Colleen shook off the remembrance and glanced at her brother, something important brewing under the bubble of memory. “Let’s ask him. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Hallie picked up her purse and pulled the strap high on her shoulder. “I’m going home. I need to finalize some last-minute details.” She paused. “I don’t believe one person has RSVP’d with a decline, so I will have to get permission from the city to block off the street. And the bar won’t be able to handle it either—I have to find a few bartenders and put out an outdoor keg and bar. Do we decorate with photos . . . ?” Her voice trailed off as if the details were drowning her questions.
This was exactly how Hallie had planned Colleen’s wedding—with the same frenetic energy, the same obsession. Colleen had let Hallie do the work; she’d handed it all over to her. My God, she’d handed it all over—groom included.
“And”—Hallie clapped her hands together—“Dad’s timeline still isn’t coming together right.”
Colleen exhaled, as if by breathing deeply she could calm her sister. “We can help with whatever you need.”
“No.” Hallie clutched the top of her satchel as if the timeline might jump out and into Colleen’s arms. “I’ve got it. I’ll meet you at the house early tomorrow for the drive to Jacksonville. Walter can take the girls to day camp and we can compare what we’ve learned from the interviews.”
The swinging doors swished open as Hallie attempted her exit, but Hank entered lugging a crate of dirty glasses and banging into her. “Just what I need in this crowded area—more Donohues,” he muttered.
Hallie juggled and maintained control of her papers and then stormed out, pushing past Hank while Colleen stifled a laugh. She turned to her brother. “I know you want to say something. I see it all over your face, but just keep it to yourself for now.”
He tossed his arm over her shoulder, drew her close. “I know you only want to look at the terrible things Walter’s done. I get that. But he’s also a good man. He’s been a great father; a big help to Dad around the house, fixing things and just hanging out. You can’t just shove him into the monster category and keep him there. There is good in him. Even you wouldn’t have fallen in love with him if he was so terrible.”
“He fooled me.” Colleen looked away, squelching the desire to be stern at the one person in all the world she did not want to be stern with—her sweet brother. But damn.
“Maybe he did, but please just cut him a break so that you can cut your sister a break. Please. He just bought Hallie the cutest cottage at the edge of town and fixed it exactly how she wanted. He’s good to his family.”
“I hear you,” Colleen said. “But have you forgotten what else he did? Have you conveniently forgotten?”
Shane eyes filled with the flash of tears, brimming but not falling. He pulled his sister into a hug. “I have not forgotten, Lena. I haven’t. I’m just desperately trying to keep us all together right now. I’m sorry.”
Colleen let her head rest on her brother’s shoulder, felt a simple peace that came with that love. “Now can we stop talking about it?”
“Yes.” He kissed the top of her head and released her as they returned to the pub from the back room.
A young woman with perfectly placed lip liner and a tight pair of jeans walked toward Shane smiling and they were soon in conversation, Colleen left alone in the middle of the room. Sometimes when she entered the pub she felt like she was diving into a warm lake, a place of relaxation and ease that was meant just for her—maybe it was how others felt when they went to a spa. The only thing that compared was sitting at the edge of the river at twilight.
She knew a few of the clientele that evening, the deep voices and the accented laughs of her dad’s old friends. Now the younger crowd had slipped in behind them, making the pub as much theirs with their iPhones glowing and their selfies taken at the bar. The faces weren’t so homogeneous anymore either. It wasn’t New York, but it wasn’t the old Watersend either.
A few people called out Colleen’s name and others waved. She slipped behind the bar and poured herself a Guinness, the foam even with the top. Hank returned and tipped his hat. “Nice job.”
“Anytime you need an extra hand, you let me know.” She shot him a grin before sliding onto a bar stool next to a young couple that was obviously on an awkward first date. She smiled at them both and spun around to face the room.
“You look so intense,” Beckett said as he appeared before her.
“That’s me, intense.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” He smiled and nodded toward the group she’d seen him with earlier. “I was just about to leave when I saw you.”
Beckett grabbed a free bar stool two over, dragged it next to hers and sat. “So where do you live now, Colleen Donohue?”
“New York City. Brooklyn, to be exact.”
“Wow. You left here to live there?”
“I did.”
“Why? Must have been a hell of a job offer to ditch this place and this pub and your family.”
“No. A hell of a something, though.” She tried to smile but instead took a long swig of beer.
“A hell of a something.” He leaned forward. “I can’t wait to find out what that something is.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “That’s not happening.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows and threw back his head, raised his water glass and clinked it with hers. “Cheers.”
Colleen tilted her head. “Can you toast with water? I thought that was against the rules.”
“Not in my book.” He patted the bar and then his shirt pocket as if looking for a book.
“Oh, you have your own book?”
“I do. Maybe one day I’ll let you read it.” He extended his hands across the bar. “You know where ‘cheers’ came from?”
