Back to McGuffey's

by Liz Flaherty

  Maggie leaned in and gave her a hard hug. “I’m a widow just like you, plus I’ve lost a child. I had a lot of help getting through days like you’re having now. It’s my turn.”

  “You should have seen them,” Kate told Ben that evening, when she’d returned from Burlington and he stopped by with a pizza. “Mom hated to leave because she was so worried about Maeve, but Maggie came right in and filled part of the empty space with wine and yarn. We’d all been talking, talking, talking—what she needed was something to do and Maggie knew it.” She poured soda into ice-filled glasses and brought them to the table. “It’s hard to even remember that first day I met her, when I thought she was either going to get me fired or arrested.”

  Ben followed her with plates and forks. “I’d have bailed you out.” He fished a handful of paper napkins out of the wire basket in the middle of the table and made messy little stacks of them at two places. “Eventually.”

  When they were sitting at right angles from each other, she had to stop herself from reaching to smooth the lines of weariness from his forehead.

  They’d spent time together over these past days, but distance had grown between them at the same time. She recognized it—it had been there for all the years since their breakup. Until this summer, when friendship and more—whatever “more” was—had filled the space. She thought maybe his time in Fionnegan was truly over. With Tim’s passing, there was nothing to make Ben stay. Certainly friendship with his old girlfriend wasn’t enough.

  “How’s the tavern doing?” she asked, when they’d eaten the first half of the pizza without speaking.

  “Okay. The noise is coming back. Mandy’s going to be great as head bartender and A Day at a Time will keep the tavern in waiters or waitresses until she finds one she wants to hire. The regulars are helping, too, just by telling them what goes where. No one wants anything to change, even though they know it has to.” He chuckled, but there wasn’t any real humor in it. “Speaking of change, we mentioned retirement to Mom. Suggested she move to Burlington or Boston or Montpelier so she could be close to one of us. Patrick even played the grandchildren card.”

  Kate froze with an oversize bite of pizza halfway to her mouth. “So how long are you grounded?”

  He grinned at her, and for that moment, the space between them was gone. “Do the words Social Security mean anything to you? Ours, not hers.”

  She put down the pizza, drawing a new realization from his words. She felt almost the same way she’d felt that night thirteen years ago. They’d sat at what had always been their table in McGuffey’s and he’d said, “I think we need to give ourselves a break.” She’d agreed, because it had been hard for both of them right then to maintain a relationship. But she’d known It Was Over, capital letters included. She’d even written in her journal that night, “It Is Over.”

  She wished she hadn’t eaten the pizza so fast, no matter how hungry she’d been. It was sitting in her stomach like lead. If it rolled over, she was going to have to make a mad dash for the bathroom. Because it wasn’t going to stay down. Gluttony, she remembered a little late, is one of the seven deadly sins.

  “You’re going back now, aren’t you?” she said when the words would come out. They sounded strangled. “Back to Boston for keeps, not just a day or two a week.”

  He didn’t look at her. “It’s time. My partners in the practice have been extremely patient, but they’re ready for some time off themselves. It’s hard to work around someone who’s only there a day or two a week.”

  “I’m sure it is.” She scheduled people to cover situations like that—she knew how hard it was. One of the pleasures of running A Day at a Time was calming the hysterical voice of the person who called her when every employee they had seemed to have caught the flu at the same time.

  Ben’s partners and their spouses had been at Tim’s funeral and the wake afterward. They were all nice people, though even Jayson had noticed the differences. “They’re not from here. They dress funny.” They had all worn dark, somber colors, unlike the people who’d known Tim best, who’d worn every color in the rainbow and all the ones in between.

  “Have you talked to Jayson?” she asked.

  Ben went into the kitchen, coming back with more soda for her and a beer for himself. “Not yet. I don’t know how to make him understand. He doesn’t get it yet that Pop’s gone, don’t you think?”

