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He waved a hand. “This. Somehow, I never thought about it. There always seemed to be so much else to worry about, and now suddenly here we are, a real family doing just what real families do.”
“It’s the Cutlers,” Connie said. “They’re just so normal that they make you feel normal by association.”
“I don’t know,” he mused, his green eyes narrowing. “I think we might be more normal than we realize.”
“You, maybe,” she countered softly, then immediately amended that. “And Jolie. Definitely Jolie.”
He cocked his head. “Not you?”
“Not me,” she answered softly.
He looped an arm around her shoulders in brotherly support.
“You may be the most normal of us all, Connie.”
She shook her head and Marcus sighed inwardly. Sensitive and caring, Connie had suffered the most after their mother had abandoned them. As a result, she could not seem to stop punishing herself for past sins. She carried such needless guilt, such overwhelming shame. It was one of the reasons Marcus had convinced her to regain custody of her son. Going against Jolie had hurt him, but he had known Jolie would survive. He hadn’t been so sure about Connie, and yet here she was, as lovely and sweet as ever.
He followed her adoring gaze to her son. No longer entertained by the delicate edging of Jolie’s veil, Russell suddenly flopped over and tried to pull himself upright on Jolie’s lap by tugging at the bodice of her wedding gown. Vince immediately reached over and plucked him off Jolie, settling him in his own lap, but Connie was a very conscientious mother. She had a gift for it, frankly, if Marcus did say so himself.
She immediately started toward her rambunctious son, saying “Uh-oh. Someone is restless.”
Marcus followed in her wake, watching the way that Russell so readily came up into her arms.
“He looks so adorable in that little suit,” Jolie said, her eyes shining.
Her smile looked permanent, Marcus was thankful to note.
“Marcus insisted that he had to have one,” Connie said, sliding a look at Marcus. “He spends too much on us, doesn’t he, munchkin?”
“Don’t be silly,” Marcus scoffed. “If you’d let me pay you for keeping house—”
“You do pay me,” Connie interrupted tartly. “You’re putting a roof over our heads.”
“It’s more than a fair exchange,” Marcus argued.
“Somehow, I don’t think he minds,” Vince told Connie, smiling at Marcus and clasping Jolie’s hand in his.
Marcus saluted him with his punch glass.
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Connie replied, “but I do. That’s why I’m intending to go to school and learn a trade of some sort.”
Marcus studiously kept a grimace off his face, even as Jolie sat forward, exclaiming “That’s great!”
“You have to know that we’ll help in any way that we can,” Vince assured Connie.
“Thanks, but that’s the point, isn’t it? I have to be able to help myself. Still, since you’re not working at the cleaners now, Jo, maybe you could watch Russell a couple of days a week? They won’t charge me to keep him here at the day care, but I know he’d rather spend some time with you. It would give him a nice change, at least.”
Jolie literally beamed. “That would be wonderful!”
Marcus smiled to himself, so very proud of both of his sisters.
While Connie had been in prison, Jolie had cared for Russell as if he were her own child, and in many ways he was. It was entirely understandable that Jolie hadn’t wanted to give him up, but once Connie had been released, Marcus had known that—for her sake as well as Russell’s—she had to take over guardianship of her son. She hadn’t believed herself worthy of mothering a child, but no one who knew her could say that now. Marcus’s one regret was that Jolie had gotten hurt in the process, and he had feared that the resulting break in the family would be permanent.
Thank God that had not been the case.
Vince had helped Jolie find a way to forgive and reconnect with her family. Considering that they’d fought a custody battle over the boy, Connie showed great compassion and wisdom in asking Jolie to help care for Russell. Thankfully, Connie understood that Jolie would always share a special bond with Russell and that he needed Jolie to be his aunt. Now, she could be.
Marcus only wished that Connie could forgive herself for her past mistakes as readily as she forgave others. He hated to think about Connie not spending her days with her son, but he understood why she felt that she had to go to school. Somehow, though, something told him that it wasn’t the right thing to do, not at this time. Still, he kept his opinion to himself.
One thing he had learned was that God always had a plan for His children, and Marcus had no doubts, that, when the time was right, God would reveal His plan for Connie.
