Keeping Faith

by Janice Macdonald

  “She only likes SpaghettiOs,” Liam said.

  Hannah gave him a long look. An eyes-narrowed, hands-on-hips long look.

  “I’m just telling you what she likes,” he said. “And it’s not the stuff in there.”

  “I like SpaghettiOs.” Faith released his hand, hop-scotched along the sidewalk. “SpaghettiOs, SpaghettiOs,” she sang. “I only like SpaghettiOs.”

  “You heard her,” Liam said. “She only likes SpaghettiOs.”

  “If you say that one more time, I’m going to hit you,” Hannah said.

  He watched her face. She was trying hard not to smile. So was he. Both of them, standing there with the waving palm trees and Faith singing about SpaghettiOs. He broke first and grinned at Hannah.

  “You are impossible, Tully.”

  “SpaghettiOs?”

  She raised a hand as though to swipe at his face.

  Ten minutes later they were pushing a cart down the aisle of a supermarket. He watched Faith briefly disappear around the corner of Aisle 15—pasta, tomato sauce, olives—reappear, then take off again. “Shouldn’t she sit in the cart?” he asked Hannah.

  She gave him a scornful look. “Faith would be very insulted if she heard you say that. She hasn’t sat in a cart since she was three.”

  He shrugged. “What do I know?”

  “We have very strict rules about how far she can stray. No more than one aisle over from where I am, and she has to come back as soon as she hears me. Or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Just or else. It’s something parents say to kids.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Liam said.

  Hannah gave him a look he couldn’t read. She considered his interest in Faith a whim—he had little doubt about that—and was surprised by anything he said that suggested otherwise. Suddenly the week he’d asked for seemed so ridiculously inadequate that he felt himself sinking into the state Brid called his Misery Mode. “Snap out of it,” she’d tell him when he’d succumb to the moody gloom, or as Pearse put it, the Celtic Crud. “You’re a misery to look at and a bloody misery to be around.”

  “So where are we going to cook this gourmet feast?” Hannah reached for a can of SpaghettiOs. “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to do it at my mother’s house.”

  “I don’t care,” he said, although the idea of sitting in the family kitchen with the aunts and Margaret shooting him dagger looks wasn’t loaded with appeal. “Sooner or later Margaret’s going to have to get used to me being around.”

  “Let’s make it later rather than sooner, okay? She’s in this emotionally fragile state right now. My sister’s pregnant and—”

  “And I’m just one more problem she doesn’t need, is that it?”

  “Liam…”

  “I’m sorry.” He’d regretted the words as soon as he’d said them. “This is about us, not your mother. And the last thing I want is a fight.” He thought for a moment. “The tour bus has a hot plate,” he said. “We could cook there.”

  Hannah smiled, a doubtful smile that spoke volumes.

  “Nix the tour bus?”

  “After this afternoon, it has…certain associations that don’t exactly go with cooking SpaghettiOs for Faith.”

  He smiled, too—the gloom sent packing by the certainty that Hannah, despite her cool demeanor, had been as bowled over by their afternoon together as he had. “You don’t think I’d try to ravage you over a plate of SpaghettiOs.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  He tried to look injured. “I do have some moral principles.”

  She raised a brow. “No kidding?”

  “Absolutely. They’re good on toast with grated cheese.”

  “Did I mention you were impossible?”

  He kissed her neck. “Did I mention you were fantastic today?”

  “Did I mention that you’re wasting your time if you think there’s going to be a repeat performance?”

  He put his arm around her shoulder, and brought his face around to kiss the side of her mouth. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Wait and see.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “No, thank you,” she said primly. “I don’t gamble.” She glanced at him. “Not that it matters to me at all, but…”

  “No, I’m not sleeping with her.”

  She steered the trolley into his leg. “You didn’t know that’s what I was going to ask.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  She grinned. “Maybe.”

  Faith reappeared, peeked into the basket. “I don’t see any SpaghettiOs.”

  Liam took the can Hannah had been holding and dropped it in the cart. He looked at Faith. “What d’you think? Five more? Ten? Six hundred?”

