Free Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain Page B

to have a party here. I hate to wreck the place.”
    Lacey walked into the kitchen from the laundry room, a basket of clean clothes in her arms.
    “The house looks fantastic, Lace,” Alec said.
    She set the laundry basket down and wrinkled her freckled, sunburned nose at her father. “It was getting to me,” she said.
    Alec smiled. “Yeah, it was getting to me, too. I just didn’t have the energy to do anything about it.”
    “Thanks, O’Neill,” Clay said. “You can always get a job as a maid if you flunk out of high school.”
    Alec was staring at the laundry basket. There on top, neatly folded, was Annie’s old green sweatshirt. He picked it up, the folds coming undone, the worn fabric falling over his arm.
    “You washed this?” He asked the obvious.
    Lacey nodded. “It was on your bed.”
    Alec lifted the sweatshirt to his nose and breathed in the scent of detergent. Lacey and Clay looked at one another, and he lowered the shirt to his side.
    “Your mother wore this a lot, you know?” he explained. “So when I threw her things out, I kept it as a remembrance. It still smelled like her, like that stuff she used on her hair. I should have set it aside so you didn’t get it mixed up with the dirty clothes.” He tried to laugh. “I guess I can finally get rid of it.” He looked over at the trash can in the corner of the kitchen, but slipped the sweatshirt under his arm instead.
    “It was right there with your dirty sheets,” Lacey said, her voice high. Scared and defensive. “How was I supposed to know it wasn’t laundry?”
    “It’s all right, Annie,” he said, “it’s…”
    Lacey stamped her foot, her face crimson. “I am not Annie!”
    Alec quickly played his words back to himself. Yes, he’d just called her Annie. He reached for her shoulder.
    “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
    Lacey dodged his hand. “Next time you can do your own fucking laundry!”
    Alec watched as she ran out of the room, and in a moment they heard her light, quick steps on the stairs, followed by the slamming of her bedroom door.
    “You’ve done that a lot, you know,” Clay said quietly.
    Alec looked at his son. “Done what? Called her Annie?” He frowned, trying to think. “No, I haven’t.”
    “Ask her. ” Clay nodded in the direction of the stairs. “I bet she could tell you how many times you’ve done it.”
     
    Alec struggled out of his suit jacket and pressed his back against the car seat. He felt perspiration on his neck, across his chest. He tried to slow down his breathing. Keep it even. Stop gulping air.
    He’d parked a little bit away from the rest of the cars in Cafferty High’s parking lot. He needed a few minutes to pull himself together before he could face people. Parents of Clay’s friends, he hadn’t seen in months. His teachers. Everyone who was going to want to talk to him and say wonderful things about his son. If he could just keep a smile on his face, say the appropriate thing at the appropriate moment. God, he was never going to make it through the next couple of hours. Damn it, Annie.
    She used to talk about seeing her kids graduate. As much as she tried to pretend that Lacey’s and Clay’s accomplishments were immaterial, she took pride in everything they did. She would have thrown a huge celebration for Clay’s graduation. She would have hooted and hollered her way through the ceremony to make sure Clay knew she was there. Annie is one intense mother, Tom Nestor had said to him once, and he was right. Annie always tried to give her children the things she had never received from her own parents.
    Her parents did not go to her graduation from the exclusive high school she’d attended in Boston. “We would have been proud to come if you’d kept your grades up,” her father had told her. “But losing your membership in the National Honor Society during your last semester of school is inexcusable.”
    Her parents had been very wealthy. They’d groomed Annie to fit into