Reclaim My Heart (15 page)
The mere thought of seeing her parents caused her hands to tremble. They’d brow-beaten her to the point that they’d wrung every ounce of self-worth out of her; by the time she’d left for Florida, she’d felt, ss caused like an old cleaning rag, floppy and completely used up. But despite all her hurt and anger, she still felt guilty that she’d disappointed them, and that triggered a strong annoyance at herself for allowing them to manipulate her. God, what a vicious cycle of negative emotion. She released her hold on the bowl and the spatula, rested her palms on the countertop and gulped in a deep breath.
She
was
being chased. By the past. And it was surely going to catch her.
A couple of hours later, that’s exactly what happened.
She had pulled the three round layer cakes from the oven and set them on the counter to cool. Then, with the rich scent of warm chocolate hanging heavy in the air, she’d taken a long soak in the tub with a good paperback and realized what a luxury a mid-morning bath could be. She’d gotten dressed, dried her hair, reapplied her makeup and was pulling out the whipping cream to make the filling for the cake when the doorbell rang.
The screen in the door obscured the man who stood on the front step, but before she had a chance to voice a greeting, her brain kicked in.
“Daddy.”
Funny how a single word could make her feel twelve years old again.
“Tyne, honey. It’s so good to see you.”
Shock froze her muscles, solid as ice. His hair was still thick and wavy, but instead of the rich chestnut she remembered, it had gone granite gray. And his smile pressed deep grooves all over his fleshy face. He must have put on forty pounds or more since she’d last seen him.
“Earl called me last night, honey.” Her father lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “He said he and Vera had run into you.”
So Vera had kept her word. Sort of. But she got her husband to rat her out. Damn it.
“Tyne?”
The timidity she heard in his voice sounded utterly foreign to her. Her father had always been assured to the point of being imposing. Frighteningly so.
“Honey?” He blinked, waited, and when she said nothing, he asked, “Will you invite me to come in for a minute?”
He looked so…old. So…unsure. All of a sudden, she felt the same.
The metal handle of the screen door was cool against her fingers when she pushed it open. Her dad stepped over the threshold, but didn’t move any further.
She feared he meant to wrap his arms around her, but she didn’t think she was ready for that. Physically, he was close, awkwardly close, as he gazed into her face, yet the accusations and blame and disappointment jarring her insides were as spiky and dividing as a barbed wire fence.
There was no graceful way to move away from the door, away from him, but that didn’t stop her from trundling backward a few feet. She couldn’t miss the flash of dejection that clouded his gaze.
“Can I offer you something to drink?” she asked. The question had enough sharp edges to cut the most calloused of skin. So she tried hard to soften her tone when she added, “Tea, fruit juice, ice water?”
“No. Thank you. I can’t stay long. Have to get back to my office.” He rubbed his hands together, then let them fall to his sides. “I have a meeting with Mike Masters, the town treasurer, in an hour.” There was more palm rubbing as he shuffled from one foot to the other. “I would have been here earlier, but I had a breakfast meeting I couldn’t get out of—” his chuckle was forced “—it seemed to go on forever.”
Lots of people shared a common misconception; they attempted to crowd out the uneasiness in a room by filling the air with words.
He tipped up his chin and inhaled. “Something smells awfully good.”
Ambivalent about responding, she waited a moment or two. She’d developed her cooking skills to thg shin and e point that she earned her living on them with little help and absolutely no encouragement from this man. But it seemed absolutely rude not to make some kind of reply to his comment. Finally, she told him, “I baked a cake.”
He nodded, and silence settled over them.
“You look good, honey,” he said. “You’re a beautiful woman.” Pride shined in his smile. “The image of your mother.”
His eyes went misty.
When Tyne had been exiled to Florida for the duration of her pregnancy, she’d considered hacking off her hair and dying it flaming red or sable brown just so she wouldn’t be reminded of her mother every time she looked into the bathroom mirror, but she feared the chemicals might harm the baby, and once Zach had been born and she’d decided to go it on her own, food and lodging took priority over those things that became trivial matters, like the vanity of her appearance.
