Home in Carolina (7 page)

“I’ll watch for a sign,” Helen conceded. Maybe she could rent a book on tape and play it loudly enough to drown out her mother’s complaints about her driving.

Getting ready for the trip had taken a day longer than she’d originally planned. Her mother had insisted on going home at least overnight, so she could supervise the packing of the things she’d need right away in Serenity. A friend had helped Flo pack up clothes, while Helen had made sure all the bills and business papers were boxed up for the trip. The back of their small SUV rental was jammed with suitcases and cartons.

Loading the car had been a breeze compared to getting Flo herself settled comfortably. In the backseat, she was surrounded by pillows and covered with a blanket, since she claimed Helen kept the car much too cold. By the time they’d gone twenty miles, she’d grumbled about the temperature, the speed, the bumpiness of the highway, the boring scenery and Helen’s refusal to stay in the left lane.

For a moment, though, there was blessed silence from the back. Helen dared to hope that they could cover another hundred miles before her mother woke and started in again. She’d like to have lunch north of Savannah. From there it would only be another couple of hours before she’d be in Serenity. Erik, with his seemingly endless amount of patience, could take over.

“I keep thinking I’ve left something important behind,” her mother said, destroying the rare moment of quiet.

“Such as?”

“Well, if I knew that, it wouldn’t keep nagging at me,” Flo said. “It’s not as if I can make a quick trip around the corner to get it.”

“If you left anything important behind, you can send your friend Betty over to get it. She has the key.”

“True,” Flo said, “but I don’t know as I want her digging around in my things.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “Then why’d you give her a key?”

“Someone needed to have one for emergencies, and she lives closest.”

“She seemed nice to me. I’m sure she’s perfectly trustworthy.”

“Of course she is,” Flo said. “She’s just nosy. She’ll use any excuse to go poking around in things that are none of her business.”

“Mom, we have all of your important papers with us. We have your jewelry, most of your clothes and personal things, even a bunch of knickknacks. What could she possibly discover, a box of condoms in your nightstand?”

“Helen Decatur-Whitney, that is not amusing.”

Helen bit the inside of her lip. She thought it had been at least a little bit funny.

“My relationship with Frank Rogers is not a laughing matter,” Flo added for good measure, which pretty much wiped the beginnings of a smile right off Helen’s face.

“Frank Rogers?” she repeated in a choked voice. Her mother had been having an affair? Why hadn’t she known about that? “You were involved with a man down there?”

“I don’t know why you sound so shocked,” Flo said. “It wasn’t serious, for goodness’ sake. If it had been, would I be moving back home?”

Condoms? A fling with a man named Frank? Helen could barely concentrate on the highway. She now had way too much information about her mother’s life, to say nothing of images that no daughter ought to have of her seventy-two-year-old mother. She needed to get off I–95 and go somewhere she could scream.

Thankfully there was a sign for a Cracker Barrel at the next exit. Even though she’d hoped to drive a little farther before stopping, she took the exit ramp, followed the signs and found a parking spot that wasn’t too far from the front door.

“Come on, Mother, let’s have lunch.”

“I’m not hungry yet.”

“Well, I am. You can have a cup of coffee and use the restroom.”

“I don’t need to,” her mother protested.

“Fine, then just wait for me in the car,” Helen said. She was about to slam the door and walk away, when her mother heaved a sigh and emerged from the car, then wrestled with the walker she’d been told to use.

Helen assisted her inside, got her settled at a table, gave the waitress an order for a huge breakfast she’d
never be able to eat, then excused herself and practically ran back to the parking lot with her cell phone in hand.

She considered calling Erik, but given his recent tendency to support her mother, she opted for calling Maddie instead.

“My mother was having a fling with some man named Frank,” she announced the second Maddie answered.

“Okay,” Maddie said slowly. “Did I need to know that?”

“
I
didn’t need to know that,” Helen said. “I’m in hell.”

“Where are you actually?”

“Somewhere south of Savannah and north of Jacksonville. We stopped for lunch.”

“At eleven in the morning?”

“I had to get out of that car,” Helen said.

“Where’s Flo now?”

“Inside. I have to get back before our food comes, but I needed moral support.”

“Always,” Maddie said, though she didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of hiding her amusement. “Having Flo back home may turn out to be more interesting than any of us thought. Is Frank going to be your new daddy?”

“You are
so
not funny,” Helen said.

Maddie tried unsuccessfully to choke back a laugh. “Sorry,” she murmured. “You might want to prepare yourself, though. Your mother seems to be full of surprises.”

