“It’s hard for me to picture Jessica being friends with them,” Lacey had felt brave enough to say.
“They were friends because of their children,” Amelia said, and that seemed to explain everything. Lacey wondered if having Mackenzie would force her to be friends with women she couldn’t stand. “They truly care about Mackenzie, though, and just want what’s best for her,” Amelia added.
She and Amelia now sat next to each other on dining room chairs pushed against the walls of the room. “Well,” Lacey said, after nibbling some sort of egg roll and knowing that was all she would be able to eat, “there are two people here I really need to talk with.”
“Mackenzie and Nola,” Amelia said, and Lacey nodded. Nola was keeping her distance from her, but Lacey thought she looked as uncomfortable as she was feeling. Nola was chatting with a group of people, talking quickly as she always did when she was anxious, and focusing on the features of the house. Lacey saw her point out the tall windows and ceramic floors and the open kitchen with its decorative tile. She had on her Realtor hat; houses were a safe topic for her. Watching Nola’s own discomfort gave Lacey courage.
She stood up. “Here goes,” she said to Amelia. “Will you excuse me?”
“Go for it.” Amelia smiled at her. She reached for Lacey’s empty plate. “Let me ditch that for you.”
She gave Amelia her plate, then walked toward the massive arched window, where Nola was talking to a man, waving her arm in the air as if describing something. Lacey touched her elbow, and Nola turned to look at her.
“Could I speak with you for a few minutes, please?” Lacey asked.
Nola hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes,” she said. She smiled at her companion. “It was nice talking to you. Please excuse us.”
Lacey looked behind her at the vast open space that contained the living room, kitchen and dining room. People were everywhere. Privacy would be hard to come by.
“Should we go out front to talk?” she suggested.
“In this heat? We’ll melt.” Nola pointed toward a hallway. “Let’s just find one of the bedrooms. No one will mind.”
Lacey wasn’t sure about that, but she followed Nola down the hall and into a large bedroom with French doors leading out to the pool. This had to be the palm tree room, Lacey thought. Palm trees graced the bedspread and the curtains and the art on the wall, and a potted palm stood in one corner.
Nola sat down on the platform bed and Lacey took the upholstered chair next to the dresser.
“How are you doing?” Lacey asked.
“How do you think I’m doing?” Nola snapped back, but there was so little energy in her voice that the question lacked punch. She rested one hand on her chest. “There’s a big empty, aching void in my heart,” she said. “First, I lose my only daughter. Then…” She shook her head and looked up at the ceiling, and Lacey waited for her to continue. Nola finally lowered her gaze to Lacey again. “Knowing that Jessica wouldn’t immediately think of me when she considered who should take care of Mackenzie…I just don’t understand that. She’s my granddaughter. I’m her only relative.”
“If it was up to me, I’d agree with you, Nola,” Lacey said. “That’s what would make the most logical sense. But it wasn’t up to either of us, and we have to make the best of this. Please. I have to do what Jessica wanted, but I’ll make sure you have all the time you want with Mackenzie. I promise that.”
Tears filled Nola’s eyes and she stood up to pull a tissue from the box on the dresser, then sat down again. “I’m thinking of fighting for custody of her, Lacey,” she said, and there was a warning in her voice. “My attorney says I could get her if I did. You need to know that. A court would take into account the best interest of the child, and any judge worth his salt would know that it’s not in her best interest to be with you. You’re so irresponsible and—”
“I’m not irresponsible.” Lacey felt wounded.
“Jessica would never have gotten pregnant if she hadn’t been hanging around with you.”
She had to bite her tongue to keep from telling Nola she had it backward, that her dear daughter had been far more reckless and irresponsible than she had been that summer. “That’s history, Nola,” she said. “I’ll do my best with Mackenzie. That’s all I can do.”
