Her Reason to Stay (12 page)

“It’s tempting, but I’m not paying you near enough.”

Raina shook her head. “I don’t need the money. Let me do the sisterly thing now and help you find a safe place to live.” Raina crossed to the wall, rubbing the grime with a cloth. “I wonder if this will come clean, or are we going to have to paint? The plaster’s in good shape.”

“You want to start tonight?”

Raina finally turned. “I know you want to be with Patrick, but I’m kind of glad you’re still here with me.”

“I think I love him, Raina.”

“I know.”

“But he’s afraid, and I deserve better.” She grinned and hugged her sister again. “You made me see that. And you and I are always going to be together from now on. I was serious about that cannon.”

A
COUPLE OF NIGHTS LATER
,
Daphne found a Laundromat off one of the side streets north of the courthouse. Using the laundry in Raina’s house felt presumptuous, though she knew her sister would call that ridiculous.

She dropped her Hefty bag in front of a machine that had probably started service around the time she was born.

Detergent. She found a vending machine and kept feeding it quarters until it finally accepted six. But then the detergent it traded didn’t want to come out of the box.

Humidity had swollen the powder into a fat lump. This little box might have been in that machine for a decade or more. She had to tear the cardboard and then break up the bloated square.

“Your colors are going to run if you put everything in the same machine.” A small woman leaned in at Daphne’s elbow.

“I don’t think I have enough to use two.”

“We’ll share.”

“Oh.” The woman was older, her hair gray, her eyes tired. Her closet might be as empty as Daphne’s for the same lack of disposable income. “Okay.”

“I have whites,” the woman said. “You can put in anything light colored.”

“Cool.” She plucked out the softer colors, not wanting to dye her new compatriot’s clothing.

“You look like someone I know,” the woman said.

Raina got around. “I hear that a lot. Who?”

“You can’t be her. She’d never set foot in a place like this.”

“You might be surprised.” Daphne couldn’t let anyone bad-mouth her twin. “I’ll get another box of soap if my quarters hold out.”

“No need.” The woman dragged a bottle of liquid detergent out of the wire basket she’d rolled behind her.

“I don’t want to use yours.”

“We’re sharing.”

“Thanks, I meant to say.”

“Sure.”

They loaded the machine and then sat together in companionable silence on plastic chairs that skidded a little under their weight.

Daphne ignored the stares of people who also seemed to think they recognized her. She spied a stack of magazines in another one of the rolling baskets the place provided and sifted through them until she found a gossip mag only eighteen months out of date.

“You want one?” she asked her new friend.

“Nah.” The other woman waved her hand.

Daphne sat and leafed through the old news.

“What is your name?” the woman asked.

“Daphne Soder.” She offered her hand. The woman shook it in a small, tight grip.

“I’m Clea Taylor.”

“Hi, Clea.”

“That lady you look like. She’s nice enough.”

Daphne closed the magazine. “Yeah?”

“Sure. She comes to this place I visit. They call it a senior center, but it’s not really. We just go there for lunch when we don’t have something at home. That lady helps cook and serve the meals.”

“She cooks.” She tried to imagine Raina in her white suit, peeling carrots or rolling out biscuits.

“I like when she’s there. She doesn’t act like she’s doing us a favor. She asks about my granddaughter.”

“That is nice. Sometimes those do-gooders just pretend they’re listening.” She offered a silent prayer that Raina would forgive her for calling her a name.

“She really does do good.” The woman hesitated. “My grandchild is a boy, but she tries. No one else remembers I have anyone. Or at least they don’t take the time to talk about it.”

“I think I was supposed to meet you tonight, Clea.”

“Huh?” She looked suspicious.

Daphne backed off. Once she’d been like her new friend, a person without anyone or anything to count on. Flippancy could frighten a woman like that.

“I mean I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I really have.”

“Oh. Me, too.” Clea’s face reddened. She got to her feet slowly, as if her body ached. “I’m gonna check on our stuff.”

Daphne tossed the magazine onto the chipped Formica table at the end of the seats. Funny, she’d been in Laundromats so many times and yet tonight she felt as if she didn’t belong here.

