The House On Willow Street (60 page)

When he was done, Senior leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Oh, honey, you’re real sweet,” he said. “Like a nice ripe peach. Go ahead and buy your little house in New Mexico, I kinda like Taos. Hey, I might come and visit you sometime, y’know, when Junior’s away on business. He needs to be away on business some more, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” breathed Suki, fighting back tears.

She felt dirty and stupid and like she’d brought it all on herself. The limo dropped her home and there was no sign of Kyle Junior’s car.

“See you soon, little lady,” said her father-in-law, escorting her to her front door and giving her an avuncular kiss on the doorstep. After all, who knew who might be watching. But nobody had been watching in the back of the limo.

“Goodbye,” she said, and ran in and threw herself under the shower fully dressed, as if she could wash away the taint of having been touched by him. She didn’t know what to do, who to tell.

If only she could forget about this forever.

But that wasn’t to be.

“My mother for you,” said Kyle the next morning. He stood over Suki as she lay in one of the guest bedrooms, still feeling half drunk from the night before.

“Your mother?”

She put the phone to her ear.

“If you think that sleeping with my husband was a clever thing to do, then you are sorely mistaken, you little bitch!” The venom in Antoinette’s voice made Suki recoil. For a moment she was speechless.

“It wasn’t like that!” said Suki. “If he’s told you, he’s only told you half of it. He forced himself on me . . .”

“That’s what little bitches like you always say,” her mother-in-law hissed. “He told me nothing. But I’ve had people following you. How interesting that’s proved to be. At least I know what you really are: a whore. You are divorcing my son and leaving my family right now. I never want to see you again. Kyle Junior knows nothing of this, and you won’t tell him. Pack your bags and my lawyers will be in touch. And,” Antoinette’s voice was snakelike now, “if you
ever
speak about this, I will personally destroy you. Do you understand?”

The phone slammed down and Suki was left shaking, holding on to the receiver.

The shaking worsened, she couldn’t stop. She pulled the covers over her head and lay there, sobbing and wanting to die.

And then she realized there was only one thing to do: run home to Avalon and Tess. She’d be safe there.

S
pring brought a warm breeze and mildness to Avalon. Tulips and daffodils filled people’s gardens with color. The magnolia trees in Danae’s garden had pink sticky buds reaching out toward the sun, and the ancient oak she’d been so scared of losing came back to life again, like a wise old man giving his wisdom to the earth for another year after the sleep of winter.

One beautiful, sunny March morning, Danae walked Lady high above Avalon, in the grounds of the old ruined abbey with the small stone graves that she used to find so tragic. As Lady bounded along, Danae realized that she had merely been projecting her own personal tragedy on to everything around her. She didn’t know the stories of the people buried here, whether they were famine victims, whether they had lived long, happy lives. She simply didn’t know. Nobody did.

Her own life had convinced her that their circumstances must have been sad, because sadness was all she’d known. Now joyfully, she felt free of that sadness.

She thought of all those years ago, sitting on the fire-escape step of the shelter and being told that it would be all right.
Only it hadn’t been all right at all, because later that same day Antonio had found her. He had almost succeeded in killing part of her soul that day, but now it was well again. The shriveled heart was beating again, ready to open, ready to welcome happiness in.

Avalon seemed changed, now that she looked at it with a different eye.

The people in the town were her friends. When she walked down the main street people said, “Hello, Danae, how are you?”

She was no longer Mrs. Rahill, the kind but distant lady behind the plexiglass in the post office; she was Danae, a woman they liked, a woman they would talk to, a woman they would invite into their home for coffee or dinner or to attend one of their parties.

And it was all thanks to Mara, and her refusal to let Danae shut herself away from the world.

Lady began running off toward Avalon House. It was very much a building site now, Danae thought, as she began to walk around it. Lady was forever dancing in and out of the scaffolding, but after having been called back so many times she now understood that she had to keep away from the house itself.

The landscaping was taking shape. There were two wonderful young men doing it all and Danae had spent many hours, at Cashel’s behest, talking to them about the kind of plants that really thrived up here. She knew so much about gardening on the hill at the end of Willow Street, where the sea breeze blew in.

Even the house itself seemed changed. Before, it had been lonely. That wasn’t the case any more. There was joy coming from every brick, as though the old house was exuding contentment at being loved again.

But what made Danae happiest of all was the love she
could see between Rafe and Mara. They were so close, so happy. There was laughter and joking every time they were together, along with mutual respect and true tenderness. Mara had chosen wisely.

“It’s thanks to you, Danae,” Mara said one evening as the two of them sat in front of the fire, Lady at their feet. “If I hadn’t come to Avalon, I’d never have met Rafe. I’d have gone off to New York or London or somewhere, convinced that all men were pigs, nobody was to be trusted, and thinking that it was all my fault for not having changed myself enough to be lovable. When actually all I needed was someone who would love me the way I am.”

“And I’ve you to thank,” said Danae, “for letting me out of the prison I’d made for myself. Without you, I’d have faced Antonio’s death alone and probably would have watched the funeral from a distance, so Adriana couldn’t have come to me and said what she did.”

“Danae, you let yourself out,” said Mara firmly.

