My Dearest Cal by Sherryl Woods Page B

could make what she did right. Maybe things didn’t turn out exactly the way she’d expected, but she had no call to treat him the way she did.”
    “I’m not trying to make excuses for her. I just think maybe the letter will help you to understand. She may have felt very much alone.”
    The certainty in her tone made him ask, “Did you read it?”
    She nodded, her expression at once full of guilt and apology. “I wasn’t supposed to, except to look for an address, but then I saw that your grandmother was dying and I had to read it all. I could see how important it was to her to try to find you. Read it, Cal. Maybe it’ll make up a little for what you lost.”
    He tried once more to convince her—and himself—that he was beyond the reach of the past. “I didn’t lose so much, just a harridan of a mother and a spineless father. I gained a lot more: success, satisfaction, power.”
    She regarded him doubtfully, obviously unimpressed by his accomplishments. “I suppose that is a lot by some standards, but in my book it doesn’t make up for family. Seems to me all the money in the world can’t compensate for loneliness.”
    “Don’t kid yourself, Marilou. I am rarely lonely.”
    “Maybe,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it. Still the truth of the matter was, he’d never known what loneliness meant until he’d forced himself to spend the past few days staying clear of her. Even now he was drawn to her in a way that warned him to run, to flee the hurt that always, always came with caring.
    And yet he stayed, weighing the letter in his hand, trying not to see the expectancy in her eyes as shewaited. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, he opened the envelope and withdrew the pages with their crimped scrawl.
    My dearest Cal…
    I know you’ll be surprised to hear from me after all these years. For all I know you didn’t even know I existed. I can’t really blame your mother for that. It was my fault for being so pigheaded. If you inherited anything from our side of the family, I hope it wasn’t that. Stubbornness can be a blessing and a curse. In my case, it cost me everything I held dear, and I believe if your mother is at all honest with herself, she’d have to say the same.
    You see, I thought your mother was making a dreadful mistake when she married your father. I had nothing against him, though she was too young and rebellious to realize that. I just knew that I’d spoiled her. She’d been raised to expect so much, things I suspected your father would never be able to provide. Asking a man to give what’s beyond him is a terrible thing. No marriage can survive it. I ought to know. I did the same thing to your grandfather and he left me. I could see all the same problems coming with Sissy and your father and it broke my heart.
    Still, I should never have caused a rift so deep it could last a lifetime. And once done, I should have had the will to fix it, but I kept waiting for her to come back. I guess she couldn’t bear toadmit I was right, and I know I was. The people I hired to keep an eye on her whereabouts told me that much. Later, when you were born, I wanted so much to mend fences, but when I wrote, she ignored my letters. I guess after waiting so long, I can’t really blame her.
    Never forget that I love you, boy. I’m so sorry that we’ve never had a chance to get to know each other. I’m dying now, so I don’t know if we’ll ever meet. Just know that not a day goes by when I don’t think of you with all my love. Be happy, Cal, and forgive an old woman for her mistakes.
    Your grandmother.
    Cal’s eyes were blurred with tears as he came to the end. He’d never thought of himself as sentimental, but he found that his heart was filled with anguish over all the pain his grandmother must have suffered for that one strong-willed mistake. He knew all about digging in his heels and then learning to live with the consequences. She’d been right, but as she said, at what