Let Me Love You Again (An Echoes of the Heart Novel Book 2)

by Anna DeStefano

  “Brad and Oliver and Selena and Camille,” Marsha said. “It’s not a coincidence that they’re all back now.”

  “Not if you have anything to say about it,” Joe teased.

  “I don’t know what has Oliver more spooked. Agreeing to stay in town for longer than he’d planned.” She could still see her son’s shock in the hallway. His anger downstairs. “Or the prospect of still being so tangled up over Selena.”

  “They weren’t ready for what they had when they were younger. Or how hard it was going to be to keep it. Not everyone gets it right from the start.”

  The way she and Joe had. “Brad and Dru worked past their issues.”

  Their Dru had learned how to believe in someone, something, as her very own. Oliver needed the same confidence in himself—in his heart. A lot of their kids struggled to trust the best of what life had in store for them.

  “What if he’s still not ready?” Joe looking worried—for her and their son.

  “What if Selena isn’t?”

  The young woman was so deliberate now, so careful. Like Oliver always had been, even when he’d been drinking and self-destructing in high school. He and Selena had worked hard for their new lives. And both were determined to believe those lives should be far away from Chandlerville.

  “This may be their last chance.” Marsha rested her head on her husband’s shoulder. “Our last chance to help them. We have to do something.”

  She and Joe had guessed for a while now that there was more going on than Selena admitted to. They hadn’t said anything to anyone else. There was no way to ask questions about Camille without making the situation worse. But after what had just happened in the hallway, Marsha was even more convinced that Selena was hiding something, and isolating herself because of it.

  Her husband sighed. “You’re determined this is the right time?”

  “Is there ever a right time to dig into the past and hope the truth doesn’t make things worse?” Marsha was thinking of Dru now, and everything she and Brad had already been through. “The last thing I want is to cause more hurt.”

  “A lot of good can come from believing that people will support each other, even if it hurts a little.”

  “Camille,” Marsha whispered. “She’s a very good thing.”

  “She’s the most important thing. Oliver will see that. Dru and Brad, too. Selena already does, the way she dotes on the child. We’ll have to convince her that she belongs with us, too. Or no matter what Oliver does next, Selena might bolt.”

  “Oliver will make sure everyone’s taken care of.” Protecting his own was a soul-deep part of the man he’d become, the same as with Travis. And Joe. “But . . .”

  “He needs to want Camille for himself—not see her as another responsibility to throw money at while he keeps himself from getting too attached. If she turns out to be his.”

  “She’s so beautiful. And she’s so Oliver’s.” Marsha had hoped so at least, since the first time Camille had flashed her crooked, heart-catching smile.

  “Our first grandchild.”

  Joe sounded exhausted—and positively bewitched. Then his breath caught on his next chest pain. He insisted they weren’t nearly as bad now as when he’d collapsed in the heat of the late afternoon sun, mowing their lawn. Fin Robinson, one of their newest kids, had found his father and run screaming inside to get Marsha. Her own heart clenched at the terrifying memory.

  Straightening, she made her smile wider, softer, wanting Joe to know. Did he know? He was her everything—their family’s everything. He had to pull through this.

  “I can’t wait to see Camille wrap her grandpa around her little finger,” she said. “You’ll be toast. You’re always such a pushover with the girls.”

  He smiled through whatever discomfort remained, reassuring, determined, and then somber. A tear trickled from his eye.

  “I . . . I don’t want to miss any of it. But I know it’s going to be okay. All of it. And I believe in you, love, whatever you think you need to do for Oliver.”

  Marsha wiped his cheek, wiped her own. Her Joe’s belief was a powerful thing. It had gotten them through so much. It wouldn’t fail them tonight.

  “After your angio’s a smashing success,” she said, “you’ll get to see plenty of Camille and Oliver and everyone else. All the kids can come for a visit once you’re on the mend and out of CICU.”

  Her husband’s eyes slid shut, the weakness that struck without warning stealing him away.

  “My first grandchild,” he whispered.

  Marsha kissed him. “You better believe it, Gramps.”

