Between Sisters

That was fine. It was her lawyer’s job anyway.

“What should we do? I don’t want to hurt the children. ”

“He’s the one who’s hurt the children, May. He’s stolen money from them. And from you. ”

“But he’s a good father. ”

“Then he’ll want to see that they’re provided for. If he’s got a shred of decency in him, he’ll hand over half of the assets without a fight. If he does that, it’ll be a cakewalk. ”

May knew the truth that Meghann had already surmised. A man like this didn’t share well. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then, we’ll make him. ”

“He’ll be angry. ”

Meghann leaned forward. “You’re the one who should be angry, May. This man lied to you, cheated on you, and stole from you. ”

“He also fathered my children,” May answered with a calm that Meghann found exasperating. “I don’t want this to get ugly. I want him . . . to know he can come home. ”

Oh, May.

Meghann chose her words carefully. “We’re simply going to be fair, May. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but you damn sure aren’t going to be screwed over and left destitute by this man. Period. He’s a very, very wealthy orthodontist. You should be wearing Armani and driving a Porsche. ”

“I’ve never wanted to wear Armani. ”

“And maybe you never will, but it’s my job to make sure you have every option. I know it seems cold and harsh right now, May, but believe me, when you’re exhausted from raising those two children by yourself and Dr. Smiles is driving around town in a new Porsche and dancing the night away with his twenty-six-year-old piano teacher, you’ll be glad you can afford to do whatever you want. Trust me on this. ”

May looked at her. A tiny, heartbreaking frown tugged at her mouth. “Okay. ”

“I won’t let him hurt you anymore. ”

“You think a few rounds of paperwork and a pile of money in the bank will protect me from that?” She sighed. “Go ahead, Ms. Dontess, do what you need to do to protect my children’s future. But let’s not pretend you can make it painless, okay? It already hurts so much I can barely breathe, and it has just begun. ”

Across the blistered expanse of prairie grass, a row of windmills dotted the cloudless horizon. Their thick metal blades turned in a slow and steady rhythm. Sometimes, when the weather was just right, you could hear the creaking thwop-thwop-thwop of each rotation.

Today, it was too damn hot to hear anything except the beating of your own heart.

Joe Wyatt stood on the poured-concrete slab that served as the warehouse’s front porch, holding a now-warm can of Coke, all that was left of his lunch.

He stared at the distant fields, wishing he were walking along the wide rows between the trees, smelling the sweet scent of rich earth and growing fruit.

There might be a breeze down there; even a breath of one would alleviate this stifling heat. Here, there was only the hot sun, beating down on the metal warehouse. Perspiration sheened his forehead and dampened the skin beneath his T-shirt.

The heat was getting to him and it was only the second week of June. There was no way he could handle summer in the Yakima Valley. It was time to move on again.

The realization exhausted him.

Not for the first time, he wondered how much longer he could do this, drift from town to town. Loneliness was wearing him down, whittling him away to a stringy shadow; unfortunately, the alternative was worse.

Once—it felt long ago now—he’d hoped that one of these places would feel right, that he’d come into some town, think, This is it, and dare to rent an apartment instead of a seedy motel room.

He no longer harbored such dreams. He knew better. After a week in the same room, he started to feel things, remember things. The nightmares would start. The only protection he had found was strangeness. If a mattress was never “his,” if a room remained unfamiliar territory, he could sometimes sleep for more than two hours at a time. If he settled in, got comfortable, and slept longer, he invariably dreamed about Diana.

That was okay. It hurt, of course, because seeing her face—even in his dreams—filled him with an ache that ran deep in his bones, but there was pleasure, too, a sweet remembrance of how life used to be,

of the love he’d once been capable of feeling. If only the dreams stopped there, with memories of Diana sitting on the green grass of the Quad in her college days or of them cuddled up in their big bed in the house on Bainbridge Island.

He was never that lucky. The sweet dreams invariably soured and turned ugly. More often than not, he woke up whispering, “I’m sorry. ”