by Mata Elliott
“Happy anniversary,” she said, and tied her arms around his neck as she reared slightly, resting her back against the support of his locked hands. The joy in her eyes was a reflection of what he felt, but unable to adequately express the enormity of his emotions with words, he spoke with a kiss that put the anniversary meal Brenda had prepared on hold until much later.
“ . . . not speaking tonight,” Cassidy said.
Trevor immediately gazed at the woman across the room as he came back to live in the present. He’d been dwelling on the past so deeply he didn’t remember parking his vehicle or unlocking the front door or walking through the house to the kitchen. He stared at Cassidy as she wiped the countertop with a dishcloth. Trevor wondered how many times she had said hello and received nothing in return. “Hi,” he responded, doing his part yet leaving his heart out of it. He dropped a bouquet of flowers on the table and strode to the refrigerator. He pulled out a bottle of grape soda, untwisted the cap, and guzzled a third of the beverage with high hopes Cassidy wasn’t going to say anything about the drink’s sugar content. He could certainly do without her rebuke tonight, considering the way his day had shaped up. The craziness started this afternoon when a teen employee, packing a nine millimeter handgun and a grudge against the world, threatened to blow out the brains of another teen employee. After the police arrived and things returned to normal, Trevor received a call from one of his delivery van drivers. The largest van in the fleet of four, stocked with the monthly order of breakfast pastry he supplied for a band of local schools, had been a player in a fender bender on I-95. Trevor was thankful the driver was fine, the van would only be out of commission for a week, and the packaged baked goods had survived without a scratch.
Cassidy folded the dishcloth and hung it over the front of the sink. She carried a bowl of fresh strawberries to the refrigerator. “The girls and I had strawberry-banana smoothies for dessert. Aunt Odessa taught them one of her favorite hymns while they put on their pajamas, and we made sure they were tucked in. There are plenty of leftovers if you would like dinner.” She smiled slightly at him and then at the flowers. “Well . . . good night,” she said, walking toward the back stairs.
“Cassidy,” he called.
She stopped and turned and offered him her face, a softness to it that sidetracked his thoughts. More than a couple of moments filled the silence around them before he moved his tongue. “Thanks for helping Mother Vale with my children. I’m sorry I’m so late getting home.”
“No problem. Aunt Odessa told me you phoned and said you would be late.”
Cassidy left the room, and Trevor plunked down in a chair and finished off the soda. He reached for the pocket dictionary and small spiral notebook Cassidy had left on the table. He’d seen her writing in the notebook once and had asked her about it.
“It’s where I record my word for the week,” she had said.
Tonight the notebook lay open, and an unfamiliar word stood on the first line of the page. As he read the second word, one he recognized, he heard a soft shuffling sound coming from the back stairwell. At first, he thought it was the cat, but cats didn’t have polished toenails or long jean-covered legs or soft brown eyes that made him want to curl up inside them and tell her all about his bad day. But Cassidy wouldn’t want to hear about his bad day, would she? She probably came back to the kitchen for her books and wanted to hurry and collect them so she could get away from him. So if that was the case, why was she still standing there?
“You . . . you look bad,” she stammered.
“Thanks,” he said dryly, and wiped his soda-wet lips with his palm.
“I mean . . .” She inched closer. “I mean, you don’t look like yourself. Is something wrong?”
The question Why would you care? slid to the tip of his tongue. But the fact that she’d asked about him pleased him, and he wasn’t about to do or say anything to chase her away.
“Come sit down,” he said, making sure the sentence sounded like an offer and not an order. Cassidy selected the chair across from him and placed her hands in her lap. “How’s the readathon going?” he asked. His grandmother used to say asking about others is just as important as telling about yourself.
“The sponsor sheet I hung up on Sunday is filled.” Radiance showed in Cassidy’s cheeks. “God’s Word is true. He supplies all of our needs.”
“Yes, He does.” Trevor’s smile was fleeting. He tapped the plastic soda bottle against the table. “Today would have been my wedding anniversary.”