Connie tacked her smile into place and took her son to find his sippy cup and something appropriate with which to fill it. She loved her sister, and she had no doubt that it was wise to have Jolie watch Russell whenever she could, but she felt stretched thin at the moment. She had not expected this day to be so hard for her. That it was seemed irrefutable proof that she was not the person she should be.
Father, forgive me, she prayed silently. I want to be better. I really do. It was a familiar but heartfelt refrain, and she determinedly set out to enjoy her sister’s wedding reception.
Russell was yawning by the time the bride and groom cut the cake. It finally seemed acceptable for Connie to make her escape. The Cutler sisters, however, would hear nothing of it. The bridal bouquet was yet to be tossed, they declared, and Connie was one of only four unmarried ladies present over the age of twelve. She couldn’t very well refuse to line up with the others. It was her only sister’s wedding, after all.
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole when she actually caught the thing, though caught was too fine a word for what happened.
As was usually the case, the florist had made a replica of the bridal bouquet for the traditional toss. That way, the bride could keep her real bouquet and the lucky, next-to-be-married recipient could keep the silk copy. The silk flowers were quite lightweight and sailed merely a few feet over Jolie’s shoulder before bouncing off Connie’s chest.
The bouquet plopped to the floor, as Connie had made no real attempt to catch it, but Russell, who was at her feet, promptly snatched it up and presented it to her, proud as a peacock. Everyone laughed and Connie felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment because surely too many knew how ridiculous the idea was that she would be the next to marry.
A great deal of effort went into her smile for the photos, and when she left the room a few minutes later, a sleepy Russell snuggled against her chest, she felt like the worst sort of ingrate. God had blessed her, despite her mistakes, and she told herself firmly that she would not allow envy and regret to rob her of gratitude. Nevertheless, she was glad to finally get away.
Draping her coat over her shoulders, she pulled the edges together around her son and carried him swiftly across the compound. By the time she reached the neat little house that they shared with her brother, her feet were killing her and her arms felt like lead weights. It was a great pleasure to kick off her satin pumps, deposit the silk bouquet on a handy shelf and gently lower Russell onto the changing table.
Russell was sleeping already, but he roused as she changed him. Softly singing a lullaby, she kept her movements slow and easy as she removed his wedding finery and slipped him into footed pajamas. She dropped down into the bedside rocker with him. Moments later, he was deeply asleep again without a care in the world, his face sublime.
Then it came, the sense of awe, the vast relief.
How could she feel envy when she was here in this warm, cozy house instead of a cold, impersonal cell? She had her son with her—not only an empty ache in her heart—and she had just come from her dear sister’s wedding. Moreover, her kind, generous big brother would be home shortly, still beaming, no doubt.
“Thank you, God,” she whispered, blinking back tears as she lay her son in his crib.
Perhaps she would never have what Jolie did, but she had more than she deserved. It was enough.
Kendal gently closed the door to his daughter’s room and leaned against it, sighing with relief. Bedtime had not been the ordeal that he had feared it would be this evening, which was not to say that the day hadn’t been difficult enough. The session with Dr. Stenhope had not gone well.
Usually, Larissa tolerated the grandmotherly psychiatrist with cool indifference. Today, however, she had wailed and struggled until Dr. Stenhope had yielded the direction of her exercises to a younger assistant. Kendal didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him that his child was fixated on younger women, women who apparently reminded her of her mother on some level, women such as Connie Wheeler.
He turned off thoughts of the petite, compassionate woman, allowing himself instead to indulge a remnant of the rage that he’d felt since the death of his wife. Intellectually, he knew that he was as much to blame for this situation as Laura was and the great guilt that he carried quickly eclipsed the anger. True, she’d shut him out after Larissa was born, but he’d allowed it to happen. It was as if Laura hadn’t known how to be both a wife and a mother at the same time, and he hadn’t known how to overcome his own hurt and disappointment to help her.
He now realized how selfish and convenient that had been. Oh, he’d told himself that, as Larissa grew older, Laura would relax and allow him to take a hand in raising their daughter, but Larissa had needed him then as much as she did now. He could not escape the fact that he had been as unfair to his daughter as Laura had been to him.
It had been horribly easy to take a backseat. His mortgage brokerage had burgeoned with the lowering of interest rates and he’d been focused on turning it into a real player in the field. That, too, had been a convenient excuse.
