'Nathan left with my mother, but...' ...Her brows lowered and she licked her lips. 'What time is it?'
He looked at his watch. 'A little after eight.'
'Oh. Well, Mom and Nathan went over to Lily's to help her with dinner.'
'How's your sister?'
She brushed her fingertips beneath her eyes. 'Better. She went home from the hospital two days ago.'
'Did I wake you up?'
'I guess I nodded off during 'Frasier' reruns.' She gave hint a warm, sleepy smile. 'Nathan should be backanytime.'
'Do you mind if I wait for him?'
'Are you going to be nice?' She drew out the word niiiiiice. Daisy Lee had found her accent.
'Reasonably.'
She thought about if for a moment, then stepped back. 'Come on in.'
He followed her through the darkened living room. The technicolor light from the televison flashed white andblue patches across her bare shoulders and back. She led him into the kitchen and flipped the switch.
It had been a long time since he'd been in Louella Brooks's kitchen.
'Would you like something to drink? Tea, Coke, water?' She smiled back over her shoulder at him. 'Bourbon?'
'No thanks.'
She raked her finger through the top of her hair as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a blue bottle ofwater with her free hand. Her fingers combed through her hair to the ends, then she twisted the top off the bottleand knocked the door shut with her hip.
'How was your trip?' he asked.
'It was real sad.' The silk strands of her hair slid back in place, and she leaned a shoulder into the refrigeratorand looked up at him. 'I finally packed up most of Steven's things. Junie came over and got what she wanted.
Good Will came and got the rest'
Jack saw the sadness in her brown eyes and told himself he didn't care. She lifted the bottle to her lips and tooka long drink. When she lowered it again, a clear drop of water rested on her top lip. 'I have some photos foryou.' The droplet rested there for several long moments before it slid down and disappeared into the seam.
'What photos?' If they were pictures of her and Steven and Nathan living it up in Seattle, then she could keepthem.
'The photo taken in the nursery when Nathan was born, of him riding his trike, blowing out birthday candles,playing football. Stuff like that.' She held up a finger. 'I'll be right back.'
He didn't want her to be reasonable. Giving him photos went beyond pretending to be nice in public. He didn'twant her to be nice at all. He didn't want to watch crystal drops of water slide between her pink lips. He didn'twant to watch her leave, his gaze slipping down her back to her behind and the bottom of the dress where ittouched the backs of her thighs.
When she returned, she had a shoe box under one arm. 'I have tons of pictures of Nathan; these are just a fewthat I thought you might like.' She carried them to the breakfast nook and took a seat. Jack slid into the seatacross from her as she took off the lid to the shoe box. She pulled out a few photos and handed them to him.
'This is his hospital picture. He was kind of bruised up because they had to use forceps on him.'
Jack gazed down at the photo in his hand of a tiny baby with a bruise on his cheek. His eyes were kind of puffyand his mouth was pursed as if he where about to kiss someone. The next picture was of Daisy as heremembered her looking in high school. Like the day she'd left him. Her hair was big, and she sat in a hospitalbed holding a baby wrapped up fight in a striped blanket. His baby boy. His girl. Only by then she hadn't beenhis anymore.
'I didn't know if you'd want that one because I'm in it,' she said, 'but I'm in all the pictures taken in thehospital.' She dug out a few more. 'Any of these you don't want, just leave them with me.' This time when shehanded the photos over, she leaned across the table. 'This was taken on Nathan's first birthday.' She pointed toa baby standing on a kitchen chair. He had chocolate cake smeared on his face, clear up into his hair, and hewore a huge grin. The remains of a smashed cake sat on the table in front of him.
'I'd just made his cake and turned my back to wash the dishes,' Daisy explained. 'When I turned back, he wasstanding on that chair and had grabbed big hunks of cake. By the time I got my camera, he'd stuffed a bunch inhis mouth and rubbed it on the top of his head.' Jack laughed and she looked up from the photo and smiled. 'Hewas such a pistol,' she said and returned her attention to the picture. His gaze slid to the side of her neck. Herbreasts were pressed against the table, pushing her cleavage over the top of her dress. If he leaned forward, hecould smell her hair. 'That was about the time we had to start locking him in our bedroom,' she said.
Jack leaned way back. 'Why?'
She straightened. 'Because that boy started crawling out of his crib when he was seven months old. We had toget him a little bed that was really low to the ground because we were afraid he'd hurt himself. Then one day, alittle after his first birthday, I was making his bed, and under his satin baby pillow, I found three screw driven.'
She shook her head. 'The only thing I could figure out was that he was roaming around the house after Stevenand I fell asleep. So that's when we had to lock him in our bedroom with us.'
The three of them all in bed together. One big happy family. It should have been him. It should have been himwith her and with Nathan. But she'd chosen Steven.
She should have chosen him. It should have been him in that bed, but the harsh truth was that he couldn't blameher for her choice.
Not anymore. Not when she'd chosen Steven because she'd been eighteen and scared. But being eighteen andscared didn't excuse her from keeping his son from him. He didn't think he'd ever forgive her for that.
She spread some more photos out on the table. 'I have a lot of photographs of Nathan through the years. He'smy favorite subject. I have some really nice black-and-whites of him that I took a few years ago when we wentclimbing around the rocks at the bottom of Snoqualmie Falls. Black and white just balanced everything aroundhim beautifully' Her lips turned up at the corners. 'Color would have been too overwhelming, and he wouldhave been lost in the shot.'
'You sound like you know a lot about taking pictures.' He had one of those auto-everything cameras, and stillforgot to bring it to the girls' parties.
'I'm a photographer. It's what I used to do for a living.'
He hadn't known that about her. Didn't know very much about her life in Seattle, as a matter of fact.
'It's what I plan to do again. I'm going to open my own studio. I've been checking into small business loans, andI talked to a realtor about leasing a space in Belltown, which is in the downtown area.' She dug through the boxand handed him more photos. 'It's going to be a little scary at first, but with the money I get from selling ourhouse, and the money I received from Steven's life insurance policies, we'll be okay'
She was moving on with her life. Moving forward while he felt as if he were firmly stuck in the past. Unable tomove.
Louella walked into the kitchen with Nathan trailing behind, wearing even more chains than usual and a blackT-shirt with a skateboarder on the front.
Daisy slid from behind the table and moved to meet them. 'Nathan, Jack came over to talk to you.'
Nathan's gaze met his over the top of Daisy's head. Jack set the photo on the table and stood. He turned hisattention to Daisy's mother. She had blue smudges beneath her eyes and her hair listed left. 'Good evening, MizBrooks.'
'Evening, Jackson.'
'How are you?'
'I've felt better,' she said. 'Lily insists that she stay at her own home when it would be better if she stayedhere.' She set her big black purse on the counter and moved to stand a few feet in front of him. 'Last year TinyBarnett's youngest girl, Tammy, had woman trouble and had to have surgery. Did you hear what happened toher?'
Jack wasn't sure Louella was speaking to him. She was looking at him, but he didn't know anyone named
