Home Fires

by Luanne Rice

  “Are you avoiding me? Meet me for lunch at Ruby’s at twelve-thirty, and I’ll forgive you.”

  Gabrielle.

  Anne rolled her eyes. She considered calling her sister to tell her that she would be too busy to have lunch today. She didn’t feel like seeing anyone. Thomas’s phone call was sticking with her, making her face some hard facts.

  She typed out letters of confirmation to the people who had called. A travel agent called to ask whether WhaleRush gave volume discounts, and Anne told her it was company policy to do so only after fifty paid-in-full bookings. Robin Drexel, the woman who owned the stationery shop next door, stopped by to see if Anne could convince the Crichtons to consider ordering from her instead of the wholesale stationers they used in Boston.

  At twelve-thirty she taped a “Back at One” sign to the door and headed down to Ruby’s.

  Gabrielle occupied a booth halfway down the room, on the right. Her arm shot up upon sight of Anne.

  “How’s work?” she asked as Anne slid into her seat.

  “I like it.”

  “The chowder’s great here. So is the clam hash.”

  “I’ll have clam chowder,” Anne said to the waitress.

  “Chowder. And a BLT,” Gabrielle said. Then she focused on Anne. “Will you please tell me what’s going on? Why haven’t I seen you for I-don’t-know-how-long?”

  “New job, spring, I don’t know.”

  “You’re mad at me.”

  A silence fell over the table as the waitress delivered Gabrielle’s chowder.

  “Yes, I am,” Anne said when the waitress was gone. “What makes you think it’s okay to tell Matt I’m seeing someone?”

  “Because he cares.” Gabrielle stared at Anne with amazing intensity, ignoring her soup.

  “What does that have to do with anything? Don’t I have a right to privacy?”

  “You are still his wife.”

  “God, I sometimes forget how puritanical this place is. Yes, I still have the marriage license, but no, Gabrielle: we are not still married. Not in any way that counts.”

  “Tell me you don’t love him.”

  Anne shook her head hard, to show how stupid she thought her sister was acting.

  “Tell me.”

  “You don’t just stop loving someone,” Anne said slowly, with deliberation. “But that doesn’t mean the marriage is solid. I do love Matt. I always will. But I don’t ever want to think of him as my husband again. Got that?”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “And I don’t want you telling him about me,” Anne said.

  “Anne, he’s been my brother-in-law for more than ten years. He and I have a relationship, too.”

  “Then tell him about yourself. About Maggie, Steve. But don’t discuss me and Thomas with him.”

  With Gabrielle’s chowder untouched, the waitress brought the rest of their lunch. Anne dug right into hers.

  “Well,” Gabrielle said, rebuffed. She stared at her soup, as if she were too devastated to eat it. Anne refused to take pity on her.

  “What does Steve say about the house?” Anne asked.

  “It’s almost ready.”

  “Just in time for summer.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to move back there?” Gabrielle asked, beginning to eat.

  “Positive.”

  “You own two perfectly lovely places, and you choose to rent a tiny little apartment. I’m not criticizing,” Gabrielle added, at Anne’s look.

  “I can’t live in the past,” Anne said. “I don’t want constant reminders.”

  “Hearing you say that,” Gabrielle said slowly, “makes me wonder.”

  “About what?”

  “About whether that’s the reason you don’t want to try again with Matt. Because he’s too much of a reminder.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Gabrielle hummed thoughtfully, as if she held all the secrets of the universe in her older-sister soul.

  “I have a proposition to make,” she said. “It has to do with the house.”

  “What?”

  “That bed-and-breakfast idea I had,” Gabrielle said, withdrawing several sheets of paper from her bag. “I really think I could make it work. I’d run it and pay myself a salary, but otherwise we’d split the profits fifty-fifty. I’ve called around, and people are getting a hundred dollars and more a night in high season.”

  “It’s fine with me,” Anne said. “But what about your catering business?”

  “I’d just operate from over there. You know I love that kitchen.”

