All Fired Up (21 page)

Chapter Fourteen

“What are you talking about, lass? You told me yourself you wanted to visit yer mother last week.” Aunt Moreen looked at Calleigh with deep concern.

“Not here. Why here? This isn’t right.” Calleigh stared out the window at the cold granite headstones. “This can’t be right.”

“Sweet child, you’ve had a rough few weeks. Maybe it’s best I just take you home. In fact, why don’t you come stay with us for a while? It must be terrible lonely in that house by yerself.”

Calleigh turned to look at her aunt. “This is a cemetery.”

Moreen nodded slowly, gravely. “That’s right, love. Come on now, let’s go home.”

“My mother is here?” An old, familiar pain sprung to life in Calleigh’s gut.

Moreen nodded again. “That’s right.”

“Why? She wasn’t supposed to die.” This was wrong. This was not what she wanted.

“I know, love. It was a terrible accident.” Moreen patted Calleigh’s hand. “Blasted drunk drivers. At least they took that man’s license away and threw him into prison where he belongs. It’ll be a cold day in a very hot place before he walks the streets a free man.”

No, no, no. A drunk driver had killed her mother? Why had this happened? When had this happened? The headstone would tell her that much. “Can I give her those lilies?”

“Of course you can! I’ll wait here so you can have some time alone.”

“No, come with me. Please.” Feeling a little numb, Calleigh followed her aunt. The thick perfume of the lilies wafted up from the wrapped bouquet in her hand, churning her stomach with its sweetness.

A simple rose granite headstone marked her mother’s grave. She read the dates carved into the stone. Her mother had been dead almost a year. She glanced down at the date on her watch. In two days, it would be a year exactly. No wonder her aunt and uncle thought she had so much to deal with. If they only knew the truth.

She knelt to lay the flowers at the base of the headstone and trailed her fingers over the carved grooves that spelled out Catherine.
I miss you so much, Mom.
She shook her head. Maybe a crappy life was her destiny after all.

A small seed of anger took root. She wondered if Alrik had known this would be the outcome of her change. Where was he anyway? He promised he’d come back as soon as he could. Men were such unreliable creatures. Well, most of them.

She stood up and brushed bits of leaf off her jeans. “I’m ready to go see Dad.”

The stark medicinal tang of the nursing home ate away at Calleigh’s resolve that things were going to get better. The cheery colors and flowered-wallpaper did nothing to soften the reality of the halls they decorated.

They signed in at the guest desk and she followed her aunt to the Autumn wing. Through the first open door she saw a woman sitting in a chair talking to herself, tearing a tissue to shreds. Through another, a man stared at a television playing daytime soaps while he petted a stuffed cat on his lap.

Her heart ached. Was this what had become of her father?

Moreen stopped in front of #1217. “I’ll go wait in the visitor’s room, so you can have some time alone with him. Take as long as you like, I’m in no hurry.”

“Thanks, Aunt Moreen.”

Her aunt squeezed her hand and turned to go but then hesitated. There was sadness in Moreen’s eyes when she looked at Calleigh. “Just remember him when he was well, love.”

Calleigh furrowed her brow as she watched her aunt walk away. She hesitated a moment before going in. She had no idea what shape her father was in. Was she ready for this? Was there any way to be ready?

She knocked softly, then opened the door. “Daddy?”

A nurse was trying to give medication to an old man in a recliner. The TV was playing an
Andy Griffith
rerun. “You need to take this. Opie can wait.”

“Fool woman, quit tryin’ to poison me,” the man rasped. He swung wildly at the small paper cup of pills in her hand.

The nurse glanced up when Calleigh entered. “Maybe you can get him to take these. He’s been fighting me all morning.”

She turned back to her patient. “Your daughter’s here. You want her to see you behaving like this?”

Calleigh inhaled sharply, the smell of the place making her lightheaded. This man couldn’t possibly be her father. Her father was bright-eyed and kind. This man was thin and washed out. Black-rimmed glasses in need of a good cleaning obscured dull brown eyes.

He peered around the nurse’s ample figure. “That’s not me daughter.”

A quiet sigh of relief slipped from Calleigh’s lips. This was just some sort of mix-up. This man with the rough brogue might be a distant relative of hers but certainly not her father. She was about to ask the nurse where she might find her Eagan McCarthy when the old man spoke, tears in his eyes. “Catherine, you’re back! I missed ye so much, love.”

At the sound of her mother’s name, Calleigh’s heart crumbled. This man
was
her father. “Daddy? Daddy, it’s me, Calleigh.”

“Ye’ve got to help me, Catherine. This blame woman’s tryin’ to poison me. Did ye come to take me home?”

He looked straight at her but Calleigh knew he wasn’t seeing her. How had her father turned into this paper shell of a human being?

“Take me home, Catherine,” he pleaded.

She held out her hand to the nurse. “Give me the pills, I’ll see he takes them.”

“Good luck,” the woman mumbled on her way out.

Calleigh pulled a chair beside her father and sat down. “Daddy, it’s me, Calleigh, your daughter. Remember?”

For a moment, she thought she saw recognition in his faded brown eyes.
Please remember me.

“I don’t want peas again for dinner. No peas. I don’t like them.” He sat back in the chair, eyeing her suspiciously.

