Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania (4 page)

“What?”

Mac’s eyes were filled with emotion. “I am sorry.”

Sadie felt it. A bit of the wall chipped. She quickly sent gallons of mortar to cover the spot.

“Too little, too late, Mac.” But curiosity got the better of her. “What prompted this gallant reparation anyway?”

Mac stepped a little closer to her, and she noticed new wrinkles around his eyes. At least, she didn’t remember those little lines in particular. But then again, four years was plenty of time to forget such things.

She nearly shook her head. No. They were new. She knew Mac’s face as well as she knew her own daughter’s. She had never forgotten his face. Couldn’t, in fact. She’d tried—God knew how she’d tried, but it stayed.

Mac’s eyes, Mac’s smile, Mac’s nose…they were a persistently indelible image that had affixed themselves years ago to her memory. Each time he made a brief stop into her life, she absorbed any changes that had taken place and so the image revised itself after every encounter. But it never went away.

“I got God, Sadie.”

Her response came automatically, without forethought. “I thought you always had God. That’s what you used to say.”

He’d come back one summer when she was eleven. She’d just spent a week at Bible school and was filled with the love and compassion of Jesus. Mac had ridden into the driveway on a red Harley and scooped her up in his strong arms. The smell of gasoline and wind was thick on him, and she’d happily buried her nose in his leather jacket.

She’d told him about Jesus and how she’d accepted Him as her Savior while at Bible school. Mac had smiled and tugged her braids and replied, “That’s good, Sadie girl.”

But when she suggested he do the same, his reply had been flip-pant. “I already got God, sweetheart.”

It had taken her years to understand that. She even feared, for a time, that it was Mac’s jealousy of her love for God that kept him away. So she had rebelled for a while, avoiding church and the Bible and stretching her hope so thin that it had nearly snapped.

Thanks to Jasper, she eventually came to her senses.

Mac faced her now with open honesty. “I lied.”

She scoffed. “Good of you to admit it.”

Mac didn’t say anything for a while, just watching her as she finished chopping the salad ingredients and tossing them into a bowl. When the salad was prepared and the chicken frying in a pan, he asked her a question.

“You know what that letter of your mother’s said?”

Sadie pumped a palmful of soap into her hand and lathered furiously. She didn’t answer him, despite her overwhelming curiosity on the subject.

“It said she loved me. And not only that she loved me, but that she forgave me.”

The hot water stung Sadie’s fingers, and her eyes watered.

“But it didn’t really matter what it said,” Mac elaborated, “because she’d been saying it for years—that she loved me and forgave me and understood why I…” He stopped.

Sadie slapped down the faucet handle, and the stream of water abruptly ceased—just like Mac’s words.

“Yeah, well…she was like that,” Sadie replied.

“That’s what got me to thinking,” Mac said. “
Why
was she like that? What made her different? I knew how she was from the moment I met her…but how did she get like that? Was she born that way, or did something happen to her?”

“She tried to tell you,” Sadie cut in, avoiding his gaze by carefully drying her hands on a pale blue dish towel. “She tried to tell you a thousand times. I heard her, late at night, when the two of you sat up— you drinking coffee and her drinking tea—after you thought I’d gone to sleep.” Sadie neatly folded the dish towel and draped it over the lower cupboard door. She looked at him. “She
told
you,” her voice accused.

“I didn’t listen, Sadie girl.”

“Stop it!” She smacked a palm against the counter. “Don’t
call
me that! I told you a long time ago not to call me that anymore.” Fearful that Kylie might overhear, she dropped her tone several decibels. “I’m not your little girl anymore.”

His eyes were nearly apologetic as he said, “But you are. You’ll always be my Sadie girl.”

“Well, you may be my father, but you’ll never be my dad,” she shot back.

He nodded in seeming acceptance, and Sadie felt the sharp bite of disappointment.

“I’m not going away this time, Sadie.”

Against her best intentions, she felt a small wave of elation.