  “What would you call it? You can’t exactly stick with the ‘Big House.’”

  “Why not? We could have a cute little jail theme. Handcuffs and manacles by the bed, striped pajamas.” Gabrielle chuckled. “No, I was thinking of ‘Fitzgibbons.’”

  “I like that,” Anne said, nodding. “Sort of a tribute to Mother and Dad.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve been thinking. Although they’d probably turn in their graves. They were so proud to own the bakery, to be ‘prosperous Americans.’ Prosperous! Anyway, at least they didn’t have Irish dirt under their fingernails anymore. I don’t think they’d take to the idea of opening the family homestead to paying strangers.”

  “Let’s hope they never find out,” Anne said.

  “I thought I’d run a few ads before Memorial Day. In a few Sunday papers. You know those country-inn listings?”

  “Won’t that be expensive?”

  “Honey, we’ll make it up the first weekend.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Well, if you get tired of the whale business, I’m sure we could create a position for you.”

  “Actually, I’ll shill for Fitzgibbons’,” Anne said. “I’ll convince all the tourists to leave their hotels for the best guest house on the island, with breakfasts by the Seduction Table.”

  “Great,” Gabrielle said, jotting it down. “I’ll stick that in the ads.” She looked up. “Are you still mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you and Thomas come to dinner some night soon? Next weekend?”

  “I’ll ask him. Thank you.” That left her an out, Anne thought sadly. She could always say he wouldn’t be able to make it, that he’d made other plans.

  “You’re welcome, my sweet,” Gabrielle said, with the relieved air of a woman whose olive branch had just been accepted.

  ANNE was coming for dinner and Thomas was in the garden, passing time. The earth was ready for planting. Each spadeful of dirt was dark and rich, free of big stones. Earthworms and wood bugs squiggled for cover while robins perched nearby, waiting for Thomas Devlin to go inside. He uncovered two carrots, a potato, and a trove of leeks left from last year. Not many things brought him more joy than gardening, but this year he readied his vegetable patch with a heavy heart.

  Anne was pulling away from him. Her feelings for him were different, and he felt the shift as surely as he felt the change in seasons.

  Since she had taken the new job, he’d heard nothing but forced cheer in her voice. She’d talk about the office, the customers, the Crichtons, with great enthusiasm. Nothing could please him more than knowing Anne had found satisfying work. But she was treating him like a stranger: reporting the facts of her day with the upbeat blankness of a weather forecaster.

  No matter what she said, he dated the growing distance between them to Ned’s visit. Certainly Ned’s reaction to the circumstances of Thomas and Anne’s first meeting was disturbing, but also understandable. Thomas had no doubt that Ned would get over it. More upsetting to him was feeling Anne withdraw from him.

  In the months since he had known her, Thomas Devlin had found pure happiness. That Anne could love him had seemed to him a miracle. With half the skin on his body burned off, he knew how repulsive he looked. He had never expected to be touched by a woman again. He could not say that he had given up hope of it; since the fire that deformed him, he had simply ceased to consider the poss
ibility.

  But that night at Anne’s apartment, when she had entered the bathroom and looked upon him without flinching, when she had touched his naked body, her soothing strokes so full of love and acceptance, Thomas Devlin had felt redeemed.

  That he was the person she chose to tell about Karen had made him want to sweep her into his arms, into his home, and make her his wife. That’s what he wanted more than anything: to marry her. From that cold winter’s night, when he had pulled her from the fire, until now, his feelings for her had been building and growing.

  When Thomas Devlin thought of Anne Davis, he knew that he had found his heart’s desire.

  Now, working his garden, he listened to the clocks in his workshop chime six o’clock. She would be arriving soon. He had caught some flounder that morning, which he planned to serve for dinner. But for some reason, as the dinner hour drew closer, he felt less and less hungry.

  He placed his tools inside the shed. Tomorrow he’d tune up the lawn mower; he’d cut the grass over the weekend. It had gotten shaggy in just the last few days. Daisies were blooming like crazy this year.

