me, she prayed silently. I want to be better. I really do. It was a familiar but heartfelt refrain, and she determinedly set out to enjoy her sister’s wedding reception.
Russell was yawning by the time the bride and groom cut the cake. It finally seemed acceptable for Connie to make her escape. The Cutler sisters, however, would hear nothing of it. The bridal bouquet was yet to be tossed, they declared, and Connie was one of only four unmarried ladies present over the age of twelve. She couldn’t very well refuse to line up with the others. It was her only sister’s wedding, after all.
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole when she actually caught the thing, though caught was too fine a word for what happened.
As was usually the case, the florist had made a replica of the bridal bouquet for the traditional toss. That way, the bride could keep her real bouquet and the lucky, next-to-be-married recipient could keep the silk copy. The silk flowers were quite lightweight and sailed merely a few feet over Jolie’s shoulder before bouncing off Connie’s chest.
The bouquet plopped to the floor, as Connie had made no real attempt to catch it, but Russell, who was at her feet, promptly snatched it up and presented it to her, proud as a peacock. Everyone laughed and Connie felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment because surely too many knew how ridiculous the idea was that she would be the next to marry.
A great deal of effort went into her smile for the photos, and when she left the room a few minutes later, a sleepy Russell snuggled against her chest, she felt like the worst sort of ingrate. God had blessed her, despite her mistakes, and she told herself firmly that she would not allow envy and regret to rob her of gratitude. Nevertheless, she was glad to finally get away.
Draping her coat over her shoulders, she pulled the edges together around her son and carried him swiftly across the compound. By the time she reached the neat little house that they shared with her brother, her feet were killing her and her arms felt like lead weights. It was a great pleasure to kick off her satin pumps, deposit the silk bouquet on a handy shelf and gently lower Russell onto the changing table.
Russell was sleeping already, but he roused as she changed him. Softly singing a lullaby, she kept her movements slow and easy as she removed his wedding finery and slipped him into footed pajamas. She dropped down into the bedside rocker with him. Moments later, he was deeply asleep again without a care in the world, his face sublime.
Then it came, the sense of awe, the vast relief.
How could she feel envy when she was here in this warm, cozy house instead of a cold, impersonal cell? She had her son with her—not only an empty ache in her heart—and she had just come from her dear sister’s wedding. Moreover, her kind, generous big brother would be home shortly, still beaming, no doubt.
“Thank you, God,” she whispered, blinking back tears as she lay her son in his crib.
Perhaps she would never have what Jolie did, but she had more than she deserved. It was enough.
Kendal gently closed the door to his daughter’s room and leaned against it, sighing with relief. Bedtime had not been the ordeal that he had feared it would be this evening, which was not to say that the day hadn’t been difficult enough. The session with Dr. Stenhope had not gone well.
Usually, Larissa tolerated the grandmotherly psychiatrist with cool indifference. Today, however, she had wailed and struggled until Dr. Stenhope had yielded the direction of her exercises to a younger assistant. Kendal didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him that his child was fixated on younger women, women who apparently reminded her of her mother on some level, women such as Connie Wheeler.
He turned off thoughts of the petite, compassionate woman, allowing himself instead to indulge a remnant of the rage that he’d felt since the death of his wife. Intellectually, he knew that he was as much to blame for this situation as Laura was and the great guilt that he carried quickly eclipsed the anger. True, she’d shut him out after Larissa was born, but he’d allowed it to happen. It was as if Laura hadn’t known how to be both a wife and a mother at the same time, and he hadn’t known how to overcome his own hurt and disappointment to help her.
He now realized how selfish and convenient that had been. Oh, he’d told himself that, as Larissa grew older, Laura would relax and allow him to take a hand in raising their daughter, but Larissa had needed him then as much as she did now. He could not escape the fact that he had been as unfair to his daughter as Laura had been to him.
It had been horribly easy to take a backseat. His mortgage brokerage had burgeoned with the lowering of interest rates and he’d been focused on turning it into a real player in the field. That, too, had been a convenient excuse.
The ugly truth was that his marriage had never been what he’d hoped it would be. Even before Larissa was born, the relationship had shriveled into cold politeness. He should have fought harder to breach Laura’s defenses of silence and impersonal interaction. He should have been the husband and father that God had meant him to be, even if Laura hadn’t been capable of being the wife and mother he’d envisioned.
Now, it was too late to be a husband to Laura.
Who could’ve imagined that she would die so abruptly, especially from something as seemingly innocuous as a few ant bites? It was Larissa who needed him now.
To think that Larissa had been there, alone, with Laura at the time of her death was bad enough, but for the child to have spent the next day and a half wailing in her crib, waiting for her mommy to come and get her…
He shuddered at the memory. As long as he lived, he’d never forget how Larissa had fought and struggled, reaching for her mother as the ambulance crew wheeled the body from the room.
He hadn’t even handled that part of it well.
Yes, he’d been in shock himself, but a real father would have instinctively protected his child from such a sight. Nearly nine months later, he was no closer to being an adequate father. His little girl merely tolerated him, preferring even a strange woman to him, and all Dr. Stenhope could say was that he shouldn’t take it personally!
At times, he wondered if making the move from Tulsa to Fort Worth had been wise. He was willing to do anything—anything—to help Larissa. All the doctors and literature said that Dr. Stenhope was the foremost authority on detachment disorders in the entire southwestern part of the country, but Stenhope’s treatment didn’t appear to be making any headway with Larissa. She certainly hadn’t offered him the level of counseling and advice on parenting that he’d expected. Yet, he’d had other reasons for making the move—specifically, Laura’s parents.
He was too tired to even think about the Conklins right now. Sometimes he thought he was too tired to breathe. Nevertheless, he still had papers to look over and dinner to clean up after, if hot dogs and canned corn nuked in the microwave could be called dinner.
Off to the kitchen, he scraped ketchup from the plates and stacked them in the dishwasher before wiping down the table, floor and wall. Larissa’s table manners left much to be desired, but he dared not do more than sit stoically while she slung food around the immediate vicinity. He could imagine what she’d do if he actually reprimanded her.
After the domestic chore was accomplished, Kendal moved to the home office that he’d set up next to his bedroom and opened his briefcase. Rubbing his eyes, he settled down behind the mahogany desk to peruse the documents that had been handed to him that day. The new office was up and running, but they weren’t yet fully staffed, so these days he wore several hats as far as the business was concerned.
Any
