“Thank you.”
Meredith’s phone rang as CeeCee moved toward the side door. When she saw Cam’s number, she was tempted to let it go to voice mail, decided she was chicken-livered, and answered. “Hello, Cam. How’s Sophie doing?”
“Better, but not ready for prime time. She needs another day home and Laura Henning just called from the high school. The building inspector is coming by tomorrow to give the approval on the project house.”
“And you should be there.”
“Exactly. Does your offer to watch Sophie still stand?”
When all else fails, err on the side of grace and kindness. Knowing more about Cam’s history made that easier. “Of course. What time shall I come get her? Or would it be more comfortable if we watch her there?”
“She’d probably love coming to your mother’s.”
His quick reply said more than his words. “And you don’t have time to clean your place tonight, right?”
“Smart girl. Not like that’s a surprise. Can I drop her off at seven? Rachel can catch the bus at the neighbors’ like they usually do because my day starts an hour earlier than theirs.”
“Bring Rachel, too. I can feed them, then Mom can take Rachel to school. And it gives me a little time to spoil them.”
“No pink.”
She laughed out loud. “The very thought of a world without pink makes me shudder, Cameron, and you know that. I’m willfully ignoring your edict. Pink is my signature color.”
Cam’s voice went a little softer. A touch deeper. “You look great in anything, Mere.”
She would not fall into the trap again. He had issues. She had issues. And never the twain shall meet.
“Thanks.” She kept her tone light and brisk. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
He took two seconds too long, then went back to easy mode. “Perfect. See you then.”
* * *
He hung up the phone, grimaced, thought, then sighed as he clapped a hand to the back of his head.
He’d been short with her last night. And this morning. After kissing the daylights out of her yesterday. Flirting with her. Meeting her eyes, her gaze, her touch, one on one. Pulling back like that because Sophie got sick was a knee-jerk reaction to an old stimulus, and yet he couldn’t help it.
Could he?
“Daddy?”
“Yes, honey. How’re you feeling?”
Sophie yawned. “Better. But sleepy.”
“Well, it’s bedtime, so that’s good.” He grinned, then laid his palm against her forehead. “Cool.”
“Yes.”
“That means the medicine is working.”
“That’s good, then. I want to get better so I can search for Sally the kitty. Am I going to school tomorrow?”
He squatted low. “No. I want you to have one more day of rest, so Meredith is going to keep you at her mother’s house, okay?”
Sophie’s eyes widened in delight.
Rachel hung over the back of his recliner. “I want to go, too.”
“You are. But then Meredith is going to take you to school.”
“And Sophie gets to stay?”
“She’s sick, so yes.”
“I’m sick, too.”
Cam grinned. “What hurts?”
Rachel swept a dramatic hand across a cool, dry brow. “Everything. And I’ve got a tempertcher.”
Cam felt her head and decided to play along. “You don’t now, but I’ll recheck in the morning. And if you do come down sick, maybe we can have you spend some time at Meredith’s, too. Since that’s what you’re after.”
She peered up at him, and the twist of love in his heart felt good. They were such gifts, these two. Such a mix of the life of love he’d shared with Kristy. And despite the busyness of his days and nights, he knew God had blessed him with these girls. He’d entrusted them to him.
To both of you, actually. But then Kristy died.
Cam pushed the negativity aside. Thinking about Kristy’s death got him nowhere. He’d shouldered the blame, the guilt and the responsibility, but lately it wore on him, like rain battering unpainted wood. A little was okay. Too much softened the fibers, leaving it susceptible to rot and infestation.
Kind of like his soul had felt these past five years.
He hugged Rachel, grabbed Sophie’s hand, and headed up the stairs with his girls, refusing to dwell in the past. A picture faced him at the landing, the last family photo they had taken before Kristy’s death. He had Sophie tucked on his lap, and Kristy held a tinier Rachel on hers, and her gaze wasn’t on the camera, or the child in her arms.
It was trained on him, filled with trust and love. How sad to think that trust and affection had been misplaced.
Chapter Eleven
“Here you go.” Cam’s morning grin brightened an already blue-sky morning.
“Hey, girls.” Meredith grabbed Sophie’s hand and led the way into her mother’s house. “Soph, drop your stuff on the sofa. We’ll set up shop out here after breakfast. You guys hungry?”
“Dad fed us.” Rachel hung back, looking glum. “I told him you’d have food, but he made us eat oatmeal.”
“She hates oatmeal,” added Sophie. “But I like it and I’m the sick one.”
“When I get sick I’m asking for baked beans, then,” Rachel spouted. “And you’ll have to eat a double helping because they’re high in protein and really, really good for you.”
Sophie ignored her, but the hinted smile told Meredith that tweaking her sister was an oft-employed device.
Poor Cam.
She turned, caught his patience-taxed expression, and jerked her head toward the door. “You go. I’ve got this. And Mom’s going to run Rachel over to school in an hour, so we’re good.”
“Thanks, Mere.”
“No problem.” She didn’t step closer, didn’t walk him to the door, didn’t do any of those cozy, quiet intimacies that might hike this into more than it was, a friend doing a favor for another friend. The fact that she wanted to walk him to the door and give him a lingering kiss goodbye pushed her in the opposite direction.
