At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  He had known it would be that way. That was one of the reasons he had stayed away from Idle Point. How could you forget when reminders of what you had shared, the dreams you'd dreamed, waited around every corner.

  At least the black anger was gone. That coiled rage had been with him for too long, laying waste to everything that stepped into his path. He couldn't remember exactly when the rage had turned to bitterness, when bitterness turned to a combination of sorrow and acceptance, but he thanked God that it had happened before Sophie came into his life.

  He didn't know much about bringing up a child. He was befuddled by the clothes and the tantrums and the great expanse of future unrolling in front of them. The only thing he was sure of was that she needed love in great measure and security. Steadiness. She had had damn little of it in her short life and now it fell to him to prove to her that she had finally come home to stay.

  He and Sophie stepped out into an overcast October afternoon. He had always wondered why grey days seemed to bring out the best of the autumn foliage, not that there was much left to speak of. He had always meant to ask somebody about that. He should look it up in the library or surf the Internet. Parents needed to know these things. Next year Sophie would look up at him with those long-lashed blue eyes of hers and ask the same question and he had to know the answer. That was what fathers did. They answered questions and paid the bills and caught spiders.

  Sometimes he thought about his own father and tried to figure out where Simon had made his mistakes but his memories were so caught up with adolescent loneliness and hero worship and anger that he didn't know where truth ended and fantasy began. His father loved him. His father was indifferent. His father controlled his every move. His father wouldn't have noticed if he'd vanished off the face of the earth. His father was proud of him. His father thought he was a failure. It was all true and none of it and he didn't know how to piece it together.

  "Your father did the best he could," was all his mother would say on the subject. "Never doubt that he loved you, Noah. Never ever doubt that."

  But he did. Now that he had a child of his own he understood how love should feel. Sophie's very existence had made him feel like his chest was three sizes too small for the size of his heart. He knew that the thought of sending that tiny scrap of humanity out into the world alone was enough to bring him to his knees. Had he been that small at five years, that vulnerable? How in hell had his father been able to push him out of the nest a year later and send him off to St. Luke's?

  He had been drifting before Sophie. She anchored him in time and space. Losing Gracie had been like losing an essential part of himself. Without her by his side, his dreams of Paris meant nothing at all. It was nothing more than a city by a river. He had been waiting for a sign from God, a bolt of lightning, something to wake him up and turn him in the right direction. He had never thought that sign would come in the form of a little girl with the face of an angel.

  He had spent the last eight years bumming his way through Europe, trying on different personae for size, pretending he hadn't left his broken heart in the hands of a serious young woman with better things to do than spend her life with him. He finished his degree in London then found himself a job writing ad copy for an international publishing concern. He had learned all about deadlines during his summers at the Gazette and he wrote quickly and well and was rewarded handsomely for that ability.

  If he ever had the sense that he could be doing more with his gifts than hawking the next best-selling how-to book, he did his best to push that thought from his mind before it had a chance to cause any trouble. If he ever missed that sense of community he had enjoyed on the staff of the Gazette, he refused to acknowledge the fact. He had discovered that you could have a fine life without ever breaking the surface. Gracie had been wrong about that. Not everyone needed to dive deep.

  In the end it was both the Gazette and Sophie that brought him back to Idle Point. His mother Ruth was in failing health and she wanted to sign over the management of the paper to him.

  Ruth had come into her own with Simon's death. She had surprised everyone in town when she took over the reins of the Gazette rather than sell it off to one of the conglomerates that had expressed more than a passing interest in the paper. She had quietly watched and learned a lot over the years and her hand on the reins was sure and gentle. She understood that selling to one of the conglomerates would mean putting a lot of loyal employees out on the street and she steadfastly refused to do it, thereby gaining the undying loyalty of her staff and the unending exasperation of her accountants.

  Noah knew all of this because the accountants had told him so last month when he returned to Idle Point. He also knew that the Gazette was hemorrhaging money like a severed artery and that if they didn't sell soon, there would be nothing left to sell. He had home come to introduce his mother to her granddaughter, to give Sophie a sense of family that had been missing in her young life. And, if he was being honest with himself, he came home because he had been everywhere else and the emptiness was still deep inside his heart.

  He wanted to see his daughter walk the streets he had walked as a kid. He wanted to see his mother's face when Ruth realized that Sophie's eyes were his eyes, were her eyes, were the eyes of who knew how many dead relatives reaching back into yesterday. And, damn it, he wanted The Gazette to stay in his family's hands. A year ago none of this would have mattered to him.

  Now it meant everything.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gracie supposed there was a certain ironic symmetry to the fact that she ran out of gas thirty yards away from Eb's Stop & Pump. Of course, it wasn't Eb's any longer. Eb had died a few years ago while on a whale-watching trip out of P-town. She liked thinking of her old friend out there on the ocean with a pair of binoculars and a lot of curiosity. It made her feel good to know he was adventuring when his time came but his loss was deeply felt.

