Rani was fussy. She’d finished her breakfast and was kicking her doll-like brown feet, ready to get down from her high chair.
“Can I take her out and hold her on my lap?” Mackenzie asked Gina, who nodded her assent. Rani went to Mackenzie easily and sat comfortably in the girl’s lap, and Mackenzie played a little game with her using Cheerios on the tabletop.
Bobby was watching the two children with a smile on his face, and Lacey felt guilty for her negative thoughts about him. She was making something out of nothing. There was no doubt that he was good to Mackenzie, and no doubt that Mackenzie felt a bond with him. Lacey reminded herself that Tom had been an alcoholic at the time she’d learned he was her father. She still would have wanted to know the truth about her relationship to him. As troubled and screwed up as Tom had been, he had welcomed her as his daughter. Bobby was doing no less for Mackenzie. No matter what sort of person he was, Lacey wouldn’t harm the relationship between father and child.
Despite his smile, though, Bobby seemed pensive this morning, and Lacey couldn’t help but wonder if his mood had something to do with the woman in the parking lot. Was she the one he’d been having those secretive cell phone conversations with? Her brain hurt from trying to figure him out, and she knew she needed to shift gears and focus on the day ahead. If she didn’t leave the house soon, she would be late for work at the animal hospital. She turned her attention to Mackenzie.
“Do you have the book you’re reading to take to your grandmother’s with you?” Lacey asked her.
“I don’t need it today,” Mackenzie said, moving the Cheerios around on the table in the game only she and Rani seemed to understand. “Grandmother’s taking me shopping.” Nola had discovered the one activity that Mackenzie would embrace. “But I was wondering if I could come home early?” she asked, glancing at Lacey. “I mean, could you pick me up after you get off work at the animal hospital? I want to help Clay with the training.” She looked across the table at Clay. “You’re training this afternoon, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “I’m working with Boomer,” he said.
“Oh, I love Boomer!” Mackenzie said. “So, can I come home early?”
“I want finger paint!” Rani insisted, apparently growing tired of the Cheerios game.
“Do you want me to take her?” Gina asked Mackenzie.
“I’ve got her,” Clay said, getting to his feet.
“I’ll finger paint with you tonight,” Mackenzie said to the little girl as she transferred her to Clay’s arms. “I have to leave in a few minutes, so I can’t do it now.”
Rani pouted, pressing her head against Clay’s shoulder.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Clay carried her to the sink, where he washed her hands and face, a procedure Rani had only recently been able to tolerate. Then he set her down on the floor. “Why don’t you go look at one of your books?” he said to her, and she ran into the living room, Sasha at her side.
Mackenzie looked at Lacey. “So, can I?” she asked again, as Clay poured himself another cup of coffee. Lacey had to hand it to Bobby; at least he’d had the courtesy to make a second pot when he realized he was going to be drinking most of the first.
“It’s okay with me,” she said. “But it’s really up to your grandmother. Call me at the animal hospital after you talk to her.” She felt certain that Nola would be delighted to have less time with her granddaughter. A couple of days ago, she’d actually thanked Lacey for taking her in, although she’d also made it clear that she was still angry at her for contacting Bobby. Oh, God. Maybe Nola had good reason to be angry.
“Speaking of calls,” Clay said as he took his seat again, “I got one yesterday from a woman whose dog I trained years ago.” He leaned back in his chair, fingering his napkin on the table. “The dog’s name is Wolf,” he said, “and he was one of the best I’d ever worked with. He and his owner, Susan, were a great team, but a few months ago, they were involved in a search-and-rescue operation looking for a little girl. She’d been camping with her family and disappeared, and they thought she’d wandered off, but she’d actually been snatched by some guy. Wolf was the dog that found her. She was safe and unhurt, but the guy who’d taken her kicked Wolf around a bit and then shot him.”
“Oh, no!” Mackenzie’s hand flew to her mouth and a pained expression came over her face. “Did he die?” she asked.
Clay shook his head. “Susan said that he recovered from the gunshot wound, and for a while, he seemed fine. Then, all of a sudden, he changed. He would growl at people on the street, and he attacked Susan’s friend when she came over to the house.”
“Like, what do you mean, he attacked her?” Mackenzie asked.
“He lunged at her and took a chunk out of her arm.”
“Man,” Bobby said. “Did they put him down?”
Clay shook his head. “The friend he attacked was, fortunately, a dog person, and she and Susan both realized that something was radically wrong. Wolf had always been very gentle. Susan’s afraid that he’s not only been ruined as a search-and-rescue dog, but that he’s not trustworthy around anyone besides herself anymore.”
Lacey knew from the moment Clay started talking about the dog that he wanted to attempt to rehabilitate him, but Gina only seemed to be catching on now. “You’re not thinking of working with the dog again, are you?” she asked him.
Clay turned to his wife. “I’m telling you, Gina, this is one of the best dogs I’ve ever worked with. He has some kind of…post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Oh, Clay, please,” Gina pleaded. “Don’t bring a dog like that here.”
“It’ll be fine,” Clay said. “He’ll be locked up in the kennel.”
Gina looked as though she wanted to say more, but wisely decided to save it for a private conversation.