Danae thought about that as she walked around the back of the house, where a little Victorian knot garden was being constructed by the two landscape gardeners.

“Isn’t it coming along nicely, Danae?” one of the gardeners called her. They loved her to look at their work, approve of it and tell them how well they were doing.

“Absolutely fabulous! Boys, I don’t know how you do it so quickly,” she said, and they both beamed with delight at her. “You’ll have to come in for a cup of tea later, when you’re finished. You must be frozen.”

“That’d be great,” they said.

Danae walked on. Adriana’s graveside gift had been huge, lifting the burden of guilt Danae had carried for so long, but Mara had also given her a precious gift—the gift of letting people in, of understanding that friends mattered. People
mattered. Community mattered. And she mattered to other people. She’d never seen that before.

It hadn’t been easy, taking the plunge. She’d spent so long avoiding anything that might involve socializing with strangers, terrified that they might start asking questions, wanting to know more about her, that the prospect of going out and meeting people seemed completely overwhelming at first.

If it hadn’t been for Mara, she never would have signed up for the course at the community center. Even though she’d been drawn to the idea from the moment she spotted the notice decorated with swirling Celtic symbols in the window of the convenience shop. A six-week course on Celtic and pre-Celtic Ireland, with lectures by noted historians on Irish myths and legends, as well as the saints and gods and goddesses who had played a part in shaping Ireland’s culture. She’d always been fascinated with the old Irish myths in school and once thought it might have been interesting to study them in college, but there had been no college for Danae and dreams of studying history had been put away. On the spur of the moment, she’d written down the phone number for the course.

“What do you think?” she’d said to Mara later that day as they shared a coffee in Lorena’s Café. “It might be a complete waste of money, I mean . . . I don’t know.”

“You’re not going to find out unless you try,” said Mara. “Give it a go.”

Danae had laughed. That was Mara all over: give it a go. She’d give anything a go.

“But I’m not like you,” she protested. “I can’t drift into something and make friends instantly. I mean, I like the idea of studying this, but . . .”

“But what?” said Mara. “What’s the worst that can
happen? You’re going to sit in a room with lots of like-minded people and listen to somebody talk. You don’t have to ask any questions afterward. There’s no rule about asking questions. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. Take the odd note, look interested—that’s all there is to it. Simply go along. Just be.”

Just be
, thought Danae. What sort of
being
did that mean? For years, she’d been afraid of being. For so many years she’d been afraid of Antonio and his rages, afraid to move, afraid to breathe the wrong way in case she’d upset him. And then for eighteen long years in Avalon, unable to shake off the habit of fear, she’d carried on being afraid to move, hardly able to believe that she had a new life.

Now, she was part of a community, with friends and a life and warmth from whatever divinity was up there. She was failing them by not living a life.

“You’re right,” she told Mara. “I’ll book it tomorrow.” And she did.

The course had proved to be fascinating, sparking off something in Danae that she hadn’t known existed. The first session, she hadn’t opened her mouth, nodding shyly at the other course participants: a mixture of men and women, some of them people she recognized from the post office, others she didn’t. But by the second week, when they moved on to the story of Brigid, she was full of energy, full of excitement, asking questions, writing things down. Engaged in it. Part of the whole thing. By the time the tea break came, she was sitting with a group of women, chatting wildly, telling them she hadn’t done any nighttime study ever, that this was her first time.

“Oh, me too,” said another woman. “I was terribly nervous. I was afraid to say anything.”

And Danae had laughed and said, “Snap!”

“Weren’t we daft!” said the woman, whose name was Sally. “I mean, what were we afraid of?”

“Appearing stupid,” said another woman, Norah.

“I was thinking I might sign up for the next course as well,” revealed Sally. “It’s all about family genealogy. They teach you how to do the research, go back and discover your roots. You could do it as a job. Lots of people are tracing their ancestors these days.”

“That might be interesting,” Danae said. Ancestors had never been something she’d given much thought to. Her family, the past, had been too painful to want to dwell on it. But there were lots of other family members she knew nothing about: grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond. Who knew where they’d come from, where they’d lived, what they’d done?

“I think I’d like to do that,” she said to Sally.

Browsing the board, she’d seen one other notice that got her attention. It was an appeal for volunteers to rattle collection boxes for the local women’s shelter:

 . . . DOMESTIC ABUSE CAN AFFECT ANYONE. DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH MONEY THEY HAVE, WHERE THEY LIVE, WHAT THEIR JOB IS. IT CUTS ACROSS ALL AGES, SOCIOECONOMIC GROUPS AND RACES. WE NEED HELP RAISING FUNDS. OUR GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY HAS BEEN CUT. IF YOU WANT TO HELP, PLEASE CALL . . .

Danae had ripped off one of the tiny bits of paper at the bottom with the phone number. She’d kept it in her pocket for days, feeling it sometimes, wondering if she had the strength to ring. She thought back to the shelter and Mary, the woman who’d helped her. Mary in the red dress, who’d
been so kind. Mary had been beaten by her husband too. So badly that she’d almost died, and yet she’d turned around and given back to women like herself. Danae wasn’t sure if she had the strength to do it now. But one day she would, one day in the future. She’d learned so much, it was only right to give a little something back.