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“It’s hard.”
“I thought the decent thing to do was to stop and see him and yet I didn’t think he’d ever really done the decent thing by me or Mom, so…I waited. Anyway, here I am and I’m wondering what in the world I should say to you or to him.” She rolled her large eyes.
“Well, come on in.” Bliss held open the screen door. “I’ve got coffee or iced tea or—”
“This really isn’t a social call,” Tiffany snapped, then caught herself. A small line formed between her eyebrows. “I—I don’t know what it is.”
“Neither do I, but if we don’t talk, we’ll never find out, will we?” Bliss was wary of this woman and yet she was curious. There was, after all, the same Cawthorne blood running through their veins.
Tiffany hesitated for a second, then must have decided that leaving would look cowardly, because she nodded stiffly and followed Bliss inside. Her dark brows rose as she entered the ranch house for the first time, Bliss guessed. “It’s not as if he w
as—or is—a big part of my life.”
Bliss let that little jab slide by as they walked into the living room and, for the first time, Tiffany’s eyes took in the watercolors of Indians and cowboys, the river-rock fireplace, the scatter rugs and marred wooden floor.
“So, now that you’ve been in town a few of weeks and met your stepmother-to-be, how do you feel about John’s marriage to Brynnie Perez?” Tiffany asked suddenly.
Dropping her keys into her purse, Bliss stopped at the fireplace and decided to tell the truth. No reason to pussyfoot. She and these newfound sisters had a lot of ground to cover if they were to ever get along. That, she decided, staring into Tiffany’s eyes, was a mighty big if. “Of course I resented Brynnie when I first found out about her. How could my father—my father—have carried on an affair for so many years? I knew he was no knight in shining armor—”
Tiffany snorted her agreement.
“But I thought he had more morals than a tomcat.” She shoved a shank of hair around her ear. “I was all set to hate Brynnie on sight. This was the woman who had defiled my mother’s reputation, had been the ‘love of my father’s life,’ who had been married a zillion times and had let another man claim Katie as his when she was really Dad’s. It was crazy, like I’d just walked through the looking glass or entered the Twilight Zone.”
“But you accept it?”
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? I mean, I can’t tell my father what to do, and anyway, as far as I was concerned, the damage was already done.”
“To your mother.”
“Yes, and to my idea of what my family was.” Bliss sighed. “So I fought it for a while, decided I couldn’t do anything and then, of course, I met Brynnie.”
Tiffany walked to the window and stared through the panes to the front porch. “And let me guess how this little fairy tale ends—you fell in love with her, too, and now we’re supposed to all be one big happy family.”
“Wrong. I thought I’d hate my father’s mistress on sight. And I decided I could live with that. You know, be outwardly civil while inwardly cold. But—and I wouldn’t want my mother, if she were alive, to hear this—Brynnie’s a hard person to hate.”
Tiffany didn’t respond, just ran a finger along the windowpane as she stared outside.
“So-o-o, I’m trying to put all my prejudices away if I can. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s time to look forward, not backward. But if you want to know the truth, I’m having a rough time with all of it, okay? It’s not easy, but there it is.” She lifted a palm.
“There are always choices,” Tiffany argued, though she didn’t elaborate and Bliss guessed that she was talking about her own private problems.
“Dad didn’t give you many.”
Tiffany paled, then said, “No, he didn’t. And you probably want to know how I felt about it. Well, I felt rotten. Once Mom came clean and told me the truth, I was sick to think that he didn’t love me enough to claim me.”
Bliss was horrified. “That’s not what it was like. Tiffany, you’ve got to understand that—”
“What?” Tiffany said hotly, then appeared to bite back another sarcastic remark and sighed audibly. “Look, it’s not your fault, but I blamed you. When I finally wanted to know more about my ‘dad’—if that’s what you could call him—I asked around about John. It turns out my grandmother had a wealth of information and was more than happy to let me know every intimate detail of my father’s life. That’s when I found out about you and discovered that you had this privileged life up in Seattle—that you had Dad—so I made the mistake of calling you ‘the princess’ in front of my son.”
Her cheeks colored as she explained. “You seemed to have everything—anything a daughter could ever want. You and your mom had my father’s name and his money and everything while my mother struggled, never married and worked two jobs just to raise me. Even though my grandmother was and still is supportive, it was hard. Real hard.” Tiffany turned back from the window and offered an unhappy smile. “Obviously, coming here was a mistake. I’m not going to your dad’s wedding and I’m not going to act like the past didn’t happen, okay? I can’t.”
She turned and Bliss caught hold of her arm. “I understand your frustration.”
“I doubt it.”
“Okay, so maybe I can’t. But I think we should try to get to know each other.”
Tiffany silently appraised her. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have called you ‘princess.’ Pollyanna would have been more appropriate.”
