“That’s not true, Maggie,” she said. “You were very much wanted.”
God, she sounded like a robot. You were very much wanted? How warm and fuzzy, Kathleen; why not go ahead and embroider that sentiment on a sampler?
She tried again. “I can’t picture for a second what my life would have been like without you, Maggie, you know that. And I don’t want to. But you can’t imagine how hard it is, trying to provide for a child all on your own.”
“We were provided for,” Maggie said hotly.
“I meant provided as in putting you to bed each night and giving you your bath before dinner and cooking that dinner and waking you up for school on snowy days when school was the last place you wanted to go. I meant being a single parent. And yes, one of the ways I struggled was financially. I never wanted that for you.”
“You struggled because you always thought you were too good for motherhood in the first place,” Maggie said.
Kathleen blinked. Jesus, that was just the sort of thing she might have said to Alice. Had she really gone so far out of her way to do the dead opposite of everything her mother had done, only to be perceived as the exact same sort of woman?
“How could this even happen?” she demanded. “Aren’t you on the Pill?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Please don’t tell me you did this intentionally.”
“You’re the one who’s always saying the universe works in mysterious ways.”
Kathleen raised an eyebrow.
“I have it under control, okay?” Maggie said. “I wasn’t asking your permission. I was just letting you know.”
“Well, thanks so much for that. And I suppose Gabe is on board, all lined up to be a daddy? I suppose that’s under control too.”
Maggie moaned. “Shut up, Mom!”
“Shut up? I didn’t come here to be talked to like that.”
“No one asked you to come.”
They had never spoken to each other this way, not even when Maggie was a teenager.
“I think hanging out with Alice is rubbing off on you,” Kathleen said, trying to make a joke. Why was she being so mean? She had come here to help.
Maggie gave her a faint smile.
“You have to understand how difficult this is for me,” Kathleen said. “I want to be a grandmother someday, but not now.”
That part was a lie. She absolutely did not want to be a grandmother, ever.
Maggie’s face grew stormy. “It’s not about you. God, you’d think you were the one who was pregnant.”
Kathleen sighed. “Nothing’s coming out the way I want it to. Let’s start over. I want you to come live with Arlo and me. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think this will work.”
“No,” Maggie said with a laugh.
Kathleen was surprised. She had thought Maggie would be relieved by the idea.
“Well, wait a second. Hear me out.”
“No offense, but your home is not exactly a safe place for a baby. I’d have to have a tiny pink or blue hazmat suit made.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m staying in New York,” Maggie said.
“In case Gabe decides he wants to play house.”
“No!” Maggie said. “But thank you for giving me so much credit. I’m pregnant, okay? That doesn’t automatically make me an idiot. I’m the same person I was before.”
Neither of them had heard the screen door open, but now a voice from behind asked, “You’re pregnant?”
They turned to see Ann Marie standing in the doorway, affecting a look of deep concern.
“I wish you’d have said something,” she said to Maggie. “I could have helped.”
Kathleen tried to suppress a scoff. “That’s why I’m here. I think I know what my own daughter needs.”
The Kellehers prided themselves on coming together when something even vaguely resembling a tragedy occurred—anything from a funeral to a flat tire. Perhaps this was one of the benefits of having a large family, but to Kathleen it always seemed slightly disingenuous, as if they were making up for the horrible ways they had treated one another over the years simply by taking someone’s temperature or making a casserole.
Alice came bounding into the house now, wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s hat, the veil still covering her face.
“What on earth was that all about?” she said sharply to Ann Marie. “You trampled two of my tomato plants!”
“Mom, what are you talking about?” Ann Marie said.
“I saw you! I was on my way out to the garden and I saw you step all over them and then come running in here. Why, Ann Marie? You know the trouble I’ve had with the rabbits.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ann Marie said meekly. “Maybe it was an accident.”
“There’s no way to accidentally step on a tomato plant.” Alice set her gaze on Kathleen. “You always have a way of stirring everything up.”
“Me? What did I do?”
Alice sighed. “I don’t even know, it’s just your way. When you’re around, trouble starts. And Maggie starts acting like a pain in the ass too.”
“Jesus Christ,” Kathleen said.
“I’m going for a walk to clear my head,” Alice said. “I need a break. You’re all behaving like a bunch of Canadians today, and I’m not sure I can take it much longer.”
“Canadians?” Kathleen said.
Maggie shook her head. “Don’t ask.”
Alice walked off and Ann Marie said, “Anyway. Maggie, I had no idea. What can I do to help?”
“You can leave us alone,” Kathleen said. “Don’t you think if she wanted you to know she would have told you?”
“It’s okay. Everyone was bound to find out eventually,” Maggie said agreeably. She was always so damn agreeable. She wasn’t going to be any help when it came to getting rid of Ann Marie. She was too polite for that. Kathleen would have to take a new approach.
“So what happened with the tomato plants?” she asked casually.
Ann Marie blushed. “I’ll be down on the beach if anyone needs me,” she said, and turned on her heels.
Kathleen had hoped that she and Maggie could go to dinner alone, at the very least. She had read about a place in Portsmouth called the Black Trumpet in one of Arlo’s food magazines. The restaurant was located in an old shipping goods warehouse, and the chef cooked with organic ingredients from local farms.
