Last One Home

by Debbie Macomber

  Her daughter’s questions had nagged in the back of Karen’s mind all evening. “I wasn’t sure what to say. I should have thought this out more carefully before I wrote to my sister. It only makes sense that the kids would have questions.” Karen remained uneasy about the situation with Cassie. “Nichole and I did the right thing, didn’t we?” she asked, twisting her head so she could look up at her husband.

  Garth nodded, his look thoughtful. “You are generous to offer her the furniture.”

  “But that and everything else is all stuff neither Nichole nor I wanted.” Most of it was old and outdated and not worth much. What amazed Karen was how emotional and grateful Cassie had sounded. She wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed she’d heard tears in Cassie’s voice.

  “Are you feeling guilty about splitting the money from the sale of the house with Nichole?”

  Karen sighed again, unsettled and unsure. “I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. Cassie was Dad’s favorite, you know. It about killed him when she ran off with Duke. She didn’t tell Mom or Dad until after she was married that she was pregnant with Amiee.”

  “Pregnant?”

  Karen could see her husband was adding the years up in his head. She answered his question before he could ask. “Mom mailed her gifts and was all excited about her first grandchild. She hoped to make peace after the way she left, but we never heard anything back.” For the first time, it occurred to Karen to wonder if her sister had even received the baby gifts.

  “What happened with Duke?”

  Karen didn’t know. “They’re divorced. About five years ago, shortly after Dad died, Cassie phoned Mom, looking for help.”

  “Help?”

  “Money. She’d left Duke and wanted to get back to the West Coast. Mom was still dealing with the aftermath of Dad, and she asked Nichole and me to help Cassie.”

  Garth frowned. “You never mentioned this before.”

  She probably should have talked to Garth—he might have had an idea on how to handle Cassie, but Karen had been angry and disinclined to help her. In addition, she was overwhelmed dealing with the aftermath of their father’s sudden death. Those days remained a blur in her mind.

  “At the time nothing had been settled with Dad’s estate and Mom was in a financial crush herself, with the bills piling up. Paying for Dad’s funeral was far more expensive than any of us realized it would be. It fell to Nichole and me to come up with the cash to help Cassie and we simply weren’t in a position to do it. We also felt that she was too irresponsible. To just send her cash after the mess she’d already made would be like throwing it away. Of course, there was the money from the sale of our parents’ house, but that had been set aside as retirement income, and had come well after Cassie’s call, anyway. In retrospect, I wish we had been able to help her more, but it was such bad timing.”

  “What about Nichole? She couldn’t do anything to help Cassie, either?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Her youngest sister had never been especially good with money and left those matters to her husband, Jake. “Right,” Garth responded with a half-laugh.

  To Karen’s way of thinking, Cassie was simply suffering the consequences of making a bad decision. She didn’t mean to be unkind or unforgiving, but how did anyone learn responsibility if their family kept bailing them out? It was like with kids—you had to let them learn from their mistakes or they’d just keep repeating them.

  “That’s all water under the bridge now,” her husband reminded her.

  “You’re right, of course.” Still, Karen remained unsure how best to explain to their children that they had a second aunt that they knew nothing about until now. “What should I tell Lily and Buddy?” she asked, seeking her husband’s advice. “They’re sure to ask, and I feel we should be prepared to explain why she hasn’t been a part of our lives all these years.”

  “Tell them …” Garth hesitated, and then shrugged.

  “See, it isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

  “What did you say to Lily earlier?”

  Again Karen wished she’d handled her daughter’s question with a bit more finesse. “I explained that I hadn’t mentioned Cassie because she wasn’t a good example. Lily would have drilled me with more questions if you and Buddy hadn’t arrived when you did.”

  “Knowing Lily, she won’t let up until she has answers, so you’d best think of what you want to tell her now.”

  Karen scooted closer to her husband, enjoying the feel of his arm around her. It was far too tempting to close her eyes and lean against Garth. Thinking about Cassie and the mistakes her sister had made drained Karen. Of the three sisters, Cassie had shown the most promise and she’d screwed up her entire life over a man.

  “She accused Dad of being jealous of Duke,” Karen murmured.

  “Was he?”

  Garth’s question surprised her. At the time the accusation had seemed ludicrous, but in retrospect Karen realized that Cassie had probably been right. As her father’s favorite, he’d carefully scrutinized the boys Cassie dated more than he ever had any of the boys who showed interest in Karen or Nichole.

  “Dad never liked Duke and he forbade Cassie to see him.”

  “A lot of good that did,” Garth commented.

  He was right. “Cassie started sneaking out of the house at night, and then Mom and Dad caught her.”

  “I can only imagine what that scene must have been like.”

  Karen couldn’t remember her father ever being more upset. A shouting match had ensued, and it was shortly afterward that Cassie ran away and married Duke.

  “She didn’t ask about the cameo,” Karen murmured, a bit surprised. She would have thought that was the first thing Cassie would want to know.

  “Cameo? You mean the one Nichole wore at her wedding?”

