by Liz Flaherty
“I’m not.” He framed her face with his hands and bent his head to kiss her. He lingered, his tongue teasing, until she opened her mouth under his. “I’m not leaving you, Lucy.” He smiled before kissing her again, but the sadness she remembered from early summer filled his eyes. “I’m finding me.”
*
She found the car she wanted the Monday after Boone went back to Chicago. The “new” SUV was three years old with less than 30,000 miles and a functional CD player and air conditioner. It was canary yellow, which Sims said meant they should’ve paid her to take it off the lot. And Lucy loved it. It was quiet and comfortable and in only four years, providing she made timely and not-too-big payments, it would be completely hers.
Micah Walker ordered a magnetic sign that advertised Tea on Twilight and she slapped it on the driver’s door and left it there.
The days, once she got past the horrific one when Boone left, moved along easily. Business at the tearoom boomed. Tom Simcox said the investigators had found nothing new concerning the burning of her car. “It could be random vandalism,” he’d said one day when he and Maria came for lunch. “There’s no denying it happens. Just watch your back and make sure 911 is on speed-dial.”
“Do you believe I didn’t do it myself?” She hadn’t meant to ask the question, no matter how badly she wanted to know its answer. Her breath stopped in the middle of an exhale and she bit down on her bottom lip.
“I do.”
“Thanks, Tom.” She’d smiled past him at his wife. “He’s not bad sometimes, is he?”
Maria’d laughed. “No, and he’s cute in an apron, too.”
Leaves began falling in early October, and as always in the Midwest, its residents remarked that fall was early this year. Or late. Or dry. Or exceedingly wet. The tearoom dispensed as much mulled cider at lunchtime as it did coffee and tea. Homemade soup was so popular they served at least one kind every day. During a business meeting held while Gert counted money and Lucy made piecrust, the idea of opening seven days a week was discussed and dismissed to the great relief of both of them.
The Friday before the church supper, Lucy was loading the day’s tablecloths and napkins into the washer when Gert carried the phone into the laundry room. “It’s for you,” she said, and sneezed.
“Bless you.” Lucy took the phone. “Hello?”
“Thank you, and bless you too.” It was Kelly. “Jack’s got a football game tonight.”
“I know. We sent cookies over for the team. Do you have any idea how many cookies thirty teenage boys can eat?”
“No, and I don’t think I want to know. You should feed the cheerleaders instead of the players—it would be much cheaper. The thing is, Jack doesn’t have anybody to be there for him. His dad’s in jail and his mother just started working nights at the casino in Rising Sun. Even his little brothers are in foster care. I don’t feel like going by myself. Would you go with me?”
Lucy took the receiver away from her ear and stared at it for a moment, wondering if Kelly remembered who she’d called. “Well, sure,” she said. “I can do that.”
“I didn’t ask Aunt Gert.” Kelly answered her unspoken question. “She doesn’t sound too good.”
“She’s catching a cold. She’ll be happy to stay here with Kinsey, I imagine.”
“I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”
Still feeling nonplused, Lucy thanked her and hung up, putting the phone in her pocket and turning concerned eyes on Gert. “Why don’t you get ready for bed?” she suggested, closing the washer and starting its cycle.
“It’s three-thirty in the afternoon.”
“And you’re about to collapse. Take some cold medicine, or a shot of something. I’ll bring you some soup and tea and you and Kinsey can take the rest of the day off.” She grinned. “Sims might come over and sit with you if you ask nicely.”
Gert snorted. “You and Kelly going out?”
Lucy explained, lifting the next day’s tablecloths and napkins off the shelf above the dryer. She had time to set the tables if she hurried. That would keep Gert from doing it while she was gone.
That whole idea didn’t work, of course. Gert followed her, sitting down to fold the napkins in artistic shapes Lucy had never mastered. “That’s nice you girls are going. Give him a thumbs-up from me.”
“I’ve been here since February, see Jack almost every day, and love him to death, but I still don’t know much about him,” Lucy said. “I have the impression he’s had a rough time. Is that right?”
