“Da-ad.” Eyes wide, Lucy stared at him. “Can’t you just get another job?”
“I plan to,” Matthew said. “But I’m probably going to bring in less money than I did even before CMS.”
Elizabeth met his eyes. “You’re going to go into practice with Sarah, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t discussed it with her yet, but that’s my intention.”
“I think you should,” Elizabeth said.
Overwhelming relief mingled with his surprise. “You do?”
She laughed. “Matt, come on. You’ve always acted like I don’t have a serious thought in my head and all I care about is shopping, but—”
“You come on,” he said. “I’ve never thought that about you.”
“Here, Elizabeth,” she said in a gruff voice, meant to be his, “here’s a hundred dollars. Go buy a dress or something.”
“And I thought I was being a good provider.”
“You were, Matt. Are. But it was like you never really saw me, or knew who I was.”
Lucy sighed dramatically. “So do I have to go to a different school?”
“No,” Matthew and Elizabeth said together.
“Lulu, your life won’t be that different,” Matthew explained. “But look at the size of this house. I know we can find something you’ll like that makes more sense all around.” Head bowed, Lucy silently picked at her fingernails, her hair falling like a curtain around her shoulders. His heart ached for her because her life was about to change and it would be more than just moving to a smaller house. Lucy was also at a crossroads, somewhere between the safety of childhood and the exhilaration of young adulthood with all its bumps and turns and unexpected obstacles. And his decision would make the going that much rougher for her.
“Are you going to marry Sarah?” she finally asked. And then she raised her head to look at him. Defensive, her back stiff, she braced for the answer. “Just tell me, okay?”
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN why you’ve decided to end things with a man you’ve loved for as long as you can remember? Sarah had no idea. For the past ten minutes she and Matthew had sat silently on one of the benches that ran along the Olympic Discovery Trail, looking out at the water.
The third bench, she’d counted. He’d asked her to marry him and, when she hadn’t replied instantly, had offered to get down on one knee. She’d laughed, although she hadn’t felt like laughing. She’d refused the offer.
The wind from the strait was cool on her face, drying the tears on her cheeks. Wind blew her hair around her head, blew ripples across the water. Tossed the yellow dandelions that studded the grass, a brilliant green in the fading light. The receding tide had left dark green seawood on the rocks. A couple of gulls screeched.
“Big fight in gull land,” Sarah broke the silence to say as she watched them duke it out midair for a dangling worm.
Matthew put his arm around her shoulder. “Why?”
“Because they both want the same worm.” And then she started laughing, on the edge of hysteria. Matthew didn’t join in. “Sorry,” she said, growing sober again.
“If it’s Lucy…”
“No. I mean, Lucy doesn’t make things easy, but she isn’t the reason I know this wouldn’t work.”
“You don’t know, Sarah. You think. And sometimes you think too much.”
“I don’t need to be rescued, Matthew.” He’d told her his plan. He would lead the exodus of physicians and other medical staff from CMS and they would join forces to purchase the old Port Arthur hospital. For just a moment, she’d entertained the idea. “You wouldn’t have been suggesting this if it hadn’t been for me.”
“So what? You were the necessary catalyst. What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything. This whole hideous kidnapping thing. I am so embarrassed by all that happened. Okay, maybe it wasn’t strictly my fault, but I think—”
“There you go again.”
“Please. There’s something in me that…I don’t know, leads to chaos.”
Matthew laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, “but I think it was you who told me that Lucy’s problem was that she thought the world revolved around her. Listening to you, I can’t help thinking the same thing. It’s not selfish with you, the way it is with Lucy, but, Sarah… Some things would happen regardless of whether or not you were involved.”
Her teeth were chattering now and she hunched her shoulders, clasped her hands between her thighs for warmth. It didn’t matter. On a deeper level, one that Matthew didn’t fully understand, she knew her self-assessment was right. It was like a reverse Midas touch.
She drew in a breath. “You’ve asked me several times about Ted and I’ve never wanted to talk about him. The night before he died, we had this horrible, horrible fight. He told me he was unhappy, that he still loved me but…”
Matthew’s arm tightened around her shoulder.
“He said I’d eroded his self-esteem. That I was destroying him.” She started crying. “He felt he could never live up to my expectations. I tried to argue with him, tell him that what he was saying was ridiculous…and then I realized that was exactly the problem. The thing is, I didn’t know how to be any other way. Rose told me to be myself. But myself isn’t a good thing to be. After there was nothing more to say, he left. Went skiing.”
“The only answer I have to that,” Matthew said after a few moments, “is that I’m not Ted.”
“But I’ve still messed up your life.”
“Sarah, if I believed you’d messed up my life, why would I want to marry you? Or are you suggesting that only you have the ability to know that you’ve messed up my life?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
MATTHEW DROPPED Sarah off at her apartment. Experience had taught him that once she’d set her mind on something, changing it was all but impossible. He drove into town, pulled up outside Brown’s Outdoor and spent more than he wanted to think about on several pieces of luggage and a backpack that could carry everything but the kitchen sink. Then, as planned, he picked Lucy up from her mother’s.
