“That was fun, Mommy.” Lilly skipped through the front door and twirled. “When can we go again?”
Angela, Kylee, and Zach filed in after her. Kylee immediately fled upstairs without a word. She’d been sullen the entire drive home from the bowling alley near Queenstown, where they’d spent time with Simon and his kids. She’d been having a fun time at first, then suddenly turned white and retreated to the bathroom.
Zach pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You only got, like, ten points. In bowling, that’s pretty bad.”
“That doesn’t matter, bud.” Angela squeezed Lilly’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you had fun, sweetie. Of course we can go again.”
Sherry walked around the corner, drying her hands on a towel. “Did you all have a good time?”
Lilly charged Sherry and threw her arms around her middle. “Grandma! I got to bowl on the same team as Ella and we got a four-pound ball!”
“And how about you, Zach?”
“I creamed Benjamin.” Zach struck a pose. “Then I victory danced like this.” He wiggled his hips and whooped, pumping his fists in the air.
Angela rolled her eyes, laughing. “And then you were reprimanded for not being a good sport, weren’t you?”
Her son shrugged. “Benjamin didn’t care. He beat me once, so we’ll see who wins best two outta three next time.”
Next time. Angela ran her hands along the base of her neck, her teeth tugging on her bottom lip. How would her children feel when they had to leave New Zealand, likely never to see the Kings again?
How would she feel?
She refocused on Sherry, who watched her with inquisitive eyes. “What did you and Eva do while we were gone?”
“I visited with Fiona. I got back a bit ago.” A frown stretched across her face. “I think Eva stayed in her room all evening. I’m worried about her.”
Since Kylee had been training with them all week and Eva had retreated to her room most nights after the kids were in bed, Angela hadn’t had much opportunity to engage Eva in conversation alone again after their talk several days ago. Maybe she should check on her. “I’ll go see if she needs anything.”
“That’d be great, dear.” Sherry directed her attention to the two younger kids. “What do you say we raid the freezer for some ice cream before bed?”
A great chorus of cheers rose from Lilly and Zach, who took off running toward the kitchen.
Angela turned and padded up the stairs to the second floor. Eva’s room was at the end of the hallway next to Lilly’s. The air was a tad stuffier up here, but it was quieter and darker too. As she approached Eva’s door, Angela halted at the sound of muffled crying.
It was coming from Kylee’s room.
Angela raised her hand to knock on Kylee’s door, then paused. What would her daughter want? Back at the bowling alley, when Kylee hadn’t returned from the bathroom after half an hour, Angela had gone in search of her. The teen had finally emerged from the stall, her eyes red and puffy, and she wouldn’t say anything to Angela except, “I’m fine, Mom.”
Would an inquiry from Angela now be equally rebuffed?
She stepped away from Kylee’s room, determined not to intrude on her privacy, but the sobs wrenched her heart in two. She remembered being a child, a preteen, and a teenager crying into her pillow, alone, wishing her aunt would find her, hold her, tell her it was going to be okay.
But no one ever came.
Angela’s hand made a decision before her brain did. The knock seemed to resound in the hallway—or maybe that was Angela’s heartbeat. Please, don’t let me mess this up.
“Go away.”
Angela ignored the mumbled words and eased open the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind her. She walked to the bed, where Kylee sprawled on her stomach in the semidark, her face mashed against the purple pillowcase. The calm of the lavender-and-cream room—with its lacy bedspread and curtains, pictures of peonies adorning the walls, and the soft glow of a bedside lamp—did not seem to permeate Kylee’s gloom.
Easing herself down next to her daughter, Angela reached out a hand and stroked Kylee’s back in gentle circles. Was it her imagination, or did her daughter’s shoulders seem to melt into the bed at her mother’s touch?
They stayed that way for a while, Kylee’s sobs lessening. Angela found herself humming “Hush, Little Baby,” the tune she used to sing to a very colicky infant fifteen years ago as she rocked and bounced, rocked and bounced, until her feet ached and her arms grew weary with the girl’s weight.
Finally, her daughter rolled half over and stared up at Angela, pushing wetness away from the underside of her lids. Angela started to ask what was wrong, but a small voice inside urged her to be silent and continue humming. So she did.
Kylee shifted herself upright and nestled among her pillows against her bed’s headboard, hugging her knees to her chest. “Ethan was at the bowling alley. With another girl.”
Angela held back a wince. Was Kylee about to let her have it for breaking her and Ethan up? What was the right reaction? Would her daughter respond with anger if Angela said she was better off without him? That he wasn’t worthy of her?
Perhaps sympathy was the best alternative to those thoughts. “I’m sorry, hon.”
