Maine: A Novel Part 3

aWhat on earth would we talk about?a Arlo asked, as if most people interacted with their families for the riveting conversation.

The Kellehers considered it sacrilege that Kathleen went back East only twice a year. Whereas Arlo, when she told him she was planning another trip to Ma.s.sachusetts, just said, aWhy are you such a glutton for punishment?a Needless to say, he had not been raised Catholic.

aYouare lucky thereas no such thing as Presbyterian guilt,a she had told him once when they were discussing it.

aWhat do you mean?a he asked.

aNever mind.a aIt would be a different story if you didnat let them get under your skin like you do, but they seem to make you so stressed,a head said. aAround your family, you never act like yourself.a aI know,a she replied, though sometimes she feared that the opposite was true, that her real self was that dark, angry one she had shoved in a box years ago, the one that emerged only when she was home.

When Ann Marie called a few days earlier, she practically bit Kathleenas head off about the fact that Maggie and Gabe were going to Maine for just two weeks this year. Ann Marie had apparently decided that Alice couldnat be alone up there for the remainder of June, despite the fact that Alice was alone all fall, winter, and spring, and managed just fine.

Kathleen tried to take deep breaths and to channel Arloas calmness. Her sister-in-law was only a person, after all. Why shouldnat they be able to talk rationally? But when it came to Ann Marie, Kathleen could never help it. Her temper flared. Did Ann Marie actually think she could drop her business, her dogs, and Arlo, because she said so?

When Ann Marie realized that Kathleen refused to entertain this ludicrous concern, she told her to forget it. Translation: it wasnat a big deal in the first place; Ann Marie had just felt like making a fuss. This was typical of her sister-in-law, who might as well have had the word MARTYR stamped across her forehead.

Ann Marie called Alice Mom. Kathleen still found this jarring, more than thirty years after the first time she heard it. Who, if given the choice, would want to claim Alice for a mother?

Back in Ma.s.sachusetts, Kathleen had occasionally pretended in her head that her AA sponsor, Eleanor, was her mother. When they sat in the coffee shop below Eleanoras apartment in Harvard Square, Kathleen would drink tea and talk about her daya"another fight with Paul over money for the kids, another meeting with Chrisas princ.i.p.al that had ended in tears.

Eleanor had always told Kathleen that a sober life didnat mean a perfect life. You could do everything right, and still, things might not turn out the way youad imagined. She herself had been married three times. The first two were booze-soaked, dramatic, pa.s.sionate, stupid. Just like Kathleenas marriage to Paul had been. Just like she feared Maggie and Gabeas relations.h.i.+p might be, if Maggie didnat end it soon. Eleanoras third marriage was a sober one. Even so, it ended in divorce. Then she met a wonderful man, and two years later she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. You never knew where a day or a year would take you. Kathleen hoped Maggie understood that.

She also hoped that Ann Marie wouldnat try to guilt her daughter into staying on in Maine any longer than she wanted to. She herself certainly wasnat going to mention Ann Marieas silly concern to Maggie, but who knew? Ann Marie might have already gone straight to the source. When it came to the Kellehers, Kathleen hated that Maggie was an adult nowa"someone they could call or advise whenever they wanted, independent of her.

aTechnically, June is your month,a Ann Marie had said during that call a few days earlier, as if this was a prize that had been bestowed upon Kathleen, instead of what it really was: the raw end of the deal.

It hadnat escaped Kathleen that when Patrick decided they should divvy up their time at the cottage, he had a.s.signed the worst month to her. Who wanted to take their summer vacation in June, when it wasnat even hot yet?

She had called him one night a few years ago after an AA meeting focused on standing up for yourself rather than internalizing your anger.

aYou gave me the worst month for Maine,a she said into the phone.

aExcuse me?a Patrick said. aYou havenat even been there in years.a It was true that she had avoided the place ever since her father died, wanting to forget both the good and the bad of it. With few exceptions, she had never really liked going there. The act of vacationing in beautiful surroundings always made her turn melancholy, as if in the absence of external annoyances to displease her, she suddenly realized her own inferioritya"her fleshy upper arms, the sun spots that had worsened with age, and just how little she wanted to return to her day-to-day life. (No doubt, picturesque Sonoma Valley would be intolerable if not for the fact that her industry was worm s.h.i.+t.) But this wasnat about that. It was about fairness, about her childrenas rights too.

