Now You See Her

EIGHTEEN


SO, HOW LONG HAVE you been living in Youghal?” Liam asked as they sipped their tea. He was sitting on the sofa beside Marcy. The blond girl, who was about thirty and whose name was Claire, had pulled the orange chair closer to the coffee table and was curled up inside it. Audrey sat on the floor at her feet.

“Just a few months,” Claire answered. “There’s still a lot we want to do with the place—get rid of this awful wallpaper for a start—but we’ll just have to take it one step at a time. How are the muffins? They any good?”

“Delicious,” Liam said.

“We still haven’t quite got the hang of the oven. It’s very temperamental. Isn’t it, Audrey?”

Audrey nodded. “It’s a right pain,” she said, tucking some hair behind her right ear and staring at Marcy. “You haven’t touched anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Marcy said, pushing the reluctant words from her mouth. Her throat was so dry, it hurt to speak, let alone eat.

“Don’t like cranberries?” Claire asked.

“No, I love cranberries.”

“Course, they’re frozen. But that’s all right. Can’t have everything fresh. Especially in this part of the world.” Claire took a big bite of her muffin, followed by a sip of her tea. “How’s the tea?” she asked.

“Perfect,” Liam said.

Were they really talking about tea and cranberries? Marcy wondered, lifting her steaming mug to her lips and forcing herself to take a sip. The hot liquid raced down her throat as if someone had taken a match to a fuse. I’m on fire, she thought. Any second now, I’m going to implode.

“So, you like to cook, do you?” Liam asked, seemingly determined to keep the inane conversation going.

“Well, I do,” Claire answered, reaching over to give Audrey an affectionate cuff on the side of her head. “Can’t say the same for this one here.”

“Hey, watch it there,” Audrey said, grabbing Claire’s hand and holding it.

Marcy felt her eyes widen and she tried to look away. But it was too late. Audrey had already taken note of her response.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

Marcy shrugged, as if to say, No, of course not. Anything you choose to do is fine with me.

“A few of the neighbors got their noses out of joint when we first moved in,” Audrey said with a laugh. “Afraid we’d turn all their daughters into raving lesbos.”

“Yeah, but they’ve more or less all come around.”

“Claire won them over with her muffins,” Audrey said, beaming.

“Guess you’ve got to expect that sort of thing in a town the size of Youghal,” Claire said.

“What made you settle here?” Liam asked.

Both women sighed. “Don’t know, really,” Claire answered for both of them. “I was working in a bakery in Dublin. Audrey was a teller in a bank.”

“Which I hated,” Audrey interjected.

“We came here on a holiday about a year ago, decided we liked the look of the place, thought we’d give it a go.”

“Thought we might be able to save some money, open up a bakery of our own one day.” Audrey twisted her head around to smile at Claire.

“It’ll happen,” Claire said. “You’ll see.”

“Well, your muffins really are delicious.” Liam motioned toward the tray on the coffee table. “Do you mind if I have another?”

“Please, help yourself.”

What’s he doing? Marcy wondered. Why are we prolonging this agony? Haven’t we made enough small talk for one afternoon? Can’t we just get out of here?

“So, what made you think my Audrey might be your daughter?” Claire asked, as if sensing Marcy’s restlessness.

Tears immediately filled Marcy’s eyes and she bit into her muffin to muffle the sob that was building in her throat.

“I’m afraid that was my fault,” Liam said.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Marcy told him.

“We were acting on my information.”

“You were told a young woman matching Devon’s description lived here and that her name was Audrey.” Marcy took a deep breath, turning her attention back to the two young women, both of whom had been watching their exchange with unsuppressed curiosity. “My daughter disappeared about two years ago,” she explained. “Liam has been kind enough to help me look for her. We thought we might have found her.”

“That’s why you fainted when you saw me?” Audrey asked.

“Liam warned me not to get my hopes up,” Marcy said. “He said I should be prepared you might not be Devon, but I …”

“You couldn’t help it,” Claire said with obvious sympathy.

“I couldn’t help it,” Marcy agreed. I couldn’t help so many things, she thought.