  On his way into the house, he picked a bunch. Sticking them in a mason jar on the kitchen counter, he thought of how casual they looked. Nothing special like roses or gladioli or tulips. They didn’t convey much of anything. They were too simple an offering to indicate a fraction of the heart-pounding trepidation he was feeling right now.

  Hearing Anne’s car in the driveway, he had to force himself to not head outside to greet her. For the first time since they’d gotten together, he was holding himself back. He had so much to give her, and he knew she wanted to push it away. He felt scared. She knocked on the door, and reluctantly he went to answer it.

  “Hi,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

  “Hi.”

  They stood in the living room, not saying anything. Thomas stared at her, willing her to face him, to look into his eyes and see all the love he had for her. But her gaze was focused downward.

  “We’d better talk, huh?” he asked.

  She nodded, and when she sat in the wingback chair, instead of choosing the sofa or heading for the kitchen, Thomas’s heart sank further. It meant that she didn’t want to be touched—either sitting side by side or crushed together in the cozy kitchen.

  “I’ve been moving too fast,” Anne said, finally able to look in his direction.

  “You have?”

  “Yes. You swept me off my feet.”

  “I didn’t try—” he said, frowning.

  “I know. That’s not what I’m saying. You were—are—wonderful. You came into my life, and I felt the world change. Just like that. You brought me hope, and light, and the most amazing love.”

  “I still feel it.”

  Anne glanced away, her eyes full of pain. “This is so hard,” she said.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “The thing is, by being with you I was ignoring a whole lot else. I’m still married, for one thing. My sister said that to me today, and I practically told her to go to hell. But the fact is, it’s true.”

  “Do you want to go back to him?” Thomas asked, the hardest eight words he had ever spoken.

  “No.”

  “Then, what?”

  “This office job I have is incredible. It’s so simple—little tasks I could have done in my sleep a year ago. Not like collage—there my dreams just carry me along. But the job takes all my concentration. It’s like I was in a terrible accident, and I’m just learning how to walk again.”

  “I’d say that’s pretty accurate.”

  “Seeing your son so upset really shook me up,” Anne said. “It made me think that I’m not ready for this.”

  “‘This’?”

  “Us. It’s too much for me right now, Thomas. I feel responsible for Ned. For how he feels about me, and for how that will come between you and him.”

  “He’s just a kid. He’ll adapt if we’re patient and give him time.”

  “Ned’s not the problem between us. I am,” Anne said slowly, as if she was assessing how much she should say. “But Ned is having a hard time.”

  “It’s just a silly rivalry.”

  Anne gave him a long, hot look. She was in the grip of some strange passion, but it wasn’t love and it wasn’t lust. The expression in her eyes was intense and dangerous, and it spooked Thomas Devlin as much as it excited him. But presently it passed, and she was again calm.

  “I disagree with you,” she said.

  “Tell me your theory.”

  “He wishes the fire had killed me, not his mother.”

  Her words thudded in his brain as he tried to make sense of what she was saying.

  “That’s crazy,” he said. “He knows it’s not possible, a trade, whatever you want to call it, like that. The fires were years apart.”

  “Still, it’s how he feels.”

  “What you’re saying doesn’t make logical sense.”

  “I didn’t say there was anything logical about it. It’s something he feels in his gut. I know, Thomas. Because every time I see a four-year-old … I would trade the life of that child to have Karen back.” She paused.

  “Anne—”

  “I think that’s how Ned feels about me, and I’d say it must be very hard for him, knowing that you don’t feel the same.”

  “I don’t,” Thomas said.

  “I know.”

  Thomas shrugged, tried to smile. His mouth felt set and grim, and his stomach was nervous.

  “What are you telling me?” he asked.

  “We have to stop seeing each other.”

  “Anne, don’t say that. We can take it slow, if that’s what you need. If you don’t want to stay overnight with me, I’ll accept that.”

