Shore Lights (33 page)

He'd build a fire when he got home. Maybe pop a movie into the VCR, one of the old films he liked and Kelly rolled her eyes over. Maybe he would even open a bottle of red and nuke some leftover pizza. Hell, might as well make a night of it if he was going to be home alone.

Strange to see where the day had taken him. The breakfast at Julie's with Maddy Bainbridge seemed light-years ago. Walking through the early snow with her, talking about things in a way he hadn't talked with anyone in years. He had had a sense of connection with her, something that went beyond his appreciation of her lovely face and form. They shared a hometown, an outlook, a situation. The two hours they had spent together had been two of the best hours he had enjoyed in a very long time, and if he had one regret about that morning, it was that he hadn't followed his heart and kissed her.

Before the accident he wouldn't have hesitated. He would have leaned across the console and claimed her mouth. He would have left no doubt about what he was feeling or where he wanted it to lead.

But that man had died in the fire with Billy. That man had died in a hospital room while the rest of the town buried his brother. The swaggering confidence that had once been part of him had been replaced with a brooding sense of isolation that had always been there, unacknowledged, but growing stronger with each year that passed.

He wondered what she was doing right now. One thing was sure: She wasn't alone, thinking about him. The Candlelight was probably buzzing with energy, guests gathered around the table, Rose ordering everyone around, Maddy's little girl watching it all with big blue eyes that reminded him painfully of Kelly at that age. He tried to imagine the kind of man who could walk away from a new family but came up short. He understood about wanting something different, a life free of encumbrances (he'd be lying if he said he had never once fantasized about chucking it all, heading out on his boat, just him and the wind and the sea), but the distance between understanding it and actually doing it was a distance he'd never wanted to bridge.

“You're almost there,” Claire had said to him one afternoon a few months back. “This time next year Kelly will be away at school and you'll be able to start a new life.”

Trouble was he didn't want a new life. He wanted to hang on to the one he had for as long as he could. He liked being a father. Bringing up a daughter alone had been a scary proposition, but Kelly had made it easy for him. The thought of not seeing her face at the breakfast table every morning made him feel old and very alone. Old he couldn't do much about, but alone bothered him. The choices he had made over the years no longer seemed rock solid. Kelly was his first priority. She had been from the start and he had never met a woman he believed could step into his late wife's shoes.

And maybe, if he was being honest, he hadn't wanted anyone to.

He had loved once and deeply, but it was a young man's love, built on the foundation of a young man's dream of what romance should be. They had had so little time together, not even close to enough to begin to build that foundation into something meant to last a lifetime.

He liked to think they would have made it this far. He needed to believe that he had what it took to go the distance. It helped ease the bitter taste of regret that they would never get that chance.

It was slow going as he gently steered his truck through the unplowed streets leading away from the docks. He rolled silently past houses he had known since childhood, houses that had changed hands five, six, seven times in the last thirty years but somehow always stayed within the same extended family. Father to son, mother to daughter, aunt to nephew, sister to sister, cousin to cousin, every combination you could imagine. He wondered what the secret was. What did those families know about happiness that his family couldn't seem to grasp, and where the hell did you go to take lessons?

He was running out of time with Kelly. He had done his best for seventeen years, but in the grand scheme of things he wasn't sure that was anywhere close to being enough. The world turned faster these days. The problems were thornier and the risks, greater than anyone could have imagined. She was every good thing a parent could ask for in a child, but when she stepped out there into the world, would any of that be enough to keep her safe from harm?

Like today. Who would be there to tell her to stay off the road during a snowstorm? Who would even know if she got where she was going or was missing somewhere and—

This was the storm talking. The whisper of icy road slipping away beneath the wheels of his four-wheel drive and the snow lashing against his window until he was lucky he could see the end of his hood. If he wasn't such a stupid SOB, he would've been home two hours ago and not slogging his way through a blizzard toward an empty house that didn't care if he came home or not.

