Blue Ink

by Tess Thompson

  “Charlotte, what terrible manners you have, insinuating I’ve had surgery.” She hid a smile behind the glass.

  “Do you remember your grandparents?”

  “Not well. My grandmother passed away when I was just four years old. My grandfather died a year or two later. My mother often said how grateful she was they’d moved back when they did. They had a few more years together.” She sipped from her drink. Her cheeks had flushed. The drink was going to her head. I had a twinge of guilt. Maybe giving her a drink wasn’t a good idea. She was loose and relaxed, though, which had to be good for her health. “I always wanted curls. I would’ve piled them on top of my head and let the tendrils tickle my neck.”

  “I wore it up last night for our date.” I clamped my hand over my mouth. Me and my big mouth. I could never have been a spy.

  “Date?”

  I stayed quiet, as if that would deter her.

  “Did my son take you out on a date?”

  “Yes. I didn’t mean to tell you. It slipped out.”

  “You’ve been here a couple of days and you already went on a date?”

  “Does it seem too fast? I mean, it is. But we like each other and there’s this chemistry when we kissed that made my knees weak, which I didn’t think was really a thing, but it is.” I really needed to stop talking. Soon I’d be babbling on about soulmates and past lives.

  “He kissed you?”

  “And I kissed him back.” I flushed, remembering all the things we’d done besides kissing.

  She smiled wide and almost wicked. “When Edward and I met each other for the first time, we’d spoken for under five minutes before he kissed me.” Her eyes sparkled as she continued. Sight remained in her memories.

  “I’ll have to set the scene first or it won’t make sense. San Francisco, late fifties. I was almost twenty years old and I wore this white dress sprinkled with bright blue flowers. My skirt was wide, and the waist tucked. Charlotte, I had such a small waist back then. You should’ve seen me. My hair was the color of wheat and tucked under a little pillbox hat. I’d just finished work when I caught a packed cable car going up Market Street. I was on the edge, half of me in and the other half off. I held on to that pole for dear life as we started up the hill. The weather was splendid, warm but not hot, without a cloud in sight. I looked back at the bay and it was as blue as I’d ever seen it. I flushed with a sense of well-being in one of those moments where I felt right where I belonged. Just then, the car lurched, and I let out a high-pitched yelp. Very embarrassing. Next to me, I heard this deep male voice.

  ‘Don’t worry, miss. I’ve got you.’

  “I looked up to see eyes the color of the bay looking at me. He was tall and wore a dark suit and hat—clean shaven with a thumbprint-sized dent in his chin. Talk about weak knees. I had them in spades.” She paused to take a breath.

  “What did he say next?” I asked.

  “He said, ‘I won’t let anything happen to you. My job is to keep you safe.’

  “I said, ‘Now or forever?’

  “Without missing a beat, he answered. ‘Now until the end of time.’

  “We stared at each other all the way up the hill and when the car stopped, he jumped down first and lifted me by the waist and twirled me in a full circle with my feet dangling. He kissed me, right there in front of God and everyone. I was completely caught up in the moment.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “He took me to dinner and we talked all night. I told him about my parents dying and how alone I’d felt here in the city, knowing I had no one to go home to. He had no one either. His father had died when he was young and his mother when he was eighteen.”

  “Just like you.”

  “Just like me. He said, ‘From now on, come home to me.’ ”

  “That first night?”

  She nodded. “It sounds scandalous, but at the time I was one hundred percent sure this was the man I would be with the rest of my life. We started out making plans from the very first. He was only twenty-two and had just finished university—working as a mechanic. I was a secretary and enjoyed being a working girl, living off my own earnings. Not him. He had big dreams. He had the audacity to think he could build a company out of his passion for engines and technology. Eisenhower had finally gotten the intercontinental highway system sorted out. Soon it would connect us from one side of the country to the other. Edward believed the interconnected highways would change everything. Goods would be transported by big trucks instead of trains. There would be a need for trucks to deliver product from one end of the country to the other. ‘Lots of trucks, Riona,’ he said. ‘And we’re going to make them.’ He had no money to get started. Only grit, he told me, but he’d figure out a way. A month after we met, we went to the courthouse and got married. On our wedding night, I told him my parents had left me a substantial amount of money. My father’s attorney had sold the shop and house and put it all in savings for me. It wasn’t a lot in today’s terms, but back then it was enough to get us started making all those dreams come true. I’ll never forget his face when I told him. His initial reaction was to say no. A man taking a woman’s money seemed wrong to him. I said to him, ‘We’re a team now.’ Whatever was mine was his and whatever was his was mine. We built Lanigan Trucking with that money. What an adventure it was, too. Every milestone, we celebrated, knowing we were building something together for our family. Our legacy.”

  Goosebumps pricked my arms. “Think of the irony,” I said. “Trains and trucks.”

  “Yes. The heir to a fortune made from the railroads walked away to be with the woman he loved. They built a modest life together from hard work and integrity. At the end it was enough to give their daughter the opportunity to build another fortune.”

  “From trucks, not trains,” I said.

  “It was the first thing I thought of after you read me those first letters.” She paused for a moment to take another sip from her glass. “I wonder if my mother ever believed in the American dream or if her indictment of her parents’ new country remained?”

