Life Happens

The wind howled and rain ran in sheets down her bedroom window. The room was shadowy and drafty. Goose bumps rose on her skin as he lowered her to the bed and eased down next to her. Heat emanated from him, drawing her closer.

The mattress shifted and their breaths mingled. She was tangling her legs with his when she glanced at the foot of the bed. Two cats sat nearby in the oblong patch of light spilling from the hall. A third had stopped in the doorway. All three were watching.

“Jeffrey. The cats.”

He groaned when she stopped doing what she’d been doing and removed her hand, but he heaved himself away from her and gathered up his cats. “I swear you guys do this on purpose.” Shooing them all into the hall, he closed the door. “Now, where were you?”

She laughed, and it almost sounded wicked. It had been a long time since she’d been wicked. He returned to her, and she enjoyed it so much she couldn’t help laughing again. He kissed her, stroked her, caressed her, until a deep feeling of peace entered her being. She spoke his name on a whisper, and he came to her, the joining of man to woman pure and pleasurable. Those first delightful tremors were just beginning when one of the cats yowled in the hall. The other two took up the cry.

Feeling her stiffen, Jeff said, “Pretend we’re in the jungle.”

Mya laughed, and he smoothed one fingertip along her cheek, down the length of her neck, skimming the outer swell of her breast, her waist, until he found what he was after. He was an ardent lover, mindful of her needs, and vocal about his. And yet she was distracted. Who wouldn’t be distracted with three cats yowling outside the closed bedroom door?

A memory came, unbidden. Hazy and as if from a great distance, she glimpsed for but a moment, two lovers too young to know what they were doing, and a passion so consuming nothing could have kept them from doing it. She stopped the thought, her mind suddenly blank, her body and soul empty.

“I love your hair.”

Mya started. “What?”

“Your hair. I like it. Very sassy.”

He’d waited until it was pitch-dark to tell her. But it made her smile, and it brought her to him once again.

She moaned softly.

“Do you like that?” he asked, his voice low.

“I think you should do it again, just so I can be sure.”

This time he chuckled, but he acquiesced, and yes, she liked it. Maybe it wasn’t ecstasy. Accepting the weight of him, and the warmth of him, it was enough.

Ecstasy was overrated, anyway.

“I love you,” Jeff said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He sauntered to the foyer, bending to pet each cat on his way. He looked back at her from the door. Giving her a smile, he was gone, sated and content.

She envied him that contentment.

Where had that thought come from? Turning, she found all three cats staring at her, as if Jeff’s leaving was somehow her fault. Jeff worked long hours. And when he wasn’t working, he was at her place. It made sense that his cats were better off here.

“What? He has his house. I have mine.”

The white cat jumped onto the back of the sofa. The yellow two continued to stare at her from the easy chair.

“You heard him. He’ll call tomorrow.” And then, because she couldn’t be cold or cruel, even if she wasn’t a cat person, she added, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

No swish of their tails. No meows. No purring. Nothing.

Why anybody bothered talking to cats, she didn’t know. Cinching the sash of her long silk robe, she padded to the kitchen. The moment she started the electric can opener, all three cats came running.

She doled out the bribe, and watched them enjoy it. The white one even let her pet him, and she had to admit, his fur was soft and warm. Leaving them to their late-night snack, she wandered through her little house. It was nearing the witching hour, and it had been an eventful day. Her hairstyle had been salvaged, she was learning to coexist with Jeff’s cats, and she’d avoided a blowup with her mother. Maybe she’d finally grown up—perish the thought—but she was thirty-six.

She looked out the kitchen window. The rain had let up and the wind had died down. Dark, damp and cold, it was a good night to brood. It was what the old Mya would have done. What good had it ever done? What good would it do tonight?

She did an about-face. Instead of brooding, she was going to leave this mess for tomorrow and go to bed. She hadn’t taken three steps when a knock sounded on her door. She paused at the lamp she’d just turned off. Her neighbors never stayed up this late. Jeff had a key, so it couldn’t be him. Maybe Claire or Suzette had returned for some reason. She doubted it was her mother.

The knock came again.

Turning the lamp back on, she went to the door and peered through the peephole. The room pitched, and one hand flew to her mouth.

