Changing Lanes: A Novel (25 page)

Melancholy touched my heart. The Widow Murphy had always seemed immortal to me as a child. Infallible. And yet, she wasn’t.

None of us were.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Will you still visit?”

Riley gave a soft whine and set his head on Don’s knee. “Good boy.” Don wove his fingers through the fur at Riley’s neck. “We’ll visit until she leaves us,” he answered. “She may not be awake, but she knows when Riley’s there. I’m sure.”

A tangle of emotion battled for space inside my heart. Sadness that Mrs. Murphy was nearing the end of her life. Happiness that she’d had the chance to know Don and Riley. Joy that I’d run into Don on that stormy day not too long ago, and now he’d become an ever more important part of my life, Frankie’s life, and my grandmother’s life—he and Nan had gone out on a handful of dates since their first.

“How goes it with Nan?” I asked, hoping a change in topic might ease Don’s heartache.

Much to my surprise, he blushed.

“Sorry.” I waved a hand as I turned back to drive Bessie. “Didn’t mean to pry. I just meant, thanks for liking Nan. I mean, thanks for being such a great guy.” I gave another wave as I pulled the car away from the curb. “Oh, never mind.”

Don’s laughter built from an amused chuckle to a full-out roar. “You’re one in a million, Abby. How lucky am I that you gave me a ride that rainy afternoon.”

Now I was the one blushing. “I was just thinking how lucky I was that you spotted the cab.”

Silence beat between us for a few moments.

“Well,” I said softly, “I’m glad you and Nan are enjoying each other’s company.”

Don nodded, looking out the window. While he didn’t say a word, the slight upturn of his lips told me everything I needed to know. His was the face of a man who was falling in love.

“She’s being a little stubborn about returning my calls this week. Something about being unfaithful to your grandpa.” He winked at me in the rearview mirror. “You Halladay women…” His voice trailed off, but his smile remained firmly in place.

“We’re trouble,” I answered. “But I guarantee we’re worth the effort.”

Perhaps the no-secret-is-safe vibe of Paris had gotten to me. Perhaps I was more like my mother than I knew. Perhaps I just wanted Nan to be happy.

And so, sitting inside Dad’s cab, I shared Nan’s secret. Was I wrong to do so? Maybe. But maybe I was right.

Maybe, by giving away the secret to Nan’s most-cherished daily moment, I’d be able to help her find a lifetime of new ones.

Later that afternoon, after I’d done a round-trip to Newark International and two smaller runs to Quaker Bridge Mall, I pulled Bessie to a stop just inside the gates of the Paris Cemetery. I left Dad’s fedora on the front passenger seat and walked to Grandpa’s grave.

I sank down onto the bench my family had installed years earlier, and rested my chin on my fists.

I thought about how many nights Nan had spent here, sipping tea in this very spot, bringing Grandpa up-to-date on her day and our lives. I thought about telling him about my month, but I figured he already knew…so to speak.

Sometimes I missed him so badly I ached inside. He’d been as loving and generous as anyone I’d ever met. I smiled. My mother’s apple didn’t fall far from that tree.

So today, instead of talking, I listened. The breeze rustled a nearby stand of cherry trees, and the Delaware washed past in the distance, a reminder that life was forever in motion, not waiting for us to make up our minds or shift our plans.

Life was a lot like driving Dad’s cab. The trick to avoiding a fender bender was to react quickly and anticipate bad drivers. I thought about Fred and realized I hadn’t done either very well lately.

His sudden departure had left me reeling, but I’d adapted. As a matter of fact, I liked the changes I’d made in my life during the past four weeks. I liked driving Bessie. I loved getting to know the residents of Paris. I was proud of my photo gallery inside the cab and at Jessica’s. I even liked the Clippers, not that I’d ever admit that to anyone.

I felt stronger and more confident than I’d felt in years. So why had I let Fred’s text message shake me to the core?

Part of me didn’t want to face Fred. Part of me wanted to tell him to simply go away and stay away.

Yet an even bigger part of me knew that if I didn’t face him and talk to him, I’d never really know how I felt about the man I had planned to marry.

New life plan or no new life plan, I couldn’t move forward until I’d dealt with that part of my past.

My cell phone rang before I had time to answer my own question.

For a moment, I actually thought it might be Fred, but Max Campbell’s voice took me completely by surprise.

Maybe he’d liked my new ideas. Maybe he’d decided to feature one of my articles.

“Listen, Henry’s decided to retire. Obituaries and Celebrations is yours if you want them.”

“Obituaries and Celebrations”? I tipped my head toward the sky and squinted at the stars.
Really?
I mouthed. But to Max, I said, “What about my other ideas?”

“Not edgy enough,” he answered.

I wondered if he lived by that mantra, or if he saved the three-word phrase exclusively for me.

“Like Obituaries and Celebrations is?” Disbelief rang heavy in my tone.

“Not edgy,” he agreed. “But most everyone gets married, promoted, or dies sooner or later.”

His words still rang in my ears after I’d told him I’d think about his offer and hung up.

Most everyone gets married, promoted, or dies sooner or later.

Sure. But did I want to be the one to write about it?

Yes, a new gig meant I’d be back on payroll and collecting a steady—albeit small—paycheck, but did I want to sell out the dreams I’d newly embraced?