“I can’t turn back time, but I’m hoping I can salvage what’s left of it.”

“Tell that to my mother.”

To her surprise, his lips turned up in a small, secretive smile. “I already have. I think she gave me her blessing to try.”

Sadie suppressed a snort of derision. “Good luck with that.”

“It’s just my poor fortune that you inherited my own hard-headedness.”

“Mmm.” Sadie didn’t dare comment on that one.

“But I figure I’m more experienced at it than you are.”

“You’d be surprised how much practice I’ve had.”

He locked eyes with her, and suddenly Sadie realized he was serious. He meant to elbow his way back into her life and carve out a niche there.

Clearly, this was her month to meet arrogant men head-on. Well, she dared them to try to break down her defenses. They’d see soon enough how well she stood her ground.

She stared straight into Mac’s eyes, daring him to look away first. He blinked, and his eyes shifted. She grinned smugly.

First round, me!

“Sadie?”

“Yes?”

“Your chicken’s on fire.”

She whirled around to see bright coral flames licking the side of the pan. By the time she dumped the entire contents of an Arm & Hammer baking soda carton onto the fowl flames, Mac had gone. She tossed the empty carton into the wastebasket.

“Figures. At the first sign of trouble, he bails.”

She surveyed the frying pan with its powdery white hills of baking soda nestled against coal dark regions of ruined meat.

Jasper entered with Kylie in tow.

“We’re having blackened chicken?” he queried with raised eyebrows.

Kylie wrinkled her nose. “Kylie’s
not
eating that,” she announced.

Sadie lifted the pan from the stove. “Don’t worry, Kylie girl. We’re going to offer it to the volcano instead.”

Sadie hated fast food. And junk food. And pretty much processed food of any kind. It wasn’t real food, after all. Jasper occasionally tried to convince her of its merit, more to see her bristle than because he really championed the cause, but she refused to budge.

Fast food was from the devil, and Sadie considered all forms to be poison to the system.

But at nearly five years old, Kylie didn’t see reason with her mother’s patiently illustrated discussions on what chemically laced corn chips and preservative-packed pastries did to one’s internal organs. Most of the time, Kylie could be placated with homemade cookies (containing wholesome, natural ingredients) or Sadie’s own dehydrated potato chips. After all, it wasn’t that Sadie was against sugared or fattening foods (in moderation, of course)—only the kind that was chockful of additives and preservatives.

But children, Sadie had learned, operate on a need-to-have basis. And one moment after the chicken catastrophe, Kylie made it known that she needed to have food. Right then. Right away.

Salad had no appeal by this time, and Sadie’s own nerves were too frazzled to concoct anything more than peanut butter sandwiches, which, of course, Kylie had already had for lunch. When Jasper suggested going out for pizza, Kylie had hugged his knees with such force that he nearly lost a leg, just like his counterpart Malibu Ken.

Sadie could have ripped it off herself for his suggesting such a thing.

“It won’t kill her,” he pointed out as Kylie rushed back to her bedroom to put on shoes. “She’s young; whatever they put into it will work through her system in no time at all.”

“That’s comforting,” she replied with sarcasm.

“I promise that if she goes into a meltdown, I’ll take full responsibility.”

“I promise that if she goes into a meltdown, I’ll take your head.”

Jasper grinned. “Noted.”

So within the hour, despite her better judgment, Sadie found herself sandwiched next to Jasper in a small red booth at the Pizza Playhouse. Across from her, Kylie slurped her orange soda noisily, and Sadie tried very hard not to wring her hands with motherly concern over the amount of sugared beverage her daughter was consuming.

Jasper eyed her with profound amusement, that ridiculous grin fixed permanently onto his expression, as Sadie repeatedly asked Kylie if she wouldn’t prefer some water.

“Can Kylie go play in the ball pit?” the little girl eventually asked.

