by Arlene James
“Oh, I will!” he vowed. He felt as if she had slapped him. Rejection stung straight to his heart. He was in his own yard before the blinding mist of pain and anger lifted enough to let him take note of his surroundings. He sat on the top step of his porch and hung his head between his hands.
What had made him think that that woman could offer him anything but grief? How could he entertain the notion, even for a moment, that he might be what she needed and vice versa? Why had he made such a fool of himself over her? He shook his head, shocked at the depth of bitterness he was feeling. Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake again! And from now on, Widow Slater could mow her own yard and do everything else that needed doing! He would tend to his own house—and his own heart.
Amy slammed the door and leaned against it. Dear God, what had she done? How could she have let him kiss her, let alone kiss him back? She imagined Mark glaring down at her from heaven, disgust and condemnation on his face. Guilt literally shoved her into a chair at the kitchen table, bent her double and sent tears coursing down her face. How could this be happening to her? What on earth did she think she was doing? Her life did not need to be changed. She was a widow. Her husband was dead. She could never love again. She could never…what? She lifted her head. Be happy? Was that her lot in life, to be miserably unhappy for all the lonely years ahead? Was that what Mark had meant for her? Was that what she deserved?
You were a good wife, she told herself. You were loyal. You believed in him. No matter what he did or said, you made yourself believe! And for that she had only her guilt to keep her company.
But it was not her fault that the illness had come! It was not her fault that he had died! Why hadn’t God cured the disease and let Mark live? He was all she’d had, after all. But was he all she could ever have? All she should have?
She didn’t know anymore. She only knew that Evans Kincaid terrified her. He made her wonder if what she’d dedicated herself to, what she’d grieved all this time, had been worth the loyalty and love with which she’d lavished it.
She shook her head, desperate tears welling into her eyes. How could she think it? How could she? Oh, God, how could she?
The grass grew tall in Amy’s yard, then burned brown in the sun and dwindled to scraggly spikes. Evans made himself ignore it, as he ignored her, as he ignored Mattie’s every word about the goings-on next door.
“She’s stopped smoking again,” Mattie told him brightly the day after school began. “I told her she was stinking up her house and I wasn’t about to help her clean it up this time.”
Evans polished the wrench he had used to make an adjustment to the dishwasher and slipped it into its sleeve. “Let me know if it starts making that droning sound again.”
Mattie waved a hand dismissively and popped a potato chip into her mouth. She curled her legs up into her chair and munched the chip, her heavily kohled eyes narrowed.
“Anyway, she’s so weird, right now. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. I think she’s lost some weight. Maybe she’s depressed, I don’t know. What do you think?”
He wiped his hands on a towel and got to his feet. “How was school?”
She made a face and shrugged. “It’s not as lame as California, but it’s still, you know, lame.”
Evans sighed. “Why don’t you give it a chance, try to fit in a little more?”
“I don’t want to fit in. Ugh, why would I want to fit in? They’re babies.”
Evans sat down at the table and leaned against his forearms. “They’re your age, Mattie. Are you saying they’re less mature than you?”
“I don’t know. I guess. They just seem like…babies.”
Evans felt terribly confused and inadequate, and the feeling made him angry again—at Amy. He couldn’t seem to separate his feelings from Amy. But he darn well would. He swallowed the anger and focused on his daughter. “I think you may have grown up faster than most kids in some ways,” he said carefully, “but that doesn’t make you an adult, honey.”
Mattie swiped her hair back off her shoulder angrily. “What does make me an adult? Just age? Amy says it’s more than that. Amy says…”
“Amy doesn’t have anything to do with this!” Evans shouted, smacking the tabletop with his hand.
Mattie was obviously shocked. “All I said was—”
“I know, I know,” he muttered angrily, bowing his head. He closed his eyes, willing away his anger, and took a deep breath before saying, “I just don’t think Amy is the person to be giving you advice.”
