Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

by Babette de Jongh

  He said, “Yeah,” in a sheepish tone.

  “Four, make sure they have a bath and brush their teeth every night. Make sure they wash their hair every couple of days, and for God’s sake, help them brush out the tangles afterward. Maryann’s hair was an absolute mess the other day at ballet.”

  He shifted uncomfortably and looked toward the door. “Is that all?”

  “Is that about all you can take?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned the ghost of his old grin. “I think that’s enough to start.”

  “Okay. Go pick up your kids, take them home and get started.”

  He stood. “What do I do when Amy cries and doesn’t want to leave Lois?”

  “Promise her you’ll read her a story when you get home.” I took our glasses into the kitchen and set them on the counter. He followed and put his wadded paper towel into the trash. “Goodnight Moon is one of her favorites. Promise her that one.” I walked with Ben onto the porch. He gave me a hug, but released me the second I started to wonder what the hug meant—if it meant anything more than thanks to an old friend.

  “The part you mentioned about cooking supper...”

  “The macaroni and cheese part? It comes in a blue and orange box—”

  His mouth lifted into an almost-grin, and he punched me lightly on the shoulder. “The kids would love if you’d come over some night and, well...”

  “Cook something besides macaroni and cheese?”

  Ben smiled a real smile for the first time that night. “Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Only if you promise to watch and learn while I cook.”

  “Deal.”

  “Go get your kids. It’s almost their bedtime.”

  “Slave-driver.” He went down the steps to his car. I’d already turned to go back inside when he yelled, “Casey.”

  I turned to see him standing in the open car door with his arms crossed on the hood. “What about tomorrow night?”

  “Ben, I’m busy all this week, and your kids need you to themselves.”

  “Okay, okay. What about Friday? Come cook dinner for us on Friday. We’ll all be sick of macaroni and cheese by then.”

  I wondered if instant capitulation would constitute backsliding, but couldn’t find the will to say no. “All right. I’ll come on Friday.” I felt as if I’d caved in, but I missed the kids, especially Jake, whom I’d hardly seen at all since... God, I could hardly think the words. Since Melody’s death, just a month ago.

  A chill wind touched my shoulders, reminding me. More than a month. Melody had died the first week of September and it was now halfway through October.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I got hung up in the not-so-fast lane of the grocery store when the woman ahead of me pulled out a wallet full of coupons instead of cash. I showed up to Ben’s house late, carrying two heavy-duty canvas shopping bags that each weighed as much as a medium-sized goat.

  Ben opened the door before I’d figured out how to knock without using my hands or making another scuff mark on the red door. He took the bags from me and pretended to stagger. “Damn. No wonder you’re late.”

  “The checkout lane was a nightmare. I couldn’t decide whether I felt sorrier for me, the checkout girl, or the lady who was holding up the line with her gazillion coupons.”

  “I’m glad you made it here in spite of complications.” He led the way to the kitchen. “The kids threatened to run away from home if I made them eat hot dogs again, so thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” I’d brought enough food—the kind Melody would have wanted them to have—to break the shelves in the refrigerator.

  “Aunt Casey!” Amy skidded down the polished wood foyer and into the kitchen, her bunny house slippers making shushing noises as she skated along. “Look at me! I’m dusting!”

  Maryann came in behind Amy and burrowed into my side for a hug. “Dad made us clean the house. We tried to tell him you weren’t company, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  Ben put the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and started unpacking everything onto the kitchen table. “I’m doing everything you said.”

  Maryann was still hanging onto me. “He made us finish our homework before you got here, so we can watch a DVD after dinner.”

  I gave Ben a thumbs-up sign.

  Jake slumped into the kitchen from the living room and gave me a quick hug. “What’s for dinner?”

  “I thought I’d get your daddy to cook steaks on the grill, and y’all can help me make a salad, boy-scout potatoes, and—”

  “We’re gonna eat boy scouts?” Amy stuck her thumb in her mouth and leaned against Ben’s leg.

  “No, Punkin.” Ben reached down to ruffle her hair. “Boy-scout potatoes are like mashed potatoes, cooked and mashed-up but not peeled.”

