Keeping Faith

by Janice Macdonald

  Hannah smiled and he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. Swept by a wave of tenderness, she felt a sudden insatiable need to know more of these vignettes about his life, all the things that he’d never shared with her when they were married.

  “Do you have any pictures from when you were a little boy?” she asked.

  “A few, not many.” He squeezed her shoulder. “But you’re interrupting my story.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Right, well where was I?”

  “Cooking dinner.”

  “Ah yes, well that was a bit of a problem since the lad couldn’t cook at all.”

  She grinned. “Still can’t.”

  “I’ll ignore that. Anyway, not only couldn’t he cook, he was also a bit short of cash. Hadn’t a penny, actually. But he was a resourceful sort, so he went down to the grocer’s on the corner and asked would they let him pay for the food by helping out around the shop, doing a few errands. Well, they laughed in his face.” He paused. “And that night his ma stuck her head in the gas cooker.”

  “Oh, Liam…” She’d been half smiling, anticipating the happy ending and what he’d said was so awful, she was stunned into silence. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He ruffled her hair. “Don’t go getting maudlin. They got her in time. But wouldn’t it have been a far happier story if the shopkeeper had trusted the kid?”

  “Yeah, but trust isn’t always so easy.”

  “So I’m discovering.”

  “Liam—”

  “You’ve got reason enough to be skeptical, Hannah, but I swear to God I never ran around on you while we were married and I know without a doubt that if we try again, we can make it work. But you have to believe.”

  He kissed her then and she could taste the sweet tomato of the SpaghettiOs. Her back slid down the wall as they kept kissing. When he let her go, her mouth felt warm and numb.

  A moment passed and he pulled himself to his feet. “Well, enough of that. It’s late.” He glanced down at his sleeping daughter. “I’ll carry her out to the car.”

  Hannah watched him bend and gently scoop Faith up in his arms. She blew out the candles, locked the front door and followed them to the car.

  “So, we’re on for tomorrow?” he asked after he’d strapped Faith into the back seat of the car. “What time does she get out of school?

  “Two-thirty. We can walk down there from the house.”

  “The house on Termino? Your mother’s house?”

  She nodded. “I’ll let her know.”

  “Break the bad news, huh?”

  “Come on…”

  “After the boat, we could all have dinner somewhere.” He grinned. “To counteract the SpaghettiOs.”

  “So who is it you know with a big boat?”

  “Actually, I was stretching it a bit.” His smile widened. “Isn’t the Queen Mary docked in Long Beach? Pearse was telling me they’ve got these little water taxis that you can ride over on and I’ve heard there are all sorts of things to do on board. Don’t tell Faith though. It’ll be fun to see her face when she sees it. And,” he added, “it is a wee bit bigger than Allan’s boat.”

  She shook her head at him, then reached up to kiss him on the mouth. “I don’t know about you, Tully.”

  And then they were both grinning, arms wrapped around each other. He leaned back against the car, drawing her to him. Beyond his shoulder, the small white wooden bungalows up and down the street glowed in the night sky and in that moment, it seemed absolutely possible that they’d be together forever. It was all she could do not to tell him that.

  “How did it go?” he asked a moment later. “Our first day?”

  “It went great, Liam.” She wanted to say, I love you Liam. I love you and I believe in you and I know it can work. Instead she said, “Really great.”

  HE’D KISSED HER AGAIN after she dropped him at Miranda’s; a soft tender kiss that left her feeling dreamy, floating on a fragile bubble of optimism. The feeling was still there ten minutes later as she turned onto Termino and pulled up outside her house. Her mother’s house, Hannah thought.

  She leaned her head back against the seat. This time next week, her home would be the apartment on Tenth where she and Liam and their daughter had just spent the evening. Images ran through her brain. Faith laughing openmouthed at one of Liam’s jokes, paper plate of SpaghettiOs on the floor beside her. Faith, shirtless, dancing across the floor. Liam’s face as he said, “I love you.”

  She did want it to work.

