Mending Fences

by Sherryl Woods

  “And you’re very good at it, that’s all I’m saying. Make this trip work for Evan, because Caitlyn and I are going.”

  “You just don’t get how serious this is, do you? Our son could lose everything. His scholarship, his football career, his entire future. He could go to jail, Marcie.”

  “Believe me, I am well aware of that and it makes me sick. If there was one single thing I could do to prevent any of it, I would,” she said. “Me going out of town for a couple of days isn’t going to change the outcome of this.”

  “What about just being here as a supportive mother?”

  She gave him a disbelieving stare. “You’ve seen to it that Evan doesn’t give a damn about me or my support,” she said heatedly. “I love that boy, but thanks to you, he treats me as if I’m no more important than a cook or housekeeper, so you can both get along without me for one weekend, while I deal with the other casualty of all this—your daughter.”

  It was the first time she’d ever said any of that aloud and she could tell from the stunned look in Ken’s eyes that her comment had hit its mark. “Can’t deny it, can you?” she challenged.

  He shook his head. “Marcie, I don’t understand what’s gotten into you. This isn’t the time to go around venting your dissatisfaction with Evan—or me, for that matter. Is that what you’re planning to do on this trip, spill your guts to Emily about how unappreciated you are around here?”

  “Maybe,” she said with a touch of defiance that startled them both. “Can you blame me?”

  Ken looked as if he might explode, but finally he just shook his head. “I swear to God, I don’t even know you anymore.”

  “Isn’t that the sad truth?” she said, and walked away, leaving him staring after her.

  She was shaking as she climbed the stairs to pack, but she felt oddly euphoric as well. It was about time she started standing up for herself around here. Past time, most likely.

  She could hardly wait to share her epiphany with Emily.

  Of course, she’d probably pay for it when she got back. Ken would freeze her out or treat her with even more disdain than usual, but it was a small price to pay for even one glorious moment of putting him on notice that she was running short on patience.

  On Friday afternoon Dani piled into her mom’s car with Marcie and Caitlyn, determined to be as miserable as possible all weekend long. She stuck the earphones for her iPod in her ears and faced out the window as they drove away from the neighborhood. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt when she saw the hurt look on Caitlyn’s face reflected in the glass.

  She’d tried twice more to talk her mom into letting her spend the weekend with her dad, but her mother had been adamant that she had to go.

  “Stop thinking about yourself and think about Caitlyn and how alone she must be feeling these days,” her mom reminded her. “She needs a friend.”

  Dani knew her mom was right. She knew how badly Caitlyn probably needed to talk about what was going on, but that was the one topic Dani refused to discuss with anyone, especially Caitlyn. Hearing her defend her brother would make Dani hurl.

  She felt a tap on her arm and turned to Caitlyn. “What are you listening to?” she mouthed.

  Dani mentioned the name of the group and Caitlyn’s eyes lit up.

  “I love them. Is it the new CD? Can I listen when you’re done?”

  Her eagerness cut through Dani’s defenses. She took out the earphones and handed over the iPod. “You listen now. I can hear them later. I’ve already played the whole CD about a million times.”

  As Caitlyn settled back to listen to the music, Dani saw her mom shoot her a grateful look in the rearview mirror. She shrugged. “No biggie,” she mouthed, and her mom grinned.

  A couple of hours later as they drove across the causeway to Sanibel, Dani felt her spirits start to lift. Even though they lived in Miami and there was water all around, she didn’t get to go to the beach that often. Her parents had flat out forbidden her to go to South Beach and hang out there. They were scared to death that there was too much underage drinking going on in the clubs and on the beach. No matter how many times Dani swore she wouldn’t touch alcohol and that the clubs wouldn’t serve her anyway, they freaked every time she mentioned going to Miami Beach with a group of kids from school. She wondered if they knew that Josh was over there practically every Friday and Saturday night. He was the one they ought to worry about, because Dani knew for a fact that he had a fake ID. Evan had gotten it for him.

