Table for five

by Susan Wiggs

  Ashley stayed asleep in her car seat, so Sean brought the whole apparatus inside.

  “Are you going to put her in her crib?” Lily asked.

  “She’s happy just like that.” He hit Play on the CD player. “She sleeps better with music playing, too.”

  The clear, strong voice of Stephanie Davis singing “Talking to the Moon” drifted from the speakers.

  “This was Mom’s favorite,” Charlie said, getting a big box of crayons from a drawer.

  “I know.” Lily set a grocery sack on the counter and busied herself putting things away. The last time she’d heard this song, she’d been with Crystal, relaxing over a cup of tea.

  “Want me to change it?” Sean asked.

  She shook her head, liking and hating the bittersweet feelings. There was a funny ebb and flow of the tension between her and Sean. One moment she had the urge to argue with him. The next, she simply wanted to get along.

  Cameron grabbed the cordless phone and wandered into another room. Charlie went to the dining room table to labor over a detailed drawing of the miniature golf course. To Lily, it always felt strange, perhaps vaguely forbidden, to be with Sean in Crystal’s house. The reminders of her friend were still so palpable, and often appeared without warning—an earring wedged between sofa cushions, magazines and mail addressed to her, phone solicitors asking for Crystal by name.

  Lily picked up a thick recipe book, noticing a bookmark on which Crystal had scrawled, “cake for Ashley’s b-day.” She opened the book, passed her finger over the writing.

  “You okay?” Sean asked.

  She nodded. “Sometimes I get the weirdest feeling that she just stepped out and she’ll be back any minute, that maybe she just ran out to pick up a box of frozen strawberries for this cake.”

  “I think she already did that.” He reached in the freezer and took out the strawberries. “I’ve been wondering what these could be used for.”

  Lily glanced at Ashley, still buckled in her seat and sound asleep. “Crystal had a nice party planned for her.” Instead of celebrating Ashley turning two, they’d had the meeting with the lawyers.

  “We should have it now,” he said. “Today.”

  Lily fell instantly in love with the idea. “That’s brilliant. We’ll make the cake Crystal wanted.”

  He lifted one eyebrow in that intriguing way that made her want to emulate him. “Birthday cake, Miss Robinson? Tsk, tsk, all that sugar.”

  “We’ll give them really small pieces.”

  “Speak for yourself. I think Charlie should help make the cake.”

  Now Lily found herself grinning like an idiot. It seemed so silly, but somehow this was making her feel better. “Cameron, too. I’ll go get them.”

  “In a minute,” Sean said, motioning her toward the walk-in pantry. “I need to show you something.”

  She stepped into the darkened interior, where the air was musty with the scent of spices, and she could feel the warmth of his body close to hers. “What is it?”

  “She already bought things for the party.” He turned on the overhead light and showed her a boxy shopping bag filled with rainbow-colored napkins and party hats, matching horns and balloons.

  At the bottom of the bag was a doll, soft as a marshmallow, with bright button eyes. It was exactly the sort of thing Crystal would have picked. Lily also found a card in an unsealed envelope. Her heart sped up as she opened it. She felt Crystal’s presence next to her as she angled the card toward the light to reveal a sentimental picture of a mother pushing a small child on a swing and the saying, “Spread your wings and fly away…” On the inside, it continued, “…home to me.”

  In neat printing, Crystal had added a message of her own. “I’m so very proud of my big girl! I’ll love you forever, Mommy.”

  Lily carefully closed the card and put it back in the envelope. “I’m glad she wrote something,” she said. Only when Sean handed her a tissue did she realize she was crying, and that his arm had slipped around her shoulders.

  “How do we do this?” she whispered, overwhelmed. “How do we bear the unbearable?”

  “Sometimes we don’t,” he said simply. “Sometimes we just breathe.”

  “I’m not staying home to make a cake,” Cameron said, nearly stepping on Miss Buzzy Bee on his way to the refrigerator. He resisted the urge to send the pull-toy out the door with a soccer kick.

