Die Before I Wake

“Hi, girls,” I said. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

Taylor just stared at me, clear challenge in her eyes. Seven years old, she was the spitting image of her father. She had Tom’s dark hair, his narrow face, and his blue eyes, which right now were studying me with a wariness I understood better than most people would. It was the same wariness I’d shown toward the various women my father had brought home over the years. Not quite welcoming, not quite trusting. The word stepmother had such negative connotations, and Taylor was no fool. She’d adopted a “wait and-see” attitude that I found totally understandable.

Four-year-old Sadie, on the other hand, was as guileless and open as a six-week-old pup. There was no trepidation in her eyes, just avid curiosity and a willingness to accept me for what I was, her dad’s new wife. The two girls couldn’t have been more different if they’d come from different parents. Not just in attitude, but in looks. Although I searched Sadie’s face for any trace of resemblance to Tom, I didn’t find it. Taylor might have inherited her father’s dark good looks, but Sadie, with her peaches-and-cream complexion and her blond curls, must have taken after Tom’s late wife.

She smiled shyly and buried her face against her father’s shoulder. “Hi,” she said.

Life hadn’t been easy for these little girls. They’d been so young when they lost their mother. According to Tom, Elizabeth’s death had hit both girls extremely hard. Even now, two years after their mother’s death, Sadie still had nightmares, and Taylor had trouble trusting new people. It hadn’t been easy on Tom, either, playing both mother and father while trying to maintain his medical practice and his sanity. He’d freely admitted to me that without his mother’s help, he wouldn’t have made it through.

That was one of the things that had drawn me to Tom. After the initial attraction, of course, when I first saw him sitting in the next chair at the dinner table and felt the jolt all the way to the marrow in my bones. But it was the subsequent conversation, the hours we spent together, that cemented my feelings. They say every woman seeks out a man like her father to marry. On the surface, Tom Larkin and Dave Hanrahan were as far apart as the poles, but there were a few things they did have in common. I’d lost my own mother at a young age, and I’d spent my childhood watching Dad struggle to raise me alone. I believe it takes a special kind of man to do that. So I knew where Tom was coming from. And I respected him for it.

Because I’d been through it myself, I knew I needed to tread carefully with Tom’s girls. I couldn’t expect to just jump in and take over where their mother had left off. Sadie might let me get away with it, but Taylor would never allow such a thing. She was old enough to remember, old enough to resent anyone who tried to take Elizabeth’s place. If I hoped to win Taylor over, if I hoped to mold us into a family, I’d have to practice patience.

But I didn’t have to rush. There was plenty of time for that. After all, we had the rest of our lives.

Wind battered the house in a relentless siege. Pine cones and debris rapped at the windows. Somewhere at the rear of the house, a loose shutter banged. But the place held fast. It had been built during an era when homes were designed to withstand a little wind, a little rain. That was a good thing, because we already had three inches of rain, and it was showing no signs of letting up. With wind gusts up to seventy-five miles per hour, the ancient pine that towered over the house creaked and moaned like an arthritic old man. I hoped to God it stayed upright; according to the radio Jeannette kept running in the kitchen, trees had been uprooted all over the county, and if it fell, that pine tree would go straight through the roof. Power lines were down everywhere. Twelve thousand people in the state were already without electricity, and that number was expected to rise.

But indoors, we were cozy and warm. Although we hadn’t lost power, Tom had brought out the candles, the matches, the flashlights, and he’d lined them up on the kitchen counter, just in case. Dinner was roast pork, with steamed asparagus and tiny red potatoes swimming in butter. After an initial hesitation, I forgot manners and just chowed down with my customary enthusiasm. I have what people euphemistically refer to as a healthy appetite. The first time Tom witnessed it, at the buffet table aboard the Island Princess, he’d been floored by the amount of food I was able to ingest without gaining an ounce. He actually found it charming that I have the appetite of a stevedore. I find it annoying that no matter how much I eat, I still look like Olive Oyl, Popeye’s seriously anorexic girlfriend.

Conversation around the dinner table was light and innocuous; Tom and I were asked about the cruise, about how we’d met, about our moonlight wedding and how we’d known so quickly that we were meant for each other. I was just reaching for my third potato when his mother dropped the bomb.

