The Mommy Wish

by Pamela Browning

  He woke up later than usual to the beep of the coffee-maker signaling that coffee was ready. He slid out of bed, pulled on his shorts and stepped into the salon to find Molly, already showered and dressed, holding a mug out to him.

  “I didn’t expect you to be up so early,” he said.

  She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “The sleeping aid worked. I feel okay this morning, but it’s hard to accept the finality of Grandpa’s death. I halfway expect him to step down that ladder, booming out plans for the day’s sailing.”

  “I know you’ll miss him. What did your sister have to say?”

  Molly filled him in on yesterday’s conversation with Brianne. “After Patrick arrives home from Ireland, the three of us will grant Grandpa’s final wish. We’ll scatter his ashes at sea, and if I can talk them into it, maybe we’ll sail to the Bahamas for a week or so. It would be a fitting tribute to our grandfather to enjoy his boat one last time.”

  “Last time?” Eric repeated. “You mean you’ll sell her?”

  “I suppose so. None of us has the kind of life that allows time to appreciate a sailing yacht like Fiona.” She sounded regretful, even sad.

  “You still want to take her to Fort Lauderdale?”

  “Of course.”

  “I see.” He drank all his coffee in one long gulp. “I’m going up on deck. I noticed some spots that need caulking before we leave.”

  He thought her gaze followed him as he climbed the ladder, but he didn’t speak again and neither did she.

  ERIC WAS SETTING OUT caulking materials when Molly appeared on the foredeck.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  She knelt beside him. “I talked to my brother. He’s devastated, as you can imagine. He says he’s not coming home until spring.”

  “That’s what you expected, right?”

  “Pretty much. I miss him, that’s all.” She heaved a sigh and picked up a tube of caulk. “Do you need some help.”

  He kept his head down, taping the teak so the caulking material wouldn’t stick to it. “Why don’t you take it easy today?”

  “I should call Frank at the office, ask if Grandpa’s passing has changed anything around there. I’m putting it off. Talking with Patrick made me feel even worse.”

  He looked at her then, really looked at her. Her swollen eyes and pale cheeks cut to his heart. “Hey,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m holding myself together. Phoebe offered me comfort food. She poured me a bowl of her Cocoa Krispies and said they’d make me feel better. She’s been very solicitous, and it’s sweet.”

  “How’d you like the cereal?”

  “Not bad. I’ll probably eat more tomorrow morning.”

  He chuckled, and she smiled. “Should I go below and check on Phoebe?” he asked.

  Molly shook her head. “She’s watching a TV program about volcanoes. She hinted, by the way, that she wouldn’t mind seeing a real one.”

  “If I got a job in the South Pacific, she would. Whether it would be erupting is another thing.” He accepted the tube of caulk from her before squeezing out a long line of the black paste between two rows of teak.

  “Would you really do that? Take Phoebe so far away from home, I mean?”

  “We have no home. You’ve reminded me of that a few times.”

  “Eric—”

  Sensing that he had really upset her with his remark, he glanced at her. She’d scrunched her hair carelessly on top of her head with a small terry-cloth band—he wasn’t sure of the correct name for it. It was the same color as her shirt, which was bright blue. A bit of cleavage showed above the scooped neckline, and his hands grew damp as he contemplated the pleasures that would accompany peeling it away from her body to expose her beautiful breasts. He swallowed, made himself look away.

  “I haven’t decided yet what Phoebe and I will do next,” he said gruffly.

  She was quiet for a time, and then she stood. “If you don’t need any help here, I’m going to wash Phoebe’s breakfast dishes, and then I’ll call Frank.”

  “I can manage. You should relax, not plan on doing any work today.”

  She shook her head so that a few loose strands of golden hair fell across her forehead. “I learned when my mom died that the best way to get through something like this is to keep busy. I’ll spend time with Phoebe, maybe clean out the refrigerator.” She stood and picked her way carefully across the lines that secured the dinghy, then disappeared into the cockpit.