In a gentle tone, Cassidy responded, “So close to Houston and Grace’s anniversary. No wonder you didn’t change your mind about going to their barbecue until the last minute.”
“I had planned to take these flowers to Brenda’s grave today . . . after work.” They both glanced at the blossoms. “But the cemetery had closed by the time I arrived.”
“I bet you gave Brenda more than enough flowers to fill a garden when she was alive.”
Trevor folded his hands on the table and met Cassidy’s gaze. “Yes,” he answered softly.
“That means Brenda had her flowers when she could appreciate them, and that’s what counted.”
The statement carried comfort, and more tears than anticipated stung Trevor’s eyes. He dropped his gaze to an old stain on the tablecloth. A small smile tugged at his mouth. “I can see why my girls are so Cassidy-crazy.”
“They’re Daddy-crazy, too. You’re all Brittney talks about.”
Trevor measured Cassidy, disbelief in his heart.
“My daddy makes the best chocolate muffins in the world,” Cassidy repeated his daughter’s words. “My daddy taught me how to ride a bike . . . my daddy taught me how to skate . . . my daddy taught me how to spit.”
The fond memory inspired Trevor to chuckle. “She told you I taught her how to spit?”
Cassidy grinned. “The whole disgusting truth.”
Trevor chuckled again, but moments later, he placed his elbows on the table and his face in his palms. All of sudden, he didn’t care if Cassidy saw this tormented side of him. He sighed in his hands before dragging them over his face. “I hurt my children. On the day Brenda died, instead of coming straight home, I stayed away until sometime after midnight, knowing they’d be asleep by then. I knew they would have questions, but I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to answer them.” He leaned back in the chair, an ache in one shoulder growing strong enough to menace. He massaged the muscle. “I remember feeling like such a failure that night because I couldn’t bring my little girls their mother.”
“You had no control over whether Brenda lived or died.”
“Logically, I knew that. But at the time, my emotions were in the driver’s seat.” Regret weighted his voice. “I should have been the one to tell them about their mother. I can only imagine how scared and confused they must have been—their mother dead and their father missing. Brit and Bran are probably always going to remember their dad wasn’t there for them that day.”
“I disagree,” Cassidy said. “I’m sure your daughters are going to grow up remembering all the times their dad was there for them, all the times you did dry their tears.” She eased her hand forward, then pulled it back, and Trevor sensed she was fearful of extending that much of herself. “You’re a good father, Trevor. There are many little girls who would give every doll they own to have a father as kind and as loving as you. I should know. I never knew my father or much about him. Aunt Odessa said my mom only spoke of him once. He was some guy she had an overnight fling with. She didn’t even know his name.”
“How did your mother die?” he questioned, hoping he wasn’t asking too much.
“She overdosed on pills.” Cassidy shrugged her shoulders as if to say, No big deal. Or maybe the shrug meant, Let’s not go there, because she asked him a question now. “Did you have a good relationship with your parents?”
“Yes. In fact, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my mother. She believed girls and boys needed to know their way a
round a stove. I wasn’t even eye level with the rim of the kitchen sink when she taught me how to roll the dough for the sweet potato pies.” He would have stopped there, but Cassidy stared at him with strong interest. “By the time I was ten, I could make the whole pie on my own. And before I graduated from high school, I knew I just had to share all of my mother’s delicious creations with the city of Philadelphia. Sooooo after graduating with a business degree, I took some culinary courses and Seconds was born.”
“Tell me about your dad,” Cassidy invited.
Following a string of reflective moments, Trevor responded, “He was kind, genuine . . . hardworking”—he paused—“and eternally optimistic. I don’t think he ever had a bad day in his life. If he did, he never showed it. He died when I was fourteen. I remember I was sitting in a chair by his bed as he struggled with his final breaths. I began to cry, and he reached out and with the last of his strength, he took hold of my arm and said, ‘No tears, son. You’re the man of this house now, so you’re going to have to be strong for your mother and grandmother and sister.’” Trevor breathed deeply, understanding what a life-molding moment that final conversation with his father had been. It was the sum of why he had never let his children see him cry and had never shared with them how he felt about losing Brenda.
