by Shirley Jump
Nora’s gaze dropped to her hands. Her voice slid into a softer, sadder range. “You didn’t talk to any of us after your wedding. It was like you cut off your right arm to go live with the left.”
Hurt echoed in her sister’s words, and for the first time, Bridget realized that her sisters had been suffering the same as she had all these years. She’d been so angry at them and so ready to dismiss them from her life.
In the months since the funeral, she’d made amends with Magpie, carved some inroads with Nora, and had begun to do the same with Abby and with her mother. But tension still charged the air between them, still colored every word they exchanged.
The irony of her wanting the family to accept Abby—and Abby’s choice in a mate—seemed like God’s ha-ha way of making her see this all through a new lens. Bridget had abandoned her family because she didn’t feel like they accepted her husband. She finally saw how that hurt spread through the family, like a ripple in a pond.
“I cut everyone off because I wanted to make my marriage work,” Bridget said.
Put that way, the excuse sounded thin. How could she explain how swept up she was, in love and eagerness to make that happy, perfect bubble last as long as possible? One week away from her family turned into two, then turned into months, then years, and she kept telling herself it was all for the best. She didn’t want them to dim the happiness she’d felt.
Except that the happiness had dimmed all on its own. And the marriage she had worked so hard to preserve had already started to die, long before her husband did.
“You made your marriage work by giving Jim control over who you saw?” Nora threw up her hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying that. But…damn it, Bridget, it sucked when you did that. All of a sudden, you were gone. Gone from the bakery, gone from our lives, just…gone.”
Bridget reached for her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry, Nora. I…thought I was doing the right thing. I was so angry with all of you, and so hurt by what Abby had said. And the longer I stayed away, the easier it got to do that, and the harder it got to come back.”
Nora picked at the edge of one of the throw pillows. “Do you regret it? Marrying him?”
Regret. It was a word Bridget had kicked around a lot in her head these last few months. “No. Not entirely. I loved him, and I think he loved me too. But somewhere along the way, I forgot who I was and who I wanted to be. I caved instead of fought.”
Nora scoffed. “Welcome to the club. I can’t tell you how many arguments I either didn’t have or just let Ben win. And when it comes to Ma and the bakery, I try to make as few waves as possible. Life is more peaceful that way.”
“Maybe so. But it’s also emptier.” Bridget looked around her living room, at the furniture that she had agreed to buy even though she’d never really loved it, at the man-sized television that dominated one wall, at the rows and rows of Jim’s books that filled the bookcases, while her favorites were relegated to one bottom shelf. These few months alone had begun to wipe away that fog of denial and made her start to see the bills, the bananas, even the furniture, in new ways. “I went into my marriage expecting a Cinderella ending, but the reality never matched my fantasies. Maybe we were just mismatched, or maybe”—Bridget drew a pillow to her chest and whispered the thought that had grown in strength in the days since she’d run down the grass and dropped into the primroses—”I wanted that fantasy so much, I gave up myself to try to get it.”
* * *
Magpie’s little two-seater idled on the street at the end of Bridget’s walk. The sun had set, and the neighborhood was winding down. The occasional laugh of a child, or a mother calling out bedtime, punctuated the air.
Mary stood across from Colleen, her long hair curling around her shoulders and lifting in the slight breeze. They were such opposites—the prim and proper Colleen, and the wild, unpinned Mary. Magpie far more resembled Mary in spirit than Colleen ever had.
“So, have you told the girls yet?” It was the same question Mary had asked five years ago, the same question that had set off Colleen’s cold war.
Colleen gripped the strap of her purse tighter. The leather had heft, weight, solidity. But it wasn’t enough to protect her from the conversation she didn’t want to have—then or now. “Of course not. They have no need to know my personal business.”
Mary sighed. “This isn’t personal business, Colleen. It’s…family history. And I don’t want to keep it secret anymore.”
“You’ve been perfectly content to keep this a secret for sixty-two years. Why are you going to start changing things now?”
