by Susan Wiggs
Sean and his nieces stampeded upstairs. In the kitchen, Lily heard the swish of running water and random giggles from the girls. Today, for the first time, Lily began to believe that Crystal’s children would survive their terrible loss. Until now, doubts had been all twisted up inside her, knotting into hard despair. Finally, she was able to relax. A little, at least.
Something else had happened today, a connection to the children and Sean that troubled Lily. She knew she had to keep her distance from this family, because they didn’t belong to her. He might decide to move to Phoenix next week, and just like that, they’d be gone. Lily didn’t know if she could survive a loss like that.
The dishwasher light indicated that the cycle was over, so she decided to unload it. Sean and Charlie had insisted on doing the dishes, and they were haphazardly piled in the racks. Lily pursed her lips, vowed not to let the disorganization ruffle her. Despite the way the dishes were loaded, they all came out clean. She was finishing up when Sean came downstairs alone.
“That was quick,” she said.
“They’re still in the tub. I just came down to get some towels out of the dryer.”
Her blood froze momentarily, then rushed boiling hot through her. A plastic cereal dish tumbled from her fingers. “My God, you can’t leave them alone.” She raced upstairs and burst through the open door of the bathroom. She felt Sean’s presence behind her but ignored him.
The girls were facing each other, up to their armpits in bubbles.
“Lily,” said Ashley, squishing a sponge in her hands.
She didn’t answer but turned and grabbed a towel from Sean, who stood in the doorway. The towel was still warm from the dryer. She got Ashley out of the tub, dried her off and got her ready for bed. “You, too, Charlene Louise,” she said to Charlie. “Unplug the drain.”
“Are you mad at us?” Charlie asked, clutching a towel around her. Bubbles still clung to her skinny legs.
Lily tried to will her heart to stop its panicked leaping. “Of course not.”
“Are you mad at Uncle Sean?”
Lily said, “It’s bedtime. Let’s see how quick you can get your jammies on.”
“That’s what grown-ups always say when they want a kid to shut up and go to bed.”
“That’s because it’s more polite than saying ‘shut up and go to bed.’”
Apparently satisfied with that answer, Charlie put on an oversize satin peignoir that dragged along the floor behind her. Noticing Lily’s look, she spread her arms like pale wings. “It was Mom’s,” she explained. “I sleep better when I wear it. Come and say good-night, Uncle Sean,” she called as Lily tucked her in bed.
He came into the room the girls shared. “Good-night, Uncle Sean,” he called back, clearly a running joke with them. He kissed the baby and handed her a toy to hide in the crib. Then he kissed Charlie on the head. “Good night, Zippy,” he said.
“’Night, Duke.”
As they went downstairs together, Lily felt disoriented by his sweetness with the girls. She wondered if he understood the power of that moment, and if he realized, as she did, that this arrangement was actually working. Then she remembered that, sweet or not, he had just done something extremely frightening. “What were you thinking, leaving them in the bath unattended?”
“They like taking their bath together. I ducked out for maybe thirty seconds to get some towels.”
“They can’t be left alone in the bath ever again, do you hear me? Ashley is too little to take a bath unsupervised. And Charlie is too young to watch her even for thirty seconds. You need to promise it won’t happen again.”
He waved off her concern. “They were fine.”
“If you think that, you’re fooling yourself.”
“Hey, I’m doing the best I can. It’s awkward as hell with Charlie. I’m not her father and I don’t want to cross the line, if you know what I mean.”
She pushed down the panic climbing up in her throat. “All right. I get it. Charlie will have to take a bath on her own, but keep the door open and make sure you can hear her. You’re going to have to monitor the baby every single second, do you understand? You cannot even blink when she’s in the bath.”
He looked surprised by her vehemence. “Got it. No blinking.”
“I’m not fussing about this, Sean. You can’t dismiss this like you do my ideas about nutrition and TV and the right way to load the dishwasher.” She felt a fury of tears stinging her eyes and turned away to hide it. “This is life and death. Things can happen—everything can change—in the blink of an eye.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Think of what it would do to Charlie if something happened, just think.” Her words came out in a passionate rush and when she stopped, she felt exhausted.
She looked up to find him staring at her, his expression cryptic. If he dared to argue with her, if he offered so much as a breath of contradiction, she would lose it, she just knew she would.
He inhaled a breath and then let it halfway out. “You’re right,” he said. “I was being stupid.”
Lord, thought Lily, his honesty was amazing. He was amazing. A few weeks ago he was some playboy golfer with nothing but his own selfish interests at heart. Now he had put all that aside and was willing to admit a mistake. She’d never really seen a man do that before.
He was trying to learn how this worked, to knit these wounded children into a family, and he was so sincere that it broke her heart.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Then it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth—the truth about what happened to Evan and the way it still haunted her. She had never said a word to anyone, not to her parents or even to Violet. Now she astounded herself by saying, “I know you think I overreacted, but there’s a reason for that. I lost someone close to me a long time ago. It was an accidental drowning.”
“Jesus, Lily. I’m sorry to hear that.”
