Lexi and Tuyen giggled, ecstatic five-year-olds who felt safe.
Thank You, Father.
L
exi sat in the backseat of her dad’s car. Tuyen was in front with Max. They were heading down from the hacienda to a mall in the city. It was time to choose the Little Black Dress for the wedding.
She and Tuyen were becoming fast friends, probably out of necessity since they spent so much time together. Although they had graduated from sleeping in the sala to their own rooms, they remained clingy with Max, not letting him out of sight for long.
Her cousin was naturally included in the mall outing. When Lexi said she didn’t have the LBD yet, Tuyen shyly asked if she could exchange her dress for one with long sleeves.
Max was not into saying no to either one of them.
Surprisingly, the shopping trip had been Lexi’s idea. She even invited Jenna to join them, but she couldn’t miss school. Her sister’s tenderness—she had visited nearly every day and even gone to Lexi’s apartment to pick up her clothes—was another surprise.
In the ten days since The Episode, as Lexi had come to refer to it, life amazed her at every turn. Danny said it was her new eyes, the ones she saw with now that she’d forgiven their dad for not being perfect.
She couldn’t even scoff at his spiritual explanation.
The Sunday after The Episode, still feeling like one giant exposed raw nerve, she fell apart all over again when Danny arrived at the hacienda. Camping in the mountains, he had been out of reach and didn’t know what had happened until then.
Her twin emitted vibes almost as safe and solid as her dad, but not quite. Fear crept in whenever Max slipped out of her sight, and so she could go no farther than the corral for a long private talk with Danny.
She told him everything, from her struggle with bulimia to the black enamel paint to her prayers to the smell of that man’s coffee breath. She held nothing back.
He cried so hard their dad had to come out and comfort him.
Now, she noticed the car slow. “Dad, where are we going?”
“To the lookout.” He smiled in the rearview mirror at her.
“You never used to—” She stopped. Sentences containing the phrase “never used to” weren’t making sense anymore.
“I know,” he said. “I never used to stop here. But it’s a new day.”
He parked and they all got out of the car. The view embodied every cliché that had to do with breathtakingly beautiful. High above a canyon, it included a mountain range lost in purple haze.
Tuyen gasped. “It is magnificent. So grand.”
“Isn’t it?” Max pointed toward the left. “The hacienda is over that way, behind hills. Before the fire there were more trees. They’ll grow back, though, and the whole vista will be as green as that part is.” He gestured in the other direction. “Right, Lex?”
“Yep.”
He gazed at her. His eyes glistened.
She remembered then that he had spent time on this very spot during The Fire.
“To think,” he whispered, “I’ve almost lost you twice.” He placed an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “I love you, honey.”
She could not count how many times he had hugged her and expressed his love in the past ten days.
Which explained, of course, why she could go shopping for the LBD and not even want to swing by a food market along the way.
She knew the journey wasn’t over yet. Like Erik had said, the leopard’s pattern couldn’t change overnight. But for today, all the hungry corners of her heart were full.
A
s her dad searched for a place to park in the mall’s lot, Lexi opened her cell phone, something she had avoided until now.
Five voice mails awaited. Because Erik, her boss, and Rosie had all called her several times at the hacienda’s number, she figured the messages would not be from them.
She held her breath and began to listen.
“Lexi, this is Nathan Warner. I don’t know where to begin. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I want to explain, although there is no explanation really. I-I—” His voice cracked. “Please call. Good-bye,” he whispered.
Lexi closed her phone. She wasn’t about to listen to four more similar messages from him. Rosie had come to the hacienda to tell her and her parents his story, about Reid Fletcher being his half brother, about him not knowing anything about what Fletcher had done. Rosie even seemed to like Nathan.
But still . . .
He was correct. There really was no explanation.
She caught her dad watching her in the rearview mirror.
“Everything okay?” he said.
She nodded.
“Want me to punch his lights out?”
She smiled and shook her head.
N
inety minutes later they were back in the car, two black evening dresses, two beaded bags, and two fancy pairs of heels tucked away in the trunk.
For the hundredth time, Tuyen grinned and said, “Uncle Max, thank you.”
