Maine (47 page)

That was her cue. Ann Marie placed her hands on his face. She leaned forward and kissed him, feeling the warmth of his lips, gently pushing her tongue between them. For a moment, it was everything she had imagined. But then he pulled back hard.

“Ann Marie,” he said. “What are you doing?”

He turned his head quickly to the left and the right, as if looking for an escape.

“I thought—” she said. And suddenly, it all crashed down around her. The house was gone and her children were disappointments. She would never be rid of her mother-in-law, or of Kathleen. There was only one person in her life who brought her any excitement anymore, and now she had ruined that too. She wanted to be able to wake up and discover that it was all a bad dream; she wanted not to exist.

“Please,” she said softly, not even sure what she was asking him for.

“You’ve had too much to drink,” he said, his face turning hard in an instant. “I’m going back to the others, okay? Will you be all right here on your own?”

She nodded, her belly filling up with dread as he rushed off. And then, at the moment when it seemed like her life could not sink any lower, she looked up and saw Kathleen standing maybe fifteen feet away, staring at her. It was clear that she had seen the kiss. Her mouth was actually hanging open.

Ann Marie wanted to run. Had she ruined her marriage in an instant? Would she live out the rest of her days in some sad one-bedroom apartment, or would she get to keep the house?

She walked toward Kathleen. She spoke quickly, almost unable to breathe. “Oh God, please, Kathleen, don’t tell Patrick what you just saw.”

Kathleen straightened up. Her expression changed, and she looked genuinely warm for perhaps the first time Ann Marie could remember. She said slowly, purposefully, “I didn’t see anything. I’m just waiting for Maggie to get out of that disgusting bathroom. She’s been in there for ages.”

Ann Marie wasn’t sure whether to believe her.

“Please,” she said again. “I can explain what that was.”

“Here she comes,” Kathleen said, waving to her daughter. “Now, where are you guys sitting and what did you bring for dessert?”

   The next morning, Ann Marie awoke with a terrible headache. Watching as she popped a couple of aspirin with her coffee, Steve said charitably, “I think we all had way too much to drink last night. The whole evening is a bit of a blur to me.”

His generous behavior only made her feel worse. She wanted the Brewers gone. She started cracking eggs for a quiche.

Ann Marie knew it was pointless, but she kept going over the events of the evening in her head: Why had she drunk so much champagne? How could she have misread all the signs? Or maybe she hadn’t misread them. Maybe it was just that the moment was wrong, but now she had ruined it for good.

Kathleen had been bizarrely kind all night, chatting like a normal adult with Linda and Steve, hardly picking any fights with Alice, and declaring that the Portsmouth fireworks display was among the best she had ever witnessed. She seemed to be going to great lengths to tell Ann Marie that her secret was safe. But Ann Marie knew her sister-in-law well. There were years ahead of them, and now Kathleen had this on her. Would she ever be able to exhale, knowing the havoc Kathleen could wreak now, anytime she liked?

After breakfast, though everyone was full and she herself was painfully hungover, Ann Marie decided to bake a three-berry pie. At least shopping for the filling would get her away for a bit. On her way out to the farm stand, she found Alice in her garden.

“Kathleen and Maggie left,” Alice said.

“What? When?” Ann Marie asked.

“Early this morning. Kathleen took Maggie home to New York. I don’t get the impression Gabe’s coming back around, the pig.”

Ann Marie nodded solemnly. It was comforting to consider someone else’s bad decisions for a moment.

“Kathleen said to tell you she was sick of the ocean and finally ready to get out of your hair,” Alice told Ann Marie. She rolled her eyes. “That one.”

   Ann Marie hoped that Steve would create some work-related emergency and escape, but he did not. Nor did he avoid her, as she assumed he might. For the remaining three days of his stay, he went along as if nothing had happened. Each time he stroked his wife’s hair or took her hand, Ann Marie relived the entire mortifying episode all over again.

