Kitabı oku: «Taking Back Mary Ellen Black», sayfa 3

“You wanted to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”

“I wanted to be a prostitute?”

Jenna laughed. “You never said you did, but we watched that movie a million times.”

“So, Pretty Woman it is!” Lorraine declared, slapping her pudgy palms together in gleeful anticipation of making me look like a prostitute.

I gulped, but I didn’t argue. Heck, who would be brainless enough to fight looking like Julia Roberts? The only drawback I could foresee if Lorraine actually succeeded was that I’d have to admit Mom was right. Eddie never would have left me if I’d looked like Julia when we were married.

Lorraine fingered through my hair with one hand while grabbing up a plastic cap with the other. “So, was he a cheater or a beater?”

I choked. “What?”

“Cheater or beater?” she repeated her question. “Like Jenna’s Todd was a cheater. So where’d you hide his body, Jenna?”

Obviously the O’Briens had spawned another neighborhood legend. But like the famous mob boss Jimmy Hoffa, Jenna’s ex would probably never be found. A smirk slid across Jenna’s mouth, but she didn’t look up from her paperwork. “I’ll never tell.”

“Cheater,” I admitted. The second I made the confession the drone of the dryers died, and a bunch of permed heads swiveled toward me.

“Who cheated, dear?” Mrs. Milanowski asked. “Your grandmother? Nobody’s that lucky at cards.”

“Her Eddie,” Lorraine explained. I guess there was no such thing as discretion in a beauty shop.

“He’s not my Eddie.”

“I heard about your divorce, Mary Ellen,” another perm-head piped up. “That’s too bad. It’s so hard on the kids.”

What about me?

“He was the cheater,” Lorraine supplied, in case anyone had missed it. She clicked her tongue in disgust. “With all the diseases out there now, it’s almost better if they’re beaters. Safer.”

Without lifting her head from her study of Lorraine’s business records, Jenna snorted. “You’re sniffing too much perm solution, Lorraine.”

“My figures can’t be off—I have a real good accountant,” she defended.

Jenna shook her head. “The math is fine. Some of your ideas aren’t. Getting knocked around is not safer.”

Lorraine crossed herself. “Forgive me. Your poor mama…”

“Is back at Mary Ellen’s house playing cards.” Jenna waved a hand in dismissal of Lorraine’s concern. “She’s fine.”

“What she put up with from your father…”

Jenna shrugged. “It’s over now.”

I shivered despite the warmth of the plastic cape. I’d grown up in this neighborhood. How come I wasn’t as strong and resilient as these women? I hadn’t pushed Eddie down the stairs or dismembered him. How come I just wanted to pull my lank, drab hair around my face and hide?

But Lorraine had my hair, yanking, clipping and spreading goo on it. An hour later, when she whipped off the plastic cape and whirled me toward the mirror, I concluded that I didn’t look like Julia Roberts at all. Probably the baggy jeans and Czerwinski Butcher Shop sweatshirt ruined that image.

But I wasn’t bad. The red was deep and rich, and it had conditioned my hair so that it flowed around my shoulders in thick, soft waves.

“That other woman. The one from the cannibal movies…” Mrs. Rewerts lifted her hand and shook it in the air. “You know the one. She has that color hair and Mary Ellen’s same green eyes.” The other women nodded in agreement and stroked my fragile ego with oohs and aahs.

“Julianne Moore?” I looked like Julianne Moore? She’d do. And maybe, so would I. I turned toward Jenna, who had put down her paperwork to study me. “What do you think?”

“What do you think?” she countered.

I shrugged and watched the rich waves dance around the shoulders of my bloodstained sweatshirt. “I like it.”

She nodded. “Yeah, me, too.”

And I knew she wasn’t just stroking my ego. Jenna wouldn’t do that, not the Jenna I’d known eleven years ago and not the one I was getting to know again. Maybe we would never regain the friendship we had once shared, but I hoped we could forge a new relationship. I really needed a friend.

CHAPTER G
The Girls

“Mommy, you look like a movie star!” Shelby shrieked before vaulting into my arms. Although Amber had come to the kitchen, too, when Jenna and I walked in, she hung back. A book clutched in her hand, she studied me from behind the glasses that had slipped to the end of her cute little nose.

“So what do you think?” I asked. Although only ten and a half, Amber was wise beyond her years. Maybe it came from all the reading, or from some recessive gene that had skipped Eddie and me. But she was one smart kid, and I valued her opinion.

