Free A New Hope by Robyn Carr Page A

used twigs and flowers and leaves and gum wrappers. Eventually, when I had the supplies, I used cardboard, paper and glue. In winter when I was outside I used snow and made castles. When I was about seven my parents gave me a great big dollhouse for Christmas—the obvious gift, right? And I wanted nothing to do with it. It just sat in a corner of my bedroom because I liked the sloppy little houses I built.”
    “All little girls play house,” he said. “My sisters played house. Peyton was
always
the mother. And she was a very strict mother.”
    “What’s your earliest memory?” she asked him.
    “Hmm. I’m not sure if it’s an early memory or some family story that’s been repeated so often I think I remember it. It might be when Mikie showed up. My parents had two cribs and a bassinet in their bedroom. We were all lined up to meet him. Ellie was two, Sal was one and Mikie was in the bassinet by the bed. My mother said, ‘This is your new brother, Michael, and from now on your father is sleeping in the barn.’ I didn’t know what that meant for a long time. Eight kids in a little over ten years.”
    She laughed happily at that.
    “You have little leprechauns in your eyes.”
    “My mother’s side of the family, I guess. We’re the only green-eyed members of the family. And I’ve met most of the Lacoumettes—no leprechauns there, I think.”
    “That’s for sure,” he said. He put down his fork. “What happened to your marriage?”
    “The marriage?” she asked, like that was an odd question. “Matt, I told you, I fell for a musician. A singer with a guitar. He played other instruments, too, but mostly guitar and piano. What I didn’t tell you, I was a groupie. He was in and out of Portland and for three years I followed his gigs. He called when he was in town or even near town, like Seattle or Vancouver or Astoria, and would ask me to come. It was nothing for me to drive three hours just to be with him. On and off, off and on. He’s ten years older and even though he’s had a few breaks here and there, he doesn’t really have a pot to piss in. He wasn’t interested in marriage or family or settling down, though he did move in with me because I had a freestanding garage he could use as a studio. So one night when he said, ‘Hey, babe, maybe we should just get married,’ I jumped on it. Brilliant, yes? I was all over it because hey, I was over twenty-five by that time and all I’d ever really wanted was to be a wife and mother. So I married a self-centered, absent, maybe even adulterous musician who rarely remembered to even call me. My mother thought I’d lost my mind. My brothers hated him. My father still wants to kill him. I married him as fast as I could before he changed his mind. We were married for seven days when he got a job in San Francisco of uncertain duration and he not only took it, he said I wouldn’t enjoy myself, given his terrible hours, and besides, I had to work. He said he’d probably be back in a few weeks. Turned out it was sooner, but he left again a week later, that time for a month. When I tried to talk to him about it he said, ‘Hey, I told you I’d be a lousy husband. I’m just not into it. My music is really important to me and I’m so close. Baby, I’m so close. And you love my music.’ Also, he usually needed money. And I stupidly gave him what I could.”
    Matt’s mouth hung open. He was speechless. If there was one thing about the Lacoumette men, they would die before they’d live off a woman. “You’re making this up.”
    She gave him a rather patient smile. “I could not make it up. I fell for a singer because he had what I thought was a beautiful voice and I believed that once he saw how happy I could make him, he would never want to leave me again. Oh—he would write music and play music, but our love for each other would come first. That was the lie I told myself. There was one part of the equation I hadn’t taken into consideration. He