by SUE FINEMAN
Luke and Laura both laughed. Barbara shook her head. “I hope I don’t live to regret this.”
“Aw, c’mon, darlin’. You love me just like I am.”
“I can’t imagine why, but I do.”
A sleepy little girl came out of the bedroom rubbing her eyes and carrying a huge stuffed bear. Jay scooped her up and sat beside Barbara. “Sorry, punkin, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“What happened?”
“Barbara and I are gettin’ married. Luke and Laura are gettin’ married, too.”
“Are you gonna be my daddy?”
“Don’t you have a daddy?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m gonna be Luke’s daddy, so I guess if it’s all right with your mama, it’s all right with me. I’ll be your daddy, too.”
“She won’t care. She doesn’t want me.”
“Well, we do,” said Barbara. “We all love you.”
Lily smiled. She leaned back in Jay’s arms, still holding her bear. In a few short weeks, she’d settled in as if she belonged here. Jay wouldn’t just be taking a wife, he’d be a father figure to a little girl who was nearly as ornery as him.
“Just don’t expect me to call you Daddy,” muttered Luke.
Lily closed her eyes and slept on Jay’s lap while the adults talked about Earl. Jay asked, “Is he gonna plea bargain down on the other charges?”
“What do you know about plea bargains?” asked Luke.
“Used to be a cop, long time ago.”
“You?” asked Barbara. “What else have you been hiding from me?”
“Maybe, with a little extra lovin’, I’d tell you some of my other secrets,” Jay said, his eyes shining.
“A bribe? You want a bribe to talk to me? You can sleep out in the barn tonight.”
“Aw, c’mon honey, you know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I don’t know any such thing.”
Jay looked down. Barbara glanced over at Laura and Luke and winked. Laura put her hand over her mouth to keep her giggles inside. Barbara was playing with him.
“Okay, all right,” said Jay. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, I don’t know. What else have you been hiding from me?”
“I ain’t never tried to hide nothing from you, baby, but hell, I ain’t a young-un like Luke and Laura. I been places and done some things you wouldn’t understand.”
“I suppose there are some things in my past I don’t especially want to talk about,” Barbara said softly.
“Oh, yeah?” His eyes lit up.
“Don’t push it, you crazy old man.”
“I ain’t much older than you.”
“You tell anyone and I’ll deny it. Then you’ll be sleeping in the barn for good.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Barbara’s life would never be dull with Jay around, but he’d be a good husband and a good father for Lily.
Laura rather liked the idea of Jay being her father-in-law.
<>
On the second Sunday of August, Ivy went into labor. Barbara and Jay and Maria drove her to the hospital. Lily stayed with Carlos and Molly. Barbara sat with Ivy, soothing a very scared girl who was much too young to be going through childbirth.
Ivy seemed sure it was a girl, but she delivered a beautiful, healthy baby boy.
Barbara said, “Oh, Ivy, he’s just perfect. Look at him. I’ve never seen a more beautiful baby.”
Ivy didn’t say anything until they handed the baby to her. She played with his tiny fingers and gently smoothed his wispy blond hair. “He’s awesome, but I can’t keep him.”
“Are you sure about that?” Barbara said gently. She didn’t want Ivy to make a decision she’d come to regret.
“He deserves more than I can give him. You take him. You and Jay.”
“Honey, I don’t want you to make an important decision like that for a few days. You might change your mind.”
“I want him to have a whole family, so he won’t grow up like me. If you don’t want him, I’ll ask Billy to find someone who does.”
Barbara rubbed her arm. “I’ll talk to Jay about it, honey. What are you going to call him?”
“You and Jay can name him.”
Barbara left Ivy with Maria and went to the waiting room to talk with Jay. They wandered down to the nursery and looked through the window at Ivy’s baby boy, at the perfect little head covered with blond fuzz. She wondered what color eyes he’d have. Ivy didn’t know who his father was or what he looked like. She remembered very little about the night she got pregnant.
“Ivy said she doesn’t want him. She wants us to take him.”
Jay grinned. “Always wanted a son of my own.”
“What would you name your son?”
“Jacob,” he said without hesitation. “Jacob Jay Fisher. I’d call him JJ.”
“I like it.”
“Looks a little like me, don’t he? You think we can keep Lily, too?”
“We can try. I’ll talk to Billy.” Starting a new family at her age might be foolish, but she already loved Lily, and looking at Jay’s handsome face, she knew he’d love them all – her, Lily, and this beautiful baby boy.
“Now we got ourselves a family, we better set a date.”
“How about the end of September? The baby should be sleeping through the night by then.”
“Check with Luke and Laura. I think they had a double wedding in mind, if that’s all right with you.”
“What if Ivy changes her mind about the baby?”
“We’re still gettin’ married, ain’t we?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Most definitely.” With kids or without, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with this lovable guy.
They walked back to Ivy’s room and told her together.
Ivy smiled. “I’m glad you’re taking him. I know he’ll have a good life with you.”
