Last One Home (34 page)

“Does he know where we’re living?”

That had always been a primary concern, wherever they lived. “Nope.”

“Good,” Amiee said, nodding once.

Cassie had held on to that letter for a while now without mentioning Duke’s request to her daughter. “It pains me to tell you this, Amiee, but your father is in prison.”

Amiee shrugged as if that meant nothing to her. “It’s where he belongs.”

Cassie couldn’t disagree on that point.

“What did he want?” Amiee asked. “Money?” She laughed then and added, “As if we had any.”

“Among other things, he wanted money, but mostly …” She hesitated, unsure whether now was the time to tell her. She’d intended to wait awhile. But maybe it was time. “He wanted to stay in touch with you. He wanted to write to you. I wasn’t sure I should even let you know, but you’ve grown up a great deal in the last five years and I decided that if you wanted to be in touch with your father, I wouldn’t stand in the way. The decision is yours.”

This was a big risk. Every little girl wants her father, and Cassie had protected Amiee by not telling her everything, so she didn’t really know the worst of it. But her daughter was no dummy; she knew how Cassie felt about him, and she trusted her mother.

“Can I think about this and tell you what I decide later?” Amiee asked.

“Of course. There’s no rush; you do what feels right to you.” Cassie understood that she could be prying the lid open to Pandora’s box, but that was a risk she was willing to take.

They talked the rest of the night away, mainly about Cassie’s two sisters and their impending visit. It was bound to be an eventful weekend. Amiee asked to be in charge of cooking on Sunday and decided she would serve a light lunch. Salads, maybe. While her daughter mulled over the menu choices and pored through cookbooks, Cassie took a long, hot shower and got ready for bed.

Tired as she was, Cassie couldn’t sleep. Different subjects popped up and down in her brain, demanding attention. She so badly wanted to reconnect with Karen and Nichole. There was a lot that needed to be settled among them. Unspoken hurts. Lost years. Disappointments and enough pain to pass around for second helpings.

It wasn’t only Karen and Nichole that were on her mind, either. As always, Steve lingered in her thoughts. Their last meeting played over in her mind again and again. True to his word, he’d stayed away all week. Cassie hadn’t heard from him since their talk on Monday—not that she expected she would. If nothing else, Steve had his pride.

Everything she had told him was true: She wasn’t ready for a serious relationship. And yet her world felt empty without him.

Cassie was nervous waiting for her sisters to arrive. They were due at the apartment around two on Sunday. The minute Cassie and Amiee had gotten home from church, they cleaned and scrubbed every inch of the shabby place. It helped work off some of the anxiety and kept Cassie’s mind occupied.

When they’d finished cleaning, Cassie stepped back and viewed the living area with fresh eyes. “This would make even my mother proud,” she proclaimed. Sandra Judson had been a meticulous housekeeper. If cleanliness was next to godliness, then her mother was strumming a harp at that very moment.

“Grandma said there was a place for everything and everything should be in its place, right?” Amiee said, quoting the grandmother she had never met. Little wonder, seeing that Cassie had mouthed those very words often enough herself.

They sat now, impatiently awaiting Karen and Nichole’s arrival. Cassie rubbed her palms together and glanced at her watch for the second time in as many minutes. “They should be here soon,” she told Amiee.

“Mom?” Amiee said, lowering her voice and darting a look toward Cassie. “I’ve sort of missed seeing Steve.”

Her daughter wasn’t the only one. “Yeah, me, too.”

“It’s been over a week now. He hasn’t called or anything, has he?”

“No, but I was the one who said I’d contact him when I was ready.”

Amiee sighed, her shoulders moving expressively. “I’m sorry I kicked him.”

Cassie tried to hide a smile.

“But he deserved it,” her daughter added. “I was thinking that maybe I should text him and tell him I’m sorry. Do you think I should?”

Cassie was touched. She wrapped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Nice thought, but I think it’s best to leave matters as they are for now.”

“But don’t you miss him?”

Oh yes, she missed him, more than Cassie thought possible. It might be better to tell a lie, but her daughter knew her too well. There was no point in trying. “I do. Big-time.”

