Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [195]
“She really loves you,” Patty cooed, and of course Alice couldn’t say anything, because it would be rude to tell her to go away. She was already in hot water with Ann Marie. But God help her, she found that child annoying. She wished Patty would have the good sense to realize that she didn’t feel like being a damn babysitter. After they left, she found the remains of an oatmeal cookie under one of the chairs on the porch, absolutely covered in ants.
Alice had been alone for ten days straight now, fourteen if you didn’t count Ann Marie’s last visit, which had lasted only two hours. Alice had asked her if she wanted to go somewhere for lunch, but Ann Marie said she had a lot to get back to at home, which Alice assumed was code for “I’m still angry.”
The silence in the house did not bother her one bit. She felt rather exhausted from the events of the summer as it was, and when Clare had called to say that Ryan was in rehearsals for a play the first three weeks of August, so they wouldn’t be coming up until the twenty-first, Alice had felt almost relieved. Her world grew small again, as it had been before the Kelleher women descended on the place with all their drama and their worries and their strife.
Now she watched as Papa Bunny ran behind her rhododendron bushes and out of sight, back home to his family.
“Toodle-oo,” she said out loud, and she felt good for having made amends.
She looked at the bottle of cabernet on the side table, registering that it was now half full.
Aha. She had actually thought those words: half full. That meant she was an optimist, didn’t it? Alice smiled. Daniel would have gotten a kick out of that.
“How do you like that?” she said. “You always said I failed to look on the bright side, but I think I just proved you wrong.”
She poured herself a bit more wine.
Right after he died, she had talked to her husband out loud all the time, letting him know what the children were up to, how she was passing her days. At a certain point she had stopped, but lately she found herself doing it again. She had even told him how much she resented having Maisy underfoot, adding, “I only tell you this because I know you can’t respond and scold me for being so awful.”
Now she said, “I haven’t heard from Patrick and Ann Marie for three days. The nerve of them. They didn’t get their way, so now they’re punishing me. Is that any way to treat your mother?”
She refused to feel bad about the house, no matter what they did or said. Really, she hadn’t expected them to get so worked up about it. Patrick and Ann Marie were the most noticeably upset, but even Clare had called her in tears when she heard the news. Alice told them all that there was nothing she could do about it now. St. Michael’s was counting on the money.
Ann Marie had asked how she could do this to them, how she could just go ahead and give their summerhouses to the Church, as if the Church were nothing. The Church was the only constant companion of Alice’s life, the only thing that made sense, always.
She sipped her wine. Out in the distance, heat lightning flashed across the sky. Alice thought a little rain would help cool the air down, but the rain didn’t come.
The next day was Sunday the fifteenth, the Feast of the Assumption. Alice was up early to get to the Legion of Mary’s celebration. It was her job to bring the cinnamon rolls, and she had made a special trip to a bakery in Wells.
She wore a pale violet pantsuit that she had never worn before, and she took special care with her hair and her eye makeup. In a departure from their usual schedule, they were meeting before Mass to honor the Virgin Mother’s assumption into Heaven and to prepare for their role in the offering.
As she