Jessie Belle: The Women of Merryton - Book One

by Peel, Jennifer

  I got more verbal responses later that day since I went straight to their house after church. I didn’t want to be alone … again.

  My parents and I found our way to their closed-in porch. It was warm and sunny, but not too warm. I curled up on their wicker couch and they each took a chair. We were content for the most part with reading a book, or in my dad’s case, napping. He snored quietly into his chest as my mom and I turned page after page.

  “Do you want me to call Blake and talk to him?” my mom asked after several silent minutes and after she was sure my dad was completely asleep.

  “About what?”

  “I could give him some friendly advice.”

  “Mom, Blake doesn’t take friendly advice. And I don’t need my mommy calling my husband.”

  “I’m sure he’s not trying to hurt you.”

  “Do you think I would stay if I thought he was purposely trying to? I’m just letting him get comfortable in his new role. I’m the one who told him he needed to spend some quality time with her this weekend. I didn’t think it meant I would be excluded, but Blake does things his way.”

  “You seemed to be making progress.”

  “We were. But Dr. Ames warned me that even when we started to move forward we would have setbacks and would have to reevaluate and then try again. I don’t know if this is a setback yet. I will have to see how the next couple of weeks go. See if Blake can gain his equilibrium. I don’t want to seem like a jealous wife, and I refuse to be jealous of my husband’s daughter. I don’t want be that woman.”

  My mom set down her novel and joined me on the small couch. I leaned into her and she stroked my hair. “I’m so proud of you. I wish I could make this easier on you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “It will all work out. You’ll see.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The first couple of weeks I wasn’t really sure if it would all work out. On Monday I felt like real life began, and it was a test - a horrible, never-ending test of my patience and fortitude.

  Monday morning started off okay. Maddie didn’t want to get up and get ready for school, but I let her dad deal with that. My only contribution was making some amazing blueberry muffins with cinnamon crumble on top, drizzled in lemon glaze. I’m not sure if she enjoyed them because they ended up being a “to go” item. She was acting like quite the bear that morning and running late. I almost smiled as I watched Blake deal with her unwillingness and crabbiness.

  “I hate school,” she moaned over and over.

  Blake’s response, “Everyone hates it.”

  I rolled my eyes at his uninspiring speech and refrained from saying, “not me.” I loved school. Instead, I handed her a sack breakfast and told her school was going to be amazing.

  She looked at me like I was crazy.

  “You can pick her up from school, right?” Blake asked on his way out the door, practically dragging Maddie.

  “I’ll be there at twelve o’clock sharp.”

  “Thanks,” he said exasperatedly.

  I waved at them both. “Have a good day,” I sing-song said in my best Maria voice. Then I shut the door and grinned evilly. It was very un-Maria like, but I was happy to see that she could be obstinate for her dad too, and that it wasn’t just me.

  I almost had a skip to my step as I walked into Jessie Belle’s. I knew I was taking pleasure in something I maybe shouldn’t, but Blake needed someone to push his buttons, and after a weekend of leaving me out of the picture, I felt justified in my feelings. Not to say I was right to, but I was only human.

  My favorite ladies group was there and they were all anxious to see me. I stopped by their table before I even made it to my office. “Ladies, did you have a nice weekend?”

  Doris pulled out a chair for me. “You don’t want to hear about our boring lives. We all want to hear about yours.”

  “I’m more boring than any of you.”

  “Now don’t play coy with us,” Gerri said. “We all want to know how you’re dealing with your husband’s love child.”

  “Love child?”

  “Yeah, you know, a child from an affair.”

  “Blake didn’t have an affair.”

  “We know, honey,” Fran said as she patted my hand condescendingly, like they were just playing along to my naiveté. “But we hear you met the other woman.”

  “Please ladies, there isn’t another woman. And please, please remember we are talking about a child here. A child that I want to feel welcome in our town.”

  “You’re a saint,” Ingrid said.

  “Believe me, I’m no saint.”

  “Are you kidding us? How many women in your shoes would be so understanding, especially after all you’ve been through?” Fran added.

  I stood up. “Thank you, ladies. I hope you all have a wonderful day.”

  “We’re here if you need us,” they all called out.

  I needed them like I needed a sledgehammer to the head. There went the good mood.

  The day only got more fun from there.

  I sat in front of my old school, Centennial Junior High, and waited for Maddie to get out of class. I hoped she was going to be in a better mood. She was definitely her dad’s child; I could see she was aggravated from yards away. Oh joy, I thought. I tried to channel Maria before Maddie opened the car door.

  “Hi, honey,” I said in my best Maria voice ever. “How was school?’

  She blew her hair out of her pretty eyes, “Lame.”

  “That fun, huh?” I tried to tease.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Do you have homework?”

  “Yes,” she practically cried.

  “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll help.”

  “I hate school, it’s stupid!”

  I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t equipped. “How’s this, we’ll make some panini and then eat some cookies over homework. I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

  “Okay,” she whimpered.

