Shattered Memories (The Mirror Sisters 3)

“Yes,” she confessed, smiling. “C’mon.” She reached for my hand, and I rose.

When my father arrived, he found us both laughing and sampling cookies in the living room. The look of shock changed quickly to a smile of relief.

“You can come to pick up Haylee anytime Thursday morning,” Dr. Alexander told him.

“Okay.”

“Bring her back on Friday morning. I’ve only been able to manage the one-day pass for now.”

“Fine,” my father said.

“Let’s give Kaylee a chance to think through the experience. You can bring her back here on your way to her school on Sunday. I’ll be here all day,” she said.

He nodded and looked to me.

“Thank you,” I told Dr. Alexander. “Your mother had a great cookie recipe.”

She nodded, and my father and I left. Dana was in the car. I got into the backseat quickly. Dr. Alexander waved, and my father backed out.

“Hi, Kaylee,” Dana said. “I’m Dana Cartwell.”

I didn’t shake her hand so much as grasp it and smile.

“Well, I guess that went well,” my father said.

“Yes,” I said.

The momentary silence that followed hammered home that I didn’t want to discuss it in front of Dana. She was still a stranger to me, despite how well he and she were getting along.

For most of the time after my father had left the house and gone through with the divorce, I didn’t like to think of him being with someone else. It didn’t bother Haylee. She saw that it did bother me, so she teased me a lot, imagining him going around with “probably a much younger woman.” She said men were like that, especially during a divorce. Their egos needed to be stroked. When I asked her how she was so sure of it, she answered the way she usually did: “I just know.”

The implication was clear. Haylee believed she had better instincts than I had and was far wiser when it came to male-female relationships. Maybe she was wiser, but I didn’t have to believe her or think about my father and another woman if I didn’t want to. Now I had no choice.

At lunch, I relaxed a bit and revealed more about my visit with Dr. Alexander. Dana mostly listened and spoke only to reinforce something my father said. But afterward, when we had left the restaurant and I happened to glance into the front window of a clothing store and saw an attractive sweater, she picked up on it faster than my father and suggested that we take a look at it. Fortunately, the store had a chair and some magazines so he could be occupied while Dana and I sifted through some unique fashions. I couldn’t help myself from fighting against liking her, but she was very relaxed with me, and I found that the effect of female company, doing things a mother and a daughter should be doing, was stronger than my instinctive resentment of anyone taking some of my father’s affections.

She actually persuaded me to buy a different sweater and then plucked a matching cap off the shelf and convinced my father it was absolutely necessary. He wasn’t really going to resist anything anyway.

On the way back to Littlefield, Dana talked more openly about herself, her youth and school. She and my father joked about people at the company, and for a solid hour, I thought nothing about why I had made this trip and what was soon to follow.

They both hugged me when we parted in the dorm parking lot.

“I’ll get up here by eleven on Wednesday,” my father said. “I’ll pick up Haylee early on Thursday and let her see her new room and settle in before Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Okay.”

He gave me another hug and kiss. “I’m really so proud of you,” he said.

I tried desperately to keep from crying, and he knew the best way to help me do that was to leave quickly. I waved to them and then hurried into the dorm

. Thankfully, neither Marcy nor Claudia was there.

The first thing I did was call Troy.

“I’ve been waiting like an expectant father,” he said.

“Give me forty-five minutes to shower and change, and then come get me.”

“And? What happened?”