“Sure we did,” Izzy said, leaning into the conversation. “Birdie said we had to.”
Gracie laughed. “Good for Birdie.” She looked over at the small figure squatting on a wooden stool, carefully sandpapering a strip of new woodwork.
“You’ll have lines weaving all the way to the parking lot,” Nell said. She sat back on her knees and looked around at the space that had once housed a bait and tackle shop. She could hardly remember how it appeared the first time they had seen the inside. The dust and dirt had been so thick they’d covered their mouths with tissue, and beams of light from the holes in the roof fell down on piles of discarded debris—old fishing lines and hooks, unpainted buoys and weights. The windows were broken and dirty glass littered the floor. It had taken a leap of faith to see beyond the mess to Gracie’s dream.
Back then, she couldn’t imagine people laughing and chatting and walking through the restaurant door. She couldn’t imagine tables or chairs or lobsters served on bright white platters—or chunky bowls of thick chowder to offset winter’s chill.
But today, it already looked like a welcoming place—and big enough to house the twenty or so tables that the permit allowed. The main room was anchored on either side by a small kitchen, storeroom, and one bathroom with a new sink and stool. Gracie’s biggest splurge was a fireplace—necessary if she was going to serve chowder in the winter, she’d rationalized. Joey Delaney had stepped up and offered to build it—his contribution to her project, as he called it. It was fronted with Cape Ann granite, sturdy and thick, and soon they’d add a mantel carved by a Canary Cove artist. The back wall would be all windows and doors. Beyond them, hanging out over the harbor water like an airplane’s wing, was a wide rustic deck. For family dinners in the summer, Gracie had said. And there’d be big heaters for spring and fall. Wouldn’t the kids love it, sitting at picnic tables, waving at the gulls, and watching the harbor seals play off the far shore?
Pete appeared soon with pizzas and a cooler of beer. He set it down near the kitchen door. “Sorry I’m late, folks.”
“And where were you, dear bro?” Cass asked, her brows lifting suggestively.
Pete made a face at his sister and pushed a lock of sandy-colored hair from his eyes.
“It’s nice of you to give Willow a hand,” Birdie said from her perch on the floor. “And you leave him alone, Catherine.”
Cass laughed. “I think it’s nice, too.”
“She’s fixing up her dad’s studio,” Nell said. “I’m glad she’s making it her own.”
“Yeah. It’s looking great. She’s moving things around, adding some display stands for her fiber art. But she’s keeping Aidan’s spirit there, too. His wooden sculptures are everywhere—but none of them for sale.”
Nell smiled at the memory of their friend who had been dead a year now. His daughter was working hard to make sure people wouldn’t forget him.
Pete began snapping the tops off cold bottles of Sam Adams. “It’ll always be Aidan’s place. But there’s lots of Willow appearing in bits and pieces.”
“Willow is creating a hanging for the restaurant—I saw the sketch and it’ll be perfect for above the fireplace,” Gracie said. “It’s her first commissioned piece, she said.”
The ringing of a cell phone cut through the conversation and several hands slapped jeans pockets to identify the source.
“It’s me,” Gracie announced, lifting her phone into the air. She stepped outside to take the call.
“The beer was a good idea, Pete. Thanks,” Ben said.
“Maybe we need to take a break before we begin? Prime the pump?” Cass offered, eyeing the pizza.
The others laughed, and Birdie pulled some paper plates and napkins out of a bag next to her. “That’s one of the many reasons we love our Catherine,” she said. “She always has her priorities in line.”
Cass’ husky laugh traveled across the room and she blew Birdie a kiss.
The door opened and Gracie walked back into the room, her face serious. “That was Julianne,” she said. She tried to keep her words light, but they fell as heavily as an anchor onto the dusty hardwood floor. “The police have questioned her. They called her a ‘person of interest.’” Gracie looked around, her eyes as big as saucers in her narrow face. “That’s not good, is it?”
Chapter 9
The only sound in the hollow room was the shuffling of a pizza carton as Pete made a space next to him for Gracie to sit. She folded her legs and collapsed on the floor, accepting the bottle of beer that Pete handed her. She took a deep breath and looked around. “So, what do we think?”
