A Soft Place to Fall (27 page)

"Burgers and mammograms to go," she said,
shaking her head in amusement. "I have a lot to learn."

"You're doing fine," he said, noticing
briefly the dark circles under her light blue eyes. "Everyone likes
you –" he paused for effect "—even though you're a New Yorker."

She tossed a sugar packet in his direction.
"Just wait," she said, laughing. "Next time we're down there for a
seminar, I'm going to take you back to the old neighborhood and
show you what real bagels taste like."

His eyes widened. "How did you know I was
thinking about a bagel?"

She leaned forward, elbows on the cheap
formica tabletop, and fixed him with a kind but serious look. "So
what's wrong," she said, lowering her voice so only he could hear
her. "You look like hell today."

He thought about the way Annie Galloway had
looked when she walked out of Cappy's hand-in-hand with Sam Butler.
"I forgot Willa and Mariah were spending the night," he said,
dodging the real truth.

"Where are they now?"

"Stevens from Pediatrics said they could
color in the sun room while I met up with the Perrins."

"And that's it?"

"That's all I'm going to tell you."

"She's a fool," Ellen said, "and you can
quote me on that."

"You're a good friend, Markowitz," he said,
"but you don't know what you're talking about."

Ellen smiled and said nothing at all.

#

Claudia didn't sleep a wink all night. Every
time she closed her eyes, she saw Annie and that man and her
stomach started to churn and she found herself reaching for the
antacid tablets she kept on her nightstand. Finally she gave up and
went downstairs to the kitchen and made the deviled eggs for the
Labor Day picnic. If she remembered right, Annie would oversee the
goings-on at Annie's Flowers while Claudia and Roberta and the rest
of the Golden Age Volunteers hustled for donations for the new
senior citizens center the hospital planned to build.

She arranged the two dozen deviled eggs on
the round glass platters with the egg-shaped depressions made
especially for the cholesterol-laden treats. The platters had
belonged to her mother and to her mother's mother before her. Her
granddaughters found it hard to believe there had ever been a time
when such deadly fare had not only been consumed in quantity, but
had merited its own service pieces as well.

She dearly wanted to sample one of those
buttery-yellow, eggy treats but she didn't dare. She had lost a
husband and son to the cruelty of heart disease and she wasn't
ready to offer herself up on that particular altar just for the
sake of egg yolk and mayonnaise.

By six a.m. she had made the deviled eggs;
three dozen pinwheels of ham, cream cheese, and scallions; a medley
of lightly steamed veggies and a virtuously low fat dip to enjoy
with them. Everything had been carefully wrapped then stowed in her
refrigerator until it was time to load them into Susan's minivan
for the trip into town.

She took a bath, attended to her morning
needs, then made herself eat a breakfast of bran cereal, skim milk,
and decaf. All of that only took her up until seven-thirty which
meant another four and a half hours until it was time to leave. She
considered tidying up the front rooms but they were already
immaculate. Since John's death, she had found herself taking great
comfort from routine chores. She did the wash on Mondays, the
floors on Tuesdays, the bathrooms on Wednesdays. Thursday nights
were reserved for supermarket shopping. Once you added in her work
schedule at Annie's Flowers and the hours she put in as a Golden
Age volunteer, you had something that looked like a full life. It
helped to know there was a reason to get up in the morning, some
place where she was expected to be.

What was it the young people called it? Anal
retentive or was it obsessive-compulsive. Either way, she was
afraid the term fit. "You're getting too set in your ways, Ma,"
Sean had said the last time he came home for a visit. "Loosen up.
You'll live longer."

Well, Sean,
she thought as she settled
down with the new John Grisham,
when you get to be my age that
may not sound quite so inviting.

#

As usual Susan was running late. She had to
fix breakfast, clean up, make sure Jack knew where everything was
and what he was supposed to bring to the picnic later, then put
herself together in a reasonable facsimile of a successful real
estate broker at a town picnic. She hated business casual dressing.
How much easier things had been in the 1980s when all you needed
was shoulder pads and a silk dress. She opted in the end for a nice
pair of walking shorts, her best sandals, and a camp shirt. She
wouldn't win any fashion awards but it would do.

