Ashley had a hundred questions battling for position in her mind. Landon gave her hand a tender squeeze. She understood. Let Cole talk first. It was a parenting motto they had adopted when Cole was in preschool.
“Have a seat, Son.” Landon nodded at the chair across from them. “What’s on your mind?”
“Elise.” He dropped to the chair and clasped his hands. For a long time he kept his eyes fixed on his fingers. When he looked up, he said words Ashley never in all her life expected him to say. “She thinks she might be pregnant.”
Instantly Ashley was on her feet. “Cole!” She felt the blood drain from her face. Her voice was louder than she intended. “Are you serious? You barely know her!”
Landon reached up and helped Ashley back to the sofa cushion. “Honey.” His eyes pleaded with her. “Let him finish.”
Finish? Ashley was about to pass out. They didn’t even know this girl and she was worried she was pregnant? “Cole . . . what in the world? How could you?” The words came out as muttered cries. Before she had even a chance to stop them. Cole had wanted to wait till he was married, honor his future wife and God at the same time. But now . . . now every dream she had believed for Cole was being shattered without warning. I should’ve known something was off when—
“Mom!” Now it was Cole’s turn to be outraged. He stood and raked his hand through his hair. Then he turned his back on them, like he might leave without an explanation. But after a few seconds he whipped around and faced Ashley. “Are you serious? You think I got her pregnant? A girl I met three weeks ago?”
Landon put his head in his hands and sighed. “Dear God . . .”
Ashley blinked. If she could’ve tunneled through the floor to anywhere but here, she would’ve gladly done it. How in the world could she have thought Cole would’ve already slept with this girl?
Raw hurt darkened Cole’s eyes. “You should know my character better than that.” He fiddled with the Giving Key necklace he wore most days. The one custom-engraved with their last name, BLAKE, across the front. A gift for his future wife. “I’m waiting until I’m married. You know that.”
He was right. Ashley did know.
She dragged herself to her feet and somehow crossed the room to where her oldest son stood. “Cole.” She took his hands in hers and stared into his eyes. If only she could erase the pain there, take back her words and her reaction. “I’m so . . . so sorry.” She looked down for a moment. She was the very worst possible mother.
When she looked up, it was through eyes blurred with tears. “Of course I know your character.”
“I’m only telling you because she needs our help.” He was still struggling with what had just happened. Clearly. “Yours and dad’s and mine. All of us.”
Ashley pulled Cole slowly into her arms. Because he was better than her, he came to her. Even now. She hugged him for several seconds and then looked into his eyes again. “Please . . . forgive me.”
The struggle was real for him. That much was obvious. But after half a minute, Cole shook his head and managed a sound that was more frustration than laugh. “Really? I mean, I can’t believe you, Mom.”
Landon was watching both of them now. “Your mother didn’t mean it.” His tone was kind and strong. The voice of reason in the madness. “She really is sorry.”
“I know.” Cole sighed. He hugged Ashley this time and looked into her eyes. “I forgive you. Just, please . . . don’t jump to conclusions. Expect the best of me.” He led Ashley back to the sofa and then returned to the chair. “Let’s start over.”
Yes, that was just what Ashley wanted. “I’m listening.”
Landon put his arm around her and gave her a reassuring side hug. Always patient and kind with her. What would she do without him?
“Anyway.” Cole was finding the words, back to the place where he had first started. “I told her about your crisis pregnancy center. I might take her there tomorrow. For the free test.”
“What makes her think she’s pregnant?” The question came from Landon.
Ashley was glad. She was determined just to listen from here on out. Unless Cole needed a specific answer from her. At this point she’d said enough.
His explanation took the next ten minutes. Cole told them how Elise had gotten connected with a bad guy, someone who took advantage of her. “The two of them drank and partied and stayed out way past curfew.” Cole sounded sorry for her. “She hates all of this now. The guy forced himself on her. It wasn’t how she wanted things to go.”
