A Love to Call Her Own (7 page)

It took forever for her to step outside, and the first thing he noticed was her bare feet—also one of the earliest things he remembered about his mother. She'd loved kicking off her shoes, inside or out, and had even married his father in her fussy, girly white gown and bare feet.

Pointless memory.

“Oh, Lucy, I woke up and thought you were gone. I know I'm taking up way too much of your time, but you can't imagine how much comfort it gives me, having you—” Finally Patricia noticed him, her words stopping midflow, her brow trying to wrinkle but failing. Botox.

It took a moment, but she finally reacted, clapping both hands over her mouth. “Ohh!” Another little squeak escaped her, making him wish he were anywhere but there. He'd lived twenty years with nothing but occasional calls and even rarer visits. He could easily live another twenty that way.

Lucy stood, and Ben did the same, but he didn't move closer.

“Benjamin Richard Noble. Oh, my lord, you always resembled your daddy—all you kids did—but you've grown into the spitting image of him.” Patricia moved forward, bypassing Lucy, both hands reaching out. “You came. I prayed you would, but I didn't think—”

She stopped before touching him, but not in time to keep him from shrinking back. Hurt crossed her face, and tears wet her eyes when she smiled. “I didn't know if I'd ever see you again, and here you are. It's all right. You can relax. I won't grab you and give you kisses all over your face.” As if to prove it, she folded her arms across her stomach.

Another unwanted memory: the happy noises three kids could make when they were getting kisses all over their faces.

“Come in, please. I'll fix you some food. You, too, Lucy. That nap made me feel so much better. I'll wait on you for a change.” She loosened her arms and slid one around Lucy's shoulders, guiding her toward the door.

Lucy didn't shrink away at all, but then, she wasn't the one Patricia had abandoned. She had a great relationship with her parents, he'd learned during their conversation. With her sisters and brother, they were one big happy, if widespread, family.

He followed the two women into the house, gazing at stuffy paintings on the walls, antiques in the living room and the study, and furniture in off-white and pale yellow. Expensive Asian rugs, delicate lamps, and knickknacks everywhere added up to a house that was definitely not child-friendly.

The kitchen was big and airy, filled with granite, stainless, and wood. Along with the food offerings spread along the counters and the island, pieces of Frankoma pottery were displayed on the walls and the wide shelves of a peeling white-painted cabinet. Patricia had always been fond of the Oklahoma-made pottery with the prairie green glaze, but he and his sisters had chipped so many pieces she had resigned herself to packing away what survived.

She'd taken it with her when she'd left them behind.

Lucy sat on a stool at the island, then swiveled the next one around and patted the seat. “Sit.”

He obeyed. Ordinarily he would offer to help, but there was nothing ordinary about today, and rushing around seemed to help calm Patricia's nerves. She fixed plates of cold fried chicken, potato salad, tabouli, and baked beans reheated in the microwave and poured glasses of iced tea strong enough to make a mug of black coffee run the other way. Once she'd pulled a stool around to the opposite side, she sat, bowed her head, and murmured a prayer.

His mother was saying the blessing. He'd never experienced that firsthand until he was in high school and having dinner at a friend's house. When had Patricia found God? What did He think of her past actions?

They talked little during the meal, and most of that was Lucy. Her desire for him and Patricia to get along was obvious in her bigger smiles, her darting gaze, and her faster rate of speech. He was sorry to disappoint her, but he was only here so he could say he'd tried.

Too soon after the late lunch, Lucy checked the time, then slid to her feet. “I've got to go, Patricia.”

Patricia glanced at the wall clock and smiled faintly. “Of course. It's Tuesday, and the margarita club never misses a Tues—” Her voice broke off, and a lone tear slid down each cheek. “I guess I'm eligible for membership now. I love you, Lucy, but I never, ever wanted—”

She stopped with a hiccup, and Lucy wrapped her arms around her. “Of course you didn't. No one wants to be in the margarita club, not a single one of us. But we know what you're going through, we know how tough it is, and we're always ready to listen or cry with anyone who needs it. All you have to do is give us a call.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably. So Lucy's
thing
tonight was some sort of support group meeting with other Army widows. That sounded depressing.