“You haven’t told us anything about your family, Julie,” she said with a smarmy smile. “I’d love to hear about them.”

I hesitated, my fork hovering over the serving dish, and met Tom’s eyes. My husband knew it all. I’d told him everything, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I wondered whether I should regale his mother with the whole sordid truth or a slightly sanitized version thereof.

Beneath the table, Tom slid his foot over to touch mine. His reassuring smile gave me strength. I glanced around the table at all the expectant faces, all these people waiting with bated breath for the life story of the anonymous woman who’d quite literally blown into their lives on the winds of a hurricane.

I speared the potato and put it on my plate. “Well,” I said as I sliced it in two and slathered it with butter, “I’m pretty much alone in the world. Or I was, until I met Tom.” I gave him a shaky smile, and he returned it full force. “I was divorced about a year ago. Before I married Jeffrey, there was just my dad and me. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, left us when I was five years old. Dad died six months ago. Liver cancer.”

I didn’t bother to elaborate. I didn’t tell them that Dad had died of a broken heart and too much boozing. Let them read between the lines if they wanted to. I’m all for honesty, but some skeletons are better left in the closet.

I ate a bite of potato. “My father was…” I trailed off, wondering how on earth to describe Dad in words that normal people would understand. People who’d never had the privilege of knowing him, with all his quirks and oddities. “Very independent. A freethinker. A little to the left of center.”

The girls watched me with wide eyes. Jeannette’s brows were drawn together into a small frown. Probably wondering if there were some family history of severe mental illness that was about to infect her future grandchildren. Directly across the table, Riley seemed curious, waiting. “He was a musician,” I said.

“Ah,” Riley said, as though that explained it all.

“A musician?” Jeannette said. “How interesting.”

Having grown up as Dave Hanrahan’s daughter, I understood only too well that interesting was a euphemism for horrifying. I speared another piece of potato. When I saw the affection and approval in Tom’s eyes, I decided to go for broke. Dabbing my mouth with my napkin, I said, “He was pretty well known at one time, until his career went south and my mother left him. When his career tanked and his band broke up, my mother ran off with the drummer. At that point, his life sort of fell apart.”

That was a polite way of putting it. The truth was that after my mother left, Dad drank himself to death. It took him twenty-seven years, but Dave Hanrahan was nothing if not persistent. The day she walked out the door, he decided that life was no longer worth living, and he spent the rest of his days proving the validity of that theory.

“Good Lord,” Jeannette said, looking as though she’d swallowed a persimmon.

I knew that my life—or, to be more accurate, my father’s life—sounded like a train wreck. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, but I could understand Jeannette’s horrified expression.

Beneath the table, Tom’s ankle looped around mine. Riley appeared intrigued, so I directed my next words at him. “All the money disappeared. We barely survived. But he was a great dad. The best.”

“Are you going to tell us?” Riley asked. “Or are you keeping his identity a secret?”

“No secret,” I said. “His name was Dave Hanrahan.”

Riley’s face changed, the way it often does when people first hear my father’s name. “Get out of here! The Dave Hanrahan? The front man for Satan’s Revenge?”

“That would be my dad.”

“The guy who wrote ‘Black Curtain’? Oh, man. Tommy, remember how we used to play that record over and over and over? That guy was the epitome of cool. We all wanted to be him.” Riley braced his elbows against the table and leaned forward eagerly, his eyes focused on me, everything and everybody else forgotten. “You must’ve had an amazing childhood,” he said. “Hanging around with all those musicians. Listening to their music. Their stories.”

I opened my mouth to answer him, but I never got the chance. The lights blinked and, from outside, there arose a massive splintering sound, a roar so deafening that it sounded like a freight train passing through. The ground actually shook, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn that the earth itself had opened up and revealed the gateway to Hell.

Then the window behind me imploded.

Two

“It’s not that big a deal,” I said. “Really.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.” With intense concentration and quick, efficient hands, Tom dabbed antiseptic on the gash on my cheek while I tried not to wince. “Another six inches, and—” He closed his eyes and muttered something indecipherable. Darkly, he added, “I knew I should’ve cut down that damn tree last spring.”

