The Mill River Redemption (17 page)

“Uh-oh,” Emily said.

“Yeah, it’s a no-exit balloon. That means the fire is near here, and we have to find another way out. Let’s go to the kitchen.” With one arm stretched out in front of her, Rose pulled Emily into the dark kitchen toward the sliding glass door. There was no balloon tied to the handle, so she unlocked the door and pulled it open.

The frigid January air surged against their faces and nearly froze the goose bumps on their bare legs. Rose stepped outside, but Emily hesitated.

“Rosie, I have to go pee.”

“Come on,” Rose said, tugging on Emily’s hand. “Just hold it a few minutes until we meet Mom. We’re almost done.”

They walked across the back deck, down onto the path that had been cleared of snow, to the gate. Once they were through it, they could go around to the front of the house and meet their mother at the usual rendezvous point in the far left corner of the yard.

Rose reached up to raise the wooden bar holding the gate closed, but the metal hinge was stiff. It didn’t move when she pushed upward on it.

“Rosie, hurry!” Emily pleaded beside her.

“It’s stuck,” Rose said. Her teeth chattered, and her nightgown blew against her legs in the cold wind. She tried hitting the bar from beneath with her hand, but it was still immovable. When she placed her hand against the hinge, she felt a cold liquid materialize on her palm.

“I think there’s ice on it,” she said. Rose brushed away the snow on top of the bar and pressed her hands against the hinge, first one, then the other, trying to warm it. When she could no longer bear the cold of the metal against her skin, she cupped her hands together and breathed into them.

“Rosie, I, oh, no,” Emily said beside her. It was the last thing her little sister said before she started to cry.

Rose blinked back tears of her own and placed her hands back over the hinge. After another minute, she grabbed the wooden bar and heaved upward with all her strength. The bar raised slowly, stiffly, until it finally cleared the latch. Quickly, she pushed open the gate.

“Come on,” she said. She held out a hand to Emily, and feeling the warmth of her sister’s smaller one as she clasped it was exquisite relief. They trudged through the snow around the corner of the house. Rose spotted their mother standing in the usual meeting place. “There’s Mom.”

“She’s going to be mad at me. I peed in my pants,” Emily said between sobs. “I hate fire drills.”

Rose put her arm around Emily’s shoulders and pulled her sister close as they both shivered. “Don’t worry, she won’t be mad. She’ll just be glad we got out.” The horrible sound of the smoke alarm was still audible, even outside the house. “It’s okay if you pee your pants, as long as the fire doesn’t get you.”

O
N
T
UESDAY MORNING
, J
OSIE ARRIVED AT WORK ON TIME AND HAD
scarcely taken off her coat when her phone rang. When Ned arrived a few minutes later, she was bundled up again and heading back outside.

“I’ve got a meeting on the listing,” she said as they passed each other at the front door. “I won’t be long.” She rushed out and didn’t look back or give Ned a chance to ask questions.

When she emerged from Phil Lawson’s office a half hour later, her trembling hands carried a large manila envelope. A huge grin was plastered across her face. Still, Josie waited until she was securely inside her car with the doors closed before she allowed her barely controlled excitement to escape. For a good long minute, she whooped and hollered at the top of her lungs. When the rush
was over, she leaned forward, smiling, laughing to herself, with her eyes closed and her forehead resting on the steering wheel.

A knock on her car window startled her.

She looked up to see a stooped, well-dressed elderly man with a cane peering in at her. She rolled down her window.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the man said. “I overheard you yelling … I just wanted to make sure you were all right.” He cocked his head and waited for her reply.

“I’m fine,” she said, wiping her eyes. She glanced around, but no one else appeared to have been within earshot of her private celebration. “I just got some very good news, and I guess I got carried away. It was kind of you to ask, though.”

“Um-hmm,” the man said, nodding, although he didn’t appear entirely convinced that she was mentally stable. “Happy tears are the good kind. You take care now.” He smiled at her and continued on his way.

Josie couldn’t help but giggle as she started her car.

Once she’d returned to Circle Realty, she took a deep breath and headed to Ned’s office. He sat tilted back in his chair with his feet up on his desk, immersed in some sort of real estate newsletter. He held a large, half-eaten bagel.

“Hi, Ned,” she said. “Do you have a minute?”

