The Unwanted Read Free

was born. So why would he fly all the way to California just for a funeral? As if she were still alive, her mother’s voice rang in Cassie’s ears:
“He’s no good! None of them is any good—your father, your stepfather—none of them! In the end they always run out on you. Never trust a man, Cassie! Never trust any of them!”
    Cassie decided her mother had been right, for her stepfather, who had always made such a big deal about how much he loved her, hadn’t shown up at the funeral either. In fact she hadn’t heard from him since the day he’d walked out of the apartment almost five years ago.
    It had been almost that long since she’d heard anything from her father.
    The minister’s voice droned on, uttering the words of prayers Cassie hadn’t heard since the last time she’d gone to church—about ten years ago, she thought, before her mother had gotten mad at the minister. Her attention drifted away from the gravesite, and she looked out over the broad expanse of the San Fernando Valley. Her home had been here for so long that she couldn’t remember anything else. It was a clear day, and on the far side of the Valley, the barren mountains were etched sharply against a deep blue sky. It was the kind of day when everyone always said, “This is why I came to California. Isn’t it great?” By tomorrow the smog would close in again and the mountains would disappear behind the brown stinging morass that would choke the Valley all summer long.
    As the machine began whirring softly, and the coffin was slowly lowered into the ground, Cassie Winslow wondered if they had smog on Cape Cod.
    Then the funeral was over and the lawyer was leading her down the hill to put her into the limousine the funeral home had provided. As they drove out of the huge cemetery that seemed to roll over mile after mile of carefully watered green hills, Cassie wondered if she would ever come back here again.
    She knew that a lot of people went to cemeteries to visit their dead parents, but somehow she didn’t think she would.
    For as long as she could remember, she’d always had a fantasy that perhaps her mother wasn’t really her mother at all. Sometimes, late at night in the dark security of her bedroom, she’d let herself dream of another woman—a woman she saw only in her mind—who never yelled at her, never corrected her, never soured her with bitter words. Never—
    She shut the thought out of her mind, unwilling even to remember the other things her mother had done to her.
    She concentrated once more on the woman in the fantasy. This woman—the woman she wished were her mother—always understood her, even when she didn’t understand herself.
    But that wasn’t the woman they had just buried, and in the deepest place within her heart, Cassie knew she would never return here. But would she ever find that other woman, the woman who existed only in her dreams, who would truly be her mother?
    Eric Cavanaugh watched the ball hurtle toward him, tensed his grip on the bat, squinted slightly into the afternoon sun, then swung.
    Crack!
    The wood connected with the horsehide of the baseball, and Eric swore softly as he felt the bat itself splitting in his hands. Then, as the ball arced off toward right field, he dropped the bat and began sprinting toward first base. If the bat hadn’t splintered, it would have been a home run for sure. As it was, he’d still get a base out of it, unless Jeff Maynard managed to snag it.
    There was little chance that Jeff would make the catch. That was the reason Eric had hit it to him in the first place. He rounded first easily and, fifteen feet before he got to second base, he plunged headfirst into a slide and felt his uniform tear away at the shoulder.
    “You’re gonna break your neck doing that someday,” he heard Kevin Smythe say, and knew from the second baseman’s tone that he’d made it. Safe! Grinning, he got to his feet, and began scraping mud from his torn jersey. But then, as his