by Mary Cantell
“I’ll always pray for you, my friend. You know that.”
“Thanks. I need prayer now more than ever. Every time I turn around, there’s something else.”
“It’s always something, right?”
“This side of heaven…” Lissa’s words trailed off.
“We can worry ourselves to death about things or we can turn over our cares to the Lord. I always ask myself, which is easier?”
“Sometimes, I’ll have to admit, I like licking my wounds.”
“Tell me about it,” Robin drawled.
“Oh,” Lissa said, “by the way, the mystery of the pink rose is solved.”
“Pink rose? Oh, right. Who sent it?”
“Actually, it was hand-delivered by a neighbor boy.”
“A boy?”
“Yep. Name’s Drew. Sweet little kid about Lacy’s age. He has some kind of palsy, but it’s not cerebral.”
“Does he have a crush on you or something?”
“Not me—Lacy.”
“How cute.”
“It is. Oh, and he also left her a poinsettia plant. It’s strange, but he has the best timing.”
“The best timing…how so?”
“It’s just that every time something goes screwy—he seems to have some kind of extra-sensory perception. The rose, after the break-in, and now after her injury, a poinsettia plant. He’s shown more compassion than some adults I know.”
“That’s so sweet. Hey, what are you doing for Christmas?”
Lissa blew a breath into the phone. “It’s hard for me to get into the mood this year…I don’t know. Ever since the incident…” Her voice trailed. “We’ve been invited to my aunt and uncle’s, and if we don’t go, it’ll be even harder to explain why.”
“Just go. Try to enjoy yourself, and don’t worry about Brian. Leave it all on the altar, right?”
A lopsided manger scene with only two wise men and one tiny sheep standing in front of baby Jesus sat on the credenza. She had no idea what happened to the third wise man statue that carried the myrrh. Apparently, gold and frankincense were all the gifts the baby was receiving this year. It seemed everyone was getting something but her. With reminders of Christmas everywhere, Lissa wished the New Year were already here.
“I thought he was serious about me. Now I feel so stupid.”
“I’m so sorry, Liss. Give it time. If things are meant to be, they’ll be. You know that. Just give it some time.”
“Thanks, Robin, you’re right.”
What choice do I have?
Her thoughts turned to Lacy. She had her daughter back; her prayers were answered. Hallelujah. But after recovering from the crisis of almost losing Lacy, the loss of Brian crushed her fragile emotions all over again. Her heavy heart, delicate as glass, shattered once more.
Chapter Forty-Four
January 2, 2006
The doorbell rang and Lissa’s heart leaped. Brian weighed on her mind so much that every time her phone rang or the doorbell buzzed, she hoped it was him. She played the scenario in her mind over and over again thinking the separation between them was a bad dream. They had so much in common and were friends for so long; to throw their relationship away now just didn’t make sense.
Lissa glanced in the mirror. Pale face and greasy hair stared back at her. This time she hoped it wasn’t Brian. Of all the times for him to come back. She thought twice about answering. When her curiosity took over as to who was there, she moved to the door and peeked through the peephole. A woman and someone else stood beside her. Someone selling something?
She opened the door and soon recognized the woman, having met her at one of the school’s PTA meetings. A friendly sort, they bonded quickly with each other.
“Judy?”
“Hi, Lissa,” the woman said soberly. She bore a sad, disappointed smile. “I hope we’re not disturbing you or anything.”
“No, not a bit,” she said, pulling the door open. Judy entered, head down, as though marching to her death, followed by a young girl whom she judged as only slightly older than Lacy. Her full, angelic lips were carved into a stoic mannequin-like face. Lissa couldn’t get a read on her. Shy? Embarrassed? With her stiff body language, it was obvious the child was uncomfortable and resistant to being in the room.
“So what brings you here?” she asked. “I assume this is your daughter?”
“Yes, this is my daughter, Simone,” the woman said flatly, glancing at her child, who refused to make eye contact and fixed her gaze on the floor. “I wouldn’t normally barge in on someone like this, but I thought it important.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Lissa swatted her hand to make light of it. “Hello, Simone,” Lissa said. “Pleased to meet you. Why don’t you both have a seat.” Lissa gestured toward the sofa.
