The Best Gift

by Markham, Wendy

  Either Drew changed, and their marriage somehow crashed and burned, the way her parents’ marriage did . . .

  Or something terrible happened to him.

  Chapter Eight

  A good fifteen minutes later, as composed as she can be under the circumstances, Clara makes her way upstairs in the master bedroom.

  Hand shaking, she opens the doors to the walk-in closet.

  Empty.

  But not just Drew’s side. Hers, too.

  Racing to his tall bureau, she pulls out drawer after drawer. They’re all empty as well.

  So is her own dresser. But sitting on top of it is an open suitcase that contains a stack of folded items—all of them, at a glance, unfamiliar. Clara picks up an enormous-looking blouse, oversized high-waisted panties, and a pair of jeans with a stretchy fabric panel across the hips. Maternity clothes. Cute. Well, not really. But she feels a flutter of excitement looking down again at her large, rounded stomach—followed by a twinge of worry.

  Drew.

  For God’s sake, where are you?

  She turns and looks again at the mountain of stacked boxes. The rest of her clothes, and Drew’s, must be in them, along with everything else that once occupied the bedroom drawers and closet shelves.

  What about the suitcase?

  The 1941 Samsonite Streamlite, filled with period clothing, has long held a place of honor among her possessions. Drew believes it once belonged to Clara’s late grandmother—a rare and necessary lie.

  In reality, it was originally a prop from The Glenhaven Park Dozen, and when Clara found herself propelled back to the forties, the suitcase went with her. The contents came in handy while she was there.

  She left it all behind on her last visit, believing she’d never see it again. Then Doris—Jed’s long-ago kid sister—showed up on her doorstep with the suitcase and a letter Jed had written to Clara almost sixty-five years earlier.

  The letter.

  Every once in awhile, she takes it out and rereads it, marveling at the familiar slant of the handwriting. Truly, it could pass for Drew’s.

  Don’t wait for me, Jed wrote on that long-ago day, knowing it would be years before the letter reached her. Just look for me.

  She did. And she found him.

  Clara just hopes that the yellowed pages are still zipped into the lining of the suitcase—and that the suitcase is in one of these boxes.

  There’s only one way to find out.

  Clara tiptoes to reach for a carton on top of the stack and starts to lift it. She immediately thinks better of it when her lower belly suddenly seems to twitch and harden painfully.

  “Whoa!” She puts the box back on the stack and presses a hand against her stomach. Beneath the rock-like surface, she senses the baby’s movements. Frightened, she asks, “Did I hurt you?”

  After a few seconds, the tension subsides. Clara sinks onto the bed, relieved.

  “That was really, really stupid,” she mutters to herself.

  Then she looks up helplessly at the tall stack of boxes and remembers something.

  Irony of ironies, she and Drew first connected over a pile of moving cartons just like this one. It was November fifteenth, a little over three—make that six—years ago. A date that will live on in infamy for Clara and Drew, not unlike December 7, 1941—which they also experienced firsthand. But of course, Drew has no memory of that.

  The day they met—in this lifetime—he was unloading a U-Haul in front of her Manhattan brownstone building, having just rented the apartment below hers. On her way in, she held the door for him. Looking into his eyes for the first time, she felt a flash of recognition that was, for a split second, mirrored in his own expression.

  That didn’t seem surprising at the time. She was an actress; she’d been on the soaps and by that time had even had some bit parts in movies. People often recognized her on the street or subway—particularly die-hard One Life to Live fans who addressed her by her character’s name.

  But Drew had never heard of Arabella Saffron, let alone Clara McCallum. Nor had he ever seen her in a movie.

  She had never seen him before, either—not as Drew Becker, anyway. At that point, she had yet to even meet Jed Landry.

  Now, of course, she understands exactly why two total strangers might have the sense that they’d already met.

  Because we had. In another place, another time.

  The last words Jed Landry ever said to her were, “Look for me, Clara . . . because I’m going to find you. I promise.”

