Twenty Wishes (Blossom Street #5)(51)

Anne Marie didn’t have the answers to any of those questions and they would forever haunt her.

“One never knows,” she echoed bleakly.

“I gave birth to two daughters,” Dolores told her.

“I know.”

“I tried to be a good mother after their father left me.”

“I know,” Anne Marie said again.

Once more there were tears in the older woman’s eyes. “I have no idea where I failed and there’s no going back. Candace and Clarisse,” she whispered. “Such beautiful girls. And now…”

“I understand.” Anne Marie spoke soothingly, seeing how distressed Dolores was.

Dolores seemed to reach some decision. She turned to Anne Marie and took her arm again. Her eyes were fierce. “You have to promise that if anything happens to me you won’t let Ellen go back to her mother.”

“But it’s not up to—”

“She’s on meth,” Dolores broke in. “The last time I saw her was in court. Her hair was falling out and her teeth were rotting in her head and she’s barely thirty years old. My daughter is killing herself.”

“You have sole custody of Ellen?”

“Yes. Promise me you won’t let Ellen go back to her.”

“I’m sure the Child Protective Services wouldn’t—”

“Promise me,” Dolores insisted, her hand tightening on Anne Marie’s forearm.

“But I—”

“I won’t rest until I know Ellen will be with someone who loves her. Promise me.”

Anne Marie could see that it would do no good to argue. “I promise.” She suspected the state would never allow it, but she had to calm the woman down and there was no other way to do it.

Dolores relaxed her hold on Anne Marie’s arm. “Thank you,” she breathed.

“You’re the one who’s going to raise Ellen,” Anne Marie said.

“You’re going to get well and Ellen will go home….”

“Clarisse.” Dolores’s voice cracked.

Anne Marie already knew the second daughter was in prison.

“She’s as bad as her sister.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Dolores looked away. “Maybe I should’ve had tighter control of them when they were teenagers.”

“I…”

“I did my best but it wasn’t enough. They got in with a bad crowd and before I knew it, they dropped out of school and started doing drugs….”

“I’m so sorry.” Anne Marie wished she could think of something else to say. Something more useful.

“The state might try to give Ellen to Clarisse once she’s out of prison. Ellen can’t go with her, either. Understand?”

“I won’t let that happen.” Anne Marie had no idea how she was supposed to prevent it, should the state make that decision. She decided not to worry about any of this, since Dolores would probably live for years and would be taking care of Ellen herself.

As though suddenly exhausted, Dolores closed her eyes and fell back against the pillow.

Just then Ellen returned, escorted by one of the nurses, who left right afterward. Ellen held the plastic pitcher filled with ice and carefully set it on the stand next to the flowers. “Is Grandma sleeping?” she asked in a loud whisper.

When Dolores didn’t open her eyes, Anne Marie figured she’d either drifted off or was close to it. Their conversation had drained her of strength; she was, after all, recovering from surgery. And—perhaps even more of a factor—she’d been recalling the bitterest regrets of her life.

“I got ice,” Ellen said.

“She’ll thank you later,” Anne Marie told the girl. “But at least you had a chance to show her your test. Didn’t you see how proud she was of you?”

Ellen nodded reluctantly.

“We should let her sleep.”

“Okay.” Still Ellen didn’t seem ready to leave. “Would it be all right if I sat with her for a few minutes?”

There was only one chair by the bed, and Anne Marie was sitting there. Soon Ellen had climbed onto her lap. The even rise and fall of Dolores’s chest, the regular cadence of her breathing, lulled Anne Marie into closing her eyes, too.

She didn’t know how long she’d been dozing there when her head slumped forward and she realized Ellen had cuddled up in her arms with one cheek pressed against her shoulder. The child’s weight was warm and oddly comfortable, and she would’ve been content to stay that way for a while.

“Did Grandma Dolores tell you who my daddy is?” Ellen asked.

Anne Marie wondered what had prompted that question. “No…”

“Oh.” She sighed with disappointment.

“Do you remember him, Ellen?”

“No.” Ellen sounded so sad that Anne Marie wrapped her arm more securely around the girl’s thin shoulders. “He’s on my wish list.”

“Your daddy?”

“Yes, I want to see him.”

Dolores had said that Candace, Ellen’s mother, probably didn’t even know who the father was. Anne Marie didn’t want to encourage Ellen to pursue something that would bring her more unhappiness. But as Dolores had also said, you never knew. The man just might make an appearance in the child’s life when she needed him most.