Shore Lights

by Barbara Bretton

He knew the photograph well. It was the last one taken of Irene and Michael O’Malley before the Easter Sunday hurricane of 1952 roared across the inlet, taking everything in its path. The dock. The boats bobbing next to it. The restaurant they had built up from nothing.

  And Michael O’Malley himself.

  “What do you think?” Kelly asked. “Maybe it’ll bring back some happy memories for her on Christmas morning.”

  He hadn’t the heart to remind her that it had been a long time since Grandma Irene had cared much about dented teapots. Or her family, for that matter. Holidays had become nothing but another way of counting down the years.

  It was a feeling he understood too damn well.

  “You sure she’d want something like this? Looks like a piece of rust to me.”

  Kelly sighed loudly. “Oh, Dad, really. It’s perfect. You’ll see. All you have to do is log on to the auction site and make sure nobody outbids you.”

  “Whoa,” he said. “Let’s establish a few limits here.”

  Kelly gave him the I-can’t-believe-you’re-really-my-father look she had perfected over the last seventeen years. “It shouldn’t be more than seventy-five dollars,” she said casually. “But you can go up as high as one hundred.”

  He widened his eyes. “You have a hundred dollars to spend?”

  “I have a lot more than a hundred dollars,” she said, grabbing her books from the kitchen counter. “It’s from the money I’ve been saving for college expenses.”

  Other kids begged, borrowed, and stole money from their parents. His kid could open a savings and loan with what she’d put away baby-sitting, waiting tables at the clam bar during the summer, and tutoring. Sometimes he wondered why, in a life that had featured more than its share of shit, he’d been given this gift of pure gold.

  Other times he just thanked God.

  “Be careful,” he said as she plucked her car keys from the pegboard near the door. “It’s icy outside. Maybe I should drive you to school.”

  The look on her face was one of complete horror.

  “Okay,” he said, laughing. “I rescind the offer. Just take it slow and remember those are all-wheel brakes.”

  “You worry too much.” She rose up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. A second later she was gone, leaving behind the faint scent of maple syrup and herbal shampoo in her wake.

  You’d be proud of her, Sandy. She’s everything you were at that age . . . everything we prayed she would be.

  He had pretty much gotten over the habit of talking to his dead wife years ago, but lately he’d found himself wishing Sandy could come back for an hour—even fifteen minutes—just long enough for her to see the wonder their baby girl had turned out to be. Kelly was bright and pretty and kind-hearted. She was popular at school; the other students as well as the teachers loved her. It hadn’t been easy for her growing up without a mother, but you’d never know it by the way she sailed through life with a smile for everyone.

  “You’ve done a great job with her,” his sister-in-law, Claire, said the other day when he told her about the full scholarship. He would have liked to take credit for it, but he knew he had about as much to do with his daughter’s success as he had to do with the last presidential election. Kelly was a force unto herself. All he ever had to do was point her in the right direction and trust her to do the rest.

  Lately he’d had the feeling that he had been doing too much of that over the last few years. Since the accident, the focus had been so clearly on Billy’s death and his own recovery, that Kelly’s needs had been put on the back burner. Don’t worry about Kelly, they all said. That girl was born knowing the right thing to do.

  He should be proud of that fact, but there were times when what he actually felt was guilt. She was such a good kid, so dependable, that sometimes he thought he hadn’t paid as much attention to her as she deserved. She seemed to float above the fray, always making the right decisions, always exceeding expectations while her old man fought the world on a daily basis and more times than not came up the loser. What the hell could he tell her that she hadn’t been born knowing?

  He tapped in a new bid, wincing as he saw the numbers creeping uncomfortably close to triple digits. What did Kelly want with this piece of junk anyway? His grandmother would take one weary look at it, muster up a criticism, then drift back into her memories of a world long past. Kelly’s excitement would swiftly turn to disappointment, and he would be left trying to explain to her that it was nothing personal.

  The irony would be lost on a bubbly seventeen-year-old girl with a heart of gold and enough enthusiasm to light the world. She believed she could make a difference, his little girl did. She believed that good people could do great things, and when he looked into her eyes (eyes so much like her mother’s) he could almost believe it, too.

