Читать книгу Taking Back Mary Ellen Black - Lisa Childs, Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 11

“Mommy, you look like a movie star!” Shelby shrieked before vaulting into my arms. Although Amber had come to the kitchen, too, when Jenna and I walked in, she hung back. A book clutched in her hand, she studied me from behind the glasses that had slipped to the end of her cute little nose.

“So what do you think?” I asked. Although only ten and a half, Amber was wise beyond her years. Maybe it came from all the reading, or from some recessive gene that had skipped Eddie and me. But she was one smart kid, and I valued her opinion.

A slow smile spread across her bow-shaped lips, and she nodded, her perpetual ponytail bobbing at the back of her head. “It’s smokin’!”

“Who’s smoking?” Mom asked as she lumbered up from the cellar with a jar of stewed tomatoes in her hand. She set it on the counter without taking her gaze from my new hairdo. “Lorraine is a little too wild for the West Side.”

Translation: In Mom’s eyes, I did look like a prostitute. Good.

“It’s pretty,” Shelby insisted, fingering a strand. “And soft.”

Mom sniffed. “Anything’s better than it was. Did you see your father when you came in? He went out to check his oil, and dinner’s ready. You’re staying, Jenna?”

“Thanks, but I’m supposed to meet some Realtors at Charlie’s, Mrs. Black.” She winked at me. “They give me referrals for free drinks.”

“You need to eat. You’re too skinny. It’s all ready to go on the table. Goulash.” Mom routinely fed the neighborhood, sending dishes to ailing neighbors, cooking for funerals and open houses.

Jenna’s stomach rumbled. “One plate, and I’ll get Mr. Black.”

“Wait, Jenna. You didn’t meet the girls.” I slid an arm around Amber’s thin shoulders. “This is Amber. And this little monkey is Shelby. Girls, this is—” Was. But I was hoping. “My oldest and closest friend, Jenna O’Brien.”

“Nice to meet you,” Amber mumbled, shyly but politely.

“How come you never came to our old house?” Shelby asked with a child’s inquisitiveness. “Weren’t you friends there?”

“I was really busy,” Jenna hedged. “But that’s no excuse to let a friend slip away.” Jenna caught my eye before she went outside to get my dad.

Dinner was a wild affair. Grandma was still suffering the effects of too much tea. And Dad and Jenna had taken a while and a few beers before they’d made their way into the house. Shelby was on, entertaining Jenna with all her considerable charm, while Amber sat back and watched everyone with amusement shining in her eyes.

“So you come into my store and steal my help away, Jenna O’Brien, and then you have the nerve to sit at my table and eat my food!” Daddy shouted, lifting his hand as if to cuff her, but just squeezing her neck with affection.

“If I don’t, you’ll keep shoveling it in until you explode,” she sassed back with a wink at the girls, who giggled at her bravery. Despite their having lived with him for a while, Daddy still intimidated them with his booming voice and gruff teasing.

But Daddy was the only grandfather they had; Eddie’s parents had died when he was in his teens. I’d always felt sorry for him because of that. Even as crazy as my parents sometimes made me, I couldn’t imagine life without either of them.

“Jenna’s right. You need to watch your weight. You know what the doctor said—” Mom began.

Daddy lifted his hand, waving away medical advice. “What does he know with that fancy education?” Obviously Daddy thought the eight years of schooling that he’d had before the nuns had kicked him out for brawling gave him more sense than a doctor who’d gone to college and medical school.

“Daddy, Mom’s right. You need to take better care of yourself.” Mom shot me a smile for my support. She really did worry about Daddy, loved him even after all their years together. Maybe that was why she nagged him; she was scared of losing him the way she’d lost her father. Could it be why she nagged me? Because she cared? No, nobody could care that much.

“Strong like bear!” Daddy growled, flexing his burly arms.

The girls squealed. He pounded on the table, making the plates dance. Grandma choked on an overcooked noodle. I thumped her back with one hand while I handed Amber a napkin for the milk she’d squirted out her nose.

“I’ve forgotten how much fun dinner at the Black house always was.” Jenna sighed with a satisfied smile, covering her empty plate with a protective hand before Mom could ladle another helping on it.

“You work too hard,” Mom tsked, nagging Jenna, too. “You need to come around more.”

Daddy spoke to Jenna, but he was staring at me. “Yeah, you do. You’re good for this girl.”

“That’s not what you said when you caught us drinking—” Jenna halted when the girls displayed wide-eyed interest. “Drinking all your chocolate milk.”

I leaned in close. “Smooth. Good save.”

She flipped me off under the lace edge of Mom’s treasured tablecloth. Growing up with three brothers had given Jenna some of her rough edges.

“Grandpa doesn’t care if we drink all his chocolate milk,” Shelby said.

“Of course not, he always has more in the garage,” Jenna teased.

“Stay away from my garage,” Daddy growled.

She laughed as she rose to her feet. “Well, I’m late. The meal was wonderful, Mrs. Black. Thanks for…checking the oil in my car, Mr. Black.”

I got up to walk her to the door. “So where do I report for work? And what time?”

“You can wait until after you get the kids on the bus. Then meet me at the office. I’m on Walker between the bakery and insurance office. First Choice Mortgage.”

“Your own place?”

“Satellite office. The broker’s downtown. You’ll have to run down there occasionally. Do you have a car?”

