Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [104]
Maggie thought of this now, imagined an old photograph of all six grandkids on the beach that sat on the piano in her grandparents’ house in Canton. What would anyone think of how it had all turned out? She had told Rhiannon they were close, because in her head, that was the truth. But so much had changed.
When she saw the familiar WELCOME TO MAINE sign, she felt like she had arrived home. They stopped at Shop ’n Save on Route 1 for groceries. It had changed into a Hannaford sometime in the mid-nineties, but the Kellehers still called it by its original name. Walking the familiar aisles made her feel simultaneously safe and lonesome.
On the drive to the cottage, she pointed out familiar spots—the lobster pound and the old-fashioned pharmacy and the Front Porch, where tourists went late at night to watch male Judy Garland impersonators singing their hearts out.
They passed Ruby’s Market and Maggie thought of how much she had loved bringing Gabe there last summer. The two of them had eaves-dropped on the couple who owned the place, as they railed on about their ungrateful grandchildren, who had dared to move away to the big city. (And by big city they meant Portland, thirty miles north.)
Soon enough, they reached the fork in the road, where the initials A.H. were carved into the trunk of a tree, along with an imperfect shamrock. Maggie told Rhiannon to go left.
“Here?” Rhiannon asked skeptically, as newcomers always did, for the opening looked like just a footpath into the woods. They turned onto Briarwood Road and the tires blew sand up off the ground, which gave the impression of a fine mist floating between the pine trees.
“It’s so beautiful,” Rhiannon said.
A few moments later they had arrived, and Maggie’s stomach fluttered, as it always did when she caught sight of the cottage’s weathered wooden shingles, the beach chairs stacked up beside the front door, and the ocean in the distance.
Alice’s car wasn’t there when they pulled in, but as they unloaded the groceries, Maggie heard someone barreling down the road.
“I think I know who that is,” she said. “Brace yourself.”
Alice turned in without signaling, and pulled up a few inches behind Rhiannon’s Subaru, even though there was enough room in the grass for seven cars. When she got out, she bore a puzzled look.
“Maggie?” Alice said, staring at Rhiannon as if, without Gabe there, she couldn’t be sure it was really her granddaughter standing before her.
“Grandma, this is my friend Rhiannon,” she said. “Rhiannon, my grandmother Alice.”
Rhiannon extended a hand.
Alice shook her head quickly back and forth, and Maggie realized that she probably should have prepared her for this. With all the insanity of the last two days, she hadn’t even thought.
“I don’t understand,” Alice fumbled. “Where’s Gabe?”
She looked past them into the car, as if perhaps they had tied him up in the backseat.
“He’s not coming,” Maggie said. Her eyes met Alice’s and she saw that her grandmother was crushed. “We had a big fight. We sort of broke up. I tried to tell you when I called, but—”
“No, you didn’t tell me,” Alice said. “I would have remembered that. And I wouldn’t have paid full price for the corn muffins he said he liked if I’d known. I don’t want those in my house. What am I going to do with them?”
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said, her face turning pink with embarrassment. “I can pay you back.”
What the hell must Rhiannon be thinking? A granddaughter reimbursing her own grandmother for