Feels Like Family (8 page)

“We could go out for coffee sometime, plan our strategy for keeping Dana Sue from meddling in our lives,” he suggested. “How much misery can she stir up if we’re both on the same page?”

Something that might have been disappointment streaked across her face, but she recovered so quickly, Erik was certain he’d been mistaken.

“That sounds like a plan,” she finally agreed with a forced note of cheer in her voice. “I guess Grace was right about you.”

“Grace? How did she get involved in this?”

“She says you’re a confirmed bachelor.”

“Not always,” he said, clearly taking her by surprise.

“You’ve been married?”

He nodded.

“Divorced?”

He shook his head. “She died.” Before Helen could pester him with a lot of questions he had no intention of answering, he was on his feet. “Thanks for agreeing to look into Tess’s situation, Helen.”

“Not a problem. See, even barracuda attorneys have their good side.”

Erik winced. “Sorry about calling you that.”

“Hey, you’re entitled to your opinion. And frankly, I’m
rather proud to be called that. If you have to go into court, a barracuda attorney is exactly who you want fighting for you.”

“So, we’re still friends?”

She grinned at him. “Of course we are, though it would help if you’d answer some of my questions, instead of stonewalling me. Real friendship is all about conversational give-and-take.”

“So I hear,” Erik said.

“Then you’ll tell me all your deep, dark secrets?” she asked.

“Nah,” he replied. “What would be the fun in that? I think I like the idea of you being frustrated and wanting more.”

“Is that an ego thing?”

“Nope. It’s a guy thing. See you around. Come by and chop and dice sometime,” he invited. “We miss you in the kitchen. And we will have that coffee one of these days.”

Even as he walked away, he realized that the offhand comment about missing her was absolutely true. He’d enjoyed having her underfoot in the kitchen. When Helen was on his turf, the whole barracuda thing disappeared and she was just an intelligent, attractive woman who made his hormones sit up and take notice. It had been a very long time since any woman had done that.

And
that
was something he hoped to hell Dana Sue never found out or she’d make both their lives a matchmaking nightmare.

Three-year-old Mack had barely closed his eyes for the night when he woke up screaming. Karen, who’d fallen asleep in front of the TV, jolted awake and ran into the bedroom to find Mack trying to climb out of his crib and Daisy trying to shove him back in, which only made Mack cry harder.

“It’s okay,” Karen told Daisy. “I’ve got him.”

“If he gets to stay up, I do, too,” Daisy said, her face setting stubbornly.

“No,” Karen said, holding on to her temper by a thread. “You need to get some sleep. You have school in the morning.”

“It’s not fair,” Daisy wailed.

“I don’t care if it’s fair or not. It’s the way it is,” Karen told her, even as Mack continued to sob in her arms. “Please, sweetie, let me try to get your brother to settle down. Go back to sleep.”

“He’s making too much noise,” Daisy protested.

“Which is why I’m taking him with me into the other room,” Karen explained patiently. “Now, crawl back into bed and put your head down. You’ll be asleep in no time.”

After giving her mother one last mulish look, Daisy finally did as she’d asked. Karen bent over to press a kiss to her forehead, then carried Mack into the living room.

“Okay, sweetie, what’s up with this?” she asked, resting a hand against Mack’s damp, satin-soft cheek. “Do you have a fever? Or did you just have a bad dream?”

Mack whimpered and stared back at her, his dark blue eyes swimming with tears. He clung to Karen’s neck with a viselike grip. When Karen tried to loosen the hold, Mack started sobbing again.

“Oh, baby, what is it? Please calm down. Mommy’s here. Everything’s fine.” She settled into an old wooden rocker she’d found at a flea market before Daisy was born and tried rocking Mack back to sleep. It used to work like a charm, but tonight every time Mack’s eyes started to drift shut, he’d yank himself awake and starting crying loudly all over again. Nothing Karen tried seemed to soothe him.

