The House On Sugar Plum Lane. Judy Duarte

been two calls from Kathy Webber, the director, asking where Amy was, each one getting a little more panicky. Then a third, telling her she’d had to drop off Callie at the home of another teacher who lived near the school, a new hire Amy had never met.

      “I can’t believe this,” Amy had said, her voice a couple of octaves higher. “You forgot to pick her up! What kind of father forgets his own child?”

      “I’m sorry, honey. I was busy, and…it just slipped my mind.”

      Had Callie been left in the care of someone she’d known, someone she’d been comfortable with, Amy might have been annoyed with Brandon instead of furious. But by the time she’d arrived at the new teacher’s house, her daughter had been sobbing hysterically.

      “Mommy!” she’d cried before racing across the room and flinging her arms around Amy in desperation. “I thought you died and went to Heaven, just like Grammy. And I was scared that nobody would find me. And that I would be all alone forever and ever.”

      “She’s been inconsolable ever since Miss Kathy left,” the teacher had said. “I’m so glad you finally got here. I didn’t know what to do.”

      Maybe Amy’s grief after having just lost her own mother had fired her up. Maybe all the times Brandon had failed to call home or show up at a family event, all the times he’d let her down or disappointed her, came crashing in on her, too. But that no longer mattered.

      Amy had scooped her daughter into her arms, held her tight and swayed back and forth, softly shushing her. “I love you, sweetheart. And I promise that I’ll never let anything like this happen to you again.”

      And she wouldn’t.

      Brandon’s final act of abandonment, which might have traumatized his daughter for life, had been the last straw.

      Once Amy had returned to the house with Callie, she’d told Brandon that he would have to attend the dinner party alone. And by the time he’d gotten home, she’d packed her bags.

      “I hate this house and all it represents,” she’d told him. “So don’t worry about me wanting to keep it in the settlement. I’ll take the condo in Del Mar.”

      “You want a divorce because I made a mistake?” he’d asked.

      He’d made a lot of mistakes.

      How could a man forget his own daughter? she’d asked herself time and again.

      Clearly, Brandon Masterson had never been cut out to be a father. Some men weren’t.

      Maybe some women hadn’t been meant to be mothers, either.

      Her thoughts drifted to Barbara Rucker, who’d grown up in the house on Sugar Plum Lane. There could be a hundred reasons why she’d given up her baby girl in September of 1966. Maybe she’d been young and unmarried. Maybe she’d been unable to care for a child, not just unwilling.

      Time, Amy supposed, and a little snooping would tell.

      She just hoped she wouldn’t regret stirring up the past.

      Chapter 2

      That same night, next door to the old Rucker house on Sugar Plum Lane, Maria Rodriguez knelt beside the tub and watched her three-year-old son play with his Winnie-the-Pooh bath toys.

      “Boing, boing,” he said, bouncing a plastic Tigger across the water’s surface and causing a splatter to slosh over the edge and onto the floor.

      Maria couldn’t help noting that the linoleum, which had once been a bright yellow and blue pattern, had dulled with age and curled away from the cracked gray caulking around the tub, revealing a strip of plywood underneath.

      She’d have to add “bathroom floor” to the growing list of things that needed to be refurbished or repaired around the house, although she had very little money to spare on fix-it projects. And she had far less time.

      It seemed that there were never enough hours in the day. What she wouldn’t give to be able to slip away by herself for a while, to talk to someone who could actually carry on a quality conversation. If she still worked outside the home, she’d have coworkers with whom she could connect, but as it was, she was limited to chatting with her boarders or her children, which wasn’t the same.

      Ever since Hilda and Walter Klinefelter, who’d become self-appointed grandparents to her children and a godsend when it came to friendship and support, had left on a three-week European cruise, Maria’s days had stretched into each other. Still, she was happy for the elderly couple who’d fallen in love during their golden years. Truly.

      But today, it seemed, had been more trying than usual, and she was winding down fast.

      If she had a few extra minutes, she’d brew herself a cup of chamomile tea—or maybe even pour a glass of wine. Then she’d find a good book and sink into a warm bath herself. But much to her dismay, her workday was far from over.

      As little Walter—Wally for short—spun toward the back of the tub and reached for a miniature Pooh, the water sloshed against the sides again, threatening to spill over.

      That’s what she got for asking Sara to fill the bath. Sometimes it was easier doing things herself.

      “Two more minutes,” she said, warning Wally that bath time was almost over.

      “No, not yet!”

      It was amazing, she thought. She had to drag the child kicking and screaming to the tub, then had to fight twice as hard to get him out again. She reached for the pale blue towel she’d taken out of the linen closet earlier and had left on the tile counter near the sink.

      “Mommy!” five-year-old Sara screeched from the open doorway. “Danny’s calling me names again!”

      Maria blew out a weary sigh.

      “He called me a girl,” the child added, crossing her arms across her chest.

      “You are a girl, honey.”

      “I know. But Danny said it like it was a bad thing.”

      She supposed the squabble wasn’t a big deal, but Danny had once been so sweet and helpful, and in the past month he’d grown surly and difficult. No matter what she did, what she said, he seemed to slip further away from the child he’d once been.

      Holding back another weary sigh, she slowly got to her feet. “I’ll talk to him as soon as I get your little brother out of the bathtub and help him put on his pajamas. In the meantime, go get your nightgown and a towel. It’s your turn for a bath.”

      “Oh, o-kay.” Sara turned and stomped off in a huff.

      As her daughter padded down the hall, Maria reached into the bathtub and pulled out the plug to drain the water.

      “No!” Wally screeched. “I’m not done.”

      Maybe not, but Maria was. She lifted him from the tub, and he kicked and whined in a last-ditch attempt at defiance. Then she stood him on the floor and draped the towel around him as water pooled onto the floor.

      What she wouldn’t give to have someone with whom she could share the parent load, especially in the evenings, but she’d been on her own for nearly four years now. And nights were the worst.

      Not that she wanted her ex-husband back.

      Her children’s father had been her teenage crush, but he’d proven to be anything but family oriented. And even if he’d wanted to be a solid and dependable part of their lives, he still had several years left to serve in prison following a fatal altercation with the jealous husband of the woman he’d been seeing.

      He wrote occasionally, but only to Danny, since Maria had not only refused to provide him with a phony alibi, she’d let him know in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want anything to do with him.

      She really didn’t want him contacting