Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour (102 page)

She glanced down at Angie again, who was waiting to take her home.

Home.

Then she looked at Mrs. Mauk and said, “I’m okay now.”

“You’re a good kid, Lauren. I’ll think good thoughts.”

“Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“I hope not, Lauren. Once you’re out of this part of town, you stay out. But I’ll be here if you ever need me.” With a last smile, Mrs. Mauk said good-bye.

In the hallway, Lauren grabbed her suitcase off the floor and hurried outside and down the steps.

“You want me to get the rest of it?” Angie asked, moving toward her.

“This is everything,” Lauren said, patting the suitcase.

“Oh.” Angie stopped. The merest of frowns darted across her brow, then she said, “Well, then. We’re off.”

On the drive through town and along the beach and up the hill, Lauren stared out the window, saying nothing. Every now and then the moonlight hit just right and she found herself staring into her own reflection. She couldn’t help but see a smiling girl with sad eyes. She wondered if they’d always be sad now, always see the chances she’d lost. That had certainly happened to her mother.

She cast a sideways glance at Angie, who was humming along with the radio. Probably she didn’t know what to say either.

Lauren closed her eyes. She tried to imagine her life with Angie as her mother. Everything would have been softer, sweeter. Angie would never slap her pregnant daughter or run out on her in the middle of the night or …

“Here we are. Home sweet home.”

Lauren’s eyes popped open. Maybe she’d fallen asleep for a minute there. It all felt like a dream, that was for sure.

Angie parked next to the house and got out. All the way to the front door and into the house, she talked over her shoulder to Lauren, who hurried along, dragging her suitcase.

“… oven’s about twenty degrees hotter than the indicator. No microwave. Sorry. These rusty old pipes …”

Lauren tried to take it all in. Besides the information Angie was giving her, she noticed a few other things. The windows needed to be washed, for instance, and there was a rip on the sofa’s arm. These were jobs Lauren could do to help out.

Angie kept talking as they went upstairs. “… great water pressure. I recommend lashing yourself down or you’ll fly out of the shower. The pipes ping a little at first, and definitely don’t flush the toilet just before your shower.” She stopped, turned. “It’s okay to share a bathroom, isn’t it? If not—”

“It’s fine,” Lauren said quickly.

Angie smiled. “I thought so. Good. Well, here’s your room. All of us girls used to sleep here.” She opened the door at the end of the hall.

It was a big, beautiful room with a steeply sloped ceiling
and timber beams. Pink wallpaper—tiny rosebuds and vines—covered the walls. Matching bedspreads were on the two sets of bunk beds. A small oak writing desk was tucked in one corner; to its left three expansive rectangular windows looked out over the ocean. Tonight moonlight tarnished the silvery waves. “Wow,” Lauren said.

“The sheets haven’t been washed in a while. I can do that now—”

“No.” Lauren sounded harsh. She hadn’t meant to. It was just … overwhelming. “I can do my own sheets.”

“Of course. You’re an adult. I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t know how to do laundry. It’s just that—”

Lauren dropped the suitcase and ran to Angie, throwing her arms around her. “Thank you,” she said, burying her face in the warm, sweet crook of Angie’s neck.

Slowly, Angie hugged her back. When Lauren felt herself start to cry, she tried to pull back, but Angie wouldn’t let her. Instead, she stroked Lauren’s hair, murmured that it would be okay. Over and over,
It’s okay now, Lauren. It’s okay.

All of her life Lauren had waited for a moment like this.

“WHAT?”

The word was spoken in unison. Shouted, actually.

Angie fought the urge to step back. “Lauren moved in with me.”

Her sisters and Mama stood in a line in Mama’s kitchen. They were staring at Angie.

“This is you being careful with the girl?” Mama demanded, slamming her hands on her hips.

“I think it’s great,” Livvy said. “They’ll be good for each other.”