aAnyway,a her brother went on, aI wasnat aware that there was a bad month to take a free beach vacation.a Oh, he had to add that word, free. As if she wasnat well aware that he had been paying the property tax in Maine since Daniel died. (Only to stake his claim to the place, she a.s.sumed.) Never mind that he hadnat offered her a penny after her divorce, when she and her children were practically on the verge of living on the street.

aItas easy to be generous when you have cash coming out of your eyeb.a.l.l.s,a she said, which was actually kinder than Patrick deserved. The truth was he wasnat generous, not toward anyone who actually needed help. He never donated in a big way, or volunteered, or a.s.sisted anyone outside his immediate family. Patrick was the kind of person whose worldview made him think he was the whole, rather than a part of it.

aWhat is that supposed to mean?a he said in such a measured, almost jolly, tone that she wondered if he was standing among his rich yuppie friends, maybe in the middle of a c.o.c.ktail party or a round of golf.

The Serenity Prayer floated through her head: G.o.d, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Why was it so much easier to buy all that in an AA meeting full of strangers than when she was interacting with her own family? She had learned techniques for coping with almost anyone, but the Kellehers still aroused such anger in her, such terrible behavior.

aWhat was I thinking?a she said, unable to stop herself. aQuestioning the boy king, Jesus Christ himself. Apologies.a She hung up. There was a pull from inside her then, which she recognized as the urge to have a drink. She sat with the feeling for a moment, letting it be, observing where it manifested itself in her body: smack in the middle of her chest.

The resentments had piled one on top of another over so many years, so that Kathleen couldnat think of her adult brotheras arrogance without remembering in anger how her parents had sent him to an expensive Catholic boysa school while she and Clare went to public school, how Alice had always bent over backward to tell him how gifted and smart he was, though she had never done this for her daughters.

Alice had grown up poor, and though she had raised her children middle-cla.s.s, she always let it be known that she still thought she deserved better. Not the rest of them, necessarily. Only her. She put on airs and was ridiculously vain about her appearance. She thought of herself as some sort of sophisticate trapped in a world that wasnat her own, even though in fact she was a Dorchester girl from a working-cla.s.s Irish family, who knew hardly anything about the way life worked.

Kathleen had often joked with her sister, Clare, that their mother liked Patas wife better than either of them because Ann Marie was an imposter, just like Alice.

Even in college, her sister-in-law was unabashedly square for the most part. Before he met her, Pat had a bit of a wild streaka"smoking lots of dope, bed-hopping all around St. Maryas. When he met Ann Marie, she gave him the full June Cleaver treatment. Pat was on the golf team, and Ann Marie actually organized bake sales so the team could get matching jackets, as if she were his mother. Pat bragged about this revolting fact when he came home that Christmas, and Alice had put a hand to her heart and said, aShe sounds positively wonderful.a Ann Marie came from a part of Southie that Alice had always referred to as athe wrong side of the tracks,a but like Alice herself, when asked where she grew up, Ann Marie would fudge it a bit. aRight on the Milton line,a shead say, even though there was no line between Southie and Milton. When they met her, her brother was in trouble with the police and had recently disappeared. He was an underling in the Winter Hill Gang and he had dabbled in all kinds of crimea"run drugs, trafficked guns to the IRA, and possibly even helped to murder a businessman in Oklahoma in the mid-seventies. It was Patrick who had told Kathleen all this. Ann Marie herself would never acknowledge such a scandal.

Ann Marie wanted so badly for everyone to think she was a goody-goody even though deep down she was no different from the rest of them. The only time Kathleen had ever seen her truly let loose was when she visited Pat and Ann Marie in South Bend after they had graduated college. Pat was killing time that summer, waiting for business school to start. Ann Marie was waitressing and making noise about getting a nursing degree, though she never actually did it. One night during her trip, Kathleen drunkenly watched from the backseat as a twenty-year-old Ann Marie pulled off her blouse and stuck her head out the car window, bellowing aHey Judea at the top of her lungs, hammered beyond comprehension. aNa-na-na-nananana!!!a Pat was behind the wheel, probably ten beers into the night himself.

aGet your hot a.s.s back in here,a he said, pulling at his then-girlfriendas back pocket.

aNo-no-no-nononono!!!a Ann Marie screamed, to the tune of, well, just guess. A few minutes later, she slid into her seat and then over to Patrick in only her bra and skirt, licking his ear as if Kathleen werenat there. The next morning, Ann Marie said sheepishly, aI hope I didnat do anything too disgraceful last night. I really have no memory of it. Pancakes?a Kathleen would never forget it. Later, she wished that she had thought to take a picture. She dreamed of mailing it to Alice without a note or a return address.