Kylee picked at her cuticles, then chewed on her thumbnail, her eyes not meeting Angela’s. “I guess he didn’t really love me after all.” Her lips trembled.
Oh, forget it. Angela couldn’t stand by in silence and watch her daughter suffer, constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing. She reached for Kylee’s hand, surprised when her daughter didn’t pull away. “That’s his loss, then.”
“I just thought . . . I mean, he said such nice things.” Another tear coursed down Kylee’s cheek. “He told me I was beautiful and that I was special. I guess I’m pretty stupid for believing him, huh?”
“Considering the fact that you are both of those things—beautiful and special, that is—no, you’re not stupid at all.” Angela snatched a tissue off the side table and pressed it into her daughter’s palm. “But the right boy will say those things and mean them. And you will never doubt that they’re true.”
“Was Dad the right boy for you, Mom?” The question sounded so small, and Kylee suddenly looked so very tender, huddled there on the purple bed, face glistening, voice scratchy, hair mussed.
Her daughter wasn’t as young as Angela kept trying to keep her. She was becoming a woman, so maybe Angela needed to start talking to her like one. And that began with honesty. Some, anyway. “Yes. I loved your father, Kylee, and he loved me. We didn’t have a perfect marriage, but I never doubted that he meant the sweet things he said.”
Not every guy would have suggested they get married when he found out the girl he’d been dating for six months was pregnant. But Wes had. He’d done the honorable thing when he could have easily reacted just like her aunt and father had. Like a lot of other guys would have.
She hadn’t thought much about that in a long time. In fact, Angela had been so focused on how he’d abandoned them in death that she’d nearly forgotten how he’d been there for her at the start of Kylee’s life. He had been a principled and trustworthy man at heart. And yes, maybe he’d gotten caught up in the adventure of thrill seeking—a midlife crisis of sorts—but underneath he’d still loved his family. Even in her anger toward him, she couldn’t deny that.
A tiny bit of warmth lit Angela’s heart.
Kylee pressed her thumb against the tissue, wearing the soft fiber down until it tore. “Then why couldn’t you tell me how you knew you loved him?” She ripped the tissue in half.
“It’s complicated, Kylee.” Angela couldn’t seem to stop the old exasperation from coming through in her tone. Because honesty could only go so far. If she told her daughter the whole truth, Kylee might surmise the part about her unexpected conception—and Angela did not want her ever wondering for one second if she was wanted. She’d had enough grief and heartache in her short life.
Her daughter sniffed, and instead of anger, her shoulders sank as if in defeat. “Please, Mom. Tell me.”
Angela rubbed her nose. “Please understand. It’s difficult for me to talk about it.”
“So you want me to be honest, but you don’t have to be?” The tissue now lay in shreds, scattered on the bedspread. “That’s not fair.”
“There’s just more to all of this than you know. More than I can tell you. I’m sorry, sweetie. I love you, but you’re still just a kid. My kid. And I want—”
“I know you blame Dad for dying.”
As soon as the words left Kylee’s lips, she turned pale, her eyes wide. She chomped down on her lip.
Heat bloomed in Angela’s cheeks. “What?” She could barely choke out the word. How could her daughter possibly know that?
“I read your diary.” Kylee looked like she might cry again. “You were mad all the time, and one day when I was in your room borrowing some jewelry, I saw the diary on your bedside table, and I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry. I just wanted to know what you were thinking.”
She’d only written in her diary once since Wes died, and her daughter had read the words she’d slashed there? Angela wanted to feel enraged, to push away any other emotions, but what rose instead was great sorrow. Sorrow that she’d had to write the words at all. That her daughter had felt the need to snoop instead of simply asking Angela how she felt. Regret that she probably wouldn’t have told the truth if Kylee had asked.
“Baby, those words were very raw. I haven’t been great about . . . well, any of this. I’ve never done this before. I know you haven’t either.” She picked up the pieces of Kylee’s tissue and tossed them in the garbage.
“So you aren’t mad at Dad for dying?”
Honesty . . . or protection? Angela sighed. “To tell you the truth, sometimes I am.”
“I was, too, at first.”
Angela took her daughter’s hand once more. “Really?” How could she not have known that? She and her daughter were more alike than she’d ever wanted to admit.
“Yeah, but Juliet helped me work through it at group.”
“Well, it’s something I’m working through too.” She could finally say those words truthfully, even though she didn’t know what the final result would be. How would she know when she was done “working”? “I don’t want you to worry about it, though.”
Kylee studied her for a moment. “Are we ever going to be okay again, Mom?”
“Someday, sweetie. I know we have a long way to go, but I’m willing to walk that path if you are. Together?”
Kylee’s nod was so slight, Angela almost missed it. But when she saw it, she felt like doing a victory dance herself.