For the Girls' Sake

by Janice Kay Johnson

  "You told him we were married?" Adam’s gaze homed in on her face, its intensity unnerving.

  "Uh-huh." She paused. "He’d still like to see Shelly sometime. And meet Rose."

  Adam shifted restlessly. "Life’s getting complicated. Maybe we should tell the girls. They won’t understand much of what happened anyway. I’ve read that adopted children are less likely to have problems later if they’ve always known, and the adoptive parents tell them as much as they can handle at any given age. I think we should do the same."

  Lynn nodded slowly. "We almost have to. So your parents and in-laws can meet Shelly, and Brian and his parents Rose."

  "I wouldn’t suggest it if that were the only reason."

  Had she offended him? Meeting his gaze, Lynn said quietly, "I didn’t think you had. I know how much you love Rose. And Shelly."

  "They’re what matters," he said with intensity she took as a message.

  Not you. Not us. Even if it is our wedding day.

  The very thought felt selfish. She should be totally focused on the well-being of Shelly and Rose, grateful that Adam was doing the same. Not wishing he cared about her.

  "Of course they are," she agreed.

  Stroking the brocade fabric of the sofa, she closed her eyes momentarily. Thank goodness Brian had called when he did! She had been on the verge of making herself look foolish.

  Adam couldn’t have made it clearer that he wasn’t interested in her, that he’d married her for her daughter. How else could she interpret the grief on his face when the poem Jennifer had loved brought back memories of her? The firm reminder that this wedding had taken place because of the girls?

  "Do you know," Lynn said with what she hoped was a pleasantly apologetic smile, "I think I’ll get ready for bed. If you don’t mind my using the bathroom first?"

  "No. Of course not," he said courteously. But when she stood and started past, his hand on her arm stopped her. His voice changed. Deepened. "Thank you. For today."

  "For today?" she repeated stupidly.

  "For agreeing to be my wife."

  Was he flirting with her? Reassuring her? She had no idea.

  This man she’d married confused her. But then, she thought, looking down at his big hand gripping her arm, they had given themselves plenty of time to untangle the mystery each represented to the other. They’d promised a lifetime. She didn’t have to understand him today.

  "I’m glad." She flushed. "I mean, that we did it. And that you’re not sorry."

  He smiled, his eyes a warm rich brown. "Good night, Lynn. Sleep well."

  "Good night." Cheeks still glowing, new hope fizzing in her chest, Lynn went to peek in at their children and to brush her teeth.

  * * *

  TELLING THE GIRLS turned out to be absurdly easy. After lunch the next day, Adam took Rose for a walk when the rain let up. Lynn settled down on that sublimely cozy new sofa with Shelly on her lap, head against her shoulder.

  They had fewer such moments these days. Having two children was a mixed blessing. Holding this child she’d loved from the first day, powerful emotion swelled in her chest, bringing a sting of tears to Lynn’s eyes.

  "I love you, punkin," she murmured against her daughter’s silky head.

  Shelly gave her a compulsive hug. "I love you," she whispered with unusual force.

  Lynn bit her lip. "I have something I have to tell you."

  Shelly didn’t move for a moment. Finally she uncurled enough to look up with big, solemn eyes the exact shade of her daddy’s. "Are Rose and Adam going home today?"

  "Tomorrow." Lynn smiled, if shakily. "But Monday we’ll go to their house. I guess it’s our house now, too. Just like this is theirs."

  Her forehead puckered. "Is Rose my sister, now?"

  "Yes. That’s kind of what I have to tell you about."

  Shelly waited.

  "A few months ago, Adam and I found out something. You and Rose were born the same night in the same hospital. Almost at the same time."

  Her frown deepened.

  "What we found out is, the hospital mixed you two up. The baby who came out of my tummy was Rose, not you. You came out of Adam’s wife, Jennifer."

  Alarm stirred. "But you’re my mommy."

  "I’ll always be your mommy. I love you," Lynn said fiercely. "But haven’t you noticed that Rose looks kind of like me? We have the same impossible hair and—" she wrinkled her nose "—these freckles."

  After a long pause, Shelly nodded.

  "And you," Lynn said, and gave her a squeeze, "look just like Adam’s wife. Except for the parts that look like him. Your eyes are the same color."

