Table for five

by Susan Wiggs

  Mrs. Foster’s illness turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Sean’s golf game. Initially, he thought the temporary absence of the babysitter would be a fiasco. Without her to look after Ashley during the day, he’d be on round-the-clock duty.

  He sent Charlie and Cameron off to their respective schools as usual. Cameron was still in turmoil. After the stunt he’d pulled, he seemed as angry as ever, but also more introspective. The grief counselor said this was normal, but Sean wasn’t buying that. What was normal was for a kid to laugh and cut up with his friends, to become obsessed with girls and golf. What was normal was for a kid to yearn to drive a car, not avoid it.

  Give him time, counseled Dr. Sachs.

  “Nobody seems to know how much time this takes,” he explained to Ashley as he drove to the golf course.

  “Nope,” she said, rattling an individual-serving-size box of Cheerios.

  “So what do you say we go nine holes?” he said.

  “Okay.”

  Outside of tournaments, nongolfers weren’t supposed to be on the course. Toddlers in particular, even those strapped into a car seat in a closed cart.

  He didn’t care. He was the club pro, it was an overcast weekday morning and there was no one around. He and Cameron had taken the girls out several times before, and they’d behaved themselves. Ashley seemed to think it was funny to be loaded into her car seat in the golf cart.

  “You’re going to love this,” he promised her. “I bet you’ll grow up to be the next Annika Sorenstam.”

  “Yep,” she agreed.

  The natural hush of the golf course seemed to work its magic on her. Low-lying mist insulated sound and softened the edges of the world. The moment his driver smacked the ball with a resounding thwok, he knew he’d hit an excellent drive.

  “Wow,” said Ashley approvingly.

  “Wow is right,” he said, getting into the cart. “That was a 360-yard drive.”

  He birdied the hole, and it only got better from there. Each time he hit, his assurance grew. He even beat his own performance on the morning of Derek’s funeral. This was, quite possibly, the best round of his life. And unlike the funeral round, this one was no fluke. He felt his game coming together; the judgment, the drives, the putts.

  Rather than distract him, Ashley somehow enhanced his focus. Never had he concentrated so well or to such good effect. He achieved a peculiar rhythm that he recognized from his very early days as a tournament golf player. It was something he thought he’d lost long ago, and now, stroke by stroke, yard by yard, he rediscovered it.

  He was taut with excitement as he filled out his scorecard. “How about that, sugar?” he said. “You must be my good-luck charm.”

  “Yep,” said Ashley.

  He got into the habit of bringing her to the course every day, and rarely went a single stroke over par. The two of them became a familiar sight at Echo Ridge, a golf cart with a child’s safety seat and a few toys, a set of clubs and a cooler filled with bottled water and Gerber pear juice.

  There was not a doubt in his mind that his game had changed. Some golfers rebuilt a flawed swing; Sean rebuilt his attitude. Having a tiny child wholly dependent on you put things in perspective. He used to sweat his score, treating each stroke like a matter of life or death. Now that he was in charge of three kids, he had a different perspective and a new way of listening to himself. Somehow, understanding the things that really mattered eased the pressure to perform, and the game he played was wholly his own, not influenced by expectations or advice from outside.

  Sean worried about the kids, about money, about the future, all the time. But when he was on the golf course with his niece, everything fell away, everything but a little girl and the game.

  On Friday afternoon, he saw Cameron dressed like a convict and hard at work on the pond. All three boys were supposed to be working off the expense of fixing the green, but the others were nowhere to be seen. Sean still hadn’t figured out what demons had possessed Cameron and made him vandalize the golf course that had meant so much to his father. Or perhaps, he reflected, that was precisely the point.

  At any rate, rebuilding the things he’d ruined seemed a reasonable occupation for him. Since the vandalism episode, the kid had kept his nose clean. Or so it seemed. If he was still screwing around, it didn’t show.

  “Cam,” Ashley called out, waving both hands at him.

