The Best Gift

by Markham, Wendy

  They’re moving back in.

  The baby in her stomach seems to punctuate the realization with a joyful kick.

  “I never told you this,” Drew goes on, “but I wondered how we were going to deal with everything, and I thought maybe we shouldn’t go through with the adoption. But you kept saying that the moment you saw her picture, you knew she was meant to be ours, and . . . you were right. It took me a little longer to figure it out, but she’s as much ours as the new baby will be. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter how she came to us. All that matters is that she’s here.”

  The words strike a chord with Clara.

  She’s always thought the same thing about Drew. Or Jed. Or whoever he is—this man who promised to be with her always.

  “Clara . . .”

  She finds him watching her closely again, wearing that same, strange expression.

  “Is that . . . you?”

  Her heart is pounding, but she doesn’t dare let on, just in case. . . .

  “Of course it’s me!” she tells her husband. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “No, I know it’s you, but . . .”

  Say it, Drew. Say you know all about what happened, because I told you that day in the hospital. Say that you believed me, and that’s why you’re asking me this now.

  “Did you get my note?” he asks cryptically.

  “What note?”

  “I left it, just in case . . . in case you woke up on Christmas morning and you didn’t know where I had gone.”

  A smile plays at the corners of her mouth. He does know. He did believe her.

  “Where did you leave the note?”

  “Right in the middle of the kitchen counter.”

  The kitchen? But she’s spent so much time there, ever since Christmas morning when she awakened to find herself in a familiar house without Drew, but with an unfamiliar, huge dog who—

  “Dickens!”

  “What?”

  Clara shakes her head. “He was eating paper that first day. It must have been your note.”

  “Oh, for the love of . . .” Drew rolls his eyes. “Crazy dog. I suppose you spent the last few days thinking I had fallen out of love with you and gone off someplace without you.”

  “No,” Clara tells him, “I didn’t think that. Well, not for more than a few seconds, anyway. I knew you were out there somewhere, and I knew you’d find your way back. We belong together . . . remember?”

  “I do. I just wasn’t sure you would,” he tells her with a sad, enigmatic smile.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Memory is a strange thing, isn’t it?” Drew kisses her gently on the forehead, then touches the baby’s tiny hand, wrapped around Clara’s finger. “Come on, let’s take her inside. I have some belated Christmas presents to give you.”

  “But this time,” Clara tells him softly, gazing down at their new daughter, “you didn’t save the best gift for last.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “Happy New Year!”

  Clara looks up to see Dr. Connor in the doorway of her hospital room, stethoscope around her neck and clipboard in one hand—a potted white poinsettia in the other.

  “Ready to go home?”

  Drew, sitting beside her bed as he has been for the past several days—most of which she’s spent sleeping—answers for her.

  “She sure is. Right, Clara?”

  She nods and forces a smile. Home? Yes, she’s ready to go home.

  If only she could.

  But their dream house, hers and Drew’s, has been demolished.

  Drew didn’t exactly put it that way when he reported that a massive earthquake—the one that had struck San Florentina a few days after Christmas—had caused serious damage to their home.

  “It’s just . . . uninhabitable,” is what he said, and she knew he was trying to spare her the gory details.

  “I want to see it. No matter how bad it is.”

  But Drew shook his head. “Don’t put yourself through that,” he said. “Not after . . . everything else.”

  Everything else. Their dream house isn’t the only thing they’ve lost.

  Their dream of parenthood, too, has been destroyed. There will be no baby this summer.

  Maybe one day, Doctor Connor told them. Because miracles are possible. But Clara doesn’t expect one.

  How can she, when she’s already had more than her share?

  She escaped death twice on that awful day—the day she doesn’t even remember.

  According to Officer Shelton, her car tires were inches from the edge of the drop-off on the coastal highway when she was found.

  And according to Doctor Connor, she’d very likely have bled to death if he hadn’t gotten to her when he did.

