What Happiness Looks Like (Promises) (9 page)

Just then the anesthesiologist arrived and greeted them. He told Lily to lie on her side and he opened up the back of her gown, exposing the ripples of her vertebrae. “Hold very still,” he said. The doctor aimed the needle and as he placed it into her back, Lily jerked, overcome by another contraction.

Suddenly Lily fell back, her arms limp at her sides, her eyes closed.

“Damn,” the anesthesiologist said.

“What happened? What happened?” Kate yelled.

He pushed her aside and grabbed some kind of clear blue plastic mask and put it over Lily’s nose and mouth. He flipped a switch labeled oxygen.

Kate’s fingers trembled against her lips. “Oh, my God.”

With one hand holding the mask over Lily’s face, the doctor raised the top half of Lily’s bed.

Kate stared at Lily’s paralyzed body. That must be what someone looks like when they die. “What’s going on?” She was just talking to her and now. . . .

The anesthesiologist pulled a cord hanging near the headboard. Immediately bells started ringing. “The epidural went up instead of down. She’s unable to breathe on her own.”

Two nurses rushed in and told Kate to leave. She didn’t move. Another doctor entered the room, wearing street clothes and pulling on non-latex gloves. He looked at one of the monitors and reached his hand under the sheet covering Lily’s lower half. “The baby’s heartbeat is dropping.” He tied a surgical mask over his mouth and nose then pointed at Kate. “Get her out of here.”

A nurse pinched Kate’s elbow and forced her out the door.

JOELY

Anna clenched Joely’s hand as they rode down the hotel escalator. The five-year-old had read the warning label about how shoes, loose clothing or hair could get caught in the moving parts. Sometimes it wasn’t so great having a gifted child.

Joely studied Anna’s white face. “It’s OK, honey. See that yellow line at the bottom? Step right over it and you’ll be fine.”

Anna stared at the end, where the stairs flattened and disappeared.

Why did they have to put warning labels everywhere? Poor Anna was overly sensitive to such things. She had even worried that the police would arrest her mom when Joely had removed the manufacturer’s tag from Anna’s toddler mattress—the one that said “Do not remove under penalty of law.”

Here came the ragged jaws of the escalator. Obviously steeling herself, Anna tightened her grip and held her breath. Quickly she leaped over the yellow line. Mother and daughter both let out a gush of air.

Once they cleared the escalator, they continued holding hands through the lobby, past a large gilded mirror. A man in black slacks and a white button-down shirt stood at a podium near the hotel restaurant.

Anna stopped in her tracks and pointed inside the restaurant. “Look! It’s Uncle Mitch.”

Without even checking, Joely shook her head. “No, it’s probably somebody who looks like him.” Suddenly she felt anxious to get Anna to bed. In the morning, she’d pay the price for this long day. Anna would drag her feet as she walked, grumpily declaring that she wasn’t hungry for breakfast and that her socks were too tight.

Anna wouldn’t move. “Can we go say hi?”

Joely’s gaze followed her daughter’s pointer finger past the maitre d’ and into a booth. And there he was. Mitch.

What was he doing all the way over here? They were forty minutes away from Foxworth. And it was a weeknight. Kate would be expecting him for dinner. She watched as Mitch tore off a piece of bread from the basket and handed it to the woman across from him. He talked animatedly to his companion.

Joely sucked in her breath. She had been so positive that he would never cheat. Was it possible?

Her neck stretched, trying to see what his companion looked like. At first the woman’s profile barely peeked out from behind her waist-long, highlighted hair, but then she turned her head sideways to speak to the waiter. She looked young. Too young to be one of Mitch’s co-workers. Just barely old enough to be out of high school.

Anna pulled Joely closer to the maitre d’s station.

Joely held her ground. “It’s not him. Let’s go.” Gently she tugged on Anna’s hand and headed for the exit.

Anna waved with her free hand. “Uncle Mitch!”

Mitch glanced up at them and the smile fell from his lips.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

KATE

A nurse wearing scrubs in a teddy bear print stopped in front of Kate. The woman tucked her black hair behind her ears, her lobes dotted where earrings should go. “She’s asking for you.”

Kate stood up from the vinyl chair in the waiting room. She’d been there for hours. “Is Lily OK? How’s the baby?”

A baby’s scream echoed down the corridor. A door closed, muffling the cry.

The nurse smiled. “Mother and baby are doing fine and are ready for visitors. Are you the only one here?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What a shame.” The nurse pointed toward room two hundred and six. “They’re in the recovery room.”

In a heartbeat, Kate rushed to the door and opened it. Inside, Lily held a swaddled infant in her arms. They both looked pale. Lily’s red hair was matted down, semi-circles puffed under her eyes.