  He did.

  And he will again, she promises herself, the tower of boxes blurred by tears. She wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her robe.

  He’s out there somewhere. She just has to get to him.

  She takes a deep breath to steady herself.

  First things first. In her condition, she clearly can’t go around climbing or lifting anything heavy. But her legs are presumably working just fine. Jaw set, she stands and strides to the adjoining bathroom.

  The granite counter surrounding the double sinks—typically littered with an array of his and her toiletries—is, at a glance, unusually bare.

  There’s her Secret solid, her favorite moisturizer, her green mouthwash, and mint toothpaste.

  But there is no sign of Drew’s shaving cream, his hairbrush, his Old Spice deodorant, his cinnamon toothpaste.

  Maybe he switched brands and he’s using mine?

  Drew? No. No way. Her husband is a creature of habit. He uses Close-Up. Always has, always will.

  She forces herself to look at the built-in toothbrush holder above the sink, knowing, before her eyes settle on it, what she’ll find.

  There’s only one toothbrush.

  Drew wouldn’t go out for milk toting a case full of toiletries.

  That doesn’t mean he isn’t off traveling somewhere, though. Maybe he’s on a business trip. . . .

  On Christmas Day?

  Okay, a ski trip, then. An avid skier, Drew’s been wanting her to learn. She planned on it, but even if she had learned, in her current condition, she obviously can’t join him on the slopes, so . . .

  So he’d go away without me for the holidays?

  Never, never, never.

  Panic threatens to take hold, but she resists.

  There has to be a logical explanation. She just isn’t seeing it because she’s in unfamiliar territory.

  She catches sight of her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

  Make that disconcertingly familiar unfamiliar territory.

  At least she doesn’t look much different than she did three years ago, other than a fuller face and figure from the pregnancy. There’s not a hint of gray in her long brown hair—unless I color it now?

  Struck by another thought, she pulls at the neckline of her pajama top and peers inside. There’s the old scar from her bout with cancer, but it’s the only one. Her breasts remain reassuringly intact.

  So I really am a survivor.

  A smile plays at her lips as she leaves the bathroom.

  At least, once she’s returned to the past—or rather, the present—she won’t have to live in fear that the cancer is looming just ahead, regardless of the oncologist’s reassurances.

  Her remission was for real. She’ll be able to breathe easier when she gets back.

  If you get back.

  Of course you will. You’ve done it before. . . . You can do it again.

  And this time, she promises herself, you’re going to tell Drew the whole story. This is too much to deal with on your own, and anyway, he deserves to know, even if it does freak him out.

  Clara heads into the hall. After hesitating for a moment, she opens the door opposite the master bedroom.

  Just this morning—just three years ago—she’d told Drew of her plans for converting the large corner room to a nursery.

  Peering in now, she sees that the walls are indeed a soft yellow. But the room is completely empty. No crib or changing table, no boxes filled with a chi
ld’s belongings to be moved to wherever they’re going to live next . . .

  That’s all right. It doesn’t mean anything. They have another baby on the way, so they probably moved their toddler down the hall to make room here for the new sibling.

  And then, for some reason, we decided to leave our dream house. Why? Where are we going? Are we leaving California?

  When she opens the next door, she finds a stark white room with a whole wall of built-in bookshelves, all of them empty. They weren’t there three years ago. Nor were the desk, rolling chair, file cabinets, and disassembled computer equipment. There are boxes, too—dozens of them, most, at a glance, marked books or files. Clearly, this is—was?—a home office.

  Why here? What happened to the one downstairs, off the living room?

  Clara turns away. There’s only one potential bedroom door left in the upstairs hall.

  She opens it warily, fervently hoping to find signs that a two-year-old resides within.

  Please, please, please . . .

  “No.” Clara backs away, unsettled by the sight of another room with plain white walls—this one, like the nursery, completely hollow.

