Home Fires

by Luanne Rice

  “It’s because we loved her so much,” Gabrielle said. “And we want her on the island. A place where we can visit her.”

  “Her grave’s in Pennsylvania,” Anne said dumbly.

  In the aftermath of Karen’s fall, Anne’s grief had been such that she had allowed Matt to bury Karen in his family’s plot. They hadn’t planned for, or even considered, the possibility of her death. At the time Matt’s decision had seemed best. On a long hillside, the cemetery overlooked apple orchards and a gentle river. Karen was buried among her grandparents and great-grandparents from Matt’s family. The grave site was lovely, but so very distant.

  “I know she’s far away,” Gabrielle said. “That’s why Maggie thought of the garden.”

  “Oh, it was your idea?” Anne asked, reaching for Maggie’s hand.

  “Yes.”

  “I wish we’d brought her to the island,” Anne said.

  “We have her in our hearts,” Maggie said. “I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true. I think of her every day.”

  “This will be her place,” Anne said, her gaze drifting to the gardenin-progress.

  “We won’t tell anyone who stays here. Strangers, I mean,” Maggie said. “We’ll keep it in the family.”

  “Did you see the herbs and flowers I picked out?” Gabrielle asked. She headed over to the garden, and Maggie followed.

  When Gabrielle looked over her shoulder, to ask Anne whether she’d had the chance to study the map she had made, she saw Anne sitting where they had left her. Anne was staring at the sky. She wasn’t smiling, and she wasn’t crying. Her expression was somewhere in between, and there was a very far-off look in her eyes. If Gabrielle had to guess, she would say that Anne was somewhere in western Pennsylvania. Near the top of a long slope, listening to the current of a lazy river, with the scent of apple blossoms heavy in the air.

  Chapter 16

  The word came that Ned was to be the valedictorian of his class. Every day the mailbox was full of parcels postmarked Hanover, NH. They contained information for Thomas Devlin about events at Dartmouth, which, as the parent of an incoming freshman, he might enjoy: football games starting in September, a three-day parents’ weekend in October, the hockey and basketball seasons, Winter Carnival in February, and much, much more.

  He knew that he should be bursting with pride for his son, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t ever remember being so disappointed in Ned. The disappointment was like a pellet lodged in his throat, and he couldn’t get rid of it. He carried it around with him all the time.

  He made more trips into town than necessary, just hoping to catch sight of Anne. Sometimes she’d be standing at the counter in her office, explaining the boat ride to a pair of tourists. Or she’d be talking on the phone, her pencil scribbling down the details of a reservation. Often he wouldn’t see her at all.

  Once, as he downshifted his truck, he ground the gears so badly it sounded like a car being mangled at the junkyard. Anne looked up, and their eyes met. Thomas felt himself blush. He tried to smile, but by the time he got his mouth working, he had already passed her window and was halfway down the block.

  That night he was huddled over his workbench, adjusting the counterweights on Ginny Cole’s wall clock, a handmade beauty her brother had brought her back from Switzerland. Work helped Thomas forget the knot in his throat. It made the time fly, so at eleven, when the phone rang, he was startled to see the hour. He dove for the receiver, hoping to hear Anne’s voice. He heard Ned’s.

  “Sorry to be calling you so late, Dad,” Ned said. “But it’s about my graduation. There were a few things I was wondering.”

  “Like what?”

  “Did you get the letter from school? About me being named valedictorian?”

  “Yes. Congratulations.” Thomas tried to put a little warmth in his voice, but he couldn’t quite succeed.

  Ned laughed nervously, sensing that something was up. “I thought you’d call me when you found out, that’s all. It’s pretty cool, huh?”

  “It’s amazing. I’m proud of you, Ned.”

  Ned seemed to be waiting for Thomas to say more. When he didn’t, Ned cleared his throat nervously.

  “The other thing is, you know Maggie Vincent? Anne’s niece?” Ned asked.

  “Yes.”

  “She and I have kind of been writing letters back and forth since my vacation, and I was sort of wondering if you’d mind driving her up for graduation.”

