Things We Never Say

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Suzanne. ‘Can we get together later tonight and have a chat?’

  ‘That’ll be fun,’ said Ellen. And she meant it.

  Suzanne’s visit literally was a flying one, because she was going back to Spain the following evening, but although the three of them had agreed to meet for lunch the next day, Abbey cried off, because she’d developed a migraine.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ asked Ellen as she pulled on her boots.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Abbey, who’d taken some pills. ‘It’s only from all the tension. Go have fun with her.’

  ‘I know she said it was nice to have a sister figure in her life, but it’s sort of nice for me too,’ admitted Ellen.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ said Abbey. ‘And I like Suzanne a lot. Tell her I will, very definitely, come to Spain when she opens her hotel.’

  She rested her head on the cool, crisp pillowcase and closed her eyes, allowing her mind to go blank. But as her headache started to ease, various thoughts returned. Mostly about the future. She wouldn’t be returning to California as a rich person. She wouldn’t be buying the apartment from Pete – perhaps she wouldn’t even be able to live there any more. But she would be coming home knowing that she’d done the right thing. And that she was closer to Ellen than at any time since she’d made her decision to join the monastery. She understood her mother more and respected her view. And even though she might not have found riches in Ireland, she’d found people. She doubted she’d ever be close to Donald and Gareth, or their wives, but it was nice to know that they were there. And there was also Suzanne, who was smart and kind and who wanted her to spread her wings and use her talents, just like Pete did. She would do that, she thought. She would do her best. There was nothing more anyone could ask of her.

  Her head had improved enough so that she was sitting in the window, sketching with the hotel pencil on a sheet of hotel paper when the phone rang and Clara told her that there was someone else at reception to see her.

  Who now? wondered Abbey, and was surprised when Clara added that it was Zoey Fitzpatrick. She went into the bathroom and dabbed concealer on the dark circles under her eyes, swirled some warm blusher on her pale cheeks and went downstairs.

  Donald’s wife looked amazing in an on-trend black coat with leopardskin boots and a matching hat. She greeted Abbey with a wide smile (which took her totally by surprise), then said that she and Lisette wanted to have a private chat with her and could she meet them later at Fred’s house.

  ‘What on earth do you want to talk about?’ asked Abbey.

  ‘This and that,’ replied Zoey, who still couldn’t tell whether or not Abbey knew they’d taken stuff from the house. ‘But we think it’s important. Lisette’s at work today, so can you be there at five o’clock?’

  Abbey was intrigued. What could Zoey’s this and that possibly be? She thought that perhaps meeting the two Fitzpatrick wives was something that Ryan would advise against, but her natural curiosity overcame her caution and she agreed to be at Furze Hill at the appointed hour.

  Ellen returned to the hotel with Suzanne just as Abbey was leaving. She told them that her headache had gone and then explained about Zoey’s request.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Suzanne. ‘I wouldn’t trust that pair as far as I could throw them.’

  ‘There’s nothing for me to have to trust them about now,’ said Abbey. ‘I thought they’d be glad never to have to see me again.’

  ‘Perhaps they want to thank you,’ Ellen suggested.

  ‘I didn’t get the feeling that thanks were on their agenda,’ Abbey said.

  ‘D’you want me to come with you?’ asked her mother.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Abbey. ‘I’ll deal with this on my own. Unless you want to come,’ she added. ‘Unless you don’t want to be left here on your own?’

  ‘I’ve lagged behind in my prayers,’ Ellen said. ‘This is a good opportunity for me to catch up.’

  As far as Abbey could tell, her mother spent a lot of her free time praying, and she found it hard to imagine that she could possibly have fallen behind in her conversations with God. She said goodbye to Ellen and promised Suzanne, who was waiting for a cab to take her to the airport, that she’d let her know how things went with the Fitzpatrick wives. Then she got into the taxi that she’d already ordered herself.

  It was the first time she’d been to Furze Hill in twilight and the first time she’d seen the lights of the city circling the bay with their beads of yellow from Fred’s magnificent lounge.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said to Lisette and Zoey, who, having escorted her into the house, were watching her. ‘I bet it’s going to be a wrench selling this place.’

