Daughter of Light (31 page)

“I have some idea,” Liam said dryly. “I don’t blame you, blame anyone, for having those thoughts.”

“Well, let’s not talk about the past. Let’s talk about the future,” Mr. Dolan said, and he turned the television off completely. “Do you have any dates in mind?”

“Tomorrow,” Liam joked.

When I glanced at the doorway, I saw Mrs. Wakefield standing there.

“Come in, please, Mrs. Wakefield,” Mr. Dolan said. “You’re as much a part of this family as any of us. And I
have a sneaking suspicion that you knew about this,” he added, pretending to chide her.

“I won’t play poker with you,” she told him, and everyone laughed.

Was she really warming up to me? Somehow, I thought that if I had her blessing, I would be safe. That would be good. I had rarely met anyone besides Daddy and Mrs. Fennel with as scrutinizing a gaze as hers. She was better than an airport full-body scanner, because she seemed to be able to see your thoughts and your personality along with your bones.

“My son seems to want to get married as soon as possible.” Mr. Dolan paused and looked at Julia. I saw her shake her head slightly. He looked at me and then at Liam.

“We’re getting married because we’re in love with each other, Dad. There’s no other reason,” he said.

I saw Mr. Dolan look at Mrs. Wakefield. She closed and opened her eyelids to confirm what Liam had said. Mr. Dolan nodded, relieved.

“Okay, so we’re back to the date. What’s your wish, Lorelei? Don’t think about anything but the date. This is one event that I had fears I’d never live to see.”

“I don’t know. In six weeks?” I asked.

“That would take us to August, John Hancock’s wedding month,” Liam said.

“What?” Julia asked, laughing. Her eyes widened. “You told Great-auntie Amelia already, didn’t you? You told her before you told us.”

“That’s all right,” Mr. Dolan said. “She’s the matriarch of this family. That was a nice thing to do, Liam.” He
turned to Mrs. Wakefield. “Mrs. Wakefield? August? The second week, perhaps?”

She considered. I fully understood that she did more than just run the house and the kitchen and supervise the maids. She was more like an estate manager. With Mr. Dolan so occupied by his business, he probably had turned over more and more responsibilities to her.

“We can manage it all,” she said.

“The entire affair will be here, is what she means,” Mr. Dolan explained. “We’ll build a temporary altar. We’ll have tents, a dance floor, caterers, the works. Julia will help you with the invitations,” he told me, “and with a wedding dress, too. Won’t you, Julia?”

“Of course. I’m owed two weeks’ vacation. I’ll put in for it tomorrow.” She shot forward to take my hand. “C’mon up to my room,” she said. “We have a lot to discuss. You’ll sleep here tonight.”

“But my work clothes,” I said.

“You can go in late tomorrow. Okay, Dad?”

“Let me ask. I have a certain influence with the boss,” Liam said. “Dad?”

“It’s fine. I have other things to do in the morning,” Mr. Dolan said, laughing. “I’ll ask Carol to cover for you.”

I could feel the joy returning to the house, seeping in through every window and under every door. It was in the warmth of their smiles and the excitement in their eyes. Even Mrs. Wakefield seemed to soften some.

As I ran out with Julia, who was still holding my hand as if she were a little girl afraid that her new friend would change her mind, I thought about what
the atmosphere in the house must have been like after Liam’s mother left them. For Mr. Dolan and Julia, it was probably the same as it would have been had she died. Liam hadn’t known her enough yet, but I was sure that every baby, every child, could sense the loss when his or her mother was gone. There had to be an invisible umbilical cord through which a mother’s love continually flowed. It was simply natural, but then, how could Liam’s mother have deserted him, deserted Julia? Was whatever bothered her about her life so strong that it could cut that cord? How many times, how many days and nights, did she pause to think about it and maybe regret it? Was there a deep empty place in her heart now, forever and ever?

Thinking about her desertion of her family caused me to think about my own. How alike were we? Did we both realize that we were too different from our own families to remain with them? How could a mother be so different from her children? But wasn’t I different from mine?

