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They shared a long look, one full of words they didn’t really need to say out loud.
Three years ago, Dekker’s wife, Stacey, had died. His mama, Lorraine, had passed away not long after. Dekker had done quite a bit of drinking himself in the months following those two sad events.
Dekker said, “Maybe you ought to start whipping up a few casseroles.”
It was a joke between them now, how Joleen had kept after him, dropping in at his place several times a week, pouring his booze down the drain and urging him to “talk out his pain.”
He wouldn’t talk. But she wouldn’t give up on him, either. She brought him casseroles to make sure he ate right and kept dragging him out to go bowling and to the movies. Good, nourishing food and a few social activities had made a difference.
It had also brought them closer. She was, after all, five years younger than Dekker. Five years, while they were growing up, had seemed like a lifetime. Almost as if they were of different generations.
But it didn’t seem that way anymore. Now they were equals.
They were best friends.
She said, “You still have not bothered to tell me why you thought you had to fly off to Los Angeles out of nowhere like that.”
“Later,” he said. “There’s a lot to tell and now is not the time.”
“Were you…in danger?”
“No.”
“Was it something for a client?”
“Jo. Please. Not now.”
On the couch, Hubert stiffened, snorted and then went on snoring even louder than before.
Dekker said, “I think we’ve done all we can for him at the moment.”
“Guess so. Might as well get back to the party. We’re probably out of frilly toothpicks again.”
Dekker grinned. “DeDe grabbed me a few minutes ago. Something about cutting the cake?”
“No. It’s too early. They’re still attacking the buffet table. But it is a little cooler now. Safe to get everything set up.”
“Safe?”
“That’s right. We can chance taking the cake back outside.”
“This sounds ominous.”
“A wedding can be a scary time.”
“Tell me about it.”
She took his big, blunt-fingered hand. “Come on.”
They left Uncle Hubert snoring on the couch and went out to the kitchen, where they enlisted Burly to help Dekker carry the cake back out to the patio.
* * *
Once the cake was in position for cutting, Joleen went looking for Niki and Sam. She found them on the front porch, building a castle out of Duplo blocks.
“Mama. Look.” Sam beamed her his biggest, proudest smile.
“Wonderful job, baby.” She asked Niki, “Did he eat anything yet?”
Niki nodded. “He had some corn. And that fruit dish—the one with the coconut? Oh, and he ate about five of those little meatballs.”
“Milk?”
“Yeah—and what’s with those Atwood people?”
What do you mean? Joleen wanted to demand. What did they do?
She held the questions back. Sam might be only eighteen months old, but you could never be sure of how much he understood. And she didn’t want Niki stirred up, either. She gestured with a toss of her head. Niki got up and followed her down to the other end of the long porch.
“What do you mean about the Atwoods?” Joleen kept her voice low and her tone even.
Niki shrugged. “I don’t know. They sure stare a lot.”
“Have they…bothered you?”
“I don’t know, Joly. Like I said, they just stare.”
“They haven’t spoken to you at all?”
“Well, yeah. Twice. They tried to talk to Sam, but you know how he is sometimes. He got shy, buried his head against my shoulder. Both times they gave up and walked away.”
So. They had tried to get to know their grandson a little and gotten nowhere. Joleen found herself feeling sorry for them again.
“No real problems, though?”
“Uh-uh. Just general creepiness.”
Joleen reached out, brushed a palm along her sister’s arm. “You’ve been great, taking care of Sam all day.”
“Yeah. Call me Wonder Girl.” Niki was good with Sam. She took her babysitting duties seriously. In fact, Niki was doing a lot better lately all the way around. She’d given them a real scare last year. But Joleen had begun to believe those problems were behind her now.
“Want a little break?”
“Sure—Can I get out of this dress?”
Joleen hid a smile. Rose-colored satin was hardly her little sister’s style. Niki liked black. Black hip-riding skinny jeans, equally skinny little black T-shirts, black Doc Martens. Sometimes, for variety, she’d wear navy blue or deep purple, but never anything bright. Certainly nothing rosy red.
“Go ahead and change,” said Joleen.
Niki beamed. “Thanks.”
They rejoined Sam at the other end of the porch. “Hey, big guy,” Joleen said. “I need some help.”
Sam loved to “help.” He considered “helping” to be anything that involved a lot of busyness on his part. Pulling his mother around by her thumb could be “helping,” or carrying items from one place to another.
Sam set down the red plastic block in his fist and leaned forward, going to his hands and knees. “I hep.” He rocked back to the balls of his feet and pushed himself to an upright position.
Joleen held out her arms.
He said something she couldn’t really make out, but she knew he meant he wanted to walk.
So she took his hand and walked him down the front steps and around to the backyard. When she spotted the Atwoods alone at a table on the far side of the patio, she led him over there.
Okay, they were snobs. And they made her a little nervous.
