then, doing her best not to cry. Doing her best to face the rest of her life stoically. “That’s all water under the bridge, Grandpa. I threw Levi out.” That had been two days ago. “It’s over.”
Melba’s dark eyebrows drew together in a puzzled single line. “If you threw Levi out, what are you doing here?”
Claire shook her head. “Well, it’s his apartment. I can’t stay there now. Everywhere I look—the kitchen, the closet, our bedroom—I can see him. It’s just too hard for me to take.”
Gene had glanced over toward his wife as if he knew that Melba was obviously going to say something that would echo the voice of reason—and be utterly practical. But Claire didn’t need practical. What she needed—rather desperately, if the look in her eyes was any gauge—was understanding.
In order to forestall his wife and whatever it was that she was going to say, Gene quickly spoke up, trying to stop whatever words were going to come out of Melba’s mouth.
“Claire-bear,” he said, addressing his granddaughter by the nickname he’d given her when she was about a month old, “You can stay here as long as you like. As it so happens, we’ve got a couple of vacancies, and it’s been a long time since your grandmother and I have heard the sound of little running feet.”
“Bekka is only eight months old, Grandpa. She doesn’t even walk yet, much less run,” Claire reminded her grandfather.
What her daughter did do, almost all night long, was fuss and cry. Another reason that she felt so worn out, hemmed in and trapped, Claire thought, struggling not to be resentful.
Her hostile feelings were redirected toward her husband. If he had been there to share in the responsibility, if he would have taken his turn walking the floor with the baby, then she wouldn’t have felt as exhausted and out of sorts as she did.
“But she will,” Gene was telling her. “She will and when she does, we’ll be there to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself, won’t we, Mel?” he said, turning toward his wife.
“Sure. And the boarding house will just run itself,” Melba commented sarcastically.
Gene shook his head as he looked at his granddaughter. “Don’t mind your grandmother. She always sees the downside of things. Me, I see the upside.” He winked at Claire. “That’s why our marriage works.”
“That’s why your grandfather is a cockeyed optimist,” Melba corrected.
For the sake of peace, Gene ignored his wife’s comment. Instead, he said to Claire, “Like I said, you can stay here as long as you like.” He turned toward the staircase, still holding Bekka in his arms. “Come on, we’ll get you and the princess here settled in.”
“I’ll pay for the room, Grandmother,” Claire had said, looking over her shoulder at Melba.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Gene informed her. “Family doesn’t pay.”
“But family pitches in,” Melba had interjected. “We’ll find something for you to do here at the boarding house, Claire.”
“Anything,” Claire had offered.
“How’s your cooking?” Melba asked her. “I need someone to pick up the slack when Gina is busy,” she elaborated, referring to the cook she’d recently hired. “I’m giving having someone else handling the cooking a try. I’ve already got a lot to keep me busy.”
“Anything but that,” Claire had amended almost sheepishly. “I’m afraid I still haven’t gotten the hang of cooking.” And then she brightened. “But I can make beds,” she volunteered.
“This is a boarding house, Claire, not a bed-and-breakfast. People here make their own beds,” Melba informed her matter-of-factly.
“Don’t worry,” Gene had said, putting one arm around his granddaughter’s shoulders as he held his great-granddaughter against him with the other, “We’ll come up with something for you to do until you find your way.”
Claire had sighed then, leaning into him as she had done on so many occasions when she had been a little girl, growing up.
“I hope so, Grandpa,” Claire said, doing her best to sound cheerful. “I really hope so.”
Gene Strickland tried to ignore it, but even after all these years of marriage, he hadn’t found a way to go about things as if everything was all right when it wasn’t. His wife’s scowl—which was aimed directly at him and had been an ongoing thing now for the past two weeks—seemed to go clean down to the bone. There was no use pretending that it didn’t.
So he didn’t even try.
Pushing aside the monthly inventory he was in the process of updating in connection with the boarding house’s current supplies, Gene asked, “Okay, woman. Out with it. What’s got your panties all in a twist like this?”
Brooding dark brown eyes looked at him accusingly from across the large scarred oak desk they both shared in the corner room that served as an office.
“As if you don’t know,” she muttered under her breath, but clearly enough for Gene to hear.
“No, I don’t know,” he’d informed her. “I’d like to think that I’d have the good sense not to ask if I knew. I’ve been with you long enough to know that lots of things set you off and right now, I don’t want to risk bringing up any of them.”
Melba pursed her lips as her eyes held his. “You’re coddling her.”
“Her?” Gene echoed innocently.
“Yes, her. Claire,” she finally said. “Don’t play dumb with me,” Melba warned. “You know damn well that I’m talking about our granddaughter, Gene.”
Unable to properly focus on the inventory while his wife was talking, Gene put down his pen and shook his head. This whole thing with Claire had hit Melba hard, he thought. He had a feeling that his wife blamed herself for not speaking up more to change Claire’s mind about marrying so young. Or, at the very least, getting Claire to wait another year or so before leaping into marriage. But they all knew that the young never listened to the old, he thought, resigned.
Melba needed to change her opinion about Claire’s marriage as well.
Especially since he was going to have to let her in on a secret he would have rather not had to divulge. However, if Melba found out about this on her own—and she had a knack for doing that—then Claire and Levi’s marriage might not be the only one in trouble.
“Claire’s going through a really rough patch right now, Mel.”
“I know that,” the old woman snapped. “And she needs a backbone to get through it, not to be treated as if she was made out of spun glass and could break at any second. She needs to toughen up.” The very thought of a fragile granddaughter exasperated Melba beyond words. “Her parents were just too soft on her. If it were me, I would have never given my permission for those two to get married two years
