Chapter Seven

The week passed in a haze for Ryan. Each morning at seven, almost without thinking, he sorted the mail, matching addresses in the order he would hit the houses on his route. After the Monday deluge, there was only the normal amount of mail, which he quickly dispatched with his own system. He was the quickest sorter in the entire office. The faster he went out on his route, the faster he could deliver the mail and get home to his children.

Sometimes the other workers called him Rapid Ryan and talked about him making them look bad. The comments were only half teasing. Despite this, they understood Ryan’s family situation, and for the most part they respected him. His supervisor loved him, and that was what was important.

On Thursday morning he was out on the road at eight-thirty. As he put mail in the first two boxes, he kept glancing at Kerrianne’s house. Was she waiting on the porch? Would she speak to him?

But she wasn’t there, and he hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of her since Monday. He stared at the letters in his hand with frustration. There was nothing that would require him to go up the walk and ring the doorbell. Why hadn’t someone sent her a lousy package? The morning skies were also clear, so there was no excuse to take the mail to her door, even on the pretense of a good deed. He was beginning to consider sending her a package himself just to see her.

Yesterday morning, he’d thrown the ball with her three children in front of the house, as the older ones waited for it to get late enough to run to the bus stop, but if she was aware of that, perhaps watching from inside the house, he couldn’t tell. He’d delayed as long as he could but had to move on before the children’s bus came.

Was something wrong with Kerrianne? He didn’t think so. More likely she was embarrassed by what she’d told him on Monday and couldn’t face him. He wished he could tell her how happy he was that he’d been a part of easing her hurt by delivering her mail. He couldn’t begin to know where he’d be now if Tiger’s constant needs hadn’t seen him through those initial months after Laurie died.

The letters slipped from his hand back into the box on the next seat as memories of Laurie’s last days flooded over him. Her sister had come to help out, and he wasn’t really needed at home, but how could he stay away? He’d taken extended leave a month before her death when he simply couldn’t bear to leave her anymore. Laurie had chided him about the decision because they’d needed the money—even now he was still paying medical bills—but he’d do it all again. He’d probably take the whole year off. How could he have known their time would be so short? If he could roll back the clock, he would. He’d change everything. He’d work the midnight shift when Laurie was sleeping so that they could spend every moment together during the day.

The memories faded, leaving as always the bittersweet mixture of love and pain. If he told the entire truth, it hadn’t only been Tiger who’d helped him go on but the knowledge that his job was waiting. Part of that was the eagerness with which Kerrianne had awaited her mail. Why hadn’t he told her that she’d helped him as well? Maybe if he’d told her the full truth, she’d still be there waiting for it. Waiting for him.

He rolled his eyes at his thoughts. “You are losing it, Ryan boy.” He put the mail in her box and slammed the door shut.

As he began driving to the next house, he saw movement at the door and looked up eagerly. Kerrianne came onto the porch wearing loose jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt that emphasized the color of her eyes. Her hair was attractively styled, but as on Monday she wasn’t wearing makeup, which made her look different from the strong, composed woman of Saturday night. Not bad, just different. Younger. More vulnerable. How could he not have noticed just how vulnerable she’d looked each morning for nearly four years? Had he been so involved with his own sorrows that he’d failed to notice even a hint of hers? He shook his head, experiencing an odd, swelling sadness in his chest, one that made him want to hold her. Anyone should have been able to tell that she’d suffered a tragedy and wasn’t simply a crazy woman obsessed with the mail.

She moved gracefully down the walk, and he let the truck roll forward a bit to where her driveway met the sidewalk. Her hair, a dark blonde bordering on brown, glinted in the sunlight. “Hello,” she called. Her smile did funny things to his stomach.

Ryan stopped and stepped from the truck. This wasn’t protocol, and his boss wouldn’t be pleased that he was attending to his personal life during work hours, but he’d made a promise to Laurie. He’d been too rash when he’d vowed to give up the dating scene last Saturday. Maybe the woman he was supposed to meet had been in front of him all along.

“Hi,” he said. “I was hoping to see you.”

“Oh, do you have a package?” She craned her neck to look around him at the mail filling the inside of his vehicle. Ryan noticed the curve of her white throat and wondered if it was as soft as it looked.

“Uh, no. That’s not it. I wanted to know if you’d like to go to a dance tonight.” He’d become quite adept at asking women out in the past year. In fact, not one had turned him down. And why not? He was relatively young and nice-looking. He had a steady job and no vices to speak of except his acting, which wasn’t really a vice at all. Why, then, was he suddenly nervous as he waited for her response?

Because I didn’t really care if the others said no.

Shaking the thought away, Ryan waited expectantly. There was a tightening feeling in his stomach as he noticed that all the color had left her face. She looked ready to faint. “I, uh . . .”