A slow smile spread across her bow-shaped lips, and she nodded, her perpetual ponytail bobbing at the back of her head. “It’s smokin’!”

“Who’s smoking?” Mom asked as she lumbered up from the cellar with a jar of stewed tomatoes in her hand. She set it on the counter without taking her gaze from my new hairdo. “Lorraine is a little too wild for the West Side.”

Translation: In Mom’s eyes, I did look like a prostitute. Good.

“It’s pretty,” Shelby insisted, fingering a strand. “And soft.”

Mom sniffed. “Anything’s better than it was. Did you see your father when you came in? He went out to check his oil, and dinner’s ready. You’re staying, Jenna?”

“Thanks, but I’m supposed to meet some Realtors at Charlie’s, Mrs. Black.” She winked at me. “They give me referrals for free drinks.”

“You need to eat. You’re too skinny. It’s all ready to go on the table. Goulash.” Mom routinely fed the neighborhood, sending dishes to ailing neighbors, cooking for funerals and open houses.

Jenna’s stomach rumbled. “One plate, and I’ll get Mr. Black.”

“Wait, Jenna. You didn’t meet the girls.” I slid an arm around Amber’s thin shoulders. “This is Amber. And this little monkey is Shelby. Girls, this is—” Was. But I was hoping. “My oldest and closest friend, Jenna O’Brien.”

“Nice to meet you,” Amber mumbled, shyly but politely.

“How come you never came to our old house?” Shelby asked with a child’s inquisitiveness. “Weren’t you friends there?”

“I was really busy,” Jenna hedged. “But that’s no excuse to let a friend slip away.” Jenna caught my eye before she went outside to get my dad.

Dinner was a wild affair. Grandma was still suffering the effects of too much tea. And Dad and Jenna had taken a while and a few beers before they’d made their way into the house. Shelby was on, entertaining Jenna with all her considerable charm, while Amber sat back and watched everyone with amusement shining in her eyes.

“So you come into my store and steal my help away, Jenna O’Brien, and then you have the nerve to sit at my table and eat my food!” Daddy shouted, lifting his hand as if to cuff her, but just squeezing her neck with affection.

“If I don’t, you’ll keep shoveling it in until you explode,” she sassed back with a wink at the girls, who giggled at her bravery. Despite their having lived with him for a while, Daddy still intimidated them with his booming voice and gruff teasing.

But Daddy was the only grandfather they had; Eddie’s parents had died when he was in his teens. I’d always felt sorry for him because of that. Even as crazy as my parents sometimes made me, I couldn’t imagine life without either of them.

“Jenna’s right. You need to watch your weight. You know what the doctor said—” Mom began.

Daddy lifted his hand, waving away medical advice. “What does he know with that fancy education?” Obviously Daddy thought the eight years of schooling that he’d had before the nuns had kicked him out for brawling gave him more sense than a doctor who’d gone to college and medical school.

“Daddy, Mom’s right. You need to take better care of yourself.” Mom shot me a smile for my support. She really did worry about Daddy, loved him even after all their years together. Maybe that was why she nagged him; she was scared of losing him the way she’d lost her father. Could it be why she nagged me? Because she cared? No, nobody could care that much.

“Strong like bear!” Daddy growled, flexing his burly arms.

The girls squealed. He pounded on the table, making the plates dance. Grandma choked on an overcooked noodle. I thumped her back with one hand while I handed Amber a napkin for the milk she’d squirted out her nose.

“I’ve forgotten how much fun dinner at the Black house always was.” Jenna sighed with a satisfied smile, covering her empty plate with a protective hand before Mom could ladle another helping on it.

“You work too hard,” Mom tsked, nagging Jenna, too. “You need to come around more.”

Daddy spoke to Jenna, but he was staring at me. “Yeah, you do. You’re good for this girl.”

“That’s not what you said when you caught us drinking—” Jenna halted when the girls displayed wide-eyed interest. “Drinking all your chocolate milk.”

I leaned in close. “Smooth. Good save.”

She flipped me off under the lace edge of Mom’s treasured tablecloth. Growing up with three brothers had given Jenna some of her rough edges.

“Grandpa doesn’t care if we drink all his chocolate milk,” Shelby said.

“Of course not, he always has more in the garage,” Jenna teased.

“Stay away from my garage,” Daddy growled.

She laughed as she rose to her feet. “Well, I’m late. The meal was wonderful, Mrs. Black. Thanks for…checking the oil in my car, Mr. Black.”