  Clara is glad she has no recollection of what happened to her there, in the car. Or during the quake.

  Or, for that matter, for a few days before that.

  The last clear memory she has is of being in the kitchen with Drew on Christmas morning. He was making her French toast, and they had a new puppy and a baby on the way.

  After that . . . a blur.

  Dissociative amnesia, Doctor Connor called her condition. She said Clara’s brain is suppressing traumatic memories as a sort of defense mechanism.

  “Will she ever remember what happened?” Drew asked worriedly, and Clara wasn’t sure whether he was hoping she would, or wouldn’t.

  “Possibly,” Doctor Connor said gently. “But probably not. Maybe it’s for the best.”

  She sets the poinsettia on the table beside Clara’s bed.

  “This is for you and Drew—to brighten your new place.”

  The new place is down in San Francisco, an apartment in a Victorian home not far from his parents. They’ll be staying there only until they can find something temporary back in San Florentina, though that, Drew warned her, might take a while.

  She knows. When she hasn’t been asleep, she’s been watching the television news. Their beautiful little town was reduced to rubble in the quake.

  “Maybe we should make a fresh start somewhere else,” Drew told Clara yesterday, but she shook her head vehemently.

  “No. We’re going home.”

  San Florentina is where they’re supposed to be. On a hillside south of town, in a dream house with glass walls. A house—a home—they’re going to rebuild, no matter how long it takes.

  “I’ll be calling to check up on you, Clara. I have all your contact information, and we have an office visit scheduled for next week, remember?”

  She nods. Yes. That, she remembers.

  “Thank you for everything,” Clara tells the doctor whose kind gray eyes have brightened these bleak hospital days. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Oh, we’ll see each other again. I live in San Florentina, too, you know.”

  “Actually, I didn’t.”

  Drew and Dr. Connor exchange a glance, and Clara realizes that this is just one more thing she must have known at one point, and forgotten.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you—how badly was your house damaged in the quake?” Drew asks Dr. Connor, who shrugs.

  “It could be worse. Harry and I are both all right. Nothing else really matters, does it?”

  “No,” Drew agrees, looking at Clara. “Nothing else really does.”

  What about our baby? Clara wants to protest. Our baby matters.

  But she doesn’t say it. She doesn’t want to talk about it because she’ll cry, and she’s cried so much these past few days that her eyes feel sandblasted and her throat has been clenched in a permanent ache.

  Dr. Connor spends a few more minutes chatting with them, examines Clara one last time, and declares her good to go.

  “See you in San Florentina,” she says with a wave from the doorway.

  “See you there,” Clara returns with a smile—this time, one that’s genuine.

  After Dr. Connor has gone, Drew comments, “Looks like you’ve made a new friend.”
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  “What?”

  “Prudence.”

  “Who’s Prudence?”

  “Dr. Connor.”

  “Her name is Prudence? How do you know that?”

  “She told me. And so did you.”

  “I did?” Clara falters, but only for a moment. She might as well get used to this feeling that she’s missing something. “But Drew, she’s not my friend, she’s my doctor.”

  Something flickers in his eyes. “I have the feeling she might become a friend, too.”

  “Really?” It seems like such an odd thing for him to say, and the way he’s watching her . . .

  “Oh, ish kabibble!”

  The familiar voice, loud and clear, reaches their ears from the corridor outside the room.

  Clara’s eyes widen and she props herself up in bed.

  “I’m no visitor,” the voice goes on. “I’m family!”

  A split second later, a familiar figure appears in the doorway, accompanied by a nurse who hardly looks thrilled.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Becker, she barged right up here and we couldn’t—”

  “Doris!” Clara cries out, arms open wide. “What are you doing here?”

  “I told you a late Christmas present would be popping up on your doorstep. I would have, but your doorstep isn’t there anymore.” Doris is right there, hugging her hard. “And then she”—she gestures darkly at the nurse—“tried to stop me when I finally figured out that this is where to look for you. Your neighbor Amelia told me where you were. Cute kid. Just like I used to be.”

