Her Mother's Shadow (11 page)

“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?”

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 into 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.”

Mackenzie had no response to what had to be an alarming revelation, but it was clear she was lost in her own thoughts.

“We were arguing when we got hit,” she said. “I was yelling at her. I don't think she was paying attention to her driving.”

Lacey instantly understood; she'd suffered from survivor's guilt herself after her own mother's death. “Oh, Mackenzie,” she said, “it wasn't your fault. The man who hit your car was drunk. He is totally responsible for what happened.”

Mackenzie grew quiet again, and Lacey wasn't sure what more to say. An announcement came over the loudspeaker. Lunch would be served shortly, the male voice said, followed by the second
Lord of the Rings
movie.

“Awesome,” Mackenzie said, with the first genuine smile Lacey had seen on her face.

“You're a
Lord of the Rings
fan?” she asked.

“I've seen the first one four times and the second one three times.”

“And you want to see it again?”

Mackenzie looked at her. “Elijah Wood,” she said, as if that explained everything.

They sat through the movie and as soon as it was over, the plane began to bounce a bit, ever so slightly, not even enough to make the captain turn on the seat-belt sign. Mackenzie paled again, though, her hands once more clutching the armrests. Lacey tried to talk to her to take her mind off her discomfort.

“What kinds of things do you like to do?” Lacey asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you have any hobbies or anything?”

“I don't want to talk right now.”

Lacey wondered if she was feeling sick. She felt a little queasy herself.

“Well,” she said, “you don't have to talk. Just listen, instead. I'm going to tell you about who's picking us up at the airport and who you'll be living with.” It did not seem the time to tell her that they would be booted out of Kiss River in less than a year, when the museum opened. Mackenzie couldn't think past the next moment, much less the next year. Let her get used to one uprooting at a time.