Life Happens

by Sandra Steffen

  Mya closed her eyes. “He followed me home.” Turning around, she found the other three staring at her as if she had egg on her face.

  “And?” Millie asked.

  “And we argued.”

  Millicent wet one finger and turned another page. “Things sounded pretty quiet from the kitchen. It isn’t usually a good argument that makes a woman look radiant the next morning. Nope, it’s usually something else entirely.”

  Mya was pretty sure Elle was smiling, too. “Are you two having fun?”

  They were both still nodding when she heard a noise in the next room. “What was that?”

  “By the way,” Millicent said, “Dean dropped by.”

  “He did?”

  There was another thunk.

  Mya set her cup down hard as realization dawned. “You two are very funny.”

  They both stopped trying to hide their grins.

  Mya couldn’t resist touching Kaylie’s hair on her way by. “You could have warned me, kiddo.”

  Kaylie’s grin was milky, her favorite word garbled but discernible. “Da.”

  In the living room, Mya was greeted by the sight of Dean’s skinny rear end. The man had great symmetry, she’d give him that, white T-shirt, faded jeans, scuffed loafers and all. Bent at the waist, he was doing something to the back of a big new television in the corner. Boxes and packaging foam were everywhere.

  “Having fun?” she asked.

  He answered without turning. “Define fun. The DVD player is hooked up, but the surround sound system is giving me some trouble.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in church?”

  He eased into a more comfortable position down on his haunches. “Unless you count the string of cuss words I just called this cable connector, I haven’t done anything to confess.”

  Everyone was a comedian these days.

  “Yet.”

  The simple clarification fanned the craving he’d started in her last night and drew her farther into the room. Lowering her voice, she said, “When do you think you’ll have something to confess?”

  His hand slipped off the screwdriver, making a loud and painful-sounding thud. He was cradling his knuckles when he finally faced her. The look that passed between their gazes went back a long time. She’d always held her own with him, always gave as good as she got. And then some. She’d forgotten how invigorating it was.

  “What is all this?” She motioned to the electronic equipment.

  Eyes as blue as Kaylie’s crinkled at the corners as he said, “Elle mentioned she likes to watch old movies.”

  He was spoiling his little girl. It brought a poignant sweetness and a fear neither dared voice. No matter how many what ifs and what might have beens were between them, the greatest question was an unspoken one. What if none of them matched Elle’s bone marrow?

  He cleared his throat. “When I finish hooking this up, I thought you and Elle might enjoy a tour of the island.”

  A month ago, Mya would have said the idea was absurd. A few weeks ago she would have insisted she wouldn’t have enjoyed that at all. A few days ago she would have worried that a walk down memory lane was too dangerous. Leaving him to finish his task this morning, she went to get ready.

  Whether by design or happenstance, they had the island to themselves. Dean drove around the perimeter first, pointing out landmarks and telling stories of his misspent youth. Elle wanted to know about every story, every place, every old building, everything. When she asked about the floating markers bobbing on the water’s surface, Dean explained. “They’re lobster traps. Every fishing family has its own markings denoting who’s whose. Lobstermen have been known to draw guns when their traps are tampered with.”

  “No shit.”

  Dean laughed. “Lobsters were once so plentiful they washed ashore and people simply picked them up by the bushelful. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were even fed to the servants.”

  “Do any of the Lakers lobster?” Elle asked.

  He shook his head. “My father was the last, and that was the way he wanted it. It’s a hard living, physically and financially. Greg says he’s going to resurrect the family business, but I don’t know. It can be difficult for rookies to break into. He’s determined. Who knows?”

  “Do Lakers always get what they want?” she asked.

  His gaze met Mya’s in the rearview mirror. And she braced herself for his answer.

  “We try,” he said, then changed the subject.

  Elle asked to get out at the school. Since it was Sunday, the building was locked. Artwork hung in many of the windows on the lower level, which housed first grade through eighth. The second story was reserved for those in high school.

  Mya remembered the first time she’d set foot inside when she was nine. To this day, she associated the smell of chalk and glue with nerves.

  “Are there still eight or ten kids per grade?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Elle asked.

  But Dean said, “That number has been holding for years.”

  “There are only eight or ten kids per graduating class?”

  Dean said, “There were twelve of us.”

  Again, his and Mya’s gazes met. This time it was Mya who said, “There would have been thirteen, but I left near the end of eleventh grade and finished high school on the mainland.”

  She could see Elle absorbing everything, and wondered about it. If Dean found it strange, he didn’t comment.

  “What about college?” Elle asked, sounding like a reporter.

  “Nobody falls through the cracks in a school this small,” he said. “Although a few of us have tried. Your cousin Cole will be seventeen in August. His SATs were through the roof. Takes after Sylvia in the sciences. If he keeps his act together, the school board will pay to fly him to the mainland to attend advanced classes part of every day next year. He has his eye on Harvard.”

  “Are the rest of the Lakers smart?” Elle gave the empty swing a push on her way by.

  “We do all right.”

  “What about the Donahues?” Elle asked.

