Mindy ripped off her gloves as she bolted through the front door of her mother's house and switched on the light. She dropped her gloves and her backpack on the floor and sprinted across the living room, paying little attention to the unstable floor rattling beneath her. She blew air into her palms and rubbed them together before holding them as close to the radiator as she possibly could. Her fingers were frozen numb, as were her toes, she realized, as she clumsily toed off her sneakers and brought her sock feet closer to the heat.
It was early February, two months since her heat had given out, and she didn't know how much more of that cold car she could take. Thank goodness, her mother's house sat across the street from the elementary school, so driving her kids around was limited to two times a week when she took Kyle to swimming lessons and Brittany to ballet.
Although they complained about the cold all during the drive, they nonetheless enjoyed attending their classes in the luxurious Granite Falls facilities she'd enrolled them in after she'd begun working at Arabella. She was grateful to still be able to afford to keep them there. Those classes were the highlights of their week.
Mindy's hopes for her children's future had risen to an all-time high when she'd moved into her own apartment in Granite Falls. For once, she'd felt in control of her life and proud that she was able to provide a home for her children and buy them decent clothes instead of dressing them in hand-me-downs from her friends.
For the first time in their lives, the kids had a bedroom to themselves—big enough to accommodate two twin beds—instead of sharing a small room with her. She'd promised them that they'd have their own individual bedrooms one day soon after Galen, who'd been living with her at the time, had assured her that they would be a real family once the trial was over.
Her cheeks burned with humiliation. Whatever had she, a girl from a trailer park, been thinking when she'd dared to dream so high, dared to believe that she could be as lucky as Tashi and move up into the ranks of high society by marrying a man from that circle? She'd been desperate for love, had longed to be accepted and appreciated, and wanted to find a father for her children so badly that she'd allowed herself to be sucked in by Galen's empty promises and outright lies.
Anger ate at Mindy as she recalled the difficult period immediately following Galen's departure. Every morning and every night for weeks on end, Kyle and Brittany had asked where he was and when was he coming back. She'd truthfully told them that she simply did not know. Eventually, she'd had to begin the odious task of trying to return all their lives to a pre-Galen state of existence and reinstating her kids' daily routine to a one-parent home. She'd had to reassure them that they could trust her to be a constant in their lives, that she would never leave them.
She'd promised them that they were safe and that nothing else in their world would change. But she'd had to eat that promise when her mom was hospitalized for weeks after falling in her bathroom and ended up breaking her collarbone, dislocating a shoulder, and twisting her ankle. With her brother, Billy, married and living in the Midwest, Mindy had the responsibility of taking care of her mother, whom she thought would be back on her feet in a few weeks.
But when the weeks turned into months of running back and forth between the two towns—sometimes two and three times in one day—Mindy knew she was in over her head. Billy wasn't around to pick up Kyle and Brittany from school and take them to their extra-curricular activities while she worked, or to watch them while she attended night school. Something had to give, and since she lived on the third floor of her apartment complex with no elevator service, bringing her mother to live with her until she recovered was out of the question. She'd had no other choice but to give up her apartment in Granite Falls. Luckily, her lease was about to expire, so she was under no legal obligation to pay for a year.
As her bones began to thaw, Mindy unzipped her jacket and began picking up toys and books and clothes strewn around the room and placing them into a pile to take to her bedroom later. Her mother had bought the modest two-bedroom house with her lump sum pension from Andretti Industries, and since there was no mortgage, she didn't take rent from Mindy. It was a kind of quid pro quo for Mindy nursing her mother back to health. All she had to do was help with the utilities and of course buy food for her and her kids.
The storm door creaked. A moment later, a key rattled in the door before it swung open and her mother walked in carrying a black canvas tote in one hand and a white paper bag in the other. "Hey, Mom."
"What are you doing home? Weren't you supposed to go out tonight?" her mother asked.
Mindy dropped a Barbie doll on the pile and walked over to close and lock the door, and slide the security chain and the dead bolt into place. "The question should be, where have you been?" She turned to critically survey the still attractive, average-size sixty-six-year-old woman with soft brown eyes and thinning blonde hair, peppered with silvery gray strands.
