A Mother's Love (8 page)

Janice Kay Johnson

Mom, thanks for being patient, supportive, a great listener and my best friend. Every time I write about difficult mother/daughter relationships, I realize anew how lucky I am. This one is for you, with love.

W
HY ON EARTH WOULD
her mother call and suggest lunch on a weekday? With the phones ringing and lines waiting at the counter, Leila Foster had been too busy to demand an explanation.

But of course she'd had to say yes, even though, as the shift supervisor of the Records unit at the police department, Leila tended to eat at her desk in case she was needed. Mom hadn't returned a single phone call all week. Hearing from her at all was a relief.

Now that the worst of the rush had passed and Leila was free to take her purse from the drawer and remind everyone she would be out for lunch, she couldn't help feeling apprehension.

Leaving two clerks—technically, records information specialists—in charge, Leila hurried down the broad hallway lined with framed oil portraits of decorated, in some cases long-dead, law enforcement officers and police chiefs. She almost resisted the temptation to glance into the Major Crimes unit.

Almost.

But the door stood open, and her head turned, and—wouldn't you know—he was at his desk and looked up at that precise instant. He either checked out every single
person who passed outside the detective squad room or else he sensed her and only her.

He
was Mark Duncan, a Major Crimes investigator who had asked her out a couple of times. Well, three times. And once, when in bafflement she'd asked him why, he'd bent his head and demonstrated. Briefly.

She didn't like to think about that kiss and absolutely refused to do so today. She gave an oh-so-casual nod, as if barely noticing him, and walked on.

The other women in the Records unit were appalled that she'd said no to Detective Mark Duncan. “Are you crazy?” was how Rachel had put it.

No, she wasn't crazy. Yes, she knew he was incredibly good-looking and sexy. She couldn't pretend, even to herself, that she was immune to his tall, rangy body, craggy, tough face or eyes the color of a chilly winter sky. But his physical blessings—yes, that was a good description—didn't make up for the fact that he was not at all the kind of man who interested her.

Kind
and
reliable
—those were her watchwords, taught to her by the kindest, most reliable man in the world, her deceased father. She ignored the cramp of grief she felt, progressing inexorably to her conclusion instead.

No, if she had to describe Detective Duncan in a few words, neither
kind
nor
reliable
would appear. Instead ones like
intelligent, menacing
and
sexy
leaped to mind. She'd gone that route once before, dating another cop when she'd first started work here. Gary Phillips had seemed dashing and a little dangerous, too, tempting her to violate her own rules. What he'd turned out to be was self-centered and unfaithful. She wasn't stupid enough to go that route again.

Reassured by her own common sense, Leila unlocked her
car and got in, her thoughts reverting to her original worry. Her mother had looked fine the last time they'd gotten together. She would have called if she'd been sick. No, chances were she'd been feeling sad and wanted the comfort of sharing her grief. The first anniversary of Dad's death had passed only the week before last.

When she walked into the restaurant, her mother was there ahead of her, already seated at a table by the window. She waved and said, “Isn't this a lovely view?” when Leila sat down across from her.

Surprised, Leila studied her mother rather than the view out the window. Mom didn't sound at all sad. Instead her voice held an unaccustomed lilt. And she looked chic and somehow younger than she had recently. Was it a new haircut? Or some kind of makeover? Leila couldn't decide. Joanne Foster's hair—a wavy chestnut, like Leila's—was short and beautifully shaped but not that different from the way she'd been wearing it. And while she did wear makeup, Leila wasn't even sure she had on foundation. But she had color in her cheeks. And her eyes—blue to Leila's brown—sparkled.

Maybe something especially good had happened or Mom had just woken up that morning feeling less oppressed by grief. Time was supposed to do that, and the first year of her widowhood had gone by. Maybe she'd suggested lunch because her spirits had lifted rather than because she felt sad.

Leila did glance out the window then and agreed, “It's a beautiful day.”

The boats tied up to the docks in the marina all seemed to be a gleaming and pristine white, and the bright pennants affixed to the masts lifted in a breeze. Puget Sound was vivid blue under the sunny spring sky, and the snow-capped,
jagged Olympic Mountains were sharp and clear across the water.

“What a good idea this was,” Leila continued, adding, “Did you have a particular reason for suggesting lunch or was it just an impulse?”

“I did want to talk to you about something. Oh! Here comes the waiter. We should probably decide what we want to eat.” Her mother disappeared behind her menu.

Leila blinked. Had Mom looked relieved at the interruption?

But she hastily scanned the menu herself and was able a minute later to order. Once the waiter was gone, Leila waited.

