Two minutes later, she was back, looking shaken.
“What?” he asked. “Is Annie okay?”
“She was in the bathroom,” Dana Sue said, her voice catching. “Ronnie, she was throwing up. I heard her. She’d eaten every bite of her breakfast. I sat right here with her to make sure. Then she went upstairs and threw up.” There was panic in Dana Sue’s eyes when she met his gaze. “What are we going to do?”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, feeling as helpless as he had the first time he’d seen Annie in the hospital. “Whatever it takes,” he said grimly. “Did you confront her?”
Against his chest, he felt Dana Sue’s quick head shake. “No,” she whispered.
“Probably just as well. We’ll deal with it with Dr. McDaniels. You stay here. I’ll go up and get her, make sure she’s okay.”
He took the stairs two at a time. A part of him was angry, so angry he wanted to punch something, but overshadowing that by far was the terror that they were heading into a whole new territory with Annie. Was she about to replace one eating disorder with another? Did kids do that?
Before he could make himself crazy with more unanswerable questions, he spotted Annie coming out of the bathroom. She gave him a halfhearted smile.
“Hi, Daddy.”
His heart flipped over in his chest at her woebegone expression. “Hey, baby. You okay?”
She gave him a knowing look. “Mom heard me, didn’t she? I know she came upstairs a few minutes ago.”
He nodded.
“I wasn’t throwing up on purpose,” she said, leveling a gaze into his eyes that begged him to believe her. “I wasn’t! I just got scared all of a sudden and then I felt sick.”
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “You feeling better now?”
“I guess.”
“We’ll talk about this some more when we see Dr. McDaniels.”
She seemed to wilt a little. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
He tucked a hand under her chin and looked into her eyes. “I want to, baby. I really do.”
“It’s the truth. I swear it. I couldn’t make myself do that,” she said with a shudder. “I just couldn’t.”
Ronnie had no response for that.
Annie regarded him with regret. “I know I have to earn your trust again, yours and Mom’s, but it’s hard, you know?”
“I know. Something tells me this is like a lot of other things that just take a while to sort out. We’ll have to take it one step at a time.”
“Like you and Mom?” she asked.
Ronnie smiled. “Yes, just like me and your mother.”
Suddenly Annie grinned, and all of his heartache vanished at the beauty of it.
“I saw you kiss her last night,” she told him. “Way to go, Dad!”
He winked at her. “Like I said, one step at a time.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, an impish glint in her eyes. “A kiss like that oughtta be a giant leap, at least.”
“Your mother’s a stubborn woman and my mistake was a whopper,” he reminded her. “It wouldn’t be smart to take anything for granted.”
“Just don’t give up, okay?” she said.
“Never,” he assured her. “Not on her and not on you. Not in a million years.”
* * *
Annie was starting to feel sick to her stomach again. Everyone was staring at her so expectantly, like they wanted her to say something profound that would make everything okay. But nothing was okay. Nothing had been okay since her dad left.
Could she say that? Wouldn’t it just make things worse if she said food was all mixed up in her head with the way she’d felt when he’d told her he was leaving that day at Wharton’s? What if she said she’d stopped eating so she wouldn’t gain weight like her mom had? That was part of it, too. At least she thought it was.
But if she blurted any of that out, wouldn’t they just feel worse? Would it really solve anything? This was her problem, not theirs.
“Annie,” Dr. McDaniels said, giving her an encouraging nod. “It’s okay to say whatever you’re thinking. That’s the only way to put the past behind you and move on.”
“Maybe we could talk about this morning instead,” Annie said hesitantly.
Dr. McDaniels looked surprised, but nodded. “If that’s what you want. What happened this morning?”
“My mom heard me throw up and I know she freaked about it, because she sent my dad upstairs. He looked all worried and scared.”
“Can you blame him?” the shrink asked.
Annie shook her head. “But I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said, looking directly at her mom. “I was just nervous about coming here, and I got sick. I don’t want you guys to go crazy every time I get sick to my stomach. If I ever get the flu, you’ll probably send me straight to some treatment facility.”
“Did you get sick to your stomach a lot before you developed an eating disorder?” Dr. McDaniels asked.
Annie nodded. “Whenever I had to stand up in school and give a report, I’d throw up in the morning. Remember, Mom?”
Her mother nodded slowly, a faint hint of relief in her expression. “That’s true,” she said.
Dr. McDaniels nodded, too. “Then let’s assume for the moment that this was more about nervousness than food. Maybe next time you feel that way, Annie, you can ask for some ginger ale or crackers or something that might help to settle your stomach, okay? Not only might that make you feel better, but it might reassure your parents.”
Annie suddenly had an image of the way her mom ate when she felt bad. She stuffed herself with whatever she could get her hands on. “No!” she protested sharply, before she could stop herself. “I won’t do that!”
“Do what?” Dr. McDaniels inquired, her voice calm despite Annie’s obvious agitation.
“It’ll be like Mom,” Annie blurted.
She saw the color rise in her mother’s cheeks and knew she’d said exactly the wrong thing, even if it was the way she felt.
“What does that mean, Annie?” the shrink asked, waving off Dana Sue when she would have responded.
“When she’s upset,