  “Six hundred,” Faith said.

  “What if we split the difference and make it two?”

  “Two’s good, too.” She grinned. “Hey, I made a joke. Two’s good, too,” she chanted as she ran down the aisle.

  “So did we establish a place?” Hannah asked

  “What about your new home?”

  “There’s no furniture there yet,” she said.

  “Electricity? Gas?”

  “The utilities haven’t been turned on.”

  “Have you got the key?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ve got an idea.”

  FAITH SAT CROSS-LEGGED on a blanket, a paper napkin tucked under her chin, shoveling SpaghettiOs, heated on a Sterno burner, into her mouth. Half a dozen candles set on paper plates around the room made flickering shadows on the walls.

  “I like this place, Mommy,” Faith said. “It’s like camping, only better.” She looked at Hannah. “But you don’t get to pee in the woods.”

  “Faith.” Hannah protested.

  “When we go camping with Allan and Douglas, Mommy says we get to pee in the woods.”

  “Faith, I really don’t think Liam cares about that,” Hannah said.

  “Yes, I do.” Liam, studiously ignoring Hannah, smiled at Faith. “I want to hear all about it.”

  “She said we have to take flashlights so we don’t trip over something,” Faith went on, clearly encouraged by Liam’s interest. “And Allan’s going to cook marshmallows.”

  Hannah caught Liam’s eye, held his glance for a moment. “Allan invited us to Yosemite this summer,” she said. “Faith and I will have our own little tent, Allan and Douglas will have theirs.” She saw a smile flicker across Liam’s face; she knew he knew she was telling him that she wouldn’t be sleeping with Allan.

  “More SpaghettiOs?” she asked Liam, who was making a valiant effort to finish the food already piled on his plate.

  “That’s all right,” Liam said politely. “I’ve had plenty. Help yourself.”

  “You have them, Liam,” Faith said. “I want to see them come out of your ears.”

  “Yeah, Liam.” Hannah said as she emptied the pan onto his plate. “Let’s see them come out of your ears.”

  She tried unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. This was fun. Doing things with Faith was always fun; Liam gave it a new dimension. There is no us, she’d told him. But didn’t they kind of feel like a cozy little threesome right now? Sitting here in an empty apartment eating canned spaghetti they’d bought because it was their daughter’s favorite?

  But a relationship was more than a picnic in an empty apartment. It took dedication, commitment, mutual respect. And as she watched Liam and Faith clown around together—Faith urging Liam to “eat, eat, eat”—she marched out all the reasons their marriage hadn’t worked the first time and wouldn’t work if they tried it again. Marched them out, paraded them for inspection, then tried to shoot them down. And just when she was just on the verge of deciding their relationship might actually work, a parade of nameless, beautiful women trooped through her brain, reminding her of the all-consuming jealousy and insecurity she’d felt before.

  “Mummy’s not paying attention,” Liam told Faith. “Which is a pity, because she mis
sed one of the best tricks of the evening.” He winked at his daughter. “Right?”

  “Right,” Faith said. “You missed it, Mommy.”

  “What did I miss?” Hannah asked.

  Faith gave Liam an uncertain look. “What did she miss?”

  “Ah, come on, Faith. You know.” He crooked his finger and she came over to him. With one hand, he brushed her hair aside, and whispered something in her ear. “Now tell your mum what she missed.”

  “You missed seeing SpaghettiOs coming out of Liam’s ears,” Faith said. “It was a really good trick, too.”

  She smiled at Liam. “You have talents I never even suspected.”

  He met her eyes. “All I need is a chance to demonstrate them.”

  Hannah looked away, then busied herself with picking up paper plates. Faith started telling Liam about the time that Douglas laughed so much that milk came out of his nose. Liam sat with his chin in his hand, his expression thoughtful as he interrupted Faith’s description with questions. “Just a minute now, Faith,” he’d ask solemnly. “Was this skim milk? Did it come out of both nostrils, or just one?”

  For all Liam’s concerns about not knowing how to behave around small children, Hannah reflected, he was succeeding incredibly well with his daughter—who was clearly enchanted by him.

