Saving All My Lovin' Read Free Page A

it came to Terrance Bishop control never entered the equation. She covered her face with her hands and for the second time in one day she wept.
    Activity at the open door drew up her head from her hands. Barbara, Stephanie and Ellie stood on the threshold. They all tried to get through the door at once. If she didn’t feel so god-awful she’d laugh at the spectacle.
    She quickly wiped her eyes, but not quickly enough.
    “What is going on?” Barbara asked.
    “Raquel went tearing out of here like her butt was on fire,” Stephanie added.
    “Are you crying?” Ellie asked in amazement.
    The trio hovered over her like moths to a flame. She looked from one concerned face to another, which only caused another fresh set of tears to flow.
    Barbara knelt down beside her and drew her close. “Ssssh,” she soothed. “Whatever it is, it will be all right.”
    “We’re here for you,” Stephanie offered.
    “Absolutely,” Ellie added.
    Stephanie sat on the edge of the desk. Ellie drew up a chair and took Ann Marie’s hand, patting it gently.
    “He—he spoke to her.”
    The trio looked at each other and then realization hit. All eyes widened simultaneously.
    “Oh,” they chorused.
    “I take it you hadn’t spoken to Raquel,” Barbara said.
    Ann Marie shook her head.
    “How did he get your home number?” Stephanie asked.
    Ann Marie swallowed. “Him a police officer. If he got me job number and address, the home number couldn’t be hard to get.”
    “But after more than twenty years what made him resurface now?” Barbara asked.
    The question sat in the room like rotten food. No one wanted to touch it.

Chapter 3
    S omehow, Ann Marie managed to get through the rest of the day without any more outward displays of emotion and even put in a few hours of work at the real estate office. Work was the best cure. If she kept busy she wouldn’t have to think and hopefully by the time she got home Raquel would be asleep.
    She wasn’t so lucky. Raquel was sitting in the living room waiting for her when she finally walked through the door.
    “I wanted to wait until you got home to tell you that I was leaving.” Raquel stood and that’s whenAnn Marie noticed the suitcases neatly lined up near the couch.
    Ann Marie lifted her chin. “Time you got back on your own two feet.”
    Raquel snorted her disgust. “Figured that’s what you’d say.” She picked up her two suitcases and approached her mother. “You know, most little girls want to grow up to be just like their mothers.
    I pray that I don’t ever turn into the woman that you are.” She brushed by Ann Marie and walked out the door that Ann Marie had never closed.
    Ann Marie drew in a sharp, pain-filled breath when she heard the door slam shut.
    On a night like tonight, with the day she’d had, she would have sought comfort in the arms of her man. But she didn’t have one.
    A lie, or at least the omission of the truth, lost Phil to her. A secret, or maybe it was a lie now, lost her daughter to her as well.
    She’d been so good at keeping secrets. Only sharing parts of herself that she wanted the world to see—including her closest friends. Secrets had sustained her, helped her to believe that her reality wasn’t true. Over the years she’d convinced herself that her life was perfect, just the way she wanted it. But there was a hole in her soul that she’d beenunable to fill with men, work, fancy clothes, a good job. Nothing could stuff that gaping abyss.
    She wanted to love and be loved but she didn’t know how. At times she believed that she was saving all her love for the right time, the right person. When the ice between her and Raquel had finally been broken, she momentarily thought that perhaps the love she’d been seeking had been found.
    But love was the great betrayer. She’d loved her mother. She’d loved her husband. She’d begun to allow herself to love her daughter. They all betrayed her. They took her fragile emotions and crushed them,