Life Happens Read online

  Across the yard, Gretchen jumped up and hurried into the house, leaving Mya sitting by herself. Dean ambled away from Grady and Reed in the middle of whatever they were talking about.

  Mya saw Dean approaching.

  He might have been able to fool everyone else with that slow, lazy gait, but he didn’t fool her. His step was deliberate, his gaze very direct.

  He lowered his lanky frame into the wicker chair adjacent to hers. Leaning back, knees apart, he asked, “Why so quiet?”

  Dean Laker never had been one to beat around the bush. Usually, she appreciated it. Tonight, she didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off Elle. Looking at the girl brought a stirring deep inside, not unlike the flutter kick of her unborn child.

  Her child.

  Elle’s parting words haunted Mya. She’d done what bookkeeping was necessary to keep Brynn’s functioning for another week. She’d passed out paychecks and straightened summer sweaters and trendy tanks and dresses. But she was heartsick. Confiding in Suzette and Claire had been a relief, but it hadn’t lasted.

  “It isn’t fair,” Suzette had wailed. She’d consulted Mya’s personal tides of the moon chart, only to put it away without comment, not a good sign or omen. Mya hadn’t needed the stars and moon to know that this was an impossible situation.

  “Did you and Elle have an argument?” Dean asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “What, exactly?”

  In the background, dogs barked and boys laughed; waves broke and seagulls fought over something floating in shallow water. The loudest and most aggressive bird won. It was the survival of the fittest. There was no reasoning with instinct, no logic in nature, no gray areas, no looking back or wondering. She envied animals that.

  “Mya?”

  She finally looked at Dean. His hair was a deep, dark brown, but instead of appearing almost black in the encroaching twilight, the setting sun brought out auburn highlights. There was no reproach in his steady blue eyes, but there was warmth and concern. It reminded her of how he’d looked all those years ago when she told him she was late. She’d been emotional and tearful and so nervous. After about five seconds, he’d said, “It’s not the end of the world.”

  The end of the world had come seven months later.

  It felt that way again. Watching Kaylie crawl across the grass toward her, Mya said, “Doesn’t she look like a living advertisement for BabyGap?”

  Dean spared a glance at the baby, but he was far more intent upon what was going on in the rest of the yard. Elle was quiet. Mya was downright evasive. And across the patio, Millicent was wringing her hands, deep in conversation with his mother.

  What the hell had happened between yesterday and today?

  “What are we going to do about our kids, Ruth?” Millicent kept her voice quiet so no one else would hear.

  Her heart had been breaking for Mya all day. Her daughter had been quiet during the drive to the ferry dock, and had kept her silence nearly all the way to Portland. She rode on the top deck, her hands gripping the railing, the ocean wind in her expressionless face. Millicent stood beside her, wanting so desperately to help.

  “You were right, Mom,” Mya had finally said when the mainland came into view. “I should have kept her.”

  Millie had been waiting all her life to hear Mya say she was right about something. And when it finally happened, Millicent couldn’t gloat. She couldn’t even agree.

  “You did the right thing and you know it!” she’d said.

  Mya had taken a shuddering breath. “Did I?”

  Millicent had spent the entire day cutting and curling hair for old ladies she’d known since she’d opened her beauty parlor on the mainland. Every one of them asked her what was wrong. Mya didn’t believe she could keep a secret, but she hadn’t told them. It wasn’t until she’d stolen this moment alone with Ruth that she could voice the same question she’d asked nineteen years ago. “What are we going to do about our kids? Dear God, what?”

  Ruth Laker sighed. “What can we do, Millie, except love them?”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d said that, either.

  “Parenthood,” Millicent said, her heart nearly bursting with love and worry. “It’s the best thing and the hardest thing anyone will ever do.”

  “And just think,” Ruth said sagely. “It never ends. Now, tell me what it is that has you, Mya and Elle all tied up in knots.”