  Thomas Devlin felt so riled, he had to count to ten before speaking. Here was Ned, asking him to drive to graduation with a girl Ned hadn’t said two words to over the years, mentioning Anne’s name only as a matter of reference. Not once, in any call or letter, had Ned told Thomas to please feel free to invite Anne.

  “What do her parents say?” Thomas asked.

  “Well, I talked to her a little while ago, and they said it’s okay with them if she can get a ride.”

  “What about all your stuff? Won’t you need the extra room for carting home your things?”

  “We’ll stick it in the back of the truck. I’ll have it all packed in boxes so it won’t fly around.”

  “What if it rains?” Thomas asked, running short on objections. He felt reluctant and cranky, and he knew he was being unreasonable. They could always use a tarp and tie-downs.

  “We can cover everything with a tarp,” Ned said, his father’s son. “There’s plenty of room for three people in the cab. Especially Maggie. She’s small.”

  Like her aunt, Thomas thought, hearing an unfamiliar, brand-new tone of yearning in Ned’s voice.

  “I guess so, then,” Thomas said.

  “Thanks, Dad. This’ll be really fun. You won’t regret it.”

  “I’m sure I won’t.”

  “It’s just a couple of weeks away. I can’t wait.”

  “Me neither,” Thomas said.

  Silence filled the line.

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” Ned asked. “You sound funny.”

  “It’s just late,” Thomas said.

  After they had hung up, Thomas stretched out on the cot in his workshop and thought about the truth of those last words.

  Love doesn’t come along every day, at least not for him. Well into his middle age, he felt love so strong he could imagine dying of it. Lying there, he closed his eyes and folded his hands on his chest. He felt racked with pain and disappointment, and he wondered whether it was possible for his emotions to do serious damage to his heart.

  He didn’t begrudge Ned his girl. If Ned wanted Maggie, Thomas was all for it. He only wished that Ned could grow up a little, that Ned could wish the same, in return, for his father.

  ON the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, the entire island was invited to the grand opening of Fitzgibbons’. The day was brilliant, so clear you could practically see the houses on Cape Amelia, all the way across the sound. Anne drove down Salt Whistle Road in a parade of cars. Bed-and-breakfasts were springing up everywhere, but all the islanders knew they’d get good food at any grand opening thrown by Gabrielle.

  Anne wore a white linen sundress and wide-brimmed straw hat; she walked barefoot across the front lawn. People milled around, holding cups of punch and tasting the food. A checkered cloth covered a long table laden with shellfish stew, clam pie, island spring rolls, peppercorn-cheese straws, crudités from Gabrielle’s garden, and a slew of homemade muffins, chocolate cake, and oatmeal cookies.

  Anne recognized old friends and some of the emergency workers who had last come to this house the night it was on fire. She encountered none of the hostility she had felt all winter. Perhaps she had redeemed herself, in the islanders’ eyes, by staying through the worst weather. Everyone seemed friendly, as if the festivities had put the island in a good mood.

  Weekend guests, Gabrielle’s first, had forgone the beach, bicycling, whale watching, in favor of the party. Anne picked them out of the crowd: one couple had been into the office yesterday, to sign up for the afternoon trip. Gabrielle was talking to them no
w. Leaning against the porch rail, regaling them with some dramatically told story, she was in her glory.

  Anne moved through the crowd, hoping to come across Thomas. The firefighters kept to their own, clustered with their wives and, in some cases, parents. Thomas wasn’t among them. Even though she knew it was for the best, Anne couldn’t believe that weeks had passed since she had seen him. Some nights she would awaken in a sweat, terrified at whatever impulse had made her drive him away. Then she’d lie awake, unable to fall back to sleep, wondering whether she had forever lost her knack for love.

  Sometimes she dreamed of seeing him on a crowded street, calling his name and waving wildly. Only, the louder she called, the faster he seemed to walk away. Many nights, especially after those dreams, Anne would stare at the telephone, thinking of things she could say if she called him. But she didn’t.

