by Tessa Bailey
To be with you any time.
Holly begins to squall and squawk in the other room. Damn. Timing is everything.
And babies are cockblockers.
I’d like that, too, I text back, with a silly little heart, as I stand and relax, back to being casual, practical Nick, and do what needs to be done.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chloe
When the plane begins its descent into Logan, I signal the flight attendant. Of course it’s a full flight. I have the window seat, about six rows from the back of the plane, so it takes her a few minutes to get to me.
“When we land, I have to get off the plane right away,” I say urgently. “It’s an emergency. My baby.”
“I’m so sorry,” she responds sympathetically. “I’ll see what I can do. Do you need to get to the hospital?” Understandably, she looks around me, searching for, you know.
A baby.
“Oh, no, I have to get to my boyfriend’s house.”
She just looks at me.
“My baby’s there. I was stuck in New York in the storm.”
“And something happened to the baby?” she asks, still concerned.
“No, no, she’s fine. But I’m sure she misses me, I’ve been gone since Friday morning.”
The attendant has lost interest. In fact, that almost looked like a tiny eye-roll.
“We’ll do everything we can to unload the plane quickly,” she says. “I’m sure everyone is anxious to get home.”
“But you don’t understand!” I start, but she has moved off.
My seat mate looks at me. “You can go ahead of us, honey,” she says. “Ours are teenagers. We’re nothing but an ATM and tech support to them.”
* * *
I text Nick when we land: Landed
I text him when the plane reaches the gate: At gate
I text him from the cab line: In cab line
He texts back: We’re fine, relax
The cab pulls up outside Nick’s house. I am so frantic to get out, I can’t calculate the tip, and I’m not going to take the time to swipe my credit card and wait for it to go through. I hand the driver three twenties and pull my overflowing tote bag out to the curb.
By the time I make it up the front steps to the door, I am weeping with relief. My yearning for Holly is a physical ache. My yearning for Nick is not much different. A little different, but not much.
Okay, pretty different.
He opens the door, and I throw myself into his arms.
“I’m so glad to be home, I thought I would never get here, I’m so sorry, thank you so much, where is she?”
Nick laughs and holds me tight. “Take a breath, she’s fine. You’re so cold! Give me your coat.” He yanks my bag into his foyer.
“Nick, where is she? She must miss me so much, and she doesn’t understand why I’ve been away from her. Where’s my baby? Did she eat anything?”
“She’s right here,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me down the hall. He stops at the doorway to the little sitting room off the kitchen, and motions to me to be quiet. I peek around the door frame.
There’s Holly. There’s my girl. My heart actually leaps. Holly is sitting in Jean-Marc’s lap, although he’s watching the football game on television and not paying much attention to her. Nick’s girls are kneeling on the floor with puppets on their hands. Princess puppets, and a dragon. My baby girl has a teething wafer in one hand and Amelie’s long blonde hair wrapped around the other hand. She is enthralled.
I look at Nick, and back at the kids. Holly is wearing a little shirt I’ve never seen before. It’s purple and has a big, sparkly pink sequin heart on the front. She is also wearing what appears to be a miniature pink tutu. There is a big satin bow somehow attached to the wispy hair on top of her head.
“The girls went shopping,” Nick explains, stating the completely obvious. “They thought we needed a few things.”
On the floor sits a stuffed toy lamb. Life size. Beyond it is a pile of alphabet blocks, and beyond those is some kind of round plastic table with a seat in the middle and toys attached to the tray. Nick’s normally austere sitting room, with its black leather sofa and grey plaid carpet, is a sea of pink plush and purple plastic. On the cocktail table are the week’s papers, buried under a stack of board books.
Holly looks up and sees me, and I’m across the room in an instant. I scoop her up and bury my nose in the sweet smell of her neck. The world falls back into place for the first time in days. Okay, a day.
Holly squirms in my arms, struggling a little bit to push back from my hug. She twists her little body around and leans down to Jean-Marc, holding her arms out to him.
Her face wrinkles up and she starts to cry. She kicks me. Kicks me!
I am horrified.
She has forgotten me. I left her, and now I am a stranger. I am a Bad Mother. She hates me.
Jean-Marc reaches up and takes her back. “Hey,” he says to me, and “Sshhh,” to Holly. She settles back down in his lap, quiet.
I am appalled.
The girls jump up. “She is SO sweet!” they are saying. “We had so much fun! Can she come back next weekend?”
Nick puts his arm around me. “Come on, we’ll pack up her things so you can get her home.”
I follow him into the kitchen, looking back over my shoulder. I open the fridge to get her formula, and Nick hands me a tote bag.
Nick’s refrigerator is usually pretty well stocked. Charlie makes sure of that. But pulling the door open now, I can’t even see what’s on the shelves. They are packed to overflowing. Baby yogurt, four six-packs. Fruit sauce in squeeze containers, a dozen flavors. A teething toy. Little yellow Cheerios containers.
Oh my god, a chocolate cupcake. With a blue frosting Elsa on top.
And several bites out of it.
Nick takes the cupcake out of my hand. “I couldn’t resist,” he says, not quite meeting my eye. “I love cupcakes.”
