The Perfect Mum

And Mom and Emma both knew that was the kind Emma had.

Emma had started dieting when she turned fourteen not because she wanted to look good in cute clothes, but to please her mother and father. Mom’s face would glow with delight and pride when Emma said no to seconds and dessert and snacks.

When he saw her picking at a salad for lunch instead of pigging out on macaroni and cheese, Dad would say something like, “Keep on that way and we’ll have two beauties in this house before we know it.” Meaning that Mom already was one, but Emma was plain and fat and he hated it when he entertained and he had to produce his one-and-only child and admit she was his.

For a while, Emma had been filled with hope. Finally, she was doing something right. She was making them proud. She would become beautiful, like her mother. Every morning, she’d look at herself in the mirror, tilting her head this way and that, sucking in her cheeks, lifting her hair in different styles, trying to imagine that moment when she would know: I am beautiful. She’d told herself she was the duckling—a plump duckling—becoming a swan.

Only, she stayed a duck. She never saw a beauty in the mirror. And her parents’ pride slowly faded as they started complaining about other things. She slouched. Shouldn’t she start plucking her eyebrows? Her table manners! The way she hung her head when she was introduced to their friends and business acquaintances. Obviously she needed braces. How could she possibly be getting B’s and even a C on her report card, when she was a smart girl?

And she understood at last that she would never be good enough for them. She wouldn’t be pretty enough, smart enough, charming enough to be their daughter.

Hearing the slap slap of approaching footsteps, Emma closed her eyes. The curtain around her bed rattled. A nurse lifted her covers enough to see the needle still stuck in Emma’s hand. A moment later, the footsteps went away and Emma opened her eyes again.

She could see only a band of light coming through the half open door from the hall, diffused by her curtain. She didn’t have a roommate, either because the hospital wasn’t that full or because they thought she was a bad influence or something. She was glad. What if she had some middle-aged woman having her gall bladder out, or an old lady moaning? They might want to talk!

Of course, she wouldn’t be here that long anyway. They were moving her tomorrow. It made her sick, thinking about it. Her therapist, Sharon Russell, used it as a threat: If you don’t eat, we’ll send you there, where they’ll stick tubes down your throat if you won’t eat and not let you alone for a single second in case you try to puke.

They’d watch her pee and everything!

She wondered if, once they untied her tomorrow and left her to get dressed, she’d have a chance to run away. Emma didn’t know where she’d go or what she’d do, but anything had to be better than jail, where some warden stared at you while you sat on the toilet! Energized, she started planning.

She was almost seventeen. She could get a job, maybe, and find a bunch of other kids she could share an apartment with. Or she’d call Uncle Ryan and see if he’d let her come live with him and Melissa and Tyler. They never paid any attention to what she ate. Uncle Ryan wasn’t embarrassed by her. He didn’t want to control her every move.

That was what Emma had finally decided: she couldn’t make her parents happy no matter what she did, so she might as well at least be in charge of her own life. She didn’t want to be fat. It was so like them to want to control what went in her mouth. One minute she was fat and disgusting and she was supposed to nibble on green leaves instead of pizza. The next minute, she was getting too skinny and she should stuff her face. The real issue was, she should do what they told her to do.

Smile. Try to look dignified, if you know how. When you laugh like that people can see your tonsils. You should be on the honor roll. Your idea is silly—write about this topic instead. Eat. Don’t eat. Make conversation. Quit chattering.

Having her decide what she would and would not eat drove them crazy. So crazy, Dad didn’t even want to see her anymore. Which was fine by Emma. She was glad she’d made him mad. When he cracked and started screaming at her, she’d felt good. Powerful.

And having Mom choose her over Dad had made her feel powerful, too. For a while. Until she’d realized that Mom was just as bad as Dad. She was as determined as ever to control Emma. Now that she’d failed, she was resorting to force, just like Dad had tried to do. Only Mom didn’t shove food in her mouth even though she was screaming. No, she made it look like she was doing the “right” thing. Insisting her daughter get “well.” That was her word. Emma wasn’t “well” because she didn’t want to be a porker like the other girls at school who wore their pants really low but had rolls that swelled over the waistbands.

