“I could be a better friend if I knew what was going on,” Caleb said.
“Then you’ll have to ask her,” Max repeated, struggling to his feet. “I’m tired. I’m going in to take a nap.”
Caleb tamped down his irritation and studied him worriedly. “Are you okay?”
Max gave him a resigned look. “I think we both know the answer to that, don’t we?”
Caleb watched him go inside. Just as the screen door was about to close, Max caught it and looked back at Caleb. “Tell her I’m sorry, okay? About everything.”
Caleb nodded. “Sure.”
But first he had to learn what everything was. Something told him Amanda was going to be no more eager to talk about it than Max had been.
She wasn’t going to get rid of Caleb. Amanda could tell that from the set of his jaw and the way he’d ignored every one of her hints about being tired and tomorrow being a workday. More telling was the fact that he hadn’t said a single word about her abrupt disappearance from Max’s. No, he was saving that for after the kids were in bed. So far, she’d let them stay up a half hour past their bedtime just to avoid being alone with Caleb and all his questions.
Finally, she had no choice. She had to get the kids upstairs so they’d get a decent night’s sleep before school. She tried staring Caleb down. “Isn’t it time you were going?” she asked bluntly.
His mouth curved into a slight smile. “You’re not shaking me that easily, Amanda. We’re going to talk.”
“Does it have to be tonight?” she asked. She was emotionally wrung out. She wasn’t sure she had anything left for a conversation about Max’s devastating revelation.
Caleb studied her for an eternity before finally nodding. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I think it does. Otherwise, neither one of us will get any sleep.”
“Okay, fine,” she said irritably. “Give me a few minutes.”
“Why don’t I help you out?” he offered. “I’ll read the boys their bedtime story and you get Susie tucked in.”
Amanda was too tired to argue, so she nodded and let him lead the way down the hall. Susie had already given herself what passed for a bath. She was still covered in bubbles when she climbed out of the tub and her hair was curling damply against her cheeks. Amanda got her tucked in, then leaned down to brush a kiss across her forehead.
“’Night, baby.”
“’Night, Mama,” Susie said sleepily, then opened her eyes. “I like my grandpa.”
Despite her own heartache, Amanda smiled. “I’m glad.”
“Do you think if I told him I’d like it, he’d keep candy in his pockets?”
Tears stung Amanda’s eyes. “I imagine he would do anything in the world you asked of him,” she said. That’s what he’d done for her, anything she’d ever wanted. She needed to keep reminding herself of that, letting it balance out all the rest.
Only now she understood that it had been about more than his love for her. It had been about guilt. Out of his own stupid pride, he’d managed to deprive her of a mother. Of course, he would say that her mother hadn’t fought to keep her.
As she went back into the living room, she heard the low murmur of Caleb’s voice as he read the boys to sleep. He was so good with them. And he’d filled a huge gap in their lives, in all their lives. When she was at her lowest, she wished with all her heart that she could snuggle into his arms and let him take care of her, of them.
But she would never again rely on a man for her family’s security. The two she’d loved the most—her father and Bobby—had let her down. From now on, she had only herself to count on. As much as she trusted Caleb, as much as she already relied on him, she wasn’t sure she could ever take that final leap of faith that he would always be there. And that hurt, because she did love him, more and more each day.
Admitting that surprised her. She’d tried so hard to pretend it wasn’t happening, but it had. It had snuck up on her despite all her defenses, thanks to his steadfast presence.
Caleb would never lie to her. He would never keep secrets from her, she assured herself, only to remember, of course, he already had. Worse, he, like Max, had done it in the name of love, in the name of protecting her. It wasn’t enough to keep her from loving him, apparently, but it was more than enough to make her wary.
When he joined her downstairs, she had just enough resolve left in her to look him in the eye. “Please go,” she begged him softly.
“We need to talk,” he repeated.
Amanda shook her head. “Not tonight. I can’t do it, Caleb. I don’t have the stomach for it.”
Alarm flared in his eyes. “It’s that bad?”
“Let’s just say it was a shock and leave it at that.”
“Is there something I can do?” he asked at once. “Do you want me to speak to Max for you?”
Instinctively, she rested her hand against his cheek, drawing his warmth around her like a cloak. “No. You have to let me handle this on my own, Caleb. It’s between me and my father, and right now I have no idea what, if anything, I want to do about it.”
“You’re not going to cut him out of your life again, are you?” he asked. “Surely you wouldn’t do that now, no matter what he’s done.”
“No,” she said, resigned. “I can’t do that.”
But the visits promised to get a whole lot more complicated before they got better, which meant she didn’t want the kids out there as witnesses to any of it.
Caleb studied her with a narrowed gaze. “What are you thinking?”
“Just that I can’t take the kids back out there right now,” she said. “Not till the rest of this is resolved.” The look she gave Caleb pleaded with him to understand.
He nodded, but his disapproval was evident. “Then don’t take too long working this out, Amanda. He needs those children, and something tells me they need him.”
