Maine: A Novel Part 22

Kathleen, however, had come in with guns blazinga"with accusations and harsh words about Gabe, all of which might be true, but they still hurt. No one could ever injure Maggie with words the way her own mother could; that was just a fact. Shead rather not hear it, especially after the e-mail she had received from Gabe.

aWhereas Alice?a she asked now.

aWe donat know,a Kathleen said.

aDo you mind if I ask what happened with the house?a Maggie said.

Ann Marie shook her head. aIam so angry, I can barely talk about it.a She didnat seem angry. She sounded like her usual chipper self.

Ann Marie went on, aAlice has signed this entire property over to St. Michaelas in her will.a Maggie felt stunned. aWhen did this happen?a aApparently the papers were drawn up six months ago. But Patas looking into whether we have a legal right to somehow undo it. We built that house next door, you know.a aOh, we know,a Kathleen said.

Ann Marie ignored her. aWe must have some legal right to the place. Anyway, Pat told me to stay calm while he sorts it out with the lawyers. So thatas what Iam trying to do.a Ann Marie smiled. Maggie wondered if maybe she was one of those women whose extreme agreeableness had to do with some sort of ma.s.sive addiction to pills.

aThe whole thing is cla.s.sic Alice,a Kathleen said. aI wish my dad were here.a The painful memory of her grandfatheras funeral returned to Maggie then. Her uncle Patrick had given the eulogy. Chris and Little Daniel said the Prayers of the Faithful from the altar, reading aloud sheepishly like schoolkids. Chrisas voice cracked as he said, aThat we might console one another in our time of grief, just as Jesus needed consoling upon the death of Lazarus.a aLord, hear our prayer,a the congregation replied robotically, and Maggie thought of how Chris had p.r.o.nounced the word console like he meant a cabinet where you store electronics, as if Jesus were a fifty-inch TV requiring a place to sit and collect dust.

They always turned to the men for strength in these moments, perhaps because they looked so invincible in their suits. The men pulled the cars around to the front of the church and dropped their wives and daughters off so they didnat have to walk from the parking lot; the men carried the casket up the stairs from the hea.r.s.e. But in the end, it always fell to the women to do the hard work of putting everything back together again.

The choir sang aAve Mariaa as the gifts were brought up to the altar. Everyone wept. It was the sort of song that made you remember it all, your whole life a movie montage full of people who moved you deeply, and then were gone. She thought her mother must be crying to think of herself as a sort of orphan now.

Maggie cried for Daniel. She cried for the fear of ever losing Kathleen, and the fact that they would probably never have a perfect understanding between them, though there was love so strong it suffocated.

At the cemetery, there was an American flag draped over the coffin. The crowd of mourners stood still and silent as two young servicemen in uniform played a recording of aTapsa on a boom box, and then folded the flag into smaller and smaller triangles, snapping it taut with each turn. One of them presented the flag to Alice and said, aOn behalf of a grateful nation, I present this flag as a token of our appreciation for the faithful and selfless service of your loved one for this country.a Maggie realized that she had never heard Daniel talk about the war.

She looked out into the swarm of faces as a priest led them in prayer, and thought that these Catholic customs, which were morbid in a way, served their purpose even so: let no one leave this world alone. There was still the question of who would come later. Who would visit Danielas grave when it was bitter cold, or when his birthday arrived each year. One noticed in these cemeteries that certain graves were more tended to than others, that some were always heaped with fresh flowers. Maggie wondered whether these were the people who had been the most beloved in life, or the least. She imagined it could go either way.

Now, here in the cottage with her mother and aunt, she thought of the baby in her belly. She would have a lifea"a childhood, an awkward adolescence, a marriage and kids, like anyonea"and then this baby too would die, and her grandchildren sitting in the church pews would probably not know Maggie, at least not as anything more than their feeble old great-grandmother. Kathleen would be someone theyad heard about in a story once, maybe.

Maggie heard tires on the road, and she craned her neck to see the plain brown top of a delivery truck coming toward the cottage. A moment later there was a knock from the screen porch, and all three of them went out to investigate. This was the sort of thing that happened when you were at the beach. There was something quaint about it. Back home, where televisions and cell phones and computers were all going at once, who would care enough to even get off the couch and answer the door to see what the UPS man had brought if someone else was already up?

All they could see was a pair of legs in brown shorts and hiked-up socks. The rest of him was obscured by an enormous cardboard box. His arms stretched out as far as they would reach.

aA delivery for Ann Marie Kelleher,a he said from behind the box.

