Chances Are (49 page)

Did she know? He found it hard to believe she could look at Gina’s son Joey and not see her own son, her own dead husband, looking back at her. He hadn’t been in town more than twenty-four hours before he had nailed down the resemblance and begun to wonder about it. Probably half the town had figured it out by now, whispering behind their hands when Claire or Gina walked by.

He couldn’t change that. He couldn’t reach back through time and beat some sense into the bastard, make him see what he was doing to his wife, his family, any more than he could understand her need to protect her memory of their marriage. Sooner or later the truth would come out. This was a small town. Secrets didn’t stay secret forever. One day Gina would have one margarita too many and slip again, or maybe Claire would want to put the final ghost to rest once and for all.

But he would be damned if she found out in a televised documentary along with everybody else.

“Sorry, Crystal,” he said as he replaced Gina’s tape with a blank one from the box on the table.

This was one of those times when he was reasonably certain God looked the other way and maybe, just maybe, smiled.

 
MADDY WAITED IN the high school parking lot while Kelly started up her car. The plan was simple. They would drive back to O’Malley’s, where Maddy would break the news to Aidan while Kelly drummed up her courage to face her father.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all they had. Clearly the girl was hanging on by an emotional thread. There wasn’t time to prepare Aidan, to ease him toward the truth. His daughter needed him, and she needed him now. Her tears had finally stopped, but Maddy wasn’t fooled. The young woman was overwhelmed by the enormity of her decision, and she desperately needed the support of her family to see her through.

Which left Maddy wondering exactly where she would figure in the equation once Aidan was told about the part she had played in Kelly’s decision.

But it was too late now. She made a right into the parking lot behind O’Malley’s and claimed one of the employee spots. Kelly came to a stop right behind her.

She turned off the ignition and sat there staring ahead into the gathering dusk. There was no way she could put a pretty face on the ugly truth. She had betrayed Aidan’s trust. When the dust cleared, she knew he would be there for his daughter, but whether or not he would be able to forgive Maddy was anybody’s guess.

She paused by Kelly’s car before she went inside. “Give us fifteen minutes,” she said.
And say a prayer.

Kelly looked up at Maddy. Her eyes were swollen from her crying jag, red-rimmed and still weepy, but Maddy saw the faintest beginnings of acceptance.
I love you, Kel,
she thought. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, when respect and reserve had been replaced with love, but there was no denying the very real emotion that filled her heart. She wasn’t quite ready to say it, not with the future up in the air, but there it was, just the same.

“He won’t blame you,” Kelly said. “I won’t let him.”

She reached through the window and gave the girl’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Try to relax, honey. He loves you more than anything in this world. It’s going to be okay.”

The bar kitchen blazed with lights. Laughter rose in waves from the building and mingled with strains of vintage Springsteen. The spicy smells of chili and cheeseburgers wafted toward her. He made great chili. She had always said that. No store-bought chili powder for him, he always blended his own from—

His voice seemed to come from nowhere. “I wondered when you’d show up.”

Her heart lurched against her rib cage as he stepped out of the shadows near the kitchen door.

“You scared me!” She could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. “I didn’t see you there.”

His gaze shifted toward the parking lot. “Why is Kelly still in her car?” She shrugged. “I need a cup of coffee,” she said, falling far short of the light tone she was aiming for. “Let’s go inside.”

He didn’t budge. “Why is Kelly sitting in her car?”

The hairs on the back of her neck lifted in response. She wasn’t sure exactly what he knew or how he knew it, but there was no mistaking his tone of voice or the charged atmosphere between them.

She had never been good at confrontation. Even during those years of endless arguing with her mother, she had hated the loud voices and slammed doors, the siege mentality that had plagued their relationship. Running away was what she did best. Her fifteen years in Seattle were proof of that. This time, however, there was no place left to go. She was where she was meant to be, the place she had longed for all her life.

“Please,” she said as she reached for the latch on the back door. “We need to talk.”

He was bigger and heavier than she was, so physical intimidation was out. If he wanted to storm across the yard and confront his daughter, there was nothing she could do to stop him. She held her breath and prayed as she stepped into the kitchen. Thank God, he followed her inside.

The kitchen looked the way it always looked: cluttered, chaotic, but weirdly effective. Aidan had a system that not even Claire had been able to figure out. Chili bubbled on the stove next to a pot of pasta e fagiole. The grill gave testament to years of burgers and Philly cheese steaks. His laptop graced the top of the fridge.

“Okay,” he said, leaning his cane against the side of the work counter, “why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

She should have known better. They had never been very good at anything but the truth. Right from the start they had been open and honest with each other, and she had blown it all to bits. Her intentions had been good, her motives pure, but that didn’t mean a thing when it came to the damage she had caused.

“It all happened so fast,” she said, aware of how lame the excuse sounded. “I’d had my suspicions, but I kept looking the other way. She tried to talk to me. I knew she wanted to tell me something, but I was so afraid of what she had to say that I kept pushing her away.” She paused to drag in a shaky breath.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he repeated.

If only she could erase that look in his eyes, a combination of anger and pain, and she had no one but herself to blame. “Aidan, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I wanted to tell you more than anything. I tried to convince Kelly to tell you, but she threatened to drive up to New York alone if I did. If anything had happened to her, I—”

“Why the hell would she drive up to New York?”

She felt like somebody had dropped a two-ton block of ice on her chest as she realized they had been talking at cross purposes.
God, if you’re paying any attention at all, help me know what to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m not following you.”

“Claire saw your car at that women’s health center near the bridge. She figured out what was going on and tore a strip off me for not telling her.”