As if she could feel me being too serious, Julia shook my hand so I would snap out of it and return to the new world of excitement that had entered the house along with me.

“Stop worrying!” she cried as we bounded up the stairs. “Mrs. Wakefield will work wonders with the preparations, and my father will call in every favor ever owed him to make things smooth and wonderful.”

She paused for a breath at the top of the stairway.

“It will truly be one of the best weddings in Quincy in modern times. Great-auntie Amelia will rank it along
with the wedding of whatever governor or president ever married in New England.”

“I don’t want to be up on any stage,” I said softly. “We just want to get married.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not going to just want to get married, and neither should you. You’re going to be a Dolan, and if you believe Great-auntie Amelia, you are a member of American royalty.”

I thought about what she was saying. My picture would be in newspaper social columns, maybe even in magazines. I never had any doubt that Daddy and my sisters eventually would find me. Perhaps this would discourage them from trying to get me back or caring about me any longer.

Who gets married holding her breath?

Lorelei Patio, that’s who,
I thought.

Julia tugged me forward into her room and to her computer.

“We’ll search the Internet for wedding dresses until we find the one you want,” she said, and put a chair next to hers. Then she just hugged me and began the search.

She was right. There was no time to be too philosophical or too serious. Bells were ringing, rice was raining down, and cans were clinking behind our car. Those were the images I should be seeing and nothing else.

The whirlwind I thought I was caught in before was a slow boat to China compared with what went on now. Even if I had wanted to dwell on my past and my concerns about myself, I rarely had time for it. Between my work and the many small decisions to make about the wedding and ordering that had to be done on a priority basis, there was hardly time to do much else. Liam and I had many discussions with Mrs. Wakefield about the way the ceremony and the reception were to be set up on the estate grounds, down to the color of the tents. I found her to be a very efficient person who was not as controlling as Mrs. Fennel but equally confident in her ideas and decisions. Liam was respectful but always watching to see if I was in any way annoyed. Little did he know how used I was to someone like her. I did, however, begin to believe that she sincerely approved of me.

My most enjoyable times were with Julia, right from that first night when we hurried up to her room to huddle together and look at possible wedding gowns on the Internet. At times, I thought she was more excited about it all than I was, and I had the feeling that she
might have often felt wistful, fearing that her wedding might never happen. Right from the start, I had sensed an underlying current of gloom running beneath the seemingly stable and secure, wealthy Dolan family. All of that, I was sure, flowed from Liam and Julia’s mother’s desertion.

“I’ve always wanted a younger sister,” she told me that night. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like living in a house with two men and Mrs. Wakefield. Don’t misunderstand me. I love her, and she loves us, but sometimes, most of the time,” she said, leaning toward me to lower her voice as if someone was listening right outside her door, “I can’t imagine her as a young woman in love. Her parents brought her up very strictly, and it wasn’t because they were overly religious people, either. Her older brother was killed in a car accident. He was the driver, and he was miles over the blood alcohol limit. Two other young people were killed, too, one being the girl he was with. They hit another vehicle head-on. The couple in it survived, but their ten-year-old boy died. I don’t know how many times she’s told Liam that story over the years, making it sound more and more gruesome as he grew older. I guess I can’t blame her, but it hasn’t exactly made for bubbles and lights whenever either of us had a social affair to attend.”

She paused like someone stuck in a memory for a moment and then shuddered and forced a smile.

“Anyway, forget all that. We should talk only about happy, exciting things.”

She turned back to the computer and started to
pull up wedding gowns on the Internet, but then she stopped again and turned back to me.

“How did you do it? How did you get Liam to fall in love with you so fast?” She blushed and lowered her eyes. “I’ll confide in you the way I would confide in a sister. I’m trying to get Clifford to fall head over heels in love with me. I know I love him.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Oh, no.”