Ann Marie scurried toward him, opening the porch door.

aOh, thank you! Please put it down right here. Gently, please!a Kathleen rolled her eyes.

Ann Marie signed a piece of paper he held forth, attached to a clipboard.

aHave a nice day, ladies,a he said, and was gone.

The three of them stood there for a moment, staring at the box.

aIs it a pony?a Kathleen asked.

aItas my dollhouse,a Ann Marie said. She could not hide her joy, even if she wanted to. Maggie thought it was sweet. Her mother was into worms, for G.o.das sake; couldnat she understand what it meant to have a silly pa.s.sion?

aIall just run to the kitchen to get a knife,a Ann Marie continued, and then disappeared into the cottage.

aOh G.o.d,a Kathleen said. aA knife? I hope sheas not planning to injure herself, having just realized how pathetic it is to be a grown woman with a dollhouse.a aMoma"a aWhat?a Ann Marie returned and sliced through the thick brown packing tape before pulling back the box flaps. They all gazed inside, where a miniature brick house was nestled in a sea of green foam peanuts. Maggie held the box down as her aunt slid the house out and rested it on the floor.

aOh, itas beautiful,a Ann Marie said. aItas even prettier than the picture.a It was rather lovely, the kind of thing that could stoke your imagination and make you believe that you belonged on an English hillside somewhere, raising sheep and reading poetry and permanently deleting your e-mail account. Maybe Maggie would get into dollhouses too after the baby came. She and Ann Marie could open a shop in Brooklyn. After all, it was every New Yorkeras dream to own a home and most of them never woulda"perhaps this was the next best thing.

aI have to take a photo to send to Patty!a Ann Marie said. aMy cameraas in the car.a When she left to retrieve it, Kathleen leaned inquisitively over the dollhouse, tipping her mug until a thin stream of clear yellow tea poured onto the roof.

aWhoops,a she said in a singsongy voice.

aWhat the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?a Maggie asked. She quickly wiped up the spill with the bottom of her T-s.h.i.+rt.

aOh, relax, itas herbal. It wonat stain.a Maggie shook her head.

aWhy are you so mad at me?a Kathleen asked. aLook, Iam sorry for getting us off on the wrong foot yesterday. Itas just that I was worried about you for all those days and I couldnat get through. As soon as we were alone together, I just went for it.a There was really no sense in Kathleen apologizing, since she would only do the same thing again and again. There was an elasticity to their bond. Its limits were often stretched beyond comfort, but it always returned, unbroken.

I came here to stop you from making a huge mistake. Thatas how she had put it, and the words had crushed Maggie. She was annoyed at herself over the fact that she still wanted to please her mother so much. This had only gotten harder as she became an adult with a totally different set of values from Kathleenas.

aItas fine,a Maggie said.

aWhy donat we get away from this toxic environment? We could go to Boston and check into a hotel and have a mother-daughter getaway,a Kathleen said.

aNah. I need to get some work done. Iam officially back on the clock with Till Death.a aOh,a Kathleen said, clearly hurt.

aNot to mention, I have to write an online dating profile for a fairly unattractive woman with two toy poodles, whose interests include manicures, Pilates, and the Bee Gees. And she wants me to work in the fact that she has problems around jealousy.a She had said it to make Kathleen smile, but her mother said flatly, aSounds like a real catch.a aObviously I need to save my pennies,a Maggie said.

aRight. Unless you take me up on my offer and come to the farm.a Maggie ignored the comment. aI think Iall go next door to Grandmaas house, since itas just sitting there empty.a Kathleen didnat answer. Instead she said, aYou and I have always told each other everything.a It was true. While Maggie knew that it wasnat the healthiest way to be, it was the only way they had ever been, and she believed it came from a place of love.

aI know.a aSo how could you not tell me this?a aI did tell you. Youare the first person I told, other than Gabe.a Maggie decided to leave Rhiannon out of it.

