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“No, the tray’s all fixed. My best silver, too, I
want you to know.”
“I’m honored!”
Helen disappeared into the house and returned
with a huge silver tray laden with cake and cookies
and coffee.
She put it on the white wrought-iron table by the
rocking chairs and invited Dana to sit down. It was
delightful on the porch, cool and quiet and homey.
Dana could remember so many lazy summer days
spent there while Mandy visited her only sister.
“How are you?” Helen asked while they sipped
coffee and nibbled on homemade cookies.
“I’m better. Much better. And you?”
Helen shrugged. “Getting over it, I suppose. I
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still miss her, as I’m sure you do. But life goes on,
doesn’t it?”
Dana smiled wistfully. “Inevitably.” She finished
a cookie and took a sip of black coffee. “How’s Dad?”
Helen gave her a sharp, probing look. “Hurting.
He thinks you blame him for Mandy’s death. He
calls me once a week to see how you’re doing.”
That was painful. “It was hard,” she said after a
minute, “getting used to being two families, when
we’d been one most of my life. Always it was
Mom and Dad. Now it’s Dad and someone else,
and no Mom.” She sighed bitterly. “I honestly feel
like an orphan.”
“Dear, we’ve agreed that life goes on. Now
answer me just one question honestly,” Helen said,
leaning forward intently. “Would you want your
father to live all his life alone, with no one?”
Dana blinked. “Well, no, I don’t suppose so.”
“Would you want him to be a playboy and take
out a different woman every night?”
“No!” Dana said, horrified.
“You’ve never even met Sharla formally,” Dana
was reminded. “She’s a lovely woman, Dana. Very
old-fashioned and sweet. She likes to cook and
grow flowers and do needlepoint, and she loves the
whole world. She’s a…motherly woman. And she
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has no children of her own; she’d never been
married before she met Jack.”
That was interesting. Dana sat up straight,
staring across at her aunt. “She hadn’t?”
Helen smiled. “No, she hadn’t. So, you see,
marriage was a very special thing for her. She can’t
have children anymore, of course, and she was
looking forward to having a grown daughter.”
Tears stung Dana’s eyes. She turned away.
“That might be nice, to be wanted by someone,”
she whispered.
Helen frowned. “Whatever do you mean,
darling?”
“Mother told me.”
Helen blinked. “Told you what?”
“That because of me, Dad and Mom had to get
married. That he never wanted me, that he blamed
me for being the cause of a marriage they both hated,”
she said, letting the bitterness and hurt pour out.
Helen got up and drew the weeping girl into her
arms. “How could Mandy tell you such a thing?”
she ground out, rocking Dana slowly. “It wasn’t
true! They’d been married over a year when you
came along. And your father was the one who
wanted you, my dear, as much as I hate to admit it.
Mandy wasn’t domestic, even in those early years.
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She hated the restriction of a child and refused to
have another one.You spent so much of those early
years with me, didn’t you know?” she added wist-
fully, tears welling in her eyes. “Mandy would
leave you with me while she partied. And since I
had no children and no husband, you became the
light of my life. You still are.”
Dana wept unashamedly. “Why did she tell
me that—why?”
“Because she’d grown bitter with advancing age,
darling,” Helen said soothingly. “She was unhappy
and afraid of being alone, and she wanted to make
you hate Jack for her own misery. He did try, Dana,
he did. But your mother was such an unhappy
person. Eventually she turned to alcohol because
she couldn’t endure reality. Her whole life turned
into a waking nightmare. She would have de-
stroyed the entire family if she’d lived, and you
know it. Don’t you, Dana?”
Dana’s lower lip trembled. “Yes,” she ground
out. “I knew it all along, but it hurt so much to
admit it. And I felt guilty….”
“That was my fault. I always say the wrong
thing, and I never blamed you. I was just hysteri-
cal.” She drew back. “Dana, it was God’s will. He
decides the hour of death, not you and I. And
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Mandy’s so much happier now with Him, don’t
you imagine?”
Dana smiled wetly. “Yes, I imagine she is. I just
miss her so!”
“I miss her too. But we want what’s best for her,
after all. And she’s at peace.”
Dana nodded, dabbing again at the tears. “How
about some more coffee?” she asked.
“Suits me. Some more cookies too?”
“I’d like that.” She sat back and accepted a
second cup of steaming black coffee. “Aunt Helen,
would you tell me some more about Sharla?” she
asked after a minute.
Helen turned away to pour her own coffee, smiling
secretly before she sat back and began to talk.
By the end of the second week Dana was back
in the swing of things. The only hard moment had
come when, catching a late-night newscast with
Jenny, she’d seen Gannon van der Vere being in-
terviewed by one of the anchormen.
“Say, isn’t that the man you worked for? What
a dish!” Jenny exclaimed, leaning forward to watch
the screen intently.
Dana felt her face go white as she looked again
into those deep-set eyes as Gannon’s tanned face
filled the screen. Her heart did a backflip just from
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Blind Promises
her looking at him, looking into the eyes that could
quite plainly see again.
“My own struggle with blindness,” Gannon was
saying, “taught me the value of proper tools to
cope with it. This new device we’re working on is
a revolutionary concept. In theory it’s quite unique.
We hope that theory will translate well into a
useful product.”
“Amazing,” the newsman murmured. “Mr. van
der Vere, we’ve heard that your company may take
a tremendous loss on this particular product to
make it affordable to the general public.”
“That is so,” Gannon replied quietly. “In order
to be effective, it must be accessible to the people
who need it. We’re cutting corners to keep the cost
of production down, and in cases of dire need we
plan to have a loan program as well.”
“Would you term that good business?” the
newsman asked dryly.
“A question of definitions,” Gannon replied.
“Our stockholders have no complaints about their
profit, and one such sideline as this shouldn’t have
any disastrous effect on our finances. However,
before I’ll let the stockholders lose one penny, I’ll
pay for this new product out of my own pocket. I’ve
been there, you see,” he added softly. “I know what
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it is to be blind. I think those of us who are sighted
and have access to the technology are morally
obliged to help those less fortunate.”
“Philanthropy, Mr. van der Vere?”
He laughed softly. “God’s business, sir,” he
replied with a grin.
The interviewer asked several more questions,
but Dana didn’t hear them. She was lost in the
pleasure of what she’d already heard.
“Isn’t he a dish?” Jenny said in awe when the
interview was over and the screen was blank.
“How in the world were you able to drag yourself
away from him?”
“Oh, I managed,” Dana hedged. She’d told
Jenny nothing about what had really happened
during her absence. And she wasn’t going to. It was
too painful to rehash.
Friday night came and she dressed very carefully [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]