“What do you have planned this weekend?”
At first Mike thought Darcy was addressing him, then he realized she was talking to Taylor.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “My mom is in Italy or Greece or someplace.”
“Melissa’s on a European rotation for the next month,” Mike explained.
“Dad and I will probably just hang out at the house,” Taylor said. “Do you want to hang out with us?”
Darcy shook her head, perhaps a little too forcefully. “I’m dancing at a birthday party on Saturday, and Friday night I have my regular gig at the restaurant.”
“Do you do that every Friday?” Taylor asked.
“Starting next month it’s only every other week.”
“That’s not because of what happened the other night, is it?” Mike asked, alarmed.
“Oh no. It’s a slow time of year. We planned this before, I promise.”
“I’ll admit I’m relieved to hear it.” He still couldn’t believe he’d hit that guy—it was so unlike him. Then again, he didn’t always feel like himself when he was with Darcy, though he couldn’t yet say if that was good or bad.
“What are you talking about?” Taylor asked.
“Nothing, sweetheart.”
The girl looked unconvinced. “You always say that when it’s really something.”
“I do not,” Mike said.
“Yes you do. You always said that when you and Mom were fighting.”
Mike made a face, and opened his mouth to launch into an explanation but Darcy cut him off. “Did Taylor tell you about the routine we’ve been learning in class?”
He shot her a look of gratitude. “No, she didn’t. She won’t even dance for me at home.”
“I’m not good enough yet.”
“You’re doing very well in class,” Darcy said. “All of you are.”
“But I want to dance the way you do,” she said.
“I’ve been dancing for ten years,” she said. “I didn’t start out being able to do all the moves I can do.”
Mike couldn’t keep from thinking about all those moves.
“You’ll see her dance at my recital in a few weeks,” Darcy said.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Why can’t you ever think about someone besides yourself and how
you
feel?”
The words were loud and anguished, coming from the table across the room where Darcy’s brother and his girlfriend sat. The girlfriend—Carrie—shoved back her chair and stood. “You don’t want me to leave so you won’t have to be alone, but you don’t want to be with me enough to make it permanent. Well, you can’t have it both ways.” She rushed past them, her face contorted by tears.
Darcy half rose from her chair, as if to follow, but her brother stopped her. “Stay out of this, sis,” he said, and hurried after Carrie.
Darcy bit her lip, clearly distressed, but stayed in her seat. She glanced at Mike. “Sorry about that.”
“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked. “Why are they fighting?”
“I don’t know,” Darcy said. She smoothed her napkin across her lap once more. “It’s none of my business, I guess. But he’s the only family I have close by and I worry about him.”
“Do you have other brothers and sisters?” Mike asked.
“No, it’s just me and Dave. Mom’s in Arizona now and Dad’s in Las Vegas. They don’t travel much anymore.”
He imagined her after the accident, with only her brother to comfort her. “My parents are in Dallas,” he said. He should visit them soon, and take Taylor. She needed to know her family better.
“Maybe your brother and his girlfriend will kiss and make up,” Taylor said. “Or maybe they’ll break up and he’ll find someone new who will make him happier.”
Mike stared at his daughter. Where had she gotten this cavalier attitude about romance? Was it because she’d witnessed the breakup of her parents’ marriage?
Or was it because he let her watch too much TV?
“I guess sometimes it’s hard to know when you’ve found the right person,” Darcy said. “I just want him to be happy. And Carrie’s a nice person. I want her to be happy, too.”
“Do you think it’s like in stories, like Cinderella and Snow White—where there’s one right person you’re meant to fall in love with?” Taylor asked. “Or do you fall in love with lots of people in your lifetime?”
“Taylor, where do you get these ideas?” Mike asked. And why was she asking these questions now?
She shrugged. “Mom told me once, when we were talking about why you two got divorced, that people fell in love sometimes, and then as they got older and changed, that person wasn’t right for them anymore and they had to split up so they’d be free to find the next right person.”
Was that how Melissa saw it? Or was it simply easier to say that to a little girl who was wondering why her parents didn’t love each other anymore? He had loved Melissa once, but he couldn’t say she’d ever really been the right person for him—how could she be when they were so different?
