Heart of Clay (9 page)

“You’re most welcome. Thank you for a
wonderful Christmas.” Callan sounded happy and content.

Clay tipped up her chin and gave her a kiss
that made her toes tingle. When he declared it past her bedtime,
Callan didn’t argue, eagerly following him to bed.

During her week off, Callan couldn’t
remember having so much fun, laughing so hard, or enjoying Clay so
much for a long time.

The two of them took Audrey and Emma
sledding out at the ranch twice and Callan caught up on all the
news with Bobbi.

She and Laken drove into the city one day to
have lunch with Jenna and do some after Christmas shopping.

Best of all, she and Clay spent some time
together, becoming friends again. All too soon, though, her week of
play was over and it was back to work. She dreaded the coming of
January, but she’d make it through somehow.

The alternative wasn’t an option.

January, with its gloomy gray skies, dirty
snow, and barren landscape seemed like it would last forever. By
the middle of the second week, Callan felt like a worn-out rag.
Concerned she might be coming down with something, she didn’t have
time for sickness.

She dug another roll of antacid tablets out
of a drawer, tore off the wrapper and popped two in her mouth. She
never thought she’d see the day when she’d use them again, but it
had arrived. The ever-present knot in her stomach had added a
burning sensation to the mix that only a few dozen antacids a day
seemed to help.

Callan had vowed as a young teen that
another antacid would never touch her lips after years of having
them stuffed down her by her mother. She was only seven when
horrendous stomach pains kept her out of school more often than she
was in class. After many inquiries about the problem from her
teacher, her mother finally took her to the doctor.

She could still remember the smell of Dr.
Andrews’ office, an odd mix of antiseptic, crayons, and the
lingering fruity scent of orange and grape from the lollipops
everyone got as they left.

After giving her an examination, the doctor
concluded that she was on the verge of an ulcer, ridden by anxiety.
When he asked what caused her to worry enough to create such
unusual symptoms in a child, her mother assured him she had no
idea. He suggested giving Callan antacid tablets and avoiding
stressful situations.

Her mother followed the antacid advice to
the extreme and bought rolls of the pills. She fed them to Callan
like most youngsters would go through candy. However, her mother
completely ignored the stress part of the advice from the
doctor.

Callan finally refused to take the pills
when she started high school and hadn’t had one since – until last
week.

She took a deep breath and peeled off
another pill.

Short-tempered and irritable, it seemed
everyone at work got on her nerves, particularly Arty. That week
alone, he’d managed to offend two clients with his inane ramblings
and inappropriate comments to the point they had canceled their
events and moved them elsewhere. Callan and Jill did their best to
win back the business.

Callan found it nearly impossible to keep up
her cheerful façade at work. She didn’t even make an effort at
home. She’d been nit-picky at Clay since the previous week and
couldn’t think of a good reason why. The more dejected he looked,
the more she pressed. As soon as she walked in the door at night,
she vented her frustrations from the day. Unwillingly, he listened
to her tirades every evening. When his attention wavered, she
turned her wrath on him, accusing him of not caring about her.

As she sat at her desk mid-week, Callan
spiraled down into a place of bleak desolation.

She placed a hand to her forehead to make
sure she didn’t have a fever. Her head felt fuzzy and a dull,
thumping headache had been beating at the back of her skull for
days.

A glance at the calendar made her stomach
tighten. She needed to go visit her dad. Today was the three-year
anniversary of her mother’s death and it always hit him hard.

Thoughts of her mother made Callan’s head
pound fiercely and caused an ache in the region of her heart. Many,
many times she’d contemplated why her mother had given birth to any
children, much less three. It made no sense to have had two of them
so late in her life when she clearly never wanted them.

Callan didn’t remember her mother’s parents,
but she wondered if they were as cold and cruel as her mother had
always been.

The way she felt, Callan wasn’t going to
accomplish anything at work the rest of the day anyway. Resolved to
cheering up her dad, she turned off her computer and put on her
coat. After picking up her purse, she let Rachel know she was
leaving for the day and drove to Big Jim’s apartment in the
retirement village.

