Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [184]
Ann Marie wanted to run. Had she ruined her marriage in an instant? Would she live out the rest of her days in some sad one-bedroom apartment, or would she get to keep the house?
She walked toward Kathleen. She spoke quickly, almost unable to breathe. “Oh God, please, Kathleen, don’t tell Patrick what you just saw.”
Kathleen straightened up. Her expression changed, and she looked genuinely warm for perhaps the first time Ann Marie could remember. She said slowly, purposefully, “I didn’t see anything. I’m just waiting for Maggie to get out of that disgusting bathroom. She’s been in there for ages.”
Ann Marie wasn’t sure whether to believe her.
“Please,” she said again. “I can explain what that was.”
“Here she comes,” Kathleen said, waving to her daughter. “Now, where are you guys sitting and what did you bring for dessert?”
The next morning, Ann Marie awoke with a terrible headache. Watching as she popped a couple of aspirin with her coffee, Steve said charitably, “I think we all had way too much to drink last night. The whole evening is a bit of a blur to me.”
His generous behavior only made her feel worse. She wanted the Brewers gone. She started cracking eggs for a quiche.
Ann Marie knew it was pointless, but she kept going over the events of the evening in her head: Why had she drunk so much champagne? How could she have misread all the signs? Or maybe she hadn’t misread them. Maybe it was just that the moment was wrong, but now she had ruined it for good.
Kathleen had been bizarrely kind all night, chatting like a normal adult with Linda and Steve, hardly picking any fights with Alice, and declaring that the Portsmouth fireworks display was among the best she had ever witnessed. She seemed to be going to great lengths to tell Ann Marie that her secret was safe. But Ann Marie knew her sister-in-law well. There were years ahead of them, and now Kathleen had this on her. Would she ever be able to exhale, knowing the havoc Kathleen could wreak now, anytime she liked?
After breakfast, though everyone was full and she herself was painfully hungover, Ann Marie decided to bake a three-berry pie. At least shopping for the filling would get her away for a bit. On her way out to the farm stand, she found Alice in her garden.
“Kathleen and Maggie left,” Alice said.
“What? When?” Ann Marie asked.
“Early this morning. Kathleen took Maggie home to New York. I don’t get the impression Gabe’s coming back around, the pig.”
Ann Marie nodded solemnly. It was comforting to consider someone else’s bad decisions for a moment.
“Kathleen said to tell you she was sick of the ocean and finally ready to get out of your hair,” Alice told Ann Marie. She rolled her eyes. “That one.”
Ann Marie hoped that Steve would create some work-related emergency and escape, but he did not. Nor did he avoid her, as she assumed he might. For the remaining three days of his stay, he went along as if nothing had happened. Each time he stroked his wife’s hair or took her hand, Ann Marie relived the entire mortifying episode all over again.
And each passing day meant they were closer to confronting Alice. She and Pat whispered about it in bed at night, both eager to have it over with, both agreeing that their choice of words could mean everything. They should not put Alice on the defensive or make her feel attacked. Rather, they should highlight the generous spirit that her donation conveyed, while gently pointing out that she would break their hearts if she went through with it.
The Brewers finally left on the seventh. They probably hadn’t even made it to the highway before Pat and Ann Marie went next door to deal with his mother.
They found her sitting at the kitchen table, smoking and reading a mystery novel that Ann Marie had gotten from her own mother and passed along.
“Mom, can we talk to you for a minute?” Pat asked. He sounded like a terrified child.
Alice was in charming