Jar of Dreams

by Liz Flaherty

  “What would she…Maggie say to that?”

  He sat silent for a moment, and she was afraid she’d offended him with the question, but then he laughed. Not the ghostly chuckle she’d just heard, but a real hoot. “She would say—and this is without so much as a ‘Gee, I’m sorry you’re sad, Boone,’—she would tell me to get off my ass and stop trying to make people feel sorry for me.”

  The unexpected answer startled a laugh from Lucy, too. “You think?”

  “No, I don’t think. I know. Maggie’s life was cut way too short, but she lived every minute of it. She wouldn’t have a whole lot of patience with someone who didn’t.”

  Lucy felt something lift away, a weight she hadn’t realized she carried. “You know, Dad wouldn’t either. Whether he was sick or well, he had a huge appreciation of life. When he talked about my mother, it was with complete joy, as though they’d had their whole lives together and she wasn’t really gone at all. Just out for a while. If I don’t have that same appreciation, if I let being scared of things rule how I live, it will be an insult to how he raised me.”

  “And if I don’t start living again, it will be an insult to the life Maggie and I had together.” He lifted their hands between them. “Shall we pretend we have glasses and drink to our decisions to appreciate and go forward?”

  “Absolutely.” She clicked imaginary glasses with him, then cupped his face. “Thank you. It was nice to talk about Dad without swimming around in a pool of regret.”

  “Thank you, too.” He turned his face into her hand, kissing her palm. “I haven’t felt this…alive for a long time.”

  When she took her hand away, he checked her watch—he never wore one. “I hate to say it, but we should probably head for home. If we’re late for dinner, Aunt Gert will blame me and I’ll be peeling potatoes for a week or something.”

  “I’ve enjoyed this afternoon,” she said, getting up and falling into step beside him.

  “Me, too.” He brought them to a stop before they walked up the bank from the riverside path, sliding an arm around her waist. “There’s something I have to do before we go home.”

  He tilted her face to his and drew her into his arms. “Maybe if we do this,” he murmured, his lips just grazing hers, “it will be out of the way and you won’t drive me crazy anymore.” He nibbled, coaxing, and then his mouth wasn’t grazing at all—what had been soft and gentle and sweet became something not soft and not gentle at all. But still sweet. Very, very sweet.

  She wondered, as they got in the car a few minutes later, if his road to crazy had been curtailed.

  Because hers certainly had not.

  Chapter Six

  “Chianti.” Gert spoke firmly, shaking her head at the bottle of merlot in Boone’s hand.

  “But this is the right color,” Boone argued, knowing it was useless—he would have to go back to the basement for another bottle.

  “You’re a doofus,” Kelly said. “It’s why Aunt Gert never really liked you.” For the first time in a few days, she didn’t sound angry.

  “That’s not why.” Crockett headed toward the sunroom with a stack of plates. “It’s because of the earring.”

  The comment surprised a laugh out of Boone and a query from Lucy. “Earring?” She looked from one of Boone’s naked ears to the other.

  “It happened one night after partaking of veritable buckets of something much cheaper and a whole lot more domestic than this.” Boone held up the bottle of merlot. “As a matter of fact, I think Eli St. John and Micah Walker fermented it in somebody’s garage. Eli wasn’t a minister then and the good father—” he gestured toward Crockett as he came back into the kitchen, “—was still living real precariously on the other side of the confession box.”

  “Drunk,” Crockett supplied. “We were drunk.”

  Gert tsked. “You were rotten is what you were, both of you. And Micah and Eli were even worse because they were older. They should have known better.” She straightened with a little frown. “One of you lift this pan out of the oven for me. Sleeping on that cot in the hospital has made my back a bit sore.”

  “Well?” Lucy tossed hot pads to Crockett. “What happened with the earring?”

  “We—the ‘we’ being most of the basketball team—wanted to pierce our ears,” Boone said, “but none of our folks would let us. Except Aunt Gert, that is. The way we figured, she didn’t mind because she’d never told us she did.”

