The Life She Wants

His counterpart was Louis Spinoza, a retired firefighter who headed up their industrial restoration division. Louis had tons of hazmat experience, had worked construction on and off and, as many firefighters did, had worked a second job for years—in cleanup.

Riley grabbed a chicken salad on her way back to the office and ate it at her desk. Just when she was starting to feel that afternoon lull, who should show up but Adam. He gave a couple of raps on her door and stuck his head in.

“Is madam busy?” he asked.

She pushed her salad aside. “I’m always busy, but you’re so welcome to come in. Out of school early today?”

“Nah, I just don’t have any other duties.”

“Good, I’m dying to hear about Maddie’s driving test from an objective person. She says it took her fifteen minutes and she aced it.”

He grinned. “Twenty minutes and she missed one, but she challenged it and even showed them the page on which her answer was located. I’d have given it to her.”

“You’d give her a kidney,” she said, laughing at him.

“Well, true,” he said, sitting in the chair in front of her desk. He balanced an ankle on the opposite knee. “There is something we should talk about. I ran into Emma yesterday after the driving test. I met her later for a drink.”

Riley frowned. “Oh?” she said. “Ran into—”

“We stopped for a hamburger on the way home from the test and guess who was working there? Little paper cap, apron and all.”

“Maddie didn’t say anything...”

“She teased me a little bit on the way home. I just told her Emma was an old friend we went to school with.” He took a deep breath. “You’re going to have to tell her, Riley. You’re going to have to explain about Emma and Jock. And you.”

“Why?” she asked quickly. Defensively.

“Because it was a thing around here. I don’t know everything that went on, all I know is Jock was going steady with Emma when suddenly you were pregnant with Jock’s baby. And had a huge blowout with your best friend. A couple of families were thrown into a tailspin, all kinds of agony and grudges resulting. Riley, Maddie has a best friend. A couple of them. She needs to know what happened to you.”

“That has nothing to do with Maddie,” she said. “Maddie was born into a loving family, she knows the facts about who her father is, she spends plenty of time with him, especially when sports are involved. Maddie is secure.”

“Secure with the sanitized version of this story? First of all, someone is going to tell her someday that there was a whole lot of cheating and hard feelings going on. Probably when people who have known us almost our whole lives notice that Emma is back in town—that might bring the whole drama to mind. It’ll get so much more interesting to add that Emma left California permanently, probably at least partly because of that, and ended up married to an internationally famous con man. And second, we’ve never been that kind of family—the kind that short-sheets the truth.”

“What does it matter?” she asked in a voice that verged on desperation. “It might not have been tidy but it wasn’t complicated. Emma was gone, we were left behind, spent a lot of time together. Do I regret it? Not when I look at Maddie. But I wish Jock had been someone else’s boyfriend!”

He leaned toward her. He was patient. His handsome eyebrows tented with concern. “Riley, what you don’t want is for the question to come up. You want to make the circumstances clear to Maddie. Because of this—there were a series of unfortunate misunderstandings and events that caused some anguish, but I’d like to think things always work out in the end. I hope things can work out for Emma—she’s been through hell. I think things worked out for you. At the end of the day, things worked for me—I have a beautiful, brilliant niece. I hope Maddie has the life she wants even though she has this mixed-up family of a lot of single parents. There’s a sweet spot somewhere, Riley—that place where the good outweighs the bad. Know what I mean? That tender truth. The honest truth.”

“You don’t know what you’re suggesting...”

“You’ve become a very successful woman, Riley. You have everything to be proud of. There isn’t a single one of us who doesn’t have to own a questionable decision or two but very damn few can show how they took that one misstep and turned it into pure gold.”

“And if Maddie loses all respect for me?”

He shook his head. “Not possible. Maddie admires you more than anyone. Except maybe me,” he said, grinning. “I think I’m your biggest fan.”

She softened her expression. Adam was all goodness. All goodness wrapped up in the most beautiful package.

“What was she doing working at a fast-food restaurant?” Riley asked.

“As she tells it, it was the only job she could get. She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she hadn’t had a job in ten years, outside of being married to a millionaire, or if it was because she was married to a notorious thief. She suspects the latter and I’m inclined to agree. People won’t take a chance on her.”

“Why would she tell anyone? She should have changed her name!”