  She slid into the chair beside his bed. Useless tears welled behind her closed lids. But there was no time for that kind of nonsense.

  Time, she’d learned years ago, slipped by too quickly to waste wishing things were different. Whatever was coming next always arrived, regardless. Steering into the current was the only way. Making life work the best you knew how, instead of fighting what needed to be done or giving up and going under.

  Maybe Joe was right. It might be safer to let things follow their own course. But everyone needed to be navigating the same troubled waters sooner rather than later. It was the only way to tackle the hard work that had gone undone for too long.

  “Leave it to me, love.” Her hand still covered her husband’s heart, desperate for the feel of its steady beat. “I won’t let our boy leave again without him knowing how much we all need him.”

  Chapter Seven

  “No, Parker,” Camille’s mommy said on her cell phone, while Camille played out back of her grammy’s house. She was in the shade by the tall bushes next to the Dixons’ yard.

  It was one of her favorite places to play, near all the pretty white flowers—camellias—that were like her name. ’Sides, it was too hot to play anywhere else, even in the front yard where she wouldn’t have to hear Mommy argue with Parker.

  And she’d already spread out one of Grammy’s quilts where she was. It was Camille’s favorite—the one with the big flowers all over. And she had her bubble wand and the big bottle of bubble stuff Mommy had let her buy at the dollar store. And bubbles kinda made it not so bad that Parker had ruined the drive home from the shoe store by calling and making Mommy sad again. And since Camille was sitting next to Grammy’s camellias, she could watch all the people next door. And that was even more fun than bubbles.

  There were lots of people to watch today—extra cars in the driveway, plus all the kids were home from school. The man from that morning and his truck were back, and Dru and Travis and Mrs. Dixon now. Plus, Camille was close enough to still hear what her mommy was saying if she wanted to. And she kinda wanted to, even though she wished they really had left Parker behind for real, the way Mommy kept saying they had. Only Parker kept calling and calling. And Camille worried about her mommy when he did that.

  “No,” Mommy said. “We’re not coming up there. I told you this morning, last week, last month, two months ago. My answer hasn’t changed. It’s not going to change. You don’t want a family. You want to look like you have a family, while you live your life however you want to. We don’t need to see each other again to agree on that. And Camille doesn’t need to be any more confused by what you think being a father and a husband looks like. We both know what we want and what we don’t. You need to tell your lawyers to release enough money so I can get Camille settled somewhere else. I’ve said yes to mediation. I’ll say yes to whatever’s fair, including not asking for child support. But that’s not enough for you. We agreed . . .”

  Mommy kept saying that to Parker—the man they’d lived with all of Camille’s life. The man who’d married her mommy so they could be a family forever, and had kept asking Camille to call him Daddy when Mommy said she didn’t have to, ’cause he wasn’t really. The man who made her mommy cry at night sometimes still, when Mommy thought Camille was asleep and wouldn’t hear her talking to Parker on the phone.

  We agreed . . .

  Her mommy saw
Camille watching and turned away and started whispering. Like she didn’t want Camille to worry. Like she didn’t want Camille to miss the things they used to have when they lived with Parker in his fancy apartment in New York. But it was okay with Camille, all of it, ’specially leaving. Because now they got to live with Grammy. Whatever we agreed meant, New York had never felt as good as living here, and living next door to Grammy’s neighbors.

  Watching the Dixon house around the shady bushes in the hedge, Camille sat in the middle of the old quilt on one of the tulips—the flower that had a little tear she didn’t mind on one of its purple petals. She dipped her daisy bubble wand and waved it and thought about all the times in New York when Mommy had taken her to play in the park next to Parker’s building. And Mommy had kept telling Camille how great it was to live where they lived, and all Camille had ever wanted was a house of her own, with other houses all around them and kids her age to play with, like the ones she saw on TV.

  She watched her bubbles fly and sparkle and sink, the sun making rainbows in them, and wondered what living at the Dixons’ house would be like. There were always tons of kids there. She’d even snuck over a couple of times to play, when Grammy wasn’t watching and Mommy was out, even though Camille wasn’t s’posed to.