Normally the drive from O'Malley's to the small bridge that spanned the canal took less than four minutes. That night it took thirty. As he slowly approached he noted the glare of red lights and a police car blocking the way. He braked carefully, slowing to a cautious stop a few feet away.

“Hey, O'Malley.” It was Jim Wagner, an old-timer. “Hate to break it to you, but looks like you're not getting home tonight.”

“Shit,” Aidan muttered. “What happened?”

“It's a solid sheet of ice. After the fifth accident, we had to shut it down.”

“I've got four-wheel drive. I'll put it in neutral and slide down to Main Street.”

“Good try, but no dice. We have a spare room now that Kimberly's in college. If you want, I'll call Doreen and tell her you're coming.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Aidan said, “but I can bunk for the night at the bar.”

“Got heat and light still?”

“I did when I left.”

“Not a night to take chances,” Jim warned. “You sure I can't call Doreen and have her make the bed up for you?”

“Positive,” Aidan said, “but thanks. I might take you up on it some other time.”

Turning around was going to be a bitch and a half, both men agreed, as Aidan began the slow process of making his way back down to the docks and O'Malley's.

 
HANNAH YAWNED AS Maddy helped her slip into her warmest pair of pajamas.

“How about a pair of socks?” Maddy asked as she looked down at her little girl's tiny bare feet. “It's freezing tonight!”

“No socks,” Hannah said.

“Not even your Christmas socks with the picture of Santa Claus on them?”

“No socks.”

“Can I wear your Christmas socks?” Maddy asked as she finished buttoning the last button on Hannah's pj jacket.

Hannah shook her head. “They're mine.”

“But you're not wearing them.”

“Yes, I am.” Hannah grabbed them from the top of the nightstand and sat down on the floor to pull them on her feet.

The method probably wouldn't win Maddy any medals for parental technique, but it got the job done. She flipped down the covers. As soon as Hannah climbed in, she tucked the sheet and down comforter snugly around the child, then kissed her twice.

“Did you say your prayers?” Maddy asked.

Hannah shook her head. “I—”

“Phone, Maddy!” Rose's voice sounded softly through the intercom system she had installed in the family portion of the Candlelight. “Please come down.”

“Don't you go away,” Maddy teased her daughter. “I'll be back before you know I'm gone.”

She dashed downstairs, wondering why Rose hadn't suggested she pick up the cordless or one of the many extensions.

Rose and Lucy were waiting for her in the kitchen. Lucy mouthed the words “It's Tom” to Maddy when she entered the room.

“Here she is now, Tom,” Rose said cordially. “It was wonderful to hear your voice as well.”

Maddy tucked a lock of hair behind her ears, then took the phone from her mother. A year or two ago the sound of his voice would have been enough to send her into a week-long tailspin of longing and loneliness that invariably ended up in another tearful weekend where she tried to convince him they should try just once more, if only for Hannah's sake.

Thank God those days were over. Now the sound of his voice only awakened a bittersweet affection and curiosity.

“Rose said you already put our girl to bed,” Tom said after they dispensed with the amenities.

“Almost,” Maddy said, “but not quite. We haven't dealt with prayers yet or tonight's episode in the ongoing saga of Aladdin and Jasmine move to New Jersey.”

Tom's rich laughter made her smile. He loved Hannah. Of that there was no doubt. “So Aladdin followed her to Jersey, did he?”

“Oh, yes,” Maddy said. “He's still number one on her hit parade.” She thought of telling him about the samovar, then decided against it. With her luck she would turn around and find Hannah standing behind her, soaking up every word. “So where are you calling from?”

“Lisa and I are in Maui,” he said. “I flipped on CNN and heard about your blizzard. They're saying a foot of snow, maybe more, from D.C. up to Maine.”

Maddy peered out the kitchen window into a swirling snowy sky. “Sounds about right. I'm going to have to shovel a path for Priscilla or we'll lose her!”

“You have your digital camera, right?”

