by Gina Holmes
I drew my legs up onto the chair and squeezed them against my chest. “What if she loves him better than me?”
“Love him better than you?” He made a face as though I’d asked the dumbest question ever. “He may be her father, but he’s still a Preston.”
I laughed at his joke but also at the surprising freeness I suddenly felt. I’d come home to find Isabella a family, and maybe I had succeeded. She wanted her father, and it seemed he wanted her too. The only problem was the feud between my dad and Dr. Preston. For Isabella’s sake, it needed to end.
“Dad?”
“I don’t have the answer,” he said.
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t have any answers. I thought I did when I was younger, but the older I get, the more I realize just how ignorant I am.”
“I have to ask you something, and it’s no small thing.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll do it if you promise to go to the cancer center.”
I huffed. “This again? Haven’t we beat that dead horse long enough?”
“Just one consultation. That’s all I’m asking.”
Anger rose within me but was quickly replaced with the sadness it tried to mask. “Each time I go to a new doctor, even though I tell myself I’m not going to hope, I do anyway. I begin to think maybe, just maybe, this doctor could be hoarding some secret cure.” I hugged my knees tighter. “Dreams for my future—the future I’m never going to have—seep into my mind, but each time I’m left with my hopes crushed and a brochure for hospice care. I can’t go through that again. I can’t, Dad.”
My father’s neck was bent so far down, I couldn’t see his face. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his now-trembling shoulders. He gathered me onto his lap like when I was little.
I laid my head against him and listened to his heartbeat—the steady, comforting sound of a drumbeat, which in my childhood had lulled me to sleep. The smell of pipe tobacco mingled with his Old Spice deodorant and the fabric softener Mama Peg used on his clothes. It was, to me, a heavenly combination.
I pushed all worries from my mind and surrendered to childhood as he rocked me just as he’d done years before. Deep within my soul, I could almost remember that time when I felt safe and secure in my little protected world full of hugs, hope, and a complete lack of responsibility. I picked my head off his shoulder and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Dad, promise you’ll at least try to get along with the Prestons.”
He ushered me from his lap. “Jenny, even if my life depended on it, I don’t think I could.”
I don’t know why his stubbornness surprised me so. He’d always been this way. “But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you. Your life does depend on it, Dad.”
He glared at me. “So we’re going to throw Scripture around? ‘Hypocrite! first get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s.’”
The crickets grew louder, and my head began to throb. “Even around this log, I can see that you’ve got far more than a speck in your eye. Keep ignoring it and one day you’ll go blind.”
He stood and snatched his pipe off the armrest. “I wish I would.”
Chapter Fifteen
Isabella and I sat side by side on the front porch steps, waiting for David to arrive. The midday sun poured down its happy golden rays over her, while a cloud of gray seemed to hover over me alone. I raised my glass to my lips and took a sip. Cold liquid hit my tongue, accosting me with a taste both rancid and sweet. Though I knew it was my disease-altered taste buds causing the sickening flavor rather than the tea itself, I still couldn’t make myself swallow. I leaned over and spit it into the hydrangeas.
Lately, everything managed to offend my palate. This symptom, which I hadn’t anticipated, had become even more of a thorn in my side than the ever-increasing fatigue. Nausea rose within me as I eyed the ice cubes floating in the remaining liquid, whose hue reminded me of campground toilet water. Rather than have to look at it, I dumped the rest into the mulch. I watched it disappear into the thirsty ground and turned back to Isabella.
Her right knee bobbed like a jackhammer as she stared hard down the gravel road and clutched her stuffed koala.
I guided her face toward me. “What’s my cell number?”
She pushed the bear in front of my eyes and pointed to the numbers I’d written on his tiny T-shirt in laundry marker.
“Just in case you lose Cocoa . . .”
She pressed him tight against her chest. “I won’t lose him. He’s my friend!”
Despite how miserable I felt, her response still managed to draw a smile out of me. “I know that you won’t try to lose him, but just in case you do, David has my number and I’ll see you at three no matter what.”
She looked through rather than at me.
“Bella, are you listening?”
Her gaze slid from me back to the deserted road. “What time is it now, Mommy?”
“Two minutes later than the last time you asked.”
“You think he forgot me?”
“Who could forget you?”
The sun reflected off of her white sundress, casting a golden halo all around her as she leaned over to pick a scrap of mulch from her sandal. She looked like a little bride waiting on her groom. I could almost see the woman she was to become and wondered if God would let me watch her wedding from heaven. I would give anything to do that.
A visceral pain gnawed at me. “Remember, you call me if anything goes wrong. If you feel uncomfortable or scared or—”
She heaved a sigh.
“He’s going to come, baby.”
“I know.” A blush colored her cheeks as she brushed a wrinkle from her skirt. “Do you think he’ll like my dress?”
I ran the back of my hand across her soft cheek. “Beautiful Bella, even if you were wearing a potato sack, you’d be lovely. Besides, people who love you love you no matter how you look.”
