He moved to the side of her bed, sitting gingerly on the edge. “She’s in the nursery, probably wondering why a bunch of people who look like her Daddy and two who don’t have their faces pressed to the glass, staring at her.”
Her parents had made it. “Is she okay?”
Kevin lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “She’s perfect. Loud, but perfect.”
Tears blurred her vision and she was grateful he hadn’t let go of her hand. She could use some of his strength. “I feel like I got hit by a bus.”
He laughed so hard the nurses came, which meant he had to let go of her hand and get out of their way. But he didn’t go far. He sat back in the chair, listening as they assessed her.
She had a lot of pain, not only from childbirth, but aches and pains from the accident. Her head was pounding, for one thing, and the entire right side of her body throbbed.
“Will you have help at home?” the older nurse asked. “You won’t be going home until at least tomorrow, but it’s still going to be difficult with your additional injuries, so we need to know you’ll have assistance.”
Kevin winked at her behind the nurse’s back. “Trust me, she’ll have help.”
Knowing his family, she’d be begging for less help before the week was over. Or maybe not, she thought as she tried to sit up straighter in the bed before collapsing. She couldn’t be alone with the baby unless she could move without being drugged, so she resigned herself to at least a week of company. Mary probably already had a dry-erase board with a schedule on it up on her fridge.
She’d worry about that later. Right now she just wanted to hold her daughter. After raising the head of her bed and propping her up with pillows, they finally brought Lily to her. She was swaddled in a pink blanket, her tiny face almost serene in sleep. Her cute rosebud mouth puckered a little when Beth caressed her cheek, but she didn’t wake.
The nurses left, pulling the door closed behind them. Left alone, she unwrapped Lily and memorized every beautiful, perfect part of her. It was too soon to know what color her eyes would be, but she had her daddy’s dimples.
“She’s amazing.” Kevin was standing next to the bed and she hadn’t even noticed him moving. “You’re amazing.”
“You were pretty amazing, too, you know. I was worried after your reaction to the movie in class.”
He eased down on the edge of the bed. “It’s different when it’s the woman you…care about who’s in pain.”
She didn’t miss the hesitation in his words and her heart picked up the pace as she wondered what he’d really been about to say. Surely not what her overactive imagination assumed he’d been about to say. He was attracted to her and he wanted to take care of her, but he’d never so much as hinted that he might love her.
While deep down inside, a part of her squealed in delight at the possibility, the rational part of her mind—the part she’d let run her life almost entirely since getting pregnant—was glad he hadn’t said it, even if it was true. If he said it out loud, she’d have to question whether it was simply the heightened emotion of seeing their daughter born that prompted the feeling and she just wasn’t strong enough to resist him.
Making any kind of decision at a time like that would be a huge mistake, never mind one that would have a profound effect not only on their futures, but on their daughter’s.
“So about this help I’ll have at home,” she said, in an effort to change the direction her thoughts were taking. Unless, of course, he was about to tell her he planned to move in with her until she was back on her feet. That might help her physically, but it wouldn’t do a damn thing for her mental health.
“Ma and Lisa and Terry have it worked out, I guess. Your parents are going to stay with mine, except when your mom’s with you. I thought with all the…stuff…that comes after pregnancy, you might be more comfortable having a woman around to help you out.”
Why did he have to be so damn considerate all the time? “Thank you.”
“I’ll still be around, too, if you need me.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and in the seconds after, before he masked it for her benefit, she saw just how exhausted he was.
“You should go home,” she said. “Stretch out in a real bed and get some sleep.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I slept some in the chair, so I’ll be okay.”
“Sleeping upright in a chair isn’t a decent night’s rest, Kevin. Lily and I have an entire crew of nurses available at the push of a button. My mom’s going to want to come in. You don’t need to stay.”
“I know I don’t need to. I want to.” He looked at her, his face uncharacteristically serious. “I’m not ready to leave you yet. When Jonesy called and said your cab got hit by a bus…”
“I’m okay now.”
“I’m not.” He took her free hand in his. “When I thought…after the call I realized something.”
Please don’t, she thought. She didn’t want him to say it then, when she couldn’t trust that it came from anyplace other than the emotional rollercoaster they’d been on.
“I love you, Beth.” Joy and dismay battered against each other in her mind and all she could do was shake her head. “Don’t tell me I don’t.”
“I was in an accident and then we had a baby, Kevin. After upheaval like that our emotions are obviously going to be out of whack and—”
“Stop.” He stood and let her hand slide free of his. “Forget I said anything.”
As if she could ever forget hearing those words. “No, let’s talk about this.”
He shook his head. “I’m too tired to stand here and listen to you tell me my feelings aren’t real, but I’m not so much of an asshole that I’m going to argue with you when you just had a baby.”
As if on cue, Lily started making squeaking noises she assumed were the sleepy precursors to a full howl.
Kevin bent and kissed the baby’s forehead. “I think you’re right. You’re obviously well taken care of here, your parents want to see you, and I need some sleep. Call me if you need anything. If not, I’ll see you later.”
