a gambling problem, and I, of course, as is so often the case, had no idea. I didn’t realize, until it was too late, how many demons he had. For a long time I blamed myself, thinking I could have done something different, picked up on the signs, been better somehow, could have stopped him gambling, but after a few years I came to terms with it.” Nan pauses for a moment, but Daniel doesn’t interrupt her thoughts.
“But if I can impart some wisdom, a little of which I seem to have learned at my ripe old age, I do think,” she says gently, “that nothing in this world happens without a reason. That we are all exactly where we are supposed to be, and that the pieces of the puzzle have a tendency to come together when you least expect it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh goodness. Am I talking in riddles again?” Nan laughs. “I just mean that you ought to relax and trust that it will all be okay in the end.”
“I hope you’re right.” Daniel sighs wearily as he turns to go on up to his room.
Chapter Fifteen
"Isn’t this wonderful?” Richard beams across the table at Jess and Carrie, the soft candlelight in Mario’s casting a flattering golden glow over everyone. “My two favorite girls together, all of us having dinner as a family.”
Carrie catches sight of Jess rolling her eyes, but she reaches out and takes Richard’s hand, relieved that finally there is calm in the house, bracing herself for the next outburst.
She realizes now that she hadn’t been the slightest bit prepared for Jess moving in. She had still carried a fantasy of them all living happily ever after, believing that a large part of Jess’s behavior was due to adolescence, and living with a mother who didn’t seem able to stop her appalling behavior.
“No child of mine would ever behave like that,” she’d told one of her editors at lunch just the other day. “I can’t believe the mother puts up with it. I would never allow it.”
“Why do you think she does?” the editor had asked.
“I think she’s probably too frightened of the tantrums. Everyone is.”
“Even Richard?”
“Especially Richard,” Carrie had groaned. “Jess has everyone wrapped around her little finger. She knows exactly when to scream, and for how long, to get her own way.”
“How old is she again?”
“I know . . .” Carrie had sighed in exasperation. “Thirteen. Going on thirty.”
Earlier today, before dinner, they had all gone to the farmers’ market. Richard and Carrie were holding hands, when Carrie was shoved roughly out of the way by Jess, who inserted herself between them, grabbing her father’s hand and squeezing herself up against him.
Carrie stepped aside, and Richard disengaged himself.
“Why, Daddy?” Jess started to whine. “I want to hold your hand.”
“I was walking with Carrie,” he said. “You just shoved her out of the way. Here, you go on my other side.”
“No, Daddy!” The whine got louder. “I want to walk on this side. Why does she have to come anyway?” Jess turned and shot an evil look at Carrie, who pretended not to see.
“Jess, come on. Be nice.”
“Why?” Jess pouted. “Why do I have to be nice?” And suddenly she started to scream. “I hate her,” she shouted, standing in the middle of the street and stamping her foot while people stopped and stared. “I hate her. Why does she have to live with us? She ruins everything.”
Carrie watched, feeling sick. Sick with anxiety, with frustration. She watched Richard take Jess aside to talk to her, Jess collapsing in sobs as Richard put his arms around her to soothe her. Twenty minutes later he walked Jess over to Carrie to apologize, but Carrie had seen Jess get exactly what she wanted: her father’s undivided attention for twenty minutes, while Carrie was left standing on the sidelines.
The editor had paused to order another glass of wine before looking back at Carrie. “If the mother isn’t setting boundaries, and Richard isn’t, do you think you can?”
Carrie had shrugged. “I don’t think it’s my place. I don’t want to act like a parent, that’s not my job. And anyway, I think she’d hate me even more.”
“Does she hate you?”
“I don’t think so, not really. I think if it weren’t for the fact that her father and I were living together, we’d get on like a house on fire.”
“You like her?”
“I love her. And her pain reminds me of when I was young. When she’s nice I