  “It’s Ashley’s birthday,” Lily said, tying on one of his mom’s aprons. It was the one with the picture of Glinda and the caption, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Cameron could perfectly picture his mom wearing it, and the sight of it pissed him off.

  “It’s not her birthday. Let’s pick another day.” Cameron felt the air pressing in on him. It wasn’t enough that he’d been dragged out of bed to visit Grandma Dot, that he’d played miniature golf. Now they wanted him to have dinner and a birthday party?

  “We picked today,” Sean said, coming into the kitchen with Ashley held like a football under one arm. “Kid’s got to turn two one of these days.”

  “She’s already two, and it doesn’t matter when she gets her stupid party.”

  “It matters,” Sean said simply.

  Cameron felt a slow burn of anger. Everything pissed him off—the sound of the radio clicking on in the morning, reminding him that he had to face another day without his parents. The sight of his mom’s handwriting on the kitchen chalkboard. The smell of her hairspray on the headrest of her favorite chair. And then there was Sean, with his dumb simple statements—It matters—that were supposed to make sense. “I wish you’d quit acting like we’re a regular family,” he said.

  “Is that what I’m doing?” Sean said. “What the hell’s a regular family, anyway? Maybe you can explain it to me.”

  “Sean—” Lily cast a worried look at the baby, but she had discovered Miss Buzzy Bee and was in another world. Elsewhere in the house, a TV blared—Charlie, watching cartoons.

  “I mean it,” he said. “I want Cam to enlighten me. What’s a regular family? Mom, Dad, two-point-five kids? Who has that anymore? Does anyone?”

  “You know what I mean,” Cameron snapped back. “A regular family doesn’t have two dead parents and a ‘Remembering Derek Holloway’ special on ESPN.”

  “Here, Cam.” Ashley waddled over and handed him a package of balloons. “Do it.”

  He ripped open the plastic package and blew up a red balloon, filling it in about three big huffs. Ashley’s eyes shone with admiration as she watched him. He tied a knot in the balloon and let it float to her. “Ah,” she said, delighted. “’Nother one.”

  She was the one person in the world he couldn’t say no to. She had him blowing up balloon after balloon until she was swimming in a sea of them. While Cameron made himself dizzy blowing up balloons, he wished he could push the deadweight of fear out of his lungs. Now that he’d lost his parents, he was scared that those left behind might have to become a new kind of family. And even more scared that they might not.

  Lily reached over, switched on the radio and found an oldies station playing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” She and Sean worked together, their movements slightly rhythmic as they followed his mom’s recipe. “A few weeks ago, you could only do Pop-Tarts,” she said to Sean. “You’re a quick study.”

  “In all things,” he assured her. “My goal is to make Charlie red, white and blue pancakes for the Fourth of July.”

  “Ambitious,” she said.

  There was a kind of rhythm in their conversation, too. They weren’t exactly flirting, but they had a peculiar ease and flow going on between them.

  “Yeah?” Sean lifted a bowl of pink batter and poured it into a cake pan. “Maybe you’ll think of me when you’re spending the summer in Italy.”

  “Who told you I was doing that?” Her spine stiffened.

  “Charlie, I guess. Is it some big secret?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just…I canceled the trip.”

  “Why?” />
  She shot a glance over her shoulder. Cameron kept blowing up balloons, acting totally preoccupied with the baby. “I should think that would be obvious,” Lily said. “I wouldn’t feel right going away now, or even six weeks from now.”

  While he held the bowl, she scraped it down with a spatula. “Because you think I’m doing a bad job,” Sean said.

  Whoa, thought Cameron. The rhythm had changed. At the same time, he took a perverse satisfaction in the idea that they were arguing in front of him. In a way, it showed a measure of trust.

  Lily opened the oven and he slipped the cake in. She said, “Don’t make this into something it’s not. I’m not criticizing you for stepping up to the plate. I sacrificed a summer trip. You’re sacrificing a lot more than that.”

