“You were kissing her like Mommy.” Polly’s voice was fierce and frightened and confused.
“Not like Mommy.” Pete held on when Mallory tried to pull back, preventing her from leaving the circle of his arms without making a scene. “I was kissing her like Mallory. Like I’ve wanted to kiss her since last weekend. I’m not trying to replace Mommy. And Mallory wouldn’t dream of letting me do that.”
Since last weekend?
Mallory’s thoughts and senses spun, too fast and too full of conflicting emotions. Pete Lombard had wanted to kiss her all along. Their embrace by the Kid Zone hadn’t been an impulse, a moment of weakness she could shrug off once they calmed Polly down. It had meant as much to him as it had to her. And she had absolutely no idea why at the moment, or what any of them were going to do about it.
All she knew was that she was holding on—to him and Polly—and not just because he still wouldn’t let her go. She simply couldn’t make her arms drop to her side and have any confidence that she could remain on her feet on her own.
“I don’t understand.” Polly’s voice was soft and muffled against Pete’s shoulder.
“Will you let us help you understand?” Mallory asked, feeling her own confusion throbbing behind her eyes. “Let your daddy take you home, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” As soon as she figured out who the woman in front of the Christmas tree was and where she’d gotten her coat. And the plastic shopping bags. And the collection of news clippings Mallory had found earlier. “I’ll come by your house this time, and we’ll talk as long as you want until we all understand this better.”
Pete rubbed his cheek against his daughter’s head. The hand that wasn’t holding Polly squeezed Mallory’s shoulder. They were in this together, his gesture said.
Polly nodded her head in agreement, closing her eyes and snuggling in.
“I think she needs a nap.” Mallory smiled, because it was the most normal of normal-kid reactions, to be demanding and angry one minute and the next to be almost comatose from an exhausting, busy morning. Seeing Polly feeling and acting like a cranky, tired seven-year-old made her heart sing.
“She’ll sleep all the way home,” Pete agreed.
He’d grabbed Polly’s jacket from the Kid Zone somewhere between their kiss and the lobby. He draped his daughter’s shoulders in quilted pink nylon, not bothering to stuff her arms into the sleeves. He nodded toward the other side of the lobby, bringing a screeching halt to the warmth of belonging spreading through Mallory.
“Who was that?” he asked.
She shook her head, deciding that she wasn’t going to answer and she wasn’t going to turn around herself, not until Pete and Polly were on their way. She couldn’t face the memories lurking in front of the shelter’s Christmas tree until they were gone.
Then his words replayed and fully registered.
Who was that?
Past tense.
She whirled around…to find nothing. There was nothing there. No one. No bags. No stooping, gray-haired woman. No molting orange coat. Just a sad-looking tree that stood crookedly proud, defying visitors to think of it as anything but regal in its shabby splendor. And beneath it, lying on the tree skirt with the wrapped gifts people had donated, was a filthy doll that looked so familiar Mallory raced across the room to grab it up.
“How…?” She scrambled to the front door, pushing the thing open, her heart pounding in her chest. A scream of denial, of being abandoned all over again, rolled up her windpipe. “Where did she go?”
“Who?” Pete was right behind her. He looked up and down the street with her.
“The smelly lady?” Polly asked, rousing herself to look, too, then to stare at the dirty doll clenched in Mallory’s fist.
Mallory experienced a moment of relief that Pete and Polly had been there to witness the woman’s appearance—at least she knew she hadn’t imagined the entire thing. Then, as she looked down at the doll and thought of all they’d seen, a wave of shame rolled over her. Would she have to explain it? Would Pete make the connection on his own between Polly’s odd-looking, smelly woman and the bags Mallory had been staring at earlier?
The other shopping bags! The ones by the Kid Zone. And the ziplock bag full of clippings. They were likely still where Mallory had seen them. Did she dare hunt them down with the Lombards still there? Could she afford to wait even a moment to be certain of what her instincts were telling her had just happened?
“Mallory?” Pete asked. “Who was that woman?”
After all this time, the past Mallory hadn’t shared with anyone in her adult life had returned for real. Of course it was happening in the midst of her reboot. In the middle of Christmas. Of course it was happening at the same moment that she’d found herself connecting with people who thought she was just like them.
Pete assumed she was someone he and Polly could want, because that’s how things worked on Mimosa Lane. He thought they could be a we. All while the reason being part of anyone else’s life had never worked for Mallory had been lurking somewhere nearby in a shabby orange coat.
“Hey,” he said, stepping closer. “Are you okay?”
“That…”
She shook her head and took a deep breath, gazing back at him and Polly. They really were a beautiful family. She would be so blessed, so lucky, to be part of their Christmas this year, and anything else they were willing to share with her. Except she couldn’t, not unless they knew everything.
Take your medicine, Phillips.
Then just keep goin’.
“I think that homeless woman was my mother,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
I years had been from home,
And now, before the door…
Mallory’s mommy?
