“Why, Felicity? Won’t it just hurt to see him?”
“Ah, so Ardan told you?”
My misshapen reflection in the sunglasses stared back at me. “Ardan and I have no secrets.”
“You’ve known each other for like five minutes.”
I shrugged. It would not be the first time someone called me out on this. “It’s between us, but there’s a soul connection.”
“I felt that once. With Ciaran. Only he was too immature to know what to do with it.”
Nerves fluttered in my stomach. I picked at skin on my other thumb.
“I let it go on too long. I see that clearly now.” Felicity’s fixed her gaze on the pool. I had a feeling she didn’t see what was in front of her. She was visiting the past. “When he was in town, he called. I answered. And every time I thought—this time will be the one where he sees how right we are together. Would you arrange for us to see each other?”
“I’m happy to, but wouldn’t it be better if you contacted him yourself?”
“I can’t.” She mumbled this. “He blocked me from his phone and email and everything else two years ago.”
“Blocked?”
“You can save the judgment. I had trouble letting go. When Ciaran told me he’d fallen for someone seriously, I went a bit unhinged. Don’t look at me that way. It’s not like I tried to burn down his house or killed his bunny. I just sent him a million texts.” She took off the sunglasses and laid them in her lap.
“I see.” I did see. This obsession Felicity had with Ciaran was about fifty shades of unhealthy.
“All I’m asking is for you to call him and see if he’d come by,” she said. “What harm can come from it?”
“As long as you’re sure.”
“I just want a chance to say goodbye to the man I loved for twenty years. No one needs to feel threatened or afraid. I can barely lift a toothbrush.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “I’m thinking of you and how you want to use your energy.”
“Did Ardan tell you how we all met?”
“Here, during summers, right?”
She tightened the blanket around her legs and leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “When I was sixteen, my father bought a house adjacent to this property. We were to spend all summers and vacations out here. He told me it was because he wanted to learn to fly fish and look at the stars without the lights of L.A. drowning them out. The real reason was more complicated. He wanted to get my mother away from her boyfriend.”
I must have flinched because she looked over at me and let out a bitter laugh. “It happens in a lot of marriages when a much younger woman marries an old guy. When she meets him, he’s fifty and she’s twenty. He’s still sexy, aided by a personal trainer and the huge bank account. Even ugly guys are sexy when they’re rich. But after sixty he starts to become an older man married to a thirty-year-old woman. The next decade he’s seventy and she’s forty and they have a teenaged daughter who they think doesn’t know what’s going on. I knew. My mother was a young woman. No amount of Viagra was going to make them a good match. She started bonking the gardener. Then, ironically, her personal trainer. Next thing I know, we’ve moved to Idaho.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been rough.” I had an image of my parents dancing in the kitchen to a Celine Dion song. The smell of beef Bourguignon simmered on the stove while I did my homework in the breakfast booth. How insulated and lucky I was.
“It was just how things were,” Felicity said. “And then came the Lanigan family.” She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “I need another pill.”
I shook one into her hand and handed her the glass of water on the table between us.
After a minute or so, she continued. “The first morning we were here, I wandered outside and across the meadow until I reached the edge of our property. A fence separated our property from the Lanigan’s. I hear this whoop, like a Native American war cry. Here come the Lanigan brothers, all four of them on horses and all four gorgeous. Ciaran and Kevan with dark, shiny caps of thick hair. Finn and Ardan with hair the color of sun-bleached straw. They lined up their horses in front of me—I don’t know if they did it on purpose or not—but they lined up from youngest to oldest. I looked at them one after the other, landing on Ciaran, the youngest, last. And that was it, Charlotte. I was done. Those laughing brown eyes looked right at me and everything else faded from view. For the next twenty years, it was only him. I dated others, but no one ever lived up to the summers I spent here with Ciaran. He was my first and my last. Until he married your friend Bliss, I never gave up hope. I could recall every moment we spent together when we were kids. They were magical. I could never figure out how he didn’t see it or feel it. I guess I’ll never know why. These last few years, being sick, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life. All the ways it went right and wrong. Every one of them led me right back to the Lanigans.
