“Right. Tell me something I don’t already know,” McKenzie muttered, clicking her remote to unlock the doors on her hatchback.
When he saw McKenzie’s car, Rick’s brows lifted with fatherly disapproval. The hatchback was stuffed with suitcases, bags, and boxes piled so high there was no way that McKenzie could see out the rear. It wasn’t safe, driving a car she couldn’t see out of.
“What’s all this?” he asked. “Did Zach finally decide to clean out the man cave? Why didn’t you ask me to come over and give you a hand? I’d have brought the truck.”
“I know,” said McKenzie. “That’s why I drove over to the condo today. I wanted to ask if you’d help me. It’s not Zach’s stuff, Daddy. It’s mine. I’m moving out. Zach’s been cheating on me.”
“What? Oh, baby . . . Zach? Are you sure?”
Rick couldn’t bring himself to believe it. There had to be some mistake. Zach seemed like a good guy—a little short on ambition perhaps, a little old to spend as much time playing video games as he did, a little too fond of beer, and maybe not his first choice of husband for his baby girl, but still. Besides, what kind of guy would be stupid enough to cheat on a woman like McKenzie? She was smart, beautiful, athletic, funny, hardworking—what more could he ask for? Nothing.
No. No way would Zach cheat on his daughter. It was a misunderstanding. McKenzie must have seen something that looked a little weird and jumped to conclusions, like she’d done with him and Kate.
But when McKenzie stared at him, her eyes filled with pain yet utterly dry, as if she had no more tears left, and she slowly nodded her head, Rick knew it was true.
“Oh, Kenz.”
Rick opened his arms. McKenzie walked into his embrace, leaning heavily against his chest, as if she couldn’t support the weight of her own body anymore.
“I tried, Daddy. I know I’m not always the easiest person to get along with. I know I can be stubborn, and spoiled, a princess, but I really did try, honestly. The first time I caught him—”
“The first time? You’re saying he’s cheated before?”
McKenzie moved her head up and down but didn’t look up, burying her face into her father’s flannel shirt as if she were embarrassed to be seen by him. Rick reached down and stroked her hair, providing comfort as best he could even as fury toward Zach bubbled inside him.
“A few months ago,” McKenzie said, “I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and his boss, Mercedes. I didn’t have to listen very long before I realized they weren’t talking about work. Suddenly it all made sense: the late nights and weekends, him calling to say they’d suddenly called a late staff meeting. Hearing the things he said to her, I knew they’d all been lies. I felt like such a chump.
“I confronted Zach, but he said I was crazy. Then I told him what I’d overheard. He finally admitted to what had been going on but said it didn’t mean anything. He said he’d only done it after his boss had come on to him and he was trying to get a promotion.”
“And you believed that?”
“He made it sound almost like a sacrifice on his part, something he’d done so he could get the promotion and we could afford to buy a house and start a family. By the time he was done, he’d almost convinced me. Almost. The truth is, I wanted to believe him.
“I made him jump through a few hoops,” she said, “mostly just to save face. He behaved for a while. He sent me flowers, came home right on time, and even went to a couple of counseling sessions.
“When the questions got uncomfortable he blamed the counselor, said he was making it a bigger deal than it was, trying to sucker us into paying for sessions we didn’t need. He quit going and I let him get away with it. I let him get away with a lot of things.”
McKenzie lifted her head at last and looked at Rick, her gaze filled with sorrow and self-reproach. “It was never going to work, Daddy. There was no chance. In my heart, I always knew that. I should have ended it when I caught him snogging with that woman in the bar.”
“Wait. What woman? You mean his boss?”
McKenzie shook her head. “Somebody else. About a month before the wedding, we spent a weekend at his parents’ beach house. It was raining. I was reading and Zach was bored, so he decided to walk to the bar up the street and watch the game. I said I’d meet him later. When I got there, he was sitting at the end of the bar, hammered and making out with somebody.”