  He wasn’t alone. That girl was with him…Becca? No, Becky—in muddy gloves and gardening clogs, her ponytail pulled through the back of a baseball cap. They were putting in a large bed of impatiens.

  She hadn’t been involved in the vandalism, but she didn’t seem to mind helping Cameron with his community service.

  “Hi, Ashley,” she said, smiling broadly. “Hi, Mr. Maguire.”

  “Hey, Becky.” Sean could tell they were both surprised he remembered her name.

  “Be really quiet,” Cameron instructed them in a whisper. “I need to show you something.”

  He took Ashley out of her seat and carried her down the bank to the edge of the pond. “We’ve been watching them all afternoon,” he said. “They just hatched.”

  A female mallard glided out of the reeds, followed by a line of eight tiny brown-and-yellow ducklings.

  Cameron set his sister down at the edge of the pond and she chuckled with delight. “Want ducks.”

  “We have to leave them alone,” Cameron told her, “so they’ll feel safe.”

  “Want ducks.”

  He kept hold of her hand and they stood together on the bank, just watching while the breeze tossed their hair. The image struck at Sean. They looked so vulnerable, just the two of them linked by her hand in his. Sean was seized by a now-familiar feeling. How will I do this? How will I protect them? He was all that stood between these kids and disaster. Unlike most families, there were no spare parents or stepparents or blood relatives to fall back on. He was it. He hoped like hell that was enough.

  He felt Becky watching him and they shared a strange moment. They didn’t exchange a word, but he had the impression she knew exactly what was on his mind.

  Eventually, Sean lured Ashley back to the cart with the promise of a cracker. He wondered if Cameron was really doing better or if he was just getting better at acting normal. Since the vandalism incident, he seemed less angry and troubled. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on Sean’s part.

  He decided not to argue with fate when things were going all right.

  “Come on, caddie,” he said. “Let’s go post this score. I think it might be a club record.”

  Actually, he knew it was. If he brought in a superb score like this in tournament play, he would be the recordholder. And the score he’d just beat was his brother’s.

  He wouldn’t turn in the card, because he’d played alone. Because of what had happened in Asia, his scorecards were suspect. And honestly, it didn’t matter. He’d spent the day with one of his favorite people—his niece—and had played a great round.

  Finally, he trusted the new development enough to talk about it. That evening, he found Maura on the living room sofa with bound printouts and textbooks surrounding her like a fortress. With one look, he could tell she’d had a rough week. She had that too-much-indoors pallor, the droopy posture, the distracted air about her.

  “What do you mean, you turned a corner in your game?” she asked after he explained how his week had gone.

  “He means he’s reaching the next level,” said Charlie, looking up from the puzzle she was putting together. If golf were schoolwork, she’d be a straight-A student. She had applied herself to learning the game like the most dedicated scholar. Then she turned her attention back to SpongeBob on the TV. She and Cameron had spent the past twenty minutes fighting for control over the remote, and Charlie had prevailed.

  “Let’s play,” Ashley said to Maura, trying to breach the barricade of books and papers surrounding her.

  “Not possible, you cute thing,” Maura said distractedly,
tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ve got a grant application and a case study due tomorrow.”

  Ashley pushed at a thick black binder. A handful of papers wafted to the floor.

  Maura folded her arms across her middle and took a deep breath. Then she said, “Tell you what. I’ll play for ten minutes and then I have to get back to work.”

  She took the baby’s hand and they went upstairs where the toys were kept. Charlie went along, too, and suddenly the room was very quiet. Sean and Cameron looked at each other, then bolted for the remote control at the same time. Sean beat him to it.

  “Friday night fights,” he said, switching to ESPN.

  “I like American Chopper better.”

  “Not tonight, you don’t,” Sean said, settling into his chair as Vladimir Klischko pummeled his opponent.

  The flurry of punches caught Cameron’s attention and he offered no further argument. At the commercial break, he got two root beers from the kitchen and settled down to watch.