  “Douglas and Grandma and Auntie Rose and everyone get to go for a ride on Allan’s boat tomorrow.” Faith had moved on from the milk incident. “But Mommy said we can’t go because we have other plans.”

  “But I think you’re going to like those other plans.” Hannah looked from Liam to Faith. “Guess who’s going to pick you up from school?”

  “Grandma?”

  “Guess again.” Hannah felt a vague sense of trepidation. As she’d left the restaurant with Faith, she’d caught a glimpse of her mother’s apprehensive expression. Now she was going to have break the news to Margaret that Liam would be picking up her granddaughter from school.

  “If it’s not Grandma…” Faith looked from Hannah to Liam. “Then it’s…” She pointed her finger at Hannah. “Mommy.”

  “And me,” Liam said.

  Faith grinned. “Liam. Cool. Then we can all go out on Allan’s boat.”

  “Actually, I’ve got a better idea,” Liam said. “I know a great big boat we can go on.”

  “As big as Allan’s?”

  “Bigger.”

  “Is it your boat?”

  “No, but I have a special arrangement with the captain.”

  “Cool,” Faith said again. And then she got up from the cushion she’d been sitting on and moved next to Liam. “Hey, Liam.” She looked up at him. “You know something?”

  “What?”

  “I like you.”

  Hannah watched Liam’s face. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall. For a moment, he didn’t speak and then he put his arm around his daughter and kissed the top of her head.

  “That’s good,” he said. “Because I like you, too. A lot.”

  “And I love Raisin,” she said. “He’s the best dog in the whole world.”

  “But can he play a guitar?” Liam asked.

  Faith eyed him for a moment. “He’s a dog, silly.”

  Hannah remembered the guitar Liam had given her that afternoon. She’d left it in the car, thinking that she’d wait until Liam was there before she gave it to Faith. While Liam was telling Faith that he’d like to teach her to play, Hannah slipped outside. Liam smiled as she came back in, holding the guitar. “Liam has a present for you,” she said.

  He crooked his finger at Faith. “C’mon over here. I’ll teach you to play it, then you can teach Raisin.”

  This struck Faith as so funny she dissolved in giggles and ended up spilling her glass of ginger ale down the front of her shirt. The lesson was postponed while Hannah stripped off the wet top. Belatedly she realized that she didn’t have a replacement.

  “Here. Wrap this around her.” Liam pulled off his shirt, and handed it to Hannah. “Clean this morning.”

  Faith giggled even harder, rolling around on the floor now, hyped-up and overtired. Laughing and flinging her arms as she leaped around the room. A sprite, completely unselfconscious, clad only in a pair of red shorts.

  “I don’t have a shirt and you don’t have a shirt,” she told Liam between peals of laughter. “You don’t have a shirt and I don’t have a shirt. Mommy has a shirt, but you don’t have a shirt. I don’t have a shirt…”

  Hannah met Liam’s eyes. “She’ll wind down in a minute.”

  “Hey, Hannah.” He touched her foot with his own. “I love you.”

  “IT’S A SHAME she can’t have her dog with her here,” Liam said after Faith had finally fallen asleep on the living room floor on an improvised bed of blankets and cushions brought in from the car. “Have you spoken to the landlord? Maybe he’d reconsider.”

  “The lease was pretty clear about no animals,” Hannah said.

  “Let’s find a different place,” he said. “She should have a dog.”

  Hannah heard the word let’s. She allowed herself a moment to consider what it implied. Togetherness, shared responsibility. She picked up a circle of spaghetti that had escaped her earlier cleanup. “This apartment is what I can afford, Liam. There aren’t many places in my price range that allow pets.”

  “I’ll contribute, I told you that.” He glanced around the empty, shadow-filled room. “Look, give me the landlord’s number, I’ll have a talk with him tomorrow. If I can’t get him to change his mind, we’ll find something else.”

  We. She felt her heart beat a little faster. It had appeal, this shared responsibility thing. Sharing, instead of assuming it all herself. Hannah couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t felt weighted down by responsibility. “Let me talk to her,” she’d tell Margaret. “I’ll handle it,” she’d say to Rose or Helen. “Don’t worry about it,” she’d assure Deb. “I’ll sort it out.”