“What about you?” asked Jay. “Do you want us to adopt you, too?”
“No, I’ll stay with Carlos and Maria. You can adopt Lily.”
“What about your mama? Is she gonna change her mind?”
“She never wanted kids. We would have been better off if she’d given us to someone like you when we were babies.”
There were too many parents out there who didn’t really want kids, didn’t want to take care of them, and didn’t love the ones they had, yet they did nothing to prevent having more. Ivy’s mother was a good example of that. “Ivy, you’ll always be a big part of our family. Every time we look at JJ’s face, we’ll remember your precious gift. He’ll grow up knowing how much you loved him.”
<>
Jay converted the sitting room off Barbara’s bedroom into a nursery for the baby. In three weeks, JJ was sleeping through the night. He was a very good baby. Since Jay was between projects, he stayed with Barbara and helped her care for him. Barbara was surprised at his tenderness and patience with the baby. He gave Lily extra attention, too. He bought her a bicycle and taught her to ride it. He spent time with Ivy, too. Barbara knew he’d be a good husband and father. She had no doubts about that. So his speech was a little crude. So what?
He had a good heart, and that was what mattered.
<>
As soon as Barbara caught up on her sleep, she and Laura planned a double wedding.
Laura asked Florence to help, and she cried. Laura hugged her. Over the past few weeks, she’d grown close to her mother, much closer than she’d ever been to her father.
A few days later, she overheard Dad complaining to one of her customers about Queenie. He’d held onto his hate for so many years, he couldn’t let it go. Laura had tried to be understanding, but she wouldn’t put up with him chasing her customers away.
She called him aside before she exploded. “If you don’t want to be here, pack your things and leave.”
“I can’t leave. I need the damn job.”
“Then shut up about Queenie. I’m sick of hearing it.”
His lips press
ed tightly together. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m one of your bosses, and I don’t want you chasing customers away with your nasty comments.”
He shut his mouth and glared at her.
“If you’d taken that life insurance money and put it into this place, I would have given you half ownership, but you couldn’t wait to leave me here to deal with this mess on my own, could you?”
“Queenie—”
She held up her hands. “I don’t want to hear it, Dad. Queenie didn’t make you buy the fishing camp. She’s not the one who didn’t check the books before you bought it. You walked into that one all by yourself, so don’t blame Queenie. If I ever hear you talking that way to my customers again, you’ll be looking for a new job.”
He stomped into the apartment and let the door slam behind him. If he was anyone else, he’d be gone by now, but he was her father, and she couldn’t throw him out.
But why did he have to be so damn negative all the time?
<>
The wedding was held the first Saturday of October. Laura thought it would be a small, intimate ceremony, but as customers came into the café asking when she and Luke were getting married, the guest list grew until she finally put a notice in the newspaper inviting everyone in town. Luke and Barbara’s business partners across the state were also invited, so the church was filled to capacity.
It was the wedding Laura had dreamed of and more. After the ceremony, when she and Luke walked out of the church, many of her customers had tears in their eyes.
Barbara and Jay followed them outside, and photographers snapped their picture. News cameras caught them, too, and Laura knew they’d be shown on the news tonight.
“Smile for the cameras,” Luke whispered.
“Are you kidding? I can’t stop smiling. I’ve never been so happy.”
His arm tightened around her. “I love you, Laura.”
She kissed him, right there on the church steps, as flashbulbs went off.
Chapter Twenty-One
As Laura traveled and worked with Luke, her self-confidence rose to a new level. She learned more about business and economics and found she had very good instincts. Luke gave her more and more responsibility and she welcomed it. With his encouragement and praise, she came to realize that she was good at her job. And she was happier than she ever thought possible.
After she left Kingston, Laura seldom thought about Queenie. She spent as much time with her parents as she could, but it was no longer her home. Her home was with her husband, the man she loved more with each passing day. Wherever he was, that was home.
The sun shone brightly the first day of April, the day JJ and Lily’s adoptions became final. Family and friends filled the courtroom, and then they all came back to the diner for a celebration. Judy and Florence had decorated the new party room with balloons and streamers, and there was a beautiful cake on the table in the middle of the room. One table was stacked high with presents for JJ and Lily.
Laura looked at Lily, the carefree, ornery little girl everyone loved. Laura was Lily’s age when she started working for Queenie. Lily would have the childhood Laura had been denied.
Overcome with emotion, Laura slipped out the door and drove to the cemetery. It was the first time she’d been there since the day they’d buried Queenie. She stood before the unmarked grave in the bright sunshine. Tears filled her eyes, but they weren’t for Queenie. They were for herself.
Because of Queenie’s selfish desire to keep a husband who didn’t love her and to make another woman’s child her own, Laura grew up without her mother. Her heart ached for what might have been. Queenie wanted a family so much she made everyone miserable, including herself.
She heard footsteps behind her.
“Laura?”
Laura wiped the tears off her cheeks and turned to face her father.
