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the floor beside her chair.
"Yes, ma'am," Dana laughed. She got to her feet. "With your permission I'll dash over and stow my
luggage. Do I start tonight?"
"With my blessing." Mrs. Pibbs actually smiled. "Welcome home, Dana."
"Thank you," she replied earnestly.
Dana unpacked, having barely enough time to say hello and good-bye to Jenny, who went on duty
minutes later.
Then, when she'd rested for a few minutes, she resolutely lifted the receiver of the phone and dialed
Aunt Helen's number.
It rang five times before it was picked up, and Dana had almost given up when she heard her aunt's
honeyed tones on the other end of the line.
"Aunt Helen?" she asked hesitantly.
"Dana! Dana, is it you? Oh, my dear, I've been sick to death about what I said to you.... Can you
forgive me?"
"Of course I can, you were hurting just as much as I was," Dana said on a sigh. It was such a blessed
relief to have things patched up again. "How are you?"
"Can you come over?" Aunt Helen asked, ignoring the question. "I'll make a pot of coffee and we'll
talk, all right?"
"I'll be there in ten minutes," she replied.
It took fifteen, by the time she changed into jeans and a T-shirt, but her aunt lived only about two
blocks from the apartment
Helen's house was an old, rambling white frame Victorian, with a long front porch where white
rocking chairs and an equally white porch swing invited visitors to sit among the potted flowers that
lined the entire porch.
Helen came rushing out, still wearing her apron, and grabbed Dana in a crushing embrace. She was
crying, and Dana cried too.
Helen dabbed at her eyes through a smile and handed Dana a tissue.
"Silly women," she muttered. "Want to have our coffee out here?"
"I'd love it," Dana replied. "Can I help?"
"No, the tray's all fixed. My best silver, too, I want you to know."
"I'm honored!"
Helen disappeared into the house and returned with a huge silver tray laden with cake and cookies and
coffee.
She put it on the white wrought-iron table by the rocking chairs and invited Dana to sit down. It was
delightful on the porch, cool and quiet and homey. Dana could remember so many lazy summer days
spent there while Mandy visited her only sister.
"How are you?" Helen asked while they sipped coffee and nibbled on homemade cookies.
"I'm better. Much better. And you?"
Helen shrugged. "Getting over it, I suppose. I still miss her, as I'm sure you do. But life goes on,
doesn't it?"
Dana smiled wistfully. "Inevitably." She finished a cookie and took a sip of black coffee. "How's
Dad?"
Helen gave her a sharp, probing look. "Hurting. He thinks you blame him for Mandy's death. He calls
me once a week to see how you're doing."
That was painful. "It was hard," she said after a minute, "getting used to being two families, when we'd
been one most of my life. Always it was Mom and Dad. Now it's Dad and someone else, and no
Mom." She sighed bitterly. "I honestly feel like an orphan."
"Dear, we've agreed that life goes on. Now answer me just one question honestly," Helen said, leaning
forward intently. "Would you want your father to live all his life alone, with no one?"
Dana blinked. "Well, no, I don't suppose so."
"Would you want him to be a playboy and take out a different woman every night?''
"No!" Dana said, horrified.
"You've never even met Sharla formally," Dana was reminded. "She's a lovely woman, Dana. Very
old-fashioned and sweet. She likes to cook and grow flowers and do needlepoint, and she loves the
whole world.
She's a...motherly woman. And she has no children of her own; she'd never been married before she
met Jack."
That was interesting. Dana sat up straight, staring across at her aunt. "She hadn't?"
Helen smiled. "No, she hadn't So, you see, marriage was a very special thing for her. She can't have
children anymore, of course, and she was looking forward to having a grown daughter."
Tears stung Dana's eyes. She turned away. "That might be nice, to be wanted by someone," she
whispered.
Helen frowned. "Whatever do you mean, darling?"
"Mother told me."
Helen blinked. "Told you what?"
"That because of me, Dad and Mom had to get married. That he never wanted me, that he blamed me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]