Just Like Heaven (26 page)

She laughed. “I’m not sure he could. I’m hardly the religious type.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. This isn’t the nineteen-fifties. The world is a more tolerant place. You could always—”

Time for a change of subject.

“Where did the other guys go?” She glanced around. “It’s not like anyone could hide in this place.”

“Your priest is out on the dock with Andy and Don. I think they’re giving him fishing lessons.”

“He’s not my priest.”

So much for the change of subject.

“You can’t tell that by looking,” Ed said. “For once Gwynnie didn’t exaggerate. So what’s the story there?”

“There is no story.” She told him about the end of May and New Hampshire.

“But you’re seeing each other.”

She couldn’t fight it any longer. “Yes, we’re seeing each other.”

“I like him.”

“You’re religious. You can’t help yourself.”

“He saved your life. I’ll admit that gives him an edge, but there’s more to him than that.” He shot her a look. “And he’s in love with you.”

She let out a bark of laughter that made Maeve, Gwynn, and Joanne look up from their bucket of steamers with open curiosity.

“He’s not in love with me.”

“Men aren’t as clueless as you girls like to believe. He’s in love with you.”

“Then I must have the most alluring EKG in town, because Paul decided he was—” She stopped herself. “Oh, forget it. Too silly to even discuss.”

Ed frowned, a carbon copy of the frown he used to display in high school when he saw Paul and Kate laughing together. “You heard about Jill?”

“Paul told me the other day.”

“He’s taking it pretty hard.”

“I can’t believe the elopement came as such a big surprise.”

“Believe it,” Ed said. “He was gutshot.”

“Did you know he was still in love with her?”

Ed’s eyes widened. “You didn’t?”

She shook her head. “I thought he just missed his kids.”

“Why am I not surprised?” He took a swallow of lemonade. “You and Paul, huh? Maybe it’s not so crazy after all. You’ve known each other your entire lives. You’re good friends. No secrets. No surprises. You’d know exactly what you were getting into. There are worse foundations for a relationship.”

There had been a time in her life when that would have been more than enough, but not now.

“You know what?” She leaned against the window and listened to the sounds of laughter coming from the dock. “I’m starting to think that the secrets and surprises are what it’s all about.”

 
Gwynn and Andy set up tray tables in the living room. They opened a few beach chairs, tossed some throw pillows on the floor, and announced that dinner was served.

As guests of honor, Mark and Kate shared the tiny sofa. Despite her best intentions to keep her emotions out of the situation, she found herself touched by the sweet innocence of the gesture.

“Where’s the wine?” Gwynn asked, darting about like a hummingbird. “We need the wine.”

Andy grabbed two bottles from the back porch. “Hold up your paper cups, folks. We’ve got wine!”

He poured his way around the circle. Only Kate and Mark covered their cups and claimed soda instead.

Kate’s reason was understandable. Mark’s should have remained private, but Paul decided to play inquiring reporter.

“You’re a priest,” Paul said, playing to the crowd. “Don’t tell me you’re a priest who doesn’t like wine.”

Kate opened her mouth to defuse the situation with a comforting white lie, but Mark was too fast for her.

“I’m a recovering alcoholic,” he said easily, “but ginger ale would be great.”

Could life really be that simple? No posturing. No social fibs. No cover-up. He told them the truth, they nodded, and even Paul knew that was the end of it. The grudging respect in his eyes took her by surprise. Was it possible to live that way on a daily basis in the beginning of the twenty-first century?

Gwynn was standing in the doorway, looking down at a small white piece of paper clutched in her hand. Andy walked over to her and Kate couldn’t help but notice (even though she didn’t want to) how solicitous he was with her baby girl, how tender. Would she have noticed any of this three weeks ago, before her heart attack, or would it have slipped past her line of vision and out of reach?

Gwynn cleared her throat and stepped into the room, which wasn’t easy considering every inch of floor space was occupied. She looked so vulnerable, so precious, that Kate did what lately she seemed to do best: she started to cry.

“Mom!” Gwynn waved the piece of paper at her mother. “I haven’t even started yet!”