  “I hate that kind, Aunt Casey,” Maryann whined. “Mama never made that kind of potatoes.”

  “No problem.” I patted Maryann’s back. “We can make regular mashed potatoes, but you get to peel them.”

  “No.” Ben pinned Maryann with a severe stare. “We’re going to eat whatever Casey has planned, and we’re going to be happy and polite about it.”

  Maryann pulled away from me and crossed her arms, grumbling something too quiet to understand. Jake slid past her, delivering a sly pinch. “You get what you get, and you don’t fuss a bit!” She slapped his hand away but didn’t rise to the bait.

  “Young lady.” Ben’s voice was low and slightly threatening. “What should your response be?”

  Maryann’s “yes, sir,” was barely audible.

  “I don’t think I heard you.” Ben snapped the edges of the big shopping bag and folded it with sharp motions.

  “Yes, sir,” Maryann yelled over her shoulder then flounced from the room.

  Jake sniggered maliciously. “Welcome to paradise.”

  I moved closer to Ben, close enough to feel the waves of irritation coming off his body. Amy’s warm little hand slid into mine, and I clasped it firmly, taking comfort from her innocent touch.

  “Jake...” Ben’s voice held the restrained fury of a man on the edge of physical violence. “Your sly comments are not allowed in this house. If you can’t control your mouth, please go to your room.”

  I put a hand on Ben’s arm, doing my best to infuse his rigid muscles with a calm I didn’t feel myself. “Let it go,” I whispered.

  Ben shrugged off my hand and lowered his eyebrows at Jake. “You will answer politely, son, or I’ll tan your hide.”

  I turned away and started putting things into the fridge. If I were Melody, I’d have intervened. But I wasn’t Melody, and I needed to remember that. I devoted all my attention to shifting the contents of the refrigerator to make room for a six-pack of yogurt. But of course, even with my head in the fridge, I couldn’t help but hear the desperation in Ben’s overly-controlling tone when he kept hammering away at Jake. This autocratic attitude wasn’t like him at all. It had to be attributed to his grief, and the stress of raising these kids alone. I felt like sitting them all down in a circle and insisting that we sing a round of Kumbaya.

  “Yes, sir.” Jake’s tone was filled with sullen resentment, his posture as stiff and unbending as Ben’s. “May I go to my room now?”

  “Go on.” Ben crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his butt against the kitchen counter, releasing just a hint of the aggravation that held his body so tense I could feel it from three feet away. “I’ll call you when supper’s ready.”

  I closed the refrigerator door and waited for someone—Ben—to say something. Amy stood in front of me and lifted her arms, so I picked her up. She wrapped her legs around me and snuggled her face into the crook of my neck. “You smell good, Aunt Casey.”

  My gaze flew to Ben’s. “It’s just soap, honey.” I didn’t want Ben to think I’d put perfume on for him. Because I hadn’t.

  She stroked my hair, sifted it through her fingers. “Your hair smells good. And it feels good, too.” Amy was oblivious to the n
ervous energy shimmering in the air. I carried her to the table, pulled out a chair and sat with her in my lap. She snuggled close, bringing her clasped hands up between my breasts, pressing her arms there as if she missed the softness of a woman. “You don’t come to see us anymore.” The quiet plea in her whispered voice twisted around my heart. “I miss you, Aunt Casey.”

  “Oh, honey.” I kept my voice low, trying to spare Ben from hearing our conversation as he took the steaks out of the package and put them in a dish to marinate. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll come more often.”

  “You didn’t just love our mama, did you? You love us, too, right?”

  I squeezed Amy a little tighter. “Of course I love y’all.”

  “Daddy too?” Amy’s voice was quiet, but not quiet enough. I looked up to meet Ben’s level blue gaze. Amy tugged at a lock of my hair, turning my attention back to her. “Do you love my Daddy, too?”

  I hugged Amy, and looked over her shoulder at Ben while I gave her the only answer I could. “Of course I do, honey.”

