forgive herself.” As she spoke, she kept hold of her husband’s hand. Then Lily, with tears in her eyes, put her own over both of theirs.
chapter 50
“Lily? I’m afraid I’m going to forget my mom.” Charlie stood in her underwear, holding the peignoir she had slept in every night since the accident. With a tragic expression on her face, she lifted the garment, and Lily could see that it was unraveling at the seams, the lace insets full of gaping holes.
Lily took it from her and set it aside, then sat down on the bed and gathered Charlie into her lap.
“Me, too,” said Ashley, clambering aboard.
Lily breathed in their scent and felt their warm bodies relax against hers. How did I live so long without this? she wondered. How will I go on without it? She took a deep breath and pushed aside the thought. Whatever her differences with Sean, they would not change her devotion to Crystal’s children. She had arrived this morning to find that he and Cameron had already left for the tournament. Mrs. Foster was watching the girls.
Charlie rubbed the worn, satiny fabric between her thumb and first finger. “It’s all coming apart, and when it falls apart, I’ll forget her.”
Lily took a Barbie hand mirror from the nightstand. “Sweetie, that’s impossible. Look here. What do you see?”
“My face.”
“And whose face does it remind you of?”
“It’s just my face.”
“And your mother’s face.” Lily was startled that she saw it, too, an echo of her best friend in Charlie. “You have her eyes and her smile, and every day you’ll grow more like her. Most of all, you have her in your heart. All the love she and your dad gave you is there, and it’s only going to grow. It’s yours to keep forever and ever.”
Ashley babbled something and grasped the mirror with both hands.
Charlie slumped against Lily. “I’d rather have my mom. And my dad.”
“I know, honey. We all would.” Lily rested her chin on her head.
Charlie stood up and, with a curiously adult solemnity, folded the nightgown carefully and put it in a bottom drawer. Her movements had the gravity of ritual, and she shut the drawer with a decisive push. “Maybe I’ll sleep in something else,” she said. “Uncle Sean gave me an American Chopper T-shirt.”
“I have a great idea,” Lily said. “How about I take you to the golf tournament.”
“Uncle Sean said we have to stay with Mrs. Foster.”
After last night, he’d assumed Lily wouldn’t show up to watch him play. Which only meant he still didn’t know her. Sure, she’d sent him packing and he’d willingly walked away, but the visit from her parents had convinced her that love was worth any fight.
“Finish getting dressed,” she told Charlie. “I’ll tell Mrs. Foster she can go home for the day.”
Playing the game was different without Lily and the girls watching. Sean noticed that the moment he hit his first drive, though he tried not to let their absence affect his performance. The fact was, they were everything to him—his audience, his purpose. Knowing they were watching, he was able to see each shot as clear and clean as the morning sky.
Without them, it was just a game. One he happened to be good at, but still just a way to spend the day and see how things turned out.
Cameron studied his lie in the fairway. It was a perfectly good lie, just inside the crook of a dog leg, giving him a decent shot at the green. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Sean said. “Why would you think something’s wrong?”
“Duh. I just watched you hit.”
“And I landed where I need to be.”
“Because you’re good and so is your luck, but you’d better start playing your game.”
Sean stared at him as they walked together toward the ball. “You sound just like your father.”
Cameron grinned a little and straightened his shoulders. “Yeah?” When they reached the ball, he dug in his pocket and took out the Indian head penny, Sean’s old good-luck charm. “I was thinking you might need this. Just in case.”
Sean nodded and accepted the token. Lord knew, Cameron wanted him to succeed, so he would try to forget his troubles with Lily. He felt terrible about the way they’d left things. Maybe he shouldn’t have lashed out at her. It was fear, not anger, that had driven him—fear of losing Ashley. If he wasn’t her blood relative, he had no claim on her at all.