The Gift of a Charm Read online

  ‘What happened?’ She turned her attention back to Kate.

  ‘Tim called just a few minutes ago. He said he couldn’t make it, and had to stay home with his…’ She started to sob again.

  ‘Stay home with what – his dog?’ Holly ventured.

  Kate shook her head.

  ‘Mother?’

  She shook her head again and finally took a deep breath. ‘Wife!’ she exclaimed, before collapsing into tears again. ‘Why can’t I ever meet anyone?’

  Danny duly turned up the volume on his DS.

  ‘Danny, please – the headphones?’ Holly chided. ‘Maybe,’ she said gently to Kate, ‘it’s because you meet everyone, and that’s why you are not meeting the one.’

  Kate stopped crying and sat up to blow her nose. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. I mean, where did you pick up this one?’

  Kate giggled ashamedly. ‘The crosstown bus.’

  Holly nodded. ‘The crosstown bus. At least next time try and aim for a guy who’s hailing a cab?’

  Kate laughed this time and Holly felt relieved.

  ‘Look, why don’t you stay on here for a while and let’s order pizza or something.’

  As if on cue, Danny jumped out of his chair. ‘Pizza? Yes!’

  Holly smiled indulgently. Of course he could hear that through the headphones.

  Kate gave a weak smile. ‘Thanks, that sounds great. I’m sorry for dumping on you again.’ She sniffed. ‘I’m going to get cleaned up.’ She stood up and headed for the bathroom.

  Holly walked over to Danny and gave him a hug. ‘That was so nice of you to make Kate tea – someday you are going to make a girl very happy.’

  ‘Girls? Gross, Mom!’ Danny pulled away from her and flopped back on the chair.

  Holly gave him a look that told him she knew better, and went into the kitchen to search for the pizza menu. She rummaged through the drawers, pawing through used candles from Danny’s birthday and old wine corks. She couldn’t remember why she’d kept them. (Perhaps she’d liked the bottle?) She pulled one out and gave it a sniff. It smelled like nothing more than the inside of her kitchen drawer now. She sighed as she tossed it back in; maybe Danny might need it for a school project sometime. Then she stumbled across some bits of random bakery string, and one of Danny’s baby soothers. Her heart melted as she picked it up and she shook her head. Why she was keeping a ten-year-old soother was beyond her. But her father had been the very same way, sentimental to the last. Probably the Irish blood – or the upbringing, at least.

  It was her mother whose favourite motto was ‘When in doubt, throw it out.’

  Eileen and Seamus used to argue over the value of oddly shaped cardboard boxes that her father claimed were hard to find, the guitar with no strings, and a number of various mismatched blue willow plates that had belonged to his mother back in Dublin.

  ‘But where am I supposed to put all this stuff?’ her mother would demand.

  ‘In the attic,’ he would answer. ‘You never know, Holly might need them someday, right, Holly?’

  And as a girl Holly would nod, excited at the prospect of setting up her own house with a random set of blue willow from Ireland, not understanding that as she became older, she wouldn’t want them, would never learn guitar and she would have her own taste and her own money to spend, not to mention her own plates to buy and break.

  A couple of years after her father’s death, Eileen had phoned one day out of the blue. She was going through the stuff in the attic, and was there anything that Holly wanted her to keep? Twenty years old and living away in her college dorm at the time, Holly had thoughtlessly replied that no, there was nothing.

  Now she leaned against the counter, the search for the pizza menu suddenly forgotten. Right then there was nothing more she wanted than that odd set of stupid blue willow plates.

  Why hadn’t she asked her mother to keep them? Or, more to the point, why hadn’t she taken them? Was that why she was keeping all this random stuff in the drawers? Was she afraid to forget?

  Danny had turned ten a couple of weeks ago and Holly remembered the look on his face when he tore into the gift she got him, a Nintendo DS system. The apartment was too small for a Wii, and their TV was tiny. And getting him a Wii system would have been like asking the downstairs neighbours to complain even more about the noise. It was difficult enough as it was, trying to keep the energy level of a ten-year-old at bay in a one-bedroom apartment with wooden floors.

