Threads of Steel (Bayou Cove) (4 page)

She saw him from the corner of his eye as she reached her car. Today, Doug’s strong shoulder looked inviting. With a sigh, she watched him get into his golf cart.

Within minutes she was in traffic heading toward the hospital, not believing any of this could actually be happening. But one look in the rearview mirror at the patrol car following her told her that it was real, and no matter what she did, she’d have to deal with what her father had done.

Again.

* * *

Carl Martin
LaFaire
lay in a bed in ICU barely making a hump under the sheet. Anna Marie stood at his side shocked to see an old man in the body where a strong, robust male used to be. He’d be in his late fifties now, she assumed, but the years had not been kind to him. Prison life had been hard.

She walked to his bedside. Carefully avoiding numerous tubes and wires attached to his body, she placed her hand over one of his that lay limp and lifeless. For a long moment she stared at the man who had given her life, but who had not been part of that life for decades.

“Is he your father?” one of the officers asked.

His words surprised her. She’d forgotten the two police officers had followed her into the room.

“Yes, he’s my father. Even after all this time, I’d recognize him anywhere.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss
LaFaire
. If you need anything, please call the department, and we’ll try our best to help you.”

The officers walked away, leaving her alone with her father. Anna Marie tried to reconcile the fact that this shadow of a man was the same one who had made her life and her mother’s life a living hell. She closed her eyes and envisioned Carl
LeFaire
in his twenties. She’d never forget the words he’d said one day when he was sober. That day was as clear to her as it was almost
thirty years ago when he took her on his lap, the only time she ever remembered him holding her. “You’re my little ray of sunshine in this life filled with nothing but black clouds.”

She didn’t understand his words then, but now she knew how horrible his life had been. With few skills and even less self-esteem, her father spent his days moving from one bar to the next, picking up odd jobs here and there, and waiting in the unemployment office until he gave up and simply stayed drunk.

As a child she longed to have the man back who had held her that day. She’d seen the warmth in him that others had forgotten—but she never saw him that way again. When she thought about him in prison for armed robbery, she wondered which man sat in his cell. Had he mellowed? Become religious?
Angry?
And most of all she wondered if he ever missed his family.

“How could you pretend Mom and I didn’t exist?” she whispered as she
took  his
hand. The bones were almost visible through his thin skin.

“Excuse me. Are you Mr.
LeFaire’s
daughter?”

She looked up. “Yes, I’m Anna Marie.”

The nurse standing in the doorway held a clipboard next to her chest. “I’m glad someone located you, and, uh, I’m sorry about your father.”

A sudden lump clogged her throat. She looked away from the nurse. Was she really sorry? Did she know he’d killed an innocent woman because he was too drunk to control the car he drove?

“Thank you. He’s my father, but I haven’t seen him in many years.” She chewed her bottom lip. “Will he survive?”

“Probably not.
The doctors put him on life-support only because they couldn’t identify him right away. He’s not showing any signs of activity in the brain.” The woman stood next to her, even though Anna Marie hadn’t heard her walk from the door to the bed. “Before you leave, I’d like you to stop by my desk so we can talk about your options.”

She nodded though she didn’t want to consider options about the life of a man she no longer knew, a man who obviously had cut ties with his family because he didn’t want the hassle of having a wife and a daughter.

Unexpected tears burned her eyes.

When she realized she was alone, she let the tears flow down her face.

Her insides ached, and except for the whooshing of the respirator and beeping of several machines, the quiet in the room was deafening.

“Oh, Dad, why didn’t you let us
love
you?”

* * *

Anna Marie drove back to the hotel in a daze. The traffic congestion was nothing but a blur. She wasn’t even sure how she made it back to the hotel as she pulled into her parking spot. She sat and stared into the crowded parking lot. Her body didn’t want to function, but her brain worked in overdrive. She couldn’t stop seeing her father lying motionless in bed, waiting for her to give the okay to pull the plug. Then her mind envisioned Miss Ellie lying in the funeral home because of what her father had done.

She imagined people staring at her as she would walk into the funeral home tomorrow night to pay her respects. Would they act as if they didn’t see her or would they confront her? Maybe she shouldn’t go at all.

If there were some way she could become that nobody who walked the halls of Bayou Cove High School, she would. She’d welcome that kind of anonymity today
.
She didn’t want to face a community who loved Miss Ellie. She wanted to be alone to mourn the loss of the woman who was like a second mother to her and not be ridiculed once more for what her dad had done.

But, she was a realist. She had never believed coming home for the funeral would be easy, but now going into that funeral home would be the hardest thing she ever did.

She grabbed her purse then marched up the stairs to her room before she did something stupid like throwing herself on the pavement and hoping a car would run over her.

That experience wouldn’t prove to be any worse than anything she’d have to do in the next couple of days.

She pulled her phone out of her purse to check her messages. Along with it came the note with
Doti’s
message. It lay on the bed several seconds before Anna Marie lifted it, read the lines, then stuck it back into her purse. How could she possibly think about
Doti
and her past indiscretions with Ronnie when she now had to deal with her present problems?

She flipped open her cell phone.

“Nancy, can you talk?”

“I can always talk to you. Hold on just a minute.”

Nancy’s voice eased over her like a warm shower after a stressful day at the office.
Sweet Nancy.
She’d been the one constant in her life, and for that she’d always love her.

