by Nora Roberts
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s never the same, not for any two people. We have something more in common as well. I never knew who my father was. Was he a good man or a bad one? Tall or short? Did he love my mother, or did he use her? I don’t know what parts of him were passed to me.”
“But you knew your mother.”
“Yes, and she was wonderful. Beautiful. And yours wasn’t. She beat you, physically and emotionally. She made you a victim. Why are you letting her keep you one? Why are you letting her win even now?”
“It’s me now, Anna. There has to be something twisted, something sour inside a person to make them the way she was. I came from that.”
“Sins of the fathers, Ethan?”
“I’m not taking on her sins, I’m talking about heredity. You can pass on the color of your eyes, your build. Weak hearts, alcoholism, longevity. Those things can run in families.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Yeah, I have. I had to make a decision, and I made it.”
“So you decided you could never marry or have children.”
“It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Well, then, you’d better talk to Seth before too long.”
“Seth?”
“Someone has to tell him he’s never going to be able to have a wife and children. It’s best if he knows that early, so he can try to protect himself from becoming emotionally involved with a woman.”
For a trio of heartbeats he could only gape at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Heredity. We can’t be sure what bad traits Gloria DeLauter passed down to him. God knows she’s got something twisted inside her, just as you said. A whore, a drunk, a junkie, from all accounts.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that boy.”
“What difference does that make?” She met Ethan’s furious stare blandly. “He shouldn’t be allowed to take chances.”
“You can’t mix him in with me this way.”
“I don’t see why. You both come from similar situations. In fact, there are far too many cases that come through social services nationally that slip into parallel categories. I wonder if we can pass a law to prevent children of abusers from marrying and having children of their own. Think of the risks we’d avoid.”
“Why don’t you just geld them?” he said viciously.
“That’s an interesting concept.” She leaned forward. “Since you’re so determined not to pass on any unhealthy genes, Ethan, have you considered a vasectomy?”
The instinctive and purely male cringe nearly made her laugh. “That’s enough, Anna.”
“Is that what you would recommend to Seth?”
“I said that’s enough.”
“Oh, it’s more than enough,” she agreed. “But answer this last question. Do you think that bright, troubled child should be denied a full and normal life as an adult because he had the bad luck to be conceived by a heartless, perhaps even evil woman?”
“No.” His breath shuddered out. “No, that’s not what I think.”
“No buts this time? No qualifications? Then I’ll tell you that in my professional opinion, I couldn’t agree with you more. He deserves everything he can grab, everything he can make, and everything we can give him to show him that he’s his own person and not the damaged product of one vile woman. And neither are you, Ethan, anything but your own man. Stupid, maybe,” she said with a smile as she rose. “But admirable, honorable, and incredibly kind.”
She went to him, put an arm around his shoulders. When he sighed, turned his face to press it against her midriff, tears stung her eyes.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do,” she murmured. “Being you, you’ll have to think about it for a while. But do yourself a favor this time, and think fast.”
“I guess I’ll go down to the boatyard and work until I get it clear in my head.”
Because she was feeling suddenly maternal toward him, she bent and kissed the top of his head. “Do you want me to pack you some food?”
“No.” He gave her a squeeze before he rose. When he saw that her eyes were damp, he patted her shoulder. “Don’t cry. Cam’ll have my head if he finds out I made you cry.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, then.” He started out, hesitated, then turned back briefly to study her as she stood in the kitchen, her lashes wet, her hair tangled from being out in the breeze. “Anna, my mother—my real mother,” he added, because Stella Quinn was in his mind all that was real—“would have loved you.”
Hell, Anna thought as he walked away, she was going to cry after all.
Ethan kept going, particularly when he heard Anna’s sniffle. He needed to be alone, to clear out his head and let the thoughts gather again.
“Hey.”
With his hand on the door, he looked over his shoulder and saw Seth on the stairs—where the boy had dashed like a skillful rabbit seconds before Ethan had started out of the kitchen.
“Hey what?”
Seth started down, slowly. He’d heard everything, every word. Even when his stomach had begun to pitch, he had stayed and listened. As he studied Ethan now, owlishly, he thought he understood. And he felt safe.
“Where you going?”
“Back to the boatyard. I got some things I want to finish up.” Ethan let the door ease closed again. There was something in the boy’s eyes, he thought. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Can I go out on the workboat with you tomorrow?”
“If you want.”
“If I went with you, we’d finish sooner and be able to work on the boat with Cam. When Phil comes down on the weekend, we can all work on her together.”
“That’s how it goes,” Ethan said, puzzled.
“Yeah. That’s how it goes.” All of them, Seth thought with a flash of pure joy, together. “It’s hard work because it’s hot as a bitch in heat.”
Ethan bit back a chuckle. “Watch the mouth. Anna’s in the kitchen.”
Seth shrugged, but aimed a wary glance behind him. “She’s cool.”
“Yeah.” Ethan’s smile spread. “She’s cool. Don’t stay up half the night drawing or bugging your eyes out at the TV if you’re working with me in the morning.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Seth waited until Ethan was outside, then snatched up the bag sitting beside the chair. “Hey!”
