The Mommy Wish

by Pamela Browning

  She wished his eyes weren’t so blue; thinking was hard when he looked at her the way he was at the moment, all earnestness and boyish vulnerability, a quality that hadn’t shone through the scruffy beard that he’d finally had the good sense to shave off.

  “I’m not up on child psychology, but I doubt that her interest in vacuum cleaners is unhealthy,” she said. “The pictures she draws of them are rich in detail and well thought out.”

  “She’s artistic, that’s for sure. It’s just—” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand kids sometimes.”

  Molly had heard enough about Frank’s adventures in fatherhood to know that this was normal, and she told him so. “Most parents are at a loss when dealing with their kids. You’re not the only one who gets confused about child rearing. Anyway, being around a child is fun,” she added.

  His eyebrows flew up, and she decided to elaborate.

  “Seeing the world through Phoebe’s eyes makes everything seem new,” she said. “When we become adults, it’s easy to be self-absorbed. Children take us out of ourselves, force us to become like them, to some extent. It’s—it’s enriching.” She stopped talking when she realized that he was nodding in agreement.

  His expression softened. “Without Phoebe, I’d be jaded and world-weary, especially after…” His words trailed off, and he bit his lip. “Molly, does it bother you if I talk about Heather once in a while?”

  She shook her head, touched by his openness. “Of course not.”

  Eric focused for a moment on Phoebe playing outside the window. “After my wife died, I found that I wanted to talk about her often. I wasn’t maudlin about it, but just mentioning her to someone else kept her memory fresh in my mind. People backed off, and I could see the uncertainty in their eyes—they were uncomfortable when I brought up Heather’s name. So I stopped talking about her. But she was always in my thoughts.”

  “I understand,” Molly said quietly. “It was that way for me when my mother died.”

  His eyes bored into hers. “I guess I should say I’m glad you know what I’m talking about, but maybe that would be the equivalent of saying that I’m glad your mother died. I’m not, though. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “Everyone is sorry,” she told him. “They haven’t figured out what to say, that’s all.”

  “Yeah. They have no idea that grief is as painful as sinew tearing away from bone. Or that you’ve been lying awake all night aching inside because when you stretch your hand across to the other side of the bed, you touch…emptiness. And that the emptiness hollows out your very soul.”

  He smiled bitterly, and she caught a glimpse of a harrowing sadness behind his eyes.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t run on like that.”

  His unexpected revelations about himself had thrown her off balance, and for a moment she sat frozen, not sure how to respond. She was having a hard time breathing, seemed to have forgotten how, and suddenly she was daring to reach across the table to him, was covering his hand with hers. Never mind that she had a spot of ketchup on her thumb or that her fingers were greasy. Never mind that her touch might be unwelcome.

  “I don’t mind if you talk about it,” she said. “If it helps.”

  “Can anything?” he said, but he didn’t sound bitter now, only lost.

  Molly glanced out the window. Outside, Phoebe was emerging from the round opening of the yellow tube slide, landing with a thump and a grin before rushing around to slide again. Her hair flopped over her forehead despite the headband, and she had a smudge of dirt on one cheek.

  “Phoebe helps,” she said. “You said so.” She gave his hand a little squeeze before folding her own hands in her lap.

  A moment passed before Eric spoke. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I tell myself that every day.”

  “Just don’t stop reminding yourself,” Molly said.

  His gaze, when it met hers, was grateful. “I won’t. Especially with you to remind me, too.” His tentative grin banished some of the bleakness from his expression.

  “Talk about Heather whenever you like,” she said.

  “I—well.” He stared off into the distance. “Maybe I won’t have to talk about Heather so much,” he said. “Now that you’re here.”

  Molly was rocked by the feelings that his words engendered. There was gratification, and warmth, and a certain amount of panic. And awareness of the need for caution.

  She’d recently broken off with one man who posed problems. She was wary of taking on another. And now that she’d seen this serious side of Eric, she thought that things might have been easier between them when he’d been his old devil-may-care self.

