by Cara Colter
He’d thought he’d seen the last of the professionals trained to help him—making him feel like not only a basket case, but a bad husband and a failure of a father. It’s not your fault, Noah, you’re only human. You can’t take responsibility for everything that goes wrong in the lives of those you love.
It was just a pretty way of calling him a control freak. How could they know anything? They learned it all from books, got a degree, and thought they knew life.
When had their wife taken off and left them with three kids under six?
This isn’t for me. I have to learn how to help Tim and Cilla. I can’t keep leaving it to Jennifer. I can’t make the kids—or Jennifer—dependent. It isn’t fair.
He pushed open the door—and rocked back on his feet in shock when he saw one of only two occupants of the room.
Jennifer gasped and stared at him in turn.
“Well, here we are,” a brisk woman in dark blue pants and a striped uniform shirt said cheerfully. “Welcome, Mr. Brannigan. I’m Rachel Howe, Ms Horner’s receptionist. Ms Horner sends her apologies. There was an emergency in the E.R.”
“I hope everything’s all right,” Jennifer said, her voice stifled, at the same time Noah wondered what kind of emergency could possibly require a social worker.
“A baby drowned,” the receptionist said, her voice dropping to real sorrow. “It will hit the local papers tomorrow. Maggie will stay with the parents for the next few hours, helping the family through as much as they’ll let her.”
Jennifer gasped again, her eyes full of tears. A shaking hand lifted to her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. March,” Rachel rushed to say. “I shouldn’t have said anything, after your son’s death—”
Jennifer paled so quickly, Noah thought she might faint.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. March,” Rachel went on, looking uncertain and guilty. “I didn’t mean to break confidentiality—”
Jennifer looked at her, but seemed to see right through her. She looked as clear and delicate as blown glass, and just as easily shattered. “It’s all right. It’s not a state secret.”
“Maggie tried to call you both, but you’d left,” the receptionist rushed on. “She left messages on your phones, but I guess you’d turned them off while you were driving. Maggie noticed you two are neighbours, so she thought you might take advantage of the two hours’ crèche arrangement for Mr. Brannigan’s children, and maybe go for coffee? There’s a lovely café just down the road that serves a good lunch under umbrellas in the sun …”
“Thank you,” Noah said gravely. “Jennifer?”
The question wasn’t a ploy. The words she’d spoken the other night burned in his brain like a bushfire that wouldn’t go out. I’ll never be your friend.
Too much between them, and never enough.
After a long hesitation, she nodded without looking at him. “Thank you for letting us know,” she said to the receptionist, still sounding stifled.
Noah’s mind was spinning as he opened the door for her. Ever since her outburst last week and Joe’s warning, he hadn’t tried to get her to open up. He thought he’d known her problem—but now he knew Jennifer could have children. She’d had a son—and he’d died.
I’d die for what you have!
The pieces finally fit.
“Would you like coffee, or lunch? It’s almost eleven-thirty,” he said, for the sake of something to say.
They stepped out into the bright autumn sunshine. A clear, windless day, warm enough but without the intense dry pulsing of the recent heatwave. The street stretched out, long and straight, with waving banners on the streetlamps, announcing an upcoming festival.
Jennifer didn’t appear to notice. “I think I’d throw up if I ate now,” she mumbled. “The poor, poor parents. Poor baby, so short a life …”
Filled with compassion like a wave hitting him from behind, he put an arm around her shoulders. “Makes me thank God for my kids,” he said, in a low voice.
She didn’t shake him off, as he’d half expected; nor did she turn her face to him, but remained looking straight ahead. “That’s why you came, isn’t it? To learn how to best help Tim and Cilla?” The question sounded blind, as if she wandered in a dark maze, and familiarity was comfort. Asking him about his life as usual, taking nothing in return.
Being Jennifer.
“You know my story, Jennifer. You know why I’m here.” He pulled her back as she was about to walk straight into a massive crack in the sidewalk. “I haven’t kept any secrets.”
