by Janet Dailey
Taking a seat, Dawn rested her hands on the table top. Her fingers twisted and weaved together in small movements, nervous movements that betrayed her inner agitation.
Reeta Canady was attuned to all the fine changes in her daughter since the funeral of her son-in-law. The subdued behavior, the weight loss, and the troubled distraction might all be attributable to grief, but Reeta didn’t think so. With two cups of coffee poured, she set one on the table in front of Dawn. It was a bit startling to her at times that she had given birth to this stunning and vibrantly beautiful creature. Pulling up another chair, Reeta joined her at the table. There was subconscious satisfaction that she might be able to help her daughter in some way—a daughter who had everything—looks, money, and position.
“Something’s bothering you. I can tell,” she announced gently. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Dawn flashed her a surprised but grateful glance, then smiled ruefully. “Mother, I just got home less than two hours ago. Let’s leave all the confessions until tomorrow and enjoy being together.” Her problems would keep, and it wasn’t fair to spoil this homecoming day for her mother.
“Where’s all your jewelry?” her mother asked, sharply alert to the bareness of Dawn’s fingers. “Your wedding ring? And the big solitaire?”
Dawn resisted the impulse to hide her hands in her lap and curved them around the coffee cup instead. Without the rings, her fingers felt oddly light and naked. A long sigh came from her.
“I sold them.”
“There was a moment of silent shock before her mother managed to ask a confused, “Why?”
The corners of her mouth bowed down in a humorless smile. “I needed the money.”
“What are you talking about?” Reeta Canady showed her puzzled surprise, then didn’t wait for Dawn to answer as she leaped to a conclusion. “Did Simpson lose all his money? Is that why he had his heart attack?”
“No, Mother,” Dawn answered patiently. “If there was anything that caused his heart attack, it was overexertion and playing tennis in the heat of a Houston afternoon. As for his estate, I’m not sure anyone knows the exact figure but it will be in the tens of millions.”
“Then, I don’t understand.” Her mother leaned back in her chair, fully confused. “Why did you need money?”
“It’s very simple.” She stared into the black coffee in her cup, sightlessly watching its shimmering surface catch the sunlight through the window. “Simpson didn’t leave me any—or very little.” Which was more precise.
“But—” Her mother faltered over the protest. “—you are his widow. That makes you entitled to a major share of his estate.”
“Yes, I could contest the will and demand a widow’s share,” Dawn admitted. “But I’m not going to do that. Simpson did make a provision for me in his will to receive fifteen thousand dollars a year until Randy comes of age or I remarry. I think he was afraid I might embarrass the Lord family and wind up on the welfare rolls.” It was meant as a joke but its humor was weak. In her heart, she knew that hadn’t been Simpson’s intention although some of his relations believed that.
“It still isn’t fair,” her mother protested. “You were married to him for eleven years.”
“Yes. But we both know I married him because of his money. Simpson knew it, too, but it didn’t matter to him as long as he was alive.” Taking a sip of her coffee, Dawn felt no bitterness for his decision not to leave her more than a stipend. In a way, there was a certain justice in that. “On the whole, they were good years. Eventually I grew to care a lot about Simpson, even love him a little. I honestly tried to be a good wife to him. I owed him that.”
“You were so young,” her mother insisted poignantly and reached to cover Dawn’s hand, squeezing it in deep affection with a mother’s unwillingness to believe the worst of her child.
“That was no excuse.” If she had learned anything in these last eleven years, it was the high price of selfishness. So many people had been hurt by it, including herself. “Now I have a chance to start over.”
“What will you do?” Reeta asked with worried concern, wanting to help and not knowing how.
“I don’t know.” Giving rise to her agitation, Dawn pushed away from the table to stand. She wound her arms around herself in an unconsciously protective gesture, and wandered again to the screen door, half-turning to keep her mother within sight. “All the gifts Simpson gave me—the jewels, the furs—were mine to keep. But I certainly didn’t need them anymore—or want them. So I sold them. They were worth three times the fifty thousand I got for them, but it’s enough to buy a small house.”
“Where?”
Her sidelong glance held her mother’s for an instant then slid away. “I had planned to stay in Texas so Randy wouldn’t have to change schools and leave his friends.” Her expression became grim and resentful. “You remember that old saying: Nobody knows you when you’re broke? When everyone found out I wasn’t the rich widow, you’d be surprised how many friends I suddenly didn’t have. Neither did Randy. That’s really why I decided to leave Texas—because of Randy.”
“What about Randy? How is he taking all this?” An anxious frown creased her forehead as Reeta Canady watched her daughter, feeling her pain and anger.
“It’s difficult to say.” Dawn sighed again and looked through the screen. “Randy holds so much inside that I don’t really know what he’s feeling. When Simpson died, he was angry at first, then hurt by his friends’ rejection. I’m sure he’s confused . . . and desperate.”
“Didn’t Simpson . . . I mean, in the will, did he—”
“No. Two years ago, Simpson set up a trust to fund Randy’s college education but other than that, he left him nothing.” Dawn arched her throat, fighting the tightness that gripped it, and shoved her hands deep into the hip pockets of her jeans. “I’m so glad now that Simpson insisted I had to tell Randy the truth when he was small. If I hadn’t, I don’t know if Randy could have handled all this—I don’t know if I could have handled it. Now it’s a relief that he’s known for a long time that Simpson wasn’t his natural father.”