She went cross-eyed as she swatted something in front of her nose that only she could see. With her preoccupied, I snuck another glance at my watch. David was now officially late. I picked up the phone from the step beside me and flipped it open. No missed calls. If he let her down . . .
Above us, movement caught my eye. I looked upward. A glass globe dangled from the porch overhang. A hummingbird fluttered beside it, dipping its narrow beak into the glistening red liquid. I started to point him out, but Isabella screamed.
“He’s here!” She jumped up, sending the stuffed koala tumbling face-first into a pile of wet mulch.
The same Infiniti Coupe I’d seen parked in David’s garage tore forward, spraying gravel and dirt. He stopped the car at the end of the driveway and honked his horn twice, just like he used to do when we were dating. For the first time, I understood why the gesture used to infuriate my father. I waved David out of the car.
As he slammed the door, Isabella ran for him as though she had known him all of her life. The smile she wore was the biggest I’d ever seen on her. Not a trace of fear or trepidation glinted in her eyes. “Daddy!”
He held his arms out to her and she jumped into them. He kissed her forehead while I tried not to wince.
After a moment, Isabella turned to me. “I love you too, Mommy.”
My face warmed with embarrassment. Apparently, my jealousy and insecurity were obvious even to my little girl. “Oh, sweetness, I know you do. It’s okay. You have plenty of love to go around.”
David balanced her on his hip. “Thanks, Jenny. We’ll see you around four.”
I crossed my arms. “I think you mean three.”
The devilish grin that met me would have made my heart flutter a few years ago. Not now. “I mean it, David.”
Isabella scrutinized our exchange with such intensity that it slapped the scowl off my face and the negativity from my tone. “You have fun, sweetness.” I kissed her cheek and turned to David. “Do y
ou want her car seat?”
He scrunched his nose against Isabella’s, making her giggle and me cringe. “I don’t think so. We’re good. Aren’t we, princess?”
She looked at him adoringly and nodded. “I’m not a baby, Mom.”
What happened to Mommy? “The law says that she needs a booster.”
He set her down and smoothed his khaki pants. “Well, I guess I need it then.”
“It’s for her safety.”
His nostrils flared. “Did I say it wasn’t?”
It took everything I had not to respond to his defensiveness. He arranged her booster in the middle of the backseat and strapped her in. As I watched the two of them pull away, it felt as though David were driving off with my very heart in the backseat of his car.
I lifted my arm to wave good-bye to my daughter, but she was looking ahead, not behind her. It was a healthy response to life that would serve her well in the coming months. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. What happened to the days when she would allow no one but me to hold her? when she would scream bloody murder when I left her with the sitter to go to work?
I looked down and noticed Cocoa lying on the ground. I bent and picked him up. I started to call for Isabella, but David’s car had already turned out of sight. I brushed dirt off the bear’s nose. “I’ll bet she’ll be missing you before the hour’s up.” His blank eyes stared back, looking as unconvinced as I felt. Hugging him to my chest, I inhaled her scent, which lingered on his fake fur.
I carried the bear back to the house and noticed a small blob of gray lying on the bottom porch step. As I got closer, I saw a pointy nose and whiskers attached to it. Shivers ran across my shoulders, making them shimmy. A dead mouse. Our biannual gift from Sweet Pea. He meowed at me from the sidewalk.
“Thanks for the carcass,” I told him. “You know, you sure have a funny way of showing affection.”
The cat took off toward the lake, and I went inside.
* * *
The phone rang only once before someone picked it up. Mama Peg yelled from the kitchen, “Jenny!”
Isabella. I jumped up, letting the journal I’d been writing in fall to the floor. Something was wrong. I knew it. I never should have left her with him.
Before I could reach the phone, Mama Peg pulled the receiver from her ear and hung up. “That was David. He’s bringing Bella home.”
I checked my watch. It was only two. “What happened?” I stared hard, trying to read her body language.
She hesitated. “He didn’t say, but I could hear her crying.”
Adrenaline rushed through me. “Whimpering or wailing?”
“She sounded pretty upset.”
“Upset or frantic?”
My grandmother’s eyes answered me before she had even opened her mouth. “Inconsolable.”
My stomach dropped as a million possibilities sped through my mind, each one more horrible than the last. “Well, is she hurt? Did he say what made her—”
“He said that she’s okay, just shook up. She’s on her way home.”
From the front of the refrigerator, I snatched the scrap of paper with David’s number on it. I picked up the phone and dialed as fast as my fingers would fly. Lindsey answered.
“Put my daughter on.”
“Jenny? They’re on their way.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. We took her to the pool—”
My heart stopped. “You did what?”
“David wanted to teach her to swim.”
“No,” I pleaded as if it hadn’t already happened.
“He just tossed her in the shallow end. She could have stood up but she panicked.”
My eyes refused to blink away the tears blurring them. She must have been terrified. My baby. My poor baby. “Is she okay?”
“It’s really not as bad as it sounds. He pulled her right out.”
Lindsey’s calmness fueled my anger. “She almost drowned two weeks ago.”
Silence met me.