He capped the bottle of antiseptic, picked up a Band-Aid, and held my chin in his hand to size up the injury. “It’s too old,” he said, turning my head to the left, then to the right. “Too brittle. Too dangerous.”

“It was just a limb.” A big one.

“Next time, it’s apt to be the whole tree. Damn thing took ten years off my life.”

“I’m fine. Honest.”

“You talk too much. Hold still.” He tore open the Band-Aid, peeled off the paper backing, and gently applied it to my cheek. Sitting back to admire his handiwork, he said, “There. You’ll probably live to talk a little longer.”

I gave him a radiant smile and said, “My hero.”

He grimaced. Crumpling the Band-Aid wrapper, he said, “Some welcome you got. If I were you, I’d run as fast as I could back to Los Angeles.”

“What? And miss all the excitement around here? Surely you jest.”

Humorlessly, he said, “It’s usually a lot more boring than this.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’ll stick around for a while and see for myself.”

He shoved the bottle of antiseptic back into his first-aid kit. “Tomorrow, I’m calling the tree service and having that pine cut down.”

“It seems a shame. It’s probably been standing there for a hundred years.”

“And I’d like to make sure that you’re standing for another hundred.” He closed the lid on the kit and zipped the cover. “The tree goes. Don’t even bother to argue.”

“I suppose you’re saying that because you believe a good wife always obeys her husband.”

Some of the somberness left his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he said, “Do you have any idea how tempted I am to say yes?”

I smiled. “But you’re refraining.”

“For now, anyway. We may have to revisit the issue at a later date.”

“Nice save.”

“I thought so.”

The sound of rattling glassware and cutlery drifted in from the kitchen. “Now that I’m all better,” I said, “I should be helping your mother clean up the mess.” We’d left the dining room littered with pine needles, broken branches, and rain water. Shattered glass was everywhere. On the floor. On the dining table. Tiny slivers of it embedded in what was left of our dinner.

“You’re excused from kitchen duty tonight. Doctor’s orders.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tom? You do realize that you’re an obstetrician?”

“You have a complaint, file it with the AMA.”

Outside, the chain saw had finally stopped its high-pitched whine. Now we could hear a rhythmic hammering as Riley boarded up the broken window. In the moments after the tree limb had made its unceremonious and unexpected foray into the dining room, chaos had reigned. The girls had been semi-hysterical. Jeannette had tried to calm them while simultaneously herding them away from the broken glass. Riley had thrown on a pair of snowmobile boots and a yellow slicker and rushed outside, flashlight in hand, to assess the damage. Meantime, Tom hovered over me like a mother hen, frantically cataloguing and documenting every scratch and bruise. For a man who spent half his life in the delivery room, he’d gone surprisingly pale at the sight of blood. Or maybe it was just the sight of my blood that frightened him.

Once Sadie and Taylor were convinced that nobody was seriously injured and the house wasn’t in imminent danger of collapsing around them, Tom’s mother had bribed them by promising that if they went upstairs and got ready for bed without argument, they could forego their baths for tonight. That was all it took. We hadn’t heard another sound from them.

Until now. They came padding into the living room wearing flannel pajamas and matching Miss Piggy slippers. Taylor had a book in her hand and a sly expression on her face. “We’re ready for our bedtime story,” she said.

“Say good-night, then, and run along to bed,” Tom said. “I’ll be right up.”

“No.” She held the book in both hands and teetered back and forth from one foot to the other. “We want Julie to read it to us.”

Tom and I exchanged glances. “Do you mind, Jules?” he said.

Did I mind? This was an opportunity for bonding, and I wasn’t about to pass it up. “I’d be honored,” I said, standing and taking Sadie by the hand. “Come on, girls. Let’s see what you’re reading.”

The book was Where the Wild Things Are, one of my own childhood favorites. Upstairs in their bedroom, Sadie slipped beneath the covers and I settled beside her to read, while Taylor perched on the edge of her own bed a few feet away. Both girls were engrossed in the story, but after a few minutes, I could see that Sadie was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

“Enough for tonight,” I said. “Time for bed.”

