The Mother. BEVERLY BARTON
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you don’t know the first thing about raising a teenage girl. Because Zoe knows that you really don’t want her and that even though you should love her because she’s your daughter, you don’t.
Tam didn’t like it when Marcus was away, but in his job as a TVA engineer, he had to travel on a fairly frequent basis. Their apartment seemed so empty without him. He had phoned to let her know he had arrived safely and promised to call again in the morning before she left for work. The luckiest day of her life was when she met Marcus Lovelady, and the second luckiest day was the day they got married. He was such a good man. Kind, considerate, and reliable. And he loved her with his whole heart.
They had discussed having children and she knew that at thirty-four, her biological clock was ticking faster and faster. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to try to combine motherhood with a career. Although Marcus would be as wonderful a father as her own dad had always been, she doubted she could ever be half the mother her mama was. Besides, she wasn’t sure she deserved to be a mother. Not after …
That was over fifteen years ago. You were barely eighteen.
Tam poured herself another glass of Merlot, flipped on the TV, and kept the sound muted as she sat in her favorite easy chair. She glanced down at the wedding band and one-carat diamond on her ring finger.
She admired and respected Marcus. And she loved him. But had she cheated her husband by marrying him when she would never be able to love him with her whole heart? If she could give him a child, would that make up for the fact that she would always be in love with another man?
Oh, dear Lord, don’t think about him. He isn’t a part of your daily life and hasn’t been for a long, long time.
What was wrong with her tonight? Why was she in such a melancholy mood? Why was she thinking about him, remembering …? She didn’t want to think about him, didn’t want to remember the child she had aborted, a child who would be nearly fifteen now, almost as old as she had been when she’d gotten pregnant.
It had all been so hopeless, so impossible. And she had been so completely in love.
The saddest part of all was that he had loved her, too, just as much as she had loved him.
Tam gulped down the remainder of her wine and let the empty glass fall from her hand onto the carpeted floor beside her chair. She closed her eyes and allowed the memories to wash over her, warm and sweet like low tide in the heat of summer.
She could almost feel his lips on hers, feel their naked bodies joined, feel him buried deep inside her. She could hear his voice, deep and sultry, saying her name, telling her how much he loved her.
Tears escaped from the corners of her closed eyelids and crept slowly down her cheeks.
Tam wrapped her arms around her body and hugged herself as she sucked back the tears. Don’t do this to yourself. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
If only Marcus were there she wouldn’t be wallowing in self-pity. But Marcus wasn’t there to reassure her, to make her smile, to remind her of all her many blessings.
Tam got up, grabbed the receiver from the portable phone on the nearby desk, and dialed her best friend’s number.
Audrey answered on the third ring. “Hey there.”
“Are you busy?”
“Not really. What’s up?”
“Marcus left on another business trip this afternoon and I’m lonely,” Tam said. “I’ve been sitting here downing a couple of glasses of wine and am on the edge of a self-pity jag.”
“Want me to come over?”
“Would you?”
“Give me thirty minutes.” Then Audrey asked, “Have you eaten dinner yet?”
“No, I—”
“Drinking on an empty stomach?” Audrey clicked her tongue to make a disapproving noise. “You know better.”
“I have salad fixings.”
“Good. Why don’t you take a shower and put on your pajamas and when I get there, I’ll prepare the salad. I have leftover chicken I’ll bring with me to add to the salad. But until you eat something, no more wine for you. Promise?”
“I promise.”
Tam hung up the phone. Audrey always knew the right thing to say and the right thing to do to help her. Maybe it was because they knew each other so well, because they’d been close friends since childhood. If Audrey thought that Tam wasn’t completely in love with Marcus, she had never said a word. However, she suspected that her best friend knew the truth. She needed to talk to someone, to admit the truth out loud, and who better to be her father confessor than Audrey, her best friend who just happened to be a shrink? Well, a counselor, which was the next best thing to a shrink. Maybe even better.
Audrey parked her Buick Enclave, unbuckled her seat belt, and reached for the shoulder bag and the plastic sack containing the cold chicken she had promised to bring for their salad. Her phone rang. After retrieving it from an outer slot on her purse, she checked the caller ID. Zoe Davidson.
“Hi, Zoe,” Audrey said when she answered.
“Hi, Dr. Sherrod.” Zoe’s girlish voice sounded even younger than her fourteen years. “I—I … uh … You said if I needed to talk, to call you. You probably didn’t expect to hear from me, at least not this soon, but …”
“It’s all right,” Audrey assured her. “I don’t mind that you called. What can I do to help you?”
“You can get me a different father.”
“Oh, I see. I had hoped maybe once you and your dad got home, you might have been able to talk things out and—”
“He doesn’t want to talk things out. He just wants to issue orders. I hate him. And I hate living with him. And he hates me, too. He doesn’t want me. He just keeps me because he knows I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Oh, Zoe, you poor, sweet girl.
The similarity between the way J.D. Cass’s daughter felt now and the way Audrey had once felt about her relationship with her own father was too obvious to ignore. Audrey understood how it felt to believe your father hated you, that he tolerated you because it was his duty, not because he loved you.
“My guess is that your father doesn’t hate you,” Audrey said. “And even if you hate living with him and having to adhere to his rules, you don’t really hate him.”
Silence.
“Zoe, do you think your father would allow you to set up an appointment with me?”
“You mean as one of your patients?”
“Although my specialty isn’t family counseling, I am qualified—”
“J.D.’s the one who needs counseling,” Zoe said.
“That’s probably true and ideally I would counsel both of you, together and separately. But, honey, you need someone to talk to, someone who’ll listen and—”
“And care about me. About how I feel and what I think. Could you do that, Dr. Sherrod? Could you care about me, even just a little?”
A hard knot of emotion formed in the center of Audrey’s chest. She drew in and released a deep, cleansing breath. Would it be a mistake to counsel Zoe Davidson when she knew, even now, that she would become emotionally involved with this young girl?
“Zoe, if I counsel you, it would be my job to care about what you think and how you feel. And I already like you, you know.”
“You do?”
“Well, of course I do.”
“I—I like you, too.”
“Would you like for me to phone your father and ask his