Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [152]
“During my month?” Kathleen said in a joking tone that she hoped Ann Marie knew was no joke. “I don’t remember you consulting me about that.” She smiled. “Just kidding.”
“Well, actually, I did tell you I had concerns about leaving Alice alone up here,” Ann Marie said. “And no one told me Maggie was staying on.”
“God, how is that possible?” Kathleen asked. “Everyone in this family is usually so good at communicating.”
This was a bad way to start things off and she knew it. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. God, grant me the goddamn strength.
Kathleen tried again. “You look good,” she said. “Have you lost some weight?”
Actually, Ann Marie didn’t look any different at all. If anything, a bit haggard.
“Oh, thanks,” Ann Marie said. “I’m seeing a trainer. I don’t know if it’s making a difference, really, but it feels good to at least try. Pat got me the sessions as a gift a couple years ago, but I’ve started going more regularly lately.”
“How sweet of him,” Kathleen said.
Ann Marie nodded. “Yes. He might have thought to say it with jewelry, but oh well.”
They laughed in earnest. That was a good sign. One of the few things they’d ever bonded over was Pat’s emotional cluelessness, though really his wife didn’t seem any more plugged in than he was.
“Do you know where Maggie is?” Kathleen asked.
“Napping in the cottage, I think,” Ann Marie said. “I was about to head over there to get her for lunch. You’re just in time for chicken salad.”
“Napping?” Kathleen asked. She hoped Maggie wasn’t feeling nauseous or depressed, or some combination of the two. And she absolutely hated that Ann Marie knew anything at all about Maggie that she herself did not. Was it possible Maggie had told her about the pregnancy? Was Ann Marie dangling the information in front of Kathleen now, taunting her with it?
Kathleen needed to be alone with her daughter.
“I’ll go get her,” she said, starting toward the cottage’s screen door. “We’ll meet you over at Alice’s in a bit.”
But Ann Marie didn’t take the hint. She followed close behind, saying, “Actually, I need to get some paprika from the cottage kitchen.”
“I can bring it to you,” Kathleen said.
“No, that’s okay. You don’t know where it is.”
Kathleen sighed. She pictured herself slipping Maggie a note: Meet me in my rental car and we’ll get the hell out of here.
She stepped into the screened-in porch, feeling as if she had stepped back in time. It was so much the same as it had been ten years ago, and ten years before that, and ten years before that. It even smelled the same. She hadn’t expected to be here ever again. It felt odd, and she thought of Sonoma Valley—the familiar road that cut through a vineyard and led to their house in Glen Ellen, with dog toys and bags of fertilizer strewn across the front lawn. That was home now.
She walked through the front hall. Her father’s old Red Sox hat had hung on a hook by the door there for as long as she could remember, but it was gone. She wondered where.
Kathleen found Maggie in the living room, reading in the armchair. She still had a baby face, and Kathleen recalled her in this same position as a child—cozy and safe, curled up with a book. She felt that same old urge to protect her at all costs.
“Mags?” she said.
Maggie looked up, registering her presence. “Mom!”
Ann Marie buzzed around behind them. “Yes, your mom’s here. Maggie, you didn’t tell us she was coming!”
Maggie rose and hugged Kathleen hard. “I didn’t know.”
“It was a surprise,” Kathleen said to Ann Marie, trying to sound cheerful, as if she did this sort of thing all the time.
“When did you get here?” Maggie asked.
“I flew into Boston this morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I tried. You never have your cell phone turned on.”
“I told you the reception is crummy out here. You should have called on the house line.” Maggie took a step back. “Have you been smoking?”
“What? No.”
Kathleen had thought her daughter would be happier to see her. The usual ease between them was missing. Of course, that was because