“We’re supposed to say our prayers now,” Taylor informed me. “Before you tuck us in.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Of course.” Nothing would have made me admit to them that I wasn’t familiar with this particular bedtime ritual. Dave Hanrahan had nursed a lifelong contempt for anything that smacked of religion, a result of his uptight Catholic upbringing. Dad had attended Our Lady of All Saints School until eighth grade, and the nuns had traumatized him for life. So there’d been no praying in our house. But I’m an obliging soul, and I’ve learned to fake it if I have to. When in Rome, and all that jazz. I could handle a little praying. It might even do me some good.

Taking a cue from the girls, I knelt beside Sadie’s bed, my stepdaughters beside me in their flannel jammies, their oversized Piggy feet stuck out behind them. Hands folded, I closed my eyes and tried to look pious. In unison, they spoke the words of the prayer:

“Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

“Amen,” Taylor said.

“Amen,” Sadie echoed. Her eyes popped open and she exclaimed, “Oops! I forgot!” Bowing her head again, she added, “God bless Daddy, and Grandma, and Uncle Riley, and Mommy up in heaven. And—” She opened her eyes, glanced at me, and smiled. “And Julie,” she finished. “Amen.”

A tiny crack appeared in my heart. Maybe winning over Tom’s daughters wouldn’t be so hard after all. They were such precious little girls, and so very needy. And they seemed to genuinely like me.

I pulled back the covers. Sadie scrambled beneath them, and I tucked them up tight under her chin. She lay there beneath the blankets, a dreamy smile on her face, and said, “Are you my mommy now?”

Time stood still. While my heart beat in the silence, I glanced across the empty space between beds to Taylor, who seemed to be holding her breath, awaiting my response.

I lay a hand atop Sadie’s head, felt the cool, soft tickle of baby-fine hair between my fingertips. “Your mom,” I said, “will always be your mom.”

Sadie yawned. “Even though she’s not here any more?”

“Even though. I would never try to take her place. How about for now, we’ll just say we’re friends, and leave it at that? Okay?”

She gave me a sleepy nod and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. I stood and crossed the room to Taylor, who lay beneath her own covers. Tucking the snow-white bedspread tightly around her, I said, “All set?”

She nodded. I reached out to touch her cheek, then hesitated. I didn’t want to rush things with her. Instead, I simply said, “Good night.”

As I turned to go, she said, “Don’t get too used to being here.”

I paused, not sure I’d heard her correctly. Turning, I said, “Excuse me?”

Her eyes, so like Tom’s, held none of his warmth. Instead, they were glacial. “I said you shouldn’t get too used to being here. Grandma says you won’t last any longer than any of the others.”

I told myself she was just a little girl. Only seven years old. There was no real malice in her words; she was just repeating what she’d heard. But when I thought about the hostility on her face, I wasn’t so sure. Children were capable of cruelty, and Taylor was an intelligent child. She knew she’d upset me. That had been her intention. I’d seen the satisfaction in her eyes before she reached out and turned off the bedside lamp, leaving me to find my way in complete darkness.

I could almost forgive her for her animosity. After all, she was just a child, and she’d suffered an irreparable loss. I could still remember how I’d felt when my mother left us. The fear, the guilt, the knife-edged sense of betrayal. The years spent wondering if it was something I’d done that had driven her away. It had taken me a very long time to get over it—as much as anyone gets over that kind of loss—and I’d sworn that no matter what happened in my life, I’d never, ever do that to a child.

Taylor’s mother hadn’t run away like mine had, but Tom’s daughter had to be feeling some of the same emotions that I’d felt. Death was the ultimate betrayal. And for a girl to lose her mother at such a young age—a mother whose absence would be keenly felt at all life’s most poignant and significant junctures—the loss was immeasurable.

We all grieve in different ways. I’d walked in Taylor’s shoes, and I couldn’t fault her for how she’d chosen to grieve her terrible loss.

But Tom was right. This was some welcome I’d gotten. Wondering just who were these “others” that Taylor had referred to, I headed downstairs to find my husband and demand some answers.