“Yes, he has. Still is, I think.” Sadness settled on Gert’s already pale features.
After settling Gert in, Lucy dressed in jeans and a red and black Taft High School sweatshirt she’d bought from one of the St. John children who’d been selling them as a fundraiser. She flat-ironed her hair so that it lay neatly on her shoulders. Kelly was prompt, as Lucy had expected, and she ran down the front porch steps to slide into the passenger seat of the Volvo.
“I haven’t been to a football game since I was in high school,” she said, “and not very many of them then. Friday nights were busy in the restaurant.”
“Just yell when everyone else does and make sure you don’t say anything less than complimentary about a particular player. If his mother hears you, she’ll never forgive you and she’ll tell all her friends.”
Lucy smiled across the car at Boone’s sister. Kelly was extraordinarily beautiful. Slim but still curvy, with skin Lucy would have been willing to bet had never seen the business end of a tube of Clearasil. If there were flaws, they were invisible ones. Even her clothes were the prettiest Lucy had ever seen. “Were you a cheerleader?”
“From sixth grade all the way through college. I even tried out for the Colts and the Pacers cheerleading squads, but when I didn’t make it, I went to law school instead.” There wasn’t much humor in her smile. “I’m still not sure that was a good choice, but changing my mind at this point would be a pretty expensive option.”
“So how did you know about Jack’s family? He’s never mentioned any of them except his little brothers. He used to take them cookies and talk about them sometimes, but he doesn’t anymore. He hardly talks at all.”
Kelly didn’t answer right away. She drove to the high school campus on the edge of town, waving at the deputy who was directing people into empty parking spots.
“His father embezzled money from the place where he worked,” she said finally. “I’m the assistant prosecutor and I drew the short straw. He was a popular man, a husband and father, a model citizen who’d never been in trouble, even a deacon at his church. But he was in over his head and he stole money and I helped send him to jail.” Without waiting for Lucy to answer, she got out of the car, slamming the door.
Lucy got out on the other side and spoke across the top of the Volvo. “Well, obviously it bothers you, but weren’t you just doing your job?”
“It does and I was. The judge was unbelievably severe, slapping my hands because I didn’t ask for enough of a penalty. The guy was a first-time offender, for God’s sake, no more a threat to society than I am, but His Honor was in a punitive mood that day, and Jack’s dad’s paying the highest price that could legally be charged.” Kelly led the way toward the entrance gate to the football field. “Unfortunately, Jack and his family are paying the price too, and that payment’s just going to keep rippling out. You have little boys who only know the father they worshiped is gone, a wife who’s so overwhelmed she doesn’t know which end is up, and—” Her voice caught, and she struggled for a moment before going on, “—you have Jack, trying to be a man before his time.”
“It’s a shame.” Lucy remembered when her father had hired Andy. Johnny had caught him sneaking out of the restaurant without paying and hauled him to the police station himself, scaring the stuffing out of him all the way. After a great deal of huffing and puffing and yelling while they were at the precinct, he’d dragged the boy back to the restaurant and shown him how to bus tables and run the d
ishwasher—shouting the whole time. Andy’d never left. “Did you get Jack the job with Gert?”
“Yes.” Kelly hesitated. “But that’s—”
“It won’t go any further,” Lucy promised. “I just wondered.” And was glad to know.
They paid their way in, bought coffee at the concession stand and took seats in the home-side bleachers, waving at the fullback wearing number thirty on his black jersey. He nodded slightly in their direction, and the women grinned at each other. “I don’t think he wants anyone to see he knows us,” Lucy said. “You suppose it’s because we’re too old?”
“Can’t be.”
Lucy nodded. “You’re right. You still sort of resemble a cheerleader. Daphne with an edge.”
Kelly’s whoop of laughter reminded Lucy painfully of Boone. As if in response to the thought, the cell phone in the hand-warmer pocket of her sweatshirt rang.
“Gert said you two were at the game,” he said without preamble when she flipped the phone open. “Don’t embarrass the kid. When it’s over and everyone talks to the players in the parking lot, don’t hug him. Just say ‘good job’ and go on so he can pretend it’s no big deal you guys came to watch him.”
