Just Like Heaven Read online

  The night of Gwynn’s party

  There was no point to taking separate cars, so Kate, Mark, Maeve, two bottles of Shiraz, two bottles of Pepsi, two bottles of ginger ale, a case of bottled water, and one gorgeous chocolate cheesecake shoehorned themselves into his Honda for the long ride down to Paradise Point.

  “I hope your parish in New Hampshire supplies a car,” Maeve said as she settled in the backseat next to the bags of food. “This one looks like spring break in Fort Lauderdale.”

  Kate shot her mother a warning look, but Mark just laughed.

  “This old girl’s indestructible,” he said as he waited for Kate to buckle up. “I thought she would give up the ghost when the odometer rolled past two hundred thousand miles but we’re at two-fifty and still climbing.” He turned the key and the engine sprang to life. “If she doesn’t give up on me, why should I give up on her?”

  “That’s probably the most deeply romantic sentiment I’ve ever heard a man express,” Maeve said. “I just wish it weren’t for a car.”

  Mark and Kate laughed, but Maeve was on a roll.

  “Oh no,” Kate said. “She whipped out her battery-operated keyboard. The Muse has landed.”

  Maeve proceeded to interview Mark on everything including religion, sex, and the deep and passionate relationship between American men and their cars. Kate mounted a fake protest, but she was hanging on every word and intended to demand a transcript from her mother when they got home.

  The sign welcoming them to Paradise Point seemed to pop up before they knew it.

  “Paradise Point reminds me of Cape May,” Mark said as they rolled down Main Street. “Great town.”

  “They’re rebuilding,” Maeve said. “They have a way to go, but it’s definitely catching on with the tourist trade.”

  Kate swiveled around to look at her mother. “You seem to know a lot about this town. Has Gwynn been sending you brochures?”

  The spacious Victorian bed-and-breakfasts gave way to retail stores that, in turn, gave way to bait shops, boat rentals, O’Malley’s Dockside, and her daughter’s home.

  “Oh God,” Kate said as they parked adjacent to the tiny bungalow teetering at the water’s edge. “It’s worse than I thought.”

  “It’s charming,” Maeve said. “Very atmospheric.”

  “I hope they’re insured. A stiff wind will knock them into the water.”

  “You two go ahead,” Mark said. “I’ll unload the car.”

  “Remember what I told you,” Maeve warned as they approached the front door. “That young man may be part of our family for the next fifty years. If you can’t be happy for them, fake it.”

  “I thought you said women should never fake it.”

  “This isn’t sex. This is parenthood.”

  Kate straightened her shoulders, smoothed down her hair, and plastered on her game face as the front door swung open.

  “Come on in,” Paul said, raising a Corona in greeting. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Nineteen

  It was clear to anyone with eyes that Paul was in a particularly contentious mood.

  Kate pulled him aside as Maeve introduced Mark around. “Knock it off,” she said. “Lose the attitude or climb behind the wheel of that monster-mobile of yours and go back to Manhattan where you belong.”

  He didn’t deny the obvious. “What happened to those tears of joy you’ve been crying lately?”

  “You know I love you, pal, but this is Gwynn’s day and I’m not going to let you screw it up with any ridiculous macho posturing.”

  “It’s not too late to get into law school, French. With a mouth like that, you’d end up one of the Supremes.”

  Kate opened her mouth to say something blistering as Maeve marched up to them in full maternal mode. “I’ve been breaking up your fights since grade school. How about we give peace a chance and join the rest of the party?”

  “Your daughter’s in a bad mood,” Paul said. “All I did was open the front door.”

  “With a Corona in your hand,” Kate shot back. “Tell him he should go home before he ruins everything.”

  Maeve, experienced in the art of peaceful coexistence, placed her hand under Kate’s elbow. “Gwynnie!” she called out. “Where’s that guided tour you promised us?”

  The guided tour took less than three minutes, but it did break up the fight.

  “You could make breakfast without getting out of bed,” Kate whispered to Maeve.

  “It’s cozy,” Maeve said, ever the optimist when it came to love.