When McKenzie started sharing the story of her betrayal, Rick felt an emptiness in his center, a sensation of being hollow and devoid of substance. Upon his learning that Zach’s faithlessness had been apparent even before the wedding, that void was filled by a sense of failure.
Not McKenzie’s. His.
“Kenz, I . . . I don’t understand. Why didn’t you call off the wedding right then and there?”
“I did. I threw half a beer in Zach’s face, told him it was over, and stormed out. He followed me, said that he was sorry, that he was drunk—blah, blah, blah.” She flapped her hand, dismissing Zach’s excuses as exactly that, excuses.
“He was drunk but not that drunk. Not so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing. But I bought into it and let him off the hook. Four weeks later, I was wearing white and saying, ‘I do,’” McKenzie said. “What else could I do?”
“What else could you do?” Rick echoed, shocked that she had to ask. “You could have stuck to your guns, that’s what. You could have told Zach where he could stick his excuses. And his engagement ring. Dammit, McKenzie!” Rick barked as his ire toward Zach spilled over onto his daughter. “You could have been the woman we raised you to be!”
“How?”
In former days, McKenzie would have pushed back against his anger, thrust out her chin and gone ten rounds with him, toe to toe, her eyes flaming with a stubborn determination that stirred her father with equal parts of admiration and irritation. Today, Rick saw no sign of that stubborn, irritating girl with the hair-trigger temper. Her tone was as flat and defeated as the look in her eyes.
“The church was booked,” she said. “The out-of-town family had bought nonrefundable airline tickets. Mom had ordered two hundred pounds of lobster and sewn two zillion wedding favors for the guests.
“Seriously, Daddy. At that point, how was I supposed to call it off? Especially since I’d already broken two engagements—one of them after the invitations had already been sent out. Nobody wants to be that girl.
“And the truth is, as much as you and Mom were amazing parents, the best on the planet, I’m not the woman you raised me to be. I’m just a loser. A big, fat zero. The girl who can’t get anything right, not one stupid thing.”
Rick stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her once more.
“Don’t say that, Kenz. It’s just not true. Everybody makes mistakes, especially when they’re young. Heck, even when they’re old. You don’t believe me? Just look at the mess I’ve made of my life, and your mother’s, for the past two years. Everybody screws up royally sometimes, ignores their own best instincts. That’s not being a loser; it’s being human.
“Losers are people who, after realizing their mistakes, sit around and wallow in them. The thing to do now is own it and do what you have to do to make things right. As a very wise friend of mine said recently, ‘Quit being a stubborn ass. Get on with it.’ ”
He lowered his head and kissed his daughter’s hair. “You’re not a loser, Kenz. You’re my little girl. My princess.”
“Thanks, Dad,” McKenzie said. “But, if it’s okay with you, I think I’d just rather be your daughter.”
“Fair enough,” Rick said. “Either way, I’m proud of you.”
“Would it be okay if I moved back in with you and Mom for a while? Just until I get myself sorted out?”
“Sure. Of course you can. For as long you need to.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
“Zach,” Rick muttered, the bilious anger flooding his body as he pictured the face of his adulterous soon-to-be-former son-in-law. “That l
ying son of a . . .
“You know, I never did like him. That day when he came over to tell me he was going to propose, I gave my blessing but said if he ever hurt you, I’d track him down and kill him. Slowly. And with pain. The way I’m feeling right now, Zach better not come within five hundred yards of me. Because I’d have no problem carrying through on that threat.”
“I know, Daddy. Me too. But we can’t.”
“Why not?” Rick growled.
McKenzie lifted her face toward her father’s.
“Because I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 25
Two months later
Like most of the offices in the prison, Nancy’s was cramped, windowless, and, apart from the framed seascape photograph hung up on the gray wall, cheerless. But it was private and quiet, which was why Hope and Nancy had fallen into the habit of meeting there on Monday afternoons to eat lunch and catch up.