  “But . . . you’re here. In California!”

  “Not really. Well, I am now, but I moved in with my daughter over in Reno.”

  “Reno?”

  “Reno.” Doris looks quite pleased with herself.

  Clara is incredulous. “I thought you said you would never do that.”

  “Oh, Clara . . . didn’t you learn anything from me? Never say never. That’s what I always say.”

  Clara laughs.

  For the first time in what feels like years.

  Laughs so hard her stitches hurt, but she doesn’t care, because it feels good.

  When she stops laughing, Doris pats her hand. “I’m glad you’re so amused.”

  “I just can’t believe you’re living in Reno. It’s just a few hours away from here.”

  “Yes, and they have casinos, you know. You should come visit. We’ll go play the slots.”

  “Ma’am,” the nurse begins again, but Drew cuts her off.

  “It’s all right, she’s family,” he says firmly, “and we haven’t seen her in years.”

  Family. She certainly is—to Clara, anyway. And to Drew, too—literally. But he has no clue about that, and he’s never met Doris at all, so why would he say he hasn’t seen her in years?

  It’s almost as if . . .

  Nah.

  He can’t possibly suspect that the little old lady was once, in another lifetime, his kid sister.

  “Drew,” Clara says belatedly, “I’d like you to meet a very good friend of mine. This is Doris.”

  Doris turns to her husband and stretches a blue-veined hand toward him, blue eyes twinkling. She knows . . . even if Drew doesn’t.

  “It’s about time I got to meet you,” she tells him. “Although, I do feel like I already know you. Thanks to Clara, of course,” she tags on hastily.

  “I feel the same way.”

  He does?

  He’s obviously just humoring Doris—and Clara, for that matter. He doesn’t know Doris from the next dotty old lady.

  But Drew goes on, incredibly, “I feel like I know you so well that a hug is more appropriate than a handshake at this point, don’t you?”

  Doris looks delighted. “Oh, I never turn down a hug from a handsome fellow.”

  Watching the two embrace, Clara swallows a lump in her throat.

  Maybe she should tell Drew the incredible truth.

  Something tells her he might just understand.

  But not now—someday. In the future.

  As Drew always says, the have all the time in the world.

  Epilogue

  San Florentina

  August 2018

  Ninety degrees in the shade doesn’t happen often around here, even in the dog days of summer.

  “It’s like being back in Manhattan again,” Clara tells Drew, pushing a sweat-dampened clump of hair back from her forehead as they stroll along the sidewalk in the midday sun.

  “At least it’s not humid here.”

  “True. But ninety degrees is hot, humidity or not.”

  “Just be glad you’re not wearing fur.”

  They both look at poor Dickens, whose tongue is hanging out as he walks sedately at the end of the leash in Drew’s hand. If it weren’t for the heat, chances are he’d be pulling them along the sidewalk as always. Their dog has always had a mind of his own, and advancing age has done little to temper that.

  Then again, willfulness tends to run in the family.

  “No way!” Doris shouts at her sister. “Get your own if you want them!”

  “Shh!” Angelina steals a glance over her shoulder at Clara and Drew, and flashes them a casual smile that’s obviously meant to assure them that she’s not instigating any kind of trouble.

  It’s a look they’ve seen often—and one that’s hardly reassuring.

  Funny, that a baby so beatific they impulsively named her after the precious little figurine who brought them together has turned out to be anything but angelic.

  But then, the snow globe angel wasn’t perfect, either. She had a broken wing.

  And Clara wouldn’t trade her—or Angelina, or Doris—for perfection.

  “What’s going on, girls?” Drew sternly asks his daughters.

  “Angelina wants me to get a cherry on my ice cream sundae so that she can have it.”

  “Two cherries. Mr. Martino always gives double if you ask.”

  “She wants me to get two cherries,” Doris amends. “And I don’t want to get any. I hate cherries.”

