A Daughter's Place, page 1
A Daughter’s Place
Family Matters Series
CJ Carmichael
Contents
Dear Reader
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Note from Author
Dear Reader,
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Welcome to Family Matters, a romance series that recognizes the value of family lays not in wealth or possessions but in the intangibles of warmth, love and acceptance. I’ve been on my own since I was nineteen, but I know that if at any time I had been in trouble, my parents would have been there for me, the door to their home open as long as I needed.
* * *
In A Daughter’s Place I wanted to explore a different scenario. One where a blissful childhood is shattered by a series of tragic events. One where a father turns his back on his daughter and forces her to leave home when she is seventeen. I stacked the deck against Libby Bateson, then gave her two good reasons to persevere: a vulnerable yet stalwart daughter and the love of a gorgeous man who shares Libby’s passion for the land.
* * *
If you enjoy Libby’s story, you may also enjoy the linked stories Her Best Friend’s Baby and The Fourth Child. And please share the love with a reader review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Goodreads—where ever you, as a reader like to hang out!
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Happy Reading!
CJ Carmichael (Carla)
Copyright ©1999 by Carla Daum
First Edition published 1999 by Harlequin Books
Second Edition published 2014
ISBN 978-0-9878613-0-6 – A DAUGHTER’S PLACE
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.
Except for use in any review, no part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing by Carla Daum.
Cover and formatting by Lee Hyat Designs
Editing by Linda Style
There is no town called Chatsworth in Saskatchewan, but there is a farming community by that name.
It is where my parents, John and Kay, raised me, my two brothers and two sisters.
This book is for all of them, with love.
Prologue
Seventeen-year-old Libby Bateson didn’t look out the window as the Greyhound pulled away from the bus depot in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She was leaving the only home she'd ever known and she would never be back, but she could not risk a parting glance.
Because if she saw even one familiar sight—the old restaurant her mother used to take her to for chocolate shakes after her annual dentist’s appointment, or the big-chain grocery store where they “stocked up” every month—she’d start crying.
And she wasn’t going to cry. She’d done enough of it the past year and a half and now she was through.
She was on her way to Toronto, on her own. She’d never traveled so far, never even taken a Greyhound, with its plush, high-backed seats that reclined at the' touch of a button, so unlike the hard benches on the school bus.
School was another place she couldn’t think about, because if she did she’d deeply regret not completing the single year that stood between her and graduation.
The one image she tried to banish from her mind but couldn’t was the look on her father’s face at the bus depot that morning. His eyes had been cold and unreachable, his mouth unsmiling. He’d shoved a wad of money at her, not meeting her gaze or touching her hand.
Now she opened her purse and fingered the slick, crisp bills. She’d never seen so much cash. How long it would last in Toronto she had no idea, but she hoped at least a few years.
She didn’t want to consider the future, though, not right now. It was off-limits, just like the past. Survival depended on focusing on the present and forgetting she’d ever had a family. A mother with a ready laugh, an elder brother who loved to tease. A father who adored her...
Once.
“Are you okay, miss?” The elderly lady across the aisle gave her a sympathetic smile. “Is this your first trip away from home?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Libby sat straighter, forced her mind to go blank, her eyes to stare at a page in the book she was holding, even though she couldn’t concentrate on the words.
The thing was, she couldn’t think of anything. Not her mother and brother, who were dead, or her father, who never wanted to see her again.
There was only one person, a neighbor, who might have cared about her plight. Gibson Browning had been her brother Chris’s best friend. She knew he worried about her and her father. He often dropped by the old farmhouse on one pretense or another. He said he missed Chris and her mother. Said she must be lonely, too. He was so kind that many times she’d been tempted to confide in him.
But shame had held her back. She didn’t want anyone to know what had happened on the back country roads in Darren O’Malley’s rusted pickup. Especially not Gibson—the hero of all her girlhood fantasies.
There was no way around it. She was alone, and now everything was up to her. To find a new place to live, a new job.
To raise the baby—her baby—who would be born in six months’ time.
One
Eight years later
Libby Bateson sat in the chair opposite her daughter’s grade two teacher and realized that she herself, not Nicole, deserved the failing grade. What kind of mother couldn’t help her kid when they were struggling and unhappy, suffering from low self-esteem?
“Of course Nicole is capable of doing the work. As you can see, her reading and math levels are only slightly below average.” Claire Ridgeway put away the assignments they’d just reviewed. Her manner was kind and sympathetic, yet somehow Libby still felt like a recalcitrant student who had been called in for making trouble.