She took his arm and pulled him out to the screened porch to make sure they were out of earshot of Charlie. And out of the light. For some reason, she knew she wouldn’t be able to talk about this in the light. “There used to be three children in our family, but my brother Evan…well, he didn’t survive being a Robinson.” She paused, weighing the burden crushing down on her, wondering if it could possibly be shifted. “If you ask my parents, he didn’t survive me.”
“You just said he drowned.”
She nodded. “I was right next to him in the bathtub when it happened.”
“Jesus,” he said again. “So you were a kid, right?”
“Three years old.”
“And your brother…?”
“He never saw his first birthday.” All her life, Lily had tried to recapture that night. She could still feel herself deep in the fluffy softness of Mr. Bubble, but she had never been able to remember Evan beside her. She sometimes wondered if, without her mother’s reminders, she would recall the incident at all.
She scarcely remembered Evan, either. Occasional flashes and flickers of memory, nothing more. A glint of light upon a smooth baby cheek, that was all. The sound of a soft cry in the night. When she looked at old family photos, she saw them together, and judging by those photos, she adored her brother.
Lily sometimes wondered what Evan would be like if he’d survived. She found herself studying men his age, trying to imagine her brother all grown up. Would he be tall and substantial like Violet, or small and slight like Lily? Would he be gregarious, successful, emotional, reserved? She couldn’t even begin to imagine how different her own life would be, had he survived. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so cautious and reserved. She might trust herself to fall in love, make a family, be a mother.
The gathering darkness had the closed-in feel of a confessional. She’d been raised Catholic but had never gained absolution no matter how many times she recited the Act of Contrition. “I always thought I should remember such a huge disaster,” she told Sean. “How can I not remember it? How is it that my brother,
my own flesh and blood, slipped underwater and drowned with me right next to him? How did I fail to notice?” A thousand times, she had asked herself why she hadn’t reached out and grabbed his wet, slippery arm to pull him to safety.
“You were three years old, that’s how,” Sean stated. “A baby. The question I have is, where were your parents?”
“There was some emergency with Violet, and my mother stepped out for one minute,” Lily said. “Three, tops.” She braided her fingers together. “Sometimes I think what came after was even worse. My mother was investigated for neglect, and Violet and I were sent to a foster home for a time, though I have no memory of that, either. When we came home, everything was different. We were a family who forgot how to be happy.” She shivered, although the night was balmy with the promise of summer. “So that’s it. To this day I have no idea exactly what happened, but my mother was right about one thing. I was old enough to have saved him.”
Lily knew her loss governed everything. The fact that a life had slipped away in her presence had defined her and affected every choice she made. She had never forgiven herself. How could she? Because of the past, she forbade herself to get attached to people. She remained childless, translating her yearning for a child into teaching.
“With all due respect to your mother, she fed you a line of crap, I suppose to relieve her own sense of guilt,” Sean said. “I’m sorry, Lily. For your whole family, but especially for you.”
They were quiet together, and for no particular reason, she felt oddly comforted. In grief counseling, they spoke of good days and bad ones. Lily didn’t really have those. She had good moments and bad ones, around the clock. This particular moment was a good one. She felt curiously light and warm.
“Would you like to have a glass of wine?” she asked him.
“No,” he said, then grinned at her thoroughly discomfited expression. “I’d like to have a beer. However, I do have a Fetzer merlot—all organic—you might like.”
“Yes,” she said, ducking her head. “I might.”
He went and fixed the drinks, handing her the glass of wine. They went outside to sit on the back steps and watch the moon rise. Lily tasted the wine, watching him over the rim of the glass. He ought to be in a beer commercial, she thought. A beer commercial aimed at women. No woman in America could resist a man who did the dishes, put the kids to bed and then sat down to crack open a cold one.
“Want a sip?” he asked, tipping the can toward her.
Yes. “No,” she said. “No, thanks. The wine’s fine.”
“You looked as though you wanted some of mine.”
“I’ve never been a beer drinker.”
“I’ll remember that. So,” he said, “what do you usually do on a Saturday night?”
“Well, not this. Not baring my soul to an unsuspecting man. Sorry about that, by the way.”
“I didn’t mind. Maybe next week you’ll bare something else.”
The man had a girlfriend and he was flirting with her. What a jerk, she thought. But deep down, she knew he wasn’t a jerk. “Anyway, Friday’s generally movie night and Saturday is—” Date night. She didn’t say it aloud. “I tend to go out with friends, people from school, mostly. Crystal and I have—had—season tickets to the Portland Opera.” She took a hurried drink of her wine. “I told her lawyer to give them away.”
“I don’t blame you one bit.”
“Yes, the memories would be too painful.”
“I was thinking the opera would be too painful.”
“So you’re not an opera fan,” she mused. “There’s a surprise.”
He stifled a yawn, but she noticed.
“I should go,” she said, looking for a place to set her wineglass.
“Don’t.” He put a hand on her arm, gentle but insistent. “Stay. Please.”
His touch made her feel strange, tingly all over, and languid. She was grateful for the darkness that hid her blush.