  In precisely ten minutes, Maura came down in time to see a close-up of the contender’s eye bleeding, his nose stuffed with white absorbent pads.

  “That’s disgusting,” she said.

  “That’s entertainment,” Sean told her. He offered her a sip of his root beer, which she ignored.

  “Right. Listen,” she added, gathering all her books and her laptop into a giant tote bag, “I really do have two major projects I need to work on. I’ve decided to do it over at my place.”

  “You can work here,” Sean said. “Take over the whole dining room table. We never eat in there.” He elbowed Cameron. “What’s the story on dining rooms, anyway? Did you ever have dinner in there?”

  “Thanksgiving, I think.”

  “So you can have it until Thanksgiving.”

  “Thanks.” She bent down and kissed his cheek. “I need to concentrate. I should also water my houseplants while I’m there….”

  She left a few minutes later and a commercial came on. “I can’t taste my beer!” screamed the actors.

  Sean felt Cameron staring at him. “What?” he asked.

  “So did she just ditch you? Or did she actually dump you?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Oh, but he did. Deep in his gut, he did.

  “Ditching and dumping. There’s a difference.”

  “I don’t think she—”

  “See, when someone ditches you, it’s a one-time deal. It means she got a better offer.”

  “Like watering her houseplants?” Sean asked.

  “Well, that’s pretty lame. She must’ve really been bored with you.”

  “That’s shit.” Sean’s neck prickled with unspoken awareness.

  “Maybe it was an actual dumping,” Cameron suggested. “Now, if it was, you’ve got some work to do, because a dumping is permanent. Got it?”

  “I’ve got nothing,” Sean snapped. “She’s not ditching or dumping anybody. She’s going to her apartment to get some work done.”

  “I’ll bet she waters her plants and watches reruns of ER all night.”

  “How did you know she likes ER?”

  “Duh. I can put two and two together.” He got up and went to the kitchen. “I’m making popcorn in the microwave,” he added. “You want some?”

  The conversation with Cameron nagged at Sean. He called Maura the next day but got her voice mail, so he left a message telling her where to find him. Then he dropped off his nephew to work at the golf course and took his nieces to Derek’s condo, where he’d arranged to meet Jane Coombs to finish clearing the place out for a new tenant. Though it was a prefurnished rental Derek had lived in since his divorce, all his personal effects were still there. Cameron had declined to help with the removal. Sean didn’t blame him.

  Charlie and Ashley clutched each other’s hands as he unlocked the door and let them in. The air was chilly and still with disuse, though everything lay untouched since that day in April, waiting as though Derek had just stepped out and would return at any moment.

  Sean glanced at the girls, who walked into the living room with the sort of breath-held hush of churchgoers. He could see Charlie trying to stay calm, pressing her lips tightly together.

  “You sure you want to stay?” he asked her. “I can take you over to Lily’s if you—”

  “We’ll stay,” Charlie said stoutly. “Won’t we, Ashley?”

  “Suit yourself.” In fact, he hadn’t cleared anything with Lily. Maybe she had plans. Maybe those plans didn’t include looking after two kids. He had to quit assuming she’d drop everything anytime he needed her, even though that was exactly what she did. She wasn’t just a schoolteacher and grieving friend, he reminded himself. Maybe she slept in on a Saturday morning or went to the beach. Hell, maybe she was seeing someone, not that it was any of his business.

  He found the TV remote right where Derek would have left it, on a table to the right of the lounge chair, and when he turned it on, the Golf Channel came up.

  Sean handed the remote over to Charlie, who quickly switched to cartoons. Because she wanted to help, he gave her a box and two bags and told her to empty the TV console in the living room.

  “Everything?” she asked.

  “Everything. If you think we should keep it, put it in the box. If not, in the trash bag or the Salvation Army bag. You decide.”

  “What if I can’t decide?”

  He kissed her head. “Then keep it, honey, just in case.”