Even back in college, Pat and Ann Marie acted like perfect angels around their elders, a practice that irked Kathleen to no end. As soon as they were married, Pat straightened up in earnest, and they turned into a couple of pod people. Once, in Cape Nedd.i.c.k, when the kids were small, Ann Marie had had one too many gla.s.ses of rum punch, and proudly divulged to Kathleen that Pat was the first and only man she had ever slept with. As if women who saved their virginity were somehow better than the rest; as if anyone was keeping score.

When Ann Marie addressed you now, shead say, aHow are you doing, good?a as if to direct you toward the correct answer: No negativity, please. Itas distasteful. Kathleen thought that if she would only show some sign of weakness, some signal of being human, then she might stop being so hard on her sister-in-law. But after thirty-something years, that seemed unlikely.

Ann Marie used the familyas place in Maine as a sort of status symbol to impress her vapid country club friends, which, Kathleen knew, was why she and Pat had built that showy house next door for Daniel and Alice. Ann Marie probably kept a file on which pieces of furniture to buy for which rooms in the Maine house the second Alice croaked.

She spoke mostly about numbersa"volume, distance, temperature, pricea"having nothing more interesting to talk about than the fact that it was seventy-four degrees in April, or that her mother was turning eighty-one this year; or how absolutely insane it was that red bell peppers could be priced at four dollars a pound.

Ann Marie had her children believing theyad been born to a sainta"a s.e.xless, guiltless saint, who might need a bottle of white wine to get through a stressful day, as long as no one was watching, but hey, what was wrong with that? She cooked elaborate dinners for Pat every night, even if she was going out, as if he was incapable of using the stove. She took cla.s.ses in flower arranging and cake decorating.

Kathleen worried about Ann Marieas older daughter, Patty. It pained her to see the poor girl always in a state of panic, no doubt wondering how the h.e.l.l she might ever measure up as a mother or a wife. Kathleen often thought of letting Patty in on the secret that many people thought her mother was insane. She had wanted to rescue her from that stifling home when she was a kid, but now Patty had gone the way of so many young womena"she was trying to do it all. She was a lawyer and the mother of three small children by the time she turned thirty.

Kathleenas brother and sister-in-law were grandparents! She tried not to think about it, since it was an uncomfortable reminder of how horrifyingly old they had all become. Her pulse quickened, and not in a good way, when she entertained the idea of her children bearing children of their own.

Kathleen had never liked the way Ann Marie treated kids, no matter how maternal everyone thought she was. Shead bake cookies with them after school and take them ice-skating and make clothes for their dolls, putting other mothers to shame in that way. (Some women were created to make other women feel like s.h.i.+t about themselves. Ann Marie was one of them.) But she also controlled every move her children madea"she told them what to wear, which cla.s.ses to take, who they should and should not date. She wouldnat let them have so much as a goldfish in the house even though they begged for a puppy, because she couldnat stand the mess a.s.sociated with pets. Fiona, her youngest, had wanted to play the tuba in the high school band; Ann Marie insisted that the piccolo was more appropriate.

Who could say what Ann Marieas children might have become if theyad been allowed to just be?

Kathleen remembered an afternoon when Chris was smalla"he couldnat have been more than five. She had left him with Ann Marie while she took Maggie to a doctoras appointment. Arriving to pick him up, Kathleen found her son curled up in a ball in Ann Marieas front hall, crying.

aWhat happened?a she asked, and Chris uttered those unforgettable words: aAunt Ann Marie hit me.a Kathleenas anger unleashed, she marched toward the kitchen, where Ann Marie stood at the counter, wiping it down with a sponge.

aYou hit my child?a Kathleen shouted, startling Little Daniel, who was playing with his trucks on the floor.