I heard them arguing as soon as I reached the ground floor. They weren’t exactly trying to be quiet. “She can’t stay,” Jeannette said. “You know that as well as I do.”

“I don’t know anything of the kind.” My husband sounded agitated. Furious.

“You don’t know anything about her. For all you know, she could be a gold digger. I cringed when I heard that pathetic story she told about her impoverished childhood. What if she married you for your money?”

Heat raced up my face. Normally, I was adamantly opposed to eavesdropping. But, damn it, this was me they were talking about. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away. I crept a little closer to the kitchen door and pressed myself against the dark paneling of the hallway.

“That’s ridiculous,” Tom said.

“You’re a doctor, Tom. She probably took one look at you and decided you were her meal ticket.”

Wearily, my husband said, “I make a decent living, Mother, but I’m hardly in a league with the neurosurgeons of the world. I’m a small-town baby doctor.”

“The perception’s still there that doctor equals money. I just can’t imagine what you were thinking. What happens when she finds out—”

“Finds out what? That I’ve been eaten up by loneliness ever since Elizabeth died? I can’t believe you’d begrudge me a little happiness. Julie’s amazing, Mom, and you’d see that if you gave her half a chance.”

“What about your girls? They need you, Tom. How can you justify stealing what little free time you have away from them to give it to some stranger?”

“They need a mother!”

Sounding hurt, she said, “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two years?”

Tom’s voice softened. “I know what you’ve been doing,” he said, “and I truly appreciate all you’ve done for us. But it’s not the same thing. The girls need stability, an intact family.”

“It’s not going to work. You know it as well as I do. It’s not too late to have this marriage annulled. I’m begging you to end it before it gets messy. Send her back where she came from and move on with your life.”

Indignation had me holding my breath. Send her back where she came from. What did this woman think I was, a FedEx package?

Tom’s voice again: “She has a name, Mom. It’s Julie.”

“Fine. Send Julie back where she came from, back to L.A., to her hippy-dippy life and her fond memories of her wastrel of a father.”

In a deadly quiet voice, Tom said, “I’m only going to say this once, Mother, so you’d better listen. I don’t give a damn whether or not you like her, but Julie is my wife and, by God, you’ll treat her with respect. If I hear one more negative word about her—”

A sound behind me tore my attention away from the sparring in the kitchen. Riley stood at the foot of the stairs, water dripping off his yellow slicker. I’d been so caught up in the drama being played out in the next room that I hadn’t even heard him come in the front door. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, or how much he’d overheard. Our eyes met, but neither of us said a word.

“Forget it,” Tom said in disgust. “This discussion is over.”

“Where are you going?” his mother demanded.

“Out. I need to cool off before I say something I’ll regret.”

“For God’s sake, Tom, don’t be an idiot. There’s a hurricane going on out there.”

“And it’s a welcome reprieve from what’s going on in here!”

A door slammed, and a moment later, I heard a car engine start up. My gaze still locked with Riley’s, I saw something there that I didn’t want to see, something that looked remarkably like pity. Without saying a word, I stalked past him to the staircase and fled upstairs.

I closed the bedroom door and slumped against it, my chest heaving with suppressed fury. The luggage standing neatly by the foot of the bed seemed to mock me, and I wondered if I should even bother to unpack. To his credit, Tom—who’d vowed to cherish me until death—had stood up to his mother for me. How long would he be able to stand up to her before she wore him down? I was crazy about my new husband, but if this was the direction my marriage was headed, how long would it be before I decided I’d made a colossal mistake?

I lifted my overnight bag to the bed, unzipped it, and pulled out my pajamas. Stomping into the bathroom, I tossed the pj’s on the toilet seat, started up the shower, and began to strip.

I came to an abrupt halt when I caught sight of my reflection in the eight-foot-long bathroom mirror. I looked like the Wild Woman of Borneo, my cheeks flushed with fury, my eyes wide and wild. Even my hair seemed to be in on the act, standing electrified, as though I’d stuck my finger into a light socket.

How dare she call me a gold digger? The woman didn’t even know me. And she’d already tried to turn Tom’s daughters against me. What kind of monster would poison a child’s mind like that?