Copper Lake Confidential - By Marilyn Pappano Page 0,72
towns: another scandal would come along, another sensational story that would push her and Clary’s return to the back burner, and before long people would forget that they’d ever left.
And the big upside to Copper Lake: Stephen.
“I don’t know exactly where we’ll get a house, babe.”
Clary stroked Scooter’s fuzzy head. “Well, if I can’t live with Grandma and Grandpa, I wanna get a house by Scooter.” A tiny pause. “Did I live in this house, too?”
“Yes, when you were little.”
“Where did I sleep?”
Macy placed another garment in the carton, then faced her daughter. “You want to see your old room?”
Clary bounded off the bed. “Yes!” Scooter looked a little miffed at losing his pillow but stretched out and closed his eyes again.
Macy took her hand and led her down the hall to the first door on the right. She turned on the lights and stepped back to let her daughter enter first. It was painted in primary colors, red, yellow, blue, with an alphabet theme. Macy had thought it busy and overstimulating, but Mark had sided with the designer he’d hired.
Clary stood in the center of the room and turned a slow circle, as if she’d found herself in the spotlight of a circus arena. When she faced Macy again, she giggled. “It’s a baby room, Mama! Look, it’s got a baby bed!”
“Well, you were still pretty much a baby then.” The crib, with each side a different color, was designed to convert into a single bed, but they hadn’t made the change yet. At eighteen months, Clary had been a climber.
“Stuffed bears. Diapers! Binkies!” She shook her head with good-natured dismay. “Wow. I’m glad I don’t have to sleep in here now. It’s like all the colors in the world spilled.”
Macy felt some small satisfaction that her daughter shared her opinion. So much for Mark’s high-dollar designer.
Clary poked around in the toy box, looked at the clothes in the closet and shook her head over the board books, then wandered back into the hall. “What’s that room?” she asked. “And that one?”
“Guest rooms. For when we had company.”
“And that one?”
“Bathroom.” Though the two guest rooms had their own baths, the children were supposed to share. Macy pointed to the next door. “Closet.”
And Clary pointed out the nearest one, its door open. “Is that another baby room? Did you have another baby, Mama?”
Her chest tight, Macy scooped up her daughter and held her tightly enough to feel secure, not enough to make her squirm. “No, honey. I—I fixed the room in case, but...it didn’t happen.”
Clary laid her hands on Macy’s cheeks and stared deep into her eyes. “I’d like to have a little sister like Gloriana. Or a brother like Will only not so bossy. Or maybe a puppy. Yeah, I think I want a puppy. Like Scooter, only littler, since Scooter is really a dog, and a puppy is a little baby dog. When we find a new house, can I have a puppy, Mama?”
Dear God, she loved her daughter. All the shock, all the loss, and still her little girl could make her hopeful. She was such a miracle.
After spinning her in a circle, Macy smooched her belly. “You bet you can have a puppy, sweetie. Maybe even two.”
Chapter 11
Macy awoke before dawn Monday, her heart fluttering, her skin damp with perspiration, her stomach twisted in knots. It took her a long time to open her eyes and gaze around the room. Clary was sprawled across her half of the bed and then some. The closet and hall doors were closed, the hall one locked. The door to her bathroom stood open, a dim light on inside. The air was still and didn’t smell of anything it shouldn’t. The house was quiet.
So why was her skin crawling, her hands starting to tremble?
The panic attacks started this way: a sense of overwhelming anxiety in those first moments of awakening, when she wasn’t fully alert, when she was vulnerable to doubts and fears. On a good day, this was as far as it went. She’d drag herself from bed, take her medication and get busy, and before long the discomfort was gone.
On a bad day, it escalated. Sometimes she couldn’t sit still. Sometimes she couldn’t leave the house. Some days she cried until exhaustion set in. All those days she couldn’t bear to let her Clary see her.
But it hadn’t happened in so long. Months, since the doctor had adjusted her medication. She’d taken it faithfully. She’d stayed active. Now