“Ryan,” he supplied, thinking she’d forgotten his name. “Ryan Oakman.”

“I can’t go out with you.” She stared down at her hand, twisting her wedding ring. “I’m married.”

With that, she turned and ran up the steps. Ryan watched her go. Strangely, he didn’t feel rejected or upset that she hadn’t said good-bye. He felt only the same swelling sadness that had made him want to hold her earlier. “I understand,” he said to Kerrianne, though she was beyond hearing. “Part of me is still married, too.” As he climbed back into the truck, he added to himself, “Too fast, Ryan. Way too fast.”

Laurie had always said he moved too fast in everything he did. She’d made him wait a whole month before agreeing to marry him and another three until the wedding—months that had been torture for Ryan. But she’d been worth fighting for. Even knowing the ending, the horrible, heart-wrenching agony of losing her, he’d do it all again.

He believed Kerrianne was also worth fighting for. There was something special about her, something that went beyond the desire he had to comfort her. Or the smoothness of her white throat.

Instead of asking her out, he should have asked about letting Tiger play with her son. Or if she’d had a sudden opening in her preschool. After all, Tiger had been bugging him all week about coming over here. A smile came to Ryan’s face as he thought of his small son. That was Tiger. Once he got something in his head, it was difficult to make him forget.

Should he ask her now? Ryan brought a hand up to scratch at his bearded cheek, almost surprised to remember he hadn’t yet shaved it off. Kerrianne’s house sat blankly and unwelcoming before him. No, he couldn’t face it today. One rejection would have to tide him over. Forcing a grin of defeat, however temporary, he drove to the next house.

Though Ryan finished his route in the usual time, the day had gone by way too slowly. At last he arrived at his baby-sitter’s, a small brick rambler several streets from his own house, to find Ria in front sitting on the cement stairs. Her glum face was red with cold, and her short black hair hung limply and rather too slick against the sides of her face. That meant she needed to wash it. What was it with his daughter anyway? A year ago he hadn’t been able to get her out of the bath; now he had to remind her to take one.

Ria stared at him morosely. “Hi, Dad.”

“What, no hug? No smile?”

“I hate school,” she returned, clenching her small fists. “And I hate coming here after school. Jenny hates me.” Jenny was the baby-sitter’s daughter, and she often caused Ria of a lot of grief.

“Jenny doesn’t hate you. It’s just all the kids her mother watches, you know? She worries about them taking up all her time.”

“She doesn’t like to share anything,” Ria said. “But I don’t care, ’cause I hate her too.”

Ryan blinked. Ria was often passionate, but she didn’t usually claim to hate people. He sat beside her on the step. “Did something happen at school today?”

She shook her head, staring down at her hands. “Everything’s fine. Are we going to see Sam tonight?”

“You know we won’t be starting on the new play until after Christmas. Besides, tonight’s Thursday. You have basketball practice.”

Ria brightened. “Oh, yeah.”

“Go get into the truck, okay? I’ll get Tiger.” He stood up and rang the bell.

Susan, his sitter, let him into the house, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Hi,” she greeted him cheerily. “Come on in. Tiger’s in the family room.”

Sure enough, Ryan found Tiger watching television as usual, eyes glued to the cartoon figures. “Hey, Tiger,” Ryan called.

“Hi, Dad.” Tiger didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

“Did you see Ria?” Susan asked, sitting on the edge of a worn pink and white sofa.

Ryan shifted his gaze to her. She wasn’t an unattractive woman, but she looked as though she hadn’t much time for herself. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her face showed traces of old makeup. She wore her customary jeans with the tight legs that had been popular years before and a T-shirt that barely stretched to cover her swelling midriff. Was she going to have a baby? Or had she put on weight like his mother? He didn’t dare ask. He wondered when she found time to sleep.

“I saw her,” he said, sitting on the opposite end of the sofa.

“She wouldn’t come in,” Susan continued. “She and Jenny were fighting when they got here.” The light angling in from the side window made the freckles and blemishes in her skin stand out more clearly. “I had to send Jenny to her room.”

“I’m sorry. What was the problem?” He hoped it wouldn’t be too difficult to solve.

“It’s the mother-daughter Thanksgiving tea party they’re having at school next week. Apparently, the kids in several of the grades are planning a special day for their mothers or other guest.”

Ryan’s heart sank, knowing the “or other guest” part was mostly for Ria’s benefit. These events were always hard on Ria, no matter how careful the teachers were not to single out her loss.

“The fight,” Susan was saying, “was because Jenny told Ria she would have to find someone besides me to go with her.” She gave him an apologetic look. “Do you have someone Ria could go with? Her grandmother maybe? Ordinarily, I’d volunteer, but Jenny’s . . . well, she keeps begging me to quit baby-sitting as it is, and I feel she needs me to be there just for her.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ryan said shortly. Then, lest he’d hurt her feelings, he added, “Thanks, Susan—for telling me.”

