Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [151]
When Kathleen had told Paul Doyle that she was pregnant with Maggie, he had seemed flustered at first, but then he said, We’ll just get married! That was our plan anyway. She remembered thinking, Was it? for a moment, before feeling relieved.
Kathleen thought of how lonely she had felt parenting on her own after the divorce. That had been the hardest part.
An idea crept into her head then: Maggie would have to come live with them. They could give her support, help her look after the baby. The child would have green fields to run in, and a family of caring adults around, and the healthiest food on the planet to eat.
Out in the parking lot after the meeting, she told Arlo what she’d been thinking.
“Would that be okay with you?”
His eyes grew wide, as if he couldn’t believe she had to ask. “Of course!”
Kathleen loved him more than ever in that moment. She began to cry.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Our life,” she said. “It’s going to end. No more walking around the house naked, no more privacy. I can’t believe it. Why did this have to happen to me?”
He cocked his head. “You do realize that you’re acting as though one of us is dying. You need to get positive. A baby is coming!”
“Right,” she said. “Right.”
She pushed from her head the fear that maybe he was back on the dope. No, it wasn’t that. He was just a good person. And he didn’t know yet how hard it would be to have an infant in their house, crying at all hours.
She thought of asking Maggie to meet her at a hotel somewhere near the cottage. She could pay for a taxi. That way they could talk, really spend some time together, without Alice there poking her nose into things.
But she had been trying to call Maggie for days, and for days she had gotten voice mail. She responded to Maggie’s e-mail, writing CALL ME!! in the subject line. But Maggie didn’t write back. So Kathleen booked an overpriced flight to Boston, rented a car, and drove north without telling her daughter, or for that matter, her mother, that she was coming. And now here she was, driving down Briarwood Road, feeling so anxious that her insides seemed to itch.
It was after noon, which meant Alice was probably home from church and three-quarters of the way through her second bottle of wine. Kathleen hoped that she would see Maggie first and be able to talk to her in private right away.
As she made her way toward the cottage, she saw three cars in the driveway—Alice’s and two others. Driving closer, she recognized the blue Mercedes.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she said to herself. She pulled her car onto the property, and actually considered hitting the gas and plowing straight into it.
Maybe Pat had driven out to fix something. Maybe he’d leave immediately. She could only hope.
Kathleen took the keys from the ignition and sighed long and hard. When she got out, she could smell the ocean air. For a moment she felt almost peaceful. But within seconds, the driver’s-side door of the Mercedes flew open and Ann Marie stepped out. What, had she been spying from the front seat? Was she able to smell the enemy from a hundred yards away?
Her sister-in-law came toward her.
“Kathleen!” she said, sounding forced. “Well, this is a surprise.”
It looked like Ann Marie had been crying. What the hell was she doing here?
Kathleen had a sinking feeling in her gut.
“Likewise,” she said. “Are you up for the afternoon? Is Pat here too?”
“No, I’m here to care for Alice for a couple of weeks,” Ann Marie replied. “I arrived a few days ago.”
The nerve of her, concocting a schedule for their collective home and then not observing it herself. Of course, the rules wouldn’t apply to the king and queen, only to