Time on top of time, he’d had the chance.
He recalled the morning he found Brittney in his bedroom holding the cap to a bottle of Brenda’s perfume as the bottle, an apparent victim of a fall, oozed its liquid contents into the carpet. Both he and Brittney stood like statues, only moving their eyes, first to stare at each other and then back to the scene on the floor while Trevor’s heart hammered in his ears as he wondered what was going through his little girl’s mind. What had she been doing with her mother’s perfume? Had she been trying it on because that’s what little girls did, or had she simply wanted to smell it, an effort to smell her mother again? It was the reason he had not gotten rid of the fragrance. He had kept it so he could smell Brenda whenever he wanted and pretend she was standing next to him.
Trevor raised his gaze and stared at Cassidy, unsure of how much time had passed. “Did your mom and dad attend Charity Community?” she asked.
He sniffed to clear his airways and projected a stable voice. “No. And Brenda and I didn’t become members until she became pregnant with Brittney. We weren’t married and hadn’t planned to marry for a couple of years. But we loved each other, and with a baby on the way, we decided not to wait. Neither of us had a personal relationship with the Lord,” Trevor continued, “but Brenda wanted to be married by a minister. So a friend pointed us to Charity Community. We met with Pastor Audrey, and during one of our counseling sessions, we both gave our hearts to God. The following Sunday we joined the congregation, and two weeks later we had a small wedding.”
“Brenda was blessed to have a man who loved her and the baby they created.” Cassidy’s eyes darkened for a long moment, as if she was revisiting a bad memory. She blinked and came back to him, then offered a simple yet genuine smile. “Do you mind if I make a couple of suggestions that might help you with your daughters?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“For one . . . you should take them out once in a while.”
Offense taken, Trevor struggled to push it from his tone. “I take my children out all the time.”
“I know, but this would be different,” she explained. “I saw it on a talk show. This guy had three daughters, and one day out of the month he took each one on a well-thought-out date. It makes each girl feel special, it’s a chance for you to get to know them better and vice versa, and at the same time, you’re modeling how they should be treated when a boyfriend eventually takes them out.”
The stubborn set of his jaw slackened and he humbled. “Keep going.”
“Well,” she began as if doubtful she should proceed, “have you ever told Brittney and Brandi you were sorry you didn’t come home the day their mother died?”
Trevor drifted into a state of intense meditation. “No,” he finally admitted.
“An apology might be the key that will open the door to Brittney’s heart.”
Trevor slowly digested the words. Cassidy bowed her head, and he did the same as she began to pray for him and his children. At the end of the prayer, Trevor opened his eyes, any doubts about Cassidy erased. Since receiving that anonymous envelope and article, he’d been wrestling with the notion of Cassidy having been a drunken driver. But it was getting easier to let it go. The woman sharing the room with him cared deeply for his daughters, and she would not do anything to endanger their lives. He was sure about that now.
Trevor would have taken Cassidy’s hand, maybe held both of them, but she had put them under the table, out of sight, out of reach. “I plan to take your advice and talk with Brittney and Brandi as soon as they get back from California,” he said. Penny and the girls were flying out early tomorrow morning to visit Kendall McBride, and there wouldn’t be time to sit and talk the way he wanted and the way the girls deserved.
“Your children have been going on and on about this trip to see their godmother. They told me she and their mother were very close.”
“Brenda and Kendall were like sisters.” Breaking into a slight grin, Trevor stroked his goatee. “Kendall McBride . . . ,” he mused softly, but kept the rest of his thoughts about Kendall private.
chapter twenty-one
A wave of pandemonium penetrated the classroom in spite of the closed door, and Cassidy disguised her frustration with a smile. “Good try,” she encouraged the eleven-year-old standing in front of the chalkboard. He had spelled the word “indivisible” incorrectly. She gave him a sticker, and he swaggered back to his seat with a pleased expression on his face. Cassidy stared from desk to desk. None of the children were concentrating this afternoon. And why would they want to prepare for a spelling bee when down the hall, Trevor’s boys were whooping it up in the gym? Portia Washington, in her last year of college, sauntered in and set up things for a science project. Cassidy dismissed the students to the water fountain three at a time, then turned the reins of responsibility over to the younger woman.
