“I blew my concentration.”
“Why?”
“I kept thinking about things that distracted me.”
“Like what?”
He caught the gleam of amusement in her eye. “Like nieces who ask too many questions and have to be tickled.” With an animal roar, he snatched her up.
She gave a squeal of fearful delight, then laughed helplessly as he attacked her most vulnerable spot—the hapless armpit. Ashley joined in with the laughter on principle and kept giggling even after the tickling stopped. Cameron swung her up on his shoulders as they headed for the exit.
Sean sensed Lily’s presence beside him and smiled. “All in all,” he said, “not a bad day.”
“I had no idea I was such a terrible golfer. I’m ashamed.”
“Don’t be.”
“How can something so simple be so hard?”
“Because it’s golf, that’s how,” he explained. “It wasn’t the real game, anyway. I need to teach you to play real golf.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. He wasn’t sure why he could still feel her in his arms.
“As bad as I am, I’m starting to understand why golf is so delicious to so many people.”
It was the last thing he expected her to say. Maybe that was why he was so intrigued. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she surprised him.
“Cameron! Hey, Cameron!” a feminine voice called out, then a tall girl in an oversize Jurassic Park T-shirt came running toward them.
Sean and Lily exchanged a glance. He grabbed Charlie’s hand to keep her from interfering. They watched as the girl, long-limbed and coltish, approached Cameron near the exit. She was about his age, with brown hair in a ponytail, silver braces and glasses.
Cameron did not look thrilled to see her. “Hey, Becky,” he said, lifting the toddler off his shoulders.
“Here’s the photograph you ordered,” said Becky, handing
him the eight-by-ten in a cellophane bag. She flat-out worshiped him, that was clear enough. “I was so surprised to see you here. I wanted to deliver this personally.”
“Thanks.” Cameron took the picture from her. “We just stopped in as a treat for my little sister. We’re on our way home now.”
“Oh.” She bounced on the balls of her feet, smiling at the baby and then at Sean, Lily and Charlie as they approached. “So is this your family?”
“No,” Cameron said. “I mean, well, this is Ashley, and that’s my other sister Charlie, my uncle Sean and Lily.”
“I’m Becky Pilchuk.” Her face lit up with unabashed delight.
“Do you work here?” Charlie asked.
“Yep. In the restaurant, every weekend.”
“Boy, are you ever lucky,” said Charlie.
“I think so,” Becky agreed.
“We should get going,” Cameron said, clearly chafing under her adoration. “See you around.”
She darted her gaze nervously at the main building of the complex. “The snack bar just opened for lunch,” she suggested. “It’s not too bad, that is, if you’re hungry.”
“I’m starved,” Charlie said dramatically. “Starved.”
“Me, too,” said Ashley.
“That settles it, then,” Sean said. “We’ll eat at the snack bar. My treat. I won’t even make you spend the twenty bucks you won off me.”
“Great,” muttered Cameron.
“I’ll go get a table ready,” Becky said. “See you inside, Cam.” She hurried across to the food-service area, a covered awning shingled with phony palm fronds.
When she was out of earshot, Charlie said, “Ooh, Cam. I’m so in love with you, Cam.” She batted her eyes at him.
“Cut it out, twerp,” he said as he took hold of Ashley’s hand.
“Ooh! I love it when you talk to me like that,” Charlie cooed. “You are just so…so…manly.”
Sean and Lily stared straight ahead, not daring to look at each other.
Becky was waiting for them at the snack bar. Now she wore a Jurassic Park service apron with pterodactyls on the pockets. “Table for five?” she asked.
Sean glanced at Lily and the kids, and was bowled over by the idea that the five of them were functioning as a single unit, redefining themselves as something bigger than each of them—a family, he thought. They were a family.
“Yes, please,” Lily said, taking a seat and studying the menu. “We should make sure everyone eats so we don’t go to the grocery store hungry.”
“What’s wrong with going to the grocery store hungry? That’s the only time I feel like it,” Sean said.
“That’s when you impulse shop and wind up buying things you don’t need, things that aren’t good for you. If you shop on a full stomach, then you make better choices.”
