by Robin Wells
“And like Aunt Jillian’s,” Zoey quickly added. “She’s just like Mommy, ’cause they have the same genes.”
I avoided looking at Jillian.
“But she doesn’t wear them,” Sophie said. “’Cause Mommy was skinnier.”
Jillian’s face turned scarlet.
“Not those kind of jeans, dumbo,” Zoey said.
“Don’t call your sister names,” I said. “When you were her age, you didn’t know one type of jean from the other, either.”
“Zoey, can you explain the difference?” Jillian asked.
“Well, one kind is what you wear, and the other is something inside you, like blood.”
Sophie screwed up her face. “How does it get inside you?”
“Every living thing has a set of instructions for what it’s going to look like, and these instructions are called genes,” Jillian explained. “But they’re spelled differently from the pant kind.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Sophie, and the conversation returned to the animals. The girls ran upstairs to get their stuffed animals and reenact the Global Wildlife experience.
I felt strangely awkward alone with Jillian. “Sounds like you had a great time. I hope they weren’t too much of a handful.”
“Not at all. You know I love spending time with the girls.” She paused. “It’s a shame you couldn’t go with us.”
“Yeah, well . . . I had to catch up on some work from taking yesterday off.”
“I heard you helped Miss Adelaide find some information she needed.”
“Yes.”
She cocked her head and looked at me, apparently expecting me to give her more information. When I didn’t, she gave a forced-looking smile. “Well, it was nice of you to help out.”
“And it was good of you to take the girls to Global Wildlife.” This conversation was weirdly formal. I’d felt increasingly uncomfortable around her lately.
“The girls asked if I’d make dinner for them tonight,” Jillian said. “They wanted carrot salad and broccoli—probably the result of watching the animals eat. It’s rare when they’re willing to eat such healthy food, so I told them I’d fix it.”
Ah, hell. I’d planned to just order a pizza and chill with the girls—Hope was going to work on the mural at the coffee shop tonight—but now it seemed I was stuck with Jillian.
I looked at her, and she skittishly cut her eyes away in a way that made me think of a domestic abuse victim. It made me feel horrible.
“Great,” I forced myself to say.
A smile bloomed on her face. For just a second she resembled Christine, and then the similarity was gone. “Well, then, I guess I’ll get started. We picked up groceries on the way home.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I should offer to help. I’m sure that’s what she wanted, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. “I, uh, want to spend some time with the girls, so I’m going upstairs.”
“Sure.” She smiled brightly. I noticed she was wearing freshly applied lipstick. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
The girls invited Jillian to stay for dinner, and I saw no way out of it without being flat-out rude. I focused on the girls and talked almost exclusively to them throughout the meal. Jillian sat at the end of the table, where Christine used to sit. I don’t know if it was because of Hope or what, but I felt even more awkward than usual and couldn’t wait for her to leave.
After dinner, I pushed back my chair. “I’ll handle cleanup,” I told Jillian. “You’ve pulled more than enough aunt duty today.”
Just then Zoey sidled up, holding her stomach. “I want go to bed,” she said in a thin voice. “Can you tuck me in, Aunt Jillian?”
Jillian felt her forehead. “Oh, dear—I hope you’re not coming down with something. There’s a terrible stomach bug going around.”
“Can you stay the night?” Zoey asked.
My stomach suddenly wasn’t feeling so hot, either, but it wasn’t because of a bug.
“I’d be happy to, but . . .” Jillian darted a glance at me. “It’s up to your father.”
“Pleeease, Daddy,” Zoey pleaded. Her eyes filled with tears. “I miss my mommy, and I’d feel better if Aunt Jillian were here.”
Boy, she really knew where to hit me. “I can take care of you, honey.”
“I know, but you’re not a lady. When I’m sick, I like soft hands like Mommy’s.”
Hell. I hated to have Jillian stay, but I couldn’t find a way of denying the request that didn’t leave me feeling like a monster.
“Well, if Jillian doesn’t mind—okay.”
“I don’t mind,” Jillian said. “I don’t mind a bit.”
49
matt
Hope was wearing that thing I first saw her in, that sheer floaty gown from the 1940s, and we were in the diner in Mississippi, dancing like Fred and Ginger. We were doing all these wonderful, graceful, spontaneous moves—twists and dips and swings and what all. As the music slowed, I stretched her on a table—but then the lighting changed and the room kind of twirled and the table became a bed. The bed rotated and somehow so did we, so that she was behind me, spooning. She was warm and soft, and her arm was draped across my chest.
Something jarred me a little, pulling me up from the depths of sleep into shallower dream waters. I sighed and tried to fall back into the dream, imagining Hope was snuggled against me, and her hand was moving down my chest . . . down my belly . . . down to my cock, which immediately hardened.
My eyes jerked open. This was no dream. My sweatpants were loosened and a hand was closed around my penis, stroking up and down. Pleasure poured through me. Hope must have sneaked back into the house and into bed with me.
“This is quite a pleasant surp . . .” I rolled toward her, and the moonlight slanting through the window hosed my dream—and my erection—like cold water.