The real story? Oh God. It was almost laughable. He and Claire thought they had gone to the center for birth control. Abortion would never have crossed their minds.

“Sit down,” she said. “I have to tell you something.”

“How about telling me why you lied. She’s my daughter. You’re going to be my wife. I thought we were all on the same team. I don’t get it. She never hid things from me before. Why the hell would she start now?”

She took a long breath and plunged headfirst into the deep end of the pool. “Because she’s never been pregnant before, Aidan.”

 
EVERYTHING STOPPED FOR Aidan with those seven words. His world shrank in on itself, squeezing out sight and sound, until there was nothing left but a dark emptiness deep inside his heart where a lifetime of dreams once lived.

She might as well have lobbed a live hand grenade into the room. Not even a bomb could have done as much damage as those seven words.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know this is hard for you.”

How could she? He could barely grasp the meaning of it all himself. “How long have you known?” He sounded old, as if he had lived two lifetimes in a matter of moments.

“Since yesterday,” she said, watching him with eyes filled with pain that matched his own.

“And you didn’t tell me.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I wanted to, you have to believe that, but she had options, Aidan, legal options. The choices all belonged to her. We made a deal, and I had to keep my part of the bargain.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s the truth. She didn’t want any of you to know. She was going to have an abortion, and it would all be over and forgotten. She even lied to Seth and told him she’d gotten her period.”

“She wouldn’t do that. Kelly’s never lied to anyone in her life.”

A flash of something close to pity moved quickly across her face. “Don’t you get it, Aidan? She was so afraid of disappointing all of you, of not living up to expectation, of disrupting our wedding plans, that she was going to sneak off and have an abortion and live with the secret. You don’t know how much—” She cut off her words abruptly, her attention focused on the back door.

He turned around, and time stopped. His baby girl, his beloved daughter, his one great achievement stood there in the doorway with her lovely face—so much like her mother’s—bathed in tears. He looked at her and thought it couldn’t be true. This was Kelly O’Malley, a beautiful young girl with the kind of future ahead of her that every parent dreamed of for their child.

He wanted to reach out and make it all better, but pain grabbed his gut and twisted hard. She had it all, the brains and the talent and the drive to do anything she wanted, to become anything she wanted to be, and now, in an instant, it was all gone. One moment, one mistake, and her life, her future, would never be the same.

“Aidan.” He heard Maddy’s voice from a great distance. “She needs you. Please don’t lock her out.”

The last thing he wanted to do was lock her out, but a terrible sense of loss overwhelmed him, robbing him of movement and speech.

“Daddy?”

She was a whisper of love in her mother’s eyes. A baby cradled in his arms. A little girl with strawberry blond curls and a laugh that made him cry with joy. A teenager whose future could have taken her anywhere she wanted to go. A young woman with a baby of her own growing inside her belly.

He wasn’t sure how it happened. Maybe he took a step toward Kelly or she took one toward him. It didn’t matter. Suddenly his beloved child was in his arms, her tears wetting the front of his shirt, while he struggled with the death of one set of dreams and the birth of new ones.

“I’m sorry,” she said through her sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shh.” He stroked her hair the way he had when she was a little girl and her biggest problem was what to have for dessert. “It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

He said it because it was what she needed to hear, but at that moment, with his pregnant teenage daughter crying on his shoulder, he didn’t think there was a chance in hell.

 
CLAIRE TAPPED TOMMY Kennedy on the shoulder. “Give me a cigarette.”

“The hell I will,” Tommy said as he pulled a draft for Mel Perry. “I thought you quit smoking.”

“Maybe I’m starting again. Just one, Tommy. I’m jumping out of my skin.”

He slid the draft down the length of the bar and was rewarded with a round of weary applause from the regulars. “What’s going on?”

“Aidan and I tangled a few hours ago.” She drummed her nails on the side of the cash register. “I think it’s a good thing I’m leaving, TK. We both need a change.”

“I’m not giving you a cigarette. Go out and take a walk around the parking lot. That’ll clear your head better than a Camel.”

“I might not come back.”

“Sure you will. You didn’t finish that piece of chocolate cake yet.”

“You I’ll miss,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “My brother-in-law I can do without.”

She threaded her way through the clusters of neighbors and friends and slipped out the front door. People made their jokes about New Jersey—and some of them were even true—but there was nothing more beautiful than the sweet smell of a spring night by the shore. A heady combination of sea air and lilacs that made her feel hopeful about the future.

She tilted her head back and looked up at the darkening sky. Corin was probably halfway to Newark Liberty by now and from there the long trip to Malaysia and whatever lay beyond. She touched the yellow rose she had pinned to the pocket of her shirt. He said he would come back, and she believed him. Anything was possible in this world, even happiness, or so they said.

She walked slowly down the front steps and followed the flagstone path that led to the parking lot in the back. She had told Aidan a thousand times that they should do something about the unlighted lot before O’Malley’s got hit with a slip-and-fall, but there had never been enough money to take care of everything that needed their attention. Maybe someday, she thought. Maybe this was the year when all of their fortunes changed for the better.

Corin had stopped in at O’Malley’s to say good-bye an hour ago. Her heart had almost torn through her chest when she looked up and saw him walking toward her. The regulars had welcomed him into their midst because he was Olivia’s brother, but it was clear they had quickly come to like him for himself. She wasn’t quite sure why that pleased her so much, but it did.

“Look at him,” Tommy had said with a laugh as Corin chucked a McDonald’s bag into the trash behind the bar. “Guy stops by so he can clean out his rental car.”