by Geeta Kakade
Mark wondered if he should tell her Andrew was taking full responsibility and then decided not to.
“Uncle Paul said I could ask him for anything I wanted,” cut in Christy. “I’m going to tell him it wasn’t Andrew’s fault.”
“I’ll handle it,” said Mark firmly. “The less people who know about this, the better for security reasons. Don’t talk about this to anyone. The operation isn’t complete till Phil and his family are moved and in a new place with new identities.”
“When is he…” Christy’s voice died away as her husband looked at her. “Okay not one word more on the subject.”
“You aren’t angry about them having Phil here?” Mark asked.
“Why would I be angry?” Christy’s voice was filled with indignation. “They had to do something after Phil's friend was murdered. They couldn’t just let him be killed as well.”
Mark laughed, his mood lightening. “Of course not. I should have known you’d take it that way.”
“There’s something else Bridget wants to share…” Christy turned to her and said, “Go on.”
“I’ve valued the dolls as accurately as I could and the ones in the cabinet in the living room are over 250,000 dollars as you already know. The ones I have up on the website should fetch another hundred thousand at least.”
Christy and Mark looked at each other. Mark nodded and Christy said. “We want you to have the ones on the website.”
Bridget’s eyes widened and the color rose to her face, “I couldn’t accept that…it’s too much.”
“You can,” said Christy. “It’s to jumpstart your business.”
“Thank you, but I can’t accept your offer,” said Bridget firmly.
“Then we’ll go to plan B,” said Mark.
“Plan B?” Bridget wondered what that was.
“Christy wants to have papers drawn up giving you half of Cupid Lodge and everything in it.” Mark said.
“I don’t want that!” Bridget wished she could come up with a better way of refusing instead of repeating the same words over and over. “Cupid Lodge is rightfully yours and no one else’s.”
“It’s your birthright too and one you shouldn’t have been deprived of. You’ve had years of wondering who you are all because of one man’s pride in refusing to accept his daughter in law. You deserved a better childhood.”
“What’s done is done,” said Bridget. “I had a good life with the nuns and now it’s even better that I have all of you in it and know my connection to the family. I don’t need anything more.”
“But we don’t feel right that we should have all this and you should have nothing. Either agree to becoming part owner of Cupid Lodge or take the dolls,” Christy urged. “Please.”
“Christie and I both want to do what’s right, Bridget,” added Mark.
The frown on Bridget’s forehead cleared after a few minutes. She did need help to get started but she had to find a way of giving back.
“I’ll accept your more than generous offer if you become a twenty five percent shareholder in the business,” she said.
Christy bit her lip, exchanged a quick look with Mark and then said, “Five. And that’s my final word on the subject.”
“Five is plenty,” agreed Mark. “Say yes Bridget and we’ll make Mr. Brigham draw up a final document to make sure the dolls are officially yours.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Bridget protested.
“We do,” said Christy firmly. “Some folk are honing in on the website for all the wrong reasons. We’ve had a letter from a couple’s lawyer saying they can prove they are Cupids and are entitled to a share of the Cupid Estate as they put it. Mr. Brigham is setting them right on that,” said Christy. “Then there’s another letter from another Cupid saying he would like to know if we would pay his mortgage for him just for the sake of family. I had no idea this would happen when I started the website but it is a cause for concern for Mark and me. Before anyone claims anything else, we want to make sure the dolls are legally yours. That’s why we asked Mr. Brigham to start working on an official deed making the dolls yours.”
Bridget’s face was wet with tears.
“Thank you so much. I still can’t believe you want to give me so much and if you change your mind…”
“We won’t,” said Mark.
“Never,” Christy added firmly, “and don’t forget this is your home too forever and ever. You can stay here for as long as you want to.”
Bridget hugged both of them. The group hug ended with all of them deciding to go downstairs and taking one of Moira’s cakes out of the pantry and seeing if anyone else wanted a piece with a cup of tea or coffee.
“She’s going back to the Convent, Ma,” Phillip pointed out in a worried voice.
“Not yet Pa,” Agnes reassured him.
“What can we do in a week? Another gun? Shall I have someone shoot her and this Andrew fella will come to his senses and carry her off?”
“No,” Agnes said quickly. “Let's think of something else this time.”
Phillip was quiet for two whole minutes.
“Can’t think of a single thing. I’m going out to see if I can think better by the lake.”
Agnes looked at him as he left. Men!
Phillip would rather fell three huge trees than think of how to untangle somebody’s love life.
At least he was talking about emotions, something he had never done in the past.
Once her decision to go back had been announced, Bridget started working hard to tie up all loose ends and finish the last sweater.
She drove to the Convent one day and left the carefully packed dolls and a cardboard box with some of her things there and visited with Mother Superior and Sister Winfred. They applauded Christy’s generosity and told Bridget she could live and work from St. Mary’s for as long as she wanted to.
On the way back, Bridget felt really sad. Today had started the process by which she had cut her first connection with Cupid Lodge. She hadn’t told the nuns about her decision to move into her own apartment as soon as she could afford one. The road named Independence would be lonely at first.
