The Mommy Wish

by Pamela Browning

  “I believe he meant that I’m an heiress.” She never thought of herself that way; she’d always worked for a living. But she and her siblings would inherit Emmett’s considerable fortune someday.

  “That’s the word. Are you rich, Molly?”

  “No, Phoebe, but I have a very good job in my family’s company. I hope it will be a long, long time before I inherit any money. Now, how about if we head below and get ready to go buy that paper?”

  “Okay,” Phoebe said obediently, hopping down off the bench.

  Molly followed her, wondering how much Eric knew about her inheritance. It wasn’t something she’d ever brought up, but maybe Emmett had let the information drop when he and Eric became friendly in North Carolina.

  AS THEY RETURNED from the drugstore after buying Phoebe’s paper, they detoured past A Perfect Vacuum so that Phoebe could study the Robo-Kleen in the window.

  “Well, Miss Phoebe, what can I do for you?” Ralph Whister, the jovial vacuum-cleaner shop owner, grinned at them from his shop’s front stoop, where he was sweeping cobwebs away from the overhead light.

  “I came to see the Robo-Kleen,” Phoebe said, gazing up at him wide-eyed. “I want to draw it in art class.”

  “Oh, Phoebe,” Molly said, “maybe you should draw something else. Remember what your dad said.”

  Phoebe pursed her lips. “I might draw trees and flowers and stuff to keep him from bugging me, but I’m still going to draw vacuum cleaners,” she said stubbornly.

  “Say, if that’s what you like to do, how about drawing me some? I’ll let you put them on my bulletin board,” said Mr. Whister.

  “Could I? You mean it?” Phoebe’s eyes sparkled in delight.

  “Of course. Join me inside, I want to show you something.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t,” Molly said. “It’s Sunday.”

  “No problem. I went to an early church service today and thought I’d stop by here and handle the maintenance chores.” Once inside, he led them behind the counter and gestured at a bulletin board on the wall. “See, I tacked up photos of some of the prettiest vacuums, but I don’t have any drawings.”

  “That’s a crowded bulletin board,” Phoebe said doubtfully. “I don’t see much room for anything else.”

  “I’ll get rid of a few things. Like this article about the vacuum cleaner competitions in Jacksonville next month.” He unpinned the scrap of paper.

  “Could I have that? I’ve never been to a vacuum cleaner competition,” Phoebe said.

  “I manage to get to this one every year. All kinds of vacuum cleaners enter, and people compete to see whose vacuum can pick up the most dirt.”

  “I wish I could go,” Phoebe said wistfully, taking in the article and the pictures that went with it.

  “Someday I’m going to enter my old Sweep-O-Lator. It’s a 1920s vacuum that I’m restoring, and there aren’t many of those left.”

  “You have a Sweep-O-Lator? No kidding.”

  “Yep, I sure do. I’ll bring it to my shop and let you run it sometime.”

  “I’d like that!” Phoebe grinned ear to ear.

  Molly sighed. Even though she knew better than to try to come between Phoebe and any vacuum cleaner, she was bored with this topic and ready to move on. She thought she’d caught a glimpse of Corduroy’s white-blond head in the park down the street.

  Phoebe accepted the article that Mr. Whister passed across the counter and stared at it for a moment before stuffing it into the pocket of her shorts. “A competition must be so much fun! My dad sometimes tells me not to talk about vacuum cleaners’ cause he gets tired of it. That’s why I’m sure he’ll never take me to a competition. Isn’t Jacksonville near here? I think we passed it on the way to Greensea Springs.”

  “It’s only an hour’s drive by car. I’ll have to talk to your dad about it.” Mr. Whister winked at Molly.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Phoebe warned. “Dad turns into Mr. Grumpy real fast when you bring up anything to do with vacuums.”

  Mr. Whister shot Molly a puzzled look, and when no further information was forthcoming, he let out a jolly ho-hoho. “Tell you what, Phoebe,” he said. “I’ll display your best picture in our special children’s exhibit area at Art in the Park in a couple of weeks.”

  Phoebe brightened at this offer. “Cool! I love my art class. My dad enrolled me in it last Saturday.”