She shook her head. “Okay, Daddy, no peas.”

“No peas, no peas, no peas…” He whispered the words under his breath, rocking slightly as he spoke.

The anger born at her mother’s graveside grew inside her, built up by fresh pain and new resentment. This wasn’t fair. Her father wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

Tears stung her eyes as she filled his glass with water from a nearby pitcher and offered him the pills. “Here you go.”

“What are those? I don’t want them.”

“Vitamins,” she fibbed. “They’re good for you,” she added. Well, that wasn’t a complete lie, she supposed.

“No. They’re poison, aren’t they?”

“Catherine wants you to take them.” Lord help her, that was dirty pool.

He nodded and took the pills, his gaze drifting back to the television screen. He laughed a little and she contented herself to just sit beside him while he watched the old black and white show. No one in Mayberry even got Alzheimer’s, did they? She patted her father’s blue-veined hand.

He looked at her, furrowing his brow. “What’s your name?”

“Calleigh.” She smiled, hoping for some recognition at last.

He smiled, a brilliant mega-watt grin that shone like the noonday sun and for the first time, he looked like the man she remembered. “I have a daughter named Calleigh.”

She nodded but said nothing, afraid to interrupt his thoughts.

“She’s a beautiful lass, just like her ma and smart, too. She just turned two. Or three…” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. After a moment, his eyes went back to the TV.

I’m right here, Daddy. Don’t you see me? Don’t you recognize me?
She wanted to shout the words but instead she squeezed his hand gently. “And she loves you very much.”

If he heard her words, he didn’t acknowledge them. He laughed again as Aunt Bea scolded Andy for something.

Calleigh stood and kissed her father’s cheek as her heart broke into pieces. “Bye, Daddy. I love you. I’m sorry about all this. I really am.”

“No peas, no peas, no peas…” He rocked in the chair.

A new emotion sluiced through her like a flood surge. Brighter and sharper than any anger she’d felt before in her life, this had a raw, wounded edge to it. Her hands fisted at her sides.

She wanted to hit something. Or someone.

***

Alrik paced the brownstone’s wood floors until he thought he might wear a path. Where was Calleigh? Her car was parked outside but she was not home. The sun was well set. She should have been home by now. He worried that the shock of the change might have caused her to do something rash.

Snickers yowled, weaving his furry body between Alrik’s legs.

“I do not know where your mistress is, little cat. It worries me, also.” He bent down and scrubbed the cat’s back with his fingers.

The doorknob jiggled. He glanced up as Calleigh entered. Her face was pale, her eyes and nose red. She had been crying. Still, the sight of her made his heart leap. He wanted to protect this woman. Freya was right, much as he hated to admit it.

He had fallen in love with his charge.

He stood and held his arms out. “Calleigh lass, I am so sorry—“

Her chest rose with a sudden inhale. She slammed the door. Her eyes narrowed, the muscle along her jaw tightening. “You.”

Not the reception he had hoped for, but one he had known was possible. “I know it was not as you—“

She wrenched her coat off and threw it over the couch. “You have no idea what it was like.”

He started toward her. “I can expl—”

“No.” She held her hand out. “I’ve had enough. Enough of you. Enough of your warped magic.”

Plainly exhausted, she slumped onto the floor and gathered the cat into her arms. Her body shook with quiet sobs.

Pain radiated off her in waves. The scar over his heart throbbed like a new wound. “I know you are hurt. I tried to tell you this—“

“What?” Her chin lifted. Wet trails streaked her cheeks. “You never tried to tell me this would happen. If you had, I never would have made this change. Never. My mother is
still
dead, you know. That wasn’t what I asked for. And my father…”

Her voice cracked. She turned her head away, new tears wetting her face. “My father doesn’t even know who I am.”

He blew out a breath and kneeled beside her. How many times had he been through this with a charge before? “I did try to tell you but you insisted on having your change immediately. Everyone has an appointed time to die. That cannot be changed unless their time is unjustly cut short.”

“You don’t think cancer is unjust?”

He shrugged. “It is not for me to decide.”

She shook her head and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Just make this change go away.”

“As you wish.” He reached to help her up but she pulled away.

“I don’t need your help.” She got up on her own and crossed her arms over her chest.

He dropped his hands to his sides. He understood her hurt and although he wanted to ease her pain, he left her alone. Once the change was undone, she would feel better.

Opening his arms, he tipped his head back and thought the Words of Power. Heat shot up his spine and across his back as the wings unfolded. The fire surged through him, molten and needy. It clawed at his belly, tightened his muscles and caressed his skin with a lover’s urgent touch. Thick as honey, the fire swept over him. The Phoenix was reborn.

“Come,” he bade her.

“I don’t have to wait three days?”

“Not if you wish otherwise.”

“I do.” She stepped into the circle of his arms. Resentment burned in her eyes, brighter than the reflected flames. “It will be all right,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes without answer and turned her face away from him.

Resigned to her silence, he wrapped his fiery wings around her and gave the fire its release.

When the flames burned out, they were back in Calleigh’s living room. The television still displayed the same pictures. The hands on the mantel clock still pointed to the same hour. The change was undone. She should be happy now.