“People do go back to college at any age,” Ruth put in and Dela turned her eyes to her.
“Ruth, honey, I saw the woman at The Shack eatin’ omelets and suckin’ back coffees with her biddies and she did not have a laptop in front of her, workin’ on coursework for her online classes to become a graphic designer,” she stated bluntly. “Now, I got old folk attemptin’ the great escape every day, and they may be old but they are not stupid. So it’s touch and go we shut them down or we gotta go to Wayfarer’s to stop them shufflin’ down the aisles in their slippers. Loretta is not gonna be a graphic designer. Loretta was tired of cleaning up half-chewed food and havin’ Mrs. McMurphy shout at her every time she saw her to keep her hands off her man.”
I gave big eyes to my lap, doing this to stop laughing.
“I need to trust you.”
I lifted my eyes when I heard Dela say this.
It was quiet, but it was full of meaning.
“You’ll note you didn’t have to beat off old folk with a stick in order to get in here,” she carried on. “They don’t wanna be here. You’re here for a day, you’ll know why. We do our best with this place but this is not home. This is where you go before you die if you can’t take care of yourself any longer and you have no one who can take care of you. This is a sad place. We do all we can every day to make it less sad. But that’s a losin’ battle, Amelia. You gotta be on board with that, know it and keep a smile on your face and your commitment to me, to them, so we can all count on you. Because they need me makin’ their stay here a wee bit better, not sittin’ down with person after person like you who’s got good intentions, and we all appreciate it, but who’s gonna turn tail and go the minute it gets too much.”
I squared my shoulders and kept looking right in her eyes. “Then I’ll ask if you’ll give me the evening to think about it. I’ll consider what you said. And I won’t phone you to set up an orientation if I’m not certain I can make that commitment.”
She bobbed her head. “I’d appreciate that.”
“And I appreciate you giving me your valuable time and considering me,” I returned.
She shook her head at that, her lips curving up. “You know, if every volunteer considered what they were doin’ a job they gotta apply for, interview for and earn their right to stay, world’d be a better place.”
I didn’t disagree so I didn’t say anything.
She stood, rounding her desk and reaching out a hand to me. “I hope I get a call, Amelia.”
I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I hope I have that call in me, Dela.”
We let go and Ruth stayed behind to talk to Dela because she actually was starting to work, though she didn’t need orientation since I’d learned she filled in a great deal.
I got in my car and drove home.
I got home and didn’t fall into deep contemplation about whether or not I had it in me to go the distance as a volunteer in a nursing home.
I went right to my laptop, firing it up and trolling the Internet to get interior design ideas or possibly find pieces online, something I enjoyed doing throughout the evening. Though I didn’t buy anything. I liked to touch and see the real thing and if I actually bought something online, it would have to be fabulous.
But I did find a few more shops I could add to the “Visit” subsection of my six page to-do list.
So I did.
* * * * *
The next morning, promptly at nine o’clock, I called Dela Coleman.
I took the job.
* * * * *
I was in my kitchen making cupcakes for the residents of Dove House.
I’d gone through orientation that day. Then I’d gone out to a specialty kitchen shop and bought four cupcake carriers that moms who had little kids in grade school would own so they could cart cakes to school for their kids’ birthdays.
And while I was there, I bought all new dishtowels that matched my new kitchen rugs perfectly.
And a KitchenAid standing mixer in an exquisite shade of blackberry.
The next day I’d start my tenure as a volunteer at Dove House.
And I was bringing the old folks cupcakes.
I was on batch two when my cell on the counter rang.
I looked from the chocolate frosting I was using to ice the vanilla cakes, saw the display on my phone and stopped moving.
My doorbell rang.
My eyes went there and I saw another body I’d know from anywhere through the stained glass.
On the phone, Dad.
At the door, Mickey.
Why me?
Mom had stopped calling a few days before and I shouldn’t be surprised Dad was now up to the plate. Actually, I should be surprised it took a few days for him to make his attempt.
Mickey, however, I had no idea.
I made the difficult decision as to which might cause me the least pain, unsure if it was the correct one, ignored my phone and walked to the door.
I opened it and looked up.
It had not been long since I’d last seen him, just a week, but in that short time he’d somehow become a great deal more beautiful.
“Hey,” I greeted, my voice sounding husky.
“Hey, Amy,” he greeted back, his voice sounding simply like Mickey.
I looked beyond him to his house then back to him. “Everything okay?”
“Get the kids back soon and was talkin’ with Ash,” he told me. “She wanted me to ask you for the recipes for the shit you made for the league sale. She wants to try ’em out.” He gave me his grin. “Since I don’t have your number and all that shit tasted good and I don’t mind my daughter tryin’ her hand at givin’ it to her brother and me, I’m here askin’.”
“Of course,” I replied, stepping out of the way. “Come in.”
He came in. I shut the door. He moved out of my way so I could walk to the kitchen. When I did that, he followed me.
And through this, I found having Mickey, more beautiful than ever and being a better person than me, clearly capable of moving past my idiocy, was the wrong choice in causing the least pain stakes.