And Patricia qualified to join them. Mother or not—bad mother or not—that was depressing, too.

Lucy calmed the last of Patricia's tears, hugged her, told her she would come back after dinner to check on her. Next she took Ben's hand in both of hers. “It was nice meeting you, Ben. I'll see what I can do about that fry bread tomorrow.”

“You still like fry bread.” Patricia delicately wiped her eyes with a napkin. “You ate so much of it that I always worried you kids were going to turn into giant pieces of grease-laden dough.”

Lucy held Ben's hand a moment longer, gave him a covert wink, then let go and said her
good-bye/back later
on the way out the back door. When it closed behind her, the quiet in the house went from normal to tomb quality in a heartbeat. Patricia broke it too late, too soon, her voice quavery and too bright. “Would you like to have coffee in the living room?”

Of course not.
But he picked up the cup and saucer she'd set in front of him and followed her down the hall. When she'd been his mother, she'd always smelled of cookies or fabric softener or the girls' powders and lotions. Now the fragrance was definitely adult and vaguely familiar, something one of the women at the clinic wore.

Patricia sat on one sofa, tucking her feet onto the cushions, covering her legs with a throw, and balancing her coffee in both hands. He chose a chair nearer to the other sofa, one with sturdy legs, a spindly back, and no illusions of comfort, and they studiously pretended they didn't feel awkward as hell.

It was his turn to break the silence, and he did with the obvious. “Lucy is nice.”

Patricia's smile brightened her face but couldn't disguise the fact that she was barely holding herself together. Lines bracketing her mouth and her eyes, a weariness that came from much more than a lack of sleep, the barely perceptible tremors that never left her hands…So this was what grieving looked like for her up close. Ben hadn't known, since his father's death hadn't been more than a blip on her horizon. She'd already been well established in her new life by then.

The bitterness inside him reflected more than the bitterness of the coffee.

“Lucy's a good friend,” she agreed. “She needs a family to take care of, but since she never had children, she's adopted all of us.”

Ben's jaw clenched. “A family's not the answer to everyone's prayers.”

Patricia drew one pink-polished nail around the rim of her coffee cup. “I guess you mean that personally.”

“I guess I do.”

“Oh, Ben, I love my family. I've always loved you. I just…”

Loved George more? Needed to be free from all the demands, the whining, and the dramas? Couldn't be bothered to make the effort for you and the girls?

She sighed heavily. “I know you're carrying a load of resentment, and you're entitled to every bit of it. I was a terrible mother. I was selfish. I didn't think about the long-term consequences of what I was doing. It was…It was a difficult time for all of us, and I'm so sorry.”

Another forgotten memory: night after night, getting the girls to bed while their dad tried to lose himself in late hours at work. Eleven-year-old Brianne, her brown eyes huge and brimming with tears, saying,
She'll come back. She'll tell Daddy she's sorry, and she'll come home, and everything will be the way it was.

And Sara, two years younger but ages more cynical:
She's not coming back, Bree. She's not sorry, and even if she was, that doesn't make everything okay.

And he, going to bed after they were settled, staring into the darkness, too old to cry, gritting his teeth, clenching his fists, unable to admit even to himself that, like Brianne, he missed his mother. He'd wanted her back.

Even at nine, Sara had nailed it.
I'm sorry
were just words, too easily said, too often meaningless. In that spirit, he flatly repeated them. “I'm sorry, too.”

A
fter a shower and a change into denim shorts, a wildly colored top, and a pair of flip-flops, Jessy left her car parked in the alley out back and set out for The Three Amigos. The sun warmed her back as she walked east, waving at Miss Patsy in Selena's, saying hello to the pedestrians she passed. She liked the walk in all types of weather—had even made it in snow a few times—but that wasn't her reason for doing it. The fact that it was the only exercise she got most weeks wasn't the reason, either.

