Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [157]
“You’re going to start cooking now?” she asked. “It’s four thirty. Why don’t we take a walk on the beach first?”
“Alice likes to eat early,” Maggie said. “Do you want to come?”
“I’ll stay here for a while, I think,” Kathleen said. “I have some work I need to do.”
“Okay,” Maggie said.
“Hey,” Kathleen said. “Call me crazy, but are you sort of avoiding me?”
“What do you mean, Mom? We’ve been sitting here talking for the last three hours!”
Maggie didn’t sound like herself. But then again, Kathleen wasn’t herself right now either.
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m being clingy, I guess.”
Maggie gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Come next door soon, please.”
“I will,” Kathleen said. “Pasta for dinner, huh? Maybe that’s why Ann Marie stomped the tomato plants. Maybe she got sauce making confused with wine making.”
Maggie grinned. “Maybe so.”
Kathleen made every conceivable work-related phone call she could think of, sitting on the hood of her car. She called Arlo and he asked right away whether Maggie was excited to come back to California.
“Not exactly,” she told him. “I think it’s going to take a bit of time to get her to realize it’s the right choice.”
“Well, tell her there’s one old geezer, two aging dogs, and several million worms here who are eagerly anticipating her arrival,” he said. “I started cleaning out the upstairs office this morning.”
Kathleen knew she should feel grateful, but her heart seized up, thinking of her cozy, cluttered workspace emptied out. “Where are you putting everything?” she asked.
“In boxes in the shed,” he said. “Kath, it’s not forever. Okay? This baby adventure might just be our best one yet.”
“You’re wonderful,” she said.
“Who knows? We might even decide to have one of our own.”
“Okay, now you’re just insane.” He asked about Alice.
“I am trying to be civil, but you know how it goes,” she said. “And Ann Marie is here, too, as luck would have it. They were drinking by noon.”
“Stay strong,” he said.
After they hung up, she lit another cigarette, glancing toward her parents’ house to make sure no one was watching. Then she looked around, taking it all in. The ocean and the sand and the look of the cottage itself, she remembered. But she had forgotten about the nature—the giant lush trees that shaded her mother’s garden, the pines and the birches. The birds, with their bright red and blue wings, the hum of frogs off in the marshes on the other side of the street. The mosquitoes that had caused her to douse her children in Skin So Soft five times a day when they were young. (Ann Marie used OFF! on her kids, hazardous chemicals be damned.)
A few minutes later, the priest pulled his car into the driveway.
Him again? Already? Christ, was the priesthood really so bad these days that the guys had to moonlight as handymen?
“I got the new part for the drain,” he said. He held up a brown paper bag.
Kathleen nodded. She stomped out the cigarette and hoped, absurdly, that he would not mention it to her mother.
“Is everyone okay around here?” he asked, sounding nervous. “I know it was tense at lunch.”
“Was it?” Kathleen asked.
“Do you know where I can find Alice and Ann Marie?” he said. “I think we need to talk.”
“Over at my mother’s house,” she said. She suddenly got the feeling that something interesting was about to unfold, and added, “I’ll come with you.”
In the kitchen, the smell of Maggie’s tomato sauce filled the air. Maggie and Alice stood by the stove, talking about a book Maggie thought her grandmother would like. Through the archway that led to the living room, Kathleen could see Ann Marie sitting on the couch, sewing together swatches of fabric with a needle and thread for no reason she could fathom. There was an almost empty glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her.
“Father!” Alice said when she saw them there. Clearly, she felt no need to address Kathleen. “You didn’t have to come