“When you and Jordan went out on that fancy dinner date, what did you talk about?” her roommate pressed.
Laurel had certainly taken an interest in Jordan all of a sudden. “I don’t know,” she returned flippantly. “Stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Why all the interest?” Alix was surprised she was even having a conversation with her roommate, but she wasn’t really comfortable with the subject.
“I mean, what do you talk about with a minister?”
“Youth minister,” she corrected. “I knew him when we were in grade school, you know. He’s just like everyone else.” More than once he’d proven he was human—in temperament and in the easy passion that flared between them. So far, everything had been kept under control, but Alix knew she tempted him as much as he tempted her. Jordan might work for the church, but he was very much a man.
“Tell me what you talked about, okay?” Laurel insisted. She seemed close to tears. Alix couldn’t imagine why this was so important.
“I told him I wanted to be a chef one day or have my own catering company. We talked about me getting into a good cooking school—not that it’s ever likely.” That was only a small part of their conversation. Jordan had a gift for drawing people out and making them feel as if they were the center of the universe.
“You want to be a chef?”
Alix shrugged. This shouldn’t be any newsflash to Laurel who’d lived with her for the past year. Any real cooking had been done by her; Laurel had specialized in stocking the kitchen with ice cream, toaster waffles and potato chips. But then Alix realized they’d never taken the time to be more than roommates. Until recently, she’d never really confided her hopes and dreams in Laurel—or in anyone, she supposed. Alix had few friends, although she felt a connection with the women in her knitting class.
Ever since her breakup with the used-car salesman, Laurel had spent most of her time alone. Her self-pity had quickly irritated Alix. She didn’t consider the relationship any big loss, but apparently Laurel thought otherwise.
“Does he know about your mother?” Laurel asked next.
The fact that her mother was currently serving time in the Women’s Correctional Center at Purdy wasn’t a fact Alix willingly broadcast. “I told him.” There was little Jordan didn’t know about her. She didn’t want any unpleasant surprises in their relationship. He knew her mother had gone to prison for the attempted murder of Alix’s father, too.
“Do you ever think about her?”
“Not much.” Alix found all these questions mildly annoying, but Laurel had been so moody lately that she wanted to encourage her to continue chatting.
“Do you love her?”
“My mother?” That question took some real soul-searching, but she was determined to be honest. If she was, then maybe Laurel would be honest with her. “I suppose I do. I don’t have any contact with her because when she writes, all she wants from me is money or cigarettes. She never asks about me or shows any interest in my life. I don’t need her.” She said this in a casual way, as if it was well understood that she didn’t need anyone. “My only worry is that one day I’ll end up just like her.”
“Not you,” Laurel said with complete confidence. “You’re too strong for that.”
Alix didn’t see herself as strong, but it pleased her that Laurel thought so.
“You’d never let anyone hurt you or use you the way John used me,” she whispered.
“Get over him,” Alix said for the thousandth time. She couldn’t understand why Laurel had clung to a man who’d treated her so abominably. It didn’t make sense, especially when she hadn’t seen any sign of him in months.
Laurel looked away.
“You need to get out more,” Alix told her.
Her roommate sighed unhappily. “I don’t like anyone to see me when I’m so fat.”
“Then stop eating.”
“You make it sound easy, but it isn’t, you know. It’s hard to stop.”
“Then take a walk every day. Walk instead of taking the bus. You’ll be surprised at how quickly the fat will melt away with a little exercise.”
“Like you know anything about needing to lose weight! You’re perfect.”
Alix hadn’t realized her roommate had such a high opinion of her figure, but she was far from having a perfect body.
“Do you think you’ll marry Jordan?”
Alix brushed aside the question with a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, right.” She grabbed her purse on the way to the door, but hesitated after twisting the knob. “Promise me you’ll get out today. It doesn’t do any good to sit around here and mope.”
“All right.”
Alix had just stepped out when Laurel stopped her. “Alix, thank you.”
“For what?”
The question had apparently caught Laurel off guard. “For being my friend.”
“Sure. No problem.”
It seemed odd for Laurel to thank her, but Alix let the comment slide as she headed for the video store. Without Laurel there to keep her company, the days dragged. She felt guilty now that she hadn’t talked to her roommate lately. In her own estimation, Alix hadn’t been a good friend, but then Laurel had been pretty unpleasant, so she’d avoided her as much as possible. Any time Alix had tried to talk to her, which wasn’t often, Laurel had put her off. Her roommate’s one solace seemed to be ice cream. Alix considered her weak-willed, but now she saw how easy it was to judge. That morning’s conversation was the first they’d had in weeks, and she was feeling more sympathetic toward her.
During her lunch break, Alix returned to the apartment, hoping to coax Laurel out. Maybe Laurel would be inclined to exercise if Alix offered to walk with her. To her surprise, Laurel wasn’t there. She didn’t keep tabs on Laurel’s work schedule, and her hours seemed to change from week to week. Either Laurel was at work right now or she’d taken Alix’s advice.