  She’d held Jayson when he cried at the funeral. She’d talked to him about heaven and how Tim felt better now. She’d told him Tim wouldn’t be lonely and could ride a bicycle any time he wanted to. He’d picked flowers they’d had to take out to the cemetery right that minute even though it was raining and cold. He’d been so distraught he’d turned corners on his bicycle without thought. When he’d realized what he’d done, he’d promptly fallen off. Oh, yes, he got it.

  He would get that Ben was leaving him, too. He would grasp quickly that coming back weekends sometimes wasn’t the same as living in the suite over the garage. He would know Ben didn’t have time to teach him to play pool or ride with him for aimless hours.

  Jayson’s memory was selective and he could be temperamental. His speech was sometimes difficult to understand. He was hard on one’s patience. But he was loving and kind and he felt things with every bit as much intensity as someone who didn’t have Down syndrome.

  He would know Ben was leaving him. He would get it.

  So did Kate.

  “You’ll just have to tell him.” She sipped from her soda. Her eyes felt dry, as though she’d taken an allergy pill when she didn’t need it, and she tried to blink moisture into them. “He’ll understand after a while. It’s just a lot of loss for him to grasp all at once.”

  For her, too. Walking into McGuffey’s without Tim there still felt like a biting gust of cold wind. The black vest he’d always worn over his spotless white shirt still hung near the end of the bar. No one had been able to move it yet.

  “I’ll miss you.”

  Ben’s words lay between them like the pieces of pizza crust. She thought at first he hadn’t really said them, that maybe she’d just wanted to hear them.

  As though he knew what she was thinking—he probably did know—he said, “I will. I’ve always missed you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  She would miss him as she always had before this summer, deep in the place in her heart she kept closed. It had opened for a while over the previous months. Aired out. Old love had become new and valued friendship. It had become more than that, but she wouldn’t think about that part right now.

  They were good at being friends and she would treasure that. They’d be able to have long telephone conversations, dance at McGuffey’s on the weekends he came to visit his mother and maybe even attend a few Celtics games if she could get away from A Day at a Time long enough to make the trip to Boston.

  “We used to talk about that.”

  Only when he said, “About what?” did she realize she’d spoken. Good grief, where was her mind? First she wasn’t sure he had said something and now she was saying things she didn’t mean to.

  “Um...I don’t remember.”

  Because if she told him, he’d feel obligated to invite her down to go to a Celtics game with him, and that was more than she could bear. Friendship was fine—obligation was not.

  “Do you remember when Penny got pregnant our senior year and she and Dan snuck off and got married during spring break?” she asked suddenly.

  He snorted. “Of course I remember. We snuck off with them to be their witnesses. We were in such deep trouble when we got home that we said we might as well have been the ones who got pregnant.”

  “Do you ever look at Samantha and wish we had?” She did, almost every time she looked at their beautiful goddaughter, but it wasn’t her she was talking about now. It was him.

  Ben hesitated. “Not that, no. Do I look at her and wish things between us were different? You bet.” He clasped Kate’s hands and looked into her
eyes. “But I was all about me then, about skiing in the Olympics and maybe eventually becoming a doctor. You remember that—Dylan was a better boyfriend after I went to UVM than I was.” He frowned, looking as though he wanted to say something else—something different. But then his face changed, the expression lightening. “If we’d gotten pregnant, we wouldn’t have been the statistic Penny and Dan are. We’d have been the other one, the ones that end up divorced and hating each other before they’re old enough to drink. Not because of you, Katy, but because of me.”

  She knew what he meant. If there’d been a little McGuffey on the way, Ben would have “done right by her.” They’d have gotten married, but it would have been because he felt obligated. Though she still believed they had loved each other, marriage and parenthood would never have worked. Even then, combined with love, obligation wouldn’t have been fine. It wouldn’t have been close to enough.

  “You’re not all about you now.” It was almost begging. She knew that. And she hated that she was saying the words, but it didn’t stop her. We could still be parents. Good parents. Even if we’re not in love anymore, we’re friends and we’re good at it. And we’re more. I know we’re more.

