by Loree Lough
Enjoy it while you can, she warned, because old habits die hard. How long before she slipped back into her cautious, suspicious ways? Never would be nice.
Smiling, she sank deeper into the suds. “Well, a girl can hope.”
9
Aren’t we an oddball bunch? Matt thought, grinning. The weirdness started with Austin, who’d insisted that Matt sit at the head of the table, “Because if you think I’m gonna jog from this end to that every time I get a yen to kiss my best girl, you’ve got another think comin’.” The twins sat to Matt’s right and left. Harriet, Bud, and Flora lined up on Warner’s side of the table, Mercy and Austin on Steve’s. Across from Matt at the far end of the table sat Honor, wearing a fuzzy, elbow-length sweater that not only matched the blue flecks in her enormous green eyes, but accented her curvy figure, too.
He could barely see the satiny white flowers etched into the fabric of the tablecloth, thanks to bowls and baskets and platters, all filled to overflowing. The blend of scents hung like an invisible cloud above them, and the steam from pots and pans hazed the windows, taking him back to those rib-sticking Grandma cooked-and-baked dinners of his childhood. Steve had drawn a plate-sized heart in the fog, and Warner fingered M.S. + A.F. inside it, and Matt wondered if the happy couple would take their eyes off one another long enough to notice.
Everyone in this sunny dining room had a lot to be thankful for, from Flora, whose cancer had been in remission for more than two years, to Mercy and Austin, who’d found each other again after misunderstandings and stubbornness kept them apart for months. Harriet had cleared eight boxes of God-knows-what from her basement, and the twins earned twenty bucks apiece for helping her accomplish the feat. Matt had their good health, a mortgage-free house, and a dependable car to be grateful for, and God willing, a shot at winning a coveted award for his article on the Chesapeake Bay. And then there was Honor, all pink-cheeked and glowing despite the rumor shadow that followed her everywhere. Matt had no idea if she could find something to give thanks for today, but she looked happy. And after everything Brady Shaw’s report had subjected her to, that was something, right?
“The table looks wonderful,” Flora said. “All these beautiful dishes!”
“Pass the beautiful breadbasket, please. And while you’re at it, the beautiful butter dish, too.”
“Bud,” his wife said, “you’re incorrigible.” And then she kissed his cheek.
“You know, I thought Austin, there, was crazy, not taking his proper place at the head of the table, but if this is why he’s breaking tradition?” He returned the kiss. “I’m more and more inclined to agree with him.”
Austin kissed Mercy, just because he could, and Warner whimpered. “It’s a good thing my stomach is empty.”
“Why’s that?” Harriet wanted to know.
“Because all this mush might just make me throw up.”
“Not suitable table talk, son,” Matt said, forefinger wagging like a metronome.
Warner responded with a quiet sigh, and Matt groaned inwardly, but not for the same reason as his son. Honor might as well have been a mile away. Not that he was in any position, literally or figuratively, to kiss her, but he sure as heck wanted to.
He might have given the admission a moment’s thought, if Steve hadn’t piped up with, “If somebody doesn’t say the blessing, the potatoes will taste like cardboard and the gravy will congeal.”
“Congeal,” his twin echoed, snickering. “Are you fer real? Mrs. Wiley didn’t really mean that you have to use every spelling word in a sentence.”
“Your breath is getting ready to congeal,” he shot back.
“Your face has already congealed.”
Steve crossed both arms over his chest, and for a moment there, all gathered thought he’d been bested. Until he smirked. “Yeah, well, your brain must have congealed because everybody knows that’s just plain dumb.”
The adults laughed, enjoying the banter, but it made Matt nervous. Not so much because he’d refereed hundreds of similar verbal sparring matches over the years as something Honor had said on the phone, about not having much patience for squabbling kids.
“Li’l Stevie is right,” Harriet said. “Who’ll do the honors?” For the first time since they’d gathered around the table, the room fell silent. Every head turned, every eye was on Matt. He blinked. And swallowed. “Why are you all lookin’ at me?”