There wasn't much she wouldn't do, as her actions of the past ten years proved, but the one line she never crossed: She never drank and drove. Tonight she wasn't even going to have a margarita. It wasn't as if it was required. Ilena, pregnant since they'd met her, hadn't tasted anything stronger than coffee at their dinners. Carly rarely finished the one margarita she usually ordered, and every time Lucy started a new diet, the drink was the first thing to go. She preferred her meager calorie allowance with substance, not in liquid.

Though the dolls would notice if Jessy abstained. Jessy wasn't known for her abstinence. She could drink them all under the table, and they knew it. But none of them knew how much she drank away from them. None of them knew she was a drunk. But if she gave them a reason—an excuse—they would accept it.

Tonight she didn't even want a drink, really. All the fresh air had cleared her mind, and taking photographs again had soothed her spirit. She didn't need alcohol tonight.

Though just a sip would taste good. She had a fine appreciation for the taste of good tequila.

But appreciating, wanting, and needing were totally different things.

From a block away, The Three Amigos looked like a burst of warm summer sun in the midst of a dreary winter day. Its colors were bright, a fiesta of vibrant tones that both clashed and complemented at the same time, a palette that shouted
good times!
against the quiet whisper of the brick and sandstone buildings that surrounded it. In the fifteen months or so of the margarita club's existence, they'd eaten at other places on their adventures out of town—including the Tulsa State Fair, where she'd upchucked a funnel cake and a fried Snickers bar on the Ferris wheel. Thanks to her, there were people in northeastern Oklahoma who cringed at the mere mention of food and a fair ride.

But Tuesday nights belonged to The Three Amigos. Everyone loved Mexican food, and The Three Amigos' staff loved them.

Bypassing the front door, she circled to the patio entrance on the east side, where the building shaded the seating from the late afternoon sun and tables had been pushed together to seat twelve. They usually numbered eight to ten, though on occasion had twice that many.

She'd barely had time to settle when the restaurant door swung open and their usual waitress, Miriam, set a margarita in front of her. After unloading a tall stack of menus, she smiled at Jessy. “I don't believe you've ever been the first one here.”

Jessy eyed the drink. Should she send it back? That seemed rude and wasteful, and she tried never to be wasteful. Maybe she should push it aside for the next person to arrive. But who wanted a half-melted frozen margarita?

Deliberately she forced her gaze back to Miriam. “You know me. I usually like to make an entrance.”

Miriam's smile grew, deepening her dimples. “You're so gorgeous, just walking through the door is an entrance.” She sighed, lifting her arms in an embrace of nothing. “Isn't it a beautiful day?”

Jessy surreptitiously scooted the glass an inch away under the guise of taking a menu. “Beautiful. I got out and took some pictures today.”

“Of what?”

Scrub and weeds.
Dalton's dry words quirked the corner of her mouth. “Wildflowers, cows, horses.” And one man. She hadn't transferred the photos to her computer yet, hadn't clicked back to view the shot of him on the camera. Later. Tonight when she was alone and tired and tempted.

“A wonderful way to spend a day.” Miriam glanced past Jessy, then gestured. “The Tuesday Night Margarita Club will soon be in session. I'd best get plenty of chips and salsa.”

The first to arrive was Lucy, her hair hanging in loose waves, her face mostly makeup-free. She wore a print sundress a size too big and an expression that…Hmm. Jessy couldn't quite read it.

She took the chair across from Jessy, hanging her purse over the back of it, settling in with a deep exhalation. “Ah, I've waited all day for this.” She hesitated, then gestured toward the margarita. “Do you mind?”

Containing a grateful shudder, Jessy pushed it across the table to her. “Tough time at work?”

“I didn't go in. I've been at Patricia's since you left yesterday.”

