by Sally John
The image of her earring flashed to mind, its sparkling purple, its two-inch dangle that suited Nora’s long face.
Her earlobe.
Lacey halted her scoot off the chair.
Nora’s earlobes were attached.
Lacey shook her head. All kinds of people had attached lobes. Owen, for one. It didn’t mean . . .
She began contrasting physical attributes, quickly tossing out one after another. Eyes, deep-green and hazel. Mouth, little bowtie and wide. Height, average and tall. Physique, average and slender. Hair color, black and blonde. Voice, soprano and alto.
There was no genetic connection.
None.
Will handed Lacey a cup of tea and sat on the couch beside her. The party was over and they were home alone. “Earlobes? We can’t go to seed on earlobes.”
“You’re right.”
“You sound unsure.”
“So do you.”
He turned sideways to face her, his arm across the back of the couch. “I don’t want to go there.”
“Me neither.”
“This would mean . . .”
“That she’s your parents’ granddaughter. That you’re her uncle. More than I’m her aunt even.”
“She doesn’t look like a Janski. There’s no resemblance to . . .” He paused. “No, that’s not true. Remember the familiarity I first noticed about Maiya? I finally figured out it’s my mom. She reminds me of my mom. Do you sense it?”
“Mm-hmm. It’s not anything obvious, like hair color or facial structure. And yet there’s something . . .”
They stared at each other. Nora was Cody’s mother, which might explain the resemblance.
Will shook his head. “I can’t imagine a relationship between Teal and Cody. He was your boyfriend, sort of. He was in your class. She was older, away at college, hardly ever in town.”
Lacey remembered Nora’s reference to Teal, the lost one. Other people would have referred to her as a hopeless loser. But in Nora’s economy, there was always hope and there were no losers, only children who had strayed from their true selves. She had firsthand experience with her youngest, which probably made her extra sensitive.
Lacey said, “They were both on your mom’s list of lost ones.”
He blew out a noisy breath. “It still doesn’t seem possible. Why would she not tell him?”
“It can’t be him.”
“Can’t be.”
They sat in silence for a long moment.
He said, “Maybe it’s our imagination.”
She knew deep in her bones that it was not. “What should we do?”
“For all our sakes, I think we need to find out. The best way is to be direct. It should come from you. Just ask her. ‘Hey, Teal, is Cody Maiya’s dad?’ No harm in asking, right?”
Lacey’s stomach somersaulted. “And if she says yes, then what?”
“I don’t know. Then she’s forced to tell, which opens a can of worms. But it has to be opened sooner or later.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“If it’s true, you’ll honestly be helping her and Maiya. She’s not going to bite you, but so what if you set her off? So what if she gets mad? She’ll get over it. And you’re never going to lose Maiya.”
“This isn’t a rational thing, Will.”
“Let’s practice. Just say it out loud to me. I’ll be Teal and get upset.”
Lacey looked down at her tea. What had Teal advised her about the Holly situation? Just ask him. She had tried in her own way, but like a coward she had beat around the bush. Were you on the phone tonight?
The bottom line was that she was afraid of the truth. Truth was cancer and a cheating husband and a sister sleeping with a boy Lacey liked. Truth was a death sentence to her well-being.
Or maybe truth was how to order a new pair of shoes. The old, ugly ones were all about living in fear. About not living like Nora did, embracing the fullness of each moment and trusting that if the moment was her last on earth, she had not wasted it wallowing in anything except God’s boundless love.
She felt a tingling sensation, as if her nerves were waking up from a long sleep.
“Lace.” Will put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “You don’t have to ask her.”
Lacey took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, we’ll see. If the opportunity presents itself, maybe I will.”
He smiled and kissed her softly. “I love you.”
“I love you.” She set her cup on the coffee table and gazed at him. “Will, are you and Holly having an affair?”
“What?” His eyes bugged out.
And she knew he was not.
“Oh my gosh, no, Lacey. No. Why would you think that?”
“I’ve been sick.”
“Sweetheart, I would never cheat on you.”
“She’s moony over you.”
“Really?”
Lacey smiled. Will was so much like his mother. Open to everyone, giving to everyone, believing the best of everyone. How could Lacey have imagined such a thing about him? “Yes, really.”
“Am I moony in return?”
“No. But . . .”
“But what?”
“There seem to be a lot of late-night phone calls with her. And there’s the way you whisper on the phone and hang up when I come in or quickly change what’s on the computer screen.”
He sighed and pulled her close.
Her heart sank. It wasn’t Holly. But it was another woman.
“Lace, I’ve been part of an online support group for husbands whose wives have cancer.” He held her tightly. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you how hard this whole thing is for me. I couldn’t let you down. How can I be your rock if I’m asking for help?”
“Oh, Will.” She looked up at him.
His smile was self-deprecating and his eyes filled. “Turns out I’m not the only guy who feels this way.”
She watched as tears seeped from his eyes. In the past she had noticed his eyes red-rimmed, especially since her diagnosis, but had never seen him cry. The sight now did not upset her.