“You should have Dad look at the dog,” Lacey suggested, “Maybe there’s something physical going on with him.”
Clay nodded. “That’s first on my agenda.”
Bobby looked at his watch, then reached for the box of raisin bran and poured himself another bowlful.
Lacey turned to him. “You’re quiet this morning,” she said. She heard the suspicious edge to her voice and wondered if anyone else noticed it.
He smiled at her, that smile she still could feel down to her toes regardless of any negative thoughts she might have about him. “All the dog talk made me think about the piece I’m working on,” he said. “The belt buckle. I start adding the colors today.”
“Can I watch?” Mackenzie asked.
Bobby laughed. “You’ve got a lot you want to do today, don’t you?” he asked. “Shop with your grandmother. Help Clay train a dog. Finger paint with Rani. Watch me work.”
Mackenzie shrugged, drawing in a little, as if afraid to let her housemates know that she was enjoying life in any way, shape or form.
“I’ll show you how I do it tonight, okay?” Bobby asked, and she nodded.
It was midmorning when Rick stopped by the animal hospital with flowers for Lacey. Everyone made a fuss over them, and Lacey felt embarrassed by the public display of his affection for her. She would have to answer her co-workers’ questions about him later. Still, it was kind of him. He was a sweet man.
“You’re spoiling me,” she said across the reception counter as she slipped the mixed bouquet of flowers into a vase.
“You deserve to be spoiled,” he said.
She arranged the flowers so that they appeared to spring from the vase like fireworks. “I have a question for you,” she said, the words slipping from her mouth before she could stop them. She turned to one of the vet techs. “Could you cover for me for a few minutes?” she asked.
The tech agreed, and she walked through the waiting area and its community of dogs and cats as she led Rick outside. The rain had stopped, leaving thick steamy air in its wake, and they walked to the curb at the edge of the parking lot. She turned to face him, her arms folded across her chest.
“When Bobby w
as staying with you,” she began, “did you notice any…druggie behavior or anything?”
He shook his head with a frown. “Why? Have you?”
“Did you ever see him with a blond woman?”
“A woman did come around once,” Rick said. “Tall. Thin. Pretty. Bobby went outside with her for a while. I didn’t think much of it.”
“I saw him give her money.”
Rick raised his eyebrows. “For what?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but it worries me.”
Rick pursed his lips and looked in the direction of the ocean. They couldn’t see the water from where they stood, but they could hear the waves pounding the beach behind the line of cottages. “Maybe you should just come out and ask him,” he suggested.
She knew he was right. She should ask Bobby about the woman instead of wearing herself out with guesswork, but she didn’t think she had the right to poke around in his private affairs without stronger evidence that he was doing something wrong. Besides, she was not certain she wanted to know the answers to her questions.
“I’m torn,” she said. “He’s so good with Mackenzie.”
Two SUVs pulled into the parking lot, and she watched a Great Dane jump out of one of them, a yellow lab out of the other. She would be needed inside.
“I’d better get back to work,” she said. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for the flowers,” she said. “You really are too good to me.”
Lacey sat with Bobby in the sunroom that evening, both of them working by lamplight. She was creating a pattern for a stained glass panel, drawing the same lines over and over again with her pencil, unable to concentrate. If she didn’t ask him now, she would never get any work done.
Bobby was bent over the second table, working on the belt buckle under the circle of light from a halogen lamp.
With a sigh of resignation, she set down her pencil. “Last night,” she began, “I couldn’t sleep and I went up to the top of the lighthouse.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, still engrossed in his work. Unsuspecting. Innocent?
“I was up there when you met a woman in the parking lot.” She saw his hands pause and watched him slowly set down the tool he was using. He swiveled his chair to look at her, and he wore the expression of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“And you’re wondering who she is?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s none of my business, I know that, but it just…”
“She’s someone I met at an AA meeting,” he said. “Just a friend. She called me last night because she was about to have a drink. She picked me up here and we drove around a bit while I…you know, talked her down. I’m sorry if I weirded you out.”
“I just…” Lacey looked past him to avoid his eyes. “You don’t owe me any explanations,” she said. “It was just unexpected. I thought you were asleep upstairs and so it came as kind of a shock to see you out there.”
“In AA,” he said, “if someone needs you to keep them from taking that drink…well, you’ve got to do it.”
She nodded, not truly believing him. She wanted to ask him more questions. Was this the person he spoke with on the phone all the time? Why did he give her money? But her worry and her jealousy felt like a combustible mixture in her chest, and it was far easier to simply retreat.
“I’m sorry to be so nosy,” she said.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I understand. It’s your house. You have a right to know who’s coming and going.”
She watched him turn his chair to face the table again, apparently satisfied that he’d sufficiently answered her question, and she knew she would have to be satisfied, as well.
In spite of all the thoughts churning in her mind, she fell asleep quickly that night. The hot, oppressive air had finally given way to a cool breeze that blew the heat from her room and made it the perfect temperature for sleeping.
