Jessie Belle: The Women of Merryton - Book One (22 page)

Veronica
produced the most disingenuous smile in all mankind. “We are so happy to hear
that.”

I
gave her a close-lipped smile and told her to go to hell with my eyes. Then
Landon locked eyes with me. “It’s a shame your whole family isn’t here, Jessie.
We’re all anxious to meet your new addition.”

I
could see my dad’s face redden. It was the exact sore spot that didn’t need to
be hit this morning.

“I’m
sure you are, but Blake is trying to spend some quality time with his
daughter.”

“Well,
I can’t think of a better place than the Lord’s house to do that. Wouldn’t you
agree, Mr. Ryan?”

“Completely,”
my dad responded.

Landon,
the creep,
winked at me. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Thank goodness for my mother. “Well you better grab a seat, the service is
about to start.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Landon said sickly sweet.

I
hated him.

I
folded my hands and let them fall in my lap. I looked down and willed myself
not to cry. My mother reached over and touched my hand. “Don’t let anyone make
you feel inferior or steal your happiness,” she whispered.

“Well,
maybe if her husband ever showed up,” my dad said quietly.

“Going
to church doesn’t make you a good person, Davis.”

“Only
a good husband,” he countered.

“Could
we please not talk about it?” I interjected.

They
didn’t respond verbally, but my dad squeezed me tighter around the shoulder and
my mom gripped my hands more firmly.

I
got more verbal responses later that day since I went straight to their house
after church. I didn’t want to be alone … again.

My
parents and I found our way to their closed-in porch. It was warm and sunny,
but not too warm. I curled up on their wicker couch and they each took a chair.
We were content for the most part with reading a book, or in my dad’s case,
napping. He snored quietly into his chest as my mom and I turned page after
page.

“Do
you want me to call Blake and talk to him?” my mom asked after several silent
minutes and after she was sure my dad was completely asleep.

“About
what?”

“I
could give him some friendly advice.”

“Mom,
Blake doesn’t take friendly advice. And I don’t need my mommy calling my
husband.”

“I’m
sure he’s not trying to hurt you.”

“Do
you think I would stay if I thought he was purposely trying to? I’m just
letting him get comfortable in his new role. I’m the one who told him he needed
to spend some quality time with her this weekend. I didn’t think it meant I
would be excluded, but Blake does things his way.”

“You
seemed to be making progress.”

“We
were. But Dr. Ames warned me that even when we started to move forward we would
have setbacks and would have to reevaluate and then try again. I don’t know if
this is a setback yet. I will have to see how the next couple of weeks go. See
if Blake can gain his equilibrium. I don’t want to seem like a jealous wife,
and I refuse to be jealous of my husband’s daughter. I don’t want be that woman.”

My
mom set down her novel and joined me on the small couch. I leaned into her and
she stroked my hair. “I’m so proud of you. I wish I could make this easier on
you.”

“Me,
too.”

“It
will all work out. You’ll see.”

The
first couple of weeks I wasn’t really sure if it would all work out. On Monday
I felt like real life began, and it was a test - a horrible, never-ending test
of my patience and fortitude.

Monday
morning started off okay. Maddie didn’t want to get up and get ready for school,
but I let her dad deal with that. My only contribution was making some amazing
blueberry muffins with cinnamon crumble on top, drizzled in lemon glaze. I’m
not sure if she enjoyed them because they ended up being a “to go” item. She
was acting like quite the bear that morning and running late. I almost smiled
as I watched Blake deal with her unwillingness and crabbiness.

“I
hate school,” she moaned over and over.

Blake’s
response, “Everyone hates it.”

I
rolled my eyes at his uninspiring speech and refrained from saying, “not me.” I
loved school. Instead, I handed her a sack breakfast and told her school was
going to be amazing.

She
looked at me like I was crazy.

“You
can pick her up from school, right?” Blake asked on his way out the door,
practically dragging Maddie.

“I’ll
be there at twelve o’clock sharp.”

“Thanks,”
he said exasperatedly.

I
waved at them both. “Have a good day,” I sing-song said in my best Maria voice.
Then I shut the door and grinned evilly. It was very un-Maria like, but I was
happy to see that she could be obstinate for her dad too, and that it wasn’t
just me.

I
almost had a skip to my step as I walked into Jessie Belle’s. I knew I was taking
pleasure in something I maybe shouldn’t, but Blake needed someone to push his
buttons, and after a weekend of leaving me out of the picture, I felt justified
in my feelings. Not to say I was right to, but I was only human.

My
favorite ladies group was there and they were all anxious to see me. I stopped
by their table before I even made it to my office. “Ladies, did you have a nice
weekend?”

