One Year (7 page)

I
t was another unseasonably warm day, and Alexis was taking advantage of the weather to stretch out on a chaise lounge behind the cottage. She wasn't sure how the untiringly energetic Mary Bernadette would feel about her putting her feet up in the middle of the day—though it
was
a Saturday—but thought she was probably safe here, with only the beech trees as witnesses.

Mary Bernadette! It had been like being with a celebrity the other night at The Angry Squire. People kept stopping by the table to pay their respects to PJ's grandmother, and Richard Armstrong had delivered their desserts on the house. An elderly, very dapper man named Mr. Levitt had congratulated PJ on winning the Joseph J. Stoker House job and said he remembered the place from when he was very small. Would PJ like to borrow some photographs of the gardens before they had entirely gone to weed? PJ had thanked the man profusely, as had Mary Bernadette. “I've known him since I first came to Oliver's Well,” she explained when Mr. Levitt had moved off. “And he was ancient even then.”

And Mary Bernadette had been right about the steak. It was fantastic. Still, next time they went to The Angry Squire, Alexis was going to have the lamb come hell or high water, as she had heard Mary Bernadette say often enough. It was probably an expression she had come across in the bible, maybe something to do with Noah.

God,
Alexis thought,
the woman's voice is everywhere!
No doubt about it, she had never met anyone even remotely like PJ's formidable grandmother. There certainly were no such people in her family. Alexis was an only child. Neither her father nor her mother had any siblings, and all of her grandparents had died before Alexis was born. But her parents had always been enough family for Alexis. They had encouraged her to feel good about herself, and she had grown up to expect a certain amount of attention and respect as her due.

Alexis glanced down at the new pair of jeans she was wearing. They had cost her $150. Well, they had cost her parents $150. Every month they sent her a substantial check. She had never mentioned this to PJ. The truth was that Trenouths weren't thrilled that Alexis was working as an office manager for a small family when she could have set her sights on a real career with a real income. If she had wanted to, of course, and that was the thing. Alexis hadn't wanted to and she still didn't want to. She was happy working for Fitzgibbon Landscaping. It kept her close to her husband and what he loved most—his family.

And that was something else Alexis's parents simply couldn't understand: her intense attraction to the Fitzgibbon clan. From the start of her relationship with PJ she had been drawn to the “otherness” of the Fitzgibbons. Their passionate membership in the Catholic Church excited her. She liked the fact that the Church provided landmarks by which a person could mark his progress through life. She liked the fact that those landmarks were marked by ceremony. When a child was born he was baptized; his godparents gave him a cross and there was a party in his honor. Later came the occasion of his First Confession, and then his First Holy Communion, and then his confirmation, which involved the choosing of a sponsor and a “new” name to mark the passage into Christian adulthood and responsibility. All of this struck Alexis as fascinating, possibly because her own family had never identified with an ethnic or a religious group. What Alexis knew of organized religion she had gleaned from her studies of art and history and philosophy. But then she had met PJ and had chosen to join him in his faith.

Alexis touched the cross of St. Brigid resting against her chest. Though she had converted to Catholicism for her husband, she couldn't say that she really believed in all of the Church's teachings. She
did
enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the mass; the sheer theatricality of the ancient ceremonial and ritualistic practices appealed to her artistic nature. True, some bits were very puzzling, like the sacrament of the Eucharist. From what Alexis understood (and she knew that her understanding might be faulty), you were supposed to believe that you were incorporating the actual body and blood of Christ when you received the host and the Communion wine. She found the notion bizarre, though she would never insult PJ or his family by mentioning her discomfort. That was a topic for conversation with Father Robert. He had tried to explain to her the difference between belief and faith—supposedly, you could have faith without belief but not belief without faith—and he had counseled prayer and active good works as two ways in which she might experience God and Christ “in action.” So far she was afraid she had failed to make much progress via either avenue.