  She honestly didn’t care about all the drinking and stuff that went on over there. She just loved the ocean. They hadn’t gone as a family since she was little, because her dad didn’t like lying around on the hot sand or swimming in the ocean, when they had a perfectly good pool in their own backyard.

  The last time she’d been to the beach, she, her mom, Marcie and Caitlyn had come to Sanibel for a girls’ weekend. It had been awesome. She and Caitlyn had gone swimming until their skin practically shriveled up. At night the four of them had played cards and Scrabble till all hours of the night. Marcie always brought enough food to feed an army, too. And her mom brought lots of DVDs just in case it rained, but last time it hadn’t.

  Dani opened the car window and felt the salt air sting her cheeks as they drove across the blue-green water. The sun made it sparkle like beads on a necklace. She turned back to Caitlyn, who’d opened her own window.

  “Awesome,” she said with a grin.

  “Totally,” Caitlyn agreed.

  The two of them exchanged a high five, the way they always did when they were in total agreement. Dani sat back and relaxed for the first time since they’d left Miami. Maybe this wasn’t going to suck, after all.

  12

  “The girls look like they’re having fun, don’t they?” Marcie said, her relief evident as she and Emily sat on the beach watching Dani and Caitlyn splashing in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The air was thick with humidity, the sun hot, but there was a cooling breeze off the water that stirred the palm trees and kept it from being oppressive.

  Emily nodded. “It’s good to see them getting along so well. They needed this break. I knew once she got here, Dani would be glad she’d come.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, Emily knew she’d said the wrong thing.

  “Dani didn’t want to come?” Marcie studied her with a perplexed look. “Why? Last time we were here, she said it was the best vacation ever.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” she said with a shrug, trying to make light of it. “You know how she can be. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of her. I imagine it’s the stress of this whole situation with Evan. She may feel uncomfortable around you and Caitlyn, not knowing what she should or shouldn’t say. I don’t always know what to say and I’m an adult. She’s only seventeen.”

  “And she always had a little bit of a crush on Evan,” Marcie added, her expression thoughtful. “I guess I hadn’t really thought about what his arrest might do to her. I’ve been totally focused on how it’s affecting my family.”

  “You want to talk about it?” Emily asked.

  Marcie hesitated, then shook her head. “Not about Evan, no. I just can’t bring myself to discuss it, not even with you. The whole thing is just so horrible, I don’t want to think about it for the next couple of days.”

  Emily picked up the way she’d phrased her response. “Okay, we won’t discuss Evan, but there’s something else on your mind, isn’t there?”

  “Ken and I had a fight before I left.” For once Marcie didn’t sound especially stressed about it. “Not that that’s so unusual, but this time I stood my ground.”

  Emily beamed at her. “Good for you. What did you fight about?”

  “He didn’t want Caitlyn and me to take this trip.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of how it might look, of course. He didn’t care that I’ve been locked away in the house since all of this started or that Caitlyn’s a mess from trying to deal with what everyone�
��s saying about her brother. All he cared about was his precious image. He tried to guilt me into staying by saying people would think I didn’t support my own son.”

  “He didn’t!” Emily said, not even trying to hide her shock. That was a low blow, even for Ken.

  “Of course, he did. I think he was absolutely stunned when it didn’t work.” Her lips quirked slightly. “Emily, I can’t tell you how good it felt to stand up to him for once. Maybe that will be a first step to changing the way we do things in my house.”

  Though she applauded Marcie’s gumption, Emily was doubtful that it was a real precursor to change. Ken had never struck her as the kind of guy who got the message the first time it was delivered. She sometimes wondered if a sledgehammer would even do the trick.

  At her silence, Marcie’s expression faltered. “You don’t agree?”

  Emily chose her words carefully. “That depends on what changes you’re hoping for.”

  “I want the kind of respect I deserve.”

  “Well, hallelujah!” Emily cheered enthusiastically. “But I’m not sure you can get that by standing your ground one time. This pattern was established a long time ago.”