Emma tried wrenching her hands free again, but they’d tied them too tight. She felt as if she was being poisoned. If she were at home and she’d eaten too much, she would make herself exercise until she thought she’d made up for it. Sometimes it took hours.

Maybe she could exercise even if she was tied down. Emma squirmed and kicked until she got the covers off to one side and her legs were free.

Leg lifts. She could do ten on one side, ten on the other, then ten with both legs together. She could do it over and over. Or bicycle. Experimentally, she curled her spine, but had a hard time getting her hips high enough to cycle her feet.

Okay, leg lifts. Keeping her toes pointed, she lifted both legs, slowly separated them, then brought them back together, feeling the strain on her belly and back and butt. Pleased, she did it again. And again.

When her legs began to tremble and sweat popped out on her forehead, she smiled.

They couldn’t keep her from fighting back. From controlling what happened to her. No matter how hard they tried.

KATHLEEN WOKE TO THE sinking knowledge that today would be dismal. For a moment, she lay in bed, her face buried in her pillow, and tried to remember why. It didn’t take long.

Emma. Always Emma.

Kathleen rolled onto her back and noticed dispiritedly that rain was sliding down the window glass and deepening the sky to a dreary gray. Didn’t it figure.

She’d taken today off work so that she could accompany Emma to Bridges, the residential treatment center for patients with eating disorders. Emma was not going to be happy.

Yesterday, when Kathleen had returned to the hospital, the sixteen-year-old had been either sullen or in a rage. Her generally sweet disposition had been submerged by the terrifying fear of gaining weight that ruled—and threatened—her life.

Today was unlikely to bring an improvement.

At least the residential program included certified teachers so that the kids didn’t fall behind in school. Emma’s grades had actually improved this past year and a half, since Kathleen had left Ian, even if she had refused to let go of her obsession with weight. Kathleen didn’t know if Emma was studying more because she didn’t have anything else to do, now that she seemed to have no friends, or whether she hadn’t tried in school just to make her father mad, and now the payoff was missing. Her natural curiosity and intelligence had reemerged, thank goodness, resulting in almost straight A’s last semester. Kathleen hated to see Emma have to struggle to catch up. Her ego was fragile enough already.

With a sigh, Kathleen made herself get up, put on her robe and shuffle downstairs without even a pause to brush her hair. She needed breakfast and a cup of coffee before her shower. The only plus today was that she’d gotten an extra hour of sleep. The house was quiet, Helen gone to work and Ginny to school, she diagnosed. Jo might still be in bed—no, on Thursdays she had a much-hated 8:00 a.m. class.

Even living as close as they did to the University of Washington, Jo had to allow almost an hour to get there and park in the huge lot down by the football stadium, then hike up the stroke-inducing stairs to the campus.

Kathleen would miss her complaints. Jo and Ryan were getting married in July and taking a honeymoon trip to Greece, while his kids visited their mom in Denver. Then Jo would go home with Ryan, not here.

Which meant she’d be family, but in a different way. Kathleen was going to miss more than the grumbles; she’d miss her.

Kathleen and Helen had talked about making a big push to get the soap business earning real money. They were scheduled to have booths at a dozen crafts fairs in the Puget Sound area in late spring and summer, and Helen was spending every spare minute calling on shop owners to try to persuade them to carry Kathleen’s Soaps. If they could make enough, maybe they wouldn’t have to bring in another roommate. Ginny could have her own bedroom, after Jo moved out. That was their dream: just the two mothers and two daughters living in this ramshackle but charming Ravenna district house that Kathleen had once so optimistically believed she could remodel “gradually.”

That was before they’d discovered rotting floor-boards beneath the upstairs toilet, corroded pipes and an inadequate furnace.

She shouldn’t be spending money on cupboards. She should be spending it on a furnace, she worried, as she poured cereal into a bowl.

Thank God that Ian at least carried Emma on his health insurance. For Kathleen, it would have been prohibitive and her plan was less comprehensive anyway.

She sliced a banana onto the cereal and wished she hadn’t thought of Ian. He hadn’t returned her call yesterday, but she couldn’t assume he’d heard the message.

She still wasn’t convinced that it would be good for Emma to have him reappear in her life, but Emma’s therapist had advised her to keep lines of communication open.