“What are all those for?” she asked when she saw the luggage in the backseat.
“Remember I told you I was going to join Sarah’s practice?”
She slumped in her seat. “Yeah. So now you’re going to marry her and go off on a trip.”
“No. She turned me down.” He pulled up outside the ice cream place. “I’m feeling kind of bad about it. A double dip of blackberry might help.”
“Why doesn’t she want you?” Lucy asked when they were sitting at their favorite table in the window alcove.
“No idea. Maybe she doesn’t think I’m good enough.”
“That’s crazy,” Lucy said.
“Thank you, Lulu.”
She nibbled at the cone, licked some ice cream off her hand. “So are you going back to CMS?”
“They won’t have me.” He stretched his legs out. “They won’t have me, Sarah won’t have me. It’s kind of hard not to take it personally.”
“But you shouldn’t, Daddy. Everybody knows you’re a good doctor.” She got up from the table to give him a quick hug. “And a good dad.”
He managed a gloomy smile. “Well, I’m glad you think so, Lulu. That means more than you know. At least I’ll have some good memories to take with me.” Waiting a moment for the words to sink in, he drew a deep breath. “I’m going to Central America, Lucy. Sarah had told me so much about it that I’m thinking of applying to the clinic where she worked.” He shot her a quick glance, just long enough to check the effect of what he’d said. Bingo. Stunned into gape-jawed silence. “Six months, maybe,” he elaborated. “Maybe a year.”
She kept staring at him. “You’re joking, right?”
“No
, I’m perfectly serious. It sounded interesting, the work she was doing. I like the idea of really helping people who need help.”
“People here need help, too,” Lucy said.
“True, but Sarah’s got that covered. I don’t want to encroach on her territory.”
He stole another glance at his daughter, who was twirling a lock of hair around her finger, a sure sign she was deep in thought.
“I don’t understand why she won’t let you work with her.”
Matthew shrugged. “Who knows?”
“But Daddy, when she came over…when we had that fight, she said she loves you.”
“I guess she changed her mind.”
ELIZABETH WAS SOAKING in the tub went Lucy burst into the bathroom, pink-faced, eyes blazing and a smear of what looked like ice cream on her chin.
“Dad’s going to Central America for a year because Sarah won’t let him join her practice. A year. And he’s all bummed out because first Compassionate Medical Systems doesn’t want him and now Sarah’s acting hateful and he bought all this luggage. I saw it. And…” She burst into tears. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Elizabeth, despite Lucy’s tearful agitation, fought to keep a straight face. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that Matthew, after tolerating his daughter’s manipulative tactics for some time now had decided that turnabout was fair play. Whether Sarah would see through the ruse, she wasn’t sure. Maybe not. Sarah could be dense when it came to emotional stuff. But Sarah and Matthew belonged together—whether Sarah knew it or not. If Elizabeth had to lock them in a room together to duke it out, she’d do it.
“Mom, I don’t want Dad to go to Central America,” Lucy said. “Can’t you say something to him?”
“Well, sweetie, let’s think this through. If he doesn’t go, he’ll end up seeing Sarah again, probably marrying her, and you know how you feel about that.”
“He might not marry her,” Lucy said. “You don’t know.”
“Honey, I knew Sarah and your dad long before you came along. They were like…two magnets. Some people really are meant for each other.”
“Why doesn’t Sarah think so?”
“Because Sarah is very stubborn. She might be a doctor and really smart, but in some ways, she’s like a kid and you just want to shake some sense into her.”
Lucy frowned. “Is it because of me?”
“Well, I don’t think you made it easy for either of them. I know Sarah felt bad because she thought you didn’t like her.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“You think she doesn’t like you. See, that’s what happens sometimes. I’m not saying it’s just you, we all do it. We walk around acting a certain way—snobby, or friendly, whatever—and other people act the same way in response. I bet if you’d acted happy and friendly around Sarah, you wouldn’t be sitting here thinking she doesn’t like you.”
Lucy was twirling her hair. “Do you think Dad would still go to Central America if I was nice to Sarah?”
“I don’t know, honey. Might be worth a try though.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SARAH STOOD before the bathroom mirror, a pair of kitchen shears in her right hand. The reflection before her had red eyes, a swollen red nose and chapped lips. She caught the end of her braid with her left hand and held it out horizontally. She imagined the feel of the scissors cutting through the thickness of the braid. Her neck would feel bare. Empty.
Bereft? No, she was not bereft. And, regardless of what Matthew had said, it had to be this way. Coming back to Port Hamilton, expecting to just pick up the threads of her old life, had been naive. But she could put all of this behind her. Just as she’d done with Ted. She would call the agency, tell them she was ready for another assignment. Reinvent herself.
She held the braid between the scissors blade. One quick cut and it would be done, a symbolic way to end this chapter of her life and to begin another one.