” ‘Cause the guy in that chair says the blessing,” Austin pointed out.
“And slices the turkey,” said Mercy.
The resolute expressions aimed his way told Matt that despite what he did for a living, he would never come up with the words that would help him weasel out of the prayer. “Well, don’t just sit there like a bunch of zoo monkeys,” he said, grinning, “fold your eyes and close your hands.”
“Dad!” the boys blurted, and when the laughter died down, Matt cleared his throat. “Dear Lord,” he began, and like dominoes toppling, the sound of heads bowing and hands clasping rippled down the table like a gentle wave, “we thank you for the generosity of our hostess, who opened her home to this motley crew.”
“Motley,” Warner whispered, giggling.
“Sh-h,” Steve hissed past his own snicker.
Matt raised his voice, just enough to silence them, and grinning, continued. “We ask Your blessing, Father, on the veritable feast Mercy has prepared, and on Mercy, who for reasons known only to You has consented to marry a man who’s more brother than friend. Thank you for Flora’s healing, and for the good health You’ve bestowed on everyone at this table. Watch over the brave men and women who fight for our freedom, and their families, who wait and worry here at home. Go with every first responder, Father, as they walk into unknown dangers to keep us safe. Comfort and provide for those rendered homeless by any one of a hundred calamities. We ask these things in Your most holy name, Amen.”
He barely heard the enthusiastic Amens that echoed his own, because when Matt looked up, it rocked him to see a trembly smile playing at the corners of Honor’s mouth. Still more surprising were the tears shimmering in her eyes.
“That was beautiful,” she whispered, and the words floated to him like a welcomed summer breeze. People liked to say that God works in mysterious ways, and Matt had never agreed more. If Austin had sat him beside Honor, she’d be all tangled up in a hug right about now, trying to decide whether to participate in the kiss … or punch him on the jaw.
It took a few seconds to realize that all eyes were on him again, this time waiting for him to carve the turkey. Standing, Matt picked up the big-handled blade and executed a few moves learned while on the fencing team in college. It tickled the men and boys and terrified the women.
“Just slice the bird, y’big show-off,” Harriet said with a cluck of her tongue.
“Yeah, Dad,” Warner agreed, “before we all faint from starvation.”
Steve hid behind one hand. “He’s right, Dad.”
“I read someplace that it takes weeks to starve,” Flora put in.
“Speaking of reading,” Bud said, and launched into his annual “what really happened at the first Thanksgiving” spiel.
When someone suggested they take turns going around the table, naming one thing they were thankful for, Matt thanked God that Honor’s sweet potato casserole distracted them because he couldn’t think of one thing to add to his prayer … except to admit how grateful he was that God had put Honor into his life.
Halfway through dessert, Austin’s cell phone buzzed, and he stepped into the foyer to take the call. His former jovial expression gave way to one of high alert as he said, “There was a multicar pileup on the Bay Bridge.” He grabbed his prepacked duffle and, shouldering it, kissed Mercy goodbye. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”
A chorus of “Praying!” and “Be carefuls” followed him to the door, and when he closed it behind him, Mercy went into the kitchen.
He’d been in Austin’s shoes, plenty of times. Matt started to follow her, hopin
g to smooth things over and spare his pal the “your job is too dangerous you have to quit before I go insane” nonsense he’d faced so many times with Faith. But Honor stopped him with nothing more than a brow quirk. “I’ll go,” she said as the chatter rose up again.
It was a simple thing, really: she’d sent a silent message, and he’d received it. Happened to couples all the time, right? Not so simple after all, when he considered that in the eight years he and Faith had been together—and they’d been about as close as two people could get—nothing even remotely like it had ever happened between them.
10
Mercy was facing the window when Honor entered the kitchen. “You okay?”
