Chapter Eleven
Faye held Molly’s hand as they passed the ice cream parlor and hair salon on the way to the five-and-dime for a new hair ribbon.
She had never seen more red, white, and blue.
Maine, like all of America, was crazy for the bicentennial celebration.
Every house was festooned with buntings, and flags of every era—thirteen stars, forty-eight, fifty—hung from porch rails and makeshift flagpoles.
Planning had been going on for a year or more, so decorations went up before the snow was gone.
Aldo at the flower shop where Faye used to work had died two years short of his own centennial, and his granddaughter had taken over—first the shop, then the local Chamber of Commerce.
Hers was the first business to go all in on patriotic trinkets and spinners and carnations dipped to match.
As much as Faye loved America, she struggled with the celebration, especially the fireworks.
Bursts of mortar, fire raining from the sky.
She wanted to thrill in the display the way William and the girls did, but in truth, each explosion shook her to the core, surfacing childhood fear she could hardly name anymore.
She’d dared ask William once if the fireworks brought back memories of war, and he’d brushed the question off, said that they signified endurance and victory to him.
She wished she had even one fond memory of when she was a little German girl, of Elisabeth and Mutti and Vati, when they weren’t dodging bombs, hunting for butter and coffee on the black market, averting their eyes for fear of being questioned.
There had been a train ride with Mutti and Elisabeth to the countryside where they ran through fields to the shelters when the sirens blared.
Maybe she had smiled over pea soup in some kitchen there, maybe there were games and pranks and laughter.
But every memory Faye retained seemed to end in an explosion, with Mutti unfurled in the street.
Even blue skies sometimes glistened silver with phantoms of whistling bomber formations circling overhead.
And then there was the matter of that song.
Even now, “America the Beautiful” followed her and Molly down the street, piping from crackling speakers hung from phone poles.
Faye knew it by heart, of course, had learned it in elementary school.
But every time she heard it performed—and so often in July—she was reminded that Fiadh had spat that phrase to the ground.
What Fiadh might have made of America, or America of her, Faye could not know.
But three decades later, the song still felt more like an accusation than an anthem, reminding Faye that the freedom she celebrated, and her own beautiful life, had been meant for another girl.
Molly struggled to keep on her new sandals—flip-flops with a rattan foot bed and a puffy thong—and her gait alternated between halting and skipping.
Faye, her shoulder sore from the yanking, had grown testy with the music and rising heat.
“Honey,” she said, exasperated. “Try to keep up.” The last thing they needed was for Molly to stub a toe.
Distracted, Faye didn’t see the woman before she ran smack into her.
“I’m so sorry!” Faye said before she recognized her. “Oh!”
“Glenda,” the woman said. “Hi, Faye.”
Was it possible she’d grown more colorful since Faye had seen her last?
“Glenda! No, of course. Hello. So much happening here.” She laughed awkwardly. “Good to see you.”
Their lives had been blissfully free of Conor O’Kane for years.
After Jean died, he’d gone back to Ireland, resurfacing only for a couple unwelcome visits to Thomas at the house on the cove, each time trying to gloss over the past. William had run into him once a few years back in Boothbay and had been shocked by his appearance, both eyes swollen and black, his arm in a sling.
“What you get when you mess with a man’s woman.
You shoulda seen the other guy,” was what William told Faye he’d said.
Taking it apart, it wasn’t clear whether Conor had been the affronter or the affronted.
All he’d said otherwise was that he moved back to Boston and implied connections William wanted no part of.
They hadn’t seen or heard from him since. And now here was Glenda.
She looked the same, old and ageless at the same time. She’d caught the bicentennial fever, an eagle and flag T-shirt over cutoff jeans, star-shaped sunglasses tucked into the cleft between her boobs. “This the baby? She got big. How old is she now?”
“Six. Going into first grade.” Faye looked around. O’Kane must be lurking somewhere.
Glenda followed her gaze. “I don’t know where he is. He was supposed to pick me up.”
“Conor?”
“Yeah. Actually, I’m surprised to see you here. He said he was heading to your place.”
Faye did a quick scan of their plans for the day.
Like a typical teenager, Maeve wasn’t even up when Faye and Molly left the house.