The new mother looked at Kate. “Mrs. H, I’m so glad you’re still here. That was horrible. I could hear you yelling ‘What happened?’ but I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move.”

Kate stood at the edge of the bed. “I was so scared. I thought you died.”

“Me, too! Except that I could hear the doctor talking while he did the C-section. I was kind of in and out of consciousness, but I heard the clinking of the instruments and the beep of the monitor. It was weird.”

Without thinking of how much Lily hated to be touched, Kate leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

Lily scrunched up her face. She tried lifting the baby, but couldn’t. “You want to hold her?”

“Sure.” Kate took the baby. The infant barely weighed anything, less than a sack of sugar, lighter than her cat, Monte. “What’s her name?”

Lily shook her head. “I’m not going to name her. You name her. You take her home with you.”

Something caught in Kate’s throat. The baby had big dark blue eyes and a tiny bump for a nose. Kate adored the feel of fluff as she caressed her head. She’d always hoped her baby would be a girl. So tempting.

Instinct took over. She stuck her index finger in between the baby’s lips. The newborn latched on as if Kate were her mother. Sashaying toward the window, Kate studied the green buds on a nearby tree. Spring was coming. The season of new beginnings.

She thought of the philosopher John Locke’s theory that a baby is a
tabula rasa
, a blank slate. And through children’s experiences, they can write their own destiny. Genetics were irrelevant. Oh, she would like to believe that.

After a few minutes, the baby started to cry. Her entire face turned bright red to match her hair. Kate bounced her gently, showing her the big, beautiful sky. She loved the feel of a baby in her arms. She turned toward Lily. “Maybe she’s hungry. Has she been fed?”

Lily wiped a tear away from her face. “The nurse asked if I wanted to breastfeed, but I didn’t know if I should. What do you think?”

Kate placed the infant back into Lily’s arms, hoping that would calm them both. She’d never seen Lily shed a tear before. “They say breastfed babies are healthier. But it’s really your decision.”

The baby settled down when Lily placed her finger in her daughter’s mouth, the way she’d seen Kate do. “I didn’t want to risk her bonding with me if . . . ”

This baby could be the answer for her and Mitch. No more fertility doctors, no more hormones making her crazy, no more talk about using Mitch’s sperm and another woman’s egg. This child would belong to them equally.

Wringing her hands, Kate stared at the newborn with its wispy flames of hair. Some people spent years on adoption waiting lists, she knew. Yet she and Mitch could have this baby tomorrow. Conflicted, she gathered her thoughts and took a deep breath. “Lily, you’re this baby’s mother. You need to decide what’s best for her.”

“But I don’t have a clue what to do with her. I don’t know anything about babies.”

“No one does at first. But you’re smart. You can read books, ask other moms, figure it out as you go along.”

Lily licked her chapped lips. “But my life is a disaster. I don’t have a place to live.”

The counselor in Kate jumped into problem-solving mode. “Do you have a job?”

“Making minimum wage, shelving books at the library.”

Lily, the wanna-be writer. A job at the library seemed fitting, but not with that kind of pay. Adoption really might be best for her. Otherwise, she’d need to find out about welfare, food stamps, government housing. Kate didn’t know how quickly any of those services kicked in.

The baby opened her mouth and wailed, no longer satisfied with Lily’s finger.

Kate knew they wouldn’t be able to talk over the crying. “I can’t tell you what to do, Lily. But that baby needs to be fed. Do you want me to send in the lactation consultant to show you how to nurse?”

The new mother scratched near the IV taped to her arm. Soon red nail marks streaked her fair skin. “They have someone who can teach me?”

Kate smiled. “Yes. It can be a little tricky at first. My sister had a hard time with it and eventually supplemented with formula. But a little breast milk is better than none.”

“It sounds to me like you want me to breastfeed.”

Twisting her wedding ring, Kate didn’t know what to say. After reading articles about increased immunity and IQ, it was hard to hide her bias toward breast milk, apparently. “You can nurse her, even if you want her adopted.”

Lily closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were concentrating. “Send the lacto—whatever you called her—in.”

Kate stroked the baby’s head one last time and said goodbye. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She had a lilt in her step as she exited the maternity ward. She couldn’t wait to talk to Mitch.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JOELY

Joely strangled the steering wheel the whole drive home.

Anna pretended the chess pieces were puppets as she re-created the scene at the hotel restaurant. First a high octave: “I’m Rapunzel and I’m hungry.” Then a deep voice: “Let down your beautiful, long hair and I’ll give you some bread to eat.”

