A Mom for His Daughter

by Jean C. Gordon

  “I should head out,” Fiona said.

  He heard the slide of a chair on the hardwood floor as he approached the dining room doorway.

  “Thanks for dinner.”

  Fiona had come for dinner? How had he missed that?

  “Thank you for your ideas.”

  Ideas. What was his mother cooking up?

  “Stay a minute and let me tell you about Stella’s doctor’s appointment today. I had hoped to tell you and Marc together.”

  That was another act of cowardice, taking his mother up on her offer to take Stella to her follow-up with Dr. Franklin. He’d convinced himself she could handle it better than him, just as Cate always had.

  “You can tell us together.” Marc walked into the dining room and pulled out the chair next to Fiona.

  “Hi.” She smiled at him, needling his heart.

  “Hey.”

  “We missed you at dinner,” his mother said, glancing at Fiona.

  Fiona tugged at her shirtsleeve. “We got together with Claire, Andie and Natalie to plan Renee’s baby shower.”

  “Right.” Marc vaguely remembered his mother saying something about that, but not about Fiona coming to dinner. Wasn’t that what he wanted? His family to treat Fiona as one of them, for Fiona to spend time with Stella without him? Then why were his mother’s and Fiona’s words making him feel guilty about the extra work hours he’d put in lately?

  “So what did Dr. Franklin say?” Marc held his breath waiting for his mother’s response.

  “The tests point to some type of IBD.”

  “Inflammatory bowel disease,” Fiona said.

  “I know that.” His words came out sharper than he meant them to, but the results weren’t what he’d wanted to hear, even if they were what he’d expected deep down.

  “Dr. Franklin did another test today,” his mother continued, “and set up an appointment for an ultrasound. I know you’re busy. Fiona said she could take Stella. I have a dentist appointment at the same time.”

  “I can take her.” He sensed rather than saw Fiona tense beside him. “Fiona and I can.” He shouldn’t let his mixed feelings toward Fiona interfere with her relationship with Stella and his family. Who was he to say who they could be friends with?

  His mother folded her hands on the table. “Good. The appointment is two weeks from Thursday at ten. I’ll give you the reminder card.”

  Earlier today, he’d made plans to meet with the linen supplier that morning to finalize selections and delivery. “No problem.” Maybe he could switch it to later in the day and take Stella with him. He shook his head. After putting her through an ultrasound, he and Stella should do something fun. Invite Fiona to come with them, if she could take the whole day off.

  “Something wrong with that date?” Fiona asked. “You shook your head.”

  “It was something else. Unrelated.”

  Fiona’s eyes narrowed, and he looked away.

  “Dr. Franklin and I went over Stella’s food journal, and I shared it with Fiona. Do you two want to talk about that here or in the front room?” his mother asked. “I have a TV show I want to catch. You’d be more comfortable in the front room. Your father has a nice fire going in there.”

  Marc rubbed his leg. As if he’d be more comfortable anywhere, alone with Fiona.

  “Go on.” His mother handed him the food journal and made a shooing motion. “And Fiona, thanks again for the suggestion for my apple crisp. I’ll do that next time I make it.”

  That would be a first—his mother taking a suggestion for one of her signature desserts.

  “What did you say to my mother about her apple crisp?” he asked as they walked through the dining room.

  “The same as I mentioned to you, that the apple peels and nuts were most likely what had bothered Stella, not the sugar, as your mother thought.”

  “Mom didn’t say anything to me.”

  “That was before she’d talked with Dr. Franklin.”

  At the appointment he should have taken his daughter to. He stopped beside the couch where Stella lay fast asleep, struck by how much she looked like her aunt. Fiona could easily be taken as Stella’s mother. Dr. Franklin had thought so.

  Marc fisted his left hand, the one blocked from Fiona’s view. Cate had been Stella’s mother. He was Stella’s father. All Fiona wanted to be was Stella’s aunt, which was why he had to get their almost-kiss on the hill out of his mind. He bent and kissed Stella’s forehead. That was the only kissing he should be thinking about.

  He straightened, taking care not to accidentally brush Fiona, who stood right behind him. “The front room is off to the right.”

  She fell into step with him.

  “Now, what were you saying about Dr. Franklin?” The warmth emanating from the woodstove hit him before they entered the front room.

  “He and your mother hit it off.”

  “That’s good. I had concerns about Mom taking things seriously.”

  Fiona shot him a questioning look he couldn’t read. But, despite his four sisters, when had he ever been able to read women? He took in the room. Mom’s ancient cat, Kiddles, was asleep on the chair he was going to sit in. That left only the love seat. For the two of them. Mentally fortifying himself, he motioned to the love seat and sat next to Fiona, as far away as the overstuffed cushions would allow.

  “I think she is now, at least,” Fiona said. “She took notes. They’re at the back of the journal.”

  Marc flipped the journal open. He was glad his mother was acknowledging Stella might have a medical condition, but he hoped, now that Mom had, she didn’t jump in with two feet and blow it out of proportion as she sometimes did.

  “I didn’t know you were coming to dinner tonight.” He couldn’t remember his mother mentioning anything about that when he’d dropped Stella off this morning.

