by Donna Alward
Abby shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I have a box of a bunch of Edith’s finer jewelry, but the necklace wasn’t in it.”
That was too bad. If it belonged to Edith Foster, it had most likely been genuine gems and expensive. “Hang on a minute.” Jess went back into the workroom, pulled a drawer out of a plastic organizing box, grabbed a few more items, and returned to the desk. Once there she moved her tea and muffin aside to clear a spot and began lining up garnets and wire.
“It would need detailing, and the stones would need to be set in something special to imitate the foil backing, but I can see this with your dress. They’re not real rubies, of course, but…”
She looked up at Abby hopefully.
Abby’s eyes lit up. “I knew you’d know exactly what I’d like. How do you do that, Jess? You’ve got such a talent and a wonderful eye.”
The words sent a pang through Jess’s heart. She knew she was talented, but sometimes she let her own insecurities get the better of her. For a while her creativity, the deepest part of herself, had been stifled. More than stifled, she ruefully thought as she started packing away the beads. It’d been completely silenced by a man who had been charming on the outside and a monster in private. This life, this business, was her victory over an ugly past.
“You like it, then?”
“It’s perfect. That design would complement your dress, too. Can you make two?”
“I could make a smaller one in dark blue for me. If you want.”
Abby nodded. “That sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to see your dress when it’s back from the seamstress.”
Neither could Jess. It was the prettiest thing she’d ever put on. They’d found it in one of the chests at Abby’s along with lots of other vintage clothes. Most of the items Abby had graciously donated to the Historical Society. But some she’d held onto, including the deep blue gown that they’d guessed to be post World War One. The filmy fabric, beading, and drop waist suited Jess’s slightly bohemian style perfectly.
“Only a few more weeks now.” The wedding was scheduled for mid-October and would take place at the church with the reception at the Foster House garden, weather permitting. After a brief honeymoon—rumor had it they were going to Paris for a week—Abby and Tom would be living in the grand house together. Tom was already looking at turning the old garage into a woodworking shop and they were planning on renting out his cottage at Fiddler’s Rock.
Changes. Good ones. Sometimes Jess felt a little left behind. Which was silly because she had everything she wanted right here.
“I can’t believe I’m getting married,” Abby said quietly, a soft smile touching her lips. “It seems so impossible, and yet … not. Your cousin is pretty special, Jess.”
Jess raised an eyebrow. Tom was special. He’d supported her dream to open Treasures when others had discouraged it. He was also a pain in the butt, but as a member of the family, that was part of his job description. “I’ll never confirm that. It’ll get back to him and go straight to his head.”
Abby looked down at her mug and turned it around in her fingers. “I should probably tell you that he finally decided on a best man.”
Something in her tone made Jess’s heart beat out a warning. “Is it Bryce?” It made sense Tom would ask his brother to stand up with him.
There was a moment of silence in which Jess had a feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“No, not Bryce. Rick.”
Something strange swirled in Jess’s stomach, a weird flutter of nerves that she credited to her recent aversion to Rick Sullivan. “Really? But what about Bryce? They’re brothers and…”
“He offered it to Bryce first, but you know Bryce. For such a burly, alpha male, he really hates being anywhere near the center of attention. It was all Tom could do to convince him to be emcee at the reception. I wonder how he even made it through his own wedding.”
Jess forced a chuckle. “I think Tom had to drug him.”
The two women shared a smile. “Jess, tell me honestly, will Rick being the best man be a problem? I know you don’t get along, but he’s Tom’s closest friend.”
Jess frowned. To say how she truly felt would sound awful and small-minded. And she of anyone should know that people deserved second chances; that challenges and trials could take a lot out of a person, and Rick had had his share of both. Still. Rick was unpredictable with a substance abuse problem. And he’d be paired up with her for the entirety of the wedding day.