  He turned away then, because the anguish hit him hard. Here in this house, with its beige walls and furniture, he could still sense his brother’s presence, could imagine him here, never knowing it was his last day alive.

  He hoped it had been a good day. He hoped Derek had hugged his kids, had a laugh, found joy in something that day.

  “I’m going to get to work,” he said to the girls. “You tell me if you need anything.” He brought a stack of empty moving boxes into the bedroom. Jane was late, but that didn’t surprise him. She had weathered the tragedy poorly, vacillating between rage and uncontrollable tears. What Sean sensed from her most of all was bitterness, that she hadn’t held Derek’s heart longer or shared enough of his life. Sean had invited her to visit the kids anytime she wanted, but she claimed it made her too sad to be around them. Whenever she saw them, she cried so hard that the baby cried, too. She’d managed to compose herself enough to do an interview for some cheesy entertainment magazine, though.

  “She’s a real prize,” he muttered to the open door of the walk-in closet. The air smelled of shoe leather and expensive after-shave, as real as if Derek were standing right behind him. Damn it, thought Sean. You’re not supposed to be dead. He tried to remember their last conversation. Golf, women, small talk. He tried to remember the last time he’d told his brother he loved him. “That would be never,” he muttered. “I sure as hell hope you knew.”

  Jane had evidently already stopped by to remove her own things soon after the funeral. There was an empty space on the rack and adjacent shelves. That pissed him off, and when he heard her arrive, he was ready to unload on her.

  But it wasn’t Jane standing in the bedroom doorway, and the bitter words dissolved on his tongue. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” Wrapping her arms around her middle, Maura walked toward him. She looked tired, he noticed, tired and sad. “I got your message.”

  He jerked a shirt off a hanger, folded it awkwardly, put it in one of the boxes for the Salvation Army. Some of Derek’s fans had suggested holding an eBay auction with his memorabilia, but Sean couldn’t stomach the idea of his brother’s things being picked over like meat from a carcass. He’d rather see some homeless guy in Derek’s still-new Tommy Bahama golf shirts.

  “Jane was supposed to meet me here to get rid of this stuff,” he said to Maura. “She’s a no-show.”

  “I’d offer to help, but I need to turn in a project this morning,” she said. “And Sean…”

  Her voice trailed off,
but he knew what was coming next. It was the we-need-to-talk part of the conversation. The one he’d seen coming ever since the accident.

  From the moment it became clear he was in charge of three kids, he and Maura had been heading in different directions. Sean understood that. Still, it hurt to look at her, to imagine the way they used to be together, unencumbered, living from day to day. He yanked another shirt from the closet, folded it.

  “I’m twenty-five years old, Sean,” Maura said in a breaking voice. “I get my MD this summer and I have no idea where I’ll wind up for an internship. I’m sorry, I…”

  “Don’t apologize for that,” he said. “The world needs doctors.” He pulled out a pair of FootJoy soft spikes, added them to the box. He’d miss the sex, he decided. Yeah, he’d miss that.

  He stopped working for a moment and studied Maura. Her eyes looked as lonely as they had the day he’d met her. Back then, they had seemed like a great match. He’d been footloose and flexible, living on the surface, looking out for number one. He was a different person now. He had a different life. The personal cost of Derek’s death belonged to Sean. This was something he’d discussed with the social worker in charge of the kids. He did have a choice, she assured him. No one could force him to take over Derek’s responsibilities.

  There was no force involved, he’d discovered. His heart belonged to his inherited family, a fact he found both painful and joyous. “This is my life now,” he told Maura simply. “It’s who I am.”

  She nodded, and he saw her swallow hard. “I really do love you,” she said, and the tears started to fall. “And I could learn to love this family, but I can’t take on three kids right now, maybe never.”

  You didn’t learn to love these kids, he thought. You just did. Sean saw no point in trying to explain that to her.

  Maura’s shoulders shook as she cried. Maybe she really did care about him, but since moving in with Derek’s kids, he’d learned a lot about the meaning of caring and commitment.