“Mom!”
“Hey, sweetie,” Tess made her way to her son. He promptly grabbed hold of her.
“I don’t want to stay here,” he cried.
“I know you don’t, baby,” Tess said. Her heart ached. She could feel Davey’s fear. “Brooke is working on that.”
“She is?”
“Yeah. She is,” Tess said. Davey snuggled against her. She felt his tears through her T-shirt. “It’s okay now,” she assured him. “I’m not leaving you again.”
“Where’s Dani?” he asked through a sob.
Tess closed her eyes. “She’s with Brooke.”
“Can we go home now?” he asked.
“In a while, baby. First, you need to drink something. Okay?”
He nodded against Tess and held onto her. “I hate it here.”
“I know. I hate you being here.” Tess sat on the bed and held Davey close. She rocked him gently as she did when he was an infant, hoping he would rest until the doctor came in to see if he could drink some water. “Rest, sweetheart. I’m right here. We’ll go home soon.” Tess closed her eyes. She had heard what Brooke said. Somehow, she was certain that Davey would be going home shortly. There was a hint of something other than compassion in Brooke’s eyes. Fire, that was what Tess saw. It was faint, a slight glow that flickered behind Brooke’s gentleness. Tess made a note to delve into that at some point. A friend. I hope so, Brooke. I hope so.
***
Brooke lifted Davey from the backseat of her SUV and followed Tess into the house. Tess directed her to Davey’s bedroom while she helped prod a sleepy Dani into her room. “I’ll be right there,” Tess told Brooke.
Brooke nodded and continued into Davey’s room. She set him down on the bed and he rubbed his eyes. “Mom?”
“Sorry, buddy, no. She’ll be right here,” Brooke said.
“Brooke?” he asked in sleepy confusion.
“Yep. Fraid so, buddy,” she said as she took a seat on the edge of his bed. “How do you feel?”
“Tired,” he moaned.
Brooke smiled. “I’ll bet. You had an eventful night.”
“Mom told the doctor what they put in that stuff,” Davey said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“The guys are gonna hate me. You’re not supposed to squeal.”
Tess was making her way into the room and stopped outside Davey’s door when she heard him speaking to Brooke.
Brooke took a deep breath. “Nah, they won’t hate you.”
“Will too,” he said sadly.
“No, buddy. They won’t. I promise. You were really sick, D.” Davey smiled at the tall doctor. “What?” Brooke asked.
“You called me D. That’s what the guys call me.”
Brooke smiled. “Well, you seem a little big to be Davey all the time.” Davey smiled and yawned. “You need to get some rest,” Brooke said. “In a little while, I will wake you up to drink something.”
Davey nodded and closed his eyes. Brooke thought he was asleep and started to leave. Davey grabbed her hand and stopped her. “I’m glad you are Mom’s friend,” he said. Brooke looked at him curiously. “She needs a friend,” he said sleepily.
Brooke nodded as he drifted off to sleep. So do I, D. So do I.
***
Tess came down the stairs and found Brooke in the kitchen filling the tea kettle. “I hope you don’t mind,” Brooke said.
“Not at all.”
“I picked some tea up when we stopped at the pharmacy,” Brooke said. “Sometimes, it relaxes me.” Tess nodded and collapsed into a kitchen chair. She put her face in her hands and sighed. “You okay?” Brooke asked.
“Yeah.”
“You mind if I tell you that I think you are full of shit?” Brooke asked lightly.
Tess looked up in surprise. When she saw Brooke with her arms folded across her chest, she chuckled. “You adding counselor to the list of roles you played tonight?” Tess joked.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Brooke said.
“Let’s see…Doctor, babysitter, personal shopper, chauffer, what else…”
“How about just a friend?” Brooke said.
Tess smiled and sighed. “I don’t have many of those these days.”
“Neither do I,” Brooke confessed. “Well, there is Rach. She is a royal pain in my ass half the time, but she is my best friend.”
“Yeah. You’re lucky. Most of mine vanished when I had Dani and Davey. You find out who your real friends are in times like that.” The kettle started to whistle and Brooke grabbed hold of it. “In the right-hand cupboard,” Tess pointed.
“Care to join me?” Brooke asked. Tess nodded. “Well, good. I was going to ask you to have coffee this week. It just got crazy. I can’t say this is what I had envisioned,” Brooke said as she made them each a cup of tea.
“That seems to happen a lot to us,” Tess said.
“Maybe it’s fate,” Brooke said, placing a steaming mug in front of Tess.
“Maybe,” Tess replied. “Thanks,” she said softly.
Brooke saw the tears begin to roll down Tess’s cheeks. “It’s just tea,” she said lightly.
Tess looked up. “No. It really isn’t.”
Brooke took a deep breath. She meant what she had said about being Tess’s friend. There was something about Tess that pulled her toward the woman. It was strange to Brooke. As much as she found Tess attractive, the connection she felt was somehow deeper. She wasn’t interested in trying to get Tess into bed. At least, that wasn’t all she was interested in. She wanted to get to know Tess. She wanted to spend time with her. Oh shit. Am I actually thinking about pursuing a relationship? No. Bad idea, Campbell. Bad idea.