William was having breakfast with Thomas—a regular Saturday outing for them since Jean died—then he was supposed to run errands, which could mean early afternoon before he was home.
It was past eleven now. “No one’s home so he should be around here somewhere,” Faye said with as much cheer as she could muster.
“You’re a funny little thing,” Glenda said to Molly. Her husky tone was stilted and shouty, as if Molly were hard of hearing or thick in the head. “And those sure are odd-looking sandals. You don’t look one bit Chinese.” She winked at Faye like they shared a secret.
Faye gripped Molly’s hand. “We have to get going. Nice bumping into you.”
“I’m in the parade,” Molly said, as if that explained her vaguely oriental shoes.
“I’ll watch for you. Throw me candy if you see me.”
Faye wanted to get away from this woman, this conversation.
She wanted to check on Maeve. But Molly pulled her arm, and Glenda stood there, not catching the hint.
“Irish step,” Faye said, exasperated. “Her class is performing tomorrow. I don’t think they’ll be giving out candy.
” It came out wrong, like she was talking to a child.
Glenda looked at Faye like she was the dumb one. “I can get my own candy, you know.”
“Right, right,” Faye said, eager to end this. “Okay, well then. You take care.”
Glenda’s face soured as they snuck past her.
Molly, miffed they had to leave in a rush, huffed all the way home, right up to when they pulled into the driveway.
A black car with racing stripes was there.
William’s wagon was not. Faye didn’t bother grabbing her bags or holding the door for Molly.
She ran to the house, pulled the screen door, cursing that the paint stuck in the humidity.
Conor O’Kane sat at the kitchen table, an open can of beer in his hand. “Finally,” he said. “I wondered when you were coming home.”
“Why are you here? Where’s Maeve?”
“Hello to you too. She came downstairs a while ago. I don’t think she was too happy to see me.” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “It’s hot in here. Helped myself to a beer. Don’t you have fans? And why are you lot never here when I come by? I always have to let myself in.”
Faye scrunched her face, confused. “Have you been in our house before? You can’t just walk into someone else’s home!”
Molly burst in, jabbering about wanting to go back to town. She stopped in her tracks behind Faye.
“There’s the little sweetheart!” O’Kane said. “Come sit with your Uncle Con.” He patted the spot next to him. Molly dipped her head, glowered over a pinched brow like she was casting a spell, turning a toad into a smaller toad.
“Go upstairs and find your sister. Go on.” Faye nudged Molly, but she bounced back into her hip, drawn like a magnet to steel. She spread her legs, crossed her arms. She wasn’t budging.
O’Kane guffawed a lungful of cigarette smoke. “Ah, well, she reminds me of someone I used to know. Will you look at that! Even her little mouth is sealed shut.”
“I saw Glenda in town,” Faye said, ignoring his comment. “She’s waiting for you. You should go.”
O’Kane pushed himself up like it was a great burden. “Was hoping to talk to William, and your—well, and Thomas too. I’ve a sort of investment opportunity.”
She wished she could get rid of him for good.
When she’d heard about the bar fight, she had secretly hoped it had been debilitating.
When he flew to Ireland, she’d been ashamed of herself for thinking about the plane crashing.
He brought out the worst in her. More than a thorn in her side or a pebble in her shoe.
He was a bullet loaded into a gun, a lit fuse.
She did not believe he wouldn’t crack eventually, his very presence a reminder that she’d blown the opportunity to come clean with William herself. He was a threat, simple and true.
“Jesus, will you stop staring at me!” O’Kane said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you might have a thing for me. Little too late to get the ride, don’t you think?”
Faye shivered her thoughts away, hardened herself. She didn’t want him to get the best of her. “I’ll alert William and my father that you have returned to town after a long absence with a money-making scheme I’m certain they shall not want to miss. Now, if you don’t mind . . .”
“Well, happy Independence Day to you and to your beautiful family, Fiadh.”
She stifled the urge to bare her teeth, to roar like a lion. Instead, she smiled sweetly, watched him retreat until the car was gone from the driveway, out of sight. Only then did she unclench, taking the stairs as quickly as possible. “Maeve!”
The bedroom door flew open. Maeve, in bell-bottom jeans and a blue checkered crop top, fumed.