  What difference did another twenty bucks make? If she wanted that teakettle for Irene, he’d make damn sure she got it.

  He tapped in the number, pressed Enter, then sat back to see what JerseyGirl had to say about it.

  MADDY COULDN’T BELIEVE her eyes. One minute to go and FireGuy topped her bid by twenty bucks. There were names for that kind of bidder. What kind of louse would lurk in the shadows until the very last second, then leap into the fray with an over-the-top bid designed to snatch that treasure out of your hands before you could type in one last set of numbers.

  She quickly scrolled down, tapped in a totally ridiculous figure, one that would have sent Rose flying to the phone to dial 911, then hit Enter.

  “Take that!” she hurled at the screen. A number big enough to give even the most rabid bidder pause. She leaned back in her chair and glowered at the monitor, almost daring FireGuy to up the ante one last time. She’d show him how it was done. Nobody got the better of JerseyGirl, not while there was still breath in her typing fingers. FireGuy hadn’t a clue what he was up against.

  Eighteen seconds. Seventeen. Sixteen . . .

  CLAIRE MEEHAN O’MALLEY, Aidan’s sister-in-law and business partner, leaned over his shoulder and surveyed the scene.

  “FireGuy!” she said with a bark of laughter. “Don’t tell me you’re prowling the chatrooms, Aidan!”

  “Can it,” he said, furiously tapping away at the keyboard.

  Fifteen seconds . . . fourteen . . .

  “Shoreline Singles, right?” Claire could barely speak for laughing.“‘Where the Elite Go to Meet . . . true love is just a click away.’”

  He shot her a look. “Sounds like you’ve been there yourself.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Claire said. “Come on.’Fess up. Loneliness isn’t a crime, brother-in-law. I don’t blame you if you’re chatting up somebody on-line. About time you got back in circulation after—” She stopped. There was no need to finish the sentence.

  “I’m not in a chatroom.”

  “Fine, fine.” She backed away, hands up in surrender. “Don’t tell me. You know I’ll find out sooner or later. We O’Malley women are relentless.”

  “Stow it, will you?”

  “If it isn’t a chatroom, then it must be an auction.” She laughed again, louder this time. “An auction! The guy who thinks shopping is cruel and unusual punishment. I can’t believe it!”

  Ten seconds . . . nine . . .

  What the hell was wrong with the computer? He pressed Enter once, then twice, and nothing. He reentered the figures and hit Enter again.

  “Not now,” he muttered to the screen. “Come on . . . come on . . . gimme one more second . . . yeah!” The screen flickered and he held his breath while it refreshed itself.

  THIS AUCTION HAS ENDED WINNING BIDDER: JERSEYGIRL (53)

  He groaned, then fixed Claire with a baleful look. “I lost.”

  “You look like it’s the end of the world,” Claire remarked as she began pouring salted peanuts into a dozen red plastic bowls. “What were you bidding on: The Secret History of Captain Kirk?”

  “Not funny.” He clicked over to check the tides on his favorite Sou
th Jersey site. His fondness for all things Star Trek was the basis for much of what passed for humor at the O’Malley. “It was for Kelly.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” She snagged a peanut from one of the bowls and popped it in her mouth. “Shopping for a teenager is hell. You’d be better off giving her a gift certificate.”

  “Not this time. She asked me to bid on a teakettle she wanted for Grandma Irene.”

  Claire’s normally cheerful features contracted into a scowl. “I don’t know why you two bother. It’s not like that old lady ever did anything for anyone in this family but herself.”

  It was an old argument. “She’s my grandmother. She took Billy and me in after our parents died. She’s Kelly’s only link with—”

  “What a load of crap. That bitch doesn’t have a sentimental bone in her body.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “The hell I don’t. The old bat didn’t so much as send a mass card when Billy died. Her own grandson—” Her voice broke and she took a moment to regroup. “You don’t forget things like that, Aidan.”

  He could have reminded Claire of the incident at Billy’s funeral when she turned Irene away, but what was the point. There was enough guilt and blame and pain for all of them.