With each new round of sobs, Karen’s nerves stretched a little tighter. When Daisy appeared, begging for a glass of water, something inside her snapped.

“No!” she shouted. “I want you back in bed right this instant!”

Her daughter stared at her for a heartbeat, obviously startled by her sharp tone, and then she began to cry, too. The sound of the two of them rose to a pitch that left Karen shaking with rage and dismay. Completely overwhelmed, she all but ran out of her apartment and across the hall, with Mack still in her arms and Daisy trailing behind. Oblivious to the late hour, she knocked frantically on Frances’s door.

“What on earth?” Frances said when she responded to Karen’s knock wearing a bathrobe, her hair in curlers. She took one look at Karen and the two squalling children and led them inside, where a TV was tuned in to a late-night talk show. Taking Mack from Karen’s arms, she began patting his back, then sent Daisy into the kitchen for a glass of water.

Her soothing, matter-of-fact tone accomplished what Karen had been unable to. Both children quieted down almost immediately.

“I can’t do it,” Karen told Frances, swiping at her own tears. Never in her life had she imagined herself as the kind of mom who could snap in an instant and hit one of her children or even yell the way she had at Daisy. “I can’t handle this another minute. I’m afraid of what will happen if I try.”

“Come now,” Frances murmured, soothing her as if she were one of the distraught children. “You’re a good mother. You brought them over here, didn’t you? You would never hurt these babies.”

“Oh, God,” Karen said. “It makes me sick to even think I could.”

“Then we’ll see what we can do to fix this,” Frances told her in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone. “You just leave these two with me for now, okay? Go back to your place and take a little nap.”

“I can’t leave them with you! It’s too much.”

“We’ll be fine. You need a decent night’s sleep. I don’t want to see you back here before tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to speak to Dana Sue and explain what’s happened.”

“You can’t do that,” Karen protested. “It will be the last straw. I know it will.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Frances admonished firmly. “She’ll understand. I’ll make sure of that. Now, go. The kids and I will be fine tonight and I can get them off to school and day care in the morning. I have a key so I can get their clothes and I know the routine.”

“Are you sure?” Karen asked halfheartedly. The idea of sleeping through an entire night lured her like some kind of lighthouse showing her the way home. Uninterrupted sleep would be a godsend.

“I’m sure,” Frances said. “We’ll talk some more tomorrow. You come over here when you wake up and I’ll fix you a nice, big breakfast.”

Impulsively, Karen went back and threw her arms around Frances and the now sleeping Mack. “Thank you. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here. And thanks for offering to speak to Dana Sue.”

Even if Dana Sue did fire her in the morning, an entire night in bed when she didn’t have to listen for the sound of the kids waking and a morning when she might actually awake refreshed, rather than exhausted would be worth it. She couldn’t go on as she had been. Tonight had proved that.

Defeated, she dragged herself back across the hall and
climbed into bed. Clutching her pillow, she started to sob, letting out all the frustration and fear that had been bottled up inside for weeks now. She didn’t know what tomorrow might hold, but it had to be better than this emotional roller coaster she’d been on.

T
he phone call woke Helen out of a sound sleep. Used to snapping awake to deal with legal emergencies that occasionally befell her clients, she was sitting on the edge of the bed with the light on and pen in hand to take notes before she even picked up the receiver.

“Helen, it’s Dana Sue. We have a situation,” she said, sounding shaken.

“What kind of situation?” Helen inquired, her stomach dropping. The last time Dana Sue had had a middle-of-the-night crisis, her daughter had been taken to the hospital with complications from anorexia. Fearing the worst, she asked, “Is it Annie?”

“No, it’s Karen.”

“Karen? I don’t understand. What’s going on with her at this hour? And why call me?”

“Please, can you just come over to her apartment now? I’m already here and I’ll explain when you get here.”

Never one to waste time asking unnecessary questions in a crisis, especially when it was one of the Sweet Magnolias asking for her help, Helen jotted down the address. “I’m on my way. Give me ten minutes.”

