Table for five (23 page)

“F
ive more minutes,” Sean begged. “Just give me five more minutes.”

“No.” Standing next to the bed, Ashley peered at him over the edge of the mattress. “Up.”

“Who let you out of your crib, anyway?”

“Up.”

Next to him, Maura sighed and stretched, but didn’t fully awaken. Sean glanced at the clock—7:00 a.m. A school day. “All right,” he grumbled. “I’m up.” He wore pajama bottoms but no shirt. Having little kids around had quickly cured him of his habit of sleeping in the buff. “I bet you’re soaking wet, aren’t you?”

She smiled coyly.

He glanced back at Maura. She might be faking sleep. Diaper changing was not her favorite chore. “All right, you.” He picked her up and carried her away to change her. It was like this every morning. The baby first. It didn’t matter if he needed to take a piss or wanted to brush his teeth. Only afterward, when she was watching cartoons and eating dry
Cheerios under Charlie’s desultory supervision, could Sean see to his own needs. He took the stairs two at a time, in a hurry to duck into the bathroom and then maybe get lucky with Maura. As he was brushing his teeth, he heard a burst of crying. Down the stairs again, two at a time. He could distinguish between Ashley’s cranky cry and her pain cry. This was a pain cry. He found them both in the kitchen.

“What happened?” he asked Charlie as he scooped Ashley up.

“She fell. She tried to climb up on the counter for more Cheerios and she fell right on her bottom.”

“Weren’t you watching her?” As soon as he spoke, Sean regretted his words. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said, jiggling the baby in his arms. “I shouldn’t have left her with you.”

“She made a ladder out of the drawers, see?” Charlie pointed out, indicating the counter drawers. “Mom always said Ashley’s too smart for her own good.”

Dogged by guilt, he trudged upstairs again. After what Lily had told him about her own experience, Sean should have known better. “Can’t even take a piss when I need to anymore,” he muttered under his breath.

Ashley was still whimpering when he set her on the bed next to Maura. She stirred and offered a sleepy smile. “What’s up, buttercup?” she asked the baby.

“She fell,” Sean said. “I don’t think she’s hurt, but could you check her out?”

Maura pushed herself up on her hands. “Sure. Wait here a minute. I need to pee and brush my teeth.”

When she was gone, Sean looked at Ashley, who had stopped crying. “Where does it hurt? Head? Elbow? Bottom?”

She shook her head but waited patiently for Maura. Sean glanced at the clock. Seven twenty-five. T minus thirty-five minutes and counting. Maura seemed to be taking her time in
the bathroom; it was all he could do to keep from yelling at her to hurry up. When she finally came out, he said, “I need to go make sure the other kids are ready for school.” Pulling on a T-shirt over his head, he walked down the hall, hammering at Cameron’s door. “You up?”

“I am now” came a grumpy voice.

Sean went downstairs and made sure Charlie ate something. She was looking down in dismay at her Brownie jumper. “This needs to be ironed.”

At that, he laughed aloud. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, kid.”

She looked wounded. “Will Maura do it?”

“Doubt it. You look fine, Charlie, I swear. Come over here and I’ll fix your hair.” It was their morning ritual, and Sean was getting pretty damned good at braids. This morning, however, with her yellow braids and weird uniform, she looked like a member of the Hitler youth. He said nothing, though. Charlie was as fragile and volatile as a vial of nitro.

Cameron came thumping down the stairs, as surly as he dared to be without Sean calling him on it. Since the golf course incident, he’d been reasonably well behaved. Nothing like a sentence of hard physical labor to keep a kid out of trouble.

“Where’s my backpack?” he asked.

“Wherever you left it,” Charlie said before Sean could.

“Yeah, that’s real cute.” He found it on his own under the kitchen table, exactly where he’d left it.

Sean didn’t nag him about breakfast. The kid was old enough to know he was supposed to eat. There was a chaotic flurry of last-minute paperwork—a permission slip for Charlie, a surprisingly adequate grade report for Cameron—and then they both rushed out to catch the bus. For a moment, the kitchen was utterly silent. Sean looked at the digital clock on the stove. The glorious silence lasted approximately one min
ute. Then Maura came in with Ashley who looked happier but still wasn’t dressed. He had the urge to ask,
Do you think you could have dressed her?
But he resisted. Maura hadn’t signed up for this, any of this. She tried to be a good sport about it.