If Fred were involved in the decision, he’d be making a list of pros and cons as well as a potential earnings spreadsheet.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Mick’s voice came out of nowhere, and if I hadn’t seen his handsome face immediately, I probably would have written off his voice as a figment of my overactive imagination.

We hadn’t seen each other since the infamous text message from Fred, but Mick had surely heard about it by now. This was Paris, after all.

He sat beside me on the bench and put his hand on my knee.

He said something, but my brain was too busy analyzing his hand on my knee to do anything even close to listening.

“Sorry?” I said, realizing I had no idea what he’d said.

“Are you keeping Nan’s seat warm?” he said, apparently repeating what I’d missed.

I frowned. “You know about that?”

Mick grinned. “It’s Paris. Everyone knows about that.”

I smiled at the note of sympathy in his voice, as if he hated to be the one to tell me there were no secrets in a town this size. I’d learned that lesson in kindergarten, when I’d lost my first tooth over on the playground, and my mother had been notified and was waiting by the time I raced home.

“You’re saying my detective skills aren’t above average?” I asked, suddenly aware of how close we sat to each other.

“I’m sure they are.” Mick took his hand from my knee and leaned forward, staring at the expanse of the cemetery.

I followed his gaze, taking in the headstones, the grave markers, the flowers, shrubs, and the ivy that had held its ground for hundreds of years.

Mick’s family plot sat several yards away, and although I tried to imagine him stopping to pay his respects at the simple grave
marker that marked the spot where Ed O’Malley’s coffin had been buried, I couldn’t.

“Where’s your father?” I asked.

Mick pointed, even though he knew I knew exactly where the grave sat.

“Want me to give you some privacy?”

Mick laughed, the sound forced. “Hell, no. I’m not here for him. Do you know she never stopped buying him doughnuts?” he asked, his voice going thick. “Until she forgot.”

Confusion swirled inside me. “Who?”

“Mom. That’s when she got lost the first time.” He hung his head. “At least, I think it was the first time.”

I held tight to the arm of the bench, unnerved by the vulnerability in Mick’s tone, my mom’s words playing through my mind.

Listen to him when he talks.

“She’d gone to the bakery,” Mick continued. “The old man loved glazed doughnuts. Plain glazed doughnuts.” Mick ran a hand through his hair. “He was a drunk who made no time for us, and she still bought him his doughnuts even though he’d been dead for years.”

I said nothing, not wanting to do or say anything that might shut down Mick’s words.

“Your mother told me my mom wandered all the way to the bridge before Frankie spotted her and walked her home,” he continued.

My mother had never told me a thing about Detta O’Malley’s condition. She hadn’t so much as hinted or gossiped about our neighbor’s mental changes until I’d witnessed them for myself.

I’d once lumped my mother in with the rest of the Paris grapevine, but the past few weeks had taught me differently.

“Your mother took her to the doctor. Your father slept nights on her sofa until I got home. Your family was there when my mother had no one else.”

I sat back, stunned by Mick’s admission.

I’d had no idea of what had happened before Mick came home, but, at that moment, I couldn’t have been prouder of my family.

We might have all grown apart there for a bit, but truth was, one thing had never changed. My family was one in a million.

I reached for his hand and he let me.

Mick stared at the ground between his boots. “Someday soon she won’t remember me. I wasted all that time when I should have been here.”

I tried to imagine how he felt, faced with the fact that the day would come in which his mother would no longer know him. The mere thought conjured such painful emotions I blinked back tears, my heart threatening to shatter.

Then it hit me.

“Some things run deeper than memory.” I squeezed his hand in mine. “Like your mom’s love.”

He lifted his focus and our gazes met and held once more. “I’m sorry, Abby.”

Sorry.

“Your mother understands,” I said.

Mick shook his head. “I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye.”

His simple sentence rocked me, erasing any trace of anger I’d held on to for the past dozen years.

Emotion tightened my throat. “I’m sorry, too,” I whispered.

Mick frowned. “For what?”

“For letting everyone in Paris believe burning down the tree was your fault.”

He smiled. “Didn’t matter. You were the one headed to college. I was the son of the town drunk. Everyone expected me to be the one to screw up.”

Frustration built inside me. “That’s not true. Look at everything you’ve accomplished since then.”

Mick pulled his hand free of mine and pushed to his feet. “I wouldn’t have accomplished any of it if I’d stayed here.” He gestured toward the gate. “Let’s go.”

I pressed a kiss to my fingertips and brushed them against the top of Grandpa’s headstone before we stepped away.

Mick strode past his family plot without so much as a hesitant step or a sideways glance.

It felt right to have him beside me, strolling along as we’d done so many years ago.

“What are you going to do?” he asked after we’d climbed inside Bessie and were headed for home.

“About?”

He stretched, rolling his neck to the back, to the side, to the back again. “Your life.”

“That, Mick O’Malley, is the million-dollar question.”

“Seems to me you’re happy now.”

In my heart, I knew he was right, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to make that admission. “What about you?” I asked.

“I’m happy here,” he said.

He spoke the words quickly and assuredly but without conviction. A note of sadness tinged his tone, and I knew Lily must be ever present in his mind.

“Are you really?” I asked.

Mick said nothing.

I decided to push against the safe limits of our previous conversation. “Seems to me a big chunk of your happiness lives on the other side of the country.”

Neither of us said another word during the remainder of the short ride home. After I pulled Bessie into her parking spot, safely beneath her tent, Mick climbed out.

Then he simply walked away.