her mouth was horrible, so she grabbed a bottle of mouthwash and rinsed it, then gagged at the taste and dry heaved until her sides and throat hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Why is he so determined to get the papers signed?”
“No need for apologies,” Diana told her. “I think you held my hair a few years back when I was in the same frame of mind you are right now. Only difference is, I was begging in person, and you’re doing it on the phone. And if I remember right, Joanie threatened to shoot him if he didn’t get out of the house. It’s just payback time. I’m going to make you a club soda with a little lemon twist. It’ll help.”
“And, honey, evidently he’s given this a lot of thought to want things to go quickly.” Joanie took her by the hand and led her to the sofa, made her stretch out on it, covered her with a throw, and sat down on the floor beside her.
Diana brought her the drink. “Here, sip on this. You did good on the phone. If you’d let him bully you into signing those papers right now, you’d have always felt like a doormat.”
“Why can’t he just give it some time? What’s the rush? Can’t he see I need a while to even adjust to the idea?” Carmen gasped and ran back to the bathroom. This time she put the toilet lid down and sat on it, bending forward until her head was between her knees. “I feel like I’m going to faint.”
Joanie got another cold washcloth ready and handed it off to Diana, who flipped Carmen’s dark ponytail to the side and laid it on her neck.
“How am I going to tell Natalie?” Carmen groaned.
“You’re not. That’s Eli’s job.” Diana handed the cloth back to Joanie, who ran it under the cold water again and then wrung it out. “When she can make and receive calls, he can explain it all to her, and she can make up her own mind about how to handle it. Thank God she’ll be through basic training before he comes home and she has to face him. She may be small, but she’s got a temper, and she’s liable to light into him.”
“But we share everything. How can I even talk to her in two or three weeks without telling her?” Carmen asked.
“By then, you’ll be over this first initial shock, but don’t you dare tell her. Eli’s the one who messed up, not you,” Joanie said. “Think you can make it back to the sofa?”
“I don’t know what I’d do without y’all.” Carmen’s chin started to quiver again.
“That’s what friends are for,” Diana told her.
Chapter Three
Diana eased open the door to her daughter’s room. Where had the years gone? It was only yesterday that she would’ve gone in and shaken Rebecca awake so she’d have time to eat breakfast before early-morning band practice. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around at the mess. Clothing on the floor, shoes flowing out from the closet door, one drawer hanging open on the chest of drawers, and at least a hundred pictures stuck around the mirror on her dresser.
“But if I touched a single thing, you’d know it the minute you walked into the room,” Diana muttered.
Even though her suitcase was packed, her laptop was in its case, and she’d even remembered a jacket and an umbrella, she couldn’t force herself to get up off her daughter’s bed and go over to Tootsie’s house. And yet, she wouldn’t let herself call and back out of the trip.
“I’m not deserting you,” she said out loud. “It’s not like I couldn’t wait for you to grow up and leave home so I could take a vacation alone. This is the hardest thing I’ve done since the day I signed divorce papers.”
Get out of my room. Rebecca’s voice came through loud and clear. I’ll clean it when I get home on leave.
The message was definitely a strange one, but it gave Diana the courage to leave. She checked the thermostat, made sure that the lamp in the living room was set to come on at six every evening and go off at seven in the morning, and locked the door behind her.
Joanie had a second cup of coffee that morning and fretted about the trip. Zoe should have been in the kitchen with her at that time of day. She would have just come in from