  Slamming the door closed and leaning against it, she forces herself to consider the facts: only the master bedroom contains a bed. Therefore, it seems as though only two people live here.

  Or one, Clara reluctantly admits to herself, remembering the single toothbrush in the master bath.

  Nerves rapidly fraying, she notices that the door to the hall bathroom is ajar. She glances in and notes that there’s not a single sign of use. No waste paper basket, no towel on the towel bar or bath mat at the tub.

  “It’s okay,” she says aloud, striding toward the stairs. “It doesn’t mean anything. We’re moving out, anyway.”

  Dickens meets her at the foot of the stairs with an anxious-sounding bark.

  “What’s going on, boy?” She reaches down to pat him—then, remembering the home office, glances into the living room.

  “What the . . . ?”

  Going into the room for a closer look, trailed by Dickens, she realizes that the door to the glassed-in home office is . . . gone.

  The spot is now just a wall with a window. Peering through it, Clara sees that a bed of shrubbery and dense groundcover fills the footprint where the office once sat.

  She looks abruptly at the dog, who seems to be waiting expectantly beside her.

  “I know. This is crazy, right? Who knows—maybe I’m crazy. You know what we need to do? We need to call someone who can tell us where Drew is. I’ll do the talking.”

  Dickens wags his tail eagerly, as if to say, Great idea. But who are we going to call?

  The answer is a no-brainer. There’s only one person in the world who would understand how she could wake up in the future.

  Doris.

  Clara looks around for a phone, but the living room cordless seems to be packed away. She heads for the kitchen, picks up the phone there, begins dialing—then stops short, Doris’s voice echoing in her head.

  Come on, who are we kidding? I’m getting up there in years. Chances are, I might not be around the next time you get back to New York for a visit.

  Three—no, more than four—years have gone by since that rainy day Clara said goodbye to her old friend back in New York.

  What if . . .

  No. Come on. Don’t be morbid.

  She finishes dialing. The phone rings—just once. And it isn’t Doris’s voice that answers; it’s a robotic recording.

  “The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Please check the number and try again.”

  Shaken, Clara hangs up.

  Maybe Doris is in a nursing home somewhere.

  I’m staying put. When I leave this place for the last time, it’ll be in a body bag.

  Clara pushes the thought from her head. Now is not the time to lose her composure. And there are plenty of other people she can call.

  Her parents, Drew’s parents . . .

  But none of her loved ones will have gotten any younger, either.

  Chances are her parents and Drew’s are fine, but if they’re not and there’s been a loss . . .

  She doesn’t want to know about it. Not now, while she’s in the midst of trying to figure out why Drew isn’t with her on Christmas and why, heaven help her, there’s no sign of their child.

  A lump of emotion clogs her throat.

  No. Don’t go there.

  Clara forces it back down as she hurries toward the kitchen, trailed by the dog. She grabs the phone and dials the first number that pops into her head: Mike’s.

  It rings only once before an unfamiliar female voice answers. Not unusual. Mike rarely answers his own phone, and lately, he tends to be surrounded by an entourage—lately, as in three years ago.

  “Hi . . . who is this?” Clara asks.

  “This is Tim,” the voice says, and cracks—clueing her into the fact that it belongs not to a woman, but to an adolescent boy. “Who’s this?”

  “I was looking for Mike . . .”

  “Mike Cadley?”

  Who? “No, Mike Marshall.”

  There’s a pause.

  Then Tim says, “Good one, Jessica. Ha-ha. What’re you going to do next, call up asking for Brad Pitt or some other random old guy?”

  Huh?

  Before Clara can get past her speechlessness over hearing Brad Pitt and Mike Marshall lumped together as random old guys, Tim goes on, “My parents are getting pissed that the phone keeps ringing. Dude, you’ve got to stop calling me with all these stupid pranks.”

  Ah, at least some things haven’t changed: adolescent boys still call everyone—including adolescent girls—“dude.”

  Tim hangs up without further ado.

  Poor Jessica.