  ‘Hmm, well, that may yet lead to other arguments.’ Zoey made a face. ‘Donald doesn’t want to sell it at all, but we don’t have the money to buy Lisette and Suzanne out, so I don’t know where it’ll all end.’

  ‘Oh, not more legal battles, I hope.’ Abbey looked horrified.

  ‘I hope not too,’ said Lisette. ‘I can’t help feeling we’ve got ourselves into a “be careful what you wish for” scenario. Now that our husbands have got what they want – what they were entitled to – we’re hoping to persuade them to be sensible.’

  ‘Arguing the case wasn’t sensible,’ said Abbey. ‘But it worked out for them in the end. Maybe they’re the sort of people who fall on their feet.’

  ‘It doesn’t normally feel like that,’ said Lisette ruefully. ‘Certainly not over the last few years.’

  ‘Why did you cave in?’ Zoey asked Abbey. ‘All the advice was that you’d win the case, you know.’

  ‘It seemed the right thing to do.’ Abbey repeated the words she’d said so many times, words that nobody other than her mother appeared to understand.

  ‘There isn’t anything more, is there?’ asked Zoey. ‘You’re not planning on … on any other actions?’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Abbey.

  ‘Oh God, we’d better come clean. Not that it matters,’ Zoey added hastily. ‘You gave up everything he left you, which was the house and the contents, and so it doesn’t exactly matter any more, but still …’

  ‘Still what?’

  Lisette was the one who told her about the safe and the money. And the pieces of silver and jewellery that they’d taken.

  ‘We were under pressure,’ she said. ‘We were afraid we’d lose everything.’

  ‘And the silver and jewellery were ours anyway,’ Zoey added. ‘We were taking it early, that’s all.’

  ‘But we were wrong to take the cash,’ said Lisette. ‘It could’ve been yours and that means that we were sort of stealing.’

  ‘Why are you still worried now that it actually is yours?’ said Abbey.

  ‘But it wasn’t then,’ said Lisette. ‘We thought that maybe you were going to sue us or something. That you’d take your revenge on the whole family by labelling us as criminals.’

  ‘Wow.’ Abbey’s eyes widened. ‘You think I’m a much more devious person than I am. I’d never have thought of that!’

  ‘You’re very annoying, you know,’ said Zoey. ‘You and your mother. All sweet and nice and understanding.’

  ‘But I do understand,’ said Abbey. ‘I would’ve been hopping mad too if someone had come from nowhere to grab my inheritance.’

  ‘Yeah, but I bet you wouldn’t have fought tooth and nail for it.’

  ‘Maybe under different circumstances I would. Or maybe it was the saintly influence of my mom.’

  ‘She’s certainly not what I expected,’ said Lisette.

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Zoey.

  ‘She’s never been what anyone expects,’ Abbey told them. ‘Not even in the days before she was a nun.’ She told them a little about their travels in Latin America, and the two women listened, asking questions about the places she’d been and the people she’d met .

  ‘You’ve had an exciting life,’ said Lisette.

  ‘Everyone else’s lif
e sounds far more exciting than your own,’ Abbey told her. ‘At least, that’s what I always think. It wasn’t that exciting when I was living it and it certainly hasn’t been that exciting the last few years. All I’ve done is hang out in San Francisco, go to work and have a few crappy relationships.’

  ‘We all have those,’ said Zoey.

  ‘But Zoey has proved that it can come right in the end,’ added Lisette.

  Zoey made a face at her. ‘I still have another one to deal with,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Lisette stared at her. ‘There’s someone else? Who?’

  ‘It’s not another man,’ said Zoey. ‘But the way Donald felt about Abbey and her mom is the way I’ve felt about Disgruntled Deirdre and his daughters. Thing is, I didn’t like his attitude. I thought he was being unreasonable, even though I understood where he was coming from. It made me think that maybe I’ve been a bit unreasonable about Deirdre and the girls too. So I thought that perhaps I could try a bit harder with them.’

