Better Than Gold (21 page)

She turned away so she was facing the other direction, and when he reached for her, she moved back against him and he wrapped his arms around her. She waited for him to start, breathing quietly, pressing his arms into her body with her own.

“We knew we were the happiest parents on the planet when we got pregnant.” She rubbed the back of his hand. “I was well on the way to tenure. Mandy had just turned down a huge promotion at her company because it would have meant travel and she knew she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

“Everything in our lives was perfect. We had tried for only two months and we were pregnant, but Mandy didn’t feel well for most of the pregnancy and then Sammy was born six weeks early, but we were still blissful. We had a son.

“It didn’t take long for any of us to grasp there was something seriously wrong with Sammy. He had a hard time taking to her breast. He didn’t even do well with the bottle, and then the doctors told us his heart was malformed. He didn’t thrive. He just seemed to be fading away in our arms. Then he started to turn blue when he cried hard. The doctors said if we could get him a little stronger they might be able to repair his heart.

“Every day brought fear and pain for all of us. Sammy suffered the worst, test, needles, big cold machinery, unfamiliar beds and faces changing every day.

“When he was just two and a half years old, they took him to surgery. Eighteen hours later, they came to us and told us Sammy had died during the operation. We didn’t even get to hold him when he died. He was just gone.”

She kept very still and listened.

“One thing they were happy to tell us is we could try to have another baby right away. They could do genetic testing to make sure the fetus wasn’t affected. By then I already knew Sammy died that terrible death because of me, because of something I carry within my genetic code.

“If I had paid attention to what had gone on previously in my family, I would have known there was a chance of a genetic flaw. Mandy and I could have made different decisions.”

He paused to let his breathing even out.

“Afterwards, Mandy and I tried to hold things together. One day I came home to find her bags were packed. She said she couldn’t look at me without thinking of Sammy and she left. No matter how much I told myself our son’s death destroyed Mandy, I knew my ignorance and then my reaction was as much to blame. She was a wonderful, loving woman and I had brought her to her knees.

“I was almost happy to see her go. Without me in her life, she would be able to find someone else. She had a chance for a complete life. She could have children with another man, healthy, happy children who would grow up to make refrigerator art and go to prom.

“I can never do that to a child or a woman ever again.” He paused to collect his thoughts.

“The hardest part to explain is why I didn’t tell you in the first place, why I never wanted to tell you. The mere act of telling you changes you, telling any woman would change her. There is a part of you that will say, ‘It’s all right, we could do without a child.’ I would never ask that of you. Or you might think we can work around the situation. The logistics of that option are difficult from many different angles. I wouldn’t ask that of you. The option to go on having a great sexual relationship would only delay the inevitable.

“The point being you should not have to choose those things. You should be able to go out and find someone who can offer you the total union of a man and a woman making a baby. I have been there and I know how utterly amazing that is.”

He stopped, hoping she would hear and understand completely so she could free herself. The fire died down behind the glass doors of the fireplace. The house seemed to breathe and Mia did not.

He started to go, but she held on tightly. He kissed her hair. “Let me go. I’ll leave, let you get some rest.”

“Could you just relax? I’m thinking.”

She stayed so quiet, he started to think she had fallen asleep.

“So, you failed to know there was a genetic flaw that might occur in your family.” She spoke slowly as if choosing her words carefully. “I get that you feel responsible, but I’m wondering how much punishment is enough. I’m not asking for an answer, but someday please answer that for yourself.”

She turned over in his arms and pulled him close.

He tipped back and peered deeply into her eyes. “I’m going to leave now, Mia.”

“Yeah, I know that.” She stood up and reached down for his hand and helped him up. “Thank you for all you did for me.”

“There is a world full of people who are not your parents willing to help you. You might consider letting them.”

“Do you think I can do that?”

“It’ll take some practice.”

She gave him a quick hug and let him go. “Will you try to be a little less hard on yourself? And try to find a hug once in a while. Like Mrs. Wahl. Given half the chance she’d hug you. And, of course, they’re always available here on Blueberry Avenue. Heck, buy a couple rounds at Braven’s and you might get a whole bunch of whiskery hugs.”

