“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I should make it out to you, then? If it’s more than three hundred I’ll have to pay you in installments.” She needed a healthy meal and a solid night’s sleep and a morning hike, and then she could be a daughter they wanted around.
“Rachel.” Mom twisted her fingers together. She’d done it so often, sitting at that old kitchen table while Rachel wrote out spelling words or flash cards full of history facts. Mom suffered a lecture by one of Rachel’s specialists, who said no matter how abysmal Rachel’s handwriting, she had to write down her own lessons or she’d never learn. So instead of grabbing the pencil to do the work herself, Mom twisted her fingers. By the time she was thirteen, the finger twisting applied to any reason Mom was frustrated with her.
“Fine, then. On the way to dinner we can stop by the mall and you can pick something off Blythe’s registry. Will that let you drop this nonsense talk of checks?”
She nodded. Because Aunt Johnston was right, in the end. Scorekeeping was knotting her stomach into tighter twists than the braided cable of her mom’s fingers, and it would unravel both of them if she stopped.
Nonetheless, she decided that’s night dinner was not, after all, the perfect moment to tell her family she was pregnant.
“So are you going to take her kayaking or something?”
“She’s two, Theo. She doesn’t like sitting still. Or getting her head wet.”
“Okay, Ms. Colorado, I was joking.” He closed out his report and leaned back in his desk chair. “What are you up to today?”
She’s told him neither of her parents had taken time off work to spend with them. Not even a half-day.
“We’ll go up to Santa’s Workshop in a bit. Dad got me a coupon.”
“What’s Santa’s Workshop?”
“It’s an amusement park. She can go on most of the rides, and there’s, you know, entertainment, pictures with Santa, all that. Do you want a souvenir ornament? Do you guys even celebrate Christmas?”
“Of course. But last time I had him at Christmas, we spent the whole week up with my family, so I didn’t decorate. Can’t do that this year.”
She didn’t ask why not. He’d offered Marti’s brother the job as head brewer and was working with his accountant and lawyer to take on full ownership of Elixir. Ron agreed to stick around for a month to transition, in exchange for no criminal charges. Theo felt like he was pushing his luck, but that morning he’d submitted a proposal pay Ron out in stages, instead of adding to his loan. And while he hadn’t undervalued Ron’s shares, his appraisal used forced liquidation values for all their equipment. As he’d explained while talking it through with Rachel, if he couldn’t buy Ron out, they were going to have to sell out. He gave Ron a chance to meet with his own advisers and come up with a different valuation. Now he just had to wait for the man’s response.
“Okay,” she said, and he appreciated her brisk cheer. “I’ll look for the most hideous ornament for your tree, and what’s more, I’ll help you decorate. That way I can be sure you’re displaying it prominently.”
“Damn but I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He closed his eyes to savor her words. No ambiguity, no hesitation. Just a statement, from her to him, and it eased everything in the world.
“I quit.”
He sat up and found Sergei in their office doorway. “Sorry, Rachel, hang on.”
“That’s what I thought. First you accuse me of stealing, next you force Ron out, now you’re running off with my wife. I don’t need to put up with it.”
“Serg, hold up.”
“Oh, he’s got his ‘world is working against me’ tone happening,” Rachel said. “I’m going to go pack up to head to the North Pole. Call me later, love.”
He looked at his mobile, but she was gone. Sergei, not so much. “Sit down.”
“No thanks, re.” Clear as the Aegean he was reverting to the rudest meaning of the interjection.
“You’re going to walk out on me? I explained about Ron and the money.”
“How do you explain stealing my wife and daughter?” The man had a world-class sneer. He took note of it, as a warning to himself. If he was ever tempted to replicate it, he’d know he was way off track from who he wanted to be.
“Ex-wife. And I’m not stealing either one of them. Loving them isn’t theft.”
“My mother warned me about your intentions.”
“Does your storming out mean you’re not having Depy’s name day dinner here tomorrow?”