On the off-chance that Laurel was out walking, Alix started down Blossom Street, hoping to run into her. When she did find Laurel, however, she wasn’t alone.
Jordan was with her.
They sat on a park bench in a shady area of the church grounds. Their heads were close together and they seemed engrossed in conversation.
Alix’s initial reaction was anger, followed by a surge of jealousy. All those questions about Jordan had been a way of finding out about him so she could steal him away. Alix was half-tempted to march over and let it be known that she didn’t appreciate her roommate butting in on her boyfriend. This was what she got for sympathizing with Laurel, for making an effort to help her.
Then she watched as her roommate broke into tears, buried her face in her hands and hunched forward. Jordan placed his hand on her back, and although Alix was too far away to hear, it looked like he was praying with her.
This was one of the qualities she loved about Jordan. There didn’t seem to be anything she couldn’t tell him. He genuinely cared for people and longed to comfort them. She had no right to be jealous. Nor did she have a single reason to doubt Jordan. Not once had he misled her or abused their friendship.
They’d talked about the meaning of trust and after the incident with the pastor’s daughter, he’d asked her to trust him. It’d been easy to assure him she did—but at the time he wasn’t touching her roommate. Determined to put her promise into action, she turned away and went back to work.
Just before closing, Jordan came to the video store. “How about a coffee when you’re through?” he said.
“Sure.” She couldn’t help the burst of happiness she felt.
He suggested they meet at Annie’s Café and she agreed. He was in a booth, with two cups of coffee waiting by the time Alix joined him.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Fine. How about yours?” She gave him a sharp look, despite everything she’d promised herself earlier. If he’d been talking to Laurel, she wanted to know why.
Jordan didn’t answer right away. “Do yo
u have something on your mind?”
“Should I?” She tried to make a joke of it, then decided that wasn’t fair. Holding her mug with both hands, she stared down at the steaming coffee. “I saw you and Laurel earlier.”
Jordan didn’t offer an explanation. “That bothers you?”
She shrugged. “It did at first, but then I thought…well, that’s your business, not mine. I don’t have any hold on you.”
“You’re only partially right.”
“How’s that?”
He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. His mouth gently grazed the inside of her palm. “You have a very strong hold on my heart.”
“Oh.” From any other man it would have sounded corny, but not Jordan. “Are you going to tell me what you and Laurel were talking about?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Are you going to trust me?”
She stared at him hard and long. Every instinct demanded that she find out what she could. Yet at the same time, she longed to believe him. Finally, with a smile, she nodded.
She hoped it was the right decision. Because a betrayal by Jordan would hurt more than any other betrayal she’d suffered in her whole life.
CHAPTER 43
CAROL GIRARD
Carol stood in the doorway of what would’ve been the baby’s nursery, and her eyes fell on the empty crib with the mobile dangling above it. Tiny zoo animals hung from a small umbrella with a music box attachment. She didn’t know why she was torturing herself like this. Nothing was going to change.
Doug came and stood behind her. “I’ll call and arrange for the department store to pick up the furniture.”
“No…don’t. Please.”
“But…”
“I made an appointment with an adoption agency.” She said the words in a rush, as if to convince him that this was the logical next step.
She felt Doug tense.
“We can’t give up now,” she implored. She couldn’t forget her need for a child. She’d tried. She’d had to accept the fact that there would be no biological child for her, but she couldn’t entirely let go of their dream. “I want so badly to be a mother. I need to be a mother. Just like you need to be a father…”
Doug’s shoulders sagged and he didn’t speak.
“I have to do this,” she pleaded. They’d discussed adoption any number of times, but always as a last resort. Carol had held on to this last thread of hope, and yet she’d feared Doug’s reaction. He’d been so quiet lately; she could feel him withdrawing from her emotionally and she couldn’t endure it.
“You’re sure you want me to go to an adoption agency with you?” he asked.
“Of course! It’s important that we prove we’re good candidates as adoptive parents.”
Her husband’s mouth thinned.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think having a crib and a change table is going to sway an agency to choose us as potential parents.”
“I know, but it can’t hurt. I want the agency to see that we’re ready, and that we could take a baby at any time.”
He turned away from her, walked into the living room, and stood in front of the large picture window that overlooked Puget Sound.
“You don’t want to go to the interview?” Carol asked as she joined her husband. They stood side by side without touching. Like Doug, she kept her gaze trained on the waterfront.
“How much is this going to cost?”
Carol didn’t have an answer for him. The initial interview required a five-hundred-dollar deposit and as for the actual adoption, she didn’t know. “It costs as much as it costs,” she said. Whatever it was, she didn’t care.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you have any idea how much we’ve already invested in this quest for a child?”
She didn’t and furthermore it didn’t matter. As far as she was concerned, money was of little consequence. “Not really.”
“There’s a limit,” Doug said starkly, “and frankly I’ve reached it.”