“Actually, Lissa, I’d rather we stood.” She glanced over at Simone. “My daughter has something she wants to say to you.” She focused on the girl and with her eyes, prompted her to speak.
Silence rose like a roar in the room. After a while, the girl looked up at her mother and again toward the floor before she began to speak. “I—um,” she began and let her eyes roam everywhere but toward Lissa. “My mother says that—I mean, I wanted to say that I’m sorry…sorry for what I said to Lacy.”
“To Lacy?” Lissa searched Simone for a clue. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, honey. What did you say that you’re sorry for?”
The child looked down again.
“Lissa, I’m afraid it was my daughter who caused the trouble at Becca Robson’s party.”
“Oh?” The mystery unravels.
“I’m so embarrassed to say but Simone confessed that it was she who told Lacy she was adopted.”
The words hit like a thunderbolt. The infernal night came back with all its renditions. The grief and anxiety. The pain that slammed into her like a train at full speed. The breath knocked so far out of her she couldn’t breathe. A night she never wanted to relive. She took a step back mentally and attempted to parse her words in a measured tone that gave nothing away as to her disdain for this impish child.
“Oh,” Lissa nodded slowly, “so that’s how it—” she said, clipping her sentence. The words hung in the air. Her emotions tugged in all directions. She folded her arms across her chest. She wanted to slap the girl silly but then thought better of it. Okay, be nice. She’s just a child. A brat but still someone’s child. What would Jesus do right now? The question floated in her mind like a neon sign. Lately, every move she made seemed to be processed by asking the same noble question. Of course, Jesus would turn the other cheek. That’s what he’d do.
The moments passed, and Lissa looked from Judy to Simone and back again. A fragile battle of hidden anguish harbored between them. The desire to raise a hand to the child dissolved, and she put herself in the girl’s shoes. Not that she was happy but for the sake of the girl, the progress being attempted counted for something. Judy’s close-set eyes riveted on Lissa, who saw in them a mix of sympathy and regret. Lissa sensed the woman’s pain.
“Lissa, I never mentioned anything to Simone, but she must have overheard me say it—somehow—to my husband is the only way I can imagine.” Her gaze leveled with Lissa’s. “After you told me about the adoption—you know, at the PTA, we were talking about it—my husband and me. We’d read the story in the paper about the anniversary of the big drug bust…and I remember your dad was famous for putting away Joe Hellinger. It so happens my husband is related to the Hellingers. Thankfully, by marriage only.” She rolled her eyes. “So we were talking about you and Lacy and, well, I’m so terribly—”
“No, no, Judy, please,” Lissa interjected. “Don’t fret over it. What’s done is done.” Lissa understood her embarrassment. She placed her hand on the woman’s arm to underscore her sincerity. “It’s in the past now. It’s fine. Lacy’s been officially told now, by me, of course. And she understands. Really, she’s okay now.” Just okay, not great. Maybe one day. Lissa tried to put a happy face on it b
ut deep down knew it would be awhile before her daughter was truly great.
Then Judy moved toward Lissa and ushered her into the kitchen. Her eyebrows knit as she whispered, “She’s a bit brazen, I’m afraid. I don’t understand where the mean streak comes from but believe me, my husband and I are dealing with it as best we can.”
Lissa nodded sympathetically.
“My husband puts so much pressure on her to—well, be the best. I’m sure that must have something to do with it. We’re looking into counseling…” Her soft voice trailed off.
“Judy, I understand. Kids will be kids, right?” Lissa lent a small, knowing look. “We can’t control them every minute.”
Judy hung her head apologetically. Lissa saw the toll on the woman’s face. Her hands shook, and she looked a bit older than the last time they met at school. When they first met, Lissa saw her as someone most likely her age or younger. Now, the woman seemed to have gained ground on her.