“It wasn’t just Ciaran I wanted, either. It was his family. They’d have these family dinners and Mrs. Lanigan would always invite me to stay.” She gestured toward the direction of Kevan and Blythe’s home. “The old house was here then, and it was a big, rambling thing with an enormous back deck. There was this long table with benches on either side. Two of the boys would sit on one side and two on the other. Little Teagan and I would sit next to our favorite brother. Mine was Ciaran, of course. Teagan’s was Kevan. Mr. and Mrs. Lanigan sat on the ends. I swear to you, Charlotte, those evenings with the loud, messy Lanigans were the best of my life. They’d argue over everything from music to who spit the watermelon seed the farthest to who looked best in a pair of jeans. It was family. The type of family I wanted. It wasn’t just that I loved Ciaran. I loved them all.”
“Is that why you want Isabel with them?” Now it seemed obvious. Backstory always explains everything.
“Yes. I want her to know this ground, this sky, these trees. I want her to be a Lanigan. I never got to, but she might. I want her to grow up in a loud, messy family.”
“Ardan told me he and his siblings found their parents strict and a little critical.”
“They were. But there were five of them, all with huge personalities, all stubborn and opinionated. Mrs. Lanigan had to be that way, or they would have run wild. Especially Ciaran.”
“What about Ardan?” I asked. “What was he like back then?”
“The same as he is now. Quiet and steady. Smart and sensitive. He always noticed everything. Every detail. If I trimmed an inch off my hair, he would be the only one who noticed. He was in love with me, unfortunately. Not that he ever told me, but I knew. Women always do, don’t you think? He suffered mostly in silence. Buried his nose in a book every time I came by to get Ciaran to go into town or for a ride.” She let out a raspy laugh. “He disapproved of us back then. Ciaran and I were wild. Always sneaking booze out to the swimming hole and skinny dipping. Making love in a sleeping bag.” Her voice had turned wistful. “Sometimes when I’m in pain, I think about those times. I replay them in my mind. I can’t help but wonder, why not me? What is it that Bliss has that I don’t? Even before her, I wondered if I’d been taller or thinner or darker or a hundred other things—would that be what tipped him over to loving me like I loved him. I wish it had been different. I wish he’d wanted me. I might not even be sick.”
I didn’t say anything. Not that I was an expert, but I was pretty sure cancer didn’t care who you were or who you loved or who loved you.
She turned her head to look at me. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Charlotte, I know it’s a lot to ask. But Ardan’s the finest person I’ve ever known. He would make sure Isabel grows up with values and discipline and family. If you and Ardan have kids, she would have siblings. Cousins. If I knew this, I could leave peacefully. My last thoughts would be imagining her here with all of you under the sun, eating watermelon or swimming in the pool.”
“I understand now,” I said. “I see why it’s Ardan you want.”
“But you don’t wan
t her?”
“We have plans to travel and write before we have kids. We want to do all the things we didn’t get to do before.”
“Before?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why I said it like that. I meant, all the things we want to do but haven’t had a chance to do yet. I haven’t seen much of the world, and Ardan thought it would inspire me and open me up to a whole new level of creativity.”
“And a baby just isn’t in that picture?” she asked.
“Right. At least not yet. But we haven’t decided. You just got here. Let’s give it a little time.”
“That’s just it. My time is running out.”
“I know. Just give us a few days to talk it through. We’re getting married in a few weeks. Or that was the plan anyway. Now, I’m not sure when.”
“I’ve ruined the party for Ardan. Just like I have so many times before,” she said.
“We’ll figure out what’s best for Isabel. You just focus on enjoying her.”
