“Those friends of yours shouldn’t have spent so much money on me,” Ellen said, shaking her head again and gently touching the petals of one of the fat roses. “That Clare would have made a lovely bridesmaid if you had had a real wedding here in Appleville, Virginia.”
Gincy rolled her eyes. “Have a chocolate, Mom.”
“Well, if you say so.” Ellen selected a candy from the box she had already opened. “Um,” she said, after taking a bite. “Caramel. My favorite. I think I’ll have another.”
* * *
Rick arrived at Number Nineteen just after the women had finished lunch. Ellen greeted him in her usual way, as if he were a hero returning from a great and mighty battle. This used to bother Gincy; she used to think her mother was deliberately pointing out the vast difference between her opinion of her daughter and her opinion of her son-in-law. But this time, her mother’s enthusiastic response to Rick’s presence made her smile. After all, she too pretty much thought of Rick as a hero, and had ever since the time twenty years ago when he had come to her rescue in the middle of the night when she thought someone was trying to break into her apartment. In the end the would-be burglar was just Mrs. Norton, her poor, addled neighbor, who had confused Gincy’s apartment with her own. Gincy had been mortified by her show of fear and weakness and had expected the worst from her new boyfriend. But Rick had kept the incident to himself and had never once teased her about it. Another reason to fall in love.
Justin arrived shortly after his father. He was engulfed in his sister’s embrace before his grandmother greeted him with almost as much praise and adulation as she had his father.
Gincy’s initial thought on meeting Justin for the first time all those years ago was that he was his father’s Mini-Me, a being who had sprouted from the forehead of the one parent without the addition of someone else’s DNA. Over the years, though, she had seen Justin grow into some of his birth mother’s physical characteristics; for example, he was several inches taller than his father, as his mother had been. Today he was wearing dark jeans, beautiful brown lace-up shoes, and a tab collar shirt of heavy cotton. The interest in style was another thing Justin had gotten from Annie. Photographs of Rick’s first wife all showed a well-put-together young woman with a flare for wearing long silk scarves and big hoop earrings. That is, until the cancer that had killed her at such a young age first robbed her of her joie de vivre.
“I’ll call Uncle Tommy,” Tamsin said, “and let him know that everyone is here.”
“How are the accommodations?” Gincy asked her husband when Justin had gone off with his grandmother to look at the Christmas tree and especially the little Victorian village Ellen genuinely seemed to love.
“Fine,” he said. “It’s a nice little place. I could only get us one room, but at least there are two beds. You know how Justin tosses and turns all night. I don’t know how his girlfriends stand it.”
Gincy didn’t like to think about Justin and his girlfriends in bed, but she let the remark go. “Look, Rick,” she said. “I had an idea. I’d like to take my mother on a cruise. It doesn’t have to be super high-end—I don’t think Mom would like that and we probably couldn’t afford it—but it has to be nice. I’ve already asked Danielle to help me find the right sort of package.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “And maybe I’ll ask Tommy to stay with Tamsin and me in Boston while you and your mother are away. He is my brother-in-law. It’s about time I took some responsibility for him. Well, you know what I mean. Showed him some real friendship.”
Gincy frowned. “But what would you do with him?”
“We’ll hang out,” Rick said with a shrug. “We could catch a Red Sox game or a hockey or a basketball game. I could take him to the museum.”
“Tommy, at the Museum of Fine Arts? Trolleys, yes. History paintings, not so much. He’ll be bored out of his mind.”
“Now, Gincy,” Rick scolded. “You’re doing it again. Give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Besides, everyone loves ancient Egyptian stuff. Mummies, buried treasure, Cleopatra. He’ll have fun.”
“You’re right,” Gincy said. “Above all, be kind. It’s my new mantra. And look, Rick, I promised Mom this morning that we’re committed to looking out for Tommy in the future.”
“Good. We won’t let him fall through the cracks. So many people get lost.”
