her aunt countered. “And for the record, he didn’t want the ring to propose to your mother. This was before he met her. He wanted it to propose to one of the kitchen workers in our family’s home. Everyone was against it—even the girl’s family. It’s rather ironic that he had such a problem with Arnie, and he was a lawyer! Just not blue enough blood.”
Her father had wanted to marry the kitchen help? That didn’t sound like the Milhouse Morgan who hardly knew the names of the squadron of people who kept his home immaculate.
“And you were against that engagement, too,” Bernie surmised.
“They were all wrong for each other.” Lucille shrugged. “And she was after the money.”
“Oh.” All this time, she’d imagined that ring belonged on her mother’s finger, but the story was never quite what it seemed. “So why not give it to him now?”
Lucille was silent for a moment, then a small smile tickled the corners of her lips. “Because I don’t want to.”
Bernie stared at her aunt in surprise. That was it? She didn’t want to? A country of politicians pandered for her father’s support, and this one stubborn woman could thwart him with a whim? Laughter bubbled up inside her, and she shook her head.
“Okay, then,” she said.
“The towel is for your shower.” Her aunt turned back toward the hallway again. “The hot and cold are switched, and it takes a few minutes for the water to warm up. Not what you’re used to, I’m sure, but it does the trick.”
None of this was what Bernie was accustomed to, but she couldn’t help but feel mildly envious of the aunt who got to do what she wanted to and felt no obligation to the Morgan family.
But what did Bernadette want? She wanted to get to know this aunt who held odd family secrets, and she wanted to hide from all the fallout of her failed wedding. And now that she’d met Ike, she wanted to get to know this tiny Morgan who had lost his mother too early.
Family had to be about more than influence and politics, didn’t it?
IKE REFUSED ALL the breakfast options Liam had offered him the next morning. Liam was starting to get better at buying foods Ike would eat. So far, the kid was a fan of macaroni and cheese, toast, yogurt and scrambled eggs—but only if the eggs were room temperature and the perfect fluffiness.
He’d also been known to eat a banana, but only if it was just a smidge shy of being ripe. Five minutes past Ike’s liking, and he’d calmly walk to the couch and dump the banana onto it—his version of the garbage, it seemed. A lot of things ended up on the couch—apple slices, toast that was cut diagonally, grapes that were too soft, grapes that were too hard, the half of a cookie that got soggy in his hand... He was a picky kid.
When Liam finally brought Ike across the street to Lucille’s, Ike looked up at the older woman with big, unblinking eyes and whispered “Hungry...” in a tone so plaintive anyone would think he was kept in a cage in the basement, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The twin-size mattress on the floor in Liam’s bedroom was supposed to be for Ike, but the tables had turned somehow, and now Ike slept in Liam’s bed and Liam got the mattress on the floor.
Lucille shot Liam a curious look.
“I feed him!” Liam said defensively. “At least, I try to. I made him breakfast this morning. He just wouldn’t eat it.”
Most of it had ended up on the couch cushion. Liam rolled his eyes. They were being played by a two-year-old, but there didn’t seem to be any way around it.
“What would you like to eat, sweetheart?” Lucille asked. “Auntie will make it.”
They’d been calling her “auntie” from the start—a term of endearment for the woman taking care of him. Liam had never guessed how accurate that name really was. Apparently, Lucille had, though.
Liam glanced around the kitchen.
“Where’s Bernie?” he asked. He’d been thinking about her more than he should, but she was also one of them, and he didn’t trust that family.
“She’s having a late start,” Lucille said with a shrug. “She’s been through a lot. I’m just waiting for the tears to start.”
Liam nodded. He knew better than most what Bernie was going through.
“Well, be good for Auntie,” Liam said to Ike. “I’ll see you tonight, kiddo.”
Ike looked back at him wordlessly, and Liam headed for the door. He had Bernie’s car to evaluate, another couple of vehicles coming in for scheduled maintenance and while his part-time employee, Chip, would be coming in later in the afternoon to help him out, he wanted to get a good start on things before then.
Liam drove the eight minutes to the shop and parked in his usual spot. Life had gotten more interesting—more layered—since Ike’s arrival. Now, as he unlocked the office door and flicked on the lights, his mind was on the boy. He was wondering what he could get the kid to eat in the mornings. But now that Bernie was on the scene, he had even more to distract him from his work, and that frustrated him. He wasn’t supposed to be noticing her glossy dark hair or the way her eyes glittered when she was amused.
Liam let himself into the garage and ambled over to the Rolls-Royce. Pretty or not, Morgan or not, he had to fix her car. The white paint was dusty from the long drive from New York, but there was no muting the beauty of a well-maintained classic car. This was a Phantom V, and between 1959 and the late sixties, there had only been about five hundred made. He pulled open the front door and peered into the dim interior. Tan lambskin leather and burl wood veneer—true to the original design.
And Bernie had just hopped into this vehicle and driven off. He could only dream of taking a beauty like this for a spin, yet there were people for whom bombing around in a Rolls-Royce was nothing at all.
He opened the hood, and over the next few hours, he started evaluating the severity of the engine trouble. Troubleshooting engine problems was part “ear” and part mechanical knowledge. He started the car, listening to the grind in the motor, then turned it off and came back around to the engine. He could be lost in time while he tinkered, finding the problem. He liked engines—they were fixable. So many other things in life weren’t. Marriages, for example. People weren’t as easy to decipher.
Looking back on it now, he wished he’d been more flexible about their plans for children, but he had a feeling that their issues ran deeper than how to have a child—it was how they related to each other. The infertility had been taking a toll on Leanne. She’d been getting more withdrawn, and every time one of their friends or family members got pregnant, it seemed to stab her just a little bit deeper.
“Why not me?” she’d asked, tears glistening in her eyes. “Why won’t you let me have this?”
And that had felt like a direct attack on his manhood, too. For her to get pregnant, it wouldn’t be by him, and that bothered him a little. Maybe it wasn’t entirely fair, since an adopted child wouldn’t be his biologically, either, but it still rankled him that she needed that genetic link, no matter how he felt about it. For him, the priority had been to give a loving home to a child who might otherwise have been lost in the foster system. They’d never been able to find a solution that they were both happy with.
A man’s virility was a large part of his identity, too, and he’d had to come to terms with the fact that he’d never be a biological dad, so watching her grieve her lack of a baby hurt him, too. Deep down he knew it was a little different for Leanne, and looking back on it, he wished he’d considered using some donor sperm, given her what she wanted.
There was a tap on the garage door window, and he looked around the hood to see Bernie’s face in the glass. His heart sped up a little at the sight of her, and he glanced up at the clock.