“I don’t know, Abby. I mean it’s your day. It’s just…” Jess sighed. She remembered the boy he’d been before joining the Marines. Always good for a joke and laughing, getting into his share of trouble with the boys, but nothing serious. Once, when he was fourteen and she was twelve, he’d kissed her in the equipment room at school while they were putting the basketballs away after lunchtime intramurals. It had been her first kiss, and she’d looked at him with stars in her eyes until he’d pulled some prank with Josh and Tom that had her steaming at the ears.
But the truth of the matter was, their relationship had always been fraught with ups and downs that went beyond childish pranks. When she was eighteen, they’d almost started something at her graduation party. Instead he’d cooled his jets without any explanation, leaving her behind a dune wondering what on earth she’d done wrong. These days all he thought about was feeling sorry for himself.
With another sigh and a shrug, Jess conceded defeat.
“Rick and I can manage to be civil for a day, I’m sure,” she assured Abby. She would not cause wedding trouble. It was Abby and Tom’s day and they should have it the way they wanted without bridesmaid drama. She just hoped Rick would stay sober throughout the day and not make an ass of himself.
Abby reached over and took Jess’s hand. “I know you have worries. Rick’s a bit of a loose cannon. But he’s been so much better since his mom took sick. And now she’s gone. Tom and I thought it would give him something positive, you know? He needs that.”
Jess couldn’t argue. And at least Rick had finally gotten a job. Granted, he’d been working for one of the whale boat charters, and like her own business, that was slowing down for the season. What would Rick do with all the extra time on his hands?
Hand, she reminded herself, and immediately felt guilty for her negativity. He had lost his hand in combat, after all.
“He does need that. I haven’t been a very good friend. It’s just that…”
She hesitated. She never talked about her past. Never talked about Mike, or the year and a half they’d spent together. It was something she’d rather forget and knew she never would. Some scars ran too deep.
“Just that what?” Abby asked, her face wreathed in concern. “Jess, are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay. Rick’s drinking had shaken her more than she liked to admit, bringing up painful memories of a history she’d worked hard to move beyond.
“I’m fine,” she said, putting on a smile and reaching for a second muffin. “It’ll be great, Abby. Your wedding is going to be perfect.”
* * *
Rick put the key in the lock and let the door swing open with a long, lonely squeak. He stood on the threshold, not entering the cozy white-and-green Cape Cod he’d once called home. It seemed wrong. Wrong that his mother wouldn’t be there to say hello in her warm, welcoming voice. She wouldn’t give him shit for never coming over or having a decent meal. She’d never make his favorite clam chowder again, or the blueberry cake with the cinnamon crumb topping that he liked so well, or hang clothes out on the clothesline to dance in the breeze.
It felt … final. That once he stepped off the porch and into the kitchen, it would really be real. She was never coming back.
He swallowed, trying to screw up his courage. All his life his mom had been his lighthouse. Even when he’d been far away, she’d been there, a light in the darkness to bring him home safely again, especially after she and Rick’s father had divorced when he was eight and it had just
been the two of them. She’d driven him to Little League, gone to every parent-teacher conference, and once bailed him out of jail when he’d been picked up for underage drinking when he was seventeen.
The disappointment in her eyes was worse than being arrested. Worse than the punishment she’d doled out, which had been walking the highway ditches three Saturdays in a row picking up garbage wearing an orange jumpsuit just like inmates wore.
He stood, looking in at the empty kitchen, and felt his anger build. It was damned unfair. Unfair that she’d taken sick just when he’d come back for good. Unfair that she’d had to suffer, that she’d had to die. Unfair that she hadn’t said anything about the recurring pain until the truth couldn’t be ignored. Now he was left all alone. No family. Not one relative he knew of that cared if he lived or died.
He’d needed her. He’d pushed her away more than he ought to. And now he wouldn’t have a chance to make it right. One thing he knew for sure. He didn’t give a good damn whether he’d been adopted or not. Roberta Sullivan had given him far too much for him to push her memory aside just because she’d died. She was, and always would be, his mother. He’d loved her as a son and he mourned her the same way.