The old antsy feeling started almost like a tickle in her stomach. She couldn’t name it—depression or just plain uncertainty. Fueled by Patrick’s real and possibly even sensible fears, it grew stronger, wrapping spindly arms around her chest until she couldn’t breathe.

She wiped her mouth.

How good would a drink taste? At first, she’d been picky. Glenfiddich, thirty years old, had assuaged her shame. Then she’d learned to make do with twelve-year-old.

Finally, her discerning tastes had given way to expedience. Turned out you could break the steel arms with beer-on-sale just as efficiently. Hell, she’d fought the monster off one night with a particularly potent cough syrup. She stretched her legs out in front of her, staring at her worn sneakers.

Was she desperate for a drink or for another wrong man?

“We’re on the spin cycle,” Clea said, standing in front of their shared machine.

Daphne went to wait beside her. The cycle had just started, but standing so close to Clea, she realized how tiny her washing partner was. A nice fat sandwich wouldn’t be amiss.

“Clea,” Daphne said, “could you watch our things? I’m starving, and I’d love something to eat. Have you ever eaten at that sandwich place on the square?”

Clea looked as if she’d love to decline Daphne’s offer and just as much love not to. She folded her hands together and pressed her fingertips against her lips.

“I really like tuna salad,” Daphne said.

“They have the best I’ve ever tasted.”

“Think you’d want some chips?”

“Have you ever had those sea-salt and vinegar ones they cook in a kettle?”

“I love those.” She’d never heard of such things, but she’d find them.

As she walked out of the Laundromat, she glanced back. Every article of clothing she owned in the world was either in those machines or on her back.

Clea was still standing where she’d left her. Daphne put on a little speed. You had to choose to trust.

She was walking back to the Laundromat when Patrick’s car passed her, moving slowly enough to let her see inside—even if she wished she could look away. He and Will were chatting. Neither saw her, and then suddenly, a little hand lifted in a wave.

She waved back, with the hand holding the sandwich bag.

She grinned. No matter what his parents’ divorce had done to him, or how Patrick worried for Will, he remained a loving little guy.

A
S SOON AS
her wash dried, Daphne folded her clothing and trotted it out to the loaner. Clea waved goodbye, pushing her basket of clothing and detergent, topped with the bag holding over half of the longest tuna salad on a roll Daphne had been able to buy from the sandwich shop.

“You sure you don’t want a ride?” Daphne asked.

Clea shook her head with dignity. “I don’t have far to go.”

Honesty looked so pretty from the square and the shopping area around Miriam’s shop, but Daphne wondered where Clea would be stowing her clean clothes that night.

She wove around the square until she found a parking spot near the church. As usual the side door stood open.

The nights continued to bring fear back to Daphne. Fear that she wasn’t as strong as she believed.

The meeting helped, though she’d finally learned only she could find her resolve.

The church service must have ended at the same time as the meeting. Parishioners moseyed down the stairs, not always discernible from the group who’d met with Daphne.

Gloria Gannon stepped out of the crowd. “Daphne?”

“Hey.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. How are those cookies coming along with Will?”

“We’ve made a few more. You should come help us eat some.”

“I’m not sure Patrick would like that.”

“You did tell him, then?”

“He knows.”

“Does he know he’s in love with you?”

Daphne’s breath caught. She looked right and left, afraid of being overheard. “I don’t know that.”

“I think you might be fooling yourself. I know Patrick’s fighting for his son.” The other woman made her tone gentle. “But I care about mine.”

“I don’t want to be a problem for either of them.”

“You can see why he’d be careful.”

“I can’t confess my sins on the village green and promise to sin no more.”

“Patrick doesn’t see you that way.”

“I don’t think you’ve really talked to Patrick about it.” Daphne started for her car.

“I don’t like to see you upset, either.”

Daphne stopped and turned her head. Gloria looked anxious, a little sad. “Why?” Daphne asked. “You don’t know me.”

“You saved my grandson. You stopped that man, and yet you felt some sympathy for him. You’re not a bad woman.”

“Just bad for your son.”

“I don’t believe that. But if Patrick can’t be sure you’re safe for Will, he feels he has to stay away from you.”

“So he sent his mother to explain.” Daphne walked away, ashamed of her temper, and yet, nothing would have dragged her back.

