by Tasha Black
18
Sarah
Sarah was exhausted by the time Mandy had driven them past the swamps and industrial parks on interstate 95 and up the blue route to the slice of suburban heaven where Tarker’s Hollow was nestled.
They hadn’t said much. Mandy had wrapped her in a warm hug and then thrown her bags in the backseat. Then Sarah gazed out the window as the road brought her closer to her boy.
When the close-set Victorians gave way to fields and trees, she knew they were close.
“Are you okay?” Mandy asked.
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “I’m okay.”
But she had a hollow feeling in her chest.
It was likely because she missed her baby. She couldn’t wait to hug him close. But he was a good sleeper, it would be a few hours more before he woke up and she got her cuddle.
Mandy parked and they walked to the house, leaves crunching under their feet from the big sycamores that lined the drive.
Sarah opened the front door to find Kate standing in the living room, Orson in her arms.
“Somebody knew you were coming,” Kate chuckled.
Orson squealed and Sarah gratefully took him from Kate.
He tucked his little nose into the crook of her neck, chubby little hands squeezing her shoulder, tugging at her hair, as if to be sure of her.
“Oh, I missed you, buddy,” she told him. “I missed you so much.”
His head smelled even more heavenly than she remembered and she buried her nose in his fluff of hair and covered his warm head with kisses.
“I’ll fix you some tea,” Kate said.
“No, no, I’m fine,” Sarah said, seating herself on the sofa with Orson. “Thank you for getting up with him.”
“Nonsense, love,” Kate said. “You get to where I am and you appreciate a nighttime cuddle with a baby. They grow up so fast.”
Sarah looked down at Orson, hoping it wouldn’t happen too fast.
“How did it go with his Daddy?” Kate asked.
Mandy made a cutting motion across her neck. Unfortunately she wasn’t standing far enough back for Sarah not to catch it in her periphery.
Kate nodded and slipped into the kitchen.
Sarah’s phone buzzed in her pocket.
“Oh, wow,” she said.
It was after midnight.
She shifted Orson into one arm and slid the phone out of her pocket, mentally trying to figure out which loved one might be ill.
It was a text.
* * *
Max Reynolds (tree guy):
* * *
I know it’s late, but I wanted you to know it was good seeing you these past few days. I’m sorry I lost my temper this morning. I was afraid something had happened to you in the woods and I was angry at myself for not waking up sooner when you could have been in danger. Anyway, I take it from the way you ran when you noticed us this afternoon that you are not ready to meet my mother yet. But I’d love to see you again on your terms. No pressure. But I think you’re amazing, Sarah Bennett.
* * *
Sarah smiled down at the phone.
His mother.
She thought back to the primly crossed ankles and the ‘80s style pumps and wondered how she hadn’t suspected as much in the first place.
“I know you said no tea, but here’s a sandwich and a glass of milk,” Kate said, coming out of the kitchen and setting down the feast in front of Sarah. “I’ll see you kids in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said. She felt good and hungry all of a sudden.
“My pleasure,” Kate said. “Good night, lamb.” She leaned down and stroked Orson’s fluffy head with her index finger.
“Was that Max?” Mandy asked, indicating Sarah’s phone as Kate climbed the stairs.
Sarah nodded.
“What he said made you smile,” Mandy noted.
“Yeah,” Sarah said.
Mandy smiled and nodded.
“I think I’m going to try and get Orson down after I eat,” Sarah said, not ready to share more with her sister.
“Good thinking,” Mandy told her. “But text him back first.”
“No,” Sarah said. “I think I’m going to wait until morning. And then I’m going to call him.”
“You’re going to tell him?”
“He’s a good guy,” Sarah said. “Whether we’re a couple or not, Orson deserves the chance to know him.”
Mandy pulled Sarah and Orson into her arms for a big bear hug.
“I’m proud of you, and I’m here no matter how he reacts,” Mandy assured her.
“Thanks again for having my back,” Sarah said, unshed tears burning her eyes.
“Always.”
19
Sarah
Sarah awoke as the sun was peeking over the field beyond the sycamores outside the guest room window. The third floor room was drafty, but there were plenty of quilts on the bed and Orson was snoozing in his fuzziest sleeper in the crib beside her.
She gazed out the window into the glorious fall leaves.
Things were changing. Everything in her life was changing.
And what she was about to do was scary.
But some things would never change - not her love for Orson or her determination to do the right thing for him, not her self-confidence or her sense of right and wrong.
She slipped out of the room, freshened up, and came back to unplug her phone and crawl back into bed with it.
It was early, but if she wanted to catch Max before work, now was the time.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Sarah?” His deep voice had a raspy edge to it, as if he had been worried.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I got in late last night,” she told him.
“Oh good,” he said, sounding relieved. “You’re in Glacier City already?”
“No, I’m actually at a farm in Pennsylvania,” she explained. “It’s a long story.