“Tess,” Brooke called softly. Tess shook her head. “Talk to me. That’s what friends do, right?” Jesus, did that just come out of my mouth?
Tess looked up again. “Davey and Dani were a surprise.”
“I sort of gathered that,” Brooke admitted.
Tess grinned uncomfortably. “I had been with Daniel since the seventh grade. I never dreamed he would bag on us.” Brooke listened silently. “He did. Asshole.” Brooke chuckled slightly at the word as it rolled off Tess’s tongue. Tess smiled and shrugged. “Well, he is! I would say that my life would have been simpler if I had realized I was a lesbian sooner. Maybe it would have been. Who knows? I wouldn’t have Dani and Davey, and I would never change that. Not for anything.”
Brooke smiled. She had no doubt of the sincerity of Tess’s declaration. She’d seen it as clear as day all evening long. Dani and Davey were the center of Tess’s life. That was obvious. “So, you were in college then?”
“Yeah. My junior year. It sucked. Everyone was against me going through with it. Daniel, my parents…”
“You mean your pregnancy?”
“Yeah,” Tess said in disgust. It still left a bitter taste in her mouth. “The thing is, from the moment I found out I was pregnant, that was my baby. My baby. Not a fetus. Not an inconvenience. Turned out to be a little more than I bargained for,” Tess chuckled.
“Twins, you mean?” Brooke guessed.
“Uh-huh. How that happened…”
“Well, they are fraternal so…” Tess laughed at Brooke’s inclination to explain in doctor mode. “Sorry,” Brooke said. “Force of habit.”
“No, it’s cute,” Tess said without thinking. Oh my God! Did I just say that out loud? To Brooke? Oh my God. Shoot me. Please? Now.
Brooke blushed. “Continue with your story,” she said quietly as she sipped her tea.
“Well, long story short, I wanted them. I really did. It was really hard for a long time. My parents were not happy. Daniel skipped out. I mean, he literally skipped out. I don’t even know where he is. That’s how far he ran.”
Brooke shook her head. She had seen that more than once and it utterly confounded her. How any parent could not want to be a part of a child’s life was beyond her comprehension. Even after her parents had split and moved
to separate coasts, Brooke’s father always stayed in contact. He always made sure he spent time with Brooke, even if it was never as much or the way she would have liked. “I’m sorry,” Brooke said.
“Don’t be. The hardest part was leaving school.”
“Do you ever think about going back?” Brooke wondered.
“I do. Someday I will,” Tess said. “I think so. Not now. They need me. I took a full-time job and lived with my grandmother for three years until I saved enough money to buy this house. Then, I met Jackie. She was home when I was working. It worked until it didn’t work anymore for her,” Tess said.
Brooke wanted Tess to continue, but she didn’t want to press. “You don’t have to talk about this. Not now, anyway.”
“It’s okay. It’s the past. Jackie was Jackie. She was my first, you know?” Tess confessed. Brooke smiled. “It was just too much for her, I think. We were young. She was a year younger than me, only twenty-four with two kids. She just wasn’t ready. I get it. The kids didn’t.”
“She doesn’t see them?”
“No. After two years, she left. Not sure what ended up happening. She was with someone for a while. I never tried to stay in touch. If you have to force it…Well, you shouldn’t have to force it.” Brooke agreed. “By the time she left, the kids were going into first grade. I had worked my way up. They go to a before school program and an after school program. I am able to pick them up by four-thirty and have dinner with them. I don’t work weekends. It works for all of us. So, that’s my not so sad story,” Tess laughed. “I don’t regret it. Not any of it. I just wish I could give them more. Like tonight. God, poor Davey. It’s so hard. My parents are in Florida. My gram in gone. Just…sometimes it’s overwhelming. I wonder if I am failing them.”
Brooke shook her head. She was constantly surrounded by parents and families. Some were expecting for the first time. Some were couples. Some were alone. Some had large families already. She had a good sense of who and how parents were. Tess was an exceptional mother. Her kids came first. She loved them unconditionally. She provided structure and love. Brooke didn’t need one more second in Tess’s company to know that. “I’d say they are lucky to have you,” Brooke told her friend.
“They deserve more than I can give them sometimes,” Tess said.
“I doubt they see it that way,” Brooke said. “I see lots of kids and parents, Tess. Trust me on this one. You remind me of my mom,” Brooke said.
“Oh, no. That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
Brooke laughed. “No, it is. My mom is the best person I know.”
“So, you are close?”
“Yeah. Wish we saw each other more,” Brooke confessed.
“Is she far away?”
“No, not really. She teaches at The University of Connecticut.”
“Wow. What does she teach?”
Brooke scrunched her face uncomfortably. “Orthopedic surgery techniques.”
“Your mom is a surgeon?”
“Both my parents are. Technically, my mom is a professor now. She stopped practicing when she left my dad. I was twelve.”
Tess detected a note of sadness in Brooke’s voice. “Is that what made you want to be a doctor? Your parents?”