“Do I look like her at all?” Audrey asked.

“Superficially, yes, I guess so. You’re about the same age, same height, same long, brown hair.”

“There’s a lot of girls with long brown hair.”

“Yes, there are.”

“Not all named Audrey, though,” Liam said.

“You must be horribly disappointed,” Claire said.

“I’m getting used to it,” Marcy told her.

“What happened to her?” Audrey asked. “Your daughter, I mean. She just wandered off one day?”

“Something like that,” Marcy told her, not wanting to get into the particulars.

“You have a fight or something?” Audrey pressed her, not willing to let it go so easily.

“Or something,” Marcy whispered.

“Audrey”—Claire chastised her—“it’s really none of our business.”

“Sorry. It’s just that it’s a bit like what happened with my mum and me, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t just wander off,” Claire said.

“No, but I haven’t spoken to her in six months.”

“Audrey’s parents weren’t my biggest fans,” Claire explained.

“It wasn’t you. It would have been anyone.”

“They couldn’t accept the fact that their daughter …”

“I come from a very traditional Catholic family,” Audrey clarified. “I have four brothers, all big, strapping men.…” She giggled. “They’d keep trying to fix me up with their friends, but I just wasn’t interested. Naturally I assumed something must be wrong with me.”

“Then she met me,” Claire said proudly.

“Well, no. First I met Janice.”

Claire made a face. “Oh, yes, Janice. But that wasn’t serious.”

“No, but it was an eye-opener. I tried to tell my parents, but they weren’t having any of it. They said it was a phase, that it would pass, that I had to go to church and beg God for forgiveness, ask Him for guidance.”

“And He guided her straight to me,” Claire said with a laugh.

“Yes.” Audrey’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “My mum had asked me to pick up some pastries on my way home from work. Someone at the bank recommended this great little bakery that had just opened up around the corner.…”

Her face was wider than Devon’s, her jaw more pronounced, Marcy was thinking as Audrey spoke. She’d known the second she saw her that Audrey wasn’t her child.

“Her parents were furious,” Claire said.

“They refused to even meet Claire.”

“They’d hang up on me when I called.”

“They told me I was going straight to hell.”

“Instead we came to Youghal,” Claire said happily.

“Does your mother know where you are?” Marcy asked.

Audrey’s face immediately clouded over. “I told her we were leaving town, that I’d call her when we settled in.”

“And have you?”

Audrey shook her head, her brown hair coming loose from her ear to obscure the entire lower half of her face. “Don’t really see much point in it,” she mumbled. “They’re never going to change.”

“When you said you were Audrey’s mum, I almost wet my pants,” Claire said.

“They’ve never actually met,” Audrey explained.

“It’s so weird, the way things work out, isn’t it?” Claire commented.

“That it is,” Liam said, rising to his feet. “And now I think we should probably go, let these two charming women get on with things.…”

“I think you should call her,” Marcy said, remaining seated. “Tell her where you are. At least let her know you’re safe.”

“She doesn’t care.”

“She’s your mother,” Marcy said forcefully. “She cares.”

There was silence.

“We really should go,” Liam said.

Marcy pushed herself to her feet. “Thank you for all your kindness.”

“Not to mention the fabulous muffins.”

“Wait. Let me give you some to take home.” Claire ran toward the kitchen at the back of the house.

“No, really, that’s not necessary. You’ve done more than enough.”

“Sorry it didn’t work out the way you hoped,” Audrey said as Claire returned with a bag of muffins and handed it to Liam.

“Call your mother,” Marcy said before following Liam out the door.


