Soaring (Magdalene #2)(19)
Author: Kristen Ashley

These hopes were dashed when the door was flung open.

“Hey, Miz Hathaway!” Cillian cried, beaming up at me. Then he declared, “We’re in the kitchen,” turned and started walking into the house.

I took that as what it was, my invitation to follow him, so I did, closing the door behind me.

I wanted to take time to study Mickey’s house but Cillian was moving at a good clip down a short hall toward the back of the house so I didn’t get the chance.

I still took in as much as I could get. And with what I took in I knew that either Mickey had put a goodly amount of effort into making his post-divorce house a home for his children or he’d gotten the house in the divorce.

It was dark, not due to lack of windows, there were a lot of them, nor due to the plethora of wood and wood paneling, but instead due to the fact that Mickey had a number of mature trees on his lot and many of them were close to his home.

The outside of the house made me think the inside would scream Home in Coastal Maine.

I was slightly surprised it didn’t.

When I looked left to take in the living room, above the stone fireplace, there was a beautiful seascape with an old-fashioned boat on it. There were also some of those colorful glass things that were suspended in webs of ropes hanging on the walls.

That was it.

The rest was comfortable, cushiony furniture, some in attractive tweed (the armchairs), some in worn leather (the couch). The tables were topped in everything from what appeared to be an old baseball ensconced in a glass block, bronze figurines (two, both art deco, one that looked like an angel without wings, arms out, head back, as if ascending to the heavens, the other an elephant) to multi-paned standing frames filled with photos from a variety of eras, sepia to color.

To the right was a long hall I suspected led to bedrooms and bathrooms.

As I followed Cillian, I saw on the walls of the hall an expertly scattered display of frames that were mostly pictures of Mickey’s kids, from babyhood to recently. These were interspersed with pictures of what, to my fascinated eyes, appeared to be Mickey from a baby through adolescence and even into adulthood.

These included Mickey (possibly) lying in nothing but a diaper on a fur rug in front of a fire, head up, doing a baby giggle at the camera. Also Mickey in a Little League uniform, posing with cap on, wearing a grin that would mature from the cute in that picture to the heart-stopping of today, bat on his shoulder. And another with Mickey, perhaps in his late twenties, leaning back against the front of a fire rig.

There were also framed pieces of art, none of them good because all of them were done by a child’s hand, some of them signed “Aisling” others “Cillian.”

And last, there were empty spaces that didn’t fit the careful arrangement. Empty spaces that laid testimony to this being the Donovan family home considering they were at some point more than likely filled with pictures of Mickey’s wife, perhaps their wedding, them together, the family together, but now they were gone.

I knew what those empty spaces felt like in real life so by the time I made it to the back of the house, my heart was heavy.

Once I moved through the mouth of the hall, I gave myself the quick opportunity to take in the long great room that was open plan.

There was a large kitchen with gleaming, attractive wood cabinets and granite countertops to the right, delineated by a bar from the family room to the left that had a big sectional that faced a wide, flat-screen TV mounted on the wall above another, smaller and less formal, stone fireplace.

This space, too, was not imposing. It was all family, with thick rugs over the wood floors, the sectional an attractive, very dark purple twill with high backs, deep set cushions, throw pillows and afghans tossed around for maximum lounging potential.

Around the couch there were a variety of standing lamps that could offer bright lighting, say, should you wish to lounge and read, or subtle lighting, say, should you want to watch a horror movie and get in the mood.

A long, wide, carefully distressed dark wood, rectangular coffee table with drawers on the sides ran the middle of the sectional. It held a lovely globe filled with burgundy-colored sand in which a fat candle was positioned that had tiers of blue, purple and forest green.

Staring at that candle, I knew, in leaving, the ex-wife forgot it. I knew it because a man would not buy that glass globe, pour sand in it and find the perfect candle to stick in.

Her one stamp. The last of her.

In my limited perusal of the house, except empty spaces where her image and history with her family occupied the wall, that candle was the only physical evidence that I’d seen of her.

Seeing it, I wondered if, when she went, she left it just to remind them she’d been there and now she was gone.

I didn’t know what to make of this, except to think that if she left it on purpose, it was a cruelty, plain and simple. Conrad had left us in our home and when he’d gone, he’d taken every vestige of himself with him. Yes, including the pictures off the walls and out of frames on shelves and tables.

And when he went, this caused me profound grief that only dug the pit of his departure deeper.

Now I saw it as something else entirely.

As a kindness.

Staring at the candle, I also wondered why Mickey kept it.

Perhaps, as a man, he didn’t even see it. It had been lit, but it was far from burned low and he didn’t strike me as a man who lit candles to provide a relaxing atmosphere.

Perhaps he wanted a reminder of his wife, the family they shared, the hopes he’d had, these being things he wasn’t ready to let go.

I would get no answers to these questions and not only because I’d never ask them.

No, it was because Mickey called, “Hey, babe.”

I stopped staring at the candle and turned his way.

Cillian was up on a barstool opposite Mickey, who was wearing another unfairly attractive shirt, this in lightweight cotton the color of mocha, sleeves again rolled up over muscular forearms, doing something beyond the elevated portion of counter where the tall barstools sat.

Both pairs of blue eyes were on me.

“I’m completely unable to come to a home for a meal without bringing something,” I blurted, lifting up my empty hands. “I feel weird. Like I’m going to get a Good Guest Demerit or something.”

Mickey grinned and Cillian asked, “What’s a demerit?”

“A bad mark, son,” Mickey explained to his boy then looked to me. “Come in. Take a seat. Want a beer?”

I didn’t often drink beer; it wasn’t a beverage of preference. I drank wine and if I had a cocktail it could vary, but it usually had vodka in it.