“Do you want me to go down to the station?” Ben asked. He had pulled over a bench and sat next to Nell, a plate of pizza balanced on his lap.
Gracie shook her head. “She called from the Gull, not the police station. Fortifying herself, I guess.”
“So they didn’t keep her?”
“Nope. Just asked her a lot of questions. Like why she was at the yacht club that night. And where she disappeared to after she talked to Alphonso. And was she hanging around the parking lot. And how much did she know about car brakes.”
“Did she have answers?” Ben asked.
“I don’t think she remembers that night very clearly. She’d had way too many beers. She thinks she just wandered down to the beach after confronting Alphonso. She sat there for a while, so that’s what she told them. Then, when her head cleared, she got back in her car and drove over to Gloucester to spend the night with Mandy. Things had gotten too tense between her and Sophia this past year for her to stay at Alphonso’s.”
“It’s not a surprise the police wanted to talk to her,” Nell said. “They’ll be talking to everyone. You, me.”
“And unfortunately, Julianne’s scene at the club and the house were well reported,” Birdie added.
“I remember Julianne saying things like that ever since Alphonso married Sophia,” Cass said. “She would have hated anyone he married, don’t you think, Gracie?”
“Maybe. But maybe not as much as Sophia. Sophia was so black and white—the opposite of Julianne. And she judged Julianne harshly, not that she didn’t deserve it.”
“Alphonso doesn’t listen to many people, but he seemed to have valued Sophia’s opinion,” Birdie said. She was sitting on the floor leaning against one wall, her short legs sticking straight out in front of her. Her gray eyes were thoughtful as she followed the conversation from person to person. “That couldn’t have sat well with your mother.”
Gracie agreed. “My grandparents didn’t leave Julianne her own trust, not outright anyway. It was for her own good, Alphonso said. That was probably true. She had to ask him for money if she ran out. Which she did often because she couldn’t hold a job.”
“Not to mention the men that took advantage of her,” Cass added.
“That, too. Sophia thought that you rewarded the good, punished the bad, and Julianne, in her mind, didn’t often fall into the ‘good’ category. She encouraged Alphonso not to be an enabler. I think that was the word she used.”
“It’s the tough love approach,” Birdie said.
“Exactly. But Julianne knew that when Alphonso turned her down, it was probably because of Sophia. And she hated her for it. That caused problems.”
“Your grandparents meant well,” Birdie said. “They were good neighbors and very kind to me when Sonny brought me to his family home next door. I think they tried hard to do the right thing for their daughter.”
“Who’s your mother with now?” Ben asked. “Alphonso?”
“I don’t know, but she’ll be okay. She’s a survivor.” Gracie’s voice fell off and Pete filled in the silence by finding some work music, as he called it, on his iPod.
A fresh pizza box was passed around as James Taylor, crooning about fire and rain and finding a friend, filled in the background.
Nell looked at Gracie sitting on the floor. She wanted to say something to ease her worry. But what? She reached down and squeeze
d her shoulder gently, reading the emotions that played across her narrow face.
Gracie was looking around the circle—the unlikely group of friends who’d stay all night if she wanted them to. They’d stay and spackle or sandpaper, sweep the dust and wipe up the floor. They’d stay as long as she needed them, and then they’d stay a little longer, to be sure she was okay.
“You guys are the best,” Gracie said. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, as if thinking through what she should say next.
“Julianne isn’t a bad person,” she went on. “She just can’t hold things together very well, that’s all.” Her eyes grew moist.
“She may have her faults, but she’s not a murderer.” Gracie was shaking her head now, as if she were talking to herself, convincing herself. “She could no more kill Sophia Santos than she could be mother of the year. She just couldn’t, that’s all.”
The knock on the door was soft, but in the stillness of the room, it echoed harshly. Joey Delaney opened it slowly, then stepped inside, and looked around. “Hey, everyone. Am I interrupting?”
