Marking Time (7 page)

Clare felt a flash of temper. “Why? So you can move your new family in here?”

“No, Clare, so I can give it to the girls someday if you don’t want it,” he said in a controlled tone that told her he was struggling to contain his own anger.

“I’m sorry. That was out of line. I’d never sell this house, and I’d certainly never do it without consulting you first.”

He sighed. “I hate this.”

She blinked back tears. “I do, too. I think it’s good I’m going away for a while, Jack. We could both use the space.”

“Maybe. I’ll see you Tuesday at two?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Tell Maggie I’ll be by to get her around five today,” he added.

“I will.”

On Tuesday, Clare arrived ahead of Jack at their attorney’s office. Cooper Hayes was a strapping ex-football player and a teddy bear of a man who’d been their good friend for years.

“How are you, sweetheart?” he asked as he enveloped Clare in one of his monster hugs.

“I’m good, Coop. Janice came by the other day. It was great to see her.”

“She loved seeing you, too.”

“How’re the boys?” Clare asked, even though she’d gotten the full update from Janice.

“Barry’s a sophomore at UNH,” he said, referring to the University of New Hampshire. “And Jeff started at Cornell in September. We’ve got ourselves an empty nest all of a sudden.”

“Janice and I shared a few tears over it the other day.”

Coop shook his head. “Poor gal, she’s been weepy for months now. I need to take her off on a long vacation soon. She needs it.”

“And you don’t?” Clare asked with a wry smile. Those boys had been Coop’s whole world for years.

“You got me,” he said with a sad expression. “I’m sorry about all of this, Clare.”

She knew he meant her divorce and reached a hand out to him. “Thanks.”

Clare’s breath got caught in her throat when Jack walked in with a smile and a handshake for Coop. Once again she wondered how long it would take before her heart stopped fluttering every time she saw him or heard his voice. Months? Years? Forever?

He leaned down to kiss her cheek as they said hello.

After they’d caught up for a few minutes, Coop gestured for them to have a seat at the table in his office. “You’ve discussed the sale provision?”

“Yes,” Jack said.

“Okay with you, Clare?” Coop asked.

“Yes,” she said, anxious to get it done. All of a sudden, the big room felt small and airless.

“All right, then. I need you both to sign here, here, and here.” Coop pointed to the bottom of three pages.

Clare saw Jack hesitate before he signed the first page. A muscle twitched in his cheek, and it saddened her to realize he was emotional about signing away the house he’d built for her. She wanted to reach out to him but curbed the urge.

He scrawled “John J. Harrington” across the bottom of the first page and pushed it over to her.

When they’d signed each page, Coop gathered them up. “You’ll receive the deed in about six weeks, Clare. That’s all there is to it.”

“Thanks, Coop,” Jack said, standing to shake his hand.

“Yes, thank you,” Clare added. “For everything.” He’d handled their divorce with discretion and dispatch.

“No problem,” Coop said as he saw them to the door. “Take care of yourselves.”

Clare walked with Jack to the parking lot. The feelings generated by what they’d just done left Clare feeling bruised. She was the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind million-dollar home, but all she felt was a gnawing, aching emptiness.

“Thank you, Jack,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

He shrugged. “It’s your house. Always was. It was only in my name so I could surprise you with it.”

When her eyes burned with tears, Clare wanted to swear out loud. Her body had once again betrayed her fierce desire to show him none of what she felt.

He reached for her hand. “There’s something I need to say to you.”

Looking up at him, she was stunned to see his eyes had filled, too. “What?” she asked in a whisper.

He appeared to struggle for the right words and for control of his emotions. “This life of ours, it was taken from me, too, Clare,” he said in a slow, soft tone. “What we had together—it was mine, too, and just because I have Andi now doesn’t mean I don’t mourn what I lost with you. What was
stolen
from us. I’ve just had a lot more time to get used to being without it than you have. I don’t want you to think I walked away without a single look back, because I didn’t. I couldn’t have.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked, brought on by the raw pain she saw on his face.

“I will
always
love you.” He wiped away her tears with his thumbs and then wrapped his arms around her. “I needed you to know that.”