“Is there coffee?” she asked, her usual morning greeting.

He dumped some into a filter, filled the reservoir of the coffeemaker and flipped it on. “In about five minutes.”

Maura took out her Blackberry to check messages before heading to the hospital. Sean put Ashley in her high chair and opened a can of diced peaches for her. The phone rang, and he reached for it with one hand while the other dumped the peaches into a bowl. It was Mrs. Foster, saying she wouldn’t be able to babysit today. “I understand,” Sean said, because there was nothing else to say. “Call me when you’re better.”

He hung up and checked the coffeepot. Maura had already taken the first cup. “Mrs. Foster can’t come today. She’s sick.”

“That’s too bad.” She finished her coffee. “Listen, I need to run.” She gave Ashley a quick kiss on the head and Sean a longer one on the mouth. “See you.”

“So it’s just you and me, kid,” Sean said to Ashley, who was placidly eating her peaches. “I was going to get in a round before work today.” Nerves and frustration made him hyper, and he cleaned up the kitchen while he talked to his niece. “Instead, I’ve got you,” he said. “Not such a bad deal. What do you want to do today? Watch
Teletubbies?
Discuss toilet training? We could answer fan mail from all the wackos who keep writing to us,” he suggested.

She offered him some of her peaches.

“No, thanks,” he told Ashley. “I ought to be going nuts. I’ve got so much on my plate I’m about to drop something. My career’s in the shithole, I have this confusing pseudo-relationship thing going on with Maura and I’m having a hell of a time making ends meet.” He picked up Maura’s coffee
cup and rinsed it in the sink. “She’s great in the sack, but…not exactly mother material, so we’re in commitment limbo. And Lily.” He shook his head. “What’s up with her, huh? No idea where I stand with her, or if I even care.” He watched Ashley slurp down the last of her peaches, then wiped her face. “Who knew I’d actually like this?”

Mrs. Foster’s illness turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Sean’s golf game. Initially, he thought the temporary absence of the babysitter would be a fiasco. Without her to look after Ashley during the day, he’d be on round-the-clock duty.

He sent Charlie and Cameron off to their respective schools as usual. Cameron was still in turmoil. After the stunt he’d pulled, he seemed as angry as ever, but also more introspective. The grief counselor said this was normal, but Sean wasn’t buying that. What was normal was for a kid to laugh and cut up with his friends, to become obsessed with girls and golf. What was normal was for a kid to yearn to drive a car, not avoid it.

Give him time, counseled Dr. Sachs.

“Nobody seems to know how much time this takes,” he explained to Ashley as he drove to the golf course.

“Nope,” she said, rattling an individual-serving-size box of Cheerios.

“So what do you say we go nine holes?” he said.

“Okay.”

Outside of tournaments, nongolfers weren’t supposed to be on the course. Toddlers in particular, even those strapped into a car seat in a closed cart.

He didn’t care. He was the club pro, it was an overcast weekday morning and there was no one around. He and Cameron had taken the girls out several times before, and they’d
behaved themselves. Ashley seemed to think it was funny to be loaded into her car seat in the golf cart.

“You’re going to love this,” he promised her. “I bet you’ll grow up to be the next Annika Sorenstam.”

“Yep,” she agreed.

The natural hush of the golf course seemed to work its magic on her. Low-lying mist insulated sound and softened the edges of the world. The moment his driver smacked the ball with a resounding
thwok,
he knew he’d hit an excellent drive.

“Wow,” said Ashley approvingly.

“Wow is right,” he said, getting into the cart. “That was a 360-yard drive.”

He birdied the hole, and it only got better from there. Each time he hit, his assurance grew. He even beat his own performance on the morning of Derek’s funeral. This was, quite possibly, the best round of his life. And unlike the funeral round, this one was no fluke. He felt his game coming together; the judgment, the drives, the putts.

Rather than distract him, Ashley somehow enhanced his focus. Never had he concentrated so well or to such good effect. He achieved a peculiar rhythm that he recognized from his very early days as a tournament golf player. It was something he thought he’d lost long ago, and now, stroke by stroke, yard by yard, he rediscovered it.

