A Hero to Come Home To (12 page)

She’d gotten little more than a sip of hazelnut-flavored coffee when her cell phone rang. Too early for Therese, so maybe…

It was embarrassingly juvenile how quickly her hopes could get raised.

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s Mom. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

A person could be forgiven, after a greeting like that, for thinking the caller was actually her mother. It wasn’t. For one thing, her mother made personal calls only between eight and nine p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. Second, her mother believed everyone should arise at the break of dawn, as she did. Third, the only time her mother had ever used the words
sweet
and
heart
together were in the lab when she’d been given a prime human heart to study.

“No. I’m up,” she told Jeff’s mother, Mia. Bracing the phone between her ear and shoulder, she took both the mug and bowl into the living room, where the couch still occupied the middle of the room. “Just having breakfast.”

“You know, they have these other breakfast foods called ‘bacon and eggs’ and ‘pancakes with maple syrup.’ You should try them sometime. You might never go back to bland, tasteless oatmeal.”

“I might never go back to a regular-size clothing store again, either.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re beautiful the way you are.”

“Thank you, Mama Mia, perfect size two. How’s Pop?”

“He’s fine.”

“And you?”

“Oh, you know that old song. ‘Some days are diamonds. Some days are stone.’”

Carly didn’t know the song, but she could embrace the sentiment.

“Juanita announced at book club yesterday that her daughter’s expecting her third child this summer. That’ll make eight grandkids for the old hag, and it just made me feel a little blue.”

“I’m sorry, Mia.” Carly regretted she and Jeff hadn’t tossed the birth control right after she’d tossed the bride’s bouquet, but he’d been heading off to Basic, and she’d still had a year of school left. They hadn’t been ready to become parents.

Now they could never be parents and Mia and Pop could never be grandparents.

Mia laughed shakily. “Aw, honey, I’m sorry I even brought it up. It’s just that Juanita has always gotten on my last nerve, and Phil’s out of town until tonight. He invited me to go along, but
seriously
? Three days in a cramped boat fishing, eating what we catch, sleeping in tents, and not bathing? Uh-uh. This girl is way too smart for that. So what’s new with you?”

The image of Dane flashed into Carly’s mind, and she deliberately pushed it right back out. Mia had assured her she wouldn’t be alone forever, that she would find someone else not to replace Jeff but to love just as well. She had promised Carly and her second prince would live long and happily, having pretty little girls and handsome little boys.

But there was a huge difference between a future possibility and
Mia, I’ve met someone.

“I’m going to paint the living room.”

“Good for you. I hope it’s something wild and wonderful. We should be surrounded by bright cheerful colors.”

“It is. Burnt orange walls and cream trim.”

“Yum, sounds like the holidays. Send me pictures when you’re done.” A clock chimed in the background, and Mia sighed. “Well, darlin’, I’d better get ready for church. Imagine yourself getting a big hug from all of us Lowrys. Love you, girl.”

“Love you, too.” Carly set the phone down, then wrapped her fingers around the insulated coffee mug. At the moment, she did feel comfortingly hugged. Then she wondered again how in the world she would tell Mia about Dane.

“First,” she announced as she stood up, “there’s got to be something about Dane to justify telling. A real date? A hug, a kiss, a commitment? Maybe even sex.”

Sex.
It had been so long. She and Jeff had spent as much as possible of their last few days together, making love, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. She’d been all out of tears when she’d gone to the post with him that last morning. The unit had loaded up on the buses that took them to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City for the flight out, then she’d gone to work, pretending that her heart wasn’t breaking.

Since then…she had plenty of memories to keep her warm.

And maybe Mama Mia was right. Maybe this thing with Dane would continue to develop. Maybe he would be the man to join Jeff in her heart.

Or maybe he was just the catalyst that would propel her toward that man.

She let herself imagine a future where she wasn’t lonely and lost, only to be brought back to the present by the trill of the cell phone. “Margaritaville.” “Morning, Therese.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Carly recalled the snow cover she’d seen from the kitchen window while the coffee brewed and shuddered. “I’d rather have sunshine and a warm beach, but it could be worse.”

