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Her new town house had just been built, and updated with a security system—everything he wanted for his mother, the only person who’d been there for him and Claire in the early days.
He threw his keys on the desk in the kitchen, hoping Claire was feeling better. He was sure it was only nerves. There were only ten days until she started college, a dream she’d had since she was eighteen. The reality was hard for her to believe, but he was going to make sure nothing stood in the way of her dream this time.
Nothing.
“Honey,” he called, walking toward the bedroom. He picked up the comforter from the hardwood floor and laid it on the rumpled bed. In the bathroom, a stench sent him reeling. She was definitely sick. Where was she? A sliver of alarm slid up his spine. Could she have driven herself to the hospital? No. She would have called him.
Hurrying back to the kitchen, he spotted the note attached to the refrigerator. He read it, frowning. “What…?” He read it again, but it still didn’t tell him a lot. She needed to get away. Why? His gut tightened with a premonition. Something was wrong.
He dragged in a breath. Claire had said she’d call, so he had to wait. To keep busy, he went into the utility room for cleaning supplies to scrub the bathroom. That done, he sprayed air freshener, something the girls had bought at a specialty shop. He sniffed. Lime and verbena. Not bad. But not something he wanted to smell on a regular basis.
After straightening the bed, he flipped on the TV. An Austin high school team was supposed to be playing on one of the cable channels. He found it. Pivoting, he started for the den and noticed Claire’s underwear drawer. She’d left it open, and the contents were spilling out. A spot was vacant in the back corner—where Claire stored the love letters. He teased her about keeping them, but she’d said one day their daughters might like to read about their parents’ lives as teenagers.
Why had Claire taken the letters? They’d been there for years. He closed the drawer with a sinking feeling. Had she left him? No. There were no signs. They were in love, always had been since grade school.
He’d sat behind her in class and had a bird’s-eye view of her blond ponytail and the colorful ribbons tied around it. Every day brought a different ribbon, to match her clothes. As a boy, he didn’t quite get that.
But he got Claire, even though she tended to ignore him. So one day he yanked her ribbon and drew her full attention. She’d quickly retied the bow and glared at him. He just grinned at her.
Later he’d yanked it again on the playground and run away. She’d yelled after him, “I’ll get you, Dean Rennels.”
And she did. Over the next few years she got him in more ways than he could remember. Claire was a voracious reader and won the reading award every term, writing the most book reports of anyone in their class. In ninth grade the teacher wanted them to read with a buddy, and the top readers had the honor of choosing their partners. Claire picked him, the boy’d who pulled her ribbons. The guys teased him, but he didn’t care. Usually he couldn’t wait to get out of class to go play ball, but for the first time, something, or someone, held him back.
After that Claire helped him with his book reports and made suggestions of what he might want to read. She introduced him to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He’d loved those stories, but couldn’t quite get into The Grapes of Wrath or Moby Dick or Wuthering Heights and many other books she couldn’t put down.
It wasn’t just the books; it was Claire with her soft lilting voice, her serene expression and the light in her brown eyes. He never noticed those things in other girls, but Claire held him spellbound, which was a feat because sports usually had his undivided attention.
The School Dance, 1980
DEAN’S LOCKER WAS ACROSS from Claire’s. The school dance was a week away and he wasn’t sure about going. Since he played football, the coach said he had to go. Dean wasn’t sure why. The dance had nothing to do with football.
As Claire arranged books neatly in her locker, he walked over to her. “Are you going to the dance?”
“No. My parents don’t allow me to date.”
“My mom won’t let me date, either, but I’m thinking about going.”
She closed her locker, but before she could walk away, he blurted out, “Maybe we could meet at the dance. It wouldn’t exactly be a date.”
A smile turned up the corners of her mouth and he knew he was in love, or something. He felt happy and ill at the same time.
“Okay.” Her smile broadened. “I’ll meet you at the dance.”
He was nervous getting ready that evening. He was very careful not to go outside or even pick up a ball. No way was he getting mud on his clothes tonight.
His mom, Margaret Ann Rennels, better known as Bunny, drove him to the dance. She stopped her Ford Fairmont at the school. “Behave yourself,” she said, crushing out a cigarette in the ashtray.
“Do you have to smoke? I don’t want to smell like that. It’s gross.”
“I have the window down and I don’t smoke in the house. Isn’t that enough?”
“I guess.” Dean twisted the rearview mirror so he could peer at himself. “Do I look okay?”
Bunny frowned at him. “What’s wrong with you? You never care how you look.”
“This is a dance. I’m supposed to look nice.”
She touched his cheek. “You’re handsome just like that no-good father of yours.”