  THE CAPTAIN’S LOUNGE at the marina, which was adjacent to the marina office and laundry room, contained a book exchange and Internet connections for people who were passing through. That evening after dinner Molly went to find a book to read to Phoebe and was disappointed that the library contained no children’s books. An adult mystery with a bright cover caught her eye, and thinking that she could use some reading material, she began to skim its back cover. When she was halfway through the cover copy, a cheerful round-faced blonde with a ponytail stuck her head in the door.

  “Oh!” she said. “You’re Molly, Eric Norvald’s girlfriend.”

  Molly set the book down. “I’m not his girlfriend. We’re delivering my grandfather’s boat to Fort Lauderdale.”

  “Sorry,” said the woman, looking embarrassed. “I just assumed that you’re together. I’m Micki, Eric’s friend from Angler’s Spit.”

  “You’re Mickey? I thought you were a guy,” Molly said, liking her right away. “And where is Angler’s Spit?”

  “That’s where Eric used to live before he lost Heather. And it’s Micki with an i, short for Michaela.” Her eyes sparkled when she smiled.

  “Actually, Eric and I met only a few days ago,” Molly confessed.

  “Oh, he’s a great guy. My husband and I used to hang out with Eric and Heather and a few other couples on weekends, most of them military from the nearby Air Force base. Eventually, my husband got sent to Afghanistan and I took a job as dockmaster here. That way I could be close to my brother and sister-in-law. I worked at a marina in Angler’s Spit, so it was a natural progression. I live on Fair Warning. It’s the catamaran at the end of Dock B.”

  “Have you been here long?”

  “About a year, and was I ever surprised to see Eric when he arrived on Fiona! I told him I have work for him around the marina if that’s what he wants. Gee, it’s funny. In our Angler’s Spit days, I remember Eric going off to the office wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. Angler’s Spit is a paper-mill town, and he was a manager at the mill. Brilliant, according to some. It was a shock when he quit.”

  “I can imagine,” Molly said. She was inordinately curious about Eric’s past life. She told herself that this was because of her interest in Phoebe, but a niggling little voice somewhere in the back of her mind whispered that this wasn’t entirely true.

  “Some of us told him that living a vagabond life wasn’t the best way to raise a child, but Eric wouldn’t listen. Phoebe’s a charmer, by the way. She was always so cute and so bright, even as a baby. Well, I’ve bent your ear long enough,” Micki told her. “I’d better go back to work. I told Eric that the four of us should get together sometime if you’re going to be at the marina for a while. I also mentioned that I’m available to baby-sit anytime. And, Molly, if you ever need anything, call on me.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  “By the way, I’ve read that mystery you were studying when I walked in. It’s wonderful, a real page-turner. You might like it.”

  Molly picked up the book again. “I’ll give it a try,” she said.

  As she walked down the dock back to Fiona, Molly was pensive. She recalled that Eric had brushed off her inquiry during the first days of her trip when he’d mentioned someplace that he used to live as they were sailing down the coast. He clearly hadn’t wanted to dis
cuss it. If that was where he’d lived when Heather died, the place was probably full of painful memories.

  When she boarded Fiona, Molly saw Phoebe in her pajamas, lugging the cushions from the cockpit onto the foredeck.

  “We’re going to do some stargazing tonight, remember?” Phoebe asked.

  “Right,” Molly said.

  “I have an idea about what we can do tomorrow, too,” Phoebe told her.

  “What?”

  “I could have a makeover. I saw a program on television this afternoon, and they get a person all new clothes and makeup so they are really beautiful. You could do that for me, couldn’t you? Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know, Phoebe,” Molly said. “Makeup might be a bit more than you need.”

  “How about clothes? All mine are worn out or too small.”

  Eric climbed the ladder to the cockpit. “Did I hear someone talking about a makeover?”

  “Me, me, me!” said Phoebe. “I want Molly to take me shopping and to get my eyebrow pierced.”

  “Wait a minute,” Molly said. “I didn’t agree to any piercings. Nothing like that’s going to happen on my watch.”