Sadie gulped. The ball pit? With its myriad of unseen bacterial microorganisms? Sadie had long been convinced that fast-food ball pits were nothing more than breeding ground oases for germs and other communicable diseases.

“Can
I
go play in the ball pit?” Sadie attempted to correct her. For the past three months, Kylie had found it most enjoyable to speak of herself in the third person. She only reverted to the first whenever she felt extremely tired or ill.

“Well, yes, Mommy, if you want to,” Kylie answered her.

Jasper snorted, and Sadie kicked him under the table.

“Kylie—” she began again, but she was quickly interrupted.

“
Puh-lease
, Mommy?”

Sadie hesitated. Kylie looked at Jasper with large brown eyes.

“
Puh-lease
, Jasper?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Just don’t put any of the balls into your mouth,” he cautioned.

Kylie didn’t hesitate either, as she bounded off to the adjoining room with the glass windows to cavort among the plastic rainbow mounds.

Sadie watched her go with a shudder.

“It’ll be all right,” Jasper soothed.

“For years, I had no idea what my mother meant when she said, ‘Worry and motherhood were born hand in hand.’ ”

Jasper stretched an arm around the back of the booth and rubbed her shoulders gently. “Hold her too close and she suffocates, you know.”

Sadie sighed. “I know. But don’t hold her close enough and I lose her entirely.”

There came a companionable pause, the kind Sadie liked best. She could lean into Jasper’s side and relax for several moments, feeling secure and protected in the warmth of her best friend’s strength.

After several minutes—during which Sadie’s eyes continually darted to the glass window to spot Kylie’s tiny figure—Jasper spoke.

“Did you want to talk about what happened with Mac today?”

Sadie toyed with her straw, capping the upper end with her fingertip and suspending the liquid inside the plastic tube.

“Not really.” She shrugged.

“All right.” Jasper pulled his arm from the back of the booth and took a swig of his iced tea.

“He says he’s found God, and I think he thinks he’s come back to set things right,” she blurted.

“What do you mean, you ’think he thinks’?”

“That’s what I think he wants to do, but it’s tougher than he thinks.”

Jasper sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

Sadie dropped her straw back into the glass. It buoyed for a moment before slowly sinking down and tapping the bottom.

“I mean, who does he think he is to come back again after four years—after everything I’ve been through—and just fire up a relationship like he’d fire up a weed whacker?”

Jasper quirked his lips at Sadie’s examples. “First of all, you’re not a weed whacker. And secondly, you think too much.”

“So? What if I do?” she sullenly asked.

“Why don’t you just go with it?” he asked.

She arched an eyebrow. “Go with what, exactly?”

“Why don’t you just go along with your dad and see where it leads?”

“He’s not my dad.”

“Fine. Mac, then. Why don’t you just go along with Mac and see what happens? See how you feel about it.”

“Clearly, you don’t know Mac.”

“Ah, but I do,” Jasper corrected. “I’ve known him just as long as you have.”

“And with similar results,” she pointed out. “You don’t understand him any better than I do. It’s not the same thing, Jasper, and you know it.”

He backed off. “I know it’s not. But maybe it’s worth a try.”

She grew suspicious. “Why are you taking his side?”

Jasper shrugged. “I didn’t know I was. But I did notice when he showed up today that he was…different.”

“Different how?”

“Mellowed. Content. Not the same old Mac.”

Sadie paused. She hadn’t considered that, but there was an echo of truth to what Jasper said. There
had
been something different today.

“You remember what it used to be like when he’d come back? Like he wanted to be here, but you could just feel it…something… pulling him away?”

Sadie frowned sadly. “Yeah. I remember.”

“But it wasn’t there today. There was no pull. There was just Mac.”

Sadie blew out her breath, fluttering the strands of hair framing her face. “Just give it some time.”

Jasper smiled triumphantly. “Exactly. Just give him some time, Sadie. Time and another chance.”

She stared stonily at Jasper. “Mac used up all his chances a long time ago.”