  “That’s great.”

  “If I’m going to draw a picture of that robotic vacuum, I’d better study it.”

  “Be my guest,” Mr. Whister said, and Phoebe moved on to the display area near the other wall.

  “I’m the chairman of Art in the Park,” he told Molly. “We always encourage children to participate. Say, Molly, I was at the Blossom Cabaret for open mike last night. You were wonderful.”

  “Thanks, but I hadn’t performed in a long time,” Molly said, waving away his praise. “I’m a little rusty—lack of practice.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed it, and we certainly hope you’ll be back.”

  “Uh, well, maybe,” she said, keeping an eye on Phoebe, who was studying the robotic vacuum from every angle.

  “In fact, Selena told me that she saw you in the puppet theater. She’s my daughter, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t. I loved the puppet theater, though. It reminded me of the one that my grandfather built for my brother and sister and me when we were growing up near Chicago.”

  He appeared interested. “Hey, if you ever want to get involved with our arts center, please tell me.”

  Molly hastened to set him straight. “I’m only here for a while. We’re waiting for an engine part for our boat to be shipped from Germany, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  His face fell, but he grinned anyway. “That’s too bad. Green-sea Springs needs people like you. And Phoebe, of course.”

  Phoebe, hearing her name, bounded over. “I love it here, Mr. Whister. I wish we could stay forever and ever.”

  “So do I. You’re a neat kid. I was something like you once upon a time,” he said.

  “Really? My dad says there’s no other kid in the world like me.”

  Mr. Whister laughed. “He’s right. There’s never anyone with the same amount of talent or imagination or creativity as anyone else. I meant that I loved vacuum cleaners from the first time I ever saw one. I became an engineer, worked on the space program at Canaveral for NASA. Got tired of it, didn’t fit anyone’s cookie-cutter image of what an engineer should be. I quit and opened A Perfect Vacuum ten years ago. Joined the local arts community and became a pretty good watercolor artist. Believe me, I’ve never been happier.”

  “What a great story,” Molly murmured. She’d always, in theory, been in favor of people doing what they really wanted. In her life, she had begun to realize, things hadn’t worked out that way.

  “Okay, Molly, I’m finished studying the Robo-Kleen. Bye, Mr. Whister. I’ll bring you a vacuum cleaner picture as soon as I draw one.”

  “I can’t wait.” Mr. Whister walked them to the door. “Come back again soon. I get lonely sometimes now that I have to leave Brewster home.”

  “Brewster?” Phoebe repeated with an air of puzzlement.

  “My golden retriever. He recently had an operation on his hip, but he’ll be back as good as new before long. You’ll have to meet him.”

  “I’d love that,” Phoebe said.

  Molly smiled her thanks for his hospitality, and they went out into the warm humid air. “Let’s go to the park. I have an idea your friends are there,” Molly said.

  Phoebe raced ahead while Molly followed, walking slowly. Ralph Whister had given her reason to think about her life, and so far, she wasn’t entirely pleased with the state of it.

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK to Fiona after spending time at the park with the Farrells, Eric was coiling lines on deck, his head down. He glanced up as they came onboard, regarding them with an expression that was not a scowl but definitely not a welcome. Molly was still tryi
ng to figure it out as Phoebe ran up to him.

  “Guess what, Dad! We saw Corduroy and Lexie at Springs Park, and we’re invited to Thanksgiving with them and their whole family! And they want us to go on a picnic the day afterward! We’re going to Bottlenose Island in Mr. Farrell’s boat and we have to take something. Can we bake cookies? Huh? Can we?”

  Eric glanced at Molly as if to ask if she’d given her approval for this outing, and she replied with a slight lift and fall of her shoulders that it wasn’t her call. She wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Eric cut her out of the excursion, considering his present mind-set.

  “Well…we might be able to do that,” Eric said cautiously. “Can’t we just buy cookies, though?”

  “They have to be homemade. You don’t take bought cookies on a picnic,” Phoebe said with great finality. “We can get the dough in a package at the grocery store. You only have to slice it and bake it. Let’s go get it now, okay?”