aBut how long have you known?a aA month and a half.a aOh, Maggie. The thought of you having to keep it to yourself. I wish you had come out to California right away. Iad like to think thatas what you would have done in a situation like this. Not come here, to Maine, with all the family drama.a Maggie felt a mix of frustration and pity. Before she could stop herself, she said, aUntil yesterday, there really wasnat much drama.a aSo itas my fault.a aI didnat mean that.a aYou know how proud I am of you, and how much I love you, no matter what,a Kathleen said. aSometimes I wonder why you feel such a sense of loyalty to this family. None of these people give a c.r.a.p about us. It makes me so sad to see you let down by them, over and over again. Just like Iave always been. When I think of what Alice said to you yesterdaya"a Maggie had forgotten her motheras ability to turn every conversation about their extended family back to herself, and the ways in which she had been slighted by them. She had begun to make inroads with Alice and Ann Marie these past few weeks, and maybe it was stupid, but she felt happy about that. She knew her mother wanted the best for her. But she also knew this was one thing Kathleen could never let her have.

aNo oneas letting me down,a Maggie said. She straightened up and lifted her computer bag off the table, carefully placing the strap on her shoulder. She muttered, aMy b.o.o.bs are killing me.a Kathleen nodded. aRight on schedule. Theyare getting bigger, too, you know.a aThey are?a aYeah. I thought youad had implants for a second when I saw you yesterday.a aWell, maybe thatas what Iall tell people,a Maggie said. aIall be back.a And with that, she carried her laptop next door.

Each time she had opened her e-mail for the past four days, she told herself not to read the message from Gabe. And each time, she read it anyway.

When it arrived in her in-box and she saw his name there, just reflexively she got goose b.u.mps, as if they had been out on one magnificent date and she was waiting to see if he would call her again.

But by then, she was already certain about what was to come. She was going to raise this child on her own. It was scary and sometimes sad, but she could do it. Women did it all the time. In some vague way, she had always pictured herself as a single mother. Maybe just because she had grown up with one.

Mags, Iam sorry to have taken this long to reply. Ever since I read your e-mail, Iave been thinking about you and the baby and what I should do. I even went out one afternoon and looked at engagement rings in a panic. I was literally sweating on the jewelry case. But if Iam being honest with us both, the simple fact is I canat do this right now, at this point in my life. I donat know what the future holdsa"maybe Iall grow up one of these days. When youare back in the city, letas have coffee. Iam sorry. Love, Gabe It was cla.s.sic Gabe, exactly what she should have expected: Sorry I canat be a man and a father to our child, but hey, let me buy you a latte.

Maggie understood why he couldnat do it. Still, she felt like she was mourning the loss of something she had never had in the first place. In a different world, she might have been more trusting and he might have been trustworthy. She got that. But part of her missed him. She would never understand why logic couldnat conquer something as simple and commonplace as love.

Maggie sat down in Aliceas kitchen now and decided not to turn on her computer just yet. She put in a call to the police department in a town called Tulip, Texas, where a bitter former prom queen had shot her cheating husband to death. It said a lot that this was a more soothing activity than going to breakfast with her mother.

aCan I speak to your press office please?a she said, fairly sure what the response would be.

aOur what?a aYour press office. Public affairs?a aHold, please.a The hold music began. A country singer belted out that if given the chance, she hoped someone (her child?) would dance. It was some smarmy s.h.i.+t, but even so, Maggie felt a tickle in her throat. She sighed. She could not stand herself when she got like this, too cozy with her sorrow.

For the last several weeks she had thought about the horrors of giving birth, and all the terrible things that could happen to a baby, and how she could ever afford this, and whether maybe Gabe might show up in the final act and rescue her, having become another man entirely. But now she feared something else. It was about the way Alice and Kathleen and Ann Marie had all fussed over her and what she would do next. Maggie was still a blank slatea"childless, unmarried, and therefore yet to begin it. After this baby was born, she would never be that way again. She would cross to the other half of life, in which you yourself are no longer watched over, not in the same way. She couldnat take to her bed whenever she felt like it or allow herself to completely self-destruct.

Thatas what her own mother had done from time to time, and Alice as well, but Maggie couldnat; she wouldnat.

Sometimes she thought she would have been better off procreating at twenty-two than thirty-two. Back then, she had thought she wanted four or five kids someday. She was still young and dumb enough to think it possible. Maybe thatas how mothers like Ann Marie were madea"they plunged headlong into the whole endeavor before they knew any better. They werenat selfish or greedy with their time because as adults they had never spent several Sat.u.r.days in a row lying in bed watching Meg Ryan movies on cable. They had never pa.s.sed an entire weekend indoors, just because they felt like it.

