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and had told himself that at least he could do as he liked. Aunt Vivvy had made sure he was properly clothed and adequately fed, but she didn’t stick her nose into his business.
    But graduation had obliterated the little fantasy he’d clung to that his father, a merchant mariner, was just on a long trip. He’d felt the truth of his father’s abandonment like a gut punch as he took his diploma, shook the principal’s hand, and gazed out into the sea of parenthood that didn’t include his own. At least his mother had had a good excuse.
    It had been hard enough for Sean at eighteen. How terribly lonely must Deirdre have felt at eleven when no one showed up to her Clap Out, not to mention every other parent-invited event? And how must it have sharpened those steely edges she seemed to have now?
    “Hey,” he said to Kevin as they rounded the corner toward the house. “You spend much time with Auntie Deirdre?”
    “Sometimes,” he said. “When she doesn’t have a show.”
    “What kinds of things do you do?”
    Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know. Stuff.”
    “Like?”
    “Well, sometimes she reads to me. She read me the whole Harry Potter series, and she did all the voices and everything.”
    Sean was happy to hear that Deirdre had shown some degree of normal involvement with the boy. “I’ll bet she’s good at that.”
    “Yeah, really good. When she did Voldemort it was so freaky I felt kinda sick.”

CHAPTER 7
    D eirdre was working double shifts at Carey’s Diner quite a bit lately, after which she hurried off to play practice. Sean occasionally saw her late at night, physically limp with exhaustion, but her mind still buzzing from the intensity of rehearsal.
    “How’d it go?” he asked her one night when they crossed paths in the kitchen.
    “Super.” She drew a kitchen chair over so she could reach deep into the top shelf of one of the cabinets. “The hack who landed Mrs. Potiphar? She sucks. ” Her arm came out holding a bottle of Smirnoff Twist Green Apple Vodka. She hopped down off the chair, got herself a glass and filled it with ice. “And I’m watching the director? And he can totally see it. He’s trying to hide the fact that he now realizes he made a mistake, but it’s all over his face. It’s awesome .” She poured the vodka, took a sip. “Oh,” she said focusing on him briefly. “Want some?”
    “No thanks.” He got a beer from the fridge and joined her at the table. With Deirdre gone so much and Aunt Vivvy rarely leaving the house, he’d taken to doing the grocery shopping as well, and had picked up a six-pack of Sam Adams.
    There was a strange clicking noise coming quickly down the stairs. It approached the kitchen door and then stopped. Sean looked at Deirdre, and she rolled her eyes. “Damn dog thinks she’s the man of the house.” There was a low growling noise, and Deirdre said, “It’s just us , for chrissake! We live here.” The growling stopped. The clicking of the dog’s toenails receded slowly back up the stairs.
    They sipped their drinks, the quiet disturbed only by the sound of night insects and the occasional rustle of dead leaves out in the woods. A light breeze puffed at the ruffled curtains.
    “I went to that Clap Out the other day for Kevin,” Sean mentioned.
    “Yeah?” Deirdre said. “Wish he’d go to camp—he just wanders around in the woods.”
    “By the way, old Mrs. Lindquist retired. Kevin’s teacher was her daughter.”
    Deirdre put her sock-clad feet up on the table and let her head rest on the back of the chair. “No wonder he never complained.”
    “He seemed to really like her.”
    “She left messages a couple of times. I think maybe Viv talked to her.”
    “What were the messages?”
    “I don’t know.” She sipped her drink.
    Sean put his beer down. “Did Viv say what she wanted?”
    “Nope.”
    “Do you know for a fact that she returned the call?”
    Deirdre gave him an irritated look. “What’s your point?”
    “My point