  Eric stepped into the cockpit. “All right, we’ll go to the market. I could pick up one of their lemon-pepper roasted chickens for dinner, if that’s agreeable to you,” he said to Molly.

  “Sounds wonderful,” Molly said, still self-conscious around him.

  Phoebe went below, and Eric leaned on the wheel, studying her. She started to follow Phoebe, but he said, “Just a minute. What’s this about Thanksgiving?”

  “It’s on Thursday of this week. Dee’s making the traditional turkey and trimmings, and she wants us to come.” She didn’t mean to emphasize the “us,” but that’s how it came out.

  “I’d forgotten about the holiday. How could I let it slip my mind?” Eric didn’t seem to be asking her, but she answered anyway.

  “You have a lot to think about, what with the work you’re doing on Miss Take and worrying about when that part’s going to arrive from Germany, and—”

  “Don’t make excuses for me, Molly,” he said, and she realized that he’d moved closer. “Thanksgiving should be a big deal for kids, and I hadn’t made any plans. Maybe we’d better go to the Farrells’. Phoebe would like that.”

  “‘We’? You mean I’m going, too?”

  He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Did you say they invited all of us?”

  “I guess I thought that—oh, I don’t know. That you and Phoebe would want to celebrate alone.”

  He drew a deep breath and cocked his head sideways, assessing her. “It wouldn’t feel right without you there,” he said slowly.

  At first she thought it was a failed attempt at sarcasm, but she caught an unmistakable sincerity in his tone.

  “I mean it, Molly. You’ve noticed that lately I’ve spent extra time alone with Phoebe, and that’s only right and good, but—” He threw his hands out in a gesture of exasperation, and for some reason, Molly recalled what Micki had said—that men eventually got tired of togetherness with their young children.

  She decided against taking him to task for excluding her the past several days. Instead, she only smiled. “I know,” she said soothingly, which provoked surprise from him. “It’s okay, Eric. Really.” With that, she brushed his hand with her own and continued down the companionway ladder, leaving him staring at her with a perplexed expression on his face.

  She’d have to tell Micki that she’d been on the button with her male psychology lesson. And she’d ask Dee if she could bring her bean salad as a contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. Girlfriends, she reminded herself, had to stick together.

  THANKSGIVING DINNER WENT OFF without a hitch. The Farrells were hospitable hosts, Molly’s salad was a hit, and Phoebe began teaching Lexie and Corduroy to play chess. At various times during the afternoon, Molly caught Eric eyeing her with the ghost of a smile, and when they came close together, the air seemed to scintillate between them. At such moments, she was luxuriously aware of him, of his strong, clean features and sheer male vitality. Facing him across the table, she grew fascinated with the neatly honed edge of his chin, so much so that when Dee asked her to pass the gravy, she didn’t hear until she’d been asked twice.

  Bemused, she avoided Eric after dinner, remaining in the kitchen entertaining Jada in her lap while Dee loaded the dishwasher, and later playing horseshoes with the kids outside as it grew dark.

  Walking back to the marina after dinner, she and Eric and Phoebe passed houses with lots of cars parked in front because relatives were visiting. Molly thought about Emmett all by himself in Minneapolis and her brother and sister being out of the country. She felt a pang of guilt for having such a wonderful Thanksgiving, a day that should be spent with family. She’d never given a thought to her family being so far-flung, but after participating in the Farrells’ Thanksgiving, she felt wistful that the McBrydes were no longer as close as they once had been.

  Back on Fiona, she helped Phoebe prepare for bedtime. Eric hung back, watching but not interfering. In a way she was glad; she liked supervising Phoebe’s bath and story.

  “Tomorrow we go to Bottlenose Island,” Phoebe said as she climbed into her bunk. “I can hardly wait.”

  After Eric kissed his daughter good-night, he dug a gallon of ice cream out of the freezer, and before he could ask her if she wanted some, Molly made the excuse that she was tired and needed to get some sleep. She felt his eyes on her back as she went to her stateroom.

  She heard Eric rattling around in the galley, making more noise than she thought was strictly necessary when dishing out ice cream. If he was trying to get her attention, he had succeeded. But then, he’d had her attention from day one.