  Danny’s father, Nick, couldn’t even show up for his birthday, so Holly had to keep the ten-shaped candles, and the string from the bakery cake box, and a little piece of shiny star wrapping paper, otherwise who would remind her?

  ‘Mom, did you find the menu?’ Danny called out from the living room.

  Shaking her head, she dug back into the drawers. There, folded under a bunch of Danny’s homemade cards to her, was the pizza menu. ‘Yup, got it!’

  She ordered a pizza and the three of them sat in the tiny kitchen nook when it arrived. As they ate and chatted about the day, Holly wondered if it would always be like this, such a small circle of friends but no real family for Danny. The thought saddened her a little.

  After Kate left, Holly and Danny did their usual evening ritual of reading next to each other in the living room on Holly’s bed. He was curled up next to her, with a Harry Potter book, while she was trying to concentrate on a Margaret Atwood novel that Carole said she ‘just had to read’, but instead she was absently scanning the pages.

  ‘Mom?’ Danny shifted next to her, looking up from his own book.

  ‘Hmm?’ She ruffled his hair.

  ‘I want to change my name.’

  ‘What?’ Holly put the book down and held her breath. She had not been expecting this.

  ‘Yeah, I want to change my last name from Mestas to O’Neill.’

  Holly felt her heart freeze and a rush of dread flooded through her. This is exactly what she was always worried about. With her dad gone and his own father usually missing in action, Danny had never had any consistent male role model and it was beginning to show. While Nick had always supported them well financially, his parenting skills were decidedly more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’. That was, whenever he actually remembered that he was a parent.

  ‘Mom?’ He looked at her anxiously.

  ‘Hey, go make me a cup of tea since I know you can do that now, and we’ll talk about it.’ She pushed him playfully off the bed and he hurried to the kitchen, perhaps pleased to be treated as an adult, to be in charge of his own fate or, indeed, name.

  Holly clasped her hands together and thought about what to say. Way back when Danny was born, Nick had sworn he would be involved, that he would care for them and be ‘the best dad ever’. Of course, this was short-lived enthusiasm once the tough reality of caring for a child became apparent, and instead, Holly had wound up trying to be both a mother and a father.

  Danny returned with two mugs of tea and handed one to her.

  She took a sip, taking her time. ‘Mmm, good!’ and he beamed. ‘Come here, sit by me.’ She patted the space next to her and he climbed up, careful not to spill his own mug.

  ‘So…’ Holly held her mug between her hands, taking care not to cuddle him – she wanted this to be an adult conversation. ‘I appreciate that you want to change your name to mine, but I need to ask why?’

  ‘Because Dad is never here,’ Danny said angrily. ‘How is it fair that he gets to have me walking around with his name when he’s done nothing to deserve it?’ He started to get flushed and stopped abruptly.

  Holly nodded. ‘That’s a good point.’ He was obviously still sore that his dad hadn’t shown up at his birthday. Double digits were important in the grammar-school set. ‘But he is your father, and nothing you can do will change that. You can try changing your name, your looks –’ Danny looked just like his dad – ‘whatever you like, but he is your father. He may not have given you much—’

  Her son rolled his
eyes. ‘You think?’

  Holly smiled. ‘He may not have given you much besides his name or that iPod last Christmas,’ she added jokingly, ‘but it is something. It’s a part of who you are, and you can’t dismiss it. And your dad is part of you, whether he is around all the time or not.’

  Danny was looking sourly into his mug.

  Holly touched his arm. ‘Look, I know he’s not the best dad in the world, but it’s up to you to take what he gives you and make it into something better. If you feel all he has given you is his name, then embrace it. Take the name and make it the best name in the world.’

  He looked up at her, his eyes full of thought.

  ‘You and I, we have something special – we are together all the time; we know what it’s like to be a family, yes?’

  He nodded appreciatively.

  ‘So take the name and spin it into gold, OK?’ She hugged him. ‘You think I need you to have the same last name as me? You are too silly … What next, matching outfits?’