“Her social skills are what I’m worried about,” the teacher continued. “In class she’s painfully shy. At recess I often see her standing by herself against the school wall, as if she can’t wait for the bell to ring.”
Libby had to look away as tears sprang to her eyes. She focused on the colorful pictures taped above the children’s coat hooks. Nicole’s drawing of her family stood out. Two tiny, black-and-white stick people in the center of a large white sheet of paper. No father, no brothers or sisters, no pets...
“What do you think I should do?” Libby strove for dignity, when all she felt like was crying.
Again Claire’s smile was sympathetic. “Perhaps you could invite some of Nicole’s classmates over to play after school. It might help her develop friends.”
Libby said nothing. With her work schedule, that was impossible. Her shift at the Fashion Warehouse on Spadina Avenue was over at three. That gave her just enough time to pick up Nicole from school and take her to the Westwinds Seniors’ Home by four. The manager there was very accommodating about Nicole hanging out in the lounge while Libby cleaned until seven every week night. By the time they got home on the Bathurst streetcar, there wasn’t time for much besides dinner and a bath, maybe a story or two.
“Anything else?”
“Well, you might want to consider an after-school activity. Many children take gym classes or music. If you could find something Nicole enjoyed, it might help build her confidence in herself.”
Another excellent idea Libby had zero chance of implementing. Even if she could find the time, she had no room in her budget for extras. As it was, she barely had enough money for clothing and food.
Libby often felt tired. Now exhaustion made even speaking a struggle. “I’ll definitely consider your ideas. I appreciate your concern about my daughter.”
The teacher sighed. “It’s hard, isn’t it, when you work full-time.”
This wasn’t the first time they’d spoken about Nicole and over the course of those conversations Libby knew that besides having a full-time job, Claire also had several children—was it three? Or four?
Claire seemed to think this created a bond between them.
But the reality wasn’t even close. Claire had a husband, a lawyer who worked for one of the big downtown Toronto firms. She was always well dressed and groomed and with her pretty features and lovely blonde hair looked like someone who belonged on the show Desperate Housewives.
Only Claire wasn’t desperate.
That was Libby.
She wondered what the university-educated woman would think if she knew Libby didn’t even have her high school diploma.
“Yes, it is hard. But I have to do better for my daughter. I see that.” Her back stiff, Libby rose from the chair, but before she could exit the classroom, Claire laid a hand on her arm.
“To you, it probably seems like I have life all figured out. But I’ve been through some rough patches as well. My husband—well. Let’s just say there are times when he works so much I feel like a single parent, too.”
“Thanks, Claire. I’ll think of something to help her.”
She’d tried to dress nicely for the interview but the minute she’d walked into the classroom and seen Claire Ridgeway’s beautiful knit sweater and linen slacks, she’d known her own outfit screamed “discount merchandise” and “second-hand.”
Of course, her appearance wasn’t the important thing. Nicole’s education and happiness were what mattered. She reflected on her conversation with the teacher, and how they’d both just danced around the real issues: lack of money, lack of time and an absence of support from other family members.
Libby wondered if she was just making excuses for herself. Other single mothers somehow managed. Why couldn’t she? She’d promised that she would help Nicole. Yet this month, for the fourth time in a row, she was going to be short for rent.
The moment Libby stepped off the streetcar, she could see there was a problem. Because of her meeting, she’d arranged for Nicole to go to a neighbor’s house after school. But Nicole now stood at the landing to their basement apartment. Three bigger girls, on the threshold of adolescence, crowded around her. Libby had seen the trio before, usually hanging around the local corner store, in their high platform boots and flared jeans. Now she was concerned at the way they’d circled her daughter, like wolves moving in on a sickly calf.
Libby’s dress shoes were an encumbrance as she hurried to cross the street. The wind was cold, the sun hidden behind thick cloud cover. Spring had yielded to one more cold snap this week, so she’d bundled Nicole well this morning. What had happened to her hat?
A young mother pushing a stroller crossed in front of Libby. Libby waited, then rushed forward. The taunting of the older girls became audible.
“Hey, Nutty,” the tallest girl said, sneering. “You’ve got snot dripping down your nose. Don’t you know how disgusting that is?”
A second girl groaned. “Oh, yuck, look at that! She’s wiping it on her jacket. How gross!”
“Nicole?” Libby’s voice startled the three girls, and they scattered like trash in the wind. Libby moved in, scooping her daughter into a warm, tight hug.
