Queenie's Cafe (39 page)

Laura stared at him. “When was that?”

“The night she died. She told me what she’d done and asked me to forgive her.” He shook his head. “She took twenty years of my life, stole all my money, then expected me to forgive her, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“What money?”

“I had money saved, but she borrowed it to bury her father and pay off his bills. She was supposed to pay me back with the life insurance money, but she didn’t. At first, she said it didn’t come, then she said she invested it.”

Laura sighed. “She used it to pay off Hank.”

“It was mine. It was all I had. I couldn’t leave without my money.”

“And you couldn’t forgive her.”

“Hell no!” He spit the angry words. “I could have killed her when she told me what she’d done with that money.”

Laura could barely speak the words. “Did you?”

“I didn’t touch her. I didn’t have to. I told her I’d always hate her, then I stood there and watched her die. I could have called for help, but I didn’t call anyone until I knew she was dead. I wanted her to pay for what she’d done.”

At that moment, everything became clear, and Laura felt sick to her stomach. It wasn’t just about money or blackmail. Her father was so bitter, he wouldn’t allow his wife to love Florence’s child. Laura didn’t have Florence around to mother her, but her father didn’t allow Queenie to do it either. He kept Laura to himself. Out of bitterness. It was a cruel thing to do to an innocent little girl.

“You didn’t want me to love Queenie, did you, Dad?”

He slowly shook his head. “You were only three weeks old when Florence left. The next day Queenie tried to move in with us, but I wouldn’t let her. I told her she’d never be a mother to you. I told her I would never let you love her.

“You were happy until you started school, then you asked me why you didn’t have a mother like the other kids. I couldn’t tell you about Florence, so I told you Queenie was your mother. Almost every day you asked if you could go see her. I kept you separated as long as I could, then one day you stopped at the diner after school. Queenie gave you an ice cream cone. I marched over there and we had a big fight.

“I remember the fight. I didn’t realize it was about me.”

“I told her I wouldn’t ever let her be a mother to you, that you were Florence’s daughter, not hers. I said if she didn’t back off, I wouldn’t let you go to the diner again. I told her if she ever showed you any love, I’d take you away and she’d never see you again.”

Laura’s throat tightened, but she didn’t cry again. In spite of the warm sunshine, cold settled into her bones. She thought Queenie was her mother, and she wanted her mother to love her. Dad wouldn’t let it happen, but he let her work long hours in the café trying to please Queenie. He could have told her the truth then, that Queenie was his wife but not her mother, but he didn’t.

“One time you got sick. Flu or something. When I took you to the doctor, he asked me how Queenie was doing on the new heart medicine. I let on that I knew all about it, so he’d keep talking. He said it wouldn’t fix her heart, but it might help her live a little longer. I asked how long she had. He said, ‘A year or two, if that new medicine works.’”

“Oh, Dad.” Laura sighed heavily.

“I’d already waited so long, I figured I might as well wait it out. She’d be dead soon and I’d have her life insurance money. I’d have enough money to take you and Florence somewhere and start over. Then you’d have a real mother.”

“Only Queenie didn’t die on schedule.”

“God help me, Laura, at times I thought about helping her along.”

He didn’t kill her, but he hadn’t done anything to save her. He’d let Queenie die.

Laura stared at Queenie’s grave and felt a tremendous sense of loss. Queenie would have loved her if given the chance, but Dad wouldn’t allow it. Anger surged inside her, growing like a living thing. “What about
me
, Dad? Didn’t I deserve a mother to love me?”

“You didn’t need
her
. You had me.”

“I had no one,” she said slowly, and knew it to be true. She’d been making excuses for her father her whole life. He didn’t hug her or say he loved her because he was a man. He never came to school events or took her anywhere because he couldn’t get away from a dead motel. He nursed his hate for Queenie as if it were the most important thing in his life. He didn’t show his daughter any love, and he refused to let anyone else love her.

He’d allowed Laura to work herself to death in that café for one reason – to punish Queenie. He’d punished his own daughter in the process. Maybe he didn’t care. For him, hate and bitterness were stronger than love.

“When you were in high school, Queenie told me you reminded her of Florence. She said you flirted with every man who came in. She said you’d end up just like Florence.”

“By then she resented my very existence.”

“She created the situation. She had no one to blame but herself.”

“And you made her pay for the rest of her life.” Her father’s bitterness was harder to accept than Queenie’s. Did he realize how that hate shaped her life? No, he was too wrapped up in his own feelings to notice her.

She pitied him. He’d allowed resentment to eat away at his spirit and control his life. He’d waited all those years to get his money, and then he threw it away on a poor business investment. They’d bought the fishing camp a year ago and still hadn’t been able to sell it.

“Do you know what day this is, Laura? April Fool’s Day. We buried her a year ago today.”

A year. So many changes in one year. She’d grown up. Run her own business. Fought off a rapist. Gotten to know her mother. Fallen in love and married the man of her dreams. And learned to forgive. She no longer hated Queenie, but she’d have to come to terms with what her father had done.

Laura faced her father. “For me, this is Independence Day. Queenie has no hold over me now and neither do you. You can keep your bitterness and all that goes with it, Dad. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime.”

Laura turned away from her father and drove back to the diner to find her husband.

Her future.

She needed to feel Luke’s strong arms around her.

And feel the warmth of his love.

*Thank you for taking the time to read
Queenie’s Café
. I hope you enjoyed the book.*

Author’s Note:

I lived in Eau Gallie, Florida in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and I fell in love with the friendly people who lived there.

Kingston isn’t a real town, and you won’t find Queenie’s Café or the King of the Road Motel along the highway there. But you will find some great people.

I know there have been some major changes since I moved away. For one thing, Eau Gallie is now part of Melbourne, where I went to high school. Several friends still live in the area. I think about them often and hope they’re doing well.

I haven’t been back since 1989, the year my mother passed away, but I keep a special place in my heart for the people who live there.

Books by Sue Fineman

Find Sue’s Books on
Kindle
and
Nook

The Martinson Ranch Series

The Mitchell Money

Ginger’s Grief

Maggie’s Man

The Gregory Series

On the Run

On the Lam

On the Hunt

On the Edge

The Donatelli Series

Nick’s Journey

Maxine

Blind Love

The Inheritance

The Inn at Dead Man’s Point

The Kane Ghosts Series

The Ghost in the Basement

The Ghosts Upstairs

The Ghost at the Farm

The Ghosts in the Attic

The Ghosts in the Audience

Single Title

Gran’s Guilt

Nightmare in the Woods

Queenie’s Cafe

BIO SHEET

Sue Fineman

Sue Fineman lives in a small town in Washington state with her husband of forty-nine years, a tiny poodle with no tail, and a scruffy rescue dog who wags her tail all the time. Her three grown children are nearly old enough to join AARP. She also has one adorable grandson and multiple grandpuppies and grandkittens. At one time she and her husband took in foster kids, but that was when they were younger and had more patience. These days her husband manages to try Sue’s patience on a daily basis, but she’s decided to keep him anyway. She doesn’t want to start over training a new husband.

She’s been a secretary, technical writer, real estate agent, and foster mother to five children. Always an avid reader, she began writing in her mid-fifties, when she quit her day job. Sue has written over two dozen books in the past fifteen years.

To contact Sue, send an email to
[email protected]
. To read her blog, go to
http://suefineman.blogspot.com/
.