The Queen of Cool (13 page)

Lo wasn’t sure what to say, so she didn’t
say anything.

“
He came into my bedroom,
or the one I’m sleeping in,” Mandy said. “And sat on the bed. I got
to hug him. He said he was proud of me and didn’t care about law
school. He told me he loved me and not to worry about anything.
He’s sure you’ll work everything out. He’s always had such faith in
you.”

“
How was it to see him?” Lo
asked.

“
Nice,” Mandy said. “When I
was at school, I’d always know that Dad was there for me. You know?
He was there. When he died, I…”

Mandy stopped talking. She turned on the
radio and flipped the channels until she found The Edge, her
favorite alternative station.

“
You should be glad your
dad’s not here now,” Lo said. “He’d say…”

“
Turn that crap down,
Amanda!” Mandy and Lo said together and laughed.

“
It was nice to see him,”
Mandy said. “Made me feel like he’s here, even if he’s not here.
You know? I bet Alisha saw him last night too.”

Lo gave a slight nod.

“
You know, Alisha calls you
Mom behind your back,” Mandy said. “She has since she was in high
school. Remember when everything was really shitty, and you and Dad
helped her, and she started belly dancing, and she met Vera, and
our birth mother was off with Enrique or Carlos or Manuel or
whoever in Brazil? She’s called you Mom since then.”

“
Huh,” Lo said.

“
Huh?”

“
Jaden said something about
me being Alisha’s Mom,” Lo said. “I didn’t press him, because I
need his help, but I wondered.”

“
Yeah, she calls you Mom,”
Mandy said. “To everyone. Is that okay?”

“
Sure,” Lo said.

“
Can I call you
Mom?”

“
Of course,” Lo said. “But
what about Sue Ellen?”

“
What about her?” Mandy
asked. “She might have had us, but she’s not our Mom. You know, Dad
told us he wasn’t our biological father. Alisha already knew. She
did a DNA test when she was at Harvard Law. Jaden told
her.”

“
That’s something I don’t
know,” Lo said. “Who’s your biological father?”

“
He was going to tell me,
but I didn’t want to know. I don’t really care,” Mandy said “He was
just another one of Sue Ellen’s boyfriends. I guess they hooked up
a few times when she and Dad were married. She’s kind of a
slut.”

“
Thank God for that,” Lo
said.

“
Why thank God?”

“
Because I’m really glad
you’re here.”

“
Me too,” Mandy said.
“Anyway, Dad told us about not being our father and his injury. Did
his Dad really hit him with a tennis racket?”

“
He caught Don with a girl
at his house. His father was supposed to be in Washington, but came
home with a group of bureaucrats and broads. They found Don and the
girl naked and asleep in the den. He hit Don in the… well down
there, so Don would remember. Don was swollen for months,” Lo said.
“Henry Downs was a monster. He used to beat Don. And… if he hadn’t
been dead when I met your dad, I’d have probably killed him
myself.”

“
I liked that about you and
Dad.”

“
What?”

“
You always had each
other’s backs. No matter what,” Mandy said. “I think we met
Grandpa…”

“
You and Alisha met him
once or twice, but your dad didn’t want you around a creature like
that. He would never let anything happen to you,” Lo
said.

Mandy sniffed and looked out her window.
They drove in silence for a while.

“
Were you upset about Don
not being your father?” Lo asked.

“
Don Downs was my father,”
Mandy said. “We don’t care who fucked Sue Ellen. Dad was our Dad.
But…”

“
But?”

“
I guess with
him gone and with you not being our
real
Mom, we both feel
a little…”

“
Unrooted?” Lo
said.

“
Yeah.”

“
Me too,” Lo
said.

“
So will you be our Mom?
Forever?”

“
Of course,” Lo said. “I
think I’ve been your Mom since the day I met you. I’m pretty sure
that’s the way things were meant to be.”

“
We think that too. Alisha
and me.”