She pulled up in front of the house where
she'd grown up about quarter after the hour. She'd expected to find
Claudia standing in the foot of the driveway, tapping her foot and
glancing pointedly at her watch but to her surprise there was no
sign of her mother anywhere.

"Oh great," she muttered as she pulled into
the driveway and shifted into park. Claudia was probably inside on
the telephone, reading poor Jack the riot act because her daughter
was a few measly minutes late. If only her mother would learn to
cut them some slack, but that was like asking the earth to stop
spinning. Claudia was the way she was and only an act of God could
change her.

Okay, Ma, you made your point. You can come
out now.

She drummed her fingers on the steering
wheel, stared at the clock on the dashboard then over at the quiet
house.

She's your mother, Susan, even if she does
drive you crazy. Get your butt out of the car and go see what's
going on.

The back door was open. She wasn't sure if
that was a good sign or a bad one. "Sorry I'm late, Ma," she called
out, "but you know how it is with kids."

No response.

Her heartbeat quickened.

The kitchen was neat as a pin. No surprise
there. Your average hospital operating room harbored more germs
than her mother's trash bin.

"Ma?"

Still no response. Oh God. Terrible things
happened to old people every day of the week. Wicked falls down the
basement staircase. Slips in the bathtub. How many times had they
told her the house was too big and too dangerous for a woman alone.
Susan had even gathered up all the brochures from the new
retirement village on the outskirts of town, the one with the staff
on call twenty-four hours a day in case of emergency.

She burst into the living room and was
halfway up the stairs to the second floor when she realized Claudia
was curled up in the wing chair with a book open on her lap. For a
second a river of fear flooded her body until she saw the gentle up
and down motion of her mother's chest and relief almost knocked her
flat. She placed a hand on her mother's forearm. How small her
mother seemed. How vulnerable.

"Ma," she said softly. "Ma, wake up."

Claudia inhaled deeply, frowned, then opened
her eyes. "You're late," she said.

"Since when do you take a nap in the
morning."

"I didn't sleep last night," Claudia said.
"Not that it's any of your business."

"Is something wrong?" Her mother managed a
variety of medical problems, any one of which could cause the
occasional bad night.

"You were there," Claudia said. "You saw
them."

"I know," Susan said, amazed to find herself
on the same side of an issue as her mother. "I can't believe it
either."

"I gave Warren a piece of my mind," Claudia
said as they headed for the kitchen to pack up the foods.

"What did Warren do?" She opened the
refrigerator door and pulled out the covered platters of deviled
eggs.

"He's responsible."

"All he did was let the guy stay in Ellie's
old house."

"That's what he says, but I know him. He has
ulterior motives."

"Now you sound like one of those conspiracy
theorists Sean and Eileen idolize."

They looked at each other and Claudia was the
first one to laugh. "Was I always this bad or is it that I'm
getting old and set in my ways?"

Susan gave her a hug. "You were pretty much
always this bad."

How fragile her mother felt, how painfully
human.

"Did you see the way she looked at that man
last night?" Claudia sounded wistful.

"I think we all did, Ma."

They fell silent for what seemed like a very
long time.

"That's how I felt about your father,"
Claudia said at last. "That's just how it was between us."

Susan exhaled on a sigh. She and Jack loved
each other very much but she wasn't sure they had ever looked at
each other that way. "You don't think she'll bring him to the
picnic, do you?"

"After the way she behaved last night,
nothing would surprise me."

"Ma, really! It's not like she jumped his
bones right there in Cappy's. They held hands. There isn't a law
against it."

From the look on Claudia's face, it was clear
her mother thought there should be.

And, if Susan were honest with herself, she
just might agree.

Chapter Thirteen

Sweeney
was the first one to notice.

They were setting up the sidewalk displays
when Annie reached for one of the suncatchers and Sweeney grabbed
her left hand.

"Your ring," she said, looking at Annie with
a question in her eyes.