“Of course,” Maddy said. “And you want photos of Hannah playing in the snow.”

“If you wouldn't mind.”

“I don't mind. In fact I took one of her with Priscilla and my cousin's kids earlier. I'll download it and send it to you before I go to bed.”

“I miss her.”

“Good,” Maddy said. “She misses you, too.”

“Think I could speak to her for a minute before lights out?”

“Hang on,” she said. “I'll pick up on the extension in her room.”

She handed the phone to Rose, who launched into conversation without missing a beat. Maddy dashed up the back stairs, down the hallway, and into Hannah's room.

“Honey, you're going to be so happy. It's—” She stared at the empty bed. “Hannah! Where are you?” She peeked under the bed, behind the rocking chair, in the closet. Maybe she had gone to answer nature's call one last time. They were on fairly solid ground with that issue, but sometimes Hannah fretted about wetting the bed and tended toward hypervigilance.

She walked over to the nightstand and picked up the receiver. “I know this is costing you an arm and a leg,” she said to Tom after Rose made her goodbyes again, “but she's in the bathroom. Let me go tell her you're on the phone.”

She placed the receiver on the bed and was midway between Hannah's room and the bathroom they shared when she heard her daughter's soft voice behind her.

“Mommy,” she said, “where are you going?”

Maddy spun around to see her little girl standing in the middle of the hall, halfway between Rose's room and the bathroom. Hannah couldn't possibly have been snooping in Rose's closet, could she? She had only been downstairs for a few moments. The odds that Hannah would have chosen that opportunity to race down the hall and into her grandmother's room to poke around in search of Christmas presents was far-fetched at best.

“Guess who's on the phone wanting to talk to you, Miss Hannah Bainbridge Lawlor.”

Hannah's blue eyes widened. “Daddy?”

“You bet! He wants to know if you had fun in the snow today and—”

Hannah didn't hear a word Maddy said. She turned and ran barefoot back to her bedroom, leaped up on the bed, and clutched the phone as if it were one of her favorite stuffed toys.

“Daddy, it's snowing!” The sound of her voice made Maddy happy and sad at the same time. She was thrilled to hear the joy in her little girl's voice and equally thrilled that Tom had decided to call on the spur of the moment to see how their daughter was faring. Would she sound that way every single day if they had been able to turn themselves into the twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week kind of family Hannah so desperately wanted them to be? Once again Maddy was pierced with a longing that cut straight through to the bone, only it wasn't for Tom himself; it was for the kind of family she had never had. The same kind her little girl longed for, too.

Maybe that was how it was meant to be, she thought as she listened to Hannah chirp to Tom about Priscilla and the gingerbread men up in the attic and the snow drifting against the windows. Children had the right to be loved by their parents, no matter if those parents couldn't find a way to love each other anymore. You could be a world-class single parent who did school-bus duty, baked brownies, attended every soccer game, every glee club practice, every school play, but it would never be enough. Your child would always long for the one who wasn't there. They didn't care if you fought. They didn't care if you rarely spoke to each other. They didn't care about quality time or weekend visitations or blissful summers in Oregon. All they cared about was that the two parents who tucked them into bed at night were there at the breakfast table each morning when they woke up.

Unfortunately Rose and Bill hadn't been able to summon up that miracle for Maddy when she was a little girl, and, in the finest tradition of the DiFalco women, Maddy hadn't been able to conjure up a miracle for Hannah more than twenty years later.

That was a family tradition she could live without.

 
AIDAN FISHTAILED TO a stop in front of O'Malley's around nine o'clock. The snow had slowed down and the moonglow, combined with the shore lights illuminating the boardwalk, added to the otherworldly feel. Snow turned prosaic objects—a bare tree, a mailbox, a parking lot—into objects of incalculable beauty. Tomorrow after the plows came through and the sun came out all of this pristine whiteness would turn to gray slush and the world would be back to normal. But right now it seemed filled with magic and possibilities.