Lo gave Mandy a brief smile and turned back
to the road.

“
So, did you see Dad last
night?” Mandy asked.

Lo nodded. She took the off ramp into the
airport.

“
I knew it,” Mandy
said.

“
That doesn’t mean that he
loves you less, or didn’t come to see you, or…”

“
No, no, I get that,” Mandy
said. “I just knew he’d want to be with you, even for a moment. Was
he the surprise present?”

“
Yes,” Lo said.

“
When I was growing up, I
thought all men looked at their women like Dad looked at you. They
don’t. He loved you very much.”

“
He loved all of us so
much,” Lo said. “He was just a person who knew how to
love.”

“
After he met you. He
wasn’t like that as much before,” Mandy said. “I bet if you’d asked
him, he would have left us to be with you. Why didn’t you ask
him?”

“
Ask him what?”

“
To leave us.”

“
Why would I want to be
with a man who would leave his precious children for anything,
especially me?” Lo asked. “That’s just creepy gross.”

Mandy shook her head at Lo’s
indignation.

“
Well, no man has looked at
me like Dad looked at you.”

“
Yet,” Lo said. “You’re
young. Give it time.”

“
You were sixteen!” Mandy
said. “I’m twenty-one! I’m an old maid compared to you.”

“
I was very lucky,” Lo
said.

“
We all were,” Mandy
said.

Lo followed the signs to arriving flights
through the DFW Airport maze.

“
There she is!” Mandy
exclaimed. “There she is!”

Alisha waved to them. After hugs, kisses and
jokes about the truck, they were out of the passenger loading zone
and on their way back to Fairmount. Lo was driving the on ramp to
Airport Freeway when Alisha cleared her throat. Leaning forward
through the seats, Alisha looked at Mandy and Lo. She reached
forward to touch the silk sash around Lo’s neck.

“
Did you see Dad last
night?”

Lo laughed.

Q

CHAPTER EIGHT

Three weeks later

Thursday morning—8:45 a.m.
Fairmount Historic District, Fort Worth, Texas

Days: 39

“
You need to decide if you
want to be in this or not,” Don Downs said. “If you want to be an
irresponsible kid, that’s fine. You just can’t be married to
me.”

Lo closed the door to his office and sat
down in one of the chairs across from his desk. He scowled at her
and returned to writing in his journal. The scratch of the gold nib
of his fountain-tip pen’s movement across the page filled the room.
In the four months they’d been married, they’d had this argument at
least once a week. Something would happen, and Don would slip into
a jealous rage.

More than once, they’d argued for hours. Lo
had tried hugging and kissing him. She’d tried defending herself
against his accusations. She’d even tried documenting her day to
prove she wasn’t doing whatever he thought she was doing. So far,
nothing quelled this storm of pain and rage.

He didn’t trust her.

He couldn’t trust her.

And when it was all over, his bone crushing
shame hurt her almost more than his jealous accusations and
mistrust.

“
Aren’t you going to say
something?” Don asked. “You’re three hours late.”

“
Yes,” Lo said. “I
am.”

“
And what? Your cell phone
isn’t working?” Don said. “I am your husband, not your long-lost
father…”

Don’s voice rose. Lo blinked at the noise.
She knew the girls were hiding in their rooms. She knew his fits
terrified them. She blinked.

“…
What do you expect from
me?” Don continued. “What the hell is wrong with the simple
courtesy of…?”

Lo blinked again. His voice was loud. His
face was bright red. And the words coming out of his mouth were
vile and accusing. She winced and lowered her head for the briefest
moment. When she raised her head, she saw something she would later
think of as a vision from God.

A huge, bleeding hole appeared across Don’s
chest. The sharpest knives were impaled to their hilt in the hole.
He grabbed the hilt of a knife and threw it at her. Sure the knife
was real, she ducked. She glanced at where the knife should have
hit.

Nothing.