“You know, Lacey.” Nola sighed and her features suddenly softened. “I also want to carry out Jessica’s wishes. I truly do. And the only thing I can think of is that she wanted Mackenzie to have a mother your age. Just please…” Nola’s lower lip trembled so terribly that Lacey wanted to wrap her arms around her. “Just please don’t cut me out,” she said.
Lacey nodded and stood up. “I won’t,” she said, then leaned over to hug her. “I want to see Mackenzie now,” she said. “Could you take me to her?”
“She doesn’t know yet.” Nola looked a bit alarmed. “You won’t tell her, will you? I think it should really come from me and Mary.”
“I won’t tell her,” Lacey promised. “But I want to at least say hi to her and give her my condolences.”
Nola got to her feet and walked toward the French doors. Her hand on the doorknob, she turned back to Lacey, a small smile on her lips.
“I’d completely forgotten that Jessica wanted to be a cowgirl,” she said.
Lacey followed Nola across the patio toward the pool. The yard was filled with the giggles of preteen girls and the sound of splashing water. Five slender, tanned bodies in various stages of prepubescent development sat on the edge of the pool, their backs to the house, their legs idly kicking the water. Nola walked toward the skinniest of the girls.
“Mackenzie?” she said.
The girl turned to look up at her grandmother. Lacey was not certain she would have recognized Mackenzie, she’d changed so much in the few years since she’d last seen her. Her hair was long, a dark blond bleached paler by the sun. The beginning of breasts sprouted beneath her hot pink bikini top. Her eyes, reddened from crying, reminded Lacey of Bobby Asher’s blue eyes, but her face was Jessica’s, pure and simple.
“What?” Mackenzie asked her grandmother.
“Do you remember Lacey O’Neill?” Nola asked her. “Your mother’s old friend?”
“Oh, yeah. Hi.”
“Mackenzie—” Lacey had to shade her eyes from the sun “—I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“That’s okay,” the girl answered, as if Lacey had apologized for bumping into her in the hallway.
“Could I talk with you for a few minutes?” Lacey asked.
Mackenzie hesitated. It was obvious she wanted to stay with her friends, but good manners seemed to win out. She stood up. She was long-waisted, like her mother. Lacey was going to have an everyday reminder of Jessica in her home and that thought brought a smile to her lips. Mackenzie smiled back at her.
“Why don’t you go into that bedroom we just came out of,” Nola suggested. “And I’ll go back into the house through the living room door.”
Lacey was grateful to Nola for giving her time alone with Mackenzie. She touched the girl’s shoulder, pointing her in the direction of the French doors. Walking in silence next to her, she wondered what she would say to her once they were inside the bedroom.
She took her seat on the upholstered chair again, while Mackenzie climbed onto the platform bed on all fours, like a little kid, then sat cross-legged near the pillows. Her hands rested on her knees and chipped pink nail polish graced her stubby fingernails.
“You look so much like your mother.” Lacey smiled at her.
“That’s not news,” Mackenzie said, her voice tinged with annoyance. She seemed a little hard, not at all like the child Lacey’d been expecting to encounter, the child who had suffered the loss of the most important person in her world. Puffy, dark half circles beneath her eyes, though, gave her grief away.
“Do you remember me from your visits to your grandmother’s?” Lacey asked.
“Sort of,” Mackenzie said. “Were you the lady with those triplets?”<
br />
Lacey shook her head. She had no idea who Mackenzie was talking about. “No,” she said. “I don’t have any children. I guess when your mother visited your grandmother, you and I didn’t get to spend much time together. Your grandmother would baby-sit for you while your mom and I went out.”
Mackenzie looked at her blankly.
“It’s a shame,” Lacey said. “I would have liked to get to know you better.”
“Why?” Mackenzie sounded perplexed by the thought.
“Just…You’re the daughter of my best friend.”
“I guess.” Mackenzie glanced toward the French doors, leaning back on the bed so she could see her friends at the pool. She wanted out of the conversation, and Lacey couldn’t blame her. She knew she wasn’t handling this well.
“You’d like to go back to your friends, huh?” Lacey said, smiling a smile that felt plastered to her face.
