by Mary Campisi
She didn’t answer, snuggled closer against him. William would be sound asleep at her mother’s; most of the rest of the town would be asleep, too, lost in their dreams and imaginings, some good, some not. But here, in this bed, life and urgency pulsed, leaving little time for sleep or dreams. Grant had made her remember how it had been with him, made her burst with need and the certainty that she would remain at his side until he drew his last breath.
***
Grant had heard about the Down syndrome daughter born to Christine Desantro’s father and his mistress. Leslie had mentioned it the first time he found out about her dead lover. She’d said a man from Chicago had kept a separate life here for fourteen years. But what she hadn’t mentioned, probably because she hadn’t known, was that Lily Desantro wasn’t just a teenage girl with Down syndrome. She was so much more, as he discovered one Sunday afternoon at Tess and Cash Casherdon’s cookout. He and William were checking out a table that Cash had made, when a small-built young girl with dark hair and thick glasses walked up to William and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hi. I’m Lily.” She smiled, her eyes bright behind her thick glasses. “What happened to your arm?”
He shrugged, held it out for her to see. “Fell off my bike and broke it.”
She studied the neon-green cast, brows pinching. “Were you speeding?”
“Yeah.” He slid a look at Grant. “Pretty much. I flew over the handlebars.”
“Oooh.” Lily clapped her hands to her mouth. “You’re gonna have a scar.” And then, “I fell off a horse when I was fourteen and broke my leg.”
That comment intrigued William enough for him to ask, “How’d you do that?”
She leaned in closer, whispered, “Jumped a fence. I wasn’t supposed to. My brother still gets upset about it, so I don’t say anything around him.”
“I’ve never been on a horse.”
“It’s fun! My sister used to ride; she’s really good. She gave me her ribbons, and she’s the one who bought me riding clothes and a hat, too.” Her lips flattened. “I don’t ride anymore, but maybe someday I will again. Maybe we can ride together.” She glanced at Grant as if she just noticed him. “Hi, I’m Lily.”
“Nice to meet you, Lily. I’m Grant.”
“You have very pretty blue eyes.”
He smiled. “Thank you, so do you.” The girl had blue eyes the color of a June sky.
She thrust out a hand, waited for him to accept it. “What happened to your hand?” She stared at his right hand for a few seconds, looked up. “Did you have an injury, too?”
“You could say that.” Grant clasped her small hand with both of his. “I was in a car accident a few years ago.”
“Oh.” Her voice dipped, turned sad. “My dad was in a car accident.” She eased her hand away, said, “He died. That’s why I don’t like Sentinel Road.”
Grant figured that’s where her father died. “I’m sorry,” he said. “My father died in a car accident, too.” And Grant didn’t like to travel on the road that took his father’s life either. No matter how much self-talk he subjected himself to, nothing erased the horror of what his father must have gone through seconds before he died.
“He did?” And then, “Was it on Sentinel Road?”
He shook his head. “No, it was far away from here. William lost his father, too. He had leukemia.”
Lily covered her mouth with her hand, made a small noise that resembled a whimper. “So sad.” And then to William, “I talk to my dad all the time. Do you talk to your dad?”
Grant could see the boy considering her question, trying to determine the validity of her statement. Fact told him his father was dead and therefore he had no way of talking to him, but the sincerity in Lily’s voice had the boy second-guessing his beliefs. “How do you talk to him?” William asked, his voice a blend of caution and curiosity.
Lily’s smile pulled them in, lit up their hearts, and made them want to believe in the impossible. She pointed to the sky, said, “Look up there. See the blue and the clouds? That’s where he is; that’s where your dad is, too. And yours, Mr. Grant.” Her voice grew soft, smothered in emotion. “I talk to my dad when I’m happy, or sad, or just when I want to tell him something, like how I beat Pop at checkers. Some nights the stars are so bright, I know he’s smiling at me. And after a storm, the rainbow streaks the sky. That’s happiness.”
“Says who?” William stared at her, frowned.