  “She’s an old woman. She’s been through a lot.”

  “And we haven’t? She’s all for herself. Always has been, always will be. Kelly’s been trying since the day she was born to make that cow love her—what makes you think it’s going to work now?”

  He pushed back from the counter and stood up. “I don’t think it’s going to work now, okay? I don’t think there’s a chance in hell Irene’s going to change. Not for your kids and not for mine.”

  “Listen, I—”

  “I’m not going to fight old battles with you, Red.” He reached out and ruffled her mop of silver-dusted auburn curls, but she pulled away.

  “I’m serious, Aidan. Don’t waste your time on that old battle-ax. You don’t owe her anything. None of us does.”

  Her pain and anger filled the room, edging out everything else. Claire had grown up in a large and happy family who had never known an emotion they didn’t express. Even during the worst of times (and there had been plenty), she took love as a given, the one constant upon which everything else depended. Irene’s indifference to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren was beyond Claire’s comprehension.

  Aidan had long since abandoned dreams of some great familial epiphany that ended with a group hug and a chorus of “Home Sweet Home.” Irene had opened her house to Aidan and Billy after their parents died, but she had never quite managed to open her heart. He had spent a great part of his life wondering why his own grandmother didn’t love him, but he had come to realize the answer would remain hidden away with the rest of Irene’s secrets.

  “Kelly has to figure it all out on her own,” he said finally. “If she wants to give Irene a teakettle for Christmas, I’m not going to stand in the way.”

  “And Kel thinks a teakettle will bring about this miracle?”

  “She hopes it’ll bring back some happy memories of when Irene and Mike owned the restaurant.”

  Claire sighed loudly. “I didn’t think O’Malleys bred optimists.”

  “Me neither,” he said as he reached for a bar towel. If it wasn’t for bad luck, the O’Malleys would have no luck at all.

  Chapter Four

  “YES!” MADDY LEANED back in her chair and admired the notice on the computer screen. “Oh, Hannah, wait until you see this!”

  CONGRATULATIONS, JERSEYGIRL! YOU WON ITEM

  #5815796

  GENUINE ANTIQUE RUSSIAN SAMOVAR

  CLICK HERE TO USE SPEEDPAY

  She hit Enter, typed in her password, clicked YES YES and YES, then waited while the screen dissolved, then reassembled itself. The seller promised to ship within forty-eight hours, and with a little bit of luck, Hannah’s magic lamp would be wrapped and tucked away in the closet by this time next week.

  She exited the program, pushed back her chair, then dashed down the back hallway into the kitchen, where her mother and her aunt Lucy were slicing orange segments for the guests’ salads.

  “Congratulations are in order, ladies!” she announced as she reached for a slice of orange. “I’m a winner!”

  “You won the Lotto?” Lucy asked, deftly slipping her paring knife between the membranes. “Which one: the Pick Three or Pick Four? Pick Six I would’ve seen in the paper.”

  “Not the Lotto,” Maddy said, kissing her aunt’s Estée Lauder’d cheek. “I won a samovar.”

  Lucy turned a puzzled face to her sister. “A what?”

  “A rusty teapot,” Rose said, shaking her head. “Can you believe it?”

  She kissed Rose’s cheek for good measure. I’m trying, Mother, but you don’t make it easy. “It’s almost an antique.”

  “It’s a piece of junk.”

  She ignored her mother’s jibe. “FireGuy gave it his best shot, but I was a woman on a mission and I wouldn’t be denied.”

  Rose looked over at her sister. “You wouldn’t believe what they get for junk on those auction sites.”

  “It’s for Hannah,” Maddy said, wishing she didn’t sound quite so apologetic. She was a grown woman, too, and a mother. She didn’t have to apologize to anyone for the choices she made for her daughter, no matter how ridiculous they might sound to the rest of her literal, practical, no-nonsense family. “She’s always wanted a magic lamp, and this is the next best thing.”

  Aunt Lucy frowned. “I thought you said it was a teapot.”

  “It is a teapot,” Rose said. “A plain, ordinary, rusty, overpriced teapot.”

