A tight band circled Eduardo’s chest and squeezed tight. He hadn’t known his kids still felt guilty about Elizabeth’s death. The concerns they’d raised had been addressed long ago, or so he’d thought. But maybe, unintentionally, he’d brushed them aside.
Just like the doctors had brushed aside his own feelings of guilt about not having good insurance when Elizabeth had first gotten sick.
He hadn’t just said “Oh, okay” and dropped his own guilt instantly. Why would he expect that his kids could do that?
He came up behind his son and daughter, who were facing the counter, and put a hand on each shoulder. Leaned close and inhaled the sweaty-kid smell of their hair. “Mom died because she had cancer,” he said firmly. “Not because of anything you did.”
Two pairs of hands froze in their work, then started up again. “We know, Dad,” Sofia said.
“But from what I heard you both say,” he persisted, “it sounds like you’re still blaming yourselves.”
Diego looked up at him. “I know you said it’s not my fault, but I wish I didn’t break the lamp. I remember she yelled at me, and then she cried. And before that, people were always telling me to be quiet and not upset Mom. So when I did...”
Eduardo shook his head and pulled Diego to him, enveloping him in a hug that was as much for himself as for his son. He reached out his other hand and pulled Sofia into the embrace. “Kids are supposed to be kids,” he explained. “She knew that you were young, and she wanted you to have fun and play. She knew things could break.”
“But she cried,” Diego said.
“And she cried when I yelled at her,” Sofia added. “Her face got really red.”
Eduardo pulled them over to the kitchen table and sat them down in their chairs, then knelt between them. “It’s true she got upset sometimes,” he said. “Because Mom was a real human being, with real feelings. She cried a lot toward the end because...” He swallowed the tight knot in his throat. “Because she knew she didn’t have much time left with us. She knew how sick she was long before you broke the lamp and yelled at her. It made her sad. Mad, even, sometimes.”
“I was mad at her,” Sofia said cautiously, “when she didn’t come to Muffins-for-Moms day. I told her about it, but she forgot. How could she forget?”
Eduardo sighed. “The drugs the doctors gave her made her forget things sometimes. But you know what? I should have remembered Muffins-for-Moms, but I forgot, too.” He should have found a friend or relative to attend, but life had been so crazy at that awful time. “The thing is...I’m not perfect and neither was Mom. And you don’t have to be perfect, either. Everybody makes mistakes.”
“And everybody sins,” Diego said thoughtfully. “We talked about it in Sunday school, and kids told what they’d done wrong. But I made something up, because I didn’t want to tell about the lamp.” Tears stood in his brown eyes, and his concerned expression was the exact replica of his mother’s. The sight made Eduardo’s own eyes burn.
“Breaking the lamp wasn’t even a sin, Diego. It was just an accident,” Sofia said. “But me yelling at her was a sin.”
Eduardo swallowed. One was never ready for these big discussions with kids. They came suddenly, over peanut butter sandwiches on a Saturday afternoon, and they just had to be handled as best as possible. “Feelings are feelings,” he told Sofia. “They’re not right or wrong. It was okay to feel mad at Mom for forgetting. Even for being sick.”
Both kids’ heads snapped around to stare at him.
Ah. That was the core, then. “Sometimes,” he told them, “I felt angry at Mom for being sick. I wished she could have fun and do things like she used to do.” The admission made him ashamed, but he could see that his kids were eating up every word. “Sometimes, she got mad at me for being so healthy, I think.”
“Did she get mad at us for that?” Sofia asked.
“No,” he said, filling his voice with the certainty that he felt. “The most she ever got was annoyed with you for the same things parents always get annoyed about. She loved you both so much, and she was glad you were healthy and strong. Her biggest hope was to get to see you grow up, to be your mom and do everything moms do.” His throat closed then, and he couldn’t say any more. He just pulled them both close and held them until he could get himself under control.