Her mother cleared her throat. “Do you remember my telling you how I've been e-mailing Robert Wojack?”

Leila gazed blankly. The name rang a bell…. Then it came to her. “That guy you went with in college?”

Joanne Foster nodded. “Yes, we hadn't talked in over forty years. Isn't that awful?” She shook her head. “How did so many years pass?”

“Did he e-mail you out of the blue?” Leila had a feeling her mother had already told her this, but she hadn't paid attention.

“No, I heard from a mutual friend after your dad died. She mentioned that Robert's wife had died several years ago. I'm the one who e-mailed him.”

Leila paid attention this time. A little shocked, she stared at her mother. “Why?”

“Why did I get in touch with him?”

Leila nodded.

“Because we were once deeply in love. He asked me to marry him, you know.”

No, Leila was quite sure her mother had never told her that a man besides her husband had ever asked her to marry him.

“Did you say no?”

Sadness dimmed the sparkle that had underlaid her mother's every word since Leila had sat down across from her. Sadness that
wasn't
because Leila's father had died only a year ago.

Joanne nodded. “I was young and frightened and foolish. Robert wanted me, but he wasn't ready to settle down yet. He had all these wild plans. He wanted to travel for a year, wander around Europe, maybe even to Africa or the Middle East, and then consider going to graduate school. We could do everything together, he said. I'd never traveled anywhere, you know,” she continued. “Going a couple of hours away from home to college and living in a dorm was a great adventure for me. I'd imagined that when I got married, we'd start a home and a family. Not travel the world and figure out how to pay for it as we went.”

Leila nodded with perfect understanding. She wasn't very adventurous herself. She hadn't wanted to go very far away to college, and then it hadn't occurred to her not to seek a job that would allow her to be near to her parents. When she'd reached thirty and no husband had materialized, she'd bought a small house on her own and loved every minute of decorating and furnishing the rooms and landscaping the tiny yard. It had simply never occurred to her to travel while she was young, even though she'd dreamed as a teenager of someday visiting the British Isles, perhaps even living there for a while. A little wistfully she remembered that she'd never decided whether she'd take a flat in London or a thatch-roofed cottage in a picturesque village.

Her face still shadowed, Leila's mother said, “So I told him no, believing, I realized later, that he'd change his plans and go straight to graduate school. But he didn't. Right after graduation he was gone and I was left behind. I accepted my first teaching job and I met your father and…well, you know the rest of the story.”

“But…didn't you ever hear from Robert again?”

Joanne shook her head. “Not until I e-mailed him, all these years later. Now I know that when he came back to Seattle a year and a half later, he ran into one of our friends before he'd gone by my parents' house. Once he found out I was already engaged, he decided not to call.”

A terrible question occurred to Leila, one she couldn't voice. What if he
had
called? Would Leila's mother still have married her father?

As if she'd actually spoken the question aloud, Joanne Foster reached across the table for her daughter's hand. “I have never let myself have regrets, because if I'd married Robert, I wouldn't have you and Jon. And that's simply unthinkable.”

She also wouldn't have had Cody, Leila's older brother who had died when he was ten years old. She would have had different children, and the tragedy wouldn't have happened. Had that occurred to her?

Despite the unsettling thought, Leila should have been reassured by her mother's words. So why wasn't she? Because, she realized, her mother
hadn't
said,
I never had regrets because I loved your father so much.

Feeling cold, Leila asked, “Why
did
you e-mail this…this Robert? Were you interested in…oh, starting over with him? Or something?”

And why
—oh, yes, this definitely explained the chill skit
tering up her neck—
did you invite me to lunch to tell me you've been e-mailing back and forth with a man you haven't seen in forty years?

Her mother's gaze slid from hers, and she said with renewed relief, “Oh, good, our food is here!”

Leila waited while the waiter set down their plates and poured the wine her mother had ordered. Her mother never drank in the middle of the day. Leila didn't pick up her fork. “Mom?”

Her mother didn't reach for her silverware, either. She looked at Leila. “Haven't you ever wanted to…oh, revisit some happy time in your life? Maybe see if you can't distill whatever it was that made you so happy and take it with you?”

“I miss Daddy enough that sometimes I hear the certain sound of a car engine outside and turn, expecting to see him come in the door. Does that count?”

Oh, that had been cruel, but Leila was still almost glad to see her mother blanch.

“I loved him, too, you know.”

“Then why… So quickly?”

Now, at last, her mother met her eyes squarely. “I'm not thirty-two, Leila. I'm sixty-four. A year goes so quickly for me, but it's also more ominous than it used to be. I don't have so many to waste, you see.”

