by Shirley Jump
Her family and their Irish words of wisdom. Most of them were about as useful as boots on a cat. “Okay, I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
“Good. Now, will you be at family dinner on Sunday? Your mother is expecting you and the children. And Ben, I might add, so you might want to call him.”
“The kids and I will be there.” If she didn’t mention Ben, maybe no one would notice he hadn’t come or just assume he was working. Nora clutched the phone and let out a long, deep breath of relief. She had a home to go to on Sunday. A home for her children. “Thank you again, Aunt Mary.”
“No need to thank me with words, my dear. Just do it with your deeds. If there’s anything I have learned in this past year, it’s the importance of keeping a family together. It takes work, but it’s work worth doing.”
Only if there is work left to do, Nora amended silently.
THIRTEEN
Colleen headed into the converted white two-story house that held the headquarters for Sophie’s Home, carrying a paper bag in each hand. There was a chill in the air, a sure sign that fall was making room for an early winter. Every year, Colleen vowed to move to Florida or Arizona or anywhere warmer than Boston in the middle of winter. But every year, she stayed put and suffered through the cold because her family was here. Her kids. Her grandkids. Her friends.
And now this charity. She’d been helping Sophie’s Home for over a year now, bringing them extra baked goods, collecting clothing and children’s toys, and now hiring Iris. Roger O’Sullivan, who had started Sophie’s Home about a decade ago, had done wonderful things helping women who were down on their luck. Many of them were now employed, living in homes of their own, and emerging like butterflies out of the desperate situations they had been in before they arrived on this very doorstep.
When her husband died two decades ago, leaving Colleen to raise four kids and run a business alone, she’d thought her life had been tough. But it was nothing compared to what some of these incredible women went through—and still emerged to come out on top.
As Colleen entered the building, Roger came down the hall. When he saw her, a wide grin took over his face, and that sent a little flutter through her stomach. “Colleen! So glad to see you!” He took the bags from her hands before she could protest, hefted them into one arm, and held the door to his office for her.
Such a gentleman, even though she didn’t need him to be. Colleen could take care of herself, but every time she reminded Roger of that, he upped the chivalry, so she’d stopped protesting. “Thank you.”
“I made hot tea for you,” he said. “I bought that Irish tea you like so much and made sure I had some fresh honey to go with it.”
He was always doing thoughtful things. Brewing her favorite tea just before she arrived or walking her home at the end of the day. Every time, she insisted she was just fine, but Roger had this stubborn Sir Galahad side.
A part or her might—might—like that about him. Her late husband, God rest his soul, had been like that, and there were days when Colleen missed being treated like a lady.
She walked into his office and shrugged off her coat, laying it carefully over the back of a chair before taking a seat. In the year she’d been coming here, Roger had upgraded the ragtag furniture in his office to comfortable armchairs, bought a small refrigerator, and outfitted one corner of the room with a countertop and a couple of cabinets. He had the teapot on a hot plate with two mugs waiting beside it.
“It’s not really necessary for you to go to so much trouble. I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you.” She perched on the edge of the chair, thanking him again when he placed a warm mug in her hands.
“Ah, but you do so much for Sophie’s Home. I’m happy to do it. And I do like you an awful lot, Colleen O’Bannon. So I’m hoping the tea and the honey and everything else starts swaying you into my corner, sooner rather than later.” He shot her a smile over the rim of his mug.
She set the cup on his desk, beside a photo of his daughter. She was a dark-haired, happy girl, about seven in the picture, with a wide smile and a missing front tooth. She didn’t know much about his daughter—he rarely spoke of her—and she got the feeling it was a sensitive subject. Regardless, his commitment to changing the lives of the women in the Dorchester area was something she liked very much.
Well, respected. Liking would imply things like swaying into his corner. “Roger…” She took in a breath. “We have had this conversation many times.”
“And I’ll have it several more times until you agree to go to dinner with me,” he said.
The man gave persistent a whole new meaning. Why couldn’t he see she was too old, too set in her ways, to think about getting involved with a man again? If that was even the term these days. “I like our arrangement as it is.”
“Well, I don’t.” He got to his feet and stared at the floor for a moment. When he raised his gaze to hers, his brown eyes softened with sadness. “Colleen, I’m afraid I’m going to have to end our alliance if you won’t go out to dinner with me.”
She cocked her head and studied him. “Is this blackmail?”
“Only if it works.” The sadness gave way to a smile, and the momentary panic she’d had when he said he was ending their friendship eased. “Is it working?”
She had to admit that it was a clever way to get her to see his side. And something she might have done herself. “Well, it seems I have no choice.”
His face fell. He sighed.
“I will go to dinner with you.” She put up a finger when Roger’s features brightened. Saying she’d go to dinner with him didn’t mean she had to do it immediately. Maybe this would be enough to cease his endless asking. “But only once, and only to prove to you that we are not compatible romantically and I’m not this vixen you keep claiming I am.” He’d called her that a couple of times, though Lord only knew what the man saw in her practical shoes and no-nonsense clothes that said vixen. Perhaps the man needed a vision test.
“You have made my day, Colleen,” Roger said. “I will pick you up tonight at six.”