“He wouldn’t be happy in Boston,” she said, “so somehow we’ll have to make sure he’s safe and settled in Appleville. We could talk to people who might be willing to give him a full-time job he could handle. Maybe Harriman’s could take him back. I get the feeling he’s become too scared or defeatist to even try for a decent position. And I don’t think he’s ridiculously proud. I think he might welcome our help in getting him a job he likes and not see it as charity. At least, I hope he would welcome our help.”
“And,” Rick said, “we might be able to afford to buy him a small apartment, or to pay his rent if we can’t find a decent place to buy. But I don’t think there’s any rush to make decisions about Tommy’s future. I don’t think your mother is going anywhere yet.”
Gincy smiled. “You think she’s got a new lease on life?”
“Something like that. At least we can hope that she does. And don’t worry, I’ll approach Tommy when the time seems right about what Ellen is giving him in the way of money.”
“I love you, Rick,” Gincy said, throwing her arms around her husband. “Do you know that?”
Rick hugged her back. “I do know that,” he said. “I’ve never doubted it for a second.”
“I was thinking, Rick,” Gincy said. “There’s this local restaurant Mom and Dad used to like. At least, I know they went there a few times over the years. Maybe we all could go there for dinner tonight. I, for one, could use a break from cooking—you know I don’t really enjoy it, and this kitchen is archaic. That is, if Mom wants to go out.”
“Sure. It could be fun. Why don’t you ask her?”
“It’s nothing fancy,” she said, thinking of the Red Rose in Commons Corner. “In fact, it’s pretty much the antithesis of fancy. Not that that bothers me.”
“Rats,” Rick said. “And here I brought my tuxedo.”
CHAPTER 43
Gincy was surprised to learn that not only did her mother very much want to have dinner that evening at the Country Store but also that she had been wanting to have dinner there since her husband died. But because eating alone in public was out of the question for a woman like Ellen Gannon, she had not been to the restaurant since May.
“Your father and I went to the Country Store for dinner the first Saturday of every month for the past twenty-five years,” Ellen told her daughter. It was another nail in the coffin of Gincy’s formerly held notion that her parents had had an unhappy marriage.
“This place looks like fun,” Tamsin said when the family was gathered at the hostess station.
“Are the waiters and waitresses dressed in . . .” Justin watched as a young woman in vaguely eighteenth-century garb—complete with long dress, apron, and mobcap—passed by carrying an enormous tray of empty plates on her shoulder. “Yep,” he said. “Just what I thought.”
The Country Store. Long wooden tables with benches instead of chairs. Wooden barrels full of apples (plastic, Gincy suspected), spinning wheels, bales of hay, metal buckets of all sizes hanging from walls and posts, an oil lantern on every table, and peanut shells scattered across the floor. The décor might have been a nod to an idealized countrified past, but the menu was decidedly twenty-first century—burgers, nachos, triple-decker sandwiches, pizza, and chicken nuggets.
“I used to come here,” Tommy said when the family was seated. “Back when I was with Kate.”
Gincy smiled at her brother. “And what was your favorite thing to order?” she asked.
“The onion blossom. Look, it’s still here on the menu!”
“Is it big enough to share?” Tamsin asked.
“It’s huge,” Tommy a
ssured her. “I’ll get one and we can all eat it. But I’m going to get a burger, too.”
Their waitress arrived shortly after and introduced herself as Stacy. “It’s good to see you, Mrs. Gannon,” she said. “The usual?”
“Yes, please. The beef pot pie. I just love the beef pot pie here.”
“I think I’ll get that, too, Grandma,” Tamsin said.
Tommy, seated to the right of his sister, leaned in and whispered. “What happened to Mom? She seems so much better. What did you say to her?”
Gincy shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. I guess the Christmas season worked its magic.”
“Well, whatever happened, I’m glad. I was starting to think she’d . . .”
“Tommy,” Gincy said, “I think Mom will be with us for a good long while. Hey, I remembered something when Tamsin and I were decorating Mom’s tree. Do you remember the time we made those Christmas ornaments out of Styrofoam and glitter? And we started throwing around the glitter and squeezing the bottles of glue all over the place? You were really young, so maybe you don’t remember.”