“Don't say that!”

“Why not? It's true.”

Suddenly Leila did pick up her fork and knife, not sure after all that she wanted to hear the rest of what her mother intended to say.

After a silent, reflective moment, Joanne followed her example and took a sip of soup. But then she laid the
spoon back down with a decisive click on the china plate beneath the bowl.

“I flew to San Diego last week. That's why I didn't return your calls.”

Leila set down the fork, her hand nerveless. “Is that where he lives?”

Her mother nodded. “Yes. He has a beautiful home. Leila, seeing Robert again was wonderful. I felt shy and young, and we talked as if we hadn't been apart at all—except, of course, I told him all about Walt and you and Jon. And he talked about his wife and children. I got to meet his son! He looks extraordinarily like his father. I wished you were there.”

“But you didn't even tell me you were going,” Leila replied.

They looked at each other.

“I'm telling you about the visit now,” Joanne said quietly.

Dread seized Leila. “That's not all, though, is it?”

Her mother hesitated, shook her head. “No.” Her voice was still soft, perhaps tremulous. “Leila, he asked me again to marry him.”

Leila had never—well, barely—heard of this man, and he wanted to marry her mother and take her away.

“But…what about Dad?” she asked, sounding like a small, bewildered child.

“Honey…” Joanne reached out a hand.

Leila jerked hers back, not letting herself see the hurt look on her mother's face she caused.

“You said yes, didn't you?” This time her voice was too loud. Other diners turned.

“Yes.” Her mother's mouth curved, but sadly. “I'm asking you to be glad for me.”

Leila's eyes filled with tears and she pushed back her chair. She knew she was behaving badly, but shock and outrage drove her to stand. “I can't be,” she said, shaking her head hard. “I'm sorry, but…” Through the blur of moisture, she could scarcely see her mother's face. “I'm sorry,” Leila whispered one more time and fled.

M
ARK WALKED INTO THE
Green Lantern—a tavern frequented primarily by cops and firefighters—and headed straight for a table at the back, where several of his fellow detectives waited. He was tired enough that he wouldn't dare have more than one beer, but the burgers here were good, and he shared in the general air of relief and camaraderie that drew them all here today after their shift ended. Trisha Yearwood played on the jukebox, the tables were rapidly filling and the levels of foaming beer in pitchers were already dropping.

The morning had started with an ugly domestic situation that had turned to near tragedy. Dad shot Mom, then the cop who was the first responder. Half the force had spent the day at the hospital, wringing their collective hands while their fellow officer underwent surgery, and the other half had searched for Dad, who'd disappeared after his rampage. Mark and his partner had calmed the kids enough to get an idea where Dad had holed up and had arrested him with no further drama. Both Mom and the officer were pulling through. Celebration was called for.

Mark was halfway across the room when he spotted Leila Foster sitting in a booth by herself. He couldn't miss her, with that heavy mass of chestnut hair she wore bundled on the crown of her head. In sunlight, it caught fire. He
couldn't look at her without imagining his hands tangling in that hair.

He'd seen her here before; she came in once in a while with her co-workers, always looking uncomfortable. She'd nurse a beer—never, to his knowledge, finishing it. Not a drinker, which made the glass of wine in front of her more of a surprise. Especially since it was already half gone.

He hesitated, telling himself that she was undoubtedly meeting friends from the department here. He should nod if their eyes met and otherwise ignore her. The first two times he'd asked her out, she'd made excuses—she was already busy, she was so sorry. Not until the third time had she either come to a verdict on him or worked up the nerve to say a firm no. But say it she had, and he couldn't do anything but respect her decision.

Still, his feet stayed rooted. There was something about her posture that was unlike the brisk, confident woman who ran the Records department, that was unlike even the Leila who had waffled before refusing him.

Her head was bent and she stared down at the scarred tabletop, somehow looking desolate. She didn't touch the wine and seemed unconscious of the laughing group around the billiard tables. Was she friends with Ed Baldwin, the officer who'd been shot? Mark had never heard any gossip to that effect. But she was upset about something.

He glanced toward the guys who were expecting him but who hadn't yet spotted him, then back to Leila. His feet made a decision before he did. He stopped in front of her booth. “Hey.”

Leila started and looked up, her expression unguarded. What he saw in her big brown eyes was misery, plain and simple.

“Oh!” Her smile was a fine cover-up. “I hear you made the arrest. I'm so glad you found the guy.”

“Me, too.” Instinct had him sliding into the booth across from her. “I won't stay. I just thought you looked—”
Distraught.
“—as if something's bothering you.”