“Y
OU DID WHAT
?”
Patrick shut the car door at the sheriff’s office. Gloria had come to view a lineup and he’d come to support her.

“I like Daphne. I just wanted her to know she was welcome at my house no matter what you choose to do.”

“You understand I’m trying to be a good father for Will?” She sent him a look and he shook his head. “How masculine do I look if you’re out harvesting women for me?”

“I’m serious, Patrick. You’re making a mistake because you were a little blind with Lisa. Lisa’s in the past.”

“I’m just wondering what more we can do to hurt Daphne. She ought to be able to walk out of a church without you matchmaking when she and I know where we stand.”

“Neither one of you has a clue, and I blame you.”

“You’re probably right to, but don’t bother Daphne anymore, Mother.”

“She’ll be in there.”

“Maybe not.” Pathetic. “They won’t want the two of you to meet and discuss your selection.”

“I shouldn’t have spoken to her at the church,” Gloria said, “but you need to. You hardly know the woman and yet you’re hoping for a glimpse of her today.”

“Mother—”

“Everything you feel for Will, I feel for you, and I hate seeing you unhappy. You’re lonely.”

“Not for Daphne.”

Gloria wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “Do you ever think about what you’re going to do when Lisa comes back?”

“I rarely think about anything else. But right now we’re going inside this building so that you can identify the guy who grabbed Will. Is now the best time to talk about Lisa, even if she didn’t influence him?”

“I’m just saying, one way or another you’ll have to learn to trust that a woman can beat addiction.”

“Okay. Let’s go inside.”

At the reception area, an officer took her toward the back and invited Patrick to cool his heels. He’d hardly waited two minutes when the door from the back opened and Daphne came out.

Her face was tense. Tears pooled in her eyes.

Frowning, he went to her. “You didn’t recognize him?” he asked.

“I did.”

Around them, people milled like ants in a colony run amok. A woman screamed that her daughter was not guilty. A man described the wallet he’d lost in the parking lot of Draper’s Diner.

Over all those voices, Patrick kept hearing Daphne’s, half-broken by dismay. “I did.”

“Do you know that guy?”

She shook her head, but something in her eyes frightened him. “You admitted he was the one? You identified him?”

“Yes, yes.” She seemed to hear the rage, blowing up like a balloon to fill his head.

“But you didn’t want to?”

“Of course I wanted to.” She took his hand and pulled him out of the office, all the way to the street, where sun beat down on his skull and he could barely think. “I find it hard to take when someone like that guy—or me—gets so wasted that doing bad things becomes easy.”

“Stop.” Patrick put his arms around her. He cradled the nape of her neck and turned her face into his chest. “I don’t want to hear you compare yourself to him.”

“I don’t have any sympathy except that I’ve been that desperate and the memory scares me.” Her voice was muffled, but she wouldn’t give in and give him peace.

“Patrick?”

He turned. Daphne sprang back as if Tom Drake, the sheriff who was watching them from the steps above, had thrown ice water on them.

“We need to talk,” Tom said.

Patrick glanced at Daphne. She yanked at the hem of her blouse, smoothed her jeans over her thighs and walked away. Patrick scowled after her, but joined Tom.

“What’s up?”

“Lisa’s coming home. You need to prepare yourself. She’s in a rehab facility in California right now, but in a few months she’ll be home. According to her attorney this thing with Frank was a wake-up call. She’s going to seek a change in custody when she returns.”

Patrick turned. Daphne was out of earshot. Even if he yelled her name, he doubted she’d come back.

T
HE WEEKS PASSED
,
turning spring into summer. Danny Frank, looking a little healthier and clean after six weeks of jail food and iron-bar-enforced abstinence from narcotics, pled guilty, and received a sentence of three years.

In the same six weeks, Daphne and Raina turned the apartment over the garage into a cozy nest where they spent most nights watching TV, talking, devouring popcorn and those kettle-cooked chips Clea had introduced Daphne to.

“I wish we could find her,” Raina said one night over fajitas and a Johnny Depp marathon.

Daphne paused the movie. “She thought she’d seen you at a senior center.”

“I just don’t remember anyone who sounds like her. And I always ask about her granddaughter?”

“Who’s actually her grandson.”

