Between Sisters

“I’m Bobby Austin,” he said softly, still looking at her. “This song is for The One. Y’all know what I mean. The one I’ve been lookin’ for all my life. ”

His long, tanned fingers strummed the guitar strings. Then he started to sing. His voice was low and smoky, seductive as hell, and the song had a sad and haunting quality that made Claire think of all the roads she hadn’t taken in her life. She found herself swaying in time to the music, dancing all by herself.

When the song ended, he set down the guitar and stood up. The crowd clapped politely, then turned away, heading back to their pitchers of beer and buffalo wings.

He walked toward Claire. She couldn’t seem to move.

Directly in front of her he stopped. She fought the urge to look behind her, to see if he was actually looking at someone else.

When he didn’t say anything, she said, “I’m Claire Cavenaugh. ”

A smile hitched one side of his mouth, but it was strangely sad. “I don’t know how to say what I’m thinking without sounding like an idiot. ”

Claire’s heart was beating so fast she felt dizzy. “What do you mean?”

He closed the distance between them, small as it had been. Now he was so near she could see the gold flecks in his green eyes, and the tiny half-moon-shaped scar at the edge of his upper lip. She could see, too, that he trimmed his hair himself; the ends were uneven and sloppy.

“I’m The One,” he said softly.

“The one what?” She tried to smile. “The way? The light? There is no way to Heaven but through you?”

“No joking. I’m the one you’ve been looking for. ”

She ought to have laughed at him, told him she hadn’t heard that corny a pick-up line since the year she tried shaping her eyebrows with a Lady Bic.

She was thirty-five years old. Long past her believing-in-love-at-first-sight years. All of that was what she meant to say, the response she framed in her head. But when she opened her mouth, she heard her heart speak. “How do you know that?”

“Because, I’ve been lookin’ for you, too. ”

Claire took a tiny step backward; just far enough so that she could breathe her own air.

She wanted to laugh at him. She really did.

“Come on, Claire Cavenaugh,” he said softly. “Dance with me. ”

EIGHT

SOME MARRIAGES ENDED WITH BITTER WORDS AND UGLY epithets, others with copious tears and whispered apologies; each proceeding was different. The one constant was sadness. Win, lose, or draw, when the judge’s gavel rang out on the wooden bench, Meghann always felt chilled. The death of a woman’s dream was a cold, cold thing, and it was a fact, well known in Family Court, that no woman who’d gone through a divorce ever saw the world—or love—in quite the same way again.

“Are you okay?” Meghann asked May.

Her client sat rigidly upright, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. To an outside observer, she might have appeared serene, almost unconcerned about the heartbreaking drama that had just played out in this courtroom.

Meghann knew better. She knew that May was close to the breaking point. Only sheer force of will kept her from screaming.

“I’m fine,” May said, her breathing shallow. That was common, actually. In times like these, women often began Lamaze-type breathing.

Meghann touched May’s arm. “Let’s go next door and get something to eat, okay?”

“Food,” was May’s reply, neither an agreement to nor a rejection of the idea.

In the front of the courtroom, the judge stood up. She smiled at Meghann; then at George Gutterson, the opposing counsel; then left the courtroom.

Meghann helped May to her feet. She held on to her arm to keep her steady as they headed toward the door.

“You bitch!”

Meghann heard May’s sharply indrawn breath, felt her client’s body tense. May stumbled to a halt.