The House on Sugar Plum Lane

by Judy Duarte

  Sometimes fixing a key relationship can help you make sense of everything else in life…. It can also help a man rebuild a marriage.

  Yeah, right. He hadn’t seen his old man in more than fifteen years. Even if he knew where to look for him, he couldn’t imagine how patching things up with his dad would help move things along with Amy. She’d never even met the guy, so how could that affect her?

  You got a raw deal as a kid, Jesse had said, and it’s created havoc in your interpersonal relationships ever since.

  Brandon had only stared at Jesse in both disbelief and annoyance. It had bothered him that a stranger had taken it upon himself to butt into another man’s life. But still, the words, which held more than a semblance of truth, struck a raw chord.

  It’s a fairly easy fix, Jesse had added.

  Brandon had complicated courtroom trials that seemed to be an easier “fix” than his relationship with Amy.

  He’d laughed the guy off at that point, although the laughter had been hollow.

  As if Jesse could read minds, he’d added, Everyone makes mistakes that can have an unexpected effect on the lives of others. And it’s tough to correct what’s already been done. But the future offers healing, if you’ll open your heart. And making peace with the past is often the first step.

  The man had clearly been crazy, one of those curbside charlatans who claimed to be psychic.

  “We’re here,” Kara said, pointing at the eatery that was only one storefront away.

  But Brandon wasn’t hungry anymore, not for trendy California cuisine.

  The next time you’re in Fairbrook, the homeless man had said, stop by the soup kitchen at Parkside Community Church.

  For some wild reason, that’s exactly what Brandon was going to do.

  As he and Kara approached the entrance to Jazzy Blue’s, Brandon pulled to a stop. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I really have to go.”

  She looked at him as though he was completely off his rocker, and maybe he was.

  Call it a last-ditch effort to save himself, much like the terminally ill cancer patient who traveled to Mexico or Europe for an unproven and unconventional treatment, but Brandon just couldn’t quite give up on his marriage.

  “Where are you going?” Kara asked. “Back to the office?”

  “Believe it or not, I’m leaving for the rest of the day.”

  She still wore a bewildered expression.

  “I’ve got to meet with someone in Fairbrook,” he added.

  “Who?”

  While it wasn’t really any of her business, she was his secretary. She kept his schedule, did his bidding, made his excuses. So he couldn’t blame her for asking.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he was going to a soup kitchen and seeking out a minister named Craig.

  “I’ll talk to you about it when I get back.”

  He doubted that he really would, though. No matter what happened, or what Craig might say, Brandon couldn’t see himself talking to Kara about anything other than business. Nor could he imagine pursuing anything even remotely romantic.

  Not when the only woman he’d ever loved was Amy.

  Already waylaid by a preventable collision with a police cruiser, Barbara didn’t dare waste another minute. Her heart was racing as she gripped the steering wheel with clammy hands, yet she wouldn’t risk another accident or a speeding ticket, so she drove slowly through town.

  All she could think about was getting to Joey’s bedside. Her son had become such a part of her that she feared she would crumble into dust without him in her life.

  A few of her friends had been burdened by a ton of problems their adult children had heaped upon them: financial troubles, the custody of neglected grandkids who needed stability and love in their lives.

  Some of those grown children had gone through messy and painful divorces, while others had lost jobs, abused alcohol or drugs, or had uncovered some adolescent need to “find themselves.”

  Either way, many of them moved back home, creating trouble for their poor parents, who’d wanted nothing more than to enjoy their retirement and who now could no longer do so.

  But Barbara had been blessed with a son who was bright and successful, a man who’d made her proud.

  As she reached the hospital, she looked for a place to park that was close to the entrance, but she had to drive to the far corner of the lot to find an empty space.

  Apparently, Fate or someone—God, she supposed—hadn’t wanted her to arrive any sooner than she had, and she found herself tense and ready to snap in two.

  She quickly climbed out of the Jag, locked the doors, then hurried toward the lobby, tucking her car keys into her purse as she went.

  When she heard the jangle and clang of metal hitting pavement, she realized she had yet another hurdle to go before reaching the hospital entrance.

  She grumbled under her breath as she turned to retrieve her keys and stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted a homeless man trailing her—or so it seemed.

  His eyes were a stunning shade of blue, and his gaze was almost mesmerizing.

  “You lost something,” he said, as he stooped to pick up her key ring—a Gucci.

  When he handed it over, she thanked him and dropped the keys into her purse.

  “You need to own your mistakes,” he said.

  Was he talking about her dropping the keys in her rush to get to the ICU? Or had she missed something?

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “Once you confess, everything will fall back into place.”

  Oh, for goodness sake. She should have realized that he didn’t have both oars in the water. And if she needed or even wanted counseling, she’d pay top dollar for a professional.

  She turned to go, eager to put some distance between them.

  “I’m talking about Angel,” he added.

  At that, her steps froze, and she slowly turned around. Over the years, her mother had referred to the baby as Angel, and there was no way this man would know that. Unless, of course, he was one of her mother’s friends, which wasn’t likely.

  Or was it?