He walked out without making eye contact with her and Beth panicked. She wanted to call him—to ask him to come back so they could talk about it—but Lily made it painfully clear she didn’t care what was going on between her parents. She wanted to eat.
Beth rang the bell, and it wasn’t until one of the nurses handed her a tissue and assured her being emotional was normal that she realized she was crying.
***
Kevin put on his best happy face—a skill honed by several years of tending bar—just before he turned the corner into Beth’s hospital room. Today he’d be bringing them home and he didn’t want the day before hanging between them.
After sleeping like the dead for hours, he’d called her to check on her rather than driving back to the hospital because he was afraid she’d see how badly she’d hurt him. With some more time gone by, he was pretty sure he could fake being happy well enough to get by. For now.
She looked better—stronger—as she sat in a rocking chair, holding Lily and talking to his mother, who’d pulled one of the visitor’s chairs up close. Her mother was in the other chair on the other side of the rocker.
“Hey, Ma.” He kissed Mary’s cheek, then leaned down to do the same to Lily, keenly aware of how close his face was to Beth’s. So close he felt her breath across his cheek as he pulled away. “How are my two best girls today?”
A flush brightened Beth’s cheeks, but she smiled. “Ready to go home.”
“As soon as they give you the all clear, I’ll get you out of here.” With no place else to sit, he perched on the edge of the hospital bed. “Are you going home with them, Ma?”
“For a while. And we don’t want Shelly overdoing it, either, so the girls and I will be popping in now and then to give a hand.”
“I feel a lot better now,” Beth protested. “I don’t want everybody turning their lives upside down over me.”
“Don’t even
start.” Kevin gave her a hard look. “When I called at three this morning they said they’d brought Lily into the nursery because they had to up the dosage on your pain meds before you could sleep.”
She looked down at the baby, probably so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I really am feeling better this morning.”
“And you’ll keep feeling better because you’ll be resting and letting people help you rather than running yourself ragged.”
He caught their mothers’ gazes bouncing between the two of them, matching small furrows between their eyebrows. Maybe he wasn’t doing quite as well at pretending as he’d hoped. Fortunately, the pink bundle in Beth’s arms wiggled, distracting the women from wherever their thoughts had gone.
“Finally,” Shelly exclaimed. “I thought she’d never wake up.”
Four hours later, they had Lily strapped into her carseat and Beth in a wheelchair, ready to hit the road. It made him nervous, her going home when just the night before she’d had so much pain she couldn’t sleep, but she seemed in good spirits and didn’t hesitate at all when it was time to say farewell to the nurses.
Mary followed them in her car and they parked in the lot behind the bar so they could duck in the back door, unseen. He took the stairs two at a time while his mother, carrying the carseat, Shelly and Beth took the elevator, so he reached the top floor just a few seconds after they did.
As expected, Beth’s apartment was spotless and her fridge fully stocked. The crib was made up and the changing table ready to use. Lily was sound asleep in her carseat, so his mother set it next to the couch and draped the edge of her receiving blanket over the handle to keep out the light. Beth thanked her and went into the bathroom with Shelly supporting her.
Kevin stepped up behind his own mom and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as he kissed the top of her head. “Thanks, Ma.”
She patted his hand. “She’s family, even if it’s taking her a while to get used to it.”
“You think she will?”
“I think when her mind settles enough, she’ll figure it out. She’s been through a lot. Be patient.”
He thought he’d been pretty damn patient for a pretty damn long time now, but what else was he going to do? It’s not like women you loved were interchangeable and he could simply move on to a more agreeable one. One who didn’t throw his feelings back in his face.
“All you can do is wait for her to be ready,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts. He was pretty sure she couldn’t or she’d have kicked his ass frequently during his youth, but it was still unnerving.
“I’ve been waiting. It’s not getting me anywhere.”
“What else can you do?”
The bathroom door opening saved him from answering, and Shelly helped her daughter to the couch before going back in. Beth looked pale and he figured it would only be a few minutes before her exhaustion beat down her relief at being home again.
Sure enough, his mother started shooing him toward the door. “She needs to sleep now.”
“I’d like to feed Lily.”
“In a while. Let them get settled in first.”
Before he knew it, he was in the hall and the door was gently but firmly closed on him. With his hands curled into fists, he stared at the wood, wanting to kick it in so he could spend some time with his own daughter, thank you very much.
But the memory of the shadows under Beth’s eyes made his shoulders slump and his hands relax. She did need to sleep and she wasn’t going to do that with him underfoot. There would be plenty of time for feeding Lily when her mother wasn’t ready to drop.
So he’d wait. It seemed to be the sum total of his life now. Waiting.
Chapter Twenty
Beth thought she’d been tired before. All-nighters in college before she’d given it up as not for her. Double shifts after not enough sleep. Tossing and turning all night toward the end of her pregnancy, desperate to find a comfortable position.
Now she was tired. Three nights with a newborn and she didn’t know what day it was. She wasn’t sure she’d put on clean clothes that morning and she sure as hell didn’t have the energy to lift her hairbrush as high as her head.