  “She called to check whether I was coming this evening for the planning session and invited me. She said Stella was here.”

  His mother had Fiona’s phone number? “Right. Renee’s baby shower.” Marc read through his mother’s notes from the doctor’s appointment.

  “Stella seems to be sensitive to many of the same foods Beth was,” Fiona said when he finished.

  “But Dr. Franklin hasn’t diagnosed Stella with Crohn’s.”

  Fiona avoided his gaze. “No, he hasn’t.”

  “The ultrasound and other tests could rule it out.”

  “They could.”

  Marc placed the journal on the arm of the love seat and dropped his head into his hands. “How did your mother do it? Your sister was little, like Stella.”

  Fiona stiffened. “She didn’t.” The flatness of her voice didn’t hide all the anger that radiated from Fiona. “I did the best I could to help.”

  His heart somersaulted. “You were a child, too.”

  “I listened at the doctors’ appointments and read the information they gave my mother so I could remind her not to buy foods that were bad for Beth.”

  “Where was your father?”

  “He didn’t accept Beth’s diagnosis or treatment, and then he left.”

  As he hadn’t fully accepted his wife’s diagnosis or fully appreciated his family’s closeness and support.

  He took Fiona’s hand in his, and she squeezed it. At that moment, he wanted nothing in the world more than to protect Fiona every bit as much as he wanted to protect and take care of his daughter.

  * * *

  She had to get out of here. The cozy room, complete with crackling fire. Marc’s nearness, his hand wrapped around hers. His mother, his sisters, the whole big family. It had her wanting things that weren’t hers to want, like a place in Marc’s life beyond simply being Stella’s aunt. But she made no attempt to move, wanting to bask in the warm bubble of security she felt for the moment—security she knew could
n’t last, not for her. The only security she could depend on was what she provided herself.

  “Stella seems to be warming to you, letting you read her a story tonight and sledding with her on Saturday.”

  The room hung thick with the unsaid words: when we almost kissed.

  Fiona untangled her hand. “I should go. Work tomorrow.”

  Her gaze followed Marc’s to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Seven fifteen. Not exactly the dead of the night.

  “Stay.”

  Her heart tripped.

  “We should talk about Stella.”

  Stella, right. What had she been thinking?

  He crossed his ankle over his other leg, knee toward her. “If Stella has something more, IBS or Crohn’s disease, like your sister did...you’ll help me?”

  Fiona knew Marc well enough to know how difficult him asking her for help was.

  “With everything I have,” she said.

  His hopeful expression darkened. What had she said wrong?

  “I didn’t handle my wife’s illness well.”

  “I can only imagine how difficult it was.”

  “It was, especially with Stella not really understanding what was going on.” He jiggled his knee. “But that’s not what I mean. I’ve accepted God’s will. What I haven’t done is forgiven myself for some of my actions the last few months of Cate’s life.” His voice broke. “I wouldn’t accept it was fatal, not even after she had.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with hope.”

  He stopped bouncing his knee. “Sometimes there is.”

  She flinched. Stella wasn’t his late wife. She wasn’t Beth. From what Dr. Franklin had told them and Marc’s mother, anything the doctor suspected would be treatable. Not knowing what to say, Fiona waited for Marc to continue, evidently unable to disguise what she was feeling.

  “I don’t mean Stella,” he reassured her, taking Fiona’s hand in his again.

  If he was looking for strength, she’d give him all she had. Fiona looked into his troubled eyes. And not only for Stella’s sake.

  “Toward the end, Cate was in intense pain. She was ready to leave us, and I couldn’t bear that. I pushed her and her oncologist to try everything and threw myself into work, fooling myself that I was doing it for her, to pay for experimental treatments our insurance didn’t cover.” He dropped his head to his chin. “I was doing it for myself, and I harmed the two people I loved most.”

  For a selfish moment, Fiona wondered what it would be like to have the kind of love she could see Marc had had for his late wife, and that he had for Stella.

  “We can work together to manage Stella’s condition without taking away her joy.”

  “You think so? I changed my mind and read the information on the websites Dr. Franklin gave us. Some possible triggers are Stella’s favorite foods, like Mom’s apple crisp.”

  “Which is why I suggested to her that she try making it with peeled apples and not nuts. I’m sure Stella will still like it. It’s just being vigilant with small things like that.”

  Marc uncrossed his legs and stretched them toward the fire. “Stella regressed behavior-wise under my care after Cate...” He didn’t finish.

  “You discussed that with her doctor?”

  “Of course I did.”

  Fiona pressed back into the soft cushion of the love seat at the vehemence of his words. Marc, his family—they weren’t her family.

  “And I took her to a counselor downstate and talked over the situation with Renee.”

  “I’m sorry. You and your family aren’t like my family.”

  The edge left his expression. He squeezed her hand, and joy bubbled through her.

  “The two things that worried me most about Stella’s behavior since Cate’s death,” he stumbled a bit over the last word, “are her fear, even anger, toward women Cate’s age who might remind her of Cate, and her delayed speech.”