“You’re a wuss, Carly Lowry. We’ll be by to pick you up in forty minutes. Don’t make me wait in the van with two unhappy kids one minute longer than necessary.”

Carly could practically see her friend shaking her finger in warning. While science had ruled in the Anderson household, there had never been a time in Therese’s life that she didn’t attend church. Carly hadn’t begun going herself until she’d married Jeff, and neither Abby nor Jacob had gone until Therese had come into their lives. Carly wasn’t sure what the two kids got out of it, if anything, unless the tenets of Christianity could be absorbed by osmosis, but she admired Therese for not backing down on her beliefs, no matter how difficult the kids could be.

“I’ll be ready. Be careful.”

“I do my best.”

“That’s all any of us can do, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a response, she said, “I’ll be waiting with my boots on.”

“Good. And you can have dinner with us after church and fill me in on your weekend. See you.” The last dozen words had a singsong quality.

Uh-oh.
Sounded like Jessy had talked. The pint-size tattletale. Carly had better make sure to protect more than just her feet.

Therese loved the peace she felt every time she stepped inside the sanctuary—any sanctuary. It reminded her that she was never alone, that God was always there to help her and to shoulder her burdens when she couldn’t. Sometimes, she thought with a sidelong glance at Abby and Jacob, He seemed to think she was stronger than she really was. That was one place she wouldn’t mind a little bit more of the shouldering and a little less of the being there.

Then, as the kids split to go sit with their respective friends, she murmured a silent apology.
Don’t mind me, God. It’s just been a long week.

Carly slipped into their usual pew, about a third from the rear. Therese took off her coat, but left her scarf and gloves on. The large room was rarely completely warm in winter, but she wouldn’t trade its soaring ceiling and high-set stained-glass windows for anything.

“How are the kids?” Carly leaned over and whispered in Therese’s ear.

Therese smiled at a neighbor three rows up. “Abby caught Jacob snooping in her room last night. She still hates me, but now she hates him, too.”

“Snooping for what?”

“Batteries, he says, and I actually believe him. If his electronics went dead, God forbid, he’d have to check into the real world for a while. Of course, he could have asked me for them, but that would have meant coming downstairs and actually talking to me.”

“Do you think it would be easier if they were really your children?” Carly asked, then quickly went on, “Not because they would be of your blood, but because you would have grown up with them. You would have shared their entire history, from birth to now.”

“It must be. Otherwise, parents raising their own kids would be about to plunge off the deep end.” She nodded toward a family across the aisle and closer to the front. “The McAfees would have long since been committed somewhere.” Burt and Joyce McAfee sat together, with their six children, ages eleven to nineteen, filling the row beside them.

The kids were neatly dressed, well behaved. The older ones helped the younger ones with their Bible study, and they participated in everything as a family. Rumor had it that they actually preferred each other’s company over others’.

Therese couldn’t imagine the instance when Jacob would choose her over his games or Abby over anyone else in the universe.

Sullen. That was about the best behavior she ever saw from them. And not just the typical teenager sullenness that would pass as they matured, but the traumatic-life-damaged-forever kind.

Please, God, help me with them.

After a moment’s reflection, she changed that.
Help me help them.

As the pastor started the service by greeting everyone, she considered exactly what helping Abby and Jacob meant. She’d prayed for everything to work out when they’d come to live with her and Paul. She’d prayed that they would manage through his deployments. She’d prayed for the patience to love them and the strength to not dump their dinner plates over their heads when they complained yet again about her. She’d prayed a thousand times for God to help them deal with Paul’s death, and a time or two, she’d even prayed for Catherine to take them back.

She’d felt oh so guilty for those few prayers, imagining the disappointment in Paul’s eyes as he gazed down at her from God’s side. But all she’d really been asking for was the best for the kids. Catherine was their mother, after all. Any kids who’d suffered such a devastating loss should be with the mother they loved, not the stepmother they resented.