Like Mindy, Pamela Marshall had been a single mother, who'd worked two jobs to take care of her children. When Billy and Mindy were young, Pamela had worked at Andretti Industries as a kitchen employee during the day and a custodian at night. They'd lived in a trailer park in Evergreen, and although things had been rough, Mindy had never heard her mother complain once. She was never overly affectionate with Billy and her, but she'd taken care of them.
When sixteen-year-old Mindy had gotten pregnant with Kyle, Pamela had thrown her out, forcing her and Kyle to move into an apartment with his friends. Looking back now, Mindy realized that her mother had expected better from her.
Every mother wanted her child to have a better and easier life than she had. Mindy's getting pregnant at sixteen was a huge disappointment for Pamela. But, truth be told, as hard as Mindy had had it—still had it—she would not trade Kyle nor Brittany for anything in this world. She refused to believe that she, or her children were mistakes. They were surprises! Serendipitous surprises. She felt blessed for giving birth to two of the world's smartest and most beautiful children, and she would never turn her back on them no matter what kind of trouble they got into, especially her sweet little Britt.
"You didn't tell me you were going out tonight." She scanned her mother's attire—a pair of black slacks and blue, turtleneck sweater under a charcoal sheepskin jacket that sported a fur-trimmed collar. Mindy had used her employee discount at Arabella to purchase the ensemble last Christmas—a gift her mother thoroughly loved.
"You were out with Phin, weren't you?" Phineas O'Henry was a therapist and co-owner of Optimum Result, the physical therapy center where Pamela had gone for healing after her fall. She and Phin had been "going steady" as Pamela called it, ever since. "I didn't even know you had a date," Mindy added, as she shrugged out of her jacket and laid it over the back of the sofa, the only place to sit in the tiny living room.
Pamela walked over to a card table that functioned as a dining table in the corner of the living room and placed her tote and the paper bag on it. "Since Virginia apologized for her past behavior toward you, I didn't have to watch the kids tonight," she said, unbuttoning her coat and laying it over one of the four folding chairs around the table. "So Phin and I made plans for takeout at his house."
"Where's Bacon?" Mindy asked, just realizing that the children's brown lab hadn't come out to greet her when she'd gotten home. She'd been too busy concentrating on getting warm.
"The kids took him to Virginia's. I wouldn't have minded taking him with me, though. Phin loves him."
"As do you," Mindy said with a gentle smile. That was another good thing that had grown out of moving in with her mom. Pamela, who hadn't been keen on dogs before, had learned to love Bacon. He'd been a constant companion during the months she'd been confined to her bed. And when she got better, the first thing she'd done was hire some neighborhood kids to rig a fence around her yard so Bacon could run free outside—something he hadn't been able to do when they'd lived with Billy and in her apartment in Granite Falls.
"I brought you back something." Pamela held up the doggie bag. "It's from Chopsticks."
"You got all dressed up just for takeout at Phin's?" Mindy asked, tongue in cheek.
"Mind your business. I'm a grown woman. I can do whatever I damn well please. You want the food or not?"
Mindy's smile turned into a huge grin at her mother's reddening cheeks. Pamela would never admit that she was having old-people sex, but Mindy knew the telltale signs—like the dreamy gleam in her mother's brown eyes that indicated she'd been intimate tonight, and the unkempt state of her hair. She'd probably been trying to sneak back into the house before Mindy got home from class. Nonetheless, Mindy was happy that her mom had found a man who cared about her. She'd waited sixty-six years for Phineas O'Henry to show up. It gave Mindy hope that perhaps she herself might still be able to attract a man when she was her mother's age.
She sneered inwardly. Who was she kidding? She was twenty-three years old and couldn't attract a man. Well, she could attract them, but she had trouble keeping them around.
"What happened to your plans with Safi?" Pamela asked of Mindy's best friend who also worked at Arabella and attended Evergreen Community College. "Shouldn't you be at a club or something?" Pamela eased down on one end of the sofa, reached for the remote control on the lamp table, and turned on the sixty-inch TV.