Liar. But now wasn’t the time to tell her that.
Finally she turned to him. Her eyes were fierce. “Just say it, Noah.”
A furious opening, but if it was all he’d get, he’d take it. As he steered her into an open courtyard with tables and umbrellas, he asked, “How old was your son?”
“Three.” The word was curt.
He shut his eyes for a moment. He understood so much now. No wonder she’d had that look on her face when she’d first seen Rowdy. “What was his name?”
Something passed over her face; her eyes were cold and dead. “Cody James McBride.”
“Cody. That’s a nice name.” How lame was that, Brannigan?
Her smile was no more than a slight curl of the ends of her mouth. “Mark picked it, but I liked it, too.”
After a long hesitation, she answered what he didn’t know how to ask. “He had Cystic Fibrosis. He choked to death—it was like drowning. His lungs just couldn’t keep stretching.”
She spoke as if it was something she’d rehearsed for a play, just reading it aloud; and he wondered how many times she’d had to say it, just like that, to get the tone down pat. The tone said, keep your distance. You know what happened, now back off.
Joe had been right. Jennifer was not one who wanted her wounds touched.
“How long have you been going to the counselling sessions?” he asked gently, taking her hand in his.
She let it lie there resistless. Her eyes were like pools drained of water … empty. “I began in the hospital in Newcastle, when I first found out about Cody’s illness.”
I began. Not we. That told him far more about Mark McBride than he’d wanted to know—he’d left Jennifer alone with the grief and guilt.
Yeah, you know nothing about male denial and running away, do you? his mind mocked him. That’s why, three years after Belinda ran, you’re finally reaching out—but only for the kids’ sake; you don’t need help from outsiders.
You’ll take it from Jennifer, though, his mind mocked him again.
“And you kept it up when you moved here?” He heard the strange, choked sound of his voice, and wondered if she’d pick up on it.
She shrugged. “A few sessions here and there, when I need to. I’ve become good friends with Veronica and Jessie from the group. We meet every second Saturday for lunch—we all like to quilt as well, and started a quilting circle.” She smiled, but it was remote, untouched by sweetness or sorrow. “They have kids now, and I have my business, so Saturdays or the occasional Wednesday evening works for us all.”
He frowned. “But you haven’t gone out on a Wednesday since …”
Since I’ve been taking it for granted she has nothing to do but mind my kids for me, or have my family to stay for dinner.
Selfish jerk! He hadn’t thought of Jennifer at all—maybe as a desirable woman, but as a person with needs? He’d thought he’d written the book on loss and suffering—but what he’d written was a treatise on selfish need: a blindness to anything but his needs, and that of the kids.
The waitress came then, and took their orders. Once she’d gone, he lifted their hands upward, so their fingers laced through each other’s. “Damn, I’m sorry, Jennifer,” he said quietly. “You’ve been putting your life on hold for me, for the kids.”
Her eyes weren’t empty now, but gentle, eager and shy. “Don’t apologise, Noah. It’s been nice to be part of family life again.” Her gaze landed on their linked hand
s, and she bit her lip and pulled away. “For a little while, anyway.”
“Why won’t you marry again?” He could have hit himself for the bluntness of the question, but it had been burning in him since before they’d met. He had to know.
A hand scrubbed her forehead, tugged at a lock of loose hair waving in a light breeze just springing up, pushing the hair behind her ear. Then she began twisting her plait around a finger. “You want it all, don’t you?” She sounded so tired: a weary Madonna. “After Cody was born, they tested us to see who the carrier was, and why Cody had CF so badly. It seems I’m a freak medical case—the doctors haven’t come across it before. There is CF in my family—but my genome is so dominant they believe any child I have would be almost certain to be born with the disease … and I won’t play Russian roulette with a baby’s life, just to fulfil my desires.”
Noah knew he’d never seen anything sadder than this quiet, giving woman, a woman more born to be a mother than any he’d ever known, accepting that she’d always be alone.