In other words, I should have ignored the door and taken the call from my dad.
“I could email them to you or print them out or both,” I offered, making it to the kitchen counter where my laptop was, reaching to it, turning it to me and lifting the screen.
“Email,” he muttered. “Add your number,” he went on. “I’ll email mine back.”
Having Mickey’s number.
Why did the thought of having that, knowing I could never use it for the reasons I’d want to use it, make me wish someone would kill me?
“Gotcha,” I replied, sliding the on switch just as my phone, which had quit ringing, started ringing again.
“Need to get that?” Mickey asked.
I glanced at the display.
Mom was not ill-bred enough to call more than once.
Dad was arrogant enough to call repeatedly until you gave him the attention he felt he deserved.
So that was what he was doing.
“No,” I answered, eyes to the laptop, waiting for the login screen to come up.
Mickey was silent.
The login screen came up and I typed my password in.
The phone stopped ringing.
“House smells like heaven again, darlin’,” he noted.
I kept my attention on the laptop as I used the touchpad to bring up my email. “Cupcakes. I start volunteering at Dove House tomorrow and I’m using them to buy the old folks’ affection.”
“You’re volunteering at Dove House?” he asked.
The disbelieving tone of his voice made me glance at him.
Yes, still amazingly beautiful.
Somebody.
Kill.
Me.
I looked back to the laptop, confirming, “Yes, three days a week, three hours a day.”
“Not lookin’ for a job.”
My gaze went back to him to find that now his
eyes were on the laptop and his face was impassive.
I knew why.
I’d shared a little bit of me and it was like the rest of me.
Not exactly promising.
“No,” I whispered.
He looked to me and there were a lot of things I wanted from his blue eyes, but the emptiness in them right then was not one of them.
Even with that, he said, “Cool you’re doin’ that. My great-gran went there when her Alzheimer’s got bad. They’re always needin’ help.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
He tipped his head to my laptop. “Ready for my email?”
In other words, let’s get on with this so I can do the errand my beloved daughter wanted me to do and get the heck out of here.
“Ready,” I told him.
He gave it to me. I typed it in then attached the recipe files and added a subject and my cell phone number in the message space.
All that done, I hit send.
“It’s away,” I said, lifting my eyes to his to see his aimed at my hips.
At my words, they cut to mine and he asked, “You had dinner?”
I stared, a little surprised that I hadn’t thought of dinner and it was probably close to eight o’clock.
I made myself smile. “I’m having cupcake batter for dinner.”
He stared in my eyes for long moments before he muttered, “Right,” like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.
My phone rang again.
I looked to it and it was again my father. Seeing that made my neck muscles tighten, knowing he was likely getting angry and with every call he’d get angrier and more determined to find ways to share that anger with me.
“See you’re not tight with your dad,” Mickey noted and I tore my eyes from my phone to look at him.
“We have…issues,” I admitted.
“Shame,” he muttered.
“Yes,” I concurred. “Are you…” I hesitated to ask, to draw his visit out, to request information that was not mine to have, then my mouth went for it, “Close with your folks?”
“Absolutely.”
He answered and it was firm but it invited no further conversation.
“You’re lucky,” I mumbled, looking back down to my laptop.
“Absolutely,” he repeated, just as firmly.
I nodded to my laptop before looking to him. “Do you want a cupcake before you go?”
His mouth tightened and I watched it do this with an unhealthy level of fascination.
I did this because it had not escaped me he had nice lips, a full lower one, captivating creases running along both the top and bottom, all this highlighted by alluring whiskers and framed by hollowed cheeks under very cut cheekbones and his squared off jaw.
Oddly, that mouth tightened in anger made it even more striking than it was normally.
Even so, I couldn’t imagine why my thinly veiled attempt to give him the opportunity to escape me would cause him to feel that anger.
He untightened his mouth to ask, “Where’d you come from?”
My head twitched at his question. “I’m sorry?”
“Before Magdalene,” he explained.
“La Jolla. In California,” I answered.
“Know where it is, Amelia.”
Amelia.
Not Amy.
He was angry.
Why was he angry?
“Your folks back there?” he asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “I grew up there. Conrad took positions in practices in Boston and Lexington, but we landed back home before, well”, I tipped my head to the side, “here.”
“Practices?” he queried.
“He’s a neurosurgeon,” I said.
And again, Mickey’s mouth tightened.
“Your family?” I asked to change the subject to something that might not make him angry. “You said they sold you their—”
“Florida,” he cut me off, answering my question before I completely got it out, telling me something he told me already. Then he carried on, “Got three brothers. One in Boston, the oldest, moved the family business there. Second oldest is in Bar Harbor, he runs a subsidiary. Youngest, Dylan, lives in Vermont. He’s a professor at a college.”
“Oh,” I murmured.
“My great-granddad was a fisherman,” Mickey kept going, as usual, letting the information about him flow and doing it openly. “My granddad took his business and built it. Dad built it bigger. Big enough, he could afford a house in this neighborhood to put his woman in and raise his sons in. Big enough, that business outgrew Magdalene and Sean had to move it to Boston.”