The day before Thanksgiving, the doorbell rang at six and Christy asked Mark if he would go answer the door.
“Surprise!” Norah stood in the doorway, stamping the snow off her boots.
“Come in,” said Mark.
She came into the kitchen with the covered basket she was carrying. Everyone looked at it as they said hello. Christy asked her to sit down and share some pumpkin soup and fresh rolls with them.
“I can’t. I have to get back to the Café. Where do you want him?”
“Let’s get him out first.” Christy lifted the lid of the basket and took out the puppy.
Everybody stared.
“Christy called and I told her there was just one pup left and she and Mark stopped by to see him,” Norah explained. “They said if no one else wanted him by today, they’d take him. I was going this way and thought I’d bring him out.”
“We hesitated because we didn’t want to deprive anyone else of a chance to get one of the pups,” said Christy. “We all love Sheba and Coco already. They are such good dogs.”
“You’re not depriving anyone of anything,” Norah told her. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to know this one will have a good home too. There are people who want my pups but I wouldn’t give them an old rawhide bone. All eight pups have gone to people who will love and care for them and make them part of their families.”
“Can I take him out to the porch so he can meet his sisters again?’ asked Frank. Christy nodded and relinquished the puppy, thanked Norah and went to the door to see her off.
They all went to the back porch to watch the puppies interact.
“We thought we’d better take him as Sheba is so attached to Andrew,” Christy said. “If Andrew moves and decides he’d like to take her with him then we would be left with just Coco here. We can live with three dogs but we didn’t wa
nt Coco to be alone.”
“Yay!” shouted Frank. “Three dogs! Can we pick his name now please?”
They agreed that anyone whose name hadn’t been drawn last time should make a new suggestion and throw it in the paper bag. Mark drew and Mr. Kemp’s name for the dog came up. Cody.
Everyone clapped and agreed that Cody was a perfect name for the new addition.
“I would like to take Sheba with me but I didn’t feel like asking,” Andrew said quietly.
“This works out well then,” Mark said.
He and Andrew talked every night since he’d got back and Mark had told him that arrangements were being made for Phil and his family’s new life. It seemed like Andrew was making his own plans for the future too.
Andrew looked up to see Bridget watching him but she looked away quickly. He was really glad about Mark and Christy’s decision to get Cody but he wondered how she felt about him taking Sheba. No one had asked her if she wanted Sheba. He’d been looking at apartments and even small houses for rent in the area, doing virtual tours online and thinking of what the future held if Bridget didn’t want to share it with him. For the first time in his life, his work did not shut out thoughts of everything else in the world.
A young woman with dark hair and the sweetest smile in the world took first place.
Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and sunny. There had been a snowstorm at night and the trees looked beautiful with icicles hanging from every branch.
Toby was away with his daughter in Reno for the weekend and Mark cleared the drive and paths with the riding mower using the snow plow attachment.
The paying guests at Cupid Lodge were a group from Iowa who were going to be at the South Lake Tahoe casinos all day. Christy had given them a list to choose from of the best Thanksgiving buffets in South Lake and they had left happy. The head of the group had mentioned they might stay on in South Lake if the weather changed for the worse or they got too drunk to drive back safely.
Christy waved them off and then turned her mind to party prep.
Cupid Lodge looked amazing with all the fall decorations in place. Toby had brought in his dwarf liquidambar tree and it provided a blaze of color right across from the front door. The formal dining table was set in orange and brown. Frank and Bridget had made the centerpiece of flame colored leaves and cones. Bridget had brought back more leaves from the Convent where the lower altitude still had the trees ablaze with color and made a living wreath for the front door with the leaves and the new bright yellow Sunny Robin mums from the greenhouse.
Once the turkeys were in the oven, the women were free till a couple of hours before dinner when they would work on the mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables and everything else a perfect Thanksgiving dinner entailed.
Three pumpkin pies and three sweet potato pies were ready in the pantry.
Bridget had all her gifts in big bags as she had discovered it was the easiest way to give the sweaters. They were going to start the party at midday with the games Christy and Frank had come up with. The appetizers had been made by Moira who refused to tell anyone what they were. They were planning to eat around four and then open presents. The men had been volunteered to do clean up by the women who claimed they would be exhausted by that time. Actually they’d voted to watch The Hunt For Red October, while the men watched football and cleaned up.
Bridget, Christy, Mark, Andrew and Frank took two toboggans and one sled to the small slope behind the house. For an hour they slid down in pairs having competitions to see who would go the fastest. Andrew kept score.
Eventually Frank, Christy and Mark decided to try a higher slope and Bridget and Andrew stayed where they were. There was a bench there and she sat down next to him.
“Want to go back?” she asked.
“In a while,” he said.
Turning to look at her in her red snowsuit he said, “You look beautiful.”
Bridget was taken aback. “Thanks. It’s the snowsuit. Christy insists I have it.”
