A Soft Place to Fall

by Barbara Bretton

  You could keep your fancy offices and jet planes and the deals that made page one of the Wall Street Journal. This was what was real, he thought, as he watched the two children of his heart as they whispered over their coffee. This was what made everything else worthwhile. Pray God it was the real thing.

  #

  Hall and Ellen met up with each other in the doctors' lounge a little after ten a.m.

  Ellen, still in scrubs, ran a hand through her thick red hair and barely managed to stifle a yawn. "So now I know why it's called Labor Day," she said as Hall poured them each a cup of coffee. "Who thought Perrin and Bradsher would pop the same day."

  "It's the full moon," Hall said, handing her a cup.

  Ellen rolled her eyes. "Oh great. That doesn't bode well for the doings on the green, does it?"

  They found an empty table near the door and sank wearily into their chairs. "Small town life beginning to pinch, Dr. Markowitz?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure," she said with her characteristic honesty. "The social aspects can be a little overwhelming for the newbie. The most I ever did on Labor Day was readjust my beach towel."

  "Welcome to New England," he said, wishing he had a bagel and cream cheese to go with the coffee, "where idle hands are the devil's workshop."

  Ellen grinned at him. "Or something like that."

  "It won't be so bad," he said. "It's not like we're being put in stocks or anything. Just a small booth near the barbecue pit where we hand out coupons for free health services."

  "Burgers and mammograms to go," she said, shaking her head in amusement. "I have a lot to learn."

  "You're doing fine," he said, noticing briefly the dark circles under her light blue eyes. "Everyone likes you –" he paused for effect "—even though you're a New Yorker."

  She tossed a sugar packet in his direction. "Just wait," she said, laughing. "Next time we're down there for a seminar, I'm going to take you back to the old neighborhood and show you what real bagels taste like."

  His eyes widened. "How did you know I was thinking about a bagel?"

  She leaned forward, elbows on the cheap formica tabletop, and fixed him with a kind but serious look. "So what's wrong," she said, lowering her voice so only he could hear her. "You look like hell today."

  He thought about the way Annie Galloway had looked when she walked out of Cappy's hand-in-hand with Sam Butler. "I forgot Willa and Mariah were spending the night," he said, dodging the real truth.

  "Where are they now?"

  "Stevens from Pediatrics said they could color in the sun room while I met up with the Perrins."

  "And that's it?"

  "That's all I'm going to tell you."

  "She's a fool," Ellen said, "and you can quote me on that."

  "You're a good friend, Markowitz," he said, "but you don't know what you're talking about."

  Ellen smiled and said nothing at all.

  #

  Claudia didn't sleep a wink all night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Annie and that man and her stomach started to churn and she found herself reaching for the antacid tablets she kept on her nightstand. Finally she gave up and went downstairs to the kitchen and made the deviled eggs for the Labor Day picnic. If she remembered right, Annie would oversee the goings-on at Annie's Flowers while Claudia and Roberta and the rest of the Golden Age Volunteers hustled for donations for the new senior citizens center the hospital planned to build.

  She arranged the two dozen deviled eggs on the round glass platters with the egg-shaped depressions made especially for the cholesterol-laden treats. The platters had belonged to her mother and to her mother's mother before her. Her granddaughters found it hard to believe there had ever been a time when such deadly fare had not only been consumed in quantity, but had merited its own service pieces as well.

  She dearly wanted to sample one of those buttery-yellow, eggy treats but she didn't dare. She had lost a husband and son to the cruelty of heart disease and she wasn't ready to offer herself up on that particular altar just for the sake of egg yolk and mayonnaise.

  By six a.m. she had made the deviled eggs; three dozen pinwheels of ham, cream cheese, and scallions; a medley of lightly steamed veggies and a virtuously low fat dip to enjoy with them. Everything had been carefully wrapped then stowed in her refrigerator until it was time to load them into Susan's minivan for the trip into town.