Right.
“Did Holly eat this?” I ask. “Oh, Nick!”
I have lost control. I have failed to take care of my child.
“No,” he admits. “That was me.”
It’s too much. I can’t hold back the tears.
Nick pulls me into his arms. He kisses my tears and slowly, tenderly begins kissing my lips. The taste of him, the smell of his skin, make me respond in spite of my misery.
His hands move from my arms to my shoulders and slowly slide down my back. He presses closer, and I feel his growing hardness.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he says in my ear. “And that call last night…”
“Well,” says a deep male voice from behind me, “What’s cooking in here?”
Charlie.
Nick turns, but keeps one arm tight around me.
“Hey, little brother,” he says.
“Chloe,” Charlie says, and kisses me on both cheeks, European-style. “I hear you had a relaxing getaway in New York.”
For a moment, I am speechless.
“It was the worst weekend of my life,” I sputter.
“Worse than when we borrowed Caroline Pressman’s car and drove to Maine, but we only had sixty-five bucks between us, and her car broke down in Hampton Beach but we couldn’t call our parents because we told them we were going to a choir retreat?” Charlie asks. “Worse than that?”
“Yes, it was worse than that!” I hear my voice rising. “I have a baby to take care of!”
“So did I,” he chuckles.
He has always been able to get me going.
“And we had to stay in that thirty dollar no-tell motel, and you wouldn’t let your bare feet touch the carpet?”
“That’s enough, Charlie,” Nick warns.
“And there was a vending machine for rubbers, so I had to keep asking for change at the front desk?”
“That is enough!” Nick says loudly.
From the other room, I hear Holly start to fuss.
“Time for us to go home,” I sa
y nervously, and reach for the half-packed tote bag.
“Stay for dinner,” Charlie offers. “I’m roasting a chicken.”
“Sounds great but I have to get Holly home to bed. Another time maybe.”
Charlie looks abashed. “Was it something I said?”
He looks from me to Nick, and back to me.
“Look. I apologize,” he says softly. “It’s a weird situation. You were really important in my life, Chloe. I mean, you’re both really important in my life. But we were just kids. And now we’re grown up…”
“Some of us are,” Nick mutters.
“…now we’re all grown up, and you two seem like a pretty good fit. I love you both,” he finishes. “But it’s still weird.”
This is so Charlie.
He opens his arms and hugs me tight, and I hug him back.
“Now how about that roast chicken?” he asks me.
“It’s always been my favorite dinner.”
“Wait till you taste mine. Better than Hamersley. Actually, it’s his recipe. Garlic and lemon.”
And thus we have dinner for six (mostly) adults, accompanied by one sleeping baby girl.
Family style.
* * *
Nick
“Why,” I ask Chloe, my finger tracing the outer edge of her nipple, the skin curling up like a sweet blossom, “did you decide to stay the night?”
Holly is asleep in her Pack ’n Play in my den. Charlie is on the pull-out sofa. The kids are in their respective bedrooms. Chloe and I are in that lazy afterglow time in my bed, when minutes have no meaning and the outside world is there, but sex puts everyone else at a distance. Being naked together, body heat transferring without effort, lips and tongues and fingers all working their magic, makes the crazy hustle-bustle and stress of everyday life seem quaint. Cute.
Over there.
A thousand miles away.
“Who could turn down Charlie’s roast chicken?”
I give her a pinch.
She squeaks.
She gives me a squeeze.
I fold in half.
“Hey!” I growl. “Precious cargo.”
“It is of high value.” Her hand shifts from violence to a stroke that makes me wonder what my refractory period is.
No one has tested it in a long time.
We can remedy that.
“Priceless,” I murmur, closing my eyes, enjoying the attention. We made love quickly, the baby monitor on, worried Holly could awaken at any moment. The furtive sex quenched a thirst, but it didn’t sate.
“What is this, Nick?”
I look under the covers. “That’s my—”
She doesn’t laugh when she interrupts. She lets go. “No. This. Us. What…what are we?”
We’re in love.
I don’t say it. The thought loops through my mind like a NASCAR race. Endless laps.
“What do you think we are?” I whisper, lobbing back the question.
“You first.”
I pull back, watching her. Without contacts or glasses, she’s blurry.
I need her to be clear.
Groping for my glasses on the nightstand, I fail to find them. Chloe hands them to me. The air between us is pregnant with questions.
I put the glasses on. Clarity achieved.
Visually, at least.
Her eyes search my face, sweet and loving, but there’s a hesitation. A wariness.
Freedom. Family. Chloe’s at the beginning of the race. I’m in my final laps.
Starting over seems foolish, on the surface.
But I was never a surface-level guy.
“I love you,” I say, the words soft, like the fine hair that dots her arms, the little lashes on her lower lids.
Her wariness dissipates.
“I love you, too.” She strokes my cheek, the back of her hand sliding down along my jaw. Stubble covers it, the sound of her movement like whispering sandpaper.
“Can love be enough?” I asked that question more than fifteen years ago, right before Simone left.
She told me no. Showed me, too.
“Of course,” Chloe answers, her expression bemused. “How could it not be?” She frowns. “But love means something different now. It has to include Holly.”