“She goes by Emma Shay, but she’s not disguised. Employers are pretty savvy nowadays. They look up their applicants. They check Facebook and Twitter, just like you do. And she looks exactly as she did fifteen years ago.”

“Sixteen,” Riley said uncomfortably. Her fingers ran through her short, shaggy blond hair at her temples, smoothing it over her ears.

“Aw, Riley, you’ve always worn this thing like a hair shirt. We should’ve talked about this years ago but you were busy self-flagellating. Emma belonged to me and Mom, too, you know. She immediately knew who Maddie must be. Listen, even though you didn’t confide everything in me, I know the whole thing wasn’t entirely your fault. Last night I told her you and Jock weren’t even together when Maddie was born and she was surprised. Surprised and disappointed in Jock. This should’ve come out years ago, not last night. That’s how little communication she’s had with this place.”

Riley felt tears threaten to rise. “I tried to tell her—she wouldn’t speak to me. Lyle could’ve told her, but he was determined to stay out of it. Besides, she was busy, Adam. Flying all over the world in that private jet...”

“I have no doubt she’d have walked away from that had she known what was really going on there. I thought you’d be sympathetic. She was lied to. Everyone abandoned her.”

“And so now she’s been struck down again? Poor Emma, she just keeps picking the wrong guys.”

“Was that sarcasm?” he asked.

“I apologize. I’m feeling a little like a cornered animal. Oh, God, why am I apologizing to you? Emma doesn’t know I was flippant about her troubles!”

“I gave her your business card. I told her you paid more than minimum wage.”

“You can’t be serious,” she said, astonished. “She couldn’t make in a year what her fresh-flower budget was.”

“Was being the operative word. You might hear from her. She’s having a hard time getting by.”

“Lyle hasn’t said anything,” she said.

“Lyle has always been Switzerland where you two were concerned, which is why Emma knew so little about you and Jock. But get ready—one way or another, you’re going to run into her. Because I’m planning to see her again.”

“What? What’s that about?”

“If you two can’t reconcile, that’s your deal. I’m not angry with Emma or with you. And I want to see her again.”

“You act like you have a thing for her or something,” Riley said.

“I told you, she was my friend, too. I’m a little worried about her. It’s important to me to make sure she’s all right.” He stood up.

“Do you have a thing for her, Adam?” she asked directly. Her brother, so handsome, such a wonderful man, was rarely in a relationship even though women sighed as he passed. She had even once said, It’s okay if you’re gay, you know. And he had replied, And it’s okay if you are.

“You want to date her, is that it?” Riley asked.

“We had a glass of wine together,” he said. “It was good to see her. We talked a little bit about Maddie, about her return home after that sideshow back east, the difficulties of finding work. She asked about Mom, about Grandma and Grandpa. Except for Lyle and the old widow she rents from, she’s pretty much alone, but we had a nice hour or so together and I was really happy to see her again. While all that mess was going on in New York with her husband, then his suicide, I thought about her a lot. I checked in with Lyle now and then to make sure she was okay. Lyle was talking to her almost daily at the end—he was her sole emotional support. I should have called her. I think Lyle would’ve given me her number, but I didn’t ask. I decided to wait awhile, see how things shook out, then there was the suicide and feds all over her possessions. I think what she endured must have been unimaginably painful, worse than most things I can envision. You know that Emma, like you and I, was left orphaned when her dad died, except we had Mom and who did she have? Rosemary, that coldhearted bitch. So yeah, it was nice to see her, talk to her, get reacquainted. I offered her a letter of recommendation. I gave her your business card. She probably won’t ever call you or ask you for work, but I’m the one that gave her the card so don’t be surprised. And if you don’t mind me saying so—I think you owe her.”

“Oh, God, don’t lay that on me! I begged her forgiveness for Jock, which she did not give me, and I can’t even repeat the horrible names she called me. She didn’t leave here a broken woman, she—”

“Girl,” Adam said. “She was just a girl.” Then more quietly he added, “And so were you. You were girls.”

“Don’t do this, Adam. Don’t get involved with her. I bear no grudge but after what happened, please don’t bring her around. Please don’t tell me I owe her. Not now. I know things turned out badly for her but try to remember that while I was scrubbing floors and trying to hold it together to raise a baby alone, she went from sorority princess to New York socialite, and never sent a word of forgiveness to me.”