  ‘Zoey!’ Lisette looked surprised. ‘That’s a big change.’

  ‘I know. And I’m not guaranteeing I’ll end up liking the first Mrs Fitzpatrick. Or those annoying girls. But maybe I can tolerate them a little more.’

  ‘Donald will be pleased, though,’ said Lisette.

  ‘I know. And I want to do it for him as much as anything,’ Zoey said. ‘One day I hope to have kids of my own. I don’t want bad feeling between everyone.’

  ‘I’m glad if something good came out of all the trauma,’ said Abbey. ‘And my mom would be pleased to think that your lives changed for the better.’

  ‘Your own life probably would’ve changed a lot more for the better if you’d got this place,’ Zoey observed. ‘You could’ve sold it and bagged a nice sum of money for yourself and done whatever you wanted.’

  ‘I don’t think the money is what changes things,’ Abbey said. ‘I think you have to change yourself. Which maybe I’ve done a bit over the last few months too. Just like the rest of you.’

  ‘Will you come back to Ireland?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Will you call us if you do?’

  ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘It might be nice,’ said Lisette. ‘You … you’re family, after all.’

  Abbey looked pleased. ‘A little bit family,’ she amended.

  ‘You did the right thing for us,’ said Lisette. ‘That makes you as much a part of this family as anyone, and, you know, I can’t help feeling that we’re still treating you badly when you’ve been so good to us.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about me,’ said Abbey. ‘I was fine before I knew about all of you and I’ll be fine when I go back to the States. I don’t want to be part of any further discussions you have about Mr Fitzpatrick’s legacy and I truly don’t want anything from you.’

  ‘Well, look, don’t you think—’

  Abbey stopped her. ‘I have everything I need.’

  ‘Even if you’re not interested in money – and we got you so wrong about that – we wanted to give you this anyway,’ said Zoey. She reached behind the sofa. ‘We thought maybe it would remind you of Fred and of Ireland.’

  ‘Oh!’ Abbey couldn’t help smiling. It was the painting from Fred’s office. The one she’d noticed when she’d been trying to save his life. The one of the rock in the sea. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s only a token gesture,’ said Lisette. ‘The boys don’t know we’re giving you anything. They’re still a bit raw about the whole thing. But …’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Abbey again.

  ‘And here’s a card from us. With our contact information,’ said Zoey. ‘We’re both on Facebook too, so if you want to friend us, we’d be delighted.’

  ‘OK.’ Abbey was touched.

  ‘And now, if you like, we’ll drop you back to your hotel,’ said Lisette.

  ‘Grand,’ said Abbey, enjoying the fact that she could use the word again.

  They left the house together.

  She didn’t look back.

  Chapter 38

  Ryan and Ellen were sitting together in Ellen’s now regular place beside the fire when Abbey walked into the hotel. He stood up and greeted her with a quick kiss to the cheek.

  ‘How’s your headache?’ he asked.

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘When your mam told me you were meeting Lisette and Zoey, I worried that it might come back worse than ever.’

  ‘Thankfully not.’ She told both of them about the Fitzpatrick women’s confession and showed them the painting.

  ‘They shouldn’t have taken anything from the house!’ Ryan was shocked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said Abbey. ‘In the end, they were only taking their own stuff.’

  ‘It could’ve – should’ve – been yours,’ objected Ryan.

  ‘But it isn’t,’ said Abbey. ‘And now I have a nice painting.’

  Ryan shook his head. ‘I’m glad all our clients aren’t like you and Ellen,’ he said. ‘We’d be destroyed by goodness.’

  ‘Please stop telling me I’m good!’ cried Abbey. ‘I’m so not. All I am is someone who’s looking forward to getting back to her own life.’

  ‘Won’t you miss us?’ asked Ryan.

  She smiled. ‘I’ll miss you for sure.’

  ‘You will?’ He looked intently at her.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Would you two like to be alone?’ asked Ellen as they continued to look at each other without speaking.

  ‘No. No. It’s OK,’ said Abbey.