Showing emotions was okay—good, even; that was what the social worker and the grief counselor had said right after Elizabeth’s death. But still, he had to be strong for his kids. Had to be their rock. They needed to know that he wouldn’t fall apart on them.
So he drew in a deep breath, then another, and then he pulled back from them and stood. They both looked at him, eyes round and teary and serious.
“I’m pretty hungry,” he lied. “I’m hoping you made one of those sandwiches for me.”
“We did, Dad,” Diego said. “The one with the most jelly, because—”
Sofia slapped a hand over her brother’s mouth and glared at him. “Just sit down, Daddy, and we’ll bring you a sandwich and milk.”
Which meant they were still trying to butter him up about the dog. But after the conversation they’d just had, arguing about a dog seemed so simple and happy and normal. He had to be careful, or he’d let himself make an emotional decision that wouldn’t be good for any of them. Something he seemed to be tempted to do a lot of these days, he thought, looking over at Fiona’s house.
He had to be careful about her, too. Because given his history, the way he’d failed Elizabeth and the long-lasting repercussions for his kids, getting too close to Fiona would put both her and her kids at risk.
Chapter Six
The next day, after they’d all changed out of their church clothes, Fiona and the kids got in the car and headed for the park. Brownie bounced from one side of the middle seat to the other, trying to get his head out the window, his long brown ears blowing in the breeze. The kids weren’t bickering, the day was bright and sunny, and Fiona’s strange feelings about Eduardo had settled down.
“Wasn’t this a good idea, Mom?” Lauren asked as she helped Fiona pull out the picnic basket, a blanket and a bunch of yard toys.
Poppy squatted down to examine a dandelion. Maya grabbed Brownie’s leash and took off across the field, Ryan chasing behind.
“Yes, honey, good idea. Hey, kids, back here right now!” Fiona called after her middle two.
Poppy tugged at Fiona’s leg. “Look, Mommy, it’s a lion flower!” she crowed, holding up a dandelion. “Cuz it’s like a lion’s mane, right?”
Fiona’s heart tugged and she shared a smile with Lauren as she bent down and picked Poppy up, settling her on her hip. Nothing was as sweet as a small child’s view of the world. She wanted to hold her youngest tight and beg her to stay little.
Ryan jogged back, Maya and Brownie trailing behind. Fiona waited until all the kids clustered around her. “Okay, first rule—Brownie stays on the leash all the time, and you hold him with your hand through the strap like they showed us out at the rescue farm. Understand?”
They all nodded quickly.
“Second—before you play, everyone helps carry stuff to the picnic table. Maya, you’re on toys. Ryan, the picnic basket. Lauren, you’re going to help me carry the cooler, and I want you to hold Brownie’s leash.”
Sighs and groans.
“I wanna help, too,” Poppy protested.
“I need you to carry the...” Fiona looked around.
“This Frisbee, because it’s a little bit broken and you have to be careful with it.” Maya reached into a basket and produced a Frisbee with a tiny flaw on the side. She handed it to Poppy. “Be careful, okay?”
“Okay!” Still in Fiona’s arms, Poppy nodded seriously and held the Frisbee as if it were made of delicate glass.
Fiona smiled her thanks at Maya. She loved it when the kids were sweet with each other. They really were ob
edient and helpful a lot of the time, she thought gratefully as everyone picked up their assigned items. She turned toward their usual table.
“Can we have our picnic over there instead?” Ryan pointed toward a cluster of tables near the park’s north side.
“Well...it’s a little farther from the playground.”
“But there’s more room for Brownie to run,” Lauren pointed out.
“And we’re tired of going to the same picnic table all the time,” Ryan added.
“Yeah, let’s do something new.” Lauren smiled brightly as she picked up her side of the cooler.
Fiona narrowed her eyes as she looked from the suggested spot to her two eldest kids. Something told her they’d agreed on this location change beforehand. The only question was why.
“Let’s go somewhere! I want to play!” Maya jumped up and down, the Frisbees and balls bouncing in her basket.