“Ignore me,” Kate said, dabbing at her eyes with a paper cocktail napkin from O’Malley’s Dockside Bar & Grille. “I cried at the gas station yesterday when the guy cleaned Maeve’s windshield.”

It got the laugh she had hoped for and gave Gwynn a chance to regroup.

“Andy and I invited all of you here today for a very special reason. Three weeks ago my mom had a heart attack and we would have lost her if Father Mark hadn’t been there to save her life.

“We talk a lot about heroes. We have Spider-Man and Superman and baseball players and movie stars, but how often do you meet somebody who actually embodies the real meaning of the word?

“Father Mark breathed life into my mom’s lungs. I can’t even think about what might have—” She ducked her head and Kate was afraid Gwynn was going to cry, but her daughter was made of stronger stuff than that. She lifted her tear-streaked face and raised her glass to Mark.

“Thank you for being there that morning, Father Mark. Thank you for knowing what to do and not being afraid to do it. Thank you for saving Mom’s life and being here today to share our happiness.” She started to choke up again but quickly recovered. “Most of all, thank God for bringing us all together tonight to celebrate being a family.”

“To Mark!” Maeve said. “Long life and happiness!”

“To Kate,” Paul added. “Health, wealth, and a bright future!”

The sound of nine paper cups coming together in a toast might not seem like much, but it was beautiful music to Kate. They cheered her, they cheered Mark, they hugged and kissed and celebrated life. Even Paul seemed to feel honestly grateful to Mark. They were family, all of them, in every sense of the word. She wished Ed’s wife and younger children were there too. They were part of this family, part of her daughter’s life, and she missed them.

She hugged Gwynn (resisting the urge to brush Gwynn’s hair off her face and comment on the eyeliner), kissed her mother, kissed Andy’s mother
and
his brother, hugged Paul, hugged and kissed Ed, hugged Andy so hard the poor guy thought it was the Heimlich maneuver, and then without thinking, without worrying if she would live to regret it, she threw her arms around Mark and kissed him in front of God, her family, and anyone else who happened to be walking by.

She had spent her life keeping an eye on her emotions the way a miser kept her eye on her bankbook. Love was a renewable resource, a well that refilled itself the more water you drank from it. But then again, she had never felt anything close to the wild surge of exhilaration she felt whenever Mark was near. If she had, she would have gone to the ends of the earth to hang on to it.

This was what had happened to Ed when he met Marie. This was what Maeve wrote about, examined, explored, lived for. This was why Paul still carried a torch for his ex, why he had looked toward her to ease his aching heart. This was the reason Gwynn looked at Andrew as if he’d hung the moon. You couldn’t explain it to someone who’d never experienced it. It was a different vocabulary, a different perspective, like explaining jazz to someone who loved show tunes.

I get it now,
she thought. For the first time in her life, she finally got what it was all about.

But what on earth was she supposed to do with it now that she had it?

 
It was almost three in the morning when they got back to Kate’s house up in Coburn.

“You can’t drive back to Rocky Hill tonight,” Maeve said to Mark as he pulled into the driveway. “Stay here. God knows, there’s plenty of room.”

Next to him Kate yawned and stretched. “We’re home?” she mumbled.

“We are and it’s almost the crack of dawn,” Maeve said. “I told Mark he should stay here tonight.”

“That’s a great idea.” Kate gave him a sleepy smile. “It’s Saturday night in New Jersey. You’re better off waiting until morning.”

She couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t put up much of a fight.

Maeve poured herself a glass of orange juice, gathered up her laptop and notebooks from the kitchen table, and disappeared upstairs to her room.

“How un-Maeve-like,” Kate said as they waited for the water to boil for tea. “She’s usually good until four or five in the morning.”

He touched her cheek with the tip of his index finger.

“I think your mother is trying to push us together.”

Kate winced. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed,” he said, moving closer.

“My mother is a born matchmaker. I’ve spent my entire life trying to dodge her silver bullet. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

“I’m staying,” he said, “but not because of Maeve. I’m staying because I don’t want to miss a minute of you.”

