Midnight Promises

* * *

Elliott usually barely managed to squeeze out a half hour for lunch on Saturdays, but this week he turned his eleven o’clock appointment over to the spa’s other personal trainer and headed to his sister’s, determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in her household these days.

When he drove up to the large home Ernesto had built on a wooded acre of land outside of Serenity, he heard the kids splashing in the pool around back. Normally he would have circled around to greet them, but today his only goal was to get Adelia alone for a heart-to-heart conversation.

Just as he was about to ring the doorbell, the front door was flung open and Ernesto brushed past him, a scowl on his face. From inside the house, he heard Adelia shouting after him not to bother coming home.

Elliott closed his eyes, muttered a prayer for guidance, then walked inside to find his sister alone in the kitchen slamming dishes into the dishwasher, tears streaming down her face. He walked up behind her and put his arms around her.

“Tell me,” he commanded.

She turned to him, her expression stricken. Wiping ineffectively at her tears, she tried to force a smile. “I didn’t know you were here. How’d you get in?”

“Your husband kindly left the door open as he left,” he said wryly. “I heard, Adelia. I heard you tell him not to bother coming home.”

She waved off the comment. “People say things like that all the time. I didn’t mean it.”

“It sounded to me as if you did.”

“Oh, what do you know? You’re still in the honeymoon phase. What do you know about marital fights?”

He smiled at that. “Karen and I have had our share.”

“And gotten past them,” she said, her tone brisk. “Ernesto and I will, as well. Now, let me pour you a cup of coffee. I have some of Mama’s cookies here, too.” She frowned then. “Why aren’t you at the spa? I thought Saturday was one of your busiest days.”

“It is, but I thought we needed to talk about what happened last night.”

She frowned, looking genuinely mystified. “Last night? Did something happen at the dance? Selena didn’t say a word. Neither did Ernesto.”

“I’m not surprised,” Elliott said. “It wouldn’t show either of them in the best light.” He described the scene at the dance. “Selena deliberately humiliated Daisy in front of all their classmates.”

“I am so sorry,” Adelia said at once, her expression heartsick. “I’ll deal with this right now. Selena’s behavior was totally unacceptable. Poor Daisy. My heart breaks for her.”

She was about to call Selena in from the pool, but Elliott stopped her. “I think the more important question may be why she was so upset that she lashed out in the first place.”

When she didn’t immediately answer, he prodded, “Adelia?”

Adelia sighed heavily. “I suspect you can blame her father for that. Ernesto didn’t want to go. Just as I’d feared he might, he invented some sort of important business meeting and intended to bail at the last minute. I stepped in and insisted that he couldn’t disappoint his daughter like that. I’m afraid Selena overheard us arguing. She knew her father was ready to choose business over her, that he didn’t care if he let her down.”

“Has that been happening a lot lately?” he asked, holding her gaze. “The fighting, I mean.”

She blinked and looked away. “We’ll work things out. We always do,” she said, almost by rote. It sounded as if she’d been using the same words to try to convince herself for some time now.

“Have you talked to Mama about whatever’s going on?” he pressed.

She gave him an incredulous look. “Are you crazy? And listen to her lectures on how it’s all my fault if things aren’t a hundred percent rosy in my marriage? You know how Mama is. She believes all husbands should be treated like kings, even if they’re acting like asses.”

Elliott smiled at her assessment. “True enough,” he said. “She was certainly devoted to our father, no matter how unreasonable he was being.”

“Trust me, Papa was a bastion of reason and calm compared to Ernesto.”

There was a bleak note in her voice that Elliott found worrisome. “Adelia, is he bullying you? Abusing you?”

She closed her eyes, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. “Nothing like that. I’d never allow it. For all of my weaknesses, I do have enough pride not to tolerate such disrespect.”

“I hope not,” he said, still concerned. “I’d straighten him out if he ever raised a hand to you.”

Adelia almost smiled at his vow. “I know you would, and I love you for it.”

“Would you like me to stay and have a talk with Selena myself?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll handle it. There’s no need for you to witness the tantrum she’s likely to throw when I tell her she’s grounded for the next month.”

Elliott was startled by the severity of the punishment his sister intended. “A month?”

She shrugged. “Anything less is just an inconvenience. Believe me, a month is the only thing that gets her attention.”

“Maybe what she needs more than punishment is reassurance that her parents are going to work harder to get along,” Elliott suggested.

Adelia gave him a sad look. “I try not to make promises I’m not sure I can keep,” she said as she walked him to the door.

Elliott wanted to stay, wanted to wipe the sorrow from his sister’s eyes, but he wasn’t the one who had the power to do that. And it was increasingly apparent that the man who held that power didn’t care.

* * *

“Is Frances going to be looking after Daisy and Mack tomorrow night by any chance?” Dana Sue asked Karen on Monday.

Karen regarded her boss with surprise. “I hadn’t planned on it. I’m off tomorrow, remember? I’ll be home with the kids.”

“Let me rephrase,” Dana Sue said, sounding more like Helen, when she was cross-examining a reluctant witness. “Can Frances take care of the kids tomorrow night?”

Puzzled, Karen shrugged. “I’d have to check with her, but probably. What’s this about? Do you need me to work after all?”

“Nope. The guys—except for Erik, who’ll be in charge here—are all getting together for basketball and more talk about the gym, so the wives decided we deserve to have a margarita night. It’s been ages since we’ve had one. We want you to come.”

“I thought margarita nights were some sort of sacred ritual for the Sweet Magnolias,” Karen said. She’d certainly never before been invited.

“And we think you should officially be one of us,” Dana Sue said with a grin. “If Elliott’s going to be in business with some of us and our husbands, then you should be included when the girls get together.”

