“She’s mad at me, I don’t know what for. It would be just like her to take Mom’s side against me out of spite.”
“She’s mad at me too,” Liam said.
“Great.”
If Xanthe was including Kitty in this snit of hers, then it must be true that Damian was the reason. Someone ought to inform her that an entirely different person had been arrested for the break-in. Liam started to say as much to Kitty, but he stopped himself. Kitty probably had no inkling of Xanthe’s suspicions.
They were already at the front door when Kitty said, “Wait, I think I hear them out back,” at the same time that Liam, too, heard voices coming from the rear of the house. They turned to take the path that led through the side yard. When they emerged from under the magnolia tree, they found Barbara and Xanthe eating lunch at the wrought-iron table on the patio. Nearby, Jonah was squatting on the flagstones to draw lopsided little circles with a stick of chalk. He was the first to spot them. “Hi, Kitty. Hi, Poppy,” he said, standing up.
“Hi, Jonah.”
Liam hadn’t realized before that Jonah called him Poppy.
Barbara said, “Well, look who’s here!” but Xanthe, after the briefest glance, took on a flat-faced expression and resumed buttering a roll.
“You didn’t use sunblock, did you?” Barbara asked Kitty. “When I told you and told you! Where are your brains? You’re fried to a crisp.”
“Oh, why, thank you for inquiring, Mother dear,” Kitty said. “I had a perfectly lovely trip.”
Unruffled, Barbara turned to Liam. “I’ve got Jonah for the weekend,” she said, “because Louise and Dougall are off with their church on a Marriage Renewal Retreat.”
Liam had a number of questions about this-did their marriage need renewing? should he be worried?-but before he could ask, Barbara rose, saying, “Let me bring out some more plates. You two sit down.”
“No plate for me, thanks. I just finished breakfast,” Liam said.
But Barbara was already heading toward the back door, and Kitty was making violent shooing motions in his direction. “Go with her!” she mouthed.
Dutifully, Liam set off after Barbara. (It was a relief, anyhow, to leave the chilly atmosphere surrounding Xanthe.) He held the screen door open, and Barbara said, “Oh, thanks.”
As they entered the house, she told him, “I don’t think that child has the least little grain of sense. Just wait till she gets melanoma! Then she’ll be sorry.”
“Ah, well, we grew up without sunblock.”
“That’s different,” she said, illogically.
Liam loved Barbara’s kitchen. It had never once been remodeled, as far as he knew. At some point a dishwasher had been fitted in next to the sink, but the general look of it dated from the 1930s. The worn linoleum floor bore traces of a Mondrian-style pattern, and the refrigerator had rounded corners, and the cupboards had been repainted so many times that the doors wouldn’t quite close anymore. Even the plants on the windowsill seemed old-fashioned: a yellowed philodendron wandering up to the curtain rod and down again, and a prickly, stunted cactus in a ceramic pot shaped like a burro. He could have just sunk onto one of the red wooden chairs and stayed there forever, feeling peaceful and at home.
But here came Kitty to remind him of his mission. She let the screen door slam behind her and she gave him a conspiratorial glance but then wandered over to the sink, ho hum, and turned the faucet on for no apparent reason.
“By the way,” Liam said. He was speaking to Barbara’s back; she was reaching into the dish cupboard. She wore white linen slacks that made her look crisper than usual and more authoritative. He said, “I’ve been thinking.”
It wasn’t clear if she had heard him over the sound of running water. She set two plates on the counter and opened the silverware drawer.
“I’ve been wondering if Kitty should stay on with me during the school year,” he said.
Assuming sole responsibility for the question-I’ve been wondering-was meant as a gesture of gallantry, but Kitty spoiled the effect by shutting off the water decisively and spinning around to say, “Please, Mom?”
Barbara turned to Liam. “Excuse me?” she said.
“She would stay on at my place,” Liam said, “just for her senior year, I mean. After that she’d be leaving for college.”
“What, Liam: are you saying you’d be willing to monitor her homework, and drive car pool to lacrosse games, and pick her up from swimming practice? Are you going to meet with her college advisor and make sure she gets her allergy shots?”
This sounded like more of a commitment than he had realized, actually. He sent an uncertain glance toward Kitty. She took a step forward, but instead of going into the prayerful-maiden act he half expected, she flung a hand in his direction, palm up, and said, “Someone ought to keep a watch. Just look at him!”
Liam blinked.
Barbara examined him more closely. She said, “Yes, what’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?”
“You seem… thinner.”
He had the impression that she had been about to say something else, something less complimentary.
“I’m fine,” he told her.
He scowled at Kitty. He’d be damned if he would say a single word further on her behalf.
Kitty gazed blandly back at him.
Barbara said, “Kitty, would you take these things to the patio, please?”
“But-”
“Go on,” Barbara said, and she handed Kitty the plates with a cluster of silverware laid on top.
Kitty accepted them, but as she backed out the screen door her eyes were fixed beseechingly on Liam.
He refused to give her the slightest sign of encouragement.
“It’s not for my sake at all,” he told Barbara as soon as they were alone. “She’s trying to put one over on you.”
“Yes, yes… Liam, I don’t want to be intrusive, but I’m wondering if your life can accommodate a teenager.”
“Well, maybe it can’t,” Liam said. What the hell.
“You wouldn’t be able to have a person spend the night with you if Kitty were there; you realize that.”
“Spend the night?”
“If I had known you were involved with someone, I never would have let Kitty come stay with you in the first place.”
“I’m not involved with anyone,” he said.
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Well, the other day it seemed-”
“Not anymore,” he said.
“I see,” she said. Then she said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Something in the tone of her voice-so delicate, so tactful-implied that she assumed the breakup was not his own choice. Her face became kind and sorrowful, as if he’d just announced a bereavement.
“But!” he told her. “As for Kitty! You know, you might have a point. I would probably make a terrible father over the long term.”
Barbara gave a short laugh.
“What,” he said.
“Oh, nothing.”
“What’s so amusing?”
“It’s just,” she said, “how you never argue with people’s poor opinions of you. They can say the most negative things-that you’re clueless, that you’re unfeeling-and you say, ‘Yes, well, maybe you’re right.’ If I were you, I’d be devastated!”
“Really?” Liam asked. He was intrigued. “Yes, well, maybe you’re… Or, rather… Would you be devastated even if you truly did agree with them?”
“Especially if I agreed with them!” she said. “Are you telling me that you do agree? You believe you’re a bad person?”
“Oh, not bad in the sense of evil,” Liam said. “But face it: I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory. I just… don’t seem to have the hang of things, somehow. It’s as if I’ve never been entirely present in my own life.”
She was silent, gazing at him again with that too-kind expression.
He said, “Do you remember a show on TV that Dean Martin used to host? It must have been back in the seventies; Millie liked to watch it. I can’t think now what it was called.”
“The Dean Martin Show?” Barbara suggested.