Leave It to Claire (30 page)

He smiles and I feel myself thawing. “Put your arms through the sleeves. You’ll be warmer.”

“I can’t take your coat.” Of course I can. And I’d like to see him try to take it back.

He smiles. “I still have on a jacket. I won’t miss my overcoat nearly as much as you would.”

I grin through my chattering teeth. “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

Finally, the door opens and the couple arrives on the steps of the church. They wave like a king and queen making a showing
for their subjects. I take one look at my friend’s face and all of my irritation slips away. My breath catches in the light
of such radiant happiness as they walk hand in hand. I’m so mesmerized, I forget to blow my bubbles. Linda reaches for me
as she passes. I take her hand and she squeezes, looks not so subtly at Greg, and then gives me a wink before letting go.

I’m not sure if he saw the exchange, but Greg slips his arm around me. I try not to read too much into that. Most likely he’s
just trying to warm me up. And, if that’s the case, boy, did he ever meet his objective.

I stare at the buffet line. My spirit wars with my flesh. I’m down seventeen and a half pounds. The question of the day appears
to be: Do I want to forfeit the half pound for a wedge of Mrs. Devine’s magic cookie bars?

I give it serious thought and I’m coming up with a resounding, “You betcha.”

I reach, I touch—too late to put it back now. I take a decadent bite with relish. I have to force myself not to close my eyes
and let out a “Mmm.”

Darcy breezes by. “What do you think?” she asks in a needy sort of way that I completely understand.

My mouth is filled with the heady delights of coconut, pecans, chocolate chips, and graham cracker crust, so I give her a
hardy thumbs-up. Her luncheon is an enormous success. She’s won over every woman between the ages of eighteen and eighty who
attends the church. Before we began the gluttonous part of the day, we heard a wonderful lesson about Mary’s response to the
angel Gabriel when she was told she would bear the Messiah: “Be it unto me according to Thy will.”

Chills, and a few tears, made the rounds in the room. It was a message of surrender divinely inspired and taught by none other
than Pastor’s aunt. Which I thought was a stroke of genius on Darcy’s part to even ask her. I mean, come on. It also just
goes to show you how God can use anyone.

“Oooh, give me one of those before they’re all gone,” Darcy says, nodding toward the magic cookie bars on the buffet line.
I grab one and hand it over.

“So, you think the Christmas tree is offending anyone?” she asks as we walk to a table with a couple of empty seats.

I glance around at the groups of laughing, talking, stuffing-their-faces women and I have to be honest. “No way.”

The decorations are a hodgepodge of traditional and modern. Beautiful poinsettia candle-ring centerpieces with fat red candles
add a soothing atmosphere to each table. In one corner of the room, she has set up the nativity. Somehow she’s fixed the baby
Jesus and the shepherd’s staff and it looks brand-new. “It’s perfect, Darcy. You’ve done a fabulous job.”

Her face pinkens with pleasure. “Thank you, Claire. I was so nervous.” She leans a little closer. “Mrs. Devine hasn’t frowned
at anything so far.”

I pat her hand. “I think she chilled out once she saw most of the women backed your idea. She’s not a bad woman, you know.
She’s just got some funny ideas about what is or isn’t proper. Maybe this is a new phase of her life, her ‘Be it unto me according
to Thy will’ stage.”

“Claire, I think you are so wise in so many ways.” Her eyes well up with tears. “Thank you for coming today and supporting
me. I know it’s not always easy for you right now.”

For crying out loud! Why can’t she just leave well enough alone? Here we are, all getting along, and she has to go and bring
up that of which we don’t speak. I am about to tell her to take a chill pill when her eyes go wide with horror. Alarm shoots
through me. “What’s wrong?”

Without a word she bolts from the table. I bolt after her and into the bathroom. “Darce? You okay?”

Her response comes from the stall, but not in words.

I hope I don’t catch her flu the week before Christmas.

She emerges moments later, pale and shaken. I hand her a wet paper towel.

“Do you need me to finish up here for you?”

She spits out a mouthful of water and shakes her head. “I’ll be okay. I think that cookie was just a little too rich. Thanks
for coming after me.”