“Thanks.”

Helen yanked on a pair of slacks and a blouse without bothering to tuck it in. She shoved her feet into a pair of expensive backless slides that were about as casual as any shoes she owned. Grabbing her briefcase out of habit on the way out, she was on her way in under five minutes.

When she arrived across town at the apartment building where Karen lived, she noted that lights were blazing in both of the downstairs apartments despite the lateness of the hour. As soon as she entered the building, Dana Sue greeted her and pulled her into an apartment on the right.

“Karen’s had some kind of breakdown,” she said, her voice low and her gaze directed at a closed door to what was most likely a bedroom in the cramped unit. “Her neighbor called me after Karen knocked on her door and woke her up, pleading with her for help. She told me Karen was afraid she was going to hurt her kids. Frances—you know her, right? Frances Wingate…?”

Helen nodded. Frances had taught them all when they were in school. She’d been strict, but fair, and she definitely wasn’t prone to exaggeration. If she was afraid for Karen and the kids, then there was reason to be afraid.

Trying to keep herself from overreacting, she asked, “Did she hit them? Shake them?”

“No, they’re both fine,” Dana Sue said. “But Karen’s in the bedroom. She’s pretty hysterical. Frances was going to wait to call me in the morning, because she thought Karen would go to bed and get a good night’s sleep. But she came over to check on her and Karen was locked in her bedroom, sobbing. Frances called me to ask what I thought she ought to do. She thought Karen might need medical attention or something.”

“So naturally you came running over,” Helen said.

“Of course. What was I supposed to do? Karen’s my employee and a friend. She’s obviously completely distraught. She wouldn’t open the bedroom door for me. I thought about getting Ronnie over here to break it down so we could take her to the hospital, but I was afraid to do that. I wasn’t sure if social services would have to come and take the kids. That’s why I wanted you here before we did anything.”

Helen nodded. “Let me talk to her. Are the kids okay across the hall for now?”

Dana Sue nodded. “You know Frances. She’s completely unflappable. Apparently the kids stay with her a lot when Karen has to run an errand or something. At her age, she can’t keep them all the time, but she obviously adores them. She’s like a grandmother. I don’t think either Daisy or Mack understand what’s going on. They’re both asleep now.”

Satisfied that the children were unharmed and safe for now, Helen knocked on the bedroom door. “Karen, it’s Helen. Please let me in so we can talk. Whatever’s going on, I want to help.”

“Go away,” Karen pleaded. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this. I’ll be okay if I just get some sleep.”

“It doesn’t sound to me as if you’re even close to falling asleep. Talking things out will unburden you, help you to relax,” Helen said. “I know I can never sleep when my mind’s racing a hundred miles an hour.”

Her comment was greeted with silence, so she tried again. “I hope you’re not worried that if you talk to me, I’m going to go running to Dana Sue. She’s already gone back to Frances’s apartment. This will be just between the two of us.”

“Just go away,” Karen pleaded again. “I need to figure things out for myself.”

“Figure out what?” Helen coaxed. “Tell me. Two minds are always better than one. Whatever’s going on, I can help you sort through it.”

“Dana Sue should never have called you,” Karen said. “I don’t need a lawyer.”

“How about a friend?” Helen asked gently. “Please let me be a friend.”

A long minute passed before a key finally turned in the lock. The door remained closed, but when Helen tried the knob, it opened. Inside the pitch-black bedroom, she felt for a switch and turned on the overhead light. Karen was sprawled facedown on the bed wearing an old chenille bathrobe, her hair disheveled and her face blotchy from crying. She regarded Helen apologetically, then buried her face in the pillow.

“I’m so sorry Dana Sue dragged you out in the middle of the night,” Karen said, her words muffled. “I’m sorry she got dragged into this, too. I hate having my boss all caught up in my personal drama.”

