Rick returned, a glass in each hand, wearing a smile and a clean T-shirt. Putting the shirt on brought attention to the fact that he hadn’t been wearing one when she drove up. She’d known he was in shape—that much was evident when he was wearing clothes. Where her imagination had let her down was in how hard and lean and strong he really was. She would not forget now. The image of him standing bare-chested in the early evening light would be a familiar one from then on, both waking and sleeping.
He handed her a glass. “Now, as glad as I am to see you, I know you must have had something on your mind to wind up here. I said I wouldn’t ask, but why don’t we get it out of the way?”
“It’s Lynda.” She took a drink. “I’m worried about how she’s going to react to Ray’s leaving today.”
“Ray’s gone?”
“There was some mix-up and his aunt thought she was supposed to come today instead of next week. Ray’s doctor reviewed his chart, wrote a bunch of instructions to the doctor who’s going to be taking care of him in Kansas, and said he could go.”
“How did Ray take the news?”
“He was crushed. I think he was hoping for a last-minute miracle that would let him stay with Brian.”
“Wasn’t the plan not to tell him about staying here until it was set?” He led Catherine to the sofa and then sat on the raised fireplace hearth facing her. “I can see I’ve got some catching up to do.”
She filled him in with everything she knew.
“I’m afraid you’re right to be concerned about Lynda. She made Ray her responsibility and she’s going to feel as if she let him down.”
“She’s been doing so well until now.”
Rick didn’t comment.
His silence disconcerted her. At the very least, she’d expected an affirming nod. She tried again. “After listening to the other parents, I expected her to fight wearing her pressure garments. But she’s never even complained about them—not that they’re uncomfortable, or hot, or anything. She’s accepted them as if they were cutting-edge style.”
“She’s hiding,” Rick said gently. “It’s the way some of the kids react. It’s perfectly normal, but can bring some real headaches down the line when it comes time for her to stop wearing them.”
“What do you mean, ‘hiding’?”
“From her scars. As long as she’s wearing her pressure garments, no one can see what’s under them. She has a ready-made excuse for not going swimming, or dressing down for gym, or doing anything that would expose her to curious, hurtful stares.”
The answer was so obvious. How had she missed it? She’d seen and believed what she wanted to see and believe. Somehow, Catherine had convinced herself that because Lynda came from a loving, extended family, enjoyed a standard of living that only ten percent of the population attained, and was bright and beautiful and popular, of course she would be different, would react differently, would accept her scarred back intellectually as well as emotionally and move on with her life.
How could she have been so stupid? So ego-driven? So blind to reality?
“I’m scared, Rick,” she admitted as the impact of the door he’d opened hit her. “If you’re right, and I have no reason to believe you aren’t, then she’s holding in a lot of other stuff, too. She accepted Jack’s marriage as a matter of course. I thought it was because she’d been through so much herself that she’d learned to put other things in perspective.”
“He’ll always be her father. She must have felt something about losing a part of him to another woman, even if it was a part that wasn’t hers to lose.”
“That’s what I expected, what I looked for. But she actually seemed happy for him. And when I told her she was going to have a little sister or brother in a few months, I thought she was excited.”
“Maybe she was. Maybe we’re wrong and she really is happy for him and—” He paused. “Sorry, I can’t remember her name.”
“Adriana.”
“Adriana has to know how important Lynda is to Jack. She probably went out of her way to make her feel comfortable.”
“I hope so. I can only take one crisis at a time.”
“Why don’t I call the camp and ask Rachel how she’s doing?”
“Can you do it without Lynda finding out?”
“Rachel won’t say anything if I ask her not to.”
“Then yes, please. I really need to know that she’s all right.”
“You want to come with me or wait here? The phone’s in the kitchen.”
“With.” She followed him down a short hall, rounded a doorway, and stopped cold, as if she’d run into a glass wall. She stared, unbelieving, questioning a reality she could see and touch and feel.
Rick’s kitchen was the one she had created in her mind when she and Jack had decided to design their own home. From the countertops to the practical gourmet stove—a stove so ugly only someone who loved to cook could appreciate its true beauty—to the built-in refrigerator and tile floor, everything was as she’d imagined it. What she’d wound up with was Jack and the architect’s idea of a show-place kitchen, one that sacrificed function for form.
She innately knew where everything was stored in this kitchen, she could find the plates and glasses and pots and pans with her eyes closed. The only thing that threw her was a double row of drawers beside the stove, each a little over a foot wide and less than eight inches tall. Her curiosity aroused, it was everything she could do not to open them and look inside.
“Rachel, it’s Rick. Lynda Miller got some bad news this evening and I was wondering how she’s doing.” He listened for several seconds. “Is she okay now?” He glanced at Catherine, his expression neutral. “Uh-huh…yeah, that’s my take on it, too.”
The kitchen forgotten, Catherine concentrated on Rick’s conversation, filling the silences with frightening scenarios, knowing it was foolish but unable to stop.
“You have any problem with us taking a drive up there tonight?” He gave Catherine a questioning look. She nodded. “Good. We’ll see you in a couple of hours, then. Do me a favor, don’t tell Lynda we’re coming.”