Kathleen imagined them sitting at a table by the window and finally talking at length. She hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Maggie that she knew exactly how they could arrange the nursery (which was now her home office), or that a farmer friend of Arlo’s down the road had started selling homemade baby food. She had expected some amount of gratitude from her daughter, some acknowledgment that the last thing Kathleen would ever want to do was raise another child—but for Maggie, she would.
She hoped this would all come out at dinner. But when she mentioned it late that afternoon, Maggie said she had promised Alice she’d make a spaghetti sauce.
“If I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that she and Aunt Ann Marie have been doing all this cooking for me, and I wanted to repay the favor. Why don’t you come over to Grandma’s house with me now and you can help me cook?”
Somehow Kathleen felt like a child, an outsider. Maggie seemed to fit in so seamlessly here, unlike her. She could not imagine why Maggie wanted to go back into the belly of the beast next door after everything that had been said earlier in the day. Thank you for shitting on my life, please allow me to cook you dinner! But that was how the Kellehers worked. No one ever apologized for speaking harshly. They only wallpapered over it with homemade spaghetti sauce and tired old jokes and strong cocktails.
“You’re going to start cooking now?” she asked. “It’s four thirty. Why don’t we take a walk on the beach first?”
“Alice likes to eat early,” Maggie said. “Do you want t
o come?”
“I’ll stay here for a while, I think,” Kathleen said. “I have some work I need to do.”
“Okay,” Maggie said.
“Hey,” Kathleen said. “Call me crazy, but are you sort of avoiding me?”
“What do you mean, Mom? We’ve been sitting here talking for the last three hours!”
Maggie didn’t sound like herself. But then again, Kathleen wasn’t herself right now either.
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m being clingy, I guess.”
Maggie gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Come next door soon, please.”
“I will,” Kathleen said. “Pasta for dinner, huh? Maybe that’s why Ann Marie stomped the tomato plants. Maybe she got sauce making confused with wine making.”
Maggie grinned. “Maybe so.”
Kathleen made every conceivable work-related phone call she could think of, sitting on the hood of her car. She called Arlo and he asked right away whether Maggie was excited to come back to California.
“Not exactly,” she told him. “I think it’s going to take a bit of time to get her to realize it’s the right choice.”
“Well, tell her there’s one old geezer, two aging dogs, and several million worms here who are eagerly anticipating her arrival,” he said. “I started cleaning out the upstairs office this morning.”
Kathleen knew she should feel grateful, but her heart seized up, thinking of her cozy, cluttered workspace emptied out. “Where are you putting everything?” she asked.
“In boxes in the shed,” he said. “Kath, it’s not forever. Okay? This baby adventure might just be our best one yet.”
“You’re wonderful,” she said.
“Who knows? We might even decide to have one of our own.”
“Okay, now you’re just insane.” He asked about Alice.
“I am trying to be civil, but you know how it goes,” she said. “And Ann Marie is here, too, as luck would have it. They were drinking by noon.”
“Stay strong,” he said.
After they hung up, she lit another cigarette, glancing toward her parents’ house to make sure no one was watching. Then she looked around, taking it all in. The ocean and the sand and the look of the cottage itself, she remembered. But she had forgotten about the nature—the giant lush trees that shaded her mother’s garden, the pines and the birches. The birds, with their bright red and blue wings, the hum of frogs off in the marshes on the other side of the street. The mosquitoes that had caused her to douse her children in Skin So Soft five times a day when they were young. (Ann Marie used OFF! on her kids, hazardous chemicals be damned.)
A few minutes later, the priest pulled his car into the driveway.
Him again? Already? Christ, was the priesthood really so bad these days that the guys had to moonlight as handymen?
“I got the new part for the drain,” he said. He held up a brown paper bag.
Kathleen nodded. She stomped out the cigarette and hoped, absurdly, that he would not mention it to her mother.
“Is everyone okay around here?” he asked, sounding nervous. “I know it was tense at lunch.”
“Was it?” Kathleen asked.
“Do you know where I can find Alice and Ann Marie?” he said. “I think we need to talk.”
“Over at my mother’s house,” she said. She suddenly got the feeling that something interesting was about to unfold, and added, “I’ll come with you.”
In the kitchen, the smell of Maggie’s tomato sauce filled the air. Maggie and Alice stood by the stove, talking about a book Maggie thought her grandmother would like. Through the archway that led to the living room, Kathleen could see Ann Marie sitting on the couch, sewing together swatches of fabric with a needle and thread for no reason she could fathom. There was an almost empty glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her.
“Father!” Alice said when she saw them there. Clearly, she felt no need to address Kathleen. “You didn’t have to come back so soon! You’re a saint.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “They happened to have the part in stock. And I thought it might be good if we all had a talk. Is Ann Marie here?”
Alice pointed at her and said in a judgmental stage whisper, “She’s drinking an awful lot today. She’s acting very odd.”
“I can hear you!” Ann Marie snapped from the other room, which was indeed extremely odd for her.
