Blueprints

by Barbara Delinsky

  “I think it is,” Jamie said. Just then Chip approached holding Tad, and she took him and made the introductions. Tad just stared at Samantha, clearly not knowing any more than Jamie did whether the woman was friend or foe.

  Buddy, on the other hand, was no sooner released from the car than he made a beeline for his aunt. Stopping short inches away, he rocked back on his heels and grinned up.

  Samantha gave him a thoroughly Chip grin, which made Jamie warm to her a little. “Hey, big guy,” she said with genuine enthusiasm and bent for a hug. “I’d pick you up, but…”

  “But what?” Chip said, approaching with Jamie’s computer in his arms.

  “He’s too heavy.”

  “Then I won’t give you this. If you want to make yourself useful, take the boys inside and make dinner. There’s ground beef in the fridge.” To Jamie, he said, “She likes to cook. Mom molded her.”

  “Taught her,” Samantha corrected, “and it’s a good thing someone learned something from her, because my brother sure didn’t. Marriage is a major thing.”

  “Sam—” Chip began.

  “You could’ve called me, y’know.” She swallowed once, then again, and seemed to be taking a deep breath even as she asked, “Why did I have to hear this from Mom?”

  “Because Jamie’s mom wasn’t happy, and our mom wasn’t happy, and I didn’t want more not-happy from you and my sisters, and Jamie and I had to get to work. She has a killer deadline on a major project, so I need to hook up these machines ASAP. Are you staying the night or driving right back?” As an aside to Jamie, he said, “She does that sometimes. Important people don’t take time for family, which may be one of the reasons she isn’t married.”

  “Chip,” Jamie scolded softly. Marriage was a touchy subject for some unmarried women, and his sister seemed to have gone pale.

  But she didn’t back down. “Actually,” she said, “the reason I’m not married is that I’ve never been able to find a guy who was anywhere near as solid as Dad. I’ve been looking. Trust me, I have. And yes, I’m staying the night.” She swallowed again. “But I didn’t bring my key, so if one of you could unlock the door, I could use a bathroom.”

  She was looking a little green. Jamie wondered if she was sick. Shifting Tad on her hip, she went to the side door, unlocked it, and stood back. Samantha had grown up in this house and knew her way around. She made a beeline for the closest bathroom.

  When Tad squirmed, Jamie set him down near the fridge. Buddy was suddenly there. “Mamie, can I have apple juice?” he asked.

  “That’s just what I was coming to get,” Jamie said with a smile. Buddy was a sweet child, and even if that hadn’t been so, the fact that he had accepted Tad so readily would have endeared him to her.

  Removing two juice boxes, she tucked one under her arm while she fixed a straw first in Buddy’s, then Tad’s. She unwrapped granola bars and set the boys up near the toys in the living room. Retracing her steps, she heard the toilet flush as she passed the first-floor lav. Wanting to give Samantha as much privacy she could, she went straight on through the kitchen and out the door. She reached the car as Chip was gathering a second load.

  He straightened, looking hassled. “I’m sorry. I figured I’d hear from her at some point, but I didn’t think she’d leave New York so fast. You don’t need this right now.”

  Thinking that she was so far behind in work that a little more wouldn’t hurt, she tugged at his shirt to lighten his mood. “She doesn’t seem so bad to me. Do you think she’s okay?”

  “Okay how?”

  “She got really pale there.”

  He snorted. “Being brilliant can be draining.”

  “Be kind,” Jamie chided. “She’s your sister. She wants you happy.”

  “I’ll be happy if she makes dinner,” he said and, carefully extracting a machine from deep in the SUV, headed back to the house.

  Jamie followed with a carton of typing paper, traceing paper, packs of Sharpies, pens and pencils, and correction fluid. When she saw the bathroom door still closed, she set the box on the kitchen table, went into the hall, and knocked softly.

  “Samantha? Are you okay?”

  There was total silence from inside. Then the handle turned and the door cracked open.

  An invitation?