She thought of Susie’s plan to ask him to keep candy in his pockets just for her. It was silly, really, but her own childhood wasn’t so long ago that she couldn’t remember how delightful such treats were.
“I’ll do the best I can, Caleb.”
He stepped closer and cupped her face in his hands. “I wish you’d talk to me.”
“I know, and I will. I promise.”
He touched his lips to hers. He didn’t linger long, just long enough to scramble her pulse. And in that instant, she regretted more than anything that she couldn’t plead with him to hold her, to love her.
He released her reluctantly, then brushed a curl away from her cheek. “Good night.”
“Good night, Caleb.” She opened the door before she could foolishly ask him to stay. There was no room in her life for being impetuous, not when it came to a man, even one as decent as Caleb.
Whatever questions were still on the tip of his tongue, he swallowed them and gave her a smile. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Amanda nodded. But she had a feeling they both understood that she wouldn’t go looking for him, no matter how desperately she needed him.
Two endless weeks passed before Amanda could bring herself to visit Max again. It was just as awkward as their last encounter. She went armed with a list of questions about her mother, some of which he answered, most of which he evaded. He wouldn’t tell her where her mother was or even if she was still living under her real name.
“You know I’m going to find her,” she finally said. “Why won’t you help?”
“I’m thinking of you,” he insisted, then sighed at her expression of disbelief. “Okay, I’m thinking of her.”
“Or yourself,” Amanda accused.
“No, it’s about your mother,” he said more emphatically. “Can you imagine what a shock it would be to have you appear after all these years?”
“No more of a shock than it was to me to learn she’s still alive,” Amanda retorted. “She’s as much at fault in all this as you are, so pardon me if I’m not feeling terribly sympathetic to her.”
“Well, you shoul
d.”
“How can you possibly defend her?”
“Because she’s your mother, dammit!”
“If you start quoting the Commandments to me, I swear I will walk out that door and never come back,” Amanda said heatedly. “I get enough of that from Caleb about you.”
Max actually smiled at that, but was quick to turn away. When he met her gaze again, his expression was neutral. “Maybe you need to remember this, then. Your mother gave birth to you and she did the right thing, leaving you here with me. She could have dragged you along with her, then ignored you while she went searching for whatever it was she was looking for. She had enough love for you to know you’d be better off with me.”
Amanda blanched. She tried to imagine her childhood anywhere but here, with anyone other than Max. It was impossible, but that was only because she’d never had even a hint that any alternative existed. “I imagine I would have adapted,” she said optimistically, mostly because she knew it would irritate her father. She’d seen the effect having an impetuous mother had had on Josh. He’d adapted, and not always well. It had taken a woman like Maggie to bring peace and stability into his life after the nomadic existence Nadine had provided for him.
“Would you really?” Max said skeptically.
“I adapted to not having a mother and I did it again when you cut me out of your life,” she said, needing to believe that she wouldn’t have been harmed as Josh had been. The irony, of course, was that she’d been emotionally scarred, anyway.
Her father’s gaze caught hers and held, his steady and filled with regret. “I deserved that,” he said wearily.
“And more,” she shot back, unable to stop.
Max closed his eyes. It seemed for a minute as if some of the color had washed out of his face, and she thought perhaps she’d finally gone too far.
“I’m sorry,” she forced herself to say.
He shook his head. “No, I deserve whatever you need to say, if it’s going to make you feel better. Keeping your feelings bottled up doesn’t do anyone any good. Resentments infect everything. The only way to cure them is to scrape the wound clean.”
Amanda leaned forward and clasped his hand, shocked at its fragility. He’d always been so strong, his hands those of a man who knew the meaning of hard work, even though he’d spent his professional life in boardrooms. Now his grip was loose and cool, an odd reminder that time was slipping away. If she was to have all the answers she wanted, she needed to press for them now, before they disappeared into the dark recesses of his faltering memory.
Before she could open her mouth to frame the words, her father looked at her curiously.
“You have children now, don’t you?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to speak around the sudden lump in her throat. In an instant, everything else was unimportant.
“Where are they? Why aren’t they here with you?” he asked, sounding agitated.
“Because there were things I wanted to discuss with you in private,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm.
“Do you have any pictures with you? I’d like to see their pictures.”
“Sure,” she said, retrieving her purse and pulling out the kids’ most recent school pictures, along with a snapshot of all three of them together in front of the new house.
She handed them to her father and watched as he studied each image intently. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to remember them…or trying to memorize their faces so he’d recognize them on their next visit.
“You should have brought them,” he said, sounding angry. “Why are you trying to keep them from me?”
“I’m not,” she said. “But they’re in school right now and I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“About the will, I imagine,” he said, scowling at her.
Amanda stared at him in shock. “What?”
“Oh, I know what’s going on. My mind might be slipping, but it’s not gone yet.”