The face on the pillow wasn’t Hope’s; it was Jillian’s.
“What—what the hell are you doing?” I gasped.
“Let me love you, Matt.” She rose on an elbow, still reaching for my crotch.
I gripped her wrist and twisted away.
“It’s okay,” she purred. “It won’t take away from your love for Christine. It can be so wonderful if you’ll just let it happen.”
“Stop it!” I scooted to the edge of the bed and switched on the light.
“You’re upset.”
I could barely bring myself to look at her. When I did, I wished I hadn’t. She was wearing some low-cut nightgown that looked like it came from Frederick’s of Hollywood. “Hell yes, I’m upset!”
“Matt, I can make you love me. I can love you enough for both of us until you do. I love the girls, and they need a mother. I’ll be good for you. I can make you feel everything you felt with her, I swear it.”
“Jillian, I don’t want . . .” What the hell was I supposed to say? I ran a hand down my face and searched for the right words. “Look—I don’t feel that way about you.”
“You could if you’d give me a chance. You wanted me a moment ago. You were hard in my hand.” She slid off the bed and onto her knees before me. Holy Moses—was she trying to go down on me? “Jesus, Jillian! Stop it!” I moved across the room to my dresser.
“Daddy?” I heard the door rattle. Apparently Jillian had locked it. Thank God for that. But still—Sophie was standing outside!
I adjusted my sweatpants and tried for a normal fatherly tone. “Are you feeling okay, honey?”
“Yes. But I heard voices. Is Aunt Jillian in there with you?”
Christ. What the hell was I supposed to do? If I lied to her, she could just walk down the hall and find Jillian’s bed empty. She might have done that already. I opened my dresser, grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on while Jillian wrapped herself in the bathrobe she’d apparently worn to my room. I strode to the door and ope
ned it. Sophie stood there, sucking her thumb. She peered around me and waved at Jillian.
Great, just great. She’d tell her grandparents, and everything would turn into a big ugly mess. “Jillian came in just a moment ago because, uh, she was, uh, feeling bad.”
“Oh,” Sophie’s eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. She looked at Jillian. “Is it ’cause Zoey lied?”
“What?” I asked.
“She acted sick when she wasn’t. My friend Savannah said that if you pretend to be sick when you’re not, someone you love will get sick for real.”
“Oh, no, honey.” Jillian moved to the girl and took her in her arms. “That’s not right. It’s not Zoey’s fault. I’m fine.”
“But Daddy said you were sick.”
Anger, cold and fierce as an arctic blizzard, blew through me.
“I had a bad dream that made me feel bad, but now I’m okay,” Jillian said. “And Savannah’s wrong. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Hold on a minute, Sophie,” I said. “Zoey pretended to be sick this evening?”
She nodded, her eyes downcast. “We wanted Jillian to stay the night so she’d fix blueberry pancakes in the morning.”
I looked at Jillian. The stricken look on her face confirmed all my suspicions.
Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to get Zoey in trouble.”
It took all of my control to keep my voice calm. “Nobody’s going to get in trouble, but I’m going to talk to Zoey. And neither of you should ever do this again, understand? Not because it’ll make other people sick, but because it’s not honest.”
She nodded.
“Come on, sport. I’ll tuck you back into bed.”
I came out of the girls’ bedroom a few minutes later to find Jillian sitting on the side of the bed in the guest room.
I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at her. “Get dressed, get your things, and come downstairs,” I ordered.
I changed out of my sweatpants and into a pair of jeans, then went to the kitchen, reached in the cabinet, and poured a stiff drink of bourbon. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so angry.
Jillian came into the kitchen a few minutes later, looking pale and shaken. “Matt, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted . . .”
I took a gulp of bourbon. It burned all the way down my throat. “It’s pretty clear what you wanted.”
Tears spilled down her face. “I can’t help it, Matt. I love you. We would be so perfect together. I thought that if I could break through your defenses, then you’d see that.”
The bourbon’s warmth spread to my brain. Maybe the bourbon had been a bad idea. I certainly didn’t feel any calmer. “So you told my daughter to lie to me?”
“I made sure she didn’t say anything untruthful. She just said she was ready to go to bed.”
“You coerced her into deliberately misleading me.”
She looked at the floor. “That was wrong. I admit that. But, Matt—I can tell I’m running out of time. I’ve researched when a man is most likely to fall in love after the death of a spouse, and most widowers with small children are either in a serious relationship or married by now. You’re ripe for the picking, and you’re getting more and more attached to Hope, and she’s going to leave, and then you and the girls will just be sad again. I thought if I could reach you before you and she . . .” Her voice broke off in a sob. She put her hands to her face. “. . . before you went too far with her.”
Too late. But where the hell did she get the idea things worked like that?
She took a step toward me. “I know that you miss Christine. And I know that I’m not her. But I can make you happy. I know I can.”
I held up both my hands, palms out. “Jillian . . . look. I just don’t think of you that way.”