It seemed that someone had flipped her politeness-auto-pilot switch because she heard herself asking, “How is Mom?”
“She’s well. Still busy with her groups; bridge, garden club, tennis. She’s always out and about.” He smiled. “She’s been busy in the backyard. Had a pool put in. A pool house built. You wouldn’t recognize the place. She coordinated the whole project herself. Oh, and she joined the Red Hat Society.”
Tyne found it difficult to imagine her mother sporting a floppy red hat.
“She’s healthy. Fit and trim as ever,” her father said. Rubbing his paunch, he added, “Unlike me.”
A frown bit into her brow. “You’ve got health problems?”
Her silence for the past sixteen years might have revoked her right to even ask such a question.
“Oh, nothing serious, honey. A touch of arthritis, achy joints. The normal problems of aging, I guess you could say.” His grin went lopsided. “All those extra desserts I sneak don’t help, I’m sure.”
Her dad always had a voracious sweet tooth.
“How have
you
been, Tyne?”
The concern tugging his brows closer together seemed utterly sincere, and that touched her heart.
“I’ve been okay…”
Daddy,
a little girl’s voice inside her head nearly succeeded in adding. “I’ve been fine,” she amended. “Great, actually.”
His wide shoulders dropped and the corners of his mouth pulled back. “I’m so glad to hear it.” He toyed with the button on his suit jacket. “Your mother really wanted to come with me. But I made her stay home. I didn’t know how things would go. Didn’t know how you’d feel. How you’d be. If you’d even talk to me. I didn’t want her feelings to be hurt.”
Those same fears had made her break out in a sweat whenever she imagined running into her parents.
“Now,” he murmured, “I wish I’d brought her. She’d love to see you, sweetheart.”
Unable to think of a reply, she blurted, “How did you know where to find me?”
He just looked at her, then his gaze slid off her face as he said, “I’ve been here before. Years ago. During…you know.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I came to talk with the uncle.”
Just one more strategy in his plan to drive a wedge between her and Lucas back then. The anger that flared in her must have shown in her expression.
“Besides that,” he added, “these days, between the on-line property records and Google, you can find anything…or anyone.”
She offered a vague nod.
“Look, honey,” her father said, “I’m not proud of how I acted when—” He stopped short, then started again. “All of us could have made better decisions.”
“I made the best decisions for
me
,” sh>me when—e said tightly.
But she knew in her heart he was right. She could have kept the channels of communication open. She could have accepted the help they were willing to offer rather than letting her pride get in the way.
“I’m sure you did, honey. I didn’t come here to fight. Honestly, I didn’t.” He pulled his hands from his pockets, laced his fingers and steepled his thumbs at the apex of his diaphragm, close to his heart. “I came to tell you that your mother and I love you. That we’re sorry. That we’ve missed you terribly, Tyne. And we want to know if there’s anything we can do to be invited back into your life. Anything.”
For an instant, she forgot how to breathe while tears threatened to spill, and before she knew what was happening, she was in his arms. He smelled of familiar, spicy after shave and happy memories.
Yes, there had been good times, plenty of them, when she’d been a child growing up in Oak Mills. Their annual summer Saturday at Dutch Wonderland, even after she’d grown too old for the theme park. The hours her dad had spent pushing her on the tree swing he’d put up for her. The drives into the Pocono Mountains to see the autumn leaves. The picnics with fried chicken, creamy coleslaw and, of course, some scrumptious sweet her mother would make for them.
The laughter. The warmth. The love. She’d been so focused on the bad over the years that she’d forgotten all about the good times. And all it had taken to open the flood gates of her memory had been two tiny words.
We’re sorry
.
“I’ve missed you too, Dad,” she whispered against his neck. Tears squeezed out of her closed eyes, but she brushed them away before he released his hold on her.