He left her smiling, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

He pointed his car down Blueberry Avenue and hoped it knew how to get home because all he could think about was Mia Parker. She was everything he could possibly want, if he allowed himself to want. He hoped telling her helped her move on. With Pirate’s Roost opening soon, she had a great adventure coming.

He turned onto Church Street and when he was almost to Pirate’s Roost, he realized there was police tape across the door the way it had been the first day he came to town, and there was a notice tacked on the door.

He stopped and got out to look.

The university had gotten an injunction to stop any construction at the site. When the contractor with all his supplies arrived in a few hours, he would be turned way.

Daniel’s first instinct was to turn back to Mia’s, but there was nothing she could do tonight. Let her have a peaceful night’s sleep. He couldn’t do anything here to change things.

Her friends would rally around her, while he worked from the university end.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

M
IA
WOKE
UP
excited because the world was tipping back onto its axis even without Daniel MacCarey. Today Pirate’s Roost would begin to take real shape. Markham Construction would be swift and competent. They expected to be finished in two to three weeks. She could be ready to serve her first customers in five to six weeks. Woefully behind what she had planned, but the tourists would still be wandering through for several months afterward.

She had planned to be ahead of the construction company, but there were already pickup trucks parked along the street. They were milling around outside the door. Waiting for her. Oh, no. Bad show for her first day.

She parked and hurried up to be met with a group of worried faces. Was she that late? They parted so she could get to the door.

The crossed yellow tape confused her at first. Then she saw the notice.

“It can’t be.”

She turned to see Henry Markham approaching. His face was grim when he shook her hand.

“Ms. Parker, I’m sorry, we have to leave. The supplies will be returned, but the suppliers will charge restocking fees. Please call the office and reschedule when you can. I hope things go well with you.” He tipped his hat and walked away.

The crowd around her dissipated and she stood alone on the steps of her own building.

A squad car pulled up beside her and Chief Montcalm got out. “I’m sorry, Mia. I would have called you last night, but all that would have done was ruin your evening.”

“Do you forgive me for breaking the law in your town?”

“From what I understand, it’s your town. I would have had a jail full of you trespassers if the university had asked that charges be pressed.”

“I can’t believe the townsfolk did that for me. Ghosts they were. I didn’t see a single face of the perpetrators.”

“Mia, you are tough. You’ll get through this, too.”

She took solace from his words because she suddenly knew this man had been through tough times; he knew them inside and out and here he was.

* * *

A
S
THE
DAY
passed, the storm of her failure raged on. She spoke with the bankers and all loans were withdrawn. They could offer her a low-fee refinance on her home, but that was all they had.

Pirate’s Roost was in true limbo. The university had laid claim by the right of eminent domain and the banks could not repossess it until it was released.

Monday turned to Tuesday and then another Monday and another. The building sat empty. No one visited at all as far as she could tell. No hordes from the outside world appeared. The town could probably thank the university for not putting the pirate news on their website.

Negative responses began to come back from the dozens of resumes she had sent out. She knew from experience many of them were just shredder fodder, and she’d never hear from those companies.

Monique had long ago forgiven Lenny and her for not telling her about her granddad the night she fell and hit her head. With Lenny’s help she was coping, but Mia did not give up hope that Edwin Beaudin would return one day and for good.

Monique and Lenny helped her get through some of the lonely times, but she refused to be what she called a date killer.

Mia had even watched a few game shows with her parents, and one Thursday evening they played Scrabble and her mother and father seemed to have fun.

Her meetings at Braven’s tapered off, took on a different tone, but they all seemed to have fun when she did go. The city council had invited her as a special guest to tell them what she had learned. Afterwards, it was suggested at Braven’s that she run in the next election. She said she would keep it in mind.

One week, the news broke that Earl Smith had been the one to smash the crypt, and that he was nowhere to be found, but the story made only a small ripple of interest as the pirate’s tomb played such a small role in anyone’s life these days. In fact, the whole idea of pirate’s treasure had fallen into disfavor. Maybe it would stay that way for another fifty years.

Recently she had an interview in Portland with an export company. The job was a poorly masked sales position, but things were skittering along the bottom.