  “Yes, but it’s a rusty teapot with magical powers.” Hey, why not? They already thought she was out of her mind. She might as well add a little more fuel to the fire.

  “Magical powers?” Aunt Lucy crossed herself. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “Oh, don’t be an idiot,” Rose said, swatting her big sister with the wet end of a dishtowel. “The only magic thing about that pot is the way it made Maddy’s money disappear.”

  Lucy burst into laughter while Rose looked like a one-hundred-pound cat who’d caught a particularly tasty canary.

  “I’m glad the two of you find this so amusing.” Maddy glared at her mother across the bounty of food strewn across the worktable. “Nothing you DiFalco girls like more than stomping on someone’s imagination.” She almost said “dream,” but she was afraid they’d launch into a medley of Frank Sinatra songs.

  “Maddy, really! Why do you always take things so seriously. I was only—”

  Who said time travel was impossible? Thirteen words uttered by a woman with dyed red hair, and Maddy was catapulted back to the glory days of her adolescence when the mere sound of Rose’s voice was enough to send her running headlong into the night. Racing down the back hallway to the office didn’t have quite the same impact, not when you were thirty-two and a mother yourself, but a slammed door still made a statement that even the most stubborn woman on earth couldn’t ignore. Her heart was beating so fast she sat down on the edge of the desk and wondered if the Paradise Point rescue squad had a defibrillator.

  “Hello?” A soft voice sounded at the door she had just about knocked off its hinges.

  Oh, God. Not Mrs. Loewenstein again. Didn’t the woman know she was supposed to be off somewhere with Mr. Loewenstein, reveling in the romantic wonders of the Garden State.

  “Is everything all right in there?”

  Maddy swallowed a string of words not usually heard at the Candlelight. When was she going to remember this was no longer Grandma Fay’s house but Rose’s tribute to the romance of capitalism?

  “Everything’s fine, Mrs. Loewenstein.” She opened the office door a crack and smiled up at the elderly woman. “Sorry if the noise startled you. A gust of wind slammed the door shut.”

  “Wind?” Mrs. Loewenstein peered over Maddy’s head into the room. “Your win
dows are shut tight.”

  She inched her smile up another notch. “Oh, you know how drafty these old houses can be.”

  “You need more insulation,” Mrs. Loewenstein said with a sage nod of her head. “I’ll give you my son Buddy’s card. He’ll take good care of you.”

  Maddy thanked her, then closed the door. She considered locking it, but that was probably against the innkeeper’s code of ethics.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she said out loud. “Not in a million years.”

  ROSE SIGHED AT the sound of the office door slamming shut a second time. “She used to do that when she was a teenager. I was hoping she’d grow out of it by the time she turned thirty.”

  Lucy turned to face her sister. “Did I say something wrong? I probably shouldn’t have said that about the Pick Six.”

  “No,” said Rose. “I said something wrong.” She attacked one of the oranges with a cleaver. “Everything I say is wrong these days.”

  “Maddy always did have a flair for the dramatic.” Lucy finished sectioning the last orange in her bowl, then rinsed her hands at the double sink. “I’m surprised she didn’t end up in the theater.”

  “Ma always said Maddy was one tantrum away from winning an Oscar.” Not at all like the relentlessly practical, fiercely earthbound DiFalco sisters. If Rose hadn’t endured twenty-three hours of labor to deliver the child, she wouldn’t have believed Maddy was her own flesh and blood. Maddy was mercurial, emotional, impulsive. All the things her mother wasn’t and never would be.

  All the things Rose didn’t understand.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing I never had children,” Lucy mused as she dried her hands on a snowy-white kitchen towel. “I don’t know what I would have done with a daughter like Maddy.”

  “You couldn’t have done any worse than I did.” The sharp edge of the counter dug into her hipbone as she attacked an orange with wild swipes of the knife. “I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.”

  “In other words, nothing has changed.”

  She considered bashing one of the oranges with the meat mallet, but thought better of it. Orange bits in the hollandaise would be unacceptable at the four-star Candlelight. “It’s worse than ever, Lucia. We’re at each other’s throats every second. It’s like the last fifteen years never happened and we’re right back where we were.”