She knocked on his door and hid her surprise
when he opened it wearing a big smile.

“Hello, sweet daughter!” he said, giving her
a warm hug. “What are you doing out and about in the middle of the
day?” Big Jim took her coat and hung it in his little entry closet
as Callan set her purse down by the door.

“Can I get you something?” Big Jim hustled
into the kitchen.

“Sit down and rest, Daddy,” Callan said,
following him to the kitchen. “I’ll make us both a cup of tea. Are
you hungry? Can I make you something?”

“Tea would be dandy. If you wouldn’t mind
whipping up a batch of oatmeal cookies, I would surely enjoy that.”
Big Jim smiled and sat down at a bar stool pulled up to the kitchen
counter.

Callan put the teakettle on to boil, removed
her suit jacket, and took out ingredients to make cookies. While
the butter softened, she dug around in the fridge to see what her
dad had on hand and if she needed to run to the store. He was well
stocked for food.

“Do you want me to put something on for your
dinner, Daddy?” she asked with her head still in the refrigerator,
exploring the options available.

“Nope. I’m going to eat at the clubhouse
tonight, but thanks.” He walked over to the coffee table and picked
up a photo album. “I’ve been looking at photos of Margo and
thinking about our years together. Would you like to look with
me?”

The last thing Callan wanted to do was look
at photos of a woman she wished nearly every day she could forget,
but she sensed her dad needed her to want to see them. She finished
mixing up the cookies, dropped them onto a cookie sheet, and placed
it in the oven. After taking two mugs out of the cupboard, she put
in tea bags, added hot water from the now whistling teakettle, and
stirred sugar into both mugs. Callan and her dad shared the same
sweet tooth.

With the spicy scent of the cookies filling
the apartment, they settled at the counter with the album between
them. Callan couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. “Daddy, I
don’t think I’ve ever seen these pictures. Have you always had this
album?”

Big Jim got a far-away look on his face
before he returned his focus to Callan. “Your mother hated these
photos and I thought she’d thrown them away. When you kids were
helping me clean out her things, I found the pictures stuffed in
the bottom of her sock drawer.” He laughed and shook his head.
“That was just like her. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find
them.”

The photos showed Margo when she was a young
girl, looking happy and carefree. One photo in particular caught
Callan’s eye. It was a picture of her mother with Aunt Julie,
beaming a beautiful smile and looking like a model in her stylish
1950s attire. Margo’s dark hair was short and curled, she had on
lipstick, a long, formal dress with a smattering of sequins across
the shoulders, and a pair of the cutest heels Callan had ever
seen.

She never remembered her mother caring about
her appearance or her clothes. Margo always looked neat, but often
frumpy.

As Callan turned the pages, it showed a
young Margo and Jim getting married, then Margo looking heavy with
child. That would be Bob. The remaining photos were of Margo and
Jim with Bob as a tiny baby. She never realized what a homely
little thing he’d been. It seemed odd she and Josh looked so much
alike while Bob looked nothing like either of them.

Glad she hadn’t voiced her thoughts, she
turned back to the photo of Margo and Julie. She sensed a story
lingering in the shadows that no one wanted to discuss.

Callan stood and took the cookies out of the
oven, placed two on a plate, and slid it over the counter to her
dad, then returned to her seat next to him.

“Daddy, in this picture mother looks so
happy and young. I don’t ever remember her looking like that.”
Callan pushed the album closer to her dad.

“She was then. That was out at my folks’
home, just before we got married.” Big Jim stared at the photo with
a wistful gleam in his eyes. “Those were some happy times. They
sure enough were. We went to a grange dance that evening. Boy, she
was something back then. ”

Big Jim turned a few pages and Callan
studied the look on her mother’s face in the photographs. With each
page that turned, the joy seemed to evaporate until there was none
left.