Sergei crossed his arms across his chest. “I’m giving my two weeks’ notice.”
He rubbed his temple. “Fine. I appreciate that. Give me your company card. And send Marti in on your way back up front.”
She could be ready to move up to manager, if he had her shadow Sergei for a few weeks. And he could still take Andres up to his parents’ for their scheduled visit without stressing every single day about how the place was functioning.
In the ensuing quiet moment, he googled Santa’s Workshop. Looked a little old-fashioned, but tailor-made—elf made—for Hannah to have a blast. Maybe they’d all go back sometime, him and Rachel and Andres and Hannah and the baby. They could take Rachel’s nephew, too. All the other in-laws could decide for themselves if they wanted to tag along, but they wouldn’t mind either way. With him on board, Rachel wasn’t anyone’s afterthought. And neither was he. Because they loved each other, and love meant choosing each other, every day.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mom spent ten minutes justifying the early dinnertime, as if Rachel hadn’t started eating dinner at five thirty from the time Hannah started solid foods. She grinned, wondering if her nephew or her sister’s schedule would triumph. “It’s fine, Mom. We’re as happy to eat now. I’d have to give Hannah Banana a snack otherwise.”
She kept grinning. She’d felt bubbly all day, planning to make her announcement over dinner. She’d told them already about Theo, leaving out Ron’s stealing and Sergei’s quitting. After Mom looked up Elixir’s website and followed the links to some of the good reviews, she’d smoothed her hand down Rachel’s hair, fluffing it a bit and telling her he seemed like a nice companion.
So: that was good groundwork. And after Blythe let Hannah explore her abdomen during the baby shower, she knew her girl was ready to adapt to the idea of a sibling. Back in spring, her daycare friend Rishi’s brother was born, which put Hannah on a campaign for a baby of her own. She’d settled down about it after a while, but Rachel was ready to answer her girl’s many thousands of questions once she shared the news. She’d even picked up a couple of picture books that afternoon, while filling the time until her parents returned from their jobs.
All this groundwork, and Blythe and Jason wanting to eat so conveniently early. She was glad she hadn’t shared the news that first night, when she was tired from the road and everyone was focused on the shower. Now no one could accuse her of creating drama and stealing focus from Blythe.
She showed them all the photos from Santa’s Workshop, and everyone admired the ornament Hannah, for whatever inexplicable reason, picked out to be her treasure. It was a cow wearing a quilt, but who was she to question her daughter’s passions?
“We’ll have to take the baby up for his first picture with Santa,” Mom said. “Grandparents get free admission, isn’t that so nice?”
Rachel closed out the photo app on her phone.
“He’d freeze his little nose off waiting in line.”
Mom got misty. “Oh, Blythe, but imagine it, him wearing that cute snowsuit from Jason’s brother?”
Dad laughed. “Does your brother think he’ll be skiing before he can walk?”
Jason shrugged. “We almost were, ourselves. But we could at least stand up first. I think lessons won’t start until next winter.”
“Baby’s first ski lesson. You have to send me video of that, when it happens,” Rachel said.
“That reminds me, I need to get
a new phone with more memory.”
Before Mom and Dad started one of their technology debates, Rachel cleared her throat. The bubbles still elevated her, no matter how off the track of her own life things got. The four of them were used to dinners together. Of course they had patterns to sink into, even when Rachel and Hannah visited. “I was thinking. Maybe you all could come down to Houston for Easter.”
Blythe and Jason exchanged a baffled look, and Dad said, “Easter?”
“Well.” She grinned again. “It could be really special. Because, the thing is, Blythe, by Easter? Your son will have a new baby cousin. How sweet would that be? If they can share their first Easter together?”
Everyone but Hannah stared at her. The saccharine cheer of her announcement soured on her tongue. Looking to be handed praise again. As always. Because Mom was right all those years; it was almost impossible for her to learn.