She had even sent resumes out of state. She had thought she might be able to take a job away from Maine. Then one day when she got a nibble from halfway across the continent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she realized that was not going to happen. If they wanted her to leave Maine again, they were going to have to haul her out in her final resting box because if she were alive, she’d fight, like a Mainer...

Edwin Beaudin had returned two weeks after he’d left. He had found out, he thought the way she had. Pine box or nothing. As lovely as it may be, the state of Florida taught him what age and experience had not.

Today was the third Monday in May. Mia sat on the window seat of her living room window sipping coffee and watching the cars go by on Church Street as it met Blueberry Avenue. If construction had started that day she found the notice tacked to her door she’d be opening Pirate’s Roost to anyone brave enough to come and try it out.

Monique had totally recovered with Lenny at her side all the way. If fact, she had recovered enough to be able to wear a great big rock on her engagement-ring finger. Her friend was dreamily, ecstatically happy, until she saw her poor old broke unemployed friend. Well, Mia wasn’t totally unemployed. She filled in at Mandrel’s, stocked shelves and operated the cash register at the drug store and kept books for a couple of the fishermen who seemed to be totally numbers challenged.

Her phone chimed in her pocket and she pulled it out to see Monique’s smiling face on the caller ID screen.

“Mia, you need to get down to Pirate’s Roost. There’s something going on down there.”

“How do you know, Monique?”

“Just a second, Mrs. Carmody. Just get down there, Mia.”

Like she had anything else to do. Maybe Dr. Donovan had brought real dogs and ponies this time.

She hiked down the street and as she got closer, she could see the police tape was gone. The notice no longer hung on the door, and if she wasn’t mistaken Daniel MacCarey’s car sat parked at the far end of the block.

“Get in here.” He held the door of the Roost open as she approached.

As she passed him, she refused to let herself even breathe. He was here for some reason and she was certain it was not for her. Whatever it was, she’d cope. There would probably be a few tears after he left, but she’d survive.

Everything looked just as it had been left, except the big hammer had been returned and Daniel MacCarey was now standing in the middle of the room looking as annoyingly delectable as he always had. Today he had on a dark brown sweater with flecks of blue in it.

“Why are you standing in my building grinning?”

“Before you say no to this...”

“No. You have a new sweater. I like it.”

“Before you say no to this...”

“No and no.”

He pulled her against his chest and put his fingers over her mouth so she couldn’t speak. She tried anyway.

“Mnnkll.”

He lifted his fingers from her mouth.

“Uncle.”

“I will put up the money.”

“No.” This time she spun away. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not?”

“I—um— Well, because it’s yours. You’ll need it someday.”

“Great-Aunt Margaret would always tell me, if I ever wanted money, I just needed to ask her. I guess I should have.” He looked all sad when he said that and it made her want to hug him, but she kept her distance. “I never thought I needed anything from her, but it might have given her more pleasure if I had taken some while she was alive. And she had a boatload, Mia. I had no idea. She’d be really happy if you took some of it.”

“Well, I can’t take it.”

“You realize if you don’t take it, I’ll have to leave it to my cats.”

“You don’t have cats.”

“Then I’ll leave it to the university, or maybe Heather’s museum.”

“Daniel, if I had all the money in the world— Well, maybe if I had that much.”

He shook his head. “Great-Aunt Margaret only left me half that much.”

“There aren’t enough workers to get the job done, even if they hadn’t repossessed all my building supplies and equipment.”

“Except for that stupid hammer,” he added very unhelpfully.

“Except for that stupid hammer and my orange buckets.”

From one rear pocket he pulled a handful of bright shiny nails and from the other, a hammer.

He held them up.

“Thanks. That’s sweet.” Tears tried to push into her eyes and she pushed back. “Maybe I can save up nails and someday afford lumber and drywall...if I had a building to use them on.”

He took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You are such a pessimist all of a sudden.”

“I think I always was, a pessimist who was fooling herself.”

He walked over to the door of the building and pulled it open by its shiny old brass handle. She couldn’t believe he was just going to walk away.

