Real Men Don't Quit(11)

“Oh, I love the airiness in this house,” Rosie said.

Mags nodded. “Very Zen, Luke. Do you meditate in your rock garden every morning?”

“It’s like a museum in here.” Helen wrinkled her nose. “So empty and quiet.” She aimed an accusing look at Luke. “I still don’t see what this place has over Mum’s. It was quiet there. You weren’t being disturbed.”

Helen was wrong. If any place was like a museum, that would be Mum’s. How could he write when he was surrounded by exhibits trumpeting the success of a book he’d written for all the wrong reasons? He was a fraud, and the worst thing was only he seemed to know that, while everyone else insisted on the opposite. It was like living in Bizarro World.

But he couldn’t explain himself to his sisters, least of all Helen. She knew more than most the sacrifices their mother had made for him. How could he turn around now and say it was all for nothing?

“I needed a change of scenery,” he said. “You know I can’t stay too long in one place.”

Helen pursed her lips. Karly folded her arms. The twins cocked their heads. When his sisters were all lined up like they were now, the similarities in their looks were striking. All four women had inherited their mother’s petite build, freckled skin, and wispy, light brown hair. In contrast, he was tall and broad-shouldered, olive-skinned, hair and eyes practically black. From the family photo albums he knew he took after his father, who had deserted them when Luke was eight. Patrick Maguire was another man who couldn’t stay too long in one place. Luke hated to think what else he’d inherited from the man.

“You’ve been wandering around like a gypsy for years now,” Helen began, looking like she was settling in for a long argument. “It’s not good for you. You should quit your roaming and put down some roots.”

“Yeah, time you got married and popped out a few kids like the rest of us.” Mags winked at him. Great, another allusion to Jennifer. Luke pointedly ignored her.

“Mum wanted you to come home,” Helen said.

Irritation spurted in him at Helen’s officious tone. “You know that for a fact, do you?”

“She never said in so many words, but I could tell. I know she missed you, worried about you. She kept that old bedroom of yours spotless. Why can’t you finish your book at home?”

Luke felt his gut tightening. Damn. As if he didn’t feel guilty enough as it was, now he had his sister laying it on with a trowel. But he couldn’t go back to Goulburn. Here, he was away from the memories, the pressure. Here, he was a temporary visitor, the way he preferred it. And here, he was also next door to Tyler

“I wasn’t getting any writing done at Mum’s house,” he said, keeping his voice even. “You know I have a tight deadline.”

“So you’re getting a lot of writing done here?” Helen looked skeptical.

“A fair amount,” he lied. In the past few days, he’d written five thousand words, and yesterday he’d deleted all but a thousand of them. A yell sounded from outside. “Shouldn’t someone be watching the kids in the pool?” he asked, keen to drop the subject.

Karly and the twins headed outside, but Helen remained. “About Mum’s house”

Oh jeez, not again. He opened his mouth to head her off, but Helen preempted him.

“I know I’m being a pain nagging you to come back, but”—she bit her lip—“the truth is, I’m dreading when you really do move out because—because you’ll want to sell the house we all grew up in, and we’ll have to clear out Mum’s things.”

He stared at her. “I’m not planning to sell Mum’s house.”

“You’re not?” She gazed back at him, still troubled. “But letting it stand empty doesn’t make sense, and it’s too small for us when the girls are with me, so surely you’ll have to sell?”

“Not if it upsets you that much.”

“You’ll have to do something with it eventually.” Helen prodded at a bowl of potato salad, her frown lingering. “And I’d still like to see you back home. You belong there, and I like having my kid brother nearby.”

He merely rolled his eyes in reply.

She nudged one of the food containers on the counter toward Luke. “Here, I brought you some soda bread, just like Mum used to make.”

Luke blinked and squeezed her shoulder, his irritation leaching away. “Thanks, sis. Haven’t had that in a while.”

“Remember how Mum would serve soda bread with sausages and onion gravy? It was such a treat for us.” Her eyes moistened. “She had it hard. It wasn’t easy raising five children on her own.”

