Wedding Vows: With This Ring. Barbara Hannay

stemmed not so much from professional interest as from a dark past he thought he had left behind.

      “No,” she said, “but I think I can imagine the desperation of it.”

      “Can you?” he said cynically.

      Without warning a memory popped over the barrier of the thick, high wall he had constructed around the compartment of his childhood.

       So hungry. Not a crumb of food in the house. Going into Sam’s, the bakery at the corner of his street, Houston’s heart beating a horrible tattoo in his chest, his mouth watering from the smells and the sights of the freshly baked bread. Looking around, it was crowded, no one paying any attention to him. Sam’s back turned. Houston’s hands closing around one of the still-warm loafs in a basket outside the counter, stuffing it under his thin jacket. Lifting his eyes to see Sam looking straight at him. And then Sam turning away, saying nothing, and Houston feeling the shame of the baker’s pity so strongly he could not eat the bread. He brought it home to his mother, who had been indifferent to the offering, uncaring of what it had cost him.

      Molly was looking at him, understandably perplexed by the question.

      Stop it, he ordered himself. But another question came out anyway, clipped with unexpected anger. “Out of work?”

      “I don’t suppose the summer I chose to volunteer here instead of taking a paying job counts, does it?”

      “The fact you could make a choice to volunteer instead of work indicates to me you have probably not known real hardship.”

      “That doesn’t make me a bad person!” she said sharply. “Or unqualified for my job!”

      “No,” he said, taking a deep breath, telling himself to smarten up. “Of course it doesn’t. I’m just saying your frame of reference when choosing projects may not take into account the harsh realities the people you are helping live with.”

       Another memory popped over that wall. His father drunk, belligerent, out of work again. Not his fault. Never his fault. His mother screaming at his father. You loser. The look on his father’s face. Rage. The flying fists, the breaking glass.

      Houston could feel his heart beating as rapidly as though it had just happened. Molly was watching him, silently, the dismay and anger that had been in her face fading, becoming more thoughtful.

      He ordered himself, again, to stop this. It was way too personal. But, master of control that he was, he did not stop.

      “Have you ever had no place to live?”

      “Of course not!”

      Homelessness was so far from her reality that she could not even fathom it happening to her. Not that he had any right to treat that as a character defect, just because it had once been part of his childhood reality.

       The eviction notice pounded onto the door. The hopeless feeling of nowhere to go and no place to feel safe. That sense that even that place he had called home was only an illusion. A sense that would be confirmed as the lives of the Whitfords spiraled steadily downward toward disaster.

      Again Molly was silent, but her eyes were huge and had darkened to a shade of green that reminded him of a cool pond on a hot day, a place that promised refuge and rest, escape from a sizzling hot pressure-cooker of a world.

      Her expression went from defensive to quiet. She studied his face, her own distress gone, as if she saw something in him, focused on something in him. He didn’t want her to see his secrets, and yet something in her steady gaze made him feel seen, vulnerable.

      “You’re dealing with desperation, and you’re doling out prom dresses? Are you kidding me?”

      Houston was being way too harsh. He drew a deep breath, ordered himself to apologize, to back track, but suddenly the look on her face transformed. Her expression went from that quiet thoughtfulness to something much worse. Knowing.

      He felt as transparent as a sheet of glass.

      “You’ve known those things, haven’t you?” she guessed softly.

      The truth was he would rather run through Central Park in the buff than reveal himself emotionally.

      He was stunned that she had seen right through his exquisite suit, all the trappings of wealth and success, seen right through the harshness of his delivery to what lay beneath.

      He was astounded that a part of him—a weak part—wanted to be seen. Completely.

      He didn’t answer her immediately. The part of him that felt as if it was clamoring to be acknowledged quieted, and he came back to his senses.

      He had to apply his own rules right now, to set an example for her. Don’t form attachments. Don’t care too deeply. Not about people. Not about programs.

      And he needed to take away that feeling he’d been seen. Being despised for his severity felt a whole lot safer than that look she’d just given him.

      He was laying down the law. If she didn’t like it, too bad. It was his job to see if she was capable of doing what needed to be done. Miss Viv wanted to hand this place over to her. There was absolutely no point doing any of this if six months later soft hearts had just run it back into the ground.

      “Prom Dreams is gone,” he said coolly. “It’s up to you to get rid of it.”

      She bit her lip. She looked at her shoes. She glanced back at him, and tears were stinging her eyes.

      There was no room for crying at work!

      And absolutely no room for the way it made him feel: as if he wanted to fix it. For Pete’s sake, he was the one who’d created it!

      “I can see we are going to have a problem,” he said. “You are a romantic. And I am a realist.”

      For a moment she studied him. For a moment he thought she would not be deflected by Prom Dreams, by his harshness, that despite it she would pursue what he had accidentally shown her.

      But she didn’t.

      “I am not a romantic!” she protested.

      “Anyone who shows up for work in a wedding gown is a romantic,” he said, pleased with how well his deflection had worked. It was about her now, not about him, not about what experiences he did or didn’t know.

      “I didn’t arrive in it,” she said, embarrassed and faintly defensive, again. “It was a donation. It had been put on my desk.”

      “So naturally you had no alternative but to try it on.”

      “Exactly. I was just checking it for damage.”

      “Uh-huh,” he said, not even trying to hide his skepticism. “Anyone who wants to buy dresses instead of feeding people is a romantic.”

      “It’s not that black and white!”

      “Everything is black and white to a realist. Rose-colored to a romantic.”

      “I might have been a romantic once,” she said, her chin tilted proudly, “but I’m not anymore.”

      Ah, the cad. He shoved his hands under his desk when they insisted on forming fists.

      “Good,” he said, as if he were the most reasonable of men. “Then you should have no problem getting on board for the kind of pragmatic changes that need to be made around here.”

      He knew she was kidding herself about not being a romantic. Despite the recent heartbreak Miss Viv had told him about, it seemed that Molly had hopes and dreams written all over her. Could she tame that enough to do the job Second Chances needed her to do?

      “Couldn’t we look at ways to increase funding, rather than cutting programs?”

      Ah, that’s what he wanted to hear. Realistic ideas for dealing with problems, creative approaches to solutions, coming at challenges