Blythe’s hands rested on her pregnant belly. “Oh. Well. I’m supposed to be back full time by then. I’ll need to check if we can take the time to go all that way. But maybe.” She tugged at her left ear, and Rachel couldn’t guess if she was fidgeting or passing along their long-ago warning to be quiet until Mom had her say.
“A cousin. I mean, another cousin. Nice.” Jason nodded at Hannah, like Rachel might have forgotten the existence of her own child.
She smiled at him, because she was at the point of collecting any scrap of approval from anyone in the room.
Mom said, “You’ve gone and gotten pregnant again?”
“Jason, I’ve been meaning to ask you about this mole on my back. You mind coming back to take a look at it?” Dad left the table without waiting for an answer. Maybe the way Jason kissed Blythe’s temple and followed was another part of the shorthand these four had from all their meals together.
She licked her lips. Took a sip of water. “I—Theo and I both—we’re excited about it.”
“You barely know the man.”
“I know, Mom. But he’s such a good soul. You’ll like him, I’m sure. And we know we love each other.”
“Like you loved Sergei?”
Blythe spoke up. “Mom, she was so young then. I’m sure she’s smarter about relationships now.”
“I am. I am so much smarter.” She didn’t trip once over the words. All those times Theo praised her cleverness must have worn a smoother pathway through her brain, allowing her to own her worth. Well enough to proclaim it to her mom and sister, anyway.
“Well, Rachel.” Mom’s fingers knotted together. “It’s good you feel that way. But it’s still a big step for people who just met.”
She helped Hannah to the floor. “Go find Grandpa and Uncle Jason.”
“It’s almost like you planned it as soon as I told you about my baby.” Blythe said.
She would not add rolling eyes to the list of everything else her mom was tallying up about her wrongness. “I didn’t even know Theo back then. And this was very much unplanned.”
“Well, Rachel. You don’t have to just let this happen to you, you know. We could even schedule something for while you’re here, so Dad and I can help out with Hannah while you recover.”
Blythe’s hands rubbed at her abdomen, and Rachel found herself mimicking the action. “Mom. We talked about it. That’s not our choice.”
“Well, did you, though? Because this is a big deal, Rachel. You’re barely getting by with one child. And I’m sure your Theo is all you claim, just lovely as can be, but you can’t expect him to stick by you forever when you haven’t even known him half a year. There’s no shame in terminating. If he’s as nice as you claim, he might stay with you afterwards long enough for you to make a baby on purpose.”
Red and bright and sharp color shards plunged around behind her eyelids. Rachel kept the tears at bay, but her jaw was stiff when she spoke. “I know there’s no shame in termination. I’m pro-choice. We both are.”
“I didn’t know that. All those years living in Texas.”
“Dad lived there longer than I have.”
“But he got out. You were there all those impressionable young adult years. Living in that state changed you, Rachel.”
“Mom, maybe—”
“No, you know what?” She interrupted Blythe, but also tugged on her right earlobe, in apology, in case her sister still had any attachment to their old code. “You’re right that Texas changed me. Or that I changed after I moved there. After you and Dad sent me there, two suitcases and a backpack, and suddenly I had to make friends with people whose parents grew up with each other. I had to figure out the rhythms of Aunt Johnston’s house, and learn to trust her when she told me my problems with school weren’t the whole measure of me. I left here thinking I wasn’t worth a penny to anyone, and in Texas I found out that’s not true. I have value. Not just because I got myself through school and college and have those degrees you never thought I could manage. I matter, Mom. I’m good at my job, and I’m a kind, supportive friend, and most of all? The thing I’m most proud of, what I know I’m doing so well, or trying to do so well, every single day? And you never say it. I don’t know if you can’t see it or if you don’t mention it because you forgot years ago how to compliment me. But I am a great mama to your granddaughter. That girl and I aren’t ‘barely getting by.’ We are thriving.”