This week, there was a lot to catch up on. Nancy had just returned from a two-week trip to England, where she had stood as godmother at the baptism of a newborn great-niece, then spent five days trekking through the Cotswolds with her husband, John. The final week was spent visiting Nancy’s parents, Elizabeth and Henry, in Nancy’s hometown of Aldeburgh, a coastal town in Suffolk.
Though Hope had noticed a definite increase in squabbling and tension among the inmates in Nancy’s absence, she was glad the chaplain had been able to make the trip. It couldn’t be easy, living in a foreign country, so far from her family.
Hope laid the contents of her brown bag out on Nancy’s desk and smiled to herself. Two weeks of contact with her home country had thickened Nancy’s English accent. Her o’s were somehow rounder, her other vowels more clipped, and her r’s nearly nonexistent as Nancy told Hope about her mother, eighty-nine-year-old Elizabeth, who according to Nancy was sharp as a tack, an excellent cook, and drove her own car to a local community center twice a week, where she taught poetry to disadvantaged youth.
“So,” Hope said, unfolding a paper napkin onto her lap, “now I know where you get your philanthropic streak.”
“Comes from both sides really. Father a vicar and all.” Nancy unzipped her insulated lunch bag and started pulling out a series of plastic containers. “Every Sunday dinner of my childhood started with Dad slicing into the roast, then looking around the table and saying, ‘Now, children, tell me what you’ve done for others this week?’
“And heaven help you if you didn’t have something to report,” Nancy said with mock horror before her face split into a grin. “Really, they were very good parents. And Aldeburgh was a wonderful place to grow up.”
“I’m glad you got to go home for a while. It seems to have done you a lot of good.”
“It did. I love my job, but every now and again it’s good to spend some time on the outside,” Nancy said with a meaningful roll of her eyes. “Plus my parents were overjoyed to see us. Dad took us to every museum, church, and ruin in Suffolk and Mum almost literally cooked the fatted calf in celebration of our return.”
Nancy lifted the lid of a plastic container to reveal a whitish-yellowish-greenish mess with the aroma of butter, cabbage, and compost.
“What is that?” Hope asked, making a face.
“Leftover bubble and squeak,” Nancy reported happily, thrusting a fork into the container. “Mum sent some home with me. We packed it in dry ice and carried it home on the plane. Want some?”
“Uh . . . No, thanks.”
“You sure? It tastes better than it looks.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Your loss,” Nancy said, taking a bite and murmuring with pleasure. “This is much better than the sad excuse for a lunch you’ve brought.”
Hope looked down at her lunch, a container of hummus and a bag full of carrot and celery sticks, and sighed. Nancy had a point.
“I’m doing it for Rick. Do you know he’s already lost twenty pounds? I’ve lost five,” Hope said, munching on a carrot stick. “Which is actually pretty good for me.”
“Still. So unfair,” Nancy replied. “As if childbirth and menopause weren’t bad enough, God plagues womankind with a stodgy metabolism as well. It’s the same with John and me. He eats one less cookie and loses five pounds by the next morning. I eat nothing but grapefruit and boiled eggs for a month and drop twelve ounces.
“Are you sure it’s worth it?” Nancy asked, making a pitying face as she nodded toward Hope’s hummus. “Don’t you miss all Rick’s home baking? The bread? The rolls? Those lovely little chocolate biscuits with the toasted almonds on top?”
“Not as much as I missed the old Rick. It’s worth living on crudités just to have him back.”
“Well, good,” Nancy said stoutly. “Right, then. Enough of my chatter. How are things with you? All well? The kids are fine?”
“Oh yes. Liam’s film didn’t win the top prize, but he got an honorable mention and was offered a summer internship at some studio he’s all excited about. McKenzie is doing as well as can be expected. She found a new apartment, five minutes from our place, and plans to move in after the holidays.
“You know, I never thought I’d be able to say it, but I’m actually going to miss her. It’s been a terrible time for her, of course. Between the divorce and raging hormones, she cries at the drop of a hat, but we’ve really been getting along well. Now that she’s pregnant, she’s far more forgiving of my faults.”