“Really?” Karen said, surprised by the hint of wistfulness that had crept into her voice. She’d always wondered about those mysterious nights Dana Sue, Maddie, Helen and their friends spent together. She’d never given two figs about the margaritas, but the strong bond of their friendship was something she’d desperately envied. She’d been on the receiving end of that support system from time to time and understood its value.

“Really,” Dana Sue assured her. “And before you get all weird and panicky, there are no secret rites or oaths, other than what happens at margarita nights stays at margarita nights.”

Karen grinned. “I can do that.”

“Then tomorrow night at seven at my place.”

“What can I bring?”

“Not a thing. I fix the guacamole. Helen makes the margaritas, and since they feel that we now need more food to sop up any alcohol, Maddie, Jeanette, Annie, Raylene and Sarah take turns bringing other food. Believe me, Maddie will see that you’re assigned your turn. She’s going to be thrilled about putting another chef into the rotation. Aside from me, Raylene’s the only one with any real creativity in the kitchen.”

Karen thought of the progress Raylene had made in overcoming her agoraphobia. There’d been a time not that long ago when all margarita nights had to be held at her house to accommodate her terror of leaving the safety of her own home.

“Raylene’s really better now, isn’t she?” she asked Dana Sue. “It’s hard to believe she’s the same person. I see her at her dress shop and out with Carter and his sisters all the time now.”

Dana Sue smiled. “Just one of the many miracles we’ve been blessed by in this town.”

Karen started back to work on the salads for the day’s lunch, but eventually curiosity got the better of her. She glanced over at Dana Sue. “Why now, Dana Sue? Is it just because you don’t want me to feel left out?”

Dana Sue, who could always be counted on for candor, said honestly, “That’s part of it, no question about it. But for a long time, your life was so complicated with Helen keeping your kids so you wouldn’t lose them and your future working here so insecure, we didn’t think it was a good idea to blur the boundaries any more.” She smiled. “Just like Raylene, you’re not the same person you were a few years ago. We all like you. We always have. Now, though, I think it’s more as if we’re all meeting on level ground.”

“As equals,” Karen suggested.

Dana Sue laughed. “That’s sounds so incredibly stuffy and narrow-minded of us, but in a way, yes. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings.”

Karen shook her head. “Actually, to the contrary, it makes me proud to know how far I’ve come in getting my life together. I was a mess a few years ago. And even without me being an official Sweet Magnolia, you all helped me. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

“And now we’ll get to find out if you can hold your tequila any better than the rest of us,” Dana Sue said.

Karen thought of how little she drank, because she didn’t like the lack of control that came with alcohol or the wasted expense of buying it. “Something tells me I’m going to be no competition on that front. I’m a weakling in the margarita department. Will that be a problem?”

“Nope,” Dana Sue assured her. “It’ll just leave more for us. But if you turn down my killer guacamole, we just might have to reconsider.”

“Now that will never happen,” Karen said, laughing. She hadn’t been married to Elliott all this time without learning how to handle plenty of spice.

6

Frances was delighted to be spending the evening with Daisy and Mack. For one thing it was much less stressful than evading questions from Flo and Liz about whether or not she’d made an appointment with her doctor. They were getting tiresome.

Even though she was where she wanted to be—away from the prying eyes of her friends—she was grateful that Daisy and Mack had plenty of homework to keep them occupied. For some reason trying to keep up appearances these days was exhausting. She was relieved to be able to simply sit and glance through the magazines she’d brought along or to watch TV.

She was startled when she glanced up and found Mack standing in front of her, his expression a mix of dismay and embarrassment. She’d seen that look often enough in her classrooms over the years to have a pretty good idea this was about homework troubles.

“Is everything okay, Mack?”

He shrugged.

Frances had to hide a smile. Even at seven, kids had a lot of pride. “How’s your homework going?” she prodded. “All finished?”

He shook his head, his cheeks turning even pinker. “I don’t get my math problems.” He gave her a pleading look. “Could you help me? Subtracting’s hard.”

Though she was pleased to be asked, she wondered if she’d be any help. “I can certainly try,” she said. “And if I can’t, I imagine Jenny can.”

His expression turned puzzled. “Jenny? Who’s that?”

Frances blinked, then shook her head and gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Did I say Jenny? I meant Daisy. Jenny’s my granddaughter. She lives in Charleston.” Jenny had been named for her mother, Frances’s daughter, Jennifer.

Mack’s face lit up. “I remember her. She used to come to visit. Sometimes she even spent the weekend.”

“She did,” Frances confirmed. “What a wonderful memory you have!” At the moment, she envied him.

“She was bigger than Daisy, though,” he said, looking perplexed again. “How old is she?”

Frances felt as if she were slogging through mental mush as she tried to recall. “She must be fifteen now.” Or was she older? Had Jenny gone off to college? Or was that Marilou? And why couldn’t she keep them straight? There were three girls, she remembered that much. Jennifer had so hoped for a boy that last pregnancy, but there’d been another girl. On the teacher salaries she and her husband earned, they’d decided a fourth child simply wasn’t in the cards.

Darn! If she could remember all that, why couldn’t she keep the names and ages straight?

The answer, of course, was obvious. This was another of those troubling mental glitches. It was a good thing Flo and Liz weren’t around to witness it. Their pleas that she make that doctor appointment would become even more strident.

“Sit beside me and show me those math problems,” she said, rather than dwelling on her earlier slip.

Finally confident that he wasn’t going to be judged, Mack eagerly crawled up on the sofa beside her and showed her his paper. Thankfully, the problems were fairly basic subtraction, something she hadn’t forgotten.

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