Shore Lights (42 page)

MADDY SOUNDED WORRIED as she told him about Hannah's head cold. Aidan remembered those early days when every sneeze, every sniffle signified a terrifying descent into major illness instead of something as benign, if uncomfortable, as the common cold. He reassured her that it was probably nothing—being careful not to take Rose's side in their latest battle—then said he'd call in a few hours to see how Hannah was feeling.

And to hear the sound of your voice
, he thought as he hung up the phone. He was tempted to jump into the truck and drive over to the Candlelight, but good sense kept him from making a fool of himself. Hannah was her first priority right now, which was the way it should be.

The phone rang again and a big stupid grin spread across his face.

“You changed your mind,” he said instead of hello. “Hannah's made a quick recovery and you can't stand the thought that—”

“Mr. O'Malley?” A man's voice. Not the voice he had been expecting.

It was Irene's doctor and the news wasn't good.

He went upstairs and woke Kelly to tell her that Grandma Irene wasn't expected to live out the day. Kelly began to weep softly, pressing her face against her pillow. He sat down on the edge of the bed and patted her shoulder.

“We knew this was coming, Kel,” he said softly while she cried. “She's old and she's very tired. It's her time.”

But he knew that wasn't why she was crying. She wasn't crying for what they were about to lose; she was crying for what they'd never had.

“She always called me Kelly Ann,” she said through her tears. “My full name. When I was little, I hated that sooo much.”

“She called me her ‘blue-eyed boy,'” he said. “Do you know the grief I got from Billy over that?”

Grandma loves her blue-eyed boy
. She had said that to him when he was little more than a baby. He remembered the words and how they made him feel.

Did those words exist only in his imagination? There had to have been some good times along the way. He refused to believe otherwise.

“You'd better phone Aunt Claire,” Kelly said, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. “She won't care, but still . . .”

“You're right,” he said. If Claire didn't care, maybe one of her kids might. At the least, they were family and they had the right to know.

Claire greeted the news with her usual blunt candor. “If you're looking for tea and sympathy, you dialed the wrong number.”

“I'm not looking for anything, Claire. I'm just passing on the information.”

“Consider it passed on.”

“You'll tell Kathleen and the others.”

“Of course.” She paused and he could hear the sound of cigarette smoke being exhaled. “So do we open up as usual today or wait until all the roads are cleared?”

“Your call,” he said. “I'm going over to the hospital.”

“Right,” she said. “Of course you are. So Tommy and I will open. You get there when you can.”

“I can't make any guarantees, Claire. I don't know how the day's going to play out.”

Claire's laugh held more than a hint of bitterness. “Nobody does, Aidan. That's the hell of it all.”

 
“YOU'RE BEING VERY quiet,” Rose said to Lucy over breakfast.

“Am I?”

“I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I waited too long to tell Maddy about the cancer.”

“So you've added mind reading to your list of accomplishments now?”

Rose's cheeks flushed at Lucy's pointed words. “If you have something to say, Lucia, please say it.”

“Fine.” Lucy put down her coffee cup. “Let's put your gigantic mistake about your cancer aside for right now and deal with the slightly less gigantic mistake you made this morning. Maddy was right, you know. You never were one for fussing over a sickbed or making cookies for the school bazaar.”

“And that's a crime? We're not all Florence Nightingale or June Cleaver. You, of all people, should understand that.”

“And I do. What I'm saying, Rosie, is that I always had the feeling you loved Maddy but found motherhood itself an uncomfortable fit. And no, that's not a crime. I like to believe I would love being completely responsible for another human being's life, but the distance between theory and reality is very wide. I know what your life was like when she was growing up. I know how hard you worked to secure the future for the two of you, the sacrifices you made, but sometimes I think you felt staying home would have been the bigger sacrifice.” She hesitated, searching Rose's eyes for encouragement. “Help me out here, Rosie, will you?”

Rose sighed and reached out for her sister's hand. “Life is funny, isn't it, Lucia? Somehow it always gets the last laugh.” Lucy had wanted to be a mother from the time she cradled her first doll in her arms while Rose never gave it a thought until they handed her a squalling baby girl named Maddy and said “Good luck.”

“You're right. They weren't all sacrifices,” Rose said. “I enjoyed being out there in the world much more than I enjoyed being home watching
Sesame Street
.” How many times had she ditched a recital or a PTA meeting—she couldn't count that high. A heavy workload . . . unexpected meeting . . . a closing three towns over that couldn't be postponed. Oh, there was always some handy-dandy excuse she could pull out of her Filofax, always someplace she needed to be.

“I love her,” Rose said with a touch of defiance. “I have from the first moment.”

“She knows that,” Lucy said. “But she has Hannah now and she's trying to make sense of things. She's trying to find her own way, but to do that she needs to understand yours.”

“She knows I loved my work. I'm proud of my accomplishments. I tried to instill that in her from the very beginning.” That a woman could take care of herself. That work was a good thing. That you didn't have to be afraid of being alone. “I did a good job,” Rose said angrily. “I raised a good woman.”

“So tell her.”

“I have told her.”

“Tell her again.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

Rose pushed back her chair and stood up. “I'm going to see how Hannah is doing.”

 
MADDY WAS IN the office saying goodbye to Jim Kennedy when her mother walked into the room.

“So how much of that did you hear?” Maddy asked as she hung up the receiver.

“I wasn't eavesdropping, Maddy.”

“I canceled the radio interview.”

“Oh, Maddy! You didn't.”

“I can't leave Hannah.”

“But the interview—”

“I understand and applaud your devotion to business,” Maddy said, “but my first responsibility is to my daughter.”

“You don't understand how important that interview was.”