“His mother’s not here. She works nights. And his dad’s in jail.”
“Yeah, I knew that part.” He was silent for a few seconds. “Okay, go ahead and hug him. Try to rub the sweat line from his helmet out of his hair so he’ll be embarrassed—he’ll like that. Tell Kelly ‘hey.’ I miss you.”
“Same goes.” She closed the phone and put it back into her pocket. “He says—”
“I know.” His sister waved a hand. “He says ‘hey.’ I miss him something fierce. I didn’t expect that after all the time he’s lived away, but I do.”
“Me too,” Lucy said, and stood for the national anthem.
Taft’s Warriors won the game. Lucy surprised herself by yelling until her throat hurt and even occasionally being able to find the football in the swarm of players on the field. Following Boone’s suggestion, both women hugged Jack in the parking lot before heading back to the house.
It was easy to forget that the tall and well-muscled boy was just that—a boy. But there was a still-young fragility to Jack that Lucy felt when she’d hugged him, a narrowness through his ribcage that made her hold him an extra few beats in time. She’d wanted to cry, but knew he’d neither understand nor thank her for it.
“I want to check on Gert before I go home.” Kelly got out of the car and followed Lucy inside.
“I’m going to get her some hot cider. Want some?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
A few minutes later, Lucy carried a tray with three mugs of cider into the room where the other women were talking. She sat in a wing chair with her feet on the bed while Kelly leaned up against the headboard beside her aunt.
“We used to do this sometimes when we were kids.” Kelly reached for her cider. “Only I sat in the chair and the boys sprawled across the foot of the bed. They’d get to wrestling and Uncle Mike would toss them onto the floor. Then they’d pull him down there with them and they’d all wrestle.”
Gert chuckled, though she coughed on the end of it. “Those were the days, weren’t they?” She stroked Kinsey, who lay across her lap, and the little cat’s constant purr became a rumble. “When my baby died, I thought my life was over. Then we lost your parents, Kelly, and you and Boone came here to live and Crockett came, too, a few months later. That was when I found out your family lives in your heart, and it doesn’t matter a damn who gave birth to them.” She hugged Kelly to her and reached to pinch Lucy’s sock-garbed toe. “Nope, not a damn.”
There you go, Lucy Goosy. What’d I tell you?
*
Boone hung up the phone from calling Lucy for the results of the football game and went back to the drawing board. There was Daphne, sitting in the bleachers in her formal gown with a beauty-queen sash across one bare shoulder, her hair swept into an elaborate updo. Her makeup and jewelry were exaggerated the way they always were, but she was still beautiful. Next to her sat—
Who?
Drawing her was no problem. She had big green eyes and curly red-gold hair and wore a sundress with an apron even in the bleachers. She was Daphne’s friend—probably a bit of a stretch—but what was her name?
He called Lucy back when he had the panel done. “You asleep?”
“No, I’m baking pecan pies for the soup supper,” she said cheerfully. “But it is two o’clock in the morning. Stranger things have happened than people being asleep at that hour.” Her voice changed perceptibly. “Are you calling to tell me you’re not coming down tomorrow?”
“No, why would you think that?” Although he wasn’t hurt by the disappointment he heard. Nope, not one bit hurt.
“Because it’s two a.m. and you have a six-hour drive in front of you.”
“Nah. I’m flying down. Crockett will get in at almost the same time and we’ll be at the house about noon. Sims is picking us up. What I called to ask is, what did you want your name to be when you were a kid?”
“Anything but what it was.”
“Aw, come on, give me something to work with.”
“No, seriously. I love Lucille Ball, but when I was a little kid named Lucy with curly almost-red hair, I didn’t. The only thing worse would have been Ethel.”
“So what name would you have chosen?”
“Let me think a minute. I’m going to put the phone down while I put the pies in the oven. Don’t hang up.”
He pictured her moving the pies to the oven racks, her bottom lip captured between her teeth in a usually vain effort to keep from spilling something. God, he missed her. Noon seemed a long time away.