  Danny shoved her away playfully. ‘Oh, Mom!’

  She laughed and pulled him tighter. ‘You were born Daniel Joseph Mestas, my son. So don’t ever change it.’

  He hugged her back. ‘OK.’

  ‘Now go to bed!’

  He groaned and shuffled off to his room, but seemed happier.

  Holly listened as he creaked into bed and shut off his light. That was certainly a conversation she didn’t want to have again anytime soon. Putting her head on the pillow, she lay there for a long time, wondering where she went wrong and where she went right.

  The discussion had thrown her for a loop. She knew it would only be a matter of time before Danny started to feel bitter towards Nick – as it was, she’d needed ten years to calm down herself. She looked at the picture on her bedside table, of Danny the night he was born.

  She blinked back tears. She had vowed not to obsess about Nick and had told herself that the father and son relationship was their relationship, autonomous from hers.

  But it was hard; hard when Danny was hurting because of Nick, because it brought back memories of when she was hurting because of him too. She ached for Danny; she wanted him to be happy and well adjusted, but who was she kidding? She was a single mom and Nick, for the most part, an absentee dad.

  She toyed with her charm bracelet. ‘Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,’ Seamus always used to say, and her father was right.

  Holly switched out the light and prayed for sleep, which did not come easily. She tucked her arm under her head and gazed out through the window across from her bed.

  Her flimsy curtains only barely concealed the goings-on in the rest of the building. She could glimpse people’s shadows as they turned lights off and on; she knew who watched too much TV and who was single. Much as they probably knew about her, she thought.

  Holly watched through the curtains as a blurry couple across the way entered their apartment. She watched them turning on the lights, settling in, tossing coats and looking in the fridge, then shutting lights out on their way to the bedroom, where, Holly imagined, wonderful unseen things would probably take place. She sighed and turned to the wall instead. She wished she could shut her brain off and go to sleep, instead of finding new things to worry about. Finally she watched the shadows on the wall and ceiling as all the lights in the courtyard started to expire, and once the building and her apartment were completely dark, she managed to drift off.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, she felt nervous and jumpy. She walked Danny to school, trying not to let him see how last night’s conversation had caused her so much worry. But he seemed OK. She stood for a while across the street from the school building, watching him and the rest of the kids make their way in. The sky was grey and heavy with snow today; it felt as if it was five o’clock, the way the clouds blocked out the sun. The children were made to line up in an orderly fashion before being let inside. A teacher blew a whistle and they all started marching in, quietly. Holly watched her child shuffle in with the rest, his back stooped a little with the load of books that seemed too much for a fourth grader. She wanted to run across the street and pull him out of the line, take the day off and go to the zoo and watch the penguins, and eat hot dogs off a cart, which she never allowed him to do.

  She clenched her fists in her black wool pea coat – at least she had had the sense to dress warmly today. She snuggled her chin firmly into her scarf and started walking back up Sixth Avenue. Hot dogs, she thought. I’ll stop at the grocery store and pick up some hot dogs later. That would cheer them both up. Summer food on a cloudy day. Maybe next summer she could take him camping. She shuddered a bit at the thought – no, maybe three days at the beach was enough.

  Having been born and raised in the city, Holly felt a little short on some of the experiences that other people had had. She hadn’t even learned to drive: it was embarrassing actually. But she had never been able to afford a car, and her mother didn’t drive, so Holly hadn’t bothered to take a course or test. When she took Danny to the shore, there was always a train out of Penn Station, and New York City was loaded with public transportation and cabs. And of course there was no parking, or at least that’s what it looked like to her. Every street in Manhattan seemed to be crammed with cars parked so tight she wouldn’t even know how to manoeuvre one out of the space. And wasn’t that the excuse for almost every New Yorker running late? ‘Sorry, couldn’t find parking,’ or, ‘Sorry, I hit traffic’?

  Having to get up early to move a car that she might only use on weekends seemed ridiculous.