I got up to walk her to the door. “So where do I report for work? And what time?”

“You can wait until after you get the kids on the bus. Then meet me at the office. I’m on Walker between the bakery and insurance office. First Choice Mortgage.”

“Your own place?”

“Satellite office. The broker’s downtown. You’ll have to run down there occasionally. Do you have a car?”

“Grandma’s Bonneville.”

“Is that the same one you used for your driver’s license road test?”

“Yes, the car and I know each other well.”

“So do we, Mary Ellen Black. You’re going to be okay.”

I nodded, emotion choking my throat. Standing on the gravel driveway next to her car, an overwhelming desire to hug her compelled me to throw my arms around her despite all the years we’d not had any contact.

She held herself stiffly in my arms, then squeezed back for just a second before pulling away. Had she sought me out only at her mother’s urging? Or, as a divorced woman herself, had she understood how alone I felt, how much I needed a friend now? And did she need one, too? I wanted to be that friend again.

“I missed you,” I admitted. “And I’m sorry.”

“Eddie’s your past, Mary Ellen. Forget him.”

I shook my head, tumbling my new hairdo. “I can’t. I have to think of the girls. He’s their father.”

“They’re great girls. If they came out that big, I might have considered it. But raising babies, having someone completely helpless, completely dependent on me…” She shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. “You’ll figure things out, Mary Ellen. And if you don’t, you’ll get by. That’s what most of us do.” I watched her get into her shiny black Cadillac. If she were just getting by, I could handle that.

“How come we never see Daddy anymore?” Shelby asked as I pulled the blanket to her chin. Amber, lying next to her in the old double bed that had been mine, turned from the light to face me. She wanted an answer, too, but from the sorrow in her eyes, I guessed that she already knew.

“We don’t all live together anymore, Shelby…”

“I know. We’re divorced—”

“No, sweetie, just your father and I are divorced.”

“A divorce affects the whole family,” Amber said with her usual sobering wisdom.

“Our family got divorced?” Shelby asked.

Before I could think of a response, Amber answered. “Yeah, but Dad was gone before that. He’s always cared about his restaurant more than us, Shelby.”

Could I argue with the truth? The resentful ex-wife in me wanted to wholeheartedly agree, but the mother in me wouldn’t allow it. “Your father loves you both very much, Amber.” And I truly believed he did, as much as Eddie could love anyone.

“He loves the restaurant more, Mom. I heard you say that to him a bunch of times.”

Waiting until the girls had gone to bed to have our fights hadn’t worked, apparently, not even in a house the size of the one we’d lost. Not that we’d fought all that often. I hadn’t wanted to nag Eddie, not the way Mom nagged Daddy. But I had to face the fact that I’d had a lot of resentment, even before the divorce, more directed toward the restaurant than the twenty-year-old waitress—and apparently so did my girls.

“I was mad when I said that, Amber. You know how when you’re mad you say things you don’t mean.” Liar. “Like when you call Shelby names…”

Amber’s lips quirked up in a smile. “Well, sometimes I mean those. I hate sharing a bed with her. She’s a hog, and she snores!”

“Do not!” Shelby protested vehemently.

“How would you know? You’re sleeping when you’re snoring. You can’t know what you’re doing when you’re sleeping!”

Heck, I didn’t know what I was doing when I was awake. There was no guidebook for how to handle divorce, nothing that applied to every situation and every child. My girls were smart. They deserved honesty. But they also deserved a father.

“Okay, girls, how about we visit your dad?”

“Where?” Amber asked, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Since I didn’t know where he was living, I had no choice. “We’ll go to the restaurant. Tomorrow’s Saturday. We’ll have a girls’ day out. We’ll have lunch and go to the mall. I’m starting my new job on Monday. I need a few clothes. You both need some new shoes.”

“Shoes…” Shelby sighed, her eyelids drooping as she drifted off to sleep to dream of new shoes. She was definitely my child.

Amber studied me a while longer; I knew the cadence of crickets never echoed inside her head. “Do you want to show Dad your new hair, Mom? Do you think it’ll make him change his mind about the divorce?”

Had she been listening to my mother? I had to find a place of our own. Of course, a reconciliation was what she wanted. Until I’d come to my senses in the form of the foreclosure notice, it had been what I wanted, too, to salvage my family. But Eddie wasn’t my family any longer; my girls were.

“Honey, are you hoping…”

“I’m not, Mom, okay?” She reached out to flip off the light, but I caught her hand and held it back. Then after slipping off Amber’s glasses, I stared into her eyes, swimming with unshed tears.

