A Daughter's Trust

“Can I get you something to eat? I was going to do grilled shrimp and onions.”

“Sounds wonderful. But I’ve only got another forty-five minutes or so. I promised Lisa I’d be back before bath time.”

“The shrimp’s already marinated,” Rick said, heading to the kitchen. Sue followed and fell into place beside him, slicing celery and cutting up broccoli, sharing the space easily. Naturally.

The refrigerator was covered with photos of Hannah and Rick. On bikes. On snowshoes. In swimsuits. There was one where their faces were painted gold and red—San Francisco Giants’ colors.

“The pictures, they’re all just of the two of you.”

“Yeah.”

Rick had said he’d never been married. “So you lived alone with her at the time of her accident?”

“We lived alone from the moment I brought her home from the hospital.”

Shocked, Sue stared at him. “Her mother died in childbirth?”

“Her mother didn’t want her,” he said, tipping the pan of shrimp to fill their plates. “Or me.”

“What do you mean, she didn’t want her?”

Rick brought silverware, napkins and iced tea to the table. Sue followed with their plates.

“I met Sheila shortly after I graduated from college,” he said a couple of silent minutes into the meal. Sue had been eating the shrimp. And waiting. “I’d taken a job at Globe High School. As math teacher and basketball coach.”

In the district where he was now assistant superintendent.

“Sheila was the varsity cheerleading coach—an after-school, mostly volunteer position. In her day job she was a model.”

Sitting there in her bike clothes, sweaty and with her hair in a ponytail, Sue wished she’d had a chance to shower. At least.

Rick’s lover had been a model?

“For a boy who?

??d grown up virtually on his own, never being in one place long enough to form any kind of lasting relationship, having Sheila around took some getting used to. But in a good way. She changed everything for me.”

He took a bite of shrimp, his gaze faraway. “She taught me about love. Taught me how to love.”

Keeping her eyes on her plate, Sue asked, “How does one teach someone to love? Either you feel the feelings or you don’t.”

“Love is action, Sheila always said.” He paused, and Sue looked up at him, then couldn’t look away. “According to her, when you do things for people, you are loving them. When you spoil them, you are loving them in a big way.”

The twinge Sue felt was simply because she was hungry. The bike ride and all…

“So did she?” she asked quietly, reminding herself there was no reason to feel jealous. Rick was with her. He’d cooked dinner for her. Pursued her.

And it wasn’t like she wanted anything permanent, anyway.

“Did she what?”

“Spoil you?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t seem that happy about it. “She gave me a foundation. When she got pregnant, I was thrilled. I immediately asked her to marry me. The quicker the better. I couldn’t wait to settle down. To raise our family. To be a part of a family.”

To have a family of his own.

The story, as it progressed, was harder to listen to than Sue had expected. Obviously this was the woman he’d spoken of earlier. The one who’d left him. There was no reason for her to envy this Sheila woman. The relationship Rick had tried to have with her was not one Sue would ever want.