* * *
“Is there anything about this part of Maine that isn’t charming?” Eric asked. “This cafe, this road . . . Everything just feels so, well, charming.”
Nell smiled. “Even mud season has its moments, like when you spot the first brave little yellow crocus that’s popped up in the far corner of your garden.”
They were meeting at another family-owned café on a quiet little road in Kennebunk. Directly across from the Butter Churn was a cemetery with graves dating back to the seventeenth century. Like similar cemeteries throughout New England it had a strangely comforting appeal for Nell, who found the efforts of the living to memorialize their loved ones gone ahead deeply moving. Old cemeteries reinforced her belief in love and kindness.
Though the café was toasty thanks to a wood-burning stove in one corner, Eric kept his puffer coat on and his scarf wrapped around his neck and revealed a pair of fingerless gloves under a pair of battered suede mittens. “Funny thing is,” he said, as a waitress brought their coffees to the table, “I actually like the cold, even though I feel it so acutely.”
“I know,” Nell told him. “I remember when a bunch of us built a snowman in front of the science building. You were as excited as a little kid. When the rest of us felt frostbitten and decided to quit, you declared you’d finish the snowman on your own. And you did.”
“That was a wonderful day, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nell said. “It was.”
Eric took a sip of his coffee and carefully placed the mug back on the table. “We haven’t talked about the elephant in the room,” he said quietly.
Nell’s heart began to race and she folded her hands to steady them. “Oh,” she said.
Eric leaned forward across the small round table. “It’s just that I’ve always wondered . . . Well, I guess I never entirely believed the reason you gave for ending our relationship.”
Nell looked into his dear and familiar eyes. “You were right not to believe me when I told you I didn’t love you anymore,” she said. “It was a lie, one I’d half convinced myself to believe. I’m not proud of my behavior. I bought into my parents’ opinion that I needed protection. I bought into their message about what marriage should be for a young woman. Safety. Security. Stability.” Nell shook her head. “You’d think I was a sheltered Victorian maiden the way they went on. And yet, I listened.”
Eric sighed. “I had a feeling your parents were behind it. Of course they wouldn’t have regarded me as a good bet for safety or security or stability.”
“But why should it have been your job to take care of me as if I had no will of my own?” Nell asked. “Why should you have been anyone other than who you were? And that should have been enough for me. I never believed in you the way I should have. I did you a grave disservice assuming that you would fail us both. I’m sorry.”
Eric smiled kindly. “I’m glad I finally know the truth.”
“And look where turning against my own instincts and being a dutiful daughter got me,” Nell said ruefully. “Left for a younger woman, one child refusing to have anything to do with her father, the other worshipping the ground he walks on. And both daughters desperate to get away from good old mom.”
“Desperate?” Eric asked with a smile. “Really?”
“Maybe I’m exaggerating,” Nell admitted. “In reality they just want to move on with their lives.”
“Then you’ve done your job as a parent.”
“There should be some consolation in that, I suppose.”
“Were you in love with Joel?” Eric asked suddenly. “I know it’s a pushy question.”
“That’s all right,” Nell said. “No, I was never in love with him, but I did care for him. After the initial shock of his leaving wore off, sure, I felt angry and humiliated, but honestly, not for very long. The divorce didn’t break me as it might have had I really loved Joel.” Nell paused. “Mostly I loved my big house and my sure status in the community. I loved that my parents were proud of me. I loved my nice clothes and my swimming pool and my ridiculously expensive hair stylist. I loved that things like plumbing problems and electric bills were taken care of without my having to lift a finger.” Nell shuddered. “I find it hard to believe I could have been so . . . so shallow.”
Eric put his hands over hers, still folded on the table before her. “The Nell I know could never be shallow. We all seek comfort and security. Sometimes we make mistakes in our pursuit of both. That’s all.”
The feel of Eric’s hands embracing hers made Nell feel something she hadn’t felt since long before the divorce: comforted. “Then maybe the word is afraid,” she said finally.