  The big red sign now read Gas-2-Go and the smaller signs beneath it promised that milk, cigarettes, magazines, and coffee were all waiting inside to soothe the frazzled traveler. There was a car wash adjacent to the parking lot, a Jiffy Lube, and unless her eyes deceived her, the ramshackle motel behind Eb's gas station was now a sparkling Motel 6.

  And that wasn't all. She had already noticed the brand spanking-new condo that curved around the harbor, all pre-weathered siding and gingerbread trim with Hollywood-perfect rowboats bobbing in the calm waters that lapped against the owners-only pier. Unless she missed her guess, she'd bet there were more condos where that one came from.

  Idle Point was bursting at the seams with prosperity and she felt almost like a stranger as she sat there in her truck with the New York plates and her New York attitude and tried to take it all in. She wondered if this was how Noah had felt when he came home from St. Luke's each summer to a town that had changed just enough to keep him slightly off-balance, not quite sure if he was a townie or a tourist or just passing through on his way to someplace else.

  She reached over and scratched the top of Pye's head through the bars of the cat carrier. Pyewacket opened one lime green eye, yawned, then dived back inside a dream.

  Lucky you, she thought as she climbed out of the car and stretched. At least Pye's dreams couldn't break his heart. The worst that could happen was tuna for supper instead of mackerel.

  Her limbs were stiff and sore from spending eight hours behind the wheel without a break. Once she had crossed the Tappan Zee and headed north toward New England, she had simply kept on going. A smarter woman would have stopped for lunch in Massachusetts, walked around a little, read a magazine or two, then knocked off the rest of the drive up the coast to Idle Point.

  Or then again maybe a smarter woman wouldn't be there at all.

  Everywhere she looked she saw ghosts. Old Eb, his eyes brimming with tears, as he wished her well. Gramma Del and her friends hosting the church bazaar in Fireman's Park across the street. Noah racing down Main Street in his flashy red sports car.

 
; Noah.

  Damn it. She had promised herself she wouldn't fall prey to memories but now that she was standing there with the ocean breeze whipping all around her, so sharp and salty she could almost taste it, it was impossible to keep the past at bay. At least she wouldn't run into Noah while she was here. The last she'd heard, he was still in Europe somewhere living the life he'd always dreamed about. The kind of life that, if she was being honest, had never appealed to Gracie. She would have followed him because she loved him but she would have always longed for home. Idle Point was where she had wanted to be, where she had thought she would settle down and establish herself with Doctor Jim as the second-best vet in town.

  You know you could turn around and drive back to New York right now. The voice followed her as she strode toward the man lounging in front of Gas-2-Go. Who'd know? You're a stranger around here. Fill the gas tank then run for your life.

  The man lounging near the air pumps looked over in her direction. He had dark hair, a slightly receding hairline, and a look of shock on his face. He looked vaguely familiar to Gracie. She stopped and looked at him closely as the years slid away. "Don?" she asked. "Don Hasty, is that you?"

  "Gracie?" He stood up. "I'll be a son of a bitch! Gracie Taylor, you've finally come home!"

  #

  "You worry too much," Laquita said to Ben as he paced the small living room of the house by the docks. "Everything will go smoothly." She patted his arm with a gentle hand. "I promise you."

  Ben felt that touch deep in his soul but he still wasn't convinced. "It's a long time since Gracie's been home. A lot's changed."

  Laquita smiled. "I'm the biggest change, Ben, and you've already told her we're getting married. The rest is window dressing."

  He stopped pacing and sat down on the arm of the sofa Laquita had reupholstered last year. The fabric was pure creamy white with streaks of sunny yellow and pale green running through it. He couldn't quite remember what color the old fabric had been—spilled tea, maybe, or a nice shade of used coffee grounds. If you had told him ten years ago that he would be living with something so beautiful he would've pegged you for the one with the drinking problem. He'd never cared much about the way he lived. Drunks never did. All a drunk cared about was the next bottle of Johnnie.

  Drunks didn't care about their kids either. Drunks didn't show up for birthday parties or first communion or graduation. They didn't notice the awards or the scholarships or the hard work. They didn't notice when the sleeping infant in the baby blanket turned into an accomplished young woman with sad eyes. They sure as hell didn't notice when that young woman stopped coming home. Not while they were drinking. He would still be a drunk if it weren't for Laquita. He'd still be peeing his pants, sleeping in his own vomit, wondering why his daughter didn't love him the way a father ought to be loved.

  "I saw what you did in Ma's cottage," he said. "It looks swell."

  "Better than swell," Laquita said with a smile. "It's looking wicked good."

  "I think Graciela will be comfortable in there." He had cleaned the place from ceiling to basement, and then Laquita had performed some magic with paint and paper and fabric until the little cottage looked like a home for the first time since Del died.

  "I think she'll love it. We all need our own space, especially while we we're getting used to being a family." Laquita reached for the coat she kept on the peg near the door then slid her arms into the sleeves. "She knows the cottage belongs to her?"

  Ben nodded. "She never much cared."

  "Can't say that I blame her," Laquita said as she moved into his arms for a hug. "This wasn't a happy place when she lived here."