Ann Marie smiled, and said, as if by way of explanation, aHe was talking back. I kept telling him to be a good boy and sit down, and he kept throwing a fit. Then he hit Little Daniel with a Tonka truck, very hard. I think itas going to leave a mark.a Kathleen raised her voice even louder. aSo you decided to hit him to teach him that hitting is wrong?a aIt was hardly a hit,a Ann Marie said faintly. aI spanked his bottom with an open hand. Iam sorry.a Kathleen knew Ann Marie could not stand conflict. Already her eyes were welling up. Good.

aLet me make this clear,a Kathleen said. aOpen hand, closed hand, whatevera"you may never touch either of my children for any reason, ever again. Got that? If you do, Iall report you to the authorities.a Later that night, her sister, Clare, called. aI heard youare considering turning Ann Marie in to Social Services,a she said. aApparently at this very moment sheas trying to pick out the right potpourri for her prison cell.a aWho told you about it?a Kathleen said. aOh, let me guess.a aIndeed. Alice told me to tell you to apologize.a aApologize!a aYouare too hotheaded. No one knows where you get it. And apparently you take Ann Marie for granted. Sheas the best babysitter youall ever get, as far as our mother can tell. You leave your kids with her all the time, but donat accept that sheas their aunt, not some sort of hired help. Oh, and also, according to Alice, kids need a slap every now and again. Itas good for them.a aWell, take it from the mother of the year.a aWhy Iam now in on this, I have no idea.a aWhy the h.e.l.l does Ann Marie always run to Mom?a aBecause sheas the daughter Alice never had.a Kathleen had forgiven Ann Marie or, if not forgiven her exactly, she had not mentioned the incident again. They were a foursome back thena"Patrick and Ann Marie, Kathleen and her husband, Paul, frequently going to outdoor concerts at the Hatch Sh.e.l.l together, driving up to Maine, taking the kids to the Marshfield Fair, or out to dinner at Legal Sea Foods. And much as she hated to admit it, it was true that Ann Marie sat for her kids often, probably two or three times a week, while Kathleen was never asked to reciprocate. (Ann Marie had her own sisters for that, and anyway, she didnat have a job.) Even though Kathleen didnat find Ann Marie particularly interesting, smart, or enlightened, they were family. It was impossible to stay distant for long.

A few years later, it was this sort of closeness that Patrick used as an excuse for why he had helped Paul cover up his affair.

Two nights a week for a year, the two of them, her husband and her brother, had claimed they were togethera"Tuesday night poker, Friday night Kiwanis meetings. Paul was gone other nights, too, inexplicably coming home after midnight, never bothering to give Kathleen an explanation. She sensed that something was happening, but she stuffed the feeling down deep, wanting and not wanting to know.

One Friday night after she put the kids to bed and downed half a bottle of red wine, she called Ann Marie, to ask if theyad be going to Alice and Danielas for a barbecue the next day.

Ann Marie turned her mouth away from the phone and said, aHoney, are we going over to your momas tomorrow?a aTomorrow?a came Patrickas unmistakable voice.

aWhatas Pat doing there?a Kathleen had said. aI thought he was at Kiwanis.a Ann Marie might have said something convincing if she wasnat such a dimwita"He has a cold, or Patty had a ballet recital so he skipped the meetinga"but instead, she was silent for a moment, before saying, aWhat do you mean? Patas not here. I was talking to Little Daniel.a Kathleen took a deep breath. aYouare full of s.h.i.+t, Ann Marie. Now do you want to tell me whatas going on, or do you want to put Pat on?a Ann Marieas voice quavered. aI think youad better take it up with your husband,a she said. aIam sorry.a Kathleen was still awake when he came in, the rest of the wine gone. She sat at the kitchen table, watching Letterman on the black-and-white set, waiting for the back door to swing open.

aYouare up late,a he said when he saw her.

aHow was Kiwanis?a she asked calmly, though her heart was racing.

aEh, dull,a he said. aBut we went for a few beers after and had a pretty good time.a aDid my brother mention a party at my parentsa house tomorrow?a she asked.

aHe might have,a Paul said tentatively. aI honestly canat remember now. I love the guy, but he never shuts up, you know? He rambled on so much tonight, I canat remember half of it.a Kathleen drummed her fingers on the table. aDonat lie to me,a she said.