Dawn had to give full marks to her late husband for being so good to her son. He hadn’t loved him like a father, but he had liked him and been kind to him. His belief in blood ties was too fierce for Simpson to ever consider adopting Randy. Only his flesh and blood would inherit the fortune his family had amassed.
“Does he know who his real father is?” her mother asked hesitantly.
Turning slowly, Dawn retraced her steps to the table and sank down in the chair. “Yes. He asked me, so I told him. I thought he had the right to know the name of his father.” It was said flatly, all emotion pulled from her voice.
“I suppose he does.” But it bothered Reeta.
“Randy hasn’t actually said so, but I know he wants us to move here—to Key West. He’s curious about his father. That’s why he was so eager to go for a walk with Pop,” Dawn explained with a ague weariness. “He’s hoping he’ll accidentally run into Slater—or see him—anything. He desperately wants a father. It wasn’t so bad when Simpson was alive because Randy could pretend he had one. Now—?”
“Will you move here?” She had hardly dared to hope that Dawn, her only child, would consider coming back here where she could see them as often as she liked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Slater,” Dawn replied, and combed the copper red hair behind her ears with a rake of her long fingernails.
“Are you going to tell him about Randy?” After all these years of silence, Reeta Canady couldn’t help being surprised by this change in her daughter’s attitude.
“He has a right to know, too,” she said with a defensive air.
“You should have told him before,” her mother declared in a rare admonishment.
“No!” It was a hard, swift denial that brought Dawn’s head up sharply. Then just as quickly, her chin drooped in defeat. “Yes.” She breathed out the
admission. “I should have told him before, but I thought I knew it all then.”
“Don’t we all at eighteen,” her mother murmured in sympathy.
“I have to tell Slater now. How he takes the news will determine whether we’ll stay here or go somewhere else. I don’t want Randy to know that. If Slater refused to acknowledge him even privately—and I wouldn’t blame him if he did—I’d rather that Randy never learns that. I don’t want him to be hurt anymore because of my stupidity.” She picked up her cup but the coffee had become cold.
“When were you planning to go see him?” She pitied her daughter because she knew how awkward it was going to be.
“Not for a couple of days. I want to spend some time with you and Pop first.” Just in case after she told Slater that the situation would turn too uncomfortable for her to stay. She knew how angry and bitter he had been when she’d jilted him. She couldn’t even begin to guess how he’d react when he learned that she’d had his son.
Her mother fingered the handle of her coffee cup. “You do know Slater never married. Maybe . . . the two of you—”
“No, Mother.” Dawn rejected that possibility as laughable. “After the way I treated him, there isn’t any chance things could ever be the way they were between us. Marriage is out of the question even for Randy’s sake. Slater despises me—and I can’t say that I blame him.”
“I know he judged you harshly,” her mother conceded. “But a lot of years have passed.”
“Precisely.” She seized on the latter statement. “People change, especially after they’ve been separated a long time. The intensity of feeling isn’t there anymore. I know I’m not the same girl that sailed away from here on that yacht eleven years ago.”
And she thanked God for that, even though she knew it was too late for her and Slater. She had lost him, and she didn’t fool herself into believing she could ever win him back.
But just talking about him and the dilemma of her future provided some measure of relief. She hadn’t meant to burden her mother with this discussion so early in her homecoming. Now that it was over, some of her tension had eased.
Picking up her coffee cup, she once again got to her feet. “We’d better get these lunch dishes washed before Randy and Pop come home and it’s time to fix supper.”
“You don’t need to help,” her mother protested. “Not your first day home. Sit down and have some more coffee. I’ll do them.”
“No, Mother,” Dawn smiled and continued toward the sink full of dirty dishes. “I’ve got to get into practice again. After all, I’m not going to have a maid and cook to clean up after me anymore.”
“It’s good to have you home, Dawn,” her mother declared, a little teary-eyed.
“It’s good to be home,” Dawn affirmed on a deep breath that was more positive in its outlook than her many sighs of troubled confusion.
Chapter Two
Cycling along the cobbled back streets of Key West, Dawn felt the clock turning back the years to the time when a bicycle had been her main means of transportation around the island. She could almost believe she was back in the past if it weren’t for Randy on the bike ahead of her.
“Come on, slowpoke.” He looked over his shoulder at her, smiling as he taunted her.
“Go ahead, speedy.” She waved him on, knowing he was impatient with her lackadaisical pace. Randy seemed to be going through a phase where he had to race at everything. The faster the better was his motto. “I’ll be the tortoise and catch up with you later when you’re too pooped to pedal.”
His long, sun-browned legs began pumping as hard as he could, gaining speed as Randy pulled back on the handlebars to raise the front wheel. Dawn shook her head in silent amusement, not understanding the excitement he derived from “popping a wheelie.” A minute later, he was swooping around a corner and disappearing. There was little chance of Randy becoming lost since it was an island town. Besides, the last two days he’d done so much exploring both on foot and on bicycle that he fairly well knew his way around.