“I remember.” Tommy laughed. “We got in so much trouble. Well, mostly it was you who got in trouble. Mom was like, Virginia, you’re the older one, you should have known better.”
Gincy shrugged. “I guess I should have. But we did have fun, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “We did. But you know what? I don’t remember who started throwing stuff around.”
Gincy smiled. “Neither do I, but I guess it doesn’t matter.” All that matters, she thought, was that Tommy and I remember being together.
There was much laughter over the course of the meal, first when Tommy’s onion blossom arrived and proved to be large enough to feed twenty people, then when Justin recounted the antics of his roommate’s new puppy—“I swear his paws are bigger than his head, and he’s constantly tripping over his own ears”—and, of course, when Rick managed to squirt ketchup all over his shirt. “It’s not a night out,” he said, ineffectually wiping at the stain, “without me ruining a shirt.”
When they had all eaten their fill and more and it was time to pay the bill, their waitress told them that the owner of the restaurant had taken care of the cost of Ellen’s meal. “We’re just happy to have you back, Mrs. Gannon,” she said. “Now, try not to be a stranger.”
Tommy patted his mother’s hand. “We could come together, Mom,” he said. “I mean, if you want.”
“I think that would be nice,” Ellen said. “Thank you, Tommy.”
Rick and Justin split the bill. “I make decent money, Dad,” Justin said when his father protested. “It’s not a problem.” After the bill had been paid, father and son went back to the bed-and-breakfast, Rick in his Volvo wagon and Justin in his two-year-old BMW. Tommy got in his truck and headed out, after promising to be at Number Nineteen for breakfast Christmas morning. Gincy got behind the wheel of her car, Ellen beside her and Tamsin in the backseat.
“Put on your seat belt, Mom,” Gincy said, as she started the engine.
“You’re very bossy, Virginia,” her mother replied.
Gincy smiled into the winter dark. “I know,” she said. “I got it from you.”
“Grandma?” Tamsin said. “You want to go to church tomorrow, right?”
“Of course,” Ellen said firmly. “Why in the world wouldn’t I?”
“Good. You—I mean, we’ll all see your friends again.”
“It was almost a perfect evening, wasn’t it, Virginia?” Ellen Gannon said after a moment. Her tone was unmistakably nostalgic but not sad.
“Yes, Mom,” Gincy replied, eyes on the road. “Almost perfect.”
CHAPTER 44
It was Christmas morning and the family, including Tommy, was gathered in the house in which Gincy Gannon had grown up. The house from which she had been desperate to escape. At the moment, she thought, looking around the kitchen table with the permanently sticky cloth, Number Nineteen—and the people who had once lived there and the person who lived there still—didn’t seem so bad at all.
Ellen had insisted on making breakfast for everyone, and though the result was the usual not-so-good—edible if not enticing—at least she accomplished the entire meal on her own without incident. It was another step in the right direction.
Afterward, Tamsin and Gincy cleaned up, under Ellen’s unnecessary directions.
“Virginia,” she ordered, “don’t use that sponge. Use this one.”
“Okay, Mom.” After all, Gincy thought, wiping the counter next to the sink, it was her mother’s house. She had the right to be in charge.
“And Tamsin, check that your mother has thoroughly washed the glasses.”
“Yes, Grandma.”
When Ellen was satisfied that her daughter wasn’t going to make more of a mess than she had set out to clean up, she announced that she was off to take a shower.
Justin, accompanied by Tommy, went to start on the list of minor repairs of the sort that his grandfather would normally have handled—the chores beyond Gincy’s rudimentary skills.
“I’m not much good with my hands,” Tommy said before they set out from the kitchen. “I won’t be of much help.”
Justin, carrying his grandfather’s toolbox, smiled. “Sure you will, Tommy. A job is always easier with a buddy along. And you can hold the level for me. It’s what I used to do for Grandpa.”
“There’s an extra branch.”
Justin shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“When I put the Christmas tree together, there was a branch left over. I couldn’t figure out where it goes.”
Justin laughed. “Happens all the time. We’ll figure it out together.”
