Keeping Faith. Janice Macdonald

a yellow one whose name she could never remember when she got her degree from Cal State. Three or four, all white, to mark Faith’s various milestones.

      The only occasion never commemorated with roses was her marriage to Liam. When she’d asked her dad about it, he’d said something about poor-quality roses that year, but she knew the real reason.

      Liam. His music still played in her head, but the evening had already taken on a dreamlike quality. One minute he’d been there, close enough to touch. And then he was gone. Elusive as smoke.

      It had always been that way with Liam. She’d met him during a trip to Ireland, a birthday present from her parents. He’d been playing in a Galway club that she’d wandered into one evening. During a break in the session, he’d come over to talk to her. He’d quoted poetry, made her laugh, hummed songs in her ear. Looking back, she knew she’d fallen in love with him that night.

      Still, she’d left the club never expecting to see him again. The next morning her landlady had knocked on her door to say she had a caller. Barefoot, in a red tartan robe, she’d walked out to the top of the stairs. Liam stood at the foot, smiling in the pale sunlight, a bunch of daisies in his hand.

      On her last day in Ireland, the countryside had bloomed with hawthorn hedges and primrose and the air had smelled of mowed hay and turf smoke. They’d taken a boat to Clare Island and stayed until dark. On the beach, with the moon beaming down on them, they’d made love. Afterward she’d looked up at the crescent of a new moon, like a fairy tiara in the dark sky; watched the silvery light on Liam’s face. Felt the fine sand slip between her fingers.

      They’d kissed goodbye at the airport and, despite all his promises to stay in touch, she’d again had the feeling that this was it. That as magical and wonderful as the whole experience had seemed, it wasn’t quite real. Like trying to hold on to the memory of a dream. But, once more, Liam had surprised her. The day she’d opened the door to see him standing there had been as mind-blowing as opening the paper to see his picture. “Come with me,” he’d said.

      In a celebratory mood after a show one night, they’d driven to Las Vegas. The wedding chapel was so hideously tacky, they’d both dissolved into fits of laughter. As they walked back out into the garish night, Liam had dumped a bag of silver paper horseshoes on her head. Her father had been incensed. Margaret had cried for days, a mini nervous breakdown, according to Helen.

      After Liam went back to Ireland, the family quietly and efficiently fixed up the wreckage of her life. A family friend had taken care of the divorce. Helen had arranged the job at La Petite Ecole. The nursery, where Faith had slept until she was five, had been decorated by Margaret and her sisters who, when Faith decided she was too old for rainbows and kittens, had redecorated it to look like a tree house.

      Liam’s name was seldom mentioned and, except for Faith, it sometimes seemed to Hannah that she’d dreamed the whole relationship.

      Until tonight. She got up from the bed, padded out into the hallway and tapped on her mother’s door. Nothing. She started to knock again, then stopped. It was nearly one. Margaret would be groggy. Better to wait.

      THE NEXT MORNING, Saturday, Hannah doubled her usual three-mile run. At the bottom of Termino, she glanced both ways at the traffic then sprinted across Livingstone Drive and Ocean Boulevard, past La Petite Ecole, around the end of the pier and the new Belmont Shore Brewery with its ocean-view patio; down along the footpath that paralleled the edge of the beach.

      She’d started running soon after Faith was born, and her route never varied. A sprint along the beach then up the slope that led to the art museum on Ocean Boulevard, twice around Bixby Park where, as kids, she and Debra had been taken by their parents to hear Sunday afternoon concerts on the grass, then back down the slope for the return trip.

      Helen and Rose had given her an expensive headset for her last birthday so that she could listen to music while she ran. She’d used it a couple of times, but preferred the natural fugue of ocean sounds: the steady crash of the waves, the screeches and coos of gulls and pigeons and the slap of her feet on the asphalt.

      These morning runs were hers alone, a time to think. Anything, from musings on what she’d eat for lunch to more profound matters such as whether she really wanted to spend the rest of her life teaching overprivileged and precocious four-year-olds.

      This morning, her thoughts were dominated by Liam.

      When she jogged up Termino twenty minutes later, she could see her mother outside the house, down on her knees, using a trowel to dig around the bird-of-paradise plants along the steps leading up to the front door. Margaret saw her and leaned back on her heels, trowel in hand.

      “Damn nasturtiums, they run wild.” Margaret gestured with the trowel at the offending pale green tendrils. “Every year I pull them all out, and every year they come back more than before. God knows why your father ever planted them in the first place.”

      Panting from her run, Hannah looked at the pile of orange calendulas and green nasturtium leaves her mother had yanked out. Neither plant, in Margaret’s opinion, was in keeping with the Spanish architectural style of the house and she waged an ongoing and futile battle to eradicate them. Hannah bent and picked half a dozen blooms. “We need to talk, Mom,” she said.

      Still on her knees, Margaret glanced up. “Debra called this morning. I guess you know she’s pregnant.”

      Hannah nodded. Dennis had refused to put Deb on the phone when Hannah called earlier.

      “Now she’s saying Dennis doesn’t want her to have the baby. She’s come back here with her suitcases.” Margaret gathered up the discarded plants and dumped them into the trash can at the side of the house. She ran her hands down the sides of her sweats, brushed the back of her arm across her face. “I don’t think she has the vaguest notion of what she really wants—”

      “Mom, I don’t want to talk about Debra right now.”

      Margaret eyed her warily.

      “I saw Liam last night.” Arms folded across her chest, she looked at her mother. Margaret’s face was unreadable, her eyes hidden by the baseball cap she wore, but Hannah sensed that there was a battle brewing. “I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

      “Then don’t, okay?” Margaret’s stance mirrored Hannah’s, arms folded, feet slightly apart. “I’ve got enough on my mind with Debra. I don’t need you giving me a hard time about something that happened years ago.”

      Hannah stared at her mother, incredulous.

      “I know for sure I’m not paying for her to have an abortion,” Margaret said, “but she’s so headstrong, I don’t even want to think what she might try. Rose and Helen are in there talking to her now. I had to come outside, I couldn’t listen to her anymore. This is my grandchild she’s casually talking about destroying.”

      “For God’s sake, Mom. This isn’t about you. It’s about Debra and what she needs to do for herself.” Hannah took some deep breaths. Debra could fight her own battles. “You lied to Liam.”

      Margaret looked at her for a moment. “You know what, Hannah? I don’t intend to discuss this with you. I’ve got enough on my mind.” She started for the house. “Helen put a coffee cake in the oven and it’s probably done now. It’s a new recipe she clipped from the Times. You mix up sour cream and—”

      “Damn it.” Hannah grabbed her mother’s arm. “You are not just walking off. I want some answers.”

      “Why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong?” Margaret jerked her arm from Hannah’s grasp. “I’ve never seen you so worked up.”

      “You told Liam I’d had an abortion, Mom. That’s what’s really wrong. Do you even realize the consequences of what you did? By lying to him—”

      “Okay, Hannah, we’ve covered the lying issue. Let’s talk about the consequences of your going to see him last night. Let’s talk about the fact that he now wants to take Faith back