Ragged Rainbows

“Yeah. Can I go with him, Mom? Please?”

“That depends, tiger. Maggie and the kids will be going, too, I suppose?”

Hank nodded and Shay felt a pang at his eagerness, even though she understood. He was a little boy, after all, and he needed masculine companionship. He adored Garrett and the feeling appeared to be mutual. “We’d be gone a whole month.”

Shay closed her eyes. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Hank,” she said. “I’ve had a long day and I’m too tired to make any decisions.”

Anxious to stay in his mother’s good graces, Hank got ready for bed without being told. Shay went into his room and gave his freckled forehead a kiss. When he protested, she tickled him into a spate of sleepy giggles.

“I love you,” she said moments later, from his doorway.

“Ah, Mom,” he complained.

Smiling, Shay closed the door and went into her own room for baby-doll pajamas and a robe. After taking a quick bath and brushing her teeth, she was ready for bed.

She was not, however, ready for the heated fantasies that awaited her there, in that empty expanse of smooth sheets. She fell asleep imagining the weight of Mitch Prescott’s body resting upon her own.

The next day was calm compared to the one before it. Shay’s car had been brought to Reese Motors and repaired and she left work early in order to spend an hour with her mother before going home.

Rosamond sat near a broad window overlooking much of Skyler Beach, her thin, graceful hands folded in her lap, her long hair a stream of glistening, gray-marbled ebony tumbling down her back. On her lap she held the large rag doll Shay had bought for her six months before, when Rosamond had taken to wandering the halls of the convalescent home, day and night, sobbing that she’d lost her baby—couldn’t someone please help her find her baby?

She had seemed content with the doll and even now she would clutch it close if anyone so much as glanced at it with interest, but Rosamond no longer cried or questioned or walked the halls. She was trapped inside herself forever, and there was no knowing whether or not she understood anything that happened around her.

On the off chance that some part of Rosamond was still aware, Shay visited often and talked to her mother as though nothing had changed between them. She told funny stories about Marvin and his crazy commercials and about the salesmen and about Hank.

Today there were no stories Shay wanted to tell, and she couldn’t bring herself to mention that the beautiful house beside the sea, with its playhouse and its gazebo and its gardens of pastel rhododendrons, had been sold.

She stepped over the threshold of her mother’s pleasant room and let the door whisk shut behind her, blessing Garrett’s father, Riley Thompson, for being willing to pay Seaview’s hefty rates. It was generous of him, considering that he and Rosamond had been divorced for some fifteen years.

“Hello, Mother,” she said quietly.

Rosamond looked up with a familiar expression of bafflement in her wide eyes and held the doll close. She began to rock in her small cushioned chair.

Shay crossed the room and sank into another chair, facing Rosamond’s. There was no resemblance between the two women; Rosamond’s hair was raven-black, though streaked with gray now, and her eyes were violet, while Shay’s were hazel and her hair was merely brown. As a child Shay had longed to be transformed into a mirror image of her mother.

“Mother?” she prompted, hating the silence.

Rosamond hugged the doll and rocked faster.

Shay worked up a shaky smile and her voice had a falsely bright note when she spoke again. “It’s almost dinnertime. Are you getting hungry?”

There was no answer, of course. There never was. Shay talked until she could bear the sound of her own voice no longer and then kissed her mother’s papery forehead and left.

The box, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in front of Shay Kendall’s house, was enormous. The name of a local appliance store was imprinted on one side and, as Mitch approached, he saw the crooked coin slot and the intriguing words, Lemmonad, Ten Sens, finger-painted above a square opening. He grinned and produced two nickels from the pocket of his jeans, dropping them through the slot.

They clinked on the sidewalk. The box jiggled a bit, curious sounds came from inside, and then a small freckled hand jutted out through the larger opening, clutching a grubby paper cup filled with lemonade.

Mitch chuckled, crouching as he accepted the cup. “How’s business?”

“Vending machines don’t talk, mister,” replied the box.

Some poor mosquito had met his fate in the lemonade and Mitch tried to be subtle about pouring the stuff into the gutter behind him. “Is your mother home?” he asked.

“No,” came the cardboard-muffled answer. “But my babysitter is here. She’s putting gunk on her toenails.”

“I see.”

A face appeared where the cup of lemonade had been dispensed. “Are you the guy who brought my mom home last night?”

“Yep.” Mitch extended a hand, which was immediately clasped by a smaller, stickier one. “My name is Mitch Prescott. What’s yours?”

“Hank Kendall. Really, my name is Henry. Who’d want people callin’ ’em Henry?”

“Who indeed?” Mitch countered, biting back another grin. “Think your mom will be home soon?”

The face filling the gap in the cardboard moved in a nod. “She visits Rosamond after work sometimes. Rosamond is weird.”

“Oh? How so?”

“You’re not a kidnapper or anything, are you? Mom says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. Not ever.”

“And she’s right. In this case, it’s safe, because I’m not a kidnapper, but, as a general rule—”

The box jiggled again and then toppled to one side, revealing a skinny little boy dressed in blue shorts and a T-shirt, along with a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of paper cups. “Rosamond doesn’t talk or anything, and sometimes she sits on my mom’s lap, just like I used to do when I was a little kid.”

Mitch was touched. He sighed as he stood upright again. Before he could think of anything to say in reply, the screen door snapped open and the babysitter was mincing down the walk, trying not to spoil her mulberry toenails. At almost the same moment, Shay’s Toyota wheezed to a stop behind Mitch’s car.

He wished he had an excuse for being there. What the hell was he going to say to explain it? That he’d been awake all night and miserable all day because he wanted Shay Kendall in a way he had never before wanted any woman?

Mitch was wearing jeans and a dark blue sports shirt and the sight of him almost made Shay drop the bucket of take-out chicken she carried in the curve of one arm. Go away, go away, she thought. “Would you like to stay to dinner?” she asked aloud.

He looked inordinately relieved. “Sounds good,” he said.

Sally wobbled, toes upturned, over to stand beside Shay. “Who’s the hunk?” she asked in a stage whisper that sent color pulsing into her employer’s face.

Shay stumbled through an introduction and was glad when Sally left for the day. Mitch watched her move down the sidewalk to her own gate with a grin. “I hope her toenails dry before the bones in her feet are permanently affected,” he said.

“Dumb girl,” Hank added, who secretly adored Sally.

The telephone was ringing as Shay led the way up the walk; Hank surged around her and bounded into the house to grab the receiver and shout, “Hello!”

“Why are you here?” Shay asked softly as Mitch opened the screen door for her.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

Hank was literally jumping up and down, holding the receiver out to Shay. “It’s Uncle Garrett! It’s Uncle Garrett!”

Shay smiled at the exuberance in her son’s face, though it stung just a little, and handed the bucket of chicken to Mitch so that she could accept the call.