  “Believe me, I know that,” Marcie said, slathering on another coating of sunscreen. “Leopards don’t change their spots overnight.” She grinned. “It’s taken me nearly twenty years to get to this point, after all. I doubt I can turn Ken around in a few weeks.”

  “But you think it’s possible to change his attitude?”

  “I have to try. My marriage matters to me. I know all of his flaws—and there are plenty of them—but, God help me, I still love him.”

  “How long are you willing to try?”

  “As long as it takes, I guess.”

  Emily raised a brow. “That long?”

  “Hey, just let me bask in having taken the first step,” Marcie said. “My marriage may be far from perfect, but I’m not ready to walk away from it the way you did.”

  Emily flinched at the implication that she hadn’t tried hard enough to save her own. Before she could speak, Marcie regarded her guiltily.

  “I am so sorry,” Marcie apologized. “I swear I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I only meant that if I want my relationship with Ken to get better, then I’m the one who’s going to have to insist on a change.”

  Emily relented and picked up a bottle of water from the cooler and held it out. “To the first giant leap,” she toasted.

  Marcie touched her own drink to Emily’s. “To change.”

  Just then the girls ran across the hot sand and stood dripping all over them.

  “What are you guys drinking to?” Caitlyn asked.

  “The future,” Marcie told her.

  “The only future I care about is lunch,” Dani said. “What are we having?”

  “Whatever you girls go up to the hotel and bring back to us,” Emily said.

  “Mom!” Dani protested, but Caitlyn nudged her. “Hey, they said it’s up to us. That’s a good thing. We can pick anything we want.”

  Dani’s eyes brightened. “That’s right!”

  The two girls took off up the beach.

  “Try to remember the basic food groups,” Emily called after them, then glanced at Marcie. “Something tells me we’re having chips and cookies for lunch.”

  Marcie, who never served a meal that hadn’t been well thought out and artfully arranged, merely shrugged. “Suits me.”

  Emily stared at her. “My God, you are changing. What have you done with the old Marcie?”

  “Given her a sharp poke with a stick to wake her up, I hope. I’ve recently realized that my priorities have been totally screwed up for years. I was so totally focused on serving gourmet meals in a dust-free, clutter-free environment, that I completely forgot to teach my kids values and respect.” Her expression sobered. “I just hope my wake-up call didn’t come too late for my son.”

  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Emily told her. “You have taught your kids the difference between right and wrong.”

  “I’ve said the words,” Marcie corrected. “But the way I lived, letting Ken bulldoze right over me most of the time…I’m afraid that’s the lesson that stuck, especially with Evan.”

  When Emily started to respond, Marcie waved her off. “No, it’s true and it’s time I owned up to it, but that is enough about me and my wimpy ways for one morning. After the girls bring us lunch, I vote we take our credit cards out of hibernation and go on a shopping spree. I don’t know about you, but that always improves my outlook on life.”

  “I could use a new pair of shoes,” Emily said.

  “Shoes are good,” Marcie agreed. “As long as you buy a new outfit to go with them. A spree doesn’t count unless you really splurge and buy a few totally useless but greatly desired things as well.”

  “Such as?”

  “Jewelry,” Marcie suggested. “That works for me.”

  “I think I’ll stick with the shoes,” Emily said, then grinned. “But I might buy two pairs.”

  “Okay, fine. As long as one pair is totally impractical and sexy as sin, I can live with that,” Marcie said.

  Suddenly an image of Grady Rodriguez flashed into Emily’s mind. She had a hunch a strappy pair of high-heeled sandals would get his attention. Just the thought of an appreciative once-over from his dark brown eyes made her pulse kick up a notch.

  Filled with sudden guilt over being attracted to the man intent on putting Evan in jail, she glanced at Marcie who was studying her oddly.

  “Have we been in the sun too long?” Marcie asked. “You’re turning red.”

  “That must be it,” Emily said, seizing on the excuse. “Maybe we should go back to the suite and have lunch there.”

  And she could stand under a cold shower until her thoughts cooled down by thirty or forty degrees.