“Because I’m dying, Colleen.” Mary took a step closer, and the lamplight from the porch highlighted her thinner frame, gaunt face, pale skin. “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but my ticker only has so many hours and minutes left on it, and I don’t want to live another day of my life as a liar.”
Colleen struggled to hold back the wave of emotion that washed over her. She wasn’t a woman given to drama or tears, but the thought of losing Mary forever, even after everything, swamped her. She swallowed hard and drew in a fortifying breath. “You’re fine, Mary. Maybe a little wear and tear, but we all have that.”
“I’m seventy-eight, Colleen. I’m not getting any younger.” Mary grasped Colleen’s hand, impressing the words into her palm. “I want to live the rest of my days with truth. As the person I’m supposed to be. The person I was too scared to be six decades ago.”
Colleen shook her head. All her life, Colleen had espoused the virtues of living a Christian life. No sex before marriage, no children out of wedlock, no deceit, no coveting. For twenty years, she had stayed true to her husband, believing God meant it when He said that He intended for each of us to have only one partner.
Yet, behind all that, she’d hidden things. The ten years after her husband died that she had spent secretly drinking every night, lonely and lost. The fact that Mary had come to her house, dumped out all the bottles, and stayed with her for two weeks until she could face her days without a drink bookending them. Then the secret Mary had dumped in her lap five years ago, a secret that Colleen had always suspected, really, but never voiced. Keep the peace, keep the façade, and they would all be just fine.
How could she face the same daughters she had faithfully brought to Mass, the priest she had known most of her life, and most of all herself? “I can’t do that. What will my kids think? Can’t we just leave things as they are?”
“You think perpetuating a lie is better than telling the truth?” Mary said. “Being honest is also a commandment, you know, in case you’re not up to date on your Moses.”
“So I tell the truth and teach my girls, hey, it’s okay to have a child out of wedlock? To pass that child off as your sister for sixty-two years? To drop that little bombshell on her at her fifty-seventh birthday party? That it all turns out okay in the end? Maybe I should tell them I spent their childhoods drinking while I’m at it. Just cement that door between us for good.” The same fear she’d felt five years ago when Mary had told her the truth began to close Colleen’s throat.
She still remembered standing in the kitchen, up to her elbows in soapy water while Mary dried the dishes. I have something to tell you, Mary had said, somewhere between the good casserole dish and Grandma’s gravy boat. Something I should have said a long time ago.
Colleen kept on washing, plunging the sponge in and out of tall narrow glasses. A sense of dread filled her chest, but she continued to concentrate on the soap bubbles multiplying, then popping, over and over again with each dish.
I should have told you when Mom died, Mary went on, but I chickened out. And now I just…I want you to know. It doesn’t have to change anything, but you should know.
But it had, it had changed everything. Colleen’s entire childhood had been a lie, her mother had covered up those lies, and the relationship she had with the woman she thought was her sister was a lie. She’d ended up shouting at Mary, and Mary had stormed out, hurt and angry.
Those feelings still colored Mary’s words, charging the air between them.
“First of all, your girls are grown adults now,” Mary said. “They are also fallible human beings who know it is okay to screw up once in a while. That even you screw up. And this whole thing about me being your mom is all on me, not you.”
“You don’t understand. This is going to affect all of us. Not just you.”
Mary leaned in, until Colleen could see her own reflection in Mary’s eyes. “Wait a minute. Are you ashamed of me? Ashamed of being born out of wedlock? It’s not the nineteen hundreds, Colleen.”
Magpie rolled down the window of her Miata. “Ma? You almost ready? I gotta be at the airport early tomorrow morning.”
“Magpie needs to leave,” Colleen said. She tugged her hand out of Mary’s. “I have to go.”
Because leaving meant she didn’t have to deal with the questions in the air. The ones about death and truth and all the things Colleen had faced once in her life and never wanted to face again.