Annoyance prompting Cassidy to walk with pep, she hurried through the hall, scarcely able to refrain from going inside the gymnasium and lecturing Trevor about the high level of noise. The spelling bee was tomorrow, and he knew she needed every available second to get the kids ready. “Men can be so inconsiderate,” she muttered, crossing the threshold of her office. She snapped to an immediate halt upon noticing Derek on the telephone at Trevor’s desk.
“What’s up, Miss Beckett?” Derek swung his feet off of the desk and launched from the chair. His eyes brightened the way they did whenever he said hello to her.
“Hello, Derek.” Cassidy fought to keep the chill out of her voice. “What are you doing in here?”
The young man flattened a palm over the mouthpiece of the receiver. “Coach Monroe . . . is treating . . . the boys to pizza. He . . . asked me . . . to order.” Cassidy was aware of the way Derek took his time and formed each word, attempting to impress her with good grammar, she gathered. His voice fell manly deeper as he spoke through the receiver. “Yes, sir . . . that’s what I said . . . five plain . . . five pepperoni”—he smiled tooth and gums at Cassidy—“and five hot sausage.”
The inside of Cassidy’s mouth thickened with a slimy cardboard-tasting film. It seemed Trevor loved pizza as much as she detested it. Ignoring Derek’s voice as he completed his call, she went to the file cabinet and began searching through the J to L folders.
“Can I help you find something?”
Cassidy jumped at the voice that came out of the young man standing only inches behind her now. She braved a look at his face, and suddenly, the years rolled backward. Cassidy was a student at Tilden, and Minister was yelling at her.
“We talked about this.” Bubbles of sweat formed on Minister’s forehead, and his hands were tight balls at his sides. “We had it all planne
d out, and we’re sticking to those plans.” He frowned at the baby. “We’re getting rid of it.”
“No help needed.” Cassidy’s tone was firm as she pressed a guarded stare on Derek. Everything about the youngster’s face strongly resembled Minister’s. The tea-colored skin, the broad smile, the long, thick eyelashes—all Minister. Cassidy pulled out Twyla Keary’s folder. Twyla had been out ill, and Cassidy wanted to check on the child’s condition and let the family know Twyla was in her prayers. She closed the metal drawer and asked the camp counselor, “Shouldn’t you be getting back to the gym?”
“Yeah.” Derek winced. “I mean, yes . . . I should be on my way.” His smile faded into a serious expression. “I . . . I’ve been meaning to ask . . .” He momentarily averted his gaze. “Well, I had a hard time . . . with some of my subjects last year . . . and I was wondering . . . if you could tutor me when school starts up?”
Derek’s eyes were loaded with hope. But how could Cassidy help someone who gave her flashbacks to a time when her life was in shreds? “I’m sorry, Derek. I’m busy with my own students in the fall. I won’t have the time.”
The light in Derek’s eyes clicked off. “I . . . I understand. Thanks, anyway.” He turned, his shoulders curved with rejection. “I’ll see you.”
“Bye,” Cassidy said softly, and slumped to the chair behind her desk, pondering what God was up to. Why would He bring Derek into her life at this time? Why had He used Sister Whittle and Pastor Audrey to drop seeds into her heart about the Sparrow Ministry?
Cassidy closed her eyes and tried to make sense of her thoughts.
A spunky fifth grader with dimples you could hide your fingertips in was the first to jog down the stairs of the yellow school bus parked in front of Charity Community Church. “We came in second,” she shouted, mesmerizing the day-care center children playing in the tot lot.
Cassidy chuckled and strolled up and down the bus aisle, making sure all the kids were off the bus before thanking the driver.