Chicken.
Yes.
“Rachel.” When the little blonde met her eyes in the kitchen, Meredith rested her gaze on a covered plate centered on the pale oak table. “Check that out.”
“Danish.” Rachel breathed the word with proper seven-year-old reverence.
“With frosting.” Sophie’s tone followed suit.
“Only the best,” Meredith sang out, laughing at their delighted expressions. Her mother came through the swinging door at the opposite end of the kitchen and smiled.
“Cam’s girls, I take it.”
“Yup.” Meredith reached out, grabbed her mother’s hand, and pulled the smaller woman forward. “Mom, this is Sophie.”
Sophie reached out a calm, quiet hand that said she had control of the situation in a way most nine-year-olds wouldn’t for years. Very Cam-like, despite her resemblance to her mother.
“And this is Rachel.”
Rachel bounded forward, grabbed Dana in a hug, and then tipped her head back, gaze up, eyes bright, smile wide. “I tried to get sick.”
“Really?” Dana smiled down into Rachel’s bright blue eyes and arched a brow in question. “What happened?”
“It didn’t work. I even prayed about it, but God doesn’t listen all the time.”
Meredith squatted low. “Sure He does. But He doesn’t always answer the way we want.”
“Which means He’s not really listening,” argued Rachel. She frowned and pointed toward Sophie. “Sophie prayed and prayed when Mommy died, asking God to send her back. He didn’t.”
Sophie blushed. “I was little, Rach. I didn’t understand how it
works.”
“How what works?” Rachel swung back, impatient. “That God doesn’t listen to us? I get that part, Sophie.”
Sophie’s expression showed mixed emotion. Embarrassment, chagrin, confusion.
Meredith bent low. “How old were you when your mother died, honey?”
Sophie seemed reluctant to explore this topic, and while Meredith understood that, she knew some things were best brought out in the open.
“Four.”
“You were little.”
“Yes.” Sophie shrugged one shoulder in acknowledgment.
“And you were two.” She met Rachel’s look of indignation, and fought down a smile.
“Almost two.”
Ouch. Meredith couldn’t imagine the pain Cam had gone through. The shock to his system. The days and nights of work, child care and loneliness. “Sophie, it was normal for you to pray for your mom to come back when you were four. It’s hard for little ones to understand what death is. They keep waiting for their loved ones to come back. Only they can’t.”
“I know.” Sophie nodded, but her eyes looked glum.
“But you didn’t know that back then,” Meredith continued. “And that had to be hard, because you prayed and prayed and God didn’t send Mommy back. And that had to be a big disappointment to you.”
Sophie hunched forward a little. “I just wanted Daddy to be happy. To stop crying.”
“Daddy doesn’t cry.” Rachel pronounced that in her best know-it-all voice, but the look on Sophie’s face said the two-year age difference afforded them unique experiences and memories.
“It’s okay to cry when someone dies.” Dana slung an arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “We all do.”
“Not daddies.” Rachel aimed a look of surprise at Dana. “I’ve never seen my daddy cry.”
“Because you were already in bed.” Sophie moved a little farther into the crook of Dana’s arm. “But I couldn’t fall asleep and I would climb out of bed and sit on the top stair and watch him. And pray. Real hard.”
Meredith’s heart squeezed tight. She didn’t dare make eye contact with her mother. They’d both tear up, and that would be an awful way to start this day. She stood, tugged Rachel toward the table, and kept her voice easy. “You did the right thing, honey. And even though God can’t send people back once they’ve gone to heaven, He heard your prayers. He loves you. And wants you to be happy.”
“Then why did He let Mommy die?”
Meredith shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t have any easy answers for a smart girl like you, but I know that when bad things happen to me, knowing that God loves me…looks after me…cares about me…well, that makes it easier to get through the tough times. The hard times.”
“You think He listens?”
Meredith thought back to the turns her life had taken until she smartened up. “I’m sure of it. Do you still pray, Soph?”
Sophie shrugged. “Sometimes. When someone takes me to church with them. It would be rude not to, right?”
“Absolutely.” Dana softened the subject by sinking into a chair, grabbing a sweet, frosted apple Danish and taking a bite. “But my favorite place to pray is in the garden. When I’m working. It’s restful, smells good, and I love the sounds of birds. Bugs. Frogs and toads.”
Rachel wrinkled her face in surprise as she put a cheese-filled croissant on her plate. “You can pray outside?”
“Anywhere, actually.” Dana beamed at them, and waved a hand as she rose to get a pitcher of cold milk. “I love going to church because it’s fun to pray with all my friends, all the people in the town—”
Rachel and Sophie exchanged a look of disbelief.
“But I pray all week. Whenever I want. I never—” she met each girl’s gaze individually “—wait for church to pray. I mean, really…if God is everywhere, all the time, why in Sam Hill would I wait ’til Sunday if I feel like praying on Tuesday?”
Acceptance brightened Sophie’s face. “That makes sense.”
