Neil looked thoughtful. “Bryan’s not such a bad guy, actually. He’s promised to try to get his sister to let Terry see his daughter, if he wants to.”
“Will he?” Callie asked, trying to picture Terry as a father. She couldn’t help feeling sad about how much he’d already missed of his daughter’s life.
“We talked about it earlier today. He’s thinking about it. He may decide to leave it up to her. She’s old enough to choose whether she wants a gay father in her life.”
Neil pulled another chair up beside Callie’s. Instead of facing the bed, though, he turned it toward her. “Now what about you? You going to fight for the man you love?”
Callie thought of everything Jason had brought into her life—excitement, approval, challenges, bowling and love. How could she walk away from all that, except maybe for the bowling?
“I want to,” she admitted eventually, then looked sadly at Terry. “I have a feeling, though, that it’s too late. Maybe you’ve noticed, Jason is a very stubborn man.”
“It’s never too late,” Neil told her forcefully. “If you don’t believe me, ask your mother.”
Callie stared at him in confusion. “My mother? Why?”
Neil smiled. “Just ask, okay.”
Something in his voice and in his eyes told her she ought to be asking very soon. “You won’t tell me?”
He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
Intrigued, Callie stood up. “Then I guess it’s time for me to go home.”
* * *
Back at the apartment, she found her mother fussing around in the kitchen, humming happily off-key. Nothing so odd about that, she decided as she settled herself at the kitchen table and studied the woman who had transformed herself into someone Callie barely recognized.
“How about some hot chocolate?” her mother asked, regarding her closely. “Are you okay?”
“Just tired,” Callie insisted. “It’s too warm for hot chocolate. How about iced tea?”
Her mother reached for the teakettle. “Fine. It’ll be ready in a minute. How’s Terry?”
“Recovering nicely, according to the doctors.” She studied her mother intently, fascinated by the lighthearted mood she detected. “Mother, what’s going on with you?”
The question was apparently a little too direct. Her mother dropped the glass she was holding and blushed furiously.
“With me?” she asked, trying belatedly for an innocent tone. She borrowed time to compose herself by sweeping up the broken glass, then asked, “What makes you think anything is going on with me?”
“You’ve changed, for one thing.”
“A new hairstyle and a little color for the gray,” she insisted nonchalantly. “That’s all.”
Callie refused to accept the easy response. “It’s more than that. Neil said something at the hospital.”
Her mother stared at her, clearly alarmed. “What did he say?”
“Just that I should ask you about it never being too late for some things.”
A smile softened her mother’s features. “That’s true enough. He was talking about you and Jason, I assume.”
Callie was not about to be distracted by a discussion of her own problems. “Yes, but I’m asking about you. He made it sound as if you had some special insight into the subject.”
Regina Gunderson sighed, then pulled out a chair. “I suppose now is as good a time as any to get into this, though I was hoping that Mikel...” Her voice trailed off.
“Mikel?” Callie repeated, seizing on the unfamiliar name. “Who is Mikel and what does he have to do with anything?”
“Mikel Rolanski is an artist, a very fine one,” her mother said.
New pieces for the puzzle kept turning up. Callie couldn’t seem to keep up with them. “Here in New York?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you know him?”
Her mother’s chin rose a notch and she fixed a steady gaze on Callie. “I’m going to marry him,” she said in a rare burst of defiance. Her tone suggested that she expected Callie to argue with her.
Callie couldn’t have argued if she’d wanted to. She was too dumbfounded. She simply stared. Marriage? Her mother was getting married? When had this happened? And how? All she could think was that Eunice was going to find some way to blame this on her, too.
“Maybe you’d better begin at the beginning,” she suggested when she could finally form a coherent thought.
The beginning wasn’t, as she’d expected, a few short months ago, but years in the past. “You were in New York before you married my father,” she repeated in amazement.
“For two incredible years,” her mother confessed. “I was an art student. Mikel was my mentor.”
“But nothing more?” Callie asked.
There was that soft, knowing smile again. “Much, much more,” her mother said quietly.
“Oh.” Callie fell silent, letting that bombshell sink in.
Slowly, the whole incredible story began to unfold. She was spellbound as her mother described that long-ago love affair, her foolish decision to run home to Iowa when she became convinced that Mikel would never marry her and the even more impetuous decision to get involved with Jacob Gunderson and settle for the staid, uneventful life her family had envisioned for her.
“So, you see,” her mother said. “When you left for New York, no one understood that need better than I. And no one knew the possibilities for heartache better than I.”
Callie thought of the old art book that had come to mind so recently that night at Jason’s. Those elusive memories of her mother’s wistfulness when they’d looked at it made sense now. It reminded her of a life she’d left behind.
“You’ve never talked about living here before. I thought this was your first trip. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her mother’s shoulders rose and fell with a heartfelt sigh. “Because it always hurt too much,” she said simply.
Tears welled up in Callie’s eyes then, tears of understanding and compassion. If she didn’t fight for Jason now, would she spin out the rest of her days as her mother had, filled with regrets?
“But you’ve found each other again,” she repeated, desperate for some sense of hope, for a promise that love survived.
Her mother nodded. “He’s very anxious to meet you and Eunice. He’s old-fashioned. He wants your
