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.”“I don’t think that’s a word.”“Geri, if I’d thought he wanted me I’d.but he’s still in love with his wife.You should see him when someone talks about her or when his daughter asks questions.It hurts him so much just to hear her name that he can’t bear it.”“In other words.” Geri tapped her fingers on the tablecloth.“You can’t play second fiddle to a ghost.”“Exactly.”“A ghost won’t keep him warm at night.”“But she can keep his heart for as long as he lets her.”“Then he’s an idiot.He could have you.Maybe someday he’ll realize that.”Starla didn’t hold much hope for that.He had never even asked for her phone number or her address.By now she was just a pleasant memory.* * *MEREDITH CLOSED HER angel book, got out of bed and crept to the window.It was summertime, but not so hot that the air conditioner was on yet, and she liked the sound of the frogs out her window.Sometimes when she and Daddy went for a walk by the creek in the daytime, frogs jumped from the weeds into the water.They didn’t like to stay around people.But at night she heard them.Angels were like that.Sometimes you got close to one but they didn’t stay around people too much.Daddy spent a lot more time with her now.But he was still sad a lot.He smiled and didn’t want her to see his sad face, but she knew.First he missed Mommy.Gramma missed Mommy a lot, too, and she said that it was okay to be sad for a while.The person you missed would always be in your heart.And now Daddy missed the angel lady.Meredith missed Starla, too.And she missed how happy Daddy had seemed at Christmas.She wished she had Starla’s number so she could call her sometimes, but Daddy said he didn’t know it.In the pretty light from the moon, she could see Daddy.Sometimes when he thought she was asleeping, he went outside and stood like that, with the frogs making noise and the wind blowing his hair.Overhead the sky twinkled with shiny bright stars, just like the stars in Pinocchio.Meredith squeezed her eyes closed and wished on a star for an angel to bring her a new mommy and make her daddy not be sad anymore.Crawling back into bed, she hugged her bunny and reached out to touch the Barbie Starla had given her.The doll slept on the pillow beside her at night sometimes.The fairy made Pinocchio a real boy, so an angel could for sure bring her a mommy.She still believed.* * *CHARLIE PULLED WEEDS away from his tomato plants and stood, the late-June sun hot on his shoulders.Meredith had gone to stay with Sean and Robyn for a week, and he missed her more every day.He was glad she was getting to play with the boys, and Robyn was probably spoiling her like crazy in the city, but her absence sure made the days and nights stretch out long and silent.It gave him too much time to think, too much time to regret.Too much time to ponder his decisions and his life and the direction it was taking.Life went on.That’s all.Just as it always had.Life just happened.And he dealt with it as it came.That was another of his flaws, never taking control and making life happen.As his thoughts did all too often, they settled back on Starla.He admired her for a hundred reasons.She’d broken away from her father’s expectations and forged a new life for herself.She hadn’t gone along with the flow and ended up middle-aged and unhappy because she’d never taken the paddle and worked her way up a different stream than was expected.As he had.Charlie had never cared enough to buck people’s expectations.He’d been content to flow with the current, learn his craft, marry his childhood friend, sailing along placidly.Even when his marriage to Kendra had soured, he’d thought it was honorable to stay married to her, raising his daughter, providing a home, even though he and his wife slept separately and neither of them seemed to care.Why had he never jumped out of the boat and made his way to shore for a new start? He’d thought about it, but living up to his parents’ expectations had been more important.He owed them, after all.Charlie turned on the garden hose at the outdoor spigot, took a long drink that tasted like vinyl, then placed the hose and the flow of water at the base of his tomato plants.And he had always believed there was a flaw in his character, because there was such a thing as love.He’d seen it between friends and family [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]