“Knowing the end of my life is near makes everything quite clear.” She gestured toward the sun. “You never waste the chance to sit in the sun on a spring afternoon. Remember that, after I’m gone. When you look at the sun, think of how precious every moment is. I wish I’d done more of that.”
Effie stuck her head out the back door. “Miss Felicity, the baby’s crying.”
“I’ll get her.” I stood. “You rest. I’ll change her and bring her out. You can have a moment in the sun with your baby.”
Felicity smiled up at me. “Thank you, Charlotte.”
Isabel was screeching by the time I reached her. When she saw it was me and not her mother, she stopped for a split second then started up again with added vigor. I reached into the crib and pulled her into my arms. Her diaper smelled ripe. “You’re a stinky one.”
She threw back her head and screamed in what my mother would have described as bloody murder.
I set her on the changing table and got her out of the dirty diaper and cleaned her up. By the time I had her chubby bottom in a new diaper, she’d stopped howling. Instead she stared at me with her enormous blue eyes, drops of tears stuck in her thick lashes.
“I’m Charlotte,” I said. “Mommy’s friend.”
No response.
I lifted her from the table and held her at arm’s length. She wore a legless onesie scattered with ducks. “Will you be warm enough in that?”
She babbled an answer, then scrunched up her face like she was going to cry again. “Now, let’s not do that. Let’s have a bottle instead.”
“Baba.”
“Ah, I see you know a word. Excellent.” I secured her onto my hip and scurried down the stairs and into the kitchen. Effie already had a bottle of formula made. “How did you know?” I asked.
“That was a ‘dirty diaper and I’m hungry’ cry.”
“Right you are.”
Effie handed me the bottle, but Isabel was having none of that. She grabbed it with her two chubby hands and tipped it back like a cowboy drank his favorite beer.
“All right, then,” I said. “She’s a girl who knows what she wants.”
Effie sniffed her head. “That smell. Reminds me of home.”
“Do you want a baby someday?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. “I’ve done enough raising of the wee ones, miss. No child will ever pass from these hips.”
I kissed Isabel’s cheek. “She’s such a sweetie though, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is.” Effie fluffed Isabel’s curls.
“I’ll take her outside to her mama.”
Felicity was asleep in the chaise. I sat and let Isabel finish her bottle, my mind tumbling from one thought to another. Would Felicity live to see her baby take her first steps? If she was right about how long she had left, she would not. This fact made me want to cry. And her wish to see Ciaran? Was it the right thing for her to do? It was understandable to want closure and to say goodbye. Yet, I worried she would only be hurt all over again, especially when she saw him with Bliss. Everything she’d wanted with him, he now gave to another.
Felicity looked peaceful sleeping in the sun. But I’d promised her I would talk to him and I would keep my promise. I decided to visit Bliss and Ciaran this afternoon. Surely, he wouldn’t deny a dying woman her chance to make amends. Like Felicity had said, she was no threat to anyone. Bliss wouldn’t have the heart to turn her away.
She stirred just as Isabel finished her bottle. Her gaunt face lit up at the sight of her daughter. I tucked Isabel next to her on the chaise. “I’ll go check on Mrs. Lanigan now,” I said. “Effie’s just inside if you need anything.”
Isabel put her hands on the sides of her mother’s face. “Mama.”
“Charlotte, she said it! She said mama. That’s the first time.”
“She sure did.” Good girl Isabel. You gave her a first before she has to go. I said a silent prayer for a few more of those moments as I headed up the stairs to check on Mrs. Lanigan.
She was up and dressed, sitting in the chair by the window. Classical music played on the stereo. She turned when she heard the door open. “Charlotte.”
“It’s me.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Has something happened? You’re fretting.”
“How do you know?”
“Your voice sounds higher than usual.”
“Did you know that Ciaran and Felicity spent time together over the years?” I asked.
“By time you mean sex?”
I coughed. “Yes.”
“Yes, I knew. Ciaran was quite the playboy before Bliss stole his heart.”