  Thinking that she didn’t have time to accept it but that this was Chip’s sister and she couldn’t turn away, she gently eased the door back. Samantha sat sideways on the closed toilet with her head bowed and a damp cloth pressed to the back of her neck.

  Frightened, Jamie slipped inside and shut the door to keep the boys out. “What’s wrong?”

  “Morning sickness is only supposed to last three months. I’m going on six.”

  “Pregnant?”

  Confirmation came with a snicker. “Not on the approved activities list when there’s no husband.”

  “Who’s the father?”

  “Donor XR 21899.”

  Jamie gasped. “Not an accident, then.”

  “Oh no. I picked him carefully. He’s six-three, comes from a large family, did a Peace Corps stint, and is currently a pediatric resident at a major hospital God knows where. I was lucky. I got pregnant on the first try.”

  Chip hadn’t mentioned a pregnancy, which meant that either his parents had chosen not to tell him or … “Your parents don’t know?”

  “No.” Samantha rocked gently. “I knew they’d be against it. They’d want the husband to come first. They’d tell me I’m not that old, and they’re right, but I’ve always wanted kids, and my life is perfect in so many ways but empty in others, and I seriously do not like the guys I see out there. My folks say I need friends.” She made a disparaging sound. “Like I have time to make friends?”

  Boy, could Jamie identify with that. She didn’t have time for friends or for a sister-in-law. Yet here she was, chatting it up in the bathroom with one. And mothering Tad? Granted, she’d have chosen any other way of getting him than having her father and Jessica die—but she loved her baby. Had it not been for him, she wouldn’t be with Chip, with whom she was over-the-moon crazy in love. Nor would she be stressed to the max over time demands, or setting up an office in a house she would never have designed but in which she felt totally at home, or terrified about meeting in-laws. But she wasn’t turning away from any of it.

  Samantha set the cloth on the edge of the sink and raised nervous eyes to Jamie. “If I don’t have time for friends, do I have time for a baby? I mean, what was I thinking? My lifestyle is crazy. I work long days, and I’m gone overnight all the time.” Jamie remembered now; she did publicity for a restaurant group that had started in New York but was spreading steadily westward. “I can’t do that with a baby. My boss may can me when I tell him I won’t travel.”

  “He can’t fire you because you’re pregnant.”

  “No, but if I refuse to do the job he hired me for? Travel was always part of the package. I signed on to the deal. So I think about that, and I think about my teeny apartment, which is a walk-up, which I love for the exercise, but which may not be cool once I have a baby and a carriage and groceries, and the nausea’s been so bad that I’ve used up my sick time, and this is all before childbirth, which terrifies me, and I haven’t begun to consider child care.”

  “You’re thinking too far ahead.”

  “But shouldn’t I have done that before I got myself into this?”

  “Would you do anything different if you could go back?”

  “No. Mothering is the job I want.” Closing her eyes, she put a hand on her stomach and drew in a slow breath through pursed lips. Exhaling the same way, she said, “Except when I feel sick.” She breathed in again, out again. “Okay. I’m good.” But she bent forward again.

  Not knowing what else to do, Jamie freshened the cloth, refolded it, and returned it to her neck. “You don’t look pregnant.”

  “A mixed bag, there,” came the muffled voice. “I didn’t tell my parents during the first trimester on the
chance that the pregnancy wouldn’t hold, and once I knew it would, I kept putting it off. I haven’t seen them in a while. Besides, I’ve always worn leggings, and tunics are in style.” Moving the cloth to her throat as she straightened, she smoothed the wide tunic so that her middle showed.

  “Oh my,” Jamie breathed. The baby bump was small, but definitely there. “Is it healthy?”

  “She is.”

  “A girl!” A momentary excitement caught her up. “I want one of those next.”

  Samantha snorted. “Mom always said she loved that her first was a girl. Wonder what she’ll say about her first girl now.” She grew earnest, seeming to want Jamie to understand. “It’s not like they won’t want the baby. They just won’t like how I got her. I was waiting to tell them until I felt better, so my third month became my fourth, and now that I’m well into my fifth, I tell myself that they’ll just have to accept it the more of a done deal it is.”

