She had. With that close crop of shiny hair, she’d looked like a pixie or something. ‘I remember just being pissed that you didn’t look …’
‘Like myself.’
Abe nodded. How the hell was he suddenly in the middle of a twelve-year-old fight?
‘That’s your problem right there, Tiger. You can’t accept change.’
‘Why are we rehashing this again?’
‘Because I’m worried about you. Worried the old place will get torn down, and you’ll be left in the rubble. I’m just concerned. That you’re doing this for the right reasons.’
He ignored the image of Fiona that flashed into his mind, black cowboy hat smashed against her head, wide hazel eyes.
Rayna continued, ‘And not just because you’re trying to prove a point.’
The chair under him groaned as he leaned back, lacing his hands behind his head. ‘That’s really why you’re here?’ It wasn’t. There was something more here. Bigger.
‘Yeah.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it.’
‘What’s really going on, Rayna?’
She let her head fall backward, lifting her heavy hair over the top of the chair. She took a deep breath, and then she shrugged again. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Trouble with Tommy?’
Her head snapped back and she stared at him. ‘Why do you say that?’
You drop by to visit a guy who hasn’t existed for you in years. ‘Just throwing it out there.’
She rubbed the skin under her eyes, pushing it upward. ‘How do people know they’re supposed to be together?’
‘You’re asking me that?’ He was the one who’d gotten it wrong, after all. ‘You got married. I’ve been able to stay firmly committed to my cat. That’s about it.’
‘Have you even dated since we broke up?’
He couldn’t help it – he laughed. ‘You think you turned me into a monk?’
‘No … I –’
‘I date.’ I fuck was what he meant, and he knew she heard it.
‘I know, I didn’t mean to imply … I just haven’t seen you get serious with anyone. Since … you know. Me.’
Abe didn’t have to say it out loud. She’d broken his heart into tiny little wave-beaten sand-dollar shards. She knew it better than anyone else. But for once, it didn’t hurt like it always had. For years, he’d felt that stab of regret whenever he saw her on the street, a child’s hand held in hers, whenever he saw her take a corner in her sturdy, family-sized SUV.
Right now, though, he was picturing Fiona’s eyes snapping brown-green at him. ‘I do okay.’
‘I know …’
Abe let the silence hang between them. It was hers to fill.
‘Tommy … he’s been seeing someone else.’
‘Shit.’ Abe hadn’t seen that coming. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me, too. I think I might kill him.’
‘You want help?’
She smiled thinly. ‘I’ll be able to manage it on my own, the way I’ve been feeling.’
‘Does he know you know?’
‘No. I saw them.’ She laughed, but it turned into a dry, painful noise.
Abe leaned forward and took her hand. It might have been the first time he’d ever touched her without his heart racing. ‘You don’t need to –’
‘I want to. I saw him. I saw Tommy. My husband. I’d gone to Half-Moon Bay while the kids were in school. You know that sports shop there? I thought it would be fun if I got him a new tennis racket. He’s been so into it lately, and it was his birthday the next week. I stopped at that coffee shop on the corner to get myself a mocha.’
With whip, medium hot. He remembered.
‘And there he was, in line in front of me. She had her hand tucked in his jacket pocket.’ Her voice broke again. ‘That’s what got me. Her hand in his jacket meant … it meant she was comfortable enough with him to do that. That’s not a first date move. That’s a been-together-a-while move, you know?’
Abe hoped she didn’t expect him to answer her question – he honestly couldn’t remember any moves at all.
‘I turned and walked out. I waited in my car, hoping he’d see it, recognize it. Freak out. Or maybe he’d just wave at me and then I’d recognize her as someone at the hardware store, and I’d know that I got it all wrong. But then I saw him driving her car, a little, stupid red Miata. He was driving her car.’ Rayna’s voice was tired. ‘That was even worse than the hand in the pocket thing.’
Now she was waiting for him to say something and God help him, Abe didn’t know what the hell a guy should say in this circumstance. ‘Like I said, Rayna, I’m really sorry.’