A girl wearing faded blue jeans and no jacket stood on the porch. Mya felt frozen in time and in place, and yet she opened the door, a wild gust of wind hitting her in the face.

After looking Mya up and down, eyes the same brown as her own narrowed. “I would have knocked sooner but I was waiting for the Minute Man to leave.” With a snide curl of her lip, the girl said, “Hey, Mom. Long time no see.”

CHAPTER 2

M ya moved only enough to force a deep breath.

All these years she’d wondered what her child looked like. Here she was, technically no longer a child. Her pale blond hair was shorter than Mya’s, even after today’s fiasco. Brown eyes cold with fury, she was the spitting image of Mya at that age, anger, belligerence, bitterness and all.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to faint.”

Still holding perfectly still, Mya said, “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“Lucky you.”

Although she’d tried not to, sometimes Mya had imagined a mother-daughter reunion. Some of the scenarios had been tearful, others awkward. None had depicted a nineteen-year-old girl skinny enough to be blown away on the ocean wind, glaring at Mya with eyes as cold as stone.

Mya glanced at her watch. “It’s after midnight.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Happy birthday.”

Elle Fletcher clamped her mouth shut. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t the emotion burning her eyes and throat. Other than the funky hairstyle and the whisker burn on her neck, the woman looked pretty normal. It was disturbing, how much the brown eyes reminded Elle of her own, right down to the tears brimming in them.

The hell with that! This woman wanted to cry, let her. Elle wasn’t about to do the same.

She’d been parked down the street long enough to see two women get in a four-by-four and drive away. Not long after, an older woman had climbed behind the wheel of a red boat on wheels and left, too. The man stayed the longest, which wasn’t saying a lot, but he’d finally cleared out, too.

That left her.

Her name was Mya Donahue. She was single and thirty-six, and she owned this house as well as a clothing store called Brynn’s over on Market Street. Some of the information had been in the file at the adoption agency. Most of it had required a little digging to uncover. The rest would have to come from Mya, herself, if Elle decided to continue. She didn’t want to. She wanted to turn tail and run as far away as she could get.

It was as if Mya knew. Her expression still and serious, she took a backward step, and opened the door farther.

If she’d voiced the invitation, Elle wouldn’t have taken it. As it was, she glanced over her shoulder, torn. The night was dark, the street empty except for her rusty Mazda.

She’d come this far. Might as well see if any of it had been worth it. Drawing herself up, she went in.

Not about to allow her relief to show when she closed the door against the damp and the cold, she glanced around the small room, taking in the eclectic mix of furniture and color. There was a throw over the back of the sofa, the usual magazines and junk mail on the end tables, a pair of shoes on the floor next to an assortment of feather toys. “You have a cat?”

“They’re my fiancé’s.”

Elle snorted, then went and got caught looking at the open bag of potato chips and a plate of cheese. Her guard back up where it belonged, she glared at Mya, silently challenging her to make something of it.

“Would you like to sit down?”

Elle shook her head. And the woman, her birth mother—Elle welcomed back her anger—seemed to accept that.

“What’s your name?”

“Eleanor. If you want me to answer, call me Elle.”

“Hello, Elle. You’re shivering.”

“That’s my problem. You gave up all rights to my problems when you signed on the dotted line, didn’t you?”

Mya’s smile held a touch of sadness. Glancing away, Elle felt a wretchedness of mind she hadn’t planned to feel. Her stomach growled. Gritting her teeth, she would be damned if she would be embarrassed about being hungry.

“Could I get you something?”

“What? You wanna brew some sweetened tea and maybe make some toast for me?”

“And have you throw it in my face? Is that what you want to do?”

Elle hadn’t expected that. It was almost as if Mya knew her, or worse, understood her. Impossible.

“I didn’t come here to eat.”

It must have taken a lot to refrain from asking why the hell she did come then. Elle stifled the thread of respect trying to worm past her defenses. Mya Donahue hadn’t earned any respect. She was nothing to Elle, or almost nothing.

As nonchalantly as possible, Elle glanced out the window toward the street where her car sat, undisturbed. “I have to go.” She could feel Mya watching her, could sense the questions she wanted to ask. “What?” Elle asked, and dammit, she couldn’t keep her lip from curling snidely.

