Staring at that candle, I knew, in leaving, the ex-wife forgot it. I knew it because a man would not buy that glass globe, pour sand in it and find the perfect candle to stick in.
Her one stamp. The last of her.
In my limited perusal of the house, except empty spaces where her image and history with her family occupied the wall, that candle was the only physical evidence that I’d seen of her.
Seeing it, I wondered if, when she went, she left it just to remind them she’d been there and now she was gone.
I didn’t know what to make of this, except to think that if she left it on purpose, it was a cruelty, plain and simple. Conrad had left us in our home and when he’d gone, he’d taken every vestige of himself with him. Yes, including the pictures off the walls and out of frames on shelves and tables.
And when he went, this caused me profound grief that only dug the pit of his departure deeper.
Now I saw it as something else entirely.
As a kindness.
Staring at the candle, I also wondered why Mickey kept it.
Perhaps, as a man, he didn’t even see it. It had been lit, but it was far from burned low and he didn’t strike me as a man who lit candles to provide a relaxing atmosphere.
Perhaps he wanted a reminder of his wife, the family they shared, the hopes he’d had, these being things he wasn’t ready to let go.
I would get no answers to these questions and not only because I’d never ask them.
No, it was because Mickey called, “Hey, babe.”
I stopped staring at the candle and turned his way.
Cillian was up on a barstool opposite Mickey, who was wearing another unfairly attractive shirt, this in lightweight cotton the color of mocha, sleeves again rolled up over muscular forearms, doing something beyond the elevated portion of counter where the tall barstools sat.
Both pairs of blue eyes were on me.
“I’m completely unable to come to a home for a meal without bringing something,” I blurted, lifting up my empty hands. “I feel weird. Like I’m going to get a Good Guest Demerit or something.”
Mickey grinned and Cillian asked, “What’s a demerit?”
“A bad mark, son,” Mickey explained to his boy then looked to me. “Come in. Take a seat. Want a beer?”
I didn’t often drink beer; it wasn’t a beverage of preference. I drank wine and if I had a cocktail it could vary, but it usually had vodka in it.
However, I keenly remembered Mickey saying his children’s mother had a wineglass soldered to her hand so I nodded.
“Beer sounds good,” I replied, moving further into the room in the direction of the bar.
I arrived, took my own barstool and noted that Mickey had a plethora of stuff all over the counter and appeared to be creating a smorgasbord of salads ranging from spinach to Asian noodle to macaroni. There were bowls, small packets of slivered almonds, used packs of ramen noodles, bottles of mayonnaise and mustard, cutting boards covered in residue and the waste parts of pickles, carrots, tomatoes, onions.
It struck me how long it’d been since my countertop looked like that and when it struck me, that feeling fell down the hollow well left after my family disintegrated, and it kept falling, that pit a bottomless pit of agony.
“Get Miz Hathaway a beer, boy,” Mickey ordered, thankfully taking me out of my thoughts, and Cillian jumped off his stool and raced to the fridge.
I failed to note the first time I met Cillian that he seemed to have an overabundance of energy.
I did not fail to note this same thing the day before when he stuck to his father’s, or Jake’s, or Junior’s sides like glue, helping with anything that needed help with, dashing around getting packing materials, dragging boxes, but most specifically manly things, like lifting and carrying.
Even if what he was lifting and carrying was too big, which sent him grunting and making hilarious faces at which I would never laugh because he was so serious in doing whatever he was doing, and I didn’t want him to see me and hurt his feelings.
I saw then, although getting a beer was not an onerous task, this was his nature for he didn’t delay and delivered the fastest drink I’d ever received.
“Thanks, honey,” I murmured when he put it on the bar in front of me.
“No probs,” he replied, moving around me then pulling himself back into his barstool, still talking, albeit briefly. And this was to demand of me, “Get this.”
I swiveled my stool his way to look at him.
“What?” I asked on a grin.
