Blame It on Your Heart (20 page)

"Okay," he said softly, dropping her hand with a smile.

Ellie smiled back as the sound of crunching caught her attention. She turned her head to see Anthony stuffing a handful of chips into his mouth.

"No more," she said, sliding the bowl out of his reach.

His shoulders slumped, his entire body seeming to pout. "But I'm soooooo hungry."

"I'm going to light the grill," she said, “and dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes? That's like an hour!"

"No, it's like fifteen minutes," Ellie said, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.

"Come with me and let Nana show you what she bought today,” Adele said.

"I'm too hungry to 'preciate it," Anthony said, slumping dramatically against the counter.

"Don't," Ellie whispered as she saw Damon's lips start to quiver. But she was having trouble holding her own laughter back at Anthony's overwrought distress.

"Come on, buddy, why don't you show me that bike you were telling me about."

"OK!" Forgetting that he was on the verge of starvation, Anthony eagerly straightened up.

Ellie felt a little catch in her chest at the way Anthony trustingly tucked his little hand inside Damon's much bigger one. How many times had she imagined this scene, with a child she and Damon had together.

Her mother cleared her throat. Despite her knowing look, Adele didn't say anything about what was no doubt a longing look on Ellie's face. "I'm going to go change," Adele said. "You better go light the grill."

Ellie stepped out onto the back porch and saw that Anthony had already abandoned the bike, and he and Damon were passing a football she didn't even realize they had back and forth.

Well, actually Damon was passing, actually lobbing the ball to Anthony, who would scramble up and despite his best efforts fumble the ball to the grass. Then he'd fling the ball back in a wobbly orbit that bore no resemblance to a spiral but that Damon miraculously caught.

Smiling, she lifted the lid to her mother's ancient two burner gas grill, turned on the gas, and used a long lighter to ignite the flame. After a few moments, the flame sputtered and went out.

"Should have checked the propane," she muttered to herself. Since her mother so rarely cooked at home, she wasn't always on top of supplies.

But when she checked the canister it showed three quarters full.

Frowning, she lit the burners again, only to have the flames once again sputter out.

"You get it going?"

Ellie turned to her mom and saw that she'd poured herself and Ellie a glass of wine and had opened a beer for Damon.

"Something's wrong, the burners won't stay lit."

"Guess you'll have to pan fry them," Adele said and settled into an aluminum folding chair to watch her grandson play.

"What's the problem?" Damon, who was kneeling in front of Anthony to offer a bit of advice, had tuned into their conversation.

"Did you check the propane tank?" he asked after she explained the issue. "I'll take that as a yes," he said when Ellie shot him an arch look.

Within a few seconds he'd diagnosed the problem as a clogged gas line, the result of the grill not being cleaned for too many years.

"It's a good thing you keep the restaurant a lot cleaner than this," Ellie said, wrinkling her nose as Anthony, at Damon's direction, scraped years' worth of built up grill sludge from the pipes feeding the burners, "or else the health inspector would have closed you down years ago."

Adele shrugged. "Lucky for us we have a man around to fix things for us though, isn't it?"

Ellie met Damon's gaze over Anthony's dark head. "Yeah, it really is," she said.

"I tell you there's something so attractive, downright sexy, about a man who knows how to fix things," Adele continued and took a sip of her wine.

"Mom," Ellie warned, though she couldn't suppress a grin at the dark slashes of color that appeared on Damon's cheekbones.

"Seriously," Adele said, settling back in her lawn chair while Damon lit and tested both burners, pretending not to listen. "Your father drove me absolutely nuts, but one thing I always really appreciated about him was that he could fix anything. Plumbing, electrical, you name it. All he needed was a tool box and a power drill." She took another sip of wine, her gaze going wistful in a way Ellie rarely saw. "Of course, since he was gone so much there wasn't much opportunity for him to fix much," she concluded with the little touch of bitterness Ellie was used to hearing when her mother spoke about her father.

"Mommy's father lives in Arizona," Anthony told Damon matter-of-factly. "But I never met him."

Damon nodded, his gaze flicking to Ellie's as though he wasn't so sure how to pursue this conversation.

"I only got grandmas left," Anthony continued. "Nana and Grandmother Margaret. That's my dad's mom. She's still in New York."

"You must miss her," Damon said.

Anthony shrugged, staring mesmerized at the lighter in Damon's hand. "Not really. I don't think she likes me. Whenever I hugged her she always told me not to get her dirty."

"Of course she likes you—loves you," Ellie said quickly, though she'd secretly always had her suspicions. Just as Troy had always seemed to want Ellie to be something or someone she wasn't, his mother, Margaret, had always looked on Anthony, with his shoes full of sand and ketchup smears on his shirts, with a dismayed air.

Her heart squeezed at the idea that Anthony had picked up on it.

"Well I'm not afraid to hug you!" Adele surged out of her chair and pulled a squealing Anthony onto her lap. "I don't care if you're covered with mud like a little piggy!" She buried her face against Anthony's neck and made loud snorting sounds.

Damon's deep laughter echoed her own as Ellie listened to their breathless giggles.

Finally Anthony pushed away, breathless. He was silent for a couple of seconds, then, "Nana, what does sexy mean?"

For once Adele was at a loss for words as Ellie looked at her meaningfully, wondering how her mother was going to dig herself out of this one. She'd warned her several times already to be careful about what she said in front of Anthony, whose ears seemed especially attuned to adult matters or inappropriate words he had no business knowing about.

"I'll just go get the burgers," Adele said hastily, pushing Anthony gently from her lap as she rose.

