A Second Chance (12 page)

Madeline reached for her shirt and
slipped her arms through the sleeves. The fabric fought her and she
pushed her arm through. But it wasn’t the shirt, it was the
unsettling feeling that was making her tense. The thoughts that
crowded her mind, wishing Kathy had never happened into his life
and that Matt had walked out of hers much sooner. The very thought
hurt as much as the scars on her body as they healed.

She could hear Carlos’s voice carry
down the hall as he spoke with someone passing by her door. He was
everything she’d ever wanted, and he always did what she’d asked
him to do. He’d loved her. He’d married her. The agreement was that
she’d support them so he could go to school and get a good job.
Carlos did just that. And she must have told him to walk away,
because he wasn’t the kind of man to walk away without being
pushed. And now he was marrying someone else because she’d asked
him to move on.

Madeline pressed her hand to her flat
chest. As it was, even if she won the battle against the disease
that wanted to kill her, she’d still never win back the love of her
life.

Madeline ambled up the front steps of
Alan and Emily Keller’s house. She couldn’t remember a time she’d
been more nervous. Even the day she’d gone to the doctor’s office
to confirm that she had cancer, she wasn’t as jittery.

She blew out a breath. There was no
reason for her to be uncomfortable. Not a day had passed since she
was fifteen years old that the Kellers hadn’t been completely
accepting of her. She’d turned down dinner invitations every month
for five years. She’d been surrounded by Emily, Regan, and Arianna
at every social event for her children for those same five years.
She was at the fiftieth wedding anniversary party for Alan and
Emily. When Zach’s father died, she and the kids were at the
funeral and reception to help. She helped Arianna host Regan’s baby
shower. She even made a trip with Matt to New York to see Arianna
perform more than once. This was as much her family as her children
were.

So why was she so tied up in
knots?

In her closet she’d found a hat she’d
bought for Regan’s wedding. She hadn’t worn it then, but it looked
casual enough she figured she’d get away with wearing it to Sunday
dinner. Only that morning she’d taken a mirror and looked at the
back of her head. Her hair looked horrible. It was time to consider
doing something about it. She tugged the hat down more
snugly.

When the door opened, Clara greeted
her.

“
Mommy!” She clung to her
and Madeline laughed.

“
I dropped you off at your
dad’s house yesterday. It’s only been eighteen hours since you’ve
seen me.”

“
I know.” Clara smiled up at
her. “I just missed you.”

All of the knots in her muscles
relaxed; she was at home with her children here. “I missed you
too.”

Clara walked her through the front
door by the hand and back to the family room where everyone had
gathered around the television.

“
Super Bowl,” Clara
whispered.

“
I had completely
forgotten,” Madeline whispered back.

A roar erupted from everyone in the
room when the team they’d been rooting for missed the field
goal.

“
Damn! When am I going to
pick a team that has a chance?” Alan sat back in his recliner and
looked up, noticing her first. His eyes lit up, and he struggled
from his chair to be the first to greet her. “Well, look who graces
our presence again.”

“
Alan, how are
you?”

“
I’m old.” He kissed her
cheek and then looked her directly in the eye. “How are
you?”

“
I’m going to be just
fine.”

“
I know you are.” He patted
her cheek and stepped back as her sons gathered around her. Each
member of the family kissed her and gave her a hug. Regan held her
tightly, and Madeline could feel her body shake from
tears.

“
Don’t be sad for me,”
Madeline spoke softly in her ear.

“
I can’t help it. I didn’t
know you were sick, and I really think I should have been there for
you.”

“
You have a new person to
think about. Tyler needs you more than I do.” She kissed Regan on
the cheek. “Thank you for worrying though.”

Regan stepped back and wiped her eyes.
“I’m overly emotional lately.”

“
It’s lack of sleep. I
remember it well.”

“
All he does is eat. I never
sleep anymore.”

“
It won’t be forever and
you’ll miss it.” She looked around the room at her nearly grown
children. Regan would soon look back on it and wonder where the
time had gone.

“
That’s what everyone keeps
telling me.”

“
Hello, Madeline.” The soft
female voice came from the direction of the kitchen, and Madeline
looked up to see Kathy standing only a few feet away with a tight
smile directed toward her.

“
Hello, Kathy,” she said
returning the smile, realizing they were both incredibly
uncomfortable in each other’s presence.

Madeline had met her a few times.
Kathy had been there for Regan’s baby shower, the first Keller
family event Kathy had attended. It had only been four months
earlier, but to Madeline it seemed like a lifetime ago. Back then,
she was pleased to meet Kathy. Her heart had been full of optimism
for Carlos. She’d been happy for him.

Now as she stood before the small
blonde with her thick, full hair and her full chest. She envied
her—not so much for the beauty she possessed and Madeline had lost,
but because Carlos loved her.

Kathy took a hesitant step toward her.
“I’m glad Carlos convinced you to come.”

“
I wasn’t sure I
should.”

“
You’re part of the family,”
Kathy reminded her.

“
Thank you.”

It was then she realized she hadn’t
seen Carlos. She glanced toward the living room, but he wasn’t
there. Her face must have shown her thoughts.

“
He ran to the store to get
some more milk.”

Madeline nodded. Regan moved by her
with Tyler in her arms.

“
I thought you could use
this.” She lifted her son toward Madeline, who took the baby and
cradled him close to her empty chest. The warmth from his body
filled her. The scent of baby lotion filled her nose and calmed her
nerves.

“
You have no
idea.”