“At least Amy doesn’t think I’m a baby!” Mattie retorted, springing to her feet.
Evans kept his head down, praying for patience. “I didn’t say you were a baby,” he told her calmly. “I only said that you aren’t yet completely an adult. I only suggested that since you have to go to school, you might be happier if you tried to fit in. Now could we drop the subject, please?”
Mattie sat down again, her upper teeth worrying her bottom lip. “I’ve been thinking about something, and maybe now’s the time to talk about it.”
Evans spread his hands in a gesture of compliance, relieved that she was actually going to take his advice about something. “What’s on your mind, hon?”
Mattie chewed her lip a moment longer. “I was thinking, maybe I ought to get a part-time job of some sort.”
Evans tilted his head. “I suppose, if that’s what you want.”
She suddenly became animated, excited. “It’d give me something to do besides going to school and waiting for you to come home from work, and I’d have my own spending money! You wouldn’t have to give me any more.”
Evans rubbed his chin speculatively. “Hmm, and what would you do with your money?”
She shrugged entirely too nonchalantly. “Oh, I don’t know, the usual kind of stuff, clothes, makeup, music…a car.”
Red flags immediately went up. A car, was it? Evans thought quickly. With a car of her own, she would pretty much be free to come and go as she wished when he was not around. He wasn’t sure she was mature enough for that kind of freedom. She could go anywhere, do just about anything, even strike out across the country for California and that rock freak they’d left behind! His blood ran cold, and his mind immediately conjured more justifications for refusal. What about accidents? Some of the car wrecks he’d seen were enough to make a sober man take up walking for life. To think of his little girl wrapped around some telephone pole somewhere…He shuddered and emerged from it shaking his head.
“No. Not a good idea. No. Uh-uh. No way. You’re too young for a car.”
“But Dad—”
“No! I’m not going to lose you to some mindless accident like I did your mother! Too many teenagers die in cars, Matilda. I’m not going through that!”
“You don’t know I’ll have an accident,” she argued.
“I know the odds!”
“Well, how about the odds where you’re concerned?” she cried. “How many policemen die every year?”
“That’s different!”
“How is it different?”
“I’m an adult! I can take care of myself! I’ve had training!”
She pounced onto that last statement like a general springing a trap on an unwary opponent. “I can get all the training you could want! They give drivers’ training at school, and the county gives defensive driving courses that can lower the cost of insurance. Plus I have my very own personal police trainer right here. What more could you want?”
Evans could only gape at the neatness of her campaign. He shook his head to clear it as much as to redefine his objections. “B-but there’s still the expense, and—”
“I’ll pay for it out of my salary!” she exclaimed. “It’ll have to be a used car, of course. I couldn’t afford very much, but you know cars better than anyone. You could help me find a really good buy, something affordable but in decent shape.”
He was still shaking his head, but inside he had to admit she was making a certain amount of sense. Still,
the freedom that a car of her own would give her frightened him deeply. “You’re too young!” he blurted, but again she was prepared for him.
“I’m a year older than the state of Oklahoma says you have to be to get a driver’s license,” she pointed out coolly, adding, “and Amy was seventeen when she got her first car. She told me so. She told me her parents—”
Evans thought his head would explode. “Amy!” he roared. “Amy Slater has nothing to do with this!”
Mattie was clearly shocked and puzzled by his outburst. She glared at him distrustfully, as if he might at any moment start foaming at the mouth. “Amy’s my friend! She—”
“She has nothing to say about anything in this house!” he shouted.
“She’s my friend!” Mattie shouted back.
“I’m your father!”
“That’s not fair! She talks to me like an equal, an adult! She knows that if I’ve got sense enough to run this house, I’ve got sense enough to make some of my own decisions! She actually likes me. Just as I am, she likes me!”