  I want you to believe in me.

  It would work.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE OPTIMISM WAS STILL there the next morning. Bright and buoyant as a child’s balloon, it bobbed gaily as Hannah got Faith off to school and was still afloat by noon when she called Margaret from school to suggest they meet for coffee at Babette’s Feast.

  Hannah was already sitting at one of the green wrought-iron tables on the outdoor patio when Margaret arrived.

  “This is nice.” Margaret smiled appreciatively, her eyes hidden by the knockoff Armani sunglasses she’d bought last week at the Long Beach Farmer’s Market. “I’m very lucky, you know that? We both are.”

  Hannah grinned. “You lost five pounds this morning, too?”

  Margaret leaned forward. “Did you?”

  “No.” She spotted the black-aproned waiter bringing their cappuccinos in white cups the size of soup bowls. “But I ordered a chocolate Napoleon for us anyway. So why are we lucky?”

  “Having daughters.” Margaret sat back in her chair as the waiter set down the food. “Daughters are nice to have,” she said after he left. “My friends with sons are always complaining how they never remember birthdays, but you and Deb…well Deb’s forgotten a few of my birthdays—but you never have and that means a lot to me, sweetie. Not to get syrupy on you, but I really treasure our relationship.”

  “So do I, Mom.” Given the strain of past few days, she felt a stab of hypocrisy. Was treasure overstating it? “I mean we’ve always gotten along,” she amended, almost thinking aloud, “and I feel sad about the way things have been with us lately. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Margaret stuck a fork under the Napoleon’s flaky crust. “How many Weight Watchers points, do you think?”

  “Screw Weight Watchers,” Hannah said. “This is a celebration.”

  Margaret looked at Hannah over the rim of her sunglasses.

  “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” She smiled. “I’m in love, Mom.” There, she’d said it. Suddenly she couldn’t stop smiling. The balloon bobbed brightly, liquid sunshine flowed through her, filling her with this incredible incandescent happiness. “God, I’m so in love I could stand on the table and yell it out.”

  Margaret’s expression had congealed slightly. “Do I need to ask?”

  “Liam, of course.” Even saying his name aloud felt terrific. “Be happy for us, okay?” The balloon had dipped ever so slightly. “I want you to get to know him.” She watched a sparrow hop across the patio’s flagstone tiles. “He’s going to be a part of our lives. Mine, Faith’s and yours. You need to understand that and accept it.”

  Margaret put her elbows on the table, and studied her daughter’s face. “Would you be happy if you saw Faith running out into the traffic?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake…I am not a six-year-old child running into the traffic.” The balloon had taken a precipitous drop, but she could send it aloft again. She broke off a piece of the Napoleon and ate it, choosing her words carefully. “Look, I have a great idea. In this morning’s Press Telegram there was an article about this program at Western Memorial. It’s in the neonatal intensive care unit,” she went on, warming to the subject. “Premature babies respond well to the human touch—being cuddled and hugged—but the nursing staff don’t have the time to sit and rock them so that’s where this program comes in. It’s called Cuddlers and every volunteer is assigned to a baby.
I think it would be perfect for you.”

  Margaret said nothing. Arms folded across her chest, she stared at Hannah through her dark glasses while the sparrows chirped and twittered around them and the sun threw shadows across the table.

  “What, Mom?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Hannah.”

  “How am I patronizing you?” Hannah heard her voice rise. “This is a wonderful thing. The babies get what they need, and the volunteers know they’re providing a much-needed service.”

  “Kind of like giving an orphaned lamb to a sheep, knowing that the sheep will nurse anything put in front of it.”

  Deflated, Hannah just shook her head. “I thought—”

  “You thought that if you found something else to keep me busy, you’d be free to run off with Liam.”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” She mashed a crumb with her finger. “I mean I do think it would be a good thing if you had some other interests, but—”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? You really think that I’m only having sleepless nights because I have nothing better to do with my life.” She pushed aside her coffee, clearly angry. “Give poor old Mom something meaningful to do. I can just hear you and Deb—”

  “Mom…” Hannah frowned at her. Margaret’s raised voice had drawn curious glances from the occupants of nearby tables. “Keep it down, huh?”

