“You sound as if you’re on your last nerve,” her mother said. “What’s Bill done now?”
Since there was little point in denying her husband’s role in her mood, Maddie gave her mother an abbreviated version of the scene that had just played out on her doorstep.
“It’s plain he wasn’t thinking, but women are usually more sensitive to these things. What on earth possessed Noreen to think that she’d be welcome at your house?” her mother demanded.
“I doubt she thought about it at all,” Maddie responded. “I imagine she was just doing what Bill told her to do.”
“Or she wanted to rub this situation in your face,” her mother said heatedly. “Isn’t it enough that she destroyed your marriage?”
“Apparently not,” Maddie said.
Paula drew in a deep breath. “Okay, there’s no point in belaboring the woman’s lack of good sense. What can I do to help?”
“The kids could really use a change of scenery,” Maddie said. “I hate to ask, but would you mind taking them to your place for a few hours? It won’t be the same as going to their dad’s, but maybe it’ll distract—”
“How about I take them to Charleston instead?” her mother offered. “We’ll see a movie, eat hamburgers and greasy fries and I’ll bring them home exhausted.”
Maddie was surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Believe it or not, I find your children highly entertaining and they don’t seem to mind spending time with me. We’ll enjoy ourselves.”
Maddie decided not to remind her that she’d once vetoed the idea of spending any time babysitting them. At the moment, she didn’t really care why that had changed. She was just grateful for it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No thanks necessary,” her mother replied. “But one of these days I would like it if we could sit down and talk about why you hate asking for my help not just with the kids, but with anything.”
Maddie sighed. How could she tell her mother it was because asking for help—especially from a woman as competent and self-sufficient as Paula Vreeland—always made her feel like a failure?
“Well, you look downright pitiful,” Dana Sue observed when Maddie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen at Sullivan’s later that afternoon after depositing her surprisingly upbeat kids with her mother. “Come on in here and sit down. I’ll fix you a plate of spiced shrimp.”
“Save the shrimp. I’ve already eaten lunch with the kids,” Maddie told her, not entirely certain why she’d dropped by. When a leisurely bubble bath had done nothing to soothe her, she’d sought out the one person who could understand what she was feeling. Dana Sue had been through her own nasty divorce from a cheating husband, but at least Ronnie hadn’t stuck around Serenity to rub the situation in her face.
Dana Sue set a plate piled high with shrimp in front of her anyway. “Peeling those will keep your hands occupied while you tell me what’s going on.”
“Are you sure you have time to talk?” Maddie asked, regarding the shrimp without interest but picking one up anyway.
“The lunch crowd has dwindled and it’s hours till people start showing up for dinner,” Dana Sue said. “But even if I were busier than an ant at a picnic, I’d still have time for you.”
“I could chop or dice or something,” Maddie offered.
“No offense, but this is my kitchen. Any chopping or dicing will be done by me and my experienced staff. Besides, judging from the expression on your face, I’m not sure you ought to be trusted with sharp objects.”
Maddie managed a faint grin. “You have a point.”
“What’s Bill done now?”
“What makes you think my mood is his fault?” Maddie inquired. Dana Sue was the second person to leap to that conclusion. Obviously her life and her moods were becoming too predictable.
“Because you loved him for more than twenty years. Just because he’s turned out to be a low-down skunk doesn’t mean he can’t still twist you into knots.” She looked Maddie in the eye. “What did he do? Do I need to hunt him down?”
“I wish it were that simple. I wish a good swift kick or a smack upside his head would knock some sense into him, but I think he’s hopeless. Clueless, anyway.” Maddie shrugged. “How could I have been so wrong about him? For twenty years I lived with a man who was smart and reasonably sensitive. Now it’s as if he checked his brain somewhere and can’t remember where.”
“Well, we know he’s thinking with another part of his anatomy,” Dana Sue offered. “What did he do?”
“He was tied up at the hospital today, so he sent Noreen by to pick up the kids.” She twisted the tail off a shrimp with such force that both the shell and the shrimp went flying across the kitchen in opposite directions. She scowled at Dana Sue. “He sent that woman to my house to pick up my kids.”
“I can just imagine how that went,” Dana Sue said as she retrieved the scattered remains of the shrimp.
“I doubt it,” Maddie told her. “Tyler answered the door and told her to get the hell away from our house. Kyle ran upstairs and locked himself in his room and Katie burst into tears. It took me a half hour to calm her down. It’s breaking my heart to see how much she misses her dad.”
“And what did Noreen do during all this commotion?”
“Stood there wringing her hands and telling me she just doesn’t understand why the kids don’t like her anymore. I told her to ask Bill. I should’ve said that maybe even her little pea brain could come up with an explanation if she really tried.”
Dana Sue chuckled. “That would have been a nice shot.”
Maddie sighed. “One she deserved, but it hardly solves anything. I’m sure Bill is going to be on a tear once he hears how she was received by me and the kids. I’ll have to listen to another of his tirades about how we’re not giving Noreen a fair chance, that she’s in his life now, that she’s having his baby, that I promised to help smooth things over and now they’re worse than ever, and on and on and on.”
Dana Sue gave Maddie a penetrating look. “Something tells me you’re not this upset just because Bill’s going to have himself a hissy fit.”
“Of course not. I’m upset because my kids’ lives have been turned inside out and I can’t seem to do a thing to help them. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Where are they right now?”
“My mother’s taken them to Charleston to dinner and a movie.”
“Her idea or yours?”
“Mine, if you must know, at least the part about them spending the afternoon with her. I was desperate. I figured they needed a break from me as much as they needed one from Noreen and their dad. All this tension has taken a terrible
