by Liz Flaherty
Sophie came during the homily and climbed Ben like he was a sturdy tree. He kissed her cheek and held her, looking over her blond head at where Kate stood beside Wendy. Kate was beautiful in a peach-colored dress with a scooped neckline, short little sleeves and what his mother had referred to as a handkerchief hem. He didn’t dare check to see what that was, because he kept envisioning a row of blue-and-red bandannas cavorting around the bottom of her dress. Laughing out loud during the ceremony wouldn’t be much better than crying.
At the end, though, when Dylan kissed his sister’s cheek, shook Jon’s hand and introduced the newly married couple, Ben had to swallow hard. He took his turn at kissing Morgan. Kate took his arm and they stepped into place behind Patrick and Wendy to follow the bride and groom to the vestibule.
Dylan’s voice spoke into the quiet that followed the audience applause for the couple. “This is a McGuffey wedding, and as you are all aware, things are known to be...different in our family. Jon, now a bona fide hyphenated McGuffey, has said he doesn’t want to stand in a receiving line, so it’s time for the wedding party to move on to the tavern for the reception. Everyone is welcome. If you can’t come, Morgan and Jon and both their families wish to offer their heartfelt gratitude for your attendance at their wedding.”
Ben thought later that even in the flood of emotion and memory-making that washed over the cluster of people in the church’s candlelit sanctuary, he would always recall with gratitude and respect that Jon had saved Tim from standing in a receiving line.
But Ben’s strongest memory of all was the feel of Kate’s hand holding his arm. It felt so right.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MORGAN AND HER father two-stepped slow and tender on the hardwood floor. They danced the length of the bar, their cheeks together, and executed a careful little twirl at the end, before Tim handed her over to Jon and took Maeve’s hand to go to the table where the wedding party sat. Tim’s complexion was ashen, his step unsteady.
“Pop?” When his parents were seated, Ben leaned past Kate to touch his father’s arm. She felt Ben’s tension against one side, Tim’s frailty on the other—it was a heartrending combination. “Do you want to go home? I can go with you. Mom can stay here.”
“Never for a minute.” Tim’s eyes were faded and tired but still twinkled the way Patrick’s and Dylan’s did. “Take to the floor with my girl Kate. Show them how it’s done.” He kissed her cheek. “You have an Irish heart, lass. My sweetheart and I love you for it. We always have.”
She kissed him back, smiling past him at Maeve. “And I think you’ve spent too much time with the blarney stone and a pint of Guinness, Mr. McGuffey. However—” She winked at him. “I love you and Maeve, too, and I could do with a dance.” She elbowed Ben none too gently in the side. “Come on, tall guy.”
“You know, in my day—” he affected a pained expression as he got to his feet “—a lady waited to be asked.”
“In your day?” She laughed. “When was that? As I remember it, the only way you danced was if I pushed you onto the floor or there were glasses to wash.”
“Well, yeah.” He waited for the beat from the musicians in the corner to swing her into the dance. “But I’d have asked if you’d waited.”
I was always waiting for you. Maybe I still am. She was glad she didn’t say the words aloud, although they created a pain that made her recoil from its sharpness as he pulled her against him on a twirl.
“Hey.” Concern knit his brows. “You okay, Katy?”
Come on, Katy....
“Fine.” She smiled at him. “You don’t dance too badly for such an old man.”
He kissed her forehead. “Here comes a younger one to take my place. Catch one later?”
“You bet.” Then Dylan stepped in and Ben danced away with Debby.
“It was a wonderful wedding,” Kate began, then noted a gleam in the blue depths of Dylan’s eyes. “You’re smirking. What’s on your mind, Father?”
“I do great weddings. You should try it sometime.”
“I think that ship’s sailed, don’t you?” Although she preferred dancing with Ben, she relaxed more with Dylan.
“We’re gonna do a dip now—you up for it?”
“You bet, but make sure you don’t drop me.”
They grinned at the applause they got for the deep dip and the spin that followed it.