  And now Liam was saying, Hey, take a break. I can handle it. And it would be so easy to allow that to happen. Easy and comforting…and dangerous.

  She studied him as he lay stretched out on his back now, his hands pillowed behind his head. She averted her eyes from his bare chest and his flat stomach. Averted her eyes, but found herself mentally stripping off his faded jeans. Sex is sex is sex, she reminded herself. Don’t confuse it with real commitment.

  “When I was about Faith’s age, maybe a bit older, this dog followed me home from school.” Liam smiled, as though remembering. “Black-and-white, he was. A little bit of everything. Bloody great feet and a tail that never stopped. My stepdad caught me opening a tin of beef and gravy for it to eat. Thrashed me and sent the dog packing.”

  “God, that’s awful. What a jerk.” Hannah pictured him as the small boy he’d been—dark hair maybe overdue for a trim and their daughter’s blue eyes—and felt as retroactively protective as if it had been Faith he was telling her about. “What did you do?”

  He grinned. “I went looking for the dog and found it waiting outside a bar in town. Knew its place apparently—the owner came out a few minutes later.”

  “I think that’s the first thing you’ve ever told me about your childhood,” she said. “I remember when I used to ask you, you’d just change the subject.”

  “Not much to tell,” he said, still on his back, hands locked behind his head. “My ma couldn’t take care of me and none of the aunties and uncles were clamoring for the job either. I got shipped around a bit, which is no doubt why I’m the sterling character I am today.”

  “But your mother…” She found herself struggling with the concept of a mother just abandoning a child. “Do you ever hear from her?”

  “Two or three years ago, she rang. Out of the blue. I didn’t even recognize her voice. She’d been living in England and had hardly any trace of an Irish accent. Just wondering about me, she said.”

  “That was it?”

  “That was it. I might have been an acquaintance who
se number she’d just rediscovered.”

  “I wonder what she’d think about being a grandmother.”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Faith shifted in her sleep, and Hannah glanced over at her. One of the candles flickered wildly, then went out. She watched as Liam got up to relight it then stretched back on the floor again. “Do you think you’ll tell her about Faith?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it until now,” he said. “But I might. It would be good for Faith to know she has family besides yours. Give her a look at the two extremes.”

  “It’s funny to think Faith has another grandmother somewhere.” Hannah sat cross-legged, shoulders pressed against the wall. “Margaret’s so involved in Faith’s life, I don’t know how she’d deal with a competing grandmother.”

  “In the long run it doesn’t matter,” Liam said. “She’s our daughter. The grandparents are just supporting players.”

  “Tell that to Margaret,” Hannah said.

  “She’ll find out for herself soon enough.” He sat up, looked at Faith and rolled over to smooth the blanket covering her back. “If I were the vengeful type, I’d take a lot of pleasure in the fact that your mother’s lies are about to come back to haunt her.”

  Hannah felt uneasy suddenly. His face gave nothing away, but she had a gnawing sense that if she dug a little deeper, she would discover something she’d rather not know. Unspoken resentment? Had he, just now, inadvertently shown his cards? Was it truly Faith and Hannah he wanted? Or the opportunity to turn the tables on Margaret? As the silence lengthened, she tried to mentally formulate a question, but it sounded paranoid, even to her ears, Still she couldn’t shake the thought.

  “Stop it.” Liam shifted across the floor to sit beside her. He took her hand, brought it to his mouth, then set it down again. “Stop telling yourself this won’t work.”

  She turned her head to look at him. The room was dark except for the flickering candles. From the makeshift bed, Faith made soft whimpering noises in her sleep. Hannah started to speak and Liam shook his head.

  “I need you to believe in me, Hannah.” Again he took her hand, held it on his knee. “Once upon a time,” he said softly, “there was this wee little boy who wanted to make his ma happy because she was having a pretty rotten time of it, crying a lot and always sad. So he decided he’d have a bang-up dinner ready for her when she came home from work. Chops and roast potatoes and an apple tart for afters.”