Now You See Her Page 0,65
go so easily.
“Or something,” Marcy whispered.
“Audrey”—Claire chastised her—“it’s really none of our business.”
“Sorry. It’s just that it’s a bit like what happened with my mum and me, isn’t it?”
“You didn’t just wander off,” Claire said.
“No, but I haven’t spoken to her in six months.”
“Audrey’s parents weren’t my biggest fans,” Claire explained.
“It wasn’t you. It would have been anyone.”
“They couldn’t accept the fact that their daughter …”
“I come from a very traditional Catholic family,” Audrey clarified. “I have four brothers, all big, strapping men.…” She giggled. “They’d keep trying to fix me up with their friends, but I just wasn’t interested. Naturally I assumed something must be wrong with me.”
“Then she met me,” Claire said proudly.
“Well, no. First I met Janice.”
Claire made a face. “Oh, yes, Janice. But that wasn’t serious.”
“No, but it was an eye-opener. I tried to tell my parents, but they weren’t having any of it. They said it was a phase, that it would pass, that I had to go to church and beg God for forgiveness, ask Him for guidance.”
“And He guided her straight to me,” Claire said with a laugh.
“Yes.” Audrey’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “My mum had asked me to pick up some pastries on my way home from work. Someone at the bank recommended this great little bakery that had just opened up around the corner.…”
Her face was wider than Devon’s, her jaw more pronounced, Marcy was thinking as Audrey spoke. She’d known the second she saw her that Audrey wasn’t her child.
“Her parents were furious,” Claire said.
“They refused to even meet Claire.”
“They’d hang up on me when I called.”
“They told me I was going straight to hell.”
“Instead we came to Youghal,” Claire said happily.
“Does your mother know where you are?” Marcy asked.
Audrey’s face immediately clouded over. “I told her we were leaving town, that I’d call her when we settled in.”
“And have you?”
Audrey shook her head, her brown hair coming loose from her ear to obscure the entire lower half of her face. “Don’t really see much point in it,” she mumbled. “They’re never going to change.”
“When you said you were Audrey’s mum, I almost wet my pants,” Claire said.
“They’ve never actually met,” Audrey explained.
“It’s so weird, the way things work out, isn’t it?” Claire commented.
“That it is,” Liam said, rising to his feet. “And now I think we should probably go, let these two charming women get on with things.…”
“I think you should call her,” Marcy said, remaining seated. “Tell her where you are. At least let her know you’re safe.”
“She doesn’t care.”
“She’s your mother,” Marcy said forcefully. “She cares.”
There was silence.
“We really should go,” Liam said.
Marcy pushed herself to her feet. “Thank you for all your kindness.”
“Not to mention the fabulous muffins.”
“Wait. Let me give you some to take home.” Claire ran toward the kitchen at the back of the house.
“No, really, that’s not necessary. You’ve done more than enough.”
“Sorry it didn’t work out the way you hoped,” Audrey said as Claire returned with a bag of muffins and handed it to Liam.
“Call your mother,” Marcy said before following Liam out the door.
“WHEN DEVON WAS little, about two, maybe three,” Marcy was telling Liam as they neared the outskirts of Cork, “she took her Magic Markers and drew all over the living room walls. I’d just had them painted. I mean, the workers had literally just finished up the day before. And I was on the phone with Judith. I think she was between husbands at the time. At any rate, there was some sort of major trauma going on in her life, and I was trying to calm her down, get her to see it wasn’t the end of the world. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I was on the phone and not paying enough attention to Devon, who’d been quietly drawing at the kitchen table with her Magic Markers, and at some point she got up and went into the living room without my noticing. And then suddenly she was back, grinning from ear to ear. And she said, ‘Mommy, come see what I did.’ She always called me ‘Mommy.’ Even when she was all grown-up. I always loved that.” Tears filled her eyes. “Anyway, she grabbed my hand and led me into my freshly painted living room and showed me, very proudly—oh, she was so proud—what she’d done.” Marcy took a deep breath, not sure whether or not she could continue. She’d never told this story to anyone. She’d been too ashamed.