I began to tremble. “She almost died!”
I heard only her ragged breath.
“He had to know that she was scared.”
Lindsey’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He wanted her to learn how to swim.”
“She already knows how to swim. Didn’t she tell him?”
Mama Peg laid her hand on my shoulder. “Sweetheart, you’re yelling.”
I shook her off.
“We didn’t know, Jenny. I’m so sorry. We didn’t know,” Lindsey said through sniffles.
I wanted to reach into the phone and grab her by the neck. “You knew that she didn’t want to go in, right? I know she told you.”
“When you fall off a bike, you need to—”
Red flashed before my eyes and I heard nothing except the rapid pounding of my pulse. “I haven’t even been able to give her a bath since it happened, you idiot. You—”
Mama Peg lifted the phone from my quaking hand. While I shook with fury, she spoke into the receiver. “Lindsey, I know whatever happened wasn’t on purpose. Jenny’s just upset.”
I snatched the phone from her, growled into it, and slammed it down.
Minutes felt like hours as I waited for David to bring my daughter back. My mind played out all kinds of gut-wrenching scenarios. Isabella clinging to the father she trusted so readily as he pried her little fingers off his shoulder, her pleading with him to stop . . .
Thinking of my daughter being terrified knocked the wind out of me, and I clutched my stomach. What kind of people would force a child to do something that petrified her? Not anyone that needed to be parents. What kind of future would she have with them? That behavior was inexcusable. Unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.
I threw open the screen door and hurried to the front lawn to wait for them. It had been two weeks since it last rained, and the grass showed it. It crunched under my feet as I paced, trying to spend my anger before they arrived. The more I marched, though, the more upset I became. I couldn’t believe he had done what he’d done. I kept picturing my little girl, flailing and frantic, until I felt as though I were the one drowning.
Would she suffer lifelong trust issues now? She would definitely be scarred. I’ve spent her whole life trying to protect her, and he undoes it all in one afternoon. Falling off a bike? What a ridiculously stupid analogy.
Before David’s car had come to a complete stop, the back door opened. Isabella jumped out and ran for me. David called for her, but she didn’t slow. She threw herself into my arms, nearly toppling me. I held her as tightly as I could, but it wasn’t nearly tight enough. I wanted to somehow again merge her with me, as we had once been, and protect her from the world.
David got out of the car and stood before me. “Is she always so over-the-top?”
All the blood in my body shot to my head the instant I looked at him. My temples pounded and my eyes felt like they had been replaced with laser beams set on annihilating him. “She almost drowned two weeks ago, you moron.”
“She said something about that.”
“And you threw her in anyway?”
“She just needed a little confidence. The same thing happened to me at that age and—”
“Shut up,” I snapped.
He reached out to touch Isabella, but she buried her face in my chest. For the first time, David actually looked hurt instead of prideful. Good.
He leaned against his car. “How did you know what happened?”
“Lindsey.” I kissed the tears off Isabella’s lashes before it dawned on me. “Why was she there?”
“What?” he said.
I rested my chin on Isabella’s curls. “Why was she there? You promised me that it would only be you.”
“She’s my wife, and I didn’t promise.”
I shook my head at him in complete disgust. “I used to be able to trust your word.”
When I turned to leave, he grabbed my arm. I glared at him until he let go.
“I never once lied t
o you,” he said. “Lindsey came because Isabella begged her to. Ask her if you don’t believe me.” He stared at Isabella’s back with a sad expression. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”
Isabella wiggled to get down. I set her on the ground, and without turning to say good-bye to her father, she ran inside.
“I would never hurt her on purpose, Jenny.”
Isabella disappeared into the house. The door slammed shut and David winced.
I pressed my fingers to my forehead, trying to force my racing thoughts into words that made sense. I looked up. “This isn’t going to work, David.” I headed for the porch.
He called after me, “Don’t do this, Genevieve.”
I turned. “You did this, not me. You’re trying to treat her the same way that you treated me. We both deserved better.”
His expression changed him into a man that I no longer recognized. “She’s my daughter and she will be part of my life. Don’t fight me, Lucas. You won’t win.”
Without answering, I turned back around and headed inside, leaving him alone with his threat.
Chapter Sixteen
The smell of sweat and cedar passed under my nose right before something touched my arm. I opened my eyes, surprised to see Craig squatting next to my bed.
His hazel eyes crinkled at me. “You should see your hair.”
I shielded my mouth, hoping that my breath didn’t smell as bad as it tasted. “That good, huh?”
“Let’s just say you probably wouldn’t win the Miss North Carolina title.”
“I don’t think I stood that great a chance even on my best day.” I sat up the rest of the way, glanced at the alarm clock, and groaned. It was nearly dinnertime. My one-hour nap had somehow turned into three and still I could have easily slept a few more. “Why are you here?”
He sat, sinking one side of the mattress. The intensity of his gaze sent an unexpected thrill through me, and I found myself smiling at the ridiculousness of it. How in the world had I managed to develop a crush in the midst of dying? Only me.