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“Oh!” Mary said, pressing her hand to her chest, startled. “It’s you, Michael . ”
“Sorry,” said Michael, shaking rain off his umbrella. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t, not really. It’s just that I’m certain I locked the door,” Mary said, confusion in her voice. “Ah, well, I’m distracted today, I guess. At least I remembered to come down and let the painters in.”
“I’m supposed to pay them,” Michael said, closing the door and leaning his umbrella against the wall.
There was a mirror hanging on the wall behind the counter. Nick, sitting on the floor, his knees up under his chin, Seamie by his side, could see everything that was happening in it.
Mary crossed her arms over her chest awkwardly. “Did you see him by any chance? McTaggart? On your way in?”
“I didn’t, no. Can’t for the life of me understand why Fiona’s suddenly got to repaint the place. Walls look fine to me.”
Mary gave him a rueful smile. “I think I know why. Mr. Duffery expressed the opinion that the color was dingy and I fear she took his words to heart.”
“Ah. Mr. Duffery. ”
“Yes. Mr. Duffery.”
A leaden silence descended. Michael walked to the counter and feigned interest in a box of cigars on top of it.
Opening it. Straightening the cigars. Then taking one out and tapping it on the counter.
Nick prayed that he didn’t look in the mirror or decide to step behind the counter.
He glanced at Seamie and held a finger to his lips. Seamie did the same.
After what seemed like an eternity, Michael spoke again, still fumbling with the cigar. “Talking of Mr. Duffery, I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“Are they?” Mary said with a puzzled laugh. “What’s he done?”
Michael looked taken aback. “Well, I-I mean…” he stammered, flustered. “Your engagement.”
Mary tilted her head. “My what?”
“I know you haven’t gotten around to telling us yet,” Michael said haltingly, “but…well, we know and we’re all very happy for you.”
“Michael, I don’t—”
“I know you don’t, Mary,” Michael said. “Believe me. I wouldn’t appreciate it either if someone knew my business before I told them about it.
I…I saw you. I overheard a bit, too. The other night, I mean, when you came in with Mr. Duffery.
I was coming in from a…from a walk, and I opened the door a little.
Before I saw you. I didn’t mean to earwig, I swear it.
I hotfooted it back down the sidewalk the second I twigged what was going on. ”
“What, exactly, did you overhear?” Mary asked, her confusion deepening.
Michael colored a little. “Mr. Duffery’s…his proposal. ”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mary said. Then she gave a little gasp and flushed crimson. “Oh, you stupid, stupid man!”
“Hold on a minute…”
“I did not get engaged.”
“But Mr. Duffery gave you a ring.”
“He did not.”
“But he was down on his knee…”
“Because he was crawling around on the floor, looking for it!”
“Looking for what?”
“A ring!”
“So there was a ring. And you said yes.”
“I said yes when he asked me if the ring was all right. The poor man was beside himself. He dropped his sister’s diamond ring and thought he’d damaged it.”
“His sister’s ring?”
Mary explained to Michael exactly what had happened.
“So you’re not engaged?” Michael asked, when she’d finished, a bit of life returning to his voice.
“No, Michael, I am not engaged. Nor am I likely to be. I’ve broken it off with Mr. Duffery. Just yesterday, in fact, if you must know.”
“But I thought—”
“Yes, well, that’s what happens when you mind other people’s business!” Mary said, her voice rising with indignation. “Why were you sneaking around by the door anyway?”
“I wasn’t sneaking , t’ank you very much! It’s me own bloody house! Surely, I’m allowed to walk where I like in me own house?” Michael’s voice was rising now, too .
Nick grimaced. This was not how it was supposed to go.
Michael paced to the window and looked out of it. “Where the devil are those bloody painters?” he growled.
“Look, I’m glad you’re here, Michael,” Mary said tersely, “because there’s something I need to tell you…”
“What?”
“I’m…I’m going to look for a new flat. For myself and Ian and Alec. I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Pride, I suppose. I can’t stay where I’m not wanted.”
“ Not wanted? Whatever gave you that daft idea?”
“It’s not daft. There’s no room for me here, Michael. We both know it.”