“All right, then,” she snapped. “I’ll go back to work if that’s what you want. The only reason I didn’t suggest it earlier is because I thought the adoption agency would prefer a stay-at-home mother, and that might put us closer to the top of the list. But I’ll go back to work if you want me to.”
Doug turned to face her. “This is exactly what I mean,” he shouted. “We’re no longer a couple. Everything we do revolves around a baby. We used to laugh together, go out, have fun.”
“We still do,” she countered, but when she searched her memory, she realized he was right.
“I’ve been as patient with this whole process as I can stand.” Anger vibrated from him. “It costs too damn much and I—”
“In other words, money is all you’re worried about?”
“If you’d allow me to finish,” he said slowly, enunciating each word, “you’d have heard me say that the emotional price is too damn high.” He shook his head. “I can’t stand seeing you go through this pain and turmoil when the procedures don’t even work—injections five times a day, seeing the doctor every forty-eight hours…. It’s taken over your life. Our lives.”
She agreed the toll on their emotions, especially in the last few months, had been extreme. One day she was filled with despair and the next, riding a wave of hope and optimism. That was when she’d assumed Rick’s baby might be available to them. The only avenue left open to them now was adoption. They had to try. Doug couldn’t mean they should stop!
“Now you want to drag us through yet another emotional quagmire and, Carol, as much as I love you, I don’t think I can do it.”
“You have to,” she cried.
“Why?” he shouted. “Why is it always about you and your need for a baby?”
In all the years of their marriage she’d never heard Doug use this tone of voice with her. “I—it’s for us.”
“Not more than five minutes ago, you admitted the baby was for you. It’s all about your need to be a mother. You, you, you. What about me, Carol? What about my needs? What about my wants?”
“I—”
“For the last…dear God, how many years has it been? Five, six? The entire focus of our lives has been on getting you pregnant. That apparently isn’t going to happen, so fine, let’s deal with it and get on with our lives.”
“But…”
“I don’t want to adopt.”
The world all but exploded in pain and disbelief. “You don’t mean that.” Was Doug telling the truth? He couldn’t be. He was emotionally drained. She understood, because she’d hit bottom herself, but she’d recovered and Doug would, too, given time.
“I do mean it.”
“But…you just told me we could go to the appointment with the agency.” Carol was counting on that.
“You go. I don’t want to.”
“But…why?”
“Because I can already see what it’s doing to you.”
She’d never known Doug to be so unreasonable. “What exactly is it doing to me?”
“We have to prove to complete strangers that we’re worthy of being parents. I feel like a beggar singing and dancing, cap in hand. All so someone I don’t even know will like me enough to consider me father material.”
“You’ll be a wonderful father!”
“Would have been,” he muttered.
His words scored deep wounds in her heart. Would have been.
“I can’t do this anymore, Carol. I’m not the man you think I am. I want out.”
“Do you want out of the marriage?” she asked through numb lips, hardly able to say the words.
“No. I vowed to love you and I do.”
“You make it sound as if this is some promise you made and regret,” she said bitterly. “Would you have married me if you’d known I couldn’t have children?”
His hesitation was just long enough to supply the answer.
Her pain was so intense that for one unbelievable moment the room went d
ark and she started to sway.
Doug’s arms came around her, and he buried his face in her shoulder. “I was crazy in love with you when we got married and I’m just as crazy in love with you now. I want us to stay married, but I can’t live like this anymore.”
“I…I can’t have a baby.”
“I know and I accept that.”
“No, you don’t.” He might be saying it, but deep down he’d always resent the fact that she couldn’t give him children.
“I do,” he said sharply, “but I need you to accept it, too. Let go of this, Carol. Accept the fact that we just weren’t meant to be parents.”
“But we could be someday. If we put our name in with the agency, then—”
“Then what? Three, four, five years from now—if we’re fortunate—we might be chosen as worthy recipients of an infant? Do you realize I’ll be forty-four in five years’ time? I’d be sixty-two when our child graduated from high school.”
Carol hid her face against her husband’s chest. Her emotions reeled with the impact of what he’d said. Doug was right. It was time to surrender this need. She’d never been a quitter, didn’t know how to give up. Everything she’d ever set her mind to, she’d accomplished. Except for this…Her effort to have a child had become the focus of her life; more than that, it had become the purpose of her life. Her clenched-teeth determination was ruining their marriage.
Doug released her and walked away. Carol stood frozen and miserable, shaking with a combination of too many emotions, but mostly defeat.
The front door opened and she whirled around. “Where are you going?”
“Out. I need to think.”
“When will you be back?” Her eyes begged him not to leave her, but she refused to ask him to stay.
“I…don’t know.”
She nodded and turned back, hands to her mouth.
“We both need to think this through, Carol.”
She nodded silently. The choice was clear. Either she renounced this need or she ruined her marriage and both their lives in the process.
It was nightfall before Doug returned. Carol sat in the darkened living room, curled up tight on the sofa with her arms circling her knees.
The Shop on Blossom Street Page 27