The ugly truth was that his marriage had never been what he’d hoped it would be. Even before Larissa was born, the relationship had shriveled into cold politeness. He should have fought harder to breach Laura’s defenses of silence and impersonal interaction. He should have been the husband and father that God had meant him to be, even if Laura hadn’t been capable of being the wife and mother he’d envisioned.
Now, it was too late to be a husband to Laura.
Who could’ve imagined that she would die so abruptly, especially from something as seemingly innocuous as a few ant bites? It was Larissa who needed him now.
To think that Larissa had been there, alone, with Laura at the time of her death was bad enough, but for the child to have spent the next day and a half wailing in her crib, waiting for her mommy to come and get her…
He shuddered at the memory. As long as he lived, he’d never forget how Larissa had fought and struggled, reaching for her mother as the ambulance crew wheeled the body from the room.
He hadn’t even handled that part of it well.
Yes, he’d been in shock himself, but a real father would have instinctively protected his child from such a sight. Nearly nine months later, he was no closer to being an adequate father. His little girl merely tolerated him, preferring even a strange woman to him, and all Dr. Stenhope could say was that he shouldn’t take it personally!
At times, he wondered if making the move from Tulsa to Fort Worth had been wise. He was willing to do anything—anything—to help Larissa. All the doctors and literature said that Dr. Stenhope was the foremost authority on detachment disorders in the entire southwestern part of the country, but Stenhope’s treatment didn’t appear to be making any headway with Larissa. She certainly hadn’t offered him the level of counseling and advice on parenting that he’d expected. Yet, he’d had other reasons for making the move—specifically, Laura’s parents.
He was too tired to even think about the Conklins right now. Sometimes he thought he was too tired to breathe. Nevertheless, he still had papers to look over and dinner to clean up after, if hot dogs and canned corn nuked in the microwave could be called dinner.
Off to the kitchen, he scraped ketchup from the plates and stacked them in the dishwasher before wiping down the table, floor and wall. Larissa’s table manners left much to be desired, but he dared not do more than sit stoically while she slung food around the immediate vicinity. He could imagine what she’d do if he actually reprimanded her.
After the domestic chore was accomplished, Kendal moved to the home office that he’d set up next to his bedroom and opened his briefcase. Rubbing his eyes, he settled down behind the mahogany desk to peruse the documents that had been handed to him that day. The new office was up and running, but they weren’t yet fully staffed, so these days he wore several hats as far as the business was concerned.
Any other time, he’d have been thrilled that things were going so well, but now he had more pressing matters on his mind, so much so that the numbers just didn’t want to compute tonight. After a couple of hours, he gave up and went to check on Larissa.
She didn’t even look peaceful in her sleep. Her eyes twitched beneath her closed lids, and her mouth was constantly pursed. As if she were aware of his disappointment, she sighed and flopped from her side onto her back. Her little hands flexed and then she sighed again and seemed to relax. Kendal bowed his head.
God help her, he thought. Please help her.
He meant to say more, but the words wouldn’t come out. They felt too trite and repetitive to make it beyond the ceiling, let alone to God’s ear. That, too, was his fault. His mom used to say that if he felt far from God, he was the one who had moved.
He missed his mom.
Ironically, that was something that he and his daughter had in common, if only she could know it. His own mother died when he was twelve, having contracted a viral infection that had attacked her heart, and the sadness had never really left him. He understood Larissa’s pain more than she could possibly realize, but that seemed of little value at the moment.
Slipping out of her room, he wandered around the dark, silent house. In the few months that they’d been here, he’d come to like this place, situated as it was in a safe, gated community on the eastern edge of Fort Worth. The residents could bike or run around the common green or even ride horses and picnic beside the small lake or creek. There were tennis courts and a weight room, too, but no community pool, as most of the homes, including this one, had their own.
When he’d purchased the property, he’d envisioned Larissa having pool parties and class picnics in a few years. It made a nice contrast to imagining his daughter institutionalized, which was what he really feared would happen.
Too exhausted to keep those fears at bay, he shut himself into his bedroom, where he collapsed onto his pillow. The house felt cold and empty, even though he could hear the central heater running and knew that Larissa slept just across the hall. Or was it that the coldness and emptiness were inside him?