aWhat?a he said, taking a beer from the fridge.

aI know where you were,a she said.

aWhat are you talking about?a aMy brother told me everything,a she lied. aHe told me all about her.a Paul squinted. aLower your voice,a he said. aThe kids are sleeping.a aOh! The kids. The kids!a she yelled. aNow youare worried about the kids?a aYouare drunk,a he said. aI canat talk to you like this.a aYouare pathetic!a she said. She could tell from his face that she had rubbed him raw with that.

aFine,a he said. aThereas someone else. Is that what you want to hear? Pat and Ann Marie saw us out oncea"a million years ago. It was his idea, you know, the Kiwanis c.r.a.p, the poker. I wanted to tell you, flat out.a Kathleen was stunned. aWell, arenat you a sweetheart?a she said.

He had been looking straight at her, practically glaring, but now he turned his eyes to a spot behind her, and his face broke into a big fake smile. Kathleen followed his gaze. Maggie stood there in the doorway in her cotton nightgown, her eyelids still heavy from sleep.

A string of painful revelations followed, and Kathleen drank more with each one: Paul had been seeing the other woman for over a year. During that time he had loaned her ten grand, but he hadnat paid his own mortgage in nine months and now the bank was ready to foreclose. Kathleen might have suspected an affair, but shead had no idea about the money. Her father offered to help, but there was nothing to be done. In March, they lost the house.

At her fatheras urging, Kathleen took the kids and went to the cottage in Maine.

She fell into a fog that spring. She would forget to feed Maggie and Chris their dinner, or shead lock up the cottage and climb into bed early, only to realize a while later that her children were still outside playing on the beach.

It was her father, as always, who saved her. He came to Maine from Ma.s.sachusetts one night and gave her the same ultimatum he had given his wife decades earlier: find a way to stop drinking, or head take the kids away.

aRemember how much your mother frightened you,a he said, the first and only time he had ever put it that way. aHow on earth can you sit here and do the same to Maggie?a That had been enough to get her to her first AA meeting. She drank again three days later, a quarter of a bottle of gin. Drunk and desperate, she called Paul, begging him to come back. She woke up horrified and went to another meeting the next morning. She hadnat had a drink since.

Though Paul was the one who had cheated, her familya"besides her father and her sister, Clarea"acted as though Kathleen were to blame for their marriage coming apart. Patrick said Paul would outgrow the affair, that they should try counseling, try everything, because divorce was plain wrong. That was why he had helped Paul cover it up, he claimed, because their family meant too much to let this destroy them. Kathleen suspected that, as usual, he was thinking only of himself: no member of the Kelleher clan had ever gotten divorced, and Pat took a certain weird pride in that.

Alice insinuated that perhaps Kathleen was to blame for Paulas infidelity, and said that she couldnat walk away from a perfectly good marriage.

The funniest part of her motheras defense of her ex-husband was that Paul had never liked Alice. He had taken to calling visits to her house aEscape to b.i.t.c.h Mountain.a He was unfailingly polite to her face, but that was only because she terrified him.

The first time Kathleen took Paul home to meet her parents, the four of them were sitting around the kitchen table eating spaghetti when someone knocked at the back door. Through the window in the door, Kathleen could see her uncle Timmy and his wife, Kitty. The previous Thanksgiving, Kitty and Alice had gotten into a screaming fight over the proper weight of a turkey meant to feed twenty people. Alice thought her sister-in-law was accusing her of being cheap. She had hardly spoken a word to Aunt Kitty since. Or, for that matter, to her own brother, who was being punished for marrying such a monster.

Alice came from a family of six siblings and Daniel was one of ten. Kathleen had forty-two cousins altogether. When she and Pat and Clare were growing up, their house was a revolving door of people. You might be sitting down to dinner on Sunday, and Uncle Jack and his wife and seven kids would come bounding in, and Alice would sigh and whisper, aFill up on the potatoes.a Kathleen always hated this, and vowed that when she had kids of her own (no more than two!), her little family would be snug and solitary, an island unto themselves.