Mya shook her head. “Do what you have to do, but you’re welcome to come back.”

Elle took flight before she did something embarrassing, like sink to the sofa and rest her head for a minute, or worse, blurt out the reason she was here. She ran to her car and unlocked it. Mya didn’t follow her or call to her. But she stood in the open door in the cold damp wind. The sight burned the backs of Elle’s eyes.

Nobody said this would be easy, but the fact that it was this hard still ticked her off. The anger was fuel, and she used it to get the hell out of there. She drove carefully, though, for it wasn’t anger that had brought her to Maine. She was pretty sure Mya had picked up on that fact. Pulling into a parking space in the cheapest motel she’d found, Elle swallowed hard. When she was certain it was safe, she leaned over the backseat, unfastened the safety belt, and took the best thing she’d ever done into her arms. Ten-month-old Kaylie sighed in her sleep, comfortable and secure.

Her daughter’s warmth and weight girded Elle’s resolve and renewed her courage to do what she had to do. It was possible that all the courage in the world wouldn’t be enough.

“Geez, Mya, long time no see.”

Mya gasped at Claire’s terminology. She didn’t remember the drive to her friend’s loft on the waterfront, but Claire had been waiting for her, so she must have called ahead. Vaguely, Mya recalled pulling on the clothes she’d worn all day. Even Claire might have been put off if Mya had shown up in her bathrobe.

Claire said no more until Mya came to a stop at the huge windows overlooking island-studded Casco Bay. “What’s happened?”

Mya wasn’t certain how to answer. She wasn’t certain of anything. Had she come here to confide in Claire? Or did she need to see the lights dotting the ocean, the tanker on the horizon and the scattering of islands between here and there?

“Mya?”

She answered without turning. “I had a visitor after everyone else left tonight.”

“Who?”

Again, Mya didn’t know how to reply. Finally, she said, “My daughter.”

Claire’s silence finally drew her around. Poor Claire. She’d been awakened from a deep sleep. Still groggy, she blinked owlishly. “Your daughter?”

“I had a baby, Claire.”

“So that’s your secret. I always suspected you had one. Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”

She started in the middle, but she reached the beginning quickly, ending with Elle’s surprise visit tonight. “Nobody here knows about my past. Except my mother. And now you.”

Normally Claire wore contacts, but after being awakened tonight, she’d donned a pair of glasses. A few years ago, Suzette had laser surgery to correct her vision, but not Claire. It wasn’t because she hated hospitals, like Mya. Claire wasn’t taking any chances with complications. Claire O’Brien was one of those people who looked at four ounces of liquid in an eight-ounce glass and saw the potential water stain on the table.

“Have you told Jeffrey?”

Jeffrey? Obviously Claire wasn’t the only one who was dazed. “No.”

“Are you worried about how he’ll feel and what he’ll say?”

How could she be worried when she hadn’t given it any thought?

“Do you care what he thinks, Mya?”

Mya went from listless to ticked in under three seconds. Perhaps that had been Claire’s intention. “What do you think?”

“I think that if you’re going to marry him, you should tell him.”

That if brought Mya up short.

“What’s she like?” Claire asked, sinking into a nearby chair.

“She looks like me at that age, well, except for the piercings and tattoos.”

“Sounds like half my students. How old is she?”

“She’s nineteen today.” Mya watched Claire’s gaze go to her wild new hairstyle.

“What did she say?” There was nothing syrupy about Claire’s voice. Steady and level, it invited trust. It always had.

Mya shrugged as she rose, inexplicably drawn to the window again. Or perhaps not so inexplicably. Unlike many of the islands in Casco Bay, Keepers Island was too far away to be visible from the mainland from this vantage point. It was out there as surely as she was standing here.

She hadn’t set foot on the island in years, and yet she could picture it so clearly in her mind, the little harbor where the islanders docked their sailboats and skiffs and trawlers, the ice-cream shop and summerhouses near the beach, and the larger, weathered houses of the year-round residents farther inland, the square, brick school, and the sandy cove where she’d first made love.

Staring out across the bay, goose bumps rose on her arms. She had the strangest feeling someone was looking back at her. It was impossible, not to mention irrational. She got the hell away from that window just the same.