  The confession brought no joy, no comfort, no peace along with it. I felt only a crushing weight, even heavier than the weight I’d carried all the years Ben had been married to Melody, all the years I had struggled alone with the shame of my love for him.

  I doubted there would come a day when I didn’t love Ben. But I couldn’t derive any joy from a love so burdened by guilt.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” Amy cupped my face between her small hands. “You’re gonna come back a lot, right?”

  I smoothed a blonde curl behind her ear. “I promise, sweetheart. I’ll come back.”

  Her smile blossomed. “I love you, Aunt Casey.”

  The back door closed with a soft click, and I heard the squeal of hinges as Ben opened the top of the gas grill. I tore my gaze from his broad shoulders, slightly hunched as he reached down to turn on the burners. Amy puckered her lips, and I did the same, planting a quick kiss on her pursed little mouth. “I love you too, baby girl.”

  *

  That night, I rolled in my twisted sheets like a plucked bird skewered over a roasting fire. The leaves had already turned on the redbud trees, but a warm front had invited summer weather to rot the jack-o-lanterns on the town’s porches. I got up and tinkered with the thermostat, but still slept badly, waking to dreams of twin yellow headlights that turned into the amber eyes of Ian Buchanan.

  Toward morning, I was walking into a college Algebra class only to realize that I hadn’t attended class all semester, and was about to flunk the final exam. Naked.

  The classroom bell rang.

  I woke in a panic and catapulted out of bed. The phone rang again, and I snatched it up. Blinking in the garish mid-morning light, I answered. “Hello?” My voice sounded thin and breathy. I put a hand to my heart to slow its skipping.

  “I’m sorry I woke you, lass.”

  I’d forgotten how much deeper his voice was than Ben’s. Something about it softened my insides like caramel heated over an open flame. “You didn’t,” I lied, as if sleeping late on Saturday was a crime. “I was awake.”

  His chuckle sounded like sin and sex, like warm chocolate and cold whipped cream drenched in Godiva liqueur. “Liar. You’re still in bed. I can tell by your voice.”

  I quit trying to convince him otherwise and stretched out across the sheets. “Okay. I was asleep.”

  “I wanted to catch you before you left the house.”

  “Well,” I said, the last of the word lost on a jaw-cracking yawn. “You’ve caught me.”

  “Already? I thought you’d be much harder to get than that.”

  “Where are you, anyway?”

  “I’m in South Carolina at the moment, looking at some...” there was a tiny pause, “investment property.”

  “Oh,” I said brilliantly. “When are you coming back?”

  “The end of the week, I should think. Thursday or Friday.”

  “Oh, good.” I wanted to bite my tongue the minute I’d said that. I had no business implying that I missed him, or that I wanted him to come back soon.

  “Could I persuade you to save some time for me this weekend?”

  Hell, he could persuade me to do anything, but I didn’t want to sound too eager. Ian was entirely too sure of himself as it was. “Sure, I guess. How much time were you thinking?”

  I heard a muted sound on the other end of the line, a door opening, maybe, and a quiet sound muffled by Ian’s hand over the receiver. Then his smooth voice came back on the line. “I’ll call you in a day or two, all right?”

  “Okay, sure,” I chirped, trying to replace my disappointment with a nonchalant tone. But my tone didn’t matter at all, because the line was already dead.

  *

  For the week of Halloween, I wore my usual costume, black leotard and tights and a tattered skirt I’d made by tying long strips of black tulle to an elastic waistband. I didn’t bother with a witch hat. My own hair, braided the night before and brushed out into a cloud of frizzy waves in the morning, looked witchy enough.

  The week’s parties went well until my first class on Thursday, Halloween day. I should have suspected a downward spiral was about to begin when the mother who’d offered to stay and help with the preschool-class party bowed out. She sent a dozen chocolate cupcakes and juice boxes instead. Things were going okay, though, in spite of my lack of assistants.

  I managed to get the bunch of ballerinas, fairies, princesses, and witches seated in a fairly organized circle on the studio floor. I doled out cupcakes. I stuck tiny straws into juice boxes. I cleaned up the mess from one little witch’s discovery that a juice box, if squeezed hard enough, could shoot a delightful stream of liquid through the straw.