Polly started looking extra hard up and down the street for the sad old lady who’d smelled so funny. The lady had been standing there under the shelter’s tree, just staring at it the way Polly liked to stare at Mallory’s tree. She’d been so sad and quiet, and she hadn’t said anything about Polly crying, like she should stop and not be sad, too. And she’d held Polly’s hand when Daddy had first said she needed to walk away, nice and tight, like the lady had wanted to be friends.
Mallory’s mommy had wanted to be friends.
“What’s homeless mean?” she asked.
Daddy hugged her closer, but he didn’t answer. Neither did Mallory. They were looking at each other like they’d just met or something, even though they’d been kissing before.
“Daddy?”
The sick feeling was back in Polly’s tummy, the one that had made her run when she’d found them in the hallway and it had felt so wrong. Not bad wrong, she guessed. She just wanted things to stay the way they’d been all week, with everything feeling better and today to look forward to and her not having to think about anything she didn’t understand.
Only now she didn’t understand what Mallory had said about her own mommy and the old lady with the weird-looking coat, like she didn’t understand why Mallory and Daddy had been kissing or why they weren’t talking to each other now. And Mallory looked really angry. Or scared. Or angry-scared, the way Polly had felt when she’d yelled at Mrs. Davis at school on Monday and then cried for so long.
She grabbed Mallory’s hand the way she had the sad old lady’s.
“Don’t be scared,” she said, wanting things to be better for Mallory, too. “I’m not mad anymore, and your mommy will come back. Won’t she, Daddy?”
“That was your mother?” Pete asked, convinced he hadn’t heard Mallory right.
“Maybe.” She gave a shrug that might have looked nonchalant if her voice weren’t shaking. “My memory from that time tends to be a little fuzzy. That’s what can happen to a kid after she spends six years living on the street with only an emotionally ill parent looking out for her until she can’t take it anymore.”
“You and your mother were—”
“Homeless, yeah. It’s the sort of thing you try the rest of your lif
e to forget, only it’s always there. It’s always comin’ back to you. It’s never really over, you know, when you lose someone like that—the way I lost my mama when she turned back to the street instead of stayin’ with me and my grandmother. You learn to deal with it and move on with your life. But it’s never really over.”
Pete wouldn’t have been more stunned if Mallory had said, “Why yes, I actually am Glinda the Good Witch. Why are you surprised?”
The truth of what she’d said resonated, though, along with the damaged kind of pride that stole into her expression as she’d waited for his next response. She was clearly expecting him to pepper her with more questions, no doubt negative ones to reinforce whatever assumption she’d made about human nature that had convinced her to keep the circumstances of her childhood hidden from everyone.
Six years on the street. She’d been homeless as a child for six years, wandering around with no permanent place to stay, no security, no connections, except for—how had she put it?—a mentally ill mother?
How did someone survive an existence like that unscathed and move on to thrive as an adult? How did you tell people who only knew you as a well-adjusted, empathetic, compassionate person what your childhood had really been like? How did you do things like buy furniture and participate in cozy neighborhood functions and trust people with who you were inside and what you really felt like deep down where they couldn’t see?
All this time, he’d assumed Mallory liked being alone. Everyone had. Looking at her now, with her arms wrapped around the middle of her glittering, threadbare costume, it made more sense that she simply saw herself as alone, period, and that was that. Meanwhile she’d made a life out of helping everyone who needed her, more than any other person would help, even to the point of spending her income on shelter donations instead of on her own comfort.
He glanced back inside, then again at the woman standing next to him who was coolly expecting him to judge her or make some kind of knee-jerk observation, or to back off from her revelation as if it somehow made her less appealing to him.
“You really are something, you know that?” he said, curling Polly’s body closer and longing to do the same for the brittle woman standing in front of them, shivering as winter wind rushed across her bare arms. “You’re amazing, Mallory Phillips.”
Her mouth dropped open.
Her stunned gazed shifted to Polly, as if his child would have to be the one to toss her out of their lives because Mallory had survived the same existence as the neediest of those she now helped. Polly did him proud. Her head bobbed up and down in agreement that Mallory was by far the bravest, most inspiring person they’d ever met.
“Was she really—” he started to ask.
“I don’t know.” Mallory was shaking, so slightly he could barely see the tremble in the hand that self-consciously smoothed down her hair and clothes. Her too-bright gaze told him that she was shattering inside.
“Can we help?” he asked.
She clearly wouldn’t believe him if he insisted that he thought even more highly of her now than before. Even though she’d initiated their kiss he’d felt her confusion as he’d held her, wanted her, needed her. He’d sensed her holding back something of herself, as if she couldn’t accept how much he desired her in return. In her mind he clearly had even more reasons now to keep his distance.
Or was it the other way around?
“I…” She shook her head. “I need to look for her.”
She was peering inside again, past him and Polly as if they were already somewhere else.
“We could—”
“No!” she barked. She inhaled, a good witch trying not to lose control. “Just take Polly home. She’s had a big day, and I…”
She didn’t want them there.
She didn’t want a witness to whatever she was going through. Alone was likely the only way she could deal with running into her mother for the first time in God knew how long. As much as he hated to accept it, him and Polly being there was making this harder for her.