Jessy didn't ask how the woman was doing. She knew. She'd thought about her a few times during the day, but always she pushed the thoughts away. Too many reminders, too much sorrow.

“Her son showed up early this afternoon.”

Jessy raised one brow. “Mr. I-don't-care?”

“Ben cares. He just hasn't let himself admit it. Things were really tough between them for a long time, and it was his mother's fault. It's hard to forget that.”

Jessy understood. She'd often thought her life would have been much better if she'd been raised by a pack of wolves. But she ignored the topic in favor of a much more interesting one. “Ben, huh? Let me guess…Tall? Handsome? Wildly successful?” She would add
charming
if it wouldn't make her laugh. There'd been nothing charming about their brief conversation the day before.

Lucy's cheeks turned pink. No, they went beyond that straight to candy apple red. She wouldn't make eye contact, either, but instead fiddled with her napkin and silverware. “You're the same height I am. Everyone's tall from our perspective. And yeah, I guess he's handsome. Dark hair, dark eyes, nice hands. And he's a surgeon. It pretty much goes that he's successful.”

“And single?”

Her face turned even redder. “I didn't ask.”

“But those nice hands weren't wearing a wedding band, were they?”

“No…and he might have mentioned something about not being married. I wasn't really paying attention.” Lucy shifted to scan the parking lot behind her. Relief washed over her. “Look—there's Marti and Ilena, and Carly's just pulling in.”

Jessy spared their friends a quick glance. “Doll, you're crushing on Dr. Noble, aren't you?” she whispered. “It's about damn time.” She hoped the doctor lived up to his name. She'd have to kick his ass if he so much as thought about breaking Lucy's heart.

“Don't tell anyone,” Lucy whispered back.

Jessy raised both hands in a hands-off sign. It wasn't her place to tell, and she respected that.

As the newcomers settled around the table, Miriam brought baskets of chips and bowls of salsa, along with more margaritas and an iced tea for Ilena, who dropped into the chair beside Jessy as if the walk across the lot had exhausted her. She patted her round belly and said, “Aw, man, Hector Junior is hungry. I'm ready for him to be born. It's hard eating for two.”

“I've been doing it a long time,” Lucy said as she dipped a chip in spicy salsa. “It just takes practice and determination.”

Marti leaned across to hug her. “And with that same determination, you can stop it,” she said gently. Talk about Lucy's weight was always done disparagingly by Lucy, gently by the others. No one cared about her weight except in the way it affected her health and happiness. They wanted her around for a long, long time. “We know you, Lucy. You're strong. You're a survivor.”

Was determination enough? If Jessy practiced not drinking, if she was determined to stay sober, would the need go away? Would she have the strength to say no to an icy margarita or to the oblivion alcohol brought? She was afraid the answer was no. How many times in recent weeks had she told herself that she wasn't going to overindulge again, only to find herself waking up with no clue of the previous night's events?

Her determination was there, but her weakness was stronger.

And if she gave up the oblivion, how would she survive? How could she stay sober when she didn't like the person she was, when she couldn't bear to
be
the person she was?

The other regulars arrived: Therese, looking serene and beautiful as ever, and Fia Thomas, holding her left arm in an awkward position, the backs of her fingers twisted unnaturally against her chest. Something was going on with her health that was slowly changing her from an athlete and trainer into a woman whose movements were sometimes actually painful to watch. She'd been having problems for a few months, but the doctors she'd seen had diagnosed little stuff like a strained muscle, a pulled ligament.

Jessy worried about her. Of the main margarita group, she and Fia were alike in the family department. They had relatives, just none that gave a damn about them. If something was seriously wrong with Fia, she had no one outside the club to turn to. But they would be there for her.

Jessy would be there for her. She might have disappointed everyone else in her life, but not her girls.

Not yet.

Please, God, not ever.