“Grandma’s Bonneville.”

“Is that the same one you used for your driver’s license road test?”

“Yes, the car and I know each other well.”

“So do we, Mary Ellen Black. You’re going to be okay.”

I nodded, emotion choking my throat. Standing on the gravel driveway next to her car, an overwhelming desire to hug her compelled me to throw my arms around her despite all the years we’d not had any contact.

She held herself stiffly in my arms, then squeezed back for just a second before pulling away. Had she sought me out only at her mother’s urging? Or, as a divorced woman herself, had she understood how alone I felt, how much I needed a friend now? And did she need one, too? I wanted to be that friend again.

“I missed you,” I admitted. “And I’m sorry.”

“Eddie’s your past, Mary Ellen. Forget him.”

I shook my head, tumbling my new hairdo. “I can’t. I have to think of the girls. He’s their father.”

“They’re great girls. If they came out that big, I might have considered it. But raising babies, having someone completely helpless, completely dependent on me…” She shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. “You’ll figure things out, Mary Ellen. And if you don’t, you’ll get by. That’s what most of us do.” I watched her get into her shiny black Cadillac. If she were just getting by, I could handle that.

“How come we never see Daddy anymore?” Shelby asked as I pulled the blanket to her chin. Amber, lying next to her in the old double bed that had been mine, turned from the light to face me. She wanted an answer, too, but from the sorrow in her eyes, I guessed that she already knew.

“We don’t all live together anymore, Shelby…”

“I know. We’re divorced—”

“No, sweetie, just your father and I are divorced.”

“A divorce affects the whole family,” Amber said with her usual sobering wisdom.

“Our family got divorced?” Shelby asked.

Before I could think of a response, Amber answered. “Yeah, but Dad was gone before that. He’s always cared about his restaurant more than us, Shelby.”

Could I argue with the truth? The resentful ex-wife in me wanted to wholeheartedly agree, but the mother in me wouldn’t allow it. “Your father loves you both very much, Amber.” And I truly believed he did, as much as Eddie could love anyone.

“He loves the restaurant more, Mom. I heard you say that to him a bunch of times.”

Waiting until the girls had gone to bed to have our fights hadn’t worked, apparently, not even in a house the size of the one we’d lost. Not that we’d fought all that often. I hadn’t wanted to nag Eddie, not the way Mom nagged Daddy. But I had to face the fact that I’d had a lot of resentment, even before the divorce, more directed toward the restaurant than the twenty-year-old waitress—and apparently so did my girls.

“I was mad when I said that, Amber. You know how when you’re mad you say things you don’t mean.” Liar. “Like when you call Shelby names…”

Amber’s lips quirked up in a smile. “Well, sometimes I mean those. I hate sharing a bed with her. She’s a hog, and she snores!”

“Do not!” Shelby protested vehemently.

“How would you know? You’re sleeping when you’re snoring. You can’t know what you’re doing when you’re sleeping!”

Heck, I didn’t know what I was doing when I was awake. There was no guidebook for how to handle divorce, nothing that applied to every situation and every child. My girls were smart. They deserved honesty. But they also deserved a father.

“Okay, girls, how about we visit your dad?”

“Where?” Amber asked, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Since I didn’t know where he was living, I had no choice. “We’ll go to the restaurant. Tomorrow’s Saturday. We’ll have a girls’ day out. We’ll have lunch and go to the mall. I’m starting my new job on Monday. I need a few clothes. You both need some new shoes.”

“Shoes…” Shelby sighed, her eyelids drooping as she drifted off to sleep to dream of new shoes. She was definitely my child.

Amber studied me a while longer; I knew the cadence of crickets never echoed inside her head. “Do you want to show Dad your new hair, Mom? Do you think it’ll make him change his mind about the divorce?”

Had she been listening to my mother? I had to find a place of our own. Of course, a reconciliation was what she wanted. Until I’d come to my senses in the form of the foreclosure notice, it had been what I wanted, too, to salvage my family. But Eddie wasn’t my family any longer; my girls were.

“Honey, are you hoping…”

“I’m not, Mom, okay?” She reached out to flip off the light, but I caught her hand and held it back. Then after slipping off Amber’s glasses, I stared into her eyes, swimming with unshed tears.

“It’s okay to hope, Amber. It’s okay to dream. But dream about things you can get with your brains and your ambition. Don’t hope for your father and me to get back together. It’s not going to happen.”

“Because of that ’ho?”

My mother wasn’t the only one she’d been listening to; evidently Grandma had shared a new word with the girls. I bit my tongue to hold in a laugh. “Amber!”

“Mom, once he sees you looking like that—”

I touched a lock of the soft hair. “I didn’t do this for your father, Amber. I did it for me.”

And it felt good. It felt damn good to do something for me.

“We’ll go see your father tomorrow, and we’ll talk about setting something up so that you can see him more. That’s all we’re doing. Okay?” And a visit was long overdue. Eddie didn’t deserve them, wouldn’t support them, but they needed him.

She nodded.

“I love you, Amber.” I kissed her forehead and stood up to head for the door and the couch in my father’s den.

“Mom?” I stopped and grasped the door frame, my stomach clenching. What now? “Don’t forget about shoe shopping, okay?”

Oh, yeah…despite her brains, this one was mine, too.