He groaned, not wanting to talk about his dad, who’d left them before Dean was born. The man couldn’t handle the responsibility of a baby. Bunny said he was shot a few years later by a jealous husband, but every time she thought about him she drank heavily. Dean hoped she wasn’t doing that tonight. Although tonight she had to go to work at her job as a waitress, so she wouldn’t be drinking.
“I’ll be back at ten. If I’m late, stay put. I’ll be here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And, champ, don’t worry. The girls will fall over themselves to dance with you.”
He wasn’t worried about other girls, only Claire. Her parents were wealthy, her father a lawyer, and Dean knew there was no way they’d be allowed to date. But tonight he was going to dance with her.
The moment he saw her, his stomach lurched, as it did every time he managed to catch a pass he thought was out of his reach. In a pink dress, with her blond hair hanging down her back, she reminded him of Cinderella, a ridiculous fairy tale Bunny used to read to him. Dean wanted to be Claire’s prince and that frightened him, because he’d never had thoughts like that before. He considered running out of the gym, but she walked over to him and all he could do was stare.
The music started and he took her hand. They did all the crazy moves, laughing and joking, and then a slow number came on. As he held her he knew he was in love. He was just a kid, but he still knew.
DEAN PACED.
Claire, where are you?
CLAIRE SHOVED HER KEY into the lock and opened the door at the lake house. The heat was stifling and she quickly turned on the air-conditioning. As cool air wafted from the vents, she carried her bag to a bedroom, though she didn’t know how long she was staying.
Long enough to accept her future.
She put the perishable foods she’d picked up at a convenience store in the refrigerator, and left the other groceries on the counter. Tugging on a pair of shorts and a tank top, she realized her body was already going through changes. A month ago the shorts fit fine. Now…She grabbed suntan lotion and hurried out to the pier. Their lot sloped down to the water’s edge. She sat cross-legged on the planks and methodically, without thinking, applied lotion to her arms, legs and face. Her fingers smoothed over a tiny lump of cellulite and she stopped. Damn! She was too old to have a baby.
What was she going to do? She wasn’t a frightened eighteen-year-old. As a mature woman who had learned to be strong, independent and resourceful, she should find this easy.
But it wasn’t.
Sunlight danced off the rippling water with a blinding array of sparks, warming and refreshing at the same time. She breathed in the clean air. Since it was Friday, the lake was busy with boats, skiers and swimmers, but their house was secluded in a cove among gnarled oak trees, away from the crowd. People were making the most of the last weekend before school started. Public schools, that is. College started the following Monday.
The afternoon sun heated her skin and her thoughts.
She was pregnant for the third time, at age forty-three.
All sorts of emotions engulfed her—denial, anger, confusion, defiance, anxiety and fear. How could she accept this? How could she not? She ran her hands up her arms as a feeling of déjà vu came over her.
At eighteen, she’d been frightened and worried. Being older didn’t change those feelings, except she was angry with herself because she knew better than to act so recklessly. She was angry with Dean, too.
The June trip to Cancun had been a celebration of Sami getting her master’s in education, their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and of finally getting out of debt. They were happy, and had enjoyed their time with the girls. Claire had forgotten to pack her diaphragm so Dean had bought condoms. They’d laughed about it, feeling young. Evidently it hadn’t worked—as it hadn’t twenty-five years ago.
The heat became unbearable so she strolled back to the house, where the air-conditioning cooled her heated emotions. After getting bottled water out of the refrigerator, she went into the bedroom and fished the letters out of her bag. Curling up on the sofa, she untied the worn ribbon and felt as if she was opening a part of her soul.
For a moment she just stared at the letters and wondered why they were so important to her. Every time she and Dean had moved, she’d tucked the letters in a safe spot.
Why?
She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because they depicted her dedication, her love and her accomplishments as a woman, as a wife and as a mother. Or maybe deep down she knew one day she would need them for guidance and inspiration.
For twenty-five years she’d tried to be the perfect wife and mother. When Sami started school, Claire became a teacher’s aide so she would be close in case the girls needed her. The family had also needed the money.
When she was growing up, her father had wanted her to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. That plan was derailed when she became pregnant in high school. But as Claire worked in the school system, her goal had changed. She loved working with kids, mostly the young ones, whose minds were waiting to unfurl with just the right incentives and the guidance of a caring teacher.
As those thoughts ran through her mind, Claire realized she’d forgotten about plans with two friends, Nita and Joan, for tomorrow. They were going to a spa for the works, to celebrate Claire’s return to college full-time. Then they were meeting the guys for dinner.
