Second Child (8 page)

Except that now Teri was coming, and Phyllis would have one more chance, if Melissa didn’t ruin it for her. Silently, she prayed that Teri hadn’t changed, that she was still as perfect as she remembered her.

Charles Holloway switched off the television set in his room at the Red Lion Inn and rolled over, checking the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was eleven-thirty, and the alarm was set for six. He punched at the too-hard pillow that modern hotels seem to specialize in, then picked up the murder mystery he’d been putting himself to sleep with for the last month. So far he’d only managed to get through a hundred pages, which meant he’d been sleeping pretty well. But tonight he suspected he’d read at least twenty-five more. Well, just a few more days and he’d be back home.

He read a couple of paragraphs, then found himself distracted by a muffled sound from the next room. He listened for a moment, put the book aside and went to the door that separated his room from Teri’s. A moment later he heard the sound again. This time he recognized it.

Teri was crying.

Pulling his bathrobe on and tying the belt around his waist, he opened the door and slipped into the other room. The lights were out, but in the glow of his own table lamp he could see Teri, curled up tightly in her bed, her arms clutching at the pillow. He moved to the bedside, eased himself down onto the bed itself and laid his hand on his eldest daughter’s shoulder. “Teri? Honey? Are you all right?”

Teri rolled over onto her back and stared up at him through moist eyes. “I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just feeling sort of lonely. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t,” Charles assured her. “You should have come in.”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Teri breathed. “I mean, you already had to come all the way out here, and—” Her voice broke and she choked back a sob.

Charles gathered her into his arms, rocking her gently.
“It’s not a bother at all, and I don’t ever want you to think that. I’m your father, and I love you.” He felt Teri stiffen slightly in his arms, and then she pulled away enough to look searchingly up into his face.

“You do?” she said, her voice tinged with uncertainty.

“Of course I do,” Charles said.

“Th-That’s not what Mom said.”

Charles frowned in the half darkness of the room. “What do you mean, that’s not what your mother said.”

Teri choked back another sob. “Sh-She said you only loved Melissa now. She said that’s why you never sent me letters, or presents for Christmas or my birthday.”

Charles froze. Was it possible? Could Polly really have said something like that? But it wasn’t true. “Honey, what are you talking about?” he asked. “I’ve always sent you letters, and I never forgot your birthday or Christmas at all. Every year I’ve sent you a package. Didn’t you get them?”

Teri shook her head. “I—I wasn’t even sure you’d come today.”

“Oh, Lord,” Charles groaned, pulling her close once again. “No wonder you were crying. You must have been terrified.”

“Y-You don’t have to take me home if you don’t want to,” Teri said. “I can stay here—I have friends, and I can get a job.…”

Charles gently pressed a hand over her mouth to stop the flow of words. “I don’t even want to hear anything like that,” he said, feeling a sudden flash of anger toward his ex-wife. It was one thing to cut herself off from her past, but to try to alienate Teri from him was unforgivable. No wonder he’d never gotten a letter from Teri—she thought he didn’t want to hear from her. “Now listen to me,” he said, doing his best to keep the anger out of his voice. “I don’t know why your mother would tell you something like that, but it isn’t true. I never stopped loving you, and I never stopped thinking about you. And there was certainly never a question about my coming for you. You’re my daughter, and you always have been. I’ve missed you every day you’ve been gone, and I’ve hated never seeing you. As for the letters and the presents, I can’t imagine why your mother kept them from you. Why, just last
Christmas I sent you a pearl necklace. It was beautiful—pink pearls, perfectly matched. And there were others, too. Toys when you were little—clothes—all kinds of things. So you mustn’t think you’re alone. You still have a father, and now you have a stepmother, and a sister, too.”

Teri sat up now, propping herself up against the headboard. Nervously, she peered at Charles. “A sister,” she whispered. “What’s she like?”

Charles smiled in the darkness. “You’ll love her. Yesterday was her thirteenth birthday, and she’s the nicest girl you’ll ever meet. In fact, she wanted me to tell you how sorry she is about what happened, but that the one thing she’s always wanted is a sister. Now she has one.”