  “Thank goodness,” Eric said under his breath. “Phoebe, no body piercings. And that’s that.”

  “Corduroy would think it’s cool,” Phoebe said. She stood back, surveying the cushions she’d set out. “Dad, did you bring the popcorn?”

  Eric turned his back to Phoebe so she’d be unlikely to hear him. “Who is this Corduroy kid? He doesn’t sound like a good influence on my daughter,” he said indignantly on his way down the companionway.

  “Corduroy seemed like a normal boy,” Molly told him when he reemerged with the bowl of popcorn.

  “That’s a normal kind of name?”

  “Dee told me it’s a nickname, after the bear in a children’s book.”

  This earned her an elaborate lift of the eyebrows from Eric.

  “All ready,” Phoebe said with satisfaction. “You can come up on deck now.”

  Molly treated Eric to an equally elaborate shrug and followed him to the aft deck.

  “You’re over there,” Phoebe said. “I’m on this end, and Dad is in the middle.”

  The last time they’d done their stargazing on deck, Phoebe had been between them. Molly was all set to object, but Eric was already lowering himself to the middle cushion.

  “First, why don’t you tell us the story about Nut, the sky goddess. It’s one of my favorites,” Phoebe said as she cuddled close to Eric.

  “She’s really into mythology,” Eric said to Molly.

  “I’d like to hear the story, too,” Molly said.

  Eric settled back on his cushion. “Different cultures made up different stories to explain the things they saw in the sky,” he said. “There are Norse myths about the constellations, and African myths, and Greek and Roman myths. The myth about Nut is Egyptian.”

  “She was a naked giant woman,” Phoebe said. “I mean, she was enormous.” She held her hands out to demonstrate.

  “Bigger than that,” Eric said. “Nut supported the whole heavens on her back.”

  “And she was blue,” supplied Phoebe. “And she was covered all over with stars. The constellations would have been like these humongous shiny tattoos all over her. I want to get a tattoo in the shape of Pegasus.”

  “Let’s not talk about tattoos,” Eric said hastily, and Molly suppressed a grin. “All right, now for the story. Nut fell in love with the earth god, Geb. She married him without asking permission of the sun god, Re, who was very powerful. Re was unhappy that Nut didn’t ask his permission, so he decided to punish her.”

  “Like if I do something without asking Dad if it’s okay, Dad will punish me. Usually he doesn’t let me play with my vacuum cleaner for a while.”

  Eric cleared his throat. “The punishment for Nut was slightly more serious. Re said that she would not be allowed to have children in any month of the year. Nut was sad because she wanted children. She had a friend named Thoth, who was the divine scribe.”

  “That means he wrote letters for the gods and goddesses. They couldn’t write because they were so busy being divine.”

  “I know the feeling,” Molly said. “Since I’m a goddess and all.”

  Eric raised his eyebrows. “You mean you’re not the queen of Fiona?”

  “Dad,” said Phoebe with the utmost patience. “If Molly says she’s a goddess, then she is. Keep telling about Thoth.”

  “Thoth,” Eric said, resuming the story, “asked the Moon to play a game with him, and the winner’s prize was the Moon’s light.”

  “I bet it was chess,” Phoebe said. “They probably used the earth for a chessboard and people who were real bishops and knights.”

  “That’s not exactly the approved version of the story,” Eric said.

  “But it could have happened.”

  “Maybe. What we do know is that Thoth won light from the Moon, so much of it that the Moon had to add five new days to the official calendar. Thus Nut could finally bear her four children.”

  “Tell us their names, Dad,” Phoebe said. She was starting to sound sleepy.

  “Yeah, Dad.” Molly poked him with an elbow.

  “Their names were Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.”

  “You sound pretty sure of that.”

  “You can look it up.”

  “I’m tired,” Phoebe said with a wide yawn. “I can’t wait to get my makeover. Dad, I wish you’d come with us.”

  “I might,” he said consideringly.

  Molly risked a glance in his direction. His head was turned toward her, and he grinned.