“It’s okay to hope, Amber. It’s okay to dream. But dream about things you can get with your brains and your ambition. Don’t hope for your father and me to get back together. It’s not going to happen.”

“Because of that ’ho?”

My mother wasn’t the only one she’d been listening to; evidently Grandma had shared a new word with the girls. I bit my tongue to hold in a laugh. “Amber!”

“Mom, once he sees you looking like that—”

I touched a lock of the soft hair. “I didn’t do this for your father, Amber. I did it for me.”

And it felt good. It felt damn good to do something for me.

“We’ll go see your father tomorrow, and we’ll talk about setting something up so that you can see him more. That’s all we’re doing. Okay?” And a visit was long overdue. Eddie didn’t deserve them, wouldn’t support them, but they needed him.

She nodded.

“I love you, Amber.” I kissed her forehead and stood up to head for the door and the couch in my father’s den.

“Mom?” I stopped and grasped the door frame, my stomach clenching. What now? “Don’t forget about shoe shopping, okay?”

Oh, yeah…despite her brains, this one was mine, too.

CHAPTER H
Happiness

Although I didn’t want to raise any hopes in my children or my mother, I took extra time with my makeup and clothes. I had some pride; it was about time that I showed it. And showed Eddie what he’d given up… The girls. I wanted him to want them back, to want to spend some time with them. I didn’t want him to want me. Okay, maybe I did, but I didn’t want him back.

“Going to the restaurant today is a really good idea, Mary Ellen,” Mom said, nodding at my hair and makeup, the highest praise she’d ever given me.

Even staggered by her compliment, I had to clarify, “For the girls, Mom. Yes, it is.”

“Maybe for you, too, honey.” She really did care, did love me. “Good luck.” But she would never understand me.

“Good luck with what?” Dad asked on his way out the door to open the store. Jesus was back to help him with the Saturday-morning crowd, and I didn’t know who was more relieved—me or Dad. He bussed my cheek on the way out the door. “You look good, honey. I’ll miss you today. It was great having you at the shop.”

“It was fun being with you, Dad.” And despite the neighborhood gossips, I had enjoyed spending time with my dad. While I knew Eddie would never have the kind of relationship with Amber and Shelby that I had with Daddy, I wanted him to have some relationship with them, any relationship.

As I pulled the Bonneville into the restaurant lot later that morning, I realized I should have accepted my mom’s wish for luck. Luck that Eddie would be happy to see his girls, that he would show them that they’re important to him.

But as I parked in the shadow of the concrete building on the east side of Grand Rapids, I didn’t feel lucky. I should have called him, should have warned him. But then, wouldn’t it be just like the little weasel to have refused? He’d done it while we were waiting for the divorce. In fact, I could scarcely remember the last time he’d seen his children. And while I hated him for that, I hated myself, too. I should have done this for the girls sooner.

“Is Dad here, Mommy?” Shelby asked.

“God, you’re stupid,” Amber snarled. “Dad’s always here.”

The shadow of the building grew, swallowing me in the darkness. This, not some twenty-year-old cocktail waitress, had been my husband’s mistress and not just for the last couple of years, but for all eleven years of our marriage. A new hairdo wouldn’t make him want me, wouldn’t make him regret what he’d thrown away. I couldn’t compete with bricks, a brass bar and jovial customers.

I threw open the door of the restaurant and stepped out of the shadow. As the light washed over me, I realized something else D-day had done for me. I didn’t want to compete anymore. I didn’t want Eddie to act like a husband or a lover, ex or jealous. I wanted him to be a father, nothing else.

The Saturday lunch crowd wasn’t what it used to be. But then not much was. I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure who I was yet, but I wasn’t Mrs. Edward Nowicki. Still, the staff glanced up with trepidation when we walked in. Perhaps they expected a repeat of my hysterics on the day the bank had slapped the foreclosure notice on the house. The hostess, standing behind her podium in the foyer, smiled politely, looked at the girls and then back at me. Her pouty mouth fell open. “Mrs. Nowi—”

“Ms. Black. Mary Ellen’s fine,” I corrected her. “Trina, isn’t it?”

Her head bobbed, her fine blond hair bobbing with it. “Yes.”

“Is Eddie in?”

Amber snorted at my rhetorical question.

“He’s in the office, Mrs.—Mary Ellen.” Trina’s heavily mascaraed eyes widened with a hint of panic.