“Please, Mom?” Lauren begged. “I’m tired of sitting by the little kids’ playground.”
“What do you think, Miss Poppy?” Fiona asked, rubbing noses with her youngest until she giggled.
“I’ll give you piggyback rides and let you have my cookie,” Lauren said.
“Yay!”
More and more suspicious. But Fiona couldn’t think of a reason not to set up in a different section of Rescue River’s large downtown park, so she nodded consent and followed her excited kids to the cluster of picnic tables they’d chosen. The distant sound of barking dogs gave her a moment’s concern, but Lauren had Brownie tight on his leash, and the dog was too engrossed in sniffing every tree and chasing every butterfly to give the faraway dogs any notice.
“Put your basket by that tree,” she directed Maya, “and then you can go play. Stay where you can see me, though.”
“I will, Mom.” Maya dropped the basket of toys and took off toward a couple of girls Fiona recognized from her school.
Ryan placed the food basket carefully on the table. “Do you want me to help get things out?” He glanced longingly toward an apple tree with low sturdy branches.
“No, it’s okay,” Fiona said. “Go climb. You, too, honey,” she said to Lauren. “Go play. Just keep an eye on your sister.”
“I will. Come on, Poppy.” Lauren took her little sister’s hand and they headed off across the grass.
As Fiona spread the tablecloth and started pulling out potato salad and plastic-wrapped sandwiches, the sound of barking caught her attention again, louder and closer this time.
“Hey, Fiona!” Troy Hinton’s booming voice rang out behind her. “Coming back for more?”
She turned to see the tall veterinarian and shelter manager carrying a crate with a small terrier inside, yapping madly. In his other hand, upside down, was a sign that said A Dog’s Best Friend: Animal Rescue... A Day in the Park.
Troy reached her side and set down the small dog’s crate on the picnic table beside hers. “How’s Brownie working out?” he asked.
“We love him. The kids are over there playing with him right now. What’s...” She waved her hand toward the small dog, the sign and the two other workers she now saw headed in their general direction, with large dogs pulling at their leashes.
“It’s our annual adoption-day-in-the-park. We like to get the dogs out in front of the public, see if we can find homes for some of the hard-to-place ones.”
“Nice,” she said, beginning to see the plan behind her kids’ insistence on coming to this side of the park.
“Stop over if you get a chance. Angelica’s coming later, with the kids, and she’d love to see you.” He grabbed the crate and walked over toward a young volunteer who was practically being dragged along by a large boxer.
Fiona pulled drinks out of the cooler and put them on the edges of the tablecloth to weigh it down. If the kids thought she’d get another dog for them, they were out of their collective minds. She’d been very clear about that, and given how high-energy Brownie was, she’d been right. No way could they handle more than one. She wasn’t going to give in to their ganging up on her.
“Fiona?”
She turned, and the sight of Eduardo sent a peculiar sensation down her spine. She turned, reclosable bag of chocolate chip cookies in hand. “Eduardo? What are you...” She stopped herself. He had every right to come to the park, but...
He glanced around at her picnic supplies and then back at her. He frowned. “Did your kids suggest coming today?”
She nodded slowly. “And they insisted we sit over here. Right by where Troy Hinton’s setting up his adopt-a-dog event.”
Eduardo scrubbed a hand over his face. “My kids begged me to bring our lunch here, too. They’ve been on me all morning, trying to talk me into getting a dog.”
She pushed out a laugh. “Sorry about that. When we brought Brownie home, I wasn’t thinking about the pressure it would create for you.”
He shrugged. “Not your fault. You can’t run your family life based on not upsetting mine.”
“True, but...I’m still sorry.” She shaded her eyes to look over toward the dog rescue setup. Sure enough, her own kids and Eduardo’s—along with a few others—were clustering around the caged and leashed adoptable dogs. Brownie bounced around hysterically barking, almost pulling Maya off her feet.
“I’d better go over there,” she said. “I don’t know what my kids are thinking. We already have all the dog we can handle.”