“I think some people get lucky and find the one person they’re meant to be with right away,” Darcy said. “And other people have to look longer.”
He thought of her husband, the alcoholic. If he’d lived, would they be divorced now?
“What about you?” Darcy asked Taylor. “Is there a boy at school you like?”
Once again she’d effectively steered the conversation away from personal revelations, though not exactly into territory Mike wanted to explore.
“There’s this one guy in my class,” Taylor said. “Nathan Orosco. He’s really cute and, once, when I had to go in the hospital for some tests, he told me he was sorry I’d been sick.”
“You’re too young to be concerned with boys,” Mike said.
“Lots of girls my age have boys they like,” Taylor said.
“He’s just being a dad,” Darcy said. She looked as if she was trying not to laugh.
He forced himself to relax. “Nothing wrong with watching out for my daughter.”
Taylor turned to Darcy. “I guess it’s kind of cute, when you think about it.”
“Yeah, it’s cute,” she said. Their eyes met and again he felt the pull of attraction. Darcy was definitely shaking up his life.
Being with her changed him—into a man who punched a stranger, who kissed a woman he barely knew. He didn’t like losing control like that. Taylor and his patients depended on him to be steady and reliable. Getting close to a woman who made him lose it that way was out of the question.
“I have these velvet pants and this bra top with jewels on it,” Debby said. She turned to Taylor. “What are you going to wear?”
“I don’t know yet.” Taylor busied herself zipping and unzipping her backpack. “It’s still a long way off, anyway.”
Darcy eavesdropped on their conversation from her spot by the stereo in the corner. She wished she could do something to ease Taylor’s fears about her dance costume. Whatever scars she had from the surgery, they weren’t important to those who loved her. She put a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Why don’t we call your father and ask if you can stay here after class today?” she said. “We can work on your costume.”
Taylor looked doubtful. “Do you really think we can come up with something that won’t look stupid?” she asked. “Maybe I shouldn’t even dance.”
Darcy ached for the girl. She wanted to pull her close and hold her tight, to reassure her the way a mother would.
But she wasn’t Taylor’s mother, only her teacher and friend. She couldn’t take away the girl’s pain, but she would find a way to make it not matter as much.
“We’ll come up with a great costume for you,” she said. “Go ahead and call your father.”
Taylor made the call and took her place in the lineup, her expression more relaxed.
After class, Darcy led Taylor to the spare bedroom that doubled as her sewing room. “I make a lot of my own costumes and I have material left over.” She opened the closet and began pulling out plastic storage boxes stuffed with fabric and trim. “I’ll bet we can find something in here to make you a costume.”
Taylor popped the lid on the first box and fingered a swath of blue, shimmery organza. “This fabric is so gorgeous,” she said.
“And it looks gorgeous on you.” Darcy returned to the closet and pulled out a skirt made of panels of the blue organdy over purple satin. She’d made the costume to dance at a friend’s wedding a few years back and it was still one of her favorites.
“Purple!” Taylor cried. “I want a purple costume.”
Darcy laughed, relieved to see the girl so excited. “I think there’s some purple in one of the other boxes.”
They found what was left of the purple fabric, along with a flesh-colored thin knit. “You told me you like to watch ice-skaters, right?”
Taylor nodded. “They’re my favorite in the Olympics. Dad always wants to watch ski jumping or racing, but I watch all the skaters.”
“You know how their costumes sometimes have cutout areas where it looks like bare skin but it’s really not? It’s fabric like this. Dancers use this kind of fabric, too. We can use it for part of your costume so that from a distance it looks like your skin.”
Taylor stared up at her. “Do they really do that?”
“All the time. Some of my older students aren’t comfortable showing their stomachs, so they cover up, but on stage they look like everyone else.”
“That’s what I want,” Taylor said. “To look like everyone else.”
“You’ll look even better,” Darcy promised. “Now stand up so I can measure you.”
As Darcy stretched the tape measure across her chest, Taylor sighed. “Because I was sick and then had the transplant, and now I take all this medicine, I’m behind everything for my age,” she said. “Dad says I’ll catch up, but he doesn’t say when. My friend, Keisha, already has her period, and a lot of the girls at school wear training bras.”