  “Would it make you angry if I accompanied the two of you, Goddess Molly McBryde? You might have something to teach me about the care and feeding of little girls. I’m not much on wardrobe coordination or beauty secrets.”

  “You can come if you like.” She started to sit up.

  Eric’s arm drew her back. “Please,” he said. “Don’t go. It’s so pretty up here. You’re so pretty.”

  She sank back against the soft cushion. “Eric,” she began, but he had rolled his shoulder out from under the now-sleeping Phoebe’s head on the other side of him and propped himself on his elbow to peer down at her in the bright moonlight. Her breath caught in her throat, and she tried not to let her attraction to this man show.

  She could have stopped him, but for some reason she hesitated. Maybe it was those eyes, so deep and unfathomable, or the way his face was illuminated by moonlight. Or perhaps it was his finger, which had moved to her eyebrow and was feathering its way down her nose, then pressing against her mouth.

  “When Emmett first told me about you back at the marina in North Carolina, I thought he was blathering. It was ‘Molly Kate can do this,’ or ‘Molly Kate did that,’ and I was thoroughly sick of hearing about you before I ever laid eyes on you. Now I’m glad I paid attention, because everything Emmett said about you was true.”

  “What kinds of things did he say?” she asked, as his hand cupped her cheek, caressed it briefly and worked its way under her hair.

  “That you were beautiful. That you were intelligent. That you were dependable, and thoughtful, and that you made a really good grilled-cheese sandwich.”

  “He said that about the sandwich?”

  “No, I was kidding about that. The other comments—he said them, all right. I wonder if I should have asked him whether you were good at…other things.”

  Molly stared up at him, her heart beating so hard that she was sure he could hear it. “Like—like what?” she asked, though she was sure of the answer.

  “Like kissing,” Eric said, his voice a mere whisper stirring the tendrils lying against her neck.

  “Why don’t you find out for yourself,” she said, the words coming out in a rush.

  “I intend to, sweet Molly.”

  His face descended toward hers, filled her field of vision and blotted out the wide starry sky, the shiny disk of the moon. In that
moment, he was all she wanted to see, all she wanted to feel, and she reached up and curved her hand around the back of his neck. For a long time, they only gazed at each other, the waves splashing against the hull of the boat, the sounds of the marina fading away from their consciousness as they were captured in a net of emotion that excluded anything outside themselves.

  And then the spell shattered and they moved toward each other at exactly the same instant, both of the same mind. Their lips touched, tentative at first, then sure. It was a deep satisfying kiss, one that had been a long time coming.

  A boat entered the marina, chugging too fast toward its slip and churning a wide wake. The sound made her open her eyes, and as the wake reached Fiona, the big sailboat began to roll on the waves and strain against the lines holding her to the dock.

  Phoebe stirred beside Eric. “Daddy, I want to go to bed now,” she said sleepily, and Eric drew back from Molly.

  “So do I,” he said with a meaningful and regretful look back at Molly. “I’ll take Phoebe below,” he said. “After that—”

  She silenced him with a hand pressed against his lips. He kissed it, but she pulled away and shook her head.

  He stared at her for a moment. “A shame” was all he said.

  Molly lurched to her feet, grabbing the jib for support as Fiona gradually stopped rolling.

  “I’m sorry, Eric.”

  “So am I,” he said evenly. He turned to pick up Phoebe, and Molly fled.

  That was stupid of me, she told herself. She knew enough not to get a man aroused unless she intended to follow through. But in that case, she’d better be sure that’s what she wanted.

  The truth was that right now she was still trying to figure out what was going on between Eric and her. And until she did, she’d better not make any foolish mistakes.

  Chapter Six

  “Okay, Frank, so what do your kids like to read?”

  “Harry Potter books,” her boss said without hesitation. “When do you think you’ll come back to work?”

  “Not yet,” Molly hedged, flicking a curious chameleon off her shoe. She sat talking on her cell phone near the marina office, beneath an arbor covered with a profusion of bougainvillea blossoms. The chameleon twitched his head and gazed at her with his beady eyes before sprinting toward the street.