  “’Nother one,” Ashley said, and Cameron picked a yellow balloon.

  Charlie came in and her face lit up brighter than he’d seen it in weeks. “Cool,” she said. “Can I lick the bowl?”

  “Me, too!” Ashley tossed a balloon in the air. A new song came on the radio—“Nah Nah Hey Hey”—and Lily and Charlie sang along, swaying their hips. And Cameron had a peculiar thought. This—the way they were now—was how holidays and celebrations were going to be. It was hard to believe, but they had to figure out how to laugh and have fun and tease and fight, even though his parents were gone.

  “Well, you managed to blow up a roomful of balloons instead of helping with the cake,” Lily said to him.

  “Yep,” he said. “So?”

  “So nothing. I was going to thank you. It’s better than lollygagging around.”

  “Nobody says ‘lollygagging’ anymore,” Cameron said.

  “I say it all the time.” Lily tossed him a roll of pink crepe paper. “So quit lollygagging.”

  chapter 30

  “You know what’s weird?” Sean asked Lily after the birthday celebration.

  “Pretty much everything these days,” she answered.

  “I used to wonder what it was like to live here.”

  They sat on the back porch of Crystal’s house. Under a blooming apple tree, Ashley and Charlie were playing an elaborate private game in the sandbox, involving all of the furniture from Barbie’s dream house, a collection of troll dolls and Ashley’s birthday doll. The sun was going down, its amber rays slanting across the lawn, and a light breeze stirred a shower of apple blossom petals through the deepening light, giving the scene a dreamlike quality.

  “Where, here?” she asked. “In Comfort?”

  “In this house.” He picked up a stray golf tee and rolled it between the palms of his hands. “Derek and I used to pass it every day on our way to school, and we always used to claim we’d live here one day. We envisioned a sort of colony populated by boys and dogs.”

  She smiled, trying to picture him as a little boy. Blue eyes, of course, and lighter hair. Probably a mischievous expression. “It’s funny where life takes you.”

  He nodded. “Derek never gave up this house, but I went looking for something else.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Someplace a little more exotic. The French Riviera or maybe Buenos Aires. Or hell, Monterey. Everywhere is more exotic than good old Comfort, Oregon.”

  “And here you are.”

  “Here I am.” He raked his open hand through his hair. “Christ, I miss him. Everything’s just wrong. I shouldn’t be here, living this life. I’m not the one to fill his shoes.”

  “That’s not what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  She thought about the way Charlie and Cameron had been today—wounded but healing. “I think you’re doing it.”

  He rested his wrists on his knees and looked out at the yard with its garden of rhododendrons and fruit trees, old hostas spreading their huge leaves in the shade. “I sure as hell wasn’t expecting this.”

  “No one was,” she pointed out. “Listen, about Maura…I didn’t mean to seem so judgmental this morning.”

  “You were thinking of the kids.”

  Was I? Lily wondered. I was, I had to be. If I was thinking of anything other than the kids, I’m in trouble. “She seems like a fine person. I admire her for working so hard on her medical degree.” She sounded so phony. He probably knew it, too.

  “I’m going out, okay?” asked Cameron from the back door.

  Sean stood and turned to face him. “Out where?”

  “Just around.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “Why?”

  “So if I decide to cruise by later, there won’t be any surprises. Remember, we talked about this. I can’t stand surprises.”

  Cameron stepped outside. He had his skateboard under his arm. “If you checked up on me, I’d shoot myself.” There was a note of barely suppressed annoyance in his voice.

  Lily bit her tongue to keep from protesting his choice of words. Sean waited.

  “I’m just going to hang with some friends.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Jeez, Uncle Sean—”

  “Jeez nothing.” Sean waited, his stare locked to Cameron’s.