  She’d been shocked to find out recently that her mother had been frequenting the soup kitchen in town, so maybe they had known each other after all.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he said, “Angel found you last year, and you refused to have anything to do with her.”

  Barbara’s heart thumped a hollow beat, and her blood turned to sludge. No one, not even her mother, had known that a woman named Susan Rossi had called Barbara out of the blue.

  If her mother had known, she would have insisted, at the very least, that Barbara do something, that she seek out the younger woman and apologize for refusing to see her.

  “I had no other choice,” she admitted to the man. “My husband doesn’t know about any of that, and if I’d reached out to her, it would have destroyed my life.”

  “The secret has already destroyed you in many ways.”

  Had it?

  She tried to wrap her mind around this weird encounter with a stranger who seemed to echo her mother’s voice.

  Would her mom, who was only a shell of her old self, still continue to nag at her via others for the rest of her days?

  You need to come clean with Joseph, her mother had advised time and again. It’s not right for you to keep that a secret from your husband.

  If I tell him, it’ll crush him, Mom. And he’ll leave me.

  Maybe he will, but he’s your husband, your life partner. And that’s his choice to make.

  Barbara again studied the stranger who appeared to be a down-and-out friend of her mom. Maybe he wasn’t homeless, as she’d once thought. Maybe he was actually a private investigator—the unkempt, bumbling, Columbo type—and Susan Rossi had hired him to speak on her behalf, to encourage a mother/daughter relationship of some kind.

  If that were the case, denial wouldn’t do her much goo
d. Yet neither would establishing any kind of relationship with the woman.

  Under normal circumstances, she would have shut him out with a chilling glare, dismissing both him and his nonsense. Yet there was something in his eyes that stirred something warm in her heart, swaying her to believe she might yet find the absolution that had always eluded her.

  “It happened a long time ago,” she finally admitted. “I made a mistake, and I put the baby up for adoption. I can’t correct that now.”

  “Giving up the baby was a wonderful thing for you to do,” the man said. “She blessed another family. But your deception is making your life miserable.”

  Barbara glanced at the entry of the hospital, where Joey was in ICU, where his days might be numbered, and she snapped out of whatever kind of spell the man had cast on her. “I really don’t have time to talk about this now.”

  “I suggest you find the time,” he said. “Not with me, but with God. And if you’re still not comfortable praying…”

  How did he know that she’d stopped praying years ago, that she’d felt unworthy?

  “…try talking to Craig Houston.”

  The associate pastor of her mother’s church? Barbara shook her head, trying to shake off the conversation, trying to get back on track. She turned toward the hospital.

  Joey needed her.

  What was she doing hanging out in the parking lot, talking to a stranger, and a daffy one at that?

  She took several steps toward the lobby, then realized that he’d probably dog her into the hospital. So she decided to ask for his business card to determine just who he was and where he worked. If he was a PI, she’d promise to meet with him at another, more convenient time—next week? Next month? Next year?

  Maybe she would agree to see Susan Rossi after all, but only if both she and her PI swore to remain silent about everything, to keep the birth and the adoption a secret.

  But when she turned to face him, he was gone—just as if he’d never been there in the first place.

  As Brandon drove through Fairbrook, he couldn’t help thinking that he was wasting his time. But somewhere down the road, he didn’t want to think that he hadn’t done all he could to make his marriage work, to hold his family together.

  He’d never failed at anything in his life, had never allowed himself to, and he wasn’t ready to give up on his marriage yet. So he’d called 411 and had gotten the number of Parkside Community Church, where the soup kitchen was located. And then he’d talked to the secretary, a woman named Rosemary, and asked for directions.

  “It’s a white, old-fashioned style church with a steeple, stained glass windows, and two red doors in front,” she told him. “You can’t miss it. We’re located right across the street from the park.”

  Sure enough, he found it. And five minutes later, he followed the signs that pointed to a modular building at the far edge of the church grounds and entered the soup kitchen.

  Several groups of people were seated at rectangular tables. A young mother sat with two children, a boy and a girl. Three old men, one wearing a patriotic hat of some kind, chuckled while drinking coffee and eating a slice of lemon meringue pie. There were, he guessed, about fifteen diners in all.

  He made his way to the nearest man, the fellow with a fringe of shaggy gray hair poking out from under his red, white, and blue cap.

  “Excuse me,” Brandon said. “I’m looking for Pastor Craig and was told I might be able to find him here.”

  “Yep.” The man pointed a gnarled finger toward a doorway that probably led to the actual kitchen. “He went back to help Dawn with something. He’ll be out in a minute or two.”

  “All right. I’ll wait.” Brandon left the man to finish his dessert with his friends and stood off the side, near the bulletin board on the west wall that advertised the community clinic, AA meetings, a job fair, and group counseling session hosted by County Mental Health.

  After giving it a quick once-over, he leaned against the wall and watched the doorway for the associate minister to return. He couldn’t help wondering why Jesse hadn’t told him to speak to the senior pastor. If this was some kind of divine, magical appointment, you’d think he would have been sent to talk to the head honcho.