  “Nor did we ask,” Crockett interceded, setting the lasagna on the island. “Of course, we couldn’t ask, because then she would have known we were…impaired. And she might have said ‘no.’”

  Boone huffed. “I think ‘impaired’ is a too strong of a term. Anyway, Micah found a big-ass darning needle and we snuck in and swiped earrings from Aunt Gert’s jewelry box. We just took little ones, figuring that would cause less trouble, and we were very clean about it. We washed both the needle and our ears in the junk we were drinking. Since I was the youngest—”

  “Not to mention dumber than a box of rocks and twice as clumsy. He couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time even stone cold sober. Which he wasn’t,” Kelly supplied lovingly.

  Boone went on as though she hadn’t interrupted, although he did think maybe he liked her better when she was mad. “—I was elected to go first.” He arrowed a gaze at Crockett. “And last.”

  His former best friend’s eyes, what Gert always called shanty-Irish blue, brimmed with laughter. “It seemed sagacious to me,” Crockett said pompously, “in light of the ruckus Boone raised, not to mention the whimpers and sobs, to just say I thought ear-piercing was immature and not nearly as cool as, say, sneaking into the movies or whacking mailboxes with baseball bats.”

  “Rotten,” Gert repeated, “right to the core. Dinner’s ready. Lucy, go get a bottle of Chianti, and we can eat—Boone will never be able to find the right thing. Kelly, do you have the salad on the table?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So,” Lucy said, when they were seated. Gert had slapped her grabby nephews’ hands and grace had been said. “What happened next with the earring?”

  “Oh.” Boone scowled at her. “I thought we’d gotten past that.”

  She smiled brightly. “I didn’t think so. Did you?” she appealed to the rest of the table.

  “No, I didn’t,” Kelly said. “I was even there, but I’d love hearing it again. Without the whimpers and sobs, I mean. Or, on second thought, go ahead and include them. Sometimes a little drama can be a good thing.”

  “Well, come to find out,” Boone said in a long-suffering voice, “the little earrings we appropriated—you notice I said we, not I—were a present from Uncle Mike for their something-or-other wedding anniversary.”

  “Nothing important.” Gert patted her mouth with her napkin. “Just our twenty-fifth. They were diamonds.”

  “Real ones,” Crockett added helpfully. “I put back the one I was going to use. Boone, on the other hand…” His voice trailed away on a mournful note and he shook his head in resignation.

  Boone sighed. “…lost the one from his ear.”

  “In his defense—” Crockett began.

  “There can be no defense,” Kelly interjected.

  “Actually, in our defense,” Crockett persisted, “Sims let us work extra hours at the station so we could replace the earring. Uncle Mike ordered it to make sure it was the right one, and she’s still wearing them. Right, Aunt Gert?”

  “Yes, dear, that’s right.”

  Lucy held up her glass for a refill. “So there must be some other reason.”

  “Reason for what?” Boone asked.

  Her eyes twinkled at him, and he thought he could bask happily in that expression forever. “For your aunt not liking you.”

  Boone thought a moment. “Not that I can think of. Is there, Aunt Gert?”

  She smiled and drew him close enough to give him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Only that you’re a doofus, sweetheart.”

  “Speak
ing of Sims.” It was Kelly’s lawyer voice. Her good mood time had evidently run out, but things were improving—it had been a good hour or more since she’d had anything truly snide to say about anyone, particularly Lucy.

  Boone met Crockett’s eyes across the table and they shared a shrug and a lopsided grin. It felt good, Boone thought. Even if they were never close again, if they were never Crockett-and-Boone, spoken as one word because they were always together, he could live with just being in the same room without anger.

  “He’ll be coming home in a few days,” Gert said, “and I’m bringing him here. He’ll stay in my room and—I’m sorry, Lucy—we’ll have to stop serving in the den so I can move some of my things in there and sleep. I know we normally have private parties in there and it will mean giving up revenue, but it’s the best alternative for right now.”

  Boone waited for Lucy to suggest a convalescent home for Sims. There was a perfectly nice one less than ten miles away, with professionals much more suited to the old man’s care than Gert was.