He hung up. “Give me a couple of minutes to shower and we can leave.”
“What’s wrong?” Catherine asked anxiously.
“One of the counselors noticed she was upset, and when she asked if she could help, Lynda broke down and started crying. The counselor took her to the nurse’s office and they finally got her to tell them about Ray.”
“How could I not have known how much he meant to her?”
“I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Nothing that happens to Lynda stands alone anymore. When she gets upset about one thing, she loses the ability to handle everything else. She’s like a traffic cop who stops to tie her shoe and looks up to see cars headed toward her from every direction.”
“How do you know these things?” She didn’t doubt him, she simply wondered how he could be so perceptive with someone he’d only known a couple of months.
“Experience. And I’ve learned not to take anything at face value. If one of my kids—one of my burned kids—is getting along better than they should, or is always on their best behavior, I get suspicious. Lynda’s a remarkable young woman, but she’s not as different as she wants all of us to think she is. You don’t go through what she’s been through without getting hurt on the inside, too. Our job is to make sure whatever she’s carrying around gets the exposure it needs to heal properly.”
“No matter how many times I say thank you to you and the people at the Firefighters’—”
“When I said our job, Catherine, I meant you and me.”
Blue came into the kitchen, his toenails clicking on the tile floor, providing a distraction that Rick ignored but Catherine couldn’t.
He sat in front of a cupboard and twisted his head to look at Rick, a pleading expression in his eyes. “He knows I’m leaving,” Rick explained. “It’s his version of a guilt trip.”
“You keep his treats in that cu
pboard,” she said with confidence. Along with assorted canned goods, crackers, cereal, and pasta, she could have added just as confidently.
“Would you mind getting one for him? I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” She’d had no idea such random fears hung around so close to the surface and could be aroused so readily.
“I just thought it would be better if we got there before the campfire skits start. Lynda’s cabin is putting them on tonight, and I don’t want her to miss it because of us.”
Her relief left her eager to give something back. “Have you had dinner?”
“Not yet.”
“Why don’t I make us some sandwiches to eat on the way?”
“You don’t have to do that.” He smiled. “But it would be nice if you did.”
“Go on, get in your shower. I’ll take care of everything out here.”
“The bread is in—”
“I know where the bread is. And everything else. Trust me, I can handle this.”
Blue let out a soft whine. “Oh, and don’t let him talk you into giving him more than one dog bone.”
“From the look on his face I don’t think one is going to be enough.”
“Break it in half,” Rick said from the doorway. “That way he’ll think he’s getting two.”
Catherine looked at Blue when they were alone. “That’s not going to fool you, is it?”
Blue thumped his tail and woofed.
“I didn’t think so.” She took the box from the cupboard and found two pieces that weren’t whole, but more than half. He took the first one and looked at her expectantly as he chomped it down. The second one he held in his cheek until he was curled up on the rag rug by the back door.
Catherine washed her hands and without thinking reached for the towel hanging off a hook on the side of the cupboard, knowing it was there. She was headed for the refrigerator when she spotted the double row of drawers and gave in to the temptation to snoop.
She smiled in discovery and appreciation as she opened and looked inside the drawers. Rick had solved the problem of what to do with the odd utensils that invariably created junk drawers in most kitchens. Everything that grated or minced was in one drawer, if it cut or sliced, it was in another. Large spoons and ladles were combined with salad tongs while meat forks were in with a set of crab crackers and picks.
She thought about her mother’s kitchen and how easily the drawers could be installed if she took out the cupboard where she kept her cookie sheets. But in order to tell her about it she’d have to tell her where she got the idea. That was bound to lead to questions about why Catherine had been in Rick’s kitchen in the first place. Questions she’d begun to ask herself. Questions she either wasn’t ready to or couldn’t answer.
28
RICK PARKED NEXT TO THE ADMINISTRATION BUILD-ing, set the emergency brake on the truck, and turned to Catherine. “This is it. Camp Cassidy in all of its military-green glory. Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
She hesitated. When they’d crested the summit and she’d caught sight of Lake Tahoe shimmering gold in the waning light, she’d been hit with doubt about what she was doing. If Lynda had wanted her at camp, she would have called. Catherine had checked the answering machine at home and nothing was on it, not even a message from Brian.
“Second thoughts?” he asked gently.
“Second, third, and fourth. I promised Lynda more freedom. Now here I am, chasing her down at the first sign of trouble.”
“It was my idea, remember? You’re just along for the ride.”
“She’ll never buy that. She knows me too well.”
“We can still turn around and go back. No one has spotted us yet.”
Catherine looked up and saw someone waving to them. “Oh, yeah?”
Rick followed her gaze, smiled, and waved back. “That’s Rachel. Even if we don’t stay, we’ve got to take a minute for you to meet her.” He opened his door and came around the truck to open hers.
“I’ve been watching for you,” Rachel said. “I was hoping you’d get here before campfire.” She opened her arms for a hug. Rick obliged, lifting her off the ground and planting a kiss square on her mouth.