But PJ was so grateful for what he called “the gift” of her conversion. Was conversion the right word in her case? After all, she hadn't belonged to another faith before belonging to the Catholic Church. She had sworn allegiance to nothing other than the American flag, and that without much thought.

Knowing PJ had changed all that. From the very first, Alexis had admired his passion for heritage and history. She had seen it as an indicator of a stable person, one who wouldn't succumb to the allure of someone or something new. PJ was someone who appreciated the value of tradition and inheritance.

Alexis looked fondly at her wedding ring. It had once belonged to Mary Bernadette's Aunt Catherine. “I think,” Mary Bernadette had said, “that you should have this. It's been in my family now for almost ninety years.” Alexis had thanked PJ's grandmother profusely, and it was only much later that night she remembered that she had had her heart set on a platinum wedding band, to match the platinum setting of her engagement ring. Oh well, she had reasoned. It was no longer a faux pas to mix metals. And if Kate Middleton could do it, well, then, it was all right for Alexis Trenouth, soon to be Alexis Fitzgibbon.

“Aren't you at least going to hyphenate your two names, like I did?” her mother had asked on the morning of the wedding. “Or are you going to subsume your entire identity in PJ's?” Oddly, Alexis couldn't remember her reply. Her parents also hadn't been happy about their daughter converting to Catholicism, but rather than argue with her they had simply said, “Do what you need to do. You can always get out of it later.”

But Alexis didn't want to get out of any of it, not her marriage, not her membership in the Catholic Church, not her place in the Fitzgibbon clan. Though, if she were
completely
honest, lately a few things had given her pause. Take the matter of St. Brigid's cross. She had been hoping for an amethyst pendant and had even dropped a few hints to PJ. But he had taken his grandmother's advice and bought the cross instead. It was no big deal but . . .

And then there was the matter of the mail, delivered to a box next to his grandparents' mailbox. From the day they had moved in, Mary Bernadette had taken it upon herself to bring their mail to the cottage, making her privy to every card or bill or magazine they received. A few weeks ago, Alexis had worked up the nerve to suggest to Mary Bernadette that there was no need for her to act as courier, to which Mary Bernadette had replied, “It's no trouble at all.” And that had been that.

Well, Alexis thought now, getting off the chaise lounge and going back inside the cottage for a glass of water, her husband was worth putting up with a domineering grandmother living within spitting distance. He was kind and good, and every single day he told her how much he loved her. The fact that he was also physically perfect didn't hurt his case any. She was very much looking forward to having his children, though they were using birth control at the moment; they wanted to sock away a fair amount of money before starting a family. Very rarely was she careless, and she always felt badly when she realized she had forgotten to take her pill.

Alexis's musings came to an abrupt halt as she heard PJ pulling into the driveway. She rushed out of the cottage to greet him, a smile of welcome on her face.

A
lexis came into the kitchen of the big house to find her husband and his grandfather seated at the table. Paddy was in a jacket and tie, and PJ was wearing a jacket over an open-necked dress shirt. The sight of them all gussied up for church made Alexis smile.

“It's a puzzle,” Paddy was saying. “And you did a soil test, you say?”

“Yup. No disease that I can see. I think I'm going to have to call in a plant pathologist.”

Paddy whistled. “And that'll cost a pretty penny. Is there no other way?”

Each man now tapped his right cheek with his forefinger, a habit they shared. Alexis often wondered if PJ had consciously adopted his grandfather's habitual gesture, or if somehow it had seeped across to his unconscious. Or maybe the gesture had actually been inherited. Was such a thing possible?

Whatever the case with PJ and his grandfather, Alexis found it endearing. As far as she could tell, PJ and his
father
didn't share any physical habits. In fact, they didn't seem to share much of anything. Between PJ and Pat there was often a sense of competition or suspicion, as if neither one really knew what to expect from the other. She was sure she wasn't imagining it. She had seen Megan look with annoyance from her son to her husband when the two men were purposely misunderstanding each other.