  Regret reset the lines of grief that had been in his face when he arrived, the ones that made him look weary and every minute of his age. “I’m thirty-nine, getting scary close to forty. I don’t want to be a dad with a baby who’ll graduate from college after I retire. Maybe that’s selfish. Maybe I am still all about me and just don’t want to see it. But I know fatherhood’s a ship that’s already sailed for me.” He lifted her hands to his lips, kissing her fingers. “I’m sorry. One more time, I’m sorry not to be who you need. Who you deserve.”

  All that was missing, she thought later, staring through the skylight that was over her bed, was the music in the background and the passionate good-night kisses and half promises that the breakup was only temporary.

  She’d wept after he left with his usual request that she lock the door after him, quiet tears that made Sally climb into her lap and pat her face with a sympathetic paw. “I’ve cried more in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years,” she told the cat.

  She even wrote in her journal as she had thirteen years before. It Is Over.

  Again.

  * * *

  LEAVING FIONNEGAN HADN’T gone well. Not any of it. Kate’s face, even though she smiled and hugged him when he left, was taut with strain. Jayson was angry. He kicked New Navy, the bicycle Maggie had bought for him, and smacked his helmet against a tree.

  “You’re just like my dads,” he said, all petulance and tears. He’d never understood the concept of having a different father than Debby, so he claimed them both even though he didn’t know either of them. “Dads leave all the time. You’re a big dummy.”

  Maeve had been sad but accepting. “I’ll be fine here,” she insisted. “We didn’t raise our children to give us someone to cling to.” She hugged him close, then gave him full benefit of dancing green eyes. “We raised them so they could support us in our dotage.”

  “Does Patrick know that?” Ben stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulders and his face in an exaggerated frown. “He’s the pediatrician, you know. He makes a lot more than I do. I’m just a family practice guy who does a little emergency care on the side. I can barely support myself.” He laughed because she did, thinking if they could just have his dad back, he’d be thrilled to support them both as long as he lived.

  He kissed her goodbye and got into his SUV for the drive to Boston, wondering how many times he’d made this trip since he left for medical school eighteen years ago. He went past A Day at a Time, pleased to see cars parked out front. He honked, hoping Kate heard his car’s distinctive horn.

  And hoping she didn’t. She was busy and she was happy, and one day there would be someone who would make her dreams come true. She didn’t need to have the old boyfriend as part of the equation.

  He wasn’t particularly proud of himself for hoping the man wasn’t Colby Dehart. But he still hoped it.

  When he got to Boston, he had dinner at Nerissa and Mark’s, appreciating the way their cook had with a leg of lamb. After dessert, Ben shot baskets in the driveway with Mark and their two older kids until the boys had to go to bed, then went in to drink a cup of coffee in the kitchen before going back to his apartment.

  “Are you glad to be back?” asked Mark. He poured their coffee because Nerissa was nursing the baby. “Your partners have missed you, though they understood and supported why you were away.”

  Ben nodded. “It’s a good practice. They’re good people to work with.” That was no less than the truth. The senior partner had been his mentor all through Ben’s residency. He respected the older doctor on a level otherwise awarded only to family members and close friends.

  The other doctors were both good at what they did, dedicated to the field of family medicine. If he had issues with either of them—and he did—they were the kinds of issues that always happened within corporate folds.

  He did too much pro bono work so that sometimes he didn’t bring in as much revenue for the practice as he should, but he didn’t think the other partners did enough. They attended fundraisers and brought more money and moneyed patients into the practice; he went sledding with neighborhood kids. They kept the practice in a good place politically at the hospitals where they had patients; he spoke his mind with a department head. Their relationship with the nurses and other staff in the office was caring but professional; his was—well, it probably wasn’t. They called each other names, bet on Celtics games and met for a beer more Thursday nights than not.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m glad to be back.”

  He hoped by the time he left for the office the next day, that would be true.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “WE NEED TO have a professional women’s club in Fionnegan.” Joann took her seat. “There are a lot of us now, you know.”

