“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
Being the mother of little children paid off. A strong voice replaced a lot of action.
Another hour and a half of frantic coffee making ensued, and then the midafternoon slump gave them a few minutes’ respite.
Terri sobbed while she continued to clean like a maniac, and Calli burst into tears the moment she handed a simple cup of decaf out the window and faced Sandy. Without a car in sight, Sandy turned to the sobbing girls and wondered how to successfully arbitrate a fight over a boy. Then she remembered that wasn’t her job here. She just had to make sure this never happened again.
“Okay,” she said calmly. “I want both of you to take a deep breath and come down off the ceiling. Whatever caused this, we can talk it out, but I don’t ever want to see this kind of behavior in here again.”
“I’m sorry,” Calli wept.
Terri said something tearfully unintelligible.
“We had cars lined up at both windows while you argued. Does that mean I can never schedule the two of you together? And this was your idea, wasn’t it? How did such a nice gesture deteriorate into a catfight?”
Terri pointed to Calli. “She’s trying to steal Ryan.”
“I’m not.” Calli dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “He just asked me what time rehearsal was for community theater.” Large tears fell down her cheeks. “And she called me fat.”
“I did not,” Terri denied, sniffing and regaining her composure in her need to clear herself of that charge. “You said fat. I was going to say bossy because you are.”
“That’s because you always talk instead of work.”
“Well, that was you this time, wasn’t it? And I didn’t call you fat.”
“She didn’t,” Sandy corroborated. “I heard that part of the conversation. Listen to each other when you’re talking, then you won’t misinterpret what’s being said. Maybe Ryan likes both of you as friends.”
Terri sighed. “He does like her better. He’s nice to me because he’s just nice all the time. I hate that. I wanted him to want me.”
Something in Terri’s tone reminded Sandy of Addie. She could just imagine the state of her own sanity during her youngest daughter’s teenage years.
“Okay. So, we don’t always get what we want when other people are involved because they want what they want and sometimes that isn’t us.” Right. Even profound.
Terri accepted that with a moody exhalation of air.
“Why don’t the two of you take the rest of the day off and mellow out. Boys are great, but they’re not worth losing girlfriends over. And thanks for covering for me this morning.”
“How did it go?” Terri asked. “Your dad’s back, isn’t he?”
“Yes. It went fine. It’ll just need some getting used to.”
Calli reached for her purse. “That’s nice. My dad died in Iraq. I wish he could come back.”
Terri slung her purse crossways over her chest. “You want to get some onion rings?” she asked Calli grudgingly. “I’ve got my mom’s car.”
Calli replied in the same tone. “I would, but I’m broke.”
“Here, I’ll buy.” Sandy took a bill out of the register and handed it to Terri. “Oh! Almost forgot.” She quickly threw together a familiar order and handed Calli a drink carrier, and a paper bag with the delivery address on it. “Would you make this delivery for me, please, before you guys stop to eat? Tell them no charge.”
* * *
AT THE OFFICE Hunter hung his jacket on the back of his chair to dry off, grabbed his cup from his desk and went into the kitchen to get coffee. Nate was there, adding creamer to a steaming cup. He stepped out of Hunter’s way so he could have access to the coffeepot.
“Everything okay this morning?”
Hunter held the pot of murky brew. Nate must have made it; it poured like black honey. “Sure. Why?”
Leaning a hip on the counter, Nate replied, “Because you didn’t bring back our coffee order. And I know Connolly called you just before you ran out of here. Is Sandy okay?”
The coffee order. “Sorry. I’ll go back.”
“Not necessary. We’re all just concerned about you and hoping...nothing’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Because you’d tell me if there was anything we could do. Say, if you wanted to reconsider the loan...”
Hunter threatened him with a look, then realizing Nate was just being a friend, relented and smiled. “Thanks, but no. I’m working on it.”
Arching an eyebrow, Nate said, “Happy to hear that. With your customary backbreaking payment every month, or is there a new twist to the plan?”
Hunter frowned at him. “Mind your own business.”
“I know.” Unaffected by Hunter’s rudeness, Nate grinned. “I used to live and let live until I met Bobbie. She claims she was that way, too, until she met Sandy. Sandy’s involvement in helping everything and everyone has infected our lives. So, spill.”
“Let’s just say life could be simpler, and money is only some of the problem.”
“Money and the eternal mysteries of how to save it, what to spend it on and what to do with the extra keeps food on an accountant’s table.” Nate took another sip of coffee. “Unless, of course, someone forgets to pick up the scones...”
“Here they are.” Terri, one of Sandy’s staffers, walked into the kitchen holding a paper bag and a carry box of coffees. “Sandy said you forgot these.” She handed them to him with a smile. Each cup had an initial on it. “Scones are in the bag. Sorry the order’s late. We were slammed.”
Nate dug into his pocket and handed her a bill. She pushed it away. “Sandy said this round was on her.”
Nate took her hand and put the bill in it. “Tell her that her accountant says it isn’t. She can’t give product away and expect to stay in business. Thanks for the delivery. Here’s something for you.” He handed her another bill.
