never repay her for all she had done for them. The debt was incalculable.

“
Now
can I go?” Billy Jr. demanded as he raced into the room for a second time.

Claire helped him into his sweater, jacket, scarf, and mittens. He looked like one of those Teletubbies that had been popular a few years ago, but Aidan wisely kept that observation to himself. He hadn't survived Kelly's childhood without learning a few lessons.

His sister-in-law turned to him and made a show of checking for scarf and mittens, much to Billy Jr.'s amusement. “New sweater?”

He ignored the glint of mischief in her eyes. “Last Christmas,” he said. “You gave it to me.”

She grinned. “Say hi to Maddy for me.”