  Dean answered. “If Mya would have stayed, she would have been valedictorian of our class.”

  “I guess Kaylie has a fighting chance in the brain department.”

  Catching Elle’s eye, Mya said, “What about you?”

  Her shrug was endearingly shy. “My SATs were through the roof, too.”

  Mya was filled with a pride she probably didn’t deserve. And she sighed.

  A large shadow glided across the playground. Elle looked up at the bald eagle riding an invisible current in the sky. Mya looked at Elle. “Are you going back to school when your treatments are finished?”

  The question came awfully close to that stipulation Elle had named. But Mya couldn’t help it.

  “We’ll see,” was all Elle would say.

  Mya’s and Dean’s gazes met, held, for Elle was even more evasive than usual. A worry she couldn’t voice worked over Mya.

  Eventually, they got back in Dean’s four-by-four. He drove east along gravel roads, across wooden bridges spanning narrow streams and through lush woods. They saw deer, chipmunks and squirrels. Mya would have liked to know what Elle was thinking as Dean pointed out the remodeling and renovation projects he’d worked on. He didn’t stop driving or talking until he reached the top of a long and winding path that led to what the islanders called The Cliffs. There, he got out, and Mya and Elle followed more slowly.

  Mya hadn’t been up here since she’d left the island. The summer people paid a fortune for the large, Victorian houses near the harbor, but as far as she was concerned, those had never been able to hold a candle to this one.

  “We won’t get shot for trespassing, will we?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Noticing signs of life, Mya asked, “Who lives here?”

  “I do.”

  She was glad he didn’t look
at her, because she was visibly shaken. Her mother hadn’t told her he’d purchased this place. The house was one of the oldest on the island and overlooked the Atlantic. Elle had been conceived on a quilt in a sheltered cove just around the bend below.

  Shading her eyes with one hand, Elle said, “Can you see Portland from here on a clear day?”

  “Almost.” Dean’s voice was deep and quiet and had the allure of still waters.

  “How can you almost see something?” Elle asked.

  He demonstrated. Looking toward the mainland, he said, “If you stand still enough, stare long enough, hard enough, you can almost see.”

  Her throat thickening, Mya understood. “Do you do that often?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  She understood that, too. Staring toward the island, she’d often had the feeling someone was staring back at her. It had been as if their gazes had met in the middle, in a way they’d never been able to do.

  Mya had called it a cosmic force that had sent her to Rolf’s that day she’d gotten her hair cut. But in reality the force behind it all stood between them today. And she was tiring. It filled Mya with dread.

  Evidently noticing, too, Dean saved the tour of his house for another day, and took them to lunch at the pizza place on the other side of the island. Over thick crusts smothered in piping-hot pepperoni and mushrooms and melted cheese, he and Elle talked. Mya noticed that Elle asked a lot of questions. It felt a little like a job interview. And it bothered Mya.

  Why, she couldn’t say.

  Elle was halfway through her third slice when she noticed the guy watching her from across the room. He hadn’t been at the luau last night, yet he looked familiar.

  She thought back, trying to place him. She’d been in Maine less than a month. Where had she seen him?

  He knew her. She would bet her last dollar he was enjoying the fact that he’d recognized her first. She considered asking Dean if he knew the guy. But she had a better idea.

  She put down her pizza and pushed out her chair. “I’ll be right back.”

  He watched her approach with an aloofness guys probably thought fooled girls. Elle knew Dean and Mya were watching her, as were several other people in the restaurant, so she kept her voice low as she said, “I know you.”

  “Do you?” Most guys would have smiled by now.

  He pushed a chair out with one foot. She’d had more polite invitations, but she’d had less polite ones, too.

  Still deciding, she said, “I’m not sure there’s enough room at the table for you, me and your attitude.”

  He still didn’t smile, and it finally dawned on her where she’d seen him. “You’re the pizza delivery guy, the one with the bad attitude who brought me a lukewarm pizza in Portland last month.”

  He shrugged. “A thankless job if there ever was one. Hopefully my student loans and grants will come through for next year and I’ll never have to deliver another pizza as long as I live.”

  She looked a little closer. “I figured you for a high school kid.”

  “I know what you figured me for.”

  Damn, he’d surprised her. What was this burgeoning regard? Lighting on the edge of the chair, she said, “Are you from the island?”

  “My aunt and uncle live here. Are you?”

  She pondered that. “Sort of. So what are you doing here? Visiting your aunt and uncle?”

  “I’m shadowing my uncle’s lobster route, and later I’m going out on the ocean with a crew of fishermen. He says it’ll make a man out of me. Do you want to hang out this afternoon?”

  Now that she’d expected.

  He was average in height and build. His hair was a little shaggier than it had been the last time she’d seen him, his eyes dark, dark brown. He didn’t look so nerdy without the coat and hat bearing the pizza store’s logo. That in itself sent up a red flag. “I can’t,” she said. “I have to get back.”

  “Are those your parents?”

  She glanced at them. “Sort of.”

  “Is everything in your life a sort of?” he asked.

  Something about that observation caught her in the chest. “Here’s a definite. I have to get back to my daughter.”