He took his hand away and grinned at her. “These days I need all the adult conversation I can get.”
And he couldn’t find that with Maura? Maybe he just had sex with Maura, no conversation.
The thought sparked her temper. “There’s something you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“I think we can get along,” she said, “but when I’m here, I’m here for the kids. Because their mother was my best friend and she wanted me to care for them.”
He leaned back against the stair rail and finished his beer. “Okay. I get it. Didn’t mean to assume you have any other reason to give me the time of day.”
She gave a dry laugh of disbelief. “Oh, forgive me for not falling down at your feet.”
“For that, I thank you. I can’t stand it when women fall at my feet. Makes it hard to get around.”
“Very funny.”
“Which reminds me, I have a serious question to ask you.”
She caught her breath, flirting with a brief fantasy before reminding herself of what she’d just told him—she was here for the kids. “What’s the serious question?”
“I’m having a will drawn up.” He smiled. “My first. For the first time, it actually matters if I die.”
“That’s a very strange thing to say.”
“But truthful. Before this, before the kids, I had nothing. Now I’m all they’ve got, and if something happens to me, they should be provided for. So I’m asking you, Lily. Can I designate you as guardian in my will?”
“Absolutely.” She spoke without hesitation. She didn’t allow herself to ask him why he’d pick her and not Maura; she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear that Maura was too busy preparing to serve all humanity as a physician. “When it rains, it pours,” she said. “My sister asked me the same thing. So you have to make the same promise she made.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t let anything happen to you.”
“Deal,” he said, clinking his can to her glass. “So you have what, nieces? Nephews?”
“One of each. I could find myself with five kids if you and Violet check out on me.”
“You’d make a fine guardian, being a teacher and all.”
Lily shook her head. “I never planned to have kids.”
“Because you lost your brother?”
She nearly choked with outrage. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“It’s pretty obvious, Lil. You love kids. I can see that in you. But you’re scared to be a mother and I bet it’s because you never got over a loss you don’t even remember.” He paused, and she could think of no reply. Then he asked, “Are you mad?”
Still she said nothing.
“Hey,” he said. “I never planned to have kids, either. And look at me now—Mr. Mom.”
She noticed that the wine was imparting a pleasant buzz. It occurred to her to ask for a refill, but she had to drive home. “You’re the one who makes a fine guardian,” she said.
He looked at her, startled. “You’re really something, you know?”
No, she didn’t know. “That’s not the sort of thing people say to me.”
He brushed the back of his hand against her arm briefly, yet she felt that touch all the way to the middle of her heart. No, she thought, this was wrong. “Sean—”
A car’s headlamps swung across the backyard, illuminating the garden. Sean frowned. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
They stepped out onto the driveway just as a man got out of the driver’s side. Small and wiry, he looked both vaguely familiar and hopping mad.
“Something the matter, Duffy?” asked Sean.
It was Charles McDuff, the greenskeeper from the golf course.
“A little something, I’d say,” the older man replied with a hint of a Scottish brogue.
The passenger door opened, and Lily’s heart dropped to her stomach. She felt it land like a lead weight. She heard Sean catch his breath.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We need to talk about your nephew.�
� Duffy glared at Cameron.
The boy tossed his head and glared right back.
chapter 31
“So did your uncle just completely freak on you?” asked Jason Schaefer. He kept his voice down to a low murmur so Duffy, the greenskeeper who was overseeing their punishment, couldn’t hear them.
Cameron was snapping on oversize coveralls in preparation for his enforced community service. Because they’d trashed the golf course, he and his two friends would be spending a long time with the greenskeeper. A very long time.
“So did he freak out or what?” Jason prodded.
Cameron sat down to put on the waders Duffy had provided. “Yeah, I guess.”
It was worse than that, actually. His mother, had she been alive, would have gone into freak mode, crying and wringing her hands and wondering what people would say. His father would have bust a cap, too, thundering warnings about how Cameron was jeopardizing his future.
His uncle and Lily, who for some reason had stayed late the night Duffy had gone to the Schaefers’ and threatened to bring in the cops, had reacted with an almost eerie quiet. Sean had thanked Duffy for bringing Cameron home and promised a call to the police wouldn’t be necessary—this time.
Then he and Lily had taken him inside. Cameron had expected anger or at least a frustrated “What were you thinking?”
His uncle hadn’t freaked. Neither had Lily. They hadn’t said much at all and Cameron had the uncanny feeling they both knew exactly what he was thinking, probably better than he did.
“Well, shit,” said Andrew Meyer, their other accomplice. “I wish you’d listened to me. We had a story and we should have stuck with it.”
“You had the story,” Cameron muttered. “You told it to anyone at school who’d listen.”
“I only told one person, just one,” Andy said. “She promised she wouldn’t say a word.”
“Idiot,” Jason said.
“You’re the one who sang like a bird when the coach questioned you,” Andy said.
“Only after you told them to question me,” Jason snapped.
“All right, that’s enough chatter,” Duffy said. “You gentlemen have some work to do.”