“Except who?” Grace said again, and Sandra Kay looked at her.
“Josh’s father. I would have done that for him, the son of a bitch.”
“Sandra Kay . . .”
“What!”
“Don’t call him that in front of Josh, okay? He’s going to have enough trouble dealing with you. He doesn’t need to know his real father was a son of a bitch.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yes, really.”
“He’s a grown man.”
“It doesn’t matter. His family matters to him, even if he doesn’t know them.”
“Who died and made you the big authority on what he needs.”
“I don’t think we want to go there, do you?”
They rode for a long time in silence.
“So where is he? Josh’s father?” Grace asked as they headed for Route 58.
“You mean who is he, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t care who he is. I’m just interested in whether Josh and Elizabeth have any family. Besides you.”
“He’s dead. And I don’t want to talk about him. So are you and Trent’s replacement doing it?”
Grace whipped onto the side of the road and brought the car to a screeching halt. “One more remark like that and I’ll make you get out of this vehicle.”
“Damn, Grace. What’s got into you? Who have you been hanging out with, anyway?”
“Never mind! Just don’t mess with me!”
“Okay! Drive!”
Grace drove, expecting Sandra Kay to start up again any minute, but she didn’t. She waited until Grace parked in front of the beach house.
“Will you look at this?” she said. “It is a shrine. Grace, you are pathetic, you know that?”
“I don’t suppose you’d wait here,” Grace said sarcastically as she opened the car door.
“Waiting ain’t my thing, cuz. You know that.”
“Yes, I remember.”
The front door was standing open.
“Oh, great,” Grace said when they were inside. There was no sign of Angie Caven. “She must be on foot. I don’t think Kinlaw would have left the truck here. He didn’t have the keys.”
“Well, let’s go look for her. Maybe she headed for the beach.”
It seemed as good a plan as any. Grace left the cottage unlocked in case Angie came back before they found her. They headed down the mostly obscure footpath that traced a number of property lines until they reached the beachfront.
“What does she look like?” Sandra Kay asked, whipping out her sunglasses and putting them on.
“Petite, long blond hair, jeans, white T-shirt, big chip on her shoulder.”
“Is that her?” Sandra Kay pointed to a young woman sitting on the sand above the tide line.
“Yes,” Grace said, walking in that direction.
Angie saw her coming and for a moment, Grace thought she was going to get up and run. Ultimately, she stayed where she was.
“What do you want?” she asked when Grace was close enough.
“I want to see if you’re all right.”
“Yeah, like you care.”
“I care about Elizabeth. You’re her mother.”
“Oh, really. Does that mean you’re going to let me see her?”
“No,” Grace said truthfully.
“Why the hell not? Who do you think you are? You don’t know anything about me!”
“I gave Josh my word I wouldn’t. And it wasn’t hard to do, considering. As for not knowing anything about you, I tried. You wouldn’t talk to me, remember?”
Angie looked at her, stricken. “No,” she said, openly crying now. “I don’t remember. I don’t . . .”
She bowed her head, then abruptly pulled herself together. “Who is she?” she asked, glaring at Sandra Kay. She sniffed and wiped furiously at her eyes.
“I’m Josh’s real mother,” Sandra Kay said ahead of whatever Grace’s answer might have been.
“I thought you were his real mother.”
“No,” Grace said.
“Well, damn. Poor old Josh—motherless his whole life and now he’s got mothers coming out of the woodwork.” She laughed out loud, then abruptly bowed her head again. “Go away,” she said. “Please. I’m not drunk now. Just go away. Go!”
“All right,” Grace said. “You’ve got a beautiful little girl, Angie. You know Josh better than I do. Do you think he’s going to let you in her life when you’re always like this? Get some help, before it’s too late.” She took Sandra Kay by the arm and began walking away because she knew her cousin was about to contribute something to the mix.
“Hey!” Angie called after her. “Where’s my damn truck?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said. She kept going, forcing Sandra Kay along with her.
“You’re just going to leave her?”
“No. I’m moving to where she can’t see us. If she’s sober enough, she can handle it from here. If not, I’ll think of something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know!”
“Did you mean what you said back there?” Sandra Kay asked when they reached the road. They had to wait for a line of cars to pass before they could cross. “About not letting her see her little girl.”
“Yes. Josh doesn’t want her around Elizabeth the way she is now.”
“It’s wrong, Grace. She’s the kid’s mother.”
“And she’s a self-destructive drunk. Josh is Elizabeth’s father and he doesn’t want me taking any chances with that little girl.”
“It’s still wrong. I think—”
“Oh, shut up! You’ve been in this situation five minutes—uninvited, I might add. What do you know about it?”
Grace stopped walking when she reached a place where she thought Angie couldn’t see them. Angie was still sitting on the sand, but she was looking out at the ocean now.