He was taut with excitement as he filled out his scorecard. “How about that, sugar?” he said. “You must be my good-luck charm.”

“Yep,” said Ashley.

He got into the habit of bringing her to the course every day, and rarely went a single stroke over par. The two of them became a familiar sight at Echo Ridge, a golf cart with a
child’s safety seat and a few toys, a set of clubs and a cooler filled with bottled water and Gerber pear juice.

There was not a doubt in his mind that his game had changed. Some golfers rebuilt a flawed swing; Sean rebuilt his attitude. Having a tiny child wholly dependent on you put things in perspective. He used to sweat his score, treating each stroke like a matter of life or death. Now that he was in charge of three kids, he had a different perspective and a new way of listening to himself. Somehow, understanding the things that really mattered eased the pressure to perform, and the game he played was wholly his own, not influenced by expectations or advice from outside.

Sean worried about the kids, about money, about the future, all the time. But when he was on the golf course with his niece, everything fell away, everything but a little girl and the game.

On Friday afternoon, he saw Cameron dressed like a convict and hard at work on the pond. All three boys were supposed to be working off the expense of fixing the green, but the others were nowhere to be seen. Sean still hadn’t figured out what demons had possessed Cameron and made him vandalize the golf course that had meant so much to his father. Or perhaps, he reflected, that was precisely the point.

At any rate, rebuilding the things he’d ruined seemed a reasonable occupation for him. Since the vandalism episode, the kid had kept his nose clean. Or so it seemed. If he was still screwing around, it didn’t show.

“Cam,” Ashley called out, waving both hands at him.

He wasn’t alone. That girl was with him…Becca? No, Becky—in muddy gloves and gardening clogs, her ponytail pulled through the back of a baseball cap. They were putting in a large bed of impatiens.

She hadn’t been involved in the vandalism, but she didn’t seem to mind helping Cameron with his community service.

“Hi, Ashley,” she said, smiling broadly. “Hi, Mr. Maguire.”

“Hey, Becky.” Sean could tell they were both surprised he remembered her name.

“Be really quiet,” Cameron instructed them in a whisper. “I need to show you something.”

He took Ashley out of her seat and carried her down the bank to the edge of the pond. “We’ve been watching them all afternoon,” he said. “They just hatched.”

A female mallard glided out of the reeds, followed by a line of eight tiny brown-and-yellow ducklings.

Cameron set his sister down at the edge of the pond and she chuckled with delight. “Want ducks.”

“We have to leave them alone,” Cameron told her, “so they’ll feel safe.”

“Want ducks.”

He kept hold of her hand and they stood together on the bank, just watching while the breeze tossed their hair. The image struck at Sean. They looked so vulnerable, just the two of them linked by her hand in his. Sean was seized by a now-familiar feeling. How will I do this? How will I protect them? He was all that stood between these kids and disaster. Unlike most families, there were no spare parents or stepparents or blood relatives to fall back on. He was it. He hoped like hell that was enough.

He felt Becky watching him and they shared a strange moment. They didn’t exchange a word, but he had the impression she knew exactly what was on his mind.

Eventually, Sean lured Ashley back to the cart with the promise of a cracker. He wondered if Cameron was really doing better or if he was just getting better at acting normal. Since the vandalism incident, he seemed less angry and troubled. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on Sean’s part.

He decided not to argue with fate when things were going all right.

“Come on, caddie,” he said. “Let’s go post this score. I think it might be a club record.”

Actually, he knew it was. If he brought in a superb score like this in tournament play, he would be the recordholder. And the score he’d just beat was his brother’s.

He wouldn’t turn in the card, because he’d played alone. Because of what had happened in Asia, his scorecards were suspect. And honestly, it didn’t matter. He’d spent the day with one of his favorite people—his niece—and had played a great round.

Finally, he trusted the new development enough to talk about it. That evening, he found Maura on the living room sofa with bound printouts and textbooks surrounding her like a fortress. With one look, he could tell she’d had a rough week. She had that too-much-indoors pallor, the droopy posture, the distracted air about her.

“What do you mean, you turned a corner in your game?” she asked after he explained how his week had gone.