Helen sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. “Stop worrying about that. It’s not important. Can you tell me what happened?”

Karen nodded, her expression bleak. “I’ve been feeling more and more overwhelmed, you know. About my job. About money. Ray’s still not paying child support, and even though Tess and I worked out that plan with Dana Sue, I’m still not pulling my weight at the restaurant. Dana Sue’s been great about it, but I know Erik thinks I’m taking advantage of her. And, face it, she can’t pay me when I’m not there, so my salary’s not what it was. And it seems like every time I turn around one of the kids is sick again. It’s too much. I can’t cope anymore.”

“What happened tonight?” Helen prodded carefully.

“My three-year-old—that’s Mack—woke up crying,” she began, her voice catching on a sob. She swiped at the tears on her cheeks with the sleeve of her robe. “Nothing I did calmed him down.” Again, her voice hitched. “And then Daisy got mad because Mack was getting all my attention, so she started acting out.”

The look she directed at Helen begged her to understand. “They’ve both had tantrums before, but not at the same time, and not when I was already at the end of my rope. I could feel myself losing control. When I realized I just wanted to shake Mack to make him stop crying and then I yelled at Daisy, I knew I had to do something, so I went across the hall and asked Frances for help. She insisted on taking them, but they can’t stay there indefinitely. I have to figure out something else, at least until I can trust myself with them again.”

“You did exactly the right thing by taking them to Frances,” Helen soothed her. “Recognizing that you were at your wit’s end is a good thing, Karen.”

Karen suddenly regarded her with alarm. “Nobody will try to take them away from me because of this, will they?”

“Not if I can help it,” Helen stated. “But you do need to get some help, you know that, don’t you? You can’t just tough it out and hope all these feelings will disappear.”

Karen nodded, looking defeated. “But I can’t check in to a hospital. I’ll lose my job and my kids for sure, if I do that.”

Helen knew that was a strong possibility, so she couldn’t disagree with her. “How about this?” she said. “We’ll arrange for some counseling sessions. Dana Sue knows a psychologist, a Dr. McDaniels, who helped her daughter conquer her eating disorder. Maybe she can make arrangements for you
to see her first thing in the morning and schedule some regular sessions every day for a couple of weeks.”

“But that’s bound to be expensive,” Karen protested.

“You have health insurance at the restaurant, right?” Helen asked. “That should cover it. If it doesn’t, we’ll figure something out. The main thing is to see someone who can help you calm down and get some perspective. Maybe Dr. McDaniels can offer you better ways to cope with your stress. Then we’ll see where we stand.”

“And the kids could stay here with me?” Karen asked hopefully.

Helen was less sure about the wisdom of that. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. Right now, they’re just adding to your stress. I think you need some time to get yourself strong again. That doesn’t mean I think you’re a bad mother, Karen. Not at all. I just think you’re worn out and need a break.”

“But what about the kids?” Karen asked worriedly. “Frances and the sitter could help some, but they can’t keep them.”

“There’s foster care,” Helen began, but practically before the words were out of her mouth, Karen was shaking her head.

“Absolutely not,” she said fiercely. “I don’t want my kids with strangers. Besides, once they get into the system, it’ll be hard to get them out. I know that firsthand. I was bounced around foster homes most of my life because my mother couldn’t get her life together. I swore I’d never repeat that pattern.” She buried her face in her hands. “God, I feel like such a failure. I always judged my mom for not being able to cope and here I am, exactly like her.”

“Okay,” Helen said, “how about this? I’ll take them temporarily.” The words were uttered before she could talk
herself out of the crazy, impulsive idea, but surprisingly she had no inclination to take them back. “They can stay with me. We’ll keep the same sitter and I’ll make sure Frances comes by for a visit every day so they won’t feel too uprooted. You can come over, too, as much as you want to.”

“But I can’t ask you to do that,” Karen said, looking stunned. “They’re a handful. You’ve never had kids. You have no idea of what you’d be letting yourself in for.”