“I think I might have an inkling,” Eduardo said. “I’ll come along, too, if you don’t mind.”
Eduardo’s presence distracted Fiona from her annoyance with her kids. It was nice to walk beside a man several inches taller than she was. She didn’t feel like a giant, as she sometimes did. It would be easy for him to put his arm around her. She’d actually fit beneath his shoulder.
And then she caught herself. Was she seriously daydreaming about cuddling up to Eduardo? That was about as smart as standing in front of the bakery window when you were dieting. She couldn’t have a man like Eduardo, and there was no use torturing herself by imagining she could.
Except it was hard to resist her feelings. When his kids spotted them coming and ran over, he reached out muscular arms and caught one in each, kneeling down to mock-bang their heads together. His teeth flashed white in his deeply tanned face, and the care and fun in his eyes took her breath away. His kids seemed to know how special they had it, too; they both clung onto him for an extra few seconds, their love for their father obvious. For a moment, she ached at the thought that her own children had no such manly protector.
Ryan ran toward the trio and then stopped a few feet away from them, watching until the group hug broke up. His face held a mix of longing and jealousy. Of course, he was getting to the age where a mom wasn’t enough. He needed a father figure, and Fiona was going to work on it. Maybe the husbands of some of her friends—Susan Hinton, Fern from the library—would be willing to spend a little male bonding time with Ryan. Or maybe it was time to get him into Boy Scouts, something he could do without his sisters always nearby.
“Dad, you gotta come see this!” Diego tugged at his father’s hand, and a moment later, Ryan joined in. “Yeah, Mr. Delgado, come and see!”
The two boys pulled him toward the dogs and he let them, flashing an eye roll Fiona’s way.
Sofia looked up at Fiona. “Do you want to come, too?” she asked hesitantly. “It’s Brownie’s mother who’s here today. We hope Dad will let us get her.”
Fiona didn’t want to condone the behind-the-scenes manipulation that had obviously gone on between the kids. But the little wrinkle between Sofia’s brows, the plaintive expression on her face, touched Fiona’s heart. “I’ll come look,” she said. “But your dad will have to make the decision that’s right for your family.”
“I know.” Sofia walked beside her. “He will. He’ll pray about it.”
Fiona smiled
and impulsively ran a hand over Sofia’s hair. “That’s what I did, too.”
“And God told you to get a dog?” Sofia reached up and took Fiona’s hand, her eyes full of hope.
The affectionate gesture from the motherless little girl tugged at Fiona’s heartstrings. “Not exactly. But I got a sense of peace about it, like if the right dog was there we’d know it, and we’d know if we were ready to handle the responsibility.”
“And then you got Brownie!” Sofia took an extra skip, still clinging to Fiona. “I hope we can get Brownie’s mom. I think our mom would have wanted us to.”
“Really?” Fiona wondered whether that was true. “What’s the dog’s name? I don’t think I met her at the shelter. I was too busy filling out paperwork for Brownie.”
“She’s called Sparkles.” The little girl looked up at Fiona. “She had cancer, like my mom, but she didn’t die from it. She just had to have her leg taken off, but she’s still really pretty and nice. And I think—” She broke off.
Fiona swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “What, honey?”
“I think she’d like to be with her son, Brownie. Just like our mom would like to be with us, if she could.”
They were approaching the raucous collection of dogs and kids, so Fiona was spared having to answer. But her heart twisted into an impossible knot.
Of course, given Sofia’s logic, she wanted the Delgado kids to get Brownie’s mother. Except that the Delgado’s residence near her own wasn’t going to last forever. The kids and the dogs would be separated, maybe in a month, maybe several. They had to be careful about mingling their families, tightening the connections between them.
Eduardo’s sweet children had already endured a terrible loss. Her own kids had as well.
Letting them get closer, having them share pets in common and become better friends, was a risk to young hearts that had already been broken.
Not to mention the risk to her own heart.
* * *
A Family for Easter Page 7