“What happened, Daddy? What happened to make
her so unhappy with life?” Callan had often wanted to ask the
question, but was concerned for her dad’s feelings. He had loved
her mother with unwavering devotion, even though most people who
knew them couldn’t figure out why.

Big Jim didn’t answer right away. First, he
took a cookie and bit into it. The smile on his face told her he
appreciated the treat. After finishing the cookie, he looked Callan
in the eye.

“Callan, your mother had some big hurts in
her life and they came pretty young. Some folks might have been
able to forget and forgive then moved on with their lives. Margo
couldn’t let it go. Those hurts grew and festered over time until
they squeezed out every happy thing, every good thing, every joyful
thing until that hurt was all she had left.” Big Jim stopped, took
a deep breath and went on. “I know she didn’t do right by you kids
and I’m truly sorry. I didn’t fully realize how hard she was on you
until it was too late to change anything. I’m not making excuses,
Callan, but if I had known, I’d like to think I’d have done things
differently.”

“But, Daddy,” Callan said, trying to swallow
the tears that were now filling her eyes and throat. “Why did you
stay with her? She treated you awful, too. She must have made every
day miserable. Yet, you still seemed to love her.”

“I did love her, sweet daughter.” Big Jim
wiped a tear from his own eye. “I loved her from the first time I
saw her until her last breath, but I would be lying to say it was
easy. Being married to her was hard. Oh, she had her moments when
she’d be sweet or sassy. Sometimes you remind me of her back when
she had some spunk.”

Big Jim stopped talking to eat another
cookie and Callan refreshed their tea. Remaining silent, she knew
there was more her dad wanted to share.

After taking another sip of tea, Big Jim
continued. “Bob was just a little tyke when I decided I couldn’t
take it anymore. I told Margo she was going to have to change or I
was going to leave. She informed me that I’d made a vow and she’d
never known me not to be a man of my word. For better or worse, I
promised to stay with her unto death. So I stayed. Instead of Margo
changing, I was the one who changed. I learned some hard lessons.
With my thick skull, it took time for them to sink in, but they are
what gave me the ability to stand by your mother all those years.
You can’t change anyone else, Callan, only you. You can’t depend on
anyone else for your happiness, only you. You have to make the
choice every day to be the very best person God intended for you to
be. But you have to make the choice, every single day.”

“But, Daddy…” Callan closed her mouth when
Big Jim held up a hand to stop her then he clasped her hand in
his.

“There is one more story I want to share
with you Callan. You do with it what you feel you must, but you
have a right to know what happened to your mother. When I met
Margo, she was just a few weeks pregnant. She didn’t even know it
yet. The first boy she’d ever loved filled her full of empty
promises including one to marry her. Instead, he up and
disappeared.” Big Jim got a faraway look in his eyes then cleared
his throat.

“She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen
and full of sass. I was smitten in an instant. I know she never
felt the same way. When she realized she was pregnant, she talked
me into marrying her, which I gladly did because she was all I
could think about. I didn’t really care that the baby belonged to
someone else. I planned to raise him as my own and I did. Your
mother never got over that boy breaking his promises. I think Margo
expected him to show up one day and save her from the mundane life
she felt she’d sentenced herself to with me. He never came, she
could never forgive or forget him, and that is what changed
her.”

Callan stared at her dad, unable to form a
coherent thought. He took that as a signal to continue his
story.

“As for that baby, I raised Bob as my own. I
know how he is, Callan. I do. I also know that I got more than I
ever hoped for when Margo gave me you and Josh. After Bob was born,
she flatly refused to have more children. I tried talking her into
having just one. As much as I cared for Bob, I wanted a child of my
own flesh and blood. After a few years, I gave up asking. Eighteen
years later, she decided she was way too old to worry about it.
Then you came along. You looked like a little angel dropped down
from heaven and I’ve thanked our Father every day for sending you
and Josh along, to bring such joy to your ol’ daddy. Margo decided
it would be much easier to raise two kids together rather than one
alone and that is why you and Josh are so close in age.”