It was only when his arms and body were warm and her head was resting on his shoulder that he knew he’d gone to her. “I’m sorry, Jennifer,” he whispered, holding her so close she was a part of him; the ache threatening to burst in him.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, pulling back to smile up at him.
“Couldn’t you do IVF? The kind where there’s a donor mother?” he blurted.
She smiled again, but with more sadness than any woman as giving as Jennifer should have to know. “I could. My sisters have all offered to be the egg donor. But that isn’t the point.” She sighed. “As selfish as it sounds, I want my baby, not someone else’s—and I don’t want to be a—”
“Single parent?” he filled in, when she bit her lip. “It’s okay, Jennifer. Raising kids alone isn’t something I’d recommend to everyone.”
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” she mumbled, low.
Noah flinched. He’d done it again. “Jennifer …”
“Don’t.” She shrugged. “This isn’t a Greek tragedy, you know. I have a good life. I have a wonderful family, friends who care about me, a life that’s mostly full and busy. It’s not the life I planned for myself, but it’s still good.”
“You could still marry a man with kids, who doesn’t want any more.” He stumbled over the words. Damn, it sounded too close to a proposal.
She didn’t even seem to notice; she was already shaking her head. “I could never marry a man for his kids alone—I’d have to marry for love.” She gave him a watery smile. “And while I’m sure I’d love his kids, it wouldn’t be right or fair to them, if I couldn’t love them as much as I loved Cody. All I ever wanted was to get married and have four or five kids—but if they weren’t mine …” she trailed off, shrugging; but it was eloquent enough.
He frowned again. “You don’t think you could mother kids if they weren’t your own?” It sounded crazy to him. She gave love to the kids she minded so naturally, so lavishly. It seemed impossible that she could have given more to her own son.
“Not the way a child deserves to be loved.” She pulled away, discreetly mopping her face with the serviette. “Here comes the waitress. Just as well I don’t bother much with makeup, or I’d look like that sad-faced clown painting right now.” She smiled again. “I promise you, I don’t cry on people often.”
As the waitress put down the coffee and cake and bustled off again, he looked down at Jennifer. So close, those wet cheeks, the salty, pretty mouth. He’d never wanted to kiss her more, and that was a big statement, given the hot, sleepless nights he’d endured, dreaming of her face, her touch.
But she moved away, sitting up straight, and smiling again. She’d closed the subject of her past, the life she’d chosen. She’d said enough; she didn’t feel sorry for herself, wasn’t angry or in the throes of unresolved grief. She had a life, and was moving on.
Then why did it feel so wrong?
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he muttered, as savage as he felt at the thought of her growing old, still minding other people’s kids, spending day after day with reminders of what she could never have. “You were born to be a mother.” And some kids need a mother as good as you.
She looked away. “The world isn’t perfect. Babies all over the world were born to live, not die. People weren’t born to starve or live in war zones. We don’t all get our dreams, Noah.”
Who was she trying to fool, herself or him? “I suppose you sing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ whenever you feel sorry for yourself,” he shot back, furious. Why, he didn’t know—but he couldn’t stand this quiet acceptance. She should be yelling and screaming at the unfair hand life had dealt her, fighting somehow.
She turned back then, with a lifted brow. “Would you dish out a Pollyanna crack if I said yes?” Her grin was both mischievous and challenging.
Without warning, warm laughter bubbled up and burst out of him. “Probably,” he said when he finally got control of himself again.
“Then I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.”
He chuckled again, and tapped her chin. “You’re an amazing woman, you know that?” How she’d gotten him from grief to fury to amusement so fast was beyond him; but Jennifer could make him feel more, and feel it faster, than anyone he’d ever known.
She lifted her coffee cup, and toasted him with a grin. “Even we incorrigibly cheerful types have our surprises.”
Obviously, he thought as he crammed some cake in his mouth. She’d done nothing but surprise him from the moment he’d seen her. How her ex had been stupid enough to lose her once he had her, Noah couldn’t begin to understand.