Lily leaned closer, nodded, her thick, black hair bouncing around a pink headband. “I say, because I know. All you have to do is start talking and your dad will hear you, you’ll see. Winter’s the best. Wait until it’s dark and there’s lots of snow and the stars are all over the sky. Then you can make snow angels and look up, up, up!” She grinned, her voice rising as she spoke. “Uncle Harry talked to Dad this winter. They’re brothers. Uncle Harry lives in a big house and he has a pool.” She paused, studied William’s cast. “When you get that off, you can come swimming in Uncle Harry’s pool. He has floats and balls and all kinds of stuff. He has three kids, but one’s just a baby, so he won’t be in the pool.”
“Are you talking about Harry Blacksworth?” Grant asked.
“Yup.” Lily nodded again. “That’s my Uncle Harry. I have an Aunt Greta, too. That’s his wife.” She scrunched her nose and continued, “I had another grandma, but she died. She was sparkly. But she lived far away, in Chicago. And I have a brother named Nate and a sister named Christine, and I’m an aunt.” She clapped her hands together, laughed. “Anna is Nate and Christine’s baby and they’re going to have another baby, a girl, and they’re going to name her Joy Elizabeth.”
Listening to Lily was better than reading a gossip column. “I know Nate and Christine,” Grant said, “and I met your Uncle Harry at his restaurant. I met your Aunt Greta, too.”
“Do you and William want to go to the restaurant with me sometime? I can call Uncle Harry and tell him I’m bringing my friends and he won’t charge you.”
Grant hid a smile. Wonder what Harry Blacksworth would say about his niece offering up his food for free. “Thank you, Lily, but when I go to a restaurant, I pay.”
“He won’t let you,” she said with such confidence he wondered if she’d done this before. “Besides, I’m having my eighteenth birthday party there, and Uncle Harry says I can invite whoever I want and I want to invite you and William.” She paused, smiled. “And you can bring your girlfriend, too.”
“My girlfriend?”
Lily pointed to the picnic table where several of the women sat. “The pretty lady with the dark hair. She’s your girlfriend.”
The pretty lady with the dark hair was Maggie. Grant stumbled over an answer but before he could respond, William spat out, “That’s my mother. That’s not his girlfriend.” He narrowed his gaze on his mother. “She is a girl and she is his friend, but they aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend.” His face turned red, his lips pinched.
That didn’t stop Lily from spouting her own conclusions, which were dead-on. “That pretty lady is Mr. Grant’s kissy-kissy girlfriend.”
***
Bree pulled a sundress out of the laundry basket, folded it. Lindsey would jump a size before fall, her long legs growing longer, her hair lighter. Like her mother’s. She had Bree’s smile and her easygoing manner. Lindsey trusted everybody, even the boy down street who stole her badminton birdie and promised he’d never do it again. Until he did. Strip a child of their innocence and you couldn’t put it back, like the stuffing in Ella Blue’s teddy bear. Once it was gone, it was gone. But how did she protect her baby girls from the truth about their father? What if it slithered out somehow? What if Brody had slept with other women in Magdalena and one day that truth found its way to her girls’ ears, settled in their souls, destroyed them?
Why did children have to suffer because of their parents’ mistakes and bad choices? Forced to walk around for the rest of their lives believing they were not quite good enough, all because a parent
couldn’t put the child before their own selfish wants? Or because the parent had issues and took them out on the child? Those tiny child-brains didn’t understand it wasn’t about them at all, and by the time they did, it was too late, damage done. Issues sewed into their psyche like a Girl Scout badge, hard-earned and not forgotten.
Look at Gina. Sure, she’d gotten better about that dang chip she hauled around on her shoulder, but no thanks to Carmen and Marie Servetti who would have preferred she be pretty and loose rather than smart and focused. Or Cash Casherdon, who’d wanted to beat up the world because his parents didn’t care enough about him to stick around. And then there was Maggie Cartwright, who couldn’t claim a father and probably wished she didn’t have to claim that crazy mother of hers sometimes. No wonder she married Mr. Life-Is-a-Mathematical-Equation. David Cartwright had been more dependable and trustworthy than a Labrador retriever. Ten years ago, Bree would have called that suffocating, but after the nosedive her own life had taken, she would have welcomed it, called it a blessing.