“I’ll go back and let him know he has visitors,” I offered. “Would you mind seating the girls for me? They can order, too. They know what they want.” A father. And I intended to make him act like one, if only for a few minutes.

“Mrs.—” The confusion over my name stopped her protest, and I slipped past her and down the hall, past the rest rooms to Eddie’s office.

The door was ajar, so I pushed it open the rest of the way. Well, so much for my hopes and dreams. Obviously Eddie’s dick hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off. All three and three-quarters inches of it jutted out of his pants then disappeared between the lips of the girl kneeling in front of him.

“Excuse me—” Both of them jumped.

“Don’t look guilty,” I said at their stricken expressions. Good thing I’d come back alone.

“Mary Ellen—”

“It’s okay, really,” I insisted as Eddie dragged the blond girl in the tight, black waitress uniform to her feet with one hand, while he struggled to zip up his pants with his other hand.

Obviously he still had the same reaction to me, new hairdo and all, that he’d developed the last couple of years. I could deflate him faster than anyone. “We’re divorced. It’s okay now.”

Now. Before it hadn’t been. When he’d first told me about this young woman in his life, I’d been devastated, hysterically heartbroken. Now I was just quietly bitter. The divorce decree made a difference. This wasn’t my husband getting a blow job in his office. This was my ex. I honestly didn’t care. In fact, I was amused by the blush on both their faces.

“Why are you here? I told you there’s no money.” He finally lifted his chin to face me, and I noticed a yellowing bruise around one of his eyes.

“Money would be nice,” I admitted. “You should help support your daughters—”

“I told you—”

The young girl shrank away, probably wishing in her embarrassment that she could disappear. Maybe she wasn’t a ’ho, to borrow Grandma’s new word. Maybe she was just young and stupid the way I’d once been. But I was older now…

“Eddie, there’s other support than monetary. The girls need your attention. You’ve hardly seen them since you left—”

“You’re staying with your dad, and I can guess how he feels about—”

“I’m going to leave now,” the girl said as she awkwardly tried to slip past me and into the hall. I sidestepped, allowing her to escape what she was probably sure would be an ugly scene. She’d been present the day I’d gotten the foreclosure notice.

“He feels like a father should,” I went on. “He wants his daughter to be happy. He resents whoever makes her unhappy.”

Did Daddy resent Eddie enough to have given him that black eye? Despite his age, Daddy could still be a brawler. And it wouldn’t take much to beat Eddie. Although his driver’s license said five-eight, Eddie stood only five-six in his stocking feet. I could tower over him with heels, and for some reason, I’d worn platform tennis shoes today. I could take him. And if he hurt my girls, he’d be sporting another black eye. “You should feel that way, Eddie—”

“About you?” he asked, his thin lips twisting into a sneer. “Is this for me, Mary Ellen? The hair? Wearing some makeup for once? You think that’s going to make me change my mind? You should have thought of something before you got the dye job. Blondes are more fun!”

A laugh sputtered out. I couldn’t help it. “You’re such an ass, Eddie. The saying is that blondes have more fun, but since that poor girl hooked up with you, she won’t know fun anymore.”

His face reddened again. Despite the bleached highlights in his hair, he showed his age. Forty, prime time for a mid-life crisis. He hadn’t realized all those big dreams he’d had, only owning this restaurant, and he was on the verge of losing that. “You were never any fun, Mary Ellen,” he accused.

I shrugged. “Not since I met you, no. I don’t want you back, Eddie.” I wanted me back, wherever I’d been hiding the last eleven years. I wanted fun, but before I could satisfy my desires, I had to make sure my girls were happy. And they needed a relationship with their father.

“Then why—”

“For the girls. I brought them. They—” Miss him? How? He hadn’t been around much before the divorce. He’d been busy trying to save this sinking ship “—wanted to see you.”

“They did?” His flush deepened, and I remembered that middle age was prime time for a heart attack, too.

“You okay, Eddie?”

“There’s a lot going on right now, Mary Ellen. Now’s not a good time—”

My hand clenched into a fist, but before I could swing, I took a deep breath, exhaled, closed my eyes. I had to keep it together. For the girls. “Just a few minutes, Eddie. Talk to them. Ask them about school, gymnastics…show some interest in them, okay? Fake it!”