“I just figured out today that when I’m a fighter pilot for the Air Force, they don’t have to give me a call sign,” he declared and finished excitedly, “They can call me Kill since Kill is an awesome call sign but it’s also my name!”
He was clearly ecstatic about this.
But I stared at him in utter fear.
“You want to be a fighter pilot?” I asked.
“Totally,” he answered.
“Top Gun,” Mickey stated and I turned concerned eyes to him. “Cill caught it on cable a few years back. Made me buy him the DVD. He’s seen it a million times.”
“Two million,” Cillian contradicted proudly, and I turned my attention back to him. “It flipping rocks!”
I couldn’t agree or disagree. I’d seen it several times myself, including when it came out. Back then it was the best thing going.
However, I wasn’t certain it had aged well.
“The pilots in that movie fly for the Navy,” I informed him.
“Yeah, I know, but who wants to land a jet on a boat?” Cillian asked but didn’t allow me to answer. He shared his opinion immediately, “Not me. Plus, there are no babes on boats.”
“About a year after Cill saw Top Gun,” Mickey started and my eyes went to him, “he became aware there were girls in this world.”
“Isn’t that young?” I asked Mickey.
“I’m advanced,” Cillian said cheekily.
I grinned at him but even if he was being funny, the mother in me came right out.
“Being a fighter pilot is kind of a dangerous job, Cillian,” I shared hesitantly.
“I know!” he cried exuberantly, doing it sharing that danger was a big draw for that particular occupation.
I looked to Mickey, eyes wide.
He gave me one of his quick grins. “Not gonna talk him outta it, darlin’. Before he entered the highway to the danger zone, he wanted to be a firefighter, like his dad, a cop, a lawyer, which I also blame on Tom Cruise seein’ as that stretch, thankfully brief, came after Cill saw A Few Good Men. Then he was back to firefighter, moved on to Navy SEAL, then latched onto fighter pilot. Not one of ’em is a desk job that would make a mother’s heart settle, ’cept bein’ a lawyer, which would make his father’s head explode. But with this last one, it’s been years. I’m thinkin’ this one’s here to stay.”
“And get this!” Cillian butted in. “Dad’s got a friend who’s an instructor at Luke in Phoenix and we’re goin’ there for Christmas and we’re goin’ on the base and Uncle Chopper thinks he can get me in the flight simulator!”
“Do or die,” Mickey muttered and when I looked at him questioningly, he explained, “Luke’s an Air Force base. And Chop is gonna show us around. Cill sees and does, he either knows he’s gotta work at that, and it isn’t easy, or he’ll have to explore other options.”
I turned to Cillian. “How old are you?”
“Eleven,” he told me.
“You do have some time to figure it out,” I remarked.
“Not if I wanna get in the Air Force Academy, which is the only way to go, so I wanna get in the Air Force Academy. And I gotta have it together to do that,” Cillian replied with hard to miss determination.
I was astonished at his maturity that mingled naturally with his childish effusiveness.
Astonished by it and charmed by it.
“I’ll bet you do,” I murmured, falling a little in love with Cillian Donovan.
“Go get your sister, son,” Mickey ordered.
“’Kay,” Cillian agreed and again jumped off his stool and raced away.
I wrapped my fingers around my beer and took a pull before looking to Mickey and asking, “Can I help?”
“As I said, not lost on me you’ve run yourself ragged since you got to Magdalene, so no. Let me and my kids do the work, babe. You just relax.”
Relaxing would be good, but in Mickey’s presence, I figured it was highly unlikely.
But at that moment, what I really wanted was to find a nice way to ask him not to call me “babe.”
I wanted this because it reminded me of Conrad calling me that and it not meaning anything.
I also wanted it because I wanted it to mean something when Mickey said it, but it still didn’t.
I couldn’t figure out a nice way to say that so I just nodded, took another sip of cold beer and let my eyes wander his kitchen.
His ex was gone from there, totally. I knew it through my eye sweep.
