Cursed by Love

by Jacie Floyd

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Just little signs, here and there. Like his socks.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows. “What about his socks?”

  “Didn’t I mention his cartoon character socks before?” Molly had to smile as she pictured them. “Even last night when he looked so gorgeous in a perfectly tailored suit, he wore a pair of Mickey and Minnie Mouse socks. And he keeps toys in his office. At first I thought they were there for his niece, and some of them are, but some of them are more sophisticated computer and video games that grown-up boys like to play with.” Her smile turned into a frown. “I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into normal eccentricities.”

  “Why is this so important to you?” Mom bit into a muffin, then leaned forward. “Is Gabe important to you?”

  Molly had been denying it, but the realization hit her like a ton of Legos. She heaved a deep breath and took the plunge. “I think so, yes.” Just stating it seemed to put things into perspective. Her whole outlook brightened.

  “In some ways he’s so right for me. But in other ways he’s so wrong. You wouldn’t think we’d have anything in common, but when I think of all his good qualities...” She shrugged helplessly.

  Houdini sauntered over and touched her ankle with his paw. She wiggled her toes at him, and he scampered away. “In the grand scheme of things, it might not matter if he knows how to let himself have fun or not, but it matters to me.”

  “Fun is important. It’s one of the first things I noticed about—” Her mom stopped, looking stricken. “Well, that’s old news.”

  Molly set aside her cup and picked up the cat, who had returned to her feet. “Finish that sentence, Mom. Please. What was one of the first things you noticed about Dad?”

  Her mom pressed her lips together, and Molly didn’t think she was going to answer. But then, she did. “I was going to say how much I appreciated his sense of the ridiculous. The way he didn’t let ordinary frustrations get to him. How he could smile, even when he was down. How he made me laugh. And how much he cared. Especially about everyone who was important to him.”

  “He’s still that way.”

  “I guess.” Mom looked away. “I guess I’m just not included on the list of people who are important to him anymore.”

  “Of course, you are.”

  “Well.” Mom broke the rest of her muffin in half. Instead of taking a bite, she broke it in half again. And again. Until the poor muffin had been reduced to a pile of crumbs. “Not as important as I used to be.”

  “Now, see, that’s why I’m confused. If you can be wrong about somebody as fabulous as Dad, and if I could be wrong about someone as—as—as ordinary as William, how does anyone know when they’ve found the right one?”

  “I wasn’t wrong about your father, Molly. We were perfect together for a long time. Even the best of relationships grind to a halt after a while. Sometimes, there’s no way to stop it from happening.”

  Molly hated the air of defeat that clung to her mother like the ivy on the pool’s privacy fence. Especially when her mother was wrong.

  They could do something to prevent it from happening. They could break the curse of the damned Sleeping Lotus.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Molly swallowed her disappointment when Gabe called that afternoon and cancelled their plans to go to the movies that night. He claimed he had too much work, blaming the big Quigley project. After apologizing, he promised to join her and her dad for Sunday brunch as they’d previously agreed. But she detected enough reserve that she halfway expected him to cancel out on that, too.

  So, with no Gabe, and no plans for a Saturday night, she stayed over at her mom’s again. They watched Molly’s favorite hunky carpenter on a home improvement show while they baked brownies and organized mementos from Nonna’s boxes. But mostly, Molly spent the hours like a lovesick teenager looking forward to seeing Gabe when they met her Dad for breakfast.

  She sensed something had happened since she’d last seen him that had created a Grand Canyon-sized gap between them. After the intimacies they’d shared on Friday night, the distance mystified her.

  The next morning, her father waited for her outside The Broken Egg. He kissed her cheek and handed her a cup of her favorite mocha latte. She inhaled deeply. “Hello, Moll.” Dad had on his Sunday morning uniform of old chinos and comfortable sweater. This particular nubby charcoal pullover was one her mother had knitted for him several Christmases ago.