Teri shifted uneasily in the bed. “But—But what if she doesn’t like me?”

Charles reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. “Of course she’ll like you,” he said. “She’ll love you just as much as I do.”

They talked for a few more minutes, and slowly Teri calmed down, her sobs dying away. At last Charles tucked her in and kissed her good night. “And remember,” he said, “if you get lonely again, you come in and wake me up.”

Teri nodded. When Charles left the room, closing the door behind him, she lay still in the darkness for a few minutes, thinking.

Thinking about her mother.

Her mother, and her stepfather.

And her real father.

In a way, tonight was no different from all the other nights when she’d lain awake in her bed, trying to figure out why her mother had left her real father. It seemed to her that everything had been perfect back when they had all lived together in the huge house by the sea. Of course, she couldn’t remember it now—she had been so young when the divorce had come. But even though she’d been away from Secret Cove for most of her life, deep inside she still thought of it as her real home, the place where she truly belonged.

And now she was going home again.

If only her mother could be going with her. Then everything would be the way it had been when she was a baby. Everything would be perfect.…

She determinedly put the thought out of her mind, refusing to dwell on the impossible.

She rolled over and tried to go to sleep, but sleep would not come. Finally, she reached out and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. Leaving the bed, she padded over to the closet and reached into the pocket of her bathrobe. When she went back to bed, she was carrying the only thing she had taken with her when she’d fled the blazing house.

She held it in her hand, studying it carefully.

It was a string of perfectly matched pink pearls.

She stared at them for a long time, fingering their smooth surfaces, rubbing them gently against her face. When she finally went to sleep an hour later, the pearl necklace was still in her hand.

“Teri? We’ll be landing in twenty minutes.”

Teri blinked, then opened her eyes and stretched awkwardly in the first-class seat of the DC-9. Her mouth felt dry, and though she knew she’d fallen asleep for a while after they’d changed planes in Chicago, she felt as if she’d been awake all night. Her eyes stung and every joint in her body seemed to be aching. Her father smiled at her as if he knew exactly how she felt. “I hate night flights,” Charles Holloway said ruefully. “Especially going east in summer. You get on when it’s still light, and then it’s morning when you arrive, but you don’t feel as if there was any night. Why don’t you go up and wash your face? You’ll feel better.”

Still not trusting her voice, Teri nodded and stepped across her father to the aisle, then went forward to the tiny lavatory, carrying the purse her father had bought her two days ago. She splashed cold water on her face and tried to comb her hair. She winced as she looked at her image in the mirror—her eyes looked puffy, and it seemed as if she’d somehow lost her tan overnight. The person who
gazed back at her had a sallow look, as if she’d been sick for a long time. She fumbled with the clasp on the leather bag and groped inside for her lipstick. Washing her face once more, she applied some color to her lips, then looked at her image once again.

A little of the puffiness had disappeared, and she didn’t look quite as bad as she had a few minutes ago. Deciding she’d done the best she could, she returned to her seat and gratefully took a sip of the orange juice her father had ordered while she was gone. Then she raised the blind on the plane’s window and looked out.

They were descending rapidly. As the plane banked for its final approach, Teri had a startling view of the Maine coastline, a series of rugged cliffs broken here and there with coves cut into the mainland, and an occasional strip of beach. She searched her memory, trying to recall any feeling at all of having been here before.

But there was nothing—it was all totally unfamiliar to her. “I keep thinking I should remember it,” she said, turning back to her father.

Charles offered her a wry smile. “It would be pretty surprising if you did,” he observed. “When you left, you weren’t even three years old, and you went in a car.”

Teri shook her head. “But there are things I remember. Not much, but a couple. I remember a big lawn, and a beach.”

Charles chuckled. “Well, there’s plenty of big lawns in Secret Cove, and we certainly have a beach,” Then, as he saw Teri nervously take a small mirror out of her purse to study her face one more time, he was certain he knew what was on her mind. “Stop worrying—no one looks her best after flying all night.”

“B-But what if Phyllis and Melissa don’t like me?”