The sound of a car door closing came from a distance. Right away Amiee was on her feet, racing toward the front door. “They’re here!” she cried, throwing open the screen and hurrying outside even before Cassie was off the couch.

“Are you my aunt Karen?” Amiee asked. “And my aunt Nichole? I know all about you. Aunt Karen stole my mother’s curling iron and hid it so Mom had to go to school with her hair looking freaky, and Aunt Nichole, you used to wear pigtails. My mom put my hair in pigtails, too, and said I looked just like you!”

Cassie stood in the doorway and smiled even while tears gathered in her eyes. Her heart swelled with emotion and love, watching her daughter greet her two aunts.

“Hello, Amiee,” Karen said, hugging her niece.

“Can I babysit Owen?” Amiee asked Nichole. “Mom said it was up to you, but I’m good with babies. I’m signed up for a class
at the Y and will get a certificate and everything. I like babies. I want my mom to have a baby, but she put everything on hold with Steve, so it’s probably a lost cause.”

Cassie reached out and hugged Nichole, who held a sleeping Owen in her arms. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she found it difficult to speak. “You’re all grown up,” she said, laughing to hide her emotion. Releasing her younger sister, she wiped the moisture from her face with the flat of her hand. “And look at my handsome nephew!”

Karen was crying, too. “I knew this would happen,” she whispered, and covered her words with a weak laugh.

“Please come inside,” Cassie said. After hugging Karen, she ushered them into the apartment.

“Mom wanted to bake a cake from a recipe your mother used to make, but we don’t have an oven so we bought a cake. I thought about making salads but Mom said a cake was better because this is a celebration. I bet the cake isn’t nearly as good as the one your mom made, but it is what it is. My mom says that all the time. Did your mom say that, too, because my mom says a lot of things that your mom did.”

“I’m sure a store-bought cake will be fine,” Karen assured Amiee.

“You can put Owen down on my bed to sleep. I’ll put pillows around him so he won’t fall off. If you want I can sit and watch him until he wakes up,” Amiee offered, eager to please.

“Okay, but let’s leave the bedroom door open so we’ll be able to hear him.”

“You won’t have a problem. The walls in this place carry sound real well,” Amiee assured her. “But I’ll keep the door open, too.”

While Cassie cut the cake and poured the coffee, Amiee gave her two aunts the grand tour, which took all of ten seconds.

“That’s your bedroom?” Nichole asked Amiee, looking shocked at the closet-size space.

“Small, isn’t it?” Amiee said, “but Mom is building us a real house with Habitat for Humanity. She works every spare minute she can on putting in her hours. We’re hoping to have the house completely done before Christmas. It seems like years from now, because we’re both so, so ready. The fastest anyone has managed to get in their hours was six months. Mom checked. Mom thinks she can do it in eight months. Pretty cool, huh? I’ll have a much bigger bedroom then.”

Amiee went with Nichole to put Owen down on her bed.

“Come sit down,” Cassie invited, offering her sister the sofa and taking one of the mismatched kitchen chairs for herself.

Karen joined her first and hugged Cassie. Her sister clung to her for an extra-long moment. She hugged her back just as tightly. “Before anything else—I want to tell you how sorry I am, Cassie. We didn’t talk about this when you came to get the furniture, but we should have. More than anything I regret our last fight and the awful things I said to you. I called you some dreadful names and then you ran off with Duke. When we discovered you were gone I was sure it was because of the things I said. Mom and Dad were beside themselves with worry and I blamed you. I shouldn’t have, but I did. Afterward I held on to that anger because it was easier to hold you responsible than to accept that I played a part in you leaving with Duke.”

Cassie had never thought she’d hear these words from Karen. Leaning forward, Cassie placed her hand on her sister’s forearm. “There’s enough blame to go around. I was foolish and rebellious. I’m sorry, too, Karen, so, so sorry. We were both in the wrong. I’ve regretted my own words and wanted so badly to tell you I wanted to take back every ugly thing I hurled at you.”