  “But I love them.”

  “So?”

  “Doris, we don’t say ‘so,’” Drew reminds her—household rule number nine hundred and ninety nine.

  “Please, Doris,” Angelina cajoles.

  “Get your own cherries.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Girls,” Clara interjects, “stop—”

  Dickens erupts into a barking frenzy as a pair of teenage boys roll by on skateboards, eating slices of pizza.

  “Easy, boy.” Drew strains to hold the leash. “You can’t eat pizza.”

  “Or skateboards,” Clara adds, and her husband flashes her a grin. Even at his age, Dickens is always up to his old tricks. Just the other day, he ingested one of poor little Prudence Connor’s Barbie dolls while she was having a playdate with the girls.

  Luckily, both little Prudence and her mom—also Prudence—seemed to understand. They know Dickens, of course. But Doris and Angelina were mortified, as was Clara.

  Still, she wouldn’t trade the crazy mutt for a perfect dog who only eats things that are meant to be eaten.

  “Why can’t you get your own cherries?” Doris demands of her sister.

  “I told you, I’m not getting a sundae,” Angelina explains impatiently, “I’m getting a root beer float. You don’t put cherries in a root beer float. That would be disgusting.”

  “Well, cherry juice all over my whipped cream is even more disgusting, so—”

  “Girls!” Clara cuts in, as they round the corner to see the familiar green awning that marks Scoops Ice-Cream parlor. “No more!”

  “If you don’t stop this instant,” Drew adds, “only Mommy and I are getting ice cream.”

  “But I didn’t even do anything,” Doris protests.

  “I didn’t even do anything, either,” Angelina echoes.

  “What?! You started the whole thing by—” Seeing the look on her father’s face, Doris clamps her mouth shut.
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br />   Drew and Clara exchange a weary glance.

  “Whose idea was this, anyway?” he asks as Dickens barks maniacally at the long line of customers stretching out the door of Scoops.

  “Coming into town to get ice cream with the kids and the dog on a blazing hot Saturday? Yours.”

  “I meant having two kids and a dog in the first place.”

  “Yours again.”

  “I beg to differ. I didn’t—”

  “Okay, I’ll take half the blame for the kids, but the dog is all your fault, and so is this little ice- cream adventure.”

  “I must have been delirious from all the heat.”

  “Or all this happiness,” she says dryly, and links her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  Fifteen minutes—and an ongoing cherries/no cherries argument—later, they at last arrive at the front of the line.

  “If it isn’t the Becker family!” Paolo announces, wearing his usual jovial smile and ice-cream smeared white apron. “How are you all today?”

  “We’re just peachy,” Clara tells him, before the girls can relaunch their complaints. “How’s your family, Paolo?”

  “Couldn’t be better. I just found out I’ve got my fourth grandchild on the way.”

  “Four? Congratulations!” Clara tells him.

  “Thank you. I can’t believe it. It wasn’t so long ago that my kids were babies themselves. You think you have all the time in the world, but before you know it, these two”—he points at Doris and Angelina—“are going to be all grown up. And you two”—he points at Clara and Drew—“are going to ask yourselves where the years went. Trust me. I’m always right.”

  Drew grins. “I have to admit—you always are.”

  “Aha! See?” Paolo gives a satisfied nod. Then he asks, “But how do you know that?”

  “A long time ago, when Clara and I were first married, you said that if a man can wake up every morning and look at the same woman, and say he’s happy, he’ll be happy forever, because it gets better and better.”

  “And . . . ?” Paolo prompts.

  “And it’s gotten better and better,” Drew tells him, and puts an arm around Clara. “We’re happy. Right, hon’?”

  “Deliriously,” she agrees. “And sometimes, we’re just delirious.”

  Drew sighs and shakes his head.

  But, really, it has gotten better and better. They have everything they’ve ever wanted—two beautiful children, their health, a dream house, a career, a dog . . .