"Come on, buddy," Damon said, clasping Anthony's shoulder as he steered him back to the lawn. "I bet by the time the cheeseburgers are done, you'll be able to throw a perfect spiral."

She watched, mesmerized as Damon patiently, endlessly, reminded Anthony to reach out and pull the ball to his chest. Leaned over him and covered Anthony's much smaller hand with his own as he showed him how to place his fingers over the laces.

"He's a natural," Adele said as she walked back outside, balancing the platter of burger patties on her hands.

"Are you kidding?" Ellie said as she watched the ball once again sail through Anthony's grasping hands. Unperturbed, he raced to the other side of the yard, hollering, "I got it!"

"He's enthusiastic, I'll give you that," she said, turning back to her mother. "But between me and Troy I don't think Anthony inherited any athletic genes."

"Not Anthony," her mother said exasperated. "Damon. Look at how good he is with him."

"Anthony's having a good time." Ellie said, busying herself by picking up the burgers and carefully laying them on the grill.

"So is Damon," Adele said.

Of course it was impossible not to notice Damon's grin, his happy shout when Anthony finally caught a ball. And her heart nearly exploded at Anthony's proud grin as he held the ball to his chest. "Mommy! I caught it! I caught a football!"

She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Anthony so happy—if ever. For all that they had given him access to the very best that New York city had to offer, Anthony had spent precious little time like this; throwing a ball, playing in the grass, being a boy.

"I always thought he'd make a great dad someday," Adele said.

I always thought so too
, Ellie thought as she blinked against the sting of tears. How many times had she imagined what it would be like to have babies with Damon, to see him rocking their child in his big strong arms? Playing with them, teaching them to fix cars, fish.

Throw a football.

As she watched Damon and Anthony, it was so easy to get swept away by all the what ifs. What if they could get past what happened so long ago? What if they could figure out how to trust each other again and move forward together? What if Damon could step in as Anthony's father, maybe father more children of their own?

She gave herself a mental smack.
Real smart, Ellie, to fantasize about a future with Damon when you can't even have a real conversation about what you're doing, where this might be going.

When you're such a coward, you can't ask because you're afraid he'll tell you his feelings haven't changed since that first night.

"I'm going to go wash this," she said abruptly and snatched up the platter. She soaped it and ran it under the hot water, and scrubbed her hands as well, taking a moment to compose herself.

She loaded the clean platter with buns and put it on a tray along with an array of condiments and a plate piled with sliced cheese and other burger fixings.

Her mother had settled back into the lawn chair and was watching Damon and Anthony chase each other around the yard, her own expression wistful.

"Your dad used to play with you like that," she said as Ellie went over to the grill to flip the burgers. "When you and Molly were little, he'd chase you around for hours until you all practically fell over."

Ellie froze in the act of flipping a burger. She thought back, struggling to remember any such thing. Then there was something, a hazy recollection of a day at the beach, her sister laughing, a deep male voice in the background. "I remember a beach?" she said carefully. Over the course of her childhood, she'd learned to be careful not to bring up her father in anything but the most neutral tones.

Though her mother made no bones about what kind of husband he'd been, she wouldn't stand for the girls badmouthing him.

On the other hand, if they put too positive a spin on life before the divorce, their mother was quick to remind them that he was hardly ever around, that she'd been the one to do virtually all of the child rearing and keeping the family going.

"When we lived in Virginia Beach. You were five and Molly was three. He would take you down to the beach and you'd build sandcastles and splash in the water till the sun went down."

Ellie placed slices of cheese on each of the four burgers and closed the lid of the grill to finish them off. Her mother turned to her, a glimmer of what looked like regret dimming her normally bright gaze. "Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, taking you away from him."

"Dad? Like you said, he was barely around."

"I know, but at least before I left you had some time with him. Some time is better than nothing."

"If he wanted time with us, he certainly could have had it. It's not like he wasn't allowed to see us again."

"I made it hard for him though, moving all the way out here—"

"And he made it hard on you, joining the army and moving us all over the place all the time," Ellie burst in, unused to and uncomfortable with this line of conversation. Her mother had always been so strong in her convictions, so confident in the decisions she'd made. "Which is exactly why I never wanted that kind of life for myself." As she said it her gaze drifted to Damon. He couldn't have heard what she said, but he looked up as though he felt her stare and flashed her a grin.

"Your father and I were never meant for the long haul," Adele scoffed. "Had nothing to do with moving. Now the right couple, they could have made it work."

Ellie could feel her mother's stare boring into the back of her neck as she placed the burgers on buns and took the platter over to the wooden picnic table.

Why didn't you tell me this when I was seventeen? she screamed inside. Why did you drill into me and Molly over and over again that army life was the worst possible fate for a wife, to the point where I was so terrified I wouldn't even let Damon so much as utter the possibility?

"What's gotten into you?" she said instead, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. "You never want to talk about Dad. Now you almost sound like you miss him."

"Hell no," Adele scoffed, but there was a hollowness to her voice Ellie had never heard before. "I'm just old and, I don't know, sentimental. But I look at Anthony and think back to you girls... kids should have a father."

"I agree," Ellie said as she set out four paper plates and put a burger on each. "And unfortunately Troy's absence is beyond anything I was able control."

"Troy." Adele practically spat out his name. "Even if he were alive, that's not someone I would want teaching Anthony what it means to be a man."

"Mom..." Ellie warned.

Adele rose from her chair, walked over to the table, and started putting out forks and napkins beside each plate. "I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but really, Ellie, raising Anthony in that kind of environment, with all that money... Don't tell me you've never felt like you sort of dodged a bullet."