Secrets, Lies, and Online Dating: Three Generations Learn to Love Again (Women's Fiction)

by Sylvia McDaniel

  “How was your trip to Texas? I didn’t think you were coming home quite so soon.”

  That was a topic she really didn’t want to discuss. The sight of her father and his girlfriend made her stomach crawl. They were just so ewwww.

  Katie shook her head. “It was boring. Daddy’s got a new girlfriend who’s a female wrestler and all he wanted to do was talk about how wonderful she is.” She shivered. “She can’t cook and all they did was kiss all the time. It was gross. I left early.”

  Jake gazed at Katie, excitement on his face. “Babe, you didn’t tell me she was a wrestler. I bet she was a hot chick! Maybe she’s into mud wrestling.”

  Katie gave him a playful pat. “That’s just gross. To think, my Dad is dating a woman with enough muscles to take him out.”

  “Bet she’d be fun to watch,” Jake said with a leer, and Katie watched her mother stiffen visibly on the couch. This wasn't good.

  “You aren’t allowed to watch. You’re off the market.”

  Katie glanced over at her mother to see if she’d caught the reference he was off the market.

  “How long have you two been seeing each other?” her mother asked, right on cue.

  She laid her head on Jake’s shoulder and smiled up at him. “Since October.”

  “What? But you haven’t said anything. Why?” Marianne asked.

  “I didn’t think the time was right,” Katie lied. She’d been angry with her mother, but now after watching her father with the female wrestler, she was trying to make amends, without having to apologize.

  “And now it is?” Marianne asked. Her face had an oddly stressful look.

  “We want to spend the holidays together.”

  Jake brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it, sending delicious shivers through her. “I’m going to take her home to meet my parents.”

  Her mother took a deep breath and slowly released it. That was never a good sign as far as Katie was concerned. Usually, that meant she was about thirty seconds from a full meltdown. Katie held her breath, waiting for the explosions.

  “Well, you’re old enough to make your own decisions about where you want to spend the holidays. It’s still several weeks away and you need to get through the end of the semester.”

  Shock filled Katie at her mother’s lack of a reaction to Jake’s announcement of meeting his parents and spending the holidays with him. She’d expected her to be upset.

  “How are your grades?” Marianne asked.

  Katie shrugged her shoulder. “Okay, I guess.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “They’re fine, mother,” Katie responded in a clipped tone, knowing they weren’t the best, but she was doing homework for two, plus partying with Jake. “What about yours?”

  “I can honestly admit I’ve been struggling all semester,” Marianne said.

  Jake laughed. “Welcome to my world. I’ve only had to drop one class this semester. I have a paper due on Monday that Katie’s going to help me with.”

  She grinned at him. “I wrote it while I was in Texas.”

  “Atta girl.”

  “You wrote his paper,” her mother said in disbelief.

  Katie shrugged, wishing that Jake had kept that bit of information to himself. She knew exactly how her mother would feel about her doing his homework. “I’m trying to help him.”

  “Doing his homework is not going to help him. That’s—that’s plagiarism. It’s cheating and could get you kicked out of school.”

  “Mom,” Katie said indignantly, “he’s got to improve his grades or his mother is not going to keep paying for his tuition.”

  Katie could see that her mother’s opinion of Jake was quickly sliding right into the toilet. This wasn’t going as well as she had hoped.

  “I don’t blame her. If you start failing, your father and I will have a serious discussion with you. But having someone else do your homework is wrong. Jake, you need to write your own papers.”

  He shrugged. “She wanted to help. I let her.”

  “Hey, Mom, tell me again where you and Dad were married?” she asked, needing to change the subject, curious as to the location of the chapel.

  Her mother looked alarmed. Katie was certain that she’d managed to push her over the edge and Jake was going to experience one of her meltdowns.

  “Why do you want to know?” she calmly asked.

  It was too mild. Katie looked at Jake. “I’m just thinking about the future. It would be really cool to be married in the same chapel you and Dad were married in.”

  “There’s plenty of time for that later. When you’re ready for marriage. You still have three more years of college before you can consider marriage.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Katie said, and winked at Jake when her mother wasn’t looking.

  “What is your class schedule looking like next semester?”

  Katie shrugged. “Another sixteen hours of taking the same boring classes I had in high school. I may get to take one elective.”

  If her plans went the way she hoped, they would marry and attend college at the same time. She could help him and once he graduated he could start designing his own game while she finished college. They would be so happy living together.

  “Have you signed up yet?”

  “Not yet. I still have time.”

  “Katie, don’t wait. There’s three weeks left before the end of the semester. You should have signed up weeks ago,” Marianne admonished.

  “I’ve been busy,” she said, glancing at Jake, an overwhelming sense of love filling her. She reached over and kissed his cheek.

  Jake leaned into her and she smiled. Together they would be unstoppable and once again she would have a life filled with love and stability.

  “I think lunch is about ready,” her mother said. Her voice had that tense quality to it that she got when she was upset. “Why don’t we eat?”