  “That’ll be fine,” Lucy said. “We can use the front parlor for the private parties we already have scheduled and just not book any more until Sims has recovered. We’ll survive.”

  “Aunt Gert would probably be willing to buy out your part of the business,” Kelly suggested, “or close it altogether. She’s not able to give you the help you need. I’m sure you could find a building more suited to a tearoom than this one. I’d be glad to help in the search.”

  Even though Kelly’s voice was quiet and calm, almost conciliatory, the words fell hard and splintery into startled silence. When Lucy spoke, it was in a voice that didn’t sound like her at all. “If that’s what Gert wants, I’ll move on. She doesn’t owe me anything.” She folded her napkin carefully, giving it a little pat to secure that it lay flat, and gathered her dishes and flatware. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to bake for tomorrow.”

  She went into the kitchen, closing the connecting French doors behind her, and Boone stared across the table at Kelly, wondering what had happened to his little sister in the years since life and adulthood had caused them to drift apart. He’d spent their adolescence protecting her against outside forces, and now he wanted to protect someone from her. What was wrong with this picture?

  “Whatever possesses you, Kelly?” Gert asked calmly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been ashamed of you, but I am now.”

  “Why are you so sure it’s me?” Kelly demanded. “You’ve all taken this girl to your hearts as though she’s a cross between Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables with a little bit of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm thrown in for good, saccharine measure. You’re so impressed with how much she knows about running a restaurant and how she cared for her poor, ailing father. I keep expecting one of you to ask me to draw up papers to adopt her into the family.”

  Boone sighed—good God, he sounded like an ailing old man. “What are you getting at? Why don’t you cut the whole drama-queen-lawyer act and just say what you want to say?”

  Kelly’s eyes flashed as she glowered at Crockett. “Aunt Gert, haven’t you and Boone ever wondered what happened to the restaurant where she worked? Or even worse, to her father? Exactly who did Crockett fob off on you? And why?”

  *

  Lucy turned on the CD player that sat beside her dream jar so she couldn’t hear the conversation taking place in the sunroom. Not so much to give them privacy—she wasn’t anywhere near that noble—as to protect herself from hearing whatever Kelly Brennan was saying.

  After getting two orange cake mixes and a bottle of canola oil from the pantry, Lucy set the stand mixer on the island and positioned herself with her back to the French doors. She poured the ingredients into the large stainless steel bowl, added eggs and water, and let the mixture blend while she sprayed a sheet cake pan and made sure the oven rack was in the right place.

  Kelly had been aghast when she learned Lucy didn’t bake cake from scratch. She’d suggested Tea on Twilight order their pastries from a bakery rather than serve dessert that was little better than fast food. Trembling with anger, Lucy had walked around the block for a half hour, not returning to the house until Kelly’s Volvo pulled away.

  Gert’s niece and nephews were all so different it was hard to believe they’d grown up in the same house, under the same benevolent rule. Boone was laid back and funny, wearing his pain somewhere just under the surface and stashing anger somewhere it could do no harm. He was absentminded and clumsy and more than anything else, Lucy wondered what it would be like to be loved by him.

  Kelly was almost manic, never still and seldom quiet. She loved as energetically as she did everything else. It would be nice if she’d stash her anger somewhere, too, or at least find another direction for it. But Lucy had seen Kelly’s interaction with children—she loved them. Sometimes she watched Jack as he worked, and it was as though there was an ache in her eyes, but she never went beyond saying “hello” to the boy in passing. Lucy knew how much work she did pro bono as an advocate for children. It was hard to stay mad at someone that generous. At least, sometimes it was.

  Crockett had come to Taft when he was thirteen and his parents had gotten a divorce. “They couldn’t figure out how to divide me,” he’d said, laughing. “I think Aunt Gert and Uncle Mike kept them from slicing me down the middle, Solomon-style.”

  His mother lived in St. Louis and his father in Charleston. Crockett saw them a few times a year and as far as Lucy knew, seldom talked about them. Gert mentioned his mother, her younger sister, sometimes, but only in the context of their shared childhood, never in connection with Crockett.

