Chances Are

by Barbara Bretton

  Kelly wrote down the name and address of the clinic and handed it to Maddy. “I have to be there at five.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  Kelly opened her mouth to protest, but Maddy was in charge, and she quickly shot down all arguments.

  They arranged to meet at the high school parking lot near the football field at two o’clock. The clinic was two towns over, in the small office building a half-mile before the turnoff for the lighthouse.

  She walked Kelly around front to her car.

  “Please think about the things I said,” she begged Kelly as the two women hugged. “You’re allowed to change your mind.”

  “I won’t,” Kelly said. “I know what I have to do.”

  So did Maddy, and she had less than twenty-four hours to make it happen.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  IT WAS AFTER six when the fishing boat docked back at Paradise Point. The captain, a clean-cut young man who looked more like an accountant, eased the vessel up to its berth, and minutes later, Corin and the PBS crew were back on dry land.

  “This was so not a good idea,” Peter Lassiter’s pierced and tattooed assistant Cyrstal declared as they walked toward the parking area behind O’Malley’s Bar and Grill. “I feel sick.”

  “A bit of advice, kid,” Harry the sound man said with a grin. “Don’t drink a pitcherful of margaritas the night before you head out to sea. Not unless you know what you’re doing.”

  Crystal hadn’t exactly been a happy camper out there on the bounding main. She had spent the first two hours of their trip with her head over the railing, begging God to end it all before she ended it herself. Her colleagues had been merciless, ragging her about her low tolerance for drink, urging Corin to snap candid photos of her in the throes of major digestive disturbances. Yeah, that and colonoscopies. Great idea.

  The day had been a waste. He made a living finding beauty in the ordinary, and today he had come up empty. The pictures he had taken were run-of-the-mill, picture-postcard compositions that didn’t intrigue or illuminate. The brilliant glitter of sunlight on the ocean was flat and muddy. The incongruity of the young fishing boat captain barking orders to his grizzled crew looked staged and false through his viewfinder.

  He found himself longing for the weathered beauty of Claire’s face, the fine lines that fanned out from the corners of her eyes, the narrow nose with the smattering of freckles, the elegant Katharine Hepburnesque cheekbones. Her mouth. He could spend a lifetime photographing her mouth. Big wide smile. The tiny gap between her front teeth. The surprising fullness of her lower lip when he caught it between his teeth and—

  “Hey!” Crystal tapped him on the shoulder. “We’re going out to Antonio’s for clams. You’re coming, right?”

  “Sure,” he said as they reached their cars. “As long as one of you guys knows where the hell Antonio’s is.”

  Lassiter had the On Star system, so he climbed into his Lexus and headed out like a high-tech Magellan, followed by the sound and film crew in a rented van. Crystal, still a bit hungover and more than a little put out over the endless teasing, hitched a ride with him.

  “You think you’re up to garlic and wine?” Corin asked as they fell in line behind the van. “You might be better off with a bowl of cereal and an early night.”

  She looked up at him with enormous, dark-circled eyes. “Is that an offer?”

  He laughed out loud. “No, it’s a suggestion. You were in pretty bad shape out there this afternoon.”

  She groaned and rested her forehead against the closed window. “You know what really pisses me off is that my horoscope said this was supposed to be a great day for travel.”

  “Did your horoscope mention anything about chugging a gallon of margaritas the night before?”

  She forced a laugh. “I must have missed that part.”

  “I hope it was worth it.” Most of his mornings-after had followed less than memorable nights-before.

  “Oh yeah. It was a fab place.” She gave him a sly grin. “If you think I was bad, you should’ve seen Gina DiFalco. She got a tattoo, then passed out cold on the sidewalk.”

  Want proof you’re getting older? There it was. Crystal might as well have been talking about life on Mars.

  “Did she get hurt?”

  “She was too wasted to feel much of anything. When you’re that old, you really shouldn’t drink so much, you know? Peter drove down to bring us back.” She made a face. “He wasn’t too thrilled with me, but I think I’ll be able to get back in his good graces when he hears the tape.”