“I can't understand why it's taking the lawyers so long to draw up the contract for the Stoker job,” her husband said now. “They've written contracts for the OWHA before. It can't be so difficult.”

“Maybe they're just really busy,” Alexis suggested.

“I want everything to be squared away so that work can
begin
. Maybe I should call Leonard DeWitt and ask him to hurry the lawyers along.”

“Be patient, PJ,” Paddy said. “The course of business never runs smoothly. You don't want to give yourself a heart attack, worrying all the time.”

PJ laughed. “You're right. I should learn how to be patient. I will. Someday.”

“He's impossible, Paddy,” Alexis said, putting her hands on her husband's shoulders. “You should see how agitated he gets when we're on a slow line at the grocery store.”

“Just like his father,” Paddy noted.

PJ frowned. “I'd like to think I'm a bit more patient than Dad!”

Mary Bernadette came into the kitchen then. She was wearing a skirt suit in a soft gray, with a pearl-colored silk blouse. Alexis suddenly felt underdressed in her white jeans and lightweight motorcycle style jacket.

“Is everyone ready?” Mary Bernadette asked. “We don't want to be late.”

“Of course not,” Paddy said, rising from his seat at the table.

“There's nothing more insulting to the priest and distracting to the congregation than people coming in late to mass.”

“We've never been late to church, Mary, have we?”

Mary Bernadette frowned. “Only that once when Pat was about six and we couldn't find him when we were ready to leave the house. Do you remember, Paddy?”

Paddy nodded but said nothing.

“Where was he?” Alexis asked. “Was he okay?”

Before Mary Bernadette could reply, Paddy spoke. “That's an episode best left forgotten. Let's just say the poor lad was upset about something. He got over it soon enough.”

Alexis shot a look to her husband, who shrugged and shook his head.

“PJ and I are taking our own car,” Alexis said as the four Fitzgibbons made their way through the living room to the front door. “We want to see a movie in Westminster after church.”

Mary Bernadette came to a sudden halt just inside the door. “Oh.”

“Anything wrong, Grandmother?” PJ asked.

“It's just that I thought we might all have brunch together at The Angry Squire. But it's all right.”

PJ looked at Alexis behind his grandmother's back and her heart sank just a little. “We can go to the movie some other time,” she told her husband's grandmother.

Mary Bernadette bestowed one of her megawatt smiles upon Alexis, and as disappointed as Alexis was, she found herself smiling back. “Why, thank you, Alexis,” Mary Bernadette said. “How nice of you.”

The two older Fitzgibbons went out first, followed by PJ and Alexis. “Thank you,” he whispered to his wife, and took her hand in his.

Alexis nodded. How little it took to make the people you loved happy, she thought. Just a little bit of sacrifice here and there.

M
ary Bernadette guided her car down Main Street. There, coming out of the bakery, was Marilyn Windsor, she of the old family diaries. Really, the woman had been unaccountably difficult about them, and for the life of her, Mary Bernadette couldn't see why she had put up such a fuss about letting the diaries go. It wasn't as if she really cared for them. How could she have when instead of being kept in a proper archival storage box they had been stuffed in a drawer of a table in her front hall where anyone could manhandle them? No matter now. The Oliver's Well Historical Association had gotten the diaries in the end.

Mary Bernadette peered ahead. Was that Alexis's car parked outside The Angry Squire? No, she realized as she drove past, it wasn't, but it was a similar make and color. She and Paddy had enjoyed a lovely Valentine's Day dinner with the young couple at Richard Armstrong's restaurant, though Alexis hadn't seemed very excited about the cross of St. Brigid that PJ had given her. Well, to be fair the religion was still new to her. Unlike the other Fitzgibbons, to whom their Catholicism was second nature, Alexis would have to grow into a sense of belonging and comfort. It would happen, given time.

Of course, there was always the possibility that she could turn out like Pat and Megan, who had moved beyond a sense of belonging and comfort into a state of alienation and, at times, active contempt. But that would
not
happen to her grandson's wife, not if Mary Bernadette had anything to say about it.