  “So did you meet anyone you liked?”

  “Yeah, there was this girl, Katie Richter.”

  “The Richters are great. If you want, you can have Katie over sometime.”

  “You’d let me?”

  “Sure.”

  I saw a hint of her dad’s crooked little grin.

  “My mom didn’t like me to have friends over.”

  “Oh. Well, it was probably because she didn’t feel good.”

  “I think she was embarrassed because we were poor.”

  I reached over and stroked her hair. “I can understand that. But you are welcome to have friends over anytime as long as you ask first. Okay?”

  She nodded her head.

  I thought maybe the initial part of our car chat would be the worst part of the day since we seemed to have a moment, but I was so naïve. I wondered if they had any classes on how to raise teenagers, or maybe a raising a teenager for dummies book. Anything.

  We did the grand tour of Jessie Belle’s first and let everyone get their fill of staring at the poor girl. I kept my arm around her the whole time, as if to shield her whenever I introduced her to anyone. Easton, thankfully, showed up for lunch again. I could count on him for non-gawking pleasantness. He should be thanking us for taking the heat off of his wife’s scandalous affair.

  “Maddie, this is a friend of ours, Dr. Cole.”

  Easton reached out to shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Maddie.”

  Maddie took his hand and smiled very politely. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  Easton smiled at me in a taken aback sort of way. I wanted to say, yes, she’s bold isn’t she? “I’m a family doctor. I take care of all sorts of patients and deliver babies.”

  “Do you take care of people with cancer?”

  I wrapped my arm back around her.

  Easton cleared his throat. He was familiar with the situation. “No, not usually. I leave that to the oncologists.”

  “Oh,” Maddie said disappointed. Then she looked
up to me. “Your dad was a doctor. Did he help people with cancer?”

  “Sometimes, but he wasn’t an oncologist, either.”

  “Salt Lake City has some of the best cancer treatment centers,” Easton said kindly to her.

  Too bad Sabrina refused to take advantage of it. We hadn’t told anyone that yet. We probably never would. I didn’t want Maddie to think her mom just gave up.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow night at the game,” I said as I steered Maddie away.

  “See you then,” he called.

  Well, that was fun, but not as much fun as we were about to have.

  I had lunch brought into my office, which maybe wasn’t a good move to start, but I figured this would keep everyone from staring at us.

  The first thing Maddie did was grab the wedding photo off of my desk. She looked it over carefully and then looked up at me from across the desk. “You know my dad didn’t love my mom because of you.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My mom.”

  “Honey, that’s not true.”

  “But when you have a baby with someone you’re supposed to love them.”

  “That’s how it should be, but that’s not how it always is. Your dad and mom never loved each other.”

  “My mom loved my dad.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you think that?”

  “Because she used to tell me stories about him when I was little, and she said he was the best and most handsome man ever.”

  “Your dad is a good man, but honey, your parents hardly knew each other.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes.

  I felt terrible though I didn’t know why. This wasn’t my fault.

  “My dad said you’re the only woman he’s ever loved.” The tears trickled down her face.

  I stood up and walked over to her and pulled her up and hugged her. I was surprised she let me. But I didn’t think she was upset with me. A thought popped into my head. “You know what? I know your dad wishes he would have known about you sooner. I know he’s sorry he missed out on so much of your life, and so am I.”

  She looked up at me and wiped her soft cheeks.

  “We’re both happy you’re here.”

  “Thanks for being nice to me. I thought maybe you wouldn’t like me.”

  I tapped her nose. “You don’t have to thank me. I think you’re pretty great. Now let’s eat, I’m starving.”

  “Me, too,” she said with a smile.

  Blake was getting an earful when we got home, I thought as I watched her enjoy her prosciutto caprese panini. I wasn’t prepared to handle these types of conversations.

  “What do you have for homework?” I asked as soon as I cleared away our lunch.

  “Ughhhh …”

  Boy, did she have some serious disgusted looks in her arsenal. I almost laughed at her, but thought better of it. “If we do it now we won’t have to worry about it later.”

  “I shouldn’t even have homework. It’s summer.”

  “It’s only for the month,” I reminded her.

  She reached down for the backpack her dad bought her over the weekend. She talked him into going shopping when they were done mountain biking and they had come home with lots of new things yesterday. She had a new iPhone with all the accessories, including a wireless speaker, and a charm bracelet. I didn’t say anything to him. I knew she didn’t have the best life and lacked a lot of material things, but I didn’t think we should go overboard.

  She pulled out a math book and a language arts book and dropped them with a thud on my desk.

  “Which one first?” I asked.

  “I guess math.”

  “Great, I love math.”

  She looked at me like I was delirious.

  I smiled back at her. “Math is great because you can always get an absolute answer.”

  By her look of disdain, I guessed she wasn’t buying it.

  She slowly pulled out her notebook and a pencil and flipped to the page in slow motion. “We have to do the even problems because the odd problems give the answers in the back,” she complained.

  “My teachers used to do the same,” I said in consolation.

