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“Mr. O thought, after I said Hannah was seven, that your paperwork was wrong.”
A confused look crossed her pretty features. “She’s nine.”
His heart sank all over again. So, she was his. “Cat, listen to me. On everything that’s holy and right, I’m going to make this up to you. She’s going to be alright, do you hear me?”
The look on her face was just like it was at the train station that day when he left her, ten years before.
“Do you think you are someone who should make promises Mike? After what you’ve done? Or haven’t done? I don’t want to hear you make me any promises, especially about Andie. I’ve had enough of it. I’m going home, even if I have to walk to get away from you.”
He laid his hands on her to make her face him, and alarm crossed her face. Jesus, couldn’t he do anything right? Especially after what she had just told him about her ex-husband? “Cat, don’t go. I’m sorry. I truly, I’m sorry.”
“Go back and take care of her. Rich isn’t it? I’ve struggled all of these years to provide for her, care for her, love her. You go back and do it. I’ve had enough. I’m tired and I want to go home.”
“Cat, I..”
He had to make her understand he meant what he said. Pulling her to him, he wrapped his arms around her and reached for her, feeling her soft lips on his, taking her sweet, sweet scent in, needing her to fill the empty space in his very soul, the space that had yearned for her for so long, but knowing he couldn’t have her. Kissing her, ten years slipped away from them, and dear God, if only some magic force would compel them back in time to that train platform, where he could start over.
The stark, hard sting of her slap on his cheek made him know that it was 1952 and he was in just about the biggest mess of his life.
Chapter Four
It hurt to slap someone. Cat knew it was true when she slapped Mike and the pain seared across her wrist. She wanted to hurt him, but ended up hurting herself.
The last time she was slapped by someone who loved her was when she told Mama Bennett that she was going to have a baby, her mind reverting back to that terrible day.
“You couldn’t find no body better to get stuck with than that coal black you brought to church? Are you a fool?”
“No ma’am.”
“Yes you are. Pack up your things and get up out of my house this instant.”
A high time in her life. Thankfully, she was able to get by singing down at Wonderland under her stage name, Cat Benet. Until she got too big. Her brothers and sisters would come by to her little one-bedroom place over the club, sneaking food out of Mama’s house so she could eat and nourish her baby, but there was no relenting from Mama.
After Andie was born on a warm spring Sunday, Cat showed her defiance to her mother by giving the baby the first name of Mike’s mother and not her own. That’s when Mama Bennett relented. But only a bit.
Her younger sister came to her door with a big basket on her arm and a hangdog expression on her face. May said, “You can give us the baby to take care of while you work.”
Mama slapped her again. Just from really far away. “How does she know I would give up my baby to her?”
May shook her head. “She say you having too much fun working down in the nightclubs, getting soldier men to gawk at you like you was Lena Horne or somebody special.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s why they hired me. They think I look like her. Even when I open my mouth and don’t sing like her, it’s okay by them.”
“Right, but the baby don’t need to be all up in that. Just give her to us.”
Cat’s eyes filled with tears. “When would I get to see her?”
“The clubs are closed on Sundays. You can come by then and see her while Mama’s at church all day.”
So she did it. She let her child get away from her, just like that. Because it hurt to look at her.
She slipped the little helpless black body into her sister’s basket. May’s face betrayed nothing, for no one betrayed Mama, but there was pain there too. May tried to give her hope. “Mama will let you come back home in a while.”
“I don’t think so.” The tears got away from her hold on them. “I got to show this baby I’m worthy to be her Mama. I got to show Mama.”
“That’s right. She’ll be fine.” May reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’ll see to it she’ll be fine.”
May kept her word. As did Mama. But Cat? No, she failed time and time again.
