Diane sipped at her beer, the slick of condensation cool against her skin. “Keeping busy, then?”
Margaret tore off a lump of crabmeat and savored the salty taste. “The Delarosas have me keep their books, and I go downtown twice a week to volunteer at the Carnegie. I'll tell you a secret, I go by Mullins there, not Quinn, and nobody seems to know who I am. I like it that way.”
With a strong twist of the wrist, Diane broke open another shell. “Well, I'm glad that you're moving on.”
Leaning back in her chair, Margaret stared out at the ocean. A young family, a small boy held in his mother's arms, pointed out a dolphin breaking the surface and rolling beneath the waves. “Moving on? How can we move on? How can I ever forget for the rest of my life what my child has done? I pray every day for some salvation.” She looked back at her sister and warned in a loud voice, “Don't touch your eyes. They'll burn all night from the spice on your fingers.”
Using the crook of her arm, Diane wiped away her tears. Though she wished she could comfort her big sister, she realized she had no idea what swam in the depths of the body, what hopes and fears were fixed on her soul.
WHILE THE CHILDREN were in school on Tuesday, Margaret and Diane drove to town, past the shuttered mill, the workers drifting by the bars and the union hall. They stopped for lunch at the diner and wiggled into a booth. Diane curled her lip when she touched the waxy tabletop and the pads of her fingers stuck to the surface. Joyce Waverly noticed them and hurried over to say hello. “Mrs. Quinn, so nice to see you again.”
“This is my sister, Diane Cicogna, come up from Washington, D.C., for a visit. Diane, this is Joyce Waverly Green.”
“Green Waverly, Mrs. Q. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Cicogna, though I think we may have met once or twice before when I was in high school. At a party over the house. How's that grandbaby of yours, Mrs. Quinn? She like that new coat?”
“Norah?” She held her eyes on Diane a beat too long. “Poor thing caught a cold over the weekend, fell through the ice down on Miller's Pond, but she's better now, thank God, though I was worried sick there for a while. How are your children, Joyce? How's the bun in the oven?”
“Keeping toasty Tell the truth, my feet are already swelling up like pumpkins with toes. I don't know how I'm going to make the last trimester.” Joyce shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “There's been something I've been meaning to ask you ever since you last came in.”
Diane cleared her throat. “Are you one of the girls Erica ran with?”
“Don't know that I'd say it quite like that, but yes, we were friends, ma'am. Best friends, back in the day.”
“Call me Diane. I wouldn't have recognized you, all grown up and a mother too. From the shape of you, you'll have a girl this time, carrying way up high like that. Of course if you had a spoon, some string, and a Gypsy, we could be sure.”
Joyce smiled at the joke, took their order for club sandwiches, and left them in peace. A handful of other people dotted the chairs and booths, mostly solos staring at their meatloaf and mashed potatoes, former mill hunks working through the crossword or the salesclerk from Murphy's tackling the latest Stephen King. A pair of young nurses, immaculate in white, finished up nearby, talking about amnio and C-sections while dipping French fries into the last slick of ketchup on their shared platter. The prettier one hit the bottom of her glass to free the ice but sucked air, and they both laughed, split the check, and left. Diane gave them the skunk eye as they passed the table, but the nurses took no notice.
“The things some people will discuss over lunch in a public place. Delivering babies while decent people are trying to enjoy their minestrone.” Diane laid both palms flat on the placemat, her engagement ring as ostentatious as ever. “What I'd like to talk about is that little girl of yours.”
Tapping her nails like a metronome, Margaret shot a sideways glance down the row of tables to see if Joyce was coming. “Erica?”
“Tangentially Erica, but more to the point, this child Norah. Tell me again how she's come to stay with you? Out of the blue, you hear from your estranged daughter and then this illegitimate—I won't use the vulgar word—is forced upon you?”