It was, Sophy thought, looking at it, too. You couldn’t even see the tear. Torn and then mended.
Like her heart?
She didn’t know, but it felt that way as the days passed and they grew together as a family…
On Monday George had to go up to the lab. He had grad students to work with and a project of his own he was working on. “Come with me?” he suggested that morning.
“Is your head bothering you?” Sophy asked immediately.
He hadn’t complained at all over the weekend. But he’d gone to bed early Sunday night—actually at the same time Lily did, which pleased the little girl no end. And it was much easier to get her to go to bed with the assurance that Daddy was going to bed, too, and would be sleeping right down the hall.
He’d assured Sophy he was just tired, which she had readily believed. But now she wondered if he just hadn’t said.
“It’s not bad. Kind of a dull ache. Nothing like before. But,” he added with a grin, “if it will get you to come, I’ll bang it on something and make it hurt worse.”
Sophy couldn’t help laughing. “Don’t you dare.”
So she and Lily rode the metro train up the Hudson with George, and while he was working in the lab, they wandered around the streets of the local village, played a bit in a small local park and met George for lunch at a diner overlooking the river.
“Bored?” he asked. “If you want to take an earlier train back to the city, you can certainly do it. I didn’t think I’d be tied up this long.”
“We’re fine,” Sophy assured him. “We’ve had a good time exploring. We went in some antiques shops and a toy store and there’s a small local museum.”
“Give me another hour then?” George said. “And I’ll be ready. Come and get me at the lab.”
He finished his lunch quickly and strode away toward the lab. Sophy and Lily dawdled, watching a sailboat on the river and telling stories about where it might have been.
“I like sailboats.” Lily said. “Daddy says Uncle Theo has a boat. D’you think I can go on it? Can you an’ me an’ Daddy go sailing sometimes?”
“I—well…maybe,” Sophy said. Could they? Would they? A week ago she would have said it was impossible. Now, like the marines said, perhaps the impossible might happen. It only took a little longer.
When the hour was up, they walked up the hill to where the lab—which was really in a large house on a sprawling Hudson River acreage—was. George was sitting on the steps waiting for them. He had his briefcase beside him. But in his hands he had something else bright blue and red and yellow and green which he finished putting together as they approached.
He stood up, grinning, the breeze tousling his hair, as he held it out toward Lily
Her eyes widened. “It’s a kite!”
It was indeed. And George told Sophy he had bought it at the toy store they’d visited earlier. He’d stopped in on his way back to the lab after lunch.
“I thought since you’ve been so patient, we might give it a whirl,” he said to Lily. “Have you ever flown a kite?”
She shook her head slowly, eyes still wide. “But I seed ’em. At the beach. And I wanted to.”
“Now’s your chance,” he said. “Just wait a minute while I put your mother’s together.”
“Mine?” Sophy blinked.
“More fun with two,” George said. “We can share. Okay?”
“Yes,” Sophy said, more delighted than she wanted to admit.
George put the kite together quickly, then tied tails on each of them and attached the balls of string. “Here’s the rub,” he said ruefully to Sophy. “After I had this great idea and bought the kites, I realized I can’t run worth a damn. In fact I can’t run at all. So—” he held out the ball of string “—if I hold it here, can you move out a ways and give it a pull? Run a bit if necessary?” His grin was abashed, but his eyes were twinkling.
And Sophy wondered how she was supposed to resist a man who made a kite for her?
She took the ball of string and backed away across the grass, playing the line out and keeping up the tension at the same time. Then he tossed the kite as she gave a jerk on the line and—
“There it goes!” cried Lily. “Lookit! Oh, lookit!” She pointed as the kite rose and dipped and then jerked on the line in her mother’s hands. Sophy discovered she had to hang on tight or she would lose it.
“Are you sure about two of them?” she asked George, walking back toward him, trying to keep her eyes on the kite but finding them straying more often to the man.