“You know, Ria’s not happy here.” Susan glanced at Tiger and two of her own towheaded sons. They were all engrossed in the cartoons and taking no notice of them. “I know it’s been difficult since her mother . . . I’ve tried, but . . .” She shrugged. “Tiger’s really no problem, but if you’d rather find another place for him so that Ria will be happier, I’d understand.”

Ryan knew this wasn’t easy for Susan to say. She needed the extra money baby-sitting brought to her family, and while Tiger’s mind wasn’t stretched or challenged at Susan’s, he was always safe.

“I’ve been thinking about enrolling Tiger in a preschool in the afternoons,” he said. “Just two or three times a week. I’d still pay as much as I do now if you’d see that he gets there and pick him up. Of course,” he added hastily, seeing a tenseness come to her face, “if that’s too much work, I might be able to work it out on my lunch hour or something.”

“It’s just with all the other kids, I’m pretty busy. I’ve got one-year-old twins I’m watching now.”

Ryan nodded. He understood the complication of taking children anywhere. Asking Susan to bundle up one-year-old twins, her own three-year-old son, and the three other children she baby-sat would be simply too much to ask on a permanent basis. Then again, he didn’t feel letting Tiger sit in front of the TV all day was a responsible thing to do. Tiger was ready to move on to something more challenging.

“When are you going to start him in school?” Susan asked.

“I don’t really have it planned yet. I’m still looking for a teacher.”

“Well, let me know.” She tucked a frazzled wisp of hair that had strayed from her ponytail behind her ear and stood up.

“Come on, Tiger,” Ryan said, rising from the sofa. “We need to go. Ria has practice, and we need to zip home and grab something to eat.”

“Eat?” Tiger asked with interest, though his eyes didn’t leave the cartoons.

Knowing it would be easier to physically move him than to entice him away from the TV, Ryan bent down and scooped up his little boy from the floor.

“Dad!” he protested.

Ignoring him, Ryan threw him over his shoulders. “Thanks for the sack of potatoes, Susan. I’ll bring them back tomorrow.”

Tiger giggled and beat on his back. “Dad, I’m not potatoes! I’m Tiger!”

“I think my potatoes are talking,” Ryan said to no one in particular. “I guess they don’t like the idea of becoming french fries.”

“French fries? I want french fries!”

“Do you have to yell?” By this time they were out to the truck, and Ryan dumped Tiger unceremoniously inside next to Ria.

“We’re going to have french fries tonight,” Tiger was informing Ria as Ryan opened his own door and slid behind the wheel.

“No, we’re not,” Ryan said. “We’re having whatever’s in the freezer that we can warm up in the microwave.”

“Aw, Dad.”

“We’ve had enough french fries since I started in that play. We need something else. Something green.” Ryan checked for traffic as he pulled from the curb.

“Yuck!” Ria and Tiger chimed together.

“Well, maybe not green, exactly, but healthier. You know what I mean.”

“I had a green french fry once,” Tiger said hopefully. “I found it under my bed.”

Ria groaned, but Ryan laughed. “You mean you actually cleaned under it?”

“No, I was hiding Ria’s doll.”

“I don’t have any dolls!” Ria’s smile vanished. “I hate dolls.”

Tiger was nonplussed. “I guess that’s why you never came to look for it.”

Ria folded her arms and gave an exaggerated sigh. “Anyway, we don’t have any dinners in the freezer. I took out the last ones yesterday.”

“You mean the Chinese bowls?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah. And there weren’t any more at all. Well, there is that casserole, the one”—her voice suddenly sounded choked—“that Mom made.”

Silence fell over them, as subtle as a ton of humongous green french fries. They all knew what Ria was talking about. When Laurie’s illness had become pronounced, she’d made bunches of dinners whenever she had the energy, storing them in the freezer for nights when neither of them wanted to cook. After she’d taken to bed and her sister had come to help out, they hadn’t used the dinners anymore. There’d been six left when Laurie died. He’d given one to the children every week or two, not eating any himself so the meal would last them several days. But he hadn’t been able to cook the last one. It simply wasn’t in him to have it all be over.

“Are we going to eat that?” Tiger looked at them with huge eyes.

“Do you want to?”

The kids thought for a moment, and then Ria shook her head. “No,” she decided. “Let’s save that for a special day. Maybe Christmas.”

Ryan felt his face relax, though until that moment, he hadn’t realized it had been frozen somewhere between a smile and a frown. “We’d better swing by the store then. We’re almost home. You two stay in the truck while I run in and change. We still have time.”

“We could get french fries instead,” Tiger said, with his usual single-mindedness.

“Tiger!” Ria slugged him playfully in the shoulder, and he giggled.