The priest frowned. “I’m afraid I might be to blame for all of this,” he said.
“You?” Alice said. “Oh no, not at all.”
“I’m afraid I mentioned our arrangement regarding the property to Ann Marie,” he said.
Alice’s eyes grew wide.
What arrangement? Kathleen thought.
The priest continued, “I hope we can all talk and I can help sort this out.”
“That is rich,” Ann Marie chirped, getting up from her seat now and storming into the kitchen. Kathleen felt a jolt of excitement and curiosity—a fight was brewing and it had nothing whatsoever to do with her.
“You’re going to sort us all out, huh?” Ann Marie went on. “Why don’t you start by explaining to me how you managed to con an old woman into giving you our family’s summer home.”
“What?” Maggie said.
The priest looked at Alice. “I don’t understand.”
Alice got up close to Ann Marie. Kathleen was positive it was the old woman part that had done her in.
“No one has conned anyone. And you’re embarrassing me in front of my guest,” Alice snarled. “This is not our family’s home, Ann Marie. It’s my home. Mine.”
Ann Marie looked like she had been slapped. Kathleen almost felt sorry for her. She had tried to explain to Ann Marie many times when they were young that there was no sense trying to build up goodwill with Alice. If you displeased her once, that was it.
“When were you going to clue us in, Alice?” Ann Marie demanded, almost shouting now. “How could you give the house away without telling us? I don’t understand.”
Since she had no real stake in it, Kathleen felt like it was her responsibility to turn down the temperature on all of this, so she said in her calmest voice, “Why don’t we take some deep breaths and all try to relax a bit?”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Ann Marie said. “You don’t even care about this place. The only reason you’ve come here in ten years is to try to convince Maggie to have an abortion.”
“How the hell is that your business?” Kathleen asked.
“It concerns all of us,” Ann Marie said.
“Actually, no. It doesn’t.” Kathleen had only been trying to help, but now she felt her anger go straight from zero to a hundred and ten. “Just because you think your children are so goddamn perfect doesn’t mean you need to go looking for extra credit with mine.”
“You live across the country—you don’t know the first thing about my children,” Ann Marie said.
“Fiona’s a lesbian and Little Daniel’s a douche bag,” Kathleen said. “Update at eleven.”
Ann Marie looked like she might faint. She had probably never considered either possibility. Well there, give her something to chew on.
Alice narrowed her eyes at Maggie. “Is this true? Are you pregnant?”
They all turned to poor Maggie, whose face and neck were now covered in hives. Kathleen rubbed her daughter’s arm. She glanced over at the priest, who was looking down at his shoes.
“Yes,” Maggie said.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Alice said. “And you’ve been here all these weeks with me and you haven’t said a word.”
“Yes.”
Alice stiffened. “What do you intend to do about it?”
“I’m having the baby,” Maggie said.
“And Gabe?”
“He’s not in the picture anymore.”
Alice threw up her hands. “Well, that’s that, then. Worse things have happened.”
She seemed overly tranquil, and this pissed Kathleen off, since she knew
that if it were one of Ann Marie’s kids standing here breaking this news, Alice would be apoplectic. But she expected the worst from Maggie and Chris, since after all they were merely appendages of Kathleen herself.
“You’re not angry?” Maggie asked.
“No,” Alice said.
“Because Maggie’s not one of your golden grandchildren, is that it?” Kathleen snapped. “How can you just say, ‘Oh, it’s fine. Go ahead and have a baby’?”
“What would you prefer I say?” Alice said. “That she’s a little tramp like her mother, has absolutely no common sense, and has just flushed her chances at being a real writer down the toilet?”
Now the priest spoke up. “Alice,” he said, as if her words had caused him physical pain.
Kathleen’s hands formed two tight fists.
“None of that is true. You apologize or we’re leaving.”
“No. I won’t.”
“You are such a hateful person. God, I’ve only been here a few hours and I already want to kill you.”
Alice raised her voice. “Do you know what I sacrificed to be a mother?”
“Oh, because you were going to be some great artist?” Kathleen shouted. “News flash, Mom, you really weren’t that talented. None of us stopped you from becoming anything. That was a stupid childish dream like everyone has. Boo hoo, I never became an astronaut.”
“Stop it,” Maggie said softly. “You’re being cruel.”
Well, maybe so, but Kathleen had only been trying to protect her.
Kathleen turned to Ann Marie. “Thanks for butting in.”
“I’ve been a part of this family for thirty-five years, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Ann Marie said.
“That’s quite a claim to fame,” Kathleen said. “Congrats.”
“I don’t ask for very much,” Ann Marie said. “I’m here to take care of her all the time, while you’re living out your strange boyfriend’s dream in California. And for what? You’ve had it in for me since the day we met, admit it. You never thought I was good enough for your brother. You don’t like the way I treat your mother. Well, she’s all yours now. I wash my hands of this.”
And with that, she stormed out of the house. They all watched her go. She got into the Mercedes and backed it out of the driveway fast. Kathleen remembered now how up in Maine everyone left their keys in the car, a way to emphasize the safety of this place. Was it really such a burden to pull the keys out of your purse when you wanted to go somewhere?
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