Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [161]
Alice’s House. She imagined them young and in love when he did it, not a care in the world, just starting out and expecting life always to be perfect.
Kathleen heard footsteps behind her now. She clenched her hands. Please let it be a brutal serial killer and not Ann Marie.
She turned around.
“Hi,” she said tersely.
“Good morning,” her sister-in-law replied. “Do you know where Alice is? It seems early for her to be at church.”
“I have no idea,” Kathleen said. “You spent the night with her. Oh God, is this the beginning of your elaborate cover-up? You pretend you don’t know where she is, but then we find the body in your trunk a week from now?”
“Stop that. I’m concerned.”
She could see that yesterday’s insanity was over, and Ann Marie had returned to her pod person self.
“I liked you better when you were acting nuts,” Kathleen said. “Can I see some more of that?”
Ann Marie pursed her lips. “Let’s try to be civil, okay? I’m sorry for how I acted. Pat will be here in a few days and you and Maggie will be leaving and we’ll each have time to sort ourselves out.”
Kathleen got a wicked thought in her head, the sort Maggie would say was childish and mean. She couldn’t help it. “What makes you think we’ll be leaving?”
Ann Marie’s eyes grew big. “July first is in four days,” she said.
“And?”
“And July is our month.”
“Well, June is my month, and you’re here now.”
Ann Marie sounded panicked. “We’ve invited friends. It’s going to be a full house, Kathleen. You can’t just stay.”
Kathleen grinned. “Watch me.”
Alice
Alice chose a table in the sun.
She assumed that’s what Father Donnelly would pick, since given the choice, everyone always tended to want to sit outside. It seemed pointless to her in a setting like this—a busy Portland street, traffic flying by, smog in your pancakes. But when the waiter had asked, “Inside or out?” she immediately answered, “Out.”
The one advantage was that she could smoke while she waited. It wasn’t technically allowed, but no one had tried to stop her yet.
When Boston enacted the smoking ban a few years back, she had thought of her father, imagined him walking into a bar and being told to put out his cigarette. He would have been more likely to knock out the bartender. The older she got, the more she realized that while most girls grew up and turned into their mothers, she had become more like her father. Better to be an angry old bully than a passive little wimp, she supposed, though people were more inclined to pity the wimp. That seemed to be Ann Marie’s approach.
The previous night, Father Donnelly had called and asked her to meet him for an early breakfast before Mass. He wanted to talk about the house, he said; he had some concerns. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being sent to the principal’s office: Alice Brennan, did you steal the new pastels? Absolutely not, Sister Florence. I haven’t a clue how they landed in my pocket.
They usually ate somewhere close to home, but Alice had chosen this place—the closest thing Maine had to an anonymous city, far enough away from Briarwood Road, as if to distance herself from yesterday’s mortifying scene. She had gotten used to Father Donnelly’s company these past few months. She was furious with herself for how she had acted in front of him, how they all had acted.
Ann Marie had behaved as though Alice was robbing her of her ancestral home, and Alice had seen in Father Donnelly’s eyes that he felt pity for her daughter-in-law. She hoped she could make him understand the reason for her decision.
They were meeting at eight, but she had intentionally arrived early. Now she drank her tea and looked out over the crowded sidewalk, hoping to see him first. He was such a polite young man, so sweet and understanding. He was probably scandalized by what had gone on at her house the day before. In a way, whatever he had to say would be a welcome distraction set against her family’s problems.
Maggie was pregnant. Kathleen had accused Alice of not caring because of some lack of interest in the girl. But