Men who were attractive at eighteen did not necessarily hold that same attractiveness at age twenty-eight, thirty-eight, forty-eight. Muscles were only so interesting when housed in a body that lacked in reason and smarts. Bree had learned that lesson by living it, and the pain of that knowledge had left her raw, bewildered, and angry. All she’d ever wanted was a man to love her with his whole heart, share their children, grow old together. She’d not asked for big cars, fancy houses, elaborate trips. But that damn Brody Kinkaid hadn’t been able to deliver, not when it mattered. Curse him and his cheating ways. If there were two lessons she would teach her young daughters, they were this; respect yourself enough to believe you deserve the best, and never choose a man who isn’t at least as smart as you are. That last was a biggie. Pick a man who didn’t have the brain cells to reason his way out of his decisions and couldn’t see far enough to understand the consequences, and you were looking at a disaster. Brody had used her and he’d used Leslie, too.
Had he realized his mistress had emotional issues? Is that why he’d chosen her? Because she’d suffered her own disastrous relationships and wanted to believe his lies so much, she’d ignored the holes in his story? Leslie Maurice’s parents were both dead, she had one brother, and no real friends. It was pure sadness, and if Bree could bleach out the reason the woman was in her life, well, they might actually be friends. But it wasn’t as easy as Leslie thought. A person didn’t just show up on your doorstep and admit to sleeping with your husband, even admit you seemed like a nice person, undeserving of being cheated on. Who did that—unless they had their own problems that started with unstable and ended in “teetering on the edge”? It sounded as if Leslie confused sex for love. Bree could see that, especially since the woman had the face and body of a supermodel, and men would flock to it like sweet tea. But would they stay?
What if Brody hadn’t died? What if he’d lived? Bree gulped in breaths of air, tried to calm herself. Would she have quit her job like she promised, asked her father to consider Brody for that spot? Would she have done all of that, given him everything? The last time she saw him alive, he hadn’t wanted to be intimate with her, had said he needed time and a beer or two, and he’d let her believe the reason was her. Hah! It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d left the company, become his sex slave, cooked, cleaned, chewed his food for him; the no-good scumbag was still going to cheat.
The muffled sound in the next room caught her attention. Bree paused to listen, heard it again, louder, almost a whimper. She set the pair of shorts she’d just folded in the laundry basket and made her way to the living room. Lindsey sat curled up in Brody’s recliner, chin resting on her bent knees, arms hugging her legs. Bree knelt next to her daughter, stroked her hair. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“He lied to me.” Those amber eyes spilled tears like a summer storm. “He was a liar!”
Bree leaned in close, mouthed her own lie. “No, baby. Your daddy didn’t lie to you.” He lied to me. “He was a good man and he loved you girls with his whole heart.” The last part was true, the first? Not even close.
Lindsey swiped a hand over her eyes. “He promised he’d be here until his hair turned white and he needed a cane to walk. But he’s not here. He’s dead.” More tears, another whimper. “He lied.”
Mothers did what they had to do to protect their children, and as much as it pained her to make Brody look like Mr. Wonderful, she would not expose his cheating ways to her daughter. “Daddy really did believe he’d be here, white-haired, using a cane to get around, walking you girls down the aisle on your wedding day.” She sniffed, thought of the dreams that would never happen, the experiences her girls would never know. “But his heart did him in and that wasn’t something he could have ever imagined happening.”
Lindsey’s eyes grew wide, filled with fear. “Is my heart gonna do me in, too?”
“Oh, baby, no.” Bree swiped a tear from her daughter’s cheek. “No,” she repeated, determined to ease her fear.
“I heard Grandpa tell Grandma that Daddy brought this on himself, that he hurt us all.” Lindsey paused, whispered, “What did Grandpa mean? What did Daddy do to hurt us?”