“Emma would deny it bitterly, but being rejected by him has further threatened her self-confidence,” Sharon Russell had told Kathleen. “If he can be made to see reason…”

That would be a cold day, Kathleen had thought privately, even as she nodded. Ian Monroe exuded confidence and was completely baffled by Emma’s uncertainties. He refused to consider the possibility that he had played any part in the development of his daughter’s eating disorder. Heck, he refused to believe she was anorexic. Or maybe he just didn’t believe in eating disorders at all. After all, he had no trouble disciplining himself to eat well.

Perhaps, Kathleen thought, she was being just a little unfair. After all, she didn’t overeat or starve herself, either. It was just that she could understand human frailty. Ian couldn’t.

Or didn’t want to, she hadn’t decided which.

After putting her bowl in the sink, she poured her tea and left it to steep while she called Ian again. She didn’t bother trying him at home. He’d have left for the gym for some racquetball hours ago, then been at the office by eight o’clock. He’d curl his lip if he knew at nine o’clock she was still sitting at the kitchen table in her bathrobe and slippers, her hair tangled.

Discipline.

“Crowe Industries, Mr. Monroe’s office,” the secretary answered.

“Patty, this is Kathleen. Is Ian free?”

That was the fiction that allowed them both to save face: most often, Ian wasn’t “free.” His middle-aged secretary didn’t have to say, I’m sorry, he doesn’t want to speak to you, or lie that he was out.

“Let me check. He mentioned wanting to talk to you.”

Kathleen rolled her eyes. I’ll just bet he does.

But he did come on the phone, an unusual occurrence.

“What’s this about Emma being in the hospital?”

“Why, hello, Ian,” Kathleen said. “How are you?”

“Just a minute.” His voice became muffled as he spoke to someone else, or on a second line. She always had hated talking to him at the office, even when she believed them to be happily married.

He came back on. “Was she in an accident?”

“She has continued to lose weight. Yesterday morning she fainted and hit her head.”

“That’s all?” he said in disbelief. “She bumped her head, and you’re leaving dire messages for me?”

“Which you, of course, panicked about. I noticed you rushed to her side.”

“We both know she doesn’t want to see me.”

“Doesn’t she?” Kathleen said quietly.

He let that pass. “Does she have a concussion?”

“Yes, but that isn’t the major problem. She’s down to seventy-seven pounds.”

Ian swore.

“She’s…” Kathleen had to pause and take a deep breath to make sure her voice didn’t waver. “She’s a walking skeleton.”

His voice hardened. “I thought I was the problem.”

Unseen, Kathleen flinched. “You are her father. You’re not off the hook, just because she didn’t magically recover once she wasn’t under your roof.”

“All those doctors and all that counseling hasn’t done jack crap,” he snapped.

“Anorexia is the toughest eating disorder to overcome. Up to ten percent of anorexics die.”

“They starve themselves to death.” He sounded disbelieving, just as he always had.

“Or they damage their heart or kidneys.”

“She’s not that stupid.”

“Stupid or smart doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Kathleen said, feeling a familiar desperation. How could she make him understand? “Or maybe it does. Smart girls are the likeliest to develop the problem.”

“How could she lose that much weight right under your eye?”

Of course, it had to be her fault. It couldn’t be his.

What tore at her was a new fear that he was right. She was responsible for Emma’s determination to starve.

Nonetheless, she tried to defend herself. “She’s been seeing a doctor, a therapist and a nutritionist. They advised me to avoid nagging about food. We’ve been trying to make it a nonissue between the two of us.”

“And failing, apparently,” he said cruelly.

She bit her lip until she tasted blood. “It would appear so.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

Shaking from fury and hurt that refused to die along with the marriage, she said, “Nothing. Nothing at all. I just thought you should know,” and hung up the phone.

Talking to him had had its usual shattering effect. Once again, Kathleen had confirmation that she and Emma were on their own.

Except, thank God, for Jo, Helen, Ginny and Ryan. And Kathleen’s father, of course. Friends and true family.

Dry-eyed but feeling as exhausted as if she had indulged in a bout of tears, Kathleen slowly mounted the stairs. Time for a shower, and the hospital.