And each passing day meant they were closer to confronting Alice. She and Pat whispered about it in bed at night, both eager to have it over with, both agreeing that their choice of words could mean everything. They should not put Alice on the defensive or make her feel attacked. Rather, they should highlight the generous spirit that her donation conveyed, while gently pointing out that she would break their hearts if she went through with it.

The Brewers finally left on the seventh. They probably hadn’t even made it to the highway before Pat and Ann Marie went next door to deal with his mother.

They found her sitting at the kitchen table, smoking and reading a mystery novel that Ann Marie had gotten from her own mother and passed along.

“Mom, can we talk to you for a minute?” Pat asked. He sounded like a terrified child.

Alice was in charming mode. “Of course, darlings. Sit down! Do you want a beer, Pat?”

“No thanks,” he said.

She held up the book. “This is a good one.”

“I thought so too,” Ann Marie said.

“Listen,” Pat said. “We wanted to talk about this whole issue of your giving the property away.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Not this again.”

“We think it was a wonderful gesture on your part, Mom,” Ann Marie said. “We know how much the church means to you. But the house means so much to us.”

“I know,” Alice said. “It’s not like I’m giving it to them this second. If the women in my family are any indication, I’ll probably live another ten years.”

You’ll probably live another thirty the way my luck is going
, Ann Marie thought.

Alice went on, “Ten years! You’ll both be sick of this old place by then.”

Pat piped up. “Think of the position that puts us in, Mom. None of us want to think about the number of years you have left in relation to a house. We want you here forever.”

He seemed genuinely choked up.
Mothers were the oddest creatures
, Ann Marie thought.
Their children tended to love them even when it made no earthly sense to do so
.

“The decision was made six months ago,” Alice said. “I can’t go back on it because of some sentimental attachment. Believe me, this is hard for me too.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Pat asked. “And what if that priest hadn’t—”

“He has a name,” Alice said.

“What if Father Donnelly hadn’t accidentally told Ann Marie? Were you ever going to tell us this had happened?”

“Of course I would have,” Alice said.

“When?”

“When the time was right.” She sighed. “I didn’t just rush into this. I hope you know that. I gave it plenty of thought. But the fact is that this place isn’t what it used to be. You and your sisters can’t even stand to be here at the same time as one another.”

“That’s not true,” Patrick said. “Mom, we love this place. Our kids love it. Our grandkids love it. Please don’t take it away.” He was begging now, but Alice was unmoved.

“I refuse to be bullied,” she said. “And anyway, there is absolutely no way I could go to Father Donnelly and tell him I’m backing out. The church is depending on this.”

“What if we just gave St. Michael’s an acre?” Pat said.

“Let’s stop,” Ann Marie said. “She’s not going to change her mind.”

“That’s right,” Alice said triumphantly, as if they were talking politics and she had just won the debate. “Now let’s change the subject. What time will Patty and Josh be here tomorrow?”

   That night Ann Marie and her husband drove to the big public beach in Ogunquit to get away from her. They sat in the massive parking lot near the building that housed the showers, not even bothering to get out of the car. Ann Marie thought of how spoiled they had always been to have their own beach, a few steps from the front door.

She thought of those depressing rented houses her sisters went to on Cape Cod, where you had to bring your own ketchup and mustard and napkins at the beginning of the week, and clear out some stranger’s tea bags and crackers from the cupboards before you could start your vacation. Those places were always cluttered with someone else’s knickknacks. They smelled stale, and were right on top of one another. Through the open windows, you could hear the voices of the renters next door.

No one but their family and dear friends had ever put their heads down to sleep in the cottage on Briarwood Road, or even so much as taken a shower there. And soon it would belong to someone else. It seemed impossible. She felt as if a close friend had died.

Pat said that down the line they could get a place of their own. But she knew they could never afford anything as nice as the spread at Briarwood Road. Certainly not waterfront property. Pat had had it appraised for 2.3 million. And anyway, that wasn’t the point. The point was, it was their family’s home. Ann Marie and her husband had done as much as anyone—more—to keep it thriving. And now this.

Ann Marie cried, sitting there in the passenger seat. Pat rubbed her shoulder.

“I’m sorry she’s like this,” he said. “I wish there was something I could do to change it all.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said.