But it had to be awkward for them at this party. They didn’t really know a soul. Joleen had introduced them to her mother and a few of the guests when they first arrived. But they’d been on their own since then.
All right, maybe Robert Atwood had given her cold looks. Maybe he didn’t approve of her. So what?
She was going to get along with them if she could possibly manage it. They were Sammy’s grandparents and she would show them respect, give them a little of the slack they didn’t appear to be giving her.
And besides, who was to say she hadn’t read them all wrong? Maybe staring and glaring was just Robert Atwood’s way of coping with feeling like an outsider.
When she reached their table, Joleen scooped Sam up into her arms. “Well, how are you two holdin’ up?”
“We are fine,” said Robert.
“Yes,” Antonia agreed in that wispy little voice of hers, staring at Sam with misty eyes. “Just fine. Very nice.”
Joleen felt a tug of sympathy for the woman. A few weeks ago, when the Atwoods had finally agreed to come to her house and meet Sam, Antonia had shown her one of Bobby’s baby pictures. The resemblance to Sam was extraordinary.
What must it be like, to see their lost child every time they looked at Sam?
All the tender goodwill Joleen had felt toward them when she saw the newspaper photos of them at Bobby’s funeral came flooding back, filling her with new determination to do all in her power to see that they came to know their only grandson, that they found their rightful place in his life.
“Mind if Sam and I sit down a minute?”
“Please,” said Antonia, heartbreakingly eager, grabbing the chair on her right side and pulling it out.
Joleen put Sam in it. He sat back and laid his baby hands on the molded plastic arms. “I sit,” he declared with great pride.
Antonia made a small, adoring sound low in her throat.
Joleen took the other free chair at the table. As she scooped her satin skirt smooth beneath her, Robert Atwood spoke again.
“Ahem. Joleen. We really must be leaving soon.”
Protestations would have felt a little too phony, so Joleen replied, “Well, I am pleased that you could come and I hope you had a good time.”
Robert nodded, his face a cool mask. Antonia seemed too absorbed in watching Sam to make conversation.
Robert said, “I would like a few words with you, before we leave. In private.”
That got Antonia’s attention. A look of alarm crossed her delicate face. She actually stopped staring at Sam. “Robert, I don’t think it’s really the time to—”
“I do,” her husband interrupted, his voice flat. Final.
Antonia blinked. And said nothing more.
Joleen felt suspicious all over again—not to mention apprehensive. What was the man up to? She honestly wanted to meet these two halfway. But they—Robert, especially—made that so difficult.
She tried to keep her voice light. “Well, if you need to talk to me about something important, today is not the day, I’m afraid. I think I told you, this party is my doing. I’m the one who has to keep things moving along. There’s still the cake to cut. And the toasts to be made. Then there will be—”
“I think you could spare us a few minutes, don’t you? In the next hour or so?”
“No, I don’t think that I—”
“Joleen. It is only a few minutes. I know you can manage it.”
Joleen stared into those hard gray eyes. She found herself thinking of Bobby, understanding him a little better, maybe. Even forgiving him some for being so much less than the man she had dreamed him to be. Joleen doubted that Robert Atwood knew how to show love, how to teach a child the true meaning of right and wrong. He would communicate his will—and his sense that he and his were special, above the rules that regular folks had to live by. And his son would grow up as Bobby had. Charming and so handsome. Well dressed, well educated and well mannered. At first glance, a real “catch.” A man among men.
But inside, just emptiness. A lack where substance mattered the most.
“Joleen,” Bobby had said when she’d told him she was pregnant. “I have zero interest in being a father.” The statement had been cool and matter-of-fact, the same kind of tone he might have used to tell her that he didn’t feel up to eating Chinese that night. “If you are having a baby, I’m afraid you will be having it on your own.”
She’d been so shocked and hurt, she’d reacted on pure pride. “Fine,” she had cried. “Get out of my life. I don’t want to see you. Ever again.”
And Bobby had given her exactly what she’d asked for. He’d walked out of her life—and his unborn child’s—and never looked back.
She thought again of Dekker’s warnings.
Forget the Atwoods. They have too much money and too much power and given the kind of son they raised, I’d say they’re way too likely to abuse both.…
She rose from her chair. “Come on, Sam. We’ve got to get busy here.”
Robert Atwood just wouldn’t give it up. “A few minutes. Please.”
Sam slid off the chair and grabbed her thumb. “We go. I hep.” He granted Antonia a shy little smile.
“Joleen,” Robert said, making a command out of the sound of her name.
Lord, give me strength, Joleen prayed to her maker. She reminded herself of her original goal here: to develop a reasonably friendly relationship with Sam’s daddy’s parents. “All right. Let me get through the cutting of the cake. And the toasts. Then we can talk.”
“Thank you.”
“But only for a few minutes.”
“I do understand.”