She reached for her cell, but just fiddled with it, unsure of what to say. “Guess what? I’m pregnant.” Even though her friends would understand, she wasn’t up to saying those words yet. When she was stronger, she’d call and cancel.
So many times she’d tried to go to college to get her degree, so she could teach instead of being an aide, but life’s crises kept getting in the way. Now that their youngest daughter had graduated, Claire was ready to embark on her own career, fulfill her dream.
But now…
She slipped a finger beneath the flap of an envelope. What had her life been about? What had kept her from getting her degree before now? As she unfolded a letter, her body trembled with old fears. Each page was filled with I love you’s and plans for the future. Wonderful plans that only a teenager could believe.
Jan 9, 1983
My darling Dean,
I haven’t seen you in two days and I feel alone, so I close my eyes and I can see you. Your dark hair curls into your collar and I remember the texture, the feel of it against my fingers. And I see your smile, that lazy grin that makes me warm all over. But your eyes are what comfort me. Those soft, caring blue eyes that tease me, tempt me and make me a little crazy. I love you so much…
In a trancelike state, she glanced through the floor-to-ceiling windows to the view of the lake. Her parents had forbidden her to see Dean. He wasn’t the type of boy she should be dating. His mother was a waitress and not up to the Thornton standards for friends and acquaintances. Dean had no future. He was a football jock who would be washed up before his time. Claire deserved better, her father had said, and though she might not agree then, she would thank him later.
As a teenager, those words hadn’t meant much to her. All she knew was how Dean made her feel. Ever since third grade she thought he was wonderful, even when he untied her bows. In junior high they’d become an item, and that had never changed all through high school.
They couldn’t date, but found ways to be together, especially after they started driving. Most of the time they talked, laughed and made out like other teenagers. In their senior year their emotions became heated and they gave in to temptation.
The first time was in Dean’s car after a dance. Claire cried and so did he, but it had been the most beautiful experience of her life. She and Dean were now part of each other and nothing could keep them apart.
In the weeks that followed they stole moments after football games, met in the park, after school and on weekends at their secret place—Dean’s house while his mother worked. It didn’t matter that they were sneaking around. They were together, that was all that was important. Until…
She’d missed her period and she was nervous. They’d been so careful. Another week and she knew she had to tell Dean.
March 10, 1983
CLAIRE HUNG AROUND the gym, trying not to bite her nails as she waited for basketball practice to end and then waited again while Dean showered and changed clothes. He came out of the locker room smiling, and all she wanted to do was kiss him.
“Hey. I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” he said, walking toward her with his easy swagger in his letterman jacket and jeans.
“I have to talk to you.” She couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice.
He took her arm and led her out of the gym to the parking lot. “What is it? Did your parents find out?”
She shook her head.
A couple of guys from the team came out and waved to them.
Dean pulled her close to his side. His masculine scent mingling with fresh soap did a number on her senses. “Well, then, everything’s okay. Let’s go some place where it’s quieter.”
With self-control she pushed away. “No. We’ve done too much of that.”
He frowned. “What? Make love?”
“Yes.” She looked directly at him in the glow of the parking lot lights.
“Claire.” He tried to take her in his arms and she stepped back.
“I’m pregnant.”
There was total silence. A car honked and a girl’s laughter carried on the wind.
He frowned. “What?”
“I missed my period and I know I’m pregnant. What are we going to do?”
“But how? We’ve used protection every time, and it’s been hell getting condoms. Jarrod’s older brother buys them and he charges me double. But at least I don’t have to go into a store to get them.”
“Evidently sometimes condoms don’t work.”
“God.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This can’t be happening.”
“I know. We had it all planned. You’re going to the University of Texas on a football scholarship and I’m enrolling there, too. We were finally going to be together without sneaking around.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. We’re both eighteen, so we’ll get married and continue with our plans.”
“On what? When my parents find out I’m pregnant, they’ll disown me. They don’t even know I’ve been seeing you.”
“Then we’ll make it on our own.”
“Dean, be realistic. We’ll have a child to raise and we’ll both have to find jobs.”
He slipped his arms around her and held her close. “Don’t panic. Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you and the baby. I’m not running out on you like my dad ran out on my mom and me. First, make an appointment with the doctor and let’s find out for sure.”
She trailed her hands to the strong column of his neck, needing to touch his skin. She kissed his ear, his jaw, and felt his muscles tighten.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Cupping her face with both hands, he ran his tongue over her lips. “I love you, too. And we’ll face this together. If you’re pregnant, we’ll have to tell your parents.”
She winced. “It’s going to be an ugly scene.”
“Yeah.” He kissed her deeply and she clung to him.