“You're already booked solid for the next two years.”

“I'm thinking of the future,” Rose said.

“And I'm thinking of Hannah.” She moved past her mother into the hallway and headed toward her daughter's room. “She's feeling worse, by the way,” she said over her shoulder.

“That's what I intended to ask you about.” Rose sounded both angry and embarrassed. “We got side-tracked.”

Maddy was proud of herself for letting the twenty or thirty biting retorts that presented themselves remain unspoken.

Hannah was sleeping when they entered the room. Her hands were outside the covers. Her fingers worried the Aladdin blanket, twisting a portion, then releasing it. Over and over again.

“Does she have a fever?” Rose asked in a whisper.

“Not to speak of.” Maddy placed the palm of her hand against her daughter's forehead and frowned. “She still feels clammy.” She met Rose's eyes. “What do you think?”

Rose placed her lips against her granddaughter's cheek, then her forehead. “She's cool enough, but I agree. She's a little clammy.”

A sudden surge of terror rose up inside Maddy and a small sound escaped her lips. Rose reached out and placed a hand on her arm.

“I don't think it's anything to worry about,” Rose said, “but why don't you give the pediatrician a call just to put your mind at rest.”

The red-haired nurse smiled at Aidan as she finished entering data into the computer terminal adjacent to Irene's bed. “Your grandmother has beautiful hands,” she said, with a rueful shake of her head. “They put mine to shame.”

“My daughter has the same hands,” he said, grateful for the small talk.

“Lucky girl. So far that's the one thing you can't buy at your local surgeon's office.”

Aidan watched as Irene's fingers tugged repeatedly at the blankets, the railing, the paper-thin skin of her wrists and forearms. “Is she in pain?” he asked. “She keeps plucking at things.”

A shadow passed across the nurse's face. “She's not in any pain,” she assured him. “That restlessness is one of the signs we see as a patient moves through the process of letting go.”

Which was, they both knew, a euphemism for death.

“We have some very informative booklets on the shelf near the nurses' station,” she went on. “You might want to browse through the one on this subject.”

Kelly had come with him to the hospital, but after five minutes she had run from the room crying. He had never fully understood why Kelly loved Grandma Irene the way she did. He would be the first one to admit Irene had given the girl next to nothing in return for her affection, but that didn't seem to matter to his daughter. She loved unconditionally. No strings. No expectations. The way she loved her mother's memory. Her cousins. Claire. Himself. And now Seth. He wished he could take credit for her kind heart, but he couldn't. Her kind heart was a gift from her mother, but in every other way she was her own miracle.

 
The Candlelight

“Maddy's upstairs with Hannah,” Rose said as she ushered Kelly O'Malley into the warm kitchen and sat her down at the table. “Is there something I can do to help?”

How lovely she was with her strawberry blond hair curling around her face and her cheeks so bright with color. And those blue eyes! They reminded Rose of Hannah's, and for the first time all day the tiniest bud of fear began to blossom inside her chest.

It was clear the girl was in a highly emotional state.

“It's all right if you'd rather talk with Maddy,” Rose said. “I understand.”

“No, it's not that.” Kelly made an effort to pull herself together. “It's just—” Her eyes filled with tears she didn't blink away. “Grandma Irene is dying, and I was wondering if maybe I could borrow that samovar just for an hour or two. I'd like to take it to the hospital and let her see it.”

“Are you talking about the samovar Maddy won at the auction?”

Kelly nodded. “It's exactly like the one Grandpa Michael gave Irene the year before he died. I thought maybe if she—” More tears spilled from her big blue eyes, and Rose's heart was quite simply undone.

She went upstairs to fetch the samovar.

 
THE PEDIATRICIAN CALLED back a little after two o'clock. She listened to Maddy's description of Hannah's symptoms, then chuckled kindly.

“I'd say we have a common head cold building. I'm a little concerned about the clamminess, but that could simply be her body's way of dissipating a fever before it sets in. Continue doing what you're doing and call me again around six o'clock and let me know how—”

“Something's wrong,” Maddy said. “I know the symptoms don't add up to much, but—”

“You have a feeling. I know all about those feelings, Maddy. I'm a parent myself. I respect those feelings. But in this instance I believe we really don't have anything more than a cold to be concerned about.”

“You don't think I should bring her into the office?”

“No, I don't. Not at this point. Let's talk again at six.”

She supposed she should feel grateful for the privilege of speaking to the doctor and not one of a squad of “health-care professionals” hired to take the burden of actually dealing with patients off the shoulders of the poor beleaguered MDs, but at the moment she didn't feel anything but worried. She couldn't help feeling that this was one of those times when the whole was truly greater—and maybe more serious—than the sum of its parts.

 
Good Samaritan Hospital

Aidan stepped out into the corridor and flagged down a passing technician. “Did you happen to see a pretty, blond-haired girl in the lounge?”

“Just a couple of old men with hearing problems,” the technician said and kept on walking.

Damn. It wasn't like Kelly to just take off like that. The Jeep wasn't in the parking lot, which meant she wasn't out there taking a walk around the block. Where the hell had she gone?

He checked the cafeteria, the lounge, and the gift shop, and was on his way back to Irene's room when he saw a door marked
Chapel
. On a hunch he stepped inside.

The small room featured a raised altar with a crucifix on one side and a menorah on the other. An open Bible rested on a small wooden stand on the left. A guest book and pen rested on the right. A nondenominational stained-glass panel dominated the room, fierce reds and yellows, tranquil blues and greens.

Kelly was sitting in the first pew on the right. A shopping bag rested next to her. Her head was lowered, and if she heard him approach, she gave no indication. He slid into the pew next to her.