  “You taped singers at a karaoke bar?”

  “That’s how it started, but I ended up hitting the jackpot.”

  “You found the next American idol in Wildwood, New Jersey.”

  “Better.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, even though they were the only two people in the car. “I found the hook for the Paradise Point segment.”

  “I thought they already had a hook.” O’Malleys and DiFalcos. Ten decades. Two families. One big fat Jersey wedding.

  “Nope,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just have to wait like the rest of them.”

  Fine, he thought. Whatever. He’d rather think about Claire.

  The odds were probably 60-40 that she wouldn’t show up tomorrow at the lighthouse. Just because he hadn’t been able to shake off the memories didn’t mean she hadn’t moved on. She was the one who broke it off. She was the one with the husband who showed up one day like a romance novel hero and carried her back to the shore. She was the one who showed up pregnant by the man she’d married, the same guy who had taken her trust and—

  The same guy they worshiped at the firehouse. The same guy who went into that fire to save his brother. The same guy who must have done some fucking things right along the way to have won her heart and kept it all those years.

  Martyrdom wasn’t her natural state. His Claire was a fighter. A survivor. She wouldn’t just lie down and let the guy stomp all over her. Not the woman he knew and loved. There had to be something more to the story, some bond that was invisible to the rest of the world—or at least to him—that had kept them together all those years, but damned if he knew what it was.

  He wasn’t a fool. He knew going in that there wouldn’t be a Hollywood ending to their story. She wasn’t going to leave her home and family and fly off to Malaysia with him, no matter how he fine-tuned the fantasy. That kind of thing happened in movies where nobody had to worry about where the kids would go to school or who would take care of an aging father. Seeing her at O’Malley’s yesterday morning, he had been struck by the fact that she was exactly where she belonged. It wasn’t something he had wanted to see, but only a blind man could have missed the signs. Her neighbors had come out in droves to cheer her on at that interview. They had gathered around her afterward to offer their congratulations . . . and their critiques. She laughed with some of them, chided others, and hugged a lucky few, all while she fielded congratulations on joining his sister’s team at the tea shop.

  The confused, uncertain, sharp-tongued woman he had fallen in love with down in Florida years ago had been replaced by a confident, decisive, sharp-tongued woman he could easily fall in love with all over again.

  If she would let him.

  ONCE AGAIN CLAIRE found herself grateful for her big, loud, chaotic family. They made it impossible for her to spend more than thirty consecutive seconds replaying those minutes with Corin in the hospital cafeteria last night. Every time she found herself reconstructing the dialogue or conjuring up the way her hand felt in his, her father yelled for a bedpan or one of her sisters phoned with a new excuse why they couldn’t drive down to Paradise Point and lend a hand.

  Friday morning at O’Malley’s, Corin had seemed like a pleasant stranger, Olivia’s younger brother, a talented photographer she had met once a long time ago. His smile had been bland and meaningless. The look in his eyes had revealed nothing at all. She had felt relieved, hurt
, angry, and everything in between. David Fenelli’s obvious admiration had been a balm to her bruised ego, and she had greedily basked in his attentions.

  Her motives for accepting his dinner invitation might not have been as pure as they should have been, but life was nothing if not surprising. David had been funny, attentive, and very appealing in his rumpled nice-guy way, and by the time the meal was over, she had relaxed and started to have a wonderful time.

  He fit into her life the same way she fit into his. Their kids liked each other. He was the kind of man any woman would love to have as a friend and maybe, just maybe, something more. Sane. Dependable. Kind. The more they talked over their dinner, the more she liked him and the guiltier she felt for seeing him initially as second best. He wasn’t second best to anybody. Unless he had a secret Jekyll-Hyde thing going on behind closed doors, he was the kind of man any woman would happily rank number one.

