Chances Are

by Barbara Bretton

  Her fingers fought with his shirt buttons, struggling to push them through the buttonholes and failing, and finally she gave a tug that sent them bouncing across the floor. The sound he made—surprised delight—moved through her like music. His chest was bare, gloriously bare, and she placed her mouth against the midpoint and drank in his heat and his smell, gloried in the soft mat of curls, his warm flesh, the rapid thunder of his heartbeat beneath her lips.

  He cupped her bottom with his hands, fingers sliding between her thighs, touching her in a way that made her bones melt.

  “The bed,” she whispered, and seconds later they sank together into the mountain of satin and down.

  Magic . . . more than magic . . . the way he touched her . . . the heat of his mouth as he ran his tongue over her breasts, her nipples, down over her soft belly, lower and then lower still, and she cried out his name as he tasted her, deeply, intimately, and made her believe she was beautiful and this could go on forever and ever . . . the two of them . . . this wonderful bed . . . all the time in the world to learn all there was to know . . . every secret inch. . . .

  “NOW DON’T MAKE a big deal out of this,” Claire said to her family as she dug through the back closet for shoes an adult woman might actually wear on a night out. “We’re going out for dinner, not eloping to Vegas.”

  Her father, daughter, and son exchanged glances.

  “I saw that,” she said as she plucked a Payless special from under a stack of forgotten winter boots and broken umbrellas. “This is David Fenelli we’re talking about, guys. Not Armand Assante.”

  “Armand Assante?” Kathleen made a face. “Who’s that?”

  “Beats hell out of me,” Mike said. He looked down at his grandson. “You got any ideas?”

  “He’s not a Met,” Billy said, which pretty much consigned Armand to the recycle bin.

  “We’ll be fine,” Kathleen said as Claire sat on the bottom step and tried to slide her feet into the very high heels. “I’m going to make tofu in szechuan sauce. I found some bok choy at the market and some snow peas. I was thinking of asking Kelly if she wanted to join us.”

  “She’s working at The Candlelight tonight,” Claire said automatically.

  “I want meat,” Mike said. “It’s suppertime. You have meat at supper.”

  “I thought we were getting a pizza,” Billy chimed in. “Kelly could pick it up at Ray’s and bring it over.”

  The household chatter buzzed around her head like summer bees. Pizza talk. Her father complaining about Fritzie the cat. The general pandemonium that seemed to be part and parcel of the Meehan-O’Malley clan’s daily life. It was all white noise to Claire.

  “These can’t be my shoes.” She looked down at her feet. “I can’t even slide my toes into them.”

  “Sure you can.” Kathleen crouched down in front of her. “It won’t be pretty, but you can do it.” She took Claire’s foot in her left hand and the impossible shoe in her right and tried to bring them together.

  “Then these aren’t my feet.”

  “You’re getting older, Mom,” Kathleen said with all the annoying wisdom of the young. “Your feet are spreading.”

  “I still wear the same size shoe I wore when I was your age.”

  “I . . . don’t . . . think . . . so,” Kathleen grunted as she tried to jam Claire’s toes far enough forward to accommodate the rest of her foot, but it was like parking an eighteen-wheeler in a garage built for a minivan.

  “Kath, that’s enough. It’s not going to happen. My heels days are over.”

  “No, don’t give up. These shoes are so amazing! Maybe if we ice your feet for a couple of minutes they’ll shrink and—”

  They locked eyes and started to laugh. Big loud gales of raucous laughter that sent men and beasts scurrying from the room in search of safety. Claire rolled sideways on the top step, helpless with laughter, while Kathleen sat on the floor with her head on her mother’s knees, laughing until she cried.

  It felt good to laugh, but it felt even better to hear her daughter’s laughter fill the room. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Maybe it never had. The last ten years had been filled with so much pain, so much trouble, that laughter had always been in short supply. She had always loved her kids, protected them, tried to guide them, but she had never laughed with them, and it struck her now as a terrible shame.

  She had always envied Aidan his easy relationship with Kelly and wondered why she found it so hard to achieve with her own children. But then her niece made everything easy. She had glided effortlessly between childhood and adolescence, then floated without so much as a ripple through her teens. Aidan hadn’t a clue what parenting was really about. He had never been forced to check his own child into a rehab center or spend sleepless nights praying she would be found after she ran off.

  She placed a hand on her daughter’s mass of shiny-penny curls. They were cool and silky and sweet against her fingers, so different, so very different, from those lost days when even basic hygiene had been abandoned in favor of scoring more of whatever would keep her highest longest. God help her, but she hadn’t always believed Kathleen would win the battle, but somehow Billy—her heart twisted at his memory, so clear, so vital—had always believed Kathleen would find her way back to them. He had given her hope when hers was long gone.