“Have you thought of a name for your business?” Andrew’s mind was on their future together. Mark had told him Bridget had reluctantly accepted the offer of the dolls.
“Emma’s Dolls,” she told him without hesitation. “What do you think?”
“It’s great,” said Andrew.
The tree they sat under suddenly sent down a shower of snow on her hood. She laughed and he reached up automatically to brush the snow off her hood and their hands met. He held her hands and drew her to him.
It was the most natural thing in the world for him to reach down and kiss her.
Bridget put her arms around him and pulled his head closer.
When they came up for air he said, “Marry me Bridget?”
“What?”
She got to her feet and put a hand out to help him up.
“Marry me. You don’t have to go back to the Convent.”
For an instant her heart had leapt but the last sentence was like a rude awakening.
“Why would I marry you?" she asked him.
Did he pity her because she’d said she was going back? Did he think he had to rescue her from life in a nunnery by proposing?
He held his hands out but she moved out of reach.
“You cannot become a nun.”
So she was right. He pitied her.
“I can’t think of marriage right now,” she said coldly. “I want to start my own business, see the world before I settle down. I don’t want to be tied down. If you’ll excuse me I’ll head back to the house.”
She could see Christy, Mark and Frank coming over the hill. They could help Andrew. As far as she was concerned she was done with people pitying her.
Andrew felt as if Bridget had slapped him. She’d meant she didn’t want to be tied down to him but she was too kind to put his disability into words.
He got the message.
They were so busy with the games and taking turns putting finishing touches to the meal that no one noticed Bridget was avoiding Andrew as if he were poison ivy.
One activity transitioned into another in the way special days do and they were all seated around the dining table when they heard the kitchen door being unlocked. It was Toby. They were all delighted to see him.
“Come join us,” said Mark and he did.
“My daughter has Thanksgiving Dinner at noon and by two we were pretty much done. I thought I’d head back tonight, as there’s another storm on its way. She’s working this weekend so there’s no point in me staying on. The young ones are spending the weekend with their cousins and I wanted to come back.”
“We’re going to hold hands and before we start the meal we are going to name one thing or more than one that we are really thankful for,” said Christy. “I’ll go first. I’m thankful for Mark and all of you and Cupid Lodge. Having a place where I feel I belong means the world to me. I’m thankful we got to visit Mark’s family in Chicago and meet all his relatives, especially his Mum and his uncle.”
They all followed taking turns. Bridget was very conscious of Andrew holding her hand on one side and the way it tightened around hers when he said he was thankful for all their kindness and the fact his knee was getting back to normal. When it was her turn she said she was thankful for the direction her life was taking, and to find out about her roots and most of all for the fact she had all of them in her life now.
All through the meal Bridget could only think that this might be the last meal she would share with Andrew.
After the wonderful dinner the women carried all the dishes into the kitchen and deboned the turkeys and put the meat away, reminding the men the rest was up to them later.
They went into the living room and sat down. The fire crackled cheerfully as Bridget got out her gift bags.
“Hey, what’s this?” said Toby as she handed him his first. “I already have my present.”
“Thank you for being such a good friend, Toby.”
The simple direct way she said it brought tears into h
is eyes.
“I didn’t do nothing,” he mumbled. “You’re the one who’s been a good friend to me.”
He pulled out the sweater from its bag and they all admired the intricate Aran Isle design she’d chosen. The panel down the front in red and white was striking against the gray blue of the main background. Toby pulled off the old sweater he was wearing and pulled the new one over his head. “I’m going to be really warm in this. I love it.”
Bridget handed everyone else their bags and they all pulled out their sweaters and oohed and aahed over them. Frank looked at her, as he was the only one who hadn’t been given a bag.
“This is for you Frank.” Out of the pocket of the brown suede skirt that Christy had given her from the new package that had arrived from her mother, Bridget pulled out an envelope.
“Thanks,” he said ripping it open; relieved she’d gotten the message that clothes weren’t really a present. As he took the money out of it he said, “Twenty dollars! Gee thanks Bridget.” He jumped up and hugged her and said in a choked voice. “I wish you weren’t leaving.”
They had all followed Toby’s lead and pulled their sweaters on. Bridget was glad she had researched their needs before knitting the sweaters. Toby, Mark and Andrew had thinner ones, as those were the kind they liked. Christy’s was the warmest as she felt the cold more than anyone else. Mrs. Kemp and Moira had cardigans and Mr. Kemp had a vest and a cap as he never wore full sleeved sweaters but always complained about how cold his head felt.
They all thanked her and Bridget was aware that after a quiet thank you Andrew had slipped away to his room while the others were all saying how often she had to visit.
Bridget woke the next morning to a snowstorm that bordered on a blizzard. Nine o’clock!
It had to be all that she had eaten. She never slept this late.
Springing out of bed, she dashed into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later she was in the kitchen to see Moira, Christy and Mrs. Kemp there. From the way they stopped talking when she entered she knew they had been discussing her.
“I..I’m sorry. I overslept.”