When the Stars Sang

by Caren J. Werlinger

  “Did Aidan talk to you about what he was planning?”

  “No. Caught me completely by surprise.”

  “I think it caught everyone by surprise,” Kathleen said. “What do you think?”

  Molly considered. “Aidan’s been different since Christmas.” She shifted to look at Kathleen in the dim light of the bedroom. “Ever since you talked to him.”

  “You mean ever since the night when I hit my head and got drunk and spilled my guts.”

  Molly smiled. “Yeah. That.” She snuggled into the crook of Kathleen’s neck again, breathing deeply. “I think it’ll be good. For both of them.”

  She closed her eyes and felt Kathleen’s lips pressed to her hair. “And this is good for me.”

  She sighed and let herself drift off to sleep.

  KATHLEEN MUTTERED UNDER HER breath at the computer, reading aloud a section of dialogue that just felt wooden. She started typing a comment, asking the author to revise this section when the telephone rang.

  Impatiently, she pushed away from the desk and ran down the stairs, nearly tripping over Blossom who raced down with her.

  “Hello?” she said breathlessly.

  “Is Molly there?” said the voice on the other end of the line.

  “What? No. She isn’t here. Who is this?”

  “This is Neil O’Malley. My furnace went out. Tell her to give me a call.”

  “Why d—”

  But there was a click as Neil O’Malley hung up. Kathleen glared at the phone in her hand for a moment before hanging the handset up and stomping back upstairs.

  By the time Molly’s SUV pulled up, she had finished three more chapters of the manuscript. She deliberately didn’t get up when she heard the front door open. Blossom glanced back uncertainly before going downstairs.

  “Hello?” came Molly’s voice.

  She didn’t reply. She heard more noises as Molly took her boots and jacket off.

  “Kathleen?”

  Molly’s sock-muffled footsteps came up the stairs. She peered around the door. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” Kathleen said coolly, not taking her eyes off her computer monitor.

  Molly stepped over the threshold and stopped. “Is everything okay?”

  Kathleen didn’t answer right away.

  “What’s wrong?” Molly asked, pulling another chair closer to the desk. “Did your father—”

  “Why are people calling here looking for you?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Kathleen swiveled around to stare at Molly. “Why did Neil O’Malley call here looking for you? Does the entire island know we’re sleeping together?”

  She saw the slight flush rise in Molly’s cheeks.

  “I doubt the entire island does,” Molly said in clipped tones. “But this is what people do here. We don’t have cell phones. If they need me, they call from place to place to track me down. If he called here, someone probably told him I might be here. I doubt it was anything more sinister than that.”

  She stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Kathleen asked.

  Molly stopped. “Neil called. It probably means his furnace has conked out again. It’s too cold to leave it until tomorrow.” She paused in the doorway. “I’m sorry it offends you to think the people on this island might know we’re sleeping together. Don’t wait supper for me. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

  Molly didn’t slam the door, but the sound of it closing seemed to echo through the house for a long time after she left.

  THE ROWING MACHINE WHIRRED in rhythm with Molly’s pulls on the handles. This trainer had been an extravagance, but it got her through the winter months when she couldn’t get out on the water. Sweat dripped from her nose and chin.

  Behind her, the side door to the garage opened, letting in a blast of cold air.

  “You haven’t been in here much lately, Mo.”

  Her dad sat on the weight bench, leaning his elbows on his knees.

  “Nope.”

  He watched her as she continued rowing. “What happened to your hand?”

  She glanced at her bloody knuckles. “Neil O’Malley’s furnace.” Her breathing came in bursts in sync with her pulls. “Wrench slipped.”

  Joe nodded. “Any particular reason you’re in here instead of with Kathleen?”

  Molly continued rowing for a few minutes, but Joe just sat there, waiting. She stopped. He tossed her a towel, which she pressed to her face.

  “You two have a fight?”

  She snorted. “Not really. I think…” She bit her lip. “I think she’s still trying to figure some things out.”