Great, he thought. Shopping with Miss Making-Better-Choices was going to be a barrel of laughs.
I
n the grocery store, Lily tried to seize control. After her humiliation at miniature golf, she felt the need to show she was good at something. And of course, the real reason she was stewing was something she’d only admit to herself—she was still smarting from encountering Maura this morning.
She quickly lost out there as well. Cameron headed off to the books and magazine aisle to find the latest issue of
Rolling Stone.
Charlie insisted on standing at a music display with the headphones on, listening to samples of music from the “Soothing Sounds of Nature” CD collection.
That left Sean and Lily to put Ashley in the cart and do the grocery shopping. As soon as Lily saw him reach for a box of s’ mores-flavored Pop-Tarts, she knew she had to intervene. “Nutrition is the single most neglected health issue among children today,” she informed him.
“You don’t say.”
“Look at the ingredients in this,” she said, tapping the box. “It’s stuffed with carbs which turn instantly to fat.”
“These are skinny kids. They can use some fattening up.”
“With this? Type-B gelatin—you don’t want to know where that comes from. And seldane syrup—that’s actually a toxin. In concentrated amounts, it’s been shown to cause brain damage in laboratory mice.”
“Then they should quit giving it to laboratory mice. Where do you learn this stuff?” he asked.
“Anywhere I can. The big food companies would like for us to stay ignorant, but we can’t afford to do that.” Pointedly, she returned the Pop-Tarts to the shelf. Then she couldn’t help herself and said, “Today’s medical professionals do virtually nothing to raise awareness of the issue.”
Either it went right by him, or he didn’t care about a dig at Maura. “So what’s Charlie going to eat for breakfast?” He spotted something and his face lit up. “Devil Dogs! I’ve never seen them on the West Coast before. I love these things.”
Lily stared, aghast, at the strangely shaped, cream-filled cakes. “You’re kidding.”
“Have you ever actually eaten a Devil Dog?” He grinned. “Dumb question, sorry.”
Lily selected an organically grown oat crunch. “Would Charlie go for this?”
“She’d gag on that.”
After some debate, they compromised on a cereal with no additives and some raw organic honey to sweeten it. They started arguing again in the snacks aisle.
“A handful of Fritos isn’t going to kill a kid,” Sean said.
“True. It’s the trans-fatty acids that do it. Don’t keep this stuff in the house and they won’t even be tempted,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Now, tell me, what are your views on dairy products?”
So it went, each item debated over, each purchase negotiated, until Ashley fell asleep in the cart. Lily took the opportunity to give Sean the rundown on nutrition for growing kids.
To his credit, he didn’t argue with her. He even seemed to be listening.
As they waited in the checkout line, she plucked a
Parents
magazine from the rack. “Maybe we should get this,” she said. “There’s an article on what to expect from the toddler years.”
“Who reads these things? People who have no kids. They’re the only ones who have time.” He glanced at Ashley, who was still sleeping, her limbs spilling from the seat in the grocery cart. “She tells me everything I need to know.”
“It makes more sense in the context of expert commentary.”
He shook his head and selected a copy of
Golf Digest.
“Reading that is not going to make me a better parent any more than reading this would make me a better golfer.”
Her first instinct, as always, was to argue with him, but she forced herself to put both magazines away. She pursed her lips and, when the checker called for a price check on the order in front of them, drummed her fingers on the handlebar of the cart. “Maybe we should pick another line,” she suggested.
“This one’s fine.”
Another urge to argue prodded at her. “That one over there is actually moving.”
“So will this one. They always do, eventually.”
She picked up a pack of gum, read the ingredients, put it back. “I have to say, I admire your patience.”
“Thank you. I suppose I learned it from living overseas, waiting around in foreign airports and taxi lines.”
It was a rare reminder that he had a past, a whole lifetime of experiences in exotic cities. She wondered if he missed that life, yearned for the adventure of it. “Why did you move back to the States?” she asked. She knew what Crystal had thought. She wanted to hear his version.
The line shuffled forward a few paces. “I was banned from the tour for cheating.”
His bluntness surprised her. That was exactly what Crystal had said. “Why would you cheat?”