  "You said he could be my daddy now. Right?"

  "Right."

  "But you’re still my mommy." Only the barest hint of a question imbued her declaration.

  "Always and forever." Choked with emotion, Lynn still hesitated. "I just thought you should know," she explained carefully, "because you have more grandparents who want to meet you. Adam’s mommy and daddy, and his wife’s. I mean, his first wife’s." Oh, forget it, she decided. "Rose’s grandparents are yours now, and yours are hers."

  Shelly looked perplexed.

  Metaphorically Lynn threw up her hands. Making a face, she said, "I guess it’s a good thing your dad and I got married, huh? We’re one family, so we can share all those grandparents, right?"

  Shelly’s expression became crafty. "If I have more grandparents, do I get more presents? When I turn four?"

  "Probably," Lynn admitted. She tickled her daughter. "You greedy little thing, you!"

  Shelly giggled and then burrowed back into her arms. Around the thumb she’d popped into her mouth, she asked, "How come Rose and Adam went outside? Without us?"

  "So he could tell her the same thing I just told you. That really I’m her mommy, and he’s your daddy."

  The thumb came out. "But you’re still mine, too."

  Lynn wanted to make very, very sure Shelly believed her. "Forever and ever," she said strongly. "And Adam’s still her daddy, no matter what."

  Shelly nodded. "That’s okay," she said matter-of-factly. "We can be sisters, just like you said. I like Rose."

  "I know." Lynn hugged her and rocked gently. Shelly’s eyelids grew heavy and at last her thumb fell from her mouth. Smiling and crying, just a little, Lynn carried her to bed.

  Not three minutes later, she heard footsteps on the stairs and Adam appeared with Rose in his arms. With swift intensity, his gaze took in Lynn’s face, and she guessed that he saw the traces of tears. But she smiled.

  "Hi. Did you guys have a good walk?"

  Rose looked at her with vivid blue eyes. "Daddy says you’re my mommy."

  She smiled tremulously. "That’s right."

  "I never had a mommy before."

  "I know."

  "Can I call you Mommy?"

  "You bet." Her heart sang.

  "’Kay." Rose wriggled. "I want down, Daddy."

  He lowered her to the ground. She came to Lynn and said sweetly, "Daddy says I should take a nap. Do I hafta?"

  Laughing, Lynn went to one knee in front of her. "Yep. Moms and Dads usually agree."

  "Poop," she said succinctly.

  "Come on." Lynn held out her arms. Rose climbed trustingly into them. "Shelly’s already asleep. Can you be really, really quiet, or would you rather nap in my bed?"

  "Can I look at books if I nap in your bed?"

  "Why not?" Lynn said recklessly, not checking to see what Adam thought of the plan.

  "Your bed, please." Rose sounded prim.

  "Sleep tight, Zinnia," Adam said above her.

  "Daddy!"

  "Yeah, yeah. Rose."

  Her eyes misty, Lynn smiled at him over their daughter’s head as she stood. His answering smile was wry. He knew what she felt, and felt the same. Today, they had gained something and lost something. Being an exclusive parent was heady. You were the whole world to your daughter. Now, suddenly, Rose and Shelly didn’t have just a mommy
or daddy. They had both. They had permission to love equally.

  Now Lynn had Rose’s soft arms around her neck, had her whisper, "I’m glad you’re my mommy." In turn, she had to live with the small hurts inflicted when Shelly was fascinated by her real daddy, wanted him instead of Mommy.

  But this was the way it should be, Lynn thought as she tucked Rose under the quilt on her bed, as she tiptoed into Shelly’s room to snatch a stack of picture books for Rose to look at under the covers, as she kissed Rose’s forehead and quietly slipped out of the room.

  A family.

  Anchored by a mommy and daddy who had never kissed, never shared a bed, didn’t know each other’s birthdays. Weren’t in love, never had been.

  Didn’t know if they could be.

  But Lynn trusted Adam enough to know that she wasn’t alone in hoping they would find love, in wanting to find it.

  Today, she chose to be an optimist and believe they would.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LYNN’S FIRST OFFICIAL ACT as Adam’s wife might be the most difficult. She had to play gracious hostess to his first wife’s parents. Knowing they must resent her taking their daughter’s place, she had to understand and respect their grief.