  She took a bath, attended to her morning needs, then made herself eat a breakfast of bran cereal, skim milk, and decaf. All of that only took her up until seven-thirty which meant another four and a half hours until it was time to leave. She considered tidying up the front rooms but they were already immaculate. Since John's death, she had found herself taking great comfort from routine chores. She did the wash on Mondays, the floors on Tuesdays, the bathrooms on Wednesdays. Thursday nights were reserved for supermarket shopping. Once you added in her work schedule at Annie's Flowers and the hours she put in as a Golden Age volunteer, you had something that looked like a full life. It helped to know there was a reason to get up in the morning, some place where she was expected to be.

  What was it the young people called it? Anal retentive or was it obsessive-compulsive. Either way, she was afraid the term fit. "You're getting too set in your ways, Ma," Sean had said the last time he came home for a visit. "Loosen up. You'll live longer."

  Well, Sean, she thought as she settled down with the new John Grisham, when you get to be my age that may not sound quite so inviting.

  #

  As usual Susan was running late. She had to fix breakfast, clean up, make sure Jack knew where everything was and what he was supposed to bring to the picnic later, then put herself together in a reasonable facsimile of a successful real estate broker at a town picnic. She hated business casual dressing. How much easier things had been in the 1980s when all you needed was shoulder pads and a silk dress. She opted in the end for a nice pair of walking shorts, her best sandals, and a camp shirt. She wouldn't win any fashion awards but it would do.

  She pulled up in front of the house where she'd grown up about quarter after the hour. She'd expected to find Claudia standing in the foot of the driveway, tapping her foot and glancing pointedly at her watch but to her surprise there was no sign of her mother anywhere.

  "Oh great," she muttered as she pulled into the driveway and shifted into park. Claudia was probably inside on the telephone, reading poor Jack the riot act because her daughter was a few measly minutes late. If only her mother would learn to cut them some slack, but that was like asking the earth to stop spinning. Claudia was the way she was and only an act of God could change her.

  Okay, Ma, you made your point. You can come out now.

  She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, stared at the clock on the dashboard then over at the quiet house.

  She's your mother, Susan, even if she does drive you crazy. Get your butt out of the car and go see what's going on.

  The back door was open. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. "Sorry I'm late, Ma," she called out, "but you know how it is with kids."

  No response.

  Her heartbeat quickened.

  The kitchen was neat as a pin. No surprise there. Your average hospital operating room harbored more germs than her mother's trash bin.

  "Ma?"

  Still no response. Oh God. Terrible things happened to old people every day of the week. Wicked falls down the basement staircase. Slips in the bathtub. How many times had they told her the house was too big and too dangerous for a woman alone. Susan had even gathered up all the brochures from the new retirement village on the outskirts of town, the one with the staff on call twenty-four hours a day in case of emergency.

  She burst into the living room and was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when she realized Claudia was curled up in the wing chair with a book open on her lap. For a second a river of fear flooded her body until she saw the gentle up and down motion of her mother's chest and relief almost knocked her flat
. She placed a hand on her mother's forearm. How small her mother seemed. How vulnerable.

  "Ma," she said softly. "Ma, wake up."

  Claudia inhaled deeply, frowned, then opened her eyes. "You're late," she said.

  "Since when do you take a nap in the morning."

  "I didn't sleep last night," Claudia said. "Not that it's any of your business."

  "Is something wrong?" Her mother managed a variety of medical problems, any one of which could cause the occasional bad night.

  "You were there," Claudia said. "You saw them."

  "I know," Susan said, amazed to find herself on the same side of an issue as her mother. "I can't believe it either."

  "I gave Warren a piece of my mind," Claudia said as they headed for the kitchen to pack up the foods.

  "What did Warren do?" She opened the refrigerator door and pulled out the covered platters of deviled eggs.

  "He's responsible."

  "All he did was let the guy stay in Ellie's old house."