  Marianne closed the door. From the window she watched as her daughter and Jake climbed into the car. God, he was getting Katie off focus. He was a good-looking, manipulating male who was using her daughter to complete his homework and he was taking advantage of the sex.

  She wanted to march to the car, yank Jake out of the automobile, and beat the crap out of him, but it would only make matters worse. And she didn’t want to be a feature story on the live at five news.

  All these years, she’d thought she was teaching Katie to focus on her grades, but the first good-looking male comes along and everything she’d preached flew out the kid’s brain. She should have saved her breath, because Katie was so wrapped up in this boy that she couldn’t see the train wreck ahead.

  She prayed her daughter was using protection and her life wouldn’t follow the same path as Marianne’s had.

  Why did she feel history was about to repeat itself and her precious daughter was going to make the same mistakes she had made?

  And what could she do to stop her? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whatever she said or did could run her daughter right into the arms of the bloodsucker.

  She thought of her mother’s reaction to the news of her pregnancy all those years ago and smiled. Brenda had shook her head and simply said, ‘I hope like hell you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Don’t expect me to raise this child.’

  Marianne hadn’t known, and neither would Katie, the burden and all-consuming love of raising a child until she crossed that boundary. Oh how she hoped her daughter would wise up. She hoped that she’d preached enough about condoms and sexually transmitted diseases that somewhere in that child’s brain it had stuck. And oh how she hoped Jake wouldn’t hurt her daughter.

  She leaned her head against the door and sighed. Some lessons in life you hoped your children never had to learn. Katie was about to take a fall and all Marianne could do was stand by and watch it happen.

  All she could do was be there for her daughter when Jake broke her heart.

  That night as she lay in Jake's arms in his apartment, he
held her tightly and she felt like she'd found her place on this earth.

  “I don't think your mother likes me," he said.

  “She's just worried that I'm going to make the same mistake she did.”

  He pulled her close. "What happened to her?"

  "She got pregnant in college with me. She quit school and married my father. Now almost twenty years later, she's returned to school to finish her degree.”

  Katie loved the feel of his naked body next to hers. In his bed, she felt like she'd come home.

  “I can understand why she's worried,” he said. “You're her baby and she wants to protect you."

  Katie laughed. "Maybe, but she should have thought of that before she left my dad.”

  “You need to get over that. My parents are divorced. My mother caught my old man cheating on her. She took him for every dime she could and I can't blame her.”

  A twinge of uneasiness rippled up Katie's spine. Her father would not have cheated on her mother. Jake would not cheat on her.

  "When did your parents marry?”

  “While they were in college.”

  He rolled over facing her. "I've been thinking.” He lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth. “I think I do so much better in school when you're by my side, urging me on. Just this semester, since I've been with you, my grades have improved. I'm actually passing.”

  What could she say, his grades had improved because she was doing his homework.

  He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “I think we should make this permanent.”

  Her heart slammed inside her chest, pumping with excitement. She loved Jake, she wanted to be his wife and spend her days by his side. He'd made her world stable again and she loved him just for that. He was a good man who needed to settle down and concentrate on his goals. And she wanted to help him become a success.

  She put her hand over his mouth. “Stop. I’m not moving in with you, if that's what you want. Sorry, but I’m just not. Now if you'd like to put a ring on my finger, I'd be thrilled. But you're not asking me here in bed. I want a proper proposal. So before you think about asking me to marry you, realize that I want a small wedding in the chapel where my parents married.”

  She removed her hand from over his mouth and he rolled over on top of her, grinning. “Freshman, I think you're coming out of your shell. You’re starting to tell me what you want.”

  “Right now, I want you, inside me. Then I'd like a proper proposal.”

  “You got it, Miss Larson, soon to be Mrs. Ballard.”

  On Monday, Marianne tried to keep her mind off the previous weekend and on her duties as a volunteer at the hospital. She’d had a wonderful Thanksgiving, cooking with Luke, meeting his friends, and spending time with him.

  Goosebumps popped up on her arms. In fact, it was scary the time spent with him had been so good. They seemed to mesh. They laughed, had fun, and he awoke parts of her she’d long forgotten. Her body clamored to connect with his the old fashioned way. She wanted to jump his bones and had even left before his friends, just because she knew once they were gone, she would be unable to say no.

  Katie’s visit on Saturday had all but sent her running to the phone to call her father. But what could she do? Katie was eighteen, old enough to make the same mistakes she’d made as a young woman.

  It was obvious they were sleeping together. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other the short time they’d visited. And how did she warn her daughter that the boy was using her without looking like the interfering mother?

  A nurse stuck her head in the door. “We’ve got an ambulance coming in with two victims. Make sure we have a clean room.”

  “This one is almost ready,” Marianne said, stuffing the dirty linen into the hamper. She rushed out to mark the room clean on the board.

  The automatic doors opened and the paramedics pushed the stretcher in, their faces strained, the leader’s voice commanding. “She needs blood stat!”

  The nurses rushed into the room, following the stretcher. The paramedics lifted the board onto the bed and the nurses began taking her vitals. The emergency doctor hurried into the room and Marianne heard him giving orders.