Don’t go there. It was dangerous enough that his dreams were filled with her; daydreams were strictly off-limits. If things were different … but he was still a nowhere man—and though he’d been trying like crazy to change that, some things were beyond his control.
His vow was still intact, set in stone by the suffering of an innocent child. He couldn’t have Jennifer—and that, too, was end of subject.
“No, don’t come and get him just yet,” Uncle Joe said with a mysterious air the next day when Jennifer called. “Tim and I are very busy right now. Give us until six?”
Jennifer sighed and looked out the window. There was no sign of Noah as yet, but he’d stressed he wanted Tim here when he got home from a quote on a new industrial complex in Brisbane city. Tim had spent every afternoon at Joe’s for the past week, taking his new best friend Ethan with him. Tim had an air of hidden excitement the past few days, growing so big by last night he’d only picked at his vegetables.
It was almost time to reveal the secret, whatever it was—so what did she do? Alienate the parent or force the child home, and ruin his big surprise?
Come on, Pollyanna, fix the situation for everyone as always.
She had to take the fall, one way or the other.
Since their talk in Lismore, Noah had been acting strangely with her. She couldn’t put her finger on what the difference was—maybe he didn’t know it, but it was in the way he looked at her, both with him and with the kids. Something had changed between them that day, and they couldn’t go back now, but there was a feeling of—waiting …
As if he was going to just pack up and disappear one day, and never come back.
“Sure,” she said to Joe, knowing she took a risk in not following a parent’s dictum; she could lose her licence for it. But she wasn’t paid to mind Tim; she’d refused all payment for him being here in the afternoons, so this wasn’t a professional, but personal matter.
And she knew Noah would never make an official complaint, in any case.
She just hoped he came home after six—
But Murphy’s Law seemed to apply to everything that happened between them; and of course he drove in at five-thirty. “Hey, kids, I’m home—and I have presents for everyone!” he yelled from the car.
“Presents!” Cilla and Rowdy squealed
in sync, and jumped up from their painting game and rushed out the back door.
With a sense of fatality she’d felt since saying “sure” to Joe, she followed the kids. She should have known Noah would have a good reason for demanding Tim’s return. Now she’d not only disregarded a parent’s rule, she’d ruined his joy in present time for his children.
The set smile was already on his face when she came around the side of the house to the pressed-dirt driveway. “I hear Tim’s still at Uncle Joe’s,” he said over the kids’ excited chatter: Cilla over her talking, feeding dolly; Rowdy over the big, shiny black water gun that squirted water balls.
She had no right to argue the rightness of her decision at this moment. “I’m sorry, Noah. Uncle Joe said he’s almost finished his big project …”
“And you couldn’t say no.” Noah’s shrug was weary; all the happiness evident in his voice moments before was gone.
“I had no right,” she said bluntly, unable to stop the half-defensive self-condemnation. “I know that.”
“You care for him more often than I do, so let’s not go there.” The tiredness in him seemed endemic, reaching out to touch her, feeling worse for its not being physical.
“No, you’re the guilt specialist. Nobody has as much right to feel bad about themselves as you do.” The words popped out before she knew she’d spoken; she stared at him in horror.
He’d stiffened by the end of the first sentence. “I wasn’t aware it was a right.” He began ushering the kids into his truck. “I think of it more as a life sentence—but by all means, Jennifer, indulge as much as you want, if you like it.” He strapped Cilla into her seat.
That’s right, Jennifer, let the man come home with gifts for his kids and destroy it for him … she groaned to herself. What was wrong with her? How many more times would she need to apologise to him before she began getting things right? “I have dinner ready,” she said quietly.
He strapped Rowdy in next. He was happily playing with his squirt gun, pretending to hit Cilla over and over. She didn’t notice, too busy feeding her dolly. “I think we’ve imposed enough on you for one day. You haven’t had time to yourself in weeks as it is. It’s Wednesday—you should call your quilting friends and have some fun. We’ll go get Tim.”