“That’s embarrassing.” Raina cut a bite of fajita. Daphne made a face and lifted hers in her fingertips. “I’ll look for her again in the fall,” Raina continued. “Some people don’t come in until it’s cold.”

“Maybe I could work there in the fall?”

“You want to?” Raina asked.

“Sure. It’s about time I gave back to this community.” Daphne grabbed a tortilla chip and soaked it in the queso they’d made. “It gave me you, and you’ve given me everything else.”

“You’re using family hand-me-downs.” Raina peered around the polished, uncluttered family room, about twelve feet square, bound by a TV that presented in color but hadn’t communicated with its remote in decades, and a set of three bookshelves that held all Daphne’s treasures. “And you’re probably the only person who’s ever read anything in the library.”

“You should grab a book now and then.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I’m going to nursing school.”

“What?” Daphne sat straight up. “I’m impressed.”

“Well, not nursing school exactly. White Rock College offers a B.S. in nursing and it’s only a forty-five-minute drive. I’ve been working on my application.”

“Like they’d think twice before scooping up an Abernathy.” Daphne nibbled another chip and sank against the couch with a sigh of repletion. “You’ll have no problem getting in.”

“My great-grandfather did endow their school of pharmacology, but I’m not mentioning that in my app.”

“Good idea. No need to whack anyone over the head with a wrecking ball.”

“You sound like you think you’re my mother.”

“I think my soul’s about five centuries older than yours and I see the world more clearly.” Daphne rolled her head on the couch to grin at her sister. “So I know you’ll make one of the great nurses. I just feel bad for that old Florence Nightingale.”

Raina stared at her and then laughed. “Her reputation’s probably safe for a while.”

“But this career will make you happy.”

“Speaking of which, I hear they asked you to find a jury to put away Danny Frank. Before he pled-out, that is.”

“Yeah. Prosecutors don’t ask that often.”

“You refused.”

“No doubt sealing the deal with Patrick.” She put her hand on her heart, otherwise ignoring its dull ache.

“Did he say anything?”

“Not a word. He got up and walked out, and I haven’t seen him since. The guy’s guilty, Raina. They were only willing to use me because they knew they could lose me as a credible witness because of my past and still have a great case because of Gloria.”

“You’re the one who looked him in the eye.”

“I’m the known drunk. Gloria’s respectable. And Patrick wants Danny buried because he thinks that’ll make Will safe from Lisa.”

“She’s coming back.”

Daphne slammed her feet from the coffee table to the floor. “Lisa? Is coming back here?”

“In a couple of months. She’s in rehab. She wants Will back.”

“Why didn’t Patrick say anything?”

“He probably recognized it was already unethical asking you to help prosecute the guy.”

“But I—” What? I love him. I want him to be safe, too? “I’m a coward. I should have taken the case.”

“You’re not a coward. The system will work. They were just hoping to stack the jury and the odds. Why did you say no?”

“So I could testify if it looked like he would get off.”

Daphne hugged one of the cushions they’d sewn. “Is he all right?”

“Will?”

“I assume Will’s all right or you’d have said. Is Patrick all right?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

A
SOCCER BALL BOUNCED
off Daphne’s ankle, and her flip-flop flew into a green shrub.

“Aunt Raina, throw me my ball.”

She used her finger to mark her place in
The Scarlet Letter
and picked up the ball. Will held out his arms like a basketball hoop.

“I’m Daphne,” she said and tossed the ball. It went through his looped arms, garnering two points and Will’s manly disdain.

“You throw like a girl.”

“You’re welcome.” She leaned circumspectly into the shrub, trying to find her shoe and not impale herself.

The ball bounced off her backside.

“You can’t catch, either, Aunt Daphne. You should come to my house and play because you need lessons.”

She straightened, her shoe in one hand, the other stroking the offended area. “I rarely catch with that portion of my anatomy,” she said. “You’re not here alone?”

“My grandma’s buying me candy. She said I could wait outside the shop.” His little face wrinkled.

Daphne scanned the square. There was a confectioner’s at the edge of the shopping area. He’d come a long way if he’d abandoned Gloria over there.

“Are you sure Grandma said you could wait outside?”

“Maybe she told me to wait beside her.”