“Hey, Josie, sure. How’d your meeting go?” His tone was polite but superficial, and he slowly, reluctantly uncrossed his feet and put them under his desk. “Wait, don’t tell me,” he continued as he used his thumb to wipe a bit of cream cheese from the corner of his mouth. “You sold Al’s dump by the dump.” Ned’s dark eyes lit up as he smirked at her and took another bite. Clearly, he thought himself amusing, and he hadn’t a clue that she’d actually done it. Josie rolled her eyes and smiled, playing along.

“No, I haven’t sold it … 
yet
,” she told him as she handed him the contract drawn up by the city. “At least not technically, until
you’ve signed off on this offer and Al gives me the okay.” She waited, stifling a smug grin as he wordlessly took the offer letter and began reading it. After a moment, he put down his bagel, causing a blob of cream cheese to drop from it onto his desk, but he didn’t look up. Josie watched his eyes flick back and forth as he continued to read.

When he finally did meet her gaze, his typical smart-aleck expression was gone and replaced by a hint of astonishment. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“You got an offer from the city. For twenty-five thousand.”

“Yes. The landfill is due to close in a few years. The city needs the property to build a transfer station to ship out garbage and recyclables.”

“So, they’d raze Al’s house and rezone the lot, I suppose.”

“I’m sure. It would never sell as a residential property, anyway. The city was the only potential buyer that I could think of. Luckily, the mayor thought the purchase would be a good idea and got approval for it from the Board of Aldermen.”

“You met with Phil Lawson?” Ned asked.

Josie nodded. “About a week ago. The board authorized the offer last night.” She was beginning to get impatient. “Given the undesirability of the place, I think the offer from the city is more than fair. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to present it to Al today. I told Phil I’d have an answer for him soon.”

“Well, yeah, sure,” Ned said with a sigh. “It is a fair offer, and it’s always a good thing to have the mayor’s support on a deal.” Josie nodded, wondering whether Ned had really ever closed a deal in which the mayor was personally involved. It didn’t matter, though.

“Great,” she said. “I’ll call Al right away.” She held out her hand for the contract, and Ned returned it to her without hesitation. “Oh, and going back to our original agreement … since I’ve
sold this listing, I assume I’ll be promoted to a full-time sales position?”

Ned’s shoulders slumped forward, but he managed a wan smile. “That was our agreement. Congratulations.” He extended his hand to her.

“Thanks, Ned,” Josie said as she shook it and smiled sweetly in return. Although she normally found it revolting to watch Ned consume anything, she had
thoroughly
enjoyed seeing him eat humble pie.

Al Celebrezze was ecstatic when she reached him at the Ford dealership to let him know she had an offer. He arrived at the office during his lunch hour, breathless and smiling. “I can’t believe it,” he said as he sat down with her to go over the details.

Josie laughed. “I just got lucky when I found out the city was interested in buying your property.”

“You didn’t get lucky, you worked a miracle is what you did,” Al said.

“You give me more credit than I deserve,” Josie said. “But, the offer is a good one, I think. After my commission and closing costs, you should end up with more than twenty thousand dollars on the sale.”

“Twenty thousand dollars,” Al repeated. “I don’t think I ever had that much at one time in my life. And we need it, we really do. My oldest boy is a senior in high school this year, and my wife and I have been worrying how we’ll pay for college. Rachel and I have saved what we could, but it’s still not enough. This money’ll be a lifesaver.”

“I’m so glad,” Josie said. “I’ll tell you something, Al. This was my very first listing and my very first sale as a real estate agent, and the fact that it means so much to you and your family makes it even more special.”

“Your first one?” Al asked. “Well, you hit a homer on your first
time at bat, and with a real stinker of a listing.” Josie smiled, feeling her cheeks turn pink as Al looked at her thoughtfully. “I’ll tell you what, I’m going to make sure everybody knows about you and what you did for me. If I can send some more business your way, I’ll be happy to do it.”

Once Josie was back in Mill River, she picked up Emily at St. John’s and headed home. It was hard not to tell her younger daughter the good news, but she wanted to wait until Rose was home from school to tell them both, and Ivy, all at the same time.