In the middle of the night, though, she awakened. She’d been dreaming that a cat was howling on the beach, the sound so horrible that it pulled her quickly from her sleep. She sat up, her head groggy. It’s only Rani, she thought. But the sound came again, and now that she was awake, she recognized it for what it was: a scream. Mackenzie.
She jumped out of bed and rushed into the hallway. Bobby was walking out of his bedroom, zipping up his jeans, and she was surprised by the relief she felt at seeing him there. He could go to Mackenzie; the girl would be more at ease with him. He’d know what to say.
But he stopped walking when he saw her. “Go,” he said quietly, nearly mouthing the word, as he motioned toward Mackenzie’s room.
She wanted to ask him to go to Mackenzie himself, but something in his face told her that she should be the one to do it. The screams had stopped, but the unmistakable sound of sobbing came from the bedroom. Nodding to Bobby, she opened the door.
Mackenzie was huddled close to the sleigh bed’s head-board, arms around her legs and her head buried on her knees. Lacey sat down on the edge of the bed, and to her amazement, Mackenzie reached for her, arms outstretched, the way Rani reached out when she wanted to be picked up. Lacey moved closer and pulled the girl to her. Still crying, Mackenzie curled up against her, and Lacey held her tight, resting her cheek against her head. Mackenzie’s skin was damp and hot, her hair soft beneath Lacey’s cheek. She had to be in a bad way to want such intimate contact with her.
“Bad dream?” she asked into Mackenzie’s hair.
Mackenzie’s body jerked with a sob. “I dreamt it,” she said, “but it wasn’t really a dream, because it really happened.” She cried as she spoke, her shoulders shaking beneath Lacey’s arms. “It was the accident. It was like it was happening all over again.”
Lacey closed her eyes, but instead of picturing the drunk driver ramming his car into Jessica’s, she found herself back at the battered women’s shelter, Zachary Pointer bursting into the room, his gun aimed at his wife.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said to Mackenzie, although she knew that the girl’s life would never truly be okay again. Not the way it had once been.
“She was looking at me when it happened,” Mackenzie said. “If I hadn’t been there, maybe she could’ve gotten out of the way of that drunk…that drunk shithead.” Lacey wondered how Mackenzie would feel if she knew that Bobby had taken the lives of two people with his own drunk driving. Someday, she would probably have to know.
“Life is full of ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys,’” Lacey said. If only she and her mother had not gone to the battered women’s shelter on that particular day. If only she had been the one to leap in front of Zachary Pointer’s wife instead of her mother. Maybe Pointer would not have shot a child. “We can’t change what’s already happened,” she said.
“Well then, life sucks,” Mackenzie said.
“Uh-huh,” Lacey agreed. “It truly does sometimes.”
“How did you stand it when your mother was killed?” Mackenzie kept her head locked to Lacey’s shoulder. It was the first time Mackenzie had asked her anything about her own loss.
“Not very well,” Lacey said. “I rebelled, just like you’re doing.”
“I’m not rebelling.”
“No?” Lacey smiled. “You’re surly sometimes. You shoplift. You steal money from my purse. You leave my vibrator on the kitchen table for all the world to see.”
Mackenzie let out a sound that sounded more like a giggle than a sob. “What does surly mean?” she asked.
“Grouchy. Ornery.”
The girl sighed. “I don’t know why I get like that,” she said. “I never used to be that way.”
“I think you just don’t know which way is up anymore,” Lacey said. “Your life has changed way too much way too fast for you and that’s scary. When people are afraid, they can act out in all different ways.” Thank you, Bobby.
“Did you get surly, too?”
“Worse than surly,” Lacey said. “And then my father started dating Olivia—you know, Jack and Maggie’s mothe
r—and that was terrible. I didn’t like her at first, not only because I was afraid she was trying to take my mother’s place, but because if I liked her, I felt like I’d be betraying my mother somehow.”
“Yeah.” Mackenzie spoke with such conviction that Lacey knew the idea had real meaning for her.
“Then I realized I had enough love inside me that I could leave a ton of it with my mother and still have plenty left over for other people.”
Mackenzie sniffled against Lacey’s shoulder. “Do you love Olivia?” she asked.
“A lot. In a different way from the way I loved my mother. Olivia wasn’t a replacement. Just a new person for me to care about.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Mackenzie’s body began to shake with a new set of tears. Instinctively, Lacey rubbed her back. “It’s going to be all right,” she said, wishing she had the power to make it so. Each sob, each shiver that passed through Mackenzie’s body sent a fresh surge of emotion—something like love, but it couldn’t possibly be that—through Lacey’s heart, and she held her tighter. She could feel the protective shell she had built around herself, a shell she had not even known existed, slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor. What had she been protecting herself from? Feeling this, she thought. Feeling this pain all over again. And from the crime of being the compassionate sort of nurturer her own mother had been.
Finally, Mackenzie spoke again.
“Do you think things happen for a reason?” she asked. “That’s what Amelia said to me. Other people said it, too. ‘This happened for a reason, Mackenzie. We don’t know what it is, but you can be sure it was supposed to happen.’ But I can’t think of a single solitary reason why Mom should have died.”
“Well, a lot of people do say that,” Lacey said. “I guess it gives them comfort to think there’s a reason for everything.”