Mackenzie nodded.
“Go on, then. It was good to see you.”
Mackenzie scooted off the bed. “TTYL,” she said, as she headed for the French doors.
Lacey sat alone in the bedroom for another minute, her smile gone now as she replayed her pathetic attempt to engage Mackenzie in conversation. That little girl didn’t belong with her. She belonged here with her friends.
“Jessica,” she said aloud, “what the hell were you thinking?”
The following day, Mary called Amelia to say she had finally told Mackenzie about the custody arrangements. Sitting in the living room of the condominium, Lacey listened to Amelia’s end of the conversation, and it was apparent that Mackenzie had been anything but pleased by the news. Lacey didn’t blame her a bit.
That night, she took Mackenzie out to dinner, just the two of them. Mackenzie refused to talk to her in the car Lacey had borrowed from Amelia, and as soon as they sat down in the restaurant, she knew this had been a stupid plan. Mackenzie wasn’t hungry. There was nothing on the menu she was willing to order, and she wouldn’t even look Lacey in the eye.
“Let’s leave,” Lacey said, after the waiter had come back a third time to attempt to take their order.
Mackenzie raised her eyebrows at her. “Just leave?”
Lacey nodded. “You’re not hungry. I’m not really hungry. Let’s get out of here.”
Mackenzie hopped up from the seat and walked ahead of Lacey out of the restaurant.
In the car, Lacey turned on the air-conditioning and pressed the lever to move her seat back a few inches. “We’ll just talk here for a while,” she said.
Mackenzie rolled her eyes. “I don’t have anything to talk about with you,” she said.
“I want to change that,” Lacey said. “I want to get to know you. You’re going to be living with me, after all.”
The eye roll again. “That is so totally stupid,” she said. “I can’t believe my mother did that.”
“Well, maybe that just shows you how close your mom and I were. That she would leave me her prize possession to take care of.”
Mackenzie shut her eyes instead of rolling them this time.
“You and I have one very important thing in common, Mackenzie,” Lacey said.
“My mother?” Mackenzie ventured, eyes open now.
“Besides your mom.”
“Stop calling her my mom,” Mackenzie said. “She’s my mother.”
“Okay,” Lacey said. “Besides your mother.”
“So what’s the big thing we have in common?”
“My mother died, too,” Lacey said. “I was a couple of years older than you. I think maybe your mom…your mother knew that I would understand how terrible it is to go through what you’re going through.”
“If you understand so much then you should know I need to stay here. I want to stay in Phoenix.”
“I know you do, honey.”
“Don’t call me honey.”
Lacey was perspiring in spite of the air-conditioning, and she worried that Amelia’s car might overheat. Hers certainly would if she let it idle like this with the AC on.
“Mackenzie,” she said, “I know this is hard, but we have to trust your mother’s judgment, okay? Neither of us understands her reasoning right now, but we have to do what she wanted.”
Mackenzie shut her eyes again, and when she spoke, she bit the words off one by one, her nostrils flaring. “I don’t get why I can’t just stay here.”
Lacey was not getting it either. She didn’t see how Jessica’s plan could possibly work out.
She pressed the lever to move her seat forward again. “Let me take you back to Mary’s,” she said.
“Good idea.”
They drove in silence, Lacey annoyed with herself for her naiveté. She’d pictured this evening so differently. She knew Mackenzie would be upset, but she’d planned to ask her questions about herself and her interests and her friends and her hobbies. She’d planned to connect. If anything, she’d driven a wedge between herself and the girl.
The next afternoon, Mary, Veronica and a third woman whose name Lacey did not catch showed up on Amelia’s doorstep. They marched into the little living room of the condominium, filling it with an angry presence.
“This is not going to work,” Mary announced as she sat down on the sofa.
“What are you talking about?” Amelia asked.