“A day like today is such a gift,” Dylan said, “Being able to perform Morgan and Jon’s ceremony. Blessing Mom and Pop’s marriage and seeing the look in their eyes when they brought Morgan to the altar. Stepping down to be just the bride’s big brother when it was over. I think it would be fun to be the groom’s little brother, too. Just sayin’.”
“You’re a good man, Dylan.”
Ben cut in. “You’re done, is what you are. You’ve showed off for Mom and Pop and didn’t drop Kate on her head—which even I’ll admit I probably would have. For kicks and giggles if for no other reason. It’s time to get back to your wedding duties.”
“See?” Dylan appealed to Kate. “He always gets all the fun.”
Ben’s hand left Kate’s waist to give his brother a push, leaving a cool spot in its wake. “There’s a Guinness on the table with your name on it. I poured it myself, so stop your whining.” He gestured toward where Patrick stood talking to their parents, a glass in his hand, his free arm around Wendy. “And you need to get the toasts started. You know Dad won’t leave till they’re done.”
* * *
IT HAD BEEN, Kate thought later, washing glasses with Nerissa while Wendy cleared tables, the nicest wedding and reception she’d ever been a part of.
“If you and Ben had married,” Nerissa murmured, rinsing the stemware that had held champagne, “is this how it would have been?” It was obvious she hadn’t washed many bar glasses in her life, but she worked steadily if slowly, turning the glasses carefully onto the towels to drain.
Kate thought about that. “A little more disorderly, probably—Ben’s skiing friends would have made sure of that—but a lot the same. My sister Sarah and Penny and Morgan and Wendy would have been my bridesmaids, and we would have been laughing all the way up the aisle.”
The other woman smiled at her. “Like you were today when Sophie was so seriously picking up the flower petals her sister had scattered?”
Kate and Wendy both laughed. “Louder, I’m afraid, though that was definitely a good one,” said Kate. “The girls are so cute.”
“They are,” said Wendy, bringing the spray bottle and used towels to the bar. “That’s not bragging, is it? Oh, well, too bad if it is. I was really hoping Dylan would get Patrick and Ben crying—I know he was trying.”
Nerissa was aghast. “Really?” Her laugh was uncertain.
Kate grinned at Nerissa. “She’s kidding, sort of. But in answer to your question, yes, I’m sure that’s how my wedding would have been.”
Wendy straightened the front of her dress where the apron she’d worn for cleanup had creased it. “You feel like you escaped something, Nerissa?”
“In a way.” Nerissa’s answer was blunt, which somehow surprised Kate. “Because, you know, as nice as all the McGuffeys were to me, I never really fit in.” She laughed again, though the sound was a little short, a little breathless. “I’d have rather not been married at all than to have gotten the dresses from a consignment shop. If my bridesmaids had laughed their way up the aisle, I’d have been beside myself.”
“You’d have been fine.” Wendy’s voice was gentle. “Especially if you’d been doing it for Tim and Maeve, the way Morgan did this. The way we all did this. Including you and Mark, bringing your whole family to your ex-husband’s sister’s wedding.”
“I’d have done it,” said Nerissa, “but I wouldn’t have been fine. I’d have never gotten over it. It was easy to come this weekend—I still like all the McGuffeys, but I never really could have been one.” She dried her hands and turned to Kate. “Ben’s a dear and wonderful man. I hope you can wor
k things out between you.”
“There’s nothing to work out.” Kate’s answer was instant and honest. And painful. “I think we’ll always be friends, close friends. I’ll love him always, but we want different things. Even if we’re not always sure what those things are, we both know they don’t match up.”
* * *
“YOU GUYS WERE great.” Patrick scooped Wendy into his side and leaned to kiss Kate right square on the mouth. “Pop and Mom were thrilled. He was asleep before we left the house, and she was sitting there looking at pictures on the computer and making new memories. Dylan’s headed back to Montpelier. Morgan and Jon got off for their honeymoon. It was nice of Mrs. Hylton-Wise to let them use Bright Sky—they didn’t want to go far away.”