  “Stella’s been hesitant with me, but I haven’t seen what I’d call true anger toward me.”

  Marc looked thoughtfully at the fire. “You’re right.” He told her about a few of the heartbreaking outbursts he’d seen from Stella.

  Could the little girl sense they were related? Fiona quickly quashed that idea. “She may have accepted me because you and Noah introduced me as your and Claire’s friend.”

  A slow smile spread across Marc’s face. Fiona let herself believe a tiny part of that smile might be for her.

  “Could be. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Stella has been increasingly using ‘me’ and ‘I’ and ‘my’ when referring to herself, rather than ‘Stella.’”

  Marc’s words confirmed the thoughts Fiona had had about the funny looks she’d seen on his face when they’d been with Stella. “I’m certainly no expert, but I think your time off work with Stella has made her feel more secure.”

  “The question is, secure enough for me to be back at work? I’m beginning to be jazzed about the restaurant opening, finding the satisfaction I’d always had in my work again.”

  Fiona fought the hollow opening in her stomach. Would she be able to fill the gap with Stella if Marc became overly absorbed in his work, as it sounded like he’d been before his wife’s death? She didn’t want that responsibility, the possibility of failing again.

  “Your sister or Noah would be better able to answer that.” She took a deep breath. “But I want to be clear that I’d have trouble standing by quietly and watching you put work before Stella.”

  Marc’s glacial stare dropped the temperature in the air between them by twenty degrees. “You think I would do that?”

  “Not intentionally.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I did do that. Cate picked up the slack.”

  “As much as I’m growing to love Stella, I can’t do that for you.”

  “I’d never ask you to do all of what Cate did for Stella, any more than I’d ask one of my sisters to. Cate was her mother.”

  Although they shouldn’t have, his words seemed framed to keep Fiona in her place. She buried her hurt and composed herself. “And, like your sisters, I’m her aunt. What I can do is tell you if I think you’re neglecting Stella.”

  Marc drew back at the word neglect.

  “That was a little strong. Getting off balance is what I meant,” Fiona clarified.

  “I knew what you meant. I may have neglected Stella at times in an emotional sense, knowing Cate was there for me, and after when I was drowning in grief and responsibility.”

  Fiona squeezed his hand and he favored her with a smile, the smile she often caught on his face when he was looking at Stella. Her heart thumped.

  “So what you said about keeping me on the straight and narrow where work and Stella are concerned? It’s a deal.”

  The fire popped and crackled as the top log split and fell to the floor of the stove. She had exactly what she wanted, her place as Stella’s aunt. So why was the hollow feeling in her stomach still there?

  * * *

  “Has Fiona gone home?” His mother caught him standing beside the couch where Stella was still fast asleep. Only his dad had been in the living room watching TV when he’d walked Fiona to the door.

  “Yes, just now. Did you need her for something?”

  His mother shook her head. “No, but do you have a minute?”

  “I should get Stella home.” He knew that argument was useless, but tried anyway. He didn’t want his mother bursting the bubble of warmth he still felt from the conversation he’d shared with Fiona.

  “She can sleep here as well as at your house. Come into the kitchen where we won’t disturb your father.”

  He followed her and sat at the table, purposely looking at the clock above the sink.

  “This won’t take long,” his mother said.

  “It’s about Fiona?�
� He braced himself.

  “Yes, I like her.”

  That certainly wasn’t what he expected. “I do, too,” he blurted.

  His mother smiled.

  “Not like that,” he protested.

  “Like what?”

  He ignored her question. “I knew you were okay with her after our lunch. You didn’t need to reassure me.”

  “I did. Spending time with her tonight, seeing her with your sisters and especially with Stella, let me get to know Fiona better. I really like her.”

  Marc shifted in his seat. “I’m glad. Is that it?”

  “Not so fast. Did you have a good talk?”

  He had no idea what was going on with his mother. This was reminiscent of her cornering him on his way in the house after his first real date, the homecoming dance his sophomore year in high school—and his first kiss. His thoughts drifted to holding Fiona on the country club hill, her eyes wide with surprise when he’d leaned in.

  Marc cleared his throat. “We did. Her knowledge and experience with her sister, even if Fiona was a child herself, will be helpful.” He sounded so clinical, but how else should he sound with his mother? He couldn’t show how warm and jumbled he really felt.

  “That’s all?”

  Pretty much all he wanted to share. “Fiona said she’d step up and tell me if I’m veering toward becoming a workaholic again.”

  “Good. That’s what got you in trouble before, burying yourself in work so you couldn’t see anything else.”

  Stick it to me, Mom. “It was more complicated than that, but I get your gist.”

  “Working with you and your partners should help her see how much you’re working and help manage that.”

  He didn’t need his mother or Fiona managing him. Marc leaned back on the rear legs of his chair, earning him a glare from his mother. He dropped the chair to the floor. Although his mother’s grilling had him feeling like an adolescent, he didn’t need to act like one.

  “Fiona was very good stepping in for you tonight with Stella when you had to work so late.”

  “Yes, I thanked her. Frankly, I was surprised. You know how Stella can be around strange women.”