“WHEN DEVON WAS little, about two, maybe three,” Marcy was telling Liam as they neared the outskirts of Cork, “she took her Magic Markers and drew all over the living room walls. I’d just had them painted. I mean, the workers had literally just finished up the day before. And I was on the phone with Judith. I think she was between husbands at the time. At any rate, there was some sort of major trauma going on in her life, and I was trying to calm her down, get her to see it wasn’t the end of the world. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I was on the phone and not paying enough attention to Devon, who’d been quietly drawing at the kitchen table with her Magic Markers, and at some point she got up and went into the living room without my noticing. And then suddenly she was back, grinning from ear to ear. And she said, ‘Mommy, come see what I did.’ She always called me ‘Mommy.’ Even when she was all grown-up. I always loved that.” Tears filled her eyes. “Anyway, she grabbed my hand and led me into my freshly painted living room and showed me, very proudly—oh, she was so proud—what she’d done.” Marcy took a deep breath, not sure whether or not she could continue. She’d never told this story to anyone. She’d been too ashamed. “And I saw all these black and red and green swirls all over my new, eggshell-colored walls. I mean, she’d scribbled over every spot of wall she could reach. And I’m looking from this happy little face to these graffiti-covered walls, and I’m thinking of all the money I’ve just spent, and I feel this anger rising inside me like lava from a volcano, and this little voice in my head is telling me to stay calm, not to overreact, that I might be able to wash it off, and that even if I can’t, I can get the painters to come back and redo it, it’s not the end of the world, all the things I’d just been saying to Judith. And I could see how thrilled Devon was, and that she was waiting for me to tell her how beautiful her drawings were, and I knew, I knew, that’s what I should do, that I could wait till later to explain that we don’t draw on walls, that sort of thing, what all the advice books tell you to do. But even as I was thinking those things, I could feel my anger building and the muscles in my face starting to twitch with rage, and I watched Devon’s face, that beautiful little face filled with so much pride and happiness, I watched it literally dissolve in front of my eyes, like it was melting. And I heard this awful voice, my voice, screaming, ‘What have you done? My God, what have you done?’ And Devon was crying, begging me to stop yelling. But I couldn’t. And I marched into the dining room and saw she’d done the same thing in there, which just set me off again. I’m screaming and carrying on. And suddenly she stopped dead and grabbed her stomach, like she’d been punched, and then she turned around so that her back was to me, and doubled over, as if I’d physically assaulted her, and she let out a wail, God, this awful wail, I’ll never forget it, like a wounded animal. It was horrible. It was so horrible.”

“Marcy,” Liam said gently, reaching for her hand, “Devon didn’t run away because you yelled at her when she was two years old for scribbling on the walls.”

“She was only a baby. I was the adult. I didn’t have to yell.…”

“No, you didn’t. But you did. So what? It was two decades ago. Devon probably doesn’t even remember it.”

“There were other times.”

“What—that you yelled at her? That you were less than perfect? You’re a human being, for God’s sake. Human beings make mistakes. We yell when we shouldn’t, and we probably don’t yell when we should. I’m sure there were plenty of times you more than made it up to her.”

Marcy refused to allow herself to be comforted by his words. “When Devon was about eight, I decided it would be a good idea for her to take piano lessons. We had this baby grand piano that Peter had inherited from his mother, which just sat there in the corner gathering dust, and occasionally Devon would go over and bang on it, so I thought it would be a good idea for her to learn to play. She seemed keen, so we hired this guy to come over and give her lessons. She was a natural. Except I noticed that when her teacher wasn’t there, when he wasn’t actually sitting beside her, she was hopeless. I’d tell her to practice and she’d just sit there and bang at the keyboard. And I’d get so frustrated—”

Liam interrupted. “Marcy, why are you doing this?”

“That’s exactly what I’d say to Devon. Why are you doing this? You know the right notes. They’re right there in front of you. Just read the music. Well, of course, it turned out she didn’t know the right notes. She couldn’t read the music. Her teacher had never taught her the basic fundamentals, like how to tell one note from the next, so she’d just watch what he played and copy his fingers. And of course by the next day, she couldn’t remember anymore and that’s why she’d just flail away.…”

“When I was five, my mother caught me in the kitchen, eating the pie she’d baked for company that night, and she came at me with a meat cleaver,” Liam said.

“What?”

“Well, she insists it was a wooden spoon, but I’m sure it was a meat cleaver. And once she gave me a spanking for putting salt in the sugar bowl and ruinin’ her morning coffee. And another time she hollered at me—and let me tell you, nobody could holler like my mother—just because I told her I’d like to throw my baby brother under the wheels of a bus. Not because I did it, mind you, just because I said I’d like to. How’s that for a miserable excuse for a human being? I tell you, I’m scarred for life.”