“Let her hold that one,” George said. “And we’ll get this one up.”
“It’s pretty strong,” Sophy said cautiously.
“She’s a pretty strong girl, aren’t you, Lil?” George asked his daughter.
Lily held out her hands and bobbed her head. “I can do it, Mommy,” she said. “Please?”
So Sophy passed over the ball and George looped it around Lily’s wrist so she wouldn’t lose it, then placed it in her hands, showing her how to play out the string or pull it back if she needed to.
“How will I know?” Lily asked, her expression serious. Her tongue caught between her teeth.
“You just try,” George told her. “You do the best you can. You feel the way the wind pulls it and you trust your instincts.”
Sophy hoped that was good advice—to trust her instincts. Not just about kites but about life, because heaven help her, she was trusting hers.
Lily loved the kite flying. They all did. It was a fabulous day. And Lily protested when Sophy called a halt to it because she saw lines of strain around George’s mouth.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“It was,” she agreed, even as she brought her own kite down. “It was lovely. But we’re not going to overdo it.”
She thought he was going to argue with her.
“We can do it again another day,” she said quickly.
The mutinous look in his eyes faded instantly and he gave her a brilliant smile. “You’re right.”
She could tell his head was hurting by the time they got back home. So she left Lily to take care of him while she took Gunnar out for a quick walk and picked up a pizza to bring home for supper.
When she got back it was nearly dusk and George was lying on the sofa with his eyes shut. Lily sat beside him stroking his hair. She looked up when Sophy appeared. “I’m the nurse,” she told her mother. “Daddy says this makes him feel better.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Sophy said gravely. “Now wash your hands and come and eat. Do you want any pizza, George?”
Wincing he sat up. “Yeah. Sure.” He got to his feet and started toward the kitchen. The pain in his face was obvious.
“Bed, I think,” Sophy said firmly.
“I’m all right. I can eat—”
“If you want pizza, I’ll bring it to you. Go up and go to bed. You overdid it. You need to lie down.”
“But I told Lily—”
“Lily wants to take care of you. She’ll understand that taking care of can mean letting someone sleep to get well. Now go.” She pointed toward the stairs.
It was evidence of exactly how much his head must really have been hurting that George didn’t object further.
He went.
He slept like the dead all night. Sophy knew because she got up to check on him several times and, in fact, spent the night in the room where Lily was sleeping right down the hall so she could be nearby if he needed anything.
He didn’t. And in the morning, while he was a little wan looking, he seemed none the worse for wear. He even took Lily and Gunnar to the park while Sophy got breakfast.
“Are you sure about this? You were pretty exhausted last night,” she reminded him.
“We’ll be fine,” he said. “Besides, I have Lily to take care of me.”
The little girl beamed.
Tallie called the next afternoon to see how George was. She was delighted to learn that Lily was there.<
br />
“The boys will want her to come over,” she said. “They want to meet their cousin. Can she come over Thursday afternoon and stay for dinner? I’d invite you and George, too,” Tallie went on frankly, “but I thought you two might like some time on your own, yes?”
Sophy swallowed, feeling slightly light-headed at the thought. She understood the wealth of meaning in Tallie’s invitation and in the suggestion that she and George spend time together. She knew, too, that with each step she was getting in deeper. But knowing, while it made her breathless, didn’t make her able to resist.
She didn’t even want to resist.
She wetted her lips. “That sounds like fun,” she said. “Lily would love that.”
Lily was, as expected, thrilled at the notion. She had made friends with Jeremy already. And having her very own friend right down the street to play with while George was at work and Sophy needed to get things done online and on the phone, was wonderful.
But the idea of cousins was even better. She’d never met a cousin before—except Natalie who was a grown-up and didn’t count. She could hardly wait until Thursday afternoon when she and Sophy would take the subway to Brooklyn and she could meet them.
And when Sophy’s phone rang midmorning, she said to Sophy, “Maybe that’s them, telling us to come early!”
