Her laughing remark had made Ben consider his own fitness—or lack thereof. He’d grown up skiing, playing basketball and hiking, and while there were plenty of places in Massachusetts he could do all that, he didn’t really want to anymore. So he did cardio a couple of times a week in the rehab unit at the hospital, working up a sweat and wondering why he wasn’t happy. Sometimes, after a couple of beers on the golf course with old friends, he came close, but that only worked on the links-style course in the shadow of Wish Mountain just outside Fionnegan.
But most of what he didn’t like was centered on a single epiphanous life event, the one that had brought him back to Fionnegan.
His father’s diagnosis.
Tim McGuffey had come to America from Ireland at the age of seventeen. He’d worked as a waiter for five years until the County Mayo girl he loved could join him, then stepped behind the bar and never stepped out again. He and Maeve had bought the pub at the bottom of Wish Mountain when Morgan was little more than a baby. They worked sixteen-hour days and taught their children to dance, how to pour the best pints in the Northeast Kingdom and that Sunday mornings were for church, not sleeping late.
They emphasized to their brood of little McGuffeys that the good life was to be gained by hard work, education and the love of an equal partner. Although everyone paid their parents back the money spent on their educations, Ben never forgot that Tim wore the same suit to Morgan’s commencement from grad school that he’d worn when Patrick graduated from eighth grade. “It’s my graduation, wedding and funeral suit,” he’d said when Ben protested. He’d brushed the too-wide lapels, his eyes twinkling the way they always did. “Any day now, it’s going to be back in style. And aren’t you the lucky boy whose father never gains an ounce? Comes from clean living and good liquor.”
Ben had laughed, as Tim intended, but he still hadn’t liked it.
But most of what he didn’t like this summer of his return to Fionnegan, whether it was temporary or permanent, was that his father was dying and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. All the years of schooling, study and practice couldn’t stop the rapid downward spiral of Tim’s heart disease.
“Go home,” said his ex-wife gently ten days ago, still in the hospital from when she’d delivered her third child with the neurologist she’d married after Ben. He’d gone to see her, carrying the gift the office receptionist had picked up for him. “Go home. Spend more time with your folks—you never know how long you’ll have them. Find what you’re looking for while you’re there. You’re my favorite ex-husband and you’ve got all kinds of shadows in your eyes.” Nerissa had smiled at him, that sweet smile that had captivated him all those years ago. “Find Kate.”
Now he’d done that, all of it. And after all these years, he still wanted Kate Rafael every time he looked at her. If he was being honest with himself, he wanted her when he wasn’t looking at her, too. He liked the extra pounds she carried on her hips, the way her face had slimmed into a defined heart shape as she’d grown older. Although he couldn’t talk himself into being sorry she was single, he did regret that she didn’t have any children. She’d always wanted four. So had he, but never as much as she had.
Now here they were in their late thirties; many of their friends’ children were in high school. Dan and Penny’s eldest, Samantha, was in college already, her pretty brown eyes set on being a veterinarian. Ben didn’t know about Kate, but he’d pretty much lost the urge to procreate. He’d been amazed and somewhat horrified when Nerissa got pregnant for the third time at thirty-six, but she’d been ecstatic and so had her forty-year-old husband, so what did her childless ex know?
Ben had grown not only unsure of his goals, but selfish as well, and he didn’t want to turn his life over to someone who would always have to come first.
But now, as he and Kate finished their coffee, Ben didn’t mention the fire she’d asked about, the internal one. Tim’s story wasn’t his to tell. Not yet. Ben’s parents had insisted no one outside the family know the extent of Tim’s illness, and the McGuffeys had all agreed to keep the secret. With different degrees of sulkiness, but agreed nonetheless.
He’d sat at a table in a Boston bar with his partners and his pediatrician brother Patrick and talked about it until he was no longer sure of what he was saying. He and his priest brother Dylan had ridden bicycle trails and talked some more. Prayed. And prayed some more. Just the night before, all his siblings had waxed the hardwood floor in McGuffey’s after closing and discussed what to do. What to say. They’d laughed a lot and cried some and hugged each other hard when they said goodnight. That wasn’t something they did—except for their little sister Morgan, who hugged everybody all the time. She cried pretty easily, too, but she didn’t take it well when they brought it up.
“I’ll stay here,” Ben had said as they stood together at the back door of the bar, “as long as there’s reason for me to stay.”
And that’s what he would do. It didn’t matter whether he remained a doctor or gave ski lessons on Wish Mountain, he was there for the duration. But he couldn’t say that to Kate. Not yet.
She slid out of the booth and reached for his hand. “I need to get some sleep, Dr. McGuffey, and so do you.”
Outside, in the chilly, damp air that was springtime in Vermont, they walked toward the bed-and-breakfast. Habit meant Ben always had his cell phone, even though the signal in Fionnegan was iffy at the best of times and nonexistent at the worst. He called the emergency room to check on the condition of the student.
“He’s fine,” he told her when he’d hung up. “Maybe now his folks will listen. The nurse said they were flying in.”
“Your folks would listen, too, you know, if you think you’ve made the wrong choices somewhere along the line,” Kate suggested. “They always have.” She laughed, her eyes twinkling. “Your dad even listens with a brogue.”
“He does, doesn’t he? And I know they’d listen.” Maeve and Tim had taught their children everything they knew, and they’d listened the whole time they were teaching. Time hadn’t changed that any more than it had changed the Irish lilt of his father’s voice.
Dylan had hated the very idea of tending bar, so Maeve had taken him into the kitchen. He’d learned to cook, as Tim said, “with a bit of the same magic as his mother.” He’d worked his way through college as a chef in the same Irish restaurant in Burlington where Ben and Patrick, the oldest of the McGuffey boys, had stood behind the bar. They’d had, as Ben remembered it, a little cult following among the crowd. The restaurant owner hadn’t been happy to see them go, although he’d been pleased when their little sister, Morgan, came along while Dylan was still an undergrad. Morgan was a good bartender and her looks were a definite asset besides.
“What about you?” Ben said, embarrassed by how much of their time together had been spent talking about him. “You’ve had a few days to think about it. How’s the future looking to you?”
“Terrifying.”
He steered her around a half barrel that would be full of petunias when the danger of frost passed, or at least became less of a threat. Maybe July.
“You know what it is?” she said suddenly, looking up at him.
“No. What is it?”
“I’m one of those people that life has just happened to. I’ve never wanted anything badly enough to fight for it. I’ve waited till something came along and then I’d say, okay, I can do that. That hasn’t been bad, but it’s not enough anymore. I want to want something.”
That was, Ben realized, the same thing he wanted. No matter how much he liked medicine, no matter how good he was at it—a mentor in his residency days had once said he was gifted—he’d never loved