  Either way, he was again haunted by the sense that this visit was going to be a complete waste of time.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement in the doorway. A closer look revealed a blond man in his mid-twenties passing into the dining area. So Brandon pushed off the wall and approached him.

  “Are you Pastor Craig?” he asked.

  “Yes.” One glance at Brandon’s expensive suit, and his expression grew serious. “What can I do for you?”

  “To tell you the truth,” Brandon admitted, “I’m not entirely sure. A few days ago, I met a guy down by the Embarcadero in San Diego, and he suggested I talk to you, but he didn’t say why.”

  The minister merely looked at him, clearly puzzled. But why shouldn’t he be? Brandon still didn’t get it himself, and coming to Fairbrook to seek out the pastor and introduce himself on a whim wasn’t the sort of thing that he usually did.

  “His name was Jesse,” Brandon added. “And he said to tell you hello.”

  At that, a full-blown smile splashed across the pastor’s face. “Oh, yeah?”

  “So you know him?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t seen him in a while. How’s he doing?”

  “Okay, I guess.” Brandon gave a half shrug. “But what’s with that guy? He seemed to be on another planet, yet he knew things. Or at least, he implied that he did.”

  Craig’s grin grew brighter still. “Yep, you certainly met Jesse.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Just that he’s got a gentle spirit and a kind heart. He’s wise, too.”

  “Doesn’t look like he takes his own advice.”

  Craig laughed. “That’s what I thought when I first met him, but you’d be surprised.”

  Okay. So maybe Brandon wasn’t chasing his tail by coming here after all.

  “So what did he say that made you decide to step out on a limb and introduce yourself to me?” Craig asked.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t have, but I’ve found myself backed into a corner, and I guess you could say that I’m grasping at a straw.”

  “Why don’t you come with me to my office,” Craig said. “Then you can start at the beginning.”

  Several minutes later, Brandon followed the minister out of the soup kitchen, across the lawn, and into the church office. Now he was seated on the other side of the desk from Craig.

  “Obviously, Jesse made an impression on you,” the minister said.

  “In a way, yes. But I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m still skeptical.”

  “I understand. After meeting Jesse, I had a few of those moments myself, but I’ve learned to either trust his advice or to give it a lot of consideration.” Craig leaned back in his chair, appearing to be at ease, confident. “Jesse has an uncanny ability to…Well, he seems to know things without being told.”

  It sure seemed that way to Brandon, although he wasn’t going to buy into anything psychic. He didn’t believe in that sort of thing, although being here might suggest that he did.

  In truth, he was merely desperate to save his marriage, what little there was left of it.

  “I’m going through a divorce,” he admitted, “and I’m not happy about it. I’d like to make things work, but my wife isn’t willing.”

  The whisper of a grin settled on the minister’s face. “So Jesse suggested marital counseling? With me?”

  “Not exactly. It’s just that he…Well, it sounds kind of crazy, but he seemed to know all about the split, even though I never uttered a word about it. And then, out of the blue, he told me that I needed to work on having a relationship with my dad.”

  “How does your father play into this?”

  “That’s just it,” Brandon said. “I haven’t seen him since I was sevente
en and left for college.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might be now?”

  Brandon leaned back, tensed. “Are you saying that you think Jesse’s right? That I need to reconcile with my father before I can reconcile with my wife?” He slowly shook his head. That was wild. Too wild to believe.

  “I’m really not sure,” Craig said. “I guess it depends. But if Jesse suggested something like that to me, I’d give it some serious thought.”

  Brandon didn’t know what to say, what to do. “My family was dysfunctional. My father spent most of my teenage years drunk, strung out on prescription pain medication that he picked up in Tijuana, and unemployed. I don’t have any idea where to look for him. I’d do a Google search, but at the rate he was going downhill, he could be homeless for all I know. And his name might not show up anywhere.”

  Craig straightened in the chair, no longer relaxed and at ease. He leaned forward, rested his forearms on the desk, and furrowed his brow. “If that’s the case, and if Jesse sent you to see me, it’s possible that he knew your dad. And that he thought he might show up at our soup kitchen, if he hasn’t already.”

  “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

  “What’s your father’s name?” Craig asked.

  “Chuck Masterson.”

  “No kidding?” That easy grin returned. “Your father is a friend of mine.”

  Brandon’s old man ran with ministers now? That was a switch.

  “Chuck’s had a tough time of it,” Craig said, “but he’s sober now and has turned his life around. Way around. You’d be surprised.”

  Oh, Brandon would be surprised all right. But he’d also be at a loss for words. “After fifteen years, we really don’t have anything to say to each other anymore.”

  “Don’t you?”

  The minister’s question burrowed deep within Brandon, deeper than any of the words Jesse had said before. But Craig didn’t know what it had been like growing up in that household.

  “To tell you the truth,” Brandon said, “I’ve spent my adult life trying to prove that I’m not cut from the same bolt of cloth, that I can provide for myself and my family.”

  The phone rang, interrupting them.

  “Excuse me,” Craig said. “Do you mind if I take this?”