  “I’m not a professional. I couldn’t come,” Penny protested. “What’s the fun in that?”

  “It’s okay,” Kate comforted. “I’m not one, either, unless professional klutz counts.” She brightened. “I could send half the registry from A Day at a Time.”

  “Hmm...” Joann frowned into her diet cola. “I’d probably think better if this had real sugar in it.”

  “Give you sugar and the next thing you know, you’ll want real cream in your coffee.” Marce shook her head at her. “Let’s make it a businesswomen’s club. How about that? Your catering counts, Penny, whether you have a sign and a park bench or not.”

  “Like a gender-specific chamber of commerce? Are you sure that’s even legal?” Kate pushed Marce off the end of the bench. “It’s your turn to bowl.”

  “Maybe we should just stick with being a bowling team.” Penny frowned at their scores. “Or maybe we should become a gin rummy team—this isn’t working all that well.”

  Joann grinned and turned her attention to Kate. “Have you seen Ben since he went back to Boston? Not that it’s my business.”

  Kate had to make herself answer. “No, I haven’t.”

  They talked most nights, at least for a few minutes; however, the only weekend he’d come to Fionnegan since his return to Boston, she’d spent in Chicago with her sister. Sarah had been there on business and Kate had found a cheap flight and joined her. They’d stayed downtown and shopped on the Magnificent Mile—where Kate bought lip gloss for herself and bicycle gloves for Jason—and been tourists.

  She had not expected to miss Ben as much as she did. That part, the whole heartbreak, life-as-I-knew-it-is-over part had been over years ago. This was new, but it wasn’t any less painful.

  Kate followed Penny’s strike—her first one of the night—with an impressive seven-ten split. “I can get this,” she said to her booing team members, and promptly rolled the second ball straight down the middle without touching either pin. She bowed to the ensuing round of catcalling and sat beside Joann aga
in. “What about you? Have you seen Colby?”

  Joann bowled before she answered, hitting the pins—all ten of them—with a force that had a team of high-school bowlers a few lanes down throwing themselves on the floor as though they were mortally wounded. “I haven’t,” she said, “but he called today and asked me to.” She met Kate’s eyes. “I didn’t know what to say. I know we’re all grown-ups now and that you sent him my way to start with, but it still felt odd seeing someone you’d dated. You’re as much my little sister as Penny is—I feel like I’m going out with Dan Elsbury.”

  Penny turned in her seat to join the conversation. “He can’t afford you. It would be okay with the kids—you buy really good presents—but Dan would go into heart failure if he knew how much you spent on shoes.”

  Joann gave Penny the same kind of big-sister wave Sarah had treated Kate to several times the week before. “Dan wouldn’t say a word. I insure his ’57 Chevy for a song, so he’s my slave.”

  Kate laughed. “If you want to see Colby again, that’s great. He’s nice. But I do think you should stay away from Dan even if he is your slave. I know Penny’s generous, but she has her limits.”

  “You’re sure?” Joann’s expression was so serious Kate wondered how much she liked Colby Dehart. Wouldn’t it be something if one of Kate’s single-by-choice friends crossed over to the side of the committed relationship?

  “Positive.” But don’t ask me the same question about Ben. I’m pretty sure I’m back to being high-school jealous where he’s concerned.

  It was, combined with her ninety-seven bowling score, a depressing thought. When she got home, Marce called her. Lucy had died.

  * * *

  KATE SOUNDED CONGESTED and weepy over the phone. “I swear, it’s the season of grief. Marce’s friend Nick came to the bed-and-breakfast on Wednesday and brought his dog and Shingles the cat with him. I think Lucy decided it was okay to go because her family was taken care of now. She died the same night. Sally knew somehow. She wouldn’t leave me for a minute. She even stayed in my lap most of the day after. Believe me, working with a fifteen-pound cat helping you type doesn’t do a thing for your productivity.”