  Now she also knew she had his.

  THE WESTERN SHORE of Bottlenose Island was a tangle of mangroves on the Intracoastal Waterway, and the ocean side was bordered by a spectacular pink-sand beach. Craig’s jon boat deposited them at an opening in the mangroves around ten o’clock the next morning, and Molly and Eric helped the children with their inner tubes, snorkels and towels as they slogged through the shallows to the shore. Once there, they began to climb the winding path toward the ocean side.

  Dee and Jada had backed out at the last minute due to a skin rash that Jada had developed overnight. Dee didn’t believe it was serious, but she wanted to check with the pediatrician and was reluctant to take the baby out into the hot sun out of concern that Jada might be developing a fever. Molly thought it was unfortunate that she wouldn’t be seeing her friend, but watching Phoebe playing with Lexie and Corduroy more than made up for her disappointment.

  Craig, getting into the spirit of the outing, pretended to be Lizard Man, chasing Lexie and Corduroy along the path, hiding in the sea-grape bushes and jumping out to bellow at them as they shrieked with glee. Eric swung Phoebe up for a piggyback ride, and Molly gamely trudging along behind, under a heap of beach paraphernalia that the kids had abandoned in favor of fun and games.

  “I see the ocean!” Corduroy yelled, and then Phoebe begged to be let down so that she could run with the others and bellyflop onto inner tubes in the gentle waves lapping on the shore.

  “I’d better keep an eye on the children,” Craig said, heading toward the water.

  “We’ll spread the blankets and set up the umbrella,” Eric called after him.

  Far down the beach, a man threw sticks for his dog, who chased them into the frothy waves. The air smelled of salt and the scent of sun-dried seaweed. After pausing for a moment to take it all in, Molly busied herself with planting the picnic cooler in the shade beneath the umbrella, while Eric dumped all the swimming gear on one of the large towels.

  By the time they had finished organizing things, Molly was ready to cool off with a swim. She divested herself of her beach cover-up, tugging the bottom of her bikini down self-consciously.

  A short distance from shore, the waves reared green and glassy before tumbling over themselves on the sand. Once in the water, Molly walked out as far as she could, then dived in and swam for a long way underwater before breaking the surface to catch a breath of air. She floated on the gentle swells and observed the action clos
er to shore. Craig had linked the three children and was playing tugboat as he towed them along. Phoebe’s hair was drenched, and she giggled with glee every time Craig whipped them around.

  Eric was swimming toward her with swift sure strokes. “Look,” he said, stopping to tread water and pointing out to sea. “A flying fish.”

  Molly had seen them before, of course, these small fish of warmer climes that glide above the waves, often to escape predators. This one managed to ride an air current for sixty feet or more before slipping beneath the water’s surface again. “There’s another,” she said, and they watched until it, too, disappeared.

  “This is the life,” Eric said with conviction. “This is living.”

  Molly considered this and decided that he had a point. Lolling in the ocean was a whole lot better than navigating slushy Chicago streets or trying to protect herself against frostbite as she walked to work.

  “Race you to the point!” Eric said suddenly, and he began to swim to a rocky outcrop where the island jutted into the sea.

  Molly had no intention of letting him best her at anything, so she struck out in his wake, sure that she could catch him.

  She was swamped in his backwash for a minute or two before she pulled clear. Then they were neck and neck, and Molly was tiring rapidly as her feet found the rocks that lay on the ocean floor. Gasping, she propelled herself forward, threw herself on the warm sand and realized that the race had ended in a tie.

  “Hey,” he said, “you’re pretty fast. I didn’t know you were such a strong swimmer.”

  “I swam freestyle and backstroke in college competition,” she said, rolling over on her back on a bed of tiny shells. They ranged in shading from pink to mauve, the colors soft against the background of pale sand. She squinted up at the puffy white clouds sailing across a luminous blue sky, then closed her eyes against the brilliance.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed, and maybe she even dozed for a few minutes, but then she became aware of Eric’s shadow falling across her face.

  She sat up abruptly. “I almost fell asleep,” she said. “We’d better get back.”