Keepsake (46 page)

Fifteenth time: "I'm so sorry."

"When are you expecting your—?" He nodded vaguely at her stomach.

"A week?" Olivia hazarded. "It's a surprisingly inexact science. It's been a wonderful pregnancy," she added, although he couldn't possibly care. "Whereas with Jessie
... So I'm hoping that this child will be a little more laid back."

"That
would
be nice. For you, I mean. Naturally."

And there they left it until the arrival of the seller of the big white Victorian that Quinn and Olivia had contracted to buy. Mrs. Dewsbury, dressed in burgundy twill and walking with the help of her Sunday cane, came stepping in smartly ahead of Quinn and Jessie.

Relieved, Olivia greeted the widow with a big grin. "Ah, you're here—and don't you look nice, Mrs. D."

"My dear, you look enormous!"

"Nur-
mus," said Jessie, holding on to her father's hair with lollipop hands. Her vocabulary was getting better every day, even if her hygiene wasn't.

The elderly woman took a seat, and Mr. Sayles popped out of the room to see how long it would be before her own attorney showed. Clearly he wanted to get the show on the road.

The widow was in a state. "I was up all night, fretting," she confessed to Quinn and Olivia. "I ought to have made up my mind sooner about selling you the house. I feel just terrible. How will you handle a move and a new baby, not to mention that one up there?" she asked, pointing to the dark-eyed monkey who seemed to be enjoying the view from atop Quinn's shoulders.

"Don't be silly. It's not as if we're moving right in," said Olivia, handing Quinn a wet wipe for Jessie. "We'll need to get the workmen into the kitchen and—"

"That's another thing. You're paying me far too much for the house; it's falling down."

Quinn laughed and said, "Are you kidding? We practically stole it out from under you. I just hope the AARP doesn't hear about this."

"Oh, you stop that," the widow said gaily.

"You stop that!" mocked Jessie as Quinn reached up over his head to clean her
hands
.

Olivia was glad to see that Mrs. Dewsbury was exhilarated at the prospect of moving into a retirement community and passing the house on to someone she loved. Quinn had been very careful about approaching her, checking first with her son and afterward insisting on three separate appraisals before he made an offer over and above the highest of them. Everyone was happy, Olivia, most of all. It was much too quiet outside of town, and besides, they were bursting the seams
of
the townhouse.

Mr. Sayles returned with Mrs. Dewsbury's attorney, a man even more bent and white-haired than he was, and they began the numbing process of handing over a venerable piece of
Americana
from one generation to another. Olivia signed wherever they pointed, but—her advisor at Harvard would have been ashamed of her—her mind wasn't focused on the numbers at all.

Her mind was where her heart was: in a big white house on a wide street in a nice neighborhood in the center of Keepsake, where an old porch swing had been left hanging on its chains especially for her. She planned to spend a lot of time there, nursing her newborn baby while Jessie ran around on the lawn. When the children were in school, maybe she would go back full time to Miracourt. But not now... not yet. Now was the time for porch swings.

She glanced sympathetically at her husband, stuck with the job of deciphering dust-dry legalese while he rubbed sleepy Jessie's back.

Poor Quinn. What a long list of projects she had lined up for him: a lamppost at the turn into the drive
... a pergola in the back
yard, leading to a small, stone-walled, and very secret garden
... a fountain like the one he had carved from granite for her mother, with a tiered waterfall tumbling soothingly into a tiny hollowed pool
...

All in his spare time, of course.

"What're you smiling at?" he murmured, echoing hers with one of his own.

"Oh
... nothing. Just happy, I guess."

Poor, poor Quinn.

****

Th
e Memorial Day dedication didn'
t begin until six. There had been plenty of time after the closing on their new house for Jessie to nap and Olivia to put up her feet and rest. Quinn, still traumatized from her difficult first pregnancy, hadn't wanted her to go to the dedication at all, but Olivia had insisted.

"Quinn! You volunteered to build the memorial wall, stone by stone and with your own hands. How could I not go to this?"

And so she put on a maternity dress of pale blue linen and dressed Jessie in buttercup yellow, and they picked up Mrs. Dewsbury and drove to Town Hill to wander the grounds before the official ceremony to honor Keepsake's fallen.

It was a wonderful afternoon, sunny and warm and mild. Mrs. Dewsbury went off to the penny sale tent in search of bargains, and Quinn and Olivia pushed Jessie in her stroller past the bake sale table, emerging at the other end with a gooey cupcake for Jessie and brownies for themselves.

Nibbling their treats, they stopped to buy a dozen tickets from Betty Bennett, who was manning the booth for the Sewing Club's charity raffle of a wedding quilt.

"My aunt seems happy, don't you think?" asked Olivia as they wandered out of earshot.

"Very. Sad to say, but the divorce is the best thing that coul
d
have happened to her."

"She didn't think so at the time."

"Even before it, she was happier than your Uncle Rupert will ever be. She has the capacity for joy. He doesn't."

As usual, Quinn's understanding of people Olivia had known all of her life was better than her own. She was too close to them, she had long ago decided; she couldn't see them as clearly as he could from the sidelines.

They were resting near the gazebo in chairs set up for the band concert when
Rand
came by in search of Mrs. Dewsbury.

"Try the penny sale tent," Olivia told her brother. "What's up?"

Rand sighed and said, "She left a message with my office that she wants to bring her old
Kenmore
stove to the new place when she moves in on Monday. I've explained to her that her stove is gas and that there's no gas available on that side of town yet. She says she'll wait."

"She will, too," Quinn said with a laugh.

"Is she your most difficult buyer?"