“Sweetie?” She pulled back to check Nicole’s face. She was smiling now, however tremulously. “Why are you standing out here? Why aren’t you at Mrs. Spitzel’s?”
Nicole shook her head, unable to choke out a word of explanation.
“Never mind. Let’s talk later. You feel as cold as an icicle.”
As she shepherded her daughter inside, Libby noticed a note had been shoved under the door. From the landlord. Ignoring it for the moment, she ran her daughter a warm bath.
“Those girls live up the street, don’t they? Have they bothered you before?”
Nicole sunk low into the warm water, and finally stopped shivering.
“They were being cruel, weren’t they?” Thinking of her daughter’s tormentors made Libby wish she’d run after them and demanded to speak to their parents. But her first instinct had been to comfort Nicole, and they’d disappeared so quickly.
“I don’t care about them,” Nicole said.
“And what happened to your hat?”
Nicole wiggled her toes. “I lost it”
Libby perched on the edge of the tub and asked pointedly, “Did someone take your hat from you?” Her daughter took a small washcloth and covered her face with it. “No,” she said. “I just lost it.”
Right. Libby peeled the cloth away. “Look at me, sweetie.”
Nicole did.
“You know what I see on your face?”
“Dirt?”
It should’ve been funny, but Libby couldn’t laugh. “Not dirt. Resignation. You don’t complain because you know you can’t expect anything better.”
Of course Nicole didn’t understand what she meant. She still thought she’d done something wrong.
“Was Miss Ridgeway mad at me?”
Oh, Nicole! “No, Miss Ridgeway isn’t mad. Not at all.”
“Then why did she want to talk to you?”
“We’ll discuss it after dinner, okay?”
Libby had been sixteen when she’d realized that, despite what her mother had told her, every cloud did not have a silver lining. Two times events outside her control had shattered her world.
Now it was happening again.
The note under the door had been an eviction notice.
Which was bad enough, but when added to her daughter’s unhappiness, Libby felt at a total loss.
Of course she’d seen signs that Nicole wasn’t happy. Libby hadn’t needed to talk to Claire Ridgeway to know there were problems, particularly in terms of friends. Nicole was never invited to play with the other girls in her class. That wasn’t normal. The scene with those girls on the street simply confirmed that her daughter was in some sort of trouble.
Standing at the fridge, Libby stared at the meagre leftovers she had to choose from. Everything was distorted and blurry, thanks to the tears that she could no longer hold back.
Never would she forget the beaten, hopeless look on Nicole's face just before her daughter had spotted her on the street. Libby was certain it wasn’t the first time those girls had tormented Nicole, yet the little girl had never complained.
Of course, Nicole never did. And that was a big part of the problem. She probably knew her mother could do nothing to help....
Libby took out several plastic containers and tossed the contents into a frying pan. As she stirred, she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
She’d do anything for her daughter, but her choices were few. She couldn’t afford to quit either of her jobs, since both paid only minimum wage. A better education would lead to more opportunities, but night classes would just mean less time for Nicole and more exhaustion for her. If only there was somewhere to turn...
As the pasta-and-vegetable stir-fry began to steam, she called to her daughter. “Time to get out of the tub.”
“Okay, Mom.”
A second later, Libby heard the water swooshing down the drain. She turned down the heat under the pan and set plates on the table.
From the moment of Nicole’s birth, all she’d known was struggle. Libby had never managed to do much more than provide shelter and food. The money from her father had run out all too quickly, forcing her to put Nicole in government-subsidized day care when she was only three months. Soon after that, the ear infections had started.
Libby couldn’t count the number of times she’d had to phone in sick to work because Nicole was too feverish to go to day care and, later, school. Many times, those absences had cost her the job. Nor could she count the number of different grungy basement apartments she and Nicole had lived in over the years.
Nicole came out of the bathroom dressed in her pajamas, a towel wrapped around her head. “Should I pour the milk?”
“Yes, please.” Libby peeled a couple of carrots, then dished out the warmed-up pasta. The sad meal was a reminder of how she’d failed as a parent. The fact that Nicole didn’t complain but just picked up her folk and started eating made Libby want to start crying again.
How different life had been for her at Nicole’s age. Mealtimes had been full of conversation and laughter as well as good old-fashioned farm cooking, featuring garden-fresh vegetables in summer and her mother’s home preserves in winter.
She’d taken those occasions for granted, never guessing a day would come when Chris wouldn’t be around to tease her or her mother wouldn’t be available for a hug.