“A farm in Pennsylvania?” he echoed.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a long story, but I called because there’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you before now.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
“Are you sitting down?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Okay,” she paused.
She’d rehearsed this so many times, but everything she’d practiced seemed too formal, too stilted.
To his credit, Max waited patiently.
“When I came out there last year, I was so happy,” she began. “I loved the idea of investing in timber, spending time outside, but mostly I just… loved spending time with you.”
“I loved it too,” he said.
“But when we slept together, I felt… embarrassed,” she admitted. “We barely knew each other. That’s not something I make a habit of doing.”
“I know you don’t.”
“So I didn’t return your calls or texts,” she went on. “I figured you felt bad since we were trying to do business together, like you had to call me…”
“That’s not why I was calling and texting you, but I understand. I really do.” he said
“That’s not all,” she said.
“It’s not?”
“No. Once I’d been home a couple of weeks I noticed I wasn’t feeling so well in the mornings and then… well, long and short of it, I was pregnant,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut tight and feeling glad she wasn’t there in person telling him and waiting for his reaction.
“You were pregnant?” he asked, an edge back in his voice.
“I have a baby now,” she said. “He’s three months old. His name is Orson. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Max, I don’t want child support, and I don’t want to cramp your lifestyle. I just want you to know about him, to decide for yourself if you want any part in his life. He’s a very special little boy.”
She pressed her fist to her mouth, tears already running do
wn her cheeks in anticipation of his reaction.
There was nothing but silence on the other end.
After a moment she forced herself to look away from the window to Orson, who was mercifully still sleeping. His cheeks were so pink and his little mouth formed an “o” as if he were dreaming about something surprising and delightful.
Sarah hung up the phone and plugged it back in.
When it began to light up and buzz again she turned it off and left it where it was.
Max’s silence had spoken louder than words. She didn’t need to hear his reasons for not wanting to get involved, it was best to move on. She could have a lawyer draw something up to relieve him formally of any financial responsibility when they got home. For now she just wanted to gather herself.
She went back to lie beside her son.
Her heart was aching, but she had done the right thing. The rejection she felt on Orson’s behalf was terrible.
But Max didn’t know Orson, so it didn’t really reflect on her son.
And the guilt she had felt for not telling Max was dissipating already. She might not have told him as soon as she should have, but she’d told him now.
She was doing her best.
When Orson woke up, she would feed him and they would enjoy a day on the farm. She would make a plan, with Kate’s help, that would allow Sarah to give her little boy the richest and fullest and happiest life she could.
I am enough, she told herself.
20
Sarah
Sarah breathed in the crisp fall air and felt grateful for good company and healthy exercise.
She and Kate’s daughter, Darcy, were taking pumpkins out of wheelbarrows and stacking them artfully on crates in the Pumpkin Land section of Harkness Farms.
Sarah had never seen anything quite like it. Pumpkin Land was as big as a football field and comprised of a row of “spooky” scenes of witches, vampires, and fairy tales set behind a fence to the back, a huge section of mums in various pots on one side, an indoor display of Halloween decorations on the other, a line for the hayrides in the north corner, and, taking up the entire center of the field, dozens of wooden crates containing pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.
In the big red barn nearby, Kate and a few of the other adult kids were baking pumpkin pies in the lower level kitchen. The scent of the spices wafted from the open basement windows toward Pumpkin Land.
The whole thing was truly magical. She only wished Orson were old enough to appreciate it.
As fast as Sarah and Darcy could stack the pumpkins, Darcy’s foster brother, Will kept delivering them.
And Will’s wife, Tess, sat on the haystacks carefully set up as a family photo backdrop, cuddling baby Orson and singing to him.
As far as new beginnings, this had to be up there with the best of them.
Sarah only wished she could stop thinking about Max, wondering what he was doing, how he was feeling.
“You getting tired?” Darcy asked.
“No, sorry,” Sarah said, tearing her eyes from the sight of Orson, wide-eyed over a scarlet leaf that had just landed next to him in Tess’s lap.
“He’s so cute,” Darcy chuckled. “I don’t know how you get anything done.”
“I don’t really get anything done,” Sarah admitted. “Well, you know, you’ve got Luke.”
Darcy and Finn’s son was at school now, but Sarah had met him first thing this morning.
“Luke’s amazing,” Darcy concurred. “And he definitely takes the spotlight. I don’t know if you knew this, but Luke was adopted. So I didn’t get to know him when he was Orson’s age.”
“I had no idea,” Sarah said. She had just assumed, based on the resemblance.
“He looks just like me, doesn’t he?” Darcy said.
Sarah nodded.
“I think maybe I’m starting to look like him from hanging out with him so much,” Darcy joked. “You know, like they say people start to resemble their pets?”
“Are you calling my nephew a pet?” Will asked, winking at Sarah.
“He’s a canine,” Darcy shrugged with a teasing expression on her face.
