Life Happens. Sandra Steffen

Elle snorted, but she petted the overweight cat. “Don’t you think it’s weird for a man to have three cats?”

      “They were strays.” Mya couldn’t help wondering if that was how Jeffrey saw her.

      “He doesn’t seem like your type.”

      Tucking her dressing gown around her legs, Mya said, “You’re as bad as Claire. Jeff’s made me see reason so many times. I don’t smoke anymore. I rarely swear. I haven’t even given other drivers the finger in ages.”

      “So you’re marrying him because he makes you see reason?”

      “Of course that’s not why I’m marrying him.”

      “Then you’re madly in love with him?”

      Mya wished it was easier to nod.

      Elle looked over at Kaylie. “I thought I was in love with Kaylie’s father, but he cleared out as soon as the wand turned blue. Good riddance.”

      “He sounds like a fool.”

      “Yeah,” Elle said. “Your mother said the Donahue women don’t make good choices when it comes to men.”

      Their gazes met, held.

      “Is that what my birth father was?” Elle whispered. “A bad choice?”

      Outside, a branch scraped against the siding. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. A few feet away, Kaylie made noises in her sleep. Elle didn’t move a muscle, and looked as if she could wait all night if she had to. Mya knew she’d waited long enough.

      They both had.

      CHAPTER 4

       “H is name was Dean Laker.” His name rolled off Mya’s tongue as if it hadn’t been nineteen years since every other word had been Dean.

      “Was?” Elle whispered.

      “Is. His name is Dean Laker.” Time obscured many things, but it hadn’t dulled her memory of him, tall and lanky, stubborn and proud, impatient with life but not with her, cocky and arrogant, except the day he’d gone to see her when it was all over. It wasn’t the first time he’d told her to go to hell, but it was the first time she’d seen him cry.

      “I met Dean when my mother and I moved to Keepers Island when I was nine. His was the first face I saw when I walked into that little classroom of strangers. He stuck his tongue out at me, and when I didn’t flinch, he sat back, studying me closer, and I knew I’d passed some secret, unspoken test.”

      Elle stopped petting the cat, focusing completely on Mya. “If you knew his name, why did you leave the box blank on my birth certificate?”

      Mya didn’t even have to close her eyes to relive the moment when, sitting on the edge of the bed, pen in hand, she’d hesitated over that space on the form. Her mother had gone out for a smoke and probably another good cry, so Mya was alone in her hospital room. In an effort to make things easier for her, she’d been given a room away from the other mothers. Mya felt isolated and scared and, God, she’d wished—never mind what she’d wished. She’d grasped her right hand to stop the shaking, and had wound up staring at her left hand. Her ring finger was bare by then.

      Nineteen years later, she sat in a quiet bedroom searching for words that still wouldn’t come. “When I look back on my life, it’s as if the decisions I made and the events that led to them are lined up like dominoes a moment before the first one topples. So many times I’ve wondered what might have happened if I’d done one thing differently. Just one. Any one. But that day, I left the box blank because I was seventeen and I’d gone through twenty-three hours of labor, and I’d just spoken with a social worker, and my mother had done almost nothing but cry and I refused to give in and cry again, too.”

      “You and Dean Laker, my birth father weren’t still together then?” Elle asked.

      Of everything she’d said, Mya was surprised Elle had chosen that to question. “Dean and I broke up three weeks before you were born.”

      “Does he still live around Maine somewhere?”

      “Yes.”

      “Do you ever see him?”

      “No.”

      “Never?”

      “The last time I saw him was eight years ago when I went back to Keepers Island to attend his father’s funeral.”

      Elle seemed to be putting everything Mya said to memory. “Did you talk to him that day?”

      “With the whole town looking on?” Mya made an unbecoming sound. “He took his dad’s death hard, and besides, he was surrounded by his family.”

      “So he had a wife and a couple of kids by then?”

      Mya shook her head.

      “He isn’t married, either?”

      “No.”

      “Are you sure?” Elle spoke more loudly than before, then glanced at Kaylie, who slept on.

      Puzzled by the question, Mya said, “I’m sure, Elle. My mother would have told me.”

      “How would she know?”

      “She goes back to visit friends every summer.”

      “But you don’t?”

      Again, Mya shook her head. Some things were just too painful.

      After taking a moment to absorb that, Elle said, “What does he look like?”

      She studied Elle, feature by feature. Her pupils were dilated in the semidarkness, so that only thin a ring of brown encircled them. The diamond stud in her nose looked real. Even at her young age, there was a slight furrow in her brow. Mya had been on the receiving end of the girl’s attitude, and yet it was apparent that Elle hadn’t had an easy life these past few years. The heaviness that so often lurked deep in Mya’s chest moved front and center. “A few minutes ago,” she said, “when you smiled, I caught a glimpse of him. His hair is dark, though, and his eyes are blue, like Kaylie’s. His nose has a little bump right here.” She pointed to a spot on her own nose.

      “Did he break it in a bar fight or something?” Elle asked.

      “He caught a kick ball in the face at recess when we were in the fifth grade. They called an honorary out, due to all the blood. It cost me my home run, and my team the game.”

      Elle’s eyes widened with humor. “Did he blame you?”

      The double meaning drained the smile out of both of them. Mya didn’t even try to answer.

      Interestingly, Elle didn’t pursue it. “What does he do?”

      “He’s a builder. He got his start doing odd jobs like shoring up porches and cleaning gutters and pointing brick. Word spread, and before long he had orders from the summer people who wanted decks and family rooms, additions and new kitchens. His brother works with him now. To hear my mother tell it, they’re extremely successful.”

      “He has a brother?”

      The question gave Mya pause. “He has two. And five nephews.”

      “Then I have cousins, on that side at least. What about on the Donahue family tree?”

      Mya shook her head, confused. “I’m an only child and so was my mother.”

      “Where is your father?”

      “I have no idea. I’ve never met the man.” When Elle looked at Kaylie again, Mya knew she was seeing a pattern.

      Elle said, “Your mother told me she buried two husbands.”

      “And divorced another.”

      “She was married three times?” Elle asked, surprised.

      “She