“Hey,” Lisa said, “I’m going to call down and order some wings and fries. We can find a movie on and veg in front of the TV.”
“I’m supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps.” And the baby, thank God, was sleeping.
Lisa had spent the night and the company was nice, but Beth was determined to take care of Lily herself. The women couldn’t stay forever and then she’d be alone. Mary and her mother had puttered around the apartment and hovered while Beth fed Lily, but they’d both respected her wish not to lean on them too much.
When Lisa showed up, ready to get away from her four boys for a while, Mary and Shelly had gone back to the Kowalski house to see what their husbands were up to and relax for a while.
“I know they say that.” Lisa grabbed the phone. “But if you only sleep and take care of Lily, you’ll get dragged down. You need to be able to enjoy a few minutes of being awake while she’s not. A mental break.”
A mental breakdown was where she was heading. “Go ahead, but I’ll probably nod off and choke on a French fry.”
But forty minutes later she was licking buffalo sauce off her fingers and actually laughing at an old episode of Friends.
For a few minutes she felt almost human again and a tightness she hadn’t even been aware of loosened in her chest. Lisa had been right. Exhaustion was still fogging her brain and making her body ache, but even a few minutes of normality gave her a glimpse of her old self.
When the episode ended, Lisa and gave her a once-over and a kind smile. “Why don’t you go take a shower? You’ll feel better.”
“Lily’s going to—”
“I’m not going to sit here and let her cry, Beth. I managed to get four of them old enough to go to school, at least. Your pain’s a lot better, but a nice, long hot shower will do wonders.”
It would. Steaming away the aches and pains and washing away some of the grimy feeling. But she needed to learn to work around Lily’s schedule. She’d still need to shower after the other women returned to their lives. “I should be there when she wakes up.”
Lisa blew out what sounded like an exasperated breath and turned the television off. “Look, I get that you’re used to doing things alone and you don’t like to be dependent on other people. That’s fine. You’re going to be alone soon enough, but right now I’m here. You’re going to take a shower and when Lily wakes up I’m going to change her and feed her and hold her.”
Beth opened her mouth to argue, but what came out was, “Okay.”
The reluctance and guilt washed down the drain as the first hard pulses of hot water massaged her sore muscles. A couple of the worst cuts still stung, but her bruises were fading to purple and yellow. She shampooed her hair twice and used more than usual of her favorite bodywash, making a rich lather.
She stayed under the water until it started running cold and then dried off and put on a fresh pair of yoga pants with a cheery pink T-shirt. Both maternity, of course, since baby weight didn’t magically drop off during labor. She didn’t care. Right now it was all about the comfort.
Rather than scraping her hair back into a messy ponytail, she brushed it out and left it loose. There were shadows under her eyes and residual bruising on her face, but she wouldn’t go so far as makeup. She felt good enough for now.
When she walked out of the bathroom she saw Kevin lounging on the couch, feeding Lily. While her body couldn’t be bothered to offer up so much as a twinge of interest, her heart did a quick somersault at the sight of him cradling their daughter. And maybe a little at the warm smile he gave her.
“Mike stopped by for a burger and a beer. Ma’s got the boys so I figured I’d come up and let Lisa have lunch with him. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh. No, of course not.” It was the first time they’d been alone since the night Li
ly was born and she felt inexplicably shy.
They’d been through something so incredibly intimate and bonding together. Then he’d told her loved her. And she’d told him he didn’t.
“You look a lot better. From the accident, I mean. Not just because you just got out of the shower.”
“Trust me, the shower didn’t hurt.”
She watched as he set the bottle on the coffee table and lifted Lily to his shoulder. He alternated between rubbing her back and gently patting until she gave up an unladylike burp. Then he settled her back in his arms and gave her the bottle again.
Beth sat on the end of the couch and folded her legs under her. “You’re very good at that.”
“One niece. Four nephews. Lots of practice.” He smiled down at their daughter. “It’s not the same, though. I didn’t know it then, but it’s not the same when she’s your own.”
She’d never held or fed a baby before her own, but she’d looked into Lily’s eyes as she fed her and thought she understood what he meant. “She’s so sweet when she’s feeding. Or sleeping.”
He looked up at her, then, and arched an eyebrow. “Speaking of which, I got a phone call from Ma earlier and I just talked to Lisa a few minutes ago. Why aren’t you letting them help you? You won’t even let your mother get up during the night.”
“They are helping me. They’re making sure I eat and cleaning up. I’m lucky if I get to finish my coffee before the cup’s whisked away to be washed. They’re hovering and…it’s too much.”
“Let them take a night feeding. Or two. The more you let them do, the faster you’ll recover. Your body needs to rest.”
And she didn’t need another lecture. “If I get in the habit of letting them take care of everything, it’ll just be harder when I’m alone.”
She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left her mouth and the way his jaw tightened confirmed that. “You won’t be alone. I’m five feet away. Number two on your speed dial.”
Beth was feeling too refreshed and relaxed to spoil it with an argument. “I’ll try to lean on them more. I promise.”
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