A Love to Call Her Own (13 page)

“How did you stand it? Losing your husband so young?”

She stared at the rich grain of the only wood casket in the room. It was mahogany, elegant and expensive and far too beautiful to lower into the ground and cover with dirt. The body it was meant to hold was no longer anyone's loved one. It was just a symbol for a spirit that had already moved on.

After a time, she sighed softly. “I got through the first year the way most of us do—sheer will. I went to work at a job I didn't like, came home every night to a house that was no longer home, wondered every other day why I didn't move back to California, where I'd have family to get me through the days, and I did a lot of crying on Marti's shoulder. Then on the anniversary of Mike's death, I realized I had two choices: I could give up and disappoint Mike, or I could start living again. I cleaned out his closet, got a new job, stopped avoiding everyone, and started over.”

It sounded so simple put that way, but it hadn't been. Every choice had been difficult, every action unbearably tough. Even getting groceries had been traumatic—seeing couples and families in the aisles, automatically reaching for Mike's favorites, scaling down to feed only one. How many times had she gone to the commissary and left without a single purchase because she didn't have a clue how to be
one
instead of part of a couple?

“Everyone recovers on their own schedule,” she went on, moving slowly to look at the other caskets, grateful she would never have a need for one. After seeing Mike's body, all decked out in his dress uniform, the left chest decorated with ribbons and medals, after watching his casket lowered into the ground at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, and getting on a plane to leave California and him behind, she'd decided cremation was for her.

“My friend Marti—we were friends before the margarita club. Mike and Joshua were in the same unit and died in the same battle.” Her voice choked. The only thing worse than getting a notification call was your best friend getting one at the same time. “Anyway, Marti finds comfort in physical things. She's still got everything Joshua ever owned. Our friend Ilena gave away Juan's stuff within a month or so. She carries him in her heart. She doesn't need external reminders. Your mom—”

A muscle twitched in his jaw, and she quickly corrected herself. “Patricia's in a different place. Where Ilena and Marti and Carly and the rest of us didn't have enough time with our husbands, Patricia had twenty years with George. He would have retired in a year or so, and they had a lot of plans that didn't include traveling. They'd seen the world already. They had projects around the house, volunteer work they were going to do, charities they were going to work with.” She hesitated, then delicately went on. “They were going to
be
together—go to bed every night and wake up every morning in the same bed, share meals, share activities, share their blessings.”

Again, that muscle in Ben's jaw twitched. He looked at her, his gaze intense. This place stirred bleak memories for him, too, of the father who'd died too young, of the man Ben had been forced to become too soon. “Funny,” he murmured. “Those were pretty much the same plans my dad had.”

She stopped in front of a heartbreakingly small casket, pale pink metal with white satin lining. Like most of the margarita club, she and Mike had thought they had plenty of time to start a family. Of them all, only Ilena had had the good luck to get pregnant, and that had been due to a birth control failure. Time had taken the edge off Lucy's longing for kids, but sometimes it swelled up with a raw ache, especially since her last birthday.

Deliberately she turned her back on the casket. “I take it the divorce wasn't his choice.”

Ben shoved his hands into his hip pockets and rocked back on his heels. “No one had a choice but Patricia. We sat down to dinner one night without Dad—she'd already surprised the hell out of him—and she announced that she was leaving. She'd already talked to a lawyer, and as soon as the divorce went through, she was marrying George. In the meantime, she was leaving to be with him. Within two hours, she destroyed our family and was on a plane to Germany. I was fifteen, the girls eleven and nine. We didn't see her again for three years.”

Sympathy welled through Lucy. Having your family fall apart around you would always be hard, but for the news to come out of nowhere, to find out that your mother had fallen in love with another man and chosen him over her own husband and children…No wonder he was still bitter.

The part of her that wanted to understand both sides spoke up: Did the fact that Patricia had loved George mitigate her guilt? Clearly, they'd been meant for each other, or their marriage wouldn't have lasted and flourished. Absolutely, it was wrong for her to get involved with him while still married to Ben's father, but shouldn't that mistake be forgiven if she truly regretted it?

Hesitantly, Lucy touched Ben's arm, sending heat sizzling through her palm. How wrong was it to be sensually aware of someone in the casket showroom of a funeral home? But it had been six long years since she'd felt this kind of attraction to a man, six years without cuddling or kissing or making love, without feeling a strong pair of arms around her in the night, and the lonely woman inside her missed all that, Lord, more than she could say.

Mentally shaking off the thoughts, she said, “I'm sorry, Ben. That must have been a really tough thing for you and your sisters and especially your father. I don't blame you for feeling wronged.” At fifteen, he'd had a good grasp of concepts like fidelity, honor, trustworthiness. Finding out his mother lacked them all, at least with regards to their family, had hurt deeply, no doubt.