  "That's what he says, but I know him. He has ulterior motives."

  "Now you sound like one of those conspiracy theorists Sean and Eileen idolize."

  They looked at each other and Claudia was the first one to laugh. "Was I always this bad or is it that I'm getting old and set in my ways?"

  Susan gave her a hug. "You were pretty much always this bad."

  How fragile her mother felt, how painfully human.

  "Did you see the way she looked at that man last night?" Claudia sounded wistful.

  "I think we all did, Ma."

  They fell silent for what seemed like a very long time.

  "That's how I felt about your father," Claudia said at last. "That's just how it was between us."

  Susan exhaled on a sigh. She and Jack loved each other very much but she wasn't sure they had ever looked at each other that way. "You don't think she'll bring him to the picnic, do you?"

  "After the way she behaved last night, nothing would surprise me."

  "Ma, really! It's not like she jumped his bones right there in Cappy's. They held hands. There isn't a law against it."

  From the look on Claudia's face, it was clear her mother thought there should be.

  And, if Susan were honest with herself, she just might agree.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sweeney was the first one to notice.

  They were setting up the sidewalk displays when Annie reached for one of the suncatchers and Sweeney grabbed her left hand.

  "Your ring," she said, looking at Annie with a question in her eyes.

  Annie's fingers automatically curled into a soft fist. "It was time," she said.

  Curiosity won. "Does this have anything to do with the guy who showed up here the other day with your keys?"

  She considered dodging the question but decided there was little point. After last night at Cappy's, she was bound to be at the top of the Shelter Rock Cove gossip hit parade.

  "Yes," she said much to Sweeney's delight, "but the less we talk about it around Claudia, the happier we'll all be."

  "She might not notice."

  Annie arched a brow. "You don't believe that any more than I do, Sweeney."

  "Is he coming to the picnic?"

  "He's here already," she said. "I think he's over by the fire truck."

  Warren would be there later, too. He'd told them that he was manning the grill for the Museum barbecue. Claudia and Roberta were busy setting up the huge tables of picnic food under the maple trees near the bandstand while Susan, who was in charge of the real estate office's spot not twenty feet away from Annie, seemed to be giving her the cold shoulder.

  "What's with your sister-in-law?" Sweeney asked as they draped ropes of greenery along the edge of their display table. "Why is she ignoring you?"

  "She is, isn't she," Annie said. "I was wondering if it was my imagination."

  "Then your imagination just gave me frostbite." Sweeney feigned a shiver. "Don't tell me she's upset about what's-his-name."

  "His name is Sam," Annie said, laughing, "and I can't believe she'd be upset about something like this." It seemed so unlike Susan who always did her level best to keep Claudia from trying to run Annie's life.

  "You know what happens when you drop a pebble into a pond, don' t you?"

  "Ripples," Annie said. Concentric rings of them expanding outward until they ran out of water. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "That's easy," Sweeney said. "The Galloway clan is the pond and your Sam – well, he's a hundred pound boulder."

  #

  The Shelter Rock Cove Volunteer Fire Department consisted of seven members, one of whom was eight months pregnant and relegated to phone duty for the duration. They ranged in age from late teens to early sixties. They were probably the most unlikely-looking fire fighters Sam had ever seen but this strange mix of dentist, hair stylist, hardware store owner, short order cook, day care operator, and two lobster fishermen were as tightly bound to each other as any flesh-and-blood family could ever be.

  "Now that Becky's not going out with us any more, we could really use a new face around the fire house," said Ethan Venable, the retirement age dentist. "You look like a prime candidate to me, son."

  Sam couldn't deny the pull of the shiny red truck and the sense of community and friendship among the small crew of volunteers. "I'm staying in Ellie Bancroft's old place but it's only temporary." He mentioned something about being between jobs and Ethan nodded politely.

  "Too bad," the man said, shaking Sam's hand. "You look like you'd fit in up here just fine."

