Wishing for Wonderful (Serendipity #3)(16)

Lindsay suddenly remembered Donna Bobbs calling months ago and leaving a message on the answering machine. She’d mistakenly erased the message and never returned the call. Thoughts of Donna brought to mind thoughts of Josie Leigh; the three of them had been like the Three Musketeers since second grade. Josie’s was the shoulder Lindsay cried on after her mother’s death. Josie was the one who tore into Alice McDougal when she made fun of Lindsay’s glasses. Josie was the best friend anyone could wish for, and yet last year Lindsay hadn’t thought of sending a birthday card until almost a month after the date. Reasoning that by then it was too late for sending one, she hadn’t bothered.

Friends are forever, she told herself. Donna and Josie aren’t the type to be angry with me for forgetting a birthday or not returning a few phone calls. Why, I’ll bet they’ll be really glad to hear I’m back.





It may have seemed like months to Lindsay, but it was almost two years ago that her friends stopped calling. They stopped calling because they almost always got her answering machine. After numerous tries, they gave up and moved on with their lives. Lindsay can’t see that now, but she will.

She doesn’t know Donna Bobbs married Derek Langer more than a year ago and moved to Ohio. As for Josie Leigh, she’s now a successful attorney with a drop-dead gorgeous boyfriend and no time for Lindsay. And that handsome lad who lived down the block, the one who was her secret crush? Well, he’s now married and lives in HoHoKuus with a wife and three toddlers. Nothing stays the same. Not for Lindsay, not for John, not for anybody.





After Lindsay counted up all the friends she was going to call and all the things she was planning to catch up on, she turned to thinking of her father.

Poor Dad. I have all these friends and he has nothing. I’ve not only been a bad friend, I’ve been a terrible daughter. I should have come home more often and spent more time with Dad. He’s not getting any younger.

As she pulled onto the New Jersey Turnpike Lindsay pictured her father rambling through the house all by himself, and she began to sense how lonely he must have been. When she tried to recall the last time she’d been home, it shocked her to realize it had been two years. Two years since she’d visited Medford or stepped foot in the house she’d grown up in. She recalled the look of her father on that last visit. He’d pretended to be cheerful, even told a few jokes and funny stories, but his laugh wasn’t the same laugh she’d once known. A blanket of sadness had settled over him, a sadness that made his blue eyes appear grey and his mouth droop at the corners. He hadn’t asked her to move back home, but Lindsay knew it had to be what was in his heart. Why did I not see that, she wondered. Why did I not see how much Dad needed me?

She drove for forty-five minutes; while her eyes focused on the road ahead, her mind leafed through a photo album of memories. When Lindsay left the turnpike and turned onto Route 70, she felt the warmth of at long last being home. She grabbed her cell phone and pushed speed dial 2. Phillip had been number one, but weeks ago he’d been deleted. Now there were only five numbers programmed into her phone. The Big Book Barn and the pizza delivery place would be deleted before the day was over. Then there would be just three: Amanda, Sara, and her father, who was number two.

He answered before the telephone could ring a second time, “Hi, honey. Are you on your way?”

“I’m almost there,” she answered. “Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”

“Can’t wait to see you,” he said. “Drive safely.”

He was waiting alongside the driveway when she pulled in.





Her father appeared more robust and cheerful than Lindsay remembered. She kissed him on the cheek, and he pulled her into a bear hug.

“It’s good to have you home,” he said, and his voice wrapped itself around her with a familiarity she’d almost forgotten.

John tugged Lindsay’s suitcase from the trunk of the car and carried it into the house. She followed behind saying, “You don’t have to do that, Dad. I can handle it myself.”

“I know you can,” he answered and continued up the stairs. He lifted the oversized suitcase onto the bed and told Lindsay to join him in the kitchen when she was ready.

Lindsay unzipped the bag, removed her laptop, the few toiletries she’d tucked around the edges and three of her very best dresses. She left the remainder. She was going to be here for a long time; the clothes could wait until later when there’d be plenty of time for unpacking. For several minutes she stood looking at the room: the teddy bear sitting in the chair, the lace runner atop the dresser, the curtains at the window, pink curtains her mother had sewn.

These things, Lindsay realized, were the reason she hadn’t come home. In New York she could fool herself into believing her mother was elsewhere. Not gone forever, just simply elsewhere. Here Bethany’s absence was absolute. There was no elsewhere. Mom was gone, the kind of gone that slices into a person’s heart like a razor blade.

Standing there, where everything was just as it had always been, Lindsay felt the hole in her life growing bigger and bigger. The memories that had distanced themselves while she lived in New York suddenly came alive, and with them they brought a sense of shame. She had selfishly stayed away and left her father to face this alone. It was an ugly truth that now stood naked before her. Never again, she vowed. Never again would she leave him alone.