From everything she read online, Maggie had gathered that it was sort of in vogue for mothers to complain about their kidsa"there were entire websites devoted to mourning the objects and body parts their children had destroyed; there were Mommies Who Drink groups that met weekly in Brooklyn bars; there were forums where women could record every last grievancea"every drop of apple juice spilled on the carpet, every time the nanny showed up five minutes late, every hideous temper tantrum that made them consider running away. They claimed they were miserable, and seemed pleased with themselves for admitting it. But then why have children at all? Maybe this sort of oversharing was healthy set against generations of repressed American housewives, brightly smiling through the slog. But Maggie wondered if in some ways all the complaining only made matters worse.

She was still on hold. Now the country singer was telling her that living might mean taking chances but theyare worth takina. Lovina might be a mistake but itas worth makina.

She hung up the phone and put her head down on her grandmotheras kitchen table. After a short while, she thought she heard footsteps out on the gravel path that led from the cottage. She felt certain it was Kathleen, so she picked up the phone again and held it to her ear, pretending to be mid-conversation.

Good Lord, had it come to this?

No one entered the house. When Maggie peeked out the window, she saw only two rabbits eating the gra.s.s.

aThank you. Good-bye,a she said to the imaginary person at the other end of the line, just in case someone was watching.

Maggie breathed in the mix of pine trees and salty air through the screen. June was almost over. Soon she would have to leave.

She could hardly picture going back to Brooklyn, to that same old apartment on Cranberry Street. She imagined that in some ways her life would be exactly as it had beena"each morning she would sit by the window, watching the early commuters hustle down into the subway with their paper cups of steaming coffee. Shead admire the buff and energetic woman in spandex who always did her push-ups and step-ups on the bench across the road while she waited for the bus. But in other ways, everything would be different, unimaginably so.

Here in Cape Nedd.i.c.k, her life had quickly taken on a new rhythma"Gabe and Rhiannon and Allegra and her officemates had been replaced by Alice and Ann Marie and Connor. Less than a month had pa.s.sed since she left, and already she felt like her city muscles were gone. In Maine, there was enough s.p.a.ce to spread out. But in New York, you were surrounded by strangers all the time, living right on top of them. On the subway, the odors of their perfume and their sweat and their p.i.s.s and their lunch all mingled together. They read over your shoulder, and while you might find this annoying, you couldnat say much, because the truth was you were likely to do the same to thema"you were all curious creatures.

Every day the city broke her heart: each morning she saw homelessness, illness, cruelty, right there in front of her. The brutality would sometimes spring forth from nowhere. Standing on the platform at Grand Central Terminal, waiting for the 6 train to arrive, she had once watched a young black man punch an old white man in the face, knocking him to the ground. The old man had said a hateful word that Maggie herself had never uttered, never would, but she still saw the young one as the coward.

She had watched mothers yank their children hard by the arm and yell at them to quit dropping crumbs or to hurry up. On other mornings, she watched the same mothers play twelve rounds of pat-a-cake with real delight in their eyes.

When she found herself crying on an East Village street after midnight, several people she had never met stopped to ask, aAre you okay?a as concerned as if they were her blood. When a guy grabbed her purse uptown one cloudy afternoon, she screamed for help, but no one turned and looked.

Everything, good and bad, was so much more predictable here. She wished she could stay. She imagined scenarios: Perhaps she could get a job cleaning at St. Michaelas, picking up the rice in the church after a wedding, Eleanor Rigby style. Or she could write a best seller and become one of those novelists whose bio makes you swell with jealousya"The author splits her time between Maine and Bruges.

She wished she could stay until the baby came, at least.

It was impossible to believe that soon the house would be gone too. Maggie wondered if it was really going to happen. Had Alice actually signed away their rights to the place they all loved most? She had envisioned bringing her baby here, coming here until she herself was an old woman.

Kathleen had often said that Ann Marie and Pat made it clear that they wanted Alice dead sooner rather than later, so the house could be theirs. Was it possible she had done this on purpose so they would all have to want her to live forever instead? Maggie couldnat think of any other reason.

Ann Marie believed that Connor had somehow conned Alice, but Maggie knew to her core that that was impossible. He was a good man, an honest priest. (Leave it to her to develop a crush on someone who was already taken by Jesus Christ, but there you had it.) A recently dumped pregnant woman could spot a truly decent man from a hundred miles away.

A while later, Maggie decided to take a break from her research and walk up Briarwood Road. She tried to absorb the stillness, to focus on the sunlight coming through the pine trees and the birds chirping overhead. At the end, she looked back to see the cottage and the house in the distance, with the ocean glittering right behind.