  She watched his eyes as he took that in, and noticed him glance at her left hand.

  “It’s just me and my baby girl.”

  “And those people who are sort of your parents?”

  She’d assumed he would be put off by the fact that she had a baby. Instead, he seemed a little relieved she was single. And he was still interested. Huh. That was totally unexpected. She needed to put an end to this conversation right here, right now. “I’m only going to be here another week or two.”

  “I’m only going to be here for the summer,” he said. “Sounds like the perfect friendship to me.”

  He was mocking her. What an attitude.

  Rising, she surprised herself when she said, “I’m staying in a summer cottage in McCaffrey’s Cove. Do you know where that is?”

  “I can find out.”

  “I’m sure you can.” Without saying goodbye or naming a time, she returned to Mya and Dean’s table.

  “A friend of yours?” Mya asked.

  “No. His attitude barely fits in this room.” Elle picked up her lukewarm pizza and took a huge bite.

  “What’s his name?” Dean asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Want me to find out?”

  She gave him one of her looks. “You’re kidding, right?” She washed her pizza down with her soda before adding, “He’s probably going to stop over this afternoon.”

  “Why?” Dean asked.

  “I sort of invited him.”

  CHAPTER 13

  M ya had to force herself to walk up the path leading to Dean’s door. Walk, don’t run had become her mantra, along with breathe, savor, try not to worry.

  Sometimes it was almost effective.

  She knocked on the door three times. Breathe. Savor. Try not to worry.

  This house had been abandoned when they were kids, the windows boarded up, the porch rotting. She and Dean used to sneak up here, pretending they were running away or were stranded or shipwrecked. Sometimes other children joined them, but most often it was just the two of them.

  She’d been thinking a lot about her childhood lately. She’d been thinking a lot about her life.

  The sound of waves breaking against the rocky shore drew her around. In the distance the horizon arched, the ocean a deep, dark blue where it met a much paler sky. She hadn’t come here to look at the view. She wondered how long Dean had owned this property. That wasn’t the reason she’d driven over, either.

  Exactly two hours and five minutes after Elle had fallen asleep in the middle of the movie they’d rented on their way back from lunch, Dean opened his door. “Is she still asleep?”

  Mya shook her head. “That boy from the pizza place stopped by.”

  “The nerd?”

  “His name’s Oliver Cooper, and he’s not such a nerd.”

  “You left her alone with a guy who isn’t a nerd?”

  Mya refrained from mentioning that Elle was nineteen, had been living on her own for a long time and had a child. “Mom’s there.”

  “No offense, but your mother was easy to dupe.”

  He had a point. “Kaylie’s there, too. You saw how cranky she was. Now she’s refusing to take a nap. When she gets like this, there’s nothing to do but wait it out. No guy could get ideas when a baby is crying, right?”

  He seemed to breathe easier. They stood a foot apart, facing the ocean. If she listened hard enough she could almost hear them as they’d been long ago, two children with nothing to do except while away endless summer days.

  “Time stood still, didn’t it?” he asked. “What I wouldn’t give for it to do that now.”

  He understood, and it filled her. She wanted endless summer days, wanted time to stand still again. Because of Elle. Ever since Mya had learned that Elle had cancer, every night fell
too soon and every morning broke too early.

  In essence, Dr. Andrews had given them all a reprieve. But it would only last a week or two. What then?

  Breathe. Savor. Try not to worry.

  Mya wanted to talk about her fears, to be reassured that everything would be okay, that Elle would come through this and grow very, very old. But saying it aloud wouldn’t make it so, just as Elle’s refusal to talk about it hadn’t made any of it disappear.

  “Would you care for that tour now?”

  When she hesitated, he leaned down and kissed her. She didn’t close her eyes all the way, and neither did he. The kiss didn’t last long enough for that. Last night his kiss had been like the soldering heat that joined metals. Today, the brush of his lips on hers was feather soft and fleeting.

  As he drew away, he said, “We’ll make the tour a short one.”

  He understood her sense of urgency, too.

  Something was happening, changing between them. They weren’t enemies anymore. The cancer was the enemy.

  The cancer. And time.

  She followed him from room to room on what was perhaps the fastest tour in history. When it was over, she had a vague recollection of heart-pine floors, vaulted ceilings and comfortable though sparse furnishings.

  As he reached for his jacket, she said, “Going someplace?”

  He nodded a little sheepishly. “To your cottage. Nerds are guys, too. Not even a crying baby can change that. Maybe we can’t cure her cancer by sheer will alone, but I can break Oliver Cooper’s arm if he so much as touches her.”

  He was being protective, perhaps overprotective. He looked at her, and although neither of them smiled, they both felt better.

  This was why she’d come.

  “Peripheral,” Elle said.

  “Good one,” Oliver said. “Lawyer.”

  Elle put both thumbs in the air. “Realtor.”

  He nodded. “Error.”

  She made a sound of disgust in the roof of her mouth. They’d been at it for half an hour and it was getting more difficult to think of words whose very pronunciation was annoying. “Annoying,” she said.