“No, I'm…” Her teeth sank into her lower lip. She didn't finish the sentence, as if she'd forgotten she started it. Or wasn't great at lying. She grabbed her wine and took a long swallow.

“What's wrong?” he asked, getting really worried.

“Nothing. Really. I mean, I had lunch with my mom, and… Wow! I'm an adult. How could I not have had any idea?”

He relaxed on the bench seat, careful not to bump her knees under the table or lean forward. She tended to be skittish around him, and he didn't want to alarm her. “Have any idea about what?” he asked, keeping his voice low and calm.

“Any idea…? Oh.” She tried to smile and failed. “My mother. I had lunch with her.”

So she'd said. He waited.

“She's getting married!”

He frowned. Her father had died—what?—maybe a year ago? Or was it even that long? Mom was moving quick, he thought.

“You don't like the guy?”

“I've never met him!” Leila all but wailed. “I'd never heard of him! No, I had, but only sort of. Just ancient history. You know.”

“Not really,” he admitted, trying to keep up. “What do you mean, ‘ancient history'?”

“He was an old boyfriend of hers. From college. She hadn't seen him in forty years.”

“So why now?”

“She e-mailed him after Dad died. Can you believe it? She heard his wife had died, too, and she wanted to revisit a happy time in her life.” She said that last bit so bitterly Mark could tell it was a direct quote.

“They revisited and were happy again,” he guessed.

“So happy he asked her to marry him again, and this time she said yes. Which means she'll be moving to San Diego. Of course,
he
can't move up here.”

Leila was more mad now than sad, Mark thought. Her chin had a distinct thrust to it, and her mouth was set in a mulish line. After a minute, she picked up her wineglass and drained it.

What he hadn't yet figured out was why she was so upset about this. Widows were known to remarry. Was Leila's misery all because her mother would no longer be near?

His stomach growled. Leila gave it, and him, a startled glance.

“Uh…let me order,” he said.

This was the dangerous moment. She might remember she was waiting for someone or that she didn't like being alone with him. But she said nothing when he lifted a hand to signal the waitress. It seemed that the fact that he was present and willing to listen was enough to overcome her usual wariness.

How lucky could he be? Food
and
Leila.
Oh, yeah.
She needed an ear and he was here. Maybe by the time she'd shared her woes she would also have discovered he wasn't such a bad guy.

After giving his order and listening in surprise as she asked for another glass of wine, Mark studied Leila.

He hadn't figured out exactly why she attracted him as no woman had in years, but he knew this much: she was
beautiful. Not in a Hollywood kind of way; she didn't have camera-friendly cheekbones or great pillows for lips. Instead her face was a classic oval, her lips pretty and tempting, her skin creamy to go with the dash of cinnamon in her hair but lacking the freckles of a true redhead.
Sweet
was what he thought when he saw her.

Funny thing, too, when everyone who'd taken record-keeping and report-writing training courses from her described her as unmerciful.

She shifted under his scrutiny, and he realized he'd been staring. Fortunately, the waitress brought his beer and her glass of wine just then.

As the waitress walked away, Mark cleared his throat. “So your mother has been e-mailing this guy, but she didn't tell you?”

Leila nodded, looking down at the table. “This past week she flew down to San Diego to see him without telling me where she was going or even that she'd be gone!”

He frowned. “Why?”

She looked up, eyes flashing with indignation. “Because she knew what I'd think! I figured out that she must have left only a few days after the anniversary of Dad's death.”

Mark didn't point out that one year was the traditional period of mourning. Something, he still figured, was upsetting Leila more than the mere idea that her mother was now interested in another man. Was it the fact that she'd sneaked around behind her daughter's back? That she'd been the one to take the initiative to contact him? Or that she'd known him before Leila's father?

“You still miss him,” he murmured.

She nodded unhappily. “I guess in a way I was closer to Dad than to Mom. He was the world's most patient man. He
always had time for me. Mom worked, too, and she was tired when she got home. She'd be on us about doing our chores without even asking what our days had been like.”

Our.
Mark filed away the tidbit of information. So Leila had at least one sister or brother.

“The taskmaster,” he said.

“Yes, and I know maybe she had to be because Dad…” Leila hesitated.

Mark gathered Leila didn't want to say something that would be disloyal to the man she loved so much. “He left the tough part of parenting to your mom?”

“I suppose.” She scowled, not pleased to admit even that much.

Mark was getting the picture. Sweet, spineless dad, mom who had to pick up the slack, daughter who resented mom. And now mom was replacing dad with unflattering haste.

