“We had a picnic yesterday with our ice-cream cones. Daddy was sitting down, and Daniel was running around. He tripped and the ice cream came off the cone and fell right on Daddy’s head. Daddy looked so surprised and so did Daniel. Then Daddy growled and tackled Daniel and rubbed his gooey hair all over Daniel’s shirt, and the cold ice cream got on his tummy. We all just laughed and laughed. Then Mommy acted like they were bad and sent them to the washroom to get clean. It was really funny. Daddy pouted just like Daniel about having to get clean.” In a deep voice Rachel said, “‘Do I gotta? Do I gotta?’” Then she giggled. “He was so funny.” Her dark eyes flew open, and she hugged Maggie about the hips. “Oh, thank you, Aunt Maggie. I really do feel better.”
“I’m glad,” Maggie said and hugged Rachel against her. She smoothed a hand over her long strawberry-blond hair, and fought tears.
“Kids are so resilient,” Ed said as Rachel skipped off to the play area reserved for children in the corner of the large waiting room.
Maggie narrowed her teary eyes and considered Ed. “Why are you here?” she asked, then added, “Really. No more excuses.”
Ed’s dry chuckle vibrated in the room. “Always right to the point, aren’t you? Okay. I’m along because I want to make sure your guardianship is clearly established in Florida. It didn’t sound as if Mickey will be able to be moved to Pennsylvania any time soon.”
“And?” she prodded.
Ed sighed and gestured toward a grouping of sofas and chairs across the room. “Let’s sit down. We need to come up with a strategy in case his parents try something. The least I can do is make sure Michael’s wishes are carried out. He didn’t want those two getting their hands on his kids. He felt so strongly about it that he made me write it in his will.”
“How did his parents take the news of their deaths?” Maggie asked as she settled across from Ed.
“About the way you’d expect. They looked shocked at first, then ‘appropriately’ sad for a few seconds each. Next came the legal questions and annoyance that you and Trent were named guardians.”
“Sounds just like my loving parents,” Trent said from behind them. “What else did they say?” he asked as he walked to stand in front of them.
“That, in light of your separation, of course they would be happy to ‘take the kids off your hands,’ Trent.”
Anger flared in Maggie’s gaze. “Take them off Trent’s hands! I guess they knew their oldest son at least. He doesn’t want them. He just told me. And what did they say about me?”
“As far as they’re concerned, you don’t enter the equation. The children aren’t your blood relatives, so the Osbornes feel you have no rights regardless of their son’s will.” Ed fixed Trent with a steely look. “We’re in for trouble if you keep this up, Trent, because your parents will never let Maggie raise those kids alone. Not only should you not continue with the divorce, but I suggest you consider moving into Michael and Sarah’s house. Together.”
Trent’s heart thundered, echoing in his head. None of this is happening, his mind screamed. But there was no waking from this living nightmare. Maggie stared up at him, pushing her dark chestnut hair behind her ear, her deep brown eyes wide and expectant. It hurt just being in the room with her, knowing he couldn’t even reach out and touch her, yet wanting—no, needing to. And to have her look at him with so much hope and anxiety nearly destroyed his control
He turned away.
And his gaze came to rest on little Rachel across the room in a play center, rocking the tattered baby doll that had been her constant companion since her first birthday. There she sat, a sweet child, loving that doll as if it were still clean and pretty, fresh from the box. He blinked away sudden burning in his eyes. His parents would destroy that sweetness and throw that “disgraceful thing” in the trash. He knew because he remembered his own fury when one day just after he’d started school his own blue bear had disappeared.
And Mickey. If he didn’t improve, they’d see him as “damaged.” Trent would never forget overhearing his mother railing at Michael’s fourth-grade teacher for suggesting that he was learning disabled. “My son is not damaged! You are just an inferior teacher,” she’d told the woman. And poor Michael had stood there with her, hearing it all and knowing that his teacher was right: he didn’t learn the way the others did. And so he began to view himself as damaged. The trouble started just after that fateful day.
No. His parents wouldn’t be good for these kids. They would destroy them one day—one subtle cruelty at a time. Even he would be better because he understood the damage idle words could cause. And he’d watch everything he said around the children. He would never let down his guard. He knew he’d never find it in himself to be a real father to them, but he would make sure he was never cruel.
So it’s decided, then. He and Maggie would become their guardians together. He turned back into the room. Doubt assailed him once again. How would he deal with Maggie? He’d loved her so deeply, and yet he’d been unable to give her what she wanted most. Children. And so she’d left him. Telling him without words that a long-dead dream was more important than their love for each other.
But now she’ll have both, a traitorous voice whispered. And you can have her back. He suddenly ached to be able to forget his current anguish, in her arms. But the day she’d left with tears in her eyes, he’d sworn never to let her return. Never again to open his heart to that kind of pain. And never to inflict it on Maggie, either.
Because, as hurt as he had been by her decision, he’d known she suffered as well. He’d lived with that pain for years, knowing all the while that it was his fault, that he was keeping her from fulfilling her dreams of having children.
He’d grown up knowing his parents didn’t love him. And it had been fear during those years that had held him back. Fear that, never having received love as a boy, he would not know how to give love to a child. And he’d been right to be afraid, because now he found he had no idea how to be a loving parent.
Trent knew not only how an unloved child felt, but the pain of knowing he’d been adopted and that his real parents hadn’t wanted him, either. He’d also been burdened by the knowledge that his parents didn’t even see him as a part of their family. It was a shame he’d carried nearly his whole life.
He’d been about to enter junior high when he’d come downstairs late one night to raid the refrigerator. He’d heard his parents discussing sending him away to boarding school…
“I just keep looking at Trenton, wondering what to do with him, Royce.”
“There’s only one answer. Ruxley is an excellent school.”
“It seems so unfair, sending him and not Michael. But I can’t let Michael go away. There is simply no way I will.”
“Still, that’s no reason to keep Trenton here,” his father said. “The instructors there will know what to do with a boy like him to bring out all his potential.”
“And who knows what his potential is? His mother and father couldn’t have been Rhodes scholars considering their poor backgrounds.”
“Albertine, it’s too soon to see if heredity or environment will tell with him.”
His mother laughed bitterly. “You don’t need to remind me. Michael is our biological child, and he’s already nothing like either of us.”
“Have you