He nodded, not that he would allow her to think he was stepping away for good.
“I’d like to speak with you whenever you make it home tonight,” he said.
“I understand.” Her spine straightened.
She didn’t understand anything about him. Not enough. Not yet. “Will you stop by, no matter how late it gets?”
She nodded. She opened the door to the building. Her costume swished around her as she disappeared inside without them.
“Where did her mommy go?” Polly asked. She tugged Pete’s sleeve. “Daddy, is that really Mallory’s mommy?”
“I don’t know. But I think we should keep this just between us for now. Mallory needs some time to figure this out without anyone else knowing about it.”
“I won’t tell anybody. But I want to help her look for the lady.”
Pete put his daughter down and knelt beside her. “You’ve been a good helper already today. Mallory was so glad to have you here.”
“And you, too?” Polly’s forehead wrinkled as if she were remembering the kiss she’d witnessed and still wasn’t sure what it had meant.
“Yes, I think she was happy to see me, too.”
He relived the awakening he’d had as he’d stood there and watched Mallory laugh and celebrate Polly’s miraculous progress. He’d felt a bit more of Emma come back to him, just as he had in the break room. Had it been her approval, maybe? Her pleasure in him finding happiness again, just like their daughter? He was coming back to life, the same as Polly was. And he couldn’t bear the thought of Mallory suffering in the midst of their triumph.
“Should we look for her mommy until she can come back outside?” Polly asked.
They could, he supposed, but he’d just agreed to butt out. Mallory needed to know that she could trust him to keep his word.
She’d said she’d stop by tonight. He was going to hold her to that. Until then he had some tricky explaining of his own to do. He was going to talk with his daughter about what she’d seen, and not allow her confusion to fester and become something even more difficult for them to deal with.
“I think we should let Mallory do what she needs to here, while we go home and talk a little.”
Polly scowled, shuffling a step away. “About you giving her a mommy kiss?”
A mommy kiss. A kiss he’d have given Emma if she’d been there with him in that moment—a moment of connection so intimate, no matter how public, that even his seven-year-old hadn’t missed the significance of it.
His daughter’s eyes were sleepy. The joyous exuberance that had charmed him and Mallory was gone. But she didn’t shy away when he reached for her hand. She was wanting him to explain what had happened instead of wanting him to go away.
Be honest, had been Mallory’s wise advice—a woman who hadn’t felt safe enough to be honest about who she really was with anyone in their community no matter how much she clearly wanted to belong in their world.
Safety, he’d learned from both his job and the last six months as a single father, wasn’t something you waited to come to you. You had to make your own safety happen. Each and every day you had to wrestle what you needed most to the ground. He’d forgotten that for too long dealing with Polly.
Mallory had helped him get a grip on what he’d let slip away after losing Emma—the solid relationship with his child he and Polly both needed to heal. While all along Mallory had been struggling with her own private battles as she hid behind her windows and unlocked doors and over-the-top Christmas tree.
“I like Mallory very much,” he said out loud, getting the words out there where they needed to be instead of holding them inside where they wouldn’t do anyone a damn bit of good.
Polly nodded slowly.
“I’ll never stop loving your mommy.” Pete cupped Polly’s heart-shaped face, its delicate contours so much like Emma’s. “You know that, right?”
Another nod, her bottom lip beginning to tremble in that way he co
uldn’t stand. He pulled her into a fierce hug, not certain exactly what he was trying to say, but knowing for sure he’d do anything to keep his daughter’s love.
“Would Mommy be mad?” she asked, holding on tight the way she once had every day.
“That I like Mallory?”
Polly nodded her head and sighed. She yawned so long and loud, the release seemed to come from her toes. “And that I like her, too, the way I liked playing with Mommy and going wherever she went? That I’m giving Mallory Mommy’s treasures? That she’s helping me forget?”
Magic, he thought, was feeling his daughter come back to him, one hug, one sweet question at a time.
He carried Polly to the Jeep and settled her into her booster seat, then stood beside her in the shade that began to fall so quickly, so early in the day this time of year. It was only one or two o’clock in the afternoon, but to look at the deepening blues and grays of the sky and the world around them, it might have been dusk.
He didn’t rush to answer Polly’s question, but he also didn’t hurry to the driver’s side of the car and hustle them back onto the interstate. And Polly seemed content to wait, watching him, giving him time to make sense out of the crazy disarray of his thoughts.
“Are you really forgetting Mommy?” he asked first, because it was the most important question he hadn’t yet allowed himself to face. “With all the things you won’t let me or Mallory really see, all the treasures that you’ve taken over to her place after school this week…Is any of it making you forget Mommy?”
Polly’s fingers clenched around the straps of her booster seat.
She shook her head no.
“Has having a good time here today helping Mallory and playing with the other kids made you forget Mommy?”
Another no.
“What did Mallory say about all of your memories, the ones she’s keeping safe for you?”
Polly looked down at her lap, her chin trembling the way Emma’s always had when she was trying to keep from crying. “That I could have them back anytime I wanted to stop. But I don’t, Daddy. I don’t want to stop…”
Christmas on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 15