“Being afraid is not a crime or a sin,” Eric countered. “Sometimes it’s even the smart thing to be. The world can be a scary place.”
“You’re being too nice to me. But thank you.”
“So, you did love me at the end?” Eric asked softly.
“Yes,” Nell said. “I lied to the both of us when I said that I didn’t and walked away. I lied to myself when I decided to marry Joel. The up and coming man, as my father used to say.”
“I want to ask another pushy question,” Eric said, letting go of her hands and sitting back in his chair. “What about your writing? I’m kind of surprised you haven’t mentioned it.”
Nell laughed a bit awkwardly. “I’ve been hoping you wouldn’t ask,” she admitted.
Eric frowned. “Why?”
“Because I haven’t written a word of poetry in more than twenty years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Eric said promptly. “I’ve kept an eye out for your name in poetry circles. I assumed I missed it because there are so many fairly obscure publications out there. What happened, Nell?”
“I’ll try to explain. Do you remember Professor Ferrari?” she asked.
“Your biggest fan next to me. She was a fantastic teacher. She urged you to apply for that prestigious graduate program at the University of Chicago.”
“She did, and she was so disappointed when I told her I wasn’t going on to graduate school. She asked me why, and I just babbled a bunch of lame excuses. The truth was that I was scared of failing—and of achieving, though that part didn’t dawn on me until much, much later. My parents said they wouldn’t pay for grad school, and the thought of somehow managing it on my own didn’t seem possible. Add to that the fact that I’d ended our relationship and I suddenly realized I was totally unsupported.” Nell sighed. “And then I started to date Joel and the next thing I knew we were married and I’d had the children and there didn’t seem to be time or space for . . . for me. At least I didn’t allow there to be.”
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “Really sorry. But surely things can be different now. What’s to stop you from being open to inspiration?”
Nell finally took a sip of her coffee, now almost cold. “You can’t compel the Muse to take up residence,” she said.
“No, but you can adopt an attitude of receptivity.”
“Yes,” Nell agreed. “After we met the other day I dug out my old notebooks. I remembered what it was like to read to you my work in progress. I remembered what it was like to talk with you about what I was trying to achieve.”
“The remembering sounds like a step toward writing,” Eric noted.
“I’m not so sure I can write again,” Nell said. “It might be enough that I relearn how to read poetry seriously and joyfully.”
“And have you begun that journey?”
“I’ve very barely begun,” Nell told him. “We’ll see if I get on.”
“Why wouldn’t you get on, if it’s something you really want to do?”
Nell laughed, though she didn’t find the question at all amusing. “Laziness?” she suggested. “A lack of belief in my ability to see and hear and understand?”
“It sounds as if you’re deliberately putting stumbling blocks in your way.” Eric leaned forward again. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you angry. But I do mean to provoke yo
u, because I believe in you, Nell.”
Nell shook her head. “Why? What have I done to earn your belief in me?”
“You don’t have to earn my belief in you. It’s just there. It always has been.” Eric smiled. “Don’t ask me to explain why I feel what I feel. It’s hard enough to get my characters to explain themselves to the reader—and to me.”
“Novels are odd things, aren’t they?” Nell said with a laugh.
“Tell me about it.”
“My coffee is cold.”
“Mine’s gone. Maybe we should head out,” Eric suggested. “There’s a chapter that’s giving me serious grief. I’m hoping to wrestle it into some sort of shape before tomorrow.”
When they had paid and left the café, Eric reached for Nell and embraced her.
“Thank you for being honest with me about what happened between us,” he said softly before releasing her.
Nell looked into his beautiful, soulful eyes. “The least I owe you is honesty.”
“See you again?”
“Yes,” Nell said. “Of course.”
Nell watched as Eric walked to his car. When he had gotten behind the wheel she slid into her own car and breathed a huge sigh of relief. The secrets had been told; the air had been cleared; the lies had been exposed. And Eric hadn’t walked away in disgust when she had admitted her weaknesses. Instead he had told her that he believed in her.