She turned onto Sh.o.r.e Road, and a Jeep whizzed by, a surfboard standing straight up in the pa.s.senger seat. Eventually, she came to Rubyas Market, and she went inside to get a bottle of juice.

The place reeked of bleach.

aHow are you today?a Ruby asked politely.

aGood, thank you, and you?a aFine.a Maggie walked toward the cooler in the back as Mort came down the aisle in near-limbo posture, struggling under the weight of a crate full of gla.s.s milk bottles. She felt like she ought to help him, but she wasnat sure if that would offend him, so she stayed still.

A woman came through the front door, and Ruby said, aEvangeline! Howas the cold?a They were always chatty with the locals, and with Alice. Maggie liked listening in on their conversations and wished she could earn entry into their club, though they never gave her more than a courtesy h.e.l.lo and good-bye. To them, she was just another summer person.

aWe had a group of tourists in here this morning from Worcester,a Ruby said to the woman. aThey were taking one anotheras pictures out in front of the store like this was Green Acres, and then they came inside and wanted a picture with us.a aOh my,a the woman said.

aThey said they were going to the beach in York and then they wanted to go berry picking. Back in our day you got paid to pick berries and then a month later it was string beans, and then corn after that, until you were begging for mercy. Why, the thought of paying someone else for the pleasure of bending over all day in the hot suna"a aI hear you!a the woman said.

aBunch of Ma.s.sholes, if you ask me,a Mort said, setting the heavy crate down.

Maggie laughed, putting a hand over her mouth.

Ruby shook her head, but she smiled, a look that said she loved this man, loved the life they had made together. They seemed utterly comfortable with one another, like they knew each other all the way through. Maggie wondered if she would ever feel that way about another person. She walked the half mile home to the cottage, wondering still.

When she arrived, Maggie found her mother and hugged her and invited her to lunch, despite the lecture she knew was coming. Because maybe Kathleen was as close as she was ever going to get.

Ann Marie.

It rained like crazy through the final days of June, but on the first of July, the sun broke through to reveal the finest morning of summer so far. Ann Marie stepped outside the cottage door, and the air was warm, the sky pure blue. She took it all in, looking down to where the ocean met the sand. Aliceas lilies were thriving. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees overhead.

She hadnat minded the lousy weather. She mostly needed to stay inside anyway and focus on cleaning the cottage. Kathleen had been staying there for all of four days, and the place was a disaster. Newspaper pages were strewn across every surface. Cigarette b.u.t.ts had been hidden in the bottom of the bathroom wastebasket, leaving behind hideous black smudges and a smoky odor that took nearly forty minutes of scrubbing with a mix of baking soda and water to cover up. Kathleen seemed incapable of putting a gla.s.s in the sink once she had used it. There were business cards for California school superintendents in a stack on the dresser (why?), as well as handwritten notes that Ann Marie couldnat begin to understand: Remind them that orchid will bloom faster/richer colors/longer life span with tea a liquid seaweed = increased fungal activity a With the gin we will need to start looking for more workers AND TRAs.h.!.+ a Ann Marie fastened all the pages together with a paper clip and shoved them into her sister-in-lawas purse. Then she set to undoing the rest of the damage Kathleen had done.

Now there were freshly washed sheets on the beds and vases of Free Spirit roses on the kitchen counter and on top of the piano, blooming in orange and peach and yellow sunbursts. The grill out on the deck had been scrubbed down. The fridge was stocked with champagne and blackberries and pastries and fresh steaks, and corn on the cob, and three different kinds of cheese for the cheese tray. She had removed a lamp painted with seash.e.l.ls from the dining table and hidden it up in the loft, replacing it with her dollhouse, which now held the spot of honor smack in the middle of the living room.

This was exactly how she wanted the place to look when the Brewers arrived later today, the perfect start to her official month in Cape Nedd.i.c.k. Except for the fact that Kathleen and Maggie still hadnat left.

Kathleen refused to go, probably out of spite. She said she had good reason: she hadnat convinced Maggie to move to California with her yet (smart girl), and she wasnat leaving Maine until she succeeded. At Maggieas insistence, Kathleen had finally agreed to vacate the cottage and stay at Aliceas. So the two of them were bunking at the big house, and Ann Marie, Pat, and the Brewers would stay together in the cottage next door, as planned.

She had never seen Kathleen so badly behaved as she had been this week, which was really saying something. Her mere presence made Ann Marie nervous. She could picture Kathleen pitching a fit in front of the Brewers, embarra.s.sing everyone to no end. Kathleen was in a state over Maggieas pregnancy, and while she claimed to have come here to help her daughter, she mostly seemed to have upset the girl ever since she arrived.