She kissed his cheek, laid her face on his chest, and cried with him.
The new shoes were feeling just right.
Chapter 36
“It was a good weekend.” River’s upbeat tone floated through the dank air Sunday evening, the night before his departure.
Teal frowned, her face averted. Was he nuts? Or simply in total denial of reality? Doing her best rendition of neutral, she said, “We’re out here walking the streets because we couldn’t take it any longer sitting in the cottage, listening to Maiya bawl her eyes out.”
River took hold of her hand, sliding his fingers between hers.
The touch was their first intimate contact since the welcome hugs and kisses at the airport forty-eight hours ago. No, she could not categorize the weekend as good.
He said, “True, but it means she’s coming to terms with the Jake news. Hard stuff can be good. It moves us forward.”
Whatever! She wanted to huff.
“You feel tense, love.” His term of endearment had been AWOL along with the physical touch. “I mean it. The weekend was good.”
“I suppose one good thing was that you didn’t punch Owen’s lights out.”
“If I’d spent more than ten minutes with him, I might have.” He paused. “Seriously, I’m glad you promised Maiya she didn’t have to see him again. I’ve met enough mean dads to recognize the malicious vibes coming from him.”
If River had not insisted on meeting Owen and seeing the house she’d grown up in, she would have skipped both. At least they had spent literally only ten minutes doing so.
“Teal, like I said, I will confront him with what he did to you.”
“And what? Demand an apology? No thanks. He’s a pathetic alcoholic. The only thing that might get his attention is if Randi leaves him, and that in itself would take a major miracle.”
While her mother had not owned up to
any dysfunctional behavior on either her or Owen’s part, she had been spending time away from him, totally atypical according to Lacey. And whenever she was not with him, she drank less, a plus for everyone.
River said, “Well, if you’re sure. I don’t want to miss an opportunity to be your knight in shining armor.”
“You are my knight in shining armor simply by coming here.”
“Nah. I came here to fish with Will and his dad on the Rogue River. Have I mentioned the twenty-one-pound salmon I caught this morning?”
“Once or twice.” She smiled. River and his rivers. He’d been as excited as a little kid just to see one he’d never seen before. To fish it was icing on the cake.
He said, “It’s not like you need a knight here. Lacey and Will are great people. His parents are great people. Baker’s a great kid. That group of retirees who came to Maiya’s party last night are good folk. And even Randi has possibilities. You’re surrounded by guardians.”
With a groan, Teal leaned against his arm as they walked. “It’s you, River. You bring out the best in others. I don’t.”
“Yes, you do, just not in your hometown. Naturally there’s baggage here.”
Baggage and ghosts.
“But,” he said, “these people do care about you. You might try letting them inside.”
She unbent herself away from his arm.
He tightened his grip on her hand and stopped their walk, turning her to face him. “Look, whoever he is, whatever his connection to these people, they will accept you.”
She shook her head.
“Yes, they will,” he insisted. “Two reasons. One, you’re a successful lawyer, an admirable, respectable woman. And two, your daughter has brought a new happiness into their lives.”
“You can’t understand.”
“Then tell me. Explain it to me.”
Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. She shook her head again.
River exhaled and let go of her hand.
A wave of loneliness swept through her.
So what else was new in Camp Poppycock?
Ghosts or no ghosts, Teal sat at the desk in the back room at Happy Grounds, facing the wall opposite the one where the couch had once been. The shop—the only one in town open on Mondays—was full of regulars and then some. Its noise disrupted her focus. Well, that plus all the other stuff.
The unsatisfactory good-bye with River earlier that morning weighed most heavily. Their last night together had revolved around comforting Maiya. Then Will called and offered to take River to the airport since he had errands to run up in that neck of the woods anyway.
River accepted the offer with a little too much eagerness. She doubted that was due solely to his wanting to let her get back to work as soon as possible. No. He had emotionally checked out the previous night after ending his pep talk with “explain it to me.”
Well, maybe it was after she refused to explain it.
Okay. So she deserved the cold-shoulder treatment.
“Teal.” Her assistant Pamela’s voice came in loud and clear through the Bluetooth. At least that life-changing device worked in the back room.
“I’m here. What do we have?”
“I’m afraid we have a woman scorned.”
Teal’s heart sank. Hannah Walton’s case had leaped out of its original good mom/bad dad parameters.
The office had received documents from Parkhurst’s attorneys through the process of discovery. She had requested his financial and phone records in order to prove he had nothing to do with Hannah during her pregnancy or since.
Pamela said, “We definitely have a paper trail. On numerous occasions James Parkhurst phoned a number they say belonged to Hannah at the time. I’m checking into that. He claims he left voice mails. There’s also a record of him phoning the hospital on the day the baby was born.”
Teal shook her head. The blessing and bane of technology.
“I finished tracking the financial records. He wrote four checks to her. The first was out of company funds in the form of a paycheck, but about four times her normal salary, which could be construed as severance. The others came from one of his personal accounts after the baby’s birth.”
“Did Hannah cash any of them?”
“Just the first one.”