  Joe reached for a dumbbell and did some wrist curls as he considered. “You know, back in the day, when I knew I wanted a life here, I knew I wanted your mom to be part of that life. She wasn’t sure how she felt. About me or the island. It was kind of tough. Trying to decide whether I should just wait her out and let her sort her own feelings, or whether I should try to tip things in my favor by telling her how I felt.”

  Molly studied him. “What did you do?”

  He smiled. “Not gonna tell you. You have to figure that out for yourself. Just want you to know that I understand where you’re at.”

  He set the dumbbell down and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t leave without coming in to say hi to your mom.”

  He left with another gust of cold air. Molly sat there, her breathing slowing now. She slid a couple of weights onto the Olympic bar and pumped out a set of chest presses before grabbing her jacket and heading to the house.

  “Hi, Mo,” Jenny said from the stove where she was dishing chowder into four bowls.

  “Hi, Mom.” Molly went to the sink to rinse her face. She reached for the towel hanging from one of the cupboard knobs and mopped her face dry. Upstairs, she could hear Joey and Matty talking.

  She eyed the chowder. “That looks good.”

  She opened another cupboard to get an extra bowl down, but Jenny shook her head.

  “Don’t bother. Kathleen called.”

  “Oh?” Molly’s tone was wary.

  Jenny nodded. “She said she’s got dinner ready at home whenever you finish.”

  Molly’s eyes narrowed. “She said that?”

  “Said what? Dinner?”

  “No. Home. That was the word she used?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Molly turned away. “She’s never called the cottage home.”

  Jenny spun her around and pulled her into a hug. “Go home, Molly. But come by tomorrow to visit. I’d like to have more than a two-minute conversation with you.”

  She swatted Molly on the butt. “Now get going.”

  Molly ran upstairs to pack a gym bag with clean clothes and drove back to the cottage, where the porch light was on, like a beacon welcoming her.

  She hesitated on the porch, wondering whether she should knock or just go in, but she was saved by Kathleen opening the door for her.

  She stepped inside, sniffing appreciatively. “Smells good.”

  Kathleen stood, watching her cautiously, almost cowering, as if she expected to be hit. “It’s chicken and dumplings. I talked Nels into giving me his recipe.”

  “Really?”

  Molly toed off her boots and shuffled her feet awkwardly. She pointed upstairs. “I’m pretty sweaty. I should probably shower.”

  “Okay. I’ll have everything waiting when you come down.”

  Molly hurriedly showered and changed into clean jeans and a sweatshirt. She stood for a moment in the bedroom and then opened one of the empty dresser drawers to put the rest of her clothes inside.

  In the kitchen, Kathleen was ladling out two bowls of chicken and dumplings. Molly poured two glasses of water, and they sat at the table. Neither spoke for a few minutes as they busied themselves with eating.

  “This is really good,” Molly said.

  “Not as good as Nels makes.” Kathleen frowned. “He must have held ba
ck some secret ingredient.”

  Molly and Kathleen spoke at the same time, saying, “I’m sorry—”

  Kathleen set her spoon down and reached for Molly’s forearm. “Let me go first. I am so sorry. For the way I reacted. For the way I spoke to you.”

  She closed her eyes. “I left Susannah because she was too ashamed to ever stand up and acknowledge me, and then I did the exact same thing to you.”

  Molly covered Kathleen’s hand with hers. “And I know that you’ve been very private, had to be private. It can’t be easy, living in such a small place where everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

  Kathleen gave her a wry smile. “You could say that.”

  Molly squeezed her hand. “But they really don’t care. The ones who do know are happy for us.”

  Kathleen nodded. “I know. It’s just… Be patient with me.”

  Molly placed her fingers under Kathleen’s chin, drawing her near for a kiss, tender and lingering. “I know I should probably be taking your clothes off right now, but I’m really, really hungry.”

  Kathleen released Molly’s hand. “Eat. The taking off of clothes will happen later.”