  For a blind woman, Ruth Laker saw an awful lot.

  As Millicent opened her mouth, the floodgates opened, too, and everything came tumbling out.

  It was dark outside when the knock sounded on Mya’s side door. The house was quiet except for an old clock ticking on the kitchen wall. Far in the distance, a foghorn called a lonely warning. Rubbing at the knot between her shoulder blades, Mya took a deep breath, and opened the door.

  Dean had donned a jacket since she’d seen him. It was nearly as old and well-worn as the look he gave her as he entered. “You could have told me. You should have told me.”

  She shook her head. “Let me guess. Our mothers commiserated.”

  “You should have told Elle the truth.”

  Again, she shook her head.

  “You should have told her I’m the reason you gave her up.”

  Mya would have staked her life on the belief that this was the first time he’d uttered those words out loud.

  “Mya.”

  Her name was an ache, a whispered plea, a lonesome need filled with past hurt and present acceptance. It knotted Mya’s vocal cords and stilled a place deep inside her. “She loves you, Dean. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “The hell I will.”

  Dean had surprised her. Hell, he’d surprised himself. All those years he’d blamed her because it had been easier than blaming himself. He’d hurt her enough. More than she’d ever deserved. It didn’t matter that he’d been hurting just as much, or that he couldn’t help it at the time. What mattered was that he didn’t hurt her anymore.

  “Where’s Elle?”

  “She’s sleeping. Where are you going?”

  She followed him into the sleeping porch, switching off the light he flicked on. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see the crib where Kaylie slept, could hear the baby hum in her sleep. By the light of the moon shining through ribbons of fog, he made his way to the daybed beneath the window where Elle lay sleeping.

  Placing a hand on her slender shoulder, he shook her gently. “Elle. Wake up.”

  “Dean,” Mya cautioned.

  He shook Elle again. These past few weeks, he’d been on the brink of understanding, but it wasn’t until tonight that he finally realized just how great a sacrifice Mya had made all those years ago.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered.

  “It’s either this or take her over my knee.”

  Elle opened her eyes. “What the hell?”

  “Come on.” He hauled the girl out of bed.

  “What are you doing?” Elle said, cranky.

  “You’re going to need slippers or shoes, and a coat. I can carry you or you can walk. Either way, you’re coming with me.”

  Elle’s eyes were large when she looked at Mya.

  And Dean whispered, “Don’t worry, honey. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. But there’s something I have to show you, and I’m not in the mood for any of your lip.”

  Next, Dean turned to Mya. “Stay with Kaylie.”

  “If you were always this bossy, it’s no wonder she didn’t want to marry you,” Elle sputtered.

  He shot his daughter a quelling look. She said no more as he took her by the shoulders and steered her toward the living room. Plucking her Red Sox cap from the hook near the door, he didn’t say another word, either.

  Mya followed them as far as the porch and watched while he deposited Elle in the passenger seat. “Dean? Be careful.”

  The look sh
e gave him could have been a valiant effort gone bad, or it could have been the rawest expression he’d ever seen. “Don’t worry, Mya. I’ve got her.”

  Elle sat stone still in the passenger seat as Dean’s Jeep bounced through potholes and spun through sand. Lame music played in the background. He didn’t say anything. He probably figured she was ticked.

  She had been at first. Who did he think he was, barging into her room and waking her from a deep sleep? But she’d gotten over that almost instantly. What she felt now was different.

  They’d been on this road before. She recognized the dips and potholes, and the curves winding up the hill, but it all looked so different with the fog moving in, turning the darkness creamy white. Every so often, eyes glowed in Dean’s headlights, some low to the ground, some not. There had always been something about nighttime that she’d liked, something subdued and mysterious and exciting and unknown.

  She opened her own door when he stopped in his driveway. He waited for her at the front of the Jeep, falling into step beside her, between her and the incessant ocean wind, as if he wanted to shield her from the cold.