He was as choked by emotion as she. He cleared his throat, his smile unsteady.
“Come to dinner tonight, honey,” he said. “Your mother would be so happy to see you.”
Tyne’s smile slipped, then it disappeared altogether. “I’m not here alone. Zachary is with me. My son.”
“Bring him along. We want to meet our grandson.”
“And Lucas,” she added. “I’m here with Lucas.”
“Bring him along too.” There was no hesitation in his voice as he merrily added, “It’ll be a family reunion.”
She paused, waiting for logic or instinct or some random sign of nature to tell her she’d be foolish to accept her dad’s invitation. But she felt nothing, heard nothing, and finally she smiled.
“Okay. We’ll come.” She remembered the cake sitting on the counter waiting to be filled and frosted. “I’ll bring dessert.”
Hours after her father had left, she whipped the heavy cream and sweetened it, filled the cake layers with cherries and was just smoothing the last of the chocolate butter cream frosting on top when she heard Zach and Lucas come into the house.
“Ma!” Zach shouted. “Is that chocolate cake I smell?”
“It sure is,” she called back.
He barreled into the kitchen, smiling. He clutched his bow in one hand and held the other out for her inspection. “Will chocolate and cherries cure a blister?”
“Another one?” She took his hand in hers for a closer look.
“Two,” he said proudly.
“He’s getting better with that thing.” Lucas came into the kitchen on Zach’s heels. “He’s hitting the bull’s eye more times than not.”
Her son’s fingers were grubby, but she could see small white blisters that had formed on the tips of his middle and ring fingers. She studied them longer than was necessary on purpose. When she finally looked up at Lucas, she floundered for words.
She lifted her eyes to her son’s face.
“Chocolate heals whatever ails you,whatever yo finally she told him, grinning.
“Mmmm. Can I have a piece now?” he asked.
“Oh, no. It’s for later.”
“But I’m wounded.”
“Don’t touch that cake.” She reached for a towel. “We’ve been invited to dinner,” she told them, striving to keep her voice cheery. “And I accepted. We’re taking that with us.”
“Where’re we going?” Zach asked, eyeing the left over sweetened whipped cream in the bowl on the counter.
“Wash your hands first,” Tyne ordered. “You don’t want those blisters getting infected.” She dried her fingers on the dishtowel while Zach moved to the kitchen sink and turned on the water.
Lucas moved closer to her.
“Did you have a good time?” she asked him.
He nodded, and then said, “So?”
“So…what?”
Lucas didn’t speak, ju
st looked at her peculiarly.
“You never said where we’re going to dinner, Mom.” Zach lathered liquid soap between his hands.
“Oh,” she said, as if she’d completely forgotten. She avoided Lucas’s eyes because she knew he was aware that she hadn’t.
“My father stopped by. We’re going to my parents’ for dinner.”
“Really?” Awe painted her son’s tone in bright shades of delight.
“Really?” Lucas’s reply was flat.
She had known Zach would be thrilled to meet his grandparents. And she’d guessed that Lucas wouldn’t relish the idea even though he’d suggested contacting her mom and dad some time ago. She’d been right…on both counts.
Looking from one to the other, she firmly pronounced, “
Really
.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“T
ake a left at
the light.” Tyne pointed even though Lucas was watching the road and couldn’t possibly have missed seeing the turn.
“I remember. Believe me.”
He’d been testy all afternoon. Visiting her parents wasn’t high on his ‘wanna do’ list. He hadn’t come right out and voiced that opinion, but his temperamental behavior had told her all she needed to know. She shouldn’t have sprung the news on him like she had; everyone wanted the courtesy of being asked rather than being told that plans had been made for them. She’d have to find some way to make it up to him.
“Hey, Mom,” Zach said. “I’ve been thinking. I’d like to get a tat.”
Surprise had Tyne blinking.
When she didn’t respond, he offered, “A tattoo.”
“I know what a tat is, Zach.”