  “She and your father built a great life together, despite their rough beginnings, so I suspect the answer is yes.”

  “I always wished they could see what Edward and I did together from their hard work.”

  “I have a feeling they did,” I said.

  “Anyway, Charlotte Wilde, I do not think it’s too soon for you and my son. If you’re anything like we were, you’ll know right away.” She shook her drink at me. The ice cubes clanked against the glass. “Finally, I’ll have a daughter-in-law who likes me.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I grinned.

  “Let’s do.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ardan

  * * *

  Charlotte had been with us for six weeks. None of us could remember before she arrived to save us all and we didn’t want to. Mother continued to improve under her care. Effie had started whistling while she worked again. This morning I’d walked into the kitchen and Effie and Charlotte were giggling over a meme of a cat on one of those robot vacuums like two naughty schoolgirls.

  Charlotte filled my house with laughter. She laughed all day long, even in the morning before she’d had coffee or her swim. The minute the woman woke, she bubbled over with the joy of being alive. I hadn’t realized how quiet the house had been before she came.

  And me? I was a man deeply in love with my favorite person.

  For her part, she told me she was writing with a fervor she’d never experienced. By writing during Mother’s nap times, Charlotte had finished her third Luci mystery. Although she had little hope for a contract, Mother and I encouraged her to send it off to her agent anyway.

  The night before, Charlotte and I had talked at length and decided it was time to broach the subject of Mother’s permanent living arrangements.

  Now, I sat with Mother on the couch. “Mother, it’s time we talk about the future. I’m in love with Charlotte, and I’m goin
g to ask her to marry me.”

  “I know all about you and Charlotte. We talk about everything.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. We’ve grown remarkably close.” Mother said it almost smugly, like it was hard to become close with the sweetest woman in the world. “Not as close as you two, obviously. I’m so very glad for you, dear. To be with the one God made for you is one of the greatest joys of life.”

  “It seems that way, yes. Here’s the thing. We want you to stay here with us permanently.”

  “I love having Charlotte looking after me. She reminds me of your father. He could always cut through all the nonsense too. That said, I’m worried she’ll be burdened if I stay here. She’s a young woman. You’ll have children, and I’ll be in the way. I think you should send me to one of those places.”

  “That isn’t what you really want, is it?” I asked as I took her hand.

  She did her sniff and shrug. “It doesn’t matter what I want. What’s important is for you to put Charlotte first. That’s how marriages work best. It’s paramount you put each other and your relationship above all else.”

  “Charlotte won’t have it,” I said. “You know she can’t send you away.”

  Her bottom lip trembled. “She’s such a dear girl. Selfless and kind. Like you.” Mother pulled her hand away. “You’re making my fingers sweat.”

  “Did you just give me a compliment?”

  “Charlotte says you should give someone a compliment at least once a day. Apparently, it’s good for one’s health.”

  “Mother, you’re staying here with us. That’s all there is to it.”

  “My greatest fear was to grow so old that I’d become useless and a burden on my children. It seems it’s happened.”

  Mother was a frayed piece of antique lace I wanted to sew back together.

  “Charlotte loves you,” I said. “She wants you here.”

  “And you?”

  “I know we haven’t been close. But I want to be. I want to have what you and Charlotte have. This is a second chance to build our relationship. We can get to know each other in a whole new way.”

  She’d started to cry, which nearly undid me. Until recently, I’d never seen her cry. Even at the funerals, she was straight and stoic. Charlotte said Mother grieved inwardly, which made her suffering worse.

  “I know you kids think I was too tough on you,” she said. “With five hooligans it was the only way to survive.”

  “We’ve all turned out great, so you must have been right.”

  “I didn’t want you kids to grow up and be worthless. You could’ve been, given our wealth. Maybe I was too hard on you. The others are tough and hard-headed. They needed discipline. But you and Finn…you were born good.”

  My chest ached at the mention of Finn. “Do you think Father and Finn are together, wherever they are?”

  “I’d like to think so. You never talk about either of them,” Mother said. “Why is that?”

  “It hurts too much,” I said.

  “I knew when we got the news about Finn that it would be you who suffered the most.” Her voice cracked. I gave her a tissue to wipe her damp cheeks. “You loved him with such an intensity I used to worry about what would happen when he moved away to college.”

  “I followed him, remember?” I’d enrolled in the same college, so we could be together. Those were some of the best times of my life.

  “It’s not right that someone so good went out that way. The images of the accident haunt me. I push them away by replacing them with pictures of him when he was little.”

  “What’s your favorite photo of Finn?” I glanced at the family photos on the mantel.

  “He’s running out of the surf with a toothless grin, carrying that boogie board and sand weighing down his shorts. Do you remember that one?”

  “Sure.” Father had taken it during a vacation to Hawaii when I was eight. My brothers and I only left the water to stuff a sandwich in our mouth. “Remember the rash I got on my stomach?”

  She smiled. “One of my many parenting mistakes. Who knew little boys needed t-shirts for boogie boarding?”

  “I loved that vacation.”