  This party would be the perfect place to bump into each other. Anne was sure he knew about it: Gabrielle had tacked up signs all over the island, placed an ad in last week’s paper, and sent out flyers. She imagined their meeting, awkward at first, but then comfortable. It was a coward’s fantasy, one that required no direct action on her part, and she knew it.

  Maggie circulated with a pitcher full of punch. “Would you care for some delicious, refreshing punch?” she asked Anne.

  “Sure,” Anne said, holding out her empty cup. Maggie had trimmed and brushed her hair. She wore a pink-flowered sleeveless dress, the straps crisscrossing in back. Anne couldn’t ever remember her looking so demure.

  “You look pretty.”

  “Is it too suburban? Do I look like I could walk into a country club without getting kicked out?”

  “No, and yes. In that order.”

  “Good. ‘Cause I’m wearing it to Ned’s graduation. Mom broke down and said I could go. His father’s driving me.”

  “Thomas?” Anne said. Just saying his name made her heart flip over. As if she could somehow have conjured him up, she glanced around the crowd again.

  “Yeah, Mr. Devlin. Mom says you’re not going out with him anymore.”

  Anne heard the question in Maggie’s voice, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Before other people knew about her and Thomas, they had discovered amazing love, deep and true. But Thomas had a son, and Anne had a not-quite-ex-husband, and she was still too damaged to withstand the upset and confusion that their love for each other seemed to cause everyone.

  “Have you seen him today?” Anne asked.

  “No, but I’m sure he’ll stop by. This is the place to be on the island.”

  “It does seem to be.”

  “Well, I’d better keep passing out punch,” Maggie said. “I’m on the time clock, paying off this dress Mom bought for me.”

  “Go to it,” Anne said. She wandered through the crowd, heading in the direction of the herb garden. She hadn’t visited it since she, Maggie, and Gabrielle had consecrated it in Karen’s memory. Maybe by the time she was done, Thomas would have arrived.

  But twenty minutes later, when Anne returned to the heart of the party, there was still no sign of him. By the end of the afternoon, when the last islanders were pulling away from Fitzgibbons’, leaving the house to the family and their paying guests, Anne knew that she had to face the fact that Thomas Devlin was not coming.

  MAGGIE had looked at a map, but she didn’t have any real sense of how long a drive it was to Deerfield. She and Mr. Devlin had caught the first ferry. He had excused himself as soon as the boat pulled away, probably to go inside for coffee so he wouldn’t have to talk to her for the entire trip. Maggie knew the feeling. Relieved, she bunched the blue blazer she had borrowed from her mother into a ball, wedged it against the truck window, and dozed off.

  She’d managed to fake sleep all along I-95, but now they were on the Mass Pike, and she had the feeling she was being rude. Honestly stretching, she pretended to yawn.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” she said, feeling shy. Now he would feel like he had to make conversation with her. He would ask her about her plans for the future, what she thought about the decision to enlarge Island Consolidated School, what her favorite subjects were. She took a deep breath and waited.

  But he didn’t say a word. He just drove along, his elbow leaning on the door rest. He didn’t whistle or hum, and he didn’t ask whether she would mind if he turned on the radio. He seemed extremely comfortable with silence.

  Maggie took a quick glance at him. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, if you didn’t look at his face. Even taller than Ned, he had great big shoulders and arms so muscular they looked like they might pop his sleeves. He wore a blue suit and black loafers that were extremely huge. Maggie wondered where big people like Mr. Devlin did their shopping. Life on the island was probably pretty inconvenient for him when it came to stuff like needing new shoes or pants, or anything else for that matter, in a hurry.

  She snuck a peek at his hands. They were speckled with white and reddish-purple craters, like a gory mad scientist’s vision of the lunar surface. Just picturing those hands on Anne made Maggie shudder. It was hard for her to imagine Anne going to Mr. Devlin from a man as handsome as Uncle Matt.

  But Maggie knew that Anne cared for him very much. She had recognized that expression in Anne’s eyes, at the grand opening when she’d asked Maggie if Mr. Devlin had arrived yet. It was a look of love, and boy do I know looks of love, Maggie thought.