“Not anything huge,” he breezed ahead. “Just something small. A feather maybe, or a—”
“No.”
“No?” he complained. “Just like that? But you didn’t even think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it. You’re fifteen years old. You don’t need to be marking up your body with—”
“Tyne.” Lucas glanced at her.
Something in Lucas’s black gaze made her pause, but she was too deep into her mother-lecture mode to stop now. “Zach, a tattoo is forever. What if you change your mind later on? And besides that, it’s a well-known fact that employers frown on hiring people with tattoos.”
“But
he’s
got one,” Zach said the words almost as an accusation. “And he’s got a
great
job.”
Tyne should have focused on the conversation, but in a flash she was back in that tattoo parlor with Lucas. She had been so damned excited, and she’d thought the idea of matching tattoos had been more romantic than anything on the face of the earth. Lucas had let ateveh Lucas her choose the design. She’d loved the dreamcatcher, a symbol of unity and protection, and Lucas hadn’t hesitated. He would have one put on his arm and she would have a smaller version tattooed on her shoulder blade.
That had been the plan, anyway. Once she’d seen how he’d clenched his jaw against the pain of the buzzing needles, she couldn’t go through with it. But she’d loved his tat. Loved the intricate design, the sacred beads woven into the delicate webbing, the regal feathers trailing down his arm beneath the circle. She remembered tracing her fingers over it every time they made love.
Zach leaned forward. “And
besides that
, he says
you
were gonna get one too.”
Tyne gasped. “Lucas! Why would you tell him that?”
Lucas didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”
She sighed in complete exasperation and then sat there trying to decide what to say to her son.
“Look, Zach,” she told him, “can we talk about this later? We have plenty of time to discuss the pros and cons of tattoos.”
Now it was her son’s turn to heave a sigh, but his was filled with frustration. “Whatever.”
“Yeah,” Lucas murmured, “we have enough to worry about tonight.”
Balancing the Black Forest cake on her lap, she softly said, “Dad apologized, Lucas.”
She’d told him this several times already. Lucas tossed her a swift glance.
“Look, I’m nervous enough,” she pleaded. “Your attitude isn’t helping matters. You were the one who suggested we go see them and get it over with, remember?”
A metallic click resounded, and for the third time Zach scooted to the edge of the rear seat and poked his head into the space between the two front bucket seats. “What’d he do?” The question was thick with curiosity. “My grandfather. What’d he do that he needed to apologize for?”
Tyne twisted around, sticking the tip of her thumb into the cake’s creamy frosting. “Zach! Now look what you made me do. If you take that seatbelt off one more time…”
She didn’t have to finish the threat. Zach slid back into the seat, tugged on the belt and secured it across his chest and lap.
Refusing to be put off, Zach repeated, “So what’d he do, Mom?”
Tyne glanced at Lucas, then faced forward, slipping her thumb into her mouth. The buttery frosting melted on her tongue.
How much should she tell her son? She wanted to caution him about what kind of people he was about to meet; it would have been irresponsible of her not to give him at least some warning. But she didn’t want to taint what could very well be an important evening for him. He was meeting his grandparents for the first time. Everyone should have pleasant memories of their parent’s parents, shouldn’t they?
Her father had apologized. He’d expressed his love for her. Said they’d missed her. Wanted back into her life. Maybe…just maybe they had both changed.
“Your grandparents,” Lucas said, zeroing in on Zach’s image in the rearview mirror, “were very unhappy with your mother when she became pregnant with you.”
Shifting in her seat, she saw that Zach had blanched. She glared at Lucas.
“So they did know about me?” Her son sounded upset. “You guys haven’t seen each other all these years because of me?”
“This has nothing to do with you,” she assured him as quickly and calmly as she could. “What happened back then was between me and them. I was very young. They had lots of plans for me. They wanted me to go to college. They wanted me to—”
“I can’t believe,” Lucas said, his tone heavy with incredulity, “you’re making excuses for how they acted.”