“I knew this was going to be hard. I didn’t expect anything like this,” Helen said. “Maddie, what am I going to do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do. She’s a grown woman.” Maddie hesitated, then added, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think it’s kind of sweet.”

“Having a boyfriend is kind of sweet,” Helen cor
rected. “Having condoms beside her bed, not so sweet! That image will be burned into my brain through eternity.”

“Sweetie, Frank is in Florida. He’s been left behind. Once she’s here, she won’t even be able to leave the house for a while, so I doubt you’ll have to worry about her meeting anyone new. No one will be heating up the sheets in your guest room.”

Helen considered that. A sigh of relief washed over her. “True. Thank you. I’d better get back inside.”

“It’s going to be fine, you know. It really is.”

“Tell me you’d feel that way if Paula suddenly announced she was moving in with you and Cal,” Helen challenged, referring to Maddie’s artist mother whose eccentricities drove Maddie mad.

“Point taken. Drive safely. I’ll stop by tomorrow unless you want help tonight getting your mom settled.”

“No, tomorrow’s good. Thanks again for dragging me off the ledge.”

“Anytime,” Maddie said.

Feeling marginally better, Helen went back inside to find that her eggs, bacon, biscuits, potatoes and sausage gravy had all been served. She stuffed down every bite, along with her feelings.

A
nnie stood outside Sarah’s house—a small white bungalow with a lawn that needed tending—and suddenly felt like she was a kid again. She was just blocks from her own home, where she’d been living with her parents since coming back to Serenity.

How many times had she hung out here, listening to music, giggling over boys, crying when her mom had kicked her dad out and he’d left town? This was where she’d first voiced her dreams of a future with Ty. She’d been so crazy about him. Still was, if she were to be totally honest.

She sighed, then continued up the walk and rang the bell.

When Sarah opened the door, Annie’s jaw went slack. Inside a house that had always been in perfect order, all was now chaos.

“I know,” Sarah said, following the direction of Annie’s gaze. “It’s a disaster. The kids leave toys everywhere, and I’m so exhausted from chasing after them and fighting to get them into bed, I can’t make myself tackle the straightening up that needs to be done. Let’s go in the kitchen. It’s not quite as bad.”

But it was. The remains of what must have been the kids’ dinner of mac and cheese, peas and carrots, was not only all over the table, but on the floor. Sarah blinked with dismay as she took it in, then tears slid down her cheeks.

“I swear,” she began, but her voice trailed off and she sat down at the table and buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I thought I’d have this all cleaned up. I guess in my mind I saw it the way I wanted it to be the first time you came over, but it’s awful. No wonder my husband is fed up with me. It was this way back home, too. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t keep up with things.”

After her initial shock, Annie focused on making things better for her friend. “Hey, I’ve seen worse,” she said briskly, reaching for the dishes and moving them to the sink. “You should have seen Maddie’s place right after she had Jessica Lynn and then Cole barely a year later. Cal’s a saint, and he did everything he could to help. Even Kyle and Katie pitched in, but it was always a mess. There’s only so much you can do when kids are really little. Debris seems to follow in their wake.”

Sarah’s obvious misery didn’t lessen. “You’re so sweet to say that, but come on, Annie, this is ridiculous. There must be something wrong with me that I can’t take care of my kids and my house.”

“Is that something else your husband planted in your head, that you’re an incompetent wife and mother?” Annie asked heatedly. “I know I haven’t even met him, but I really dislike this guy. What did you ever see in him? He sounds like a bully.”

Sarah looked shocked by the accusation. “Oh, no, he’s nothing like that. He just likes things a certain way.”

“Spotless house, perfect kids, skinny wife,” Annie said, unable to keep a sarcastic note from her voice. “That way?”

“He works hard and makes a good living for our family,” Sarah said, defending him. “The rest is the least I can do.”

Annie had her doubts about how hard Walter worked. “Doesn’t he work for the family company?” she asked as she began rinsing the dishes and putting them into the dishwasher. “Did he have to scramble to get the job? Is his father going to fire him if he makes a mistake? Don’t talk to me about
him
being under pressure. Let him spend a few days at home with two young kids and see how he handles it.”

“His father’s a perfectionist,” Sarah said, still defending him.

“So, like father, like son. He needs to get over himself,” Annie declared, turning on the dishwasher, then wiping off the countertop.

Sarah’s mood remained gloomy. “Look at what just happened here. You had those dishes cleaned up and in the dishwasher while we were talking. I’ve had all day and couldn’t get it done.”

“I didn’t have those two children underfoot,” Annie reminded her.

“No, it’s me. I just can’t do anything right.”