Mattie dropped her head to the tabletop, her folded arms muffling her sobs as her words rang in Evans’s mind. She actually likes me! She likes me! Merciful heaven, she couldn’t actually believe that he didn’t like her, could she? Could he have made her think that her own father didn’t like her? He swallowed his anger and got up from his chair, moving quickly to lay his hand on her head. She was so small, so delicate, his Mattie.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I never meant to…You have to know that I don’t just like you, I love you. You’re my sunshine, my angel, my sweet baby girl. I’ll always—”
Suddenly Mattie was on her feet, her emerald eyes glittering hard in the dribbling mess of her eyeliner. “You just don’t get it, do you? I’m not your baby anything! That’s the whole point!”
“You’re my daughter!” he said sternly. “No matter how old you get, you’ll always be my—”
“Oh, what’s the use?” she cried, stamping her foot.
Well, if she was going to act like a baby, he was going to treat her like one! “That’s quite enough, Matilda. Now go to your room until you can behave reasonably.”
She threw up her hands, snorting laughter. “Go to my room, Daddy? I don’t think so!” With that she whirled and banged out the back door.
He stood gaping, unable to believe what had just happened. By the time he pulled himself together and stormed out onto the porch, she was already sliding through the fence in the gate at the back of the garage. “Mattie! Matilda Kincaid, you get back here!”
“I’ll come back when you’ve calmed down!” she called out to him.
When he had calmed down? Anger rushed up his throat and threatened to strangle him. He wanted to roar, to throw things, to shake that little nut until her teeth rattled and—He suddenly realized that his hands were balled into fists in front of his face. Anger vanished. Shame washed over him. When he calmed down. Dear God! He sat down with a thump on the edge of the porch and stared across his yard in the direction in which his daughter had disappeared. Just now, little Matilda had acted with far more maturity than he had. And he knew that it wasn’t the notion of Mattie having her own car that had driven him over the edge it was Amy. The whole idea that Mattie was welcomed by Amy as both a friend and equal while he was not rankled him unbearably. And he’d taken it out on Mattie. No wonder she preferred Amy’s company to his! He closed his eyes and began planning an apology. He was getting good at apologizing, better than he ought to be.
Chapter Six
Mattie got out of the truck glumly and literally dragged her feet as she walked toward the church. “Do we really have to do this?”
“For heaven’s sake,” Evans said impatiently, “it’s a social, Mattie, not a hanging. You attend services without a squawk, then bellyache about going to a little party. It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“You won’t get stuck with a bunch of immature, judgmental gossips,” Mattie grumbled.
Evans sighed and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to hold on to his temper. They had only recently made peace after their last battle. He was determined not to let anger separate them again. “Honey, don’t let your insecurities lead you around by the nose,” he said when she stopped beside him. “You don’t know that these kids talk about you. You feel conspicuous, so you assume everyone’s staring and whispering behind your back, when they probably aren’t doing that at all.” He paused to discover what she thought about his thesis and was pleased to find her pensively silent. He decided that it was time to take a chance on praise. “By the way, I haven’t told you how really lovely you look this evening. That’s a very pretty dress.” About six inches too short but pretty, he amended silently. “And your makeup looks professionally done. You could be a model.” He made no mention of her hair, for though she had left off the weird neon colors, the front portion still stood almost on end.
She literally preened, fluffing the tiny, puffed sleeves and smoothing the princess seams of her little flower print dress. Evans was truly bemused by the way the pale green background and the bright blue and dark green flowers brought out the rich jewel tone of her emerald eyes. He was very pleased that she had apparently taken to heart the bit of advice he had given her about trying to fit in—but dared not say so. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t kill her to give a little credit where credit was due. He cleared his throat.
“It, um, occurs to me that you’ve made some…adjustments in your general appearance. I was, ah, wondering why.”
She shrugged and tossed a lock of long, sleek, black hair off one shoulder, then looked down at legs and feet encased in sandals with laces that crisscrossed almost to her knees. “Well…all that radical stuff, you know, the really heavy makeup and bright hair colors and monochrome clothes, that was like a mask. I was, like, hiding behind it while I tried to figure out who I really am, see?”