God answers all prayers
, so the cliché went,
but sometimes the answer is no.

Did that mean He thought the children were better off with her? Did He have a plan for the three of them? Would they ever love her? Would she ever fully love them?

Though she was trying her hardest, it shamed her to admit that what she mostly felt for them was sympathy, along with a connection to Paul. They were young, they were hurting, and they were his kids. She and Paul had never had their own child, but in this way, at least she still had a part of him.

Sunday school, the hymns, the sermon, and the prayers passed in a haze. When she realized Carly was putting on her coat, she gave herself a shake and stood, looking around for the kids. Jacob stood at the back of the sanctuary, listening to the youngest McAfee talk animatedly, and Abby was visible in the vestibule beyond, hands in her pockets, shoulders slumped, looking bored beyond tears while the two girls with her texted on their cell phones.

Paul’s children. She’d seen glimpses of the people they really were when he was alive—Jacob’s enthusiasm for sports and all things electronic, Abby’s wicked sense of humor, their fierce loyalty, the way they blindly trusted their father and loved their mother. If Therese wasn’t in their lives, they’d be happy, normal kids.

But if she wasn’t there, who would be?

Taking hold of Therese’s arm, Carly turned her, then scooted her out of the row and into the aisle. There she hooked her arm through Therese’s. “We’re not given more than we can bear,” she murmured.

“I know a few people who would disagree with that.” Sometimes for most, and most times for some, life did seem unbearable. She and Carly had both gone through times they were certain they couldn’t survive. How many had given in to grief, anguish, and despair?

She hadn’t. She might teeter on the edge sometimes, but she would be strong. Life had left her with no choice.

They shook hands with the pastor, greeted other members, and finally made their way out the double doors into a bright, sunny morning. It was still cold, damp drifting on the air, but the snow was rapidly melting, showing greening grass underneath, dripping from the blossoms on the redbud trees that dotted the sidewalk to the parking lot.

“What about dinner?” she asked as she buckled her seatbelt.

“Anywhere,” Jacob mumbled.

“I’m not hungry.” That came from Abby with a toss of her blond head.

“What about you, Carly?”

Her friend shook her head. “You know me. I can eat anything.”

“One of these days I’m going to take you to one of the sushi restaurants in Tulsa and make you prove it.” She was well aware of Carly’s aversion to eating anything that lived in the ocean.
“Comes from having a marine biologist for an uncle,”
Carly had said.
“I learned way too much about those suckers to even think of eating them.”

As she maneuvered out of the parking space, Therese feigned a put-upon sigh. “Then I guess it’s up to me to choose. How about Zeke’s?” The restaurant on the west side of town served a buffet with more salads, side dishes, and desserts than their little group could do justice to. It offered a 10 percent discount to military families, and best of all in the kids’ eyes, the tables were small enough to justify splitting into pairs. No eating dinner with TheB*tch.

Three days later, the idea that Abby called her that still disheartened Therese.

She and Carly chatted about nothing as they followed half the church, it seemed, to Zeke’s. When they’d circled the parking lot twice before finding a space, Abby heaved a sigh. “You know you have to get here before the church people to avoid the crowd.”

“We
are
the church people.” Carly’s tone was mild, a restraint that Therese appreciated. All the margarita club showed the kids more patience than they deserved at times—and most of them believed that Therese did, too. Not being parents themselves, they just didn’t quite understand the situation.

They crossed the lot to the door, the kids trailing behind, and joined the line to pay and gather their dishes before finding tables in the same section, but not too close to deny privacy.

“So many choices,” Carly joked as they approached the salad bar. “If I were a good person, I’d stop right here and ignore everything else. But since I’m not, I’m heading straight to the fried meats and the side dishes. See you back at the table.”

Therese snorted, then called out before she got more than a few steps away. “From what I understand, Dane Clark seems to think you’re just about perfect.”