“Are you sure this can’t wait until morning? You know how little sleep Curtis gets.”
“I’m sure.” Léa stared a moment at the card, then dropped it in the wastepaper basket next to the phone.
“You’re calling about Foley again, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“He was so upset tonight,” Aunt Jackie said, “after I told him about your adoption application. The poor man just couldn’t imagine why—”
“Why would you even tell him? This has nothing to do with him.” Léa inwardly fumed, hating that her assumption was right—Foley had found out about the adoption from her own family members.
“Of course I would tell him,” Aunt Jackie said. “He’s a God-fearing man, and he has every right to know what you’re intending to do.”
She made it sound as though Léa planned to enlist her friends to paint the water tower Pepto-Bismol pink. To her regret, she had done just that a lifetime ago. Aunt Jackie’s notion of both her maturity and Foley’s seemed to have frozen in time ten years earlier. “Adopting a child—”
“Should be done by two parents, Léa. And let’s face it. You’re not exactly a poster child for stable.”
“Aunt Jackie, what are you talking about?”
“As if I have to remind you. One example. The time you and Sally Miller stole her father’s car—”
“I was sixteen then—”
“And got stranded in Steamboat Springs after you crashed the car,” Aunt Jackie continued. “You can’t have forgotten that.”
Léa hadn’t. In the twelve years between then and now, she had graduated from college, been married and dealt with the deaths of her parents. Yet her aunt made it sound as though it had happened yesterday. As far as her two aunts were concerned, she was still the wild child who had driven her parents crazy. Foley was still the guy most likely to succeed—the star athlete, the student-body president. Never mind they had both changed. A lot.
“I know I’m not a modern woman and all, but in my day it took both a mother and a father to raise children. That’s the natural order of things, the way the Lord meant it to be.”
“I’ve got to go,” Léa said, figuring she was a hairbreath away from one of her aunt’s diatribes against the life she assumed Léa was leading. Tempted as she was simply to hang up, she added, “I’m sorry to have bothered you so late. Good night.”
As soon as her aunt said goodbye, Léa hung up the phone. One thing was abundantly clear. She couldn’t expect any help from her chief-of-police uncle tonight, and since she had no assurance she could keep Foley out of the house, she couldn’t stay here and go to sleep. She found herself wishing Sadie was at home instead of Europe. If she had been, Léa could have gone there to sleep as she had done a couple weeks ago when Foley had kept calling every couple hours.
After she washed the greasepaint off her face, she decided she might as well go to work. At least then she’d be accomplishing something while she wasn’t sleeping. After changing her clothes, she paused at the front door, watching for a long time before finally deciding no one was outside. Though she would normally have walked the couple blocks to her café, she took her car. There, she locked herself inside and flipped on the radio, dialing through the stations in search of the show tunes that reminded her of learning to cook with her grandmother. As she slowed the tuner knob in search of the station, a deep, comforting voice came through the speaker.
“‘The eternal God is thy refuge,’” the announcer said, “‘and underneath are the everlasting arms.’ Deuteronomy 33.27.”
The words gave her pause, and she remembered a time when she had believed. Before her parents died. Before her divorce. Before her grandmother’s stroke. God hadn’t been a refuge or a comfort, no matter how many platitudes she had listened to. Léa moved the tuner to the station that played soundtracks from movies and Broadway plays—the music she always cooked to.
At nine-thirty the following morning Zach stood on the sidewalk in front of the Pine Street Café trying to decide whether to go in. Everything about the place looked inviting, from the sparkling windows to big pots of flowers on either side of the door. Indecision gripped him. If he wanted coffee, he had that at Sadie’s house. Eggs and cereal were there, too. It wasn’t as if he was going to recognize Léa Webster, but he wanted to see her. She had invited him, and coming was neighborly.
Yeah, right. He hadn’t been neighborly in his whole life, and now that he had the label of ex-con attached to him like a tattoo, he’d likely be as welcome as a cockroach. Her invitation last night had undoubtedly been impulsive. So why was he here?
He should be on the way to the police station instead, fulfilling one of the conditions of his parole by having a new mug shot taken and being fingerprinted.
A couple of old men came out of the café, bringing with them the inviting aromas of bacon and coffee. One of them held the door open with a friendly “Howdy.” Zach said hello back and caught the door before it closed, then stepped inside. Going to the police station could wait an hour.
Like Léa’s clown outfit, the dining room was rainbow-colored. The whole place reeked of cheerfulness, from the sky-blue walls to the violet counters and hot pink seats. A big Thanks for Not Smoking sign punctuated with yellow daisies hung on the wall above the open window that separated the kitchen from the space behind the counter.
“Sit anywhere that’s not taken,” a blond woman called to him as she came by—her arms loaded with plates laden with steaming, fragrant food. “I’ll be right with you.”
Zach slid onto one of the stools at the counter, deciding the blonde wasn’t Léa. Her voice didn’t match. He looked around, taking note of the daisies that were stuck in Mason jars at every table along with the usual napkin holders and salt and pepper shakers.
The waitress appeared in his line of vision, this time with a steaming carafe and a big blue mug in her hand. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” He met her friendly gaze. She had blue eyes, but she definitely wasn’t Léa.
She gestured toward a blackboard at the end of the room. “That’s today’s menu.” She filled his cup while Zach read from the selections, the expected fare of eggs, toast and pancakes, plus the daily special labeled as Beautiful Mornin’.
“I’ll have the special.” He had no idea what Beautiful Mornin’ might be, but it seemed an appropriate name for his first meal out since leaving prison. He found himself comparing that enticing name with the clown he had met last night. The anticipation of seeing her curled through him.
“Good choice,” the blonde said, “you’re in for a treat.” A second later she called it into the kitchen.
“That’s the last one,” came the returning answer, a voice that Zach knew. Léa.
He drank his coffee and watched for her to appear in the five-foot opening behind the counter. An expectant moment later she did, her back turned and a red scarf covering her head. Beneath the scarf, he could see the strap of an apron and the neckline of a white T-shirt.
Since her
