Stand-In Mum

As if he could be happy, not knowing where she was. Unbeknownst to her, he’d tracked her down. But she’d seemed happy, so he had done the only thing he could. He had honored her wishes and blamed himself for not having made it easier for her to leave. But she’d been so young when she’d voiced her displeasure, and he’d thought it was just a phase. Hindsight showed him that he’d been selfish, but when he’d attempted to tell her so in a letter a year ago, it had been returned Addressee Unknown. She’d moved on.

He prayed she was happy.

His eyes washed over Marta before he continued. “While you’re a little bit of a thing with a nice share of curves.”

Marta pressed her lips together, ready to fend off what more was coming in the wake of those words. He’d just made a slow start with the comparison, that’s all. But he was coming to the snow job now.

With her back against the arm of the sofa, she regarded him coolly. “If we’re so different, why do I remind you of your sister?”

“It’s that look in your eyes when we talk about Hades.” He paused, taking another sip. Taking his time. There was no reason to hurry. Life had a completely different pace here than in the other states. Here the steps were unhurried, well-placed. “Junie had the same look in her eyes. She was restless here, dying to get out.”

Marta could understand why. She still couldn’t quite come to terms with the fact that Sydney appeared to be happy living out here. “And I take it she got out.”

“Yes.” Ike looked into his mug, watching the firelight shimmer along the inky surface. “She did.”

Was he going to tell her now that he missed his sister? Missed female companionship? Marta grew tense, waiting for the shoe to drop. “Where did she go?”

He shrugged, draining his cup and setting it down on the coffee table. He didn’t feel like going into details, into defending actions he now felt were indefensible. When the letter had been returned, he’d tried to find her and had discovered she’d purposely hidden her trail. That had hurt.

“Beats me.”

Her eyes narrowed to emerald pinpoints. “You don’t know?”

Ike heard the accusation in her voice, the emotion, and wondered what was behind it. Sitting back, he crossed one booted foot over his thigh. He gave her the short, public version. “She didn’t want me to know. Junie ran off with her boyfriend. A guy who thought he was going to take the music world by storm, strumming his guitar and singing songs nobody understood.”

The laugh was short, without his customary humor behind it. Roy Watkins, son of an oil man who had just been passing through, was one of the few human beings he’d ever encountered that he hadn’t liked, even a little. How much of that was justified and how much was because he was Junie’s big brother? He couldn’t honestly say.

“But Junie thought the world began and ended in his shadow, so that’s where she wanted to be.” He looked into the fire, remembering. Blocking the anger the memory stirred. “Roy’s shadow was going out of here, and that was just fine with her. Ever since she’d been a little girl, all she ever talked about was getting on the other side of the northern lights.” Ike turned his eyes toward Marta. “One day, they both just took off together.”

“There are ways to find people.”

Ike inclined his head, acknowledging her point but adding one of his own. “If they want to be found.”

That shouldn’t have anything to do with it, Marta thought in disgust. Juneau was his sister, he was supposed to maintain ties—not write her off as if she hadn’t existed. Or be glad she was gone because she’d been too much trouble.

Like Marta had been for the mother who had so cavalierly given her up because the child got in the way of having a good time. Marta banked down the thought and the faded memory it aroused.

Don’t leave me, Mama. Don’t leave me here.

But the door had slammed anyway, and the social worker had led her away. She’d been five at the time. Five years old when she’d become part of The System.

Marta’s eyes looked pointedly into his. “Even if they don’t.”

There was something going on there behind her eyes, Ike thought. Something that bore exploring. But not quite yet. First, he had to gain her confidence. “People are entitled to privacy if they want it. I figured Junie wanted it. If she hadn’t, she would have gotten in contact with me.” Not tried to remain hidden, he added silently.

“That’s kind of a lazy approach, isn’t it?”

Well, she didn’t pull her punches, he’d give her that. There was something to be admired about a woman who was so honest. Holding his hand out, palm up, he suddenly closed his fingers as if he was grasping something. “You hold onto a bird too tight, you kill it.” And above all, he wanted June to feel free and happy.

Marta frowned at the analogy. “There’s such a thing as a happy medium.”

“Junie didn’t want a happy medium. She wanted something new, exciting. She knows where to find me if she ever needs anything.”

And it was his fond hope that someday, his sister would choose to contact him one way or another. Even after all this time, he sorely missed her. Missed the bond they’d once shared.

Spoken like a man who really doesn’t care, Marta thought. If she’d had a sister, she would have done whatever she could to keep her in her life. “Maybe she’s too proud to ask, did you ever think of that?”

He had, but he couldn’t quite get himself to believe that of Junie. “Pride’s for other people, not for family.” His sister knew he wasn’t the type to rub her nose in a mistake, no matter how great. All he wanted was her happiness.

Ike wondered if she’d found it with Roy.

Marta shrugged, looking away. Family. The single word still shimmered like a mystery, the solution just out of reach. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

Ike knew a little about her. About the foster homes. Sydney had told him. “There’s family and then there’s family.”

She slanted a look at him. “Meaning?”

There was something in her eyes, something he doubted she was even aware of, that made him want to gather her into his arms and tell her things were going to be all right—even though he had no idea what those things might be.

“There’s the family you’re born into, and the one you make for yourself.”

She wasn’t sure she was following him. “You mean marriage?”

If that’s what he meant, she thought it a rather strange reference, given what Sydney had told her about Ike. She would have thought the institution of marriage to be so far from his thoughts that he couldn’t reach it by plane.

Ike acknowledged her response, but he’d been thinking along different lines. “Or just friends. Like you are with Sydney. She said you two were closer than most sisters.”

The observation made Marta smile. “Yes, I suppose we are.”

Was it her imagination, or was he sitting closer to her now than he had been a moment before? She glanced down at her own seat and realized that, somehow, she had been the one to move, not him. How had that happened? She pressed her back into the cushions of the sofa, determined to remain exactly where she was and not move an inch closer.

“And yet you tried to talk her out of coming here.” Watching her, Ike tried to hide his amusement. Did she think he was going to pounce on her?

“I did.”

He heard the defensiveness in her voice. Obviously she thought he was going to tell her she was wrong. Though he loved the town he’d been born in, Ike was more than capable of looking at the situation from her point of view. “I would have done the same thing in your place.” He saw the surprise that came into her eyes. He rather liked the fact that he wasn’t living up—or down—to her expectations. “Not an easy thing—pulling up stakes and moving to somewhere you’ve only read about. Takes a lot of guts.”

Leaning forward, he picked up the framed photograph on the coffee table, studying it for a moment. It was taken the day Sydney and Shayne were married. He remembered that it was a quick, impromptu ceremony. There’d hardly been enough time to find an appropriate dress for Sydney. She made a beautiful bride. And she made Shayne happier than Ike had ever remembered seeing his friend.

“Hell of a woman, Sydney.”

He’d get no argument from her on that. Marta dearly loved Sydney. That was why she was surprised that part of her was almost envious of the admiration she heard in Ike’s voice. It was an old feeling, rising up from the past. A feeling that had once made her want to say, “Me, too. Notice me, too.” A feeling she’d carried with her through all the different foster homes she’d lived in over the years. A feeling that she’d harbored as she’d secretly watched the foster mother or father she’d been assigned to talk to their son or daughter.