“Jack.” Crying softly, she rested her face on his chest and wallowed in the familiar scent of him. “I don’t know what to do without you and our life together. I sound so pathetic even saying it, but I just don’t know.”

“You’ll figure it out. I know you will. Go to Vermont. Do what you need to do, and I’ll take care of things here. It’s going to be okay, though. Somehow, someway, we’ll get through this.”

She reached up to caress his face. “I’ll always love you, too. Maybe if I can make peace with that, I might just be able to find a life for myself without you.”

He hugged her again. “Then go find some peace.”

T
he next week was a flurry of activity as Clare helped Kate pack and make final preparations for her move to Nashville. Jack’s college friend, Reid Matthews, had come through with an apartment for Kate in the city’s trendy Green Hills neighborhood, which was close to Belmont University where she’d registered for classes.

Friday morning dawned cold and gray, and the weather forecast called for snow flurries. Clare awoke with a sense of dread. The party was that night, and Kate would be leaving with Jack early the next morning.

Clare got up to shower and get dressed. In the kitchen, her mother was already sipping a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper.

“Morning,” Anna said.

“Anything in the news?”

“Same old doom and gloom.” Anna pushed the paper aside. Her short gray hair was still damp from the shower. “What time’s the party tonight?”

“I don’t know.” Clare poured a cup of coffee and looked out at the stormy-looking ocean.

“We’ll have to ask Kate.”

“I’m not going.”

“Excuse me?”

“I talked to Kate about it. She understands.”

“Really?” Anna crossed her arms, and her bright blue eyes narrowed with displeasure. “What exactly does she understand?”

“That I don’t feel up to being in the company of her father and his new wife just yet.”

Anna snorted. “Grow up, Clare. This isn’t about you. This is about your
daughter
—the daughter who had to celebrate
three
birthdays without her mother.”

Stunned by her mother’s outburst, Clare stared at her. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you’re succeeding.”

“Good. Then you’ll come?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’ve tried to mind my own business during all of this, but I can’t sit by and let you do this to Kate. She needs you to be there tonight to show your support and to give her a proper send-off.”

“I can’t,” Clare whispered, remembering the emotional exchange with Jack earlier in the week. “I just
can’t
.”

Anna stood up. “Fine. You do what you have to do, but you’ll regret this, Clare. You’ll regret disappointing her.”

After her mother left the room, Clare sat back and fumed.
How dare she? What does she know about it? What does
anyone
know about it?
Clare nurtured her anger for several minutes until, all at once, the fury subsided and she was swamped with remorse. Her mother was right. She was being childish and thinking only of herself when her daughter needed her. She went into the family room to find her mother.

“The party’s at seven. We’ll leave a little before.”

“That’s fine,” Anna said.

Clare and her mother drove through the gates at Jack’s house just after seven. The girls had gone over earlier to help with party preparations. The house was alive with lights and electric candles in every window. Clare parked her car across the driveway from where a small U-Haul sat with Kate’s yellow Volkswagen Beetle attached to the back. Clare’s grip on the steering wheel tightened when she was hit by a new burst of anxiety.

“Are you all right?” Anna asked.

Clare was finding it hard to breathe. “Sure.”

“You’re doing this for Kate,” Anna reminded her. “Keep that in mind.”

“Yes, for Kate.” Clare exhaled a long deep breath. “Let’s go.”

They carried birthday gifts as they crossed the driveway to the stone stairs. Clare rang the bell and heard the chimes echo inside the big house—Jack and Andi’s house.
You’re doing this for your daughter
.

Kate answered the door. “Mom! You came!” She drew them into the foyer. “Hi, Gram.”

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Anna said with a hug for her granddaughter.

Kate sparkled with excitement. “Thanks. Let me take your coats.”

Clare stole a quick glance around the 1930s-era house. She’d been inside it once before, the last time it was on the market when the listing agent held an open house for other Realtors. At that time, it had been empty and devoid of life, but now the home pulsed with the warmth and energy brought by a family.