CHAPTER THREE

KATHLEEN SAT ON THE LIVING room couch two days later, gazing blankly at the opposite wall. A woman who detested inactivity, she much preferred having a purpose. Tonight she was too tired to even think about Emma, Ian or the myriad of household tasks that needed accomplishing.

Thank heavens for Helen and Jo! Even small Ginny had passed a few minutes ago, gamely carrying a full basket of laundry up from the basement in order to fold it.

Earlier Helen had wanted to discuss business. A shopkeeper had asked for a larger discount. Helen still wasn’t satisfied with the label—maybe they needed stronger colors? She was sensitive enough not to say, You should be making soap, we need a huge inventory for the craft fairs. Kathleen had only shaken her head and said, “I can’t think right now. I’m sorry,” and Helen had backed off.

Kathleen felt useless. Inept. Inadequate. Incompetent. Unlovable. She could think of a million other words, but those pretty much covered the bleak, gray sensation that swamped her.

She, who had never failed at anything she set out to do, had now failed at everything really important: marriage and parenting. She—once a society hostess, gourmet cook and mother to a delightful, bright and cheerful child—was scraping for a living, cooking in a kitchen with a peeling linoleum floor and a chipped, stained sink and banned for a week from visiting her daughter in treatment for a behavioral disorder that was killing her and seemed to be rooted in anger at her parents.

Yup. Right this minute, Kathleen couldn’t think of a single reason to feel positive.

The doorbell rang, and she winced. The cabinetmaker had called earlier to schedule an appointment to present his bid. The timing sucked, if Kathleen could borrow one of Emma’s favorite words.

She sighed and dragged herself to her feet. From upstairs, Jo called, “Do you want me to get that?”

“No, I’m expecting someone,” Kathleen called back.

When she opened the door, she experienced the same odd jolt she had the first time she saw Logan Carr on her doorstep. Frowning slightly, she dismissed her reaction; he just wasn’t the kind of man she usually associated with. He looked so…blue-collar. He undoubtedly went home, opened a beer, belched and spent his evenings watching baseball on the boob tube.

A stereotype even she knew was snobbish. After all, Ryan was a contractor, but was also a well-read man who owned a beautiful, restored home and cleaned up nicely.

“Mr. Carr,” she said, by long practice summoning a smile. “Please come in.”

He nodded and stepped over the threshold, increasing her peculiar feeling of tension. He was too close. She backed a step away, using the excuse of shutting the door behind him. He was so big, even though she was sure he wasn’t any taller than Ian. But Ian was lean and graceful, with long fingers and shoulders just broad enough to make his custom-tailored suits hang beautifully. Ian projected intelligence, impatience, charm, not sweaty masculinity.

“Unfortunately, Helen can’t be here. She was asked to work this evening. Nordstrom is having a sale.”

He blinked at what must have seemed a non sequitur. “She’s a salesclerk?”

“Children’s department.”

“Ah.” He nodded.

“Come on into the kitchen.” She led the way. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“Thanks, if it isn’t too much trouble.” He did have a nice voice, low and gruff but somehow…soothing. Like a loofah.

“Jo just brewed some. She’s a fantatic.” Kathleen opened the cupboard and reached for two mugs. “Personally, I’d settle for instant, but she shudders at the very idea.”

As if he cared what kind of coffee she’d choose, Kathleen chided herself. She was babbling, filling the silence, because he made her nervous.

“You’re not crying tonight.”

Mug in hand, she turned to look at him. He wasn’t laughing at her. Rather, his expression was serious, even…concerned.

“No,” she agreed. “I’m not crying.” Just depressed. “I’m awfully sorry to have flung myself at you that way. I must have made your day. Nothing like having your shirt soaked with tears.”

“I invited it,” Logan reminded her. “You looked like you needed a shoulder to cry on.”

She hadn’t known it, but that was exactly what she had needed. Now, she felt uncomfortable about the whole thing. He was a complete stranger, but he had held her and she’d gripped his shirt and laid her head on his chest and sobbed. The memory lay between them, weirdly intimate.

“I guess I did,” she admitted. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Faint amusement showed in his eyes. The next second, Kathleen wasn’t sure, because he continued, “Your daughter, is she all right?”