  Chapter 14

  SUNLIGHT SLANTED IN THROUGH a window to splash across the pages of the book. Kathleen leaned over the heavy tome, her finger tracing the lines and names as she tried to memorize the branches of her family tree. She took her glasses off to bend closer and promptly sneezed. She wiped her nose with a tissue, the motes of dust from the book swirling about in the beam of sunlight. It was fascinating, learning where she came from. Her Irish ancestors had come from Mayo and Dhún na nGall, which she’d had to ask to realize was modern-day Donegal.

  Another window let a warm pool of sunshine hit the floor, where Blossom took full advantage, stretching out on his side to nap.

  She’d spent a couple of days each of the past few weeks with Rebecca, studying the island families and who was related to whom. The Keepers—whom Rebecca said went back to the first shipwreck survivors—had kept not just family trees, but short bios of each member of each family—only names and locations of the ones who left Little Sister—continuing with more detail on those who stayed or returned. This was a genealogical treasure. Without exception, everyone was related to someone else on this island; usually several family lines were connected.

  “Well, it’s inevitable, isn’t it?” Rebecca had said when Kathleen commented on it. “Newcomers marry in, but over the centuries, people from all the island families have blended.”

  Kathleen’s gaze followed one line of her grandfather’s family tree back. One name caught her attention. She jabbed a finger at it, staring. She went to the bookshelves and pulled the Ahearn book out. Flipping through the pages, she found the one she sought.

  Carrying both books with her, she went to find Rebecca, who was outside, sweeping a light dusting of snow off the library’s porch.

  “Molly and I are related?” Kathleen asked, holding the books out in front of her.

  Rebecca paused her sweeping. “I’ve told you most of us are related to one another somehow. But yes, your great-great-grandmother on your father’s side was sisters with Molly’s great-great-grandmother on our side.”

  “But… but that makes us cousins, kind of,” Kathleen sputtered.

  “Yes.” Rebecca resumed her sweeping. “That’s part of what the Keepers do. Before any two islanders can bond, we have to make sure they’re far enough removed to make procreation safe. It’s part of why our work is so important.”

  “What happens if they love each other and are too closely related?”

  “It has happened once or twice,” Rebecca said with a shrug. She glanced at Kathleen. “It’s not as if you and Molly are going to procreate.”

  Kathleen huffed in exasperation as she carried the books back into the genealogy room. It still felt weird, knowing that she was sleeping with a cousin, however distant, and knowing that everyone else knew about it.

  And not just sleeping with, she was slowly beginning to realize.

  Neither she nor Molly had spoken of anything more, of how they were feeling. Sometimes, the words were right there, reflected in Molly’s beautiful eyes, ready to be spoken aloud, but… Kathleen could never bring herself to say them. She had said them—too early and too often—to Susannah, who rarely said them back, but always reminded her of them after one of their fights. Those three words had come to feel like a weapon, something to be used to chain her in place.

  Lost in her thoughts, she returned the books to their place on the shelves and then went back outside. Blossom stirred himself to follow her.

  “I’ll see you Thursday,” she said. “I told Louisa I’d come help her clean this afternoon.”

  Rebecca eyed her. “That’s nice of you. Give her my best.”

  Kathleen drove to Louisa’s house—it was odd not to think of it as the Woodhouse sisters’ house—where the Ford sat, covered in the latest three inches of new snow. She was glad Louisa hadn’t tried to drive in this. There was a clear path shoveled from the drive to the front porch, Aidan’s work, she presumed.

  Louisa must have heard her pull up. She stepped outside, an old cardigan over her cotton dress, her fuzzy slippers completing the ensemble.

  “Hello, Katie.”

  “Hi, Miss Louisa.” Kathleen let Blossom out and reached for a covered container of the oatmeal pecan cookies Louisa liked.

  She took her boots off inside the front door. “Brought you something.”

  “Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” Louisa said, taking the container from her. She carried it into the kitchen, followed closely by Blossom. Kathleen saw her slip one cookie out from under the plastic lid.

  “You’ve rearranged the furniture,” Kathleen noted with some surprise as she hung her jacket and scarf on a hook.

