Whiskey Island (50 page)

“You’re destined to become a psychologist.” Niccolo grinned at him. “That’s somebody who understands the way other people think. It’s a very good thing, and a very important talent.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding?”

“People who watch other people and understand why they act the way they do are more important than just about anyone. They help people keep from making the same mistakes over and over again.”

“I’ve been watching my dad for years. I guess I’ve had some practice.”

Niccolo reached out and rested his hand on Josh’s for just a moment. “I guess you have.”

“I could tell him what’s wrong with him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

Josh’s father would probably do even worse than simply ignore his son, but Niccolo only nodded.

“He ought to stop drinking,” Josh said. “And stop blaming other people for everything that goes wrong.”

“A good start.”

The boy was on a roll. “And stop hitting people.”

“Amen to that.”

“Once they put him in jail for hurting a guy in a fight.”

“Where did you stay then?”

“My mom was still alive. I wanted her to leave while he was in jail. But she wouldn’t. She said my dad took care of her. Only he never really did, you know? She was just too drunk to notice.”

Niccolo set down his cup. “You’ve had a hard time of it.”

“Maybe I’ve just been learning what makes people act the way they do.”

Niccolo could see that this idea pleased the boy. This was something he could hang his past on, a better hook than self-pity. Josh might have a ways to go, but Niccolo thought he would probably make it. Despite everything that had happened to him, he had been blessed with a positive spirit and the desire to make sense of the senseless.

And maybe Winston would make it, too. That thought gave Niccolo an unexpected glow. He hadn’t considered that what he was doing with the kids might have any long-term effects. His house was simply a place to stay out of trouble, a place to pick up a few skills they could use later. He liked them; they gave his life color and substance.

But he hadn’t really considered the possible results of what he was doing. He’d had no reason to.

“Josh, will you tell me something?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Why did you keep coming to my house? I mean, you kids work hard here. I know there’s not much to do in the neighborhood, but there must have been something more fun than this.”

Josh screwed up his face in concentration.

“There’s no right answer,” Niccolo assured him.

“I’m just trying to remember.”

Niccolo waited.

“Everywhere I go, I’m always wrong, you know? At school, if I don’t do homework or know an answer, I’m stupid. At home, well, it’s worse than that. Even at other kids’ houses, it’s wrong to be there all the time. I take up space, you know? Space they need, and sometimes I eat their food. But here, it’s always right. It’s better than just okay. You give me stuff to do, and even if I do it wrong, you don’t care. You just show me how to fix it. It’s safe to come here. Nobody makes me feel bad.”

Niccolo wondered if a man’s calling could be as simple as that.

“I’m getting sleepy,” Josh said.

“I know. Talking can do that.”

The boy stood. “Thanks for the milk.”

“My pleasure. Sleep tight.”

“Huh?”

“Have good dreams.”

Josh gave a shy grin. “Maybe I will.”

St. Patrick’s Day was the Whiskey Island Saloon’s biggest event. Megan never had to hire extra help, though. Donaghue tradition decreed that family always lent a hand on the big day. Her regular staff worked the kitchen, slapping together corned beef sandwiches at the rate of four a minute, and the Donaghue clan passed them out and filled beer mugs from icy pitchers of emerald-tinted beer. A local Celtic band—some of the members were distant cousins—set up in the corner and played lively tunes all day and into the night, adding to the din.

The event was so popular that anyone who wanted the more substantial corned beef and cabbage dinner had to buy tickets weeks ahead of time, and they always sold out on the first day. Each year Megan had to carefully plan to have enough supplies on hand, although the kitchen had its limits. No matter how bulging her cupboards, by evening, food always became scarce. Luckily, by evening most people weren’t thinking about food, anyway. As long as the Guinness held out, the crowd was happy.

Less than two weeks before the big day, she harangued her corned beef supplier mercilessly, hanging up only after she’d gotten a promise that he would deliver exactly what she requested.

Peggy came into the saloon kitchen, took one whiff of that day’s special—a cabbage based stew—turned pale and left immediately.

A worried Megan followed as far as the rest room door, which Peggy closed in her face. But the activity going on in the other room was clear.

Casey bounded downstairs and entered the saloon through the door Peggy had left ajar. She stopped when she saw Megan’s anxious expression. “What’s up?”