Now Aunt Kitty gave an exuberant wave and Paul instinctually waved back. It was a normal reaction when you were in a suburban kitchen on a Sunday night and a little gray-haired lady was smiling at you through the window, but Alice hissed, aPaul, donat look at them! Pretend weare not in here.a Paul chuckled, and then, seeing the serious look on Aliceas face, he turned to Kathleen, confused.

aMom, they can see us,a Kathleen said, not looking up.

aBe quiet and theyall go away,a Alice whispered. aYou donat show up at someoneas door at dinnertime unannounced.a In fact, their relatives did this all the time, but now Alice had something against Kitty, and she couldnat let it drop.

aWho are they?a Paul asked in a hushed voice.

aMy brother and his wretched wife,a Alice said. aDonat worry, theyall get the hint.a They looked down at their plates and kept eating. Kitty knocked harder, as if they might not be able to hear from just a few feet away. She jiggled the doork.n.o.b, but it was locked.

aJesus, Alice, enough already,a Daniel said finally. He rose from his chair and went to the door, ushering them inside.

aHey, you two,a he said in his usual cheerful tone. aHungry? Itas spaghetti night.a aGosh no, we wouldnat want to impose!a Kitty said.

aSure you would,a Alice said tartly. aBut knowing me, there wonat be enough.a aThatas my Alice, always a lady,a said Kathleenas uncle Tim. aHow about a beer?a Alice didnat move to get him one, so Uncle Timmy opened the fridge himself and pulled out a Schlitz. He was a funny, kindhearted guy, a lot like Kathleenas dad. He had once told Kathleen that he was the one who introduced Daniel and Alice, back during World War II.

aWe were visiting with Kittyas cousins a few blocks over and thought wead stop in and say hi,a he said. aAnd donat worry, because they fed us and weare full to the gills.a aGood, because as you can see, we have company,a Alice said.

Timmy raised an eyebrow. aKathleen and her boyfriend qualify as company?a he said.

Alice still hadnat risen from her chair.

aDaniel, I didnat slave over that stove so you could eat cold food,a she said. aSit down!a He sat.

Paul drank several beers at dinner. Kathleen couldnat blame him. On the drive home that night, he said, aHoney, I love you, but I am scared s.h.i.+tless of your mother.a Any other girl might have been insulted, but Kathleen felt drawn to him more than ever in that moment. It was so easy for Alice to fool peoplea"most strangers thought she was simply delightful because she was pretty, larger than life. But Paul knew better right away.

aPlease promise me youare not gonna become her,a he said.

aJesus, I promise,a she had said. aIf I do, youare completely within your rights to kill me.a

Ann Marie.

Ann Marie was up early, even before the alarm. The room was silent, and through the sheer curtains, she could see that the streetlights were still on. She looked at the clock on the nightstand: five fifteen. Her whole body fluttered with excitement. She closed her eyes tightly, thinking of children on Christmas morning.

She got to her feet and slid into her slippers and robe. There was a lot to do before she left, so she had better hop to it. She had vacuumed all the carpets before she went to bed, and emptied the dishwasher. She usually gave the whole house a good cleaning on Sundays. But today she would be away until late afternoon at least.

It was finally June second. All spring she had been counting down the days until the Wellbright Miniatures Fair. For the first time in twenty-five years, the English festival was coming across the Atlantic for a United States tour, beginning right here in Boston. She had been reading online about the different exhibitors for weeks. She planned to attend a ten oaclock workshop on how to wire your dollhouse with real electric lighting. She had already picked out a chandelier for the dining room, with opaque bulbs that looked like pearls.

After the workshop, she would take her time walking from stall to stall, finally seeing in person the objects she had long coveted through a computer screen. Minnieas Minis from Staffords.h.i.+re made the most gorgeous little cakes, with frosting that looked like real marzipan, and tiny ceramic strawberries on top, each berry no bigger than the head of a pin. A slice of cake could even be removed to show the chocolate and raspberry filling inside.

Puckas Teeny Tinies produced intricate silver beer steins, the size of your pinky nail. She thought one of these might be a funny tribute to her husband, Pat, and the trip theyad taken to Germany a few years back.