“Florence said she told you.”
“About Queenie’s scam?” Laura nodded. “She did.”
“She didn’t tell you all of it. She didn’t tell you I put Queenie in that coffin. I was never sure what happened to Hank. I didn’t know Queenie tricked us until the night she confessed.”
Laura stared at him. “When was that?”
“The night she died. She told me what she’d done and asked me to forgive her.” He shook his head. “She took twenty years of my life, stole all my money, then expected me to forgive her, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“What money?”
“I had money saved, but she borrowed it to bury her father and pay off his bills. She was supposed to pay me back with the life insurance money, but she didn’t. At first, she said it didn’t come, then she said she invested it.”
Laura sighed. “She used it to pay off Hank.”
“It was mine. It was all I had. I couldn’t leave without my money.”
“And you couldn’t forgive her.”
“Hell no!” He spit the angry words. “I could have killed her when she told me what she’d done with that money.”
Laura could barely speak the words. “Did you?”
“I didn’t touch her. I didn’t have to. I told her I’d always hate her, then I stood there and watched her die. I could have called for help, but I didn’t call anyone until I knew she was dead. I wanted her to pay for what she’d done.”
At that moment, everything became clear, and Laura felt sick to her stomach. It wasn’t just about money or blackmail. Her father was so bitter, he wouldn’t allow his wife to love Florence’s child. Laura didn’t have Florence around to mother her, but her father didn’t allow Queenie to do it either. He kept Laura to himself. Out of bitterness. It was a cruel thing to do to an innocent little girl.
“You didn’t want me to love Queenie, did you, Dad?”
He slowly shook his head. “You were only three weeks old when Florence left. The next day Queenie tried to move in with us, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her she’d never be a mother to you. I told her I would never let you love her.
“You were happy until you started school, then you asked me why you didn’t have a mother like the other kids. I couldn’t tell you about Florence, so I told you Queenie was your mother. Almost every day you asked if you could go see her. I kept you separated as long as I could, then one day you stopped at the diner after school. Queenie gave you an ice cream cone. I marched over there and we had a big fight.
“I remember the fight. I didn’t realize it was about me.”
“I told her I wouldn’t ever let her be a mother to you, that you were Florence’s daughter, not hers. I said if she didn’t back off, I wouldn’t let you go to the diner again. I told her if she ever showed you any love, I’d take you away and she’d never see you again.”
Laura’s throat tightened, but she didn’t cry again. In spite of the warm sunshine, cold settled into her bones. She thought Queenie was her mother, and she wanted her mother to love her. Dad wouldn’t let it happen, but he let her work long hours in the café trying to please Queenie. He could have told her the truth then, that Queenie was his wife but not her mother, but he didn’t.
“One time you got sick. Flu or something. When I took you to the doctor, he asked me how Queenie was doing on the new heart medicine. I let on that I knew all about it, so he’d keep talking. He said it wouldn’t fix her heart, but it might help her live a little longer. I asked how long she had. He said, ‘A year or two, if that new medicine works.’”
“Oh, Dad.” Laura sighed heavily.
“I’d already waited so long, I figured I might as well wait it out. She’d be dead soon and I’d have her life insurance money. I’d have enough money to take you and Florence somewhere and start over. Then you’d have a real mother.”
“Only Queenie didn’t die on schedule.”
“God help me, Laura, at times I thought about helping her along.”
He didn’t kill her, but he hadn’t done anything to save her. He’d let Queenie die.
“You didn’t need her. You had me.”
“I had no one,” she said slowly, and knew it to be true. She’d been making excuses for her father her whole life. He didn’t hug her or say he loved her because he was a man. He never came to school events or took her anywhere because he couldn’t get away from a dead motel. He nursed his hate for Queenie as if it were the most important thing in his life. He didn’t show his daughter any love, and he refused to let anyone else love her.
He’d allowed Laura to work herself to death in that café for one reason – to punish Queenie. He’d punished his own daughter in the process. Maybe he didn’t care. For him, hate and bitterness were stronger than love.
“When you were in high school, Queenie told me you reminded her of Florence. She said you flirted with every man who came in. She said you’d end up just like Florence.”
“By then she resented my very existence.”
“She created the situation. She had no one to blame but herself.”
“And you made her pay for the rest of her life.” Her father’s bitterness was harder to accept than Queenie’s. Did he realize how that hate shaped her life? No, he was too wrapped up in his own feelings to notice her.
She pitied him. He’d allowed resentment to eat away at his spirit and control his life. He’d waited all those years to get his money, and then he threw it away on a poor business investment. They’d bought the fishing camp a year ago and still hadn’t been able to sell it.
“Do you know what day this is, Laura? April Fool’s Day. We buried her a year ago today.”
A year. So many changes in one year. She’d grown up. Run her own business. Fought off a rapist. Gotten to know her mother. Fallen in love and married the man of her dreams. And learned to forgive. She no longer hated Queenie, but she’d have to come to terms with what her father had done.