“Of course it does.” Dana flashed her a grin of understanding and Meredith felt like Sophie was verging on becoming part of the sisterhood of girls everywhere, that talking things out, chatting them up, was a universal skill. “When you’re playing soccer and see a clean shot, do you take it or pass the ball?”
“Take it.”
“Exactly.” Dana sat back down, pleased. “Carpe diem. Seize the day, the moment. Sometimes it’s right to pass the ball, throw your opponent offtrack.”
Both girls nodded.
“And other times—” Dana leaned in, knowing “—ya just gotta take the shot.”
Meredith sat back. Seeing her mother in action with the two girls, she remembered her mother’s common sense initiatives from back in the day, but she recalled something else, too.
Her anger and stubbornness had blocked her mother’s efforts, like a well-practiced sweeper in a soccer game. She’d dodged and parried her mother’s attempts at normalcy, even after her father had left them.
And she’d brushed off her father’s death like it was just another day, ignoring his funeral.
Shame knifed her, but alongside the shame of unforgiveness was a growing awareness that she was becoming a nicer person. More giving. And more forgiving.
More like her mother.
The thought unfurled a sweet feeling within, like a little girl sprouting her wings, flying free at last. And it felt good. Real good.
* * *
Cam stopped by his mother’s on the way to Meredith’s that afternoon. The building inspector had given a seal of approval to the upgrades on the school-owned house and Cam had been able to list the refurbished home for sale with local Realtor Mary Kay Hammond moments ago. This was his third completed house project for the school, and he felt the success of that to his toes.
He’d worked hard to sell the original idea to the school board and the community, so he and the kids had labored strenuously on that first house. The second one had been more relaxed. This one? A piece of cake. People trusted his instinct with the kids, the homes, the sale and value prospects. And he had his eye on a new property for next year’s class to start, a two-story business on Main Street caught up in a family squabble for nearly twenty years. The storefront had just come available, and the blend of residential and commercial in one property offered a one-of-a-kind learning experience for the student workers, to design a commercially attractive store at street level and twin apartments overhead.
The neglected property provided a different kind of prospect and their efforts would change an eyesore into an asset for the community.
He pulled into his mother’s drive, parked and walked toward the back door, wishing for more hours in a day. Her yard needed work, her paint was starting to peel, and the roof, well…she needed a new one, but his mother wasn’t one to do things ahead of time. Maybe that’s why he felt a constant need to be two steps ahead of the game in all other areas of his life. Plan it, do it, move on. Although he’d neglected to find that lost, lonely kitten, and the sorrow in Sophie’s eyes weighed on him. Right now, he’d give anything for more time.
“Mom?”
Quiet answered him, and while that could be construed as a good thing considering his mother’s attitude, this quiet seemed wrong. No TV. No radio. No phone yakking. Just…silence.
He rounded the corner of the living, half afraid to make that last step. What if?
Don’t go there.
“Mom?” He moved into the shade-darkened room. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw her sitting in the recliner, watching him. Waiting for him. But her look…her face…
Intuition pushed him forward and he crouched by her chair. Today she wasn’t acting or putting on airs for the girls’ benefit. This time, something was wrong. Really wrong. “Mom, what’s going on? What’s h
appened? Are you okay?”
She blinked her gaze left, thinned her lips, then brought it back to his, reluctant to let him see the sheen of tears. That bowled him over inside. Evelyn Calhoun never cried. She grumped, scolded, bothered and harangued, but crying?
Wasn’t done.
He had no clue what to do. No one ever hugged his mother. Her testiness and attitude kept most people at bay, and the few friends she had were equally miserable, which meant their bad attitudes compounded one another, but now, right now, she looked like she needed a hug. So he bent low and gave her one.
She burst into tears. Not loud ones. Quiet ones. And that was worse, because quiet tears were always more serious than the noisy variety. He’d learned that with the girls. “Hey, now. Hey. What is it? What’s wrong?”
He grabbed a handful of tissues from the ever-present box, and handed her a mitt full.
“Cancer.”
The single word shook him. “Where?”
She pointed to her throat. “Here. Laryngeal.”
“Oh, Mom.” He hugged her again, not sure what to do. How to help. He released her for a minute and pulled up a kitchen chair, then grasped her hand. “What’s our first step?”
She glanced away again, then shrugged. “I think I’ve done the first five, actually.”
“Without telling anyone?” Cam sat back in disbelief. “You knew and you didn’t tell us?”
She didn’t follow with her normal in-your-face mode and that spiked Cam’s worry. “I figured if it was nothing, there was nothing to tell. So I found out today that it’s stage two and I need radiation therapy.”
“Surgery, too?”
She shook her head too quickly. “No.”
Fear of needles and anesthesia were just two of his mother’s minor neuroses. Cam moved closer. “Before we do anything, I’m checking this out. Thoroughly.”
She scowled instantly. “Which is why I kept it to myself. It’s my business and I don’t need a know-it-all son to come in and tell me what to do.”
He met her frown with calm concern. “Too bad. That’s just what’s going to happen. It’s only common sense these days to get second opinions, to check out all the available treatments and options, then make a decision.”
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