Uttering a fragile prayer, Marcy begged God’s forgiveness and picked up the pen. And with hands trembling as much as her conscience, she did the only thing her heart would allow her to do.
She signed her husband’s name.
6
Annie, wait!”
She turned, one foot in the backseat of Aunt Eleanor’s Packard in front of St. Stephen’s as her catechism teacher scurried down the church steps. Stepping back out of the car, Annie blinked and smiled while Aunt Eleanor glanced over her shoulder and Glory peeked out the window. The earthy scent of spring mulch merged with the smell of fresh asphalt and auto exhaust as a dusk-colored sky slowly faded from deep shades of purple to the dark of night.
Mrs. McGuire hurried up to the car with Annie’s leather purse tightly in hand. “You forgot this,” she said, a bit out of breath.
Annie gave her a sheepish smile. “Goodness, I can’t believe I left my purse behind. I’m sorry to inconvenience you like that, Mrs. McGuire, having to chase me down.”
“It’s no problem, Annie,” she said, handing the purse over, “and please call me Faith.” A twinkle lit green eyes that held a kindness Annie warmed to, a nice complement to rich, auburn curls that waved to her shoulders. “This is my first time teaching Adult Catechism class, you know, so I’m not quite comfortable with all the formality yet.”
“Good heavens, Susannah,” Aunt Eleanor said, emphasizing her preference of Annie’s given name over her new nickname, “I do believe you’d forget your head if it weren’t attached.” Aunt Eleanor held a gloved hand out to Faith, lips edging into a tight smile. “Good evening, Mrs. McGuire. I’m Susannah’s aunt, Miss Eleanor Martin, and I apologize for my niece. She tends to be a bit scatterbrained at times, but I assure you she’s an excellent student.”
“Oh, I have no doubt, Miss Martin,” Faith said, shaking Aunt Eleanor’s hand with enthusiasm. Her smile was apologetic. “I suspect I may be the blame for Annie leaving the purse behind, however. Annie had a few questions after class, you see, and we were just chatting away. When she realized the time, she bolted out the door, book and homework in hand, afraid she’d kept you waiting.” Faith’s smile was warm. “Well, I better let you go, but if you come early next week, Annie, I’ll be happy to answer any additional questions—”
“Ellie!”
Aunt Eleanor’s body went as stiff as her smile. A hint of rose bloomed in her cheeks when a gentleman sprinted toward the car from the rectory with a briefcase in hand.
“It’s very nice to have met you, Mrs. McGuire,” Aunt Eleanor sputtered, obviously shaken as she attempted to hurry Annie into the Packard. “Come, Susannah, we need to leave.”
“Ellie, wait, please—I need to talk to you.” The man huffed up to the car, dark hair disheveled from the run and cheeks apparently ruddy from the effort. Well over six feet tall, he was possibly a year or two older than Aunt Eleanor, maybe thirty-eight or thirty-nine, with a touch of silver at the temples. His handsome face was as strained as Aunt Eleanor’s when she faced him, his well-defined jaw tight with tension. Nodding at Annie and Faith, he fixed probing eyes on Annie’s pale aunt. “Ellie, you were supposed to look over the paperwork for the St. Stephen’s family shelter. Did you
forget?”
Chin high, Aunt Eleanor took a step back. “My apologies, Mr. Callahan, but my niece started catechism classes tonight, and I’m afraid it slipped my mind. Perhaps another time?”
His broad chest expanded and released with a quiet exhale before he spoke, his voice gentler now and the furrows diminishing in his brow. “Ellie, we’ve been on a first-name basis since we were seventeen. Don’t you think it’s time we dispense with formalities?”
The blush deepened, bleeding into Aunt Eleanor’s cheeks while her gaze flicked to Faith. “If you’ll excuse me, please, this will only take a moment.” Her cool look shifted back to Mr. Callahan. “Perhaps it’s best if we discuss our business in private.” Before Faith could respond, Aunt Eleanor calmly moved to the base of the church steps while Mr. Callahan followed, their conversation lost in the chug and whoosh of passing traffic.
“Who’s that man?” Glory’s rosebud mouth expanded into a tiny yawn.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Annie said, brow crimped at the exchange between her aunt and the gentleman that seemed anything but friendly, given Aunt Eleanor’s rigid stance.