When they had gone off, Gincy sighed. “Seeing those two together,” she said to her husband, “it’s such a contrast. Justin has so much, and Tommy, well, he has so little.”
Rick turned from Ellen’s wonky stove, where he had been fiddling with the oven controls. “He has us,” he pointed out. “And I think we’re better than nothing.”
I hope so, Gincy thought. “You know, Rick,” she said, as he continued to battle with the oven controls, “I’ve realized that I have to take care of Mom for Dad’s sake if for nothing else. He loved my mother, I know he did. And she loved him. There’s good in her. I’ve finally seen and acknowledged that. And,” she added, picking up the frying pan and eyeing it warily, “I have got to get her some new cookware! The bottom on this is almost eaten through. What has she been doing to it? Cleaning it with acid?”
“At the very least we have to get her a new oven,” Rick said with a frown. “If this thing gets up to temperature by the time we’re back from church, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. But we’ll wait until her birthday in February. You know how she is. If we try to give her a big gift at any other time but a holiday, she’ll see it as charity and refuse it.”
Gincy laughed. “You’re so right. Which is why I’m pretty sure she’ll accept our gift of a cruise only if we emphasize that it’s a Christmas present.”
At ten o’clock the family gathered in the living room. Ellen sat in the middle of the couch, rather than in her usual armchair, her children on either side of her. Rick perched on the arm of the couch, next to his wife. And then he yelped.
“What the blazes is that thing?” he said, pointing with a trembling finger at the brown and beige crocheted object sitting under the tree.
Tamsin scurried over and shoved the Christmas snake behind the Victorian village. “Nothing, Dad,” she said. “Forget it.”
Tamsin joined her brother on the floor. Ah, Gincy thought. The suppleness of youth. It wasn’t the getting down that was so difficult. It was the getting back up again.
“Time for gifts,” Tamsin announced.
Ellen frowned. “I’m afraid I never got around to shopping except for when Virginia’s friend Clare took us to the fair at my church.”
“Grandma,” Tamsin said, “we’re just happy to be here with you. That’
s your gift to us.”
And, Gincy thought, there would be many more gifts to give and receive once the Luongo family was back home in Boston. Her daughter was a truly good person, but she was as avaricious at heart as any teenage girl; weeks earlier she had given her parents an extensive wish list. And Justin had hinted that he had his eye on some new electronic gadget or other. Rick had seen to that. Her children would not be disappointed, and neither would her husband when he saw that she had gotten him tickets to a revival of Amadeus, one of his favorite plays. And there was that new brown leather blazer waiting for her to try on and just possibly a Georgian fede ring....
Justin reached up and took his grandmother’s hand. “Grandma, Uncle Tommy showed me that new frame Grandpa was making for your grandmother’s mirror. I’d like to finish it for you, if that’s okay. I’m not saying I’m as good a woodworker as Grandpa was, but he did teach me everything I know.”
“That would be wonderful, Justin,” Ellen said. “Thank you.”
Rick wiped a tear from his eye. “That’s our boy,” he whispered to Gincy.
Tamsin handed her grandmother a small package tied with a red ribbon. “I saw you looking at this at the Christmas fair,” she said, “but I knew you wouldn’t buy it for yourself, so I got it for you when you weren’t looking.”
Ellen carefully removed the ribbon and wrapping paper from the package. Her mother, Gincy thought, would trim off any ragged edge and use the paper again. Well, thrift wasn’t a bad thing. What had her father always said? Waste not, want not.
It was an embroidered eyeglass case. “Thank you, Tamsin,” Ellen said. “I was admiring this. The case I have is falling apart. I’ve mended it twice but . . .”
Tamsin turned to Tommy. “And Uncle Tommy? We got you a membership at the trolley museum! They’re sending you your membership card in the mail. And your engineer’s hat!”
Gincy had never seen her brother so flustered, and it moved her. “I don’t know what to say,” he began. “It’s like . . . They have that course where you get to drive a trolley . . . and they’re getting a new streetcar next spring, all the way from England.”
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