Someone still believed in her.
Chapter 21
Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the swordfish Nell had made for dinner, even Molly, though Nell was loath to read anything into her daughter’s sudden return of appetite.
“Where were you this afternoon, Mom?” Felicity asked. “And don’t tell me you were buying more tinsel, because we have enough to last ten lifetimes.”
Nell shot a glance at Jill, who was studiously avoiding eye contact with her friend.
“I had some errands to run,” she said as she brought the coffeepot to the table.
“Guess what Mick brought around today?” Felicity asked Jill.
“Six geese a-laying?” Jill said.
“A dozen goose eggs. They take up way less room than actual geese!”
“Though they are a good deal larger than the average chicken egg. Does Mick’s family raise geese?” Jill asked Molly.
Molly shook her head. “No. He must have bought them from another farm.”
“A lot of farmers barter their produce,” Felicity pointed out. “Maybe Mick traded for the eggs. You should ask him, Molly.”
“Why?” Molly asked testily. “What does it matter?”
“And now for dessert,” Nell said quickly, hoping to avert the continuation of a conversation that was clearly approaching dangerous territory. She placed a dish in the middle of the table. “It’s Montelimar-style white nougat. It’s made with almonds, honey, vanilla, pistachios, brandy, and sugar.”
“It’s beautiful,” Jill commented. “It looks like a gorgeous outcropping of rock.”
“Less hard, I hope,” Molly said with the ghost of a smile. “We don’t have dental insurance.”
“I just remembered something,” Jill said. “When Stuart was little there was a bakery in South Berwick that sold gingerbread cookies with a paper image of Old Saint Nick pasted down on the icing. It was almost impossible to peel the paper completely off. You always wound up ingesting little shreds of Santa. One year Stuart couldn’t be bothered with trying to get the paper off, so he ate the whole thing.”
“Ugh,” Felicity cried. “Did he get sick?”
“No. I was a bit freaked when I realized what he’d done, but he seemed fine, so . . .” Jill shrugged. “Little kids are fairly indestructible when you think about it.”
“Christmas when Molly and Fliss were little was wonderful,” Nell said. “I only regret that—”
“Here we go,” Felicity interrupted with a laugh. “Mom’s going to moan about how she’s the only mother of everyone she knows who doesn’t have a picture of her kids on Santa’s lap!”
“I’ve got one,” Jill said. “It’s not a very good picture. The guy playing Santa had the most ludicrous looking fake beard I’d ever seen and Stuart was scared stiff of him. Today I’d probably get in trouble for endangering the welfare of a child by forcing him to sit on some stranger’s lap.” “So when are you going to Connecticut to see Stuart?” Felicity asked.
Jill shrugged. “He’s been radio silent about plans.”
“Maybe he’s really busy at work.”
“Stuart is never busy at work,” Jill said dryly. “It’s one of the reasons he keeps getting fired.”
“Well, he can’t have forgotten Christmas is only a few days from now,” Felicity pointed out. “It’s impossible to ignore the ads and the decorations and the music.”
“Even when you wish you could ignore it all.” Molly shrugged. “Sorry. Just not feeling very jolly at the moment.”
“Well,” Felicity said, “you’ve got Mick’s next gift to look forward to. Seven swans a-swimming. Maybe that will put you in the holiday spirit.”
“I doubt it,” Molly said tersely.
Jill cleared her throat and studied her coffee. Nell opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.
“Is there something going on here?” Felicity demanded. “Is someone keeping a secret from me?”
“Of course not,” Nell said quickly, reaching for a knife. “So, who wants a piece of nougat?”
Chapter 22
Felicity had left for school before seven. Nell and Molly were seated at the kitchen table. There were dark circles under Molly’s eyes, as if she hadn’t slept more than a moment during the night.
“You’re not eating,” Nell said.
Molly put down the spoon with which she had been toying with her oatmeal. “My stomach is in a knot.”