Annie was dismayed by the fact that Sarah sounded as if she’d heard that lecture frequently enough to have learned it by rote. Rather than expressing any more criticism of Walter, whom she’d never even met, she simply began sorting and folding the laundry piled atop the dryer.

Sarah started to get up. “I should be doing that,” she protested.

“Sit there and relax,” Annie ordered. “This won’t take
long. How about some sweet tea? I know I could use a glass. Do you have any made?”

“There’s a pitcher in the fridge,” Sarah said. “And I’d love some. It’s funny how we never kept that in my house. I got hooked on it because your mama always had it.”

“Not anymore. She said it doesn’t taste the same with artificial sweetener, and since she’s trying to be careful so she doesn’t wind up with type two diabetes like her mother, she stopped making it. It about killed Daddy and me when she did, though to be honest we’re probably better off without it.”

Sarah’s expression brightened. “How is your daddy? I hear that business he started on Main Street is thriving.”

“To tell the truth, the hardware store is no better than it was before he took over, but he’s supplying a lot of the contractors around here now, and that side of the business has really taken off,” Annie said as she poured the tea over ice and handed one glass to Sarah, then sipped from the other. “Even with the downturn in the housing market everywhere else, Serenity’s doing okay, at least for now.”

Sarah nodded. “I couldn’t believe it when I drove into town and saw two new developments west of town and a brand-new elementary school.” Her expression turned sad. “I loved growing up here. I wish my kids were going to be here longer than a few months. There’s just something about this town that no place else can match.”

“I know,” Annie said. “I loved Charleston, I really did, but this is home.”

Sarah grinned. “I always thought you, me and Raylene, we’d be raising our kids right here, and that they’d be best friends just like us and the same way your mother, Helen and Maddie are. You’d be married to Ty,
of course. I have no idea who I’d planned on marrying, and of course nobody around here would have been good enough for Raylene. But it was a nice dream.”

“Indeed, it was,” Annie agreed. She folded the last of the pint-size T-shirts and set the basket aside, ready to be carried into the back of the house. “There you go. Everything’s done in here.”

“I swear I didn’t invite you over here to clean and fold laundry for me.”

“It didn’t take but a minute, and we got to do a little more catching up,” Annie said. “Now I’m going to go and let you get some rest while those kids of yours are quiet.”

“I’d promise you can meet ’em next time, but it’s probably better this way. They’re little hellions, especially by the end of the day.”

Annie lifted a brow at her harsh assessment. “Another of Walter’s opinions?”

Sarah laughed. “No, that one is all mine. Sometimes even I can’t deny the truth. How two kids under three years old can cause so much commotion is beyond me.”

“It’s because they’re under three,” Annie told her. “At that age, they have nonstop energy, right up till the second they crash. One night next week we’ll hire Katie to babysit, and you and I will go out for a quiet, civilized dinner at Sullivan’s and let Mom pamper us.”

“You’re not going to count my calories, are you?” Sarah asked suspiciously.

“No way. For one night only that diet I gave you is suspended. Everybody deserves to splurge once in a while.”

Sarah patted her hip. “I might have taken that concept to extremes.”

Annie had the feeling Sarah’s self-deprecating humor
had become a defense mechanism against whatever criticisms her husband doled out. She really hoped she never crossed paths with the man.

She gave Sarah a fierce hug. “I don’t care how many pounds you’ve put on, you’re beautiful. Remember that.”

As she walked home, she resolved to teach Sarah the hardest lesson she’d ever had to learn…that body image and self-image were two different things. What Sarah needed more than anything these days was to get her self-esteem back, to start believing in herself again. And Annie intended to see that she did.

Distracted by Trevor, who was trying to climb up the slide on the playground, Ty answered his cell phone without glancing at the caller ID. At the sound of his father’s voice, he nearly groaned.

Though Ty and Bill Townsend had eventually made peace after the divorce, it was an uneasy truce. They’d gotten together a few times in Atlanta, when Bill had come to town to see Ty pitch, but the truth was, in some ways Ty considered Cal more like a father to him.

“Hey, Dad, what’s up?” he said, keeping a close eye on Trevor as he talked. The colorful playground equipment was kid-friendly, but it had plenty of hazards when a rambunctious boy like Trevor had no idea of his own limits. Ty’s respect for Trevor’s nanny had tripled the first time he’d tried to keep up with his son on a playground. She must have nerves of steel.

“Why’d I have to find out you were in town from the local paper?” his father asked.