“Then let’s set a time to talk. When are you free, Colleen?”
Colleen glanced at Magpie’s car and then back at Mary. “I don’t know. I have the bakery and then I go to Mass, and I’ve got some other errands to run.”
“In other words, you’re still too busy to deal with anything,” Mary said. “The same thing you’ve been saying as long as I’ve known you. Are you…are you dealing with your problems and stress the same way you used to?”
Colleen looked away. “That was twenty years in the past, Mary. Stop bringing that up. I’m fine now.”
“If that’s true, I’m glad. You know, your girls think you are this always-perfect person who never makes a mistake. It would be nice for them to know you are human too. Maybe give you all something to bond over.”
Why did Mary have to keep nagging at her? Did she think it would change anything? That Colleen would all of a sudden have some epiphany and confess?
“Our family is fine. I’m fine.” Now she was lying to herself and to everyone else. But no one understood how those frantic hours, filled with baking and praying and simply moving, kept her mind from wandering down paths she couldn’t take. The ones that said she’d been lonely in that big house on Park, that she wondered how her life would have been different if Mary had been honest sixty-two years ago, and the one that said maybe she wasn’t as right about everything as she thought she was.
“You, my dear daughter, are an expert at avoidance. So when you are ready to deal with the truth, you know where to find me.” Mary gave the leash a tug. Pedro popped to his feet and trotted off beside his mistress and back up toward the house.
Colleen strode down the walkway and got into Magpie’s car. As her daughter pulled away from the curb, Colleen glanced in the side mirror. Mary stood on the porch, a silhouette beneath the light from the sconce.
I’m dying, Colleen.
Colleen imagined that silhouette gone, the dark, blank hole that would be in her life when Mary passed away. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window and waited until she was home to let the tears fall.
TWENTY-TWO
The night after the disaster that had been the dinner at Bridget’s, Abby stood in the private event room at the back of Lombardi’s Italian restaurant. The restaurant manager, a slight man with a hunched back, waited by the door, a contract in his hands. Jessie, as stiff and silent as a toy soldier beside Abby. Still stewing about the night before.
Abby had tried explaining after they left Bridget’s house but Jessie refused to talk to her the entire night. She’d left for work before Abby got up, leaving the bed cold and empty. Abby had lain there for a long time alone, her head on Jessie’s pillow, inhaling the fruity scent of Jessie’s shampoo and wishing she could rewind, do that moment over, and erase the word friend.
Abby had texted Jessie after work, asking if she was still planning on coming to this appointment with the event manager, but there’d been no response. That Jessie was here at all Abby took as a good sign. If she could just get a second to explain…
“This is going to be perfect, don’t you think?” Abby said. The room was small—only big enough for forty people—and lined with wine bottles. The long oak table recalled the days of knights and kings, with high-backed leather chairs and studding on the feet. “I can’t wait to marry you, Jessie.”
Jessie’s gaze dropped to the floor. In that instant, she seemed to deflate, as if all the fight had left her. “About that…”
Abby wanted to stop Jessie before she spoke another word, to somehow head off what was coming next. Her mind whirred, grasping at words, but none of them could explain why she labeled Jessie as “friend” instead of “fiancée.”
“I was wrong last night not to tell them the truth,” Abby said, her words a rushing river trying to keep the boat from landing. “I got scared, and I said the first thing that came to mind, and it was wrong. I just knew how my mother would react, and I…” She let out a long breath. “I couldn’t do that to you.”
“What? You think I couldn’t handle a little judgment? Some snide remark? Or some sermon about how I’m going straight to hell? I’ve heard it all, Abby, and unlike you, I’m not afraid to tell the world to go to fucking hell.” Jessie put up her hands and stepped back. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t even know why I came today. I can’t marry you. And I sure as hell can’t rent this room for a wedding we aren’t going to have.”
Jessie hurried out of Lombardi’s. Abby ran after her, catching Jessie in the parking lot of the restaurant. “Wait. Please. Can we just talk for five seconds?”