She returned in a couple of minutes. “Okay, you still there? I remember now. There was a waitress at the restaurant who taught me to make salads when I was little. She had bright red hair that came from the same bottle Lucille Ball used and big boobs that may or may not have been real, and she wore big earrings. Sparkly dangly ones, with bracelets to match that slid up and down her arms. Her name was Gladys Marie, so for a year or so there, that’s who I wanted to be. How’s that?”
“Perfect. What was her last name?”
“Vojtasek.”
“What?”
Lucy’s laughter was like music. Oh, Lord, Brennan, you’ve got it bad. “Vojtasek,” she repeated. “There’s a ‘j’ in there—that’s how I learned about silent letters. I was the only kid in the first grade who knew what they were before we learned to spell ‘comb.’ The teacher was really impressed with me until she found out I could spell ‘Vojtasek’ but not ‘comb.’”
“So how do you spell it?”
“C-o-m-b.”
“No, I mean Vo—” Her snort stopped him, and he grinned into the phone. “Never mind. What’s your favorite color?”
“Green.”
“Yeah, that’s—”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s blue. And I love fall colors.”
He sighed. “What was your mother’s maiden name?”
“Doyle. She used to say she married Dad because she already had monogrammed linens and that way she didn’t have to change them. Of course, she didn’t. Have monogrammed linens, I mean, though I’ve got a few pretty things that were hers. I think my grandmother made them. Not borrowed-grandmother Isobel, but real-grandmother Abaigeal. My mother’s mother. She died before I was born.”
For a minute there, he considered “Abaigeal,” but he knew he couldn’t spell that, nor could he insert the Gaelic accent that had slipped effortlessly into Lucy’s voice. “Okay. I’m good.” He scribbled “Gladys Doyle” on the paper in front of him. “So. What are you wearing?”
In the moment of silence that followed, he closed his eyes and imagined her trying to decide what to say. He chuckled silently, waiting.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked cautiously.
“Phone sex. I’ve never done it, but I haven’t seen you in two weeks and I’m wi
lling to learn.”
“We’ll have a study session on it.” He could have sworn her voice was blushing. But she laughed again, too, and he closed his eyes to store the sound behind his heart. “I’m hanging up now, Boone. See you tomorrow.”
“’Night, Lucy John.”
He disconnected and pored over the panel he’d drawn. It was good to be back in his studio. Convenient. But he didn’t like the rest of the apartment anymore. It had been home with Maggie, a place they’d both loved. Now it was just a place.
Suddenly tired and aware he hadn’t packed for the weekend at home—at Taft—he turned off the lights in the studio and went through the apartment, stopping to stare at the empty space in the dining room where Maggie’s piano had sat. He remembered when he’d given it away. He’d felt relief, as though he were shifting a weight off his shoulders.
He’d sorted things then, that same day, choosing remembrances for himself—her favorite coffee cup, the CD of children’s music she’d recorded, a few photograph albums, notes they’d left each other. A few weeks later, her sister and brother-in-law had come from Florida to visit and Boone had asked Emily to take what she wanted of Maggie’s clothes and other personal items so he could give the rest to Salvation Army. Another weight’d gone away.
But the empty places remained. He’d never put a desk where the piano had sat, had never stored winter clothes in Maggie’s closet or filled the shelves where her books had been.
He packed quickly and went to bed, lying in the room he’d shared with her and staring at the ceiling. He gave himself the luxury of thinking about his wife. Remembering the fun and funniness of their life together. But the memories were fading around the edges. He no longer recalled the exact sound of her voice or feel of her hair between his fingers. When he listened for her laugh, it was Lucy’s he heard.
It was strange how it worked. The idea of Lucy replacing Maggie was untenable to even think about. People couldn’t replace other people, couldn’t fill those spaces left by loss. But when they created places of their own, it was like the candle thing Gert had told him and Kelly about when they’d felt disloyal by being happy with her and Mike after losing their parents. She’d lit a whole box of candles, explaining that each of the tapers stood for a person, and the more you loved—or lit—the brighter the love and the light.