  The sound of a crying child took her attention as another paramedic carried in a little girl about two years old.

  Marianne’s heart broke at the sound of her cry. She hurried over to the young man. “Can I help you?”

  One of the nurses rushed out of the room. “Take the child into trauma room 2. Marianne, you stay with the child. There are colors in the cabinet, try to keep her occupied until the doctor checks her out.”

  The little girl held out her arms to Marianne and the paramedic reluctantly handed the crying child to her.

  “I’ll get the colors. I know where they are.”

  Marianne started cooing. “It’s okay, baby.”

  She said a quick prayer for the mother and held on to the baby girl trying to ease her fears.

  “Mama” she said, and pointed to her mother.

  “Yes, the doctor is helping your momma.”

  “The police contacted the father,” the paramedic said, glancing in the room. “The child seems fine, but I can’t say the same for her mother.”

  Marianne could see into the trauma room across the hall. Her breath left her at the sight of the young woman not moving, blood everywhere, the doctors and nurses huddled over her trying to stop the bleeding.

  “They were hit by a drunk driver,” the paramedic said, following her gaze.

  Every parent’s nightmare.

  “Dear God,” Marianne said, and hugged the child closer.

  He handed the coloring book and crayons to Marianne who opened them. The little girl ignored the colors.

  “The kid was strapped into a car seat in the rear of the car and that’s the only reason she’s still alive. The driver’s side of the car is completely smashed. He had to be doing at least twenty miles over the speed limit.”

  “Please tell me he’s in the morgue,” Marianne said quietly, not wanting to wish anyone ill, but this child could have been killed and her mother was so desperately injured.

  “Nope, he’s sitting in the city jail. Four convictions on his record and now a fifth. These idiots don’t ever learn,” he said, not disguising his frustration. Anger radiated off of him as he glanced over at the child who had wrapped her arms around Marianne’s neck and clung to her, the crayons completely forgotten.

  The heart monitor alarm started beeping from the child’s mother’s bed, and the nurse handed the doctor the defibrillator paddles.

  “Clear,” she heard the doctor yell.

  The child started crying again as if she sensed the tension radiating from the room.

  Marianne blocked her view of the open door. She didn’t want the child to see the frantic scene of the doctors and nurses working to save her mother’s life. God, this child was so young.

  The paramedic hurried across the hall to see if he could help.

  “Momma?” the child said again.

  “Look at the pretty crayons. Let’s color this picture,” Marianne said, trying to distract the child while the medical team worked to save her mother’s life.

  She sat down in a chair and held the child in her lap, her thoughts drifting back to her own daughter. Someday she would have grandchildren. This could be her daughter and granddaughter.

  Somewhere, a young man rushed to the hospital, worried sick about his wife and daughter. Someone’s daughter lay in that room, fighting for her life.

  Marianne ran her hand across the child’s head and picked glass out of her hair. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Iris,” she said, softly, her fingers wrapped around a red crayon, staring at it. “Momma?”

  The swish of the automatic doors opened into the emergency room and Marianne peeked out the exam room. A young man rushed to the desk. “The police said they brought my wife and daughter here.”

  The nurse came around the desk. “Yo
ur wife’s name?”

  “Becky Rogers. Is she okay?”

  “Your daughter is in exam room two, waiting to have the doctor check her out. A volunteer is with your daughter. She appears fine. The doctors are working on your wife.”

  Hearing the man’s voice, the doctor came out of the room. Marianne noticed the nurses turning off the machines, a dejected look on their faces.

  “I’m Dr. Patel. Please follow me.”

  “I’d like to see my wife,” the young man said. “And my daughter.”

  Dr. Patel took him into a room and shut the door. In a few minutes, Marianne could hear the sounds of the young man’s sobs through the room next door.

  The paramedic came into the room. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s fine,” Marianne said with the little girl still sitting on her lap. The child glanced at the paramedic and then went back to scribbling color on the page. “What about…”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t make it.”

  Marianne’s heart shattered into little pieces. She hugged the now motherless child close to her. How did you explain to a two-year-old that her mother was gone?

  The doors swished open again and an older couple rushed through the doors. “My daughter, Becky Rogers, they brought her here?”

  The nurse took them to the room where the husband was.

  “No…” the older woman wailed, instantly knowing at the sight of her son-in-law. She fell into the older man’s arms sobbing.

  They shut the door, closing the room so the family could grieve in private. Sympathy seemed to grip the hospital personnel. Though they continued doing their jobs, the tension radiated upon their faces. In the past few weeks, Marianne had witnessed many things in the ER, but nothing that affected the personnel like tonight.

  Later, the woman came into the exam room where the child sat with Marianne, coloring.

  When she saw the older woman, she cried out, “Nana,” and held out her arms.

  The older woman took the child in her arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Iris, sweetheart, you’re okay.”

  “Momma?”

  “You’re daddy is here,” she said.

  But the little girl looked down the hall and pointed to where she’d last seen her mother. Marianne felt her own eyes tear up. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Your granddaughter is beautiful.”