“We can’t prove she received the others.”
“No.” Pamela paused. “Want my opinion?”
“Always.”
“He may have called her a slut when she told him she was pregnant. But I think the main gist of that conversation was that he refused to divorce his wife and marry Hannah.”
“Hence the scorned woman.”
“Twenty-first-century style. She tells him to take a hike, she doesn’t need him.”
Teal thought of Hannah’s background. She had not needed Parkhurst. Her parents were supportive and wealthy. They stood by her throughout the pregnancy and birth. They had provided the down payment for the house she and her husband purchased.
Teal said, “What has Parkhurst been up to since?”
“Ironically, he divorced that first wife—there were no dependents—and two years ago married his second, a woman on his staff.”
“Ouch.”
“Exactly. But Hannah seems to have been perfectly happy with her own choices.”
“I agree. She didn’t need Parkhurst, and she wound up with a really nice guy. The question is, why now? Why Parkhurst’s sudden interest in his daughter?”
“Assuming she is his daughter. DNA tests should come in this week.”
“Maybe she’s not.”
“And maybe the judge will rule favorably on our motion to dismiss and throw out the case because there’s not enough evidence.”
“And maybe it won’t rain in Oregon this winter.”
Pamela chuckled. “How is life going up there? How is Maiya?”
Teal slid into chitchat mode, briefly filling her in on River’s visit and the Jake saga. “At least Maiya isn’t playing the scorned woman, but she has heartbroken down to a T. Besides her doting aunt and uncle, she has a handful of retirees here at the shop eating out of her hand. They all gave her birthday gifts. She’ll probably get sympathy gifts now.”
“Aw.” Pamela cooed. “She’s such a lovable kid.”
“Most days.”
“Come on, Mom. She’s only sixteen. Let her have her adolescent drama. We’ve all been there and done that.”
A sudden, disquieting thought struck Teal. Not only had she been there and done that, she was there again and reliving it.
That was not exactly the purpose behind visiting her hometown.
How blind of her not to have foreseen its inevitability.
James Parkhurst’s perplexing behavior gnawed at Teal. It rooted her to the desk chair in the back room and kept the ghosts at bay.
The man had been in the movie business for years. He had founded his own production company shortly before Hannah Walton went to work for him. To date he had been the executive producer of several movies nominated for Academy Awards in various categories. Some had won, including last year’s for Best Picture.
The guy was on his way up, big time. What did he care about visitation rights with a little girl he had never even met?
Teal thought about Parkhurst’s life. On the surface it appeared glamorous. He hobnobbed with movie stars, directors, investors, writers, agents, politicians—anybody who was anybody in the industry.
Yet he put on his pants like everybody else, one leg at a time. He spent countless hours on the phone and in meetings, building his network. He missed meals, sleep, vacations, dates with wives one and two. He was divorced. His closest friends would be his driver, most likely a man, and his hairstylist, who would neither be male nor a barber at the neighborhood shop.
Teal chose the hairstylist route because in general women gossiped more than men. Three phone calls later she was talking to a friend of a friend of the hairstylist.
“It’s no secret,” the woman said. “Pa
rkhurst is a changed man. He’s done a total one-eighty, gone from nasty to nice. Samantha, the hairdresser, says he even tips more. You know when the wallet is involved, it’s got to be for real.”
“What happened?”
“He found Jesus. Or maybe Jesus found him. I forget how that works. Apparently he talks about it a lot.”
Great. Now Jesus had joined the ranks of the opposition.
Teal learned little else except that the faith development seemed recent. With any luck, she thought, it would pass and he would stop trying to right the wrongs of his past.
Sorry, Lord. You know what I mean. It’d make my job easier if this were a conversion of the flash-in-the-pan sort.
She winced. How crusty could she get?
Sixteen years ago, when she first went to church with her neighbor Gammy Jayne and Christ’s love tangibly and inexplicably drenched her, her world was turned upside down. It was a supernatural development that defied explanation. Acquaintances from her past never would have believed how different she was.
At times she did not recognize herself in the softness and hope and joy that permeated her life. Instead of an angry law student fighting for her rights, she grew into a woman with a deep compassion for others. Her desire to become a lawyer and to combat wrong remained intact, but it became more about her clients’ welfare and less about Teal winning.
Of course God could change James Parkhurst into a better man.
Into a bio dad who should be allowed to see his daughter?
Maiya walked into the room. “Mom?”
Teal held up a finger and pointed to the Bluetooth. “Thank you so much,” she said to the friend of the friend, ended the conversation, and pulled the device from her ear. “Ack! That’s been in there too long.”
“Can you talk now?” Maiya sat in a chair beside the desk, a folded piece of paper in her hand.
“Sure.” The reply was in no way connected to her mind, which was busy dictating follow-up notes. She’d clue Pamela in on Parkhurst’s newfound religion. They’d brainstorm about its effect on the case. Should they put the firm’s investigator onto Parkhurst? Was he affiliated with a church? Which one? If it was a weird radical group, that might nix his chances of—
“Mom!”