"I canceled," Mindy said, dropping her weight onto the other end, her eyes fixed to the screen as the images came into focus. Charade, she guessed instantly at the sight of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in the funny bar scene where their characters Peter and Reggie were passing an orange from one person to the other without using their hands. Since living with her mother, Mindy had come to appreciate and love old classic movies, and it was doubly nice to sit on the posh sofa and watch them on the giant-screen TV—two of the expensive household items Tashi had given Mindy when the now Mrs. Andreas had moved from Temple Street to Mount Reservoir.
A year and a half ago, Mindy had finally learned why Tashi had been living in such a rundown apartment, and yet could afford top-of-the-line furniture and appliances. Mindy had been blown away at Tashi's story. She'd come to understand why the girl had been so paranoid and scared out of her wits.
"I would think you'd jump on the opportunity since Kyle and Britt are with Virginia."
"I can't afford to spent money frivolously. Kyle needs new sneakers and new swim gear, and I have to buy the costume for Britt's ballet performance coming up in a month, plus ballet shoes since she ripped the cheap ones I bought last month. Should have known the price was too good to be true," she added with a twist of her lips. "And then there's my car. I was hoping to wait on repairing it, and buy a better car when I had more money saved, but after I almost passed out from the cold while driving home tonight, I have to get it fixed. It needs new tires and the exhaust leak plugged. It barely passed inspection last year."
"I wish I could help you, but I'm on a fixed income, and I don't make that much as a school lunch lady at the high school."
"I know, Mom. I'm not asking for your help. I'll take the money out of my savings, which I only have because I don't have to pay rent."
"I was a single mother once. I know it's tough even with that decent job you have. This isn't much." She waved her hand around the small room. "But at least it's paid off. It's dry and clean and it's not in the trailer park. You and my grandkids will have a place to call your own once I move on. It's all I have to offer."
"It's a lot, Mom." Mindy's voice cracked at the thought that her mother had willed the house to her alone, and not to her and Billy. But she also felt a sense of disconcertion that her mother would think that this was all Mindy would ever accomplish in life. Mindy had big dreams, and living near the old railroad track on Center Street—one of the poorest sections of Evergreen—for the rest of her life wasn't part of it. "I appreciate all that you're doing for me and the kids," she told her mother.
"I appreciate you taking care of me. You didn't even think twice."
"Why would I think about it? You're my mom and you needed help." She couldn't bring herself to say that she appreciated anything that her mother had done for her in the past, because quite frankly, Pamela had practically abandoned her since she was sixteen. She guessed her mother was just trying to make up for turning her back on her daughter when she'd needed her most.
Her mother shrugged, and her face clouded with unease. "Well, you know—"
"I know we're even then," Mindy said, not having the appetite for melancholy tonight. Everyone deserved a second chance, and she wasn't going to let her mother grovel at her feet. "And I get free fancy dinners once in a while. Can't beat that." She opened up the bag and was instantly overpowered by the delicious smell of chicken Thai fried rice. "Oh, this smells so good. Thanks Mom," she said, unwrapping the chopsticks and breaking them apart before digging into the container.
"You working, studying, or have class tomorrow?" her mom asked.
My life in pieces. "I don't have Saturday classes this semester. I open in the morning and work until three." She already felt tired at the thought of being on her feet for six hours. "And after work, I plan to put a huge dent in my homework assignments before Virginia brings the kids around. She said she'll drop them off around seven."
Pamela smiled and reached over to pat Mindy on the shoulder. "I'm proud of you for putting that bitch in her place."
"Mom!" Mindy almost choked on a mouthful of broccoli. She'd never heard her mom use bad language before.
"Don't tell me you never thought of calling her a bitch. I've known women like that all my life, thinking they're better than other people while they're whoring, lying, and cheating their way up the ladder, and teaching their children to be just like them. Can't stand them."
"Who are these women, Mom? Do I know them?"
Her mother shuddered on a deep sigh and looked blankly at the TV screen, her thin lips thinning even more. "You don't want to know them, Mindy."
"I don't think Virginia is doing any of those things. I've never seen her with another man since her husband died. And Kyle was a good boyfriend to me and loving father to his kids. It's the one thing Virginia did right. It was his goodness that got him killed."