He wasn’t used to the sight of his stoic big sister tearing up. Reaching out, he put his arms around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and sniffled a bit.

“She worked herself to the bone for us,” Helen continued. “I wanted to leave school and get a job to help out, but she wouldn’t let me. She made Karly and me finish high school.” Helen and Karly had both trained as nurses. Helen, now a widow, had two daughters studying at university, while Karly and her husband had two teenagers.

“Mum was very proud of you and Karly and the twins.”

“Yeah, but we all know you were the apple of her eye,” Helen said without a trace of rancor. “She used to tell me all the time what a genius you were. You were good at everything. You could have been anything—a doctor, lawyer, engineer.”

Yet he’d chosen to become a writer. If he’d studied medicine or law or just about anything else he would have been able to support his mother financially a lot sooner. With the success of his Kingsley Jeffers book, he’d planned to buy her a spacious new house, but the only property she wanted to own was the one she’d rented all those years, the humble home in which she’d raised her children. He’d bought her the house, but Fate, as if to mock his efforts, had snuffed out her life sooner after.

“She was in awe of your talent.” Helen squeezed his arm softly. “I’ll tell you something—she confessed to me that often she didn’t understand your writing. She could read the words, but she couldn’t make any sense of their meaning.”

Luke swallowed. He’d long suspected his mother’s bafflement at his writing, but to have Helen confirm it

Helen continued, “I think she felt a bit, you know, intimidated.”

“But they’re just words. Why would she be intimidated by mere words?”

His sister shrugged and moved over to the sink to fill a glass with water. “Can’t you guess? It’s because Dad always made her feel inferior.”

He frowned. “I don’t recall anything like that.”

Helen drank her water slowly. “You were so young when he left. Of course you don’t remember much.”

“Some things I’ve never forgotten.” Like his father’s voice, mellifluous and lilting, as he read to Luke. The poems had made little sense to him, but in the cadence of his father’s voice he’d heard beauty and dreams and longing. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree “He used to read poetry to me.”

“Typical.” Rolling her eyes, Helen set her glass down. “He was a fine one for reading books and drinking whiskey. Not so fine providing for his family or staying faithful to his wife.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. He had numerous affairs while he was with Mum. Several times he went off with his floozies, only to come back when he’d tired of them, or more likely when they’d tired of him. And Mum—heaven knows why—always took him back.”

He shouldn’t have been so flabbergasted by Helen’s revelations, but he was. He felt as though a sledgehammer had punched into his stomach. “I never heard Mum say a single bad word against him.”

“Me neither.” The corners of Helen’s mouth pulled down. “He was a lazy, unfaithful liar, but he was also charming and handsome, and she found him irresistible. When I tried to rant against him, she would always stop me. ‘It’s just how he is,’ she’d say, as if that excused everything.”

Luke shook his head at his mother’s folly. She’d been in love with Patrick Maguire, and love made you do strange things, made you sacrifice your future, your dignity, even your children’s respect. And all for a man who wasn’t worth it. The older Luke got, the more he realized a fundamental truth—love was a crapshoot best avoided.



Tyler waved good-bye to Ally and left Java & Joolz with Chloe in tow. Saturday mornings at the store were always busy, and Chloe had made things difficult, but Tyler had kept her patience. She’d investigated a few child-minding possibilities but none had satisfied her, so for the time being she had to take Chloe to work with her.

As she crossed the street toward the bus stop, Chloe piped up, “Mumma, look, it’s Mr. Luke.”

Instantly her heart leaped as she glanced around. “Where?”

“There.”

“Oh.” She realized Chloe was pointing at Fiona’s bookstore, where a large poster in the window advertised the upcoming reading and book signing by “internationally renowned Australian author Luke Maguire.” The professional photograph of Luke was impressive, but not representative of the man she knew, Tyler decided. In the picture, he was groomed and manscaped, his hair artfully messed, his stubble carefully trimmed. He looked totally foreign, especially in the black polo-neck sweater he wore.