Making sure to keep my voice low, I relayed my conversation with Felicity from earlier, including her obsessive behavior. “Felicity asked if I’d talk to Ciaran for her. She wants to see him. It’s awkward for several reasons, one of which is my friendship with Bliss.” I hesitated, picking again at the piece of skin on my thumb.
She patted my knee. “Let’s go see him in person. I’ll go with you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You can count on me, just as I’ve counted on you.”
A half hour later, Mrs. Lanigan and I arrived at Ciaran’s home. Bliss asked us to come in and make ourselves at home in the living room.
“The baby’s asleep,” Bliss said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “We actually came for another reason.”
Ciaran greeted us as he entered the room. “Charlotte, great to see you.” He shook my hand before leaning over to kiss his mother on the cheek. “Mother, you’re looking pretty.”
“Charlotte took me to town for a cut and color,” she said.
“With Heather?” he asked.
“Yes, she mentioned you right away,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “What did she call him, Charlotte?”
I flushed. “A snack.”
“Ew, she used to babysit me,” Ciaran said.
“She overheard some girl in her shop refer to you that way,” I said.
Bliss laughed from the bar where she poured glasses of lemonade. “Ciaran’s more like a full course meal.”
“Honey, my mother’s here.” Ciaran winked at his wife.
“For heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “You’ve been married for a year already. Isn’t it time to start acting like adults rather than randy teenagers?”
“Mother, never,” Ciaran said.
Bliss handed me a glass of lemonade and encouraged me to sit.
“How’s the baby?” I asked.
“Exhausting,” Bliss said.
“It’s a good thing Carmen’s cute,” Ciaran said. “Because she’s kicking our butt.”
“Why in God’s name haven’t you hired a nanny?” Mrs. Lanigan asked.
“We want to do it ourselves,” Ciaran said. “At least for now.”
“Don’t forget to make time for each other,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “Your relationship has to come first or the children will suffer.”
Ciaran and Bliss exchanged a look.
We talked about other benign topics for a few minutes until Bliss mentioned the reason for my visit. “You said over the phone you had something you wanted to talk to us about?”
“Right. Yes.” I fidgeted with the bottom button of my blouse. “It’s about Felicity.”
“We’re here because that poor girl’s dying, and she wants a word with Ciaran before she goes,” Mrs. Lanigan said.
Subtlety wasn’t Mrs. Lanigan’s strong suit.
“We didn’t exactly part on good terms,” Ciaran said.
“We realize she acted rather badly,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “But she’s no harm to you now.”
“I was always honest with her,” Ciaran said. “She knew I wasn’t interested in anything serious. Why don’t women believe men when they tell them the truth?”
“Because we want it to be different,” I said.
“How sick is she?” Bliss asked.
“The doctors said months,” I said. “She thinks less.”
“How awful,” Bliss said. “That poor baby.”
“She’s asked Ardan to take the baby,” Mrs. Lanigan said.
“It’s Felicity’s dying wish,” I said. “She wants him to raise Isabel.”
“What the hell?” Ciaran asked. “The woman’s always taken advantage of Ardan. This is just one final ask in a series of out of line asks.”
“She wants Isabel to grow up in here, with all the Lanigan clan,” I said.
“Why?” Ciaran asked. “I don’t get it.”
“Because the best times of her life were spent here with you. All of you,” I said.
“That’s sad,” Bliss said.
“I think so too,” I said.
“What does she want with me?” Ciaran asked.
“She just wants closure. Whether it was returned or not, she thinks of you as the love of her life,” I said.
“It’s pitiful,” Mrs. Lanigan said. “What a waste.”
“Honey, you have to go see her,” Bliss said.
“Yes, okay. I’ll go. You ladies are right. She’s dying. The least I can do is tell her I’m sorry about how I acted. I was a pig back then. She deserved better. When should I come?” He directed this last question to me.
Blue Ink Page 21