  Her weathered hands shook as she smoothed her hair. “That’s the problem of time, Ardan. When I close my eyes, it’s the early eighties and we’re here on the property. You boys are yelling like banshees over the discovery of one terrified frog under the patio. Steaks are sizzling on the grill. Teagan’s running through the sprinkler in that polka dotted bathing suit she refused to give up even though the bottom was so thin her butt cheeks showed through. John Denver is on the stereo. Your father has his arm around my waist as we dance in bare feet on the grass. Where does all the time go? How is it that we continue to move constantly forward, the moment just a second ago lost to us already?”

  “It’s the way of the world,” I said.

  “I’d give anything for that moment one more time.”

  “Mother, you just had it, and you gave it to me. The moment isn’t stolen by time if you still remember.”

  “Everything I was supposed to do I’ve already done. I’m a useless old woman now.”

  “You’re not useless to me.”

  “You really want me to stay here?” she asked.

  “I really do. Give us this time to make a few more memories.”

  “Promise me you’ll send me away if I’m a burden to Charlotte.”

  Charlotte appeared in the doorway. “You could never be a burden to me, Mrs. Lanigan.”

  Mother smiled at the sound of Charlotte’s voice.

  Charlotte sat next to Mother. “Plus, as my new agent, we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Both you kids need my business mind if you’re ever going to get those books out to the world.”

  “Speaking of that,” I said. “We have something kind of odd to tell you.” I launched into describing the book I’d already written before the discovery of the letters. “It came to me in a dream and the story just flew from my fingertips. And then these letters show up that mirror my characters and my story exactly.”

  “How is that possible?” Mother asked.

  “We’re not sure,” Charlotte said. “Other than divine intervention.”

  “For some reason, I’m supposed to write their story,” I said. “So I did.”

  A knock on the front door was followed by the voice of Ciaran calling out to us. “Ardan? Charlotte?”

  “We’re in the living room,” I said.

  My brother bounded into the room, waving cigars around like a mad man. “We have a new Lanigan. Born this morning. I’m a father to a perfect little baby girl.”

  I hugged him and slapped him on the back. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I thought this kind of news was better in person.” Ciaran handed me one of the cigars. “Plus, I had to bring you this. Do you remember Father always said it was a family tradition to bring cigars to announce the arrival of a baby?”

  “I’d forgotten that.” I said.

  Ciaran crossed over to kiss Mother on the cheek. “We named her Carmen Riona.”

  Mother’s hands grappled to find his, and she looked up at him with glassy eyes. “After me?”

  “Yes, Mother. It was Bliss’s idea.”

  “What does she look like?” Mother asked.

  “A bit like Winston Churchill,” Ciaran said. “Bliss says she looks like she did when she was a baby, but all I see is Winston.”

  “You were a beautiful baby,” Mother said. “The most beautiful baby ever born.”

  “I’m still the best looking,” Ciaran said. “Everyone knows that.”

  I rolled my eyes and slapped him on the back once again. “When can we see her?”

  “Tonight, if you can. Bliss slept most of the day, but she said she wants you guys to come by later to meet the baby. She asked if Effie could make her famous lasagna. She’s craving it.”

  Effie, like so often, seemed to appear out of nowhere. “I’d be delighted
to. I’ll make a salad too. The new mother needs her greens.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Charlotte

  * * *

  That evening, with the lasagna making the car smell like an Italian restaurant, we pulled into Ciaran and Bliss’s driveway. I’d been over a few times to visit Bliss, and I loved their chalet style home that perched on the side of the mountain. I helped Mrs. Lanigan out of the car, and we walked up the smooth driveway to the front door. Since I’d been with Mrs. Lanigan, I’d become hyper aware of surfaces. A smooth one was always welcomed by both of us.

  “Remember what we talked about,” I said.

  “You think way too much of me,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “But I’ll try my best to be encouraging and complimentary.”

  Ardan came up behind us with the food. “You can do it, Mother.”

  Bliss opened the door before we had a chance to ring the doorbell.

  “Come in, come in. I can’t wait for you to meet her.” Bliss wore a black lounging outfit and slippers. Her shiny hair was in a ponytail and her face void of makeup. She looked tired but happy.

  We followed her through the foyer to the living room. The house was all polished wood and high beams, like a high-end ski lodge. I led Mrs. Lanigan over to the couch and helped her get situated just as Ciaran came in with the baby. Tall with dark skin, dancing eyes, and a muscular build, he oozed sex appeal and charm. He was in bare feet and wore loose jeans and a floppy shirt. Ruffled, almost black hair added to his wicked and indolent persona.

  “Hello, ladies. Perfect timing. Carmen just woke up from her nap.”

  “May I hold her?” Mrs. Lanigan asked. “Otherwise, I can’t get a sense of her.”

  “Sure,” Ciaran said with a surprised glance at me.

  Ciaran placed the baby in his mother’s arms. He knelt next to them, lifting the blanket from Carmen’s face and guiding Mrs. Lanigan’s hand to touch the baby’s cheeks. “She has chubby cheeks, Mother. Like a little chipmunk.”

  “Good. That means she’s nice and fat. Bliss, well done.”