Once Upon a Lie (31 page)

I feel your pain, kid, Maeve thought.

She rose when Cal approached. “Did you place an order?” she said, jerking his chain. “Everything here is spoken for. You’ll have to go to the A&P if you want a pie.”

The look on his face was a mix of horror, sadness, and panic.

“I’m just kidding,” she said, pulling out a pyramid of boxes, all tied together and bearing his name. She placed them on the table. “A pecan pie, some cupcakes, cookies, and lemon bars. That should be enough, right?” she asked.

Cal went for his wallet. “Yes. Thanks.”

“No charge,” she said, waving his hand away. “Thanks for helping out with Jack.” Cal had come through, finding a space in the closest rehab facility in the county, riding along in the ambulance as Jack was transferred from the community hospital to what would be his home for the next several months. After a marriage filled with disappointment and sorrow, he had come through, his lumbago taking a backseat to her pain and distress.

“But there must be fifty dollars’ worth of stuff there,” he said, picking up the box pyramid, rocking slightly back and forth to keep the baby quiet.

More like eighty, but she didn’t correct him. “It’s on me. Enjoy the holiday.”

“How’s Jack?”

“Coming along,” she said, and left it at that. She wondered every minute of every day what the impact of the accident would have on his fading mental agility and waited for the day when he no longer looked at her and saw only an attractive middle-aged mom who could make a mean cupcake and not his dear, devoted Mavy. She prefaced every visit with a loud “It’s me, Dad. Your daughter, Maeve,” so that he had some frame of reference. She couldn’t bear to think that he had forgotten her, his Mavy, the most perfect little girl in the world. She swallowed hard, hot tears pressing at the backs of her eyes, sobs climbing up her throat.

Cal, not one to plumb the depths of despair, or any emotion, for that matter, changed the subject to one that he didn’t know was equally fraught. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked. He put his wallet back in his pocket.

She was quick to lie, not wanting to see the pity on his face, now ruddy from the cold air. “Going to the parade,” she said brightly. “I haven’t been since I was little and I wanted to go. I’m meeting some friends in the city,” she said.

He looked relieved. “That’s great. Who are you meeting?”

“Old CIA friends. Then,” she said, elaborating further and creating a nice scenario in her head, “we’re going downtown for dinner. Great day.”

“Sounds wonderful,” he said a little wistfully. She imagined that his day would be taken up with child care and household chores, followed by hours of cooking with only minimal help in the preparation and cleanup. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Back in the day, Maeve was responsible for all of that and then some, but it seemed that Gabriela had come from other stock, the kind where you married and then lapsed into some kind of domestic semicoma that required someone else to do the heavy lifting. “Would it help if I picked the girls up after I leave here? That way, you don’t have to worry about getting them out the door in the morning.”

“That would be great,” she said.

“Good,” he said, looking down at Devon’s Martian-themed hat, the antennae moving with every shake of his little head. “So, have fun at the parade.”

“Thanks,” she said. Something was off. He was trying to be his usual jocular self, but there was something under the surface, an emotion she couldn’t put her finger on. She waited, and in those seconds, a thousand thoughts went through her head. He’s sick. He’s going back to work. He didn’t save enough money for Rebecca’s college tuition. He still loved her and had made a huge mistake.

That he was leaving Gabriela wasn’t one of them.

Cal looked around. “This isn’t going to work,” he said suddenly.

“Thanksgiving?” Maeve asked, her hopes up that she’d misread him completely and that she would have the girls for the day. She started compiling a shopping list in her head of everything she would need to prepare the best Thanksgiving meal the girls had ever had, even though in her heart she knew that he was talking about something else entirely.

“No,” he said, and she noticed that he was trying not to cry. She had seen him cry only once before, and that was when he told her that he was leaving her for her former friend. He waved a hand around; it landed on the baby’s head after a few gestures. “This. Gabriela. My life. It’s not going to work.”

Behind him, a small line was starting to form and Maeve recognized a few regular customers, some of whom had orders that were ready and needed to be picked up. She shifted uncomfortably, suddenly warm in her workman’s thermal overalls. “Cal, let’s get together later,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I can’t really talk about this right now.”