Mama waved her hand impatiently. “Be quiet. Your sister isn’t thinking straight.” She took a step forward. “You just don’t go around inviting redheaded strangers into your home.”

“She’s hardly a stranger,” Livvy said. “She’s been working in the restaurant. She’s good, too.”

“Until she just didn’t show up for three days,” Mama said. “For all we know, she was on a crime spree.”

Livvy laughed. “Right. Driving from town to town, robbing mini-marts, stopping only long enough to refill her ammo and take a math test.”

Angie moved nervously from foot to foot. She hadn’t expected such a reaction to the moving-in news.

What came next would be a different matter. The word
ballistic
came to mind.

“Angie,” Mira said, moving closer, studying her. “There’s something you’re not telling us.”

Angie winced.

“What? You’re keeping secrets, too?” Mama made a snorting sound. “You know Papa will tell me everything.”

Angie was cornered. There was nothing she could do. Pregnancy wasn’t the kind of secret that stayed secret. She glanced down the row of women, then said, “There is one more thing. Lauren’s pregnant.”

Ballistic
turned out to be an understatement.

The argument had gone on for hours. By the time it came to a tired, sputtering end, Mama had called in reinforcements. Both of Angie’s brothers-in-law were there, along with Aunt Giulia and Uncle Francis. Everyone in the room had an opinion on whether Angie was making a mistake.

In a move that surprised everyone, Livvy voiced the
lone dissent. “Let her do what she wants,” she said sometime in the second hour. “None of us knows what it’s like for her.”

That had brought the pseudo–town meeting to a crashing halt. At the oblique reference to Angie’s childlessness, everyone looked quickly away.

Angie shot Livvy a grateful look. Livvy winked and smiled back.

Then it started up again.

Angie couldn’t stand it anymore. While they were arguing the pros and cons of the decision, she slipped out of the room and went upstairs.

In her old room, she closed the door. The blessed silence soothed her. She figured she had about six minutes of solitude before Mama or Mira came after her.

Less.

The door opened. Mama stood in the doorway, wearing her disappointed face. It was a look her daughters knew by heart. “Two minutes,” Angie noted, scooting sideways on the bed. “That’s a new record.”

Mama closed the door behind her. “I sent everyone home.”

“Good.”

Mama sighed, then sat down on the bed beside Angie. The old springs pinged beneath their weight. “Your papa—God rest his soul—would have yelled at you tonight. Him, you would have listened to.”

“Papa never yelled at us. You did.”

Mama laughed. “He didn’t have to yell. He let me rant and rave for a while and then he drew a line in the sand. ‘That’s enough, Maria,’ he’d say.” She paused. “It’s hard now, with no lines in the sand.”

Angie leaned against her mother. “I know.”

Mama laid her wrinkled hand on Angie’s thigh. “I worry about you, that’s all. It is a mother’s job.”

“I know. And I love you for it.”

“You will be careful, yes? I have seen your heart broken too many times already.”

“I’m stronger now, Mama. Honestly, I am.”

“I hope so, Angela.”

Lauren was awake long before the alarm clock sounded. She’d gotten up around five to go to the bathroom, and after that, she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. She would have started cleaning, but she didn’t want to wake Angie.

It was so quiet here. The only sounds were the surf whooshing against the sand and rocks and the occasional tapping of wind against the windowpane.

No car horns honking, no neighbors screaming at one another, no bottles breaking on the sidewalks.

In a bed like this, with heaping blankets and a down comforter, a girl felt safe.

She glanced over at the clock. It was six. Still dark outside. In these first weeks of winter, the days were short. If she’d been going to Fircrest on this Monday morning, she would have needed to wear her woolen tights with the uniform.

Not that it mattered anymore.

Today would be her first day at West End High. A pregnant transfer student who would be around only until the end of the semester. The popular girls were sure to love her.

She threw the covers back and got out of bed. Gathering her stuff together, she went into the bathroom and
took a quick shower, then carefully dried her hair until it lay straight.