Karen’s hands trembled slightly. “When we didn’t hear from you, no one knew what to think. And later, when you did reach out needing help, I was so awful to you … so righteous and angry.”

“It’s okay,” Cassie whispered. “Really. It hurt at first—I won’t lie about that—but Amiee and I found what we needed. None of that matters now.”

The two sisters clung to each other and openly wept. After a few moments, they broke apart and, embarrassed at all the emotion, they laughed. All that mattered was the fact that they were together and were able to talk heart-to-heart.

Nichole stepped out of the bedroom and announced, “Owen’s sleeping and Amiee is watching him so he doesn’t roll off the bed.”

Cassie wiped the moisture off her face. Karen reached for her purse and dug out the tissues, took one, and handed another to Cassie.

“I apologized to Cassie for our big fight … and everything else,” Karen explained to Nichole, rubbing the tissue across the top of her cheekbones.

Nichole sat down next to Karen and looked at Cassie, and in short order tears formed in her eyes. “Karen isn’t the only one who’s sorry.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I owe you an apology, too. Right before you ran away, I … I read your journal.”

Cassie had figured that out almost right away. Clearly someone had, and it made sense that it would be Nichole. “I know.”

“I found it in your half of the closet and then realized that you knew that I’d read it.”

“You knew I was pregnant with Amiee.”

Keeping her eyes lowered, Nichole nodded. “But I wouldn’t have told Mom and Dad. I wouldn’t, and then you ran away and I was sure it was because you didn’t trust me not to tell. I wouldn’t have—I swear it, Cassie. Before I could reassure you … you were gone. And you left your journal behind as if to say it didn’t matter if I knew your secrets or not, because I never would have access to you again.”

“You blamed yourself for me going with Duke? Both of you?”
Cassie had a hard time assimilating this. All these years her sisters had assumed part of the responsibility for her decision to marry Duke. Each one had been convinced that their action had led to the rift between them. “No,” she whispered.

“No?” Nichole repeated.

“No, before any of this happened Duke convinced me that leaving was the only option available to us. I had two hundred dollars in my savings account and that was all we would need to get to Florida, where we could both get jobs.”

Karen and Nichole looked at each other and then at Cassie, and smiled through their tears.

“I have missed you both so much.”

“And we’ve missed you,” Karen said, speaking for them both. “It was never the same after you left.”

“For me, either, and all the while I wondered how I was ever going to make it back home. Remember our hide-and-seek games every summer in the park?”

“Last one home, but you’re home now, Cassie.”

Amiee stood in the doorway to her bedroom. “Is everyone done crying yet?”

Cassie beamed a smile at her two sisters and it felt as if the doors of her heart had been tossed open. “I believe so.”

“Tell me a story from when you were kids my age,” Amiee pleaded.

“Let me see,” Karen lounged back in the sofa. She glanced toward Nichole and Cassie. “Remember Grandma Coulson and the fun things she used to cook for us?” Karen asked.

“Yum—those pizzas she used to make us with English muffins,” Nichole said.

“She made us green eggs and ham once, too, remember?” Karen said.

“And she served us sauerkraut for dessert and it was good,” Nichole added.

“Are you nuts?” Cassie said. “That was gross!” All three laughed at the memory.

“Oh, Karen, Nichole,” Cassie said, tearing up again. “I have so missed you.”

Owen stirred and Amiee immediately went back inside her bedroom.

“You never called,” Nichole said, but her voice wasn’t accusing or critical.

“I couldn’t,” Cassie admitted, lowering her gaze and clenching her fingers together. “Duke wouldn’t allow it.”

“What do you mean he wouldn’t allow it? How could he stop you? You had your own cell, didn’t you?”

“No. He made sure there was no way I could communicate with any of my family. Once he caught me; I’d borrowed a neighbor’s phone and … and let’s just say I paid the price for defying him.” She told them how he’d dislocated her shoulder and given her two black eyes. He refused to take her to the hospital and had a friend reset her shoulder. The pain was so severe Cassie had briefly passed out. She never tried to use a friend’s phone again.