Home Is Where the Heart Is was her favorite company. She probably spent eight or nine hundred dollars a month on the website. And now perhaps shead get to meet the ownersa"Lollie and Albert Duncan, a married couple who had put themselves on the map with kitchenware items, almost all of which Ann Marie had purchased (gorgeous spatulas and whisks, a blueberry pie baked in a beer bottle cap, a stainless-steel fridge that hummed with the help of a single D battery).

At the end of the day, if she could keep her nerve up, shead bring some of the photographs she had snapped to the Judgesa Circle booth, and submit them in the annual Dollhouse Designer Showcase. Winning was a long shot, she knew that. Most of these people had been competing for years; some were even professionals. But when she looked at her photos, she could swear she was staring at a real house, not a replica. Pat said he agreed completely.

She had gotten interested in dollhouses a year ago, with the intention of decorating one for her granddaughter. She bought a Victorian kit in a toy shopa"three bedrooms, with a wraparound porch. Ann Marie spent a week lovingly putting the house together, piece by piece. She painted the outside a pale yellow with white trim. She hung curtains using a hot glue gun and sc.r.a.ps from her sewing basketa"heavy green floor-length velvet in the living room, short red-and-white gingham in the kitchen, a fabric covered in multicolored polka dots in the nursery. Next, she added furniture: little blue-and-white painted bunk beds and a matching crib. A white rocking horse with silky hair. A toy chest. What looked like a real Kohler toilet in the bathroom, and fluffy hand towels she had made by cutting a facecloth into two-inch strips and sewing a white ribbon around the edge. She bought a sofa and an armchair for the living room. A grandfather clock. Side tables. A canopy bed for the master bedroom. A full kitchen set, complete with pots and pans, and teensy boxes of Cheerios and Tide.

She sometimes sat with a cup of tea and stared in amazement at her creation for half an hour, or longer. By the time she completed the project, she couldnat bear to give the dollhouse away to the children, who would treat it like just another toy. When her granddaughter, Maisy, visited and brushed her grubby fingers against the white bedroom rug in the dollhouse, Ann Mariea"known for her patience, especially with youngstersa"had said in a rush, aWash your hands first!a Afterward she felt silly, but it wasnat such a ridiculous request.

The kids teased her about her new pastime, everyone but Little Danielas fiance, Regina, who said she thought the dollhouse was beautiful. Regina was a sweet girl. She had been baptized and confirmed at Gate of Heaven in Southie, the same as Ann Marie. Of course, she had to be nice, since she was an outsider wanting into this family. Ann Marie knew how that went.

She had had plenty of hobbies beforea"sc.r.a.pbooking and flower arranging and even quilting for a while. But nothing had ever grabbed her heart like the dollhouse. When she was growing up, her mother had run a motley household, with people in and out all the time, women from the neighborhood always cl.u.s.tered around the table playing cards, drinking whiskey, smoking cigarettes, filling the kitchen with gray clouds of cigarette smoke. They talked loudly over one another. Most of their sons were derelicts, bound for prison. If they were smart, like a few of her cousins had been, they became cops. Once in a blue moon, one of them made it to the mayoras office or city hall. Those ones were remembered the longest, them and the criminals. (The Bulger familya"perhaps the most famous in the neighborhooda"had raised one of each, a major politician and a crime boss.) Ann Marieas own brother, Brendan, had gotten caught up in it all. They called him a mobster in the newspaper, but it seemed an overblown word. He was only a baby, doing what he was told. They said he had helped Whitey Bulger murder a man, and maybe it was true. But when Ann Marie thought of him, all she could envision was a boy in short pants, sitting in the gra.s.s at Castle Island, with Boston Harbor stretched out in front of him, and the gray buildings of Southie behind. In her memory, he was eating a hot dog from Sullivanas, his very favorite treat. His face was smeared with ketchup.

No one had heard from Brendan in twenty years now, at least as far as she knew.

From a young age, Ann Marie had vowed to marry someone from outside of Southie, someone with a bit of money in his pocket. She wanted to create a life with order and beauty to it. She was the first in her family to go to college, putting herself through St. Maryas in the hope that she might find a nice Irish boy from Notre Dame. Patrick was exactly what she had wished for, and when she met him she worked hard to make him see that he needed her, that it was time to say good-bye to all the other girls.

When her mother met the Kellehers, she said they were lace curtain sn.o.bs as far as she was concerned, but Ann Marie ignored her.