  As if he could.

  “Okay,” she said, unable to contain herself another moment. “What did you want to tell me?”

  He opened his door loudly, then held it for her like a gentleman. It occurred to her that he was a study in contrasts. She must have gotten that from him.

  Switching on lights as he went, he didn’t release her hand until they stood before a tall, antique cupboard in the kitchen. He had to stretch in order to reach the old clasp. The cupboard door creaked as it opened. He pushed things around on the shelf. And then he brought a bottle out of hiding, and placed it on the counter.

  It was a bottle of Scotch. Slightly more than half full, it was dusty, as if it hadn’t been touched in a very long time.

  “You wanted to show me your stash?”

  He ran his fingertips over the neck of the bottle reverently, almost like a caress. “I wanted you to look at the reason Mya didn’t marry me.”

  There was a heavy feeling in Elle’s stomach. “You drank?” she whispered.

  “I haven’t had a drink in eleven years, ten months, and four days.”

  He carried the bottle to his kitchen table. Pulling out a chair for both of them, he placed the bottle between them, and had a seat.

  A foghorn sounded sorrowfully somewhere far, far away. And Elle shivered beneath her jacket. Without saying a word, Dean went to the fireplace where he struck a match. Bending at the waist, he touched it to dry kindling.

  The fire was just a lick of flames at first, but then it whooshed up, enveloping the logs. Bark crackled, popped. Staring at the flames, he said, “I started drinking when I was fifteen. The guys and I would go down to the wharf, or out to McCaffrey’s Cove and pass a bottle. It was all great fun. My brothers tried it. Most kids do.”

  He returned to the table.

  “I told myself I could stop anytime I wanted to. Sometimes I believed my own lies. Back then I was hopelessly angry and too young to know it was normal. I had no reason to drink. My parents didn’t beat me or each other. My father hardly drank at all. My girlfriend didn’t like it.”

  He met Elle’s gaze in the flickering firelight.

  “I had no reason to drink. I had two brothers, a dog, the island and Mya. And a taste for cheap Scotch. I told myself all kids drank. But when the haze cleared, I was the only one who wasn’t standing. And then Mya told me she was pregnant with you. And God, I didn’t even mind. I felt like such a man, Elle. I mean, I loved her. And she loved me. I promised her I would quit.”

  His gaze went to the bottle. His mouth watered, even now.

  “But you didn’t quit?” Elle asked quietly.

  “Oh, I quit. Over and over. But never for very long. I broke my promise to Mya time and again. She told me she would give you up for adoption if I didn’t get help.”

  From his jacket pocket, he brought out the Red Sox cap he’d given Elle the first time he’d met her. “I didn’t need help. Only losers needed help. Addicts. Alcoholics.” Touching the cap’s bill, he said, “We were barely seventeen. I wonder what the future looked like to Mya back then.”

  Elle took the cap with shaking fingers, the only sounds the crackle of the fire, the sigh of the ocean and the beat of her own heart. “Great,” she said after a long silence. “Now I’m going to have to apologize to her.”

  Dean felt such love for this woman-child who was his daughter. “I noticed you’d rather ask for forgiveness than for permission. You’re half Laker, all right.”

  She placed the cap on her head. Adjusting it low over her eyes, she met his gaze. “I’m half Donahue, too.”

  He nodded, his gaze on the fire, not her.

  They sat in the cozy nook, quietly watching the flames, not saying a word. Dean never rushed her. She liked that about him. She had a lot to think about. To sort out. Finally, she said, “Mya’s probably waiting for me, huh?”

  Dean doused the fire then offered Elle his hand. “She’s been waiting nineteen years.”

  “At least there’s no pressure.” Nineteen years, Elle thought. She didn’t want to make Mya wait until morning.

  CHAPTER 15

  M ya’s shadow glided soundlessly against the living-room wall where headlights flickered momentarily. Outside, two doors slammed, and two sets of footsteps thudded on the side porch.