  Or perhaps, she thought with a small sigh as she checked the lasagna in the oven, Angela and Rob McCloskey would know perfectly well that they had no reason to resent her. She might be Mrs. Adam Landry in their daughter’s place, but she hadn’t replaced Jennifer in his heart and probably never would.

  The girls were playing in Rose’s bedroom when the doorbell rang. Suddenly flustered, Lynn pulled off her apron and hurried to the front door, meeting Adam in the foyer. On a wash of greetings, Adam waved them in. The night was wet and chilly, and even the dash from the car had left water beading on their hair and coats.

  Jovial and bluff, Rob McCloskey was clearly a man’s man, who looked as if he belonged out on the golf course with a foursome. His elegant wife gave Lynn an immediate pang, because Shelly might look like this when she was in her fifties. Lynn could see her in the shape of Angela McCloskey’s face, the set of her eyes. Lynn heard her daughter in this stranger’s musical voice.

  The resemblance confirmed a truth that her heart didn’t want to accept: Shelly wasn’t really hers. She came from these people. Lynn’s claim was emotional.

  The introductions were cordial. Adam hung wet coats in the closet and ushered the McCloskeys into the living room. Lynn smiled because she didn’t know what else to do.

  "What can I get you?" Adam asked.

  "White wine," his mother-in-law said with a pat on his arm. She then turned to study Lynn with a thoroughness that might have seemed rude under other circumstances.

  "I do see Rose. My dear, you have the same hair!"

  "You mean, the same impossible hair?" Lynn laughed ruefully. "And I would have known you for Shelly’s grandmother anywhere."

  A crack in her smiling demeanor let pathetic eagerness show. "It’s true, then? Adam said she looks like Jennifer."

  The men were talking a few feet away. Lynn bit her lip and asked in a low voice, "He did warn you, then? From the pictures he’s shown me of your daughter, the resemblance is uncanny. I didn’t want you to be taken by surprise."

  "He did, and we’ve been so excited about meeting Shelly. With our Jenny gone, you can’t imagine how we felt when Adam told us Rose wasn’t hers. Not that we don’t love Rose. We do, of course. But Jennifer was our only child."

  Hoping she sounded more comfortable than she felt, Lynn said, "Yes, Adam’s told me. I know this must be very difficult for you."

  Through a shimmer of tears, Angela McCloskey smiled radiantly. "Oh, it was! But now she’s home. Oh! Not that you didn’t give her a home. But, oh, you know what I mean."

  Lynn knew exactly what she meant. She chose her next words carefully. "I love Shelly dearly, although I admit that sometimes she’s a mystery to me. Finding out she didn’t carry my genes explained a few things. She’s so fearless! And a chatterbox."

  "So was our Jenny. She was so sunny from the moment she was born. People adored her, you know!"

  Lynn kept smiling, hard as it was. "I know Adam did."

  Or should she say does?

  "Well, where’s our little girl?" Rob boomed.

  "Why don’t we go on up there?" Adam suggested, adding deliberately, "Rose is excited that you’re coming."

  "Rose is such a delight," Angela said confidingly, as Adam herded them toward the stairs. "What a gentle, sweet girl. Perhaps more like you."

  Kindly phrased and meant, perhaps, but Lynn had the uneasy feeling she and her daughter both had just been damned with faint praise.

  Lynn hung back as they neared the girls’ open bedroom door. Please, please, she thought, don’t scare Shelly. Don’t hurt Rose.

  "Girls," Adam said quietly, "your grandparents are here."

  Drawn despite herself, a pedestrian to a car accident, Lynn followed the others into the bedroom, where the girls were plumbing the new dress-up box Lynn had begun here.

  Rose tried to scramble to her feet but teetered on her high heels. "Grandma. Grandpa."

  Shelly had wrapped a purple feather boa around her neck. A glittery tiara tilted rakishly in her hair. She looked like a tiny, garish elf queen.

  Staring up, she asked boldly, "Are you my grandma and grandpa?"

  Angela McCloskey choked. Lynn couldn’t see her face, but she knew tears must be streaming down it.