A hornet buzzed by his head, reminding him that he was standing with the door open. He stepped inside and closed it, the catch clicking loudly in the silence. He felt a grief so intense he hardly knew what to do with it.
He’d seen horrible things, gruesome things, some of the worst parts of humanity, and he’d come through all right. Well, mostly. So why couldn’t he handle this without feeling like he was going to fall apart?
The house was too quiet. His footsteps echoed off the hardwood as he walked farther into the kitchen and threw the package his mom’s lawyer had given him that afternoon onto the worn table. Inside were his mom’s final papers, bank statements, and a safe deposit box key. God only knew what his mom had placed in the thing. Probably more papers and his childhood treasures. All of which he was definitely not up to going through at the moment. Instead, he walked over to the sink and turned on the radio on the kitchen counter. It was set to a country station out of Portland, so he turned the dial to the classic rock station instead. The familiar guitar licks of Angus Young and AC/DC filled the air and he let out a breath.
This was his house now. It was where he’d grown up. He shouldn’t feel so weird about the possibility of moving back in. But it was like trying to put on shoes that were a size too small. The shape was familiar but didn’t quite fit. The man he’d become bore little resemblance to that long-ago kid. He’d thought he’d had it so rough, but those had been the easy years. It really was true what they said: you couldn’t go back.
He turned on the tap and poured himself a glass of water. He could always sell the house, he supposed, looking around the room. A thin film of dust covered the surfaces. No one had lived here for several weeks. But he knew that under the dust was a place that his mom had taken great pride in—especially considering she’d shouldered all the financial responsibility after his dad took off. It would be stupid to sell when he was scrambling to pay rent for a run-down bachelor apartment on the northwest side of town.
If Jewell Cove had a “bad” area, that was it. It wasn’t the picturesque rainbow-colored buildings of Main Street with their fancy window boxes and stained-glass windows. It was people struggling to make ends meet and keep their heads above water. It had suited him just fine, because people minded their own damn business.
He went from the kitchen into the living room, past her favorite chair and the silent television and the video cabinet that held her chick-flick DVDs. Beyond that was the back porch, where a few pieces of wicker furniture made a nice spot to sit in the sun. Rick frowned, realizing that this porch would be the perfect spot to work on his painting. Lots of natural light and space that wasn’t taken up with anything important. Cabinets along one end, below the windows, where he could store his paints and brushes … and privacy, so no one need know what he got up to in his spare time. Not that anyone would believe it if they saw it. He wouldn’t have believed it either, but he could honestly say that his new hobby had been the one thing that had kept him sane since leaving the hot, dusty hell where he’d been deployed.
Was he really considering doing it? Moving back home?
He went up the stairs to the master bedroom, looked in on the abandoned bed and floral duvet, stared at the closed closet doors, and ventured into the bathroom where the scent of her lavender soap still mysteriously clung to the air even though she hadn’t lived at home for over a month.
He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t go through her things like they didn’t matter, like they belonged to someone else.
But he had to. He was the only one. He didn’t want a bunch of women from the church coming in and pawing through his mom’s stuff like a flock of crows. He took a moment and inhaled, and then exhaled slowly, dropping an intentional barrier over his emotions, deadening himself to the grief and sentimentality that had overtaken him so often lately. He knew how to do it. To block out the darkness and guilt and simply do the job at hand. God knows he’d managed it while overseas, any time Kyle’s name was mentioned. Dead inside. Yeah, that was it.
Jaw set, he went back out to his truck and retrieved the bundle of boxes and packing tape he’d brought along. Methodically he made up the boxes, adjusting to the awkward task using his prosthetic. Then he went through his mother’s clothing and personal effects, boxing them up for Goodwill. It was what she would have wanted. He had no use for her clothing, the shelves of old romance novels, face creams and makeup and hair rollers. Someone else might as well get good use out of them.