“I keep wishing my dad were here to talk sense into her. He was really the only one who ever could. Well, him and you.”

His eyes followed a mother and two boys with bright blue zinc smeared across their noses. They were all carrying pails and shovels and towels and flip-flops, hopping around on the hot pavement, trying not to burn their feet.

Ann Marie looked at her husband. “I feel lost, Pat.”

“It’s been a tough year,” he said.

“Yes.”

He raised his voice, trying, she imagined, for an upbeat tone. “I, for one, cannot wait to get to London in September and see you get your gold medal.”

She smiled weakly. “And then what?”

“And then—who knows? It feels like we ought to start thinking about a new chapter, me and you.”

She nodded. The idea made her feel slightly tired, but hopeful, too, in some small way.

“Maybe after London, we could go back to Ireland. A second honeymoon?” He raised an eyebrow suggestively, and she laughed.

“I was just remembering that trip,” she said. “I’d like that.”

“I missed you a lot while you were up here with my mom,” he said. “It got me thinking.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, each with certain private thoughts that the other could guess in an instant, and thoughts that the other could never imagine.

“Do you want to get a drink somewhere?” he asked.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “All right.”

They got out of the car, and he took her hand as they made their way toward town.

   The next morning, Patty and Josh arrived, their station wagon so full that Josh couldn’t see out the back windows as he drove.

“We’re here!” Patty said, stepping onto the screen porch, where Ann Marie and Pat were waiting. She held the baby on her hip.

“Come to Grandma,” Ann Marie said, taking the child into her arms, the warmth of that little body like a balm to her soul. She hadn’t seen her grandchildren in seventeen days, which was exactly thirteen days longer than she had ever gone before. To think that her reason for leaving was concern over Alice’s welfare.

“Did you hit a lot of traffic?” Pat asked.

“Not really,” Patty said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She was just like her father. Ann Marie had to fight the urge to tell her to turn the darn thing off.

“There’s still no signal out here?” Patty asked.

“What took you so long?” Pat said. “I thought you were leaving at seven.”

“We did, and we hit a new record for number of times we had to stop for someone to go to the bathroom,” Patty said. “Seriously. Seventy-five miles, five bathroom breaks. I’m contacting the Guinness people. I really think we might have something special here.”

Maisy and Foster burst onto the porch like Mexican jumping beans.

“Grandma!” they shouted, and Ann Marie hugged them with her one free arm.

“They missed you,” Patty said. She dropped her volume. “And they’ve learned all kinds of colorful new language from their other grandma.”

Apparently Foster heard this, because he piped up then, “Our Grammy Joan lets us drink tonic.”

“What kind of tonic?” Ann Marie asked with a frown.

“Coke and root beer,” Foster said.

“That stuff will rot your teeth,” Ann Marie said, actually feeling a bit annoyed about it. “You don’t want that!”

“No,” Foster said.

“We already put our bathing suits on,” Maisy said. Last summer she had pronounced it
babing suits
. “They’re under our clothes, see?”

She pulled up her T-shirt to reveal the purple polka-dotted one-piece Ann Marie had picked up at the Filene’s sale a few weeks back.

“I slept in my suit!” Maisy said gleefully.

“Don’t tell Grandma that,” Patty said.

Maisy went on, “Foster says the water might be too cold for me like last time, but I said no, because you get used to it once you’re in.”

Ann Marie smiled. Where had Maisy heard that? They had all said it so many times over the years. Her own children, never content to play with just one another, would call to her on the shore as she tried to read a magazine in peace—
Come on, Mom, come swim! You get used to it once you’re in
. Never mind that the water never once got above sixty degrees, even at the height of August.

“Will you take us to the beach, Grandpa?” Foster said, pulling at Pat’s shorts. “Can we bury you in the sand like last time?”

“Wait a minute, you two,” Patty said. “Let’s let Grandma and Grandpa adjust to this invasion before we start making demands.”

Josh was walking up from the car, laden down with bags and beach chairs and a plastic cooler.

“Foster, go help Dad,” Patty said.