  How many times had Maggie stood at her bedroom dresser, listening to a crying song on the radio and thought of Kurt while staring at her own reflection in the mirror? Not recently, not since that night at Pirates’ Cave, but she hadn’t forgotten. She knew the gaze: faraway, sad, full of longing for what you wanted more than anything in the world.

  Ned had been a jerk about Anne, and he knew it. Maggie’s parents would die when they got their phone bill, but many the late night lately had found Maggie and Ned on the telephone, telling each other everything. One of the things Ned talked about was how bad he felt for not wanting Anne around. He couldn’t help the way he felt, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Seeing Anne, especially with his father, made him feel too bad about his mother.

  “Get over it,” Maggie urged him. “Your father deserves a life.”

  “I know,” Ned said, but even so, he couldn’t soften toward Anne.

  “Does she know how I feel about her?” Ned asked, and Maggie knew he hoped the answer was no.

  “Anne’s pretty sharp about stuff like that,” she had to tell him.

  “Do you think they broke up because of me?”

  “You have delusions of grandeur,” Maggie had said, although secretly she thought it was a possibility.

  Now, riding along beside Ned’s father, she thought back on their telephone conversations with sheer amazement. In all their time together, Kurt had never told her one one-hundredth of the things Ned had. Maggie had kept so much locked inside, because Kurt never wanted to talk. She’d found herself pouring everything out to Ned: about Fritz, about what Kurt had wanted her to do, about Karen.

  Sometimes she spent half the call with tears running down her face. Ned couldn’t see her, but he could hear it in her voice, and she never even felt embarrassed. All this with a guy she’d never slept with, or even kissed.

  Sometimes he told her he wished he could give her a hug, and she’d smile because he sounded so cute and innocent. One thing he hadn’t admitted was the status of his virginity, but Maggie was fairly certain that it was intact.

  “I know Ned is glad you could make it today,” Mr. Devlin said, and for a split second Maggie had the horrible notion that he’d been reading her mind.

  “So am I,” Maggie said.

  The conversation went dead again as the truck passed through some of the most gorgeous countryside Maggie had ever seen. She had been reading college catalogs in the school library, and there were a few really interesting colleges in the Berkshires. She had happened to notice that Dartmouth wasn’t all tha
t much farther north. One thing she hadn’t been able to tell Ned yet was how much credit she gave him for helping her get a new start: take her SATs, stop hanging out with druggies, and believe in herself. She’d tell him someday.

  Glancing at Ned’s dad, she noticed his eyes. He had no eyebrows or eyelashes, and there was something about the lids that made Maggie think that he’d had a lot of plastic surgery around there. For a second, with his funny-lidded eyes, he reminded her of Fishy, her childhood goldfish. Alone and sad and swimming in circles. There was something lost about Mr. Devlin. He didn’t exactly have Anne’s look of love; it was something worse. It was a look of lost love.

  “We missed you at the grand opening,” Maggie said.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. Everyone said it was terrific.”

  “Anne was looking for you,” Maggie said.

  When he didn’t reply, she was afraid she’d said the wrong thing. That she was meddling, just like her mother. But then Mr. Devlin looked over at her.

  “She was?” he asked.

  “Yes. She asked me if I had seen you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um, how is she?” Mr. Devlin asked, a thoughtful frown on his poor scarred lips.

  “Holding herself together,” Maggie said. “She’s been through a lot.”

  “I know.”

  “Yes, I have the feeling you do,” Maggie said kindly.

  Silence blanketed the cab. Outside, the sun had risen above the tree line, making every pine needle sparkle with dew. It would be a beautiful day for graduation. Maggie had never been to a prep school, and she felt more excited with every passing mile. For once, she felt perfectly dressed. She had even borrowed her mother’s pearl stud earrings. She had left her usual array at home, all except for her lucky pair of dangling dice. Only two earrings in each ear: very restrained.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Devlin said a few miles down the road.

  It’s nothing, Maggie had been about to say, but she stopped herself. She nodded at him. They both knew what he meant. In a very real way, she had just given him a gift, and thanks were not the least bit out of line.