She hung her head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
“Takes a special person to do what he does,” she said, laying a hand on Mercy’s forearm, “and it takes an equally special person to wait at home.”
A ragged sigh rumbled from the smaller woman’s throat. “He changed me in just about every imaginable way—all of it good—except for this white-hot fear that takes over my mind when he’s out on a call.”
Honor put an arm around her, led her to the big island counter in the center of the room, and poured them both a cup of coffee. “I know what you’re going through.”
That inspired a tiny grin. “What! You’re one of them. How can you know what I’m going through?”
Honor saw no spite or anger written on Mercy’s worried face, but it was there, in her anxious voice. “I wasn’t always one of them.”
Raised brows and wide eyes told her she had the woman’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“About ten years ago, I was engaged to a firefighter. Every time he was called away from a date, or a family dinner, or one of our phone conversations was interrupted by one emergency or another, I went into a funk. Pacing a path in the rug, gnawing my cuticles bloody, praying for that phone call that would tell me he was home, safe and sound …” Even the memory of it was enough to inspire tremors, and when she reached for her mug, Honor nearly overturned it. “If I had a dollar for every time I thought about asking him to leave the department to—I don’t know, sell widgets at Wal-Mart—I could have paid for our wedding a couple times over.”
“But you never asked him to leave, did you?”
“No.”
“Because it would have been like asking him to cut off his leg.”
Honor nodded. “Prayer. Faith. Trust in his skills. Belief that he loved what we had enough to want to come home … that’s what kept me going between emergencies.”
“When Austin showed up in Chicago, I was never so happy to see someone. Or so horrified.”
“Because the nightmares you thought you’d escaped were standing right in front of you.”
She grabbed a napkin from the basket on the countertop and blotted her teary eyes. “And because I knew as sure as he was standing there outside my door,” she said, knuckles rapping the granite, “that he’d ask me, one more time, to give his whole God thing a try … and that even though I didn’t get it, I’d say yes.”
“And pack up your things and follow him back here.”
“And follow him back here. But kids?” Mercy shook her head. “Austin talks about it all the time. How he’d love to have a houseful, and at least one boy, to carry on the Finley name. I get that, really I do. But if something happened to him out there, it’d just be me, alone with all those kids, even the one who’d carry on the Finley name.”
“I hear ya, girl. But you can’t let fear rule your life. Give God some credit because I’m sure He isn’t ready for an Austin Finley up there,” she said, thumb pointed at the ceiling, “riling up all the angels!”
Mercy laughed. “I never thought of it that way.” Then, “So how’d you end things with your fiancé, if I’m not being too nosy?”
“I didn’t end it. He did.”
“Whoa. Never saw that coming,” Mercy said, refilling their mugs.
“September 11 happened, and some of the guys decided to put in for vacation time and drive up to New York, to see what they could do.”
Mercy grabbed Honor’s hands and squeezed them tight. “No …”
“An I-beam gave way and pinned him down. There were so many others trapped in the rubble, and not nearly enough personnel to dig them out.”
And he bled to death, all alone in a tunnel of fire and ash.
“I’m sorry, Honor, so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, wrapping both hands around her mug. “John’s death gave real purpose to my life. I can’t prevent tragedies and I can’t save every victim, but I can do everything in my power to help put more boots on the ground.”
“And if your work saves just one life …”
“If,” she said, “the biggest little word in the English language.”
“You think if I volunteered, I’d have a better understanding of what Austin does, what he goes through out there?”
“Somebody has to keep the home fires burning, give them incentive to be careful, to come home …”
“Can I ask you a really personal question?”
Honor grinned. “Sure.” At least Mercy would temper her prying with a little decorum.
“How do you feel about Matt?”
She’d set her jaw, expecting the inquiry would involve Brady Shaw’s story. “Matt? I—I, ah, how do I feel about him …”
“Down, girl,” Mercy said, patting her hand. “You don’t have to answer.” She winked. “I pretty much know, anyway.”