“Motherhood will do that,” Nancy said. “As soon as my Roger was born, I called my mother to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For everything,” Nancy replied.
Hope chuckled. “Well, I really will be sorry to see Kenz go. But it’s probably time. She needs to settle into her new place and set up a nursery before the baby comes. The divorce papers have already been filed, so things are moving along.”
“No hope for a reconciliation?”
“Zach moved in with the other woman.”
“Oh, dear. So soon?” Nancy tsked. “Bad form. Poor McKenzie. But the baby’s doing well?”
“The doctor says everything’s fine, no problems at all. Kenz felt the baby move last week. So did I.”
Though she was smiling, Hope felt her throat tighten with emotion as she recalled laying a hand on McKenzie’s stomach to feel the miraculous fluttering beneath, a greeting from a tiny stranger she couldn’t wait to meet.
“Oh. How wonderful,” Nancy said, clutching her hand to her breast, her voice almost reverent. “Do you remember what it was like? The first time you felt them move?”
“Oh yes. I’ll never forget. Took my breath away. Every single time.” Smiling, Hope touched a finger to the corner of one eye, wiping away the wet.
“Speaking of potential new family members,” she continued, “Rory and Reed are coming home for Christmas. And Reed is bringing a girlfriend.”
“Really? Sounds quite serious,” Nancy said, arching her eyebrows. “What do you know about her?”
“Not much,” Hope said. “Her name is Pamela. She works in human resources. She rides a motorcycle and has a tattoo of a koi fish on her shoulder. Reed thought he should warn me.”
“Oh, well,” Nancy said, waving her hand dismissively. “That’s not a problem, is it? Did you tell him that most every woman you know has a tattoo? Which reminds me, I ran into Mandy and Deedee this morning. They were bubbling with praise for you and excitement about the quilting program. Oh, and I understand that Rick’s friend Kate got her volunteer clearance to come in and help you with the program?”
Hope, not wanting to talk with her mouth full, nodded and then swallowed.
“She’s my friend too, now. If she hadn’t smacked Rick upside his head when she did, who knows how long it would have taken for us to start talking again? I owe her.”
Nancy laughed. “And so you repaid her by letting her volunteer at the prison?”
“I know, right? But with her husband gone and no family in the area, she was looking for meaningful ways
to fill her time, so this is working out well for everybody. I don’t know how I ever thought I could manage the quilting program on my own. Trying to teach twelve women with zero sewing experience and a variety of learning challenges to quilt all by myself?” Hope spread out her hands. “What was I thinking?
“Once they get the basics down, it should get easier. But, right now, these women need a lot of personal attention. Kate’s sewing experience is minimal, but being a painter, she’s very good with colors, and helping the women pick out their fabrics. But most of all, she’s a steadying presence. She’s so funny and cheerful, she has a way of helping the women laugh off their mistakes. Everybody just loves her.”
“Deedee certainly does. She went on and on about both of you. So did Mandy, and you know she’s not much of a talker. And Mandy told me she’s nearly finished with her first quilt top?”
Hope bobbed her head in response to Nancy’s questioning tone and scraped a celery stick around the edge of the hummus container.
“Her release is coming up, so I’m trying to push her through the program a little faster than the other girls. Fortunately, she picked things up so quickly that I’m going to let her skip the second charity quilt and move right on to her personal quilt. She really wants to make a quilt for Talia.”
“What a good idea,” Nancy said. “She seemed a bit anxious when I saw her. On second thought, ‘anxious’ isn’t quite the word. More like ‘impatient,’ ‘antsy.’ Time always moves slowly on the inside, but never more slowly than in those last months and weeks before release. It would be good for her to have something to help pass the time and keep her mind occupied.”
“Well, the block pattern she wants to use—Dove in the Window—should do the trick. It’s kind of advanced for a beginner, but Mandy’s up to it. If she works hard and stays focused, she should finish the quilt in time for her release.”
Hope on the Inside Page 17