  Eric leaned back and wiped his brow. He knew he had to give Molly her space right now, let her mourn in her own fashion. This was not the time for heavy discussions about their future or daydreams about how they might stay together. Neither of them had spoken about forever. That had never been an option, and he’d realized it from the start.

  Eric lowered his head again, squeezing out more caulk and spreading it between the boards. If he knew what was good for him, he’d learn to regard this interlude on Fiona with Goddess Molly as a mere blip on the radar screen of his life.

  Molly would go back to Chicago soon, and she’d forget him and Phoebe. Saying goodbye was going to be hard for him, and he could only imagine how difficult it would be for his daughter.

  He had reached the point of grasping at straws. Perhaps he and Phoebe could follow Molly to Chicago. A college classmate of his lived there, had something to do with the board of trade. Don would have contacts in important places, would put in a good word for Eric, would help him get a job.

  But Eric couldn’t imagine himself living in Chicago. City life wasn’t what he wanted for Phoebe, either.

  Boats plied the Intracoastal, lazily stirring the water into foamy white wakes. Down the dock, someone was cleaning fish, and a bevy of gulls circled overhead waiting for handouts. Life around a marina was endlessly fascinating and had always had a calming effect on him. Some of Eric’s happiest times had been spent around boats. This was what he liked to do, what made him happy. He couldn’t imagine giving it up.

  But he would have to, eventually, for Phoebe. The sensation of impending loss enveloped him. Somewhere, he admitted ruefully to himself, was a regular nine-to-five job that he would soon fill, a tedious means of making a living and nothing more. It would provide a pension plan and health insurance, and he’d have a manager who might or might not like his work, who would have to be flattered, mollified and pleased, not necessarily in equal amounts. As he contemplated the loss of Molly and of the work he loved, it seemed too much to bear.

  He bent to his task, taking heart from the knowledge that he and Phoebe would have a few more days with Molly, at least. They would leave for Fort Lauderdale shortly after dawn tomorrow.

  “YOU DIDN’T GET A CHANCE to tell him?” Dee’s voice on the phone was incredulous.

  Molly, sitting on a bench one dock away from Fiona, propped her feet on a nearby boat box and kept her eye on Phoebe, who was tossing bread crusts to ducks swimming in the water. “I wasn’t in the mood after I found out about Grandpa. The romantic dinner didn’t happen.”

  “Oh, Molly, what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll wait until we reach Fort Lauderdale. By that time, I’ll be ready to get back to normal. Whatever that is,” she said with a rueful laugh. She was glad that Phoebe was too far away to hear and that the dock was otherwise unoccupied, because this was a private conversation.

  “We’ll miss you in Greensea Springs,” Dee said. “Are you going to come over before you leave?”

  “I don’t know, Dee,” Molly said, troubled. “It might make it even harder on Phoebe.”

  “I could bring the kids over to the marina in the morning. We could wave you off.”

  “That would work. Say, stop by for breakfast. It might be cereal for the kids and frozen bagels for the adults, but at least we’d have a chance to say goodbye.”

  “Invitation accepted,” Dee said. She sighed. “I hate to see you leave, Molly. I was hoping to recruit you to help me sew puppet costumes. Selena
even mentioned that you’d be a good addition to the puppet theater’s board of directors.”

  “I’ll miss you and your family and Selena and the Blossom Cabaret crowd and—well, all of it,” Molly said. “But listen to this, Dee. I have an idea of how to help the puppet theater in a very important way. Do you have a minute?”

  “I have an hour, if you need it. Tell, tell.”

  Molly, knowing that she had come up with a fitting memorial for Emmett, began to outline her plan.

  ERIC WAS TAKING A BREAK from the hot midday sun when Phoebe showed up on Fiona.

  “Hi, Dad,” she shouted as she jumped down off the deck into the cockpit. She started down the ladder.

  Eric looked up from the navigational charts that he’d spread across the table in the chart room and watched his daughter as she appeared, feet first, red plaid shorts and matching shirt next, then the rest of her.

  “Hi there, cutie. I thought you and Molly were going to be doing something this morning,” he said.