He didn’t try to lie to me for once; he didn’t claim to have any interest in them now, as he was obviously preoccupied with something else. And I knew what a mistake I’d made. Without seeing him, they could weave the fantasy that he might actually care about them, but seeing him, seeing the blank, bored expression on his weaselly face, they would know the truth. Even Shelby who was usually so blissfully oblivious…

As he walked up to the table where the hostess was serving them chocolate milk, the girls didn’t meet him with bright smiles. And he didn’t wrap his arms around them, torn apart from missing them. I missed them while they were at school. He hadn’t seen them in several weeks and displayed no joy in seeing them now. Instead, he looked embarrassed, face flushed, and for a man who usually oozed charm, he didn’t look as if he had a clue what to say to them.

“I’m sorry…”

I turned at the meek voice near my shoulder as I held back from the table. “What?”

“I’m sorry…about…”

I waved a hand at the little blonde’s anxiety. “I said it was okay. Really.” And for me, it would be since I was free of Eddie. But it wouldn’t be for her, not unless she ran like hell. I thought about warning her, but I wasn’t that benevolent. After all, she had known he was a married man even if he’d forgotten.

“But you were probably expecting…”

I followed her gaze to the table where Eddie stood above the girls, and they carried on a brief, stilted conversation. My heart ached for the disappointment on their little faces. They wanted what I had with my father; that’s what had inspired last night’s questions. But Eddie would never satisfy their longing. He would never be half the man my father was. “What? A big family reunion?” I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t.” Too much had changed over the last couple of years.

“Eddie feels bad, really he does.” God, she wasn’t just young; she was stupid, too. “About losing the house and not having any money. It’s killing him that he can’t support them. He feels so guilty that he can’t stand to see them.” Her voice cracked. “There really isn’t any money, you know…”

A commotion drew my attention away from the stammering blonde to the foyer. Two broad-shouldered guys strode in, knocking aside some of the ferns I’d potted in brass urns. I winced as dirt scattered across the thick burgundy carpet. Eddie backed away from the table, turning toward the hall to his office without even a goodbye to his daughters.

“Eddie!” the guys shouted and stopped his retreat.

The blonde clutched my arm. “Oh, God!”

I refrained from shaking her off and peered closer at the new customers. “Dougie?”

The guy with the most muscles and least neck turned toward me, staring intently from beneath a bushy unibrow. “Mary Ellen? Mary Ellen Black?”

“Dougie. I haven’t seen you in years.” Not since high school. Dougie hadn’t graduated with Jenna and me, though. Instead, he’d been doing time for some offense or other.

“Great to see you. You’re looking great.” From the appreciative gleam in his eyes, I figured he meant it.

“So you got married?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m divorced now. There’re my girls—” I gestured toward where the girls sat, wide-eyed at all the goings-on. Plates of pancakes growing cold in front of them.

“Cute kids,” he murmured.

Even a hoodlum’s compliments swelled my mother’s pride. “Yeah, they are.”

“I’ve got a couple of boys,” he said. “I married Sue. Remember Sue?”

There had been about ten girls named Sue in every class I’d attended, but I nodded. “Give her my best.”

“Mary Ellen!” Eddie’s voice rose with impatience. Not that he seemed particularly eager to talk to his visitors, but I guess he didn’t want me talking to them, either.

“I’m sorry. You all have business. The girls and I will leave now. Say goodbye to Daddy.”

I hustled them out the door, not worrying about paying the bill or leaving a tip. Except I did stop near the ’ho. “You can do better,” I told her. That was probably the best tip she’d ever gotten, no matter how long she’d been waitressing.

The girls and I walked past a Lincoln Navigator parked too close to the doors, and headed toward the Bonneville.

“I didn’t like the food there,” Amber said. “Can we get something to eat at the mall?”

As they climbed into the back seat, I fought the urge to drag them into my arms for reassuring hugs. “Sure we can. Shoe shopping always makes me hungry.” And so I’d blow the rest of my poker winnings and leftover VFW tips.

“I don’t want to eat here anymore,” Shelby declared, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout.

“That’s up to you two. Whatever you want.” And it was. Eddie hadn’t requested any scheduled visitation.

“I used to want to go home,” Amber admitted. “Back to our old house. Back to my old school, too. But there’re some neat people at the new one. They don’t care what you wear or where you live…” Not like the wannabe high-class neighborhood where we’d lived. “Some don’t even speak English,” Amber said, probably impressed someone talked less than she did; with her shyness, she usually spoke very little.

Shelby nodded. “Yeah, it’s okay.” And maybe it was. But they deserved more. And somehow I had to get it for them…for all of us.