Then people started filing in one by one. Men, women, kids, parents, grandparents. Faces she knew and loved, and a few faces she didn’t know at all, each one carrying a hammer, a saw, a sawhorse, a power tool, an extension cord. The little ones carried boxes of screws and nails. She greeted them all, most of them by name. Her parents came in empty-handed but they were there and they were together.

One little girl hurried up to her and handed her a bunch of well-squeezed flowers and then scooted away to her mother.

She looked into the faces of these people. She loved this town. Each and every one of them was a treasure she had not totally appreciated until she started talking to them about the things that were important to them.

When Monique came in carrying a plaque that read “Pirate’s Roost, the final resting place of the pirate Liam Bailey,” the crowd clapped and cheered and tears flooded Mia’s eyes and tumbled onto the buttons of her yellow Henley.

“Monique,” she whispered. “What am I supposed to do, to say? I have nothing for them to work on. I’ve no...”

Monique grinned and Mia saw why. Lenny was out in the street directing traffic as a big-box-store truck lumbered past her building and stopped. Monique moved people aside so they could get to the window. The first truck made room for a second. When the second truck stopped Lenny waved traffic on and then he waved to Monique. When she waved back, her diamond flashed and sparkled.

Henry Markham, the contractor who had told her he could get her back on the schedule in eight or nine months, if she was ready, pulled up in his big white pickup truck, and then shortly afterwards there were pickups parking up both sides of the street and twice that many men and women wearing hats and shirts bearing the blue-and-orange Markham Construction logos.

She grabbed Monique’s arm. “Monique, what’s going on? Quick, before I wake up and I’m in the poorhouse and this is all just a nightmare.”

“Daniel did it, and they helped him.”

She looked up at Daniel who was surrounded by several of the town’s older folk. They were laughing and teasing him. He looked up at her and smiled from amongst his fellow conspirators.

She saw for the first time that the fatigue had fled from his face. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted.

Too bad it isn’t you,
her new pessimistic side informed her.

He shed the crowd and came over to where she stood. “I figured that it would be easier to apologize afterwards than to get permission from you beforehand. I did insist you be here before the first screw went into place.”

She looked at him steadily.

“I should certainly hope so.” She grinned to see the innuendo hit its mark.

“If I thought you knew how to behave,” he said when he recovered, “I’d tell you to do so.”

Four Markham people with clipboards, pencils, tape measurers and cameras marched in with a purpose in their step and dispersed inside the building.

Henry Markham entered and walked up to Mia. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back here. My sister-in-law wouldn’t speak to me after, as she put it, I left you in the lurch.”

“Well, I’m so glad you’re back. I’ll make sure Maxine knows it wasn’t your fault.”

Markham went off on a building tour with one of the clipboard people, and Harley and Millie Davies stepped in to congratulate her, and then the Schroeders and the Finns.

Mia smiled her happiness for them as the Carmodys, the widow and the brother-in-law, came in shoulder-to-shoulder to congratulate her.

People kept doing that, and it was kind of strange because it seemed like all she’d done was get up this morning.

Monique came up and slugged her on the arm. “You are playing the unworthy melody inside your head, I can hear it spilling out your ears. Suck it up and not to worry. These will be the same people who will one day complain the food is not warm enough and too salty.”

When Monique went out to greet Lenny, Mia walked up to Daniel and nudged him. “You are going to owe me the biggest apology ever for not asking for permission to do this, and on top of that, I intend to pay you back.”

“You don’t ever have to pay me back, but I won’t try to convince you of that. This—” he swept his hand around the room at all the people “—is the least I could do.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.”

He brought her face around to look at him. “I did it because I could. Please, let me.”

Just then Heather Loch entered through the front door and the crowd parted. When she marched toward Daniel and her, two of the old guys stood up to block her.

“I’ve come to see the boy,” she said as she stepped up to them.

Mia snickered as Daniel put a thumb to his chest and raised his eyebrows.

He put his hands on the shoulders of the men and they separated. Then as the crowd watched, he stepped up to the older woman and put his arms around her. She wiggled and squirmed to get away but he held on to her.

“I’m all you got, Heather—” he paused and looked directly at Mia “—and I’m not going anywhere.”