He filled the doorframe, the tall shadow of his body falling across the group. He looked around until he spotted Gracie on the floor, an untouched plate of pizza in front of her.
“Gracie,” he said. His voice was hesitant. “I just left your mom at the Gull . . .”
It wasn’t until Joey walked around the circle, his eyes never leaving his almost ex-wife, and crouched down beside her, that Gracie’s tears flowed freely.
Chapter 10
They stayed later than they’d planned, leaving only when darkness and limited electricity forced them from the building.
It was therapy of a sort, Nell supposed. At the least, the night of work, pizza, and friends seemed to lift Gracie’s spirits.
“How was Julianne?” Nell asked Joey as she helped him finish spackling the fireplace.
Joey sat back on his heels and shrugged. “She seemed okay. She’s the kind of person who can weather just about anything. She says she didn’t do it—though the evidence is stacking up against her fast. But it’s Gracie I’m concerned about. Her mom is good at shaking things off. Gracie, not so much.”
“I can see that. I think it helped that you came by.”
“I wanted to be sure she was okay,” he mumbled, then pulled himself up from the floor and reached out a hand to help Nell up.
Nell brushed the dust and sand off her jeans and straightened her spine, pressing her hands into her lower back. “Well, Gracie needs friends. All of us.”
“Her mom can be a handful—I saw a little of that firsthand when Gracie and I lived in Gloucester. But Julianne and I, I don’t know, we’ve connected lately. Maybe it’s because we both can mess up good things and know what it’s like to lose something . . . someone . . . important.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket.
“She wasn’t fond of her sister-in-law, that seems clear.”
Joey was silent for a minute, and it seemed to Nell he was weighing his words. But when he spoke again, his tone was noncommittal, neutral. “I don’t know much about that,” he said. “Everyone has their side to things, I guess.” He looked over Nell’s shoulder and waved at Gracie. “Hey, gorgeous Grace, I’m out of here. Call if you need anything.”
He gave his fireplace one more approving look, waved his key chain in the air, and disappeared out the door.
Gracie walked over to Nell and wiped her hands off on her worn jeans. She watched Joey through the window. “Julianne talks to him sometimes. He’ll help her through this if she needs it. Better him, maybe, than me.”
“He seems to like your mother.”
“Especially these last few months, whenever she’s shown up in Gloucester or here. He’s seen her more than I have,” Gracie said.
“He cares about you, too.”
Gracie shrugged her narrow shoulders. “It seems we should be married, have kids, live in a little cottage by the sea, doesn’t it? But it was complicated.”
“Matters of the heart can often be.”
“We were married almost four years.” Gracie glanced over at Ben, then back at Nell. “I guess that doesn’t seem long to you. But at times it seemed like a lifetime to me.”
“Maybe some people are meant to be loved and not married.”
“Maybe so.”
“You and Joey have made this divorce process seem, well, comfortable.”
Gracie looked out the window again. Joey was fastening his helmet and revving the engine of his coveted Agusta bike. “It’s been an emotional roller coaster. We moved to Gloucester just to put a little distance between family and us, though Joey came over to work every day. I don’t know, maybe I had too many expectations for marriage. Maybe you should just let it unfold. But I wanted a husband who was a partner, available. Joey was gone a lot. I wanted kids. He didn’t—not for a while, he said—but that ‘while’ kept stretching out and I finally realized he didn’t really want kids at all. We never seemed to have enough money. Things were a mess. It was just a bad scene, and finally we both agreed the divorce was the best solution. He moved out, back to Sea Harbor, and I stayed until the lease was up a few months later. I didn’t see him at all during that time. Then when I moved back, I don’t know, it’s been different. Recently, he’s been a real friend, so attentive. He seems to understand me better. I swear I’ve seen him more in the last three months than the whole time we were married.”
Izzy walked over and handed Nell and Gracie chocolate chip cookies.
“When will the divorce be final?” Nell asked.
“Soon. Sophia and Alphonso finally stepped in and insisted I talk to the family lawyer.”
“Sophia was okay with the divorce?”