  Elle and Dean both glanced in her direction as they came through the door. Dean didn’t look away, the expression in his eyes including her in whatever had transpired between this father and his child.

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” He kissed Elle’s cheek, squeezed her hand. And when his gaze next went to Mya, there was a tangible bond between them, stronger than it had been when they were kids, and no less intense.

  Elle closed the door behind him. She removed her coat and hung it up. Having run out of diversions, she stood before the rocking chair and slowly removed the baseball cap. Her clothes carried the scent of the ocean breeze and fog and the island. Her hair was mussed, and she still wore the cotton tank and baggy sleeping pants she was so fond of.

  “So,” she said.

  “So,” Mya said softly.

  “Do Donahues have a traditional symbol of their right of passage, too?”

  With a shrug, Mya said, “Nothing as prosaic as the Red Sox.”

  Elle’s smile wobbled as she looked at the baby, her baby, sound asleep in Mya’s arms, her bottle nearly empty. “She can hold her own bottle, you know.”

  “I know. I like to hold her.” Tonight, she’d needed someone to hold.

  Rising, Mya carried Kaylie back to the sleeping porch where she lowered her gently into a well-worn crib used by all but one of the Laker babies.

  “I haven’t given her the best life.” Elle spoke softly, sadly.

  “I disagree.”

  “Figures.”

  They stood shoulder to shoulder at the rail, looking at the sleeping child. And Mya thought, this was probably how Elle had looked at this age.

  “Dean told me why you did it,” Elle said. “I know you wanted me. You didn’t stay away from the island to punish him, did you? You did it because you knew you would always yearn for it, and me. I didn’t have the strength to give Kaylie up. I thought you were selfish. Turns out it’s the other way around.”

  “All any mother can ever do is what she thinks is best.” Doubts. Regrets. And yearning. Ah motherhood. “I’ve always wondered if I did the right thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have given you up.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have kept her,” Elle said.

  “You did the right thing, Elle.”

  “So did you.”

  They smiled, and they were filled with such understanding.

  Kaylie hummed in her sleep. And Elle yawned. “I think I’ll go to bed, too.”

  And that was that.

  Or almost.

  “There’s something I’d like to do first,” Mya whispered.


  “What?”

  “I’d like to hold my little girl.”

  There was a moment of awkwardness, but only one. And then Mya’s arms went around her daughter’s back, and Elle’s arms went around her mother’s. Mya tried not to hold on too tight, but try as she might, she couldn’t keep the tears from running down her face as the feel of Elle soaked into her. Mya was thin; Elle was thinner. Mya was young; Elle was younger. Mya was warm; Elle shivered. Both were five-four, belligerent, proud. Both had made choices that had had far-reaching consequences that continued to impact their lives. Both were too emotion filled to speak.

  Elle was the first to draw away. Having no choice but to let her go, Mya thought this must be how it was for all parents. Mothers would always wish they could hold on longer. And children would always grow up too soon.

  She’d taken several steps toward the door when Elle said, “You know how everybody says you and I are a lot alike? Maybe that’s the Donahue right of passage. Anyway, being like you isn’t an insult.”

  Mya smiled. “That was almost a compliment.”

  “I’ll be more careful in the future.”

  God, Mya loved this girl. “Good night, Elle.”

  “’Night.” She paused. “Mya.”

  She couldn’t call her Mom. She didn’t have to. They understood one another perfectly. Mya had had a child, but she’d never been a mother, until now. And now it didn’t matter how Elle referred to her: Mom, Mother or Mya. What mattered was that they were family—mother, daughter, alike but different, allies, adversaries and friends, at long last.

  Mya picked up the cat on her way into the living room, then nearly dropped him at the sight of Dean on the sofa. Once again, it occurred to her that he looked good on her living-room couch. His jaw was squared, his gaze on her face.

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” she agreed.