"I don't know what that woman is or is not doing these days. All I know is that she hated you the moment you took up with her son. It used to kill me the way she treated you, especially when I knew she wasn't that much better off than us."
"Then why didn't you say something? I was still a kid."
Her mother did a double take. "A kid? You grew up the minute you made the decision to engaged in adult activities with that boy. I fought for you when you were a child, just as you as a mother have to fight for your children until they can defend themselves. Standing up to Virginia was the first step. I was beginning to think you were completely spineless. You can't let folks walk all over you, Mindy. If you can't fight them at their game, you bring your own game and pin them in a corner."
Mindy dropped her chopsticks in the container and stared openmouthed at her mother. "Mom, who did you have to pin in a corner?"
Her mother's cheeks turned red. "It doesn't matter now. She's dead and her good-for-nothing—" She stopped and cleared her throat. "I just wish—"
"You just wish what?" Mindy asked. "Who's dead, and who's good-for-nothing?"
"Nobody you have to worry about. They are long gone." Her mother abruptly stood up. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed." Just as abruptly, she bent over and planted a kiss on Mindy's forehead.
"Mom." Mindy gazed up at the slightly wrinkled face, tears stinging her eyes at the unexpected, yet tender motherly gesture.
"Good night, Mindy." Pamela hurried down the short hallway and disappeared into her bedroom.
Mindy's heart beat with a nascent gentle filial love as she settled further into the sofa, pulled her feet up under her, and continued enjoying her dinner as Grant and Hepburn went through their comedic motion of falling in love on the TV screen.
It had taken her mother's need for temporary live-in assistance to bring them closer. Mindy had noticed the first sign of change in their relationship when she and the kids moved in, and Pamela had given up her master bedroom for the smaller one on the opposite side of the kitchen. And more recently, when Mindy had told her that she'd threatened Virginia, her mom seemed to have developed a kind of respect for her that Mindy had never noticed before.
Pamela didn't have a post high school education. She didn't know fancy words, and probably didn't even know a salad fork from a dessert fork, but she was brutally honest and fair. And she didn't take crap from anybody, a trait Mindy had recently discovered that she herself also possessed.
It had been risky to confront Kyle's mother, because as much as she disliked that woman, Virginia had always been willing and happy to babysit her grandchildren. That support was a lot to gamble away, but she'd gambled and won. Telling off Virginia had freed her emotionally, redeemed her self-esteem, and restored her honor in her mother's eyes.
"I love you, Mom," Mindy whispered on a smile as the sound of her mother's snoring reached her ears. Mr. O'Henry must have really worn her out tonight, Mindy thought as her smile turned into a grin of utmost approval. At least one of them was happy and lucky in love. Even Reggie and the not-so-honest Peter-Alex-Adam-Brian, she thought, as the movie came to an end.
Mindy shut off the TV, went into the kitchen, dumped the empty food container into the trash, filled a glass of water from the tap, and gulped it down. She took a full glass into the bathroom and sat it on the sink while she cleaned off her makeup, grabbed her kids' strawberry-flavored toothpaste and brushed her teeth. Back in the living room, she placed the glass of water on the lamp table, picked up her backpack from the floor, and was just about to sit down and get started on her reading for next week, when she heard a knock on the door.
"Please don't tell me that Virginia decided to bring the kids home tonight," Mindy muttered, even as her heart skipped an unexpected beat. She loved her children, but she was totally looking forward to having a little peace and quiet. Plus, it would be nice to have the bed to herself—a few and far between delight—instead of having to share it with Britt, who tossed, turned, and kicked constantly throughout the night.
She wasn't in the mood for company either, so maybe if she remained really quiet, whoever had come calling would think the occupants of the home were already in bed. Her wishful thinking went south at the sound of another, more insistent knock that made her heart leap again.
Why am I so jumpy tonight? Mindy wondered as she dropped her backpack and walked to the door to unlock, unbolt, unchain, and open it.
She gasped at the sight of the handsome, six-foot-two athletic figure ofthe man standing on the small porch.