Charles took her hand in his and squeezed it affectionately. “How many times do I have to tell you that you aren’t going to have a problem? I talked to Phyllis yesterday, and they’ve been getting a room ready for you. In fact, they’ve gotten a couple of rooms ready, so you can choose. And apparently Melissa hasn’t talked about a single thing except her sister for the last two days.”

Teri heard the words but wasn’t certain whether to believe them or not. For the last two days she’d been
trying to convince herself that it was going to be all right, that her father really did want her, that he wasn’t going to send her away somewhere.

But he’d let her go once, a long time ago, when she was almost too small to remember.

What if he decided he didn’t want her again?

What would she do?

Melissa watched the plane touch down and taxi toward the terminal. Unconsciously, her fingers went to the sleeve of the white sweater tied around her neck and began kneading nervously at the knitted material.

“For heaven’s sake, Melissa,” Phyllis said sharply. “Don’t fidget. And can’t you leave that poor sweater alone? It was perfectly clean when we left the house this morning, and now look at it.”

Instantly, Melissa’s hands dropped away from the sleeve. She shoved them in the pockets of her shorts, then changed her mind. “What if she doesn’t like me?” she asked.

Phyllis’s lips tightened as she gazed down at her daughter. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s any reason why she shouldn’t,” she replied. “If you’d just make an effort, everyone would like you. But if you won’t try, you can’t expect to have a lot of friends.”

Melissa bit her lip, wishing she hadn’t asked the question in the first place. Nervously, she reached up to run her fingers through her hair, then stopped herself as her mother’s oft-spoken words rose up in her mind. “How can you expect to have nice hair if you treat it like that?”

And then, finally, the plane was at the jet way, and a moment later she saw her father coming toward her, his leather garment bag slung over his shoulder. She darted forward, throwing her arms around him as he let the bag slide to the floor, and a second later she felt his lips press against her cheeks.

“Miss me?” she heard him ask, and she nodded vigorously. Then he gently freed himself from her hug and turned toward the girl who now stood next to him. “This is your sister, sweetheart.”

Melissa’s breath caught in her throat as she looked at Teri for the first time. It seemed to her that Teri was even
more beautiful than her picture. Her eyes were a deep blue, and her hair, combed back from her face, looked like she’d just washed it. She was wearing a white blouse and a pair of khaki shorts very much like the ones Melissa herself had on, but on Teri the clothes seemed to hang just like they did on the models in the magazines. “?-Hi,” Melissa stammered uncertainly, feeling even gawkier than usual in front of her half sister.

“The least you can do is kiss your sister, Melissa,” Phyllis said, prodding her forward. Melissa felt herself flush, and took a step toward Teri, but then Teri, apparently sensing her self-consciousness, grinned at her.

“Maybe you’d better not,” she said. “I feel all grungy.”

“Well, you certainly don’t
look
grungy,” Phyllis declared, stepping past Melissa to put her arms around Teri. “Do you remember me at all? I used to take care of you when you were just a baby.” She hugged Teri close and her voice dropped. “We’re all so terribly sorry about what’s happened,” she went on. “How dreadfully awful for you.”

Teri gave her stepmother a hug but said nothing. There was an awkward moment, broken finally by Charles.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” he asked, picking up the garment bag with one hand. “Where’s the car?”

“In the lot,” Phyllis replied. “Why don’t you and Melissa bring it around while I help Teri find her baggage.”

“I—I don’t have any,” Teri said softly. “I only have a few things Father bought me. The rest …” Her voice trailed off, and instantly Phyllis put a sympathetic arm around her.

“Now, don’t worry about a thing. We have lots of wonderful shops in Secret Cove, and tomorrow we’ll start working on putting your wardrobe back together again.”

Melissa fell in next to her father, slipping her hand into his, but she found herself glancing back at Teri every few seconds.

Finally her father winked down at her. “What do you think?”

Melissa shrugged. “She—She’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

Charles squeezed her hand. “Not as beautiful as you, baby,” he told her, then pulled her close.

Melissa, pressed close against her father’s solid strength,
felt some of the tension of the last few days with her mother begin to drain away. Her father was back, and for a while, at least, she was safe. And now, with Teri here, maybe her mother wouldn’t be as hard on her anymore. Maybe Teri would offer the same kind of protection her father did.