LITMIR.BIZ

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but her voice sounded shaky.

      “You have baby?”

      Rachel nodded. Funny, the man at the dry cleaners had figured it out, but not her own husband. There were times Bruce could be so dense that she wanted to hit him over the head with her shoe. She longed to tell her husband; despite the fact that this pregnancy wasn’t planned, Rachel was excited about the baby.

      Duck called something in Korean to his wife. The petite woman came out from the back of the shop and joined her husband at the front counter. They had a brief conversation that involved several sympathetic glances at Rachel.

      “You want tea?” his wife, Su Jin, asked softly. “I make you cup of green tea.”

      “No, I’m okay, really.”

      “You sure?” her husband asked.

      “I’m sure, Duck,” Rachel told him. “Thank you. I just got light-headed for a moment.”

      “I change my name,” Duck said with a polite bow of his head. “I not Duck anymore. I pick American name.” His face beamed with pride.

      “I choose American name, too,” Su Jin announced.

      “My American name,” Duck said, squaring his shoulders, “is José.”

      “José,” Rachel repeated, and struggled not to laugh.

      “My American name,” his wife said next, “is Serenity.”

      “I’ll remember both,” Rachel promised them. She collected her dry cleaning and went out to her car. Going to the cleaners had been a delaying tactic. Jolene would be home and there’d be the usual tension between them once Rachel entered the house. If anything, that tension had been escalating.

      Jolene and Rachel used to be close; Rachel had been friend as well as surrogate mother to the girl. That changed when Rachel married her father. Then they’d gone from friends to adversaries. Jolene appeared to see Rachel as competition for her father’s affection. The groundwork of friendship Rachel had laid had given way like quicksand as soon as Bruce slid the wedding ring on her finger.

      Rachel was still shocked that her relationship with Jolene had disintegrated so fast. She’d done her utmost to be patient and understanding. At first, she’d tried to keep Bruce out of it; she didn’t want her husband caught in an impossible situation, forced to side with either his wife or his daughter. That hadn’t worked. Jolene’s antagonism had grown to the point of near-belligerence, and Rachel no longer knew what to do.

      The pregnancy complicated everything. She’d warned Bruce that they needed to be more careful about protection when making love. She’d gone on the pill right away, but had a rare adverse reaction to it. So Bruce had said he’d take responsibility for birth control and he had—most of the time.

      She blamed Bruce; she blamed herself. When she’d realized that their occasional slips had resulted in pregnancy, Rachel had been stunned. She’d needed to adjust to it before she told Bruce, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep the secret from Jolene for long. Based on recent experience, Rachel recognized that the situation, which was barely tolerable now, would only get worse.

      She should be heading home and getting dinner started, but the thought of facing Jolene was more than she could bear, especially when she felt queasy, as she seemed to every afternoon. She suspected it was a combination of nausea caused by the pregnancy, worrying about Jolene’s reaction and the constant stress at home.

      She couldn’t do it. Instead of driving home, she went to Teri’s place on Seaside Avenue. Rachel hadn’t been to see her friend in nearly a week. She turned into the long driveway and parked in front of the house with a feeling of reprieve—however temporary that reprieve might be.

      Rather than ring the doorbell for fear of waking the triplets, she tapped on the door.

      To her surprise Bobby answered, a baby tucked in the crook of his arm. “Teri will be glad to see you,” he said, bouncing the baby as he spoke. This was a sight Rachel had never expected to see. Bobby, who was a world chess champion, holding an infant in his arms. It warmed her heart and helped her believe that the power of love could change things for the better.

      “Is this a bad time?” she asked, afraid she might’ve walked into the middle of a feeding. Those were always hectic.

      “Are you kidding?” Teri asked, sweeping into the foyer. “I’m dying for company. Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Let me bring Jimmy here over to Nikki. I’ll be back in a minute.” Teri took the baby from her husband’s arms and briefly disappeared. When she returned, without little Jimmy, she flopped down on the sofa next to Rachel. Bobby, who’d been awkwardly trying to entertain Rachel with an account of some chess game or other, hurried off, his relief all too evident.

      “You look exhausted,” Rachel told Teri.

      “I am,” Teri admitted. “We haven’t got the boys into a routine yet. Nikki’s helping me with it.” She sighed gustily. “I have no idea what I’d do without such a wonderful nanny.”

      “You were lucky to find her.”

      “I know.” Teri smiled, clasping her hands prayerfully. “I’m so grateful. Now … what about some tea?”

      “I’d love it,” Rachel said. Ever since she’d declined the cup of tea Su Jin—or Serenity—had offered her, she’d been craving one.

      “Me, too. I haven’t had a chance to sit down all afternoon.” Despite looking worn out, Teri leaped back up and hurried into the kitchen, Rachel trailing behind her. “I hope you’re here to tell me Bruce knows you’re pregnant,” Teri said.

      Rachel shook her head. “Not yet.”

      “Rach, you have to tell your husband.”

      Rachel shrugged. “I agree. I just want to preserve what peace there is for as long as I can.”

      “You can’t allow Jolene to run your life—which is exactly what’s happening now.”

      “Then tell me how to change that and I’ll be happy to do it.”

      Teri sat down at the kitchen table, and Rachel took the chair across from her. “Have you tried taking Jolene out, just the two of you?” Teri asked.

      Rachel nodded. “But she isn’t interested in going anywhere if I’m along.”

      “I thought she liked to shop?”

      “She does, but not if I’m with her.” Part of the problem was that Jolene preferred to be with kids her own age rather than an adult. Like almost every young teenager, she was far more influenced by her friends and their opinions than by her parents. Granted, she idolized her dad, but Rachel had become the evil stepmother.

      “That’s too bad.”

      “I’ve also tried to get her interested in taking a class with me.”

      Teri’s eyes shone with approval. “Great idea!”

      “I signed us up for cake decorating. You know how much Jolene loves to bake. Bruce thought it was a good idea, too, but it backfired. The night of the first class she pretended to be sick and stayed home. Bruce said the minute I was out the door Jolene experienced a miraculous recovery.” She sighed. “So it’s not like he hasn’t seen some of her bad behavior, but he doesn’t see the whole picture. Anyway, I finished the classes without Jolene attending a single one.”

      “Why? Did she get ‘sick’ every week?”

      “No, she flat-out refused to go. She said she missed too much the first week and would always be behind. Besides that, she said she wasn’t interested in decorating cakes. That was for retards like me—her word, by the way.”

      Jolene was free with her insults but smart enough not to say them in front of her father. And so far, Rachel hadn’t been able to bring herself to tattle.

      “How

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