She wondered how they managed to have anything in common. With her own hectic schedule and Nancy’s family responsibilities, they hardly managed an entire phone conversation, but when they were together, it was as though they’d never been apart.

Nancy had never left Bayou Cove. Here, she and Harry had made a good life for themselves and their children, but Anna Marie wondered if Nancy ever felt as if she were still standing on the outside looking in because that’s how she felt in Bayou Cove. In spite of the fact that she was the part-owner of a successful company, here she’d always be the poor girl from the wrong side of town with a father in prison. Where was the self-confident and the ambitious woman who made her mark on the business world in the city of New Orleans?

Maybe that’s why she and Nancy still cherished each other’s friendship. They’d both grown up wearing hand-me-downs or homemade clothes. They shared childhood secrets, growing pains, and teenage miseries that no one understood but them and Miss Ellie, and, of course,
Doti
.

While she listened to the background noises from Nancy’s family from over the phone, she let her mind wander to a time when she and Nancy and
Doti
clung to each other.

As children the three of them loved crawling under one of their high back porches to play dolls and talk about the mysteries of growing up. Under those houses away from the rest of the world, they could forget the bad in their lives and pretend that life was wonderful.

Looking back now, it seemed the growing up came too fast. They couldn’t hide under the porches forever.

In what seemed a blink of the eye, the three of them had gone on their first date in the summer of their sophomore year. That’s the year they met Miss Ellie, and from that year on, Miss Ellie had become part of the privileged few who shared their most intimate secrets. She made them feel special and tried her best to ease them through the difficult high school years.

Anna Marie heard Nancy’s voice in the background over the phone, bringing back memories of her voice from the spring of their senior year.

“Do you think any will fit?” asked Nancy as Anna Marie walked next to her on their way to Miss Ellie’s.

Anna Marie waved to
Doti
who waited for them at the corner of Miss Ellie’s street.

“I hope so,” she said. “We’re pretty normal size, and Miss Ellie said these dresses would look great on us. She’s usually right.” Anna Marie crossed her fingers. “I hope they’re pretty and
don’t look
like something from the sixties.”

“She wouldn’t do that to us,” Nancy said. “I’m going with Harry so I really want to look good.”

“And I’m going with Ronnie. I have to pinch myself when I think about him asking me to go to Prom.” Anna Marie fanned herself.

When they reached
Doti
, she fell in step with them and immediately started talking. “Mama brought home a dress from my cousin. It’s hideous. God, I hope Miss Ellie has something better. I’ll just die if I have to wear that fluffy green thing.”

Anna Marie agreed. “I’ll die too if these dresses don’t work. Mama said she’d call one of the ladies she cleans houses for to see if I could borrow one of her daughter’s dresses. I panicked. It would be all over school if I showed up in a dress from someone in our class. I just wouldn’t go.”

“You’d break a date with Ronnie?”
Doti
rolled her eyes. “Sure you would. If you don’t want him, I’ll go in your place. I’d even wear that green dress if it meant going out with him.”

Anna Marie thought how lucky she was that the most gorgeous guy in school had asked her to her Senior Prom.

They talked about where they’d eat and who was going with whom until they reached the sidewalk in front of Angela Mason’s house. As if it were taboo territory, they all got quiet and walked a little faster, but before the three of them passed her yard, the blond cheerleader opened the front door and bounced down the steps. When Angela spotted them, she waved and headed toward her little red sports car that her grandfather gave her as an early graduation present.

“Oh, geez,”
Doti
said. “She sees us.”

Anna Marie groaned, but raised her hand.
“Hi, Angela.”
Then under her breath, she said, “There’s no way she knows why we’re on her street.”

“Hey, girls.
On your way to see Miss Ellie?”
Angela said and smirked as she threw her purse on the front seat.

“She knows,” whispered Nancy in a screech.”

“No way.
She can’t,” said
Doti
, then waved back and yelled toward Angela. “Miss Ellie has some papers for us.”

“That’s lame,” said Anna Marie, who hurried past Angela’s gate. “Come on before she follows us.”

The three of them quickened their pace. Anna Marie’s heart thumped in her throat. Tears burned her eyes. “I hate this. I hate all this.”

Nancy put a hand on her arm. “
It’s
okay, Anna Marie. She doesn’t know. Look. She backed out and is heading the other way.”

Anna Marie glanced back, but tears of humiliation burned her eyes.

When they reached Miss Ellie’s gate, all three of them looked back down the street. No Angela in sight.

Miss Ellie’s leaded glass door opened and she stepped out on the porch with a smile on her face. “Girls, I’m so glad you got here. Wait ‘til you see what I have for you.”

Just the sight of the little lady with her warm smile brushed away the indignity of having to take a hand-me-down Prom dress.

When Anna Marie stepped up on the porch, she threw her arms around Miss Ellie. Her
beloved counselor hugged her back and held her for a long moment as if she knew the courage it took to show up.

Even today Anna Marie could feel the soft pat of Miss Ellie’s hand on her back, telling her she understood the hurt that lay right below the surface.

“I’m here. Are you still there?”

Nancy’s words brought her back to the present. “I’m still here,” Anna Marie said into the phone. “I guess my mind wandered a little bit.”

“Gee, I can’t imagine why. I’m surprised you’re not in the bar getting drunk after what you’ve been through in the last couple of hours.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“I was kidding, Anna.
Just kidding.”