Lissa sympathized with Judy’s predicament, realizing, like Judy, she wanted to control her own daughter’s comings and goings just as much as any other mother. Her own words echoed in her head… we can’t control them every minute. How well she knew. The timely dance between nurture and suffocation was a balance that would always weigh challenging, but for now, Lissa was relieved that the hardest battle she would probably ever face was over. She was grateful she and Lacy were able to move past the wall that separated them since the child’s birth. Now that Lacy knew about her birth mother, there would be no more secrets between them.
The two women went back to the living area where Simone lingered alone by the fireplace, running her finger along one of the stones. Lissa glanced at Lacy’s bedroom door in the shadows of the hallway. The warbling of Britney Spears seeped through the walls.
Lissa thanked them for coming, even praising Simone for being “a big girl” in admitting her wrong doing. “Maybe there’s a lesson in this,” Lissa said to Judy as she opened the front door for them. “For all of us.”
Outside, the afternoon air was crisp yet still and the sunlight bounced sharply off the newly fallen snow. She closed the door. Bright light poured into the southwest-facing window, melting the frost that clung for most of the morning. Lissa moved toward the light and traced a smiley face on the glass.
Chapter Forty-Five
Two months later
“So what do you think, Lacy—of Florida?” Lissa asked while at the computer.
“Florida?” She glanced up from the floor where she sat drawing at the coffee table. Her eyes brightened. “For vacation?”
“Maybe,” she replied, clicking through pictures of Florida. She paused at a photo of a flock of seagulls at sea where the photographer exquisitely captured the bird’s flight juxtaposed with the red-orange glow of a persimmon sun flirting at the horizon. She imagined the sounds of their awkward high-pitched squawks as they floated in the air. How enviable, their freedom. What would make the picture even more perfect would be sharing the white beach in the foreground with Brian. She wanted to be there with him, laying in the warm sand while he rubbed her body in coconut-scented sun block cream as warm breezes from the ocean caressed them under the setting sun.
Lissa knew how much Lacy loved Florida from the time she begged to go down south to see her old school mate after the girl’s family moved to St. Petersburg late last summer. Back in Bryn Mawr, the children in Lacy’s class often came home from Christmas or Easter break beaming with tanned skin from their sunny vacations. Something Lissa could never afford to give her daughter. With some of her accrued insurance money, she thought a trip—anywhere—would be in order. For her, to clear her head, and for Lacy, an opportunity to get some tropical color in her cheeks.
Lissa scrolled through pages of information on Florida, in particular, West Palm Beach where some distant cousins lived. Wading through pictures of cool blue water, pink and white homes donning Spanish-style rooftops, and bright sun and surf, the idea of vacationing in Florida didn’t seem as elusive to her as she once thought. A bug or two, along with hot temperatures, now paled in comparison to the gorgeous pictures evoking the luxury of balmy Florida.
Lacy slipped onto her lap at the computer while she clicked through the virtual online brochures of rental properties overlooking the ocean. One displayed a paver patio and river rocks like a page out of Architectural Digest. “Looks pretty, doesn’t it?” Lissa asked and handed the mouse to Lacy to take control for a while. “Must cost a fortune to rent that. Keep clicking, Lace.”
“I want to stay at Emma’s house,” Lacy said.
“Well, I’m not sure, Lace. We haven’t really received an actual invitation, you know, formally.” Lissa tried to recall what Emma’s mother wrote in the Christmas card she sent to them.
“Oh,” she said, and slid back to the floor where she picked up a colored pencil and began drawing. Lissa stared at Lacy’s artwork on the coffee table.
“Who’s in your picture, honey?”
She half-shrugged. “Just some people.”
With a yellow crayon, she drew hair on top of a tall figure’s head. The outline resembled none other than Brian. She tried so many times to rid images of him from her head, yet some of the pictures Lacy drew only reinforced him. In one, Lacy drew a tall man along with two short women inside the outline of a house with a smoking chimney. She wondered if Lacy missed him, too.
Her thoughts drew to the last few days they spent together. She rehashed the video in her head, allowing snippets of the reel to play out over and over. She couldn’t stop thinking about him and felt caught in the trap of her mind. Where was he? Why was he so distant? What did I do to deserve this cold treatment?
