Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [156]
They turned to see Ann Marie standing in the doorway, affecting a look of deep concern.
“I wish you’d have said something,” she said to Maggie. “I could have helped.”
Kathleen tried to suppress a scoff. “That’s why I’m here. I think I know what my own daughter needs.”
The Kellehers prided themselves on coming together when something even vaguely resembling a tragedy occurred—anything from a funeral to a flat tire. Perhaps this was one of the benefits of having a large family, but to Kathleen it always seemed slightly disingenuous, as if they were making up for the horrible ways they had treated one another over the years simply by taking someone’s temperature or making a casserole.
Alice came bounding into the house now, wearing what looked like a beekeeper’s hat, the veil still covering her face.
“What on earth was that all about?” she said sharply to Ann Marie. “You trampled two of my tomato plants!”
“Mom, what are you talking about?” Ann Marie said.
“I saw you! I was on my way out to the garden and I saw you step all over them and then come running in here. Why, Ann Marie? You know the trouble I’ve had with the rabbits.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ann Marie said meekly. “Maybe it was an accident.”
“There’s no way to accidentally step on a tomato plant.” Alice set her gaze on Kathleen. “You always have a way of stirring everything up.”
“Me? What did I do?”
Alice sighed. “I don’t even know, it’s just your way. When you’re around, trouble starts. And Maggie starts acting like a pain in the ass too.”
“Jesus Christ,” Kathleen said.
“I’m going for a walk to clear my head,” Alice said. “I need a break. You’re all behaving like a bunch of Canadians today, and I’m not sure I can take it much longer.”
“Canadians?” Kathleen said.
Maggie shook her head. “Don’t ask.”
Alice walked off and Ann Marie said, “Anyway. Maggie, I had no idea. What can I do to help?”
“You can leave us alone,” Kathleen said. “Don’t you think if she wanted you to know she would have told you?”
“It’s okay. Everyone was bound to find out eventually,” Maggie said agreeably. She was always so damn agreeable. She wasn’t going to be any help when it came to getting rid of Ann Marie. She was too polite for that. Kathleen would have to take a new approach.
“So what happened with the tomato plants?” she asked casually.
Ann Marie blushed. “I’ll be down on the beach if anyone needs me,” she said, and turned on her heels.
Kathleen had hoped that she and Maggie could go to dinner alone, at the very least. She had read about a place in Portsmouth called the Black Trumpet in one of Arlo’s food magazines. The restaurant was located in an old shipping goods warehouse, and the chef cooked with organic ingredients from local farms.
Kathleen imagined them sitting at a table by the window and finally talking at length. She hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Maggie that she knew exactly how they could arrange the nursery (which was now her home office), or that a farmer friend of Arlo’s down the road had started selling homemade baby food. She had expected some amount of gratitude from her daughter, some acknowledgment that the last thing Kathleen would ever want to do was raise another child—but for Maggie, she would.
She hoped this would all come out at dinner. But when she mentioned it late that afternoon, Maggie said she had promised Alice she’d make a spaghetti sauce.
“If I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that she and Aunt Ann Marie have been doing all this cooking for me, and I wanted to repay the favor. Why don’t you come over to Grandma’s house with me now and you can help me cook?”
Somehow Kathleen felt like a child, an outsider. Maggie seemed to fit in so seamlessly here, unlike her. She could not imagine why Maggie wanted to go back into the belly of the beast next door after everything that had been said earlier in the day. Thank you for shitting on my life, please allow me to cook you dinner!