Every Time We Say Goodbye. Liz Flaherty

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СКАЧАТЬ like it is to the rest of us. It’s time for peace in all our souls.” She firmed her voice and met Arlie’s eyes, her dark gaze compassionate. “If you think you can welcome them back, then I know I can.”

      Holly nodded. “Me, too.”

      Arlie didn’t think she was ready for that. Cleaning the Dower House was one thing. Seeing Jack from across the street without losing her lunch had been entirely doable. Getting friendly with the Llewellyns was something else entirely.

      “I’ll try.” Arlie stared back into the eyes that still held hers. “I promise I’ll try.”

      Once dinner was over and they were standing in the driveway of Christensen’s Cove, Gianna’s house, saying good-night, Holly offered Arlie a ride. She shook her head. “I need some air. And maybe to think some.”

      “Don’t overthink it, sis.” Holly hugged her hard.

      Arlie nodded. “See you in the morning.”

      The evening was warm for mid-October. A full moon danced on the water, and Arlie could hear people chatting on their porches and docks, hanging on to all the comfortable outdoors time they could. Sometimes during the day, Lake Miniagua looked big, but in the evening it seemed to shrink, its streets becoming the bumpy and narrow throughways they actually were. People rode by on bicycles, calling out greetings as they passed. Golf carts whizzed along in near silence. Teenagers walked close together in couples and groups, both sibilance and new huskiness in their hushed laughter. The playground above the beach was deserted, although Arlie thought if she listened hard, she could hear echoes of the past ringing through it. But maybe that was just the rustle of dry leaves as they scuttled across the ground in the breeze.

      Arlie’s father had built the house she lived in, though he’d sold it when he and Gianna married. The red Cape Cod sat at the end of a narrow inlet that had been dubbed Gallagher’s Foot. When Arlie bought the house three years ago, she painted Gallagher’s Big Toe on the mailbox. The name had shrunk to “the Toe” and stuck.

      When she’d opened the garage door the first time after she took possession of the house, she found a scrap of a kitten curled up in an old Easter basket. Jesse Worth, a veterinarian whose office was halfway between Miniagua and Sawyer, had said it wasn’t old enough to leave its mother. He’d given Arlie enough eyedroppers and a recipe for formula to keep it alive.

      The kitten, whose meow was so loud Gianna had christened her Caruso despite her gender, now weighed fifteen pounds and owned Arlie, body and soul. Caruso was not amused that her housemate was so late coming home, but a couple of treats accompanied by an intense chin-scratch and belly-rub helped matters considerably.

      After showering, putting on a faded Ball State University sweatshirt and black flannel pajama pants, and wrapping her tumble of red hair in a towel, Arlie lifted a scrapbook from one of the bookshelves that flanked the gas fireplace. She clicked the fireplace’s remote, then sat in the recliner, drawing a quilt over her legs—warmth had receded fast once darkness fell. Caruso settled in beside her, her purr a companionable roar in the cozy room.

      “What do you think, Caruso?” The book of memories was her first effort, put together when she was trying to get her mind and hands to work together after the accident. Holly had replaced cheering and dancing with writing after losing her leg in the accident. Arlie had learned to scrapbook in lieu of singing and playing the piano and clarinet when neither her throat nor her hands returned to what they had been previously.

      She’d been seventeen when she put together the first album, the one with covers in their school colors, so she shouldn’t have been surprised that the first picture was of her and Jack. She shouldn’t have been, but she was. Every single time.

      She jumped when the doorbell rang. It wasn’t that late—just after nine—but visitors in Miniagua usually phoned or texted first and came by before dark unless it was summertime, when everyone was sitting outside anyway.

      The cat accompanied her to the door, her ringed tail at stiff attention, and Arlie bent to pet her. “You’re such a good girl. It’s probably some of the senior class selling magazine subscriptions—that and car washes are the only way they get the prom paid for. Did you want to go with me if they ask me to chaperone? You saw that picture when Jack and I went. You and I would be at least that cute.”

      Caruso leaned against her legs when they reached the entryway. Arlie turned on the porch light, the wattage guaranteed to blind whomever was on the porch, and pulled open the door.

      Somehow she wasn’t surprised when she saw Jack standing on the other side of the threshold.

      His hair, curly and unmanageable when he was a boy, was straight now, still blond but streaked with brown. She’d always accused him of wearing tinted contacts because his eyes were such a bright blue. They were still spectacular, still fringed by thick lashes, but the blue had darkened and he wore glasses with wire frames. His face had been a boy’s when she saw him last, with all the softness of adolescence in it, but now his cheekbones were sharper, his jaw more square and covered with a well-trimmed beard. His build was lean, still broad shouldered and flat stomached, but more spare somehow than sixteen years before.

      He wore jeans and a leather jacket that hung open over a faded blue cotton sweater. An earring glinted in his left ear, and she wondered for a suspended moment if it was the same one with his birthstone that she’d bought him for his September birthday. She’d given it to him early, before he left for college, and then she’d never seen him again.

      “Jack.”

      “Arlie.” He nodded, his gaze not leaving hers. “I just wanted to tell you, you don’t have to clean the Dower House. I can’t believe the lawyer’s rep asked you. Well, I can, but I’m sorry she did.” His smile was so slight it almost wasn’t there. “I also can’t believe that’s the best excuse I could come up with for coming over here this late.”

      She didn’t smile back. “She didn’t ask me. She asked Rent-A-Wife, which is Gianna’s business. I just help out once in a while. Unless you no longer need our services, we’ll do the job.” Angry for a reason she couldn’t name, not to mention insulted, she started to push the door shut.

      “Wait.” He stopped the door with his hand around its edge. “May I come in?” He hesitated. “Please.”

      It’s time for peace in all our souls. Gianna’s voice echoed gently in Arlie’s mind. She took a deep breath and stepped back, Caruso winding around her ankles. “Sure. Go ahead and have a seat. Would you like something to drink?” She made the offer grudgingly, but she wasn’t Gianna Gallagher’s daughter for nothing.

      “Do you have coffee? I know it’s late for that, but it’s tasted good all day.”

      Friendly. That was how he was going to play it. Let’s just pretend the past sixteen years didn’t happen. Okay, she could do that. Sure she could. “There’s an organic market on the lake. I think everyone buys coffee there now.” She went to make a fresh pot, breathing deep when she opened the coffee canister. The scent was definitely therapeutic.

      He leaned on the counter between the kitchen and the dining area. “I had supper at the Anything Goes Grill on the north end. I guess it’s new? It was good.”

      “It is good. It’s nicer than the Silver Moon, although the food’s about equal on the quality scale, and it has booze.” Chris’s family had opened Anything Goes within the past year. He didn’t work in the restaurant, but he spent a lot of time there. She wondered if he’d been there СКАЧАТЬ