Free Call My Name by Barbara Delinsky Page A

you and was a good father to me—” perhaps a bit pushy and hard-nosed at times Daran thought “—during the years of my childhood, but I simply can’t lead the kind of life that he has chosen for the two of you. You may enjoy the endless dinners and fundraisers and rallies, but I did not.”
    “You certainly carried it off well,” her mother chided, “for someone who supposedly didn’t like it.”
    Had it not been for the happenings of the past twenty-four hours, Daran’s patience might have held. As it was, she was tired and edgy. Bitterness was thick on her tongue when she lashed out against her mother’s faint accusation. “But, of course! I was trained for years to fit into the political arena. Wasn’t that the purpose of dancing school and poise class and all those dinners I was dragged to, not to mention a boarding school of the caliber of Miss Dunham’s?”
    Stunned momentarily by the force behind her daughter’s thoughts, Mary Abbott lapsed into silence, but only momentarily. “Are you never going to marry again?” Wasn’t this another of those supposed ideals in life?
    “Six months of marriage to Bill Longley was enough to keep me for the next twenty years, Mother.” The bad taste in her mouth had nothing to do with the bits of dirt which had settled on her lip as Daran chewed unconsciously on a fingernail. As a child she had bitten her nails with a fury, resistant to all demands that the habit was both unclean and unladylike. Only in moments of stress, particularly ones involving the past, did the practice recur. Looking down now at the tiny chip on the tip of the longest of her well-shaped nails, Daran was furious. “I’m perfectly happy with my life, for a change.” She spoke purposefully, ignoring the half-truth that recent events had made of her words. “And I don’t see any need to get married,” Daran continued. “It can’t offer me anything I don’t already have.” Periodically her mother went off on this vein; as always, Daran overreacted. If she were to be truthful with herself, there was something her life lacked. Love. It was a quantity with which she dealt every day in her work, for the source of so much mental anguish, both in the children with whom she worked, or in adults with whom she did not, was love, its misuse, misinterpretation, even absence. It was this very factor that made her so astute a psychologist; she poured the love into her work which her personal life spared, devoting herself to patients and students with the strength of that undiluted quality. For the time being, at least, she was content with the arrangement. She was her own woman; that seemed to be all that mattered.
    Again her mother was oblivious to the depth of her feelings on the subject, choosing to attribute her feistiness to an instinct for self-defense. Boldly she persisted, reminding Daran of precisely why she had, herself, chosen to leave Cleveland so many years ago. “Do you hear from him at all?”
    “Bill?”
    “Yes, dear. Have you heard from him?”
    “No.” Unequivocably and mercifully, no .
    Blithely her mother babbled on. “He hasn’t remarried either, you know. We did see him several weeks ago at a party at the Hilton.” Wondering if this information was supposed to hold any significance for Daran, she gazed off at the maples skirting the yard, their buds mere hints of lime. Had her mother been before her, she might have yawned for effect. But the other proceeded on a tempting note, as though holding a Hershey bar before a chocolate addict. “He looked very handsome. And he asked for you. I hadn’t received these clippings then, but I did tell him a little about your work.”
    “Mother, you didn’t!” Dismay brought Daran up from her feigned lethargy. As a finger moved reflexively to her mouth, she thrust it angrily behind her back.
    “It’s no harm, dear. He was interested.”
    “I’ll bet.” It had been the supreme blow to Bill’s overinflated ego when Daran had