“Mr. James Callahan, miss,” Frailey supplied, posture erect as he waited by the side of the door, gaze straight ahead. “Chairman for the St. Stephen expansion committee.”
“Thank you, Frailey,” Annie said, giving the butler a pat on his crisp uniform suit coat. Smiling at Faith, she inclined her head toward the man who’d worked for Aunt Eleanor’s family most of his life. “Frailey’s Aunt Eleanor’s butler and, I might add, Pinochle champ of his guild.”
Faith flashed a wide smile. “Why, hello, Frailey. Pinochle, huh? I’d like to see what you can do with my brother-in-law Luke McGee, in challenging his annoying luck in cards.” She gave him a wink. “He tends to get a little cocky in the family games, if you know what I mean.”
Annie’s jaw dropped when Frailey revealed more teeth than she’d seen in almost four months living with Aunt Eleanor, except for the occasional grins Glory managed to coax. “The pleasure is mine, miss,” he said in precise speech that hinted of British roots. He bowed slightly, silver hair shimmering under the streetlamp. “As it would be to educate your Mr. McGee.”
“Who are you?” Glory wanted to know, neck craned out the door and blonde curls askew.
“I’m your sister’s catechism teacher, Mrs. McGuire,” Faith said, “and you are . . . ?”
“Glory, short for Gloria Celeste Kennedy.”
“Well, Miss Gloria Celeste Kennedy, it’s very nice to make your acquaintance.”
“What’s quay-tents mean?” Glory wanted to know, nose scrunched.
“It means it’s nice to meet you,” Annie explained.
“Do you have any kids I can play with?” The little stinker was suddenly wide awake.
Faith laughed and tugged Glory from the car, hefting her in her arms. “Well, yes, ma’am, I do. My oldest, Bella, is almost nine, Laney is seven going on eight, and Abby is six going on seven who,” she said with a tickle of Glory’s ribs, “is a little peanut just like you.”
“Wow!” Glory said with a giggle. “Is that what you call her, ‘Peanut’?”
“That’s what my husband calls her because she’s small for her age, but quite big in the bossy department, I assure you.”
“When can we play?” Glory’s eyes expanded so much, Faith chuckled.
“Soon,” Faith said, grinning. She turned to Annie. “What do you say? Should we take our girls to story time at the Bookends Bookstore? My girls love it, and I think Glory would too. Then I can introduce you to my sisters, and the two of us can chat. What do you think?”
“Jeepers creepers, that would be swell!” Glory said with a bounce.
Annie poked Glory in the ribs, eliciting a squirmy giggle. “I don’t suppose I have any choice or Miss Gloria Celeste Kennedy will hound me to death, so thank you.” Her gaze connected with Faith’s, and somehow she had a feeling this woman would be good for her, not only as a teacher and friend, but as a woman to talk to now that Mama and Maggie weren’t around.
“It’s settled, then. We’ll put a date on the calendar next week, okay?” Faith kissed Glory’s cheek and tucked her back in the car. “Good night, Glory, it was nice to meet you.”
Annie sneaked a peek at Aunt Eleanor and Mr. Callahan, whose conversation appeared to have risen in tension based on their stilted posture. “I wonder why they don’t get along?” she murmured.
“Perhaps they’ve butted heads on the committee,” Faith suggested quietly.
A pucker wedged at the bridge of Annie’s nose. “Goodness, he is a decent and honorable man, I hope?” she said with another worried glance at her aunt.
“Oh, absolutely.” Faith’s smile relaxed the
tension at the back of Annie’s neck. “Mr. Callahan is a widower who is a pillar of the community and one of the city’s best lawyers as well as counsel for the parish.”
Relief seeped through Annie’s lips. “Oh, thank goodness, because it certainly appears as if Aunt Eleanor doesn’t care for him, maybe even a bit afraid, I’d say, which I’ve never seen before.”
Faith patted Annie’s arm. “Well, not to worry. It could be something as simple as a disagreement on the Catholic Workers’ committee, since both your aunt and Mr. Callahan are board members. But if it worries you, we can always pray about it next week.”
“Pray about it?” Annie said, a dizzy sensation swirling through her body at the memory of her father’s propensity to pray about everything. Praying together had been as natural as breathing for him, an evangelical pastor who took everything—large and small—to the Almighty. But anyone else? Unheard of! “You . . . pray together? With people, I mean . . . one-on-one?”