Uh-huh. And what he was seeing was the reflection on the surface of the water, not the depths that lay beneath.

“Did they have a good relationship?”

Leila looked at him, the distress on her face wrenching him, and she wailed, “I thought they did, but now Mom…” She stopped, swallowed, then whispered, “Mom admits that this Robert was the love of her life. She claims she did love Dad and she misses him, too. But that doesn't matter because now she has a second chance.”

“A chance she has because,” Mark said slowly, “your father died.”

“Exactly!” She sniffed, then scrubbed at her cheek. Tears sparkled on her extravagant lashes.

Mark looked up to see the waitress coming with his food.

He ate hungrily, and Leila kept pace by drinking wine as she talked, persuaded by his occasional question or comment.

“I was awful at the end,” she said. “I walked out on Mom. I couldn't deal with the fact that she went looking for her old boyfriend when Dad had only been dead a few months!”

She gusted a huge sigh. “Listen to me. This whole story has been about me, me, me. It's like…” She hesitated, her forehead furrowing. “Like I'm suddenly seven years old again. I'm an adult! There's not a reason in the world for me to be upset about my mother deciding to remarry.”

“Yes, there is,” Mark said flatly. “It's not the remarriage that's bothering you. It's the fact that you have to rearrange all of your memories and perceptions of your childhood, who your parents really were, how they felt. If this one thing you always believed to be true isn't, then what else that you remember might be false?”

Leila stared at him, her mouth open. “How…how did you know?” she whispered at last.

He shoved his plate away, his gut churning. “When I was fifteen, my dad killed himself.”

Leila pressed her hand to her mouth, but a gasp escaped nonetheless. “Ooh.”

“It was a long time ago.” And sometimes felt like yesterday, he thought.

At last, she let her hand drop. “Didn't you know he was depressed?”

“Not to that extent. Maybe Mom did. I've never been sure. If so, she was careful to hide it from us kids. And Dad…” Mark stopped, repressing the desire to hunch his shoulders. “He'd been a minor-league ballplayer. He was helping me with my pitching. I wasn't just going to be varsity, he said, I was going to be a star. I made the team. A senior pitched the first game. I was going to start the second game. Man, that's all I could think about. I wanted to make
him proud, you know?” He paused. “Two days before my opener, Dad shot himself.”

Leila's eyes were huge and dark but oh-so-soft. Clinging to the sight, wanting badly to grab her hand and hold on to that, too, Mark reeled from the shock of having told his story. He never did. Hadn't since a drunken confession to his college roommate and subsequent best friend.

“I'm so sorry,” Leila said—to his astonishment, holding out her hand.

He gripped it, stunned by the strength of her answering grip despite the fragility of her bones.

“Now,” she added very quietly, “I feel shallow. I was lucky. So lucky.”

“I didn't tell you to make you feel shallow. Because you're not. What you learned from your mother isn't tragic, but the way the ground's shifted under your feet isn't any different than what happened to me. Your foundation is your childhood. You've got some cracks in yours.” His brows drew together. “Probably a bad analogy.”

“No. No, that's exactly what it feels like.” Her teeth worried her lower lip. “Thank you. For telling me.”

He tried to dismiss her gratitude; she kept pressing it on him. That's when he realized that she might have had a little too much to drink. Hadn't the waitress brought her a third glass of wine somewhere in there?

“I need to go,” she said suddenly. “I'm feeling a little…”

Tipsy?

He hadn't gotten his mouth open, and already she'd slid out of the booth. But once on her feet, she swayed.

“Oh, dear.”

“You don't drink, do you?” He stood, too. “I can drop you at home. You shouldn't drive.”

She looked around, as if hoping somebody who felt safer than him would materialize. One of the detectives at the bar was telling a raunchy joke, and she flinched at the hoots that followed.

“I hate to ask you.”

“You didn't. I offered.”

After a moment she nodded.

Good enough. No, better than good. He tried to quell the exhilaration that leaped in him. She hadn't agreed to go out with him, for God's sake. She was unhappy and just a little drunk and had accepted a ride home because she apparently thought he was a decent guy, at least. He should be flattered, no more.

Walking behind her, his gaze caught by the sway of her hips in a snug gray skirt, he realized that
flattered
did not describe his feelings. A savage sense of satisfaction was closer. Leila Foster had confided in him. She was letting him drive her home.

He'd feel like a jerk if he took advantage of her trust tonight, but sooner or later he would walk right through this opening she'd given him. He'd wanted Leila for a long time.

Oh, yeah, he thought. This was just the first step.