  They hugged and moved inside, waiting together in the foyer, waiting for their table, and waiting for Gabe. It hadn’t escaped Molly’s notice that she’d been doing more than her fair share of waiting lately.

  The restaurant had that delicious bacon-and-sausage scent combined with omelets, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, and biscuits and gravy. All those yummy high-cholesterol, high-calorie, or high-carb breakfast foods she loved and rarely allowed herself to eat. Her stomach rumbled with anticipation. Every bite would result in an extra hour of Zumba, but she’d decided to indulge herself anyway.

  Dad eyed the door, checking for their guest before fixing her with a penetrating stare, the one he’d used to ferret out the truth from offspring, patients, and students for years. “How’re you doing after the break-in?”

  “Fine.” She smiled brightly. If she exhibited the least bit of fear or anxiety, she knew he’d never allow her out of his sight again.

  “I talked to a buddy down at the police station.”

  “Of course you did, but it’s not difficult to figure out. It was someone after the Sleeping Lotus, obviously.” She bit her lip and had to ask. “Any news?”

  She’d resigned herself years ago to the fact that he always had a buddy somewhere that he could talk into keeping an eye on her if he wanted. From her only forays on the wrong side of the law—at age fourteen when she had been caught trying to sneak into a movie with friends and again at fifteen when she’d been caught teepeeing her boyfriend’s house—to the time she got her first speeding ticket at age seventeen. And then there was the time when one of her college roommates spent their rent money on great new boots—three months in a row—and got them all evicted.

  His friends had even managed to keep tabs on her last fall when she’d walked in on a domestic dispute between one of her student’s parents and ended up in the emergency room. Molly’s eye had been blackened and her nose bloodied, but she’d rescued the child from a life-threatening beating. The father had gone to jail. The mother had gone to a woman’s shelter and gotten counseling about how to get her family out of a bad situation.

  Molly considered it worth the pain. Her Dad hadn’t been nearly so accepting when he’d heard the news from the social worker involved in the case.

  He shrugged in response to her question. “They have a couple of suspects.”

  A shiver ran down her back. A shiver of annoyance, not fear. This was the first she’d heard about any leads. “Who?”

  “They followed up on the information you gave them about a suspicious car, which has lead them to a couple of avid, unscrupulous Asian erotic collectors.”

  “Oh.” Imagining a real suspect, someone with a face and a motive, made the violation of her home seem more personal. Someone who’d been following her around, at least a few times during the past week. She’d almost prefer to think it had been a random break-in. Thinking about being an actual target was enough to give her goosebumps. Chills. Nausea. Okay, so maybe fear, not annoyance, was her basic reaction.

  Her dad looked up again as an elderly couple all dressed up in their best Sunday church outfits entered the restaurant. “Where’s your friend?”

  Molly looked around at the four other pods of people in the waiting area, checking to make sure they hadn’t overlooked him. As if that could happen.

  “He’s supposed to be here.” She shrugged, pretending not to care. She wouldn’t obsess about whether he made it or not. “Want to check to see if our table’s ready? The hostess can bring him to us when he gets
here.”

  Just then the hostess turned and called their name.

  And from behind her, Gabe spoke. “I’m here. Hope I’m not late.”

  Talk about goosebumps. The sound of his voice sent flocks of them scurrying. Molly turned toward him and couldn’t keep the silly grin off her face, even though he looked mostly tired and worried. He smiled back, but kept his distance, kind of strong-arming Molly an arm’s length away when she tried to move in for a hug.

  “You’re right on time.” Stung by the rebuff, she crossed her arms to keep her hands to herself. “I hope you brought your appetite. The servings here are enormous.”

  “Never leave home without it.” He shook hands with her dad. “Thanks for including me.”

  “Everything okay?” Molly asked out of the corner of her mouth as they followed the hostess to a cozy corner booth.

  An unidentifiable dark emotion stirred behind his eyes, but he shook it off along with her concern. “Couldn’t be better. What about you? How are things at your house?”