  “I do want to, but I can’t,” she said in a measured tone, her obvious need for control his only clue that she was finding this as difficult as it was for him.

  “And we can’t take it slow,” she said. “You must know that.”

  “Why can’t we?”

  “Because we know we’re rockets.”

  That made him smile; he saw her try to smile back.

  “This is wrong,” he said. “You do know it’s wrong.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, rising. “I’m not going to stay for dinner. It would be too …”

  “Painful,” Thomas said, and immediately he agreed with her: they couldn’t take it slow. They couldn’t go back to polite friendship. He couldn’t sit across a table from her and make idle conversation knowing that she would be walking out his door that night and all the nights to come.

  “Yes, painful,” she said. As they stood together by the door the moment seemed to demand a physical gesture. A kiss? A handshake? A smack on his own head for being so stupid in somehow making her want to go?

  “I hope you come back,” he said. He heard his voice hiding so much. It sounded cordial, inviting. Nothing like what he felt inside: the north wind, a bullet whistling through the night, a ship sinking just yards from its home port.

  “Thank you,” she said. Standing on her toes, she brushed his neck with her lips. But before he could hold her close, give her a last kiss, she was gone.

  Thomas Devlin stood in the doorway, watching the woman he loved back her car into the street. She didn’t even glance his way, to see him waving good-bye. When he walked into the kitchen, because even though he wasn’t hungry it was dinnertime and his kitchen seemed the place to be, he saw the daisies. Simple flowers he had picked for her. Flowers that conveyed very little, certainly not a broken heart.

  Chapter 15

  There were negative actions and positive actions, and while the first kind brought confusion, the second kind brought power. When Maggie had turned away from Kurt because of what he’d done in Fritz’s truck, she had felt confused. She doubted that she deserved better than he. Yes, his proposition had been despicable, but deep inside she had still cared for him, had still needed to have him for her boyfriend. Loathso
me and despicable, but her boyfriend nonetheless.

  This, her second and final time leaving him, was an example of positive action. For once, she was acting for her own good, not just reacting out of hurt. Maggie felt power blooming inside her. She had taken her SATs and left the test feeling damned decent. Her grades for the quarter following her breakup with Kurt were A’s and B’s, landing her on the honor roll. Things were becoming clear.

  Walking home with Ned Devlin that Friday night, Maggie had realized there was more in the world to talk about than pot, keg parties, tattoos and body piercing, and what everyone might be doing that night. She and Ned had talked about What Things Meant. Characters in books and movies. If they had to be a fruit or vegetable, what kind would it be? (Ned would be an apple, Maggie would be beets. The redness of their choices had seemed to be significant, and they had talked about that.)

  That night Maggie had felt more sure that she wanted an education. College. Maybe a master’s degree. She had liked spending time with someone smart who took her seriously. She wasn’t in love with him or anything, but she wanted to write Ned a letter, to let him know how the SATs had gone.

  Her homework finished, she curled up on the love seat with some of the personalized stationery Anne and Matt had given her for Christmas two years ago, that she had once thought to be dorky but now considered classy.

  “Hey, Princess,” her father said, heading straight for the TV.

  She didn’t say anything, but watched him tune in to the Red Sox game. He had his trusty Bud and a bag of pretzels. It seemed that her parents had traded places: her father had finished his work at the big house, and now her mother was there every night, turning it into a country inn. A commercial came on. Watching her father switch channels, just being himself, Maggie didn’t feel as pissed off as usual. She was a woman on the way up.

  Dear Ned [she wrote],

  Thank you for walking me home that night. The SATs went really well, mainly because I didn’t have a hangover, so thank you for that, too. I did forget to bring an extra pencil (wasn’t that the last thing you said before you headed off into the night?). In fact, I forgot to bring any pencils. I had to borrow one from the girl next to me, and by the time the test was over, I had it worn down to the wood. I just hope the computer can read my little rubbings. (Unless they’re wrong, in which case, what the hell?)