He betrayed our family, cheated on us, chose another woman and got her pregnant. Bree pasted a smile on her face, forced her voice to dip with conviction. “He left us.” The words hung in the air, heavy, accusing, before Bree redirected them with “He died and left us too soon.”
***
Bree’s daddy said the best way to deal with a tough issue was straight up, like a shot of whiskey. He said you felt the burn all the way to your belly, but once it was done, it was done, not like a fancy liqueur that slid along bit by bit like it was taking a leisurely stroll. She’d tried to deal with issues the way her daddy told her to, she really had, but she’d never been good at it. That was like asking Bree to drink coffee without two sugars and extra cream. She needed a little help, even if it was a drop or two.
And right now she needed something to help her confess the truth about Leslie Maurice, all of it. Her friends were not going to be happy, might even think she’d betrayed their friendship.
“Thank you all for coming this afternoon. I’ll be quick because I know you’re busy, and I want to be done before Mama drops off the girls.” Bree stood in the center of her living room, hands clasped together over her middle, trying to steady her jumpy stomach. She’d left work an hour early because she hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything but what she had to admit to her friends this afternoon.
“Sure. You sounded upset.” This from Tess who sat next to Christine on the overstuffed couch.
“What’s going on?” Gina kicked off her sandals and eased back in the recliner, a half frown on her face.
Bree remembered the days when her belly was ripe with child, her heart so full of love and possibility. Children were blessings and families should honor them. She wrung her hands, licked her lips. “I have a confession.” She cleared her throat, worked up a tiny smile. “A big one.”
Pause. Gina sighed, settled her hands over her very pregnant belly. “Just spit it and be done with it so we can start working on a solution to whatever problem you’re having.”
“It’s not that easy to talk about.” Bree frowned, bit her lip. “And who said I needed help? Maybe I want to tell you about this because you’re my friends and friends should be honest with each other, right?”
“Right,” Christine said, offering a smile.
“Spit it out,” Gina said again.
It wasn’t always easy having a no-nonsense friend like Gina. She liked to take the straightest path to the answer, even though that path might be filled with potholes, gravel, and a mountain or two, maybe even a river. Bree inhaled and blew out a long breath like she’d learned to do when she took a yoga class years ago, and said, “Brody was having an affair.”
If she’d thought they’d gasp or cry out their surprise, she was dead wrong. They didn’t make a peep; nothing but
stares and pinched lips, like they wanted to say something and couldn’t, not even Gina who usually had a comment about everything. “What?” Bree moved toward them, hands on hips. “Nobody’s surprised?” Tess shook her head, then Christine, finally, Gina. “You all knew?” How could they have known when she hadn’t known herself?
“Too much didn’t add up,” Christine said. “He’d become petty and argumentative, and no matter what you did, it wasn’t good enough. I didn’t like seeing how that affected you, made you second-guess whether you should work at your dad’s company, have another child, everything.”
“I knew something was wrong at Michael and Elise’s wedding,” Tess said, her voice sad. “Who wouldn’t want to be with you? You’re funny, beautiful, kind, with a heart as big as this house, but he didn’t pay any attention to you, acted like he was inconvenienced to be there.”
“He didn’t even want to dance with you,” Gina added, “and don’t think Ben wasn’t ready to go have a talk with him and would have, if Cash hadn’t stopped him.”
“He did?” This from Tess, who was clearly surprised. “How did I miss that?”
Gina shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is we’re here for you, Bree, and we’ll do anything we can to help, but you can’t shut us out like you’ve been doing.”
“I didn’t mean to, but how could I tell you, when I couldn’t admit it to myself?” She sat on the edge of the ottoman, folded her hands in her lap. “Once you say it out loud, then what? Your whole world turns upside down and you start to wonder if it was all a lie. Everything, from the very beginning. You ask yourself if he really loved you, the deep-bone, suck-the-air-from-your-lungs kind of love, or if it was just a way to pass time until something better came along.” She paused, stared at the wedding ring on her left hand. “Or someone better. That kind of wondering will drive you pure crazy. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t think that the man I’d had three babies with, who used to rub lotion on my sunburned skin and tell me I was his one and only, would betray me.”