Karin. He’s hungry.”
Karin stomped into the kitchen. “He isn’t mine, not really. Bennie always ends up with you in the morning. He’s supposed to sleep with me. It’s like I’m kryptonite or something.”
For an instant Skylar wished she could have a single evening free of teenage angst. “That’s because he keeps getting kicked off the bed. You thrash around and when he’s had enough, he goes someplace quieter.”
“I do not.”
“Trust me, I couldn’t keep a blanket on you, even as a baby. A professional soccer team doesn’t kick that much.”
Muttering under her breath, Karin poured food into the cat bowl and petted Bennie, despite her sulk. It wasn’t easy insisting she take care of her chores—she used to watch the baseball play-offs with her dad, and Skylar could see the weepy melancholy beneath her daughter’s defiant surface. The previous autumn Karin had sobbed straight through her favored team’s sweeping victory; hopefully this year wouldn’t be as bad.
“Here,” Skylar said. “I made a snack for you to eat during the game. And there’s caffeine-free cola in the fridge. I’ll bring dinner in when it’s ready.” Normally they ate meals at the table, but this wasn’t a normal night.
Karin brightened and took the bowl of fluffy buttered popcorn. “Gee, thanks, Mom.”
When Karin was back in the family room, Skylar sat at the kitchen table, feeling melancholy herself. She wasn’t a baseball fan, and it used to drive her crazy during the play-offs and World Series to have Jimmie and Karin riveted to the television. More than once, a game had gone into extra innings or there’d been a rain delay, and he’d let her stay up to the bitter end, even on a school night. When she fell asleep at school the next day, there would be the inevitable phone call from her teacher, who was always mollified by Jimmie’s abashed apology.
Skylar would give anything to have those days back.
Instead, she had Aaron Hollister and his sister and her temper getting her in trouble. She had to be more careful. Aaron hadn’t seemed interested in Karin in their encounters, but she couldn’t take any chances. She refused to think of him as Karin’s father. Jimmie was Karin’s dad. He’d soothed her as a teething baby, been scared stiff when she broke her collarbone in the fourth grade, saved for her education and welcomed each and every sticky child’s kiss and homemade Father’s Day card. Skylar ached at the memories—Jimmie romancing her as a new mother had been one of the biggest surprises of her life. They’d gotten married when Karin was four months old—he’d simply refused to see any reason they shouldn’t be together.
She glanced around the kitchen, shivering though it was warm. She’d had such a good life with Jimmie, so much better than she had ever expected to have. He’d loved Karin without reservation, and his family had accepted them both. The Gibsons must have been worried for their son in light of her youth and disreputable upbringing, but they hadn’t shown any hesitation. If Jimmie loved her, that was all they’d needed to know.
But Jimmie was gone now. If he were here, he would reassure her that Aaron or his family couldn’t possibly hope to get custody of Karin after such a long time. It was a worry that Skylar had harbored over the years, pushed into the background of their lives together, yet still there.
Bennie rubbed against her leg, purring madly, and she reached down to stroke him.
“Hey, boy,” she whispered. “You should go in with Karin. She needs you.”
He wandered toward the door. She could swear that he’d understood, though being a cat, he had to show his independence. Anybody who said felines were just selfish little beasts was wrong. No matter how egomaniacal, Bennie was fond of his humans. He just had to act as if everything was his idea—dogs were far more direct with their affections.
She got up and gathered a basket of laundry. The problem with housework was that it was never done, especially with a teenager in the house. Why her daughter had to change clothes ten times a day was beyond her. When she was that age she had been lucky to have four or five outfits, much less an overflowing closet.
Skylar winced. Back then, clothes were the least of her problems. The police and her teachers had labeled her incorrigible, and she’d come close to self-destructing. Her mother and father hadn’t noticed—they were too busy having public screaming matches and getting arrested for bashing in the windows of a neighbor’s car or some other drunken behavior. Skylar had both envied and resented the other kids for having nice, ordinary parents who didn’t knock them around, the way her parents did when they were tired of beating on each other.
Yet somehow, for reasons beyond understanding, she’d believed in the fairy-tale family, and Aaron’s family had seemed oh-so-respectable from the outside. That could be why she’d finally gone out with him. She hadn’t realized that being rich and publicly proper didn’t mean a thing. You could still be a louse.
The phone rang, and Skylar hurriedly started the washing machine before answering.
“It’s me, dear,” said her mother-in-law. “Are you busy?”
“Hi, Mom. No more than usual.” Skylar tucked the receiver under her chin as she folded clean towels. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. But Joe has the baseball game on, and I was wondering how it’s going over there.”
Skylar pictured her daughter’s stormy face. “The way you’d expect. Karin is watching, too.”
“I figured she would be.”
They were both silent for a long moment. Skylar wished she could tell Grace about her confrontation with Aaron, but she’d never discussed Karin’s biological father with her in-laws. Jimmie was the only one who’d known it was Aaron Hollister. Well...almost the only one.
It was odd. She would have sworn that nobody had guessed she was pregnant when she dropped out of school, and she’d deliberately moved to Trident to keep anyone from guessing. Yet S. S. Hollister had tried to give her payoff money after Karin was born. Skylar figured Aaron must have put it together and told his father—but if she was wrong and he didn’t know that Karin was his biological child, or had made himself forget, she’d rather keep it that way.
Payoff money...Skylar gritted her teeth. As if she’d gone to them for support or something else. She had ripped the check in half and told Sullivan Spencer “Spence” Hollister exactly what she thought of him and his son and where he could stuff his money. He’d simply laughed and walked away...forever, she hoped.
“Oh. Sorry, Grace, what was that? My mind was drifting,” she apologized, realizing her mother-in-law had broken the silence with a question.
“I just asked how Karin is doing in school so far. She was obsessed with her studies last year.”
“She’s no longer obsessed,” Skylar said drily. “This afternoon she informed me that her geometry problems are lame and aliens have replaced the principal with an android look-alike who drinks double espresso lattes all day and plots ways to kill students with boredom.”
Grace chuckled. “Good Lord. Aliens?”
“Yes. She’s now into Star Trek. Yesterday I found her practicing the Vulcan hand signal for ‘live long and prosper.’ At least I think that’s what it was, not something rude.”