There was a standing KitchenAid mixer that was in a neutral cream that would normally say a woman lived there, but I suspected this was on the counter because Mickey’s daughter liked to bake and Mickey clearly liked his daughter.
Other than that, there was a crock with a gravely lacking selection of cooking utensils stuck in it. Beside the rather nice stainless steel stove were salt and pepper shakers that didn’t match the crock (or the butter dish), and the salt shaker was chipped. There was also a truly unattractive, purchased solely because it did the job, wooden bread box. And although there was a good deal of counter space in the u-shaped kitchen, which also included a large pantry and more counter space separated from the rest against the opposite wall, all of it was taken up with appliances, none of them matching, none of them high quality.
I knew from experience that a family of the age of Mickey’s needed more, and if not the best, at least they needed ones they’d purchased to work and for a good long time, rather than shoddy brands that would break frequently, making you wonder why you didn’t invest wisely in quality in the first place.
You cooked for your family. Your kids had sleepovers and birthday parties that you needed to prepare for. You had friends over. You had family over. You had barbeques and special breakfasts that were about nothing. There were holidays to consider.
This was a man’s kitchen. Although the actual kitchen was highly attractive, it was not tidy and any woman knew the accoutrements had to be copious, carefully selected, and perhaps most importantly, fit the aesthetic.
At the end of my perusal, on the counter against the opposite wall, I spied a big chocolate cake on what appeared to be an antique glass cake plate.
“Aisling’s contribution to our barbeque,” he stated and I moved my gaze to him. “Said we couldn’t have someone over for food without offering dessert.” The easy grin came as he tipped his head sideways, toward the cake. “That’s one she does a lot ’cause her dad and brother fuckin’ love it. She’s hopin’ you will too.”
“I’m sure I will,” I replied quietly.
His eyes lit with pride. “Be crazy not to, it’s fuckin’ amazing.”
I loved his unhidden pride in his girl so much I couldn’t help but smile back.
“And to answer the question you’re too good-mannered to ask, I got the house. But Rhiannon got the kitchen,” he declared.
I blinked. “Rhiannon?”
“Ex-wife,” he stated. “It’s my house since I grew up in it. My folks moved to Florida, sold Rhiannon and me this place for a song. No way I could afford to live in this neighborhood, raise my kids in it, if they didn’t. She was decent enough not to make a play for it or fuck things up by pickin’ over shit, takin’ furniture, altering her kids’ home in a way that would freak them out more than they were already freaked their parents were splitting. She did that for me and the kids, I let her pick over everything else she could get and she took everything else she could get.”
This meant she left the candle. I just hoped she did it because she wasn’t overly fond of it.
“MFD has got one employee, our fire chief, and he’s only paid part-time. Town can’t afford more,” Mickey told me.
I nodded, uncertain at the flow of our conversation, so I decided not to reply.
“The rest of us, we volunteer,” he shared, grabbing one of his many bowls and turning toward the fridge, still talking. “Would do that for a job if I could. I can’t and I grew up in Magdalene, love it here, great place for a kid to be, good people, got all the seasons, safe, beautiful, don’t want to leave. I wanted to settle here, find a woman here, raise my kids here, so I had to find a way to do what I love doin’ and still put food in my kids’ mouths.”
He put the bowl in the fridge and turned back, walking my way, continuing to speak.
“I work for a local company, does roofing and construction. Job sucks, my boss is an asshole. Wanna strike out on my own but with two kids fast approaching college, can’t take that risk. Gotta eat his bullshit and get a paycheck. But they work seven days a week and the only way my boss isn’t an asshole is that he doesn’t want his house to burn down without local volunteer firefighters to stop it. So he lets me adjust my schedule so I can take some shifts at the department during weekdays, as well as doin’ nights and some weekends.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like your boss but it’s good you get to do what you like to do,” I told him, even though I didn’t actually think him being able to be a firefighter was good.
In this climate, I could imagine fires weren’t as prevalent as in other, drier climates. But fires happened everywhere and I wasn’t really big on Mickey taking his life in his hands to go out and fight them.