“Everyone's sorry, Lucy,” he said. The softness of his voice was at odds with the emotion starkly written on his features. “But ‘sorry' doesn't make anything okay.”

When he left the room, she remained where she was, wishing she had the superpower to make everything okay. So much sorrow, so much anger and hurt and betrayal…
But how would we appreciate the good times, child, if we didn't go through the bad?
her grandmother's voice whispered in her head.

Nana was probably right—she always was—but Lucy would still like to give nothing-but-good a shot.

“You okay?”

She blinked and saw LoLo standing a few feet in front of her. The woman could have posed for a recruiting poster, her body well toned, her posture erect, her face unlined, minimally made up, and not beautiful exactly, but stunning. Everything about her whispered competent, controlled, dignified, compassionate. Lucy envied and adored her.

“Yeah.” It was true. She'd be much happier if George hadn't been killed, if she'd spent the past three days going to work and worrying about nothing more than keeping Norton from peeing where he shouldn't. But given that she couldn't control life or death or heartache, she was doing okay.

“The colonel's remains will arrive in Tulsa on Tuesday morning. There will be a visitation at the funeral home that evening, and the service will be Wednesday morning at the post chapel.”

Lucy contained the shudder that rippled through her. Such a simple statement:
The colonel's remains will arrive Tuesday morning.
But it meant so much more. Having Mike home had made the whole nightmare even realer. It had put Lucy that much closer to the final end of their life together. All her love, all her prayers, all her dreams, all for nothing. Once he'd arrived home, the only thing left for her to do was say good-bye.

The hardest word she'd ever known.

LoLo touched her arm. “I'm going to the airport with Patricia. You and I both know how difficult the transfer is. You do not have to go through it again.”

A shiver ripped through Lucy. “Is Ben going to be there?”

“He has to reschedule a couple surgeries, but he plans to.”

Lucy examined her fingernails, thinking she needed a manicure—a pedicure, too, while she was at it—soon. Definitely before Tuesday. Finally, having avoided LoLo long enough, she met her gaze. “I'm a strong woman.”

“I know. But this isn't about strength, Lucy. It's about protecting your heart from breaking again. The chaplain and I will be with her. Her pastor and his wife will join us. Ben will likely be there. We will take care of her.”

Lucy's exhalation was soft but sounded cowardly in her own ears. “I was just thinking yesterday that I couldn't go through another dignified transfer. Everything else, anything else, but…”

LoLo hugged her. “You're a good friend, Lucy. You've been a lifesaver for Patricia these past few days, and we both know you'll be there for her in the months to come. Leave this one thing to us.”

I
t appeared Patricia's business with the funeral director was almost finished as they stood near the desk, her hand clasped in his. Ben glanced at Lucy and Major Baxter in the display room, then toward the glass double doors that led into the warm sun. He doubted he could really smell anything inside besides the overly strong air freshener, that any other odors were the product of his imagination. Still, he had spent enough time there.

He crossed the lobby in a few paces, pushed the door open, and stepped into the sun. The heat seemed doubly hot against his cool skin, and it took longer for it to soak in than he'd expected. Maybe because some of the chill inside him had nothing to do with temperature. Automatically he pulled his phone out to switch the ring audio from vibrate to loud and found a text message from Brianne.
Do you have a date and time yet?

He hadn't discussed the funeral with either of his sisters, but he'd known if one of them decided to attend, it would be Brianne. The older sister was a businesswoman, compassionate, a Nice Woman. While he and Sara understood the idea of forgiveness, Brianne got the reality of it. No bad karma for her.

Rather than texting the information, he dialed her cell, then walked thirty feet from the doors, turning to face them so no one could surprise him.

“This is Brianne.” Her voice was pleasant, but he recognized the distracted tone.

“George's remains will arrive in Tulsa on Tuesday, funeral will be Wednesday.”

“Hello to you, too. I'm fine. How are you?” It was easy to imagine her shaking her head in dismay. “Will there be a big deal like you see on the local news—people at the airport, escorts, and everything?”

“Apparently so.”

“Will you be there?”

He bent his head side to side until his neck creaked, releasing the tension there. “Apparently so.” Major Baxter had taken a private moment to ask him that, to give her opinion that it might be too much for Lucy. She'd already done so much for Patricia, and the last thing he wanted was for her to go through another wrenching reminder of her husband's death.

“Give me the details,” Brianne requested, and he told her everything.

“Are you coming to the funeral?” Though he'd known she would be the one most likely to come, he was a little surprised, too.

She didn't sidestep the question. “Yes. Whatever's wrong between us, she is our mother, and he is—was her husband and a decorated United States Army soldier. That in itself deserves respect.”