“Wow.” Landon rubbed the back of his neck. “Poor girl.” He sounded sincere.
Ashley nodded, but inside she was struggling. This was the girl Cole was crazy about? Someone rebellious and wild? A girl who had been with some other guy as recently as November? She was glad Cole couldn’t read her mind.
Cole went on about how Elise had rebelled against her mother, and when it all came crashing down before Christmas, the decision was made to send Elise to her aunt and uncle’s house in Bloomington. Mostly to get away from the guy.
Great, Ashley thought. He’ll probably come after her and take his wrath out on Cole. Of all people. Again she bit her tongue.
“And now she thinks she’s pregnant.” Landon brought the conversation back to the main point.
“Yes. She’s been feeling sick and throwing up.” He turned to Ashley. “Can she get a test tomorrow at the center? If I take her there?”
“Of course.” Ashley felt herself begin to soften. The crisis pregnancy center was something she and her sister Brooke had started several years ago, after Ashley and Landon’s first daughter was born with anencephaly and died just after birth. She’d seen the girls who came through the front doors of the place. Scared and alone. Compassion began to warm the worried places in her heart. She locked eyes with Cole. “Whatever we can do to help her.”
“There.” Cole smiled. “That’s my mom.” The hurt wasn’t completely gone from his face, but he looked better. They were going to be okay. “I told Elise I’d be there for her. As her friend.”
Relief flooded Ashley. It was the first reassuring thing her son had said since he sat down. He wanted to be her friend. Nothing more. She was about to tell him how smart that was, just to be a companion for a girl like Elise. But God Himself must’ve stopped her because she shut her mouth.
Landon ran his fingers along her shoulder. As if he could tell she was practicing restraint. “But that’s not how you felt about her before.” He paused. “Right?” Understanding ran rich in Landon’s words. He was such a wonderful father.
He patted the spot on the sofa beside them. “Come here. This can’t be easy for you.”
“No.” Tears built up in Cole’s eyes. He took the place next to Landon and leaned onto his shoulder. “I thought I was in love with her.” He wiped at his tears and seemed to try to gain composure. “I still think that.”
“What about her?” Landon turned so he could see Cole better. He put his hand on their son’s knee. “What does she think?”
Ashley held her breath.
“She doesn’t like me. Not like that.” He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “She thinks we should just be friends.”
Again, Ashley didn’t say a word.
“Well . . .” Landon moved his hand to Cole’s shoulder. “She’s probably right. It’s just two months since she was in a terrible relationship. And now she might be carrying that boy’s child.” He hesitated, like he was letting his words sink in. “Makes sense, right?”
Exhale, Ashley reminded herself. She breathed out, her eyes fixed on Cole.
He seemed to take Landon’s words to heart. Even the look in his eyes softened. “Yeah. I can see that. She’s pretty upset.” A certainty welled in his expression. “But if she wants me to stand by her, I’ll be there.” He locked eyes with Landon. “The way you were there for Mom.”
Ashley wondered if she might fall to the floor. He couldn’t be serious. Cole wasn’t thinking he needed to date Elise, jus
t because that was something Landon had done with Ashley? He couldn’t possibly be leaning that way. The idea shot panic through her veins and she waited. Come on, Landon. Say something.
“I feel like that was a little different.” Landon’s tone was measured. Unhurried. “I had known your mom in high school, but by the time we reconnected we were in our twenties. Finished with school. And you were a two-year-old.”
Cole seemed to take that in, process it. His gaze fell off toward the window. “I guess you’re right.” He hesitated for a few seconds and then he looked at Landon again. “But you would’ve stayed by Mom. If this had happened to her.”
At that, Landon was quiet. There was nothing he could say. Cole was right. Landon would’ve stayed by Ashley. He would’ve done anything for her, even if Ashley had only been eighteen and just weeks out of a terrible relationship.