He left unspoken the reason they hadn’t wanted to put distance between Fionnegan and themselves, but they all understood it anyway. Ben bit his bottom lip, gazing fixedly at the bottles behind the bar to give himself time. It had been an emotional day, and thinking about his father would spread too much icing on that particular cake. “Can I give you a ride home?” he asked Kate.
“You can. I wasn’t looking forward to walking, even if it is only a few blocks.”
“Did Nerissa and Mark head back to Boston?” asked Patrick, looking around as though they might be hiding in the woodwork.
“Yes.” Wendy handed her husband the laundry bag of bar towels. “They were going to stay, but thought they’d be less tired Monday morning if they went home tonight. Penny’s girls cleaned the suite while they babysat the kids today, so you can go back to it tonight, Ben.”
He would be relieved to be back in the apartment over the garage, although the room he and his brothers had shared at his parents’ house was comfortable enough.
“You ready, Katy?” Ben asked, as someone turned off the lights in the tavern.
“I am.” She hugged Wendy and Patrick.
Ben kissed his sister-in-law and gave Patrick’s shoulder a thump. “See you later.”
The only two cars in the tavern parking lot were Patrick’s red convertible and Debby’s compact, which had died in its tracks when she had driven with Jayson to the reception.
“You know,” Ben said thoughtfully, taking Kate’s hand and looking around at the starlit night, “I don’t even know where my car is. I haven’t known how I got anywhere all day. Have you?”
She gave it some thought as they rounded the corner of Main Street and Creamery Road on the way to Alcott Street. “I could probably do a flow chart on the computer and figure it out,” she said, “but mostly I’m just glad I changed out of heels after the wedding. These three blocks would be really long if I hadn’t.”
“It was a nice wedding,” he said into the comfortable silence that surrounded them as they sauntered toward A Day at a Time. “Dylan did all right, though I won’t be saying that to him.”
She nodded, her hair swinging over against his chin. He pushed it out of the way, noting that she smelled good. She always smelled good. “He did very well,” she said. “It was a beautiful ceremony.”
“Patrick didn’t embarrass us by tripping or anything.”
He knew she rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see her do it. “I don’t think Patrick was the only concern there, Dr. Grace.”
“Morgan looked all right.” There, that should get a reaction.
He wasn’t disappointed. She stopped with the squeak of one of her flip-flops, her hands coming to the silky hips of her dress and her hair swinging again against the creamy skin of her neck. He thought he’d like to move that hair aside and kiss her there.
When she spoke, it wasn’t as though she had any kissing on her mind. “Morgan looked gorgeous, tall guy. Absolutely gorgeous. Are you completely blind?”
He laughed, swinging her into one more dance as they crossed the street. “Come on, Katy. You know I’m only kidding. Of course she looked gorgeous. So did you and Wendy and What’s-her-name that was the other bridesmaid. You’d have probably looked better if you’d worn those neckties, but there weren’t enough to go around.”
The beautiful starlit night that followed his sister’s glorious wedding day wouldn’t last—he knew that. In just a couple of minutes, they’d be at the green-shuttered white building on Alcott Street. He’d check inside the house to make sure it was safe, kiss Kate quickly and lightly like a friend, then stand on the porch until he heard the lock of her door click behind her.
He’d walk back to the bed-and-breakfast. He was fearless in this little town where he’d grown up even though he’d worked in enough emergency rooms to know being fearless anywhere came down on the side of being foolhardy.
Foolhardy. It had been one of his dad’s favorite words while the boys were growing up. “You’re by way of being foolhardy,” spoken in a low, foreboding voice used to slow them down. But not stop them. Ben had been an adult before he understood that was Tim’s plan all along.
Ben wasn’t going to think of the world without his father in it. Not tonight, at least. He was going to think about his happy siblings and his mom looking at memories on the computer and Jayson dancing with Kate out of step but somehow in perfect time. Then he was going to pour himself a bottle of something dark and malty and think about just Kate. In his arms in her silky dress with her hair shining around her shoulders and her smile like a picture in his mind he would like to look at forever. He would think about what should have been.