Grace misdialed Kinlaw’s cell phone number twice before she got his voicemail. She left a message, and she kept it bottom line. “Muley had to leave. Angie’s sitting on the beach by herself, worrying about her truck. I think she’s sober. I’ll stay where I can see her for a while and then I’m going home. I’ll . . . leave the beach house unlocked in case she decides to go back there.”
“Well, you two are obviously not doing it,” Sandra Kay said when Grace had finished. “Jeez, Grace, could you sound any more tight-assed?”
Grace started to say something to that, then didn’t. She walked away, heading for the footpath, leaving Angie to her own devices. She could hear Sandra Kay following behind her, trying to keep up in her backless high heels. Sandra Kay stopped long enough to pour the sand out of the toes when they reached the yard, then got into the car. Grace stood for a moment, staring at the cottage. She couldn’t hear the ocean, couldn’t taste the salt air. All she could do was worry.
She abruptly got into the car, but didn’t head for home. Instead, she drove past where Angie had been sitting. She could see her still on the beach, and she parked not far away. Sandra Kay rolled her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. Forty minutes later, some women pulled up in Angie’s truck. One of them gave a loud whistle to get Angie’s attention. It took some effort on her part for her to stand, but she made it. Then she walked to the truck and got in.
“Well, that’s that,” Sandra Kay said. “For this five minutes.”
Neither of them talked on the way back. The sun was nearly down when Grace pulled into the driveway and parked.
“Good-bye, Sandra Kay,” she said firmly as she got out. Incredibly, Sandra Kay followed after her up the walk.
“Grace—Grace—Grace!” she yelled, grabbing Grace by the arm.
“What? What do you want? I’m doing the bes
t I can with the mess you made! If it doesn’t suit you, tough!”
“I want to talk to Josh!”
“About what?”
They both looked around at the question. Josh was standing on the porch, holding Elizabeth. Allison and Lisa stood behind him.
“Oh, Mom, tell me you are not fighting in the front yard,” Lisa said incredulously.
“Yes, actually, I am,” Grace said. She looked at Sandra Kay. “If you want to talk to him, there he is. Joshua, this is my cousin, Sandra Kay Williams.”
With that, she took Elizabeth out of his arms and shooed Allison and Lisa ahead of her into the house.
Chapter Fifteen
“SO WHAT DID you want to talk to me about?” Josh asked, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. Of course, he’d already been through one birth mother first meeting, and there was a lot to be said for training exercises.
The woman looked at him. Now that he knew who she was, he could see the resemblance—to Grace and to the photograph he still had in his wallet. She had a harder edge to her than Grace did. He could see that as well.
“Your daughter is beautiful,” she said after a moment, clearly taking pains not to presume she could claim any relationship to Elizabeth. “I . . . you’re not what I expected.”
“What? Not beautiful?”
She laughed, a deep, chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking laugh.
“You’re so . . . grown up.”
“I’ve had to be,” he said. Because it was the truth and because he wasn’t going to cut her any slack.
“Yes. I wanted to talk to you because I . . . thought you might have some questions.”
“Look. I don’t have a lot of time right now. I’m leaving soon and I need to go over some things with Grace.”
“What, Angie?” she said. “We just saw her. She’s sober, more or less. And pissed off.”
“She’s pissed off?”
“Well, she has to be, doesn’t she? Drunks are like that. The more in the wrong we are, the more pissed off we get.”
He didn’t take the bait. He might want to know about Angie’s current status, but he didn’t want to know about Sandra Kay William’s not too subtle allusion to her own alcoholism—if that was what she was trying to tell him. That would be as good an excuse as any for giving up her kid, he supposed, but he didn’t need to hear any excuses, not at this late date. Everything was under control in his life, or as under control as it could be if he included Angie in the mix.
“So what do you do for a living?” she asked after a moment.
“United States Marine Corps.” If she didn’t know that, it was pretty clear Grace hadn’t brought her into the loop.
“Have you been over?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Twice. I’m about to go again. Look, I really need to talk to Grace. I’m glad we could meet, but I don’t have the time for anything else right now.” He stuck his hand out.
She hesitated, then shook the hand he offered.
“Good luck,” she said, and he gave her a nod and went into the house.
He found Grace sitting in the rocking chair in the den with a half-asleep Elizabeth on her lap.
“How was Elizabeth’s Birthday Party Number Two?” she asked, ignoring the eight-hundred-pound gorilla that had followed him into the room.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a bunch of beat up Marines playing ‘Happy Birthday’ on kazoos,” he said, and she laughed. “Elizabeth thought it was pretty cool, though. You should have seen her dance. I’m out of here early in the morning,” he said abruptly, giving the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla a kick. “Do we need to review? You know where all the paperwork is, how to get her medical care if she needs it, right? Allison and I set up a webcam on the computer. I’ll let you know if we can use it. I don’t know what kind of facilities I’ll have access to. If we do get an internet connection, don’t worry if I fall off the page sometimes. I’ll be out . . . doing things. And the time difference will be a bitch, but I want to see Elizabeth sometimes if I can.”