The rest of the night was a blur to Kate. They kissed in the kitchen, the hallway, the entrance to the living room, near her favorite reading chair, on her big squashy yellow sofa.

And they talked. Silly talk. Sweet talk. Things you would never say in the light of day. Dreams you wished could come true.

“You need your rest,” he said into her hair. “Go up to bed. It’s almost five.”

“I’m staying here.”

“You’re making me feel guilty.”

“I’m Catholic,” she said. “That’s my birthright.”

“You’re asleep on your feet.”

She giggled softly. “How can that be when I’m lying here in your arms?”

He reached across the armchairs and grabbed one of her pale gold mohair throws and covered her with it. The last sound she heard before she fell asleep was the steady beat of his heart.

Twenty

“You don’t have to do this,” Mark said as they made their way south on Route 206 toward Princeton. “Charlotte would understand.”

“I want to do it,” Kate said, flipping down the visor and checking her lipstick in the cracked mirror. “That was probably the nicest luncheon invitation I’ve ever received.”

“She wants to check you out,” Mark said, laughing. “Make sure you’re good enough for me.”

“Is this typical Episcopalian behavior?”

“I don’t know, but it is typical Charlotte Petruzzo behavior.”

“So I’m going to have to fight Charlotte for your attentions, am I?”

“You never know,” he said. “Wait until you meet her and then you tell me.”

Two hours later Kate had to admit she’d been bested.

“I love her,” she said as Mark started the car. “She should be declared a national treasure.” She had sat spell-bound as Charlotte spun stories about her adventures in mainland China, her years in Hong Kong, the happy years she had spent in Paris with her beloved husband.

“She thinks you’re terrific,” Mark said. “She wants you to come back and visit again some time.”

“Try and keep me away. I wouldn’t blame you if you proposed to her.”

“I spoke to her doctor,” he said. “Charlotte says she’s ready to go whenever God calls her, but Dr. Warren says it isn’t her time yet.”

Kate raised her hands palm outward. “Not my specialty,” she said. “My grandmother was given three weeks to live and she lasted eight years, but her sister, who was given a clean bill of health, died six weeks after her husband.”

“We pretend to understand but we really don’t,” he said. “Nobody does.” Mind over matter or matter over mind. Kate’s guess was as good as his. “It’s going to be hard to say good-bye to her.”

“Do you have to say good-bye?” An angry blush flooded her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to say that. I know you have to go back.”

“I thought leaving New Jersey when the time came would be easy,” he said. “I was wrong.”

“We have Episcopalians here too,” she said. “Churches, pulpits, congregations, full service, no waiting.”

“Listen,” he said as he stopped the car at a red light, “I got a call this morning that my friend Maggy’s father died.” Henry Boyd had been a good friend to him and to Suzanne. He had just seen him two weeks ago when he went up to talk to the bishop.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a note of caution in her voice.

“I’m flying up to New Hampshire in the morning.”

“For the funeral?”

“Maggy asked me to give the eulogy and I said I would.”

“Do you want company? I won’t go to the funeral, but I could fly up with you and poke around some antiques shops in the area.”

He probably refused her offer a little too quickly. He saw the shadow cross her eyes and instantly regretted not taking a second or two longer.

“Listen, Kate,” he said, feeling awkward and clumsy, “it’s not that I don’t want you, but the church is sending someone to pick me up and I’m not sure what they have planned for me.”

“I understand.”

“We could do it another time.”

“Sure,” she said, glancing toward the window. “Listen, it was a crazy idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I do,” he said, “because I’m thinking the same thing.” She looked over at him, her hazel eyes wet with tears. “Less than four weeks,” she said. “That’s all we have left.”

“I’ll fly back tomorrow night. I’ll take the late flight out and be back here before midnight.”

“My house is closer to Newark Liberty than your house. You could sleep on the couch again.”

“I’ll only be gone a few hours. It’ll be like a regular workday.”

“I have my appointment with Armitage tomorrow afternoon and I’ll put in my normal couple hours at the shop in the morning. I won’t even know you’re gone.”