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  “I’m fine. I know God’s got this.”

  Sheridan chuckled. “You’ve been hanging around Chris.” The sudden burst of joy went away when Sheridan said her son’s name. Would he demand that even his grandparents call him Christopher?

  Beatrice said, “I do know that this is in God’s hands. Your father and I have lifted this up to the Lord, so now He has to take care of it.” She paused. “Did you tell Quentin?”

  Why did you have to go there? “Yes,” she said as if the word took effort. All morning she had prayed Quentin’s name wouldn’t even come up, although she knew she was praying for a miracle.

  “When will Quentin be home?”

  Never. “I’m not sure, exactly.”

  Beatrice waited and then when nothing more came, she said, “Not sure? What kind of business trip is this?”

  Sheridan inhaled, hoping to breathe in courage, but none came. There was no way she could tell her mother the truth.

  “What’s wrong, Sheridan?”

  How could she answer that with all that her parents were facing?

  “Sheridan?”

  Her mother’s voice made her heart ache again, and she knew for sure this pain would never go away.

  “Sheridan.”

  I’ll just turn to her, smile, and make up some kind of story about how wonderful life is.

  Sheridan twisted in her chair, but the moment she looked into her mother’s eyes, the lies went away. The dam burst, and she cried as if she’d just heard Quentin’s news.

  Without a word or the passing of a second, Beatrice guided Sheridan through the hospital’s halls. Finding what she was looking for, Beatrice pushed the bathroom door open and led her daughter inside.

  Sheridan’s sobs continued as Beatrice searched the space, making sure they were alone. Then she turned to her daughter.

  “Now tell me,” Beatrice said in her gentle yet stern way. With her fingertips, she wiped the water dripping from Sheridan’s eyes, but she couldn’t brush the tears fast enough. Fresh ones appeared before the old ones were gone.

  “Mom, it’s terrible.”

  “It can’t be that bad. No matter what kind of disagreement you’ve had, you and Quentin have loved each other for a long time.”

  That declaration made her sobs quicken.

  “Sheridan,” Beatrice began, as if she were about to school her daughter on the intricacies of marriage, “there have been times when I’ve been so annoyed with your father that—”

  “Quentin’s left.”

  Beatrice’s fingers stopped stroking Sheridan’s face.

  “Quentin’s left me. He left me and the children and our home. He’s gone.”

  Beatrice took a few steps back until she was leaning against the bathroom’s long counter, shocked into silence.

  “He left Monday morning,” Sheridan began, and then the story surged forth like a roaring river. When she explained that Quentin had taken most of his clothes and moved out, Beatrice held her hands. When she told her that her husband was living with Jett Jennings, Beatrice hugged her daughter. Beatrice held her in the embrace, as if her arms would give all the protection she needed. When they finally separated, neither woman’s eyes were dry.

  “I…don’t…know…I…don’t…understand,” Beatrice stuttered.

  Sheridan shrugged, calm now, as if the release had been therapeutic. “Mom, I never saw it coming, or else I would have done something.”

  Beatrice hugged her again. “Oh, sweetheart. There is nothing you could have done. This is not your fault.”

  She heard but didn’t believe her mother’s words. “Mom, I don’t want Daddy to know.”

  Beatrice frowned.

  “He has so much to deal with right now. I don’t want to burden him with this.”

  “Sheridan, there is nothing about you that would be a burden to your father.”

  “Still…” How could she tell her mother that she didn’t have the strength to face her father? She’d always been his girl, the perfect one pleasing him every step of her life.

  But now he would discover she was not perfectly wonderful. She had failed—as a wife. “Daddy has too much on his mind right now, Mom,” Sheridan argued.

  “Hmph. You know your father better than that. He can handle this, the cancer, and a whole lot more.”

  “Mom, please.”

  Beatrice took her daughter’s hand. “Honey, your father and I haven’t survived all these years of marriage by keeping secrets.”

  For Sheridan, that truism was full of pain. It was the reason why her marriage had died. Her life with Quentin was one big secret.

  “You have to tell your father, Sheridan. I won’t say a word, but only because it should come from you.”

  I don’t want to, she thought. But she nodded as if she agreed.

  “What about Chris and Tori?” Beatrice whispered even though they were still alone. “Do they know?”

  Sheridan sighed, nodded, but could say no more.

  Beatrice read her daughter’s heart. “Are you ready to go back out there? I don’t want your father to worry if he comes out and doesn’t see us.”

  Sheridan glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She could pass for a woman who had her life together. If her father didn’t look too closely, he’d never know.

  Beatrice stepped into the hallway. Sheridan followed, and noticed the way Beatrice’s shoulders slumped with more than the weight of her husband’s disease. Sheridan was sorry for what she told her mother today. And for a whole lot more. She was sorry for all the agony she was sure was waiting in the days in front of them.

  Chapter Nine

  It was love sprinkled with concern that filled her heart when Sheridan helped her father into the Explorer.

  “I don’t know why you’re treating me like some invalid,” Cameron complained. “I can climb into this car just fine.”

  “I know, but can’t a daughter help her father out every once in a while?” Sheridan tried to put cheer into her voice.