  Phoebe heaved a sigh. “We fed the ducks all the old bread, or at least I did. Mommy—I mean Molly—is talking on the phone with Mrs. Farrell.”

  When Eric glanced out the chart room porthole and saw Molly sitting on a bench the next dock over, looking engrossed in her conversation. That Phoebe had slipped and called her “Mommy” hadn’t escaped his notice.

  “Phoebe,” he began patiently, then noticed that his daughter was pouting. The strain of having to leave Greensea Springs was written on her face.

  “Would you like me to make lunch?” she asked, which diverted him from the lecture he needed to give her.

  “I didn’t know you could,” he said.

  “Molly taught me how,” she said, brightening. “I only know how to do peanut butter sandwiches, but they’re my favorite.”

  They definitely weren’t Eric’s, but that was okay. “I’d like that,” he said.

  Phoebe went into the galley and started to assemble peanut butter, jelly and bread. He studied her silently as she worked, marveling at how efficiently she went about the job. Even though the counter was too high for her, she managed to spread the peanut butter and jelly on the bread without making much of a mess.

  “I’m going to leave the sandwiches whole because Molly doesn’t like me to cut them. She says the knives we have are all too sharp.”

  “I’ll see if I can find one you can use when we get to Fort Lauderdale,” he said.

  Carefully Phoebe transferred the sandwiches from the cutting board to small plates, and carried one to him where he was working. “Here,” she said. “I know you’re busy figuring out the boat channels and stuff.” Phoebe, veteran of many voyages, understood the drill.

  “Got a kiss for your dear old dad?” he asked, pulling her close.

  She pecked him on the cheek. “Can I turn on the TV?”

  “Sure, it won’t bother me.”

  She brought him a bottle of juice and he twisted off the cap for her. She dug around in a drawer until she found a drinking straw, and then she climbed on the lounge and began to eat her lunch.

  He munched on his sandwich, thinking that it tasted pretty good. In the salon, the TV switched on, and he heard some inane advertisement for hair products.

  Over the noise of the commercial, he also heard Phoebe making a wish. She kept her voice low, but when he figured out what she was saying, he put down his sandwich and listened.

  “This is my last sand wish here in Greensea Springs,” she said. “Please, please, please, like I’ve asked so many times before, could Molly be my new mommy? There’s not much time left. We’ll be in Fort Lauderdale soon, and you know what that means. So please could I have my wish?” The urgency in her tone was heart-wrenching, even desperate.

  Shaken to the core, Eric half stood and started to go to her, then changed his mind and fell back onto the seat. Is that what Phoebe had been wishing for? For Molly to be her mother?

  He was familiar with Phoebe’s sand wishes for a new house and a real vacuum cleaner and to have Cookie back. He had heard her make those requests innumerable times and had pegged them as harmless. The sand wish thing was a little unusual, perhaps. The things she asked for were, well, touching. But this mommy wish of hers was something he hadn’t heard before.

  Suddenly things added up, made sense. He realized that Phoebe had been subtly and not so subtly paving the way for him to fall in love with Molly from the moment she’d arrived on Fiona. Since Phoebe was his daughter, and only seven years old besides, he hadn’t credited her with being so manipulative.

  Of course he’d played right into her fantasy. He’d done exactly what Phoebe had wanted—he’d fallen in love. The difference between him and Phoebe was that he had always known the risks. He’d made a big mistake in letting his daughter think that there was any possibility that Molly Kate McBryde could remain part of their lives.

  He pushed the plate with the sandwich aside and massaged his eyes wearily. In the salon, Phoebe clicked the channel to a kids’ cartoon network. She would be eating her sandwich, drinking her juice.

  As for him, he wasn’t hungry anymore. In his heart, he’d realized all along how this relationship would end, though he’d been reluctant to admit it. As Molly had said once, things didn’t always turn out all right, they simply turned out, and it was up to them to make the best of it. He’d deal with losing her somehow. He was an adult and would get over her, eventually.

  For Phoebe, however, who had been forced through no fault of her own to say goodbye to so many people and places she loved, it would be a lot harder than it was for him. He should have taken drastic measures to make sure that Phoebe hadn’t grown to care about Molly as much as he did. He lowered his head to his hands.