After a moment, in a less certain tone, she added, “Showing respect doesn't mean forgetting the past, Ben. But if Mom and I get to the point where we can put it behind us, I don't want the fact that I skipped her husband's funeral to get in the way.”

Mom.
They hadn't called her that in years. Ben always used her first name, and Sara's go-to was
she
or
her
.
Mom
felt foreign, too affectionate, a name she hadn't earned.

Quietly he asked, “Do you want her back in your life?”

The silence went on so long that he might have thought the phone had dropped the call if not for the slow, steady breathing coming over the line. Finally came a sigh. “She was a huge part of our lives, Ben. She's our
mother
. If not for her, we wouldn't be here. She made mistakes, no doubt about that. But we never knew why she left, why she fell in love with George or…why she fell out of love with Daddy.”

How
could she have fallen out of love with their dad? That was the one thing Ben had never been able to understand.

The funeral director opened one door, then stepped outside to hold it for the women. Though they were too far away to hear, he lowered his voice even more. “How long have you felt this way, Bree?”

“Twenty years.”

Twenty—the entire time Patricia had been gone. “You never said…”

She laughed. “You and Sara always had very strong opinions of your own. I didn't want to be the odd one out. Besides, with Daddy so sad…” With a breath, her voice strengthened. “Someday I'm going to get married, have babies. They'll never know their grandpa, but maybe they can know Grandma. Maybe they can have one more person to love them and spoil them. You can never have too many of those, can you?”

His gaze settled on the subject of their conversation. She wore light green pants, a flowery shirt that matched, high-heeled sandals, and the full makeup routine. While waiting for the major to meet them, she'd fretted over her hair and nails, asking Lucy to remind her to make appointments for the weekend. As if realizing the issues were insignificant in the bigger picture, she'd smiled ruefully and said,
George always appreciated me making the effort for him.

His dad had always appreciated her made up, dressed up, dressed down, in anything at all.

“You can't hold that against me, Ben,” Brianne said, her stubborn intent clear in her voice. “I won't let you. We're all grown up. You get to choose for yourself. I get to choose for myself.”

“Of course I wouldn't hold it against you,” he replied, using his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Holding a grudge against Patricia was one thing, but Brianne…she was his little sister. Nothing could make him turn his back on her. “Listen, Bree, I've got to go. I guess I'll see you Wednesday.”

“If not before. Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah, you, too.” Sliding the phone into his pocket, he started across the parking lot to his mother.

Jessy made it through Wednesday night, and she'd gotten through Thursday morning, too, without pulling one of the bottles out of the liquor cabinet, but by three thirty, she was holding on by her fingernails. She'd been pacing the apartment since lunch, getting one step closer to the kitchen every time, when it occurred to her that maybe pacing outside would help.

When was the last time she'd gone for a walk? Not a quick rush to the bank because she'd overslept or a hike across a parking lot because all the close spots were taken or walking to Three Amigos most Tuesday nights so she could drink and not drive afterward, but an actual walk. A stroll. Purely for pleasure.

She couldn't remember.

A pair of practically new running shoes sat on a shelf in the closet. The girls had laughed when she brought them, cracking jokes about how they would dwarf the sandals and boots and strappy heels that spoke to her soul. They'd said she would never wear them again after the occasion she'd bought them for—one of their outings in March to Turner Falls—and they'd been right. All she'd done since was move them from one place to another to make room for something barely there and sexy.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she put on a pair of cute little socks that, sadly, weren't meant to show, then laced the runners, grabbed her keys and cell, and headed downstairs. When she got outside, she wavered, unsure which way to turn. She never left the apartment without a destination in mind, even if it was only to
get out of town
. With a mental coin flip, she headed east.

She liked Tallgrass with its old brick and sandstone buildings, murals painted on walls, and quaint feel—and she meant quaint in the good way. It wasn't fancy, though there were a bunch of houses that wouldn't look out of place in the neighborhood she'd grown up in. It wasn't just a town that existed to support the fort, either. If the Army closed Fort Murphy next week, Tallgrass would live on, smaller, less busy, with fewer options, but still a nice town.

Wishing she'd brought earbuds to give her a little music to stroll to, she passed a twenty-four-hour gym in a space that had once been a five-and-dime. Could intense exertion deliver enough feel-good endorphins to make any additional self-medication unnecessary? If it would, much as she hated sweating, she would willingly show up sixteen hours a day. Talk about buff then.

She took a left when she reached the last intersection before Buddy Watson's. It was the most respectable of the downtown clubs, a place where businessmen ate lunch and stopped after work. It wasn't her favorite, but it got a few points for its location. With her nerves on edge and her mouth watering, it could
be
her favorite for the next few hours.

No no no no.
It had been three and a half days. Surely she could make it four. What kind of sorry-ass loser couldn't make it four days?