  He winced again. He wanted to correct Laquita, try to put a different spin on her words but he knew she wouldn't allow it. Honesty was part of recovery. Brutal honesty about your own failings was crucial to rebuilding your life. Laquita never blinked when she faced her own demons and she refused to allow him to blink when he faced his. It was one of the countless things he loved about her.

  "I'm sorry I have to leave," she said as he walked with her to the front door. "I never thought I'd be called in for night shift this week but with Tammy being sick and my vacation coming up and everything—"

  "She'll understand. You're a nurse. You go when you're needed."

  "Apologize to Gracie for me, will you, Ben? I left her a note but—"

  He kissed her. "Don't worry. Just drive safely. Those wet leaves are—"

  "Slippery as ice. I grew up here, remember? I know all about wet leaves." She said it kindly but she said it as a reminder that she was a grown woman, his equal in all the ways that mattered.

  He stood in the doorway and watched while she warmed up her car then backed slowly out of the driveway. She beeped her horn twice, waved, then disappeared down the road. He stayed there until her tail lights faded into the dusk then went back inside to make himself a cup of coffee and wait for his daughter to come home.

  #

  Laquita's smile didn't falter until she made the turn onto Sheltered Rock Road. She held it, wide and true and unwavering, for exactly that long before it all fell apart. That was the point where even Ben, with his preternaturally sharp eyesight, could no longer see her and she could drop her guard.

  Well, now she'd done it. She had lied to Ben, the one thing she had sworn she would never do. The truth was important to both of them, vitally important, but how on earth do you tell the man you're about to marry that you would rather walk barefoot on burning coals than see his daughter again?

  Any woman worth her salt would do exactly what Laquita had done: run for her life. She had shamelessly offered her services at the hospital on her day off which just happened to be the day Gracie was due back in town. If that had failed, she might have thrown herself under a truck.

  Gracie had been the one girl in school who intimidated Laquita. She was tall, smart, pretty, ambitious, disciplined, determined to achieve her goals despite the formidable odds against her. Next to her, Laquita had felt like a short, round slug. How she had envied Gracie's only child status, her room of her own, the fact that she could think her own thoughts without having to fight for space to breathe. The only time she had ever felt remotely Gracie's equal was the day they had bumped into each other one early morning in a motel parking lot outside of town. So you're human, she had thought, noting the blush of embarrassment on Gracie's throat and face and the way she clutched Noah's hand. But then there was Noah, arguably the best—if least reliable—catch in town. Rich, smart, wild, great-looking. They were an unlikely match and yet, to Laquita's way of thinking, inevitable. Temporary, but inevitable.

  All of Laquita's romances before Ben had been temporary. Romance. Now there was a funny term for you. There had been very little that was romantic about her encounters in bars and motel rooms and the back seats of more cars than you'd find in the parking lot during a Patriots game. Sometimes she had been looking for sex, for the oblivion that came with the act, but most of the time she had been looking for the kind of comfort and security she could only find in the arms of an older man or a bottle of vodka. She'd seen a shrink a few years ago, not long after she and Ben started living together, in an attempt to understand why she had done the things she did and the shrink focused on the obvious answer: she was searching for a father figure.

  "I have a father," she had told him. Darnell was a kind-hearted man who loved his kids, all eleven of them.

  "But you have to share him," the shrink had pointed out. "You didn't share the other men."

  But of course she had shared them with their wives and other lovers. Until Ben Taylor came into her life, nobody had ever loved her totally and completely to the exclusion of others and it was a feeling she cherished and returned in full measure. Her feelings for Ben were unlike anything she had ever known before. It was more than sex, more than security, more than the comfort of a pair of strong arms around you in the heart of the night. It was about wanting to share the good and bad of life, sit down with over dinne
r at night and breakfast in the morning. Ben knew her darkest secrets, same as she knew his. They had faced down the monsters in the closet and were still standing.

  She wanted Gracie to know these things. Gracie and Ben had had a terribly troubled relationship and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the blame lay solely at Ben's feet. He had failed miserably as a parent and Gracie deserved all the credit for turning out as well as she had. But Ben had changed, was changing, and more than anything Laquita wanted Gracie to appreciate that fact, to get to know her father before it was too late.

  Because the clock was always ticking. The days passed and then the years and next thing you knew it was time to say goodbye. Every time she looked at Ben, she wondered how much time they would have left and knew it wouldn't be near enough. Her family teased her by calling her an old soul and it was true. She had always been older than her years, able to see the end of things where her friends could only see the beginning. It was part of the reason she had never really enjoyed the company of men her own age. They didn't understand how precious it all was or how quickly it passed.

  Ben did. It was one of the many reasons why she loved him.

  Another wave of apprehension swept over her. Ben was so happy that Graciela was coming home for the wedding. Happy and anxious and hopeful—so hopeful that it almost broke Laquita's heart. He wanted to make things right between him and Gracie. She had told him that they had come a long way over the last few years and that he should be proud of the progress he and his daughter had made toward becoming a family. She had also told him that he shouldn't expect miracles. Maybe Gracie had gone about as far as she was able to go with him and he should accept it and be grateful to have this much.