Unfinished Business

inadequate.”
    “I never taught you how to cook, or how to run a household. Part of that was because you were so involved with your music, and there wasn’t really time. But another reason, maybe the true one, is that I didn’t want to. I wanted to have that all to myself. The house, the running of it, was all I really had to fulfill me.” She gave a little sigh as she touched Vanessa’s rigid arm. “But we’re not really talking about casseroles and laundry, are we?”
    “No. I feel pressured, by what Brady wants. Maybe by who he wants. Marriage, it sounds so lovely. But—”

    “But you grew up in a household where it wasn’t.” With a nod, Loretta took Vanessa’s hand. “It’s funny how blind we can be. All the time you were growing up, I never thought what was going on between your father and me affected you. And of course it did.”
    “It was your life.”
    “It was our lives,” Loretta told her. “Van, while we were away, Ham and I talked about all of this. He wanted me to explain everything to you. I didn’t agree with him until right now.”
    “Everyone’s downstairs.”
    “There have been enough excuses.” She couldn’t sit, so she walked over to the window. The marigolds were blooming, a brilliant orange and yellow against the smug-faced pansies.
    “I was very young when I married your father. Eighteen.” She gave a little shake of her head. “Lord, it seems like a lifetime ago. And certainly like I was another person. How he swept me off my feet! He was almost thirty then, and had just come back after being in Paris, London, New York, all those exciting places.”
    “His career had floundered,” Vanessa said quietly. “He’d never talk about it, but I’ve read—and, of course, there were others who loved to talk about his failures.”
    “He was a brilliant musician. No one could take that away from him.” Loretta turned. There was a sadness in her eyes now, lingering. “But he took it away from himself. When his career didn’t reach the potential he expected, he turned his back on it. When he came back home, he was troubled, moody, impatient.”
    She took a moment to gather her courage, hoping she was doing the right thing. “I was a very simple girl, Van. I had led a very simple life. Perhaps that was what appealed to him at first. His sophistication—his, well, worldliness—appealed to me. Dazzled me. We made a mistake—as much mine as his. I was overwhelmed by him, flattered, infatuated. And I got pregnant.”
    Shock robbed Vanessa of speech as she stared at her mother. With an effort, she rose. “Me? You married because of me?”
    “We married because we looked at each other and saw only what we wanted to see. You were the result of that. I want you to know that when you were conceived, you were conceived in what we both desperately believed was love. Maybe, because we did believe it, it was love. It was certainly affection and caring and need.”
    “You were pregnant,” Vanessa said quietly. “You didn’t have a choice.”
    “There is always a choice.” Loretta stepped forward, drawing Vanessa’s gaze to hers. “You were not a mistake or an inconvenience or an excuse. You were the best parts of us, and we both knew it. There were no scenes or recriminations. I was thrilled to be carrying his child, and he was just as happy. The first year we were married, it was good. In many ways, it was even beautiful.”
    “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to feel.”
    “You were the best thing that ever happened to me, or to your father. The tragedy was that we were the worst thing that ever happened to each other. You weren’t responsible for that. We were. Whatever happened afterward, having you made all the difference.”
    “What did happen?”
    “My parents died, and we moved into this house. The house I had grown up in, the house that belonged to me. I didn’t understand then how bitterly he resented that. I’m not sure he did, either. You were three then. Your father was restless. He resented being here, and couldn’t bring himself to face the possibility of failure if he tried to pick up his career again. He began to teach you, and almost overnight it seemed that all of the passion, all of the energy he had had, went into making you into the musician, the performer, the star he felt he would never be again.”
    Blindly she turned to the window again. “I never stopped him. I never tried. You seemed so happy at the piano. The more