Her gaze focused on the sidewalk ahead, she pushed on, one step after another. She didn't let her mind wander to anything beyond those steps, the cracks in the sidewalk, the occasional car she had to let pass before crossing the street. She left businesses behind, passed a church and an elementary school, newly abandoned for the summer, and moved into a residential neighborhood. The trees were tall, established long ago, and the houses, some suffering neglect more than others, were firmly rooted in their yards.

Next time she would bring her camera and document them. The well-maintained ones would shine on their own. The shabbier ones, in stark black-and-white tones, would be poignant, faded memories of better times.

As she walked, the houses thinned, with shrinking footage on shrinking lots, until the final block: no structures at all, but sidewalks and concrete steps showing where they had once been. Alerted by barking, she raised her gaze to the view and saw she'd reached the end of the street, the dividing line between town and country.

The only thing ahead of her was a large building, constructed of tin siding over a sturdy metal frame, and the only thing gazing back was a dog behind a chain-link fence. His dignity should have been reduced to nothing thanks to the round plastic cone that encircled his head, but he didn't cower or try to hide. He simply stood there and stared.

Jessy's clunky shoes crunched on gravel as she crossed the parking lot and went to the fence. Signs posted every five feet warned against sticking fingers inside the fence—if a person needed the warning, wasn't he likely too dumb to heed it?—and another sign, attached to the building, identified it as the Tallgrass Animal Shelter.

“Hey, puppy.”

Like her, the dog stood about three feet back from the chain-link. He wasn't very big and lacked the giant paws that suggested he would get that way. In fact, he was very…elegant, even with the ridiculous cone. He deserved a better life than a shelter.

Didn't they all.

“I never knew you guys lived here. I should get out more often.”

He cocked his head to one side, looking as if he was listening intently. He probably was, for the magic words:
cookie, treat, walk, go for a ride.
Though it was pointless, Jessy checked her pockets. Still just keys and cell phone. She hadn't even brought her debit card, thinking it might lead her into temptation, while knowing for a fact what she'd told Dalton last night: She could get a drink. She just wouldn't have to pay.

Slowly more dogs approached, rousing themselves from the shady enclosure next to the building, others coming from around back. They were every color, size, and breed, yippy and silent, curious and wary. They all had one thing in common: Their families hadn't wanted them.

“I can so relate, puppies,” she said dryly.

“I'm glad I'm not the only one who carries on conversations with them when no one's around.” A woman coming from the direction of the front door offered Jessy one of the two bottles of cold water she carried, then drank down half of her own. Her hair was blond on the ends, dark gold where the roots were soaked with sweat. Her clothes were stained and dirty, and her work boots looked better suited to a roofer on top of a newly built house, but her manicure was damn near perfect, the coral polish popping against the drabness of everything else.

“I figure they have to understand at least as much as most men I know,” Jessy replied before taking a drink of water. It was incredibly just-shy-of-frozen cold and made her throat tingle on the way down. Of all the things she'd drunk—and hadn't drunk—the past week, it truly was refreshing. She should buy this brand.

“Isn't that true.” The woman offered her right hand. “I'm Angela, the director here. Are you interested in a new pet, or have you come about the ad?”

Jessy blinked. She'd been meaning all week to pick up the local paper for a job search, but it kept slipping her mind. It was as if she had more important things to think about. Like Dalton.

And staying sober.

A job at the animal shelter would probably include duties like poopy-scooping, de-fleaing, de-ticking, and bathing dogs who weren't accustomed to a weekly spa day. She could easily imagine a half-dozen or so disasters awaiting to befall her if she said yes.
But you're facing disasters anyway, Jess, and at least you wouldn't be dealing much with people. Wasn't that what you wanted?

Mrs. Dauterive would say this was exactly where she belonged, with a lot of mangy unwanted animals. Julia and the rest of the bank staff would give her pitying looks. With the margarita club, if it made her happy, by God they would be happy.

“Yes,” she said cheerfully. “I'm here to apply for the job.”

She followed Angela inside and filled out an application that was as thorough as the bank's. She didn't mind. She'd be just as leery of some stranger taking care of her animals, if she had any, as she would of someone taking care of her money.

Angela skimmed the form, then gave Jessy a smile. “It'll be tomorrow before I can check your references, then I'll give you a call. I can tell you it looks good, sweetie, 'cause you're the only one who's applied so far.”

It hadn't occurred to her that others might be vying for the job. How would it feel, being told she wasn't good enough to shovel dog poop?
Please,
she prayed to whoever might be listening,
don't make me find out for myself.

Jessy allowed herself a flashy grin. “Some people have a talent for shoveling shit—I mean poop,” she hastily corrected, “and some don't. I suspect I do.”