Annie's fingers automatically curled into a
soft fist. "It was time," she said.

Curiosity won. "Does this have anything to do
with the guy who showed up here the other day with your keys?"

She considered dodging the question but
decided there was little point. After last night at Cappy's, she
was bound to be at the top of the Shelter Rock Cove gossip hit
parade.

"Yes," she said much to Sweeney's delight,
"but the less we talk about it around Claudia, the happier we'll
all be."

"She might not notice."

Annie arched a brow. "You don't believe that
any more than I do, Sweeney."

"Is he coming to the picnic?"

"He's here already," she said. "I think he's
over by the fire truck."

Warren would be there later, too. He'd told
them that he was manning the grill for the Museum barbecue. Claudia
and Roberta were busy setting up the huge tables of picnic food
under the maple trees near the bandstand while Susan, who was in
charge of the real estate office's spot not twenty feet away from
Annie, seemed to be giving her the cold shoulder.

"What's with your sister-in-law?" Sweeney
asked as they draped ropes of greenery along the edge of their
display table. "Why is she ignoring you?"

"She is, isn't she," Annie said. "I was
wondering if it was my imagination."

"Then your imagination just gave me
frostbite." Sweeney feigned a shiver. "Don't tell me she's upset
about what's-his-name."

"His name is Sam," Annie said, laughing, "and
I can't believe she'd be upset about something like this." It
seemed so unlike Susan who always did her level best to keep
Claudia from trying to run Annie's life.

"You know what happens when you drop a pebble
into a pond, don' t you?"

"Ripples," Annie said. Concentric rings of
them expanding outward until they ran out of water. "What does that
have to do with anything?"

"That's easy," Sweeney said. "The Galloway
clan is the pond and your Sam – well, he's a hundred pound
boulder."

#

The Shelter Rock Cove Volunteer Fire
Department consisted of seven members, one of whom was eight months
pregnant and relegated to phone duty for the duration. They ranged
in age from late teens to early sixties. They were probably the
most unlikely-looking fire fighters Sam had ever seen but this
strange mix of dentist, hair stylist, hardware store owner, short
order cook, day care operator, and two lobster fishermen were as
tightly bound to each other as any flesh-and-blood family could
ever be.

"Now that Becky's not going out with us any
more, we could really use a new face around the fire house," said
Ethan Venable, the retirement age dentist. "You look like a prime
candidate to me, son."

Sam couldn't deny the pull of the shiny red
truck and the sense of community and friendship among the small
crew of volunteers. "I'm staying in Ellie Bancroft's old place but
it's only temporary." He mentioned something about being between
jobs and Ethan nodded politely.

"Too bad," the man said, shaking Sam's hand.
"You look like you'd fit in up here just fine."

If you'd said that to Sam two weeks ago, he
would have suggested some serious couch time. He was a New Yorker,
born and bred. He lived and breathed the crowds, the noise, the way
life moved faster than the speed of light. But there he was,
wandering along a village green, sampling Sarah's Famous Blueberry
Pie and Amanda's World Class Potato Salad and enjoying every minute
of it. Annie had lived her entire life in this small town. Except
for her years in college, her views on life had been shaped right
here among these people. He wanted to ask the woman at the photo
booth if she had known Annie as a little girl.
Tell me about
her,
he thought as he absorbed the sights and people around
him.
Was she quiet? Was she popular? Did everyone love her or
didn't you even know she existed?
He wanted to know about the
night her parents died and her life changed forever.
Did Kevin
Galloway hold her in his arms and make it all better? Had he tried
to kiss away her pain? Did she really love him or did she just love
being part of a family?

He'd seen a picture of Galloway at Warren's
place that morning. Max had disappeared somewhere in the house and
he'd left Warren and Annie chatting in the breakfast room while he
tried to track down the errant yellow Lab. Max being Max he wasn't
hard to find, and Sam called to him from the door to the private
study adjacent to Warren's bedroom. Max, however, was having none
of it. He was curled up on a luminous Oriental carpet and ready to
indulge in his favorite pastime of power napping.