“Tell you what.” Landon stood and helped Cole to his feet. “Why don’t we all get a good night’s sleep and pray about that, what your role is supposed to be in Elise’s life?” He drew Cole into a long hug. “We love you very much, Son. We’re proud of you.”
Cole nodded and held on to Landon, clung to him like Ashley hadn’t seen him do since he was a much younger boy. “I love you, Dad. Thank you. For helping me.”
Again Ashley wished she had kept herself from blurting out earlier. But that moment was past. Cole moved to her and hugged her the same way he’d hugged Landon. “I love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too.” He was taller than she was now. Ashley laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry again.”
“It’s okay. You didn’t mean it.” He looked at her, his eyes bleary from his earlier tears. “I’ll just pretend you didn’t say it.”
“Thank you.” She put her hand alongside his face. “We’ll get through this. I meant what I said about Elise. Tell us how we can help her.”
Cole told them again how much he appreciated them, how he was grateful because he could tell them anything. And after that he headed up to bed. Ashley turned to Landon and collapsed in his arms. “How could I say that?”
“I knew it was coming.” His smile was tender, rich with understanding. “I tried to stop you.”
“I felt you.” She exhaled hard. “Landon, I mean, what was I thinking? Cole’s never even kissed a girl.”
“Exactly.” He ran his hand along the back of her head. “It’ll be okay. He’s over it.”
She was quiet for a minute, processing. Elise could be pregnant . . . and Cole was willing to stand by her. “What does that mean?” She looked up at him. “He’s going to stand by her?”
“I don’t know.” Landon’s eyes saw straight to the center of her anxious heart. “He’s young, but I think he means forever. Like he’d marry her and be a father to this baby the way I was for him.”
“No.” She whispered the word, in case somewhere in the house Cole could hear her. “I don’t want that for him. He has college and med school. His whole future, and just because—”
“Ash.” He brought her face to his and kissed her. So she couldn’t say another word. “Only God and Cole can write his story. We can’t do it for him. All we can do is pray and stand by him. And once in a while, on nights like this, give him advice.”
The reality of all Landon said settled in around her like a wet blanket. She wasn’t ready for what might be coming, for Cole to make decisions that carried this much weight. “So . . . I have to plan a wedding?”
This time Landon laughed out loud. “Baby, we’re tired. Let’s go to bed.” He spoke so softly she could barely hear him. Then he put his arm around her waist and walked with her to the stairs. “I don’t think we need to book the church just yet.”
“True.” First things first. Sometime tomorrow Cole would take Elise to the crisis pregnancy center to see if she was really expecting. And if she was, Ashley would do the most powerful thing she could. The best gift a mother could give her child. Grown or not. Now and forevermore like her life depended on it.
She would pray.
8
Lucy always had a favorite baby in the maternity ward, one who caught her attention and took hold of her heart. This week it was a little boy who weighed just over a pound. Same weight as little Sophie.
Born at the same number of weeks.
Only Nathan was a few ounces heavier and a whole lot healthier. He would spend another few months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, but everyone on the floor thought he’d make it. Nathan was a fighter, the doctors said. Lucy walked from the nurses’ station to the spot next to his hooded bassinet.
If Nathan could survive birth at twenty weeks, why not their Sophie? Was her death one more way God was telling them that they weren’t capable of being parents? That they weren’t worthy, somehow? Lucy studied the miniature newborn. His legs were the size of her fingers. But his heartbeat was strong and steady.
A miracle.
But where was the miracle for Aaron and her? When their little girl came too soon? She leaned closer to the plastic hood, the barrier that kept warmth around Nathan’s body. “Mmmm.” She made the sound that comforted most babies in the nursery. A single note that came close to the sound a baby heard in the womb. The single soft hum became words. “Baby Nathan. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Lucy felt someone beside her, so she straightened and turned. It was her new friend, Brooke. Lucy drew a slow breath and looked back at Nathan. “Tiniest one since I’ve been here.”