“Her name is Elle,” Mya said, clasping her hands tightly together. “Short for Eleanor.” It occurred to her that she didn’t know the girl’s last name.

“She didn’t tell you why she came or what she wanted?”

Mya scrubbed a hand over her face.

Claire said, “If you want me to stop playing twenty questions, just say the word. We can sit here quietly all night if you want.”

And Mya was glad she’d come here tonight. She’d needed a dose of Claire’s drollery and calm acceptance. “She stood in my living room a total of two minutes.” And every second was permanently etched on her mind. “I don’t think it’s a matter of her wanting something. More than likely, it’s something she needs.”

“Money?”

Mya thought about the threadbare jeans, the missing coat and the rumble of Elle’s stomach. “Something else. What remains to be seen.”

“Then you believe she’ll be back.”

Mya found herself staring toward the window again. “She’ll be back. I’d stake my life on it.”

It was an hour past closing time, and Elle hadn’t come.

Mya was disappointed, and when she was disappointed, she tended to get a little snippy. This time, the recipient had been a large-boned woman browsing through the rack of sale items. In her own words, she’d been “just looking.” Translated, that meant she was killing time. Mya wanted her to kill time someplace else so she could go home and see if Elle was waiting there. Short of throwing the customer out, Mya had done everything she could think of to get rid of her. Turning out the lights hadn’t been nice, but it had been effective. Finally, Mya locked the front door. Peering past the display in the window, she wouldn’t blame the woman if she never returned. But at least she’d gone.

Thanks to the City of Portland’s innovative revitalization plan, the waterfront district would be bustling with tourists in a few short months. Weekend traffic was always good, but at dusk on this Wednesday in mid-April, the brick-and-stone streets and sidewalks were practically empty. Only a handful of people strolled by. None of them had short blond hair, an obvious bad attitude and visible tattoos.

Elle wasn’t coming. Mya had been so sure she would.

She hung up a garment that had fallen, but walked past the stacks of sweaters that needed to be refolded. Her boutique was a long, narrow space squeezed between a bookstore and a glass-and-art studio. What Brynn’s lacked in square footage, it made up for in style. The walls were original brick, the hardwood floors worn smooth more than a century ago when this entire building had been used as a warehouse for the shipping industry.

Much of her summer merchandise had arrived this morning. Normally, Mya would have stayed late to catalog everything. Her mind would have been racing to decide how to best display the trendy skirts and summer sweaters and nautical jackets, the beaded pants and espadrilles, scarves and jewelry. Normally, she would have stayed until the wee hours of the morning, steaming away wrinkles and arranging everything on racks and shelves, in trunks and inside open drawers of antique armoires. Normally, she couldn’t wait to get started. Today, she left everything in the cartons in the middle of the floor, switched on the night-lights, set the alarm and left, locking the back door behind her.

The alley was protected from the ocean wind. Taking a deep breath of air still warm from the sun, Mya reached into her pocket for her car keys. And stopped in her tracks.

Elle was leaning against her car.

A thrill ran through Mya as the girl sauntered toward her. Holding her explosion of pleasure to a small smile, Mya noticed that Elle positioned herself so that her car remained in plain sight, causing Mya to wonder if she was living out of it. The bottoms of her jeans were frayed, her plain black T-shirt tight. She looked less defiant, less confrontational. Her gaze was no less assessing.

Mya proceeded with caution. “There’s an Italian bistro across the street, an English pub around the corner and oyster shacks and fabulous seafood places within walking distance in every direction.”

She swore Elle looked tempted.

“And there’s a little pizzeria past the next alley, and—”

“Pizza?”

“The best pizza in the universe.” Hearing a noise, Mya looked overhead for seagulls. Seeing none, she said, “Care to grab a deluxe with me?”

“I can’t.” Elle was easing away.

Mya wanted to call her back, to beg.

Over her shoulder, Elle said, “Maybe one of those restaurants needs a waitress.”

“Are you looking for a job?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I could use a clerk at Brynn’s.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Elle was a dozen feet from her car when Mya called, “Do you hear a baby crying?”

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Elle, wait.” Mya practically ran to the car, only to freeze all over again, for the cries were coming from a baby in the backseat.