‘Yeah. You did say that.’ Her words were dull, just like her eyes.
‘I’m just not sure …’
She nodded. ‘You don’t know what I want from you.’
He had no freaking idea, actually.
‘I don’t know either,’ she said. ‘I just thought maybe it would make me feel better. Coming here and …’
The light went on, and Abe felt stupid that he hadn’t understood it before. Rayna wanted him to still be aching. To still be brokenhearted. Did she expect him to hit on her? For him to be unable to resist? If anyone had asked him two weeks ago, he’d have predicted it would hurt like a barbed hook to the lip for Rayna to come confessing this kind of stuff to him. Instead, he just wanted to do two things: First, to punch Tommy Viera for being such a stupid asshole. And second, to track down Fiona and argue with her some more.
About anything, really.
‘I’m going to go.’ Rayna stood and rubbed her hands against her dark blue dress. It had red stripes. A navy-like dress, a dress girls wore for sailors home on leave. Had she worn it on purpose?
‘I’m sorry I bothered you while you’re working.’
Abe said, ‘I really wish I could help somehow.’
She’d been moving fast toward the door but she stilled and looked at him, fixing him with those pretty chocolate eyes. Those eyes that had always been able to get him to do any damn thing she wanted. ‘You already have.’ In two steps, she was in front of him, lifting up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Her lips lingered maybe a second longer than they should have. She smelled the way she always had – the exotic, heady mix of flowers and vanilla that used to send him reeling.
It didn’t make him feel that way anymore. In fact, he didn’t want her kissing him at all, not even on the cheek.
Behind her, the door opened. Fiona tumbled in out of the rain. Water dripped off her hat, ran down her jacket, pooled around her cowboy boots.
‘Oh!’ she said.
‘No,’ said Abe.
Rayna took a quick step backward, removing her hand from where she’d had it on Abe’s shoulder. ‘Anyway. I’ll see you later, okay?’ She gave a warm smile to Fiona. ‘Bye, Fee. See you at the station.’ She moved easily around the other woman and was gone, opening her umbrella with one clean shake.
‘I won’t bother you,’ said Fiona, turning in place. ‘I didn’t have – oh, crap.’
Abe caught her by the elbow. ‘You’re soaked.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Master of the obvious.’
Abe wanted to open the small window behind her to let the wet salt wind blow the stuffy perfumed air out of the room. But he didn’t want to take his hand off her arm. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, but he was worried she’d bolt – she had that frantic look in her eyes, like a fish caught at the end of a line.
‘What’s up, Snowflake?’ He meant it to come out softly. An endearment.
She frowned, though, as if she thought he was teasing her. ‘Forget it.’
‘No, what is it?’ He moved to step in front of her. ‘I’m sorry. I was just kidding. Jesus, Fee.’ He shoved his hand through his hair. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, I can’t even tell you.’
Fiona swiped at a rivulet that ran from her neck right into her cleavage. Rain dripped from her long metal earrings to her shoulders.
He wanted to help her dry off.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m on my way to your mother’s house, and I just wanted to know …’ She trailed off, looking at her wet hands stretched out in front of her. ‘I’m a grease monkey, aren’t I? I should have at least showered. I can’t ever get it from under my nails …’
As gently as he could, he said, ‘What did you want to know?’
‘I wanted to know if there was a particular treat I could bring her, but I feel terrible – awkward. I’m so sorry, interrupting you and Rayna –’
‘There’s nothing going on.’
‘But –’
Abe touched her chin and tilted Fiona’s head up. ‘I promise you, Snowflake. Nothing’s going on with me and Rayna.’
A tiny smile lit her face. ‘Oh.’ The smile got a fraction wider. ‘Anyway, I’ll figure it out myself. I’ll see you.’ And she was gone, a light click as the door closed behind her.
‘Shit.’ Abe sunk back into his chair and rubbed his temples. He felt like he didn’t know much right now, but he knew this: Fiona was the cutest damn grease monkey he’d ever seen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Breath by breath. – E. C.