  “Like Chip and me getting married,” Jamie said.

  Samantha was quiet. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were defiant and ashamed at once. “Want to know my first thought when Mom called this morning with your news? Pure glee. I kept thinking, My being single and pregnant will be small potatoes compared to Chip marrying one of his bimbos.” Her defiance faded, leaving apology on its own. “Only you’re not a bimbo, are you.”

  Jamie smiled. “No. But I’m horrid in the kitchen, and I’m in a state of panic about a deadline that my mother, who, by the way, isn’t speaking to me right now, set for a project she wants done by Wednesday. So if I get you crackers, will you be able to make dinner while Chip and I set up my office?”

  “I could do that,” Samantha said but was suddenly cautious. “Which one of us tells him about the baby?”

  Jamie didn’t think it was her job to do that, but she heard a tiny thread of pleading in the question, and the part of her that had never had a sibling wanted to be involved with one now. She actually felt bad for Samantha. Jamie had had Chip with her when she broke the news of their marriage to her mother. Samantha was alone.

  * * *

  Leaving the cook munching Goldfish as she searched the cupboards, Jamie got another armload from the car. She carried it upstairs, where Chip was just finishing the computer hookup.

  He took a step back. “Try it.”

  She tripped on the carpet as she crossed the room and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. “Why do I do that?” she cried, glaring at the carpet as he took the box.

  “To make the rest of us feel better, since you are otherwise perfect.”

  “Hah. I couldn’t hook up these machines if my life depended on it.”

  “Do we know anything works? Try it.”

  Instead, she put her back to the computer and her palms on his chest. “I need to tell you something first. I don’t want you to say anything until I’m done, and before you speak then, you need to know that I think it’s good.”

  His eyes were large and scared. “Ah hell. You want out.”

  She nearly laughed. “Excuse me? Never. This is about your sister.” Quickly, she outlined the facts, watching his expression go from relief to surprise to disbelief.

  “Pregnant? Miss High and—”

  Jamie put a finger across his lips. “Let me finish.”

  He struggled with that. She could see him wanting to insert editorial comments when she described the sperm donor, and when she told him told him why Samantha hadn’t told her parents, she could see he was dying to speak.

  Finally, she said, “I like her, Chip. She’s vulnerable—”

  “Samantha?”

  “Yes. She did something she wanted to do, just like we did, and not everyone will agree with her choice, but I want to. It’s a baby, Chip, a little girl.”

  “If it was a boy,” he said with a grunt, “it could play with ours.”

  “And a girl can’t do that? Hello?”

  “She was wrong, Jamie. When she said I kicked them out of this house?” Clearly this was bothering him. “Mom and Dad were looking to move, so I bought them two houses in exchange for this one, and I never said I didn’t need them. I said that if they weren’t there, I’d have to finally grow up.”

  “You have.” Standing on tiptoe, Jamie kissed him.

  By the time she lowered herself, his arm was around her waist and his grin was smug. “One thing’s for sure. This’ll give the folks something to think about besides us.”

  “Samantha is counting on our marriage helping her the same way. That’s one of the reasons she got here so fast.”

  “Her timing couldn’t be worse. You need to work.”

  “I will once the boys are asleep. So, do we support Samantha?”

  Chip made a no-brainer face. “Of course, we support her. She’s my sister.”

  * * *

  He was right about Samantha being a good cook. In no time, she had whipped up their mother’s chili recipe, baked cornbread, and made a salad. And Chip behaved well. Granted, Jamie was standing guard, but he didn’t give his sister a hard time about the baby. He was actually reassuring about being a single parent, having just gone through three years of it himself, though he described the raw panic he had felt when he opened his front door to a woman he had never thought he’d see again but who was carrying a week-old infant she claimed was his son.

  Yes, he said, mostly for Jamie’s benefit, since she was hearing the details for the first time, he’d had a paternity test done, though the timing of the baby’s birth, vis-à-vis its conception, made that a formality. For Samantha’s sake, he listed some of his early mistakes taking care of Buddy. They were hilarious.