“I know, I know, and that’s the problem! You’ve got the sense of taboo because I was your sister-in-law, but that’s just ridiculous.” She spit the word out as if it were rotten fruit. “You and I—we’re not blood kin. And anyway, in the Old Testament, men are supposed to marry their widowed sisters-in-law, so this is the same thing.”
I stared at her. She convinced my daughter to lie to me, she woke me from a sound sleep with a hand job, she’s saying the Bible says I’m supposed to marry her—and I’m ridiculous? I took another swig of bourbon. Had she always been crazy, or was this a new development?
She took a step toward me, her eyes pleading. “There’s nothing wrong with us being a couple—nothing wrong, and everything right. I thought that if I could get you to lower your inhibitions and see how wonderful things could be, well, then your feelings about me would change.”
I held up my hands again. “Stop right there. Don’t come any closer. Listen to me, Jillian, because I only want to say this once: If I had never met your sister, and if I’d never met Hope, I still would not be romantically interested in you. There’s nothing wrong with you—you’re a terrific woman, Jillian—but the chemistry’s just not there.”
“But . . .”
“There are no buts to this. For me, there is no chemistry. None. Nothing. Nada. Rien. You need to accept it and move on. All of this . . .” I waved my glass, trying to encompass the whole scenario. “. . . well, it’s just embarrassing.”
She put her face in her hands and sobbed. I pulled a paper towel off the roll and handed it to her. The crying went on and on. I kept my physical distance.
“You okay?” I finally asked.
“I’ve never felt so humiliated in all my life,” she sputtered.
“Yeah, well, I’m not so comfortable right now, either.” I tried to lighten the mood. “I think we just raised the word ‘awkward’ to a whole new level.”
She didn’t smile as I’d hoped she would. She dabbed at the tears running down her face.
“Look,” I said. “Let’s just put this behind us. Go home and get some sleep.”
“You won’t tell . . .”
Who? Her parents? “God, no. This is just between us. We both need to put this out of our minds.”
“I don’t think I can ever face you again. And the girls . . .” Fresh tears filled her eyes.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll just act normal, and after a while, it’ll go back to feeling that way.” I picked up her purse and handed it to her. “You okay to drive?”
She nodded again.
“All right. Take it easy. And look—as far as I’m concerned, this never happened. I’ve already forgotten about it.”
I watched until she climbed into her car and pulled out of the drive, then closed the door and leaned against it. Some things were easier said than done, and I was afraid that forgetting about this was one of them.
50
hope
Over the next week, I threw myself into clearing Gran’s house, working on the coffee shop mural, and helping plan Gran’s secret send-off party. Matt was working long hours in Baton Rouge, preparing for a trial. When I had a spare moment, I scoured the Internet, tracking down Joe Madisons in the Sacramento area.
Problem was, there must be about a million of them. I didn’t know if I was searching in the right city or even the right state—after all, Gran’s last information about him was sixty-something years old. I didn’t even know if he was still alive.
I’d phoned every airline listed as operating in the United States, asking if they’d had a pilot named Joe Madison who’d worked for them thirty years ago (I figured that the more recent the records, the better the odds that airlines might still have them), and every one of them told me they couldn’t access files that old and that even if they could, they wouldn’t release that information. I’d sent e-mails and even a snail-mail letter to each airline, asking them to please forward it to any Joe Madison pilots who might have worked for them.
“I can’t find a single lead,” I told Matt when he showed u
p in the backyard Thursday evening, the first week in May.
He pushed the swing with his feet. “I talked to someone I know, who put me in touch with a private detective.”
“I can’t afford a private detective.”
“I can.”
My heart turned over. I couldn’t believe he would offer something like that. It was the kind of thing you’d do for family, or your oldest, closest friend. Not someone who was leaving in a few weeks and would be out of your life forever.
“That’s really sweet, Matt, but I don’t want you to do that.”
“Why not? I want to help.”
“Well, as Zoey would say, ‘it’s not ’propriate.’”
“According to who?”
“Me.”
I thought the subject was closed. Matt and I continued to meet in the evenings after the girls and Gran were in bed—we’d usually talk in the swing, and then end up rendezvousing in the shed—but Tuesday the following week, he showed up at Gran’s front door shortly after dinner, accompanied by a elegant elderly woman with high cheekbones and white hair styled in a French twist. She wore a simple navy dress and red lipstick. “I hope it’s not too late to be paying a call on your grandmother,” Matt said.
“Not at all. She and I were just going through some old albums.”
“Good. Because I have someone here I think she’ll want to meet.”
Matt looked me in the eye, and I knew this woman was somehow connected with Joe. My heart started pounding in my chest.
“Who is it, dear?” Gran called from the living room.
“Matt. And a . . . a visitor.”
“Well, invite them on in.”
I must have opened the door and stepped out of the way, although I don’t really remember doing it, then led them into the living room. “Miss Addie,” Matt said, “this is Viola Madison.”
The woman stepped forward. Gran rose from her chair and extended a hand, and the woman took it in both of hers. “Adelaide? It’s such a delight to finally meet you. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you.”