Back in the bedroom, she searched her drawers for something to wear.

Nothing seemed right for the first day at a new school.

Finally, she settled on a pair of flare-legged, low-rise jeans with a fringed suede belt and a white sweater. As she was putting the sweater on, one of her hoop earrings popped free and skittered across the floor.

David had given her those earrings for her last birthday.

She dropped to the floor and started looking, spreading her hands across the boards.

There it was.

She scooted under the bed and found the earring … and something else. Tucked way in the back was a long, narrow wooden box. It looked so much like the floorboards, you’d have to be this close to see it.

Lauren grabbed the box and dragged it out from underneath the bed. Opening it, she found a heap of old black-and-white family photographs. Most of them featured three little girls in pretty dresses gathered around a dark, well-dressed man with a smile that lit up his whole face. He was tall and almost elegantly thin, with eyes that closed into slits when he laughed. And he was laughing in most of the pictures. He reminded Lauren of that actor from the old days—the one who always fell in love with Grace Kelly.

Mr. DeSaria.

Absurdly, Lauren thought of him as Papa. She looked through the pictures, saw the images of a childhood she’d dreamed of: family road trips to the Grand Canyon and Disneyland; days spent at the Grays Harbor County Fair, eating cotton candy and riding the roller coaster;
evenings at this very cottage, roasting marshmallows at a bonfire near the water’s edge.

A knock pounded at the door. “It’s six-thirty, Lauren. Rise and shine.”

“I’m up.” She pushed the box back under the bed, then made her bed and picked up her room. When she left it and closed the door behind her, there was no visible evidence that she’d even been there.

Downstairs, she found Angie in the kitchen. “Good morning,” Angie said, scooping scrambled eggs from a frying pan to a plate. “You’re just in time.”

“You made me breakfast?”

“Was that okay? Do you mind?”

“Are you kidding? It’s
great.
”

Angie smiled again. “Good. You’ll need to eat well in the next few months.”

They stared at each other in a sudden, awkward silence. The distant hum of the ocean seemed to grow louder. Lauren couldn’t help touching her stomach.

Angie winced. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I’m pregnant. There’s no point pretending I’m not.”

“No.”

Lauren couldn’t think of anything else to say. She went to the table and sat down, scooting in close. “Breakfast smells great.”

Angie handed her a plate with a couple of scrambled eggs, two pieces of cinnamon toast, and some cantaloupe slices on it. “That’s about the only thing I can cook.”

“Thank you,” Lauren said softly, looking up.

Angie sat down across from her. “You’re welcome.” Finally, she smiled. “So, how did you sleep?”

“Good. I’ll have to get used to the quiet.”

“Yeah. When I moved to Seattle, it took me forever to get used to the noise.”

“Do you miss the city?”

Angie looked surprised by the question, as if maybe she hadn’t thought of it before. “I don’t, actually. I’ve been sleeping amazingly well lately; that must mean something.”

“It’s the sea air.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your mama told me that if a girl grows up smelling sea air, she can never really breathe inland.”

Angie laughed. “That sounds like my mother. But Seattle is hardly inland.”

“Your mother thinks everything except West End is inland.”

They talked a bit more about this and that, then Angie stood up. “You do the dishes. I’ll shower and meet you in ten minutes, then we’ll go to school.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m driving you, of course. The restaurant is closed today, so carpool is no problem. Hey, by the way, I thought Fircrest had a uniform.”

“They do.”

“Why are you in civilian clothes?”

Lauren felt the heat on her cheeks. “They took back my scholarship. Uniforms don’t come in elephant sizes, I guess.”

“Are you telling me they kicked you out of school because you’re pregnant?”

“It’s no big deal.” She hoped her voice didn’t betray how she really felt.

“The hell you say.”

“I don’t know—”

“Do the dishes, Lauren, and put on your uniform. We’re paying Fircrest Academy a little visit.”