“I’m sorry about that. The news got out before I could call. I’ve been pretty preoccupied with rehab.” He didn’t
bother noting that the item had been in the paper days ago, and his father was just getting around to calling. His dad’s standards for behavior were flexible. He’d had plenty to say when he’d found out about Dee-Dee, despite his own past infidelity and an unplanned pregnancy.

“And that’s another thing,” his father said. “Why didn’t you discuss your treatment plans with me? I’m a doctor, Ty. I may be a pediatrician, but I have a halfway decent network of colleagues. I could have made sure you were getting the best care.”

“The team has excellent doctors, Dad.” He caught a glimpse of Trevor trying to stand at the top of the slide. “Hold on. I need to grab Trevor before he falls.”

He caught his son around the waist to steady him. “Okay, now sit,” he instructed. “Feet in front of you. Ready?”

Trevor nodded, his eyes alight with excitement. Ty released him, and he slid down the metal surface and landed in the dirt at the bottom, squealing with delight.

“Again,” he commanded.

“In a minute,” Ty said, returning to his phone call. “Dad, I’m with Trevor at the park. I need to watch him to make sure he doesn’t break his neck.”

“Sure. How about dinner one night this week? We can catch up.”

Ty resigned himself to a couple of hours of being interrogated about his surgery, his treatment and the qualifications of his doctors. “Tomorrow’s good for me.”

“You staying with your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll pick you up there. Seven okay?”

“That’ll work. Bye, Dad.”

He glanced at his son, saw the adoration in Trevor’s
eyes as Ty looked up at him, and knew he’d once regarded his dad the same way. Then Bill Townsend had cheated on his mom, gotten one of his nurses pregnant, and the whole family had been rocked.

Though his dad had initially planned to marry the younger woman carrying his child, instead she’d had the wisdom and maturity to call off the wedding. Convinced Bill was still in love with Ty’s mother, she’d moved out of state to be with her family. Ty now had a half brother he’d never even met. He wasn’t entirely sure if his father spent much time with the boy, who was only a couple of years older than Trevor. It wasn’t something he’d dared to ask his mother, and his father never volunteered much about his child.

As crazy as it was trying to raise a son and juggle a major league baseball career, Ty was glad he’d handled things differently, even if it hadn’t been by design. Despite the way Trevor had been conceived and the mess his existence had made of Ty’s relationship with Annie, he loved being a dad. He wouldn’t have wanted to miss a moment of this time with Trevor. He hoisted his bright-eyed, exuberant son into the air until the boy giggled.

“I might have started off on shaky ground,” he told Trevor, “but I promise I will never let you down, buddy.”

He intended to do everything in his power to keep that promise, because he knew all too well what it felt like to be betrayed by the man you looked up to.

Though Annie had been back at work for a few days now, she’d managed to steer clear of Maddie. She’d done it by tightly scheduling her clients, dashing out the door when she was free and hiding out the rest of the time. Un
fortunately, there was no way to keep that up forever. Besides, Maddie liked to confront issues head-on, so eventually she managed to waylay Annie.

“Let’s have tea on the patio,” she suggested at midmorning before Annie could make a dash for her office.

“I have an appointment,” Annie said, avoiding her gaze.

“Elliott’s free. He’ll take it.”

“I can’t ask him to cover for me again.”

“You didn’t. I did,” Maddie said, then gestured toward the spa’s shaded patio. “Let’s go.”

Annie sighed and followed her outside. For so many years Maddie had been like a second mother to her. Annie loved her to pieces. Right this second, though, Maddie felt like the enemy. Or at least the mother of the enemy.

Annie sat down and sipped her tea, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Maddie said, her tone filled with sympathy.

At the simple, heartfelt words, tears welled up in Annie’s eyes. Sympathy was the last thing she needed. She was barely holding herself together as it was.

“Not your fault,” she said in a choked voice. “I really don’t want to talk about Ty, not with you of all people.”

“I know my son better than anyone,” Maddie reminded her. “If it helps, he’s just as miserable as you are.”

Annie regarded her incredulously. “I doubt that.”

“He is. Have you seen him? He’s lost weight. There’s no sparkle in his eyes.”

“I imagine he’s upset over his career.”

“Of course that’s part of it, but it’s about you, too. He’s worried sick about you.”

“That’s not the impression I have. The first night I ran into him, all he did was insult me.”

Maddie looked surprised by that. “You’ve seen him?”

“A few times, as a matter of fact. It hasn’t gone well on any of the occasions when our paths have crossed.” She didn’t admit that she might have been responsible for some of the bitter exchanges.

Maddie regarded her intently. “You know what makes me saddest about all of this?”