Markie felt Patty sag in her arms, too devastated to hold herself upright. Over Patty’s shoulder, Markie watched Bruce as he stood motionless—in shock, no doubt—staring blindly at his cap. What would they do now? To Patty, Bruce, and Ronda, Mrs. Saint was not only employer, mother figure, job coach, and sage, but the fiery ball of energy around which they orbited every day. It was unthinkable that she wouldn’t be there for them anymore. Markie felt a hard lump form in her throat as she imagined Bruce, Patty, and Ronda sitting on their own in their apartments in the morning, drinking coffee and trying to decide how to spend the hours, the days, the weeks, the months that stretched before them.
And as for Frédéric . . . Markie inhaled sharply as a jagged pain lodged in her chest at the thought of him trying to soldier through a single morning, let alone the rest of his life, without his beloved Angeline. She remembered how he had stood in the bungalow’s living room on move-in day, gazing like a puppy at Mrs. Saint as he explained so proudly that her accent, one he clearly adored, hadn’t been decimated like his. And later, how he had dropped the dog crate and run to her at the fence after seeing how emotional she was about watching Angel and Jesse together.
Mrs. Saint had let him comfort her that day, Markie remembered, and years earlier, she had even let him move into her basement because he wanted to protect her. And he had let her take care of him, too, drinking every drop of the water she forced upon him, “knocking off” for the day at her appointed hour of four. It may not have been the relationship Frédéric wanted, but it didn’t seem completely unrequited, at least. Maybe, with more time, he would have won her over entirely. The thought made Markie’s eyes sting, and she turned her head and pressed her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose to keep her tears, waiting at the bottom edges of her eyes, from spilling over.
Lola, who had stirred at the sound of her mother’s reaction, was moving now, and Markie watched as Jesse took Patty’s place on the couch, letting the girl climb onto his lap and curl her body against his waist, her arms tight around him. He smoothed a hand from the top of her head to the middle of her back, then repeated the motion over and over until she drifted back to sleep. He stared vacantly, miserably, ahead, one hand on Lola’s sleeping back, his legs stretched out over the dog lying at his feet.
He had seen Mrs. Saint as a grandmother, the way Lola had, and she had treated him like a grandson. The bossiness and snoopiness that had annoyed Markie so much had merely amused Jesse, and Markie was aware that for all the old woman’s faults, she had also been wildly generous to him, starting with the furry creature who lay panting on the floor at his feet.
Jesse had begun hinting that maybe their neighbor was right, that they should extend their lease after all. He wasn’t ready to leave yet—not Lola, not Frédéric, and not Mrs. Saint.
Markie felt a tear slide down her cheek. She had told herself she couldn’t stand the woman’s pushiness, but the truth was, she had come to take that pushiness for granted, had come to expect the woman’s daily trips across the yard, the insistent rapping at the side door, the baskets of badly baked goods and store-bought replacements and totems. On days they didn’t happen, Markie noticed. She had told herself any day without an unannounced visit from the Frenchwoman was a reprieve, but now she wasn’t so sure she had meant it. Annoying or not, Mrs. Saint had provided texture to a life that had, because of Markie’s apathy, become flat.
Markie had only to look around the small family room to see what the woman had added to her daily existence: walls filled with art and the woman who had hung it all—a woman Markie held on to now, who was returning the embrace. The child, now folded around her son’s waist, who had reintroduced the family dinners and holiday decorations and board game nights Markie hadn’t realized her son still needed. The dog at Jesse’s feet, a royal pain, to be sure, but also responsible for bringing the boy’s laughter back, for providing him something to cling to during a time in his life when he most needed it. The man shifting uncomfortably inside her side door, clutching his hat, wishing he knew what to say and completely willing, Markie knew, to do anything in the world for each one of them.
More tears escaped as she watched Bruce twist his cap in his hands, trying to hold himself together, the look on his face one of sheer despondence. This was precisely what Mrs. Saint had worried about, Markie thought: that something would happen to her and the others would be lost. At the time, Markie had found the subject infuriating, since she was the solution her neighbor had decided upon, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She had batted off an idea about a job-training program, unaware if such a thing actually existed, and tried to change the subject.
Now she wished she had taken the old woman more seriously, for the sake of the people who had come to rely on her to direct their days, supply their meals, provide them with a purpose: Ronda, Bruce, Patty, Frédéric. And for Mrs. Saint’s sake, too. Pushy or not, the woman had cared enough to take them all in and worry about their futures, while Markie’s only concern had been to spare herself from involvement. More tears tracked down her cheeks as she now saw, too late, that Mrs. Saint had been more good than bad all along, and Markie had simply been too self-involved to recognize it.
Crying openly now, Markie hugged Patty tighter. The feeling of Patty’s thin frame against her own soft body made her feel like a giant, but when Patty realized she wasn’t the only one weeping, she adjusted her long, sinewy arms and held Markie tighter. Amazingly, Patty’s bony embrace, her gravelly smoker’s voice as she repeated the same “It’s okay, it’s okay” that Markie had whispered to her a moment ago, the now-familiar nicotine scent of her, brought more comfort to Markie than she remembered ever feeling in Kyle’s big, strong arms.
Bruce’s face collapsed at the sight of the tearful women, and he took a half step toward the pair, reaching his arm out, and then he froze.
“It’s okay,” Markie whispered again, her mouth near Patty’s ear but her eyes on Bruce. He stepped back to his original place, and she nodded to him and rubbed Patty’s back—the same big, firm circles Patty was making on hers. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Ronda’s on her way,” Bruce offered, as though the cook’s arrival would heal them all, and Markie gave him a grateful smile, letting him believe the news was the relief he intended it to be.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ronda had arrived at the bungalow. It was almost noon, and Frédéric had called Bruce to say he and Simone would be there any moment.