remembered that was the original question.
“Well, there was never any doubt that he was her father. He was a wonderful father to her.”
“Give me some examples.”
“Well, he’d read her stories at night. He’d…he liked to drive her around the streets of Washington to educate her on the problems of the homeless.”
Heather’s eyes were wide and disbelieving, and Laura laughed. “He was one of a kind,” she said.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Heather said. “So what else did he do with her?”
“Well…” Laura searched her memory, finally shaking her head in defeat. “I can’t think of other specific examples. But he loved her. I don’t think he would have treated her any differently if she’d been his own flesh and blood.”
“Did he take her places—other than the streets of D.C.? Play games with her? Teach her to ride a big wheeler?”
“No. Not those things, specifically. But he…” She gave up in frustration. “Sorry. My mind is a blank.”
“You know…” Heather’s voice was gentle. “We all have a tendency to idealize our loved ones who’ve died.”
“He married me,” Laura said. “He took Emma on and gave her a father. He didn’t have to do that.” She had to admit that Ray had never given Emma much of his attention, and when he did, it was with his own agenda in mind. He would occasionally read to her, but the books he’d select were about little homeless children. She couldn’t bring herself to share that fact with Heather, though.
“Any chance there might have been some molestation going on?” Heather asked.
“No!”
“I need to ask,” Heather said with a hint of apology. “I didn’t pick up on anything, but we need to rule that out.”
“No. Ray was not a very…sexual person. He was wrapped up in social issues, as you can tell. On every committee for social change you can imagine. He worked with the homeless. He was as driven in that as I am in astronomy. And he suffered from depression, obviously. That’s what led him to kill himself.”
“What was he like when he was depressed?”
Laura did not have to think hard to remember. “Sometimes he’d simply sink into a black hole and withdraw from the rest of the world. Other times, he’d be impatient and irritable. He could be short with Emma when he felt that way.” She didn’t like acknowledging that fact. “He’d yell at her. She could get on his nerves. But that wasn’t too often.” It had been more often in the period before his death, though. She couldn’t deny that.
“How do you think you’re doing as a mom?” Heather asked, and Laura was surprised by the sudden change in her focus.
“To be honest,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve handled motherhood very well. Or marriage, for that matter.” A professor had once told her that as women moved into male-dominated fields, such as the sciences, they tended to lose their “people skills,” their innate ability to nurture, to intuit and meet the needs of others. She was afraid that’s what had happened to her. “Can I be brilliant in one realm of my life and a complete idiot in another?” she asked.
Heather laughed. “Most of us are, I think.”
“I had one parent most of my life. I knew he loved me, and he was always very attentive to me, but he taught me more about the planets than he did about people. So what do I do? I get pregnant by some guy I barely know. I marry someone more for security and companionship than for love. I turn out just as nerdy and head-in-the-clouds as my father was. And that’s what Emma’s stuck with. She has no one else. No brothers or sisters or grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins. And now no father. Just me. And I don’t quite know how to do it. I’m worried I’m ruining her.”
Heather smiled. “She’s not ruined, Laura. You’ve described her as happy, inquisitive, strong-willed, outgoing and personable. You obviously have done something very right with her. Now she’s experienced a trauma. We have to help her get through that, and then you should have your happy daughter back. The daughter you’ve raised better than you think.”
Laura let out a sigh.
“You’re carrying a lot around with you, aren’t you?” Heather said. “I mean guilt. A sense of responsibility. Fear.”
“I’m feeling overwhelmed these days, yes. So much going on in my life this past year. Losing Ray, and before that, my dad was sick, and…” She thought back to the news segment she’d seen on TV the week before. Loneliness in the elderly. It had been troubling her for days.
“And…?” Heather prompted.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with Emma.”
“That’s all right.”
“My father made me promise I’d take care of an elderly woman.” She explained the situation to Heather, and how her visit to Sarah Tolley had triggered Ray’s suicide.
“It was unfair of Ray to ask you not to go,” Heather said sternly.
“Well, maybe, but he—”
“Are you going to make a hobby out of defending him?”
Heather asked. “It was unfair of him to put you in that position. Period. So, do you want to see her again?”
Laura was unsettled by Heather’s bluntness. Still, she remembered the pleading, desperate look in her father’s eyes when he’d asked her to take care of Sarah. That memory had tortured her for the past six months.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Then go,” Heather said. “That’s your assignment for next week.”
7
THE PATH CIRCLING THE LAKE WAS SO HEAVILY FORESTED THAT walking on it was like walking through a tunnel, and Laura slowed her pace to enjoy the effect. Emma, though, did not seem to notice. She trotted ahead of Laura, carrying her blue plastic case filled with her Barbie dolls and their requisite paraphernalia, eager to get to the Beckers’ house.
Five-year-old Cory was in the Beckers’ front yard, and she ran to meet Emma, her wild red curls bouncing around her face.
“I got a Dentist Barbie!” Cory shrieked. She grabbed Emma’s arm, and Emma ran with her up the porch steps, past Cory’s mother, Alison, who held the screen door open for them.
“Sorry about that,” Alison said to Laura with a smile. Her own short red hair framed her face, and freckles dotted her nose. “Now you’ll have to get Emma Paleontologist Barbie or something so she can keep up with the neighbors.”
Laura laughed. She stood in the yard, shading her eyes against the rays of sun shooting through the trees. “Thanks for watching her,” she said. “I should be back by four.”
“Take your time.” Alison folded her arms across her chest. “If I can tear them away from the dolls, I’ll take them to the playground for a while.”
Laura walked back to her own house, feeling fortunate that the Beckers were at the lake again this summer. Cory amazed her. She’d accepted Laura’s explanation that Emma wasn’t talking this summer with a simple “oh,” and she did Emma’s talking for her when they played. Cory’s father worked in D.C. and came to the lake only on the weekends, so Laura and Alison had found a resource for child care in each other.
The drive to Meadow Wood Village took her a little over thirty minutes. Thirty anxious minutes, as Laura tried unsuccessfully to forget the toll her last visit to Sarah Tolley had taken on Ray, and on Emma.
Once in the retirement home, she found Sarah’s apartment by hunting for the door bearing the silhouette of the projector. Sarah answered the door and smiled at Laura.