He shook his head, pushing his shoulder-length hair—the longest she had ever seen it—off his face. He rubbed the baby’s head as if it were a Buddha belly and straightened up. “Right. I know. I’ll go get the girls now.”

And then he was gone, no sight of him in the throngs of holiday shoppers milling around the parking lot of a DPW-site-cum-farmers’-market, their arms filled with packages of overpriced foodstuffs that made them feel better about their contribution to saving the environment and local business. Maeve handed out all of the orders that had been placed and surveyed the table, noting that all she had left were three peasant breads, an apple pie, a challah, and a few loaf breads, which would mean that her take for the day would be more than fifteen hundred dollars, something that cheered her in spite of the fact that she was still in a funk over the prospect of a solitary Thanksgiving and now had an ex-husband who would soon be into two women for child support and in Gabriela’s case, most likely, alimony, even though she was the primary breadwinner. She wouldn’t put anything past her husband’s second wife; if anyone could con a judge into that scenario, it was Gabriela.

Maeve’s head was down, her pencil tallying the number of items she had sold, when she felt a small, gloved hand touch hers. She looked up and saw blond curls sticking out from under a pink hood and a gap-toothed smile on the face of the girl in question, indicating that Tiffany Lorenzo was happier than she had ever seen her, despite the fact that she was now fatherless. Maeve gave her a big smile in return, looking at Tina Lorenzo at the same time, the baby in her arms. “Well, look who it is,” Maeve said, pulling out a cupcake, one with Tiffany-blue frosting, from under the glass-domed tray and raising an eyebrow at Tina, asking for permission to give the little girl her favorite kind of treat.

Tina nodded slightly. Her face wore the expression of someone unused to her surroundings. Maybe now that she didn’t live in fear, she felt somewhat unmoored. Maeve knew the feeling well. It was one that she had felt every day for a year after Sean left for college, waiting for the other shoe to drop but not knowing when that might be, when he might return to the area and commence his constant abuse of her. In Tina’s case, that wasn’t a factor. Her husband was gone for good, and as long as she worked out whatever problems had brought her to a certain kind of man in the first place, she would be fine. The other shoe would never drop.

Maeve handed Tiffany the cupcake and watched her eyes light up.

“This one is my favorite,” the little girl said, taking off a glove and placing it on the table so she could unwrap the cupcake. “My daddy is gone,” she said suddenly.

Maeve was glad it was dark, because she hadn’t expected this statement, nor had she expected her face to flush dark red at the mention of him, the heat creeping up from under the collar of her mock turtleneck fleece and up to her hairline. “I’m sorry,” was all she could manage to get out, her voice trapped in her throat with the sobs she had refused to let out earlier.

“Thank you,” Tina said, smiling slightly. Tiffany, biting into her cupcake, had already moved on once she had given Maeve that information. It seemed Tina wanted to look a little more jubilant but held that emotion inside. Instead, she went with a hopeful expression, one that manifested itself with a little light that had entered her once dim eyes.

Tiffany waved her arm in front of Maeve’s face. “And look! I don’t have my cast anymore.”

Maeve instinctively went to the place where her arm had been broken, rubbing it unconsciously. “Look at that,” she said. She handed Tiffany her glove. “Now you can be a big helper and make sure your mommy doesn’t have to do all of the cooking tomorrow.”

The little girl giggled. “I don’t know how to cook,” she said.

Tina pulled the baby’s hat down over her ears. “I heard about what happened to your father. I’m so sorry. He is a very nice man,” she said. After Maeve thanked her for her concern, she added, “We’ve both been through a lot.”

Maeve struggled for composure, but she was exhausted and it was cold and the things that she had been holding inside threatened to spill out. In spite of using every ounce of self-control that she had, a single tear slipped out of her right eye and traveled down her face before she could reach up and swipe at it. She looked to see if Tiffany was watching, but her attention was on the cupcake and the care it took not to get any of the swirly blue frosting onto her jacket. She offered her baby sister a pinkie covered with icing, which the younger child gobbled up.