For a moment Elle looked as if she’d just been caught doing something bad. But her attitude returned, shoring up her chin. “She’s mine.”

Suzette claimed the most powerful sentences contained just two words. She’s mine was proof enough for Mya. Since she didn’t trust herself to speak, all she could do was watch as Elle put the seat ahead and squeezed into the back. Seconds later, she eased out again, the baby in her arms.

“Surprise.”

Mya reeled, which was undoubtedly Elle’s intention.

The baby stopped trying to drag her bonnet over her head, and stared at Mya as if the hat problem was her fault. Mya hadn’t spent much time around babies, so she couldn’t say how old the child was. Her cheeks were round, her eyes blue. What Mya could see of her wispy hair was blond. She wore pink overalls and tennis shoes, one lace trailing. The little Harley-Davidson T-shirt seemed at odds with the delicate bonnet.

“She’s had an earache,” Elle said.

Later, Mya would marvel at how in tune Elle was with what Mya was thinking, but now she said the only thing that came into her mind. “She’s beautiful. I sensed you were hiding something.”

Elle made no comment, leaving Mya to wonder what else the girl was hiding.

“What’s her name?”

“Kaylie. She’s almost ten months old.”

Hearing her name, the baby looked up at her mother, who smiled at her. Instantly, Kaylie’s chubby little face spread into an adoring grin.

“Kaylie what?” Mya asked around the sudden lump in her throat.

“Kaylie Renee Fletcher. I was going to name her Harley, but in the end, I couldn’t. Couldn’t picture an old lady named Harley. I figure if she doesn’t like Kaylie when she’s thirty, she can shorten it to Kay.”

The “old” reference wasn’t lost on Mya. “And her middle name?”

“Renee was my mom’s name. It’s my middle name, too.”

Mya absorbed every last implication, from the quiet reverence in Elle’s voice, to her use of the past tense. “Where did you grow up?” she asked.

Elle’s eyes narrowed.

And Mya said, “Yours isn’t a Down Easterner’s accent.”

“My parents moved to Pennsylvania when I was about Kaylie’s age.” Suddenly, Elle didn’t seem to know where to look.

The girl inspired a curious urgency in Mya, a sense that time was spinning too fast. She wanted to ask her a hundred questions about where Elle had been and what kind of life she’d had, but she settled for asking only one. “Are you going to stay in Portland for a while?”

“I’m thinking about it. It’s not like we have anyplace better to be.”

“Kaylie could come with us to grab that pizza.”

“She already ate.” With that, Elle returned the baby to the car seat. Before she was through, she loosened the ribbon beneath Kaylie’s chin. Immediately, the baby stopped fussing and began the arduous task of trying to remove the bonnet.

Elle left without saying goodbye. After she drove away in her noisy little car, Mya got in her shiny, midsize model and drove away, too.

Time, she thought as she stopped at the light, was an amazing thing. Sometimes an hour seemed to last forever, and then one day you discovered that an entire lifetime has passed. Elle was young and still believed thirty was old. Mya had spent the last nineteen years trying not to remember how it felt to be that young.

Jeffrey was scribbling on a chart when Mya arrived at the hospital. He smiled when he saw her. It did little to relieve the knot in her stomach. Motioning to a small lounge, he held up five fingers. She knew from experience that although his intentions were good, he would be at least ten minutes, probably fifteen.

The staff lounge was deserted. Decorated in shades of purple and gray, the room was aesthetically pleasing enough, if one liked hospitals. They happened to terrify Mya.

Perhaps she should have waited for Jeffrey at his condo. Conveniently located a few blocks from the hospital, his place had high ceilings and tall windows that made the most of their southern exposure. For all the building’s wonderful character, the furnishings were early bachelor pad. She’d told him that nobody had a water bed anymore. With a shrug, he’d given her free rein to change the decor as soon as she moved in. Mya wanted them to live in her house after the wedding.

One hurdle at a time.

Claire was right. People who were engaged needed to be honest with each other. She had to tell Jeff about Elle.

She paced, leafed through a magazine, then paced again. Her mind wandered, and she found herself wondering where the labor and delivery rooms were in this hospital. They’d been on the second floor in the hospital up in Brunswick, where she’d—