  The Dixon family was so cool. All those kids. All of them looked different. They weren’t a real family, someone at school had said. But they were bigger than any family Camille had ever seen, and they looked so happy, and she kinda sometimes wished . . .

  She looked behind her.

  She wished her mommy wasn’t upset so much still. She wished Parker would stop calling. She wished she could believe her mommy and grammy when they acted like nothing was wrong, no matter how many times Camille asked ’cause she knew something still was. In New York Mommy had smiled and said things were okay, too, only they hadn’t been.

  Camille wished that whatever the fresh start was that Mommy kept saying would happen would go ahead and happen now.

  “No, Parker,” her mommy said. “Camille and I can’t live that way anymore. We’ve moved on.”

  Mommy said moved on a lot, too.

  Moved, Camille understood. They’d moved from their apartment with Parker to a friend’s place in New York. Camille had slept on the couch and Mommy on the floor, and they hadn’t been able to bring most of their things. Then they’d moved from New York with Mommy’s new, funny car, Fred. And that time, they’d only brought the stuff they could pack inside him. They’d been at Grammy’s longer than Mommy had said they would, and Camille loved all of her new things here—mostly Mommy’s old things, because Camille was staying in her mommy’s old room, and the other cool stuff Grammy didn’t mind Camille playing with, like her quilts. But Mommy said they’d be moving again soon.

  Once Parker did whatever Mommy said he’d agreed to.

  Camille dragged her floppy blue bunny, Bear, into her lap. She’d brought him outside with her quilt. She liked to pretend he was the pet she’d never been able to have in Parker’s apartment. She blew fresh bubbles while she stared next door. She bet no one over there wanted to move. Why would they, in a family like that?

  She noticed the man from that morning standing at the kitchen window, the same place Mrs. Dixon stood sometimes on the weekend, when Camille stayed home with Grammy, and Mommy did errands or jogged the way she did every day she didn’t work. Camille stood, leaving Bear on the quilt. She bounded up and down on her new pink tennis shoes and twirled her bubble wand the way she sometimes did with Mrs. Dixon, wanting the man to see how many great bubbles she could make.

  Mrs. Dixon always clapped. She liked bubbles a lot. The man didn’t clap, but he kept staring. So Camille waved her hand, the way Mommy had waved at him that morning. He waved back this time, and it looked like maybe he was smiling. Then Mrs. Dixon was there, waving, too.

  Chapter Eight

  “She’s adorable,” Marsha said to Oliver.

  “Hey, Mom.” He pulled her into a hug, both of them looking out the window. He hadn’t realized she was home yet.

  Marsha rested her head on his shoulder. “Selena was about that age when she and Belinda first moved next door. That was, what, eight years or so before you came along?”

  Oliver grunted.

  He blinked the sleepless grit out of his eyes.

  After Travis dropped him at the house, Oliver had jogged a quick couple of miles to clear his head, nearly having a heat stroke under the midday sun. He’d showered. Hanging until Dru got home with Teddy, he’d downed what must have been a gallon of water and tried to nap. Epic fail. Then he’d heard Selena’s dilapidated Chevy pull into the driveway next door. He’d dragged his ass off the couch so he could peer through the blinds, and he’d been borderline or not-so-borderline spying on the Rosenthal place ever since. When he’d heard her out back, how was he supposed to have looked away from the sight of her and her daughter on the other side of his parents’ hedge?

  “She seems happy.” He glanced again at Selena’s adorable little girl, who’d gone back to playing. He hadn’t had the heart not to wave back just now.

  “They dote on her.” Marsha leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms. An ominous sign. She had something to get off her chest—resistance was futile. “It’s a side of Belinda most people don’t remember. The way she’d loved so freely and showered so much attention on Selena—back before Ben left them, and Belinda and Selena moved out of their big house across town and into that tiny thing next door. Belinda never completely recovered from it. But Camille’s been good for her grandmother. She’s a special little girl. People fall in love with her on sight.”

