Practice Makes Perfect (Single Father)

by Macdonald, Janice

“I appreciate you being here with Elizabeth and Lucy,” he said as they stood in the kitchen.

  “Hey, Matthew.” She put both hands on his arms and looked into his eyes. “Take some time for yourself, too. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “YOU SHOULD CALL your dad, honey.” Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Lucy’s hair. Downstairs, she could hear Sarah vacuuming. What she would have done without Sarah, she didn’t know. “He keeps calling to talk to you and I know it makes him feel bad.”

  “Who cares?” Lucy said.

  “Honey, even if he had been here, it might not have made any difference,” Elizabeth said.

  “I hate him.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. And don’t tell me what I feel. I hate him.”

  Elizabeth’s head was aching. “Well, I don’t know what else to say except that your not talking to him is tearing him up.” She rose and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  In the kitchen, Sarah had found the breadmaker that Matthew had bought years ago for Christmas and was at the counter reading the recipe book that came with it. “I’ve used that thing once,” Elizabeth said. “But it makes this fantastic honey-wheat bread.”

  Sarah smiled. “I was just looking at that recipe. Do you have honey?”

  “Yep.” Elizabeth found a jar at the back of the cupboard and set it on the counter. And then she burst into tears. Sarah grabbed a paper towel from the roll and handed it to her.

  Elizabeth blew her nose into the towel. “It’s just seeing you here, doing all this. I couldn’t have managed—”

  “Sure you could.” Sara looked embarrassed. “Um, let’s see, I also need…”

  “No, I’m serious. Come on, you don’t need to do that now. Talk to me. I’ll make some tea.” She microwaved two mugs of water, stuck in a couple of bags of Lipton tea and pushed one across the table to Sarah. “When I heard you were back, I had mixed feelings. You were always so perfect.”

  Sarah laughed. “Right.”

  “No, Pearl was always comparing us. She used to hold you up as this example of what I could be if I studied harder. “Why can’t you be like Sarah? Sarah gets straight A’s, Sarah swims faster than most boys, Sarah’s going to medical school. Looks fade,’ blah blah blah. But I mean, I could have studied day and night, which I never would have because I wasn’t that interested, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “We should have traded mothers then,” Sarah said. “My mom thought I should be more like you. She never wanted a tomboy daughter.”

  “You want to know the truth? Not that I didn’t love Matt, I mean, he’s a really good guy, but I first set my eyes on Matt because I didn’t like you.” She drank some tea. “When he and I started going out, I felt as if I broke you guys up. Matt always said that you were just friends, but—”

  “That’s what we were.”

  “But didn’t you ever want it to be more than that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t feel confident about myself. The way I looked. I wasn’t a very feminine girl.” She grinned. “Like some people I could mention.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Remember when I tried to fix you up?”

  “Oh, that pale pink lipstick and the black eyeliner. I hated makeup. I just wanted to be me. But obviously Matthew was interested in girls and he was good-looking and after a while he left me behind. I couldn’t compete with the kind of girls I knew he liked and it used to eat at me.”

  “You mean, you were jealous.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “I used to cry myself to sleep every time I saw him with someone.”

  “That’s so strange. I remember when I started to like him. You two were talking about something in the science lab. Your heads were close together and you were laughing. And then I came in and asked if he wanted to get a soda. I had this feeling you liked him. But you acted as if you were just fine.”

  “I missed my calling. I should have gone into the theater,” Sarah said.

  “But why didn’t you do something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Let Matt see that you wanted more than friendship.”

  “Matthew and I talked about that. I was afraid he’d reject me.”

  “I’m sorry if what happened made you feel…bad.”

  “Thanks,” Sarah said.

  “No, really. I didn’t understand, but—” she sighed “—when I found out George, that’s the musician I left Matt for, had been seeing one of the waitresses I thought was my friend, it killed me. And then I thought, that’s karma. I did it to Sarah—”

  “That’s okay,” Sarah said. “Truly, just hearing you say you understand makes me feel good.”

  Elizabeth smiled. The connection they’d made since Sarah got back had just got even stronger. “So did you guys have a good time in Victoria?”

  “Yeah.” Sarah got up from the table, ran water at the sink. “It was great.”

  Elizabeth tried to think of something else to ask. But even though she and Sarah were closer, there were questions she didn’t feel comfortable asking. It’s just the way Sarah was. The door never opened all the way.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SARAH HELD her mother’s rusty black umbrella high enough to shelter Rose and herself as they hurried through the pouring rain from the parking lot of the First Unitarian Church to the chapel for Pearl’s memorial service. The service had already started as they squeezed into a pew in the back. In the front row, she could see Matthew sitting next to Elizabeth, Lucy on the end.

  She’d slept in Elizabeth’s guest bedroom again that morning and awakened to the phone ringing and then Elizabeth yelling to Lucy that her father was on the phone. Sarah had strained to hear Lucy’s response, but, after a moment, heard Elizabeth tell Matthew that Lucy was still sleeping.

  “She blames him,” Elizabeth had said over coffee in the kitchen. “I feel terrible for him, but I can’t get through to her. And Matthew’s walking around like a zombie.”