Gracie nodded. “She never wanted the marriage. He was a Delaney, after all. She used to say the only thing I could have done worse would have been to marry Davey Delaney. These past few weeks she was at me all the time to finalize it and get on with my life.”
“I suppose with the restaurant and all, you needed to get things in order,” Izzy said.
“Alphonso was helping with the loan until I had my own money. I thought Joey and I lived pretty simply, but you know how that is. Money doesn’t last long. Even the wedding money our families gave us dried up. So Alphonso agreed to cover the restaurant investments until I could take over.”
Nell watched Gracie’s face while she tried to explain her marriage to Izzy. It held a wistfulness, and Nell couldn’t tell if it was for Joey, for the kids and the cottage by the sea, or for something she was missing entirely. But she wasn’t at all convinced that Gracie wanted this divorce.
Nell wondered about her own words to Gracie—Loved but not married. She had said it sincerely, but did she believe it? Nell looked at Ben. He was sitting on the wooden bench with Sam Perry, his elbows resting on his knees as he listened intently to Sam, who was probably explaining some new photographic technique, or a new sailboat he’d seen—a passion the two men shared. Ben’s head was slightly turned, his strong nose and chin prominent in profile. He needs a haircut, Nell thought, but the slightly shaggy look, his full silver-touched hair just hitting the collar of his knit shirt, brought back memories of walking around Harvard Square together, her long peasant skirt swooshing around her knees and a headband anchoring her long brown hair. Ben would have been wearing a T-shirt stretched across his chest, something from a Simon and Garfunkel concert or a peace rally. They’d both be gesturing as they walked, their shoulders bumping, their voices lifting now and then in laughter. And underneath their conversation on war and peace and zero population growth, there’d be a warm, rushing current of happiness and desire.
Some people, well, some people were meant to be married. That part of the equation she knew firsthand to be true.
“We’re closing up shop for the night,” Gracie announced, calling Pete in from the kitchen. “Everybody, out. Get yourselves a life.” She looked over at Ben, Pete, and Sam. “I owe you guys big. All of you.”
“Oh, pshaw,” Pete said, and reached for a green garbage bag. “We’ll pull in the favors. Don’t worry. I’ll know where to camp out when Nell’s kitchen is closed.”
They picked up pizza cartons and bottles, then emptied them all into the recycle bin. Purses and backpacks were gathered and Gracie found her noisy ring of keys and ushered them out the door.
“Nell, dear, you are my wheels tonight,” Birdie said, reminding Nell that they’d come together. They had been there so long that they’d nearly forgotten how they got there.
The group wandered off, dispersing in different directions, heading home or for a nightcap at the Gull, where a new band that Pete wanted to check out was playing. Nell and Birdie walked up the pier to the harbor parking lot, their sneakers silent on the wooden walkway.
Nell shivered in the evening breeze and slipped her arms into the blue denim sweater that Birdie had knit for her last year. She had watched her knitting it, carefully working in the gentle cables, for two long months. And all that time, she never knew that the gorgeous cotton and linen sweater was to be hers. Not until she found it beneath the tree on Christmas morning, wrapped in tissue and tied with a bright red ribbon. It was a perfect sweater for this time of year, a touch of warmth before the hot days heated the nights, soft and comforting against her skin.
The moon and gas lamps lining the pier guided them to Nell’s car. She could feel night settling down over the town, the light of the moon growing brighter as it pushed away the last shadows of daylight. Was it just five short days ago that they’d looked up at that same moon on the yacht club terrace? Five short days since a wayward car had sailed toward the moon, then spun to earth, crashing against a pile of granite rocks?
They pulled out of the parking lot, heading south into the hilly neighborhood known for its large homes and well-kept yards. The houses along Ravenswood Road had been built in the days when Cape Ann provided a hefty proportion of the entire country’s fish supply. Some of the dwellings, like Birdie’s, were captains’ homes that had been updated into lovely rambling estates; others were built by Boston barons who used them as vacation homes and entertained lavishly, then built them even bigger into permanent residences. The heavily forested land hid one house from another, a fact many owners considered a good thing.
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