“There are plenty of reasons for a guy to cheat. The stakes are high in this game, especially for a player with something to prove. I didn’t do it, though. Didn’t cheat.”
“Why would they say you did?”
“A major sponsor wanted me off the tour.”
“Why?”
He started unloading the produce onto the conveyer belt. “You don’t want to know.”
She resisted the urge to rearrange the groceries on the belt, even though it meant the canned goods would probably bruise the produce. “Yes. I really want to know.”
“I was bonking the sponsor’s daughter, and he had promised her hand in marriage to some guy from the Malaysian royal family. Ever heard of the yakuza?”
“Isn’t that the Japanese mafia?”
“Pretty much. Turns out daddy was a yakuza boss with high hopes for his daughter.” He laughed at Lily’s expression. “Well, you asked.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not making this up.”
“Didn’t you try to defend yourself? Deny that you cheated?”
“There was no point in wasting my time. Things are done differently by the mob, and I made the colossal mistake of forgetting that.”
“So how did this work?”
He finished unloading the groceries and the line moved again. “I was set up. At the end of a major tournament, I was handed an erroneous scorecard, and like an idiot, I signed off on it.”
“What do you mean, signed off?”
“I certified that my score was true and accurate. I was in a rush and didn’t check the numbers.”
“So even though you were set up, you’re just going to surrender? That’s absurd. You’re a golfer, Sean. It’s what you do. Why would you let someone take that away from you?”
“Now you sound like Red.”
“How so?”
“He thinks I should stick with the plan to get back on the tour. Get my PGA card. The trouble is, Q School only comes around once a year.”
“Q School?”
“It’s an annual event, 108 holes, and the top thirty-five scorers get their PGA cards. Prior to that, I’d have to clear preliminary stages. It’s a long process, and there’s no way I can juggle that along with the kids.”
So he was sacrificing more than Lily thought. She needed to think about this, about the fact that he’d gone for his dream and had blown it, and he was yearning for another shot. The more she got to know this man, the more he surprised her. A new respect for him rose in her. “Is that the only way to get your PGA card and start playing in tournaments?”
“Red’s looking into some other options, but he’s wasting his time. I’ve got other priorities now.”
She could hear a peculiar note of taut frustration in his voice. “Why not think about doing both?”
“I can do all the thinking I want. There’s too much travel to actually do anything about it. I have a different life now.” He reached down and buttoned Ashley’s sweater.
“But you don’t have a different dream,” she reminded him. The look he gave her felt intimate, like a touch. It must be her imagination, she thought. “What?”
He offered a slightly enigmatic smile. “I like the way you think, Miss Robinson.”
By the time they got home, Lily was surprised to realize she didn’t want the day to end, and she lingered over helping put away the groceries. She came across a few contraband items that had sneaked into the cart—most notably, a jumbo pack of Devil Dogs—but didn’t make an issue of it. Sean Maguire already thought she was hopelessly regimented.
Ashley stayed asleep in her car seat, so Sean brought the whole apparatus inside.
“Are you going to put her in her crib?” Lily asked.
“She’s happy just like that.” He hit Play on the CD player. “She sleeps better with music playing, too.”
The clear, strong voice of Stephanie Davis singing “Talking to the Moon” drifted from the speakers.
“This was Mom’s favorite,” Charlie said, getting a big box of crayons from a drawer.
“I know.” Lily set a grocery sack on the counter and busied herself putting things away. The last time she’d heard this song, she’d been with Crystal, relaxing over a cup of tea.
“Want me to change it?” Sean asked.
She shook her head, liking and hating the bittersweet feelings. There was a funny ebb and flow of the tension between her and Sean. One moment she had the urge to argue with him. The next, she simply wanted to get along.
Cameron grabbed the cordless phone and wandered into another room. Charlie went to the dining room table to labor over a detailed drawing of the miniature golf course. To Lily, it always felt strange, perhaps vaguely forbidden, to be with Sean in Crystal’s house. The reminders of her friend were still so palpable, and often appeared without warning—an earring wedged between sofa cushions, magazines and mail addressed to her, phone solicitors asking for Crystal by name.
Lily picked up a thick recipe book, noticing a bookmark
on which Crystal had scrawled, “cake for Ashley’s b-day.” She opened the book, passed her finger over the writing.