  ‘Ryan was saying to me that he’d promised to take you to dinner but that he hadn’t managed it before today,’ said Ellen. ‘As I’ve already had lunch with Suzanne, I’ll be fine here with my prayer book if you two want to eat together.’

  ‘You’ve been praying all afternoon,’ Abbey said.

  ‘You can never have too much prayer,’ said Ellen.

  ‘I did come here to see if you wanted to have dinner with me,’ Ryan confessed to Abbey. ‘Even if things didn’t work out the way Alex and I expected, I felt it would be good to have a celebratory meal together. After all, we didn’t actually lose the case.’

  ‘That’d be lovely,’ she said. ‘Let me go freshen up first.’

  She went up to the room and changed into a sapphire-blue wraparound dress which enhanced her bust and flattered her waist. It was one of her favourite dresses, and she’d packed it for whatever celebration she’d been sure they’d have when the judge ruled in their favour and awarded her and Ellen the ownership of Furze Hill. Was I out of my mind, she asked herself, to give in without a fight? To be going home with nothing when I could have gone home with everything? Did Mom’s presence here influence me somehow?

  She spritzed her throat and her wrists with perfume and went downstairs again. Ryan and Ellen were still chatting companionably beside the fire.

  ‘You look sensational,’ said Ryan as she approached them.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sensational was pushing it, she added, but she was glad that he liked the dress.

  ‘I don’t think it is.’ There was a tone of wonder in Ellen’s voice. ‘I never realised before what a lovely daughter I have.’

  ‘Genetics,’ said Ryan. ‘She takes after you.’

  Ellen, laughing, told him he was a charmer, and he said that he did his best, and then he took Abbey by the arm and led her outside.

  ‘There’s a lovely seafood restaurant not too far from here,’ he said. ‘We can walk if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  They strolled along the pavement in silence, but it was an easy silence, she thought, and she didn’t feel the need to fill it with chatter. Even when they got to the restaurant, she was happy to look at the menu and choose what she wanted to eat without much conversation. It wasn’t until they’d both been served starters that Ryan started to talk about the Fitzpatricks again.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Abbey. ‘I’ve put that behind me. I hope they
get what they want out of the house – although going on what Lisette and Zoey told me, that might not be plain sailing either. However, it’s their problem, not mine, so let’s stop talking about them. Tell me about you instead. Any more missing persons cases?’

  ‘Nothing so exciting,’ he said. ‘I’m working on a boring old corporate case now.’ He explained the background to her, and she listened to him, entranced as always by his accent, loving the softness of it, wondering if Irish girls thought their men sounded sexy every time they opened their mouths. Probably not, she reasoned. It’s a grass being always greener thing again, isn’t it? Anything and anyone different always seemed better, more intriguing. She wondered what Cobey was doing now, if he’d already moved on to someone with greater prospects than her, someone prettier and richer and able to give him the kind of life he wanted. Poor girl, she thought suddenly. Whoever she might be, Abbey felt sorry for her.

  ‘Why do I get the idea that you’d rather be somewhere else?’ asked Ryan.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She put down her knife and fork. ‘I’m putting everything that’s happened into context.’

  ‘And where in that context do I fit?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,’ she told him. ‘With the hottest accent in the world.’

  ‘Jeez, and there I thought I had you spellbound by my witty conversation.’

  ‘That too,’ she said with a grin.

  ‘I’ll miss you when you go back,’ said Ryan. ‘You were one of the best clients I ever had.’

  ‘Maybe not the most profitable.’

  ‘It wasn’t about the money,’ said Ryan.

  ‘For a case that they wanted to be all about the money, the two of us are hopeless!’ Abbey sat back, an amused expression on her face. ‘I was thinking earlier that I got more out of it than money, in the end. I got to know the female Fitzpatricks, and I think we might stay in touch. That definitely wouldn’t have happened if me and Mom had taken the house.’

  ‘You think it was worth it?’ he asked. ‘To be friends with people who – well, Lisette and Zoey had their eye on Fred’s stuff for a long time.’