  If you'd said that to Sam two weeks ago, he would have suggested some serious couch time. He was a New Yorker, born and bred. He lived and breathed the crowds, the noise, the way life moved faster than the speed of light. But there he was, wandering along a village green, sampling Sarah's Famous Blueberry Pie and Amanda's World Class Potato Salad and enjoying every minute of it. Annie had lived her entire life in this small town. Except for her years in college, her views on life had been shaped right here among these people. He wanted to ask the woman at the photo booth if she had known Annie as a little girl. Tell me about her, he thought as he absorbed the sights and people around him. Was she quiet? Was she popular? Did everyone love her or didn't you even know she existed? He wanted to know about the night her parents died and her life changed forever. Did Kevin Galloway hold her in his arms and make it all better? Had he tried to kiss away her pain? Did she really love him or did she just love being part of a family?

  He'd seen a picture of Galloway at Warren's place that morning. Max had disappeared somewhere in the house and he'd left Warren and Annie chatting in the breakfast room while he tried to track down the errant yellow Lab. Max being Max he wasn't hard to find, and Sam called to him from the door to the private study adjacent to Warren's bedroom. Max, however, was having none of it. He was curled up on a luminous Oriental carpet and ready to indulge in his favorite pastime of power napping.

  "C'mon, old pal," he said, in what he hoped was a no-nonsense tone of voice. "You're going to wear out your welcome around here."

  Max busied himself finding exactly the right scratching spot behind his left ear.

  Nothing short of a 7.1 on the Richter scale was going to move Max until Max was good and ready. Sam turned to leave the room when his eye was caught by a display of framed photographs on the long table by the window. Unless he was crazy, there was one of him right in the front row. He crossed the room and plucked the photo from the pile and started to laugh. There he was in all his fifteen year old glory, looking up at the camera from the pier at the old marina near the World's Fair site. He was smiling one of those goofy, blissfully unself-conscious smiles that life usually knocks out of you by the time you're old enough to vote and looking pretty much like he had the world by the tail.

  And maybe he had. His parents were still alive back then. He didn't have to worry about keeping a roof over his head and food in his brothers' and sisters' bellies. H
e skimmed the surface at school then dove head first into learning everything he could about the dirty, messy business of repairing boats. There was nothing glamorous about the work. You wouldn't get rich doing it. But no job before or since had ever made him happier than he was in those early days when life was an open road by the sea and the speed limit hadn't been invented yet.

  He glanced at some of the other photos but didn't recognize anyone. He was about to turn away when a candid shot of a painfully young bride and groom caught his eye. The guy couldn't have been more than nineteen, if that. He was tall and rangy with broad shoulders and a wide smile, good-looking in an open, all-American way that was foreign to Sam. He looked like the kind of guy you met on an airplane and spilled your guts to between Cincinnati and Houston just because he was so damn easy to talk to. He had a thick head of curly dark hair and movie star good looks and the best luck in the world because Annie Lacy was his bride.

  Jesus, how young she looked in her long white dress and veil, like a little girl playing dress up. Her long curly hair spilled over her shoulders, wild despite the obvious attempts to tame it. There were no dark circles under her beautiful blue eyes, no worry lines. She leaned into her husband as if he were her very foundation. The sight of the dead man's big hand on her delicate shoulder awakened some complicated feelings inside Sam, envy and sorrow and anger at a world that refused to allow happiness to last forever.

  Hell, maybe it would have lasted forever. If Kevin Galloway hadn't died, Sam had no doubt she would still be at his side, still leaning against his breadth the way she had on their wedding day. The dark circles and worry lines would be way out there in the distant future; time enough when she was old and grey for things like that. She would have had the life he'd envisioned for her when they met in the parking lot of Yankee Shopper, a life that included kids and a dog and a big house and all the things the rest of the world took for granted because they seemed so easy and inevitable to everyone but people like Annie and Sam.