As if on cue, the baby monitor picks up the rustling of blankets and a baby’s snurgle.
“I know.”
“You want to start over? Really?” There’s that wariness again.
“I want my freedom.”
Wariness turns to alarm, and she stiffens.
“But freedom doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.”
She cuddles up again.
“What does it mean?”
“Being with you. Building a family. Blending families. Finding meaning. Loving you and my kids.”
Holly kicks off her blanket, the movement caught in black and white on the video monitor.
Chloe gives me an uh oh look.
Time is precious.
“All my kids.”
She jerks in my arms.
“However you want to define that.”
“I’m a little old for you to adopt me, Nick.”
I pinch her.
She squeezes me.
We make love again, quickly, before Holly wakes up crying.
But that’s fine.
Because we made it.
Just in time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chloe
These days, when I have a date with my boyfriend, I stay home and my child goes out. Is that unusual? Tonight Holly has been delivered to Nick’s house, where his girls will babysit. Nick and I then hightailed it back to my place. The logistics of my life would daunt an air traffic controller.
At least I don’t have to pack very much for these visits. Holly has more toys and little outfits there than she does here, thanks to the twins. Like Charlotte, they seem to associate babies with shopping. Holly’s first Christmas involved so many new toys and clothes that my condo looks like a Toys’R’Us bomb combined with a Hanna Andersson and Oilily fashion show.
Jean-Marc is less interested in accessorizing. His one notable contribution has been digging out their family copy of Walter the Farting Dog, which he reads to Holly with evident enjoyment whenever he is there.
If her first word is ‘fart,’ I am not going to be happy.
I’m standing at my sink, rinsing romaine and filling Nick in on the past few days. Although we work together pretty closely now, we try to keep it ultra-professional. No one at Anterdec knows we’re dating. I’m pretty sure.
“They still can’t officially tell me anything about Li, but our social worker manages to keep me updated. This week they thought they might have found her at a friend’s, but when they got there, she was gone. Or she was never there.” I sigh. “The adoption becomes final in ten days.”
“Are you worried?” he asks. He’s marinating the steak.
“No, not really. I mean, of course I’ll be relieved when she’s legally mine forever, but I don’t think Li will try to stop it at this point, especially considering the police and social workers have never been able to locate her.” I frown. He rubs my back, the gesture one of empathy. Li has no idea what a precious child she’s brought into the world. I’m so grateful to be Holly’s mother, but the fabric of our lives has this big loose end, and it’s hard to accept. I hope Li is safe and in a good place. I can’t help but worry.
“We need to celebrate the day the adoption is final. I’m declaring it a holiday…a Holliday.” He chuckles. “We’ll all go out for dinner, my kids and Henry and Jemma too.”
“For Happy Meals,” I add, laughing with him. “I love it. Let’s invite Jessica Coffin.”
Nick has put down the meat fork. He walks up behind me, and I expect to feel the warmth of his arms, but I don’t. Instead, something lowers around me, and I look down.
He’s fastening a delicate chain behind my neck. Suspended from the chain are thin circular bands of different colors
of gold that interlock. I touch them gently. Spread out, they form a globe. A world.
Six bands of gold.
Tears fill my eyes and spill down around the necklace.
“You’ve become my world, Chloe,” he says softly. “I want you to remember that every time you look at this necklace, or feel it against your skin. Especially at work, where I can’t tell you myself. At least, not yet.”
“Oh, Nick. It’s beautiful.” I hold the gold rings in my palm, like a talisman. Or a promise? I turn and kiss him, tears mingling with our lips.
He chuckles. “You rinsed the lettuce with tears. Not good. I’m trying to cut down on salt.”
“I’m sorry,” I sniffle. “Your blood pressure is very important to me.”
“Especially in certain places,” he smiles. “For dessert. In the meantime, I’m starving. Fire up the grill.”
“Already nice and hot for you.”
“Mmm, I like the sound of that,” he says, giving me a kiss. Then he sets the steaks up nicely, with a flourish.
“If you were really watching your salt intake, you wouldn’t have marinated the steak in soy sauce. Speaking of work, did I tell you that the new gO Spa vehicle is ready?” I help with dinner. I drink my wine.
Bzzz.
Nick groans and shoots me an apologetic look as he takes a call, walking into the living room. I walk outside and stare up at the dark night, thankful that in the ever-expanding universe somehow the two points of being called Nick and Chloe found each other.
Maudlin and a bit sappy, yes.
But also true.
“When’s the maiden voyage?” he asks, his hands on my elbows, slipping around my waist from behind, cupping my belly where they link. I lean back into him, smiling.
“Scheduled to depart in two months, but we’re having trouble arranging the delivery to New Orleans. We’re going to have to delay. We need someone experienced on board, but O is too busy to spare any of the staff. Plus we need someone who knows how to handle a vehicle like that. We couldn’t just hand Zeke the keys and send him off on the highway.” I sigh against him.
“Right. Zeke’s the one raised in England?”
“Yes. I think the only thing he knows how to drive is a Vespa, and even then he can’t keep it on the right-hand side.”