“Sean is the oldest?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sean, then Frank, then me, then Dylan.”
Four Donovan brothers.
If they were half as magnificent as Mickey, it was good they didn’t live in Magdalene or the entirety of the female population would have problems, just like me.
“Your dad still work?” he asked and I felt my neck get tighter.
“Yes,” I told him. “He probably won’t retire until Auden comes of age and he can hand over the business direct to family.” This was true, and Dad had shared this with my son, but the idea of it terrified me. I obviously didn’t tell this to Mickey. Instead, I explained, “My brother took his own path, lives in Santa Barbara, he’s an attorney.”
His mouth got hard again but he still moved it.
“What’s your dad do?”
I didn’t want to answer.
In fact, I wasn’t really certain why he asked, he couldn’t care.
In fact, I was completely uncertain why he was still there when I couldn’t imagine that he wanted to be.
But he frequently laid it out for me and maybe this was his attempt at keeping things friendly. Know thy neighbor or something like that.
So even if I didn’t want to, I answered anyway.
“He’s CEO of Calway Petroleum, the family company.”
His eyes flared then shut down on his, “Jesus.”
This was not a surprising response. Unless, until recently, he’d lived his life on Mars, he’d know Calway Petroleum. There were Calway stations across America (and Canada, and the world).
There wasn’t one in Magdalene but only because I noted there were only two gas stations in the whole town.
But both neighboring towns had a Calway.
My great-grandfather was a Texan. My great-grandfather had a ranch and was already scary-wealthy when he struck oil. He, then my grandfather and then my father, brilliantly, fiendishly, callously and determinedly kept the business thriving even after my great-grandfather’s vast fields of proverbial gold dried up.
Now the company was deeply involved in offshore drilling.
My mother’s family was in shipping, like big-time, Onassis-style shipping.
I just hoped Mickey didn’t ask about her.
His eyes drifted beyond me to the wall of windows beyond which was a multi-million dollar view to the sea.
“Don’t gotta work,” he muttered.
I didn’t reply because I knew he knew precisely why I had that multi-million dollar view, could sell off all my stuff and replace it nearly immediately and had plenty of time to volunteer at a nursing home.
I also knew he thought this was no good.
He looked back to me and proved that by declaring abruptly, “I’ll pass on the cupcake, Amelia.”
“Okay, Mickey,” I said quietly.
“Thanks for the recipes,” he replied. “Ash’ll love ’em.”
I nodded.
He lifted a hand and dropped it. “You can get on with what you’re doin’. I’ll see myself out.”
I was sure he would.
“Okay,” I said. “Good to see you, though.”
“Yeah. You too,” he murmured distractedly while turning.
I watched him move through my house, going right to the door.
He gave me his eyes before he closed it behind him, saying, “Later, Amelia.”
&n
bsp; “Later, Mickey,” I returned.
He nodded, shut my door and disappeared.
I closed my eyes.
My phone rang.
I opened my eyes, grabbed my phone and turned off the ringer.
Then, because I had no choice, or none that were healthy for me, I went back to my cupcakes.
* * * * *
I had no idea if Mickey got my email.
I just knew he didn’t reply as he said he would, sharing his number.
And I told myself that was okay with me.
But I lied.
Chapter Six
Neither Replied
At three-thirty the Friday my children were to come back to me, I was ready.
Mickey’s words about how his ex-wife let their kids get away with anything because she was making up for her weaknesses had not been lost on me.
They’d had their first visit to settle in. Whether they did or didn’t, that was their choice (though, since they were hardly there, I knew they didn’t).
Now it was time to share that this was their home, I was their mother, we were a family and things were going to be a certain way.
So when I stood in the open front door watching the red Civic roll up, I was prepared to face my children and forge ahead with the healing.
The approach to the house went exactly the same way as the first one did. The kids grabbing their bags. Me greeting them. Pippa not looking at me. Auden barely paying me mind.
I let them in and closed the door behind us.
Although both of them stared with surprise into the very changed great room, they did this as they headed straight to their rooms.
I drew in courage on a deep breath and crossed my arms on the exhale.
“Hang on a second, kiddos,” I called.
They stopped and turned to me almost at the mouth to the hall.
I looked between them and laid it out as I’d practiced.
“Okay, just to say, if you have plans this evening with your friends, I don’t want to make you change those plans at the last minute. So I’ll allow you to go out if that’s what you intend to do.”
Auden’s lip curled. Olympia’s face grew hard and she looked to the floor.
“Tomorrow,” I forged on, “we’re having a family dinner. If you have plans through that, you need to change them. You may do what you wish during the day and after dinner, but we’re eating together. Now I’ll say that, but I’ll also say that eventually I’d like to meet your new friends, so I’d like you to think on having them around. And I’ll also say that I don’t get a lot of time with you. I miss you when you’re gone. I think about you all the time. So when I do have you, I’d like to have you. That means after this weekend, I’ll ask you to plan to be with me when you’re with me and not make arrangements to be out doing something else.”
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