Rand
shrugged. "Average. It's a retirement community; the elderly tend to know what they like." He leveraged himself out of his chair by pushing hard on his thighs. "Frankly, I admire that generation. Their credit is perfect and they understand the value of a dollar. But—I can't produce gas where there is no pipeline. Has Eileen showed up with the kids yet?"

"Haven't seen them."

"Tell her I'll be in the tent with Mrs. D."

He walked away, a man with a mission.

Smiling, Olivia said to Quinn, "Getting out of the mill—and from under my father's thumb—was the best thing that's ever happened to him. Look at him hustle. He really wants to succeed. It's an amazement to me."

"He's just a late bloomer, that's all. Some people are like that. Look at you," Quinn said, slipping his arm around her shoulder and sneaking a kiss. "Getting better every day."

"I feel like an elephant at a tea party," she grumped. "I want this baby born.
Now."

"
Hey
, watch what you're saying," said Quinn. He leaned over Olivia's stomach and said through cupped hands, "She didn't mean that. There's no hurry. Anytime after the weekend is fine."

"Oh, stop," said Olivia, laughing, as she batted him on the head. "Ah, there's Eileen. Over here!" she cried, but she needn't have. Kristin had spotted her cousin and was speeding like a cheetah toward the stroller.

Olivia got out her wet wipes and went to work, handing over a less sticky but still chocolate-covered little girl to her bigger-girl cousin. She watched with pleasure as the two of them went romping on the green, with Zack on the sidelines trying to look cool but itching to join the fun.

Yes. This is as it should be.

Eileen had the same thought. "Thank God we all toughed it out."

"I think of that every single day," Olivia said, turning in surprise to her sister-in-law. "Every single day."

Quinn could see girl talk coming; he excused himself and wandered off toward the book sale table.

"Is your father here yet?" asked Eileen.

"He will be. I don't think he's ever missed a Memorial Day ceremony. And this year there's Quinn's stone wall. He'll feel obligated."

"He does have a way of soldiering on. Who would have thought he'd keep the mill in Keepsake this long?"

"Oh, he won't relocate the mill anymore."

"Too old to do it?"

"My father, too old? Hardly. I think keeping it here is his way of compensating Keepsake for the
... inconvenience
... our family has caused people," Olivia said with a dry smile. "Even if he
is
going slowly broke doing it."

"Mm." Eileen sipped her Snapple through a straw and sat back with a thoughtful sigh. "Any chance that your mother will show?"

Olivia shook her head. "Once you become a recluse, it becomes harder and harder to go anywhere. Mom has scarcely been out to buy a quart of milk in the past couple of years; I can't imagine she'd suddenly show up at a town event like this. In fact—"

A grating screech from the sound system being tested brought everyone to attention: The memorial was about to be dedicated. The two women gathered up their children and their men, and they joined Father Tom and Mrs. Dewsbury and Chief Vickers and the rest of the townspeople assembling in front of the low fieldstone wall that Quinn had built behind the flagpole on Town Hill—the same flagpole from which Olivia's velvet cape had hung in scarlet ribbons, one sleet-driven night.

But that was in another lifetime, as far as Olivia was conc
erned. Quinn had said it best: a
ll's well that ends well. She slipped her arm through his, and they stood with Eileen and Rand and their children in the front of the crowd, on the left side of the memorial.

"I guess my dad's not coming," Olivia said, scanning the assembly. She was both surprised and disappointed.

Mayor Mike Macoun, newly re-elected and on his last term, began a long and heartfelt speech about patriotism. It was the Memorial Day weekend, after all, and the stone wall was being dedicated to men and women from Keepsake who had died in service to their country. Everyone stood respectfully, trying to reconcile thoughts of war with the wonderfully fine evening and friendly gathering.

They nodded when the mayor effused over Quinn's generous contribution of time and material in the creation of the fieldstone memorial that would grace Town Hill for centuries. The low V-shaped wall was beautifully made with no visible mortar and had been the talk of the town for weeks. Quinn had built it as a labor of love, but ironically, everyone who could afford one suddenly wanted one: He had been turning down commissions left and right.

After a round of grateful applause, the mayor cleared his throat and added, "We're here today to honor Keepsake's fallen heroes, but there are two of ours whose heroism has never been properly acknowledged, and now seems like the proper time to do it.

"Twenty years ago come October," he said, "Francis Leary and his son—the man who built this wall—were instrumental in saving the lives of a dozen women and children and elderly in a terrible bus accident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania."

His words were electrifying. Olivia didn't dare look at Quinn. She didn't have to, to know the surge of emotion he was experiencing. She could feel it in the hand that was holding hers, hear it in his quickened breath.

"A lot of us have heard about the incident," the mayor continued, "but we haven't rightly figured out how to acknowledge it. Well, due to the hard work and generosity of a prominent citizen who wishes to remain anonymous, the Keepsake Memorial Commission has been able to locate and fly in several of the survivors from that terrible time. They're here with us today, and I would like to introduce them to you now. Here are: Rhyanna White Johnson, Martin Lindsey, and Christy Ptak."

The mayor motioned for the three to join him at the speaker's podium, and they came shyly forward. Then he turned to Quinn and said with a smile, "Quinn? I think these folks have something they'd like to say to you."

The mayor stepped back. For an awful second, Olivia was afraid that Quinn might refuse to step out from the crowd. But he was acting on behalf of his father now; he had no choice.
Flushing
deeply, he walked up to the podium.

Rhyanna White Johnson, a beautifully poised black woman in her thirties, recognized Quinn instantly. She let out a cry and opened her arms wide as he approached, engulfing him in a bear hug. Martin Lindsey, two generations older and obviously frail, hung back until it was safe, and then he took Quinn's hand in both of his and thanked him quietly and repeatedly.