  “Better than they were the other night.”

  “Good.” He stood back to allow Molly to scoot into the booth first, and then slid in on the same side, leaving enough space between them to park the Volkswagen. She frowned, but inched over in his direction. Dad took the bench across the table from them.

  The waitress, a plump forty-something woman doing a Dolly Parton impersonation, batted false eyelashes at Dad and leaned over way too far while she poured his coffee. Dad seemed oblivious to the display and studied the menu.

  After the three of them ordered, Dolly sashayed away, and Dad flashed a grin. “I like this.”

  “The Broken Egg?” Molly asked.

  “Company for breakfast.” He picked a bottle of hot sauce out of the condiment holder, rolling it between his palms. “Right before I moved out of the house, I felt so hemmed in. The idea of having my own space seemed so much more appealing, but I didn’t realize how much I’d hate all of those solitary meals. In restaurants, at my desk, in front of the television in my condo. I don’t know how you can stand living alone, honey.”

  Molly realized the house he no longer found so confining was the home he shared with his wife. Did this mean he was entertaining second thoughts about the separation?

  “Eating alone sounds pretty good to me,” Gabe said, checking his watch. “At home and work, I sit down with groups from four to twelve most of the time. Someone is always hammering me with requests, opinions, and demands while I eat. Makes for a lot of indigestion.”

  She saw his point. “After spending the day with jabbering eight-year-olds, I kind of enjoy the quiet. But Mom and I were saying yesterday that what we both really dislike is cooking for one. Most of the time, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.” She wondered what else her dad missed about living at home. “Don’t you think it’s nice to not have someone nagging you about loading the dishwasher, or putting the toaster away right after you’ve used it?”

  He frowned into his coffee. “Your mother never nagged about those things.”

  “True, she’s not a nag, is she?” Molly smiled sweetly. “She’s pretty accepting of other people’s flaws.”

  “That’s one of the things I like about Ellen.” He’d picked up the topic without much prompting. “She sees every side to a situation, not just her own. She always fights fair, never nitpicks.”

  That sounded promising. She sipped her orange juice. “What else do you like about her, Dad?”

  The top-heavy waitress brought their heaping plates, and Dad turned his attention to the food. While he buttered his stack of pancakes and doused them in maple syrup, Molly doctored her French toast and feared the moment for confidences had passed.

  “Pass the hot sauce?” Gabe asked, and Dad handed it over.

  “What else do you like about Mom?” She dug into her hash browns, realizing as she did that repeating the question erased any shred of subtlety. But this subject was important to her. No time like the present to air her opinion. Not that anyone had asked for it, but her parents had bumbled along in the wrong direction for too long. If she didn’t step in soon, they might never find their way back together.

  “Uh, Molly...” Gabe shifted his feet and long legs under the table, knocking their knees together. From the distance he’d been maintaining, she knew the contact had been on purpose, and it irritated her to realize how much heat the mild touch aroused. “Maybe your dad doesn’t want to talk about this.”

  Dad looked up from his meal wearing his thoughtful expression. “One of the things I like about Ellen is that she doesn’t try to trick me into talking about subjects that are none of her business. Now if only my daughter could learn the same lesson.” He flicked a glance toward Gabe, which was the same as adding the phrase, in front of outsiders.

  Gabe checked his watch again. She wondered about his sudden fascination with the time. He’d checked it about every two seconds since his arrival, not that she’d been paying close enough attention to notice. But she had.

  “We don’t have to tiptoe around in front of Gabe.” She pressed her thigh against his hard-muscled one, leaning into the feel of the solid warmth next to her, taking courage from his presence. “Gabe’s aware of the situation between you and Mom. And your marriage is my business, because I care about both of you so much.”

  “Molly, no.” Dad shook his head slowly. “The details of a marriage are between the husband and the wife, and no one else.”