  Karen rested her head against her husband’s arm. “It belonged to our grandmother. Grandpa brought it back from World War Two as a wedding present for our grandmother. Dad wanted Cassie to have it. Like I said, she was always his favorite.” Karen did a poor job of hiding her resentment. “After she ran away, Dad gave the cameo to Nichole.”

  “Why not you? You’re the oldest.”

  “I got Grandma’s pearls.”

  Cassie had loved the cameo and their father had let her wear it for special occasions while a young teen. Karen sincerely doubted that she’d forgotten about it. She must assume that the cameo was part of what she would collect from what remained of their parents’ lives. If that was the case, she was bound to be disappointed.

  They were both silent for a few minutes. “Do you know what you’re going to tell Lily and Buddy?” her husband asked, reminding her that she had yet to answer the question.

  “Not yet. I’m going to think on it awhile.”

  “That’s good. We want to approach this carefully.”

  Karen agreed. The late-night news flashed across the television screen. Was it that time already? She had an early-morning appointment with a young couple purchasing their first home. They were scheduled to sign the final papers at seven-thirty before they were due at work, which meant Karen would need to be at the office by seven.

  “Are you ready for bed?” she asked Garth.

  “In a bit,” he promised.

  Her husband was generally the first to retire for the evening, and his willingness to stay up for the news surprised her. He must have noticed her hesitation because he glanced her way. “Can I wake you?” The question held a much deeper connotation.

  Karen smiled and nodded. “You can wake me anytime you want, Garth.”

  He smiled and then playfully growled.

  How fortunate she was, Karen mused, as she headed for their bedroom, to have a husband who loved her.

  Chapter 4

  Cassie had a fifteen-minute break between clients and was sitting in the break room, checking her cell for messages. Earlier Rosie had connected her with her cousin Russell, who said he might be able to get Cassie a weekend job working for
the catering company that serviced the suites for the Sounders’ soccer games. She already had a health card from the time she worked in a fast-food restaurant while going to cosmetology school. If she got hired as a server for even two or three of their games, she’d be able to earn enough to rent a truck and drive to Spokane to collect the furniture Karen had mentioned. Her sister had made it plain she didn’t want to be paying storage fees for more than two months.

  Cassie had her feet braced against the chair. When she saw she had a voice message and who it was from, both feet dropped to the floor like a bag of concrete.

  Habitat for Humanity.

  This was it. Cassie was about to learn if she’d been accepted as a candidate for the program. She’d had to supply every bit of identification she’d accumulated in her entire life, including her birth certificate, her Social Security card, an income tax return, and bank statements. Plus she had to have worked six months with proof of income.

  Megan Victory, who’d helped Cassie through the application process, mentioned that in addition to everything else, Cassie had to show proof of a savings account. Cassie opened an account with the minimum deposit. She learned that before she would be eligible to move into her new home, she’d need to have enough saved to pay the first year’s home insurance premium.

  Anyone applying through Habitat had to be serious about wanting a home to go through this process. Once all the paperwork was compiled and Cassie had filled out the application, she met with the family selection committee. Following the interview, she then had to be approved by the board of directors. It’d been a month she’d been waiting for their final decision.

  For a long time Cassie simply stared at her phone, unable to find the courage to play the message. Her biggest fear was that she hadn’t been considered a good candidate.

  Teresa, the shop owner, came into the break room and grabbed a soda out of the communal refrigerator. She took one look at Cassie and paused. “You feeling okay?”

  Cassie looked up from her phone and knew she must have gone pale. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Yet? What’s the problem?”

  Thrusting out her arm, Cassie handed her cell to her friend. “Here, listen to the message and let me know what they say.”

  “Who called?”

  Cassie didn’t have time for explanations. “Just listen, and don’t ask questions.”

  Teresa reached for the phone, pushed the appropriate buttons, and pressed it to her ear. Intent on watching Teresa’s face, Cassie didn’t notice that Rosie had come into the room.

  “Mr. Greenstein is here for his haircut.”

  Cassie’s gaze didn’t waver from the shop owner. “He’s early. Tell him I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  Rosie left the room and Teresa handed the cell back to Cassie.

  “What did they say?” Cassie asked, doing her best to keep the quiver out of her voice.

  “Well, my dear, it looks like you’ve been approved.”

  Cassie closed her eyes in order to absorb the sheer magnitude of the news. “They approved me?”

  “They sure did!”

  “They approved me,” she repeated, louder this time, so excited that it was impossible to hold still. She leaped to her feet and pumped her fists into the air. “I’m going to have a home. A real home for Amiee and me.” No more stove with no oven and nonworking burners. No more leaky bathroom faucets and a hot-water heater possessed with an evil spirit.

  “They want you to stop by their office tonight after work, if possible.”

  “I’ll be there.” Cassie danced around the table, so overcome with joy that she could barely breathe. For the first time in her young life, Amiee would have stability. She would live in a neighborhood, have a sense of place and of belonging. At last Cassie would be able to give her daughter the roots Amiee had never known.

  Cassie understood that this house wasn’t a gift. She’d be expected to volunteer a number of hours, making her own contribution in return for this amazing opportunity. How many hours depended on what kind of house was available to her.