  Deep in thought, Sarah heard Rose sniff. She turned her head slightly to catch Rose dabbing her nose and she looped her arm around Rose’s shoulders. They’d probably never bond the way the perfect mother and daughter would, but she had the sense that they’d grown closer in the past few weeks. And perfection, she was beginning to believe, was pretty much an illusion. If nothing else, witnessing Rose’s imperfections had given her some new insight into her own.

  Afterward, there was a small gathering in an anteroom and the Sweet Adelines sang a medley in memory of Pearl. Sarah watched Elizabeth, glassy-eyed, drift in and out of clusters of mourners. Lucy, in a short black skirt and sweater, her dark hair pulled severely away from her face, hung back on the sidelines looking heartwrenchingly young and alone. But when Sarah walked over to talk to her, Lucy was politely distant and after a moment excused herself and drifted away.

  Sarah greeted people she hadn’t seen for years, answered questions about Central America, gave vague responses about her plans, aware all the time that she was looking around for Matthew’s dark head. At one point, she glimpsed him standing with Lucy, but when she looked again Lucy had gone.

  She saw him talking to a stooped gray-haired man in a black suit jacket that hung like a cape over the curve of his spine. Matthew’s back was to her and she tapped his shoulder. When he turned around his expression was unreadable.

  “Sarah,” he said, “I meant to call you, but…”

  “That’s okay. How’re you doing?”

  He shrugged. “Fine.”

  She kept looking at him until he smiled faintly.

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “You’re not invincible.”

  “Don’t spread that around.” The smile flickered then
faded. “Listen, I need to talk to Pearl’s sister. I’ll…I’ll give you a call.”

  And then he’d disappeared into the crowd. Sarah hung around for a few more minutes, then went to look for Rose. She found her talking to a middle-aged couple.

  “My daughter, Sarah,” Rose said. “She’s been in Central America for the past…what, five or six years?”

  They smiled. The woman had a cap of white hair as soft and flyaway as dandelion seed, and lipstick on her teeth. “We were in Costa Rica last year.” She glanced at her husband. “Beautiful beaches, weren’t they, honey?”

  “Beautiful,” he agreed. And then he turned to Rose. “So you sold your practice?”

  “Yes, well, it was time.” She glanced at Sarah. “Listen sweetheart, Bill and Maude said they’d give me a ride home. They’ve invited me to dinner, okay?”

  In the car, Sarah felt water trickle down her neck. She’d left the umbrella with Rose. Wet and shivering, she started the ignition. Through the fogged-up windows, she looked out at a cluster of pines at the edge of the parking lot and, beyond that, a canopy, metal folding chairs and a carpet of plastic grass, vibrant green in the monochrome landscape. She watched a woman in a long black coat and rubber boots with fur around the edges dodge a puddle. Matthew came out of the church with his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders. Lucy walked next to Elizabeth, her hand in her mother’s. Sarah started the car and drove off. The last time she’d felt so completely alone was after Ted died.

  “I’M SORRY, Daddy,” Lucy said the night after Pearl’s funeral. Her mouth quivered and her eyes were red and swollen. “I didn’t mean all those things I said to you.”

  “I knew you didn’t.” He’d finally coaxed her out of her room and they’d gone out for pizza. On the table between them, a candle in a Chianti bottle flickered, throwing shadows on her face. “We sometimes say things in anger that we don’t really mean.”

  Lucy reached for a slice of pizza. “I was also mad because you went to Victoria and I told you a bunch of times that I wanted to go. Remember we were going to see the movie at the IMAX? And then you just went with Sarah.”

  Matthew regarded his own pizza, he’d suddenly lost his appetite. Despite the sense of déjà vu the topic gave him, she was still recovering from the death of her grandmother and he didn’t want to further muddy the emotional waters by talking about his relationship with Sarah.

  “We’ll go to the IMAX,” he said. “I promise.”

  Lucy nodded, but still seemed to have something on her mind. “Sometimes even after you stop being angry with someone, it’s kind of hard to trust them because they’re still the same person, so what if they do it again?”

  TEN DAYS AFTER Pearl’s death Matthew stood in the darkened radiology room, the only illumination coming from the CT scanner. An angiogram showed arteries wriggling, twisting and branching much like his own thoughts. He was sleeping fitfully, if at all, and other than their brief conversation at the funeral, he hadn’t spoken to Sarah.

  Intellectually, he knew Pearl could have—and with her medical history—probably would have died regardless of whether or not he’d been working for Compassionate Medical Systems the night she went to the E.R. He also recognized that Sarah’s low regard of the program had influenced his thinking.

  Okay, he didn’t blame her. But neither could he make himself call her. And, always, there was Lucy. He thought of Sarah, talking about the future. “It’s all vague and cloudy,” she’d said, “but last night was just us. Right in the moment.” And now a part of the past, which so much of his relationship with Sarah had been.

  A technologist behind him said something and Matthew dragged his attention back to the screen.

  Later, up on the patient floor, he reassured the patient’s mother everything about her son’s angiogram appeared normal. Then he headed for administration.