  “I don’t care. I’m furious that you can be so blind and stupid about this man. Who was that woman with him in Delmonico’s last night?”

  “Miranda. He’s staying at her place.” Hannah felt her face go hot. “I mean the band’s staying at her place. She’s married, Mom.”

  Margaret lowered her sunglasses and eyed Hannah over the rims.

  “What?”

  “I’ve seen Liam twice since he got back, and each time he’s been with a different woman.”

  “Brid is his singer and I just explained who Miranda is.”

  “Why does he need them traipsing around with him? Why does he need to bring his singer to his daughter’s birthday party? Why does he go out to dinner with this Miranda? How come no one else in the band went along?”

  Hannah felt her mood take a steep plunge. Margaret’s voice had risen a notch with each question. She’d obviously been stewing over Liam’s questionable fidelity for some time. Then she remembered Liam’s words. I need you to believe in me. “I don’t care what it looks like to you, Mom, he’s not sleeping with Miranda or Brid. He loves me, he wants us to be a family.”

  “How do you know he’s not sleeping with these other women?”

  “He told me.”

  Light glinted off the lenses of Margaret’s glasses. “Oh of course, why didn’t I think of that. So what happens next? He goes off on his tours and you stay home and play house? Or are you going with him? And where does Faith fit into the picture?”

  “We haven’t talked about it. I’m just trying to tell you how I feel.” A sparrow had hopped onto the table and was regarding her with bright black eyes. “Can you at least try to understand?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can.” Margaret folded her arms across her chest. “I just don’t trust what’s happening, period. I don’t believe Liam’s serious about this daddy thing. I don’t believe he’s thinking about what’s best for you or Faith. He’s a womanizer, Hannie, just like your father.”

  “Mom, you don’t even know him. You’ve never even tried to get to know him.”

  “I don’t need to. I lived with your father for enough years. I know the type. They love to have women around them. Oh sure, they’ve always got some excuse, but bottom line, they like women.”

  Hannah thought of Beryl, her father’s longtime secretary who’d accompanied him on business trips. Of the young widow down the road who was always calling on him to fix something or other; of Margaret’s various woman friends who seemed to inevitably end up on the couch talking to her father whenever they dropped by. All innocent on the surface, just like Miranda and Brid.

  “Hannah, your father cheated on me until the day he dropped dead. I’d catch him in some lie, and he’d confess and swear it would never happen again. But it always did. That’s the way some men are. And I’m telling you, a good-looking guy like Liam is not about to trot home faithfully every night, especially when there are kids running around and dishes in the sink.”

  “Liam’s going with me to pick Faith up from school today.” Hannah decided to ignore Margaret’s gloomy forecast. She forced a smile. “He’s pretty excited about it. So is Faith. We’re going to take her to the Queen Mary.”

  “He’s playing at being a parent, Hannah. And you want to buy into it. You’re believing what you want to believe. We all do it at times. Unfortunately, it tends to blind us to the true situation.”

  “Well…” Hannah fished in her purse for her billfold. “I’m ready…”

  Margaret shook her head, then reached across the table to touch Hannah’s hand. “Look at me, sweetie. You’ve got to put Faith first in this situation, and I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. What kind of a life is Liam going to provide for her? Forget all this starry-eyed nonsense about being in love with him. It’s your daughter you need to think about.”

  “WELL, IS SHE A GIRLIE GIRL?” Miranda asked Liam as they walked the aisles of Ikea looking for children’s furniture. “Or a tomboy?”