Her heels
click-clack
on the floor as she dries her hands and heads for the door. I lean back against the sink and try to figure out how she can
go from happy-go-lucky to Barferella then back to fine-and-dandy in a matter of minutes. A cookie? That’s ridiculous. The
only time anything rich like that made me sick was when I was preg—

Oh, dear Lord.

Somehow I manage to fake my way through the rest of the day and get out of there with my dignity intact, despite my suspicions
that Darcy is pregnant. As I walk up the steps toward the second floor of my home, my safe place, I hear sniffling coming
from Ari’s room. In the middle of a school day?

“Ari?” I tap and enter.

My daughter is flung across her bed, tears streaming down her swollen face.

“Baby, what happened?”

“Nothing, Mother. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you are crying your eyes out in the middle of the day when you should be in school. You’re going to
have to talk about it.” I don’t want to be insensitive, but I think sometimes a parent just has to demand answers. I mean,
did she get into a fight and get expelled? Did someone say mean things about her? Did her panties fall down in the middle
of a cheer? It could be anything.

She sits up and leans back against her headboard, clutching a stuffed rabbit she’s had since her fourth birthday. Oh, boy.
If she’s hanging on to Fluffy Bunny, this is bad.

I get a wad of toilet paper from her bathroom. She makes use of it and hugs the bunny to her chest.

“All right. Now tell me what happened.”

Her lower lip trembles like she’s about to burst into tears again. “Patrick. He’s seeing someone else.”

I’m not sure I heard that right. Does any boy have the audacity to choose someone else over my beautiful Ari? How foolish
is he? “I’m sorry, honey. What happened?”

“Trish told me she saw him with Shelley at the movies last night. Only stupid me, I got mad at Trish. Then today—” She shudders
as another sob shakes her slight frame. She gulps. “Today I saw him actually
kissing
Shelley.”

“He did
what
?”

“Can you believe that, Mom?” Her tearful eyes meet mine. “I thought he liked me. He was so cool.”

Her anguish is palpable and I move in, taking her in my arms like I haven’t since she was a little girl. She resists for only
a moment, then relaxes against me. Her tears soak the fabric of my shirt, and my own tears run freely down my cheeks—totally
feeling her pain.

I’d give anything to spare her this.

She pulls away. “Why can’t men just be satisfied with the women they have?” she asks as the anger part of this process kicks
in. “It just doesn’t make sense. Shelley isn’t prettier, she isn’t skinnier, she’s not funny, and Mom, she’s dumb as a box
of rocks. She’s just different. And Paddy has nothing whatsoever in common with her. Why do guys have to get tired of one
girl and move on to the next? I really thought he was going to be the one.”

“What do you mean by the one?”

“Yeah, you know—
the
one.”

“Oh.” I can’t help but be a bit disturbed that my sixteen-year-old daughter is thinking in terms of
the
one about the first boy she’s dated.

“I know you probably think I’m too young, but I really love Paddy, Mom.”

“I believe you, Arianna.” After all, I loved her dad when I was her age. Maybe if Rick had shown his true colors back then
I would have been spared my heartache. Of course then I would have lost out on four amazing kids as well. “Ari, the two of
you didn’t go any farther than what I saw that night on the bleachers did you?”

Horror lifts to her eyes. “Mother!”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean.”

She scowls and acquiesces. “We’ve never had sex, if that’s what you mean.”

Yep. That’s what I meant.

“We really both wanted to do what’s right. Paddy wants to be a youth pastor. He does want to wait until marriage. But he’s
just…”

“A teenage boy and sex is everywhere he looks.”

She shrugs. “Something like that.” Her soulful eyes capture mine. “If I tell you something, you promise you won’t flip out?”

“I never flip out.” But I will if she says she was lying and they actually have had sex.

She rolls her eyes. “Forget it.”

“Come on, Ari. You can’t set me up like that and then just say forget it.”

A shaky sigh leaves her. “We didn’t have sex, but we did more than kiss.”