When they had arrived at her back door and she had unlocked it, he forgot all about kissing her quickly and lightly. He forgot all about being friends. He kissed her like a lover would, and she kissed him back. They stood and swayed with their own music in each other’s arms and he thought if he never again knew for sure what happiness was, at least there had been this long day of it. There were these minutes on the hollow-sounding boards of her porch with the stars flickering through the changing leaves of the maple trees and the moon a big orangey Japanese lantern shining over them.
He left her, although he didn’t want to. He left her because they’d agreed to friendship and it wouldn’t have been fair to ask her if he could stay. No matter how much either of them wanted him to, and he thought maybe she wanted it as much as he did.
It had been a perfect day.
* * *
SHORTLY AFTER NOON on Sunday, Tim McGuffey confessed to his son and received the anointing of the sick. He made jokes about “Tura Lura Lura” so that his boys had no choice but to sing it to him in hushed and choking voices. He laughed and went to sleep with his hand in Maeve’s. “Och, and I do love ye, Maeve, my fine girl.”
“Mom let him go then,” Ben told Kate a few hours later when he came to tell her his father was gone. “She leaned over and said something in his ear, and I think she told him it was okay to rest. That she would be all right. When he stopped breathing it was so quiet we almost didn’t hear it. Patrick and I both pronounced him. It’s what he would have wanted us to do. Then we prayed with Dylan. On our knees like he always insisted was the only right way.”
Kate stood still, holding the blue-and-white cups she’d taken from the cubbies below the cabinet in hands she didn’t know what to do with. Grief for the man who’d been nearly as much a father to her as her own robbed her of breath. After a moment that felt like an hour, she whispered, “He would have liked that.”
Ben nodded, looking away from her, then back, with pain-filled eyes. “He got to say goodbye to all of us, even Morgan. We called her and held the phone to his ear so he could talk to her and Jon. ‘Take care of my wee little girl,’ he said to him. ‘She’ll lead you on a merry chase.’ Jon told him that was what he was hoping for and Pop laughed.” Ben stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turned his back again, so he could stare through the mullioned glass door into the backyard.
“It was the weirdest thing. There’d been music in the house all through the day. Celtic stuff he loved, just flowing through the air like the sweetest kind of lullaby—Wendy even rocked Sophie to the so
und of it. When he died, the music stopped. No one turned it off, and we thought the stack of CDs must have just ended then. But they hadn’t. We could almost hear Pop laughing, saying, ‘See, that’ll teach you to have doubts, me fine lads.’ When I left to come over here, there were already black ribbons tied to the park bench in front of the tavern.”
Kate put down the cups and went to where Ben stood inside her back door. She put her arms around him. They held each other close, there in her little kitchen with the scent of fresh coffee all around them. And they cried.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS AS her Tim would have wanted it, Maeve said when her women friends and their daughters gathered to help her through those difficult days when there was first an empty place across the table and no one to sit in the other recliner. He did not die, she said, as it would have grieved him to do, on his “wee lass’s” wedding day. He didn’t rob his sweetheart of a night’s sleep or worry about his children being on the roads in the dark. He didn’t interrupt Dylan’s Sunday morning mass for the purpose of whisking his father off to the other side.
But yet, she said, her green eyes still dark with grief, her world was an empty place without him. Even though he’d irritated the very socks off her—on purpose more often than not—she missed him every minute.
Comfort came from a surprising source when Mrs. Hylton-Wise stopped by the afternoon Kate was getting ready to take her parents to the airport in Burlington. They’d come to Fionnegan for the funeral and spent a few days with Kate.
Maggie had a bottle of wine and a huge basket of knitting. “In a tremendously weak moment, I promised that son of yours I’d make fifty of these cancer-patient caps for the hospital in Fionnegan and I’ve only gotten seven done. You’re just the person to help me.”
“I like to knit,” Maeve allowed, “and I like that wine, for sure. When do you need them done?”
“We have three days.”
Ben’s mother gaped, then looked suspicious. “You don’t strike me as a last-minute type of woman.”