  It had been going great. Conversation never flagged. They got each other’s jokes. When he suggested extending the evening by taking in a movie, she had been honestly delighted. She liked his slightly offbeat take on all things pop culture, and she’d been looking forward to dissecting the film with him later on, when POW! Her father fell down and broke his ankle, and she ended up in a hospital cafeteria in the middle of the night holding on to the hand of the man she had dreamed about almost every night for eight long years, and it felt like they were starting over again, picking up the pieces of something neither one of them had been able to control or even understand.

  So now what? She hadn’t a clue. Where did two middle-aged adults go with these feelings when neither one of them was exactly an expert when it came to love?

  The sound of her father’s laughter rang out through the open door to his room.

  “Sounds like a party in there,” one of the nurses commented as she hurried by.

  “The man knows how to have a good time,” Claire said, and it was true. He had worked hard all his life, suffered through the long and painful death of his wife, battled heart problems, cancer, and now this broken ankle, and he kept on going. Sure, he could be cranky and irascible at times, but he never gave up. He expected good things from life, and as a result, more times than not, life usually delivered.

  There was a lesson in there somewhere, and maybe one day she would have time to figure it out.

  More laughter spilled out of her father’s room. She had stepped out to give him some privacy while the nurse’s aide helped him with some personal issues, but nobody could be having that much fun with Jell-O and a sponge bath.

  She tapped on the doorjamb. “You decent, Pop?”

  “Come on in, dear.” Lilly Fairstein smiled up at her from her perch on the edge of Mike’s bed. “We were just sharing a cup of soup.”

  “Pull up a chair,” her father said. “Lilly made plenty.”

  “You made the soup?” Claire asked. “From scratch?”

  “I made the phone call,” Lilly said with a wink. “The Catered Affair did the rest.” She pointed toward the containers lined up along the windowsill. “Help yourself. I brought chicken noodle, minestrone, and a truly wonderful Manhattan clam. They use fresh thyme. It’s to die for.”

  “You’re right,” Claire said a few minutes later as the room filled up with Mike’s pals. Their instincts were unerring when it came to free food. “The Manhattan clam is definitely to die for.”

  “Tell me about it.” Mel Perry smacked his lips from the corner of the room. “That minestrone’s better than Mama used to make.”

  “You’re not Italian,” Tommy Kennedy shot back. “Your mama was making corned beef and cabbage, same as mine.”

  “My great-grandmother was from the Old Country.”

  “She was from Newark,” Mike chimed in. “I remember her.”

  They were off and running. Her father’s cronies were a laughing, jovial bunch who didn’t think twice about having a party in a hospital room. They had all spent a lot of time in rooms just like this one, and they had learned the hard way to make the most of what you had for as long as you had it.

  A lesson she was still learning.

  “Did you hear from your sisters?” Mike asked her between arguments.

  “Frankie’s in her third trimester, so she’s not going anywhere. The others said they’ll get back to me tomorrow.”

  “Your brother?”

  “I left a voice mail, Pop. You know Tim. He’s not the greatest when it comes to call-backs. But they all send their love.”

  “Same in every family,” Lilly said, as she bustled around the room tidying up. “It doesn’t matter how many children you have, there’s usually just one you can count on.”

  “Claire’s the one,” her father said. “Ever since she was a little girl, she was the one her mother and I could count on.”

  “See?” Lilly tossed the empty containers into the trash. “A big family like yours and it’s always one child who comes to the rescue.”

  “I wish I’d known this when I was a teenager,” Claire said with a roll of her eyes. “I would’ve asked for a raise in my allowance.”

  The crowd burst into laughter.

  “Okay,” she said. “I know an exit line when I hear one.” She gathered up her stuff and kissed the top of her father’s head. “I’m going home to see what we need. The social worker gave me a list of things I need to check on before they release you.”

  “Beer and a satellite dish pretty much does it for me.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m talking about special equipment for the bathroom, making sure the pathways are unobstructed—”

  “Hanging a light over that damn cat,” Mike said to more laughter.

