Carly's Gift (25 page)

Carly was grateful Andrea had broken the ice. She'd been wondering how she was going to bring the subject up without it seeming as if she were prying. “That doesn't surprise me, either. David knows this is your home—your real home. Your family and all of your friends are here. It's only natural that you would want to be with them.” She couldn't let it go at that. She had to lay the groundwork for Andrea to be able to turn her back on David as well as England. “I'm sure that part of the reason he doesn't want to let you go is that he enjoys having people around him and there just isn't anybody better to have around than you.”

“You're wrong about him liking people to be around him. He doesn't—at least not most of the time.” She turned her hand over and wrapped her fingers around Carly's. “I think he's lonely.”

“How could that be?” Carly said, choosing her words carefully. Being needed was an incredible lure to a girl Andrea's age. The last thing she wanted was to put Andrea in a position where she felt she had to defend or protect David. “He has a life most other people can only dream of having.”

“That doesn't mean it's the life he wants.”

“But if it wasn't, he would do something to change it,” Carly said, trying to sound reasonable and neutral at the same time.

“He can't.”

Reason would not work with Andrea. She had it in her head that David was some tragic, isolated figure who needed rescuing by his long-lost daughter. Carly felt like taking her by the shoulders and giving her a good shake. “David has been able to take care of himself emotionally the entire time I've known him.”

“How do you know what he's been like since you dumped him? You didn't see him for sixteen years.”

“I didn't ‘dump' him, I let him go. There's a big difference.”

“To you maybe, but not to him.”

“Did he talk to you about this?”

“Not on purpose. We'd be in the middle of something else and little things would come out. I just put the pieces together.”

“Well, you put them together wrong.”

“I don't know why you try to make everything so complicated. David still loves you—as much now as he did then. Maybe more.”

Anger shot through Carly. David should never have told Andrea how he felt. She was too impressionable. “He had no right to tell you that.”

Andrea leaned her head back. “So I'm right.”

Only then did Carly realize how cleverly Andrea had maneuvered the conversation. To try to backtrack or deny the obvious would not only be useless, it would be destructive. “You never forget your first love, no matter what happens to the relationship.”

“Does that mean you still love him, too?”

“In a sentimental way.”

Andrea looked at her mother speculatively. “Where does that put Dad?”

Carly's answer depended on which man Andrea was talking about and she was reluctant to give David any more of a leg up than he already had.

As if she'd been able to read Carly's thoughts, Andrea added, “I don't call David Dad. We talked about it and he said he thought it would be better if I called Ethan Dad, because of you and Shawn and Eric.”

“It puts Ethan right where he should be,” Carly answered, not wanting to hear positive things about David. “My life is wrapped up in him—all the things I have or am, including my loyalties and aspirations, are tied to him.”

“What about your love?” Andrea prodded.

Plainly she was not going to let go of her romantic fantasy about David. Carly could either lie to her or confuse her even more by telling her the truth. She settled for something in between. “I've never felt about Ethan the way I used to feel about David,” she admitted. “But that doesn't mean I don't love him as much—just differently. Think about how you love—”

“If you're going to tell me to compare the way I feel about you and Grandma and Dad and David, don't. You can't love anyone else the way you're supposed to love the man you marry.”

“Something tells me we're dancing around what's really on your mind,” Carly said. “Why don't you tell me what that is? Maybe if we come at it straight on, we can work it out.”

Andrea didn't say anything for a long time. When she did, she made several false starts before she finally gathered the courage to come out with it. “I was wondering why you and David couldn't get together again.”

Carly's heart went out to her daughter. “Oh, sweetheart, that's a lovely dream, and I can understand why it would appeal to you, but it's never going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“I'm happy with the life I have now. Besides, even if I wanted to get back together with David, how could I justify hurting so many other people?”

“Victoria doesn't love David, Mom. I don't think she ever did.”

“I was talking about Shawn and Eric.”

“Why do I have to be the one who chooses?”

“And the one who hurts?” Carly said, finally understanding what Andrea was trying to tell her.

“David doesn't want me to stay here.”

“Did he say that?”

“He didn't have to. I could see it on his face.”

“I didn't want you to go, either. But you did, and I had to learn to live with your decision.”

“And you think the same thing will happen to David, and that eventually he'll get over missing me?”

“I'm sure of it.”

“He never got over you.”

“I'm not so sure you're right about that. But even if you are, the way he felt about me was different than the way he feels about you. I was the woman he wanted to marry.” She almost choked trying to get the rest out. “You're his daughter.” Without that one deception, none of this would be happening.

“You don't want to talk about this anymore, do you?”

“I can think of happier, more productive ways for us to be passing the time.”

“Such as?”

“Figuring out how you're going to return all those phone calls from your friends.” Noticing Andrea's lack of enthusiasm, Carly said, “You don't seem as excited tonight about seeing everyone as you did this afternoon.”

“No one in my own family seems to care about what's happened to me while I've been gone. How can I expect my friends to be any different? All anyone here wants to talk about is what they've been doing and all the great things I missed when I was away.” She plucked at a loose thread on the quilt. “I feel like I'm on the outside and the only way I can get back in is to forget everything I saw and did when I was in England.”

Realizing she'd been as guilty as the rest, Carly apologized. “I'm sorry. Maybe we're all just a little bit jealous.”

Andrea made a face. “Even Grandma and Grandpa? I don't think so.”

“Give me another chance. I'll do better. I promise.”