Joely chewed on her lip. What should she say to Kate? She had to tell her. If she didn’t, Anna surely would.

The ride home was both too long and too short. Finally, she pulled into the driveway. “Anna, I want you to put away your chess set and get ready for bed.”

“But I want to tell Aunt Kate that we saw Uncle Mitch.”

Joely looked at Anna in the rearview mirror, knowing her back would hurt too much if she turned around. “You do what I told you. I’ll talk to Aunt Kate.”

Pouting, Anna tossed the chess pieces back into their velvet bag, each one clanking together. “Oh, all right. Be sure to tell her about the woman’s shiny hair. It was so pretty.”

Steeling herself to break her sister’s heart, Joely reached for the door. She walked into the house and waited in the kitchen until Anna was upstairs. Making her way to the living room, she stood near Kate.

Kate put the book she’d been reading in her lap. It was Joely’s dog-eared copy of “What to Expect in Baby’s First Year.” “You’re not going to believe what happened today.”

Joely swallowed. “Neither are you.”

Kate’s eyes widened along with her smile. “A former student of mine called me. She was in labor and wanted me to be there.” She filled Joely in on the dramatic delivery. Her hands flitted about like they usually did when she was excited.

Unable to focus on Kate’s story, Joely sat close to her on the couch and waited for her turn to speak. When Kate exclaimed that the baby was a girl, Joely took a deep breath. She knew what she had to do. “That’s great.”

Kate’s perfectly tweezed eyebrows knitted together. “You don’t seem very excited.”

Joely scratched her scalp then pulled her fingers through her long curls, getting them caught in a knot. “I’m afraid I have something to tell you and it’s not easy.” She worked at the knot, stalling. “I saw Mitch today. At Jake’s hotel.” She waited for that information to sink in. “And he was with a woman.”

Kate shifted her position and her book fell to the floor. She left it there. “What are you saying?”

“They were eating in the hotel restaurant. But. . . she was very young. . . I thought you should know.”

Kate’s eyes seemed to lose their focus.

Joely wanted to re-assure her that everything was going to be fine. But she also owed it to her sister to protect her from getting blindsided. “Did you ever ask Mitch about why he changed his passwords?”

“He said the IT guys at work made him change his passwords as a precautionary measure. He doesn’t like to try and remember a bunch of different passwords, so he changed his home accounts to match his work ones.”

That sounded plausible. “Could be.” But how could he explain dinner with a strange woman? “Have you checked his cell phone for text messages yet?”

Kate crossed her legs. “Yes. There wasn’t anything suspicious.” She explained that when confronted about his Facebook page, Mitch claimed that “Big Ben” was a fellow watch-collector he’d run into the night of the Thomkins disastrous visit.

Joely put her hand on Kate’s knee. “Then it’s probably nothing. I felt that you should know. Just because you told me you were worried.” With her free hand, she toyed with the locket around her neck, pulling it side to side. She thought about Mitch dressing up like Fonzie for Kindergarten Dads’ Night. He was so good to Anna. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. “But this is Mitch we’re talking about. He isn’t one of those guys. He likes Monty Python movies, drinks tea and fixes old pocket watches.”

They both remained silent.

Joely clung to the golden heart charm near her throat. “He isn’t exactly a player.” Although looks and brains were a compelling combination. She could imagine a woman setting her sights on him, seeing him as quite the catch.

Kate stood and wiped her hands on her slacks. She reached for the phone and dialed.

KATE

Kate wanted to believe in Mitch. She hated fighting with him and longed for a truce. That’s why she’d called his cell and told him she was making his favorite dinner, lasagna. (Fortunately, she had pre-assembled it the day before because she was wiped out). It was both a peace offering and a test. Would he admit that he’d already eaten?

Now she and her husband sat at the kitchen table across from each other. Yet he felt far away. She saw him eyeing Joely and Anna’s empty chairs. “They went to bed already.” Fiddling with her Williams & Sonoma salt and pepper shakers, she wondered why she put them out. Force of habit, she guessed. Much like their marriage—everything had become a dull routine.

As she spooned pasta onto his plate, she realized she didn’t want to play games. “I think we should talk.”

His shoulders squared and his jaw flexed, probably in anticipation of another fight.

What would she do if he were cheating? Suggest counseling? Get a divorce? A shiver zipped up her spine. She didn’t want to separate. She cleared her throat and nervously served herself. “Joely said she saw you today.”

He nodded and took a sip of wine. “I know it probably looked bad, but Heather isn’t anyone you need to worry about.”