Lexi leaned forward from the backseat. “Dad, you’re a better shopper than Jenna and Mom and Tandy all put together.”
He laughed. “Okay, ladies, where to next? Danny’s place?”
Tuyen nodded enthusiastically. “He teach me computer. Then I get job.”
Lexi heard hope in her cousin’s voice. Hope and a hint of future. A sudden longing flowed through her. She wanted that too. She hadn’t worked or painted in ten days. She hadn’t yet met with the pastor in Santa Reina for counsel—something even she agreed with her family was a good idea.
“Lex?” Her dad’s tone conveyed that he figured something was up with her.
Weird how in tune he could be.
“I think.” She paused, thought it over, and straightened her shoulders. “No. It’s time. I
know
I want to get my art supplies.”
“From the apartment.”
She wrinkled her nose briefly. “Yes. Please.”
“You got it.” He turned around and started the engine.
T
hey left Tuyen at Danny’s beach house. Eager for computer lessons and evidently comfortable enough with him, she wanted to stay until evening, when he would take her home.
Lexi sat in the front seat. “Well, Dad, one down, one to go.”
Braking at a red stoplight, he glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you feel like you have a couple of leeches clinging to you?”
He chuckled. “No, it’s not like
that at all. You cling as long as you need to, honey. I’ll miss you when you’re ready to move on.”
She had no response to that except another jolt of surprise.
“And you will move on.” He drove through the intersection, his eyes on the road. “You are a beautiful, gifted woman. You’re going to create many more paintings and landscapes and add beauty to the world.”
She sniffed quietly.
“Besides that,” he said, “I’m taking your mother on a honeymoon and you are not invited.” He flashed a grin at her.
T
hey parked in the lot behind her building.
Lexi made no move to get out of the car. She felt nauseated.
Her dad grasped her hand. “He’s locked up.”
She knew that. Someone had intervened and Reid Fletcher had gone from jail to a secure psych ward with stipulations, as she understood it, he would remain in one or the other for a very long time.
“Do you want to wait for Rosie to get here?”
Knowing Rosie wanted to walk through the scene with her, Lexi had called her to say they would be there. It helped hearing her in-charge, confident voice.
“Hm? Lex?”
She looked at her dad and saw those brown-black eyes gazing back at her. They resembled her grandmother’s. The obsidian had softened to velvet. Amazing.
She smiled. “Who needs the police? I got my dad.”
T
he scent of turpentine greeted them at the front door.
Max walked in ahead of her, slowly. She clutched a fistful of the back of his shirt.
Images bombarded. The man. His eyes. His smile. His breath.
His caress on her arm.
She wanted to throw up.
“Whew,” Max said. “I bet you don’t get back your security deposit. The owners will have to put in new carpet. You doing okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Dear God.
“Yeah. No.”
“Take it slow.” He stopped, reached back, and drew her to his side, an arm around her shoulders. “Lord God, fill this place with Your presence, Your peace, and Your power.”
The nausea dissipated some. She looked across the room into the kitchen. The chairs were upright, the table in place. No evidence of that night. The window above the sink was cracked open.
“Did Mom clean up?”
“Yeah. Jenna helped. You know, I didn’t mean to imply you’re moving out of here. Maybe after a time you’ll be ready to come back.”
Snuggled against him, in the confines of his arm, she wondered if she truly wanted to give up her home. She considered it for about three seconds.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to live here. It’s more than that night. This place is all old. My old life. It represents the way I don’t want to live anymore.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“Tuyen and I actually talked about being roommates. No clue when or where. You’re going to need our rooms in August for guests.”
“Yes, but I don’t want you to feel pressured. Here’s my idea, which dovetails with your roommate idea. We can take that tiny RV Nana and Papa lived in and trade it for a larger one. You and Tuyen could live in it for as long as you want. We’d have to figure out where you could put a studio, though.”
She smiled. “Nana already offered their back bedroom.”
He laughed.
“You may never get rid of me, Dad.”
They were in the kitchen and his laughter was erasing the echo of shrieks.