But Andrea wasn't going to let go that easily. “I know you can't be responsible for how everybody else feels, but could you at least tell me why you haven't asked one question about the people I met or the places I saw? I told you how nice Victoria has been to me, and I know I told you how much I like Jeffery Armstrong, but when I tried to tell you about them at dinner, you started talking about getting Grandma's Mustang ready for the summer.”

Carly got up and went over to the window. She folded her arms across her chest and stared blindly at the moonlit lawn. She still had her back to Andrea when she said, “I suppose the main reason I've been putting you off is that I didn't want to hear you tell me how much you liked England. When you left, I thought you would miss us so much you would be back home in a week. But the weeks turned into months, and I got more and more scared you were never coming back.”

“I couldn't leave school. We were getting ready for exams.”

“You left school here.”

“That's different.”

Carly turned to look at Andrea, but the deep shadows hid her face and whatever expression was there. “How is it different?”

“You could have asked me a long time ago and you'd already know.”

“I'm asking now.”

“The school I'm going to in London isn't like the school here. It costs a lot of money and the kids are way ahead of where I was when I transferred. At first, I didn't think I'd ever catch up, but the tutor David hired helped a lot.”

“I don't think it's a matter of the school you've been going to being better just because it's over there.” Even as she spoke the words, Carly knew she was using the wrong approach, but she couldn't stop herself. “Private schools—no matter where they're located—do a better job because they have more time to spend on their students. If that's the kind of education you want, we can look into something over here for you.”

“But then I wouldn't be living at home anyway.”

Carly jammed her hands in her pockets. “Why don't you tell me about Jeffery Armstrong?”

“What do you want to know?”

“You can start out by telling me what he looks like.”

“He's a couple of inches taller than I am and built a lot like David.” Her voice took on an animation it had lacked before. “He has black hair and the most incredible blue eyes. When I first met him, he had this great tan because he'd just gotten back from skiing, but now he's just as pale as all the other guys over there. His dad is a barrister—that's like a lawyer over here—and he's in the House of Lords because he's an earl.”

“Does Jeffery go to school with you?”

Andrea sighed. “I told you about that in an email I sent after Christmas.”

“I'm sorry. I forgot.”

“That's okay. You probably thought Jeffery was just some boy I met at a party.”

“But he's more than that, isn't he?”

“I've never met anyone like him, Mom. He acts like he's no better than anyone else, but David told me that Jeffery is one of the top students at Eton and he's one of the best soccer players the school has ever had. He's in Pop, too—that's like a really big-deal fraternity over there. There's only twenty boys, all seniors, and they kind of rule the other kids. You have to be asked to join. When he graduates from Eton, he's going to Christ Church College at Oxford, which is only about the best school there is anywhere.”

“He sounds almost too good to be true,” Carly said.

Andrea laughed. “That's what I thought, too, when David told me about him.”

“All those accomplishments must keep him busy.” Carly couldn't believe how stilted she sounded. It was as if she were talking to a stranger she'd met at a cocktail party. “How do the two of you ever find time to see each other?”

“He's a sixth former—that's like a senior over here—so once in a while he gets to come home on weekends. Instead of going to the country, he's been taking the train into London and staying with his dad so we can go out.”

With each new revelation, the crack in Carly's confidence grew bigger. “I had no idea you were so involved with Jeffery.”

“He's my best friend.”

Carly almost said, “You mean, in England,” but stopped herself before the potentially divisive words could be spoken. “He must have been upset when you told him you were leaving,” she said in a shameless attempt to find out how much and what Andrea had said to Jeffery about her plans.

“Everything happened so fast, I didn't have a chance to tell him anything. He was supposed to get last weekend off, but couldn't.” She adjusted the pillow at her back.

“I envy you all you've seen,” Carly said softly, admitting something she'd only just then realized.

“You probably think David took me all those places so I would stay with him,” Andrea said, a defensive note in her voice. “But what I didn't tell you is that we never went anywhere or did anything that he didn't say something about how much you missed me and that someday I was going to have to show you everything he was showing me.”

Carly didn't want Andrea to tell her good things about David. It was easier to think of him as an enemy to be guarded against. “He was right about my missing you.”

Long seconds passed without either of them saying anything. Finally, Andrea broke the silence. “It's hard being in the middle,” she said, a catch in her voice. “I love you both.”

“But this is your home,” Carly said. “This is where you grew up. It's where you belong.”

“Does that mean if you and Dad were to move someplace else I wouldn't have a home anymore?”

Carly flinched. Andrea was getting too old and too clever to have such sloppy reasoning used on her. “Of course it doesn't. The house, the place, doesn't matter. It's the people who count, and it just so happens your people are in Baxter, Ohio.”

“David isn't. Or don't you think he counts?”

“Of course he—”

“There you are,” said Ethan, stepping into the doorway. He crossed the room and put a proprietary hand on the back of Carly's neck. “I've been looking all over for you. Don't you think it's time you were in bed?”

It was everything Carly could do to stand still while his hand moved across her shoulder and down her arm. “You go on without me. Andrea and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Bad idea,” he said. “How are you going to take care of Shawn tomorrow if you don't get the sleep you need tonight?”

“Andrea will help me.”

As if he'd just realized she was in the room with them, Ethan glanced over to the bed. “Is that any way to treat a guest?”

Carly battled a wave of anger that made her want to double up her fist and hit him. She frantically sought something she could say or do that would lessen the impact of his thoughtlessness. “You know guest status only lasts twenty-four hours around here. Then it's back on the chain gang.” She had to get him out of there before he did any more damage. “But I am a little tired. It always surprises me how really special days can take as much energy as the bad ones.”