Megan nodded toward the rest room. “Peggy’s sick.”

“Is she? I noticed she’s been avoiding breakfast. Maybe she’s coming down with something.”

They looked at each other as the possibilities dawned.

“No…” Megan shook her head. “Not a chance.”

“Really?” Casey grimaced as the toilet flushed and water ran in the rest room sink. “You’d know for sure? She’s not drinking booze or regular coffee, she’s taking naps every day, she’s gained a little weight.”

“She hardly drinks ever, Casey. And she likes my cooking. She always eats more when she’s living at home.”

“Meg, do you understand the word
denial
?”

“She’s a biology major. She’d know better than to—”

“Get pregnant?” Peggy came out, wiping her hands on a paper towel. “Honestly, I could hear every word in there. Do the two of you think pregnancy makes a woman deaf? Of course I knew better. But just in case you don’t know it, birth control is still an inexact science. I had safe sex and took all reasonable precautions.”

Megan wasn’t sure she liked the idea of her little sister having any kind of sex. “And?”

“And sometime at the beginning of September, you’ll both be aunts.”

Casey responded for both of them. “Margaret May Donaghue! And you didn’t tell us?”

Peggy sank to a chair. Since the saloon wasn’t yet open, she had her choice. “I’ve just been deciding what to do. This was my decision and no one else’s.”

Casey joined her at the table. “If the baby’s due in September, you’re at least a couple of months along. Isn’t it a little late for morning sickness?”

“Not when cabbage is involved. I’ve felt fine most of the time, but I have the occasional episode.”

“Isn’t it a little late for decisions?” Megan joined them.

“It’s not,” Peggy said. “And I had a bundle to make.”

“Had?”

“I know what I’m going to do. I’ve just been getting up the courage to tell you.”

Megan, who felt like she was suddenly swimming through Jell-O, was having trouble grasping all this, but Casey smoothly took charge. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, unless you’d rather not talk about it?”

“You mean you’d give me that choice?” Peggy smiled a little to take the sting out of her words.

“Peg, you’re an adult. You don’t have to answer to us.”

“It’s not all that complicated. I met a man at the hospital, and we had a brief affair. Both of us expected it to be more than it was, but after a few weeks, we realized we just didn’t have enough in common to make it work. We parted friends. A few weeks later, I started to suspect I might be pregnant.”

Megan found her voice. “Did you tell him?”

“He knows. He’s a good guy, and he offered to marry me.”

“And?”

Peggy shook her head. “That was one of my decisions. I can’t marry him just to give the baby a live-in dad. Neither of us would be happy, and ultimately the baby would suffer, too. Either way, he’ll be a good father. He’ll be involved in our child’s life.”

“This is all very civilized.” Megan had never expected to have this conversation, and she wasn’t in the least prepared for it. This was her little sister, her baby. The thought that she was going to have a baby of her own was completely alien.

“So marriage is out,” Casey said matter-of-factly. “Abortion?”

“Casey!” Megan got to her feet before she realized what she was doing.

“Sit down, Megan, and get a grip. It’s a real choice.”

“Not for me,” Peggy said simply.

Megan had never felt more Catholic in her life. She sat down slowly. “I’m sorry. I’m overreacting, I know. I guess I’m in shock.”

“And what about adoption?” Casey said.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought. I have med school to think about. Can I manage it with a baby? It’s grueling under any circumstances. Should I hold off and go later, if at all? Should I try to find a profession where I can spend more time at home? Should I find another home for the baby, a traditional one, with a full-time mother and a father on the scene all the time?”

“I can see why you came home this semester,” Casey said. “You do have a lot to think about.”

Megan leaned forward. She was undeniably impressed with Casey’s methodical, compassionate handling of this. The social worker at work, and a darned good one. But it was all a bit too bloodless to suit her. This was their sister. This was Peggy. “We could have helped. If you’d just told us what was going on, we could have helped you.”

Peggy reached for her sister’s hand. “You did, Meg. You always do. I didn’t need to talk. I knew all my alternatives. I just needed to be here with both of you. I needed to absorb some of your energy, your sense of purpose. I needed to figure out if I’m as strong as you are.”