  MOLLY CAME BACK from saying goodbye to Micki that afternoon and found Eric in the cockpit, making a list of last-minute supplies to buy for the boat. Phoebe was sitting quietly beside him, writing.

  “We need sugar and coffee, maybe some canned goods,” Eric told her as he tucked the list in his pocket. He looked tired and out of sorts, probably due to his working on deck in the hot sun.

  “I didn’t think about stocking up,” Molly told him. “I could have shopped earlier, while you were still working here.”

  He smiled thinly, and she thought he was more pale than usual under his tan. He also seemed more distracted, but that was to be expected. Sailing Fiona to Fort Lauderdale was a big responsibility.

  “I don’t expect you to worry about things like that,” he said. “You’re still mourning.”

  “I’m feeling better now that I’m focusing on positive things,” she said. “I want to memorialize Grandpa in a special way, one that will take into account his enthusiasms and bring pleasure to others. Would you like to know what I have in mind?”

  His eyes took on a bit of their old sparkle, and he sat down on the cockpit bench opposite her. “I certainly would,” he said.

  “I’m going to donate a large amount of money to the art center’s puppet theater in Grandpa’s memory,” she announced.

  Phoebe, who sat quietly beside her composing another message for a bottle, looked up with wide eyes.

  “What a great idea,” Eric said.

  “He’d love it. I’ll set the money aside in a trust, and it will pay for supplies and training and anything else they need. Selena and Dee will be co-chairs of the board governing how the money is spent, and I’ll visit every once in a while to take in a puppet show or two.”

  “Molly, that’s impressive. Emmett would be so proud of you.”

  “I hope so. My grandfather wouldn’t have liked to see me crying, and I’m going to make sure something good will come out of my grief.”

  He stood, and for a moment she thought he might say something else. Then his eyes flicked in the direction of Phoebe, and he drew himself up, seemed to have made a decision about something.

  Molly gazed at him inquiringly, but all he said was “I’d better be on my way. How are we fixed for dinner?”


  “I’m cooking,” Molly said. “It’ll be something special to commemorate our last night in Greensea Springs.”

  “I’ll bet it’s that asparagus casserole,” Phoebe chimed in. “Corduroy says he hates it.”

  “You can have the ravioli,” Molly told her. “Remember how you said that’s what you’d like?”

  “Asparagus sounds good to me,” Eric replied.

  Phoebe stopped writing. “Do you think I’ll ever see Corduroy and Lexie again, Dad?”

  “I hope so, Peanut. You never know.”

  Phoebe’s eyebrows knotted in a scowl. “That’s what he always says when the answer is no,” she told Molly. When she began to write her bottle message again, she bore down so hard on the pencil that the lead broke. She stared at it in dismay. “I hate when that happens,” she said. “Now I’ve got to sharpen it.”

  “Don’t make a mistake and stick your little finger in the pencil sharpener,” Eric said, but this time Phoebe didn’t smile, only shot him a murderous look and disappeared down the companionway.

  For a moment, Eric fidgeted as if he were at loose ends. “I guess she isn’t too happy,” he said finally.

  Molly touched his hand briefly in a rush of sympathy, but he seemed aloof and cool, his mind on other things.

  “I’d better go,” he said, starting to walk up the dock.

  Molly noticed then that the sun had slipped below the western horizon and the sky was darkening. “Let’s take the cushions on deck and watch the stars pop out after you finish writing your message,” she called down to Phoebe.

  “Let’s do it now,” Phoebe called back. “I can finish my message later.”

  Molly dragged the cushions onto the deck, and Phoebe joined her. This time she snuggled right up to Molly, and Molly wrapped her arms around her, inhaling the sweet little-girl smell of no-tears shampoo and bubble gum.

  “I’m going to miss Greensea Springs an awful lot,” Phoebe said with a slight catch in her voice.

  “I know, Phoebe. I will, too.”

  “Are Lexie and Corduroy and Jada and Mr. and Mrs. Farrell all really coming to say goodbye tomorrow?”