“Christ, boy, are you going to let me out of here before tomorrow?”
“Grace forgot her purse.” Seth pushed it into Ethan’s hand and kept his face bland and innocent. “I guess she had something on her mind when she left.”
“I guess.” Brows knit, Ethan stared down at it. Damn thing weighed ten pounds if it weighed an ounce, he thought.
“You ought to take it over to her. Women go nuts if they don’t have their purses. See you.”
He raced back inside, pounded up the stairs and straight to the first window that faced the front of the house. From there he could watch Ethan scratch his head, shove the purse under his arm like a football, and walk slowly to the truck.
His brothers sure could be weird, he thought. Then he grinned to himself. His brothers. Letting out a whoop, he raced down the steps to head for the kitchen and nag Anna for something to eat.
TWENTY
Grace intended to cool off and calm down before she stopped by her parents’ house to pick up Aubrey. When she was this emotionally churned up, there was no hiding it from anyone, much less from a mother or a very perceptive child.
The last thing she wanted was questions. The last thing she felt capable of giving was explanations.
She’d said what needed to be said and done what needed to be done. And she refused to feel sorry for it. If it meant losing a long-standing friendship, one that she had always treasured, it couldn’t be helped. Somehow she and Ethan would manage to be adult enough to be polite when in public and not to drag anyone else into their battles.
It certainly wouldn’t be an easy
or happy situation, but it could work. The same arrangement had worked for three years with her father, hadn’t it?
She drove around for twenty minutes, until her fingers were no longed gripping the wheel like a vise and the reflection of her face in the rearview mirror was no longer capable of frightening children and small dogs.
She assured herself that she was now perfectly under control. So under control that she thought she’d take Aubrey out to McDonald’s for a treat. And on her very next evening off, she was taking them both to Oxford for the Firemen’s Carnival. She certainly wasn’t going to stay around the house moping.
She didn’t slam the door of her car, which she felt was an excellent sign of her now placid mood. Nor did she stomp up the steps of her parents’ tidy Colonial. She even paused for a moment to admire the pale-purple petunias spilling out of a hanging planter near the picture window.
It was just bad luck and bad timing that her gaze shifted a few inches past the blooms and that she spotted her father through that picture window, lounging in his recliner like a king on his throne.
Temper geysered and blasted her through the door like a sharp-edged pebble from a well-aimed slingshot.
“I have a few things to say to you.” She let the door slam at her back and marched up to where Pete rested his feet. “I’ve been saving them up.”
He goggled at her for the five seconds it took for him to arrange his face. “If you want to speak to me, you’ll do it in a civilized tone of voice.”
“I’m through being civilized. I’ve had civilized up to here.” She made a sharp slashing motion with her hand.
“Grace! Grace!” Cheeks flushed, eyes huge, Carol hustled in from the kitchen with Aubrey on her hip. “What’s gotten into you? You’ll upset the baby.”
“Take Aubrey back to the kitchen, Mama. And it won’t traumatize her for life to hear her mother raise her voice.”
As if to prove arguments were inevitable, Aubrey threw back her head and sent up a wail. Grace stifled the urge to grab her, run out of the house with her, and smother her face with kisses until the tears stopped. Instead she stood firm. “Aubrey, stop that now. I’m not mad at you. You go on in the kitchen with Grandma and have some juice.”
“Juice!” Aubrey sobbed it, at the top of her lungs, straining away from Carol with her arms held out to Grace and fat tears trembling on her cheeks.
“Carol, take the child in the kitchen and calm her down.” Pete clamped down the exact urge as Grace’s and waved a hand at his wife impatiently.
“Child hasn’t shed a tear all day,” he muttered, with an accusing look at Grace.
“Well, she’s shedding them now,” Grace snapped back, adding layers of guilt onto frustration as Aubrey’s sobs echoed back from the kitchen. “And she’ll forget them five minutes after they’re dry. That’s the beauty of being two. You get older, you don’t forget tears as easily. You made me cry plenty of them.”
“You don’t get through parenthood without causing some tears.”
“But some people can get through it without ever knowing the child they raised. You never looked at me and saw what I was.”
Pete wished he was standing. He wished he had shoes on his feet. A man was at a distinct disadvantage when he was kicked back in a recliner without his damn shoes on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Or maybe you did—maybe I’m wrong about that. You looked, you saw, and you put it aside because it didn’t fit in with what you wanted. You knew,” she continued in a low voice that nonetheless snapped with fury. “You knew I wanted to be a dancer. You knew I dreamed of it, and you let me go right on. Oh, taking the lessons was fine with you. Maybe you grumbled about the cost of them from time to time, but you paid for them.”
“And a pretty penny it came to over all those years.”
“For what, Daddy?”
He blinked. No one had called him Daddy in nearly three years and it pinched at his heart. “Because you were set on having them.”
“What was the point if you were never going to believe in me, never going to let go enough or stand by enough to let me try to take the next step?”
“This is old business, Grace. You were too young to go to New York, and it was just foolishness.”