“No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
“In medieval times, two men would clink glasses together before they took a sip so that the liquid would splash into each other’s drink and that way they would be sure the other hadn’t poisoned their drink.”
Colleen’s eyebrows rose. “Well, aren’t you a fount of knowledge.”
“That’s me. A fount of useless historical information.”
The fiddler began a jig and for a moment the pub patrons all quieted in appreciation of the musician’s skill. When they resumed their chorus of conversations, Beckett held out his hand. “Dance?”
“Oh, no.” Colleen shook her head. “There’s a gaggle of girls over there. I’m sure one of them will dance. I’m not a . . . dancer.”
“Who doesn’t like to dance?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I said I don’t do it. At least not in public.”
“Oh, let it go.” He grinned and placed his water glass on the bar. “Just follow me.” He took her hand and she did just that—followed him.
The last time Colleen had been on a dance floor it had been to learn the waltz for her wedding day. Another thing she’d avoided since then. Not because the memory was so painful, but because she was a terrible dancer. She tripped. She stepped on feet. She banged against people. And worst of all, she looked ridiculous.
But she followed Beckett onto the small square of plywood that Shane had put down only hours before to make a dance floor. The jig, called “Blarney Pilgrim,” vibrated with a simple rhythm. Beckett pulled her into his arms and against his body in a quick movement. She blushed with the immediacy of the motion, with the nearness of him. He took two quick steps and carried her with him, leading her in a way she’d never been led on a dance floor. Their steps fell into a rhythm and, without much trying, she was dancing.
She relaxed into the steps and the music, allowing memories and tension to slip away. Forgetting, she thought, wasn’t so bad after all.
THE MEMORY BOOK
&nb
sp; Interview with Bob Macken
The photo was torn at the corner like it had been ripped from a scrapbook. It was a color image—Gavin stood on a dock at the marina with his friend Bob Macken, the sheriff, their upright fishing poles beside them, their silhouettes long on the wooden planks. The men squinted into the sun.
Bob Macken now sat across from Colleen at a corner table in the local café. He held a cup of coffee in hands scarred by a lifetime of hard work. His face was leathery and dark with a ring of pale skin around his forehead where his police cap or his baseball cap or his fishing hat sat except, like now, when he was inside. His blue eyes met Colleen’s gaze.
“I don’t know where you found this photo. I’m not even sure who took it,” he said.
“I don’t know either.” Colleen looked at this man she’d known all her life. “But it’s one that Shane chose.”
“I think Shane might have taken it, actually. He came to get your dad from the docks that day. He was so worried about him. It was the one-week mark after your mother’s death.”
A tremble of regret passed through Colleen’s chest. She had left so many problems to her brother. But Shane had assumed the brunt of obligations.
Bob continued, his coffee growing cold. “This photo, it’s in half-light.”
“What do you mean?” Colleen leaned closer.
“When a photo is at half-light, part of the image is dimmed.” He brushed his hands together. “I’m an amateur photographer, so I’m just showing off my knowledge a bit.”
Colleen nodded. “Go on.”
Bob’s hand, calloused and freckled, wavered over the photo. “It’s the light we see at dusk or dawn, and it doesn’t reveal everything, only a portion of what would be in the photo if it was in full light. Sometimes a photographer deliberately slows the shutter speed for effect, but here it’s actually dusk. That day we left at dawn and were out on the river all day. Not much was said between us.” Bob paused, turning his coffee mug in his hands, around and around, and then added a packet of sugar. Finally he looked up. “We traveled our way through marshes that your dad knows as well as his own backyard, and then we went out into the ocean, which we rarely did. We’d packed beer and sandwiches, but your dad didn’t eat or drink a thing all day, until I became concerned. Then he caught a record-breaking cobia, only to release it, saying he could not bear one more death on God’s earth. He’d suffered too many losses. He threw that fish back into the ocean. It was the only time I ever saw him cry.”
Colleen placed her hands over Bob’s, gave them a squeeze. “Too many losses?”
Bob stared off behind Colleen as though he could see into that day he and his best friend had gone fishing. When his gaze returned to Colleen, it was filmed with unshed tears. “Yes. Too many losses.”
“More than Mother?” Colleen knew the answer. Yes, of course there was more than Mother; she, too, had left her dad alone in Watersend.
But Bob didn’t say this; he merely nodded and coughed. “We all have losses in our life. All of us.”
“What were the ones that broke Dad’s heart?” Colleen asked, her pulse beating in her throat. These were the unseen memories she wanted to tap—the ones not captured in a photo.
Bob smiled at her and finally took a sip of the coffee she’d bought him. “I thought you just wanted the story of the photo.”
“I want everything, Bob. Everything you know.”
He shook his head. “I’ve known you since you were a baby. Isn’t that amazing?”
Colleen nodded. “Yes.”
“But you’ve been gone for quite a while now, Lena.”
“I know, but I’m here now.” She took the photo from Bob’s hands and slid it into the envelope where the others lay one on top of the other.