“I don’t know that there is any secret way to get someone to fall in love with you,” I said. “I know it doesn’t sound very scientific, but there has to be something mysterious and at the same time obvious to both. I think it takes a great deal of trust to tell someone you love him. It’s the most revealing thing of all. You’ve totally exposed yourself, and I imagine being rejected after that is devastating.”

She stared at me and then tilted her head a little when she smiled. “Why do I feel that you’re way older than I am?”

Her question reminded me of my discussion with Michele Levy, Mr. Dolan’s pregnant secretary, the first time I had met her. I gave Julia a similar answer. “It’s not time that ages you; it’s the experiences you have.”

She nodded. “Yes, I keep forgetting what a miserable family life you’ve had. That’s because you don’t wear it on your sleeve like I do, I’m sure. At least, you don’t when you’re with me and obviously when you’re at work and with Liam. My great-auntie Amelia says you’re never a sourpuss, either.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she continued. “Every
time I see a mother with her child at the hospital, see how devoted and concerned she is, I feel a pang of envy and then a surge of bitterness. Of course, Liam can’t remember her as well. He was only four, but I remember my mother, vaguely. It’s still enough to invade my dreams and thoughts with visions of her face, memories of her voice, flashing pictures, if you know what I mean. Mrs. Wakefield has been wonderful and devoted, but no one replaces a mother, not really. Oh, I’m sorry,” she cried, shaking herself as if to get some insects off her back and shoulders. “I keep pulling us back into the dark.”

“It’s all right. I’m flattered that you don’t mind confiding your feelings in me.”

“Well, you’re going to be my sister-in-law, actually more like my sister. Right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve never had a sister, either, so you’ve probably felt most of the same things I’ve felt growing up.”

“Probably,” I said. My eyes shifted. Images of Ava, Brianna, and my little sister Marla came rushing back at me.

Julia sensed something, sensed that I was holding back. “There’s so much about you that I have to learn, but I have to win your trust and confidence first. I will,” she vowed. “I’ll be your best friend in the world, so that you won’t hesitate to tell me intimate things about yourself and your past. And don’t think just because I’m Liam’s sister that I would always take his side in any argument,” she added emphatically.

“Okay,” I said, smiling.
Get her off me as a topic,
I told myself. “As far as you and Clifford go, I don’t know him well enough, of course, but maybe he’s hesitant to show his feelings because you are. If you care that much for him, take a chance, trust him, and tell him,” I said. “Or at least hint at it strongly enough so that he won’t feel foolish or afraid to tell you his honest feelings for you.”

She nodded. “I will. You ought to be writing an advice column for lovers in need or something.” She started to turn back to the computer and paused again. “I really don’t care,” she said. “I mean, I wouldn’t condemn you or Liam ever for it, but did he tell my father the truth? You’re getting married this quickly because you both want to and not because you’re pregnant?”

I knew how to convince her beyond any doubt and at the same time make her feel as if she was my sister already. “We haven’t even had intercourse yet, Julia.”

Her eyes widened. “My brother . . . showed that kind of restraint?”

“Maybe it’s an old-fashioned idea, but I thought it was important, especially with someone like Liam, who, shall we say, suffers from a reputation.”

She laughed. “I understand exactly. Back to this dress,” she declared, and we drew closer to look at the choices.

That night, we shared her king-size canopy bed, giggling and talking late into the wee hours, as Daddy might say. There had never been any of this sisterly feeling between myself and Ava or Marla. Brianna was too old even to get to know. Marla was too young. Most of
the time, Ava was so into herself. I was sure she saw me as a distraction when I was younger and tried to talk girl talk with her. When I was older, I could feel the sense of competition, a competition that went far beyond normal sibling rivalry. It was too intense and at times almost violent. I didn’t know who was more critical and demanding of me, Ava or Mrs. Fennel. If Ava gave me any sort of compliment, it was that I was doing something she had taught me well and only because she had taught me. Everything that I did well, even what I did for Daddy back then, was always because of her influence, her advice and instruction.