Life Happens
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“Too good.” The sound Elle made had a lot in common with a snort. “She spoiled my dad and me rotten. After she died, laundry piled up and the cupboards went empty. Dad and I didn’t have a clue what to do about it. He remarried a year later. I guess desperate situations call for desperate measures, huh?”
Mya studied Elle’s features, one by one. She was extremely thin, her face pale in the dim light. Her short blond hair was tousled, her brown eyes expressive. “So you have a stepmother.”
“You’d recognize her relatives from the movies. They wore pointy hats, kept flying monkeys for pets, and one of her sisters perished when a house fell on her somewhere above Kansas.”
Mya bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Not a lot of love lost there, I take it.”
“I despise my stepmother.”
“Despising people comes naturally to the Donahue women.”
They shared their first genuine smile. A moment later Elle looked away.
“She and my dad have two kids of their own now. He spends a lot of time at the office. I would, too, if I were him.”
Why, Mya thought, couldn’t life ever be easy, or at least fair? Since she knew firsthand that wishing was a worthless pastime, she prepared for the inevitable questions.
“When you and Jeffrey get married, it’ll be your first time?” Elle asked.
Mya answered cautiously, for it wasn’t the question she’d been expecting. “It will be the first marriage for both of us, yes.”
Running her finger along the edge of the pillow, Elle said, “He’s not bad-looking, if you like jocks. And he’ll probably pull in good money.”
The white cat pushed the door open with his head then sat near the wall, judiciously surveying the scene. Of the three cats, he was the friendliest. Although Elle hadn’t admitted it, she enjoyed his company. She slid one hand along the bedspread, wiggling a finger. He took the bait, jumping onto the bed as if all four feet had springs. It took only a few sniffs to make an assessment and deem her trustworthy before he curled into a ball at her knees.
“Casper likes you,” Mya said.
“Casper.” Elle snorted, but she petted the overweight cat. “Don’t you think it’s weird for a man to have three cats?”
“They were strays.” Mya couldn’t help wondering if that was how Jeffrey saw her.
“He doesn’t seem like your type.”
Tucking her dressing gown around her legs, Mya said, “You’re as bad as Claire. Jeff’s made me see reason so many times. I don’t smoke anymore. I rarely swear. I haven’t even given other drivers the finger in ages.”
“So you’re marrying him because he makes you see reason?”
“Of course that’s not why I’m marrying him.”
“Then you’re madly in love with him?”
Mya wished it was easier to nod.
Elle looked over at Kaylie. “I thought I was in love with Kaylie’s father, but he cleared out as soon as the wand turned blue. Good riddance.”
“He sounds like a fool.”
“Yeah,” Elle said. “Your mother said the Donahue women don’t make good choices when it comes to men.”
Their gazes met, held.
“Is that what my birth father was?” Elle whispered. “A bad choice?”
Outside, a branch scraped against the siding. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. A few feet away, Kaylie made noises in her sleep. Elle didn’t move a muscle, and looked as if she could wait all night if she had to. Mya knew she’d waited long enough.
They both had.
CHAPTER 4
“H is name was Dean Laker.” His name rolled off Mya’s tongue as if it hadn’t been nineteen years since every other word had been Dean.
“Was?” Elle whispered.
“Is. His name is Dean Laker.” Time obscured many things, but it hadn’t dulled her memory of him, tall and lanky, stubborn and proud, impatient with life but not with her, cocky and arrogant, except the day he’d gone to see her when it was all over. It wasn’t the first time he’d told her to go to hell, but it was the first time she’d seen him cry.
“I met Dean when my mother and I moved to Keepers Island when I was nine. His was the first face I saw when I walked into that little classroom of strangers. He stuck his tongue out at me, and when I didn’t flinch, he sat back, studying me closer, and I knew I’d passed some secret, unspoken test.”
Elle stopped petting the cat, focusing completely on Mya. “If you knew his name, why did you leave the box blank on my birth certificate?”
Mya didn’t even have to close her eyes to relive the moment when, sitting on the edge of the bed, pen in hand, she’d hesitated over that space on the form. Her mother had gone out for a smoke and probably another good cry, so Mya was alone in her hospital room. In an effort to make things easier for her, she’d been given a room away from the other mothers. Mya felt isolated and scared and, God, she’d wished—never mind what she’d wished. She’d grasped her right hand to stop the shaking, and had wound up staring at her left hand. Her ring finger was bare by then.