“I was young, but not too young. And if it was foolishness, it was my foolishness. I’ll never know if I was good enough. I’ll never know if I could have made that dream real, because when I asked you to help me reach for it, you told me I was too old for nonsense. Too old for nonsense,” she repeated, “but too young to be trusted.”
“I did trust you.” He jerked his chair up. “And look what happened.”
“Yes, look what happened. I got myself pregnant. Isn’t that how you put it at the time? Like it was something I managed all by myself just to annoy you.”
“Jack Casey was no damn good. I knew it the first time I laid eyes on him.”
“So you said, over and over again until he took on the gleam of forbidden fruit and I couldn’t resist sampling it.”
Now Pete’s eyes flashed and he rose out of the chair. “You’re blaming me for getting yourself in trouble?”
“No, I’m to blame if there has to be blame. And I won’t make excuses. But I’ll tell you this—he wasn’t nearly as bad as you made him out to be.”
“Left you high and dry, didn’t he?”
“So did you, Daddy.”
His hand shot up, shocking both of them. It didn’t connect, and it trembled as he lowered it. He’d never done more than paddle her bottom when she was a toddler, and even then he’d suffered more than she had because of it.
“If you’d hit me,” she said, struggling to keep her voice low and even, “it would be the first real feeling you’ve shown me since I came to you and Mama and told you I was pregnant. I knew you’d be angry and hurt and disappointed. I was so scared. But as bad as I thought it would be, it was worse. Because you didn’t stand by me. The second time, Daddy, and the most important of all, and you weren’t there for me.”
“A man’s daughter comes in and tells him she’s pregnant, that she’s gone on and been with a man he took trouble to warn her away from, it takes him time to deal with it.”
“You were ashamed of me, and you were angry thinking of what the neighbors were going to say. And instead of looking at me and seeing that I was scared, all you saw was that I’d made a mistake you were going to have to live with.”
She turned away until she was sure, absolutely sure, there wouldn’t be tears. “Aubrey is not a mistake. She’s a gift.”
“I couldn’t love her any more than I do.”
“Or me any less.”
“That’s not true.” He began to feel sick inside and more than a little scared himself. “That’s just not true.”
“You stepped back when I married Jack. Stepped back from me.”
“You did some stepping back yourself.”
“Maybe.” She turned around again. “I tried to make it once without you, putting my money away for New York. I couldn’t do it on my own. I was going to make my marriage work without any help. But I couldn’t do that, either. All I had left was the baby inside me, and I wasn’t going to fail there, too. You never even came to the hospital when I had her.”
“I did.” Groping, he picked up a magazine from the table, rolled it into a tube. “I went up and looked at her through the glass. She looked just like you did. Long legs and long fingers and nothing but yellow fuzz on her head. I went and looked in your room. You were asleep. I couldn’t go in. I didn’t know what to say to you.”
He unrolled the magazine, frowned at the fresh-faced model on the cover, then dropped it back on the table. “I guess it made me mad all over again. You’d had a baby, and you didn’t have a husband, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I’ve got strong beliefs about that kind of thing. It’s hard to bend.”
“I didn’t need you to bend very much.”
“I kept waiting for you to give me the
chance to. I thought when that son of a bitch ran out on you, you’d figure out you needed some help and come home.”
“So you could have told me how right you were about everything.”
Something flickered in his eyes that might have been sorrow. “I guess I deserve that, I guess that’s what I would’ve done.” He sat down again. “And damn it, I was right.”
She gave a half laugh, weary around the edges. “Funny how the men I love are always so damn right where I’m concerned. Am I what you’d call a delicate woman, Daddy?”
For the first time in too long to remember she saw his eyes laugh. “Hell, girl, about as delicate as a steel rod.”
“That’s something, anyway.”
“I always wished you had a little more give in you. Instead of coming once, just once, and asking for help, you’re out there cleaning other people’s houses, working until all hours in a bar.”
“Not you, too,” she murmured and moved to the window.
“Half the time if I see you down on the waterfront you’ve got shadows under your eyes. ’Course, the way your mother’s jabbering, that’ll change before long.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Change?”
“Ethan Quinn’s not a man who’ll let his wife wear herself to the bone working two jobs. That’s the kind of man you should have been looking at all along. Honest, dependable.”
She laughed again, pushed a hand through her hair. “Mama’s mistaken. I won’t be marrying Ethan.”
Pete started to speak again, closed his mouth. He was smart enough to learn by his mistakes. If he’d pushed her toward one man by pointing out his flaws, he might also push her away from another by listing his virtues.
“Well, you know your mother.” He let it go at that. Trying to fit the words in his head, he plucked at the knee of his khakis. “I was afraid to let you go to New York,” he blurted out, then shifted when she turned from the window to stare at him. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back. I was afraid, too, that you’d get yourself hurt up there. Hell, Gracie, you were only eighteen, and so damn green. I knew you were good at dancing. Everybody said so, and you always looked pretty to me. I figured if you got yourself up there and didn’t get your head bashed in by some mugger, you’d find you wanted to stay. I knew you couldn’t manage it unless I gave you the money to start you out, so I didn’t. I thought you’d either stop wanting to go so damn bad, or if you didn’t, it’d take you a year or two to put by enough.”