  “Help your mother. She’s the one who’s old,” Cameron kidded.

  “Who you calling old?” Beatrice shot back from the seat. “If I’m so old, why didn’t you realize I’m already in the car? It must be more than your prostate that needs help. While we’re here, we need to check out your eyes.”

  Her parents laughed as Sheridan slammed the passenger door and then climbed into her own seat. She couldn’t join in their laughter. Her thoughts were with her mother’s admonition to tell her father the news.

  After a few quiet moments, Beatrice asked, “So, how was it, Cameron?”

  “Just fine,” Cameron said in a tone that contradicted the fact that they were leaving his first radiation treatment. He twisted in his seat and reached for his wife’s hand. “Just like Dr. Lees promised, the whole thing took about five minutes. It was the getting undressed and waiting and then getting dressed again that took all the time. This is going to be a piece of cake.”

  With that, Sheridan knew no more would be said about her father’s cancer-killing visit. Her parents would not spend hours pining about what had happened or why. They would simply pray.

  As Sheridan maneuvered through the streets, her parents chatted, but her thoughts wouldn’t allow her to be with them.

  How am I supposed to do this? she wondered as she stopped at a red light. She glanced at the car in the next lane. Inside, a man leaned across the space and kissed his female passenger. Sheridan’s eyes were stuck; even when the light turned green and the car sped away, she stayed in place.

  “Honey, the light is green.”

  She pushed down on the accelerator, and the Explorer jerked forward with a screech.

  “Whoa, do you want me to drive?” Cameron laughed.

  She felt the tears coming. Yes, she needed her father to drive. To take over the car and everything in her life. To make it all better.

  It wasn’t until Cameron said, “Honey, what’s wrong?” that Sheridan realized a tear had rolled down her che
ek.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Sweetheart, let’s wait until we get home,” Beatrice said.

  Sheridan shook her head. She had to tell now, before she was overcome with the sadness that had started to grow at the sight of the loving couple and the realization that she’d never again share a moment like that with Quentin. “Daddy, Quentin left me. We’re getting a divorce.”

  “What? When did this happen?”

  For the second time too soon, she repeated the story of what was now her life. But this time she removed herself as the main character and became only the narrator. She was just getting to Jett Jennings when she eased her car next to the curb in front of her parents’ home.

  And again she had shocked one of her parents into silence.

  Sheridan turned off the car’s ignition and then waited for someone to speak. “Daddy, I’m sorry.”

  “Sweetheart, what are you apologizing for? You didn’t do anything.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Beatrice said.

  “But I must have done something—even if it was not noticing the signs.”

  “Honey, none of us saw the signs,” Beatrice said. “Cameron and I saw you and Quentin almost every week, and we didn’t suspect a thing.”

  She spoke before she thought, “But you weren’t sleeping with him.”

  Their opened mouths and wide eyes almost made her laugh. I’m getting good at shutting them up, she thought.

  “Well,” Cameron started and took her hand, “how are you doing?”

  She shrugged. “I’m fine, I guess.”

  “Well, I want to talk to Quentin,” Cameron said.

  Sheridan smiled. “What are you going to do? Beat him up?”

  Neither one of her parents laughed the way she’d expected, and she wanted to tell them that wasn’t fair. They’d laughed about Cameron’s cancer; didn’t her tragedy deserve a chuckle or two?

  “No, I’m not going to beat him up,” Cameron said, as if he had considered it. “But over the years, Quentin and I have become close. He’s always talked to me, and I can’t think of a time when he needed to talk to me more.”

  “If I thought it would help, I would drive you to him right now. But nothing’s going to change. It’s not like he’s with a woman.” She paused, and the images rushed back to her. Quentin and Jett. “There’s no chance of us reconciling.” Those words put such a thick lump in her throat that for a moment she again wanted to die with her marriage.

  “Do you want to come inside with us?” Beatrice asked.

  “No. I want to be home when the kids get there.”

  Beatrice tsked, as if the thought of her grandchildren mixed with this news was too much. Cameron stepped from the car and then helped Beatrice from the back seat. For the second time that day, she saw the weight of her burden on one of her parents’ shoulders. And it pained her once again that she’d caused them this grief.

  “This is not your fault, sweetheart,” her father said into the window as if he’d read her mind.

  She nodded because she knew he expected her to.

  “Call us?”

  She pressed her lips into a smile. “I will. Tonight.” And then she drove away. In the rearview mirror, she looked at her parents standing shoulder to shoulder, watching and waving as their daughter and her tragedy drove away. Sheridan knew if they had their way, they’d go home with her and care for her until this pain passed.

  But she was a long way from the days when hugs, chicken soup, and vanilla ice cream solved all that ailed her. With what she faced now, the only way her parents could help was if they had a direct line to the Lord. And with the way she’d been raised, she was pretty sure they did.

  It was his hands that Sheridan remembered the most.

  With tenderness, he caressed her. With compassion, he punctuated his speech with gestures. With grace, his fingers molded around the pen as he wrote those extraordinary words for Hart to Heart.

