Georgia had planned to grab a short nap after the funeral, then help her son, Richie, hang Easter eggs on the lilac bush out front. But by the time she awoke, the sun was melting into a filmy butterscotch light, and a scattering of garishly colored eggs already weighed down the lilac’s bare branches. She’d have just enough time to eat and meet Frankel at the lab.
She found Richie downstairs, sprawled out on the living room couch, tossing a basketball in the air with a steady, rhythmic motion. He didn’t stop, even after his hazel eyes registered her presence.
“The eggs are hung,” he said flatly.
Seeing his profile—the smooth, creamy cheeks, the perfect bow of his lips—still brought to mind the chubby toddler who used to melt into her arms at the first crack of thunder, the bark of a dog, or the gaze of a stranger. Now, at nine, he seemed more concerned with the pedestrian aspects of their relationship—her physical, mute presence at “mom” functions, her willingness to be a chauffeur on demand.
“You did a great job, honey,” said Georgia. “Sorry I overslept.”
He propped himself up and gazed out the window. “Those eggs always look so dorky. I’m not hanging them next year.”
Georgia wasn’t sure if he wanted her to agree with him or protest his indifference. Only last year, he was kid enough to cry when he got the flu and had to miss the school’s egg hunt. It wasn’t that many years ago he had believed a six-foot rabbit actually hopped through his window. Georgia looked down, searching for something neutral to say, and noticed his feet, still clad in sneakers, perched on the armrests of the couch.
“Richie, this isn’t a locker room. Please take your shoes off the furniture.”
“Grandma doesn’t mind.”
“But I do.”
The boy rolled his eyes and made an elaborate show of shifting his feet to the floor. “You slept all afternoon, and you’re still cranky.”
“I was up all night. I slept for two hours. Two hours isn’t all afternoon.”
He propped the basketball on his finger and attempted to spin it. It wobbled around once before careening across the floor, barely missing the laminated-oak coffee table and a glass hutch full of her mother’s Hummel figures. Georgia grabbed the ball.
“Does this look like a gym?”
The kitchen door swung open.
“For heaven’s sake, Georgia. He’s just a boy.”
Georgia pursed her lips at the short, shapely woman with auburn hair, standing in the doorway, wiping a paring knife on a towel. The knife was part of a twenty-piece cutlery set her mother had won in a magazine sweepstakes last year. Margaret Skeehan was always winning things. Everything from the complete recordings of Engelbert Humperdinck to a vibrating back massager. Useless stuff, mostly. It was the winning her mother liked, that sense that fate was on your side for one shining moment.
“Ma, basketballs don’t belong in the living room. I don’t recall you letting me bring so much as a softball glove in here when I was a kid.”
“You would’ve broken something.”
“How would you know? You never let me do it.” Georgia flinched at how easily she and her mother fell into old patterns. Living in the house she’d grown up in created an uneasy alliance. Margaret Skeehan was a woman with fierce green eyes and the kind of Gaelic determination that shows its love through loyalty and stubborn faith more often than words or touch. Georgia had always been more drawn to her father’s warm, easygoing nature. He would’ve understood why, four months ago, she’d bought that fire-engine-red Harley-Davidson motorcycle with its raked front end and polished chrome handlebars. He would’ve understood that sometimes being a mom isn’t enough. Sometimes you just have to escape.
Richie sat up straight now and put the basketball between his legs. “Do you want me to play outside?” The question was addressed to Margaret. He didn’t even look at his mother.
“Would you, on the driveway? There’s a good boy,” she cooed. “Practice for that big game Thursday night.”
Richie gave his mother a dirty look, stuffed the basketball under his arm, and disappeared out the front door. Minutes later, Georgia heard the thump-thump on the blacktop. Might as well have been a hammer to her heart.
“He never listens anymore,” she said softly, watching him from the kitchen window.
“Do you listen to him?”
“Of course I do. He’s got a three-subject range: basketball, Pokémon, and the Mets.”