  Sticky orange mess notwithstanding, we made it through the party-half of class very well. Then we moved on to the Halloween dance. I had choreographed one for every class, just a simple combination of well-known steps set to spooky music and repeated twice. Parents had been told to come early to pick up their kids, so they could see the dance performed at the end of class.

  We’d gone through the steps a few times, and I was standing at the stereo cabinet working on a slight glitch with my iPod, when Amber, hopped up on sugar and excitement, asked if she could go to the bathroom. I didn’t even look up, just waved my hand in a shooing motion to give permission. I knew better than to deny a four-year-old the right to go to the bathroom.

  I started the music again, and we were on the second repeat when Amber came running into the classroom, panic-stricken.

  “Miss Casey, the toilet’s overfloating!”

  “Oh, Lord.” My outburst was more prayer than blasphemy. I ran toward the bathroom with eleven little girls behind me, doing the calculations—what part of the newspaper office was below the studio bathroom?

  Think quick.

  Think quick.

  Think...

  Holy shit. If I couldn’t unclog the drain quickly, toilet water would drip through the ceiling and onto Ian’s desk downstairs.

  Just as things were going so well, too. Ian had called twice more while he was out of town. We’d talked of everything and nothing, phone-date conversations designed to ramp up interest and expectation. I’d given him my cell number, and he’d texted this morning that he’d be back sometime today.

  This was not a good time for toilet water to pour onto his desk.

  I encountered a lake just outside the bathroom door. “How many times did you try to flush this overfloating toilet?”

  Amber stood beside me, eyes wide, thumb in mouth, innocent.

  “Back up,” I yelled to the excited, curious crowd. “Don’t step in the water.” I took off my ballet slippers and tossed them across the foyer into the doorway of the dressing room. I rolled up my tights, waded into the bathroom, grabbed a mop from the utility closet, and pushed a path through the deluge.

  A double-sized roll of toilet paper lay like a pufferfish at the bottom of the bowl. And hadn’t there been two extra rolls o
n top of the tank earlier today? I shoved my sleeves up and reached into the bowl, causing another tidal wave to gush onto the floor. The waterlogged mess came apart in my hand, and thin strips of toilet paper floated wraithlike in the water. I dug the wad of gummed-up paper from the pipe it had been partially sucked down and threw the mess in the trash. But I wasn’t rewarded by the glug-glug sound of a cleared pipe.

  I worked the plunger, and even more shreds of paper swirled up through the yellowish water like some demon version of egg-drop soup. “Amber!” My voice rose to a screech. “How many rolls of toilet paper did you stick down the toilet?”

  Amber blinked wide, innocent eyes and sucked harder at her thumb.

  Bet she didn’t wash that thumb, either, I thought, with just the tiniest bit of malice.

  The studio phone rang, but I didn’t answer, being too busy pumping the plunger into the toilet like a person possessed. It was either that or hit the child over the head with it, and I didn’t think her parents would appreciate that, no matter how much she appeared to need it or some similar form of correction.

  The phone stopped ringing, and moments later I heard footsteps on the stairs. The door at the top of the stairs opened and shut, and a chorus of excited voices informed the visitor, “The toilet overfloated! It overfloated! Miss Casey stuck her hand in the potty water!”

  I blew out a sharp breath, shook my head to get the wildly waving hair out of my face, and stood to confront Ian. Holding the plunger in front of me like a sword, I warned him: “Don’t say a word. Not one word.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ian stopped in the middle of the studio foyer and held his hands up in surrender. “I know better than to confront an armed and angry witch.”

  I wilted in relief, because he wasn’t angry even though his desk must be soaked. He came close, pushed the toilet plunger aside and took me in his arms. “This has been a horrible day,” I muttered into his shoulder. “And it’s just barely started.”

  He cupped the back of my head and caressed the base of my skull with his thumb. Oblivious to the crowd of little girls surrounding us, or the fact that we were standing in almost an inch of potty water, I closed my eyes and leaned into him.