“I’ll keep your father in my prayers,” Tina said.

All Maeve could do was nod. She looked around and noted that the crowd was thinning, the cold and dark getting to the customers as well as the vendors. Only a few cars remained in the parking lot, and it didn’t look as though any more would be coming in. She waited until the people at the next tent were out of earshot to ask Tina the question that had haunted her since the day they had met at the grocery store. “When you said it was ‘complicated,’ what did you mean by that?” she asked.

Tina looked at her sadly and searched for an answer. “I guess it meant that I knew it was bad, but that I knew I would never leave,” she said, pulling the baby close. “That I had two babies. I guess that’s what it meant.” She studied Maeve’s face. “How did you know?”

Maeve wondered how Tina knew that she knew, but there it was; they were sisters united by a bond they didn’t want to share. “You always know,” she said. “You’ll know when you see it, too.”

Tina stood for a few seconds, and in that silence the bond between them grew deeper, even though Maeve knew that she would have to keep her distance. She had gotten lucky with Lorenzo—he had never followed up on his threat to file harassment charges against her—but forging a relationship with Tina and her daughter, the one who reminded Jack so much of a young Maeve, would be reckless. As much as she wanted to follow this woman’s progress and get in her way if she ever again went down a road that proved dangerous for her and her children, she had to stay away, keeping their relationship professional, friendly, and, most of all, casual and impersonal. Same as it ever was, as the song went.

Tiffany finished her cupcake and asked her mother if they could buy pickles. Tina leaned in before they moved on and gave Maeve a quick hug. “Happy Thanksgiving,” she said. “Thanks for the cupcake.” She put her hand on her daughter’s head. “What do you say, Tiffany?”

“Thanks for the cupcake,” the girl responded dutifully in that singsong monotone that children often employed when they were reciting something they were told to say. They walked off together, Tiffany giving Maeve a backward glance and a smile that nearly broke her heart.

Maeve let out a sigh that she hoped no one could hear. “She’ll be fine,” she whispered to herself. “Remember that. That’s all that matters. She’ll be fine.”

CHAPTER 43

When the market closed at seven, Maeve was the last holdout, the only vendor who had stayed until the end, braving the cold and the dark in hopes of clearing her table of bread, pies, and cakes so that she wouldn’t have to transport the unsold items back to the shop. She was close to achieving that goal. By the time the last person had left the parking lot, she had one challah bread and one apple pie with walnuts and raisins in her possession, a little less than thirty dollars’ worth of goods. It had been a fantastic day overall, and she patted the wad of cash in her pocket to make sure it was still there. She’d be able to pay her rent early and put another chunk of change in the bank.

She couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t happier. Her business was doing better than ever. Sean was gone, and another abuser, one who was sure to inflict more and worse torture on his wife and two daughters, was no longer of this world, thanks to her sharp mind and determination. Jack, hopefully, would return to his former self, a little addled, a lot forgetful, but no less loving. Her best friend was falling in love with a guy who seemed solid as a rock and would likely never leave her, if the adoration he displayed for her continued to grow, as Maeve hoped it would. With the business almost booming, money was less of an object. Tomorrow, she would have the day all to herself. It all pointed to a happiness that should have been radiating throughout her being, but all she felt was empty and alone.

It was a feeling she could never shake, even in the midst of her girls, her friends, the people in the village. It was a feeling that came out of Sean’s abuse and the emptiness inside that she always assumed would feel better than what she should be feeling. She was hollow, she decided. She was alone.

She opened the trunk of the Prius and carefully placed the pie and the bread inside, making sure that the pie, in particular, was laid flat. She closed the trunk, surprised to see Rodney Poole standing near the front end of the car, his look inscrutable, his coat looking as if it had been made for someone much larger and who stood much straighter. She put her hands in her overalls pockets to keep her fingers warm.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said. “I hope you don’t need cupcakes for tomorrow. I sold out.”

“Good for you,” he said.

“I’ve got a challah and a pie, though,” she said.

“I’ll take them,” he said, and pulled out his wallet.