  “My teacher, Mr. Horton, knows you.”

  “I used to go to school with Tim, or I should say Mr. Horton. He’s a good teacher and he’s nice.”

  “I guess.” She sounded like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.

  I let her start working the problems on her own. I wanted to see what she could do before I stepped in. I didn’t want her to feel like she wasn’t capable. She was obviously a very smart girl. I watched her get more and more frustrated.

  I walked around and pulled up a chair next to her. “What do we have here?” I asked in my best Maria voice.

  “Fractions,” she moaned.

  I looked at her paper and she hadn’t even completed the first problem. It seemed simple and straight forward. It was an addition problem, ½ + ¾ = __.

  “Well, first we have to find a common denominator.”

  She looked at me like I was speaking Chinese.

  “The bottom number,” I clarified.

  “Oh, yeah, I always forget which one is which.”

  “Remember “D” means down.”

  “I can remember that.”

  “Great. So what’s the smallest the number that both two and four go into?”

  She thought for a moment and then said, “Four,” hesitantly.

  This went on for every step. She seemed to know what the answer was, but wasn’t confident in her choices. It was painful, but we got through all thirty problems. I was going to be talking to Tim about the amount of homework he was giving. Then came language arts. She was supposed to read a short story and then answer questions about the passage. At first she read the story silently, and I read along with her. Then came the questions, and she couldn’t seem to answer any, ranging from whose point of view was the story told from to which passage below is a fact. So I had her read the story out loud. It was beyond rough. She read slowly, and several times I had to help her sound out a word, which, by the way, didn’t make her happy. I also had to help with the meanings of words.

  I was about to call Blake and have him come over and help. I didn’t need her to hate me for trying to help her. But I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t want to help her. Then I thought about calling my own mom. Not to help Maddie, but because I felt like I needed my mom. This was harder than I thought it would be. School came naturally to me, so this was foreign. By the time we were done, there were a lot of tears, some of them Maddie’s. Kidding . . . I only cried on the inside.

  We spent so much time on homework, I decided to call it a day when we were done. I had planned on doing some baking with her in the kitchen, but I was exhausted and ready to go home. It was almost that time anyway.

  When we got home, I let Maddie turn on the television while I started dinner. I baked some seasoned pork chops and made a strawberry, spinach, and poppy seed salad. I also had Maddie call her mom. I listened in on the short conversation. Maddie basically told her about school and her new bike, end of story. She didn’t ask how her mom was. I wondered if she was afraid to.

  I set dinner on the table just as Blake was walking in. I looked up from the table expecting a Leave it to Beaver moment. You know, when Ward comes home and sees everything June has done, from helping with homework and trying to run her own business, to putting a well-balanced meal on the table. And Ward comes and kisses June and tells her how much he adores her and that she’s the best wife ever and what would he ever do without her. But then reality came knocking.

  “Madeline, go change into some shorts and a t-shirt and grab your new racquet. We’ll leave as soon as I change.”

  I put my hand up to object or to at least grab some attention as he rushed toward the stairs. I went completely unnoticed. I sank into the chair nearest me and looked at the beautiful spread in front of me. This
is ridiculous, I thought. I pushed away from the table and set off to find my husband. I was tired of being ignored.

  I walked up the stairs to find him coming down, already dressed to play racquetball.

  “Jessica.” He stopped on the landing.

  “Dinner’s ready,” I said in a passive-aggressive sort of way.

  He must have picked up on it a little as he cocked his head. “It’s not good to eat before you play.”

  “A heads up would have been nice.”

  “Don’t worry about making dinner. Who knows what we’ll be doing in the evenings? I’ll make sure Maddie and I get something to eat.”

  “That’s just great,” I said as I turned and stomped back down the stairs. Livid didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I marched myself to my room and locked the door. Not that it mattered, because no one came calling. How did I get cut out of the equation? I wasn’t really the governess like Maria, but that’s how I felt he treated me. What happened to my greeting kisses, and what happened to me being the most important thing in his life? What happened to working on our relationship?

  In my alone time, between cursing Blake and eating, I got online and did some research about to how to best help Maddie with her math and reading skills. I found a couple of great articles. One suggested showing how to apply math in everyday situations like cooking and baking. Perfect, I thought. The one for reading was a little bit different, it suggested not only to buy books that would be of interest to her, but that we could read to each other. I figured it couldn’t hurt, but how was Maddie going to feel about me reading to her? My mom and dad read to each other and I thought it was romantic. I wished Blake would read to me. But I didn’t want Maddie to think I was babying her.

  I turned off my tablet and cleaned up and cursed Blake some more. This was really his job. It wasn’t my job to do all the hard work and let him just come home and have all the fun, especially when the fun excluded me.

  Tuesday was a little better. I took Maddie to the bookstore to pick out some books she thought she might be interested in. She landed on a teen spy series. It promised to be full of intrigue, murder, lies, and some romance. They looked mostly innocent so I bought the whole set of six.