Doris
pulled out a chair for me. “You don’t want to hear about our boring lives. We
all want to hear about yours.”

“I’m
more boring than any of you.”

“Now
don’t play coy with us,” Gerri said. “We all want to know how you’re dealing
with your husband’s love child.”

“Love
child?”

“Yeah,
you know, a child from an affair.”

“Blake
didn’t have an affair.”

“We
know, honey,” Fran said as she patted my hand condescendingly, like they were
just playing along to my naiveté. “But we hear you met the other woman.”

“Please
ladies, there isn’t another woman. And please, please remember we are talking
about a child here. A child that I want to feel welcome in our town.”

“You’re
a saint,” Ingrid said.

“Believe
me, I’m no saint.”

“Are
you kidding us? How many women in your shoes would be so understanding,
especially after all you’ve been through?” Fran added.

I
stood up. “Thank you, ladies. I hope you all have a wonderful day.”

“We’re
here if you need us,” they all called out.

I
needed them like I needed a sledgehammer to the head. There went the good mood.

The
day only got more fun from there.

I
sat in front of my old school, Centennial Junior High, and waited for Maddie to
get out of class. I hoped she was going to be in a better mood. She was
definitely her dad’s child; I could see she was aggravated from yards away.
Oh
joy
, I thought. I tried to channel Maria before Maddie opened the car door.

“Hi,
honey,” I said in my best Maria voice ever. “How was school?’

She
blew her hair out of her pretty eyes, “Lame.”

“That
fun, huh?” I tried to tease.

She
didn’t answer.

“Do
you have homework?”

“Yes,”
she practically cried.

“Don’t
worry, honey. I’ll help.”

“I
hate school, it’s stupid!”

I
didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t equipped. “How’s this, we’ll make some panini
and then eat some cookies over homework. I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

“Okay,”
she whimpered.

“So
did you meet anyone you liked?”

“Yeah,
there was this girl, Katie Richter.”

“The
Richters are great. If you want, you can have Katie over sometime.”

“You’d
let me?”

“Sure.”

I
saw a hint of her dad’s crooked little grin.

“My
mom didn’t like me to have friends over.”

“Oh.
Well, it was probably because she didn’t feel good.”

“I
think she was embarrassed because we were poor.”

I
reached over and stroked her hair. “I can understand that. But you are welcome
to have friends over anytime as long as you ask first. Okay?”

She
nodded her head.

I
thought maybe the initial part of our car chat would be the worst part of the
day since we seemed to have a moment, but I was so naïve. I wondered if they
had any classes on how to raise teenagers, or maybe a raising a teenager for
dummies book. Anything.

We
did the grand tour of Jessie Belle’s first and let everyone get their fill of
staring at the poor girl. I kept my arm around her the whole time, as if to
shield her whenever I introduced her to anyone. Easton, thankfully, showed up
for lunch again. I could count on him for non-gawking pleasantness. He should
be thanking us for taking the heat off of his wife’s scandalous affair.

“Maddie,
this is a friend of ours, Dr. Cole.”

Easton
reached out to shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Maddie.”

Maddie
took his hand and smiled very politely. “What kind of doctor are you?”

Easton
smiled at me in a taken aback sort of way. I wanted to say,
yes, she’s bold
isn’t she?
“I’m a family doctor. I take care of all sorts of patients and
deliver babies.”

“Do
you take care of people with cancer?”

I
wrapped my arm back around her.

Easton
cleared his throat. He was familiar with the situation. “No, not usually. I
leave that to the oncologists.”

“Oh,”
Maddie said disappointed. Then she looked up to me. “Your dad was a doctor. Did
he help people with cancer?”

“Sometimes,
but he wasn’t an oncologist, either.”

“Salt
Lake City has some of the best cancer treatment centers,” Easton said kindly to
her.

Too
bad Sabrina refused to take advantage of it. We hadn’t told anyone that yet. We
probably never would. I didn’t want Maddie to think her mom just gave up.

“We’ll
see you tomorrow night at the game,” I said as I steered Maddie away.

“See
you then,” he called.

Well,
that was fun, but not as much fun as we were about to have.

I
had lunch brought into my office, which maybe wasn’t a good move to start, but
I figured this would keep everyone from staring at us.

The
first thing Maddie did was grab the wedding photo off of my desk. She looked it
over carefully and then looked up at me from across the desk. “You know my dad
didn’t love my mom because of you.”

“Who
told you that?”

“My
mom.”

“Honey,
that’s not true.”

“But
when you have a baby with someone you’re supposed to love them.”

