Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [58]
“Richard,” she said, a little hoarsely. “What are you doing here?”
January 13, 2006
Dearest,
I know you probably hate me. After all, this is all my fault. You didn’t want this. You didn’t ask for it. It’s not your fault we’re apart. I should be sitting with you right now, talking to you instead of trying to write my feelings down. It’s not your fault. It never was.
There’s so much I should say, I know, but the truth is I’m not very good at writing my feelings down. I think about you. Life is so hard without you. I miss so much about you. Sometimes I make lists in my head of things I wish I could tell you, but my headgets so full that when it comes time to write them down I’ve forgotten. But here are a few things I wanted to say to you today:
Don’t stand around in wet socks. I know you get busy with other important things and it’s too much bother to stop and find dry socks, but I’m not there to remind you, so do it anyway.
When someone is nice to you, say thank you. Men forget to do that, which is why women are always going along behind them writing thank-you notes. Write your own thank-you notes. Be a man.
Learn to cook, for heaven’s sake. You can’t live on fast food, and you can’t depend on someone else to take care of you forever. Besides, it’s sexy.
So is keeping a clean kitchen.
Laugh, darling. Laugh a lot.
And please don’t let your feelings for me keep you closed awayfrom love. Because the world is filled with people just aching to show you how much they love you, if only you will let them.
I am one of them.
10
The Trouble with Men
“Daddy!” Lori squealed, and flung open her arms. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
Richard thrust the roses unceremoniously into Cici’s arms and rushed to his daughter’s side, wrapping her in his embrace. “Now then!” he declared. “What’s all this I hear about you dropping out of the Olympics? The press has been all over me, but I assured them a little thing like a broken leg wouldn’t keep my girl down.”
Lori giggled, and he caught her face between both his hands and kissed her forehead, then both cheeks. “How’re you feeling, sweet thing? Tell me all about it.”
Lori proceeded to do so, with eyes shining and voice animated, and Lindsay watched with a slow cynical shake of her head. “What is it about a daddy that can turn a woman into a ten-year-old girl in a heartbeat?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cici said. “Maybe the fact that he only shows up when there’s a crisis?”
Bridget, who was the only one who bothered to lower her voice, offered, “It’s not like we haven’t been by her side for twenty-four hours straight or anything.”
“Of course,” Cici observed, “we didn’t bring her six dozen roses. What am I going to do with all these? There aren’t enough bedpans in this hospital to hold them.”
She dumped the roses onto Lori’s bed table, and interrupted her discourse to repeat, as pleasantly as possible, “What are you doing here, Richard?”
“And where else should I be when my little girl needs me?” He pinched Lori’s cheek and rose to address Cici, barely missing the gagging gesture Lindsay made to Bridget behind her hand.
“Thanks, by the way,” he added in a lower tone, “for leaving a message telling me my only child was in surgery, but not leaving a callback number.”
“Oh.” Cici looked blank for a moment. “Sorry.”
Richard was the kind of man who not only aged well, but, thanks to the best cosmetic assistance money could buy, hardly aged at all. His teeth were impossibly white, his tan flawlessly golden, and his luxuriously thick, expensively styled hair was a gorgeous shade of silver. He jogged to stay fit, played racquetball to be seen being fit, and had one of those faces on which a few craggy lines only added character. Having presumably come straight from the airport, he was nonetheless impeccably groomed in razor-creased khakis, navy blazer, crisp white shirt. He turned to Bridget and Lindsay and smiled politely.
“Ladies,” he said. “You’re