L
exi introduced him to Gigi the giraffe. She still sat on the easel in the studio.
Max smiled. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s nowhere near finished, but I like her.”
“I had no idea, honey.” He shook his head as if in awe.
“It’s not like I’ve shown you my work for a while.”
“It’s not like I’ve asked to see it.” He glanced at her. “I’m sorry.”
She stared at the bottom corner of the canvas, at the smudgy gray spot. “I almost destroyed her that night.”
“Why?”
“I was starting to feel better. I was feeling comfortable with that Nathan guy. Then he told us he knew the man who was with Erik. I was so hurt. Ready to give up. But . . .” She shrugged. “Gigi looked at me and I couldn’t do it. It was like God said, ‘Hey, I’m here. Talk to Me.’”
She closed her eyes and pondered whether or not to continue.
Max rubbed her shoulder.
“Can I tell you something?” she said.
“Please.”
“I remembered that time I fell off the balance beam when I was nine and broke my leg.”
He nodded.
“You had come into the gym during my routine. I saw you and lost my concentration.”
“I should have been there on time. I shouldn’t have walked in late. I’m sorry, Lexi.”
She winced, not wanting to push further but knowing she had to. “Mom rode in the ambulance, but you didn’t. They said you could.”
He grimaced. “And you remembered all these years how I abandoned you. Honey, I am so sorry.”
“There’s . . . there’s more. After my leg healed, I was too scared to go back to gymnastics. I always blamed you for that.”
He hung his head. “I wish there was another way to say I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. I . . .” She held a deep breath. “I forgive you.” She exhaled loudly. “The thing I realized is that even though I always loved art, it wasn’t until I was laid up with a cast on my leg that I got serious about it. That’s when all this started.” She gestured to the room full of her art supplies and her work. “So, I forgive you and I thank God for bringing me through.”
Max wrapped her in his arms.
A
nybody home?” Rosie called out as she entered Lexi’s apartment through the door that had been left standing open. She imagined her friend wasn’t quite ready to close herself up inside the place yet.
“Back here.” It was Max’s voice.
Rosie found them in the room Lexi used for her art studio. She noticed them both wiping at their eyes and thought, not for the first time, what an emotionally draining time it had been for the Beaumonts lately.
“Sorry.” She greeted Lexi with a hug. “Am I interrupting?”
“No.” Max brushed a hand across his cheek. “As Claire says, we seem to be living in the state of weepy these days.”
“Understandable.” She nodded. “Lexi, I have to confess, I already peeked at Gigi the other night when I was in here.”
“She’s not finished.”
“I know, but she’s incredible. I’ve started a savings fund for her. I get dibs on buying her. Bobby wants her too for his daughter, but you have to tell him no.”
Lexi smiled.
Max said, “I’ll go down to your storage bin and find some boxes.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
Rosie watched the curious exchange. Max spoke in a reassuring tone. Lexi’s eyes widened briefly as if in panic, and her voice went softer than usual. Her eyes followed every inch of Max’s exit from the room and stayed on the doorway.
“You okay, Lexi?”
She waggled a hand.
“Yeah. I know you’re not, but do you feel stronger?”
“I do. I can actually let him out of my sight now.”
“Things going well between you then?”
She smiled and her eyes lit up. “Got my own papi.”
Rosie chuckled. “I’d like to chat a minute before getting down to business. Let’s sit on the floor.”
Lexi settled onto the carpet with her, cross-legged. “What’s up?”
To her surprise, Rosie hesitated. “It’s kind of personal.” She chose her words carefully. “I told you I went out to the desert and saw Erik. That he looks good. He’s responding well to treatment.”
“Blah, blah, blah. You told me all that. I’ve never seen this funny expression on your face.”
Rosie picked at a thread in the rug. “He invited me to go to your parents’ wedding. The blessing part and the reception.” She looked up.
Lexi grinned. “That’s great! Mom and Dad will be glad to have you there. Why don’t you invite your dad and that woman he’s dating to the reception? Bobby and his wife too. Mom’s got half the city coming. And she uninvited Felicia, Brett, and Erik’s producer and his wife. That leaves four openings.”