  “I’ll see what I can do about that.” She said good-bye to everyone, then glanced around. “Anybody know where my son disappeared to?”

  Mel Perry looked up from the Racing Form. “I saw him down at the nurse’s station. They set him up with a jigsaw puzzle or something.”

  “Something that doesn’t require batteries? This I have to see for myself.”

  “Claire?” Lilly approached her at the doorway. “May I speak with you for a second?”

  “Sure.” The two women stepped out into the hall. “What’s up?” She had been given a different view of the uber-perfect Lilly that afternoon, and she liked what she saw. She also would have had to be blind to miss the affection between Lilly and Mike.

  “You have a lot on your plate,” Lilly said. “The bar, your new job at Olivia’s tea shop, your children.” She paused for a second, worrying her strand of pearls with a flawlessly manicured hand. “How would you feel if I asked your father to stay with me for a few weeks while he recovers from his fall?”

  “You want my father to come live with you?” Her recliner-and-remote-control father living with a woman who ironed her magazines? She couldn’t bring the picture into focus.

  Lilly looked charmingly nervous, and Claire’s heart unexpectedly started to melt. “As you know, I live in a retirement community. My home was constructed with certain realities in mind.” Her bathroom had the necessary safety rails, removable bath chair, nonslip flooring already in place. “The hallways were built to accommodate wheelchairs. No steps to worry about.” She gave Claire an uncertain smile. “And no cats for Michael to tangle with.”

  Good thing she was already in a hospital. A few more surprises like this, and she’d need a defibrillator. “Have you talked with him about your idea?”

  “No, I thought I should speak with you first.”

  Her own family wasn’t this considerate of her feelings. She felt instantly guilty for all the terrible things she had thought about Lilly Fairstein in the past. “I don’t know what to say, Lilly. That’s an incredible offer but—”

  “I’m not being entirely altruistic, Claire. My place is very big and very empty. I would enjoy having a man to fuss over for a few weeks, but the last thing I want to do is step on your toes in any way. Family comes first.”

  Claire was surprised
by the conflicting emotions Lilly’s offer stirred up.

  “It’s really up to my father,” she said finally and was rewarded with the biggest smile she had ever seen on anyone past her fifth birthday.

  “So you wouldn’t mind if I broached the subject with him tonight?”

  “Not at all, Lilly. I’m fine with whatever he decides.”

  The woman threw her slender arms around Claire and gave her a warm hug. “I’m delighted!” she declared, her bracelets jingling merrily. “Absolutely delighted!”

  And I’m amazed, Claire thought as she and Billy drove home. Absolutely amazed.

  “There’s Kathleen!” Billy pointed toward a figure dragging a backpack behind her as they rounded the corner of their block.

  Claire beeped the horn and pulled over to the curb. Kathleen’s face lit up when she saw them, and she dashed over to the car and jumped into the backseat.

  “I thought you were catching the six-twenty-two back to Manhattan,” Claire said as her daughter buckled her seat belt.

  “Kelly promised me last night that she’d drive me to the station. She was supposed to pick me up at five-fifteen, but she never showed up.”

  “You called her?”

  “I tried. I got the machine at home and her cell just rang through.”

  “You should have called me. I would’ve come right back.”

  “I did,” Kathleen said. “Your phone was switched off.”

  “I turned it off at the hospital and forgot to turn it back on.” She shifted into gear and made a quick U-turn. “We have fourteen minutes, guys. Think we can do it?”

  “Yeah!” Billy pumped the air. “Hit it, Ma!”

  “I’m really pissed,” Kathleen grumbled as they raced along Main Street toward the train station two towns away. “I can’t believe she screwed me like this.”

  “Do you think you might be overreacting just a bit?” Claire asked over her shoulder.

  “It’s just that it’s Kelly, you know what I mean? You expect other people to screw up, but not her.”

  There was something about the statement that struck a nerve with Claire, but it vanished before she could examine it. She smiled at her daughter in the rearview mirror.