The Beach House (16 page)

Eric placed his hand on the back of his son's neck. Jason leaned into the embrace, resting his head against Eric's hip. “When would you like us to come over?”

“Six?”

He glanced at his watch. “Perfect. That will give us time to clean up.”

“Oh, please don't bother,” Maggie said. “Come as you are.”

Jason glanced up at his father and said softly, “But I have sand in my shoes.”

“Then by all means you must do something about that,” Maggie said. “We wouldn't want you to track sand into your father's house.” She always marveled how different children from the same family could be. Jason was obviously a literal, serious child, while Susie was spontaneous and free. Did one's actions allow, or perhaps even dictate, the other's?

“It's not my daddy's house,” Susie said. “It belongs to his friend. We live in Daddy's old house now, and he lives here all by himself.”

Maggie looked to see how Susie's blunt assessment of her father's situation affected him. He took it in stride, but she did notice what seemed to be a small flicker of regret. “What kind of pizza should I order?” she asked, purposely changing the subject.

“No garlic,” Susie said. “I don't like it. And no mushrooms. Jason doesn't like them.”

“Yes, I do,” Jason said.

“No, you don't,” Susie insisted.

“Do too,” he countered.

Maggie smiled. “How does sausage and pepperoni sound?”

“Wonderful,” Eric said.

“With olives,” Susie added. “Lots of olives.”

Maggie looked to Eric for confirmation. “I'm afraid she's serious,” he said. “Maybe you could get them to put a few on a couple of slices?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

Eric shifted the beach bag to his shoulder and held out his hand to Susie. “Come on, short stuff. Let's go home and make a salad to go with the pizza.”

She grabbed his hand and brought her legs off the ground for him to swing her. “We'll be back,” she called to Maggie.

“I'll be waiting for you,” Maggie called after her.

Seconds later Joe came to the sliding door, opened the screen, and stepped outside. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

“You did,” she said. “We're having company for dinner.”

“Then I'd better get to the store.”

She loved that he didn't ask who or how many or why she'd extended the invitation, considering the circumstances. But then it was only one of a thousand things she loved about the man she'd married all those years ago. “That won't be necessary. We're having pizza.” Again she struggled to free herself from the blanket, and again she had to give up. “All we have to do now is find some place that will deliver.”

“You hate pizza,” Joe reminded her.

“You'll understand when you see who's coming.”

“I'm not even going to ask how this came about. I'm just going to let you surprise me.” He untucked the blanket. “When will our guests be arriving?”

“Six.”

“Good. That gives you time for a short nap.”

“You promised you wouldn't do that,” she reminded him gently.

“And you promised that if I brought you here, you wouldn't wear yourself out trying to do everything at once.”

Taking care of her had always been as much a part of Joe as his blue eyes and deep, rumbling laugh. How could she have expected him to be any different now? “All right, but no more than half an hour.”

“A half hour it is.”

Chapter 2

Jason said little during dinner, eating his pizza without looking up, as if being there for a meal were punishment instead of a treat. Susie chattered with the ease of a practiced hostess, keeping the conversation flowing with questions and comments and tidbits of family gossip that frequently left Eric at a loss for words.

When they had finished eating, Susie excused herself and went to the bathroom and Joe and Eric got up to clear the dishes, leaving Maggie and Jason alone together. Taking advantage of the moment, Maggie held out her hand to him and asked if he would mind helping her into the living room. She'd sensed that he'd assumed the role of caretaker after his parents' divorce and that it was a way she could breach the invisible barrier that stood between them. He looked at her wrinkled, knobby fingers and hesitated a moment before slipping his small, perfectly formed hand into hers.

She let him lead her into the adjoining room, moving even more slowly than usual. “Should we sit with Josi, or over there next to the table?” she asked, shamelessly using the cat as bait to tempt Jason into sitting next to her rather than in the single chairs by the table.

Jason stared at the cat stretched out along the back of the sofa, its length making it seem even larger than its twenty-one pounds. “Does she like kids?” Jason asked.

“Almost as much as I do,” Maggie answered.

“We're not allowed to have a cat. Mom's allergic.”

He moved toward the cat tentatively, as if stalking prey. Josi noted his approach through one partially opened eye. With his knees pressed into a cushion, Jason put out his hand. Before making contact, he looked back at Maggie. “Are you sure it's okay?”

“I'm sure.”

He touched Josi's foot. Her other eye opened. He moved to the thick thatch that covered her belly. Her head came up. Slowly he ran his hand along her side. She yawned and stretched, then put her head back down and turned on her purring motor.

Jason grew wide-eyed at the loud, rumbling sound. He pulled his hand away and held it against his chest. “What's that?”

“It means she likes you.”

“It sounds like she's growling.”

Maggie sank into the cushion next to Jason. Josi dropped her tail possessively over Maggie's shoulder. As if drawn by an irresistible force, Jason reached out to run his hand along the length of the cat's thick fur. His fingers brushed Maggie's cheek, and she felt as if he were petting her also.

Susie came into the room. “Can I pet him?”

“It's not a him,” Jason said. “It's a her.”

“Can I?” She looked to Maggie for her answer.

“Of course you can. She likes it best when you're very gentle.”

Susie crowded in beside Jason. With her hand open flat, she touched Josi's head. “Why does she make that noise?”

“It means she likes me,” Jason said.

Again Susie looked to Maggie. “Does it really?”

Maggie nodded. “It means she likes you, too, or she would have stopped.”

Impulsively Susie leaned forward and gave Josi a kiss on the end of her nose. “He smells funny,” she announced.

