What I did realize about myself and other girls was that unraveling our true inner feelings was like navigating a maze planted somewhere between our hearts and our minds. People wandered about confused for years, maybe most of their lives, before they discovered who they really were and what they really wanted. That would be fine for them, but perhaps for me, it might inevitably be too late. A lost true love, with kisses drifting on the wind and embraces left only to imagine, was as dark a fate as any from which I had fled.
Everyone was extra nice to me all day. I had lunch again with the other women who worked at the company. Naturally, they were interested in the details of the accident. Afterward, I called the hospital and spoke briefly with Jim. He kept apologizing, but I pointed out that he was the one in the hospital, not I. He said they would release him the next day, but only if he promised to take off the remainder of the week. I did feel sorry for him. If a Renegade was out there and had caused him to lose control of his car, I was indirectly responsible.
It also occurred to me that I could be the one considered a Renegade.
I recalled what Daddy and Mrs. Fennel had explained when I was first told about them. Mark Daniels, a boy at school, had been pursuing me romantically, and I was attracted to him. When he came to our house one night with lethal intentions, my father destroyed him. Of course, I had been full of questions, the main one being who was Mark Daniels?
“He was a member of a Renegade family,” Daddy had told me. “That’s a family like us who do not follow the rules. Every family has its own territory. These things are decided in advance. There’s good planning here, careful planning, so nothing is left to chance. No other family must settle in territory claimed by another. For two families to be there, to operate there, would do much to bring more and possibly fatal attention to us. There are other rules. No daughter is ever to be chosen to be a victim. Once something like that occurs, there are power struggles. We end up destroying ourselves. The Renegades don’t care.”
“That’s not the only difference. There’s something wrong with them,” Mrs. Fennel had said, her tee
th clenched to show just how much she despised them. “They have a ruthless bloodlust. One feeding a month is never enough.”
Now I realized another possibility and understood the full meaning of what Ava had been telling me when she had said running away was dangerous. What if I had entered another family’s territory? There was always that chance when someone like me ventured out alone, denying her own family and trying to break ties. Did they think I was establishing myself there and that my family would follow? In their minds, I would fit the definition of a Renegade, and they might be out to destroy me.
Would I be able to recognize them? I hadn’t been able to recognize what Mark Daniels was. Had I matured enough to strengthen that perception, or was I still vulnerable when it came to others of our kind? I had been sensing some danger, something pursuing me, but I was still unsure, even after this accident, that it wasn’t just a figment of my active imagination, made more active because of the fears generated by fleeing my father and sisters.
Mr. Dolan checked on me twice in the morning and was finally satisfied that I was doing okay. Later that afternoon, Liam came by to meet with his father and make a report on his bidding work. They were in his office for nearly an hour. When Liam came out, he smiled at me, but to my surprise, he hurried off without another word. Mr. Dolan emerged moments afterward. I could see the satisfaction in his face. The tension I had immediately observed whenever he was with his son was gone.
“I don’t know whether I should be thanking you or what, but he’s suddenly showing interest in his work and approaching something called responsibility.”
“Sometimes all it takes is convincing someone you have faith in him,” I said.
He looked at me strangely for a moment. “One of these days soon, I’d like to spend some downtime with you, Lorelei, and learn how you came to be so wise at so young an age.”
I smiled, remembering what my father had told me concerning wisdom. I think I was just twelve at the time. Now it seemed like ages ago, and as with all my good memories, when I recalled them, I wasn’t sure whether they were just dreams and wishes or real events.
“My father once told me we’re not so unlike sponges when it comes to wisdom. Just like some sponges can hold more, absorb more, different people have different capabilities when it comes to taking in what we might call common sense. Mrs. Winston has plaques with quotes all over the house. One of them is ‘There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.’ ”
“Maybe I should send Liam over to read his great-aunt’s walls,” he said. He started to turn to go back into his office but stopped, smiling at me. “Something tells me he’ll be around there more often, and it won’t be because I tell him to visit.”
I took a deep breath when he closed his door. Mr. Dolan’s terrible marriage experience not only made him cautious and skeptical when it came to other women he might date, but it also gave him grave concern for Liam’s relationships. What I had learned already was that Liam was in and out of so many so quickly that he appeared incapable of having any substantial involvement.
How difficult it must have been growing up under the circumstances Liam experienced. Surely, at a young age, he had witnessed his father’s great sorrow and disappointment. I realized that it would be harder for a son than for a daughter, because he would have his father’s disastrous relationship as a prime example of how it could be with women. I didn’t have to be an amateur psychiatrist to realize how his home life and his mother’s desertion had affected the way he conducted himself with women and reacted to his own feelings.
Probably the thing I had anticipated the least after I fled from my father and sisters was my feeling sorry for someone else in this world. Right now, I was feeling sorry for poor Jim Lamb, Mr. Dolan, and Liam. They added to the heavy bag of sorrow I was carrying because of how I’d had to leave Buddy. It was impossible not to envision him standing there in that restaurant, stunned, his heart sinking when he discovered I was gone. What I kept thinking about now was the possibility that he thought my father and my sisters had found me while he was in the bathroom and taken me off. I hoped he had asked someone about me and that someone had seen me walk out freely. Perhaps they had seen me getting into Moses’s truck. Eventually, he would understand my reason, but that wouldn’t diminish his pain. I had deserted someone who loved me, too, but I’d had very good reasons to do so.
Even though I wanted to walk home after work and could certainly do it easily, Mr. Dolan insisted that I let him drive me. I was surprised at his offer at first, but then I realized that he was looking for any opportunity where he could be more personal. I saw Liam standing in the front window of one of the showrooms, watching enviously when his father and I left together. Mr. Dolan had explained that Liam, on his own, had decided to work overtime to catch up on things he had let slide.
Whom was he trying to impress more, I wondered, his father or me?
“My aunt told me your story, of course,” Mr. Dolan began as we left the parking lot, “but only in a brief outline in her special Aunt Amelia way. To be honest, I was positive she had exaggerated about you and agreed to the interview more to please her than anything. What a wonderful surprise to find that she was more than right.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dolan.”
“If it doesn’t disturb you to talk about it, tell me how you came to decide to up and leave your father.”
“It’s painful to remember all of the details. The situation simply became impossible for me. My father was no longer capable of seeing anything from my point of view or, more accurately, of tolerating it. It was better for all of us.”
“He’ll come to regret it someday,” Mr. Dolan said. I knew that deep in his heart, he was hoping that was also true for his ex-wife. “Whatever spell he’s under now, he can’t be sorry he had enjoyed you for so long. He must have been very proud of you very often.”
“I like to think so,” I said.
“Well, I hope you can be happy here and enjoy working for us. I have some big ideas for expansion but have held back on them until I was certain that Liam would be a real part of my efforts. I’m not totally convinced yet. Let’s just say I’m a little more hopeful.”
“He’ll come through for you,” I said.
He was silent for a few moments. “I know he’s very fond of you already. To be honest, I think what’s impressed him the most is your reluctance to ask how high when he said to jump.”