It had been at her suggestion that all four of them—Mary Bernadette and Paddy, PJ, and Alexis—had gone to church together for the Ash Wednesday service. “Remember man that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shall return.” Though she had heard her son condemn the words as morbid, Mary Bernadette had always found them of great importance. It was important to keep one's pride in check and never to forget that life here on earth was not all pleasurable—nor was it meant be. Mary Bernadette had learned that lesson in a particularly brutal way when she lost her beloved William. Since his death there had been many times when she had wondered if perhaps she had found too much joy in her son; perhaps God had taken him away to remind her of the dangers of ignoring the trials and challenges He had sent his children. But the ways of God were inscrutable, and Mary Bernadette would never know why her baby had been taken from her. That there might have been no reason at all—that there might be no God or guiding principle behind the working of the world—was simply not something Mary Bernadette Fitzgibbon was capable of conceiving.

She came to a stop at the red light on the corner of Vine Street and nodded in greeting to Mrs. Kendrick, behind the wheel of the car to her left. Mrs. Kendrick was another member of the Church of the Immaculate Conception; Mary Bernadette had seen her there the day before, three small children in tow. Mary Bernadette very much doubted that Pat and Megan had taken the twins for ashes. For them, the season of Lent was devoid of spiritual meaning and Easter was merely a day on which it was acceptable to bite the ears off chocolate rabbits. For Mary Bernadette, and to a lesser extent her husband, Lent was a time of quiet introspection, self-denial, and repentance, and Easter a day of thankfulness.

The light turned green and Mary Bernadette continued on her way, eventually turning onto Haven Street and pulling into her usual spot outside the Wilson House, where the OWHA was headquartered. The building had once been owned by the descendants of one of the original settlers of Oliver's Well, a Richard Wilson, a woodworker, farmer, and mariner. It was one of the oldest surviving wood-framed houses in the region, built by Wilson himself. Originally, the house had sat on a twenty-five-acre plot; today, only five acres remained attached to the house. The structure resembled contemporary English precedents but was notably American in its extravagant use of wood. The original part of the house was a two-story structure, sided in rough clapboard, with a steeply sloped roof and a center brick chimney. Over the years, primarily in the eighteenth century, several additions had been made, and when the OWHA had acquired the house, there were some who wanted to remove them. In the end it was decided that the additions were part of the character of the building, so they remained.

The board regularly met in what had once been the dining room. The members of the board were responsible for hiring the CEO—currently, Leonard DeWitt—who served at their pleasure. He ran the operation—negotiating contracts, hiring and firing services—and made a report to the board at each meeting. The board itself was also in charge of setting broad policy, raising money, and approving major financial decisions and commitments. Mary Bernadette, seated at the chairman's customary place at one end of the long oval table, now surveyed her colleagues.

There was Jeannette, of course, seated just to her right. She had been a member of the board for almost as long as Mary Bernadette, currently the longest standing member. Though Jeannette was always ready and willing to volunteer her time and energy for tasks as small as stapling together sheets of paper to be distributed during tours, she had never aspired to hold a position of major responsibility, and generally kept a low profile among her colleagues.

To Jeannette's right sat Wallace Chadbourne, a small, spare man with a neat little mustache. He had been the principal of the local public high school for close to twenty years before retiring. He made it no secret that he would like to be the chairman in Mary Bernadette's place—“when she is ready to step down, of course, and not a moment sooner!”—but he didn't seem to realize that he didn't have the support of the other board members. Wallace was a smart-enough man, but he lacked the personality to inspire devotion in the way Mary Bernadette could. Even those members who occasionally chafed against her high-handed methods had no doubt of her abilities and kept their complaints to themselves. And of course there was Mary Bernadette's charm, which could, as her husband was fond of saying, “soothe the most savage beast you could drag in from the jungle.”