Catherine experienced an insane moment of jealousy so intense she could only laugh it off. To say or do something would be the real insanity.
Rick put Rachel down, but kept his arm around her waist. “Rachel Issenberg—Catherine Miller.”
They shook hands. Catherine even managed a smile. “How is Lynda?”
“Still a little quiet, but I put her to work helping Sandi get ready for tonight’s skit.”
Rachel was nothing like Catherine had expected—someone she’d mentally patterned after a boot camp instructor. Not only was she tall and slim with long black hair pulled back into a bouncy ponytail, she had the glow and confidence that came with being in superb physical condition. She had flawless skin, large, expressive eyes, and fashionably full lips. She was beautiful, sophisticated, and at least fifteen pounds lighter and five years younger than Catherine. Most of all, she had a thing for Rick that he either didn’t see in his expansive friendliness for everyone or chose to ignore.
“Catherine’s concerned about being here,” Rick said. “She’s afraid Lynda will think she’s intruding.”
Rachel directed her answer to Catherine. “Then instead of introducing you at campfire, we’ll take our cues from Lynda and keep you low-profile.” She glanced at Rick and smiled. “Besides, we can always blame it on Rick. I knew he’d show up sooner or later. There was no way he could stay away the whole week.”
When Rachel turned her smile on Catherine, it was filled with such genuine warmth, she, too, fell under the woman’s spell.
“Come on.” Rachel took Catherine’s arm. “I’ll show you around the place while we’re waiting for Lynda to finish with Sandi.”
They headed for the dining room, which, Rachel informed her, was also the arts and crafts area. “Wait until you see what the kids did with the bird feeders, Rick. I think we have a couple of budding artists in the group.” To Catherine she said, “I assume Rick told you about the feeders?”
“No, he didn’t.” The innocent question had effectively put her on the outside of his circle of friends. She knew what she had to know about him as Lynda’s mother, little more. She had to fight an urge to tell Rachel that she might not know about the feeders but she’d been to his house and she knew about his part-time dog and his incredible neighbor who had taken Lynda under her wing just because Rick had asked her to. But she only knew these things peripherally; they weren’t hers to claim or share.
“He conned some man he met at a crafts show into donating the plastic bubbles that hold the seed and then Rick made all these bird and squirrel and fire-engine cutouts that hold the bubble. The birds sit on a dowel and pick seed out of a hole in the bubble. When he first showed it to me, I told him there was no way any self-respecting bird was going to stick its head in that hole. Guess who won that argument.”
“Lynda mentioned she was helping out with them,” Catherine said. “She said she was bringing one home with her. A fire engine, I think.”
“Rick—,” a high-pitched voice squealed from across the green. He turned just as someone else yelled, “Hey, look everybody. Rick’s here.”
A short, stocky boy in a bright yellow T-shirt came running toward them. He was followed by a girl wearing a long red scarf around her neck. The volleyball game stopped and the teams set off at a sprint.
“We’d better stand back,” Rachel warned Catherine, her eyes brimming with humor. “This could get ugly.”
The boy in the yellow T-shirt never slowed down. He hit Rick at full speed, wrapping his arms around his waist as Rick laughed and braced himself to stay upright. “How are you doing, Danny?”
He looked up and grinned. “Good. I can use my fingers now.” He held his hand up and wiggled the three fingers that still
remained. “See?”
The girl arrived, growing shy as she neared. “Melinda—you look fantastic,” Rick exclaimed. “Who did your nose?”
“Dr. Wiggins.”
“Turn sideways,” he said. She did. “Outstanding.” He held his hand up for a high five.
She beamed at his approval.
The volleyball team arrived. Rachel motioned for Catherine to follow her. “We might as well go on without him. He could be tied up here for a long time.”
Catherine watched from the window when they were inside the dining room. “They seem to like him. A lot.”
“It goes deeper than that. He works magic with these kids. He’s the perfect father or big brother or uncle that a lot of them don’t have. Half the time when I find a kid in tears at the end of camp it’s because he knows he won’t get to see Rick for another year.”
“I’m surprised he could stay away. He must have known how disappointed the kids would be.”
Rachel gave her a puzzled look. “He didn’t tell you?”
Again, the feeling of being on the outside. “Tell me what?”
“Why he didn’t come this year?”
She shook her head.
“Sorry. That was a dumb question. Of course he wouldn’t tell you. He stayed away because of Lynda. He thought it was more important for her to gain the confidence that comes from knowing she can make new friends on her own than it was for him to be here. He knew she’d never believe she’d done it by herself if he was around for her to lean on.”
“He didn’t tell me. Or Lynda. She thinks he stayed to work for a friend whose wife is sick.”
“He didn’t have to take the shifts he did. Someone else would have worked them this week. Firefighters always take care of their own. It’s one of the things I admire most about them.” She took Catherine over to a table lined with paint-splattered newspaper and half-finished bird feeders.
She saw bright-blue-and-orange squirrels, as well as some that were gray and brown. There were pink-and-green loons and even a couple of black-and-white ones. Every fire engine was red, however.
Disguised Blessing Page 23