  Any cozier, Kate thought, and they might as well live in a furnished closet. If possible, the house was even tinier on the inside than it appeared from the outside. You couldn’t turn around in the kitchen without bumping into yourself. And God forbid you needed to use the bathroom, because that required a somersault across the double bed and some fancy footwork once you got there.

  And Gwynn, her materialistic, spoiled daughter, seemed oblivious to it all. She was glowing with happiness and so, Kate had to admit, was Andrew.

  Not to mention his brother, Don, and their mother, Joanne, who arrived seconds before Ed. If she didn’t know better, she would have guessed they’d all been enjoying a nitrous oxide cocktail.

  “Good thing Marie stayed home,” Ed whispered to Kate as they helped themselves to some iced tea. “We’d have to sit on the roof.”

  “You’re Gwynn’s parents, aren’t you?” Joanne joined them near the living room window. She grabbed Kate’s hands and gave her a kiss on both cheeks. “I can’t believe all you’ve been through! You’d never know it to look at you. Isn’t medical science incredible?”

  Kate cast around for the right thing to say, but Joanne was too fast for her.

  Joanne angled her body away from Ed and lowered her voice. “Did that gorgeous priest really save your life? Andy told me the story, but I have to say I didn’t believe it. It sounded like something straight out of Hollywood.”

  “Mark really saved my life,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t be standing here right now if he hadn’t come along when he did.”

  Joanne sighed loudly. “I may stop taking my Procardia.”

  Kate burst into laughter, and Joanne wasn’t far behind.

  “I told Andy you two would like each other.” Gwynn joined them, her face flushed with happiness and heat from the kitchen. “I was right!”

  “Gwynnie!” Maeve called out. “What do I do with these steamers?”

  “Steamers!” Joanne’s face lit up. “Let me help.”

  Gwynn and her maybe-possibly future mother-in-law dashed the ten steps to the kitchen, where Maeve was staring down a giant bucket of sandy clams. They looked so comfortable, the three of them together in the postage-stamp kitchen. Happy and friendly and (Go ahead, Kate, admit it) so much like family that Kate had to turn away toward the window, where Ed was still standing with his iced tea.

  “This could be us twenty-five years ago,” he said.

  “This was never us.” Kate took a sip of tea. “We leaped from high school to parenthood without passing Go.”

  “I think we did pretty well for ourselves, don’t you, Katie? We had some good years.”

  Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked quickly. She had it down to a science. “We had some great years, all things considered.”

  “All things considered?”

  “Considering we were never in love with each other.”

  “There was love there,” he said softly. “Always.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Of course he did. There was a world of difference between loving and being in love. He had found that kind of can’t-live-without-you love when he met Marie and had been smart enough to hang on.

  “Yeah,” he said, draping an arm around her shoulders. “I know what you mean.”

  She had never envied her ex-husband more than she did at that moment or wished him greater happiness.

  The sound of their daughter’s laughter drew their atten
tion.

  “Gwynn and Andy don’t look old enough to vote,” Ed said with a shake of his head.

  “They’re six years older than we were when she was born.”

  “And we all survived. Gotta be a miracle in there somewhere.”

  She put her glass down on the windowsill. “Congratulations on the new baby. Gwynn told me the news.”

  “We weren’t going to tell anyone until Marie had the sonogram but—” He shrugged but his pride and excitement were clearly evident. “Good news has a life of its own.”

  She tried to imagine herself in Marie’s shoes, forty-one and pregnant, and to her surprise it wasn’t that bad a fit. Those had been happy years.

  “Boy or girl?” she asked.

  “We’re old-fashioned,” Ed said. “We don’t mind waiting to find out.”

  “I wouldn’t want to know either. Some things are worth waiting for.”

  Ed gave her a quizzical look. “Are you thinking about having a child?”

  “No,” she said, laughing. “Of course not. I mean, I just came out of the cardiac unit. I’m still working my way up to driving alone.”

  “You’re a great mother,” he said, and once again her eyes filled with tears. “You still have time to start a second family.”

  “Single, middle-aged mother of an infant?” She pretended to shudder. “I’m not brave enough for that.”

  “An Episcopal priest,” Ed said, a teasing but affectionate glint in his eyes. “You could do worse.”

  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.”