“Then I wish you’d tell me because I honestly have no idea how I feel about him.” The words poured out like rain from a downspout … how they’d met, things she’d said to him, ways she’d included him in the list of shady reporters, stories they’d shared.
“I don’t know him very well, myself, but Austin thinks the world of him.”
“So you’re suggesting I abide by the birds of a feather rule, eh?”
“Something like that.”
But what if Austin and Mercy were wrong? What if Matt was like the Brady Shaws of the reporting world? Her opinion of human nature wasn’t all that great to begin with. If he—
“I know it sounds goofy, coming from someone who barely knows him, but you can trust him, Honor.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“I was born and raised and earned my degree in psychology in New York. After 9/11, my patients were mostly cops who’d worked at Ground Zero. They were different in just about every way you can name, except for an innate talent for reading people. If I hoped to reach them, I had to learn to play the game by their rules. Not to sound like some cocky know-it-all, but I got pretty good at it. I can’t define it and don’t understand it, but I respect what it tells me.”
“And it’s telling you I can trust Matt.”
“With your very life.”
“Not an easy concept to wrap my mind around,” she confessed. “Considering …”
“Nobody with two functioning brain cells believes that clown, Shaw. An old college pal is a major player at the network. It’s no secret that they keep him around because his buffoonery is good for ratings. But just between you and me? They’re prepared for the day the bottom falls out of his cage. So don’t give another thought to what Matt thinks of Brady’s so-called work. Borrowing your birds of a feather premise, he’s too smart to align himself with that scuzzball, even by way of opinion.”
“Y’know,” Honor said, smiling, “I came in here to console you. How’d things get so turned around?”
“Believe me, you’ve been a huge comfort.” She raised a hand and pressed her thumb to her forefinger. “I was this close to calling off the wedding when you walked in here.”
“And now?”
“And now I’m wondering what you’re doing on New Year’s Eve, because I need a maid of honor for my wedding.”
11
The computer monitor radiated a ghostly white light, shrouding Matt’s home office with an eerie, o
therworldly glow. The story on the screen was equally strange. Beside the keyboard, lay the top page of a fat spiral tablet filled with quickly scrawled notes. Later, he’d dig deeper into each detail. For now, he plowed forward in search of corroborative facts to back up gut instinct.
With one click of Matt’s mouse, Brady Shaw’s networkgenerated head shot filled the screen. Asked to identify the head of the IRS, nine out of ten Americans would walk away, scratching their heads. But hold up a picture of Brady Shaw, and every last one of them could cite his name, hometown, and a list of other PR-crafted biographical details. Were viewers really so naïve, Matt wondered, that they could be distracted from the facts by boy-next-door looks and a smooth DJ baritone? If the havoc Shaw had wreaked in Honor’s life was any indicator, the answer was a booming yes.
“Easy to pull the wool over people’s eyes,” he grated, “when you’re the antithesis of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
But no matter. When the time was right, Matt’s story would tell the truth, once and for all, about Shaw. “Smile on, Brady ol’ boy,” he said, clicking the X that erased the picture, “while you can.”
Honor had a love-hate relationship with Christmas.
Between work and classes and joining in on SAR operations, she barely had time to buy gifts for her sister’s family, let alone ornaments and garland and lights that no one would be around to enjoy. Most years, she leaned toward the “love” side and got her decorating fix by helping out at Hope’s house. This year, the “hate” side would win because they’d changed the dates of their annual ski trip from February to Christmas week.
Once a month, she made a point of visiting Johns Hopkins, playing games with the kids in Children’s Oncology, leaving Christmas to the Orioles and Ravens players whose schedules didn’t allow for regular visits. This year, she’d deliver board games, CDs, and DVDs she’d bought for them. If they were too tired for that, she’d read one of the books she’d been collecting. Hospitals were awful places for kids any time of the year. But Christmas, she thought as her cell phone rang, no child should be alone on Christmas!