Oh, Lord. I feel my breath coming in bursts. I know I don’t want to have this conversation, but somehow, I know I need to.
If only I’d been able to speak to my mother about these things, I might have been spared a lot of heartache myself. Because
Rick and I definitely didn’t wait until marriage. I lost my virginity in the backseat of his dad’s Delta 98 after his senior
prom. I was Ari’s age. “Okay.”

“It’s just… I wish I hadn’t done so much. I mean. To me it was special and I only let him because I loved him. But the
thought of him doing those things with other girls… just tears me up.”

I really want to knock this Patrick kid upside the head and tell him what a creep he is. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry you
have to deal with adult feelings now. You know, spending time with God helps. When you feel weak, the Bible says to run away
from youthful lusts. Even those of us who are not so young have to run sometimes.”

“Oh, gross, Mother. TMI, okay?”

“Too much info. Got it.” I chuckle. I guess it’s just as well we don’t go there.

“Love really stinks.” She hugs Fluffy Bunny tight. “I’m never falling in love again as long as I live. Guys are all the same.”
She gives a bitter snort. “Just like Daddy.”

My gut clenches. As much as I’d like to tell her they’re all alike, I know this isn’t true. Even her dad isn’t the same as
he was when I was married to him. I know that. I really do. I guess it’s time to suck it up and admit it.

“Ari, honey.”

“I know, Mom. We’re in the same boat, aren’t we?”

I shift around on the bed so that I am face-to-face with her. “No, we aren’t.”

“But we were both cheated on.”

“Not really. Your boyfriend broke up with you and started dating someone else. That’s not the same as a husband cheating on
his wife.”

A look of betrayal slides across her face. “I should have known you wouldn’t understand.”

I stand. I know better than to try to reason with her when she’s all full of no-one-understands-me indignation. “For the record,
Ari, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand. You can’t compare an eleven-year marriage to a few weeks of dating. You can’t
compare a husband and the father of your children to a seventeen-year-old boy you barely dated. What your dad did, he did
to me. Not you.”

“It affected me.” The kid has her mother’s stubbornness.

“That’s true. But he never stopped being your father. And whether you’d like to admit it or not at the moment, he is a good
father.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking up for him.”

Yeah, you and me both, chickadee. “Can I tell you something?”

“Is it about sex?”

I grin. “No.”

She grins back. “Then go ahead.”

“Your daddy apologized to me.”

“When did he do that?”

“During our last counseling session. You know when it was just Darcy and Dad and me?”

She nodded. “Wow, I thought you two must have fought during that one since you won’t even talk to him on the phone.”

“I have issues. But that’s not the point.” I give her an even look so that she can see I mean what I’m saying from the bottom
of my heart. “Your dad is truly sorry for the way he treated me. He cried and cried about breaking our vows, breaking up the
family.” I swallow hard past a sudden lump in my throat.

Her eyes widen. “Really?”

I nod. “He isn’t the man he was all those years ago, Ari. So don’t compare him to someone who hurt you. He didn’t do anything
to you but leave your mother.”

She gives a grudging nod.

“By the way. How did you get home?”

A sheepish grin tugs at her mouth. “I knew you were at the luncheon, so I called Dad.”

“He left work to come get you?”

“He was heading home anyway. Darcy has an appointment of some kind today, and he said he wants to be there with her.”

“Did he happen to say what kind of appointment?” Like I don’t already know.

“No.”

“Okay. No big deal.”

Very big deal. Enormous. Ari has no idea how much her life is going to change in the next few months.

“Hey, you want to go see a movie?”

“Really?”

“Sure. I’ll call Greg’s cell and see if the boys can ride home with him. And Jakey, at least, can go to Greg’s house and play
with Sadie until we get home.”

“Thanks, Mom. I should ditch school more often.” She tosses me a cheeky grin.

“On second thought, maybe I should march you right back to school.”

“Have a heart.” She jumps off her bed like she’s never heard of Paddy Devine. “I want to put on makeup first.”

“Okay. You fix up while I call.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Ari. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you much the past few years.”

“You were as much as you could. And at least you were in the house. Most of my friends have practically raised themselves.
We had Granny, and I knew I could always come into your office if I wanted to.”

“So you’re not scarred for life?”

She laughed. “Not for life.” A serious expression passes over her face.

“What?”