She dropped the serving spoon, splattering globs of marinara on the table. Heather. “Who is she?” Gulping from her own glass, she noticed the sparkling grape juice tasted sour. The fact that she couldn’t drink wine fueled her rage. She’d devoted herself to having a baby while he’d decided to trade her in for another woman. A younger, fertile woman—no doubt. “Tell me the truth.”

He opened his mouth, but hesitated. His shoulders shrugged. “She’s just a friend.”

Like Kate and Evan had once been? She twisted her paper napkin under the table. Mitch wasn’t one of those guys who had female friends. He didn’t like shopping or talking on the phone or any of the activities girls liked to do.

She pursed her lips and stared into his brown eyes. “So you’re not having an affair?”

“Of course not. I love you.”

But I’m not in love with you. She waited for him to fill in those words. But he didn’t. She paused to catch her breath. More. She needed to know more. “How do you know her? Can I meet her?”

He sighed and seemed to consider his response. “She’s a vendor from work. When she comes in to town, she always takes one of the engineers out for a meal. It’s no big deal. Next time I’ll make someone else go.” His eye twitched like it did when he was uncomfortable, like when he was holding something back.

Her napkin ripped in two. But she didn’t want to push him too hard. She wanted to save their marriage. She allowed the silence to stretch out while she considered her next move. “Do you remember Lily?”

His nervous tic stopped as if he were relieved to change the subject. He glanced toward the ceiling like he did when he searched his memory. “She was one of your students at Foxworth High School, right? That girl in foster care that you tried so hard to connect with?”

“Yes. Well, she called me today. She had a baby.”

His mouth twisted to the side. “Hmm. I hope she’s pulled herself together.” His shoulders relaxed and he started to eat.

She glanced at the mozzarella and chunks of ground beef on her plate. She had lost her appetite. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. She doesn’t have a place to live because her boyfriend told her not to come back if she had the baby.”

“Poor girl.”

“I was with her at the hospital today. The epidural went up her back and paralyzed her lungs. It was so scary.”

His brown eyes widened, his fork froze in mid-air. “My God. I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

Remembering Lily’s limp body, she shuddered. “I’m still upset.” The whole day had been nerve-wracking. Lily almost died. Kate stood up her clients. Her husband might be seeing another woman. The first two statements were definitely true, but she didn’t really have any proof of the latter.

He pushed the lasagna around on his plate. “I can imagine.”

She shredded her napkin under the table some more. “I was thinking about that extra bedroom upstairs.” The one he’d been sleeping in lately. “Maybe Lily could move in there temporarily.”

His forked dropped onto the plate with a sharp clank. “Invite her to live with us? Isn’t that a breach of ethics or something since you were her counselor?”

“I’m not her counselor anymore. She’s long since graduated from high school. This is the perfect opportunity for me to help her get back on her feet. She’s finally ready to let me in.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like it. You always did get overly involved in your students’ lives. It’s not healthy.”

“This girl has never had a family. No one to take care of her.” She stared at him, hoping to make him understand how important this was to her.

“I’m sorry for her, but she’s not our responsibility. Your sister and niece already live here. I can’t even walk around in my boxers in my own house because we have permanent guests.” He practically scowled at her as his voice raised. “The last thing I want are two more people moving in.”

Kate tried to gather her thoughts. He had been patient with Joely living there rent-free for so long. And she was blood. He didn’t even know Lily. How could she convince him? “Lily is talking about putting her baby up for adoption.”

The lines on his forehead faded as his expression morphed from angry to curious.

“Maybe we would want to adopt her baby. Or maybe Lily will realize that she doesn’t want to give up her baby.” She was rambling, but she couldn’t stop herself. “You wouldn’t want to adopt a baby from a mother who was forced to give her up, would you?”

“Of course not.” His cell phone rang. He looked at it, crinkled his brow then silenced it.

Kate felt revved up. Maybe it wasn’t too late for them. “This would give us the opportunity to know for sure that the birth mother wanted us to have her child.” Come on, Mitch. Get excited about this!

He drummed his fingers against the table. “You’re saying we help Lily and in the end we might raise her baby as our own?”

Wanting her husband back, she nodded a little too eagerly. Deep down she knew he hadn’t cheated on her. At least not yet.

The tempo of his fingers slowed and eventually stopped. He took another drink. He seemed to mull the idea over while more wine made its way down his throat. “How’s the baby? Is she healthy?”

Her head bobbed up and down again. “Oh, she’s precious. With beautiful blue eyes and a tuft of red hair.” She knew a baby’s eye color could change, but she hoped they’d stay blue. She paused. “I never liked the idea of adoption before, but I
know
Lily. It’s different somehow.”

He raised his glass as if in a toast. “Tell me more.”