They were in the middle of singing about the wheels on the bus when her own tires stopped going round and round. Rachel coasted onto the shoulder and set the parking brake before, one slow peel at a time, lifting her fingers from their grip on the steering wheel.
Hannah continued with the song, unperturbed by calculations of how much further to Plainview, and why hadn’t she let Aunt Johnston know they’d fled Colorado early, and what blight hit this stretch of the freeway and killed all the shade trees?
The engine wasn’t cranking at all, and the car’s interior grew toastier by the second. She called Aunt J’s house but got the machine. Her cell went to voice mail, and not once in her dozen years of deigning to own a cell phone had Aunt Johnston figured out to check her voice mail.
And Hannah said, “Mama, it’s peepee time.”
Because of course it was.
The tow truck arrived while she was teaching her daughter to squat in the great outdoors. Rachel wanted a shower. And a nap. She tried not to act helpless and relieved as the driver, Kari, latched the car seat into her cab. But Kari picked up on some level of her distress. She offered to drop them at Aunt Johnston’s house on the way to the mechanic. Turned out she knew one of Aunt’s neighbors, so she caught her up on the local drama: the man spray-painted all the gnomes in the garden across the yard. Not some teen prank. The vandal was fifty-eight years old and he’d coated each gnome with a different color. “Used drop cloths and everything, said he didn’t want to ruin Thelma’s grass.”
“Courtship ritual?”
Kari’s laugh was sarcastic. “Boneheaded one.”
“You got that right.”
“When I was in, I don’t know, second grade? Kid in my class kept poking my back with the eraser end of his pencil. Swear to god, though it sounds like a euphemism now. Mom told me to take it as a compliment cause it meant he had a crush on me. Imagine the message there. Acting like a prick is supposed to flatter a girl.”
“I think I met that guy in high school.”
“Hon, we all met in that guy in high school.”
She laughed, but. Yeah. The amazing thing was, her newfound ability to laugh about it.
“Thanks for the lift. It was good to meet you.”
“No worries. All in a day’s work. You got Ray’s number for the car?”
She nodded and sent Hannah up to tackle her beloved porch swing while they unloaded all her gear. Still no answer from Aunt. After settling Hannah down, she called Theo. They’d talked during the morning’s drive, so she could decompress and update him about her change in plans. It settled her, hearing his voice and knowing the worst of her trip was behind her.
“Hey, you make
it to Plainview?”
“Almost.”
“What happened? Are you okay? Hannah?”
“No worries; we’re both fine. The little one, too.” She cradled a hand over the tiny bump of their baby. “We’re at my aunt’s house waiting on her to come home. She’s in for a surprise. My car died just outside town—tow truck driver gave me a lift. I think it’s the timing belt.”
“Rachel, hell. You’re terrifying me.”
“We’re fine, I swear. It’s just car trouble. And I left so darn early this morning I even made it here before nap time. I’ll lay down with her in a bit. I wanted to let you know what’s happening. Anyway, Evan, that’s Natalie’s fiancé, remember? He’s getting a new car next weekend and is going to give me a good deal on his old one, so I only have to get us back home. If the mechanic can’t fix this cheap we’ll take the bus.”
“If the timing belt’s gone it’ll cost more to repair than it’s worth.”
“I know, Mr. Mechanical-All-the-Sudden.”
“I looked it up.”
“Just now?” She laughed. “Of course you did.”
“Hey. I like looking things up.”
“I know. It’s cute. Anyhow I’ll have the real expert give me an opinion soon and let you know what we’re doing.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“Theo. You’re with your family.”
“Rachel. You’re my family, too.”
She dropped. Just landed on the sofa like she’d meant it. How did he always find casual phrases to shatter her to her core like that?
“We can fuss about it later. It might be something simple. Okay, listen, Aunt is here, talk to you soon.”
“Bye, love.”
“Bye.”
She kept staring at her phone until Aunt Johnston walked in. “Doodlebug, what’s happened? I didn’t expect you till Sunday. Are y’all okay? Where’s your car?”
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