Fiona sat in the kitchen where Abe had been raised. This was the home he’d shared with his parents, and for a while, with his baby sister. There weren’t any photos up on the walls, Fiona noticed, or at least not in the normal places. From the kitchen she could see into the living room – there were only paintings of old boats on the walls. Nothing hung in the hallway at the entrance. In the kitchen there was just a calendar from the local SPCA. Fiona had the same one hanging on her wall at home.
No baby pictures of Abe or Marina, at which Fiona felt strangely disappointed as she clutched her teacup and waited for Hope to come back to the room. She’d said she’d be right back, but she’d been gone at least five minutes now. Long enough for Fiona to get truly nervous.
Of course Rayna had been at Abe’s office. Why had Fiona even been surprised? Rayna and Abe had been an item for so long – how did you change that? Did a relationship like that really ever stop?
Even though he’d said it had?
‘Here I am,’ said Hope, coming back into the kitchen with a large canvas bag in her hands. It was chock-full of gorgeously colored skeins of yarn. Hope tipped the bag, and yarn balls covered the top of the table, as many rolling and jumping to the floor as stayed on the tabletop.
‘Oh, let me get those …’
‘Leave them, dear. Unless you like the color.’
‘But the floor …’
‘They’re from sheep. This stuff has seen worse than my kitchen tiles. All wool can be washed.’
Hope sat carefully, slowly, as though she might do it wrong if she weren’t careful. She pushed back the gray hair that fluffed around her face. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘where should we start? What color are you drawn to?’
‘I get to choose?’ Fiona had overheard enough impromptu knitting lessons at the station that she knew most new knitters didn’t get much of a choice. ‘Aren’t I supposed to choose something smooth and light-colored? Gray, or white, or something boring?’
Hope shook her head. ‘Whatever you like best is the right color.’
Oh, that wasn’t hard, then. Fiona reached past a small heap of green balls to grasp the red one, the one flecked with yellow and orange.
‘Good choice. Here, let me.’ Hope did something with the yarn, her fingers fumbling a bit. In less than two minutes, there were stitches lined up on a wooden needle. Hope leaned sideways. ‘I did the first two rows because they’re the hardest to learn. Now I’ll show you the basic move.’
‘Isn’t that cheating?’
‘Remember when Eliza taught you? Out on the bench at the lighthouse?’
They were going to talk about it, then. Damn it.
‘Not really,’ said Fiona.
‘Eliza Carpenter always said it wasn’t fair to start a beginner out with a row that could make her fail. I’ll teach you how to cast on later, when you’re good at the basic knit stitch.’
Well, that would probably be never. Fiona watched Hope’s hands, her knuckles wide, the skin reddened. Her fingers moved slowly, as if they ached.
‘Do your hands hurt?’ Fiona couldn’t help asking.
‘Yes,’ said Hope quietly. ‘But it’s all right.’
‘No, no.’ Fiona leaned forward and put her hand on top of Hope’s cold fingers. ‘It’s not. I don’t need to learn this. I’ve gone my whole life in Cypress Hollow without learning.’
‘You need to learn.’ Hope’s eyes met hers with startling intensity. Fiona could see where her son got that crystalline shade of blue. ‘I want to do this. Let me.’
Fiona gave up. ‘Okay. Show me.’
An hour later, Fiona had made a horrible-looking tiny cape. She held up her needles. ‘It would fit a mouse. One of the three blind ones, maybe.’
‘It’s lovely.’ Hope smiled at her lap, where her hands awkwardly held her own enormous needles.
‘It’s not. It’s awful.’ Could Fiona go soon? Would it be rude? The yarn didn’t feel right in her fingers, and yet another stitch disappeared under her manipulation. ‘Shit.’ Fiona sucked in a breath. ‘Sorry.’
‘I was married to a sailor,’ was all Hope said.
How did you know my mother? Fiona let the words tumble around unsaid in her mouth for another minute. Maybe she could hold on to them for long enough to make them sound less desperate. If she spoke them now, Hope would hear the aching need in Fiona’s voice, and that wouldn’t do. Not at all.
