Surfside Sisters(94)

Keely looked down. Mr. Maxwell had taken Keely’s hand in his.

“Look,” Keely told Sebastian, tears falling from her eyes. “Your father…”

“Did he move?” Mrs. Maxwell asked.

“Daddy?” Isabelle squeezed next to Keely and Sebastian.

Everyone gathered close to the bed, staring at Mr. Maxwell’s hand enclosing Keely’s.

Sebastian’s voice was hoarse when he spoke. “I think Dad approves.”





Even though they weren’t married, Keely spent that night in the Maxwell house.

In Sebastian’s room. Donna had asked them to stay. She wanted lots of people in the house during the night in case her husband had a problem.

Donna slept in her husband’s room—the dining room—on a futon carried in from the family room. So she was downstairs and on the other side of the house from Sebastian’s room.

Even though Keely knew her presence was expected and approved, she had to stuff a pillow in her mouth to stifle her giggles. “I can’t believe I’m here! In the inner sanctum! Look at all your trophies. And posters of JLo!”

Sebastian pulled her close to him. “In a show of respect, I took down my poster of Gisele Bündchen in her Victoria’s Secret Fantasy Bra.”

“If I’d only known I’d be in this narrow little twin bed with you someday, I would have been much happier as a kid!”

“Be happy now,” Sebastian said, and kissed her mouth.

How she loved being in that house at night. Memories like moths fluttered through her senses as she recalled all the nights she and Isabelle had whispered secrets to each other, or lay side by side reading the same book for school and sharing their thoughts, or fell into helpless fits of giggling over something as normal as the school principal’s name, Mr. Cross.

    Yet it wasn’t only because of the people who lived in the house. Keely loved the house itself, for its expansive graciousness, its combination of authentic and historic wide board floors and its old, almost threadbare, carpets. For its high ceilings and two staircases, one broad and elegant with art hanging from the wall, and the other narrow and uncarpeted, the one the housemaids used back in the 1800s when the house was built. For its modest but sparkling chandeliers in the front hall and the upstairs hall and the master bedroom. For its many cupboards and crannies, its floors that sometimes bulged or slanted like the floors of a whaling ship, its six over six paned windows, so much more interesting, Keely thought, than the large windows of her parents’ ranch house.

She adored being in the kitchen. During her life, she’d spent hundreds of hours sitting at the oval walnut table. Now in the mornings, when she made breakfast for herself, Sebastian, Donna, and Al, she fantasized that this was her house, and she was making breakfast for herself and her family. She imagined children racing into the room, yelling for food, kicking each other under the table, while she reminded them to use their napkins instead of wiping their fingers on their pajamas.

One morning, as Keely was cutting up fruit for breakfast, a tap came on the sliding screen door. She reached into the refrigerator for eggs and when she shut the door, Tommy was coming up the back steps of the wide porch with Brittany in his arms.

Tommy had put on weight—beer weight, it looked like. He had quite a beer belly and his face had gotten round. His beautiful black hair was cut short, almost military style; Keely would bet that his father made that a stipulation of being employed at the accounting agency. He wore suit pants and a button-down shirt and wing-tipped shoes. You, my old friend, have been tamed, Keely thought, and the thought made a sorrow sweep through her, a sense of something ineffable lost, as if a wild bird had been caged.

    Yet he looked happy. And he had Brittany and Isabelle. She was glad for him, and glad for herself, that she felt only an enormous fondness for this man.

“Tommy.” She pulled him and his daughter to her in a warm hug, then held them away from her so she could scan him up and down. “Look at you, all grown up.”

“You look grown up yourself,” Tommy said.

“Sit down. I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute.”

“How’s Al?” Tommy asked, as he fastened Brittany into her high chair.

“Still sleeping. Joe Garcia, the LPN and a big strong man, comes over every morning to help Al get washed up and dressed. He’ll be here at eight. And my mother arrives at nine.”

“Isabelle said that Eloise is making a big difference.”

“Maybe only a small difference,” Keely said, “but it all adds up.”

She set a plate before Tommy and put Cheerios on the high chair tray. Sebastian entered the room then, and Keely, delighted with life, gave him a big smooch on the lips.

“What was that for?” Sebastian asked.

“Think about it,” Keely replied flirtatiously, because he’d wakened her this morning by gathering her in his arms and making love to her. “Sit down. I’ve got bacon and eggs ready for you.”

It was a pleasure to have so many people in the room, talking and laughing. Or maybe it was simply that she was over-caffeinated by her fourth cup of coffee, but this sunny morning seemed especially fine. When they all went off to work, Keely sang as she did the dishes.

Joe Garcia came and left. Her mother arrived, kissed Keely’s cheek, and went in to see Al.