  Lucy was sure there was pain in him, too, but he kept it buried, hidden behind the dark blue eyes. It was only Father Crockett he allowed out into the open, a loving and giving man unless what one wanted from him was a part of himself.

  She remembered a day in Dolan’s when he’d sat still and silent for at least an hour, letting his coffee get cold—which he hadn’t done in all the times she’d waited on him. When she slid into the booth across from him, his gaze was startled, as though he didn’t even know her. His eyes cleared quickly, and he smiled a welcome, but not quickly enough. “Are you all right, Father?” she asked.

  “Of course. And how are you today, Miss Dolan?”

  “I’m fine, but it’s not my coffee that’s gone cold.” She got up, taking his cup away and coming back with a fresh one. “Are you okay?” she asked again. “From what the customers and the television news say, the flu’s taking Richmond by storm.”

  “No, I’m not sick.” He sipped the coffee, sighing appreciation. “Before I was Father Crockett, Lucy, I was Noah, or just Crockett to people I was closest to, and sometimes…sometimes, I miss that. Miss being him. In a lot of ways, he was a better person than Father Crockett is. A more real person.”

  She’d never thought much about that conversation—it made sense that a priest would sometimes want to be just a person like anyone else. But now, in this house with this tangle of people who loved each other but whose connections sometimes jammed, she wondered if there was more to Crockett’s sadness than she’d realized.

  The cake was in the oven and Lucy was rolling out pie crusts when the door into the sunroom opened. The others streamed into the kitchen, carrying their dishes. Kelly came to where Lucy stood.

  “I apologize for my rudeness,” she said stiffly. “I don’t think you understand the depth of my concern for Aunt Gert—I owe her everything—but I have no right to condemn you without being in full possession of the facts, which my brother took great pains to tell me. I also wanted to apologize for leaving the mess with the glass I broke the other day. There’s no excuse for that kind of behavior.” Tears filled her eyes in a rush, and she grabbed a paper towel to mop them away. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Lucy was a pleaser. A counter-apology— “I’m sorry I upset you”—came right to the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. She nodded, meeting the other woman’s turbulent gaze with
what she hoped was a noncommittal smile. “I care for her too.”

  Within a few minutes, the dishwasher was loaded, the leftovers put away, and Kelly was headed out the door. “I have a briefcase in the car just waiting for me,” she said, kissing her aunt and her brother and nodding at Lucy and Crockett.

  “I’ll run over and check the station.” Crockett checked the time. “Ethan’s fully capable of closing it, but he hasn’t done it in a long time. Wanna come along, Aunt Gert? I’ll buy you an ice cream. At least, I will if Boone loans me a couple of bucks. I’m broke until I find a friendly ATM.”

  “Any chance I’ll get it back?” Boone asked, reaching into his pocket.

  “Nary a one,” Crockett said cheerfully. “I took a vow of poverty. I’ll take that twenty. If I’m bumming anyway, a big bill’s as good as a small one.”

  “Did you really?” Lucy crimped piecrusts, her tongue between her teeth.

  “Did I what?” Crockett asked. “Oh, the poverty vow? Well, no—I’m a diocesan priest and I didn’t have to—but it sounded nobler than admitting I’d never remember to pay him back.”

  When Boone and Lucy were alone in the kitchen, he came over to her, cupping her chin and smiling down into her eyes. “I keep apologizing for Kelly, don’t I? But I don’t do anything about her.”

  “She’s an adult, Boone. You don’t have to apologize for her, much less ‘do anything.’ We’re big girls. We can take care of our own issues.” She thought of the apology. It had cost Kelly something to make it, but she hadn’t backed away—it had been a classy show of reconciliation. But the “issues” were still there, Lucy was sure. She smiled at Boone. “It’ll work out.”

  Lord, she loved his eyes and the way they looked at her, as though she was the only person in the world. She loved the way his lean cheeks curved when he smiled, with a dimple slashing into one side. And his mouth. She particularly loved his mouth. Especially since the kiss that afternoon on the walkway in Rising Sun.