Michael held up his left hand. As if he were a policeman halting traffic.
Mary looked at him in shock. “Stop? Is that what you’re telling me, Michael Finnegan?” she asked, bristling. “Stop what? Stop talking? You want me to be quiet now?”
Nick’s heart plunged. Things were going from bad to worse.
“No! I’m showing you my hand, Mary. My left hand. I’m telling you that I took my wedding ring off. I gave it away.”
Mary didn’t say anything, but Michael must’ve heard something in her silence, or seen something in her eyes, for he kept talking.
“Mary…I…well, look…oh, Jaysus, here goes. Don’t leave, Mary. Please. Stay here. Nell…she’ll miss you if you go. ”
Mary was quiet for a long moment, then she said, “And you, Michael, would you miss me?”
“You know I would.”
“No, I do not.”
Michael snapped the cigar in half and threw it on the counter.
“Ah, damn it all to hell, woman. You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?
I love you, Mary Munro. And I want you to be my wife.
I haven’t got a real ring. Not yet. But I’ll buy you one.
A nice one. First thing tomorrow. In the meantime, this’ll have to do.
” He pulled the foil ring off the cigar he’d mangled and got down on one knee.
Then he took her hand and slid the ring onto her finger.
“Will you have me, Mary Munro? Will you marry me?”
Nick caught his breath. He was waiting on tenterhooks. He knew they all were—Ian and Alec, Fiona and Seamie and Nell. Waiting. Hoping. Not daring to exhale until they heard that one little word, soft and breathy. Yes .
And finally it came, one word. But it wasn’t soft and breathy. It wasn’t little. And it wasn’t yes.
“HURRRRRRRRRRRRAY!”
Seamie, unable to control himself for one second longer, shot out from behind the counter, his sword raised high, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!”
Mary shrieked.
“Holy Jaysus!” Michael shouted. He jumped to his feet, lost his balance, and fell backward into a crate of eggs. They exploded under him in a string of staccato pops.
“Seamus Finnegan, what in blazes are you doing down here by yourself?” he yelled, struggling to get up. “Where’s your sister? ”
Seamie bounded over to the table and yanked the cloth up. “Here she is!”
Fiona smiled sheepishly. She waved. Her hand was covered with pink icing.
Nell, sitting next to Fiona, was dripping in it. Icing was all around her mouth, stuck to hair, plastered to her dress. She was clutching a large chunk of cake in her hands. She laughed when she saw Seamie. “Olly olly oxen free!” she shouted.
Michael did not laugh. “Fiona, what are you doing under there?” he thundered, wiping egg off his backside.
“I…um…I just—”
“You were spying ,” Michael said.
“I was not!” Fiona protested. “I was just…waiting for the painters!”
“Under the bleedin’ table?”
“Mum, say yes.”
The voice, muffled and disembodied, carried into the center of the room.
Michael looked around, incredulous. “There’s more of youse in here?”
“For the love of God say something , woman,” came another muffled voice. “Before we suffocate!”
Muttering a few choice words under his breath, Michael strode to the broom closet and yanked the door open. Alec and Ian blinked at him from inside it. “Come out of there!” he demanded. “Is that the lot of you? No. Wait…we’re missing—”
“Tell him you’ll have him, Mary. He’s a mess without you,” said Nick, climbing out from behind the counter.
“A mess ?” Michael echoed, glowering .
“Say yes, Auntie Mary,” Seamie begged. “Don’t marry a pudding! Marry Uncle Michael so Fee stops cooking!”
“Marry a pudding ?” exclaimed Mary. “Seamie, what are you—”
“Children!” Nick said, smiling brightly. “Where do they get these things?”
“From you!” Seamie said, highly aggrieved. “You said Milton Duffery sounds like a pudding! You said we should drown him in custard sauce!”
“Milton Duffery is a decent man, Nicholas,” Mary scolded. “He doesn’t deserve to be called a pudding.”
“That’s debatable,” Nick countered. “It’s also beside the point. What do you say, Mary? What’s your answer?”
For a long moment, Mary, who looked as if she’d just stepped off a roller-coaster, said nothing. Her silence unnerved Nick. He’d hoped to make things right. To save the day. What if he’d ruined it instead?