“Emma’s fine,” Kathleen said brightly, lying through her teeth, as she’d spent the past several years lying. Heaven forbid she admit to anyone else that her daughter hated her so much, she was starving herself to death.

“Is she…” the cabinetmaker said noncommittally.

Had Ryan told him something of Emma’s troubles? Kathleen wondered, her eyes narrowing. She’d kill her brother if he was spouting her personal problems to casual acquaintances.

“She’s, um, not home.” As if he’d asked to meet Emma.

“Teenagers rarely are.”

Darn him. His easygoing, I-understand tone made her want to spill her guts. Maybe even cry again, so he’d pull her into his arms.

Shocked at herself, Kathleen stiffened her spine. What was she thinking? He was absolutely not her type, even assuming she had any interest whatsoever in getting involved with a man right now! Which she didn’t.

Didn’t dare. Emma had reacted with hurt and anger the couple of times Kathleen had dated after the divorce. Right now was definitely not the time to upset the applecart as far as her daughter went.

“Sugar? Creamer?” she asked, in her best hostess voice.

“Black is fine.”

She stirred sugar into her own and then carried both mugs to the table.

He’d set that gray metal clipboard, identical to her brother’s, on the table. Kathleen nodded at it as she sat down. “Okay, I’ve braced myself. How much will this cost?”

Logan Carr reached for the clipboard. “I’ve figured out ways to cut some corners and still give you what you want,” he said mildly. “I hope my figures are in the ballpark.”

The baseball analogy steadied her, reminded her of the beer, the belching and the nonstop din of the television. When he slid a neatly typed sheet of paper across the table, she took it, hardly noticing that their fingers briefly touched.

When she saw the figure at the bottom, however, she gaped. “I was expecting twice that much!”

He smiled at her surprise. “Your brother wasn’t kidding when he said you wouldn’t pay much more for custom. Maybe even less, in this case, because I gave some thought to how I could deliver what you need without adding any unnecessary frills.”

She wondered what kind of frills he was talking about, but in her rush of relief didn’t really care. She could manage this.

“The amount doesn’t include the additional peninsula, does it?” she asked.

“No, I made up a second bid.” He slid that one to her as well. The bottom line was less than a thousand dollars more.

“Show me the details again,” she asked. There had to be a catch. An unacceptable short-cut. An eliminated frill that was really an essential. “You’ll use solid maple, right?”

He patiently got out his notebook and scooted his chair around so that they sat shoulder to shoulder, looking as he flipped pages. He’d drawn a couple of simple sketches of the project, one a crude blueprint, the other three-dimensional, showing slots and cubbies and open shelves.

“The fan will be right above, the switch over here.” He indicated the wall by the pantry door with the tip of his pencil. “I can pick one up if you want, or if you’d prefer you can buy your own.”

She shook her head. “You do it, please.”

Nodding, he made a note. “I’ll leave all of this information so that you can discuss it with Ms. Schaeffer.”

“That isn’t necessary.” Feeling more decisive than she had in a long while, Kathleen said firmly, “You’re hired.”

“Good.” He smiled again, turning a face that was almost homely into one that was likable and sexy.

She found herself smiling back, her heart fluttering. Her internal alarms went off, but she silenced them. So what if she felt…oh, just a little spark of attraction. It didn’t mean anything. He’d never know. Heck, she probably wouldn’t even feel the spark the next time she saw him. It was having cried on him that made her aware of him, she guessed. Knowing what it felt like to have his arms around her. Wasn’t it natural to stretch that into a small crush?

“Do you have a contract for me to sign?” she asked.

He produced that, too, and went over it line by line. Satisfied, Kathleen signed, and hoped Ryan wouldn’t have recommended Logan Carr if he weren’t reliable.

“I can’t start for a week,” he was telling her. “I’m finishing up a project in West Seattle, but I can be on it a week from tomorrow, if that works for you.”

“So soon?” she said in surprise. Wasn’t spring a busy season for construction? Why wasn’t he booked way in advance, if he was so good?

As if reading her mind, he said, “I had a cancellation, and my next job is new construction. They won’t be ready for me for a few weeks. This is good timing for me.”