Ann Marie was distressed about it too. At night she lay awake thinking about poor Maggie, wondering how she could help. She wanted to impress upon her that while the situation was not ideal, G.o.d would provide. How many women could honestly say that their childrenas conceptions had been planned? It was not preparedness for a child that made the timing right, but the fact of the childas existence. Begotten, not made, that was what the Bible said. She feared that Kathleen was advising her niece to pa.s.s the buck, the way she woulda"to get rid of the pregnancy, or to get rid of the baby after he was born, as if this new life hadnat come along for a reason.

Her sister Susanas oldest daughter, Deirdre, had had a h.e.l.l of a time getting pregnant. Maybe Ann Marie ought to tell Maggie about her. She spent thirty thousand dollars on in vitro, and gained forty pounds, only to have it fail twice. She attempted it a third time, and finally, after four painful years of trying, Deirdre had given birth to triplets.

Ann Marieas mother had nearly lost it, raging at Susan, saying that the Catholic Church didnat support such procedures, that they killed millions of innocent embryos, and that it was up to G.o.d to decide when a life came along. It was easy enough to think so when you yourself had effortlessly given birth to four children, as their mother had. Ann Marie considered herself a model Catholic, but she knew that if her only way to have babies had been through petri dishes and science labs, she would have done all of it in a heartbeat.

Her mother came from a generation of married Catholic women who had gone to the Church begging to be allowed to use birth control in order to keep their families at a manageable size. When the Church refused, they obeyed, and for that reason plenty of them ended up with ten, twelve, or fourteen children, as if they were cattle. So many of those women had died young, their bodies exhausted. Thinking on it now, Ann Marie wondered if it wasnat all a bit absurd, this business of celibate men deciding who got to be a mother, and when.

It was because of the Church that Alice believed Maggie should marry the awful boyfriend. Ann Marie had considered thisa"if it were her daughter, she might have felt that marriage was imperative, whatever the circ.u.mstances. But she couldnat really picture her niece settling down for a lifetime with Gabe. Maggie would probably be better off alone. Clearly, Kathleen thought so.

Ann Marie had told Pat about his sisteras plan to stay on, and he was ticked off. But he didnat say anything to Kathleen, reasoning that they had bigger fish to fry with this business about Alice giving the property away. Pat had consulted his attorney, who said that the deed was in Aliceas name, so it was her right to sell the property, or give it away, even though Pat had paid for the main house to be built, and paid the taxes and the homeowneras insurance since his father died. The only way around losing the house was if Alice changed her mind. It made Ann Marie more furious than she had ever been.

Alice had been avoiding Patas phone calls all week and acting as if nothing had happened around Ann Marie. They agreed that they would confront his mother after the Brewers left, since they didnat want Steve and Linda getting mixed up in their familyas business. It was sure to be an unpleasant conversation, and Ann Marie didnat need the whole neighborhood hearing about it.

When she first found out about Aliceas arrangement with the priest, Ann Marie had gotten a bit out of control. She had actually trampled Aliceas tomato plants. It was almost an out-of-body experience. One minute, she was standing there in the yard thinking of what Alice had done, and the next, she was pulling the plants by their green, leafy stalks, breaking them in two. The tomatoes fell to the earth and she stepped on the biggest of them all, digging the b.a.l.l.s of her feet in and quickly moving them back and forth without raising them off the ground, as if she were dancing the twist.

After a few harsh words were exchanged later that day, she fled. It had felt thrilling to drive off, knowing they were all watching her from behind the cottage windows. But Ann Marie didnat have any clue where she was going. She drove aimlessly for a while and then crossed the bridge into Portsmouth. She parked the car in front of an Irish pub and went inside.

The place was dim, the dark floorboards and walls making her almost forget that it was daytime. There was a session going on at the back of the rooma"old men and young ones played away on their fiddles and uilleann pipes, filling the place with merriment. She thought of her daughters competing at every Feis in New England, Patty always taking the gold, Fiona rarely placing, though she didnat seem to mind. Afterward, the whole family would spend the afternoon at the festival, walking from tent to tent, dancing the Siege of Ennis with a hundred strangers while her daughtersa banana curls bobbed up and down. Their dresses, heavy with starch and boning and rich with embroidery, had taken Ann Marie six months to make.