“Daddy, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” she said. His unexpected flash of irritability had caught her off guard. Out of the blue, he seemed to be harboring some sort of resentment or anger, which didn’t make any sense at all, given the way the earlier part of the visit had gone.
When he continued to snap at her over the most innocuous things, Amanda picked up the nearly empty iced tea pitcher and headed indoors.
“I’ll get some more tea,” she said, needing to put distance between them before she said something that would destroy their hard-won peace. Maybe Jessie could give her some insight into the best way to handle him or at least tell her whether these abrupt mood swings and severe memory lapses were becoming more commonplace.
In the kitchen she set the pitcher on the table and braced herself against the counter, slowly counting to ten.
“He’s having a bad day,” Jessie said quietly behind her.
“No kidding.”
Jessie clasped Amanda’s hands in hers. “Don’t hold this against him, Amanda. He needs you so badly.”
“I seem to be upsetting him today.”
“An hour from now, he’ll be his old self,” Jessie assured her. “These mood swings come and go. I think he gets frustrated when his memory slips, and he takes it out on whoever’s handy. You know how he’s always hated any sign of weakness. Remember how he used to get when he had the slightest bit of a cold?”
Amanda’s lips twitched at the memory. He’d been an absolute bear. “I know you’re probably right,” she said, giving Jessie a rueful smile. “But his words still have the ability to cut right through me. I feel like I’m six again and got my best dress dirty right before we were going somewhere important.”
Jessie smiled. “Then you should be used to it. You did that a lot, as I recall.”
Amanda chuckled, despite her frustration. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? It’s a wonder he was as patient with me as he was.”
“Patience was definitely never your father’s best trait,” Jessie said. “And this illness of his is bound to test it.”
“I guess I was hoping he’d try harder now since we’re trying to find our way back to each other,” Amanda said.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Amanda. And it doesn’t matter if he tries or not, these slips of his will happen. He’s going to have times when he’s angry and frustrated because of the disease. It makes him feel out of control. You can imagine how that feels to a man like your father.”
“Of course I can,” she said at once. Then, “Did something happen before I got here?”
Jessie sighed. “I suppose it’s my fault. Your father and I got in to it because he wanted breakfast…for the second time. I couldn’t convince him he’d already eaten. I should have followed the advice I just gave to you and cut him some slack. I should have fixed it for him and kept my mouth shut.”
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” Amanda said, knowing how hard that must have been on Jessie.
The woman shrugged. “You know how it goes with us. We argue all the time. But when I realized he really didn’t remember, I pretty much came unglued, and that upset him more.”
Amanda couldn’t seem to get past what had started it all. “He really didn’t remember having breakfast?” she asked, her heart aching. “What time was this?”
“Around nine, I think. He’d only been away from the table for a half hour or so. I’d fixed him pancakes and bacon, his favorite.”
Amanda pulled out a kitchen chair and sank onto it, her knees weak. “It’s happening, isn’t it? It’s really happening. He’s going to slip away by degrees.”
Jessie pulled out a chair and sat beside her, then clasped her hands. “You remember how strong he was for you when you were a little girl?”
Amanda nodded, her eyes stinging with tears.
“That’s how strong you’re going to have to be for him now. Think you can do it?”
“I suppose I have to,” she murmured with very little conviction. How could she watch this deterioration of the m
an who’d once meant everything to her? It would have been easier if she’d never come back, if she could have remembered him as he’d been. She met Jessie’s gaze. “I wish Caleb had never told me. I wish I’d never come back.”
Jessie smiled, though her expression was sad. “No, you don’t. You know you have to be here for him now. These last glimpses of him as you remember him will mean the world to you one day.”
“I don’t have to be here,” Amanda said fiercely, then sighed. “No, of course, you’re right. As painful as it is, this is where I belong.” She couldn’t explain to Jessie about her mother and how that had left her emotions more conflicted than ever.
“You need to go back out there,” Jessie said, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You know your father. He’ll think we’re in here plotting against him.”
“I can fix that,” Amanda said, forcing a smile. She plunked some of Jessie’s freshly baked cookies on a plate. “I’ll tell him I was baking cookies. Maybe he won’t remember that you’re the one who baked them.”
Jessie rolled her eyes at Amanda’s pitiful attempt to make a joke out of what was truly tragic. “You’ll never get away with it,” she warned. “But I’ve half a mind to come along and watch you try.”
“Then do it,” Amanda said. “I could use the backup.”
Jessie draped a comforting arm around Amanda’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You be there for your daddy,” she said quietly. “And I’ll be there for you. Caleb will be, too. That man loves you both, you know.”
Amanda nodded, unwilling to get into that discussion.
Outside, they found Max as irritable as he’d been when Amanda had left him. Not even the fresh pitcher of tea and plate of cookies seemed to appease him. He scowled at Amanda.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded as if she’d somehow slipped in while he wasn’t paying attention.
“I’ve been here awhile, Daddy.”
“I know that,” he said impatiently. “But why did you come?”
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