Lifting the boxes into his arms was awkward, but once he had the weight balanced it was no problem to carry them downstairs and into the back of his truck. Box after box of shirts, jeans, dresses, shoes. It was okay as long as he didn’t stop to think too much about them belonging to his mom. Detached. Unemotional. He could do this.
When her bedroom and bathroom were done, he ventured into the third bedroom, the “spare” room as she’d always called it, and the closet there. It contained very little: a few heavy winter coats that were out of season and a handful of banking boxes tucked in behind the clothes. Rick took one out, lifted the lid, and saw a row of coiled spines—photo albums.
His stomach clenched.
He put the lid back on. There were some things he simply couldn’t tackle today. One of them was a trip down memory lane.
“Rick?”
He jumped as a deep voice called up the stairs. Tom, if he could venture a guess. Part of his every-other-day check-in. Rick wanted to be annoyed, but the truth was he’d started to look forward to the short visits from Tom and Josh. Not that the two of them ever showed up together. Things weren’t that easy between the cousins yet. After falling in love with the same woman, Tom and Josh hadn’t spoken for years. But after Erin’s death, they’d both agreed to put the past behind them. Plus, Tom had Abby now. “Up here,” he called back.
Boots sounded on the stairs and Tom’s dark head peered around the corner. “Hey, buddy.”
Rick shut the closet door. “Hey.”
“I went by your place and your truck was gone. Asked Jack if you were working today and he said you were off. Figured I might find you here.”
“Detective Tom. I thought your brother was the one for police work.”
Tom grinned. “Law enforcement is so not for me. Bryce can have it,” he replied. His face sobered. “Packing up your mom’s things?”
“Some. Clothes and personal stuff. I don’t know what to do with the rest.”
Tom nodded. “You thinking of moving in? The furniture would come in handy.”
Rick shoved his hands in his pockets, looked around the room. It was so familiar, with the same dresser and curtains and bedspread that had been there for a good twenty years. His bedroom was the same, too—a boy’s room with white walls filled with thumbtack holes from old Red Sox and Bruins posters, a
pine bed, and dark blue spread. Baseball trophies lined a shelf. His mom hadn’t changed it even after he’d joined the Corps and left home. Like she’d expected him to come back the same Rick he’d been when he left.
“I don’t know. It’s definitely nicer than my current situation, but…”
“But there are a lot of memories here. And it’s still feeling very fresh.”
Rick met Tom’s even gaze. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That.”
“I bet Josh felt the same way when Erin died. Having to live in their house, you know? You should talk to him.”
Rick chuckled, a dry sound. “I’m not going to be the one to bring up Erin with Josh. You … you’ve got Abby now. Josh isn’t in a good place like you. He’ll tell me to shut the hell up and go pound sand.”
Tom smiled. “Probably. Listen, you need a hand with anything?”
Rick’s throat tightened. Tom had never judged, not even when Rick had messed up. He’d bailed Rick out of trouble more than once since he’d come home to stay and had been the one to convince Jack Skillin to give him a job. Rick was an only child, and Tom and Josh were the closest thing to brothers he’d ever had.
And Jess and Sarah and Bryce, too. That whole clan had accepted him. But when push came to shove, they weren’t blood. “I think I’ve done all I’m going to today.”
“Then let’s get some lunch. Crab cakes are today’s special at Breezes.”
Breezes, Rick thought dryly. Not The Rusty Fern, where they normally would have gone for a bite. But at the Fern there’d be the temptation of ordering a beer with lunch, and there was no alcohol served at the café. Not that Tom needed to worry. Rick understood his friends’ concerns, but he’d made his mom a promise. Plus, it wasn’t like it was that bad. Sure, he’d made a fuss a few times, but he wasn’t dependent on booze. He thought of Jess’s disapproving looks and something in his gut clenched.
“Hey, where’d you go? You in for lunch or what?”
Rick looked around him and felt the walls closing in. “Yeah, I’m in. I can drop that stuff off later. I’ve done enough for today, I think.”