Faith’s smile was gentle. “Every day of my life, whenever I see a need. It’s our verbal connection with God, just like you and I are connecting right now.” She gave Annie a hug. “I’ll see you next week, and we’ll put a date on the calendar for Bookends, okay?” She winked at Glory, then turned to extend a hand to Frailey. “Nice to meet you too, Frailey.” She grinned. “And, oh, how I wish I could bring you home to Luke.”
“’Tis a shame I’ll not have the opportunity to educate the boy. Good night, miss.”
“Indeed,” Faith said with a grin. With a wave, she hurried back up the church steps.
A moment later Aunt Eleanor strode toward the car with a pinched look, her disagreeable business obviously concluded. “Frailey, I have a dreadful headache, so do hurry us home.”
Annie’s stomach clenched when Aunt Eleanor bulldozed her into the backseat with a grim-lipped expression, prodding with the back of her hand. Both slid into the car, and Frailey shut the door.
“Aunt Eleanor—are you all right?” Annie asked, voice tentative.
“Yes, dear, I’m fine. Frailey, please stop at the Woolworth’s on Main. I took the last of my aspirin this morning, and we’ll need to pick up some more. They’re open till nine, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. I’m sure this would be a migraine come morning if I don’t attend to it tonight.” Aunt Eleanor closed her eyes and laid her head on the back of the seat, a silent dismissal of her niece.
They rode to the store and then home in silence, and Annie couldn’t help but reflect on the difference between her aunt and Faith McGuire. Probably only a few years older than Faith, Aunt Eleanor lived life as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. She seldom smiled, seemed addicted to aspirin, and possessed no joy or fun despite a beautiful home and healthy bank account. Faith McGuire, on the other hand, radiated something different—joy, peace, and an unmistakable confidence. Not to mention a fabulous marriage to an incredibly handsome man, judging from how he’d kissed her at the door when he dropped off the lesson plan she’d forgotten at home.
A faint smile lifted the corners of Annie’s mouth even as her heart swelled with hope. Oh, to have a love like that! To have a man look at you like Faith’s husband looked at her . . . like Daddy had looked at Mama. She sighed. No, there was no mistake about it. Somehow Faith McGuire had learned the secret to being happy and fulfilled, while Aunt Eleanor—with all her money in the bank, lofty board positions, and countless charitable auctions she’d chaired—had not.
The thought made Annie sad, hopeful, and determined, all at the same time. Sad for Aunt Eleanor that she’d spent her life bound up in bitterness, never learning how to love. Hopeful that maybe—just maybe—Faith McGuire knew something Annie did not. And determined that if Faith McGuire did, indeed, possess special knowledge that put that glow in her face, then Annie wanted it too. She opened her eyes, jaw set as she peered out the window into a moonlit sky. And the sooner the better . . .
“Whoopee—Annie’s the old maid!” Sitting Indian-style on the parlor rug next to Mr. Grump, Glory kicked stubby legs in the air, displaying pink lacy underwear in all of its glory. Lumbering up, Mr. Grump resettled by the French doors, where the scent of jasmine drifted in from a brick garden patio along with the silence of an elite neighborhood deprived of stickball or the chatter of children. Somewhere a tree frog twittered, heralding the arrival of dusk as a pink haze settled, a perfect complement for Glory’s drawers.
“Gloria Celeste Kennedy!” Annie dove across her neat stacks of playing cards to tickle Glory’s neck, prompting the little dickens to squeal in delight. “Not only is it bad manners to make fun of the loser, you little stinkpot, but one does not display her underwear in public!”
Squirming away, the youngster managed to pop up with a delighted shriek, flapping the front of her skirt with a giggle to reveal dimpled knees. “You’re not public, Annie, you’re my sister.” She twirled around, unveiling another glimpse of pretty pink lace. “My ‘Old Maid’ sister!”
Annie shot up and snatched her in the air with a spin. “I’ll teach you to call me an old maid,” she said, pausing to slobber Glory with kisses. High-pitched laughter rolled through the parlor when Annie burrowed into Glory’s neck, blowing raspberries against her sister’s skin.