Carlos pushed through the back door,
bags of groceries slipping from his fingers.

Kathy raced toward him and grabbed a
bag before it could fall. “What did you get?”

“
I couldn’t help it. They
had ice cream on sale.” He grinned.

“
You are no help to my
waistline.” She kissed him on the lips and helped Emily unload the
bags. “She’s in the other room,” Kathy said quietly as she tilted
her head toward Carlos.

“
Really?” A surge of mixed
emotions ran though him. He was happy. He’d wanted her to be there
more than he could have admitted, but even though Kathy was
smiling, the sadness in her eyes burned him. How could he have such
contrasting emotions?

Kathy nodded. “Go see her.”

He moved to her and placed his hands
on her cheeks. “Are you okay with this?”

“
Yes.”

“
I love you.”

“
I love you,
too.”

Carlos kissed her softly and then went
in search of Madeline.

Chaos enveloped the room where
everyone he loved sat watching the greatest football game of the
year. But in the corner, the mother of his children rocked his tiny
nephew, gazing down upon him. She was beautiful.

The thought hit him hard. He tried to
shake it away, but it lodged there. He remembered her holding
Eduardo just as she held Tyler. She’d been twenty-one and just had
their first child. Most people at that age would have been
panicking about everything, but not Madeline. She took it all in
stride and had patience he’d never seen in any other woman. Not
even his mother had patience like his wife’s. Ex-wife, he had to
remind himself.

“
Park your butt or go
somewhere else,” Alan said to him, and he realized he was standing
in plain sight of everyone, gazing at Madeline.

She looked up at him and smiled. He
walked toward her and knelt down by the chair.

“
He is so precious,” she
murmured as Carlos touched Tyler’s soft cheek.

“
He really is, isn’t
he?”

“
I’m so glad I came. I
needed this so much. Maybe on my bad days I’ll just go over to
Regan’s house.”

“
She’d love that.” He looked
up at her and caught the love and patience that radiated from her
eyes. She looked much better than she had earlier that
week.

“
Dinner is ready.” Kathy’s
voice filled the room, but Carlos heard the tension in it, and when
he looked up he saw the pain in her eyes again. But she smiled and
stepped aside as his family filtered through the house toward the
dining room.

“
Good, my team is losing,”
Alan protested as Eduardo helped him up from his chair.

Zach reached out his hands to take
Tyler from Madeline. “I’ll take him.”

“
Would I be horribly out of
line if I asked to hold him during dinner? You have no idea how
much this is helping me.”

“
I think that would be
fine,” Zach said, smiling down at her as Regan placed her hand on
her husband’s shoulder.

Carlos helped her up and walked with
her to the dining room. He kept to her side, a hand on the low of
her back to steady her. She wasn’t weak, but it felt necessary to
guide her with such a small and wonderful gift sleeping in her
arms.

He pulled her chair out, and as she
sat, he looked for the next open chair. A sharp pain pierced his
chest when he realized his empty chair was across the table, next
to his fiancée.

Kathy’s eyes were lowered and the pain
increased. He was hurting her, and yet he couldn’t help
it.

Dinner around the Keller table was as
she always remembered it. It was noisy, full of discussions of
work, school, and news of Arianna’s latest adventures in New York.
Curtis had been the last to arrive, just as they’d all sat down at
the table. Madeline sat between her sons and across from her
daughter, who sat next to her father and he next to his fiancée.
She knew she should feel out of place, but she didn’t. She wished
she’d taken them up on dinner offers sooner.

“
Are you sure you don’t want
me to take him from you?” Regan asked as Madeline struggled to lift
her fork to her mouth without dropping food on Tyler.

“
Please, leave him. This has
been the very best therapy.”

“
I’m glad.”

“
How is your recovery
going?” Emily asked in her calm, motherly manner.

“
I think it’s going well.
The doctor gave me some medicine to help my blood count and to keep
me from getting sick.” She cut another piece of ham and managed it
into her mouth.

“
I’m glad you’re getting
better.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Look.” Eduardo smiled at
her. “She’s eating.”

Madeline looked down at her plate and
realized she’d eaten half the food on it while she cooed over the
baby in her arms.

“
I guess I am.”

“
Good, you’re getting too
skinny,” Carlos added.

“
Oh, I don’t think there
will ever be a day I think that.”

“
You never would. You’re too
hard on yourself.”

“
Maybe.” She managed another
fork of food to her mouth.

“
You are such a natural,”
Zach added his opinion. “Did you always manage to be so calm around
babies?”

“
She was always good with
babies and kids. I don’t think she was sick a day when she was
pregnant,” Carlos offered.

“
And that wives’ tale about
having heartburn if you child had a lot of hair didn’t apply to me.
Ed had more hair than most full-grown men.” She gazed at her son,
who shook his head as he drank down his milk.

“
Oh, he was hairy like a
monkey,” Regan reminisced.

“
C’mon, that’s gross,”
Eduardo piped up and they all laughed.

“
Oh, and you were
enormous!”

“
Dad!”

“
You were. You were fat and
round. I don’t know how you’re mother managed to carry you for an
extra four days.”

“
He was nine pounds.” She
laughed as she said it. “Talk about being all baby.”

“
And you carried him all up
front. To look at you from behind, you wouldn’t even have noticed
she was pregnant,” Curtis added to the conversation.

Carlos threw his napkin at his
brother. “What were you doing looking at her from the
back?”

“
I was nineteen. I looked at
every woman from the back.”

The family laughed. Everyone but
Kathy, who looked at her plate as she ate.