She beamed.
When the front office door closed behind her, Nate delved into the bag for a scone, then said to Hunter, “Last thing I’m saying on the subject.”
Hunter rolled his eyes.
Ignoring him, Nate walked slowly backward toward his office. “Money doesn’t have to be a problem. Give me the word and it’s yours. We can set up whatever payback plan you want. You could pay off your debts with it and reimburse me a hundred a month. Think about it.”
“At a hundred dollars a month, Nate, you won’t live long enough to collect!”
“I’m in love. It’s the Fountain of Youth. Really. Think about it.” Nate turned and went to his office.
* * *
SANDY CLOSED UP at six and climbed into her car, grateful that Stella had been able to stay a little later with the girls. After the morning with her parents, and the afternoon with Terri and Calli, Sandy was eager to get home and recharge. Her brain was a muddle of new discoveries she found hard to believe.
“Hi,” a voice beside her said.
Sandy cried out in surprise and jumped an inch. She put a hand to her racing heart. “Mom!” she complained. “What are you doing here?”
Her mother pointed to the sunny sky beyond the windshield. “Sun’s out again. I walked. Sorry I frightened you. Got a minute to talk?”
Her mother was once again drawn, pale...without her usual sparkle.
Sandy probably had a minute, but she didn’t want to talk. “My staff was having a problem, so Stella stayed late to allow me to close up. I have to stop for groceries...”
“Ten minutes?” her mother pleaded.
Resigned to a talk, Sandy turned the key in the ignition. “Fine. If you think you can explain a lifetime of lying to me in ten minutes, I’m game. Where do you want to go?”
“How about that benc
h near the Maritime Museum. Isn’t that your favorite place?”
It was. But that was where she went to get away from problems, not to discuss them. She drove over anyway, parked and walked with her mother the short distance to the bench that looked out on the river. Seagulls dove among the several freighters anchored there. The sky was mostly gray, with small patches of blue fighting for space. A harbor seal breached the water for air.
Unwilling to look at her mother, Sandy stared at the hills of Washington on the other side of the gray water.
“I’m sorry,” her mother said, her voice quiet and matter-of-fact. “Your father and I should have come to you days ago, but... We were excited to make it right for each other, but we knew there was no way to make it right for you. So we delayed. Your father didn’t know how to explain to you why he’d stayed away so long, and I didn’t know how to tell you what I had done. So, you found out by accident that he was back. That shouldn’t happen to anyone.”
“Well, it did.” Sandy folded her arms, the low clouds making even the June air cool. She was wishing she had the sweatshirt Hunter had bought her. “I’m just not sure where we go from here.”
“Can I explain what happened?”
“Yes.” Even to her own ears that reply had subtext: “If you think you can explain.”
Her mother put both hands to her face and said, almost to herself, “Yeah.” She dropped her hands, cleared her throat and began. “You must remember what life was like for us then. Your father was working three jobs. I was kept on because the chef claimed to need me, but my hours were cut and I waitressed a couple of nights a week for extra money.” She paused. Sandy nodded, still not looking at her. She did remember that time. She’d missed a class trip to the beach because she hadn’t had the money students were asked to bring, and she hadn’t been able to buy a yearbook or a dress for the Christmas Dance. She’d acquired a bosom since the Freshman Dance and couldn’t wear the same dress. Yes, she remembered.
“We were all mad at each other because we couldn’t do much to change the situation.”
That had been the beginning of her sophomore year. Sandy had had a poor attitude, herself. A usually good student, she was finding geometry impossible to fathom, and her plumpness and red hair socially unacceptable. The fact that her parents quarreled constantly worried her and made her entire life feel unstable.
Sandy’s mother caught her hand. “You were at that stage where I couldn’t do anything right, and your father’s attitude convinced me that he’d rather be with anyone but me.” She dropped Sandy’s hand and made a helpless gesture with her own. “Bill Ferrara was a bachelor who ate at the restaurant a couple of evenings a week. He had inherited his family’s flower shop down the street and I don’t think there was much else in his life.”
Turning to face her mother, Sandy felt her own anger diminished by the look of misery in her mother’s eyes. “He noticed me,” she said. Her voice held surprise, as though she still could feel what she’d felt then.
Sandy remembered that her mother had been noticeable. Beautiful and talented, vulnerable at that time, she must have been attractive to a lonely bachelor.
“I always tried to steer him toward the best thing on the menu, the best dessert. He began bringing me flowers, and once, when your father fell asleep and forgot to pick me up, Bill took me home.”
“Did he know you were married?”
“Yes. But, sometimes, when you really need someone, and you find him, and he seems perfect...you forget all the other things in your life that make it wrong—a husband, a daughter, a belief system that doesn’t allow for that sort of thing.”
Sandy gazed into her mother’s face, saw the depth of her private pain, and felt her own heart break. She’d seen something like that expression on herself in the mirror lately. It didn’t have that same depth of drama attached, but she, too, had longed for what she couldn’t have, and found it hard to face the fact of it.