Holy crap. “Let’s find your grandma. I’ll bet she’s worried if she’s noticed you’re gone.”

“I saw you and I wanted to play.”

Will cradled his ball in one arm and then slipped his other hand into hers. Daphne looked down at his tiny fingers, and tears startled her. She rubbed her arm across her eyes and looked for Gloria, who must be losing her mind.

“You know what, Will?”

“What?”

She pulled her phone off the clip on her purse. “Let’s call your daddy.” She paged back through her calls until she found the number for Patrick’s office.

“Mr. Gannon is out,” his assistant said.

“Could you reach him and have him call me at this number and tell him it’s about his son? And that Will is all right.” She gave her cell-phone number and hung up. “Have you seen Gloria yet?”

“Who’s Gloria?”

“Grandma.”

“Nope. Can we get a hot dog?”

“You don’t scare easy, do you, Will?”

“You’re not very scary.” They walked a few steps. “But I don’t want you on my soccer team.”

“I don’t blame you there,” Daphne said. “But I do play better than that. You surprised me when I was reading and then I was looking for my shoe.”

“You have to be ready at all times.”

“You watch soccer on TV?”

He nodded.

“Good. I was hoping your coach didn’t say stuff like that.”

“Nah. He says you gotta have fun.” Will’s tone was disturbingly caustic.

“I like his way better.”

“’Cause you’re a girl.”

Fortunately, her cell phone rang. She flipped it open and saw a local number. “Patrick?”

“You have him?”

“He was playing ball on the square.”

“God.”

“He’s fine.”

“We’re walking away from the candy store right now,” Patrick said. “Do you know where that is?”

“We’re on our way. He’s really all right except for being disgusted that I play soccer like a girl.”

“You’ve been playing?”

She didn’t blame him for sounding affronted. “No, which was my point when he insulted me. Here, I’ll let you talk to him.”

Will hung back when she held out her phone. “Is Daddy mad?”

“He’s glad you’re okay. Better talk to him.” She reached for his ball.

“Hi, Daddy.” Will peered up at Daphne, his eyes wide. “Yes, sir,” he said. Then he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have, Daddy. Is Grandma okay?” He waited a second. “Okay, but Aunt Daphne’s a nice lady, too, Daddy. She helped me before and I knew she wasn’t a stranger ’cause she has Aunt Raina’s face.”

Quick thinking. The little guy was smart. He handed her phone back.

“I think he’s gonna be a little mad.”

“Probably, because he’s so relieved. You know, you shouldn’t leave your grandma behind like that,” she said.

“I know. That’s what Daddy said.” He grinned, all charm. “But I don’t always wanna shop with Grandma, and I like hanging out with you.”

Daphne smiled. At least one of the Gannon men didn’t feel he was throwing away his chance at a clean future by talking to her.

“Daddy.” Will shot down the sidewalk, dropping his ball to reach his father and grandmother, whose worried faces magically relaxed.

Daphne chased the ball into the street and dawdled between a truck and a VW bug, allowing Patrick time to talk to his son.

“Hey.”

She turned around. Patrick stood alone. His smile touched off a seismic event in her heart, but she fought to control it. “He’s okay.”

“Thanks. We’re going to talk about the meaning of ‘wait’ and ‘beside me.’” He took the ball, sliding his hand over hers. As if he also couldn’t be close without wanting to touch her.

“Good.” She smiled even when she felt as if she might explode in a dozen pieces.

“He trusts you, apparently.”

“So he said. I’m glad,” she said, “but I tried to explain about staying with his grandmother.”

“Thanks.”

Any more thanks and she was liable to confuse gratitude for a break in his boundaries. “I should go.”

He glanced down the sidewalk. His mother and Will were waiting, unabashedly watching. “I wish things could be different,” Patrick said.

“They could. You just have to learn how to trust, even though that feels impossible.” Something about her nest-building with Raina, her few sweet moments with Will, had restored her self-confidence.

“If I could decide to change, I would have been at your door weeks ago.”

“I’m not sure I’m your problem. Or Lisa, either.”

“I have to get out of my own way?” He nodded and held out his hand as if she needed help back onto the sidewalk.

She let him pull her, shameless in her need to feel the warmth of his palm, the pressure of his fingers, twining convulsively with hers.