Purling Road - the Complete Second Season: Episodes 1-10 (17 page)

“Muzzy is not what society would call a beauty, but she has her own,” Maura said with a disapproving glance at Claire.

“I didn’t mean anything by that. Muzzy is unique. And she is pretty. I’m just saying types like Peter don’t typically end up with types like Muzzy, that’s all.”

“Perhaps it’s just a rumor.” Maura shrugged. “It seems unlikely to me as well. I just thought I’d pass along what I’d heard.”

“I’ll see what I can find out when I drop off this week’s satire,” Claire said, happy for a distraction from her own worries.

Maura folded her hands, her eyes on Ava. “Ye haven’t said a word all morning. Are ye still mad at me then?” she asked.

Ava kept focus on the letter in front of her.

“I did all I could to find her, Miss Ava.”

Silence.

“What am I supposed to do? Throw around some magic fairy dust, chant her name, and make her appear fer ye?”

“You always help. No matter what we’ve been through, you are always there to make us stop and see things the right way. You did it for Claire, Aryl, Caleb, Jon, and me. But never for Arianna.”

With pursed lips, Maura folded her hands. “I’ve not been as close to Arianna as I am to the rest of ye. But it doesn’t mean I don’t care. If she needed my help, I would give it.”

“She needed it last Sunday,” Ava growled.

“Aye, and had I found her, I’d have dragged her home—beating her arse the whole way and tried to help them set things straight. It isn’t as if I saw a need and turned my back.”

Claire watched the exchange with growing discomfort. “She’s right, Ava. She tried.”

Ava threw the letter down, folded her arms, and frowned. “I know she did. I just don’t like the idea of her wandering around alone. She has no money, no way to support herself, nowhere to go.”

“You forget the one person who was there fer Arianna as I was there fer ye.”

Claire looked up. “Shannon.”

Maura nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d place money on that being the first place she thinks to go.” 

This did little to put Ava’s mind to ease. None of them knew for certain.

“I wouldn’t worry about her. Miss Arianna is a survivor.”

“She’s not in her right mind. It’s probably worse now. She’s lost everything and has no one to look out for her. When we lost everything, we had you.”

Maura dared to reach across and put her hand over Ava’s had. “Maybe that’s what she needs, love. To stand on her own two feet and be responsible fer herself, to not have you, or me, or Caleb tempering her wild tendencies.”

Ava couldn’t shake the worry that she could just as easily go too far, way too far. It was just as much a possibility as being forced to grow up.

“I have been at Mr. Caleb’s house carin’ fer the babes while he works. If I hear anything, I’ll tell ye right away.”

It was all they could ask.

After several more potential letters, Claire excused herself to the bathroom. She was only gone a few moments when they heard a scream rip through the house.

Maura and Ava threw back their chairs and ran. As they rounded the corner, Claire burst from the bathroom with a beaming smile and tears running down her face.

“I got it!” she yelled, causing them to jump.

“You got what?” Ava asked.

Claire tore open the doors to the built in cupboards in the hallway and dug deep. With a sanitary napkin in each hand, she began jumping up and down, dancing into the living room.

“Yes!” she cried, thrusting them in the air. “Thank you, God! Yes! I only skipped one!” She was crying, laughing, and twirling in circles.

Maura looked on in utter shock while Ava smiled and clapped her hands.

“I take it Miss Claire had a scare and is most relieved it was only that?” she asked with an eyebrow heavily cocked.

***

That night, Aryl was late. Claire had paced the house for an hour waiting for him. She shoved as many cookies at Jac as he wanted just to keep him quiet so they could talk. He now sat in a slump on the sofa, a book laying on his lap, crumbs all over his cheeks and could barely keep his eyes open.

Hmm,
Claire thought as she paced.
Something to think about in the future. If cookies are my ticket to peace, I’ll bake all day long.

When he walked in, she rushed up, his face hardened at her sudden approach. Everything she’d planned to say went right out the window. He put his hand out, keeping some distance between them. She wanted to throw her arms around him, hug and kiss him, cry with relief for an hour. His demeanor told her that wasn’t welcome.

“I got it. I’m not pregnant,” she said, her eyes misting again as they had all day long, every time she realized she wasn’t faced with the horrible decision.

He didn’t smile, didn’t frown. He just stared.

“Did you hear me, Aryl? I’m not pregnant. There’s nothing to worry about now.”

“I suppose,” he said quietly after a pause.

“You suppose? I have been crying with joy and you just suppose…” Her arms flew into a tight knot. “I thought you’d be relieved that we don’t have to make this choice.”

“It was only a choice for you,” he said and moved around her.

She found him in the bedroom pulling off his boots. Arms still crossed, she leaned on the doorjamb.

“Are you going to hate me forever now?” she asked, not looking at him.

He grunted as he pulled off the second boot and tossed it into the closet with a thump.

“After this, I don’t feel like I even know you.”

First, she was surprised. Then she was angry. Then she was furious.

“Sort of how I didn’t know you after you came home.”

“That’s different,” he said.

“Oh, it’s always different, isn’t it, Aryl. It’s always different for you… for men.”

“My choices didn’t…” He started to say they didn’t affect the family, but they did. “I was able to…” He was going to say that he was able to back out of his troubles without forever changing the family, but that wasn’t quite true either. “I’m glad you aren’t,” he said in a snap, “because if you’d have gotten rid of it, I’d have never forgiven you. And if you’d kept it, you’d have never forgiven me. Either way, we would have been doomed.”