‘I don’t even know what happened to that stitch,’ said Fiona in disgust. ‘I can’t catch them like you do.’ She passed the knitting over to Hope again, who dug around inside the rat’s nest she’d made and pulled the loop back up onto the needle. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Hope picked up her own work. ‘Breath by breath. That’s what Eliza would always say. You just do it breath by breath.’
A clock on the wall, too fast by two hours, ticked loudly. A pipe creaked in another room.
Hope continued, ‘I think it applies to a lot of things, don’t you?’
As another stitch committed yarn suicide, Fiona blew out her breath in frustration. She let the whole mess drop into her lap. ‘How did you know my mother?’
Hope smiled without looking up, as if she’d been expecting the question. ‘She was in my class.’
Fiona struggled to do the math. Her mother had gotten pregnant very young, too young …
‘Beatrice was in the first English class I ever taught. We were only about ten years apart, she and I.’
Beatrice. No one ever called her mother that. She’d been Bunny to everyone. Fiona tilted her head. ‘I never knew that.’ Bunny, at thirteen – what a thought. ‘What was she like?’
‘I taught her to knit.’
‘No way.’ The mother she’d known was only crafty about two things: her drawing, and disguising vodka in soda cans.
Hope laughed. ‘She did it for extra credit, which she desperately needed. She stayed after school every day for a week. I just wanted an excuse to be with her, to try to help.’ She blinked several times before going on. ‘I wasn’t any good at my job yet, and she knew it as well as I did. We went some rounds in the classroom that I’m not proud of. And I could lie and tell you that the knitting straightened her out for a time, that it helped calm her down, but I think you’d guess that wasn’t true. Knitting made her furious with frustration.’
Fiona bit the inside of her mouth. Bunny had liked instant gratification in all things. Of course she’d hated knitting. A stitch sailed sideways. ‘Damn it.’
Hope reached for Fiona’s knitting again. She caught the errant stitch again and passed the work back. ‘I remember how your mother moved. Like there was something sparking under her skin, something that itched, as if she was allergic to air, or water.’
That was exactly it. Bunny had never been still for a moment. ‘She couldn’t even watch television. A
sitcom was too long for her.’
‘Did you know your mother had been abused by a family member?’
Those words didn’t make sense. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Fiona’s grandparents had both died before she was born – she’d never known any relatives on her mother’s side.
‘An uncle of hers. Your great-uncle. He molested her. For years.’
The words were tiny detonations – awful explosions that took Fiona long seconds to work through. She sat straighter, as if that would help her understand. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘It’s good to know where you come from,’ Hope said and made another clumsy stitch with her swollen fingers.
‘So I come from trash? You’re trying to say I’m not good enough for your son?’ Fear that felt like anger started to burn at the ends of Fiona’s fingertips, and she watched the immobile yarn to see if it had started to smolder.
‘No! Not at all.’ Hope looked as upset as Fiona felt, her face pale. She dropped her knitting and held the edge of the table. ‘I’m saying your mother didn’t choose to be the way she was. She was hurt by someone. She never recovered.’
Fiona hated that tears were filling her eyes. ‘Why didn’t she tell me, then? She told me everything else. She talked non-stop. She never thought to mention she was molested?’
And did Bunny get to blame everything on that? Is that why she drank? Why she had left? No matter how horrible the fact that she had been abused was, it didn’t excuse leaving your child behind. Or did it?
‘Do you remember when I came to see you at the lighthouse? When Eliza Carpenter and I came?’
Fiona frowned. Of course she did. They’d separated them – Mrs. Atwell going with Fiona’s father, Eliza Carpenter taking Fiona outside to the bench that overlooked the ocean. She’d tried to teach her to knit.
Her mother was already gone.
‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘Bunny didn’t do anything to me.’
Hope’s fingers stilled. ‘Do you believe that?’
‘My father took care of me.’
‘Your father couldn’t protect you from her. You couldn’t hide the black eye. And it was my job as your teacher to protect you. I’d failed your mother – I didn’t want to fail you, too.’
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