  Anyway, Kate drove, so on those rare occasions that Holly had needed a car, she simply called on her friend. Like when she found, on the street, the amazing big armchair that now sat in her living room. It had been too large to carry home. Danny had been eight at the time and appalled when his mother had come to a screeching halt on Tenth Street to inspect the chair. She had then eagerly pulled out her cell phone to call Kate and have her meet them.

  ‘We’re picking up someone else’s garbage?’ he had asked, mystified.

  Holly laughed. ‘Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’

  ‘But it’s in the street – who knows who owned it?’ he had said, eyes wide.

  ‘Exactly!’ Holly had said, pinching his cheek. ‘Who knows? Maybe it belonged to that guy who played Wolverine.’

  ‘Really?’ Danny asked, looking around. ‘He lives here?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Holly told him. ‘All those celebrities get apartments downtown after they make it big. They think no one cares down here, that we won’t notice them.’ She had leaned in close to Danny and pointed to a tall passer-by with a black baseball cap pulled tightly down over his eyes. ‘So keep your eyes peeled.’

  Kate had appeared in less than five minutes, and the two women hauled the chair into the trunk of her Volkswagen, tying it down with twine. Kate never complained. She was always there for her. Thinking about it, Kate had been raised in Minnesota, so she probably knew about things like camping – Holly would ask her about it later.

  She had been so deep in thought while walking that before she knew it she was standing inside the Secret Closet.

  ‘Thank God you’re here,’ Carole exclaimed when Holly went out back to her boss. ‘We are swamped – look how many boxes there are to go through. This is insane.’

  Holly looked around; the three boxes she had left unpacked yesterday had now turned into twelve, as if cloned overnight.

  ‘Oh my,’ she murmured. It wasn’t that they couldn’t go through them easily enough; it was that Carole was due to go out to Long Island that week to visit her daughter for Hanukkah, which was early this year. And Carole hated leaving unfinished business behind, and Carole hated not going through the boxes, or at least seeing every piece that came out, and deciding whether she was going to sell it or not.

  She was always afraid that even her trusted Holly would let a vintage piece slip by. Usually when they went through boxes
, what wasn’t kept went to the shelter at Sacred Heart a few blocks away. The last thing Carole wanted to see, she always said, ‘was a homeless person in a Dolce and Gabbana overcoat’. As a percentage of all the store’s profits went to charity, it wasn’t that Carole wasn’t charitable; she was just obsessive.

  Holly put her hand on her boss’s shoulder. ‘Oh, you are such a control freak. I can handle it. I’ll go through one box at a time at the desk, OK?’

  Carole stood with her lips pursed.

  ‘And if I’m not sure about a piece, I’ll call you, but I am usually pretty good at spotting the tags from Walmart.’ Holly grinned and gave her shoulder a little shake. ‘It’ll be fine, I promise.’

  Carole laughed nervously. ‘I know, you’ll be fine and that’s great, you can call me. I’m sorry, sweetie, I just get wound up at the holidays.’

  Holly smiled. ‘We all do – that’s why there’s eggnog. I’ll take a box out with me now, all right? You go do what you have to do.’

  She loved having Carole as a boss, but she also loved having the shop to herself now and then.

  ‘You’re right, I will.’ Carole pecked Holly on the cheek. ‘Oh, did you call UPS about the bracelet?’

  ‘Not yet, but it’s on my list.’

  ‘Great. I want to make a decision on whether or not we can sell that jacket. If it happened to get there by mistake…’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You and I both know there’ll be hell to pay.’

  But as it turned out the UPS service lines were jammed all morning, and try as she might, Holly couldn’t get anyone to answer her call.

  So, during lunch, she decided to take a walk over to the nearest UPS store and see if she could get her query dealt with in person.

  As she walked, a blast of icy wind hit her in the face. The weather had certainly turned colder today.

  Reaching the address, Holly pulled open the door to the brightly lit store and was immediately comforted by the rush of warm air. Somewhat less comforting was the long line of customers who were waiting, albeit begrudgingly, for their turn with the sole – and seemingly harried – store clerk.