A soft rain fell, misting in the air before hitting their skin. Tiny streams ran down the cars and along the pavement. “We should call the flower shop when we get home,” Jessie finally said, her voice soft and sad. Her gaze was distant, far from Abby. “And the minister and—”
Abby reached for her, but Jessie’s hand was limp. “Jessie, don’t do this. Please.”
“I’ll cancel the appointment at the dress shop,” she went on, almost an automaton now. “I think we can still get our deposit back on the trip to Key West.”
“Jessie, please. Don’t. Let me explain.”
Jessie swallowed and finally met Abby’s gaze. But her eyes were flat, her face a stone. “There is no explanation that will make this better. Outside of our bedroom, you can’t be honest about the kind of person you love, never mind who you love. Why would I marry someone who is living a lie?”
Abby leaned against the brick façade and turned her face to the rain. For a second, she wished she still smoked because, if there was ever a time to need a cigarette, it was now. “You don’t understand. My family isn’t like your family.”
“You mean they aren’t complicated and infuriating and imperfect? Because all families are like that. The difference is you, Abby. You are too scared to tell them the truth. And to me, that says you’re too scared to be committed to me.” Jessie slipped off her ring, placed it on the hood of the car, and turned and walked away.
The rain started to come down hard, so hard and fast, that it blurred Jessie into the gray. A second later, she slipped into a cab and was gone. Abby stood in the parking lot for a long, long time while the rain drenched her hair, soaked her shirt, slid down her legs.
TWENTY-THREE
The delivery van was a ruse.
When Bridget saw the Allston address for an office baby shower cake, she’d offered to deliver it on her lunch break. Ma handed over the keys without protest, her face lined and shadowed, as if she hadn’t slept well the night before. When Bridget asked her about it, Ma had shrugged the whole thing off as “allergies.”
Bridget doubted her mother had an allergy to anything other than talking about the stuff they buried in the O’Bannon family. But she let it go because she was in a good mood and didn’t want to spoil it by arguing with her mother or hearing again how she really should consider brightening up her hair color.
Bridget popped into the
kitchen to grab the finished pink and blue cake out of the freezer. “Nora, I’m going to run this cake over to the party. After work, I was wondering…would you and Ben like to come over tonight? Bring the kids, if you want.”
Such a normal request, but Bridget held her breath. The dinner—despite the mashed potatoes on the floor and the fight with Abby and Jessie—had left her craving more time with her sisters. Aunt Mary had mentioned this morning how much she had enjoyed seeing the girls, and Bridget decided maybe she should try again, but on a smaller scale. Maybe then all the food would stay on the table.
Nora’s brows arched with surprise. She paused in piping roses around a birthday cake. “Tonight? I’d love to but Ben…Ben’s working.”
“No problem. Just bring the kids. We’ll make it a girls’ night.”
“Are you sure, Bridge? I mean, you have a really nice house and these are rambunctious kids—”
Bridget put a hand on Nora’s shoulder. “I’m sure. I’ll give Abs a call too. Magpie is already off to who knows where, but Aunt Mary will be there.”
“That’ll be nice, Bridge.” Nora smiled. “Really nice.”
A minute later, Bridget was in the ancient delivery van they kept in the back of Charmed by Dessert. The white box van had seen better days, and the air-conditioning was as fickle as a teenage girl at her first dance, but it got them from Point A to Point B. Bridget headed up Columbus, then cut across Brookline and into Allston, before hopping onto Soldiers Field Road.
The Charles River wound by on her right, bright and blue and flanked by green. The day was sunny, temps in the mid-80s, and people were pouring out of their offices to enjoy a little summer sunshine.
She found the address for the architectural firm she needed, parked, and had the cake dropped off in record time. Then she sat in the van for two full minutes, nerves churning in her stomach, before she managed to send out a text.
I’m in your neighborhood right now. Do you have time for a quick lunch?