Ryan pulled into their driveway and left them laughing while he hurried inside the house. He hated going in alone, even just for a minute. There was an abandoned air that he didn’t know how to eliminate. Was it the dust on top of the picture frames that he never seemed to find time to clean? Was it the constant pile of dirty clothes in the laundry basket by the washer? Or perhaps Tiger’s handprints on the walls? Saturday, he’d try to clean it all and see. Yet in his heart he knew it would still feel abandoned. Was this why Laurie had been so insistent on his remarrying? Did she understand the emptiness her leaving would create not only in his heart but in their home?

Shaking these thoughts from his mind, he pulled on jeans and a heavy flannel shirt. Then he traded his work boots for tennis shoes before hurrying out the door.

The children were still laughing, and he let them enjoy each other for a few minutes more before bringing up the problem at school. “So, I hear you’re having a tea party,” he said casually to Ria as they turned into Macey’s parking lot. “It sounds really fun. Do I get to go?”

Ria’s grin vanished instantly. “It’s for moms.”

“Or other guests.”

“Yeah, so they say. But everyone will be bringing their moms, and you’re not even a girl.”

“Whew!” He pretended to wipe his brow. “That’s a relief. It’d be pretty hard being a dad if I was a girl.”

Tiger guffawed, slapping his leg, but Ria quelled him with a haughty glare. “If you’re not a girl, you’ll stand out. It’ll be embarrassing.”

“Not as embarrassing as if I were wearing a dress and a wig.”

“Daaaaaad!” Ria’s eyes glistened with tears, and Ryan knew he’d gone far enough. The Ria who would have giggled at imagining him wearing high heels was apparently long gone.

“What about Grandma?” he said more seriously.

Ria rolled her eyes. “Can’t I just be sick that day?”

Ryan was tempted to say yes, but he knew that would make things worse the next time something similar came up. He found a parking place for the truck and turned toward her. “You can’t stay home,” he said quietly.

“Why not?” Her mouth trembled.

“Because it’s not going away. All your life you’re going to have to deal with events like this. We all will. And as much as we miss your mom, she wouldn’t want us to hide at home when things get difficult.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem if you’d just marry Sam,” came Ria’s sullen retort.

“Sam’s already married, and she loves her husband a lot.”

“Well, he’s stupid. He doesn’t treat her right.”

Sam’s husband was a stubborn man, but not a bad one. “I think he’ll change.”

“Well, I hope he doesn’t.”

Ryan sighed. How could he explain to Ria that Sam was absolutely out of reach? Ryan could tell how much she still loved her husband even if she and everyone else was doubtful. He knew they’d work things out eventually. “Look, maybe I can ask Sam if she’ll go with you,” he said, deciding that compromise was the best solution.

That was the worst thing about single parenting—not having someone to bounce ideas off, to assure he was making the right decisions. What if something he chose now affected Ria’s entire life negatively? There would only be himself to blame and no one to commiserate with or share the burden.

Ria smiled, though her eyes were still teary. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Can we go in now?” Tiger said, pulling off his safety belt. He grinned at Ria. “I still think you should take Dad. He really could wear a dress, you know. Susan could give him one.”

Ryan groaned. “Four years old and already a wise guy.”

They had filled their shopping cart to the brim and were making a last dash for chocolate milk mix. He was surprised to see a boy Tiger’s age waving at him with one hand, the other gripping a half-full cart of groceries.

Ryan immediately recognized the boy as Kerrianne Price’s son—Caleb, if he remembered the name correctly. Sure enough, next to the cart, with her back toward him, was Kerrianne, reaching for what looked like an enormous slab of chocolate wrapped in cellophane. She wore the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt of that morning, and her hair looked soft and freshly combed. From the side he could more clearly see her high cheekbones and fine pale skin. Her other two children, whom he also recognized but whose names he didn’t know, were also with her: a boy with dark blond hair and the girl with the curly golden locks and smooth skin.

“Not that kind,” Kerrianne was saying, bending closer to take a look at the labels. The two children leaned in with her. It was an oddly intimate moment, and though they were in the middle of a grocery store, Ryan had the distinct impression that he was intruding upon their privacy. Should he go back down the aisle? Or perhaps he should pass by her as though he hadn’t seen them. Well, it was too late for that. Caleb was still waving with a bright grin on his face.

“Isn’t that the lady from the other night?” Tiger asked, pointing at Kerrianne as she put something into her cart. “Is that her boy, the one I’m going to play with?”

Ryan knew he had no choice but to at least say a casual hello. He was both excited and nervous at the prospect. How would she react? Could it be any worse than that morning? Probably, but he found he was willing to take the chance.

Kerrianne was stretching now, reaching for something on a high shelf. In seconds she would turn and see him. A knot formed in Ryan’s stomach.

That was when it began to rain chocolate.