“Okay,” she said, still rocking his daughter. “You want to talk about Sandra Kay?”
“No. I’m wondering why she’s here, but that’s all.”
“So am I. We never got around to that.”
“You think she’ll be staying around?”
“I have no idea.”
“She told me you’d seen Angie.”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She wanted to know if I’d let her see Elizabeth. Wait,” Grace said when he was about to argue. “I told her no. I told you I’d do whatever you want, Josh. I meant it.”
He nodded.
“But . . .”
“But nothing, Grace. I can’t trust her. With anything—especially not with Elizabeth. Elizabeth will be all right with you and the girls. I don’t want Angie in the picture.”
“Okay,” Grace said. “What time will you have to leave in the morning?”
“You don’t have to drive me to the base. A guy I know is going to pick me up at oh-five-thirty. I’ll take Elizabeth,” he said, holding out his hands, because the clock was already ticking. He needed to spend what time he had left with his child and he needed not to think about Angie or the woman who had finally shown up to introduce herself.
He waited for Grace to vacate the rocking chair and hand over his daughter. Then he sat down with her and began to rock Elizabeth as Grace had been doing, humming her favorite Hank Williams song, something he’d already programmed Allison to continue while he was gone. If anything happened to him, he wanted Elizabeth to have something that would remind her of her old man.
He kissed the top of her head, and when he looked up, Grace had left the room. He meant to take Elizabeth to her crib at some point, but he never made it. He woke up with her still sleeping on his chest, both of them covered with the handmade red, white, and blue afghan Grace kept in the den.
“Oh-four-fifteen,” Grace whispered.
“Okay.”
“The girls are cooking breakfast.”
“Okay,” he said again.
“You can put Elizabeth on the sofa so she’ll be handy,” she said, indicating an improvised bed she’d made by putting down a folded sheet and positioning some of the cushions to keep her from falling off.
He was stiff from sleeping in the rocking chair so long, but he got up and laid his daughter on the sofa. There were good smells coming from the kitchen, and he suddenly smiled.
“What?” Grace asked.
“Not my usual send off,” he said. He went upstairs to shower, since there was no time for a morning run. He would have to rely on the coffee he could smell perking to clear his head. Elizabeth was awake and ready for her oatmeal when he came downstairs. He was glad she had awakened and that breakfast was in the kitchen. It felt more like family there.
“Everything is great,” he said, forcing himself to take second helpings when he didn’t really want them. It would be a long time before he had anything like this again. If ever.
When the meal was finally done, he pushed himself away from the table, then lifted Elizabeth down from her new high chair so she could practice her pre-walking.
“Grace, could I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.
She looked at him in surprise when he slid open the patio door, but she put down the pot she was holding and came outside with him, waiting in the early morning darkness until he was ready to say whatever he needed to get off his chest.
“I want to tell you something,” he said.
“Okay.”
But it took him a moment to say it. “I love Angie,” he said finally. He knew Grace was waiting for more than that, but that was it.
“Josh, you need to tell her, not—”
“Josh . . .”
“Will you do it? If I don’t make it back?”
“I don’t understand why you can’t tell her—now—before you go.”
“I can’t. She’ll think I’m opening the door, and I’m not. If I’m dead, it won’t matter if she knows.”
“It will to her.”
“Just do this for me, okay? Along with the two or three thousand other favors I’ve asked you to do,” he added.
She smiled, but it took her a long moment to answer. “Okay,” she said. “Whatever you say.”
He looked at his watch.
“It’ll be a little while before you actually go over there, right?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t know how long. I’ll call if I can, but you should just figure this is it.”
He heard a vehicle and saw headlights sweep the back yard. “My ride,” he said. He turned and went into the kitchen and picked up Elizabeth, kissing her on each cheek and then blowing on her belly to make her laugh. He handed her to Grace and walked into the foyer. Lisa and Allison were waiting for him, holding his gear. He hugged both of them, then Grace and Elizabeth together as a unit.
“Thanks for everything,” he whispered to Grace.
“Stay safe,” she said, determined not to cry.
“Do my best.”
He turned and took his gear; Grace could see him mentally removing himself from them, putting on his other persona.
He’s already gone, she thought.
Then he gave a little half-smile and walked out the door. Allison took Elizabeth, and they all gathered in the open doorway, waving at him one last time as the car backed out into the street and drove away.
GRACE WOKE UP when the phone rang. She had no idea what time it was—early still, from the way she felt.
“Hello?”
“Grace, it’s Bev. I hate to bother you. I know it’s none of my business, but . . .”
“What is it, Bev?”
The Marine (Semper Fi; Marine) Page 17