A Daughter's Trust

She wanted to believe he was seeking Carrie for all the right reasons.

She wanted to be the woman he was seeking. She wanted to complete his picture.

But she was not the woman he thought he saw. She’d let him down eventually. And no mater how much her heart was breaking—it was still better to let him go now rather than hurt him so much worse later.

“And I still can’t marry you,” she whispered, finally finding the strength to tell him.

WHAT A BUNCH OF HOOEY. He couldn’t settle for less. What in the hell had he been thinking? Settle for less than what? Nothing? Because that’s exactly what he had all alone in his house.

Before Sue.

She’d brought him back to life.

Her and Carrie.

He’d get Carrie. He had to get Carrie. But that would still leave him without Sue.

In any capacity.

And waiting for her to see the miraculous sense in his words, to come begging him to give her another chance, to tell him that she’d seen he was right, and ask him to please marry her, was about as stupid as his great exit line.

Three days without her and he was lonely as hell. He’d settled for less, all right. Less than the first happiness he’d known since Hannah’s death.

He still hadn’t cleaned Hannah’s things out of the spare room. He was waiting for Sue. He wanted her to see it all. To share the memories with him.

Sitting in his kitchen, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt without the sling, Rick was ready to go out for a run. Except that he’d been ready for a couple of hours and hadn’t gone. He heard a knock on his front door, and immediately thought of Sue. As though she could read his thoughts. As though his prayers had been answered.

He didn’t recognize the newer looking compact car out front. Or the short-haired, nicely dressed woman on his porch when he opened the door.

“Ricky?”

He froze. He knew the voice. But it couldn’t be. “Mom?”

“Yeah.” With a self-deprecating smile, she glanced down at herself and then back up. “Kind of a surprise, huh? Quite the change.”

She’d been sober before. Many times. For weeks, months, even a year once. But she didn’t just look sober today. She looked…clean. Healthy.

Standing there blocking the doorway, he stared. “You always were good at looking the part….”

She stiffened, but managed to keep her smile. “I discovered that if you stay sober long enough, you actually get your skin tone back.”

He wasn’t going to feel guilty for hurting her. He wasn’t going to feel anything. He couldn’t.

“How long have you been sober?” he asked, hating his weakness, hating that he showed any interest at all. He’d almost added, “This time.”

“Three years.”

What?

“I haven’t used anything hard or illegal since the first time I saw Christy high.”

“I was told you checked into rehab after Carrie was born.”

“I did. I’d dried out by myself, so while I wasn’t using hard stuff, I wasn’t completely clean, either. When I first quit, I figured I’d been through the process so many times, I didn’t need the program. I got a friend to sit with me through the withdrawals, to help me do that part without medication. You know…” She just kept talking, as though he didn’t have her standing out on his front porch. As though, if she stopped, she’d lose this chance. As though she knew that as soon as she let him get a word in, he was going to tell her to leave.

“…part of my problem was that those programs, they make you feel like you have to be perfect, and I knew I never could be. I never trusted myself to succeed. I never believed I would. When I did it on my own, I didn’t ask me to be perfect. Just to stay off the hard stuff. Alcohol and illegal substances. When Carrie was born, I was sober, but still smoking almost five packs of cigarettes a day and relying on over-the-counter sleeping pills several times a month. I figured with only cigarettes and occasional sleeping pills to beat, and with a granddaughter who needed me because I’d failed her mother, I could damn well be perfect.”

Oh, God. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Don’t make me hope again. Don’t make me want to help. Don’t make me believe.