“I will say it again.” Her teeth were clenched. “You are not helping matters, Lucas.”
He looked at her. “He needs to know.”
Everything
, his sharp gaze advised.
Surrendering to her anger and blowing up on Lucas would have given her great satisfaction, but it would only deflect from what she already knew as fact. He was absolutely right. But how did you tell your son, who happened to be half Native American, that his grandparents were prejudiced?
She hadn’t a clue exactly what to say, she only knew she had to prepare him. Just in case her mom or dad ended up saying something insulting.
“I need to know what?”
Tyne turned, careful of the cake she balanced on her thighs. “Honey, there are things you should know about my mom and dad. They can be very…opinionated.”
The soft sound Lucas let loose sounded suspiciously like a snort. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Lucas, I’m trying to ease him into this, okay?” She glanced over her shoulder at Zach. “Honey, you know that station on TV? The one that advertises their news programs to be fair and balanced?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, your grandparents would never be interviewed by that network.”
Zach sat a moment, chewing over the information. “So, what you’re saying is they’re unfair and unbalanced?”
Lucas chuckled despite his ill humor. “Two for two. Way to go, Zach.”
Tyne struggled to hold back a smile. “Lucas, these are my parents we’re talking about,” she reminded him.
He shrugged, still smiling broadly. “If you don’t laugh at life, all you’d do is cry.”
“Whatever,” she intoned. “What I’m trying to explain, Zach, is that your grandparents aren’t very open-minded people, and—”
Her son’s gaze left her face to stare, his mouth parting, his eyes widening. “Whoa! Would you look at that!”
Lucas turned the steering wheel, the car bumping slightly onto the asphalt driveway. Tyne looked up the hill at the house she’d been raised in. A lovely, old Victorian, the house sat on a rise that afforded a beautiful view of the town, rolling hills, the wide, winding river. Lush vegetation deliberately placed to offer a variety of texture and color decorated the vast lawn.
“They could charge admission to this place.” Zach was taking it all in, glancing left and right as his father eased along the wide, curving driveway. “This looks like that place we visited. That botanist’s house. Remember?”
“Bartram’s Garden,” Tyne supplied.
“Yeah. That was it.”
As a single mother on a limited income, she’d become an expert at sniffing out inexpensive outings, places of interest to take her son to while away a long summer day.
An in-ground pool and pool house sat off to one side, the building sporting the same lacy gingerbread trim as the main house.
Lucas motioned to the pool house with a slight jerk of his head and murmured, “We could have used that when we were dating.”
She clamped her lips together to keep from grinning, but it was a failed attempt. Since they’d made love, there had been a deliciously playful air between the two of them. Even though Lucas was annoyed that she had obligated him by accepting her father’s invitation to dinner without asking him, it obviously hadn’t dampened the lively energy that danced between them.
“Zach,” Tyne tried again, “what I’ve been trying to tell you—”
“There they are,” Zach said, cutting her off.
Tyne shifted to face forward. Her parents stood waiting on the side porch, and the instant Lucas brought the car to a halt, they hurried downy hidth="5%"> the steps toward them.
With her blond hair cut in a short, fashionable style, her tailored capris and trendy blouse, Patricia Whitlock looked at least ten years younger than her husband. However, Tyne knew there was just a couple of year’s difference in their ages. Her mom’s eyes glittered with unadulterated excitement, and Tyne’s heart swelled with bittersweet pain.
“Zach,” Lucas said as he put the transmission into park, “I want you to try hard this evening not to react to anything you might hear or see.” He twisted around. “Son, I want you to keep a tight rein on your anger.” He glanced out the side passenger window at Tyne’s approaching parents. “We can talk about anything that bothers you on the way home. Understood?”
Although Zach’s brow knitted with confusion, he nodded silently.
Smiles could convey many different sentiments; the one she offered Lucas expressed her gratitude for his ability to tackle the bottom line with their son when she hadn’t been able to.
