were killed. He has equal input in any decisions.”
“As far as I’m concerned, after ignoring her because she married my son, he has no rights.”
“Shawn was my son, too,” he reminded her in a quiet voice. “He would expect us to do the decent thing for Pietra. For our daughter-in-law’s sake I’ll have to insist we wait for him, Margaret.”
“Don’t use that patriarchal tone with me, Frank.”
“I’ll do whatever’s necessary in order to make certain the right thing is done here. No doubt her uncle has been thrust into considerable pain from the shock. That’s why the doctor’s with him. In case this news has softened him, their deaths might have achieved something that couldn’t be accomplished in life.”
“Spoken by the paragon of virtue.”
Julie winced to hear her mother’s bitterness come out. Her parents had been divorced ten years. Both had eventually remarried and moved from Sonoma. Yet by the way they were reacting, it could have been yesterday.
Her mother had always been difficult. There was probably a medical name for it. Julie noticed their respective spouses had absented themselves from Shawn’s house. With good reason.
“Margaret—we’ll have to put our personal differences aside and consider what’s best for Nicky.”
“Funny how you didn’t worry about Julie and Shawn when you walked out. But for that, Shawn might sti—”
“Don’t go there, Mom. Dad’s right,” Julie cried, entering the room, hating the resurrected pain that never really went away. As usual when her parents were together on the rare occasion, her mother managed to turn the conversation ugly.
Their heads swiveled in her direction. In the past twenty-four hours they’d aged. So had she.
“Nicky didn’t ask for any of this. We need to concentrate on what’s going to happen to him. He’s all alone and sick! Except for the babysitter, he’s among virtual strangers!”
Her mother’s cheeks filled with angry color. “That’s my point, Julie. Surely you don’t think we need the input of a tyrant who terrified Pietra so much she married our son in order to get away from him—”
“He’s still her flesh and blood. She never made him out to be a tyrant. An autocrat maybe.” Julie didn’t understand all the feelings that went into their complicated relationship.
“Is there a distinction?” she lashed out.
Her mother’s misplaced anger was transparent.
“Lest you forget, Margaret, our son and Pietra fell in love.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday. Pietra made certain she got pregnant. She planned her seduction very carefully so Shawn would have no choice but to marry her and bring her to the States. Well, he did that. Now look what’s happened!”
And you never forgave her for it.
Pietra had come between Shawn and their possessive mother, but love had been the culprit. Nothing else.
Her mother’s head reared. “Julie? You’ll have to come to Hawaii with us. I certainly can’t raise a child all over again by myself. Lem will give you a part-time job so—”
Julie didn’t hear the rest because the house phone rang. She hoped it was the pediatrician.
“I’ll get it.” She ran into the kitchen and clicked on. “Hello?”
“Ms. Marchant?”
“Yes?”
“This is Katy at Dr. Barlow’s office. He says to change the baby the second he’s wet, then put on the cream he’s prescribed. I’ll call it in to our clinic pharmacy right now. If the redness doesn’t start to go away soon, you’re to phone us.”
“Thank you. He was so miserable all night.”
“It should clear it up.”
“What’s the address?”
After learning it, she hung up and ran back in the living room. “Dad? That was the doctor. Would you mind running by the pharmacy? It’s on Center Street and Wolcott. Dr. Barlow ordered a special cream for Nicky.”
“I’ll go right now.”
He gave her a hug before walking out the door. She was glad he’d left them alone. The time had come to deal with her mother. Love for Nicky had reinforced her spine.
Once her father was gone she said, “I’m not going to Hawaii, Mom. Actually I was hoping to use any money from Shawn’s insurance policy so I can stay in the town house and look after Nicky.”
“If you think you can move in here with your latest boyfriend, then you c—”
“No,” she cut her off. Anything but. “I won’t be seeing him anymore.”
“When did this transpire?”
Julie could tell her mother was pleased by the news. She’d lost Shawn to marriage, and didn’t want to lose her daughter the same way.
“It doesn’t matter. The fact is, I want to take care of Nicky.”
“We’ll do it together, Julie.”
All her life Julie’s mother had expected the world to revolve around her. Over the years the demands she’d placed on their family had driven a wedge. First their father had left. Then Shawn, who did the unspeakable by marrying without her consent. Julie moved to San Francisco after college.
Her gaze flew around the front room of the small, Spanish-style town house. Shawn and Pietra had made a happy home in Sonoma where he worked for a winery.
Everywhere she looked, from pictures to baby toys and quilts, evidence of Nicky’s angelic presence in the house surrounded them.
“Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be fair to Lem, this is Nicky’s home,” she reasoned quietly.
Her mother’s eyes glittered. “Not anymore.”
Her mother seemed beyond reason, but Julie had to try. “Pietra loved Sonoma because it reminded her of Italy where she met Shawn and they fell in love. They planned a life here with Nicky. We can’t take that away from him. He’s lost everything else.”
“Any insurance money will be put in a fund for Nicky’s college. Your father and I are in agreement there.”
“In that case I’ll find a way to work at home so I can stay here with him.”
“Have you forgotten I’m his grandmother?”
“You just admitted you can’t do it alone. I’m his aunt, and I’m the right age to do it alone,” she declared.
Her mother gestured impatiently. “You’re only twenty-four. You don’t know