  Of course, he had had his parents to help, even long distance. Samantha didn’t have assurance of that yet.

  Nor, right now, did Jamie. She kept thinking about that as she watched Chip and his sister, kept thinking about her father being dead and her mother being alive and the precious time they were wasting being angry at each other. Right now, she might have asked Caroline whether Tad’s clinginess during dinner was a factor of yet another new person in his life or something else. He refused to sit in his own chair, whining for her lap, and while she loved the feel of his warm little body, she imagined it was too warm. He didn’t eat much, just crumbs of cornbread and one or two tiny pieces of chili, and by the time Samantha pulled chocolate chip cookies from the oven, his little eyes were closing.

  “I don’t think he feels great,” Jamie said, holding him tight as she stood. Her eyes were on Chip, who knew better than she what to do in this situation. “A quick bath and bed, maybe?”

  He started to get up. “I’ll do it. You have to work.”

  She pressed his shoulder down. “I’ll work once he’s asleep. Bath, Buddy?”

  Buddy pouted. “I want another cookie.”

  “You go settle Tad,” Chip told her, running a reassuring hand up her arm. “I’ll bring him along in a few.”

  Tad took little settling. She stretched out beside him to read a story, but he was asleep before two pages were done. Worried, Jamie rolled to her side. She knew she should get up and work, but she couldn’t just yet. Breathing in baby-soap sweetness, she watched him for a while, listened to his breathing, monitored the rise and fall of his little chest. She knew he was bound to get sick at some point. No child made it to kindergarten untouched by other kids’ germs, especially not a daycare child, but that wasn’t reason to take him out, was it?

  He still felt warm to her. But he slept through the sound of the bath being run and he didn’t stir when, a short time later, Chip deposited Buddy on the top bunk.

  “Now you work,” he whispered as they crept from the room.

  “What about your sister?”

  “I’ll handle her.”

  * * *

  It took Jamie time to get organized—putting things where she could reach them, adjusting the height of her chair, connecting to the Web on one computer and the MacAfee network on another, hooking up the monitor to hear if Tad
woke—and all the while, distracting tendrils of thought came and went. Some had Tad’s name on them, some Samantha’s. Thoughts of Chip soothed. Not so thoughts of Caroline. The ache remained, along with serious self-doubt, so when she was finally able to pull up her design of the main house, she was surprised to find that it was actually good. If her goal was to make the Weymouths proud of their family home, this was a solid first step.

  That said, if the first glance at a presentation mattered, and the estate was to be truly inviting, the entry had to be more imposing than the narrow lane of cracked tar that it was. Natural speed bumps, she could hear the ghost of Mildred say, and while that might be true, there were more gracious ways to discourage speed. Widening the drive, she paved it with bricks made of recycled materials that gave it a slightly uneven, almost cobblestone feel. When it reached the house, she swung it into an elegant circle, with a trio of river birch in the middle and ample space for guest parking around the curves.

  “How’s it going?” Chip whispered from the door. An hour had passed.

  She gave him a thumbs-up. Returning to her screen, though, she realized she couldn’t show guest parking without addressing resident parking. That could be in clones of the existing carriage house, which she would tear down.

  No. Not carriage houses. She wanted attached garages.

  But that meant a redesign of the back of the house, for which she needed a rear exterior view. Turning to the second computer, she searched earth-view sites in vain. The Williston News had photos from long-ago backyard parties, but they showed people with only slices of grass, lawn furniture, or trees. What memories Jamie had herself were too vague to use.

  Imagine, she told herself. Create.

  But another half hour had just passed with nothing to show.

  Frantic to draw something—anything—she turned her back on the house and, on a fresh screen, re-created the woods. She set the outline of three carriage houses along its rim. No, freestanding carriage houses weren’t her first choice, but they were charming, certainly practical with storage space above, and if they differed from one another, the visual interest of the presentation would be enhanced.