  “Be careful, Mom,” Kathleen said after their laughter faded. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Claire frowned and looked down at the spiky shoes she had pulled from the closet. “I know I haven’t worn heels in years, but I think I can still keep my balance.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  Claire started to laugh again. “Oh, honey, if you’re worried about David Fenelli, you don’t have to be. My heart isn’t in any danger.”

  “I saw him this morning at the bar, Mom. I know he’s here in town.”

  Kathleen, that’s no way to talk to Corin. Apologize this instant for being so rude!

  I don’t know what got into her, Corin. She’s never like that. I’m so sorry.

  Her oldest. Her most troubled. The child who saw the most and said the least. The lightning rod for pain and trouble.

  The only one who had known Corin was much more to her mother than just the brother of a new friend.

  She took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “He’s here as a favor to a friend. He’ll be gone by the end of next week.”

  “I don’t want him to hurt you again.”

  “He never hurt me, honey.”

  “I was there, Mom. I remember what happened.”

  “He never did anything to hurt me, Kathleen. I was the one who hurt him.”

  “I don’t believe you. I used to stand outside your door after we came back to New Jersey and hear you crying yourself to sleep.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, still holding her daughter’s hand. “I never wanted to worry you.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I’m almost twenty-one. I think I can handle the truth. It’s not like I’m going to go out there and challenge him to a duel.” Kathleen met her eyes head on with an intensity Claire was all too familiar with. “I know about Dad. We all do. I know how hard it must’ve been for you.”

  You wait and you worry and you wonder if your kids are going to make it through their adolescence, and then you hold your breath while they crash through their teens, and just when you’re ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat, they surprise you by growing up to be someone very special.

  But why you had to find this out five minutes before a nice guy named David Fenelli knocked on your door was a question for the ages.

  “We’ll sit down tomorrow, Kath, and I’ll tell you the story, but the short version is that I hurt him very much. I didn’t mean to. I had left your father for what I assumed would be for good, but when he showed up that day and I saw how much he wanted us to come home, I found I couldn’t do it.”

&n
bsp; “Because you loved Dad more than you loved Olivia’s brother?”

  “Because I loved our family.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “You’re asking a black-and-white question, Kathleen. Marriage is shades of gray.”

  “You loved Dad. You wouldn’t have gone back with him if you didn’t.”

  People stay together for all sorts of reasons, Kathleen, reasons you’re too young to understand.

  “Your father loved our family as much as I did. We were committed to the five of you.”

  “Which means you must have loved each other.”

  “What a question, Kath. Where did that come from?”

  “Because I have the right to know.” Her voice broke on the last word. “Because I need to know.”

  “Oh God, don’t go telling me you’ve been talking to Lassiter and his crew.” Suddenly everyone in town had been bitten by the need to tell all, damn the consequences.

  “So what if I did. Why shouldn’t I talk to them?”

  “You know how I feel about people poking around in other people’s business.”

  “You’re afraid someone will talk about Dad and his . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, which was probably for the best.

  “That was nobody’s business but your father’s and mine.”

  “And ours,” Kathleen said quietly. “Oh don’t look at me like that, Mom. It was hardly a secret.”

  “I know it wasn’t a secret,” Claire said, “but—”

  “But what? You want me to go on pretending he wasn’t out sleeping with other women because that makes everything sound better?”

  “That’s family business, and it should stay within the family.”

  Kathleen laughed out loud. “I think you’re twenty years too late for that, Mom. You don’t really believe nobody will bring up his extracurricular activities, do you?”

  She had been hoping exactly that. “I don’t see why anyone would be interested.”

  “Neither do I,” Kathleen admitted, “but this is a small town. Small towns love gossip, and television feeds off the stuff.”

  “Even PBS,” Claire noted wryly.

  “Does it still hurt?”

  Claire didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “Sometimes,” she said honestly, “but much less than it used to.”

  “I would have left him the first time,” Kathleen said with the certainty of the young. “The minute he stepped out of line, he would’ve been history.”

  Her beautiful young warrior child hadn’t a clue. “I hope you never have to make that decision.”

  “None of it makes sense to me. I mean, when you love each other, you’re supposed to be happy. I don’t remember many times when you and Dad seemed really happy.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “We didn’t seem to do happy as well as other families, did we?”

  “Do you ever wish you’d stayed down in Florida with that guy?”

  “I made my choice, and I didn’t look back,” she said, and it was almost true. She didn’t look back because she couldn’t. It hurt too much. “Besides, how could I ever regret a decision that brought Billy Jr. to us?”

  They had been happy, really happy, for a while, and the memory of those months had sustained her through some tough times.

  Kathleen’s eyes never left hers. She needed to know that despite everything there had been love, but Claire couldn’t seem to find the right words to make her daughter understand what she didn’t really understand herself. There had been love. Maybe not the kind of love either she or Billy had dreamed about, that once-in-a-lifetime kind of magic, but there had been love and always would be.

  “Did you love each other?” she asked again, a note of need in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

  He had given them a home, and she had given him a family, and in the end they had each chosen to protect what they had built together. If that wasn’t love, what was?