  Lily was intrigued. She could feel the tension between them like a vibration in the air. Sean’s parenting style, if you could call it that, fascinated her. He operated solely by instinct, not experience, but his confidence never wavered. Maybe that was the key, she thought. Never let them see how scared you really are.

  Cameron broke the staredown first. He surrendered first with his posture, then verbally, clearly not considering this an issue to lock horns over. “I’m headed to my friend Jason’s house. He lives over on Meadowmeer.”

  “Call me if you go anywhere else.”

  “I will.”

  “And be home by eleven.”

  “It’s a Saturday night.”

  “That’s why I didn’t say ten o’clock. Be home by eleven or don’t bother going out at all,” Sean said.

  Cameron gave a graceless farewell and stalked off.

  Lily said, “You’re good with him.”

  “Yeah, thanks. He’s a real happy camper.”

  “I’m not kidding. He’s pushing and you’re not giving in.”

  “I have no idea why there’s conflict at all. Hell, we’re on the same side.”

  They sat together watching the sun sink away. Peepers raised a song from hidden places in the dark, and Lily finished her glass of iced tea. It was on the edge of her lips to say goodbye, I’ve had a nice day, see you later, but instead she just sat there, enjoying the breeze and the last colors of the day, the sounds of twilight settling around them.

  “Did you mean what you said?” Sean asked suddenly. “About the good job?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “Considering all that these kids are going through, they’d be a handful for anyone. This is a horrible thing to have to adjust to, but all things considered, they’re getting by.”

  “So I get an A+ from the teacher.” There was a smile in his voice.

  She looked over at him, watching the light play across his face. This mattered so much to him, she could tell. “When it comes to relating to the kids, I’d say so.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why do I sense a ‘however’ in that?”

  “I didn’t say ‘however.’”

  “You didn’t have to.” He chuckled softly. “All right, Miss Lily. Let me have it. I can take it.”

  It was strange, how he seemed to see through her. “I question the value of American Chopper.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I don’t kid.”

  “That’s right, I forgot for a minute. So you’re objecting to the best show on television?”

  “Charlie can quote from it chapter and verse.”

  “And this is a bad thing?”

  “It’s a show about motorcycles. It has no redeeming value.”

  He threw back his head and laughed aloud then. She found herself staring at his throat and havin
g unsettling feelings. “You slay me, Lily, you really do. Watching a show about motorcycles is not going to warp the kid’s mind. It’s something we do together. We like it.” He sobered, his gaze piercing through the gathering darkness. “Maybe, just for a minute, she…forgets, feels normal. She deserves to do that every once in a while.”

  The truth of it struck Lily and she nodded. “At least it’s not South Park.”

  “Nope, that comes on a half hour later,” he said, then laughed at her horrified expression. “Kidding,” he said. “I know you don’t kid, but I sure as hell do.”

  “Very funny.” She offered a smile of relief.

  “You sure are a fussy little thing, Miss Lily,” he commented. “Food, TV, loading the dishwasher…How’d you get that way?”

  Being raised in a house full of hate will do that to a person, she thought, but couldn’t bring herself to tell him. “I guess I’m just a creature of habit.”

  He nodded, and they sat together in curiously companionable silence, listening to the peepers and to the girls playing together. Finally, Sean stood up. “I need to put these little grubs to bed.”

  As he walked toward the sandbox, Charlie put up a hand in a defensive gesture. “Five more minutes.”

  “Sorry, kid. Time’s up. You both need a bath.”

  “No bath,” Ashley protested.

  He picked her up and tucked her under his arm. “You like taking a bath.”

  “Lily, will you stay?” asked Charlie, dragging her feet as she headed inside.

  “I can’t,” she said automatically.

  “Please.”

  “But—”

  “The kid said please,” Sean pointed out.

  “All right.”

  “Yay!” Charlie and Ashley gave each other high fives.

  Lily wished she had a hot Saturday-night date. She wished she was headed out for an evening of drinking and dancing, but the fact was, she had no plans at all. The prospect of sticking around here was disconcertingly pleasant to her.