“Yes.” Brooke was one of the doctors tending to him. “He’s got strong lungs and a perfect heart.” She bent down and studied the baby. “But he’s a long way from his lungs working on their own. He’ll be here a lot longer.”
Lucy nodded. Of course. Babies born so little always battled to gain weight and learn to breathe. “I’ll be praying for him every day.” She smiled at the infant. “That’s for sure.”
“Me, too.” Brooke glanced at the clock on the wall and then looked at her. “Hey, can you take a break? I have twenty minutes before rounds.”
“I was supposed to take one an hour ago.” Lucy turned back to the nurses’ station. “I’ll check myself out.”
They went to the second-floor coffee shop and found a table near the window. Brooke took a long sip of her coffee and leaned back in her chair. “I needed this.”
“Definitely.” Lucy felt the same way. “Thanks for finding me.” She looked at Brooke over the rim of her paper cup. “I knew everyone at my old hospital in Atlanta. Here . . . I’d be a stranger if you hadn’t reached out my first week on the job.” Brooke’s husband, Peter, had met Aaron at a hospital dinner when Lucy was still back in Atlanta packing up the house. “Aaron often talks about that night when you three met.”
Brooke seemed unrushed. Like she had something deeper on her mind. “Did I ever tell you that? About our talk?”
“No.” Lucy set her cup down. “Not in detail.”
Brooke’s eyes filled with empathy. “He told me about your fertility struggles, and how the two of you were hoping.” She hesitated. “You know, new location, new chances. Maybe the baby would come when you got settled here.”
Heat filled Lucy’s face. Aaron had said that? To complete strangers? She swallowed hard and worked to hide her embarrassment. After a few seconds, she gave a light shrug and ordered herself to smile. “That’s what we thought.”
“There’s always a chance. I have another friend who struggled to get pregnant.” Brooke went on about the friend who had been unable to have a baby for six years and then—for no reason in particular—she got pregnant.
Lucy tried to listen, but she couldn’t. She’d heard some version of that story every time the topic came up. Friends, family members, medical personnel. Everyone had a success story. After so many years, all of a sudden . . .
They were only trying to encourage her. But what did someone else’s story have to do with Aaron and her? That’s what Lucy could never figure out.
Brooke was still talking.
“So there’s always hope.” Her smile was bathed in sympathy. She reached out and briefly covered Lucy’s hand with her own. “You know that. Working in this profession.”
The expression on Brooke’s face was identical to the one Lucy always saw sitting across from her. People looked the same when they talked to her about babies. When they asked her what she and Aaron had tried and what options they might’ve missed in their quest for a child.
This was why Lucy hated when Aaron told people their story, how she couldn’t get pregnant and how there was still no baby in their lives. It made her feel broken and outcast. Defective. Especially here with Brooke.
But since her new friend already knew, there wasn’t much Lucy could hide. Still, she could change the subject. “Tell me about your girls. You and Peter never had trouble getting pregnant?”
“No. That wasn’t our problem.” Brooke’s voice fell some. Clearly there was some other trouble. When Lucy didn’t say anything, Brooke drew a slow breath. “Our littlest, Hayley, suffered a drowning accident when she was three.” Brooke tilted her head, like she was underlining the point. “She’s eighteen now, but . . . it’s not something we’ll ever get over.”
“Brooke . . .” Lucy felt her heart fall to the floor. She couldn’t imagine. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.” Brooke nodded. “I don’t talk about it much anymore.” She paused. “The girls were at a birthday swim party. Peter was in charge of them.” Her smile looked desperately sad. “I don’t say that with any accusation. Not anymore.”
Lucy waited, not sure how much Brooke wanted to say.
“I was called in to work at the hospital, and Peter said he would watch the girls.” Brooke did a slow shrug, like even after all these years she still wasn’t sure what had happened. Her expression grew distant. “Hayley had arm floaties. The rule was she had to keep them on the whole time. But the kids came in for cake and . . .”
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