“Good heavens, Susannah, how is that child ever going to learn to behave as a proper young lady if you persist in acting more juvenile than her?” Aunt Eleanor stood at the parlor door, gaze flitting to where Mr. Grump lay sprawled in front of the open French doors. Wrinkling her nose, she marched over to shoo him away, yanking the doors closed with a not-so-subtle reminder she preferred them shut to keep out the flies. She cast a wary glance at the girls on the floor as she made her way to her favorite blue brocade wing chair by the fireplace. Retrieving her needlepoint from a cherrywood chest, she settled in with another cumbersome sigh and put her reading glasses on. “I wish you’d act your age rather than playing the hooligan with your impressionable sister,” she said, the stiff lines of her face highlighted by a tulip lamp that stood guard over her chair.
Allowing a stone-faced Glory to slip to the floor, Annie forced a smile despite her own pale reflection in the gilded mirror over the hearth. She took a deep breath, determined to forge some kind of connection with her aunt. After all, she was both blood and benefactor, her mother’s estranged sister who could’ve easily turned her back on them in their time of need. Annie smoothed the pleats of her cream paneled dress. “Sorry, Aunt Eleanor, I do behave in public, I promise.”
Plopping down on the floor, Glory tugged her abandoned baby doll, the Queen of Sheba, into her lap while she glanced up at her aunt, eyes wide. “We’re playing Old Maid, Aunt Eleanor—wanna play?” Her expression was almost angelic. “I bet you’d be good at it.”
Annie stooped to pick up the cards, eyes narrowed in warning.
Eleanor looked up from her needlepoint canvas, the downward tilt of her lips lifting slightly as if she might actually smile. But the hazel eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses remained aloof, reflecting the cool green of her prim silk dress. “No, thank you, dear.” Her gaze returned to Annie, her tone slightly sterner. “You’ll be eighteen in less than a month, Susannah. You need to set an example. Your sister looks up to you and will mimic you whenever possible.”
Annie caught her breath, her aunt’s mention of her birthday reminding her of Peggy’s plea to celebrate her eighteenth out with the gang. “But I don’t want to celebrate my birthday at Ocean Pier,” Annie had argued, no desire to spend time with Joanie, Ashley, and Erica, or Steven O’Connor for that matter. “How ’bout just you and I go out to dinner?”
Peggy had groaned, her elfin face crimped in pain. “But you’re going to be eighteen, Annie Lou—a woman! You need to have a party—with people!” She grabbed Annie’s hand. “Okay, no Ocean Pier, but at least let us take you to dinner to celebrate, okay? Please?”
Of course Annie had relented. What trouble could she possibly get into at a restaurant
?
With a skim of her teeth, she stood and took a step forward, fiddling with the filigreed silver ring Maggie had given her for Christmas. “Uh, Aunt Eleanor? About my birthday . . .”
Her aunt peered over the rim of her glasses, a crevice at the bridge of her nose. “Yes?”
“Peggy and her sister would like to take me to dinner. Would that be all right?”
The crease deepened as she removed her glasses. “I was hoping to have a birthday dinner for you here, with your sister, but I suppose you may invite Peggy and her sister as well.”
Joanie? With Aunt Eleanor? Panic jolted like a brain freeze after too much Rocky Road. “Oh no, not to our family dinner,” she said, desperate to steer her aunt away from sure disaster. “I only want to celebrate with you and Glory on my actual birthday.” She hesitated, licking her dry lips. “This would be the Saturday night after, with Peggy, her sister, and friends.”
Aunt Eleanor stared, wheels turning as slowly as the ponderous thud of Annie’s heart. “And how old, exactly, are Peggy’s sister and her friends?” she asked, her tone measured.
Annie blinked, trying not to swallow. “Well, Peggy’s eighteen, of course, and Joanie and her friends, a few years older, I believe.”
The greenish hazel eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “How many years older, dear?”
There was no stopping the gulp this time. “They’re . . . twenty-five,” she whispered.
A heavy sigh parted from Aunt Eleanor’s lips as she put her glasses back on. “I’m sorry, Susannah, but I’m just not comfortable with a young woman your age roaming the streets at night with older girls. Heaven knows what type of morals they have, coming of age during such a promiscuous time.” She proceeded to pull fibers through the canvas in her lap. “It’s my responsibility to see to your best interests, as it is yours to become the kind of role model your sister needs, a young woman of grace and refinement. Which you can begin right now by selecting a less rowdy game to play at the table instead of sprawled on the floor.”