“Yes, you’ve come home for your dad.” Bob smiled. “It’s hard watching him lose his memories. Gavin’s been a good friend to me. You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“You’re already helping by adding to this memory book, by helping us gather as many of his days as we can in one place.”
Bob knotted his hands in a prayer clasp and set them on the table. “It’s a worthy goal. And I’m sure what you gather will mean something to him, but we all have private memories, ones we share with only a few people if anyone at all. And what of the memories we shared only with those who are already gone? For your dad, those will be lost forever.” He glanced at the phone on his waistband, which was buzzing. “I must go now, Lena. But please let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will. And thanks so much.” She paused and then added, “Half-light—allowing in only enough light to see what one wants to expose.”
“Exactly.” He held his phone to his ear and walked briskly from the café, leaving Colleen with his words that hinted at something about her dad she could barely see out of the corner of her eye.
Chapter Fourteen
“Sure, everything is ending,” Jules said, “but not yet.”
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Birdsong woke Colleen and for a moment she was confused—in New York her windows closed against all noise. But she’d woken up, of course, in South Carolina. She rolled over and opened one eye to spy her childhood bedroom, the one she’d shared with Hallie, the one her mother had left unchanged once the girls had become estranged. A bulletin board was covered with swim team ribbons and class photos and dried flowers from dances already forgotten. On the white wooden desk they’d once shared was a Ball jar full of pencils, pens and Magic Markers that were most likely dried out. Watersend Cougars’ red and white pom-poms hung from one side of the dresser mirror. Keeping everything intact had been part of Elizabeth’s attempt to bring the girls back together, a kind of magical spell that their mother believed would inspire reconciliation; if she kept their things together, she could bring their hearts together, too.
She’d been wrong.
But she’d never given up. Every single phone call ended with Mother asking, “Have you called your sister?” and Colleen answering, “Of course not, Mother.” This question had been asked over and over in various forms and each time neither Mother nor Colleen would bend.
“Will you at least try?” Mother would ask. “For me? For Dad?”
“I will do anything for you and Dad. Anything in all the world but that.”
“You can’t stay mad at her forever, Lena.”
“I’m not mad, Mother; I just don’t want to speak to her.”
The conversations went round and round like this until the evening Colleen exploded, the words bursting from her as she stood in her kitchen in New York, jet-lagged and off her guard, with the cell phone on speaker. “Mother. Have you ever, even once, been upset with Hallie? Have you ever, even once, tried to see it from my point of view? Have you ever, even once, loved me enough to understand how this must feel?”
The phone had gone silent and Colleen heard Dad, who was on the extension listening in, release a long-held breath. Colleen dropped her head into her hands and waited for the rebuke, for the harsh words from Mother in her strictest voice. But instead she’d only replied, “Yes, I have understood.”
And with that the line had gone dead. The subject had never been raised again.
Colleen shook off the memory and rolled over to take her e-tablet from the bedside table, flip it open as the jaundiced light flashed on. She hadn’t worked much in four days—and although this usually caused a little flutter of panic, she’d been too consumed with all things Dad to think about work. But there were bills and rent to be paid; e-mails to answer; edits to be done. Not that she lived paycheck to paycheck, but close enough that she couldn’t wallow in Watersend and forfeit a month’s work.
The e-mail tab blinked and Colleen clicked on it, quickly scrolling through the spam and the sales pitches and the special deals at Anthropologie and Neiman’s as she looked for hi
nts of her next assignment. There were a few offers—two to cover a music festival in Texas and one to write about a rodeo in Montana—but the one that caught her eye was from a Ms. Fisher and had the subject heading Your Ten Tips. She clicked on it first.
Dear Ms. Donohue,
We have been big fans of your travel articles for some time, and when the Ten Tips was released in Travel and Leisure it became our favorite. It was as informative as it was entertaining. We here at Penguin Random House would like to discuss ways for you to possibly turn your column into a travel memoir. Your writing is superb and your wit engaging.
Colleen stopped reading and almost laughed out loud—at first glance she’d misread memoir for memory. No, they did not want her memories. Well, at least not the ones that haunted her.
A memoir? About travel?
The idea—one she hadn’t consciously considered before that minute—seemed as perfectly suited for her work as the travel itself. She hadn’t had as much feedback about anything she’d written as she had the ten tips article, in which she’d shared her own stories—of the mistakes, foibles and embarrassments she’d experienced on the road. She’d exposed her life to make the points more salient, and something in the article had resonated with readers.
She wrote back quickly.
Dear Ms. Fisher,
Thank you so much for the kind words. Your idea is intriguing! The stories behind the stories. Let’s talk soon.
Colleen typed in her phone number and hit send.
She smiled as she closed her computer. She had other things to think about today. She and Hallie were taking Dad for the scan; hope simmered alongside dread. Colleen rose from bed, showered and dressed in quick order, a little spring in her step from the “superb writing” compliment.
The Favorite Daughter Page 13