However, this had nothing to do with me and would be an unwelcome (and rude) opinion to share, so I didn’t share it.
He put his hands on the counter, his attention still on me. “Life is life. You’re smart, you take what you can get.”
All of a sudden, that feeling of being crushed came back, thinking Mickey, a nice guy, a good father, a handsome man, had this philosophy.
He wanted to stay in his hometown and that was his prerogative.
He wanted to be a firefighter so he made that work.
That was commendable.
But I hated the idea that he felt with the rest he had to take what he could get.
I wanted him to be fulfilled. Happy. If not having it all (because who did?), at least having as much as he could get. Loving his family, his home, his job…his life.
Not taking what he could get.
“Hey, Miz Hathaway.”
I turned at Aisling’s greeting and smiled when I caught her beautiful blue eyes.
“Hey, blossom. Thanks again for all your help yesterday.”
Mickey had not been wrong. She’d loved helping. She’d worked hard, this mostly being, as the stuff quickly disappeared, running around rearranging so the other items for sale would be attractively displayed and not looked picked over or like the dregs since the early birds got the good stuff. She also sold beverages, the goodies, and when each drink dispenser was purchased, she’d helped me empty them out and clean them up so they could go out the door.
“No probs,” she repeated her brother’s words of earlier, moving into the kitchen and looking up to her father. “Want me to do the spinach?”
“Closer to, beautiful,” he said softly, gazing at her the same way. “Make sure it’s fresh. Got a lot of grillin’ to do.”
“’Kay, Dad,” she mumbled, shifting around him, eyes to the counter, eyes that assessed the situation immediately as she saw what Mickey had done, what needed to be done, and thus she left what was still needed while clearing away what no longer was.
Yes, she was a good girl who liked to take care of her family and I liked that, thus I started to fall a little in love with quiet, sweet Aisling Donovan too.
“Son, you wanna start the grill, get it ready for your dad?” Mickey offered.
&
nbsp; “Totally!” Cill accepted loudly.
Mickey gave his grin to his boy. “Fire it up.”
Cillian raced away.
Mickey went to the fridge and came out with his own beer.
When he turned, he caught my eyes. “Let’s move this outside.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed.
He reached out and nabbed a packet of tortilla chips that were sitting on the counter and said to Aisling, “Grab the guac from the fridge before you head out, yeah, darlin’?”
“Yeah, Dad,” she replied.
We went out and I saw that when Rhiannon left the furniture, she also left the patio furniture. Further, I noted this was an outdoor family.
I knew this because there was a colossal shining grill against the side railing of the deck—a deck that spanned the living room and kitchen areas of the long house. Further, there was a four-seater, wrought iron table with umbrella and chairs that I knew would be comfortable because they had fluffy taupe cushions, high backs and they rocked. There were also two matching lounge chairs with matching cushions, angled toward the view of Mickey’s backyard, which was mostly trees. And last, there was a coordinating loveseat at the opposite end of the deck from the grill that had an ottoman in front of it and tables at each side.
All this, and in the densely wooded backyard that had a narrow wedge of grass close to the deck, I saw a tire swing in a tree. There were Frisbees lying in the grass (three, to be precise). And to one side, what appeared to be a narrow baseball pitcher plate set up, beyond it a tall, wide net to catch pitched balls.
I followed Mickey out but he went to the grill to survey Cillian’s activities.
I decided on the table, where we could all sit, eat chips and guacamole, and chat.
Mickey and Cillian joined me, Mickey opening the chips after he sat, tossing them on the table.
Aisling came out with the guac, which was homemade, had the perfect hint of cilantro, a nice tang of garlic and minimum tomatoes, making it sublime (Mickey’s creation, which made me look forward to dinner). She also saw the chips, rolled her eyes at her father and went back in, coming out with a bowl in which she dumped the chips (budding hostess, and a good one, for certain).
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