  “Morning, Dr. Cameron,” Heidenreich’s secretary greeted him. “Mr. Heidenreich has someone in his office. He should be through in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll wait,” Matthew said, but then the door to the administrator’s office opened and Rose Benedict walked out. When she saw Matthew, she put her hand on his arm.

  “So sorry about Pearl,” she said. “It hit me hard personally—she and I were about the same age.” She peered into his face. “You taking care of yourself? You look as though you haven’t slept in weeks.”

  “I’m fine.” Matthew realized he hadn’t spoken to her since hearing that she’d sold her practice and added, “I understand congratulations are in order.”

  She beamed. “Yep. I’m now officially an employee of Compassionate Medical Systems.”

  “How does that feel?”

  “I haven’t had much time to think about it yet. I do know they produce a lot of paperwork. More manuals and guides and lists of procedures than you could shake a stick at. I’ve left the lists conspicuously around the house, hoping Sarah would look at them when she dropped by. It’s very organized, compulsive. Sarah’s style, I would have thought.”

  Matthew smiled.

  “Unfortunately, she doesn’t take the bait,” Rose said.

  “CMS isn’t Sarah’s kind of thing,” Matthew said. It isn’t mine, either, he thought, but he’d made his decision. “How is Sarah lately?”

  “Haven’t seen her since Pearl’s funeral,” Rose said. “Sarah has a tendency to crawl into her shell when things aren’t going well. And I sense they’re not going very well for her right now. You know Sarah.”

  Matthew didn’t answer, in part because he wasn’t sure he really did know Sarah. He was also remembering how Rose had always made him feel as a child. Not the sort of mother you’d want if your heart was breaking.

  “Have you seen her?” she asked.

  “I tried to call a couple of times, but there was no answer and—” he scratched the back of his head “—I never left a message.”

  “She’s got a lot of things on her mind these days. I do know she was a bit down after the fossil trip. Sarah’s not exactly the warm and cuddly earth-mother type. Poor girl, she takes after me in that regard. All crusty and impenetrable on the outside, but mush in the center.”

  He laughed. “I’ve yet to see your mushy center.”

  “Oh, it’s there, trust me. It just requires someone with enough imagination to bring it out.”

  “Matthew.” Heidenreich appeared from his office. “You here to see me?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at Rose. “If you see Sarah, tell her I said hi.”

  Rose smiled archly. “Why don’t you tell her yourself, Matthew?”

  A moment later he was sitting across from Heidenreich trying to face down the odd sensation that his life was flashing past him. Or perhaps just life as he’d known it until now. “I’m ready to join the opposition,” he told Heidenreich.

  SARAH WAS THE LAST PERSON Elizabeth ever thought she’d have a pity party with, but here they were sitting in Cup o’ Joe, which was about to close down, feeling about as gloomy as the weather. Sarah’s nose and cheeks were red from the wind—and maybe a session with the tissue box—and she was wearing a red parka and a black woolen cap pulled down over her hair. Like she usually did whenever she looked at Sarah, Elizabeth wanted to give her a makeover, except that right now she needed some advice.

  “I think George is avoiding me,” she told Sarah, who had just blurted out that she was feeling depressed about Matthew, but she wasn’t about to go to the hospital and beg him to talk to her.

  Sarah drank some coffee. “Why do you think so?”

  “He didn’t call for a week, then when I called his house, his roommate said he was out. But I had this strange feeling she was lying. But then I thought, well, maybe he’s just busy and he’ll call me when he has time.”

  Sarah nodded. “And?”

  �
��Okay, there’s this online-dating site where I met him. I thought I’d just check it out to see if… And he was online.”

  “But so were you.”

  “But I wasn’t looking. He was. Looking for someone else. I feel horrible.”

  “Remember what you said when I told you about that reporter I was attracted to? The one who never called me again?”

  “The one you said you wanted to kiss?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to kiss him,” Sarah corrected, “I said I would have. Anyway, you told me I wanted him to be attracted to me so I’d feel better about myself. Maybe that’s how it is for you with George.”

  “But he did make me feel better about myself. He respected what I said. Not like Matthew—”

  “Listen to me—” Sarah leaned across the table “—no one can make you feel better about yourself. You have to feel it in here.” She stabbed at her chest. “You have to know that you’re a good, worthwhile person.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “I wish I could be like you.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

  “So, what if you never saw Matthew again?”

  Sarah chewed her lip. “It kills me to even imagine it. But, if that did happen, I’d still be the same person inside.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I mean, I’d have to do a sales job on myself to believe it, but yeah.” A pause. “Maybe not so lovable, though.”

  They both laughed. Through the window, Elizabeth watched the foot passengers file off the ferry, all bundled up against the wind whipping off the strait. There were days when it seemed as though the sun had forgotten about the Olympic Peninsula altogether.

  “You know the strange thing?” she said. “We seem so different. You’re a doctor, you do all this interesting stuff. And I’m…about to be an unemployed waitress. But underneath, we’re pretty much the same. We both want someone who sees us for what we are and loves that about us.”