Taylor showed no signs of needing a bra of any kind. Her body was still that of a child, though in many other ways she was mature beyond her years. “Everyone develops at a different rate. I was always what my mother called a late bloomer.”
“What does that mean?” Taylor asked.
“It means I didn’t develop much of a figure until I was out of high school. Honestly, I was flat as a pancake up top until I had Riley.”
“I think about him a lot, you know.” Taylor put one hand over her heart. “Even before I met you. I always wondered what he was like. The Donor Alliance told me my heart came from a boy, and I know that’s not really supposed to make any difference, but I always wondered…”
“I can tell you he wouldn’t have been interested in doing this.” Darcy recorded the measurement in a notebook. “He was typical boy, into sports and cars.” As much as she loved her son, he’d been so different from her, and she’d known the differences would only mount as he grew older.
But of course, he’d never grown older. To her he would always be six. “I always secretly wanted a girl I could do stuff with,” she said. “Not instead of Riley, but as a sister for him.”
“Why didn’t you have another kid?” Taylor asked. “Or is that one of those questions my dad says I shouldn’t ask?”
“I don’t mind answering. I wanted another baby, but my husband thought we should wait.” She hesitated, wondering how much was appropriate to tell a young girl. “Pete was a good father to Riley, but he had a drinking problem. I worried it wasn’t right to bring another child into that situation.”
“Did it bother Riley that his father drank?”
“It did sometimes.” She had occasionally wondered what would have happened if Riley and Pete had survived the accident. But no good came of speculation.
“I’m thinking we can do a skirt like mine,” she said.
“And then a short top, with lots of sequins and beads, and a matching hip belt, and the body stocking fabric underneath.”
“Can I help make it?”
“Of course you can. Let’s start by drawing up a pattern.”
She sketched the design on tissue paper, then let Taylor color in the drawing while she cut the pattern pieces out of more tissue paper. “Will you show me how to operate the sewing machine?” Taylor asked.
“Sure,” Darcy said. “You can help put on the sequins, too.”
“I like crafts,” Taylor said. “Mom doesn’t do them.
She said she’d rather buy whatever she wants.”
“I like to shop, too,” Darcy said. “But sometimes it’s fun to be more creative.”
“Maybe I’ll be a fashion designer when I grow up,” Taylor said. “Only instead of regular clothes, I’ll design special ones—stuff that will look pretty but hide surgery scars, or scars from people who’ve been burned, and things like shirts that are easy to take on and off, for people who are missing an arm.”
“That’s an excellent idea.” She could picture Taylor, grown into a beautiful young woman, in charge of her own successful business. The strength of her desire to continue to be a part of Taylor’s life, to know what happened to her, stunned Darcy. It was the same sort of longing she’d had for a baby before she conceived Riley.
On the heels of this longing came a surge of joy. Though Taylor’s future health concerned Darcy, she hoped this ability to contemplate being a part of someone else’s life again was a sign that the worst of her grief had passed.
Two hours later, they had cut out all the pieces of the costume and sewn a couple of seams on the skirt when Mike arrived. “Dad, look what I did. I sewed this myself,” Taylor announced, running to him with the unfinished skirt billowing behind her like a flag.
“That’s great, honey.” Mike admired the somewhat crooked seams, then smiled at Darcy. “Looks like the costume’s coming together well.”
“It’s going to be fabulous,” Taylor said.
“We’ll work on it more next week,” Darcy said. “That is, if it’s okay with your dad.”
“Fine with me,” Mike said. “If you’re sure it’s not imposing on your time.”
Their eyes met and Darcy felt the thrill of attraction. Forget cooking—the way to this man’s heart was through his daughter.
Mike was the first to look away. “We’d better not keep you any longer,” he said. “Taylor, get your things so we can go.”
Taylor raced back to the sewing room, where she’d left her backpack. Darcy seized the opportunity to pull Mike into her laundry room.
“What are you doing?” he protested.
“This.” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly, as if her life—or at least her future—depended on it.