  Molly’s heart contracted, as if an invisible hand squeezed it. Surely Dad didn’t mean to exclude her. Didn’t mean to reject her help. He didn’t blame her for what had happened. Did he?

  “That’s only true until a couple has children.”

  “Children are an important factor in a marriage, but they aren’t part of the marital arrangement.”

  “The word ‘family’ implies involvement, Dad, and I’m not going to keep quiet any longer just because you don’t want me to butt into your business. Here’s something I need to know.” She dropped her fork onto her plate with a clank. “Do you blame me for the breakup of your marriage?”

  “You?” Dad leaned back, shocked by the question. “Why would I?”

  She fidgeted with her napkin, unable to look him in the eye. “Just something I overheard one night.”

  “What! When?”

  “I came in the back door a few days before you left home. I heard you and Mom in the family room, arguing about my relationship with William.” Molly could barely get the words out. Gabe stiffened beside her, but Dad’s expression merely shifted from shocked to puzzled. “You thought he was perfect for me, but Mom thought I needed to be with someone who was more—” Honestly, she couldn’t remember more what. “—more interesting? More fun? More special? Something like that.”

  Suddenly, she didn’t want Gabe to hear anymore. But when she turned to him, he had his phone out, texting, not appearing to pay them any attention.

  “Someone more right for you,” Dad said quietly. “I think that’s what she wanted.” He gave a little huff of indignation. “As if she thought I wanted you to be with someone who was wrong for you.”

  Molly shivered, remembering how he’d said just that, and how the argument had deteriorated.

  He’d told Mom to stay out of Molly’s life since she couldn’t manage her own. Mom had said that despite the diploma claiming he was a psychologist, he’d always been too cold and analytical to understand anyone’s real feelings. No one with a textbook for a heart could relate to the problems of real people. He said her constant meddling only made situations worse, like the time—yada, yada, yada. It had spiraled downward from there and resulted in her dad moving out a few days later.

  “I’d never heard you argue like that before.” She speared a hunk of melon.

  “Well, there you go.” He shrugged his shoulders in a resigned gesture. “That’s how it was at the end. We couldn’t agree on anything, but I don’t want you to feel guilty about the argument you overheard. It
may have started out about you, but you were never the problem. The separation had nothing at all to do with you, Moll.”

  His words lifted a weight off her shoulders, but the larger goal of doing something to fix their problems still existed. “I hate seeing Mom so unhappy, especially when I don’t understand why you left her.”

  Dad’s fork full of pancakes stalled halfway to his mouth. “She’s unhappy? She always seems mad when I see her and relieved not to have to put up with me all the time.”

  “Mad, sad, unhappy. You know how hard it is to isolate those emotions. I don’t think she understands what’s going on any more than I do.” She lifted her cup, blew on the coffee, and then set it down. “I thought you had the perfect marriage, and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to patch things up between you. I read a book that suggested one way to rekindle a flickering spark is to rediscover the things that attracted you to one another in the first place. Don’t you think that’s good advice, Dad?”

  Beside her, Gabe put his phone in his pocket and shifted uncomfortably. He cleared his throat and stood. “Excuse me, I need to—I’ll just—Excuse me a moment.”

  “Sorry, Gabe.” Molly ducked her head. She shouldn’t have taken Gabe further into her personal family territory than he wanted to go. He had his own worries.

  He snagged a biscuit off his plate and winked at her. “No problem. I’ll be back.” He checked the time as he left the dining room.

  Dad bit into a strip of bacon and waited until Gabe disappeared. “Why do you think I was the one who decided I should leave home?”

  “Because—” Mom had always said so. Hadn’t she? Maybe Molly assumed he’d been the one who wanted the separation, because he’d been the one to leave. And because she’d identified more with Mom. And Mom had been so upset. “Weren’t you?”

  He looked confused. “I’m not sure. We must have agreed it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I don’t remember who suggested it. Or why. One day, we looked at one another and it was like it was all over between us. We didn’t have enough energy or interest left to even fight about it. So I left.”