Margaret sighed. “If you really believe that, then you’re not listening. It’s just like shooting pool. It’s all in the approach.”
Margaret Skeehan was a champion pool player, a fact that seemed entirely at odds with her petite frame and reserved nature. Her father, Jack Reilly, had owned a pool hall when she was a kid, and she still competed occasionally in local tournaments. Georgia and Gallagher always got a kick out of watching some swaggering, tattooed hulk being roundly defeated by a five-foot-two-inch fifty-five-year-old grandmother.
“I’ve got enough problems figuring out how to talk to guys,” moaned Georgia. “Now I have to figure out how to talk to my son?”
Margaret took a cucumber out of the refrigerator and began to slice it. “Sometimes I think you’re too hard on Richie. Too hard on men in general. You don’t trust them.”
“I trust men—”
“And that’s why you show all your first dates your gun?”
Georgia shrugged. “Some men have trouble dating a woman who packs firepower. Might as well get it out on the table, so to speak.” Georgia took the cucumber from her mother. “Here, let me do that.”
Margaret gave her the knife and Georgia noticed, as always, how beautiful her mother’s hands were—manicured nails, soft skin smelling of Pond’s cold cream and Yardley’s lavender soap. Georgia’s nails were ragged and colorless, her skin a tapestry of scrapes and bruises.
“Georgia, it’s not about you anymore. It’s about Richie. He needs a father. It’s not like Rick’s ever…” Margaret let her voice trail off.
“Ever what? Coming back? You don’t think I know that? Ma, he walked away seven years ago. He’s married with another kid now.”
“But you don’t try very hard to find a replacement.”
“I don’t see Prince Charming knocking. If he did, it’d probably be to do his laundry.”
“See? there you go again.” Margaret cleared a stack of contest entry forms from the kitchen table. She was always entered in at least twenty. “Maybe you need to be Princess Charming first.”
“Okay,” said Georgia. “Let me practice.” She pitched her voice an octave higher: “‘Can I get you another six-pack for your fourth football game of the day, dear?’ Or maybe this: ‘Tell me more about your sixty-four-kilobyte Intel Pentium processor. It’s soooo fascinating.’ And let’s not forget the all-time winner: ‘What a thoughtful gift. I always wanted a muffler for my birthday. And a surprise, too, since my birthday was last month.’”
Margaret laughed and shook her head. “I wish you’d joke less and date more.”
“Hey, I do both. I date the jokes—it kills two birds with one stone.”
“Seriously, dear,” her mother insisted. “There are nice guys out there. Maybe if you did more traditional things, like coming with Jimmy and me to the memorial mass…”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “We’re not going to start that again, are we?”
“My goodness, Georgia, I don’t understand why, every year, you refuse to go. They’re honoring dead firefighters—men like your father.”
“I honor Dad in my own way. And I don’t need the Catholic Church, the Emerald Society, or the Ancient Order of Hibernians to do it.” The Emerald Society was the fire department’s Irish fraternity; the Ancient Order of Hibernians was a national Irish-heritage organization. The annual memorial mass was less about mourning and rememberance than about posturing and politics. “Every one of those groups is a bunch of self-important men. And besides, I’m not looking to meet a firefighter. I deal with enough of them already.” Georgia nodded to her mother’s stack of contest entry forms. “Hey, maybe you can win me somebody decent. No purchase required, void where prohibited and all that…”
“You forgot the most important condition: you must be present to win. With a man. With your son.”
Through the window, Georgia watched Richie shooting hoops. His sneaker laces were undone. She fought the urge to run out and tie them.
“If you’re referring to my not hanging the eggs, I already apologized. And not for nothing, Easter’s still almost two weeks away—”
“I’m talking about Thursday night,” Margaret interrupted.
“Richie’s basketball team’s season finale,” Georgia droned, as if by rote. “I haven’t forgotten. Eight-thirty P.M. Saint Aloysius Auditorium.”
“Good. Because if you don’t make that game, you’ll break your little boy’s heart.”