  “What’s not to love?”

  He watched Selena talk on the phone, her daughter nearby on a colorful blanket. Sweet, domestic, a picturesque scene. Selena seemed to finally have what she’d always wanted, whatever had happened with her marriage. A family of her own to care for and be loved by, including reconciling with her mother.

  “There’s evidently some kind of delay with her divorce,” Marsha said. “Selena’s helping Belinda make ends meet while she’s here, working a part-time job at the elementary school.”

  Selena was divorced. Oliver couldn’t wrap his head around it. He tuned back in to the growing chaos that had rocked the house once Dru returned with Teddy—the kid screaming from being awoken from his car-seat-induced snooze. She and Oliver hadn’t exchanged more than a few words before Travis turned up again. Then the school busses pulled to the curb, one every half hour, spitting out the rest of the kids. The noise factor in the house had quickly escalated to eardrum-bursting decibels, distracting Oliver from imagining Selena with another man, raising their child, living their life. Leaving their life to move back here.

  Two older kids, a teenage boy and girl, raced through the kitchen. Ignoring Oliver and Belinda, they tramped up the back stairs, bickering.

  “You played first yesterday,” said the girl who’d been introduced as Shandra. She wore a jeans skirt and graphic T-shirt and had turned a bright blue bandana into a headband. “It’s my turn.”

  “No one’s playing nothin’.” Gabe’s cargoes were wrinkled almost as badly as his short-sleeved, plaid button-down. “Not if we don’t find the controller.”

  “In your pit of a room?” Shandra raced past him.

  “Stay out of my room! I didn’t take it upstairs last night.”

  Marsha watched them go and chuckled.

  “Video games.” She shook her head. “They take turns after school. Sounds like Shandra has first dibs today.”

  “If she can make Gabe produce the controller. And she’s infiltrating enemy territory to hunt for it, so he’ll think twice before he hides something from her again. Smart girl.”

  Oliver’s running grudge match with his own siblings over anything and everything had been legend back in the day. Marsha and Joe had mostly let them work things out for themselves, the way Travis and Dru seemed to be this afternoon. And before the full-tilt after-
school mayhem could torch the last of Oliver’s rapidly declining sanity, he’d excused himself to the kitchen to make coffee—for Marsha. He’d wanted to have something comforting waiting for her when she got home. Instead, he’d let himself get sidetracked.

  He sneaked another glance out the window. Selena and her daughter were gone.

  “Honey,” Marsha said, “have you—”

  “Can we get this started, Mom?” Travis came in from the living room, still in uniform. He’d been grousing since he’d arrived about the mound of paperwork still waiting for him at the station.

  “Sure,” Marsha said. “Let me grab that cup of coffee.”

  She scanned the unused stovetop. Her gaze tracked back to Oliver. So did Travis’s.

  “Take all the time you need, bro,” Travis said with a WTF stare. “I think Dru’s teaching the older kids how to play craps. The younger ones are finger-painting the walls. And I’m showing Teddy the finer points of Hatha yoga. We’ve got all day.”

  He left Oliver and Marsha alone again, in the room where she’d cooked for Oliver, where he’d learned to clean up after himself and others. He’d helped her sort and fold laundry on the counter. He’d tutored the younger kids with math homework. He’d helped bandage skinned knees and elbows when there’d been no one else around to see to someone smaller than he was.

  All the family he’d known since he’d lost his birth mother had happened in this kitchen, the living room, upstairs where he’d bunked with Travis in what was likely Gabe and Fin’s room now. And being part of it again as an adult felt . . . so much better than he should be letting it. He chugged from a bottle of water he’d snagged from the refrigerator.

  Leaning his hip against the counter, he faced the music.

  “What’s on your mind, Mom?”

  “You’re sure you’re ready to be point for dealing with six kids who’ve never met you?” Marsha’s smile said she’d guessed he’d been hiding out in the kitchen. “A baby, three in elementary school, and another two in high school who come fully equipped with the attitude that anyone older than nineteen loses ten IQ points just getting out of bed in the morning?”