“You okay?” Sean asked.
She nodded. “Sometimes I get the weirdest feeling that she just stepped out and she’ll be back any minute, that maybe she just ran out to pick up a box of frozen strawberries for this cake.”
“I think she already did that.” He reached in the freezer and took out the strawberries. “I’ve been wondering what these could be used for.”
Lily glanced at Ashley, still buckled in her seat and sound asleep. “Crystal had a nice party planned for her.” Instead of celebrating Ashley turning two, they’d had the meeting with the lawyers.
“We should have it now,” he said. “Today.”
Lily fell instantly in love with the idea. “That’s brilliant. We’ll make the cake Crystal wanted.”
He lifted one eyebrow in that intriguing way that made her want to emulate him. “Birthday cake, Miss Robinson? Tsk, tsk, all that sugar.”
“We’ll give them really small pieces.”
“Speak for yourself. I think Charlie should help make the cake.”
Now Lily found herself grinning like an idiot. It seemed so silly, but somehow this was making her feel better. “Cameron, too. I’ll go get them.”
“In a minute,” Sean said, motioning her toward the walk-in pantry. “I need to show you something.”
She stepped into the darkened interior, where the air was musty with the scent of spices, and she could feel the warmth of his body close to hers. “What is it?”
“She already bought things for the party.” He turned on the overhead light and showed her a boxy shopping bag filled with
rainbow-colored napkins and party hats, matching horns and balloons.
At the bottom of the bag was a doll, soft as a marshmallow, with bright button eyes. It was exactly the sort of thing Crystal would have picked. Lily also found a card in an unsealed envelope. Her heart sped up as she opened it. She felt Crystal’s presence next to her as she angled the card toward the light to reveal a sentimental picture of a mother pushing a small child on a swing and the saying, “Spread your wings and fly away…” On the inside, it continued, “…home to me.”
In neat printing, Crystal had added a message of her own. “I’m so very proud of my big girl! I’ll love you forever, Mommy.”
Lily carefully closed the card and put it back in the envelope. “I’m glad she wrote something,” she said. Only when Sean handed her a tissue did she realize she was crying, and that his arm had slipped around her shoulders.
“How do we do this?” she whispered, overwhelmed. “How do we bear the unbearable?”
“Sometimes we don’t,” he said simply. “Sometimes we just breathe.”
“I’m not staying home to make a cake,” Cameron said, nearly stepping on Miss Buzzy Bee on his way to the refrigerator. He resisted the urge to send the pull-toy out the door with a soccer kick.
“It’s Ashley’s birthday,” Lily said, tying on one of his mom’s aprons. It was the one with the picture of Glinda and the caption, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Cameron could perfectly picture his mom wearing it, and the sight of it pissed him off.
“It’s not her birthday. Let’s pick another day.” Cameron felt the air pressing in on him. It wasn’t enough that he’d been
dragged out of bed to visit Grandma Dot, that he’d played miniature golf. Now they wanted him to have dinner and a birthday party?
“We picked today,” Sean said, coming into the kitchen with Ashley held like a football under one arm. “Kid’s got to turn two one of these days.”
“She’s already two, and it doesn’t matter when she gets her stupid party.”
“It matters,” Sean said simply.
Cameron felt a slow burn of anger. Everything pissed him off—the sound of the radio clicking on in the morning, reminding him that he had to face another day without his parents. The sight of his mom’s handwriting on the kitchen chalkboard. The smell of her hairspray on the headrest of her favorite chair. And then there was Sean, with his dumb simple statements—
It matters
—that were supposed to make sense. “I wish you’d quit acting like we’re a regular family,” he said.
“Is that what I’m doing?” Sean said. “What the hell’s a regular family, anyway? Maybe you can explain it to me.”
“Sean—” Lily cast a worried look at the baby, but she had discovered Miss Buzzy Bee and was in another world. Elsewhere in the house, a TV blared—Charlie, watching cartoons.
“I mean it,” he said. “I want Cam to enlighten me. What’s a regular family? Mom, Dad, two-point-five kids? Who has that anymore? Does anyone?”