  Sheridan glanced at the clock. She needed to take her thoughts away—away from the agony of the past five days. But how was she supposed to move on when her life had been about her husband and children?

  Thank God for the children, she thought. Sheridan picked up her pad. The 2006 catalogue for Hart to Heart was already due. To keep her business going, she had to come up with new cards. New words that would help some man somewhere profess his undying love for some woman in his life.

  She stared at the blank page in front of her and wondered if men who loved men gave their lovers cards. Would Quentin ever give a card to Jett? Would Jett ever bring flowers home to Quentin?

  She grabbed the telephone and quickly dialed.

  “Sis!” her brother exclaimed the moment he answered the phone. “What’s up in your world?”

  The familiarity of his voice draped itself around her, and she wished she’d made this call before.

  “How are you, my dear brother?” Sheridan asked, not wanting to answer his question.

  “It’s all good. I’m wrapping things up here in the office so that I can get home.”

  “Big plans for the weekend?” She amazed herself. With all of this, she was able to breathe, walk, speak as if life was the same as before.

  He said, “Naw. We were out all last weekend, so Rosemary and I are just going to kick it. The most I’ll do is maybe take a bike ride along these mean streets of San Francisco. And then, of course, on Sunday there’s football. Go, Raiders!”

  Sheridan chuckled. “Tell Rosemary I said hello.”

  “Will do, but I know you didn’t call me to ask what Rosemary and I are up to. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this chat with my big sis?”

  She took a deep breath. It was time to tell. She opened her mouth, but a lump lifted from her stomach, into her throat, stopping the words she planned to say. “Can’t a girl just call her little brother?”

  “First of all, little is hardly the adjective you can use to describe me,” her six-foot-five, ex-college-linebacker brother chuckled. “And secondly, when was the last time Sheridan Hart called me to say hello?”

  “I’m hurt.”

  “Ah, I’m just kidding,” he said, although they both knew he wasn’t. He was right. She didn’t speak to her twenty-months-younger brother as often as she wanted. Life just got in the way. After all, she didn’t have a lot of free time. She had children. And a husband.

  Sheridan took another breath, sucked in some spunk, and said, “I do have something to tell you.” She paused. “Quentin’s gone.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Away from me.” Then the story poured from her. It was a practiced speech now. As Sheridan gave the details of the events of the past week, her brother stayed silent except for the occasional “I don’t believe this” exclamations that punctuated her soliloquy. But as was their way, Sheridan included the parts she’d left out with her parents—the conversation with the children, the AIDS test, how Christopher knew the truth.

  “And so where is he now?” he almost screamed when she finished.

  Sheridan flinched at his question, and everything that she found painful to imagine rushed to her mind. She inhaled. “He’s”—she paused and breathed—“with Jett.” This was the part where she was sure the tears would come. And surprise filled her when she didn’t cry. For days she’d been fighting to take her heart to a place where tears didn’t live anymore. Maybe she was winning the battle.

  “Ain’t this some s—” He paused. “Well, praise the Lord anyway.”

  Sheridan couldn’t help it; she laughed. Her brother always caught himself before he actually cursed. It amazed her: in all the years they’d shared on this earth, she’d never heard him say a bad word. She wondered how he stopped himself though, since he always came so close.

  He continued, “I can’t believe Q is going out like this.” He whistled. “Do you need me to come down there?”

  “For what?”

  “Well, first, to help you get your divorce started.”
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br />   “You’re not a divorce attorney. What are you going to do, litigate him to death?”

  “I’m glad you got jokes, but someone needs to look after you.”

  She couldn’t count the number of times he’d said that. He couldn’t have been more than five the first time he’d declared himself her protector, and he’d always lived up to that promise.

  “I’m going to get the divorce papers started,” he said, taking control. “And I know some people who know some people. You won’t even have to wait the six-month period.”

  “Okay,” she said because that was the easiest way to work with her brother.

  “I still can’t get over this. You know, I want to come to L.A. There are a few things I’d like to say to Mr. Q.”

  “I’ve already said everything that Quentin needs to hear.”

  “Maybe you left some things out.”

  “I don’t think so. We were married for seventeen years. I know what to say to my…to Quentin.”

  His voice softened. “Sis, just be grateful he didn’t waste any more of your life.”

  Sheridan shook her head. What was he talking about? Quentin hadn’t wasted her life. Every week of those years, every minute of those days, she’d live again. She’d even breathe every second of this last week if it would bring back her life the way it used to be.

  “Anyway, this is for the best.”

  Sheridan turned her attention back to her brother and frowned.

  “You’re still young,” her brother continued. “You’ll find someone deserving of you.”

  It was time to hang up. Her brother spoke as if he were swinging from a crazy tree. Talking about her finding someone else. Like she’d ever trust a man—besides her father, brother, and son—again.

  Sheridan said, “I’ve got to go.”

  “When are you getting the AIDS test results?”

  She could tell he was disgusted. “I’ll speak to my doctor on Monday and call you.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m a survivor. Destiny’s Child has nothing on me.”

  “I just want to see that m—well, praise the Lord anyway.”

  “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”