Shortly after their mutually pointless apologies, Patricia's doorbell began ringing and a steady flow of visitors started, offering condolences, bringing more food, sharing memories. There were men, soldiers all of them, looking the part even in civilian clothes, and plenty of women, some whose own husbands were deployed. There was genuine regret, perfunctory remarks, and with the women awaiting a return, a mix of emotions: sympathy, anxiety, relief.

Wandering into the kitchen to find a cold bottle of water, Ben wondered what it was like to be thousands of miles from your spouse, waking every day knowing that he or she was in danger, knowing how many people who made that trip overseas didn't come back. How had Patricia dealt with the possibility of George not coming home? Had she wondered every time she saw Lucy if she might wind up in the younger woman's position? Had she acknowledged that she might never see her husband again except in her dreams?

The questions made him uncomfortable. Thinking of her loss reminded him of his father. Rick had never gotten over Patricia's betrayal. Her abandonment had taken the pleasure out of his life. He'd done his best to take care of Ben and his sisters, but they'd lost the father they loved—in spirit when she left, in body as soon as Sara graduated from high school.

The sound of an engine outside came as a welcome distraction, drawing him to the large windows next to the dining table. A guy wearing a ripped T-shirt, shorts, and beat-up running shoes was pushing a mower across Patricia's yard, starting at the back edge and moving inward. He was sweaty, as if he'd been at it awhile. With Lucy's freshly cut lawn behind him, as well as the one next to hers, he probably had been.

Ben would give an awful lot to trade places with him. A little physical activity would go a long way toward easing the knots in his muscles.

The voices down the hall rose and fell, moving from the living room to the front door. Tension spread through him as he continued to watch the yard guy. In a minute, Patricia would walk into the kitchen, and until the doorbell rang again, there would be no excuse not to finish the conversation they'd barely started.

What was the point? She was sorry. He was sorry. Together it meant nothing.

Heels tapped as Patricia came into the room. She made herself a cup of coffee, put a chocolate whoopie pie on a plate, and carried both, with a fork, to the table.

“That's your fifth or sixth cup of coffee since lunch,” he commented.

“I've always needed coffee to get me through the day. Some days require more than others.” Her voice wobbled on the last words, then grew stronger. “Find something over there to eat. You never could make it more than a few hours without sustenance.”

That was a long time ago. I've grown up since then.
He didn't say that, though, but crossed to the counter to scan the offerings. His choice was also a whoopie pie, this one yellow with banana cream filling. He didn't bother with a fork.

When he sat down across from her, she was gazing out the window. “That's Joe Cadore. He's Lucy's neighbor. I tell you, those two take better care of me than—”

My own children.
Ben's jaw tightened, and he squeezed a bit of filling out of the cookie.

“Well,” she went on after an embarrassed moment, “their mothers raised them right. And I didn't stick around to finish raising you or the girls.” Her sigh was wistful. “I never intended to drop out of your lives, Ben. I thought you'd get over the surprise of the divorce and…everything would be fine.”

Ben could believe that. Patricia had never been overly responsible. A free spirit and a dreamer—that was how his father described her. Add in a naïve belief that she could have whatever she wanted, plus a touch of avoiding any reality that she didn't want, and that was his mother.

“I wanted to give you time to adjust, and then I was going to contact you. Then I decided you probably needed a little more time, and a little more, until so much time had passed that I just thought it was better to let things be. There would be lots of chances in the future to resolve things with you three—when we came back from Europe, when George left this command or got that promotion, when he finished his deployment, when he retired…” Another wobble, this one more tearful than before. She cut the cookie into fat chunks with her fork, then began mashing it until nothing but cream-coated crumbs remained.

Lifting her gaze, she smiled faintly. “And here I am with three grown children and three grandchildren who don't know Grandma from a jack-in-the-box.”

Whose fault is that?
She'd
left
them. She'd missed more of their lives than she'd shared. All their birthdays, holidays, important events, all the times they'd wanted and missed and needed her…And now, when it was convenient, she regretted it. Now she wanted from them what she'd refused to give to them.