“Wait. You want to go to dinner tonight? But it’s Halloween and that’s so quick and—”
“And at our age, we don’t have the luxury of millions of hours.” He sat back in his seat and took her hand in his. He had a warm grip, not too tight, not too soft. Secure. Comfortable. “I don’t want to wait a day or a week to take you out and get to know you outside of this office. So, I’ll see you at six?”
Nora counted her lucky stars that she had Magpie here on this vacation. If there was one thing Magpie excelled at, it was transforming a bad moment into a fun adventure. Nora had known the minute Mags asked her to come to the beach house that it would be a fun time, despite everything she was going through, because her sister had done it before.
When Nora was ten and Magpie was six, the girls had gone exploring in the woods near their house. They’d set out to find a pot of gold after spying a rainbow in the sky. Nora didn’t much believe in leprechauns or pots of gold, despite the tales woven by her grandmother and her aunts, but Magpie did, so Nora went along, carrying a velvet bag they’d snuck out of their mother’s bedroom.
The day had started out sunny, the two of them holding hands as they wandered down a well-trod path and deeper into the woods. From time to time, the leaves above parted enough for them to see the rainbow, arching above their heads like a beacon. Magpie hurried forward, tugging Nora’s hand, not even noticing when dark clouds blotted out the rainbow, and a second round of storms moved in, the rain falling so hard and fast that it slapped the leaves and bounced off the ground. In seconds, Nora and Magpie were soaked and miserable. And lost.
Instead of complaining, Magpie had found a hollowed-out tree, and the two of them hunkered down. She gathered a pile of rocks, drew a square in the soft, sandy earth, and they played a makeshift game of checkers until the skies cleared and they could make their way home again. The stormy afternoon Nora had expected to be a disaster became one of her
favorite memories with her sister.
Nora came in from her run, releasing Chance from the leash. The dog beelined for his water bowl while Nora crossed to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.
Magpie leaned against the counter, sipping a cup of tea. “Hey, in case you forgot, today is Halloween,” she whispered, nodding toward the kids, who were sitting at the bar, eating cereal while the living room TV played cartoons.
Halloween meant costumes. Meant trick-or-treating. Meant Ben was supposed to get the kids and take them back to their old neighborhood. He hadn’t texted or called since their late-night conversation, or even replied when Nora sent him the Truro address. Nora didn’t know whether to take that as a confirmation that he’d be here or a sign that he wasn’t. But either way, the kids were going to expect to trick-or-treat.
“Shit. I forgot the material I bought back at the house,” Nora said. “I was going to make a princess costume for Sarah and a superhero one for Jake.”
Mags parked her fists on her hips and arched a brow. “You were going to sew two costumes, from scratch, just days before Halloween? In all your free time?”
“I could have done it.” Okay, so even she had doubted her ability to get those costumes done before Halloween. She’d only bought the material because it had seemed so normal, so nothing-is-going-wrong-in-my-life. A little escape from reality found in Jo-Ann Fabrics.
“Listen, Nora, I know everyone in the family thinks you are superhuman, given the number of hours you work and how much you cram into that time, but even you can’t create a thirty-hour day. Either way, there’s not enough time to run to your house, get the material, produce a sewing machine out of thin air, and sew a princess costume, so we’ll have to improvise.” Magpie grinned. “If there’s one thing I can do well, it’s improvise. Nothing like getting caught in monsoon season in Thailand in some jungle and needing to come up with an inventive way to use a flak jacket for shelter.”
“Wait…you camped under a jacket? During a monsoon?” Nora shook her head. “Why am I not surprised? I still remember that time we huddled in the tree and played checkers. You amaze me, Mags.”
“I’m stronger than you think. At least when it comes to storms.” Magpie’s fingers drummed against the refrigerator door, something she only did when she was nervous or scared. What could Magpie possibly be nervous about? “In fact, I think it would be good if we had some time to talk tonight after the kids go trick-or-treating.”
Magpie was the one who avoided the hard topics. Sometimes, Nora thought that was half the reason her sister traveled so much—to run from the things she didn’t want to deal with. “Talk? About what?”
“Just…girl stuff. No big deal. Sister time and all that.” Magpie brightened, erasing the faint traces of vulnerability. Before Nora could press the question, the kids came in from the living room, done with their cereal.
“Can we put on Frozen?” Jake asked.
Nora put their bowls in the sink and added a little soapy water. Normal mundane actions that made everything else seem far away. “Yes, but only for a little while, then I want you guys to play outside. It’s a beautiful day.”
“Okay, Mommy!” Jake gave her a quick hug before dashing off to the living room. Sarah ambled behind him, quiet and sullen again. A moment later, Elsa was singing and the kids were settled on the sofa, Jake plopped in the center with Chance’s head on his lap, Sarah nestled into one corner, buried in her iPad, as withdrawn as a hermit.
Nora sighed. “I don’t know what to do with Sarah. She won’t talk to me.”
“I think she’s angry with you. I don’t know why because she wouldn’t open up to me either, but she’s mad. She told me that much the other day, when I was alone with the kids.” Magpie shrugged. “Maybe you should find some quiet time, just the two of you, to sit down and talk.”