“He’s lupine,” Will retorted, and made as if to playfully smack her.
Darcy ducked and gave him a light roundhouse kick in the butt.
“Oh boy, now you’re in for it,” Will shouted.
Darcy took off and Will dashed after her, leaping over the wheelbarrow Sarah had been emptying.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” Tess said. “I wish I could say they were showing off for you, but it’s pretty much like this all the time.”
Sarah was getting ready to say it was fine - better than fine, it was wonderful - when she noticed the band of kids running for them from the house.
“School bus must have let off,” Tess said. “Though Kate’s normally strict about giving them milk and cookies and half an hour of homework before they’re allowed to help with Pumpkin Land.”
“Sarah, Sarah,” Hannah called out. She was one of the older girls, tall and slim with long hair.
“What’s up?” Sarah asked.
“There’s someone here to see you,” Hannah said.
“It’s a man,” one of the little boys put in, waggling his eyebrows.
“Mom said to tell you it’s Max,” Hannah continued, elbowing her little brother.
Max.
Darcy and Will were back, smiling, but calm again, listening.
“We’ll hang onto Orson for you if you want to run in,” Tess offered.
“No, thank you,” Sarah said. “I don’t think I’m the only one Max wants to see.”
She took Orson from Tess, amazed at how having his little body in her arms made her feel like she could do anything.
She headed straight for the house, not waiting for the kids, who were already stacking pumpkins to beat the band as Darcy asked them if they’d had their snack yet.
When she was halfway there, her sister came out the back door with a stormy look on her face.
“He says he wants to talk to you alone,” Mandy growled.
“It’s fine,” Sarah said.
“It had better be fine,” Mandy said. “He’s in the living room. I’m going to wait in the kitchen and if you give the signal I’ll be out in a hurry.”
“If you’re in the kitchen I won’t have to give a signal, you’ll be able to hear everything,” Sarah said, trying to hide her smile.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“I’m just enjoying that you’re more freaked out about this than I am,” Sarah admitted.
They had reached the farmhouse.
“Do you want me inside or outside?” Mandy asked.
“Outside maybe,” Sarah said.
Mandy nodded.
“But don’t go too far,” Sarah added.
Mandy’s expression brightened slightly.
“Love you, Sarah,” she said.
“I love you too,” Sarah told her.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped in the back door.
Kate’s kitchen was dim compared to the sunny day outside. Sarah walked past the gleaming copper pots on the wooden island and headed into the living room, which looked smaller with Max in it.
He stood before the fireplace, his big body so still, his expression inscrutable.
“Hello, Max,” Sarah said, stepping into the room.
“Oh,” said Max.
He gazed at Orson, his brown eyes rapt.
Sarah began to wonder if this conversation might go a bit differently than she’d planned.
“This is Orson,” she said.
“Hello, Orson,” Max said softly.
Orson chuckled and reached a chubby hand in Max’s direction. The dimple appeared over his right cheek.
Max smiled wonderingly, raising his hand to his cheek to touch his own dimple.
“Just like yours,” Sarah whispered.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” Max told Orson.
“How did you find us?” Sarah aske
d.
“It’s a long story,” Max said. “But I have my own connection to Kate Harkness. My parents came to see her when I shifted as a toddler. When you said you were at a farm in Pennsylvania, and I knew you had our baby…”
Our baby.
“I’m glad you came,” Sarah said. “I want Orson to know you, on your terms, of course.”
Max’s expression turned furious and he tore his eyes from Orson for the first time since Sarah had entered the room.
“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice low.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve never understood,” he continued. “You said we had a one night stand, you said we slept together. We didn’t Sarah. We made love. And whether we meant to or not, we made a family that night.”
Sarah stared at him, dumbfounded.
“I tried to reach you for weeks, and you wouldn’t pick up because you assumed I was only calling because I felt bad?”
He began to pace up and down the room.
“And last night, you tell me we have a baby, the best thing anyone has ever told me, the happiest news of my life. And then you follow it up by saying I don’t have to be involved?”
“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.
He paused in the middle of the room, gazing at her with tortured eyes.
“Sarah, I don’t feel bad, I don’t want to avoid responsibility, and I’m definitely not being nice. I love you. And I’ll do whatever it takes to be way, way more than just a part of your life and his. I’ll sell the business and move to Glacier City, I’ll work two jobs so you can stay home, I’ll serve you and your girlfriends high tea wearing a Chippendales outfit if it will make you happy. All I want in return is for you to open your eyes and see me for who I am - the man who loves you. Unconditionally.”
Sarah stared at him in wonder, puzzle pieces clicking in her head.
“Can you please do that for me?” he asked, stepping over to her and cupping her cheek in his hand. “Please, Sarah.”
His touch sent lightning through her veins as it always did and suddenly she recognized that it wasn’t just a physical response, it was emotional.