“We’ve tried to understand and honor Jessica’s wishes,” Mary said, “but Mackenzie is going to pieces about this. She cried all night long. It’s bad enough she had her mother die, but ripping her from the place and people she loves is just nonsense.”
Lacey was growing weary of defending a decision she, too, thought was ridiculous. “I know it seems—”
“It’s just crazy that Jessica left her to you,” the third woman said. “She was so young. She probably had some romanticized notion about leaving her child to an old friend. But Lacey—” she leaned in Lacey’s direction “—you don’t know Mackenzie, and you don’t know us. Our group of friends. You don’t know how close we all are.”
“She didn’t ask for this,” Amelia said in Lacey’s defense.
“She doesn’t like you,” Mary snapped at Lacey.
“She doesn’t know me, yet,” Lacey said. “And you’re right. I don’t know her, yet, either. But I will. And I owe it to Jessica to try.”
“But Mackenzie doesn’t owe anything to anyone,” Veronica said. “And this is her life we’re talking about.”
“And you don’t ‘try’ to raise a child,” Mary said. “Either you do it or you don’t.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Nola told us about you, Lacey.”
“What do you mean?”
“She said you run around with the wrong crowd. That you sleep with every guy in town.”
Something inside Lacey broke apart at that, and she started to cry. She couldn’t handle one more bit of criticism. She thought of saying, “I used to be that way, but I’ve changed,” yet she knew any defense at this point was useless.
She stood up, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. “I want to say something to all of you,” she said. “This has been hard for me and hard for Mackenzie, and all of you are only making it so much harder.”
Mary stiffened her spine at that. “You have no idea how—”
“This is the way it is.” Lacey cut her off. “I am Mackenzie’s guardian. I know you don’t like that. And for some reason, you don’t seem to like me, and I think Nola’s told you some lies that just add to your feelings. But you care about Mackenzie, and so do I. What Mackenzie and I need from you is support. She needs you to stay in touch with her, to let her know you’re still there for her, no matter where she’s living. That you’ll never forget her or discard her. So, please give Mackenzie and me your support and stop making it sound like I’m kidnapping her.”
She walked away from them, into the guest room, sick of them all except for Amelia. She knew she was leaving Amelia to deal with their wrath alone, but she could not tolerate another second of it.
She crawled i
nto bed with her cell phone and called Rick, who she knew would listen to her ramble on as long as she needed to about the situation. She’d spoken to him a few times this week; his had been one of the many “happy birthday” messages on her cell phone the night after the memorial service. And he was, she mused as she dialed his number, exactly the type of man that the women in Amelia’s living room would approve of.
If Mackenzie had had the energy, Lacey felt certain she would have resisted physically as they boarded the plane for the trip to North Carolina. Her relationship with the girl had not improved much, if at all, over the past couple of days, but now she would have her undivided attention for hours as they flew east. Maybe she could finally get her talking.
She’d helped her pack the night before. It was the first time she’d been inside Jessica’s little condominium, and seeing her old friend’s surprising decorative touches—her use of pastel colors and her penchant for hanging mirrors in unexpected places—made her feel she had not really known the adult Jessica at all.
The walls of Mackenzie’s room were covered with posters of singers and musical groups Lacey had never heard of. God, she was getting old! Mackenzie wanted to take everything from her room with her. Lacey helped her pack it all in boxes, only a few of which they’d take with them on the plane. The rest would be shipped to Kiss River at a later date.
They were lucky to have three seats to themselves on the plane, and Mackenzie took the window seat. Lacey could tell the girl was an uneasy flyer. Her tan faded several shades as the plane ascended and her hands gripped the armrests. She was wearing hip-hugging shorts and a tank top, leaving her skinny preadolescent tummy bare, and once the plane had leveled off, she broke open the plastic-wrapped blanket and covered herself with it from toes to shoulders.
“Did your mother die in an accident?” she asked, the question so out of the blue that it took Lacey a minute to respond.
“No,” she said. “My mother was killed.” Somehow the word killed sounded better than murdered. “A man shot her.”