minutes later, having bought two bottles of wine and a carryout pan of apple dumplings Charlie had salivated over, they pulled into the driveway of Christensen’s Cove. Jack sat still in the passenger seat, a white-knuckle grip on the bottle of zinfandel in his lap. He met his brother’s eyes across the seat. “I don’t know if I can do this. Or if I should.” He was aware, peripherally, that Charlie had got out of the car, but he was incapable of calling him back. He seemed to be just as unable to move. “I should go.”
“No.” Tucker gripped his shoulder hard. “You’ve done that. To her and to me both. It didn’t work worth beans for any of us. It’s time to stay, Jack.”
Charlie was already taking off his jacket when they stepped through the front door of Gianna’s house. “We brought enough apple dumplings for everyone, but if Dad doesn’t eat his, I already called dibs on it. Did you really help him with his algebra?”
“I did.” Arlie hung up his coat. “But in all fairness, he helped me with biology—I couldn’t get the whole mitosis and meiosis thing—and Holly helped us all with English.” She grinned at her sister, the expression all delightful wickedness that made Jack’s heart do the jumpy thing again. “However, she charged us.”
Holly nodded. “Believe me, Charlie, I earned every nickel of it, too.”
“Is there any chance you’d help me with my algebra?” Charlie asked Arlie. “Dad said Tucker could, but I don’t trust him much.”
“Well, sure. We’ll let...uh...your dad and Tucker help Holly with the dishes and we’ll do your homework.” Arlie put an arm through his. “Let’s go in and talk to Gianna. I hope you like spaghetti—she cooks enough for an army—and her bread sticks are the best thing since burgers and fries.” She tossed a smile over her shoulder at Tucker, ignoring Jack entirely. When they walked into the kitchen, there was a definitive martial aspect to her posture.
Dinner was more comfortable than Jack expected, even though it was obvious Arlie had nothing whatever to say to him. It shouldn’t have bothered him, since he knew very well it was his own fault, but it did. When they’d spent time together the evening before, it had felt as though one of the letters he’d written had been sent and delivered. She’d understood and he’d been forgiven.
But he hadn’t been. Of course he hadn’t. Forgiveness for sixteen years didn’t come about in a single day, especially when a whopping lie of omission was added to the mix. He asked himself once again, in the long span of silence between Arlie and himself, why he hadn’t just told her about his marriage and his son.
He knew the answer. Because it had been the ultimate betrayal. Raising a family had been the life Arlie wanted and he’d been ambivalent about, yet here they were in their midthirties and he had Charlie and she had a cat.
She was nice to Charlie, though, and that was what mattered. By the time dinner was finished, the kid had charmed her last bread stick off her plate and extracted a promise from Holly to show him how her prosthetic foot worked as soon as the dishes were done and he and Arlie had finished his algebra. When Jack objected to Charlie’s over-the-top curiosity, the Gallagher women had all rolled their eyes at him, so he’d thrown up his parental hands and eaten another helping of spaghetti.
“You should either bottle this sauce for public sale or be arrested for leading innocent young men astray with it,” he told Gianna.
She laughed. “I do bottle it, but not for public sale. I think the girls and I spend most of August canning tomatoes in the form of sauce, juice, salsa and catsup.”
“Catsup?” Charlie’s eyes widened. “You make catsup?”
Gianna nodded. “And Arlie and Holly help me. It’s kind of like homework—they don’t want to, but they do it.”
“That is so cool. I had to google a tutorial to show my mom how to open the Heinz bottle.”
“Charlie!” Jack objected, although he couldn’t stop the snort of laughter that went with the remonstrance. Tracy was the worst cook in the Northeast Kingdom, and she made no pretense at being anything more.
“She’s a lawyer,” Charlie explained to his captivated audience. “She says she can’t cook because she has to use her legal prowess to keep me from getting arrested for being a smart-a—”
“Charlie!” Jack and Tuck spoke together that time.
He gave them a withering look. “Smart aleck. That’s all I was going to say.” He turned his orthodontic-wonder smile on Gianna. “May I have more?”
When the dishes were washed and Charlie’s homework done, Holly demonstrated removing her foot, then put it back on and made Charlie dance the length of the house’s center hall with her.
“We have to go,” said Jack regretfully when Charlie fell against him on the deacon’s bench near the front door. He hugged him, breathing in the scent of him. “You can come back for Thanksgiving. Your mom already said.”
“Splendid.” Gianna handed a bag of leftovers to Tuck and kissed his cheek. “Then you’ll be able to spend the day with us.”
“Thank you.” Jack got to his feet and took her hands. “For everything.”
Everyone hugged Charlie and the Llewellyns left on a chorus of goodbyes. The last one out the door, Jack finally caught Arlie’s eyes and held firm, as if to say, I’m sorry. It was as though no one else was there.
She looked away, the stiffness of her demeanor making her taller, straighter. “Good night, Jack. Be safe.”
Be safe. He wondered if she said those words whenever anyone left. He did; Tucker did. He wouldn’t be surprised if the other survivors did, too. In some ways, prom night would never end.
JACK FLEW BACK to Vermont with Charlie the next day. Tracy met them at the airport and they all had dinner together before Tracy took Charlie back to the town house they shared.
Jack checked on his house, standing outside it for a long moment and reflecting that no matter how much he liked the two-hundred-year-old brick Cape Cod, it should have been a family house. And wasn’t, because he only had a family on occasional weekends and vacations.
After a restless night, he drove his own car back to Miniagua, spending the night somewhere in the middle of Ohio. He pulled into the keyhole drive of the Dower House behind the Rent-A-Wife van late in the evening of the second day. There were lights on in both the first and second stories of the house—only the attic and basement windows were dark. He frowned at the clock on the dash of his SUV. He didn’t know how long her workdays were normally, but he thought Arlie might be overdoing it. Twilight came early to the lake these days, but she didn’t need to work after the sun had slipped below the horizon. Not on his house, anyway.
It felt strange to ring the doorbell of the house he was going to live in when the keys were in his pocket, but he didn’t want to scare her by walking in unannounced. He could see her coming through the sparkling lights beside the heavy front door. She was wearing ragged jeans rolled above her ankles and a scrub shirt that had seen better days—maybe even better years. Her hair was tied into a messy ponytail and her face was completely devoid of makeup.
She looked wonderful.
And