When Tyne stepped out of the car, her father smiled a greeting, kissed her cheek, took the cake plate from her hands, and then for the first time in almost sixteen years, she found herself in her mother’s arms. A child waking on Christmas morning couldn’t have been happier than she was at this moment. Sure, her inside churned with conflicting emotions and a heady sense of doubt, but this was her mom.
Her mom
.
Patricia pulled back to wordlessly gaze into her daughter’s eyes, pressing her palms against Tyne’s cheeks. The moment stretched out for an eternity.
Her mother has always had a tendency to teeter close to the line of kind, caring intimacy, sometimes crossing into an odd realm of intrusion. With her mom’s hands still pressed to her face, Tyne was reminded of the strange sense of invasiveness and claustrophobia her mother’s officious affection caused her. It had only gotten worse when she’d become a teen. She remembered once complaining that her mother meant to bleed the life out of her with those long, yearning looks.
Annoyed with herself for finding fault before she’d even had a chance to say a word to her mother, Tyne smiled and pulled away from the loving but clingy touch. “Hi, Mom. You look wonderful.”
“Oh, Tyne.” Her mother pressed her palm on her heart. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. I just can’t. There aren’t words.”
“Mom, Dad,” she said, turning and motioning Zach forward, “I’d like for you to meet my son, Zachary. Zach, these are your grandparents.”
The teen shook his grandfather’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Now, what’s all this ‘sir’ stuff?” Richard Whitlock asked. “I’d be happy if you’d call me Granddad.” His brow furrowed. “If you want to, that is.”
Zach only nodded, his whole face transformed by the offer as he continued to shake the man’s hand.
Patricia gave her grandson a big hug, and when she lifted her hands toward his face, Tyne quickly attracted her attention by touching her shoulder. Zach looked relieved.
“Mom, Dad,” Tyne said, shifting her self a quarter turn, “I’m sure you remember Lucas.”
“Of
course
.” Her mother hugged Lucas as if all that nasty name-calling and animosity of the past had never happened. “It’s so good to see you again.”
Lucas caught Tyne’s eye over the woman’s shoulder, sending a silent message of disbelief. He murmured, “Hello, Mrs. Whitlock.” Before Patricia could get her hands on his face, he took a quick sidestep and thrust his hand out toward Tyne’s father. “Mr. Whitlock.”
The wave of relief that hit Tyne was strong enough to make her lightheaded. Lucas intended to be civil. No one would have blamed him for acting otherwise.
“Mom, the place looks beautiful.” She let her gaze wander over the yard. “Dad told me you were busy with your gardening, but this is just amazing.” She lifted her hands and let her gaze scan from one corner of the property to the other. “Zach said you could charge an entry fee.”
Patricia beamed at the teen, then looked at her daughter. “I couldn’t handle this yard on my own. I have Martin’s Landscaping come in. You remember Mr. Martin. You went to school with his son, Mark.”
Indeed, Tyne remembered. Poor guy had environmental allergies and was always sporting some sort of angry rash that had him scratching his skin raw. His condition wasn’t excuse enough to keep his father from pressing him into service on weekends, school holidays and summer breaks.
“Mark went to chiropractic school,” Patricia said. “He’s got an office in Lancaster.”
Tyne nodded, happy to hear he’d found a way to change his career path.
“Mr. Martin comes himself to supervise the crew and I appreciate that so much.” Patricia wrinkled her nose. “His workers are mostly Mexican, or Cuban, or Guatemalan. Puerto Rican?” She shook her head, lifting her shoulders dismissively. “Something like that.”
“Hispanic?” Tyne supplied.
“Yes.” Her mom nodded. “But they do a great job.”
But?
Tyne shook her head, wanting to press the issue; however, she thought it best to bite her tongue.
“I’ll take this inside,” Richard said, lifting the cake he held in his hands. “It looks delicious, Tyne. There’s fresh lemonade over by the gazebo.”