Dawn had stayed close to home until this afternoon when Randy persuaded her to go biking with him. It was fun riding around her home-town, seeing the changes and the old haunts that hadn’t perceptibly changed. At eighteen, Key West hadn’t seemed to hold enough of anything for her—life, excitement, or the kind of future she had thought she wanted. Now, it seemed a good place to live and raise her son.
Located at the southernmost tip of the chain of Keys, its protective reefs and deep harbor had given Key West its beginnings as a pirate haven. Over the years there had been changing cultural influences until the town was a peculiar blend of New England fishing village, tourist-resort city, and a touch of elegance from its close neighbor, Cuba.
The blue sea surrounded it, and the blue sky covered it, and the sun warmed it all year round. Its near tropical climate nourished a profusion of plant life that gave the Keys a lushness and sense of mystery. There was a riot of color—the bright blossoms of bougainvillea, hibiscus, and poinciana growing rampantly.
Thick oleanders nearly hid the white picket fence from Dawn’s sight. She caught the flash of white out of the corner of her eye and let the bike coast on the nearly level street while her attention strayed to identify it. The short driveway leading back to the house was nearly overgrown.
It was the old Van de Veere place. She and Katy Van de Veere had been close friends in school. Dawn remembered her mother mentioning that they had moved to the mainland a couple of years ago. It was sad to see the old house sitting vacant. She braked her bike to a halt along the side of the road for a longer look at this site from her girlhood days.
There had always seemed to be so much character and charm about the house. Even now, with its yard overgrown with shedding palm trees and choking oleanders, it appeared to steadfastly resist any attempt to suppress it. The style of the sturdy wooden house with its wide veranda was locally known as “Conch” architecture. Many places like this had been renovated into lovely homes. Dawn gazed at it wistfully, wishing she could take the house in hand and turn it into a home for herself and Randy.
There was an almost silent whish of bike wheels behind her. Dawn paid scant attention to the sound until she heard the sudden setting of brakes and tires skidding on the rough edge of the road. She turned in sharp alarm, expecting to see a bicycle spinning on its side and some child sprawled in the street. Instead, Randy came to a dramatic stop beside her, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Did I scare you?” he wanted to know, hoping her answer would be affirmative. “I’ll bet you thought I was going to run into you.”
“No, but I did expect to see somebody sprawled in the street with their bike turned over,” she said, giving him a reproving look from under the white sun visor cap she wore to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.
“How come you’re hanging around here?” Randy asked, rolling his bike back and forth, already anxious to be moving again.
“I was just looking at the house.” Dawn bobbed her head in the direction of the structure, visible through the driveway. “One of my girlfriends used to live here. It’s empty now, I guess.”
“Boy, it looks like a jungle,” he declared, looking at the thick undergrowth that had taken over the yard and was attacking the wide veranda. “It sure would be neat to explore the place.”
No sooner was the thought voiced than Randy was riding his bike into the driveway. “Randy, that’s private property,” Dawn admonished. “You could be arrested for trespassing.”
“Ahh, Mom,” he complained. “I’m not going to vandalize anything. I just want a closer look. That’s all.”
A few feet inside the driveway, he stopped the bike and rested a foot on the ground for balance. Satisfied that his intentions were no more than that, Dawn followed him, curious herself to see the place up close.
“Look.” Dawn pointed to the narrow slats in the roof under the eaves. “That’s ‘Key West air-conditioning,’ the old style. Those openings trap the
cool breezes and carry them into the house.”
“Really?” He eyed her skeptically, not sure she knew what she was talking about.
“Really,” she confirmed, smiling but definite, and swung her gaze back to the house. Again, a wistful quality entered her deep blue eyes. “I really love that old house.”
Randy was watching her closely, the gleam of an idea silvering through his eyes. “Why don’t we buy the place, Mom?” he suggested and rushed on before she could answer. “You said you liked it, and we’ve got to live somewhere.”
“Hold it, fella,” she cautioned, fully aware of the desire behind all this. “I can’t buy something just because I like it. There’s a little matter of price and terms, and the cost of repairs. It’s probably more than we can afford.”
“We can do a lot of repairs ourselves,” Randy insisted blithely. “Gramps would help. You should see the woodworking shop he’s got in the garage. I’ll bet he could fix just about anything.”
“Your grandfather is a fine carpenter.” It had been his craft all his life. “But there’s plumbing and electrical wiring—and who knows what else.”
“You’re just guessing.” He tried a different tactic. “You don’t even know if there’s anything wrong with the house at all.”
“That’s true.” She was forced to concede the point. “But we don’t have that much money to spend on a place that might cost a lot to maintain.” She hated to keep harping on their suddenly limited finances, but Randy needed to learn that the purchase price of an object wasn’t the only concern.
“Still, you could check and find out about it, couldn’t you?” Randy countered with persuasive ease.
Dawn hesitated for a split second. There wasn’t any harm in checking to find out how much was being asked for the house and learning what kind of condition it was in. There were a lot of “ifs” that had to be settled before going further than that.
