have to worry, which was a good thing, since she doubted he had bothered with his homework.
The doorbell rang again, longer this time, followed by a third blast. She smoothed the wisps of pale brown hair off Lottie’s forehead, then hoisted the car seat and the diaper bag and carried both to the door, nudged it open with her hip and peered down at him.
“It takes a minute to get her into the seat, so next time you can ring once, Davis. If you’d like to take the diaper bag, that would help.”
Davis, good-looking in a brooding sort of way, deepened his perpetual frown, but he came up the steps, stopped just below her and held out a hand. She swung the diaper bag in his direction, and he caught it. She followed him down, taking her time so she could grasp the rail. The stairway up to her garage apartment was wide and as safe as any outside stairway could be, but she always took her time, even when she wasn’t carrying precious cargo.
The woman waiting at the bottom of the stairs was obviously Grace. She had the same vaguely dissatisfied expression as her son, the same dark hair, the same impatient, almost jerky, movements. Although she smiled politely, her eyes didn’t change. She was examining Lottie, and not with grandmotherly affection.
“She seems small for nine months,” Grace said. She didn’t bother to smile at the baby, who was playing with a ring of plastic keys Harmony had given her. She continued her assessment. “Davis had more hair.”
“I probably had less,” Harmony said, struggling not to dislike Lottie’s grandmother on sight. “She is small, but well within the normal range.”
“Davis was walking by the time he was that age.”
“You must have had your hands full.”
Grace gave a humorless laugh. “We had a nanny until he was five, so my hands were full with better things. His father and I both traveled frequently for business.”
“I’m sure she took excellent care of him.”
“Of course she did,” Grace said with obvious irritation. “We made sure of it.”
Harmony thought one response was as pointless as another, so she gave none at all.
“We’ll bring her back in a couple of hours,” Davis said quickly, as if even he had picked up on his mother’s animosity. “Mother’s flying out early this evening. This is just a brief visit.”
Harmony managed a tight smile. “I’ll be waiting, and I’ll have my cell phone with me if you have any questions.”
“Oh, I think we can manage,” Grace said. “Davis’s sister has two children, and we see them frequently. Of course, that situation is very different. They live in a two-parent family.”
“There’s no point in bringing that up.” Davis sounded annoyed.
“Why not? It’s the truth. Your father and I are happy to be seen with them. We can show them off to our friends.”
The rest of the sentence was unspoken but clear. Not like this one.
“Your son proposed, and I declined,” Harmony said, “so don’t blame him. I hope you won’t punish Lottie. Times have changed, and there are plenty of unmarried parents raising children.”
“I doubt you have any idea what I consider appropriate.”
Enough was enough. Harmony lifted her chin. “I doubt that I want to.”
“Let’s go,” Davis told his mother. “As usual you’ve thrown a damper over the afternoon. Let’s see what we can salvage.”
Grace just smiled, as if his words had been a compliment.
Harmony watched them head toward Davis’s car, and for the first time she felt a twinge of sympathy for Lottie’s father. She’d just gotten a peek into Davis’s childhood, and while the scenery surrounding him had probably been lovely, the actors and script had been B-movie grade, at best.
As Harmony watched, Grace got into the passenger’s seat, leaving her son to set the car seat on the ground, open the rear door and finally juggle it inside to begin the process of trying to fasten it in place.
Like her own mother, Harmony yearned for the best in bad situations, so she had foolishly hoped Grace would welcome Lottie and shower the baby with unconditional love. Instead, it was clear Grace and Davis would take Lottie to a restaurant closer to Asheville, do their familial duty and return her well ahead of schedule. Their visits—if Grace visited again—would always be short and stressful. Eventually Lottie would refuse to go with them.
Harmony had chosen a real winner when she’d moved in with Davis almost two years ago.
“Men...”
Not for the first time she wished her own mother could be here with her. Without a doubt Janine Stoddard would fold her baby granddaughter into her arms and smother her with all the love she had to give–and was so rarely allowed to.
But that, too, was a bad situation with no “best” to hope for. Right now, in a secluded house in Topeka, Kansas, her mother was probably preparing dinner for Harmony’s father, hoping as she struggled for perfection that tonight Rex Stoddard would praise what she cooked and otherwise leave her in peace.
Sadly Harmony could only guess, because she hadn’t talked to her mother in over a year. The last time she’d tried, Janine had told her never to call home again.
From the audio journal of a forty-five-year-old woman, taped for the files of Moving On, an underground highway for abused women.
I was a happy child. My father worked in a factory, and my mother was a dressmaker who sewed and made alterations in a corner of the bedroom she shared with my father. She was always home when I returned from school. There were homemade cookies waiting and open arms for my friends.
Most of the money Mama made was turned over to my father, who decided how to spend it, but her wishes were always taken into account. Daddy was a kind man, generous in every way, who found joy in providing for his family and keeping us safe from harm. When our front door was closed at night, love, not fear, was locked inside with us.
Every Sunday we attended a church where God’s mercy was preached from the pulpit. Every Monday I walked through a neighborhood of small, tidy houses to a school where I was expected to do my best. While neither of my parents had gone to college, they saved what money they could to guarantee I did. They wanted to give me the best.
Had they lived, my life would have been different, but in my third year of college, as they were on their way to visit me, a car traveling in the other direction crossed the interstate median directly in their path. The cars exploded on contact, ending a midday drinking binge for the driver and the lives of both my parents.
The accident left me without a compass. My sheltered background left me with little insight into people who were not decent and well-meaning. My parents left me with a yearning for what I had lost, but sadly they left me when I was too young to understand the difference between a marriage based on respect and one based on fear.
By