“I doubt it,” Sophy said with an indulgent smile, then answering the ring.
“It’s Tallie,” her sister-in-law began. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure, name it.” Sophy prepared herself to console Lily when Tallie explained that it wouldn’t work out today.
“Could you and Lily come now? And stay? Take care of the boys, I mean,” she said apologetically. “I know it isn’t what we planned, but I’m afraid I’m having the baby!”
Chapter Ten
“YOU CAN BE MY Rent-a-Mom,” Tallie told Sophy cheerfully as she kissed her boys and gave them last-minute instructions while Elias tried to chivy her out the door.
“You don’t have to rent me,” Sophy replied “I’m glad to do it. Just go now—and have a safe quick delivery and a healthy baby girl.”
“I will,” Tallie promised, giving each boy another hug. And then she gave Lily a hug as well. “I hope she’s just as beautiful as this little one.”
“Come on. Come on,” Elias muttered, Tallie’s overnight case in one hand and his wife’s arm in the other. “You don’t want to have this kid in the entry hall.”
Tallie just laughed as Elias steered her out the door toward the waiting cab. “He’s always like this,” she said. “A basket case.”
“Damn right,” Elias said, “and I have reason. Digger was almost born in the cab. I’ll call you,” he told Sophy. “Mind,” he said sternly to his sons.
The three of them bobbed their heads solemnly. “We will.”
And surprisingly, they did. The twins took Lily off to show her their toys and she went happily. The little boy, a three-year-old named Jonathan, but called Digger, stayed with Sophy and looked worried.
“Everything will be fine,” she assured him. “Would you like to read a story?”
He nodded soberly and went to find not one but twenty books, which he brought to her.
“Are all these your favorites?” she asked as she settled him on her lap and opened the first of the books.
He gave another nod. Sophy began to read. By the fifth or sixth book, Digger began to tell her about the pictures and which characters were the best. By the tenth, he was telling the story along with her. And by the last one, he was taking her by the hand and saying, “Wanna see my trucks?”
She accompanied him out to the small back garden where he showed her his trucks in the large sand box where deep holes and tunnels provided evidence as to how he got his nickname. “Did you do all this?” Sophy asked him.
Digger nodded happily, and there was a real light in his eyes. “Me ’n’ Uncle George.”
“George—I mean, Uncle George dug this with you?”
“Uncle George likes to dig. Sometimes we go to the beach an’ dig. We make plans. Wanna see our plans?”
“I’d love to.” Sophy followed him back into the house and into the family room, where he tugged out the bottom drawer of a large map cabinet.
“Here.” He pulled out papers that held simplified diagrams and elevations of a series of tunnels and pits.
Sophy stared at them, amazed and captivated. The drawings were neat and meticulous—exactly the sort of work George did when he was designing an experiment—but on a basic elementary level.
“You don’t just dig a tunnel,” she murmured, tracing one of the passages with her finger.
“You can,” Digger told her. “Sometimes we do. But sometimes they fall in. So we plan. It works better. When’s my mommy coming home?”
Ah. For all that Digger was happy to show her his things, his mother was never far from his mind. “Probably the day after tomorrow,” Sophy told him. “She has to have the baby and then have a day or so to rest. It’s a lot of work having a baby,” she told him.
“Daddy says I was in a hurry,” he told her. “Maybe the baby will be in a hurry, too, an’ she can come home sooner.”
Sophy brushed a hand over his glossy dark hair. “Maybe she will.”
But they had no word the rest of the afternoon, so apparently the new baby wasn’t in as big a hurry as Digger had been. By the time George got there at five, Elias still hadn’t called.
“He hasn’t?” George scowled, looking worried.
Sophy stepped between him and the boys so they couldn’t see the expression on his face. “Not yet. But I’m sure he will before long. Babies come in their own good time,” she said cheerfully to the boys.
“Ours didn’t,” George muttered under his breath.