“Doomed?” she repeated in disbelief. “That’s a bit drastic.”

“What you wanted to do was drastic.” He tore off wet socks and swiped a towel off the chest of drawers to dry his feet.

“To some,” Claire said. “I thought you were open minded enough to at least consider it… consider all that it meant to have another baby now and make a rational decision.”

“I told you before, it would have been hard. But we would have made it.”

She let her head fall back. “At what cost, Aryl?”

He stood so quickly it startled her. “I can’t believe you’re talking like this. It was… or would have been
our child
. And you talk about it as if it was a nagging splinter, get a needle, and pull it out quickly so it’s not an inconvenience.”

“That’s not how I saw it,” she said, shaking her head.

“Well, that’s what you sound like.”

Standing stock still, their eyes in different places, she desperately tried to reach out.

She began with a sigh. “Aryl, you and me, we’re different. We see things differently. I’m an artist; you’re a wanderer, an adventure seeker. We don’t march along like everyone else. You come from an eclectic family and your mother gets more eccentric as the months pass. I paint and day dream and I really envy Muzzy’s pants.”

His eyes flashed up. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “They’re more comfortable, easier to move around in and last longer than these thin dresses,” she said, plucking her skirt.

“So now you’re going to start wearing pants?” he asked.

“I might.”

He threw his hands up silently.

“I know you don’t understand why this was an option for me. I don’t understand why it wasn’t for you when the proof that another baby would be a disaster is right in front of your face. But, much to the shock and horror of most people in this town—and you—it was an option for me. It made sense
to me
.”

He sat down on the bed slowly. “There’s no way to come together on this, Claire. I’m sorry, there’s just not. I don’t care how… strange my family and I are, how different you and I are from everyone else. It’s just not something I can consider should it happen again.”

Her eyes went cold. She expected more of him. If not outright support, at least understanding and consideration.

“Then I’ll have to make sure it never happens again,” she said, her words laced with venom.

He shoved a hand through his hair, knowing exactly what she meant by that.

***

Peter had been working day and night. After he finished on the boat, he didn’t even change his clothes before he ran an important errand and then started working on the house. Their house.

He smiled. He was downstairs plastering a patched hole in the wall. He could hear Muzzy at her typewriter, tapping away with a speed that amazed him. He liked to watch her sometimes when she didn’t know he was there. More than once, he’d crept up the stairs with a fresh cup of coffee and peeked discreetly. Her head bobbled and her fingers flew. Sometimes she mouthed the words she was typing. The only thing she didn’t stop doing was typing when he walked in. Typed right along as he set the mug down and took the old one. She jerked her chin in something of a thank you and kept right on working.

This evening, he wouldn’t bring her more coffee or her dinner as he’d often done when she was strung up against deadlines. He had been asking her for a couple of weeks for a chance to talk to her and she was busy every waking moment. If she had to break concentration and come down for her own coffee, he might have a chance.

He had to wait until nine p.m. as he continued to work by the light of a lamp with no shade. Dinner—fish he’d managed to catch while eating lunch—was ready, keeping warm in the oven. He was more than happy to take Ian’s advice and spend lunch eating, feet propped up on the rail with a rod cast out.

Half the week, Ian told him, they ate dinner for free. And if he didn’t catch anything, he was welcome to take a lobster or two. This idea excited him and he couldn’t decide if it was due to the frugality of it or the sense of providing. He made cornbread, something he still hadn’t mastered, and thought it was dry—nothing extra butter wouldn’t fix.

She flew down the stairs, empty coffee cup in hand, mumbled something to him about getting the press ready, and disappeared into the kitchen. He put down his trowel and followed her. While she set her press up for the daily print, he washed his hands, took the hot plates of food from the oven, and put them on the table. There was only water, so he filled two glasses. She came out of the bedroom where her printing press lived, flew around the corner to the dining nook off the kitchen, and stopped with a skid.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Dinner,” he said, glancing up with a smile. “I do make dinner every night, remember?”

“No, when did you get a table?”

“Oh, that?” He turned and looked. “I bought that this afternoon. A family across town is moving. Got it real cheap.”

She got a better look at it. It was the perfect size, round, just three feet or so across, in a dark walnut finish with two matching chairs.

“How did you get it home? Here?” she corrected quickly.

“I carried it,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“How?”

“You’re full of questions,” he chided.

“I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a reporter, that’s what you do. I carried the table, upside down, balancing it on my head. Then I went back for the chairs. Then I went back for my bike.” He sat down. “In all, I managed nearly eight miles of walking to get this home,
after work.
”

“Oh,” she said, sitting down slowly.

“Surely that entitles me to some adoration. Just a little?”

She gave him a hard look.

“Slap a guy for trying.”

“So.” She ran her hand over the finish. It was obviously second hand, but still in good condition. “We have a table now.”

“Yes. We don’t have to eat standing up or at your desk or sitting on the floor.”

“I suppose that’d be a nice change.” Her appetite fired up as fast as her Flying Squirrel, and she pushed away the worry of accumulating furniture together, and began to eat in the same way she did everything else. Fast.

“Hey, slow down,” Peter said with a laugh.

“I have work to do,” she said with a full mouth.

“The articles are written, the press is humming along. You can stop and enjoy your dinner. Besides…” His eyes flickered up to her. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

She writhed, grabbed her glass, and gulped her water.