  “Aidan helped me move it to clean the floors, and we decided we liked it this way for now.”

  Kathleen smiled at the “we” references as she followed Louisa into the kitchen where two boxes of ashes sat on the kitchen chairs.

  Bobby and Fred had brought Olivia’s ashes with them on their ferry run the week prior.

  “So it’s working out, with Aidan?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s a lovely boy. Never much of a scholar. He always preferred to be fixing things. After he took them apart, of course. Tea? I was just heating the kettle up.”

  “Sure.”

  Louisa poured two cups of hot water and set them on the table with a selection of teabags. Kathleen joined her, choosing a bag and dunking it into her cup.

  “I forgot, you would have taught all of them.”

  “Yes.” Louisa plucked her glasses up from where they hung around her neck and peered through them to select a teabag for herself. “Up through Molly and Joey. When Matty and the youngsters his age came along, they started the boarding school business.”

  “It’s too bad there isn’t a teacher on the island any longer.” Kathleen pried the lid off the container and placed a few cookies on each saucer.

  “It is. We tried, but we couldn’t find anyone who wanted to work here.”

  Kathleen looked up at the hitch in Louisa’s voice. She suddenly seemed old and frail as her arthritic hands cradled her teacup.

  “I worry for Little Sister,” Louisa said. “If our young ones aren’t raised here and then don’t want to come back, what will happen?”

  Kathleen laid a hand over Louisa’s gnarled one. “Don’t you think some will always come back? I did, eventually.”

  Louisa gave her a watery smile. “You’re right, Katie. Let’s have some of these cookies.”

  She closed her eyes as she chewed. “These remind me of Maisie. We were such good friends. How I miss her and Olivia.”

  Kathleen didn’t know what to say. She nibbled on a cookie.

  “Are you happy here, Katie?” Louisa asked.

  Kathleen coughed a little at the unexpected question. “Yes.”

  Louisa eyed her over her glasse
s, fixing her with a stare that reminded her of Rebecca. “Are you really? Because we weren’t so sure you were, when you first came back.”

  It was Kathleen’s turn to grip her teacup as she thought. “I wasn’t happy with my life, period, when I arrived here.”

  “That girl? The one who came here?”

  Kathleen nodded. “Partly her. Partly… everything else.”

  “Does Molly make you happy?”

  Kathleen stalled by eating another couple of bites of cookie. “Yes.”

  Louisa nodded and took a sip of tea. “I’ve often thought if we’d been born a generation later, Ollie might have been like you and Molly.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes. She was never one for the boys. But our generation just wasn’t as open about such things. Still, the island has always been more accepting than the outside world. If there’d been the right girl, I like to think she would have settled down with her.”

  Kathleen tilted her head, regarding Louisa with new respect. “How about you? Didn’t you ever fall for anyone? Want a family of your own?”

  To her surprise, Louisa blushed furiously.

  “What is it?”

  Louisa pursed her lips firmly for a moment before saying, “There was one boy. A man, actually. When I went away to college. He was one of my professors. We…”

  Kathleen gaped at her. “You had an affair with a professor?”

  Louisa gave her a guilty grin. “You think I’m nothing more than a prim old spinster?” She sighed, and the grin faded. “I was young and romantic, and I loved him desperately, but he… There were others, you see. I was foolish not to guess that, not to realize I wasn’t the only one.”

  “What did you do?”

  Louisa sniffed. “What could I do? I finished my studies and came home, where I had an entire island of children.”

  She dusted cookie crumbs from her fingers. “How about we tackle this kitchen?”

  AN ANCIENT OIL-FILLED HEATER hummed nearby as Molly kneeled on the deck of the boat she was working on. She carefully drilled a hole through a mortise and tenon joint with an antique hand drill. It took a little more time, but she liked the accuracy of the old tool. She backed the drill out and tapped an oak plug into the hole with some waterproof glue to secure the joint. She shaved away the excess peg with a flexible Japanese pull saw that gave her a nearly flush cut. Sanding patiently, she rounded the plug until it sat just proud of the surrounding board.