“That’s
how it should be, but that’s not how it always is. Your dad and mom never loved
each other.”

“My
mom loved my dad.”

“Did
she tell you that?”

“No.”

“Then
why do you think that?”

“Because
she used to tell me stories about him when I was little, and she said he was
the best and most handsome man ever.”

“Your
dad is a good man, but honey, your parents hardly knew each other.”

Tears
welled up in her eyes.

I
felt terrible though I didn’t know why. This wasn’t my fault.

“My
dad said you’re the only woman he’s ever loved.” The tears trickled down her
face.

I
stood up and walked over to her and pulled her up and hugged her. I was surprised
she let me. But I didn’t think she was upset with me. A thought popped into my
head. “You know what? I know your dad wishes he would have known about you
sooner. I know he’s sorry he missed out on so much of your life, and so am I.”

She
looked up at me and wiped her soft cheeks.

“We’re
both happy you’re here.”

“Thanks
for being nice to me. I thought maybe you wouldn’t like me.”

I
tapped her nose. “You don’t have to thank me. I think you’re pretty great. Now
let’s eat, I’m starving.”

“Me,
too,” she said with a smile.

Blake
was getting an earful when we got home, I thought as I watched her enjoy her
prosciutto caprese panini. I wasn’t prepared to handle these types of
conversations.

“What
do you have for homework?” I asked as soon as I cleared away our lunch.

“Ughhhh
…”

Boy,
did she have some serious disgusted looks in her arsenal. I almost laughed at
her, but thought better of it. “If we do it now we won’t have to worry about it
later.”

“I
shouldn’t even have homework. It’s summer.”

“It’s
only for the month,” I reminded her.

She
reached down for the backpack her dad bought her over the weekend. She talked
him into going shopping when they were done mountain biking and they had come
home with lots of new things yesterday. She had a new iPhone with all the
accessories, including a wireless speaker, and a charm bracelet. I didn’t say
anything to him. I knew she didn’t have the best life and lacked a lot of
material things, but I didn’t think we should go overboard.

She
pulled out a math book and a language arts book and dropped them with a thud on
my desk.

“Which
one first?” I asked.

“I
guess math.”

“Great,
I love math.”

She
looked at me like I was delirious.

I
smiled back at her. “Math is great because you can always get an absolute answer.”

By
her look of disdain,
I guessed she wasn’t buying it.

She
slowly pulled out her notebook and a pencil and flipped to the page in slow
motion. “We have to do the even problems because the odd problems give the
answers in the back,” she complained.

“My
teachers used to do the same,” I said in consolation.

“My
teacher, Mr. Horton, knows you.”

“I
used to go to school with Tim, or I should say Mr. Horton. He’s a good teacher
and he’s nice.”

“I
guess.” She sounded like Eeyore from
Winnie the Pooh
.

I
let her start working the problems on her own. I wanted to see what she could
do before I stepped in. I didn’t want her to feel like she wasn’t capable. She
was obviously a very smart girl. I watched her get more and more frustrated.

I
walked around and pulled up a chair next to her. “What do we have here?” I
asked in my best Maria voice.

“Fractions,”
she moaned.

I
looked at her paper and she hadn’t even completed the first problem. It seemed
simple and straight forward. It was an addition problem, ½ + ¾ = __.

“Well,
first we have to find a common denominator.”

She
looked at me like I was speaking Chinese.

“The
bottom number,” I clarified.

“Oh,
yeah, I always forget which one is which.”

“Remember
“D” means down.”

“I
can remember that.”

“Great.
So what’s the smallest the number that both two and four go into?”

She
thought for a moment and then said, “Four,” hesitantly.

This
went on for every step. She seemed to know what the answer was, but wasn’t
confident in her choices. It was painful, but we got through all thirty
problems. I was going to be talking to Tim about the amount of homework he was
giving. Then came language arts. She was supposed to read a short story and
then answer questions about the passage. At first she read the story silently,
and I read along with her. Then came the questions, and she couldn’t seem to
answer any, ranging from whose point of view was the story told from to which
passage below is a fact. So I had her read the story out loud. It was beyond
rough. She read slowly, and several times I had to help her sound out a word,
which, by the way, didn’t make her happy. I also had to help with the meanings
of words.

I
was about to call Blake and have him come over and help. I didn’t need her to
hate me for trying to help her. But I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t
want to help her. Then I thought about calling my own mom. Not to help Maddie,
but because I felt like I needed my mom. This was harder than I thought it
would be. School came naturally to me, so this was foreign. By the time we were
done, there were a lot of tears, some of them Maddie’s. Kidding . . . I only
cried on the inside.