“One afternoon,” her mother went on, “your father was working and you stayed overnight with a friend, Bill took me to his place.” Her fingers knotted and unknotted and finally, afraid her mother would break one, Sandy put a hand over hers to stop her.
“He was gentle and kind and everything I needed in that moment. Until it was over, and I realized what I’d done. That was the only time, but still, it happened, and I’ll be wrong forever.”
“Mom...”
“Bill took me home. We were parked behind the house, sure it would still be hours before your father returned, and Bill kissed me the way a man kisses a woman he’s just made love to. Your father got home early.” She drew a breath with a sob caught on it. “I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. He knew we’d shared more than that kiss. And I understood in that instant what I’d done to us—to all of us. Your father had been horrible to live with, but it was because he’d been exhausted and felt diminished by his inability to provide. And while he was working three jobs for us, I’d had time to be with another man.”
The last word emerged as though ripped from her. Sandy wrapped an arm around her mother, not knowing what to say.
“I realized the marriage was over. We fought all night about what had happened, and he was gone the next day.”
“When I asked you why he...”
“I know. I told you that he couldn’t cope anymore and was heading back home to Massachusetts.”
“But that made me hate him, Mom. How could you have done that?”
Her mother stared at nothing, or perhaps she was staring at the memory. Then she said flatly, “I had to save myself at that point, or I couldn’t have gone on. If you had known what I’d done, you’d have hated me, too.” She refocused to look into Sandy’s eyes, apparently seeing something that allowed her to smile understandingly. “You never hated your father. You were hurt, but hate just isn’t part of who you are. Although you do have a right to hate me.”
For Sandy to say that she did would have been satisfying, but she couldn’t. She had an inkling of what her mother had felt. The circumstances were hugely different, but someone refusing to love her, Sandy, was now part of her experience. Nothing hurt quite so much, or made someone feel such desperation.
“So...he’s been able to put that aside?”
Sighing, her mother sat up a little straighter and admitted sadly, “Yes. He says it doesn’t matter now. We’ve both been through a lot and can just walk around all the things that hurt so much before. He’ll never really forget it and that hurts me every minute. When he first came back, I didn’t want to reconcile because I was sure that the first time we hit a rough patch, the past would come up again. But, your father says we have to forgive ourselves, or we’ll lose the life we can have together now.”
That did not sound like the attitude of a selfish man.
“Well, I think he’s right.”
Her mother wrapped both arms around her and wept. Sandy held her and cried with her.
“We want you in our lives, Sandy.” Her mother straightened and dried her eyes, handing Sandy a tissue out of her pocket. “And the girls. This new chance won’t mean anything if you’re not part of it.”
“We’ll figure that out, Mom. For now, we’ll all just go easy on one another, okay?”
Her mother appeared exhausted. “Okay.”
Sandy drove her mother to the condo, then decided to forego grocery shopping and drove home. She sat in her car for a minute, feeling just a little beaten up.
The saddest part of all was that she couldn’t call Hunter for comfort. Oh, he’d offer it, but as a friend. She didn’t want that.
Forcing herself to deal with her life as it was, Sandy climbed her porch steps and prepared to walk through the front door with a smile for her girls. But there was a note from Stella taped to it.
“Hi,” it read. “Taking the girls to Dooger’s for dinner, th
en on to Fred Meyer to shop for Hunter’s birthday present. We won’t be too long.”
Hunter’s birthday. In all that had happened recently, she’d forgotten that Stella had once told her his birthday was in July. What was the protocol for gift giving in their situation?
Letting herself into the house, she wondered why Stella hadn’t simply called her cell to tell her about her plans with the girls. Maybe her mother had told Stella about their meeting tonight and Stella hadn’t wanted to interrupt.
Happy to have a little quiet time, Sandy dropped her purse and keys on the coffee table and walked into the kitchen. A woman walked out at the same moment and they collided, screaming in alarm until they recognized each other.
“Celia!” Sandy said sharply, leaning against the doorframe. “What are you doing here?”
Her tenant yanked ear buds out of her ears and stuffed them into the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt. Then she patted her heart with one hand, an extended duster in the other.
“Sandee. I’m sorry. Your mother paid me to clean for you. She said you would be away for a while.”
Sandy dropped into a kitchen chair, grateful for a strong heart. This day had been too full of stress and startling moments.
“What can I get for you? Do you have wine?”
“Yes, in the refrigerator on the door. I’ll get glasses.”
Celia looked firm and pointed to her. “Do not move. I will get them.” She opened a cupboard door and snagged two juice glasses, then retrieved the bottle of Moscato. Sandy poured as Celia sat opposite her.
“Who’s with your children?” Sandy asked.
“Mando is home. He left me here, then took the girls for ice cream.”
“That’s right. I forgot I was later than usual.”
“Your mother said you were having a difficult day and she wanted to do something to help. Thank you.” She accepted a glass and toasted Sandy with it. “¡Viva la Vida!”
Love Me Forever Page 17