Megan didn’t know what to say, an odd occurrence.

“Are you close to making a decision?” Casey laid her hand on her sister’s.

“Yes. I’ve decided I’m strong enough to have it all. The baby and med school both. I’ve realized I can do it. It won’t be easy, and keeping the baby might cut down on some of my options. But I’m going to take a full load this summer so I can graduate before the baby comes, spend a year working here in the saloon so I can have the baby with me, then I’m going to apply to med school at Case Western for the following year, so I can stay in town. I know you’ll be here to help, and so will Aunt Deirdre—”

Casey spoke. “And about fifty other Donaghues.”

“When the time comes, I’ll choose a specialty with something close to regular hours, so I can spend as much time as possible at home. Someday I’ll marry and give her or him a good stepfather. It’s not the traditional setup, but my baby will have two families who love it, and a big extended family who will, too. Once they’re over the shock of perfect Peggy giving birth out of wedlock, of course.”

“As if it’s never been done,” Casey said.

“It hasn’t been. Not by me.”

A million thoughts were churning through Megan’s head. She couldn’t imagine this. She had been absolutely blind to the possibility, when most people would have considered it right away. She hadn’t shut her eyes to Peggy’s beauty or her attractiveness to men. If she’d let herself contemplate it, she would have known that Peggy was sexually active.

But something more had motivated her own innocence, if it could be called that, something she broached now.

“Peggy, how can you do this? Of course you’re strong. I know you’ll find a way to juggle it all, but how can you possibly know you want to be a mother?”

Peggy cocked her head. “Well, I didn’t exactly
want
to be a mother. Oh, someday, for sure. It’s something I’ve always looked forward to. But sometimes things don’t turn out the way we plan, do they?”

“But you feel ready for it now that it’s happened?”

“Honestly? I really do. I can wish it had happened differently, at a different time in my life, when I was settled professionally and happily married. But I know I’ll love this baby, and I’ll be a darned good mother. I have no doubts about that.”

“But how can you be sure?” Megan put her finger on the part that worried her most. “You never had a mother, Peggy. Ours died when you were so young you surely can’t remember her. And you were passed around like a sack of potatoes after that. How can you
be
a mother when you never had one of your own? How will you know what to do, what to feel?”

Megan realized that, unaccountably, her own eyes had filled with tears.

Peggy was staring at her, and so was Casey, who was frowning.

“I’m sorry,” Megan whispered.

“Meg, I had the best mother in the world. I had you.”

Megan cleared her throat. “I’m not looking for compliments or reassurance. I couldn’t do the things for you—”

Casey exploded. “Oh, would you stop it? Listen to her, okay? She’s trying to tell you something.”

Peggy leaned forward. She gripped Megan’s hand. “Our mother died. I’m sorry she did, but I never knew anything different. When I skinned my knee, you were there to kiss it and make it better. If you weren’t there, Aunt Deirdre was, or Casey was. If I was hungry, you fixed me something to eat. If I was tired, you told me a bedtime story and put me to bed. I had trouble learning to read, and you were the one who helped me sound out words.”

“Phonics.” Megan blinked back tears. “I’ll never understand why they abandoned them.”

“You were the one who taught me how to swear and when not to.”

“Which, please remember, is most of the time.”

Peggy’s expression softened. “I know you don’t think you did a good enough job, but you did. Look at me. I’m happy. I’m healthy. I’m pregnant, and I’m coping just fine. I had you. I had Casey. I had Aunt Deirdre. Good God, I had mothers coming out my ears. Every girl should be so lucky. And when the time came for me to make a decision about the baby, I came home to be with you. Because this is where I get my strength. From you and Casey.”

“Oh, come on.” Now Casey’s voice was choked.

Peggy laughed a little. “So you’re not perfect. Far from it. But you’re strong women, both of you. And, in her own way, so is Aunt Deirdre. Do you think it was easy to share me? Don’t you realize that if she’d wanted to, she could have taken this whole thing to court so that she didn’t have to deal with the two of you all the time? But she’s a good woman, and she knew how important we were to each other. She knew you watched over me and took care of me when I was with you. She was strong enough to share. All of you were. I was lucky. Try to get that through your thick heads, okay?”