“Oh, I have some idea,” Helen said, thinking of the times Maddie’s kids had stayed overnight with her. Of course, this would be more than a one-night sleepover, but surely she could manage, especially with the help of the sitter and Frances. And she could see just how adept she’d be at juggling work demands with caring for children. Maybe that was the real reason she’d offered, not out of some burst of generosity, but out of selfishness. If fear of failure was holding her back from making a decision about having her own child, this would be a good test. She didn’t have time now, though, to analyze her motives further. The offer was on the table.

“Well?” she asked Karen. “Would you be okay with that?”

“Of course,” Karen said with obvious relief. For the first time since Helen’s arrival, her face lost its pinched, desperate expression.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Helen said decisively. “You pack up a few things for them. I’ll speak to Dana Sue about setting up those appointments with the psychologist for you first thing in the morning. Maybe you should come with me tonight and stay over at my place, too. It’ll make the transition a little easier for the kids. Or we can let the kids sleep tonight and I’ll get them tomorrow.”

“That would be best, especially if they’re finally asleep,”
Karen said. “Are you really sure about this? I don’t want to disrupt your life any more than I already have. I already owe you for saving my job.”

“It’ll be okay,” Helen assured her, then went in search of Dana Sue, who’d returned to Karen’s apartment and was waiting in the living room for Helen to emerge.

When she’d explained the plan, Dana Sue stared at her incredulously. “You’re taking them in? All of them, including Karen?”

“Karen will come with me tonight,” Helen said. “I don’t think she ought to stay here alone. Tomorrow, she’ll help me get the kids settled and I’ll take them to school. She’ll come back here, if the doctor says it’s okay. She just needs some time to get her bearings. She also needs to get back on track at work. This will give her a little freedom to do that without worrying about her kids.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?” Dana Sue demanded. “Are you even equipped to have an instant family under your roof, even for a couple of weeks? You’ve got a house filled with breakable antiques, for heaven’s sake!”

“I’ll manage,” Helen said. Her organizational skills kicked in. “As soon as I get home, I’ll stuff the breakables into a closet or something. I’ll make a list of everything I need from the store and have it delivered first thing tomorrow. You can help me with that. I’ll get their schedule from Karen and make sure they get to day care and school. Her sitter will come to my house. I’ll have Frances visit every afternoon, too.”

Dana Sue shook her head. “I should have known you’d come up with a thorough strategy in ten seconds or less,” she said wryly. “One thing you ought to consider, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Kids tend to make mincemeat out of plans. They’re not predictable.”

Helen heard the concern in her friend’s voice, but shrugged it off. “Then this will be a good test of my flexibility, won’t it?”

Dana Sue gave her a worried look. “That’s my point, sweetie. You’re not flexible.”

“If I’m ever going to have a child of my own, I’ll have to be,” Helen said. “This will be excellent practice, even better than having Maddie’s kids or Annie underfoot for a night.”

“You’re really sure you want to do this?”

Helen nodded. Mixing with her carefully banked fears, she felt a faint stirring of excitement.

“Okay, then,” Dana Sue said briskly. “I’ll help Karen pack up their things. You might want to at least peek at the kids. If you’re going to take them home tomorrow, it’ll help if you can at least recognize them.”

“Not funny,” Helen said, though she was filled with trepidation as she crossed the hall and went in to speak to Frances, who guided her into a guest room where both children were sleeping soundly.

One glance at those sweet, innocent faces and Helen knew she was doing the right thing. She would care for and protect them ’til Karen could take over again. How hard could it be?

“They look like little angels, don’t they?” Frances asked.

“They do,” Helen confirmed.

“Don’t believe it,” Frances said, her voice threaded with amusement and affection. “They’re little hellions, same as all kids that age. You come by first thing tomorrow and I’ll go with you to drop them off at school and day care. I’ll
be by your place tomorrow afternoon just in case you’re tearing your hair out.”