When she looked back at Don, the knife he’d
thrown reappeared. He pulled another bloody knife from his heart
and threw it at her. Lo felt the weight of the truth sink in
somewhere deep in her abdomen.

This jealousy, this awfulness, didn’t have
anything to do with her.

When she defended herself, she caught the
knives and threw them back at him. Or worse. If she responded to
his accusations, she jumped in front of a flying knife which
stabbed her fragile flesh. If she just sat here, the knives bounced
around the room. Her heart squeezed with love and compassion for
him.

When she blinked again, the hole and the
blood and the knives disappeared.

“
Just say it! Say you don’t
want to do this! Just say it, and that will be that,” Don
said.

“
I’m sorry I didn’t call,”
Lo said. Her voice was calm and smooth.

“
Why? Give me one reason
why?” Don asked.

“
I forgot,” Lo said.
“That’s the truth. We were out until two last night. At the charity
gala, remember?”

“
Oh, you’re throwing that
in my face? You wanted to go!”

“
No,” Lo said. “I’m stating
a fact. We were out late, and I had a bad day. I called my Mom
midday and went to her house when I could. You know, like I always
do when I have a bad day. Do you remember why?”

“
You go to your Mom’s
because she makes you cookies,” Don said. Confronted with what he
knew was the truth, the frightened, enraged man retreated, leaving
the Harvard-trained litigator ready to pick apart her words. “You
pity yourself for a while then come home.”

“
That’s right,” Lo said.
“But…”

“
Is that your reason for
not having the common decency to call me?”

“
No,” Lo said. “I don’t
have an excuse for not calling you. I simply forgot.”

Lo waited to see if he would respond with
rage. When she looked up at him, he was staring at her.

“
When I got to the house I
grew up in, my mother was hanging by the neck from the ceiling
fan,” Lo said. “I had just got to the door of the living room when
Larry came in. Remember he’s home this week from boot camp. He
wanted to have cookies with me. We were supposed to have dinner
with him.”

“
What are you saying?” Don
asked.

“
My mother killed herself
this afternoon,” Lo said. “Larry walked in. Lisa was right behind
him for cookies, you know? Larry cut Mom down, and the police came
and I had to give a statement. We looked everywhere, through every
room and all of Mom’s private things for a note and… I didn’t call
because I forgot. I…”

As if drawn by a magnet, Don got up from his
desk and came to her. He pulled her from the chair and held her
tight. In his strong arms, she broke down for the first time. He
held her through her sorrow and pain.

When she looked up he was her husband, not
the argumentative lawyer, not the frightened or the enraged man
with knives in his chest. Her loving, wonderful husband had
returned. She knew the knives would bring the pain and rage back to
her life. But she also knew they weren’t hers.

All she had to do was love him.

And he would love her back.

“
Whatcha thinking?” Mandy
said.

Lo was standing in the garden by the fence
watching the honeybees come in and out of the Langstroth beehive.
After experiencing the healing effects of Yazmin’s brother’s honey,
she’d begged Yazmin to have a hive in their backyard. Her brother
had delivered this hive on Sunday. Every morning this week, Lo had
spent an hour standing in the shade watching the bees fly in and
out of the hive.

“
I was thinking about your
dad,” Lo said.

“
What about Dad?” Mandy
asked.

“
His jealousy,” Lo said.
“These bees are like his jealousy. They get all fussy when they
think something bad is going to happen.”

“
Dad’s jealousy was really
bad,” Mandy said. “I don’t know how you put up with
him.”

“
He was worth it,” Lo
smiled at Mandy.

“
Oh no,” Mandy said.
“You’re not going to get away with that. How did you put up with
it?”

“
I saw how much pain he was
in,” Lo said. “By loving me, he was forced to face his worst pain.
He did that just to be with me. I couldn’t abandon him because of
the pain I brought up in him. Plus, it wasn’t like he abused me in
anyway. He was as dedicated as I was to getting through it. He
worked hard. And I think we got through it.”