“It's because she had fish for dinner.”

“Yuck,” Susie exclaimed, and backed away, losing interest. “Do you have any toys?”

“I have books,” Maggie said, only then remembering there were several children's books tucked in the game cupboard. “Would you like to read one with me?”

“Okay.”

Joe did a quick check of the goings-on in the living room as he finished drying a glass. For all that had been fair and wonderful in Maggie's life, the cruelty was that she'd never been able to have a child of her own. They'd tried to adopt but had been turned down when the agency found out about Maggie's epilepsy. By the time a medicine came along to effectively control the seizures, they were old enough to be grandparents.

“She's really good with them,” Eric said when Joe came back to put the glass away.

“I sometimes wonder if God didn't keep her from having her own children because there were so many others who needed her.”

Eric didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, gently, he asked, “Is it cancer?”

Joe looked at him. “How did you know?”

“After a while you can see the battle signs even when someone is trying as hard as Maggie is to hide them.”

“She never complains.” Because he didn't know what else to do, Joe dipped a sponge in the soapy water and began wiping down the counters.

“How far along is it?”

“They don't give her much time.” The words scraped his throat on the way out. He should have been used to the pain by now, but it came on fresh each morning when he foolishly allowed himself a moment to believe he was waking up from a nightmare. “One doctor said a month or two, another one told us she could still be here Christmas.”

“No one, I don't care how good he or she is, can predict that kind of thing with any certainty,” Eric said. “I've had patients who should have lived a year or more who died within weeks after being diagnosed. And others who confounded every medical tenet and lived weeks or months or even years beyond what anyone believed possible.”

“But most people die when you expect them to, I suppose.”

“Yes, most people do.”

Joe nodded.

“If there's anything I can do to help while you're here, please let me know,” Eric told him.

“Julia was sure you'd feel that way.”

“You talked to Julia about me?”

“Maggie or I give her a call every couple of weeks. She's had a pretty hard time of it since Ken died, and sometimes she just needs someone to talk to. She said you and Ken were a lot alike in some ways, kinda like you were cut from the same kind of fabric, only one of you was plaid and the other stripes.”

Eric fished the last of the silverware out of the dishwater. “Ken must have been pretty special.”

“The best. I've known a lot of people in my life, and not one of them was his match.” Joe had taken Ken's heart attack almost as personally as Maggie's cancer. “He and Julia were one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of things. She's gonna be a long time finding someone to replace him—if ever.” He picked up the dish towel again and then the silverware Eric had dropped in the drainer, fanning them out to dry each one separately.

“She's a young woman,” he went on. “It's hard to think of her living all that time without anyone.” His voice softened when he said, “I can't imagine living all that time without Maggie.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Sixty-five years this past March. Maggie was twenty and I was twenty-three when we tied the knot.” He shook his head. “I think of all that's happened since—how the world has changed and how we've changed right along with it—and it still seems like it was just yesterday that we were standing in front of the preacher in that little chapel in Reno.”

“You were married in Reno?”

“You probably thought that was something your parents' generation started,” he said, grinning. “But it goes all the way back to me and Maggie.” He folded the dish towel and hung it over the sink. “Before I forget, if you happen to be talking to Julia any time soon, I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything about Maggie. With all she's been through since Ken died, we decided not to tell her until . . . well, you know what I'm saying.”

“I understand.”

“How about a cup of coffee? Wouldn't be any trouble to make a pot.”

“We should probably be going,” Eric said. “I don't want the kids wearing out their welcome.”

“Couldn't happen,” Joe told him. “They're better medicine for Maggie than anything she's been given so far.” He stopped before entering the living room to give Eric a chance to see for himself. Susie sat at Maggie's feet, playing with the seashells Margaret had left on the dining room table. Jason had curled himself into Maggie's side and was listening to her read
Lassie Come Home
while Josi rumbled away, her head taking up most of Jason's lap.

“They don't get to visit their grandparents very much,” Eric said. “I can see now I'm going to have to do something to change that.”

“Maggie and I would be more than happy to pinch-hit while they're here with you.” The offer was more self-serving than benevolent. He would do anything, strike any bargain, to give Maggie something to look forward to when she got up in the morning.

“I'd like that.” Eric stared at his children, the depth of his love and caring reflected in his eyes. “Jason needs a lot of attention and understanding right now. He really took it hard when I moved out. His mother has just remarried, and he's had to accept that the four of us are never going to be a family again.”

Eric stuffed his hands in his pockets and went on. “She's on her honeymoon. Which is why the kids are with me now instead of August.”

“If I'm not prying,” Joe asked with hesitation, “how do you feel about the marriage?”

“It was inevitable. Shelly's a beautiful, caring woman.”

“Daddy,” Susie called to him. “Come see what I made.”

Joe hung back to watch Eric with his daughter. Eric crouched down on the floor next to her while his hand slipped around Jason's swinging foot. He was a man who communicated through touch. Joe liked that. And he liked that Eric wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to his children.

Maggie looked up and caught Joe's eye. She gave him a contented smile and then went back to her story.

When they'd first found out about her cancer, Joe had tried to talk her into staying home that summer, terrified of anything that might tire her and possibly steal a minute of the time they had left together. But she'd insisted they come to the beach house, and he could see now that she'd been right. She had one last gift to give and had found the perfect little boy to give it to.

Jason probably wouldn't remember the lady with the cat who had read him stories and shared a pizza with him, but somewhere deep in his mind Maggie would make a difference by letting him know that he was special and worthy of the gift of her time.