  Liam smiled as he thought about the question. It was the day after the SpaghettiOs evening. He thought of the small but growing collection of things he knew about his daughter. “She loves animals, especially koalas, but also monkeys and giraffes. She doesn’t like brussels sprouts or the spaghetti at Delmonico’s, but she’s very partial to—”

  “SpaghettiOs,” Miranda interrupted. “I think you owe it to her to break her of that little quirk. I can’t believe you and Anna—”

  “Hannah.” Miranda had apparently developed a mental block about Hannah’s name. Just an hour earlier, she’d referred to her as Hillary.

  “Hannah then,” Miranda said. “I still can’t believe the two of you actually ate that revolting stuff just because a six-year-old child happens to like it.”

  “This isn’t just any six-year-old child, Miranda. This is a six-year-old child with very discerning taste. I personally believe she’s just ahead of the gustatory curve. A year from now, all those fancy restaurants you go to will be serving SpaghettiOs.”

  “You’re impossible.” Miranda drew up at a white bedroom dresser, pulled open a drawer, closed it. “Cheaply made.” She moved to a vanity table, and ducked to glance at her reflection in the child’s eye-level mirror. “God, do I need a facial. I think I overindulged last night. Unlike some people,” she said, “who drank ginger ale.”

  “Nothing wrong with ginger ale,” Liam said. He would have preferred a Guinness last night, but had no problem at all sharing a ginger ale with his daughter. “Tasted quite good, in fact.”

  “That’s because you’re besotted.” Miranda sat down on the lower mattress of a bunk bed, and looked up at Liam. “If your daughter wanted chocolate-covered grasshoppers washed down with cherry Kool-Aid, you’d go along with it.”

  “Faith would never waste a good grasshopper with chocolate,” Liam said. “They’re much better with strawberry jam. I’d go along with the cherry Kool-Aid, though.”

  “Pearse told me this morning he’s worried.” Miranda picked up a lamp with a frilled shade, examined the underside. “He thinks you have no idea of what you’re getting yourself into. He said between Brid’s problems and this thing with the kid, he’s concerned about the band.” She set the lamp down, and looked at Liam. “Just relaying his thoughts.”

  Liam rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. The children’s furnishing department of an Ikea store in suburban Orange County didn’t seem like the place to tell Miranda what she could do with her relayed thoughts, but she’d said one thing he couldn’t let pass.

  “The kid happens to be my daughter. Her name is Faith.” He walked over to a
grouping of furniture made of some sort of fabricated material. Probably laminated plywood, he thought. But the pieces were painted in bright primary colors. A red bed; dresser drawers in yellow, green and blue. A small yellow chair set in front of a blue desk. He could see Faith sitting there. He just wasn’t sure what Hannah would think of it. She should be here with him, but he’d wanted to surprise her and Faith. He’d pictured them this evening, walking into Faith’s room all set up with the new furniture.

  “Liam.” Miranda touched his arm. “Don’t be mad at me.”

  Liam ignored her and looked around for a salesclerk. Faith would also need sheets and blankets. No doubt Hannah had plenty of her own, but he wanted to do this for Faith.

  “You’ve put so much into the band, all of you,” Miranda said. “Brid, Pearse, Mick. You can’t blame them for not wanting it to fall apart.”

  “It’s not going to fall apart.” Liam took a credit card from his wallet, and checked his watch. “Pearse knows I’d never let that happen.”

  “He said he’s never seen you like this. I’ll be honest with you, Liam, Pearse and I had a long talk last night. Maybe we’d had one too many piña coladas, but Pearse said he thinks this girl—”

  “Girl?”

  “Amy is it? No, Hannah, that’s right. Why can’t I seem to remember her name? Pearse thinks she’s a bad influence. All she wants to do is come between you and the band and she won’t be satisfied until she’s got you trapped in Irvine or somewhere with two more kids and a mortgage.”

  “Right then,” Liam said after he’d signed the credit card receipt. “I’m ready.”

  “Liam.” Miranda caught his arm. “I care about you, I really do. You are making such a huge mistake. At least take a little time to cool off before you make a decision.” She smiled at him, all perfect teeth and glossy hair. “Puerto Vallarta is lovely. I could make reservations for us.”