He didn’t know how this had happened. He’d never meant to move so far from the God of his youth, never expected to be so unhappy in his marriage, so inadequate a father. Only God knew how desperately he wanted to fix it, but he simply didn’t know how. He tried again to pray, but he’d said the words so often that they no longer seemed worthwhile.
Gradually, he began to slide toward sleep. As he felt his body relax, his rebellious thoughts turned to a subject he had hoped to avoid: Connie Wheeler.
The minister’s wife was a kind, considerate woman. She was also lovely—all soft, dainty femininity. He sensed a gentle, willing spirit in her. Larissa was certainly taken with her, and she seemed to have a way with the child. Was it possible that she could somehow help them? Maybe, he mused, as awareness drifted away, that was why God had led him here, to this place and to that church.
He slept on that hope, more comfortable than any pillow, and by morning it had become a notion with a life of its own, a growing part of his consciousness. He tried not to give the idea more credence than it deserved, but throughout the difficult morning, he found himself returning to it, clinging to it, comforting himself with it, even praying that it might be so.
Larissa didn’t want to eat and didn’t want to take her bath or have her hair brushed. She didn’t want to be changed, and she certainly didn’t want to be dressed. Forcing her into her clothes, he prepared her for the day as best he could. In his desperation, he wasn’t above bribing her.
“Don’t you want to go to nursery school? Don’t you want to see Miss Susan? How about Miss Connie?”
He had no idea whether the minister’s wife would be around today or not, but he’d have promised the child Santa Claus if it would have stopped her from fighting him. But it didn’t help. Larissa remained distraught.
She quieted as soon as they pulled into the parking lot of the day care center, though, and his relief fought with his resentment. His daughter would rather spend the whole day at nursery school, where she wasn’t even particularly happy, than two hours with him. The worst of it was, he’d rather be apart from her, too. As he dropped her off, he was aware of a shameful eagerness on his part. He couldn’t wait to get to the office, where people actually smiled at him and at least pretended to be glad to have him around. He knew what he was doing there, what was expected of him, and he didn’t have to feel that he was inflicting himself on anyone.
How pathetic was he to let a toddler hurt his feelings so much that he wanted to turn away? It was one thing to feel that way about one’s spouse, but one’s child?
Father, forgive me, he prayed, driving away. I know I disappoint You as much as I disappoint her. And forgive me for that, too.
The words seemed to bounce off the windshield and sink heavily into his chest, weighing down a heart already heavy with woe.
Chapter Three
Connie opened the door to the church’s administrative building and smiled at her brother’s secretary, Carlita.
“Hola, Miss Connie.”
“Hello, Carlita. How are you?”
“Muy bien. Do you wish to see the pastor?”
“Yes, I do, actually.”
“Go on back. He’s been in conference with Miss Dabney for some time now. Surely, they are just about finished.”
Connie slipped past Carlita’s desk and moved toward the hallway off of which several offices opened, saying “If they’re still talking, I’ll wait outside the door.”
“If you like, I’ll bring you a chair,” Carlita offered.
Connie shook her head. “Not necessary. Thanks.”
“De nada.”
Carlita went back to her typing, her long, black braid swinging between her plump shoulder blades as she turned her head toward the computer screen.
When Marcus had hired the single mother of four, she had spoken little English, but her need had been great and corresponded precisely with her efforts. Little more than a year later, Carlita was a model of cheerful, dependable efficiency and another of Marcus’s success stories.
Stepping into the hallway, Connie saw that the door to her brother’s office was only partially closed. She paused a moment, bending her head in an effort to discern whether or not the meeting was coming to an end. She hoped that it was. She had made a decision this morning, and she wanted to speak to Marcus about it before she lost her resolve. Just then, a familiar voice spoke with unexpected sharpness.
“But the child is simply unmanageable.”
“When she’s frustrated,” Marcus replied calmly. “That’s what you said a moment ago—that she’s unmanageable when she’s frustrated and that she dislikes men. I’m not sure that’s cause for dismissal.”
“It wouldn’t be if she wasn’t frustrated so much of the time!” Miss Dabney argued.
“All children get easily frustrated. You’ve told me so often.”
“But they don’t all throw thirty-minute temper tantrums on a routine basis!”
“Is she a danger or an impediment to the other children?” Marcus asked, the very model of patience.