Nick glanced around the shop, taking in the faces of all the people there.
Faces full of hope. They wanted this, too.
So much. It wasn’t just Michael and Mary who had lost someone they loved; every single person in the room had—a first love, a parent, siblings, a son—and inside each of them was a heart that had been broken.
Nick thought of those hearts now. Time and courage and faith had glued the pieces back together, but they would shatter again, and his would, too, if Mary said no.
Desperation got the better of him and he started to babble.
“This probably isn’t the sort of romantic, flowery proposal a woman dreams about, is it, Mary?
” he said, with a nervous laugh. “What with cake all over the floor, and smashed eggs, and one child yelling like a pirate and another covered in icing, and people popping out from closets and counters and underneath tables and…”
Alec, who’d moved close to Nick, nudged him with his shoulder. “Hush, lad,” he whispered.
The elderly man had seen something Nick hadn’t—that Mary wasn’t listening to him. Her gaze was on Michael now, who was still standing by the broom closet, egg dripping off him. His hands were clenched at his sides. His eyes were filled with uncertainty. He looked achingly vulnerable.
Mary walked up to him as if Nick and the others weren’t in the room, as if Michael were the only one there. She took his hands in hers, and then she smiled, and as she did her face shone with a radiance so soft and beautiful, it seemed as if morning sunlight had spilled into the room.
“Yes, Michael,” she said. “With all my heart, yes .”
A cheer went up. Nell joined in, looking as if she didn’t quite know why. Seamie raised his sword high. Alec and Ian grinned from ear-to-ear. And Nick sagged against the counter as a happy relief flooded through him.
“I wish we had champagne!” Fiona exclaimed, as she crawled out from under the table, bringing Nell with her.
“We do! I put a bottle of Bolly in Michael’s icebox weeks ago,” Nick said. “Meant to toast myself, but now we can toast Michael and Mary, and me!”
“But I’m hungry,” said Seamie.
“I’ve a ham in the oven. It’s big enough to feed us all,” Mary said. “I’ll just need to do some potatoes…maybe some quick biscuits and peas.”
“We shall do the potatoes,” Nick declared. “And the biscuits and the peas. It’s high time we all pitched in with the cooking. All of us except for Fee, that is. ”
Fiona made a face at him. “Aren’t you a funny boy,” she said, as everyone else laughed.
Michael picked up his sticky, crumb-covered daughter. Then he offered his arm to Mary and the three headed upstairs, followed by Seamie, Ian, and Alec.
Fiona stayed behind to clean up the broken eggs.
Nick helped by sweeping up the cake crumbs.
When they were finished, Fiona locked the shop door.
Nick waited for her, unable to resist a bit of triumphant crowing.
“We did it, old girl,” he said. “Our meddling saved the day. Mine was rather more effective than yours, you must admit. But you did make some important contributions.”
Fiona dropped the key into her purse, then turned to him, the evening light slanting in through the door across her face, and he saw not the joyous grin he was expecting, but a pensive wistfulness.
“Is it wrong to feel bad for Milton Duffery?” she asked him.
Nick loved her then, even more than he already did. It was just like her to feel sorry for the old windbag.
“I suppose not,” he allowed. “I suppose that even I feel a bit doleful on his behalf, but keep in mind that we saved the Duffery from making a mistake, too. Even a pudding should have someone who truly loves him. His perfect woman is out there somewhere. One day he’ll find her and they’ll live biliously ever after. ”
Fiona smiled. And then a single tear slipped down her cheek.
Nick took her hand in his. “What’s wrong, Fee? Why aren’t you happy? ”
“I am happy, Nick,” Fiona said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I’m happy for Michael and Mary, truly. I’m just a little sad, too. For Milton Duffery. And Molly. And Mary’s husband. And…” Her voice caught.
Nick knew that she was thinking of her family, too. And Joe. And his own lost Henri.
“I know, Fiona, I know,” he whispered, bending his head until it touched hers. “That’s the hard thing about love. It ends one day. And there’s nothing we can do about it. People leave us. Or are taken from us. But it doesn’t matter how love ends, does it? All that matters is that love begins.”