despite its dilapidation, the place was really starting to feel like home. Mostly it was his family, of course, and part of it was the city—the old queen had lost none of her allure—but a lot of it was the house itself. It spoke to him in the quiet, wordless whispers that only the heart could hear and understand. It fairly begged to be restored to its original and rightful splendor. Nevertheless, he’d dreaded the refurbishment—until now.
Now he was actually looking forward to it, thanks to sweet, aloof Chey Simmons.
Stopping at one end of the staircase in the wide, bisecting hall, he placed one hand on the graceful, curved banister and looked upward. Her concern for Janey had been as genuine as his own, though not for the same reasons, of course. He shook his head and began to climb the stairs toward his son’s room. Along the way, he allowed himself to feel the disappointment of diminished hope for Janey’s condition. The doctors had warned him not to put too much stock in what had happened, but he’d been there, and the impact of the moment remained with him still. It had occurred as they were moving her, when the medical personnel were putting her into the ambulance for the trip to Louisiana from Dallas. After more than two years of unknowing, unseeing, nearly immobile silence, she had opened her eyes, looked at the young man holding the door and said quite distinctly, “Hello.”
Brodie, who had just come out of the house, had stopped dead in his tracks. Then he had rushed to her side, but her eyes were rolling, as they often did, and she had not responded to his attempts to elicit further response. In that instant, she had seemed, sounded, perfectly lucid, but to his knowledge she had not been so since. He had so hoped, had prayed, that she was going to come back to herself and go about her life as they’d planned. He wanted that. He wanted Seth to have a real mother. He wanted her not to suffer. He wanted to be free of the unexpected, unbargained-for responsibility. And now, he wanted Chey Simmons. And he was determined to get some part of what he wanted.
As he moved toward Seth’s room, he made a mental note to call the new doctors again before getting back to work on his exercise equipment. They might not have anything to offer him, but at least it would keep his mind off Chey Simmons. For a while.
Chapter Three
She didn’t even glance away from the computer when her assistant Georges came into the office from the shop. “What is it now?”
“You have an important visitor,” he announced with a flourish, “and I took the liberty of bringing her back.”
Chey looked up with a practiced smile in place. Her mother moved gingerly through the doorway, the strap of her scuffed patent-leather purse clutched tightly in one gloved hand. Sighing inwardly at the sight of the small, warped, straw hat perched atop her mother’s usual coil of smoke-gray hair, Chey pushed back from the desk and got up to kiss the other woman’s cheek. It wasn’t the fact that her mother’s hat was decades out of fashion and that the sprig of honeysuckle which had been pinned to it was wilted and browning that pained Chey, but that she had purchased for the woman any number of stylish new hats which were never worn. As far as Louise Simmons was concerned, nice things were an unconscionable waste. It was as if she simply could not stop being the selfless mother who dared not dream of anything beyond the basics for her children and never of anything for herself. Chey wondered if her mother ever even thought of herself as anything other than just that, a mother. And while Chey was deeply grateful for, even in awe of, that kind of dedication, she had never wanted it for herself, precisely because it seemed so very limiting.
Louise allowed Chey to steer her to the lyre-backed chair in front of the French Provincial desk and sat down, drawing off her gloves. She laid them atop the little pie-crust table at her elbow and said chattily, “I once gave five dollars for a table just like that at a second-hand store. Do you remember that table, Mary?”
Chey pressed her pink, professionally manicured nails to one smooth, golden-blond temple and tamped down her impatience. “I do, but that old pie-crust table is not why you’re here, Mama. What’s going on?”
Louise went straight to the point. “Kay and Sylvester are wondering if you’re going to attend their little fais-dodo for Melanie’s graduation. I told her of course you would, but she said you said something about not being sure of your plans, but it’s only April, and that’s plenty of time to arrange your calendar, so I was sure it wouldn’t be a problem. Still, I thought I’d ask and have a little visit with you at the same time. We don’t see you often enough, you know.”
Chey sat down during this cheery speech and busied herself straightening the already neat desktop as a familiar sense of guilt stole over her. She would, of course, attend the graduation party. She wanted to. And yet, these family celebrations often left her unhappy and resentful.
“The term little fais-do-do is a contradiction in terms, Mama,” she said smoothly, “especially in this family.”
With nine siblings, all married and all with families of their own, Chey sometimes felt like the lone member of a large tribe who just didn’t get it. They were all content to carry on in the time-honored traditions of their clan, marrying young and birthing babies with the same casual joy with which they might play the accordion or fiddle for an impromptu dance in the backyard. Only Chey had resisted the mold. Only Chey had other plans, dreams. Only Chey had remained determinedly single and childless, reserving her dedication for her career. Only Chey did not fit in.
“Kay says that the kids stay out all night long and get into trouble when left to themselves,” Louise went on, ignoring Chey’s comment. “She wants to keep Melanie well occupied with family that night. I thought she was over-doing it a bit, but Frank says she has the right of it, and—”
“Frank would know,” Chey said for her.
“Since his five have turned out so well,” Louise finished with satisfaction.
If by “well” one meant that they’d all gotten through high school before they’d started having babies, Chey mused silently. Only she and a few of her nieces and nephews had gone on to college.
“By the way,” Louise said, changing the subject. “Fay went for her ultrasound yesterday, and the doctor says it’s almost surely a girl. Isn’t that perfect? Now they’ll have one of each.”
“Any hope they’ll stop at one of each?” Chey asked acerbically.
Louise rolled her eyes in apparent exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, Mary Chey, most people like babies!”
“I like babies,” Chey said. “I just think the Simmons clan has enough. I mean, am I the only one who thinks that life is about more than making babies?”
Louise answered that with a deep sigh. “It’s about more than making money, too, you know.”
Chey rolled her eyes and spread her arms. “This isn’t about money, Mother. It’s about accomplishment and quality of life. It’s about doing something meaningful and being someone admirable.”
“It’s about you, dear,” Louise Simmons said softly. “You’ve accomplished a great deal professionally, and I’m very proud of you. But don’t you see that not everyone is fixated on their profession?”
“I’m not fixated, Mother,” Chey retorted defensively.
“You have no life apart from this business. You don’t even date,” Louise pointed out. “How will you ever meet a man if you don’t even date?”
An image of Brodie Todd flashed across her mind’s eye. She banished it immediately,