  Poor Mike.

  And poor me.

  Clara should have realized she’d never get a hold of him, considering that he’s forced to change his number every time the paparazzi or his fans manage to track it down. And regardless of what may or may not have gone on in his career in the past three years, it’s not like she can just dial information and ask for his new contact information.

  She runs through a mental list of confidants. Besides Drew’s family, there’s no one in California she feels close to. She hasn’t been here long enough to make friends yet.

  Back in New York, there’s Karen Vinton, her therapist . . .

  Former therapist. She hadn’t spoken to Karen since the move. She can hardly call her now, out of the blue, on Christmas no less—with a dilemma like this.

  Dickens, she sees, is watching her as if wondering what her next move will be.

  “You know what they say,” she tells the dog with a shrug. “When in doubt, call on Jesus.”

  Again she dials from memory.

  This time, the phone rings quite a few times on the other end before someone answers with a shouted “Hola!” over a noisy background of chatter and music.

  Relief courses through her at the sound of a familiar voice at last. He’s her best friend. He’ll know what to do.

  “Jesus, it’s Clara.”

  “Who?”

  At least, he was a friend in the now that occurred three years ago.

  “Clara Becker . . . I mean, Clara McCallum,” she amends, wondering if they’ve somehow drifted apart now that they’re living on opposite coasts, despite her vow not to let that happen.

  “Wait a minute, hang on.” On his end, Jesus shouts something in Spanish. She hears laughter, then the chatter and music seem to fade a bit.

  Jesus is back on the line, saying, “That’s better. Now who is this?”

  “It’s Clara.”

  “Clairol! Feliz Navidad!” He sounds pleasantly surprised, and she’s thrilled to hear her old nickname.

  She opens her mouth to say—something, she has no idea what, because how do you tell someone you’ve just popped in from the past?

  But before she can speak, Jesus goes on, “Sorry ab
out that before, I’ve got a houseful of loco family and friends and I couldn’t hear a damned thing. I had to go into a closet with the phone, and you know me—I haven’t been closeted in years.”

  He laughs—a little too hard—at his own joke. Same old Jesus. Thank goodness. Clara laughs, too, feeling a ripple of giddy pleasure at the realization that she’s no longer entirely alone in this strange world.

  “So tell me,” Jesus says, “where are you?”

  “I’m . . . home.” I think. For now, anyway. She glances uneasily at the stack of moving boxes.

  “No, I mean, where’s home these days? Are you still out in California?”

  Her heart sinks.

  “Yeah, we . . . we are. How about you?” she forces herself to ask in return, as if this is just a friendly holiday catch-up call between old friends. Or former friends, depressing as the notion may be.

  “Me? I’m in New York, where else? When I’m not on location, anyway.”

  There’s a sudden burst of noise on his end, and a voice asks him something in Spanish.

  “Will you wait a minute?” Jesus replies in English. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone here?”

  “Hey, Jesus, let me let you go,” Clara tells him. “We can talk another time. You’re in the middle of a party and I . . . I’ve got stuff to do, too.”

  Like freak out.

  “Listen up, Clairol, I’m really glad you called. It’s been way too long. Let’s talk again soon. I want to hear all about your life now.”

  Yeah, you’re not the only one.

  She hangs up the phone with a promise to call again, and looks down at Dickens, now lying at her feet.

  “So, that was a total bust,” she tells him. “No more phone calls. Not yet, anyway. Okay?”

  Hearing a loud canine snore, she leans in and sees that the dog is sound asleep.

  “Great. I’m glad someone can relax around here.”

  Shaking her head, Clara is about to hang up the phone again when she notices the Caller ID window and remembers something.

  There should be a log of all incoming calls . . .

  Yes! There is.

  Triumphant, she scrolls through the list, looking for familiar numbers.

  There aren’t many—though she does spot quite a few calls from her mother, thank goodness. Apparently, Jeanette is alive and well and still living in her Florida assisted living apartment.