Nineteen years later, she sat in a quiet bedroom searching for words that still wouldn’t come. “When I look back on my life, it’s as if the decisions I made and the events that led to them are lined up like dominoes a moment before the first one topples. So many times I’ve wondered what might have happened if I’d done one thing differently. Just one. Any one. But that day, I left the box blank because I was seventeen and I’d gone through twenty-three hours of labor, and I’d just spoken with a social worker, and my mother had done almost nothing but cry and I refused to give in and cry again, too.”
“You and Dean Laker, my birth father weren’t still together then?” Elle asked.
Of everything she’d said, Mya was surprised Elle had chosen that to question. “Dean and I broke up three weeks before you were born.”
“Does he still live around Maine somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever see him?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“The last time I saw him was eight years ago when I went back to Keepers Island to attend his father’s funeral.”
Elle seemed to be putting everything Mya said to memory. “Did you talk to him that day?”
“With the whole town looking on?” Mya made an unbecoming sound. “He took his dad’s death hard, and besides, he was surrounded by his family.”
“So he had a wife and a couple of kids by then?”
Mya shook her head.
“He isn’t married, either?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Elle spoke more loudly than before, then glanced at Kaylie, who slept on.
Puzzled by the question, Mya said, “I’m sure, Elle. My mother would have told me.”
“How would she know?”
“She goes back to visit friends every summer.”
“But you don’t?”
Again, Mya shook her head. Some things were just too painful.
After taking a moment to absorb that, Elle said, “What does he look like?”
She studied Elle, feature by feature. Her pupils were dilated in the semidarkness, so that only thin a ring of brown encircled them. The diamond stud in her nose looked real. Even at her young age, there was a slight furrow in her brow. Mya had been on the receiving end of the girl’s attitude, and yet it was apparent that Elle hadn’t had an easy life these past few years. The heaviness that so often lurked deep in Mya’s chest moved front and center. “A few minutes ago,” she said, “when you smiled, I caught a glimpse of him. His hair is dark, though, and his eyes are blue, like Kaylie’s. His nose has a little bump right here.” She pointed to a spot on her own nose.
“Did he break it in a bar fight or something?” Elle asked.
“He caught a kick ball in the face at recess when we were in the fifth grade. They called an honorary out, due to all the blood. It cost me my home run, and my team the game.”
Elle’s eyes widened with humor. “Did he blame you?”
The double meaning drained the smile out of both of them. Mya didn’t even try to answer.
Interestingly, Elle didn’t pursue it. “What does he do?”
“He’s a builder. He got his start doing odd jobs like shoring up porches and cleaning gutters and pointing brick. Word spread, and before long he had orders from the summer people who wanted decks and family rooms, additions and new kitchens. His brother works with him now. To hear my mother tell it, they’re extremely successful.”
“He has a brother?”
The question gave Mya pause. “He has two. And five nephews.”
“Then I have cousins, on that side at least. What about on the Donahue family tree?”
Mya shook her head, confused. “I’m an only child and so was my mother.”
“Where is your father?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never met the man.” When Elle looked at Kaylie again, Mya knew she was seeing a pattern.
Elle said, “Your mother told me she buried two husbands.”
“And divorced another.”
“She was married three times?” Elle asked, surprised.
“She gets lonely.”
Elle’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “You just defended her.”
“I’ll be more careful in the future.”
They both smiled, but instead of bringing a feeling of closeness, it brought an end to Elle’s questions. The girl stretched and yawned. Taking the hint, Mya started for the door.
At the last minute, Elle said, “Mya?”
“Yes?” she asked without turning.
“What would you have named me?”
There was a sourness in the pit of Mya’s stomach as she looked back at Elle. Swallowing the lump that had come out of nowhere, she said, “I would have called you Brynn.”
Elle tried the name out on her tongue. “Like your store.”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone else know that?”
Mya’s answer was a barely perceptible nod.
“Your mother?” Elle asked quietly.
“No.”
“Your friends?” Before Mya shook her head again, Elle said, “You told him, didn’t you? Dean Laker. My birth father knows.”
“Yes, Dean knows. Good night, Elle.” Somehow, Mya managed to leave Elle’s room without stumbling.
Back in her own bedroom, she turned out the light and closed her eyes. But her eyes wouldn’t stay closed. She thought about the day Elle was born. Whenever she recalled that period of her life, it was always with a sense of great physical and emotional pain. Her labor had hurt so bad she’d cried and begged just to let it be over. And when it was finally over, she’d felt so empty.
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