“I’ve tried. I’ll try again. Thanks, Mags.” Nora sighed. Telling her sister about what was going on with Sarah would only worry Mags more. There wasn’t anything her little sister could do about it anyway, although a part of Nora was envious that Sarah had opened up, even a little, to her aunt instead of her mother. Maybe it was as simple as Magpie said—putting aside some time to walk the beach or sit on the back deck and try to get her to talk. It had to be about more than the fight with Anna, but what more, Nora wasn’t sure.
“You’re doing great, Nora. You’re a really good mom, so don’t beat yourself up about an eight-year-old’s momentary attitude. We’ve all had one of those at one time or another.” Magpie poured herself a bowl of cereal and handed the box to Nora, who did the same. They added some milk and then crossed to sit at the kitchen table. “But I do remember the four of us got pretty awful with Ma after Dad died. It’s like we were angry at her, even though there was nothing she could have done to prevent what happened.”
Dad’s death had punched a deep, dark hole in their world, and the girls had been as shell-shocked as Ma. The fun-loving father who played catch in the yard, took them on impromptu ice cream runs, and got down on the floor to play baby dolls was gone. They were left with a stressed mother who spent weeks angry at God for taking her true love away.
In the light of adulthood, Nora understood what her mother had gone through. How incredibly tough it must have been to get up in the morning and keep putting one foot in front of the other. But when she was eight, all she’d known was that one day she’d woken up and nothing was the same ever again.
“I think we were just too young to understand how death worked or what a heart attack was. And after he was gone, we all missed Dad so much.” She shook her head. “He was always so much fun. The best dad ever, I think. I still miss him. He’d love having grandkids.”
Nora had no doubt her father would have loved Sarah and Jake and spoiled them rotten. She wondered sometimes how her life would be different if their dad had lived, been there to temper Ma, to shoulder half the load. Maybe Nora would have had more of a childhood, wouldn’t have felt the need to step into shoes that were far too big for a little girl to fill.
“Because half the time he acted like a ten-year-old himself. Ma would complain about how Dad never took any responsibility and left her to be the bad guy. Maybe he did.” Magpie shrugged. “Do you remember how much fun we’d have playing those late afternoon soccer matches in the backyard?”
That was the kind of dad Ben was too. The fun kind, who played with the kids in the yard or horsed around in the living room. He built the blanket forts and roasted the s’mores and made the kids laugh. Nora had been the one to enforce bedtimes and routines, the bad cop in an uneven parenting team.
She realized she’d turned into her mother. The stern one, with rules and judgment aplenty and fun sorely lacking. Was that all it would take to get her kids back on track? Some impromptu fun times?
“Those soccer games were great, weren’t they?” Nora smiled. “He even got Ma to play a few times.”
Magpie laughed. “That was something to see. Her in her sensible shoes, trying to kick that ball. But at least she was a good sport.”
“Then. Not after Dad died.”
Nora ate a bite of cereal. “It must have been really difficult to raise all of us without him around. Now that I have kids of my own, I understand it, I really do.”
“Ben’s a big help, though. Right?”
“Oh yeah, he is. He’s fabulous with the kids.” Nora dipped her head and ate some more cereal. Fabulous at the fun times, not so fabulous at providing for them or being dependable or shouldering half the hard stuff.
“He’s the kind of husband and dad that all of us wish we had. Even I’d settle down with a guy like that.” Magpie sighed, the kind of dreamy sigh Nora used to have when she’d first fallen in love with Ben. She wanted to tell her sister that reality rarely matched the fantasy. “You really picked a keeper, Nora, and you guys have such a great life.”
Nora pushed the cereal around in her bowl. “So, Halloween. We really should figure something out. The kids have been
pestering me and I didn’t have an answer for them, because I’m not so sure I can count on Ben to show up. If he doesn’t, I’ll take them trick-or-treating here, but either way, they need costumes. I don’t know what we can make with what we have here. Maybe I should go to the store.” Not that she had the money to buy costumes a second time. She shouldn’t have bought them the first time, even if the twenty dollars she spent on fabric wouldn’t make a blip in the debt they owed the bank.
“We can totally come up with something cool with what we have here,” Magpie said. “Between your craft skills and my overpacking, I bet we can put something together. How about we get the kids on board after lunch? We’ll take them to the beach this morning and let them look for shells, then eat and make costumes. It’ll be fun.”
“As much fun as playing checkers in a tree?”
Magpie grinned. “Even more fun. I promise.”
FOURTEEN
Magpie sat on the beach, her knees drawn up to her chest while the incoming tide swirled icy water around her toes. The sun was on its downward journey, still a couple hours from sunset. The sky was washed in tones of pale orange, a soft contrast to the green-blue Atlantic. It would have been a beautiful sight—if she’d focused on it for more than a half second.
Inside the house, Nora was getting Jake and Sarah ready for their Halloween adventure. Any other time, Magpie would have joined in but tonight she just…couldn’t. She’d done her best earlier, then made up an excuse about needing to call her editor, just to slip outside and be alone. The more time she spent here, the more the pressure to make a decision grew.