She looked up at the elaborate crystal chandelier that hung from the second floor over the black-and-white tiled foyer. A staircase ascended from right to left, framed by a mahogany banister. To the right, Clare remembered a great room that stretched the width of the house. A formal dining room was to the left, and the kitchen was at the end of a hallway under the stairs.

Jack came through the hallway as Kate took their coats. He wore a black cashmere sweater with jeans, and as usual he managed to look casual and elegant at the same time.

He hugged and kissed them both. “Come on in,” he said, ushering them into the great room where a fire burned in the fireplace. The room’s fifteen-foot ceilings were edged with elaborate mahogany crown molding. Smaller moldings framed the butter-colored walls. The far end of the room was an expanse of glass, and Clare recalled an exquisite ocean view during the day.

Furniture was artfully arranged into two sitting areas by the fire. Tables were laden with food, and a bar had been set up in the far corner. Clare knew Andi had been a decorator at the Infinity Group’s corporate headquarters in Chicago before she moved to Rhode Island to live with Jack and manage Infinity’s Newport hotel. Clearly, she hadn’t lost her flare for her previous profession. The room was warm and inviting.

“Your home is lovely, Jack,” Anna said. “You’ve been busy.”

“We had the party as an incentive to get settled quickly. Upstairs is still a disaster area. Boxes everywhere.”

Kate handed her mother a beer and her grandmother a glass of wine and went to answer the door again. She returned a few minutes later with Jack’s sister Frannie, her husband Jamie, and their twins Owen and Olivia.

Clare was weak with relief to see Frannie and walked over with Jack to greet them. Jack scooped up the twins, who greeted “Unca Jack” with wet, sloppy kisses.

“You remember Aunt Clare, right?” Frannie said to the fifteen-month-old toddlers. They had visited Clare’s house two weeks earlier.

Owen reached out to pat Clare’s face. “Clare,” he said.

Clare kissed the baby’s pudgy hand. Owen and Olivia had their father’s bright blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair that was an adorable mix of Frannie’s auburn and Jamie’s blond.

Jamie hugged Clare and kissed her cheek. “So good to see you,” he whispered as he held her close.

Hugging him was like coming home. He had been Jack’s best friend since their first day of college, as well as their best man and godfather to all three girls. His marriage to Jack’s sister Frannie had been one of the biggest and best surprises to confront Clare after her recovery.

“Jamie Booth, you handsome devil,” she whispered. “Don’t let go, okay?”

He chuckled. “Never.”

When Clare reluctantly released him, she noticed Andi had come into the room.

She extended a hand to them. “Clare, Anna, we’re so glad you could come.”

Startled by her beauty, Clare shook her hand. The only other time Clare had seen Andi, she’d been seven-months pregnant with the twins. She had obviously bounced back quickly from their birth.

“Thank you for including us,” Clare said when she had recovered from the initial shock of seeing Jack and Andi together for the first time—both of them tall, dark and beautiful
. What a striking couple they make
.

As Andi moved on to greet Frannie and Jamie, and with the others occupied with new arrivals, Clare took a moment to study Andi more closely. She was tall—not as tall as Jack—but at least four inches taller than the five-foot five-inch Clare. Her long, dark curls were contained tonight in a simple ponytail, and she managed to look classy and understated in an ivory ribbed turtleneck, well-worn jeans, and black boots. Clare was glad she too had chosen to wear jeans. Andi’s soft brown eyes were warm and welcoming as she greeted a group of Kate’s friends. Clare knew Andi was thirty-nine, but she didn’t look it and didn’t show any of the weariness the mother of three-month-old twins must surely feel.

Jill and Maggie came around with hot hors d’oeuvres. They introduced Clare to Andi’s mother, Betty, who held one of the twin boys.

“Hello there,” Clare said, running a finger along the baby’s downy soft cheek.

“That’s Johnny,” Betty said.

“How can you tell?” Clare asked.

“I just changed him for bed,” Betty said with a chuckle. “Otherwise your guess would be as good as mine.”

A blond boy dashed through the room, and Betty stopped him with a stern look. She used her free hand to sign a command to the hearing-impaired boy, and he slowed to a walk.