  Dani stood in the bedroom she and Caitlyn were sharing and pulled all her new outfits out of their shopping bags. Caitlyn was doing the same thing on her side of the room. Though she’d had her doubts before the trip about being able to spend time with Caitlyn without watching every word she said, they’d had a great time today.

  “This is totally awesome,” Dani declared. “My mom must be feeling really guilty or something. She never buys me this much stuff at once.” She held up a skimpy little halter top. “And she obviously didn’t get a good look at this.”

  Caitlyn grinned. “You think she’ll flip out when she sees you wearing it?”

  “I know she will,” Dani said. “I’ll have to wear it under a blouse to get out of the house. After that…” She shrugged. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  Caitlyn gave her a troubled look. “Where would you wear it?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “You can’t get away with it at school. Your mom’s right there.”

  “Definitely not,” Dani agreed. “But there are parties almost every weekend.”

  “But you never go,” Caitlyn said. “At least you haven’t for a long time now.”

  Dani frowned. “What makes you say that? I get asked to parties all the time.”

  “I know that,” Caitlyn responded. “But you haven’t gone, not since…” Her voice trailed off.

  Dani immediately understood. “It’s not because of what happened with Evan,” she said heatedly.

  “Are you sure about that?” Caitlyn asked tentatively. “I know I had my doubts when you told me, but now after this new accusation, I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong.”

  “You were wrong,” Dani declared, her voice climbing. “And you should have believed me, instead of just jumping to Evan’s defense. How could you do that after all the years we’ve known each other?”

  The door to their room opened and her mom stuck her head in. “Hey, everything okay in here?”

  “Fine,” Dani said tightly.

  Caitlyn regarded her guiltily, then forced a smile for her mom’s benefit. “We’re great, Mrs. D. We
were just arguing about which new CD is better, the one by Eminem or Christina Aguilera’s new one.”

  “For what it’s worth, I prefer hers,” her mom said. She gave Dani another questioning look, but then she backed off. “Scrabble in fifteen minutes if you girls are up for it.”

  “Sure,” Dani said, eager to do anything that would keep her from having to continue this ridiculous conversation with Caitlyn. She still couldn’t believe her best friend had doubted her word for even a second, much less all these months. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive her for that.

  “I’m ready, too,” Caitlyn said.

  But when Dani started to follow her mom, Caitlyn stepped in front of her.

  “Look, I was just trying to be fair,” she said, her expression pleading with Dani to try to understand. “Evan is my brother and I had to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I am sorry now for doubting you, and I’m sorry if what I said just now about you not going to parties because of Evan upset you.”

  Dani just wanted the whole conversation to end. It was bringing her down and making it that much harder for her to cover in front of her mom and Mrs. Carter. “No big deal,” she said. “Just so you know you’re wrong. I haven’t been hiding out because of…” She couldn’t even say his name, much less refer to what he’d done. “I haven’t been hiding out, that’s all.”

  “Okay, fine,” Caitlyn said. “Because if you were, it would be really sad. You’re finally old enough that your mom would let you date. You’ve been looking forward to that practically forever.”

  “I guess there’s nobody I’m that excited about going out with.” Dani avoided Caitlyn’s eyes, because she feared her friend would be able to tell she was lying. She thought of the loneliness she’d felt, shut up in her room for the past few months. The truth was Caitlyn couldn’t begin to know just how awful it was not trusting any guy she met, being scared to be around them. If the guy she’d known best and trusted the most could do what Evan had done, then how would she ever be able to go out with another boy?

  Late that night, Marcie took a glass of wine out on the patio of their hotel suite. The sky was inky black and dotted with stars. She kicked off her shoes and sat back with a sigh. She was more relaxed than she had been for weeks now, maybe even longer than that. Until recently, she hadn’t realized that she was always tense at home, always anticipating some critical remark from Ken, some disparaging comment that would be like a knife to her heart. Once she’d recognized that, she’d known that things had to change. And as she’d told Emily earlier, she was determined they would.