Okay. She brought the scissors down on the hair. The braid was surprisingly tough to cut. She opened the scissors, closed them again, but after the first small cut, they wouldn’t close down on the entire braid. She put them down in the sink and checked the braid. The scissors had cut about a fourth of the way through, but not in the clean, incisive way she’d imagined. Rather, it was as though it had been chewed by a dog.
In the kitchen, she found the butcher’s knife and, without even looking in the mirror, applied it to the braid. Still, it wasn’t exactly doing the job. She considered unbraiding her hair, then taking the scissors to it, although it didn’t promise quite the dramatic satisfaction she’d had in mind—of watching the braid drop to the floor.
She kept hacking away.
The doorbell rang.
She froze. Matthew. He couldn’t see her like this. She glanced around the kitchen, eyed the window as a possible escape route.
But wait! Maybe this was exactly how he should see her. Crazed, a butcher’s knife in one hand. An image that would burn in his brain, drive home the knowledge that he should thank his lucky stars he hadn’t thrown in his lot with her.
Brandishing the knife, she threw open the door.
Lucy screamed.
“Oh, Lucy,” Sarah said. “I thought it was your dad.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. She looked ready to bolt.
“This isn’t quite the way it looks,” Sarah said. “I was just cutting my hair—”
“With a knife?”
“Well, I started to use scissors, but they wouldn’t work.” She looked at Lucy, still wide-eyed but slightly less apprehensive, and wondered why it suddenly seemed important to reassure the girl. “You want to come in?”
“Oh, that’s okay.” Lucy shifted her weight. “I kind of wanted to talk to you about my dad. He’s going to Central America and—”
“Your dad’s going to Central America?”
Lucy scuffed her foot against the doorstep. “Yeah.”
In the months since Sarah had met Matthew’s daughter, she’d never felt an inclination toward physical demonstrations of affection, but looking at Lucy now, head bowed, Sarah put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and led her inside. Leaving the door open just in case Lucy still harbored fears for her safety.
She sat next to Lucy on the futon. “You want to tell me about it?”
“Dad said he wanted to work with you but you didn’t want him and CMS doesn’t want him so now he’s going to Central America.” She sniffed. “And I really, really don’t want him to go.”
Sarah realized she was still holding the butcher’s knife. The braid, still half attached, hung down over one shoulder. Her brain was buzzing with questions, the foremost being whether Matthew had set this up. If he had, it was diabolically clever of him, she had to give him that. As she mulled this, she realized Lucy was watching her.
“I cut my mom’s hair for her sometimes,” Lucy said.
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Lucy eyed Sarah’s hatchet job. “Yours might be a little harder to do, but I could try to work on it, if you want.”
Sarah smiled. “You know, that might be a really good idea.”
“Okay.” Lucy bit her lip, her gaze still directed at Sarah’s braid. “I’m sorry I was mean to you.”
MATTHEW HAD RUN the length of Lopez Hook and was headed back into town thinking about getting some breakfast when he ran into a woman in a green track suit jogging in the opposite direction.
Head down, short auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight, she snarled something about idiots who didn’t look where they were going and started to pass him when he realized who it was. In one quick move, he grabbed her by the arm, yanked her around to face him and saw Sarah’s familiar triumphant grin.
“Ha-ha, fooled yo
u,” she said.
He smiled. “Well, obviously you didn’t.”
“Too clever by half, Cameron.” She smiled right back at him. “Sending your daughter to plead your case.”
“Had I known about the butcher’s knife,” he said, “I might have thought twice before enlisting her.”
“You know, it’s funny, I’ve always had this problem knowing what to say to people who cut my hair, but Lucy and I got along famously. Had a great talk, cleared up a lot of things.”
“It looks very nice,” he said.
“Really?” She ruffled it with her hand. “I feel naked, but it’s also very liberating. There must be some scientific explanation. Hair absorbs negative energies, all the old emotional baggage. Cut it off and you effectively rid yourself of all that junk.”
Matthew hadn’t stopped smiling since they collided. “I would suggest conducting more research before submitting that to the New England Journal.”
“But would it work for you, Matthew? If I told you that all the neurotic garbage I spouted was eliminated with my haircut?”
“I’ve bought more preposterous ideas from you in the past,” he said. “Like the time you convinced me that the ferry pilings were actually planted there as saplings.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Matthew, don’t make me grovel. So, will you ask me again? To marry you?”
“How do I know the crazy ideas won’t come back as your hair grows?”
Sarah glanced at her watch. “You have two minutes. You want to marry me, or not?”
“I was thinking you could ask me this time,” he said. “Just to even things up.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Down on one knee?”
“Come here, you.” He held her face between his hands, kissed her eyes, her mouth. It had taken so long to come to this, such a circuitous route, but here they were, back in the place they both knew so well, ready to start a new adventure together. “I love you, I’ve always loved you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Practice Makes Perfect (Single Father) Page 20