Evans was stunned by her acuity, so much so that he blurted out his surprise. “You actually realized this all by yourself?”
She shuffled her dainty feet. “Um, not exactly. It was…well, it was…Amy.”
Amy. Hurt erupted in his chest, billowing like the mushroom of an A-bomb. “A-Amy?” he stammered.
Mattie threw out her arms. “I can talk to her, Dad! She knows where I’m coming from. She understands me, sometimes better than I do myself. I’m in limbo here. I just don’t have enough in common with people my own age, but I don’t belong in your bracket, either. I’m, like, in between, you know? And it’s hard, really hard. I mean, where am I going to find friends as in between as me?”
He didn’t know how to answer her. He was still reeling from all she’d told him, and the thought of Amy kept echoing through his head. He needed to understand her role in this. “S-so Amy’s you’re only friend then? Are you saying that she’s ‘in between,’ too?”
Mattie shook her head. “That’s not it exactly. It’s more like she’s been where I am.”
He gulped. “I—I see.” Amy had more in common with his daughter than he did. She connected with Mattie—but not with him. He turned and absently started toward the church once more. He didn’t see the look of compassion his daughter gave him before she hurried to catch up and fell in at his side.
They walked around the building to the park behind, a broad area of lush, lovingly tended grass interspersed with tall, mature shade trees. As they drew near the picnickers gathered on blankets spread on the ground, Evans tried to put aside his pain and disquiet, telling himself that he should be grateful that anyone could get through to Mattie, even Amy. God knew she’d given him more than one insight into his daughter. He just couldn’t help wishing that it was anyone but her. Nevertheless, when Mattie slipped her arm through his, he found a smile for her. It wasn’t her fault, after all, that Amy was better with her than her own father or that Amy wanted no part of him. He supposed that he should be grateful his daughter still did. The warmth seemed to have gone out of the afternoon light, though, which sai
d nothing about the heat. It was, however, slightly cooler under the trees.
Reverend Charles spotted them and instantly moved forward, his baby daughter cradled against him with one arm, her tiny hands clutching fistfuls of his deep blue sport shirt.
“Hey, Evans, who’s that beauty on your arm? Goodness gracious, is that you, Mattie?”
“I told her she looks like a model,” Evans said proudly.
Mattie beamed, then held out her arms. “Can I hold the baby?”
Bolton Charles smiled doubtfully. “I’m not sure she’ll let you. She’s going through a clingy stage. Doesn’t want me out of her sight right now.”
“Oh, she just knows who adores her most,” Mattie said, tickling the baby under the chin. “Don’t you, baby doll?” The little one promptly loosened her hold on her father and leaned toward Mattie, both little fists latching on to strands of Mattie’s long, dark hair.
Bolton gave her up laughingly. “It must be the hair. She’ll hardly even go to her mother right now. Clarice thinks its because she’s away at college three mornings a week, but I’m away even more often than that. I think it’s this father-daughter thing, that sort of mystical connection between dads and their girls.”
Evans felt that his own connection with Mattie had stretched nearly to the breaking point. He glanced at her, shocked to see that a casual observer might have mistaken her for the baby’s mother. She was cooing to the little one, seemingly oblivious to the yanking of her hair. He swallowed a sudden lump in his throat and said to the minister, “Enjoy it while you can. It doesn’t always last.”
Bolton clapped him on the back. “It’s hard to let them go, isn’t it?” he said softly. “They grow up whether we want them to or not.”
“Some of them grow up faster than others,” Evans muttered.
Bolton nodded knowingly. “I’ve noticed that. She seems really good with children.” He smiled compassionately at Evans’s bleak look. “Come on. Let’s grab a couple of cold drinks and find a basket of fried chicken.” He called out to Mattie, “When you get tired of her, just take her to her mom, over there on the red blanket.”