Chapter Forty-Six
Thoughts of Brian weighed heavily on her heart; so many times she wanted to call him, hoping for the opportunity to buttonhole him on what went wrong.
What happened between us, Bri? What did I do? Please tell me. He owed her that much. She went through the motions of their imagined conversation, practicing what she would say in the privacy of her room, hoping to turn her thoughts into a reality of sorts or something to assuage her desperate curiosity. Though, every time she felt compelled to reach out, something pulled her back. Pride? The Lord? She couldn’t tell.
If the Lord didn’t want them together, she certainly didn’t either. What’s the sense of cajoling or twisting another’s will for the sake of a relationship? She saw enough of that with her own family, particularly in the sad affairs of her cousin, Maria.
She reached for the phone and mentally rehearsed what she wanted to say before pressing the automatic dial button. In the second before the call connected, she quickly hung up. Would he think it a desperate ploy to get back together? In her heart, she knew otherwise. She pressed the automatic dial button again. In the moments before he picked up, her pulse quickened. Though nervous, she hung on, committed to following through on her decision to connect with him. When he began to speak, she quickly realized she reached his recorded voicemail message. Short and to the point, “Hi, it’s Brian, you know the drill.” Her mind froze. She couldn’t compose her thoughts and quickly hung up.
She went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea and then settled down to do her weekly report for Dr. Billing. Working from home proved to be a blessing. After a couple of hours, she took a break and went for a walk. She opened the door and startled at the figure standing before her at the threshold. For a moment, she couldn’t speak.
Brian stood at the doorstep resembling a J. Crew model in a white oxford shirt and faded jeans. “Hey, Liss.” His voice quivered, lacking its usual confidence, and sounded as though it would fracture at any moment. “How’r you?” His eyes met hers and the electricity between them buzzed. Better now, she thought. In Pinewood, the expression, better than I deserve, was commonplace. She felt all of the above. Elated to see him, her heart thrummed, and she wondered why he’d come. Not setting herself up for disappointment was a no-brainer. She was no longer a teenager ready to g
ive her heart away. No, not this time.
“Brian, what are you doing here?” she asked levelly. The air thickened between them.
“I came to give these to you,” he replied, and pulled around a large bouquet of roses—in pink, yellow, and red with a spray of baby’s breath—from behind him.
Her heart melted. A bit old-fashioned but still sweet.
“Can we talk?” he asked, sheepishly.
Without a word, she parted the door wider to invite him to enter and took the flowers to the kitchen sink. She soaked them in cool water until she could find a suitable vase; the flower arranging could wait. Lissa came out from the kitchen and curled up in the chair across from the fireplace where he stood, his expression forlorn. Did he want to resume their old course? Establish a friendship? Or was his news something more serious?
“Lissa, my wife passed away.” His words came out soft, but the impact sent a shockwave to her core.
“Passed away?” She paused to collect her thoughts. She died? “Oh, that’s awful. From what?”
“She had ovarian cancer, stage III a while back. We thought it was in remission. She was but then—” He shook his head.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Bri…” A fleeting thought that he’d come to tell her he was moving away came to mind. He’s lost his wife and now she was losing him—forever.
A chasm of silence rose in the room.
“That’s why I couldn’t continue our relationship,” he continued. “I felt so guilty. Even though I knew my wife didn’t love me anymore, or like she once did, while she lay dying, I had to do my part as a husband—separated or not.” His eyes misted, and she could barely contain her emotions. “My feelings for you never went away, Liss. In fact, during our own remission, of sorts, I think my feelings for you increased.” He held her gaze. “I’m so sorry…sorry that I was distant.” She tried to hold back from crying along with him as he wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “It wasn’t you, Lissa. It wasn’t anything you did or said…please understand that.” His face—a portrait of grief—folded as he held back his emotions. “I was so distraught…over what Madison did. It was too embarrassing.” He hung his head. She rose from the chair and walked toward the window.