She and Emily met Rose as the school bus dropped her off in front of The Bookstop. “Hi, baby,” Josie said as she hugged her six-year-old. “C’mon, let’s go in and see Ivy. Mommy has a surprise for all of you.” She took one of her girls’ hands in each of her own and walked with them toward the front door.

“A surprise!” shrieked Emily, jumping alongside her.

“What is it?” Rose demanded to know, tugging on her arm. “Tell us!”

“Hold your horses,” Josie said. “I want Aunt Ivy to hear, too.”

Ivy was just finishing up with a customer as the three of them entered the front room. She looked up as the lady she’d been helping made her way out of the store.

“Okay, Mom, now tell us!” Rose said.

“Well?” Ivy asked, looking expectantly at Josie.

Josie smiled and stooped down to gather her girls in her arms. “I sold a house,” she said in a choking voice as tears unexpectedly filled her eyes. “Mommy sold a house, so she’s a real estate agent now.”

“Hot diggity!” Ivy exclaimed. She jumped up and nearly tackled Josie. “I knew you could do it,” her aunt said in her ear as she squeezed her tight.

“Mommy, did you blindside the idiot?” Emily asked. While Rose looked up at them with a confused smile, she and Ivy laughed
until their sides ached. Finally, while Ivy caught her breath, Josie looked down at her girls and smiled.

“I can’t believe you remembered that, Em, but yes, I guess I did.”

“This calls for a happy dance!” Ivy said, holding out her hands to the girls.

“Happy dance!” Rose yelled. She and Emily joined hands with Josie and Ivy, and the four of them formed a circle, laughing and pulling each other around and around on the worn multicolored rug.

That evening, Josie treated them all to a rare dinner out in Rutland. She would receive a nice commission from the sale, so she was comfortable with a small splurge. She felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment, too, and she’d delighted in Ivy’s cackles as she told her aunt of her conversation with Ned. Despite the day’s happy events, though, she still felt a certain absence, as if someone important had been left out of her celebrations. After Ivy and the girls were asleep, Josie sat down on the edge of her bed, opened her nightstand drawer, and carefully lifted out a rectangular metal box.

In the two years since she’d fled to Mill River, since the horrible fire that devastated her life, she hadn’t been able to part with Tony’s ashes, to commit them to a final resting place, despite Father O’Brien’s encouraging her to do so. It was morbid, she knew, but the box was her last tangible connection to him.

The fire had claimed everything in their house—including every photo of her husband, every image of their life together. She hadn’t had a photo of Tony in her purse, which, aside from the clothes she had been wearing, was her only possession to have survived the flames. What she wouldn’t give now for a single picture of her husband, a picture to show the girls and to see with her own eyes. Instead, all she had left of her husband were her memories, her daughters, and the metal box.

“I’m doing it, Tony,” she whispered to the box, almost too quietly for her own ears to hear. “I’m taking care of the girls, just as I promised. I’m just starting now, but I’m going to provide well for them. Wherever you are, you don’t have to worry about them, or me. Rose and Emily are growing and happy. I’m … happy.” The admission brought knives of guilt into her chest and triggered a fresh round of tears. It did not seem fair that she could feel happiness again when her beloved Tony had suffered so much. She wiped her cheek and placed her moistened hand atop the box. “Almost,” she added softly.

Deep down, she knew Tony would want her to be happy, that he would hate for the pain of his death to taint what remained of her life. She remembered the few minutes she’d spent hollering in her car in downtown Rutland and the startled little man who’d stopped to check on her. “Happy tears are the good kind,” he’d said. The elderly gentleman was right, of course, and she knew in her heart that Tony would have rejoiced had he been the one to see them rolling down her cheeks.

After another moment of silence, she sighed and gently placed the metal box back in her nightstand drawer. “Good night,” she whispered. “Love you, always.”

A
S HE WALKED SLOWLY ALONG THE SIDEWALK AWAY FROM
St. John’s, Father O’Brien took a deep breath. The late-evening air was still warm and laden with the sweet scents of fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle, and he noticed that yellow evening-primrose blooms were beginning to open in the flower bed around the church’s sign. A bit of breeze danced over his balding head, playing with the few hairs left on top. He could hear crickets and tree frogs singing, and their steady chorus was occasionally punctuated by a dog barking or the low hum of a car driving through town. It was a calm, peaceful evening, typical of midsummer in Mill River.