Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [108]
Alice scoffed. “Annoying? No. We knew them well. I used to be a painter myself.”
“You did?” Maggie asked.
“Yes, you knew that.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did, Maggie.”
Maggie was sure she had never heard this before. She made a mental note to ask her mother about it.
“Why did you stop?” Rhiannon asked.
Alice threw up her hands. “Who has the time? Between this and that.”
Between what and what? Maggie thought. Cocktail hour and Masterpiece Theatre?
“You should get back into it,” Maggie said. “I’m sure there are some great classes in Boston. It could be a fun thing to try this winter.”
“Please, I’m too old for that,” Alice said.
“You’re not too old for anything,” Maggie said.
She wished Daniel were there, and said so out loud. “I’m sure Grandpa would love to see you painting again.”
“Oh, hush,” Alice said sternly.
“Did he not like the fact that you painted?” Rhiannon asked. She had obviously thought it was a harmless question, but Maggie braced herself.
“My husband never said a harsh word to anyone, least of all me,” Alice said. “If I wanted to paint, he thought painting was just fine.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Alice said. “Enough.”
“But why?” Maggie asked. “Don’t you think it could be good for us to talk about him? We both loved him so much.”
“I was his wife,” Alice said sharply. “You don’t get to say that you loved him like I did.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Maggie said, trying to ignore the sting of it, and too embarrassed to look toward Rhiannon. “I’m sure no one loved him as much as you. But that’s the thing: you never talk about him.”
“What exactly do you want to know?”
“Anything! How did he propose? Where did you go on your first date? I don’t even know how you met!”
“How we met?” Alice said, aghast, as though Maggie had asked about their favorite sexual positions.
“Yes, how did you meet Grandpa? I’ve never heard the story.”
“That’s because there is no story,” Alice said.
“There has to be a story.”
“There’s no story,” Alice said firmly. “My brother Timmy introduced us, and that’s all.”
“And what did you think of him? Was it love at first sight?”
“Maybe it’s a bit too hard right now, Maggie,” Rhiannon said.
Though Maggie knew it was childish, she felt slightly betrayed. “But even if it is,” she said to her grandmother, “don’t you ever just want to get it out there?”
Alice’s eyes widened. She looked at Rhiannon. “I hardly think that’s appropriate dinner table conversation,” said the woman who had probably imbibed a bottle and a half of wine over dinner, and brought up the cheap Mexican handyman and Kathleen’s postdivorce weight gain in the first ten minutes.
“Are you gals about full?” Alice said. “Because I’m tuckered out.”
It was exactly the way she had shut down the previous summer when Gabe was there. Maybe there would always be this wall with Alice, no matter how badly Maggie wished things might change, no matter how many times she forgot for a moment that their family wasn’t what she wanted it to be.
Rhiannon stood and began piling the dishes.
“I’ll get those later,” Alice said.
“It’s the least I can do,” Rhiannon said. She stacked the plates and side platters into one neat load.
Alice and Maggie followed her silently into the kitchen.
The wax-paper bag of corn muffins Alice had bought for Gabe sat on the counter. Maggie missed him for an instant, a sharp pain in her chest.
“Should I take these?” she asked.
“No, don’t bother. Leave them,” Alice said. “They’ll go stale, but maybe I won’t notice if I toast them.”
They were full from dinner and it had started to spit rain, so Maggie and Rhiannon decided not to walk on the beach after all. Still, Maggie didn’t want her to go. She was thinking in a panicked way about her grandmother and her mother. They were both selfish and stubborn, but as parents they had each been tempered by a good, kind man—Daniel, in both cases. She herself would have no such balance if she brought a child into the world. Not unless Gabe came back.
“Why don’t you come to the cottage for a cup of