  Lynn was startled when Adam reached out and took her hand in a bruising grip as he watched the drama unfold. She hadn’t even realized he’d dropped back to her side. Or had she come to his?

  Rob McCloskey started to speak and had to clear his throat. "Yes," he said at last, thickly. "Yes, your mommy was our daughter."

  "But my mommy’s right there," Shelly began, but stopped as her forehead puckered. "Oh. You mean, the mommy who had me in her tummy."

  "That’s right," her grandfather said. "She was once our little girl. Our Jenny."

  "Did she play dress-up, too?"

  "Oh, yes." Angela knelt beside the trunk and reached in. Her voice was almost steady, but tears tracked mascara down her cheeks. "She was as pretty as you are."

  "I’m a princess," Shelly said with satisfaction.

  Angela lifted out a filmy white shawl. "A very beautiful princess."

  Quiet Rose burst out, "I’m a princess, too, Grandma." Her voice went very soft. "Me, too."

  Angela McCloskey won Lynn’s liking and respect forever when she smiled through her tears and held out the shawl for Rose, not Shelly. "Of course you are! Our princess. And this is just what you need to finish your outfit."

  Adam’s fingers laced with Lynn’s and he drew her out into the hall. Gently he shut the bedroom door, leaving the McCloskeys alone with their granddaughters. Both their granddaughters.

  And then he brushed his knuckles across his wife’s cheek. They came away wet with her tears.

  * * *

  ADAM PULLED INTO his driveway, laptop and briefcase on the seat beside him, and felt like a Norman Rockwell man of the house: eager to throw open the front door to the delicious scent of dinner in the oven, hear the squeal of delight as his children raced to fling themselves at him, and kiss his wife’s soft, demurely presented cheek.

  He gave a grunt of amusement. The picture was surprisingly accurate except for the last part. So far, the only time he’d kissed his wife’s cheek was at their wedding when the pastor said, "You may kiss the bride," and somehow she’d turned at just the right time so that their lips didn’t meet.

  But he looked forward to getting home anyway, a pleasant change from the last difficult years. Instead of Rosebud being with him, slumped wearily in her car seat, thumb in her mouth, she was at home ready to dash to meet him with Shelly, her eyes bright, her face animated, her giggle floating behind like a vapor cloud.

  Why hadn’t he realized how much easier life was when you were married?

  Or would be, he reflected, if their
s wasn’t a commuter marriage. Today was good; tomorrow would be, too. Then he and Rose would be alone for two days, after which they’d pack up and make the too-familiar trek across the rolling Coast Range to a first glimpse of the broad Pacific Ocean, the constant throb of the surf, and the tiny apartment above the bookstore.

  But that wasn’t so bad, either. The trip got old, sure. He wished the apartment was bigger. But even on rainy days, Adam liked to run on the beach in the early morning. In the short months he’d known Lynn, the bookstore had come to feel homey with its dark wood, bright book covers, playroom for children and the quiet talk in the background. He’d sit at a table with the New York Times spread in front of him while the girls disappeared into the castle. He enjoyed watching Lynn greet people with her warm, gentle smile, guide them to a shelf, chat with them as if the conversation was the most fascinating of her day. When someone loved a book on her list of favorites, her face lit up with the joy of finding a kindred spirit. Days when she seemed unusually quiet, he was almost tempted to draw a lone shopper aside and whisper, "Tell that woman your favorite writer is E. B. White."

  He had been surreptitiously reading the man’s essays and had discovered the charm. They were whimsical, sharp-witted, good-hearted: everything that Lynn was and valued.

  Tonight, in his lonely bed, Adam intended to start her favorite fantasy novel by an author named Robin McKinley. Reading the books Lynn admired was a backdoor way to get to know her, but worth the effort. She was passionate about reading and her children.

  Adam was beginning to wish she was passionate about him.

  They had been married only a few weeks, and his good intentions and patience were eroding with stunning speed. Take tonight: he parked in the garage and went straight into the kitchen.

  "I’m home," he said unnecessarily, because Lynn was already turning from the stove with a welcoming smile.

  "Girls!" she called. "Dad’s home!"

  Feet thundered from the living room and he found himself enveloped in giggling little girls. He tossed them in turn into the air and rejoiced in the squealed "Daddy!" from both.