She glared at me for a long time before she puffed out air, turned to the sea and mumbled, “I need more cake.”
“I’ll go get them,” I replied and got out of my seat.
I was nearly to the door when I heard her trembling voice come at me.
“It breaks me.”
I turned back to her and it took a great deal, too much, to stare into her beautiful brown eyes shining with tears and not allow my own to come.
“What you could have had,” she finished. “What you two could have built together. When I think about it, it breaks me.”
It broke me too.
A long time ago.
Now I needed to fix me.
“You didn’t date,” she said.
“I did, Kath, honey,” I replied gently.
“On the sly because you refused to divorce Patrick,” she shot back. “He didn’t care, he wanted you to, but those society bitches would have torn you to shreds.”
This was all too true.
“If I divorced him, the times he got sick, I wouldn’t have been able to be at the hospital with him the way I needed to be, make decisions he wanted made,” I reminded her.
“Pat had those papers drawn up.”
“They weren’t what a wife is offered . . .” my voice dropped low, “or a daughter.”
She looked to the table where our wine bottle was sweating.
Pat could have had a million papers drawn up, but when you hit the hospital, none of that mattered.
“Are you his daughter?” they asked because at my age, that was what was assumed. I had his last name. So I said yes. I looked nothing like him. Like any of his sons. But that was all that mattered.
If they’d pushed it, they’d have found I was legally tied to him.
That would have been all that mattered.
And I needed that. I needed it to be in the position to take care of the first man on this earth who loved me unreservedly just for me being me.
He’d had cancer when I’d met him. He had not shared that. His boys didn’t even know that at the time. It had taken a while for all of us to learn that.
And when I learned it, the deal we’d made changed.
He took care of me.
And then after we found out, for twelve years, as it came and went, ravaging him then giving him time to recover only to ravage him again, I took care of him.
“I don’t regret it,” I declared.
Her eyes lifted to me.
“Not a minute,” I whispered.
“You need to find a man,” she whispered back.
“I know Pat is awesome and you love him more than anything, but a man isn’t everything, Kathy,” I told her.
“You’ve got time. You need to make babies and a man is kinda essential to that.”
I gave her a soft smile. “I had seven babies I could help look after, honey. I’m good.”
Her lips trembled before she said, “I want you to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy,” I assured her.
“You came here because you’re still in love with him.”
It was my turn to look away because I didn’t want to admit that out loud.
But she was right.
“I want you to be happy, Cady.”
I looked back to her. “I’ll be happy, Kath.” I swallowed and finished, “Eventually.”
“I’m sorry I was a bitch to you when we first met.”
And there we were.
All of this was bringing up feelings of guilt she had no reason to feel.
“It was understandable and it led to this, so do you think I care?”
“I love you, Cady. I only have brothers so Patrick gave me a sister too, and I cannot tell you how many times I thanked God that He led Patrick to doing that.”
I smiled at her. “And I love you back, Kathy. Totally more than you love me.”
She straightened her shoulders. “No way, I love you totally more than you love me.”
“Who’s up getting cakes?” I teased. “That’s love when I have to leave that view.”
“I carried a whole, single box into your house earlier before the boys showed up, now that’s love.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Do you want cake or do you want me to stand here bickering with you?”
She pretended to think about it and then answered, “Cake.”
I grinned at her and saw her mouth twitch before I felt my grin die.
“This, right here,” I stated. “Seriously, my beautiful Kathy, I don’t regret a thing.”
I didn’t let her reply.
She knew I’d made my point and done it grandly.
I just walked in and got the cakes.
The World Would Stop Spinning
Present day . . .
“I KNEW. I HEARD THE stories. But oh my God. You are so totally a dick.”
“Kathy,” I snapped under my breath.
She lifted a hand and jerked a thumb at my brother Caylen. “He’s totally a dick.”
“I see you haven’t changed the company you keep,” Caylen drawled.
We were standing at his door. He hadn’t invited us in.
This was not a surprise.
He looked fit and spry and perhaps ten years younger than he was.
This was also not a surprise. If every minute of your life you lived precisely as you wanted to, I would imagine anyone would look fabulous.
He also had not been kind.
Or even polite.
Also not a surprise.
A disappointment, but not a surprise.
In his (limited) defense, we had not shared we were going to surprise him by showing on his doorstep. This was a tactical maneuver on my part considering, if I’d given him advanced notice, he would probably have booked a vacation in Siberia or rented a pair of Rottweilers to chase us off his property.
Even so, his reaction to our unexpected visit was not only not kind, or polite, or even unwelcoming . . .
It had been scathing.
“You’re not helping, Kath,” I told her.
“Why do I need to help? You came. You saw. He acted like a dick. Let’s go. I want to hit those shops in that town we drove through on the way back.”
“Enjoy your shopping,” Caylen murmured, and I caught his movement so I turned swiftly, lifting a hand to the door he was closing.
I also lifted my eyes to his.
“Please, you’re my brother, our parents are gone. We’re all we’ve got left of that family.”
“I’m good the way things stand,” he replied.
“Caylen, do you honestly think Mom and Dad would want us to leave it like this?” I asked.
“What I think is Dad had a soft spot for you I never got because you were a waste of space from the beginning. Mom always thought you’d turn yourself around but the minute that girlfriend of yours murdered her boyfriend and then got sent to prison for doing it, and the icing on the cake of that monstrousness was that she was also sentenced for dealing drugs, she knew you were a lost cause. You only proved it to her by gold digging that poor old guy who put up with it to have a trophy wife.”
“Now wait a fucking—” Kath started growling.
I whirled to her. “Kath! Stop. You are not helping.”
“He has no idea what he’s talking about!” Kath retorted hotly.
“Nice mouth on that one,” Caylen put in. “Is she a drug dealer or a drug dealer’s whore, or one of your gold digging buddies?”
I turned to Caylen. “She’s—”
“Forget I asked. I don’t care,” he cut me off to proclaim. “I see the company you keep hasn’t changed nor your manners. Usually you phone before you come calling. But just to say, Cady, don’t phone because, please, I beg you, I don’t want you ever again to come calling.”
He started to put pressure on the door to close it but I settled my weight in my arm to stop him.
“I made some poor decisions . . .” I began.
Kath swore under her breath.
Caylen narrowed eyes at her then at my hand then they came back to me as I kept talking.
“ . . . and I understand that. But that was a long time ago and there’s a lot that’s happened since, including us losing both our parents. I know you don’t believe me now but the truth is that I grew up. And I’d like to introduce you to the woman I’ve become, and I’d like to have the chance to get to know my brother. To meet your children. To start fresh and get what’s left of our family back together.”