“I can guess why. Molly—”
“Don’t say anything, please Mom. Just don’t.”
“All right.” Nell sighed. If only she could wave a magic wand or—
The doorbell rang, and Molly flinched.
“Do you want me to get it?” Nell asked.
“No.” Molly got up from the table and left the kitchen.
For a brief moment Nell debated the rightness of following her daughter to witness the encounter with Mick, but she was already guilty of eavesdropping on the two. It’s a bit late for scruples, she thought, pushing back her chair and moving quietly into the little hall between the dining and living room.
Mick was wearing a red wool beanie and his ubiquitous Carhartt jacket. By his feet there was a mound of crumpled tissue paper. Molly was holding a large rectangular board.
“I found it at that antique place out by the Gascoyne farm,” Mick was saying. “I couldn’t believe my luck when I counted and realized there were exactly seven swans in the picture.”
Molly continued to stare at the print. Suddenly, she thrust it toward Mick. “Stop it!” she cried. “Stop being so nice to me!”
Nell put her hand to her mouth. Oh, Molly, she thought. Be careful . . .
“Why shouldn’t I be nice to you?” Mick asked with a bit of a nervous laugh. “What are you talking about?”
Nell watched as Molly’s expression underwent a rapid and violent change from distress to cold resolve. “Because I have to break up with you,” she said forcefully.
“What?” Mick shook his head; Nell could only imagine the look of confusion and dismay on his face. “Why?” he asked. “What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that . . . It’s just that I don’t love you anymore, and you have to stop giving me things.”
Nell winced. For all of Molly’s earlier bravado, when face-to-face with Mick she was acting like an emotionally charged child. And Nell was painfully aware that she had behaved similarly when she had broken up with Eric all those years ago. She had lied to him. It had been a lie born of fear, as she suspected Molly’s lie was as well. The past was playing itself out again, o
nly this time Nell was a horrified witness rather than a cowardly participant.
Mick took a step closer to Molly. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What are you saying?”
Molly moved away. “I’m saying that I don’t love you anymore. Please Mick, just . . . just go.”
Nell held her breath in anticipation of Mick’s protest, but there was none. Instead, he walked rapidly to the front door and left the house.
Quietly, Nell walked into the living room. “Do you want to talk about what just happened?” she asked her daughter.
Molly, who had been standing utterly still since Mick’s departure, shook her head, tossed the print Mick had given her onto the couch, and ran up the stairs. Nell took a step to follow but decided not to. Instead, she retrieved the print from the couch. It was a lovely picture of a magnificent swan and her six cygnets on a calm blue lake surrounded by a smooth green lawn. The mat in which the print was framed was snowy white. Nell sighed and leaned it against the wall behind the Christmas tree where it would be safe.
* * *
Just before four o’clock that afternoon, Nell opened the front door to find Jill standing on the welcome mat that read: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL WHO ENTER HERE! She was wrapped in the massive cream-colored wool cardigan she had brought back from a vacation in Ireland thirty years before. Jill claimed it was warmer than any coat she had ever owned.
“Hey,” Nell said. “Come in. I’m just about to take a batch of raspberry thumbprints out of the oven.”
“Wow,” Jill said, removing her sweater as they entered the kitchen. “They smell beyond good.”
“They should. I won’t even tell you how much butter the recipe called for. And the raspberry jam is homemade by Margaret O’Connell, the woman who sells in pretty much every specialty food shop between here and Portland.”
“The woman knows her jams and jellies. And her breads aren’t bad, either. Have you had her Irish soda bread? Killer.”
Nell opened the oven, carefully removed the tray of cookies, and set it on top of the stove. “So,” she said, “what brings you by?”
Jill leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “Stuart phoned me earlier. He’s decided to spend Christmas in the Caribbean with his girlfriend of the moment. Which means I won’t be going to Connecticut. I didn’t argue. He’s forty-four years old. He’s his own man.”
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