  “Of course we did,” she said as she held her daughter close. “We might not have been Ozzie and Harriet, but we loved each other.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I knew it.” Kathleen’s smile was just a tiny bit smug. “I just wanted to make sure you knew it, too.”

  Her daughter’s relief almost broke Claire’s heart.

  “Son of a bitch!” Mike Meehan bellowed from somewhere down the hallway. “This damn cat’s going to end up killing someone.”

  “Is Fritzie okay?” Claire called out. “She’s old. We have to watch out for her.”

  “I’m old, too,” her father yelled back. “I don’t see anybody worrying about me.”

  Claire and Kathleen exchanged looks as they tried very hard not to burst into laughter.

  “How long you gonna make this poor guy wait?”

  God forbid her father should actually walk down the hallway to deliver a message.

  “He’ll be able to use a senior discount by the time you get your shoes on.”

  “You should’ve said David was here,” Claire bellowed back. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Uh-oh,” Kathleen said, pointing toward her mother’s bare feet. “Speaking of shoes . . .”

  Claire looked down at her big feet and the little shoes.

  “Better get the ice,” she said.

  And then, just like before, just like they had been doing it all their lives, they started to laugh.

  THE TWELVE SENIOR citizens from Long Island were a lively group who weren’t content to nod off around a roaring fire after dinner. Instead, they climbed into their van for the trip up to the bright lights of Atlantic City.

  “And where are those PBS cameras when we really need them?” Rose murmured as she and Kelly waved good-bye to the group as they headed north to that mecca of slot machines on the Jersey Shore. “The last time I heard so many kind words about my cooking, I was talking to myself.”

  Kelly covered her mouth with her hand and yawned. “Sorry,” she said with an apologetic grin. “You should ask them to write some of that down for you, Mrs. DiFalco. It would make great ad copy.”

  Rose gave her one of those looks that used to make Kelly’s knees knock before she got to know that Maddy’s mother was really a softie. “We’re going to be family,” she said, placing a beautifully manicured hand on Kelly’s forearm. “I think we can dispense with the formalities, don’t you?” Her smile was warm and genuine. “I don’t suppose either one of us would feel comfortable with Grandma, but I think we could manage if you called me Rose, don’t you?”

  Kelly nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  Rose draped a companionable arm across her shoulders as they headed back into the house. “You did a wonderful job with Mr. Benedetto and his missing medicine.”

  “No big deal,” Kelly said. “All I had to do was make a few phone calls.”

  “And drive over to the pharmacy.”

  “Hannah loved the ride. She said everything is more exciting after dark.” She liked keeping busy. It gave her less time to think.

  Rose rolled her eyes. “Words to strike terror in a grandmother’s heart. Maddy was the same way at her age, a born night owl.”

  “Not me,” said Kelly.

  “Nor I,” Rose said. “I may burn the midnight oil, but I’m a lark through and through.”

  They scanned the kitchen for anything that might need doing, but it was as clean and neat as a picture in a magazine.

  “Gramma!” Hannah, Priscilla in tow, appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “I thought we were going to play scrapbook.”

  “We are.” Rose’s voice always took on a certain indulgent tone when she spoke to her granddaughter. “Kelly and I were just making sure the kitchen was shipshape.”

  Hannah pulled on the sleeve of Rose’s soft blue sweater. “Now, Gramma! I wanna see pictures of Mommy when she was little.”

  “You’re welcome to join us,” Rose said, ruffling Hannah’s bangs with an affectionate h
and. “I found boxes of old photos in the attic when I started searching around for items to share with Peter Lassiter. I set aside some wonderful snapshots of Irene and Michael and your father’s parents for you.”

  The family parlor in the rear of the house was Kelly’s favorite room. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with books on every subject imaginable from art to zoology and everything in between. The lower shelves were stocked with picture books for Hannah, pop-up books, books with sound effects, all of the wonderful old kids’ classics Kelly had known and loved when she was Hannah’s age. An enormous flat-screen television was hidden inside an enormous antique oak break-front that had been reworked to serve as an entertainment center. The big, cushy leather couches were strewn with dozens of needlework pillows and draped with hand-knit cashmere and mohair throws in jewel tones that took her breath away.

  Best of all was the huge old library table set up near the bay window that overlooked the garden. Made of rosewood, it was scarred from decades of use, but those years of living had also given the wood a patina that made Kelly want to rest her head on its surface and listen to its secrets. Rose called it their “workbench,” and it usually was home to any number of crafts projects in progress. It wasn’t unusual to find Hannah’s finger paints and Barbies sharing table space with Maddy’s knitting and Rose’s jigsaw puzzles or watercolor supplies.

  Tonight, however, the table had been cleared of Barbies and knitting needles to make room for at least two dozen boxes of photos, a three-foot-high stack of scrapbooks, and enough decorative paper, shears, fancy glues, stickers, archival quality papers, and pens to stock a branch of Staples.