Kathleen O'Brien - A Daughter's Trust / For the Love of Family

Luck would have it that this Friday, because he’d taken the day off and was on a mission, he was sporting a pair of worn, close-fitting jeans. With a long-sleeved cotton baseball shirt that had seen too many washings.

He’d been going for comfort. And no flash.

In this place, tight-fitting clothes—no matter how old, were flash.

Paying for his coffee, pretending not to see the smile the volunteer barista bestowed upon him, Rick turned, taking in as much of the room as he could without making eye contact.

As far as he could tell, his mother wasn’t here.

But then, it’d been years since he’d seen her. Would he even recognize her?

“Have a seat…” A man about Rick’s age pulled out the second chair at a table for two.

“Uh, thanks, but…I’m looking for someone,” he said, sipping too quickly. He burned his tongue.

“Who?” the casually dressed man asked. “I might know him. We’re all pretty friendly around here.”

“Nancy Kraynick. You know her?” Not that she was probably going by that name now. After all, it was only her legal designation, which didn’t seem to compel her to actually introduce herself that way. Growing up, he’d heard her called many different things. Some not so nice labels.

“Yeah,” the guy said, surprising Rick. “She’s been a regular around here, on and off, for the past couple of years.” Rick had to wonder, was Lothario telling the truth or just looking for an opening?

“Have you seen her today?” Rick asked.

“No. But then I just got here. You a friend of hers?”

He couldn’t bring himself to claim even that close an association. “No.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t some john, are you? Because I have to tell you, she’s through with that. Has been for some time. So if you’re looking to get something from her, you’d best try looking someplace else.”

Protectiveness? From a man…toward Rick’s mother?

This guy must not know her well. He hadn’t had time to see that her lies were only skin-deep.

His mother always had been able to spin the most believable yarns. Especially believable to a young man who’d adored her and needed badly to believe she would straighten herself out and make a home for him. With her.

Problem was, Nancy Kraynick’s yarns had always become tangled in the knots of drug abuse, and in alcohol stupors that went on for months.

“No, I’m not a john,” he said now, biting back his disgust at the woman his mother was—a woman who’d had johns to ask about.

The pretty man frowned. “She’s not in trouble, is she?”

“Probably, but that’s not why I’m here.”

The guy studied him and then pulled out the empty chair. “You look troubled,” he said. “Have a seat. Maybe Nancy will show.”

“No thanks.” Rick couldn’t even pretend he had an appointment, pretend he’d stay if he could. Five minutes and he’d had enough of this place.

There were other ways he could find out what he needed. He had a name and address of someone who could probably help him, thanks to Chenille Langston, the young black girl who’d stayed behind after Christy’s small funeral. The name and address of a woman who apparently had another Kraynick in her care…A name and address he shouldn’t use. And he had official options, too, which would inevitably involve red tape—and probably require evidence of things that might take a while to prove.

If what he’d been told at the cemetery this morning was true, his whole life was about to change. Again. He needed information. Confirmation. His mother had seemed the obvious source. Stupid of him to think his mom would ever—ever—have answers for him.

An hour later, standing in his en suite shower in the Sunset district home he’d shared with Hannah, Rick scrubbed until his skin stung.

Then he stood, leaning an arm against the wall, head bowed, as he let the hot water cascade over his back.

A year ago, life had been great. He’d been the single dad of a great kid, with a world of possibilities ahead for both of them. Tonight he was the son of a druggie; the older brother of a dead sister he never knew about; a grieving father.

They’d told him it would get easier. That as time passed, the violence of the grief raging through him would lessen.

They’d lied.

MOST OF THE CROWD WAS gone by nightfall. Sue slipped upstairs, to call Barb, from the bedroom she’d always slept in on visits to Grandma.

“I’m finished sooner than I thought,” she said, keeping her voice low, for no logical reason. Old habits, conditioning—a need to keep her private life private—died hard. “I’d like to swing by and pick up my brood.”

Emily and Belle were in the kitchen, overseeing the caterers. Uncle Sam was downstairs, too, probably in the living room, cataloguing his take. Or checking that no one had taken anything yet. Not until he directed who would get what.

“Wilma called. She told me to keep them all night, no matter what you said. You need this night to yourself.” Barb’s tone was sympathetic. “Besides, they’re already asleep.”

Glancing at her watch, Sue realized it was after nine o’clock. Far too late to be making this call. Wilma, a foster care supervisor, was right. Sue wasn’t ready to take up motherhood again tonight.

“I’ll be there first thing in the morning,” she said, missing the young charges in her care. Missing the busy-ness, the unconditional acceptance of love. “Don’t worry about breakfast. I’ll get them early enough to feed them at home.”

Closing her cell phone, sliding it back into the case at her hip, Sue took the deep breath necessary to go back downstairs—but stopped. Someone was upstairs. Crying.

Following the sound down the hall to Grandma’s room, Sue pushed open the door. Her mother, sitting in the off-white Queen Anne chair in the corner by Sarah’s bed, had her face buried in a nightgown she’d given Grandma for Christmas.

“Hey.” Sue fought her own tears as she knelt at her mom’s feet. “Come on, you shouldn’t be up here alone.” She’d said the first thing that came to her mind, though there was no reason why Jenny shouldn’t be visiting her own mother’s room.

Jenny started, clutching the hand Sue placed on her knee. “I…she was…I loved her so much,” she said.

“I know.” Tears filled Sue’s eyes and she could hardly speak as her throat closed up. “Where’s Dad?” she managed to ask after a moment.

“In the bathroom.”

Sue’s gaze followed her mother’s around the room, taking in the long dresser covered with tiny antique perfume bottles on top of doilies Sarah had stitched herself. The collection of miniature porcelain animals. The tall bureau that had been her grandfather’s, still holding his key valet and an encased Giants baseball he’d caught on a fly at a World Series game.

“Not once in all my years growing up did they ever make me feel as though I didn’t belong to them,” Jenny said.

And that’s when Sue realized. “You heard Uncle Sam, too.”

“It’s not like he’s ever tried to hide how he feels,” Jenny said. “I love my brother, Sue. I see the insecurity behind all of his blustering. I just wish he’d see that I’m not and never have been a threat.”

“I can’t stand to be in the same room with him,” Sue said. “He’s just plain cruel…”

“Everything he says is true.”

“That everything here belongs to him?”

“That he’s the only true Carson child.”

“Mom! I can’t believe you’re saying that! We belong here as much as he does.”

“And what we care about, the things that were dear to Grandma and Grandpa, the pictures, the things that hold memories, Sam won’t want, anyway. It’s going to be fine, honey. I can’t let him upset me like this.”