  A foreclosure would require one hundred and eighty hours of volunteer work and not necessarily on the house that would be hers, but on whatever house needed work. Three hundred to five hundred hours was what was expected if her home was being built from the ground up.

  “I told you about the conversation I had with my sister, didn’t I?” Cassie cried, covering her mouth with both hands, unable to hold back her glee. This good news was almost too much for her to absorb, especially following on the heels of hearing from Karen.

  “Cassie,” Teresa said, laughing. “I believe you’ve told everyone.”

  “Have I?” She must have done something very right to have received two tremendous gifts in a row. First the offer from her sister and now this. Cassie longed to toss out her arms and twirl around and around as if to say her life and her heart were open and receptive to all the good things that awaited her. She’d paid her dues in misery. She’d made mistakes and learned her lesson. From this point forward, Duke and all the anguish he’d brought into her life was done. Finished. Caput.

  Cassie’s last appointment of the day was Mrs. Wilma Scott, who came in weekly for a wash and blow-dry. The elderly woman was close to eighty and continued to live in her own home. Raising her arms above her head had become difficult, so she had a standard appointment once a week to have her hair washed and styled. Cassie had grown fond of the older woman and enjoyed their weekly meetings.

  When she’d finished, Wilma gave her a generous tip and Cassie walked her to her vehicle. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to drive,” she muttered, as Cassie held open the driver’s-side door. “I suppose there will be the time when I’ll need to consider moving into one of those assisted-living complexes. At my age it’s difficult to make significant changes, but then that’s life.”

  “It is,” Cassie agreed, as she handed Wilma the seat belt, stretching it out to make it easier for the older woman to snap it into place. “I’ll see you next week.”

  “You do good work, Cassie. I wanted to look especially nice tonight. I’m taking my nephew and his wife out to dinner. They have two girls in college and can’t afford an evening out, so it’s my treat.”

  “You’re so thoughtful,” Cassie told her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been treated to dinner by anyone. If she could manage a dinner out, Amiee would insist on KFC.

  “John and I never had children of our own, so I’ve adopted my brother’s three. I enjoy spending time with them. Thank you, Cassie. No one does my hair better than you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Scott.” Cassie closed the car door and stepped back as Wilma pulled out of the parking space and headed down Fourth Avenue.

  As soon as she’d finished cleaning up her station, Cassie collected her purse and headed for the Habitat for Humanity offices. Her heart hummed with joy the entire way. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. She sent a text to her daughter and promised to be home as soon as she could. But she didn’t tell Amiee why she’d be late; she’d save that surprise for later.

  Megan Victory glanced up when Cassie entered the office. A man stood next to Megan’s desk, dressed in work jeans, with a tool belt strapped to his waist. He glanced toward Cassie and frowned. It seemed he didn’t like what he saw, which might possibly be her hair. Teresa had recently cut and styled it as part of a stylist competition held at the Tacoma Dome. One side of Cassie’s head was shaved close and the other side was left long and cut at an angle so that it fell forward over the side of her face. Teresa had added purple highlights to the tips of her brown hair.

  “Cassie,” Megan said, “meet Steve Brody.”

  “Hi,” Cassie said, doing her best to ignore his less-than-welcoming stare.

  He acknowledged her with a sharp nod and no smile.

  “You’ll be working your sweat equity with Steve supervising your hours,” Megan explained. “Steve’s a volunteer working under
Stan Pearson, who’s employed by Habitat.”

  “Five hundred hours if it’s new construction,” Steve reminded her. He looked down at her hands and her carefully manicured French nails. “You better trim those back if you expect to be of any use at the building site.”

  Cassie bristled and glared back at him. “Let me worry about my fingernails.”

  “It’s called sweat equity for a reason,” he returned, “with emphasis on the sweat. When you’re working with me I expect you to work, and to work hard.”

  Cassie looked at Megan. “Don’t worry, I’ll carry my share.”

  Megan frowned and glanced toward the project foreman. “Steve, is there a problem?” she asked.

  Steve met her look and then reverted his attention back to Cassie. “Not on my side. I apologize if I was rude. I simply want to make it clear exactly what I expect.”

  “I got the message,” Cassie said pointedly.

  “Good.” He held her look an extra-long moment without flinching.

  “Okay, I’m glad we’ve got that settled,” Megan said, rising to her feet. She leaned forward and rested her palms on her desktop. “Steve, I’ve gotten to know Cassie over the interview process and I believe you won’t have any worries. She’s an excellent candidate. I don’t have any doubts that she’ll prove herself.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  Cassie was grateful for Megan’s support and thanked her with a smile. She wasn’t about to let Steve Brody intimidate her. Nor would she let him walk over her. It was unfortunate that they’d started off on the wrong foot, but as far as she was concerned, the problem was his and his alone.

  “I expect you at the work site tomorrow at six p.m.,” Steve said, directing the comment at her. “We’re working on a project for the Young family.” He handed her a sheet of paper with the address.

  Cassie mentally reviewed her schedule for Friday. Her last appointment was set for five for a wash and set, which meant she’d be cutting it close. Also there was Amiee to consider.

  “Problems already?” Steve asked.