Sophy remembered Lily’s birth all too well. Her labor had been long and painful and twice had seemed almost to stop before a sudden rapid delivery that had made her strangle George’s hands.
“That was my first,” she said quietly just to him and then more loudly so the boys could hear. “I’m sure Tallie is an old hand.”
“Can we call her?” Nick asked.
“Or Dad?” Garrett suggested.
“I think they’re pretty busy right now,” Sophy said. “Your dad will call as soon as something happens.”
“Come on,” George said briskly. “Let’s go over to the park and play ball.”
Sophy went along and played, too, determined to make sure that George didn’t overdo things. But she needn’t have worried. Lily took care of that.
“My daddy gets a headache when he plays too long,” she told the boys. “So we can only play for a little while.”
“How come you get a headache, Uncle George?” Garrett wanted to know.
So George explained about the incident with Jeremy and the truck. The boys were all wide-eyed with awe and appreciation. And Lily clearly basked in his reflected glory.
“Daddy’s a hero,” she told them solemnly.
George shook his head. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.” Then, “Come on, let’s play ball.”
They played. And Sophy, watching, thought that however good a father George was with Lily, she could easily imagine him with sons as well. Lily brought out his protective instincts as well as his playfulness. But with the boys there was a different sort of rapport and a rugged role model that they could emulate.
She stood there, smiling, as the sun went down, turning the red and yellow leaves to copper and gold. When her phone rang, she plucked it out of her pocket.
It was Elias. “It’s a girl. She and Tallie are fine.” His voice quavered a little. And Sophy heard him take a deep breath. “It was an emergency C-section in the end. The cord was around her head.”
“Oh, Elias!”
“She was cutting off her own oxygen. And Tallie was a wreck. I was, too,” he admitted. “But—” another breath “—she’s okay now. Everyone’s okay.”
“Wonderful,” Sop
hy breathed a sigh of relief, too. “I’m so happy for you. Here. You can tell the boys.”
She called them over and let them each talk to their father while she told George and Lily the news.
“We can go see ’em after we eat dinner,” Nick reported, beaming. “Dad says so.”
And Digger’s eyes shone when he handed the phone back to Sophy. “Let’s go eat dinner.”
Alethea Helena Antonides was a lot smaller than her name. But with big eyes, round cheeks, rosebud mouth and a thick cap of fine dark hair, she was absolutely beautiful.
When they got to the hospital, she was snug in Tallie’s arms, having just nursed. Her brothers all peered at her, wide-eyed, then looked at their mother as if they were still not sure what had happened or what was going to happen next. Tallie looked exhausted but radiant. Elias just looked beat.
“She’s gorgeous,” Sophy breathed.
And George, holding Lily up so she could get a better look at her newest cousin, nodded and swallowed as he studied his niece. “Very nice.”
“Just nice?” Tallie looked indignant.
“Very nice, I said,” George corrected her. Then he swallowed again, looking at his sister. “She’s beautiful, kid. I’m glad you’re both okay.”
Tallie reached out a hand to him and he gave hers a squeeze.
“Me, too,” Lily said and wiggled her hand in between theirs. “I like your baby,” she told Tallie. Then she looked around at her own mother. “Can we have one, too?”
Sophy felt her cheeks suddenly begin to burn. She didn’t dare look in George’s direction. “Here, Digger,” she said, hoisting the little boy in her arms. “I bet you’d like to come sit up here by your mommy and Thea.”
Digger liked that very much. Then all the boys crowded on the bed with their mother and sister and father, and George took their picture. Lily wanted to be in it, too.
“No, honey. That’s their family,” Sophy said as George snapped a couple more.
“Then Uncle Elias can take one of our family,” Lily insisted. “Me an’ you and Daddy.”
Sophy looked at George. George looked at her. Lily looked at both of them, then took matters into her own hands. “Here.” She grasped them each by the hand and pulled them to the chair. “Daddy, sit here.”
Hired by Her Husband Page 15