“You’re minimizing what I did,” Marcy said.

“And you’re blowin’ it all out of proportion. For God’s sake, Marcy. How do you get out of bed in the mornin’ with the weight of all that guilt on your shoulders?”

It’s not easy, Marcy thought. “I expected too much from her.”

“So what? Big deal. You expected too much. What about your son? Do you expect too much from him, too?”

The mention of her son caught Marcy off guard, as it always did. Devon had a way of taking up every inch of space in her brain, crowding her brother out. “Darren is different.” Marcy pictured her son’s cherubic little face as it passed through awkward adolescence on its way to handsome young man. “He was always smiling, always happy when he was little. He never gave me any trouble.” I neglected him terribly, she realized. “Devon took all my energy.” She frowned. “What is it they say about the squeaky wheel?”

“Haven’t a clue. But I do know that what’s done is done. The past is over and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it. So what’s the point of beatin’ yourself up about something you can’t change? Unless, of course, that is the point.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, maybe you like wallowin’ in all that guilt because it allows you to stay stuck in the past, prevents you from movin’ forward. Maybe that’s what you want.”

Marcy felt a twinge of outrage poking at her side. “You think I want to be miserable?”

“Don’t know,” he said again, his voice deliberately provocative. “Do you?”

“I just want things to be normal,” Marcy said, burying her face in her hands. That was all she’d ever wanted. “Maybe if I’d—”

“No,” Liam said, suddenly pulling to the side of the road and shutting off the car’s engine. “No more maybes.” He kissed her before she could say another word.

The kiss was passionate and grew even more urgent as it progressed. Marcy felt strong hands at her waist, on her cheeks, in her hair. So different from the way Vic had kissed her just last night, she found herself thinking.

What’s happening? she wondered, feeling dizzy and out of breath as she pulled away from Liam’s embrace.

Liam apologized immediately.

“Why did you do that?”

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since the first minute I laid eyes on you.”

“You have? Why?”

Liam looked as confused as she felt. “God, Marcy. Do you really have to ask?”

Marcy’s head was spinning. She stared at the empty field by the side of the road in order to steady it. “Where are we?” she asked, realizing she had absolutely no idea where they were.

“Just outside the city limits. I’m really sorry,” he said again.

“No, it’s my fault.”

Liam smiled. “Not everything is your fault, Marcy.” Then, tenderly, “Things will work out in the end, you’ll see.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then it’s not the end.”

Marcy laughed through her tears. “How’d you get to be so smart?” She reached out to touch his hand, then thought better of it. As comforting as his arms were, as thrilling as his embrace was, Marcy realized they weren’t the arms she wanted around her. She pictured Vic standing outside the door of the Doyle Cork Inn, his wounded eyes following Liam’s car down the busy street. Would he be waiting for her when she got back?

As if he sensed what she was thinking, Liam took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and restarted the car’s engine, waiting for a break in the traffic before pulling back onto the main road. Within minutes, they were mired in traffic, the sound of jackhammers pounding against the sides of their heads.

“Damn construction,” Liam muttered.

“There’s certainly enough of it going on.”

“My father used to work in construction,” he said, obviously straining for conversation as they crawled toward Western Road. “He was killed twelve years ago when a building he was working on collapsed. Never knew what hit him, as they say.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“The company claimed it was his own damn fault. He should have been wearin’ a helmet, that sort of thing. They paid the funeral expenses, but other than that, we got nothin’.” He shook his head. “Oh, well. What’s done is done, right? Think I remember a very wise man once saying that there’s no point beatin’ yourself up over things you can’t change.”

“He is a very wise man,” Marcy said.

“Just not the man you want.” Liam pulled to a stop in front of the Doyle Cork Inn.

“Liam …”

“It’s all right. It’ll all work out in the end,” he said, green eyes twinkling. “And if it doesn’t …”

Marcy got out of the car. It’s not the end, she finished silently.