Seated next to Wallace was Richard Armstrong, owner of The Angry Squire, congenial and very good at soothing irate tempers. He was taller than six feet and very thin. He had been happily married for almost thirty years before his wife had died of cancer. Since then, Richard had been on his own, though there were several single women in Oliver's Well who would very much like to walk down the aisle on his arm.

Next was Joyce Miller. She taught history at the private academy. Her husband was the pastor at the local Methodist church. Mary Bernadette had only met Martin Miller a few times, and she found him a genuinely unassuming, honestly kind, and somewhat baffled person. How he had come to marry Joyce was anyone's guess. (She was sure that Martin himself didn't know the answer to that.) Joyce and her husband had twin girls, aged five, who were often seen having a tantrum. Joyce was the youngest member of the board at thirty-eight. She was painfully thin, always on a strange diet, and almost always ready with a critical word about an absent colleague. To Mary Bernadette, Joyce seemed an unhappy woman, and a potentially dangerous one.

Anne Tribble, the next board member, was a gracious, good-natured woman who owned a very successful boutique called The Sophisticated Lady. Her husband, Joseph, a retired optometrist, had been confined to a wheelchair for some time after a car accident had left him partially paralyzed. That they were a devoted couple no one could doubt. Mary Bernadette had great respect for Anne, as a business owner, as a wife, and as a member of the board. The fact that no matter how trying things were at home, Anne always managed to be perfectly turned out only raised her in Mary Bernadette's esteem.

Leonard DeWitt, the aforementioned CEO of the organization, was a large man, tall and robust, with perpetually flushed cheeks and bright blue eyes. He was an honorably retired and highly decorated police chief from the D.C. area who had moved to Oliver's Well six years earlier. Within his first year of residence he had proved to be one of the most dedicated citizens Mary Bernadette had ever encountered. He lived in a small, very charming house that had been built in 1845, on what was one of the prettiest streets in Oliver's Well. All he would say of his personal past was that he had been married once but that his wife hadn't been happy married to a cop. He was an unabashed fan of Mary Bernadette and had been heard to say that she would have made an excellent law enforcement agent, given her unswerving ethical conduct and her ability to “grasp the right end of the stick.”

Neal Hyatt, seated next to Leonard, was owner of the Hyatt Gallery, specializing in contemporary American art. He held a doctorate in twentieth-century American painting from the University of Chicago and was a guest lecturer at several area colleges. His dedication to the past of Oliver's Well was fierce—interesting, Mary Bernadette thought, given his professional specialty—and he was brilliantly suited to his job as the board's secretary. He was in his early forties, as was his life partner, Gregory Smith. As with her friends Katie and Bonnie, Mary Bernadette treated the men with great respect without formally acknowledging the complete nature of their relationship.

Finally, there was Norma Campbell, a very expensively preserved fifty-five-year-old woman. She lived on her own in an enormous house on an enormous estate, complete with a stable full of horses she didn't ride and a tennis court she never used. Rumor had it she was visited regularly each Saturday night by a gentleman in a large black sedan with Florida plates. Mary Bernadette had no time for such an obviously theatrical tale (concocted by Joyce Miller?), and as far as she was concerned, Norma's personal life was none of her business. Norma rarely showed much enthusiasm for the OWHA's projects and causes, and Mary Bernadette wasn't the only one to suspect that Norma was a dabbler, a lonely woman who saw holding a place on various boards and clubs around Oliver's Well as a way to pass the time of day. Still, she wasn't a troublemaker and she did contribute generously in a financial way to the upkeep of the historical Oliver's Well, so Mary Bernadette saw no reason to object to her presence.

Now Mary Bernadette cleared her throat and called the meeting to order. Neal, in his capacity as secretary, read the minutes of the last meeting. There followed a discussion of old business. When that had been satisfactorily concluded, Leonard announced that he was still investigating a new paint supplier and went on to describe his findings. Mary Bernadette listened attentively.