Brooke sighed. “Partly. My dad just retired last year after he had a heart attack. He lives in California. My mom, she was a gifted surgeon. People still seek her out for advice. She’s sort of a champion of women in medicine. She was a woman in a field where there weren’t many women at the time. There still aren’t. She’s a talented doctor and teacher by all accounts,” Brooke said proudly. “But, she was an even better mom.”
“She sounds amazing.”
“She is. She gave up surgery when we moved to this coast. She was a single mom. The hours were too much. You know?” Brooke said.
Tess watched Brooke carefully. She sensed that Brooke felt a sense of guilt in her mother’s transition. “Hum. I do know. I never really thought of leaving school as giving anything up. I mean, I just made a change.”
“Because you had to,” Brooke pointed out.
Tess shook her head. “No, I wanted to. I could’ve gone back to school. I could now.”
“You don’t want to?”
“I do, but I want to spend time with my kids more. School will be there in five, ten or fifteen years. Davey and Dani will only be kids for a while. I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had just stayed that original course, but then I look at them and that doesn’t seem to matter. I didn’t plan on being a mom on my twenty-first birthday,” Tess laughed. “But, sometimes the best things happen when you don’t plan them.” Tess yawned.
Brooke smiled at her friend. Tess was exhausted. “You need some sleep,” Brooke observed.
“Is that your professional opinion, Dr. Campbell?” Tess asked a bit flirtatiously.
“It is a personal diagnosis, Ms. Sinclair,” Brooke replied.
Tess nodded. “You can have the bed. The couch pulls out. I’ll just get a sheet…”
Brooke grabbed Tess’s hand. “No. I need to go wake Davey and get him to drink something first. You go to bed,” Brooke said.
“My bedroom is next to Davey’s. You’ll be closer there,” Tess argued.
“Somehow, I think you would feel better if you were next door to him. And, I am not putting you on the couch, Tess. Besides, I sleep on couches all the time.”
“Not in this house, Dr. Campbell,” Tess said. Brooke pursed her lips in amusement. “You can either take the whole bed or you can take the right side. You choose. You’re not sleeping on a couch after the night we have all had,” Tess said definitively. Brooke smirked. “Well? Get his drink and let’s go,” Tess ordered.
“I thought the doctor was supposed to give the orders?” Brooke poked.
“Am I your patient?” Tess asked.
“No.”
“Then, my house—my orders. You go wake up Davey and I will get you something to sleep in. Although, my sweats might be shorts on you,” Tess laughed.
“Tess, you don’t have to…”
“God, you really are determined, aren’t you?” Tess said. “You are not going to win this one, doc,” Tess said as she headed for the stairs. “Can’t say as I have had a sleepover recently, but what the hell!”
Brooke snickered and went to get Davey some Pedialyte. You might be in trouble here, Campbell. Triple trouble.
***
Tess popped her head into Davey’s room. He was groggy and she heard Brooke snicker at his sleepy talk.
“Bluck,” he complained.
“It’s strawberry,” Brooke laughed.
“Eww…”
“This from the boy who eats green goop?” Brooke teased Davey.
Davey groaned again. “I’m tired.”
“I know, Buddy. Want me to tell you a secret?” Brooke whispered. Davey nodded. “I’m kind of tired too,” she pulled the cup away and smiled at him. “That’s enough, I think. Do you need to go to the bathroom?” Davey shook his head. “Okay. Go to sleep,” Brooke said. Davey was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow again. Brooke smiled down at him. I wish I could do that.
Tess leaned on the doorframe. “Okay, sleepyhead, your turn to hit the pillow,” Tess said. Brooke turned. Tess chuckled at the alarmed expression on the doctor’s face. “Well? Come on. I think I might have found something to fit you.”
Brooke dutifully followed Tess into Tess’s bedroom. She watched as Tess reached over onto the bed and retrieved a large pair of sweat pants and an oversized T-shirt. Tess handed the items to Brooke and Brooke laughed. “Did you date the Jolly Green Giant or something?” Brooke asked playfully.
“Ha-ha. Believe it or not those are my brother’s. He left them here when he visited last summer.” Tess looked Brooke up and down. “I’d say you two are about the same,” she paused for effect. “Height.”
“Nice save, Sinclair.” Brooke responded.
“Bathroom is right there. I left
a toothbrush out for you,” Tess said with a sly grin.
“Thanks,” Brooke said suspiciously as she headed for the bathroom.
Brooke had to admit that she was relieved to be stepping into a soft pair of sweats. She was no stranger to sleeping in her clothes, but she always slept better when she was able to relax. Wearing the clothes she worked in never helped in that endeavor. And, relaxing was always a challenge for Brooke in the best of circumstances. She stretched her back until it popped gently and made her way to the sink. “The Hulk?” Brooke chuckled at the green toothbrush with a Hulk handle that Tess had left out for her. “I swear if this toothpaste is bubble gum flavor,” she shook her head.
Tess took the opportunity that Brooke’s absence afforded her and slipped into her pajamas. Well, you won’t have to worry about attracting her once she sees your night attire. Tess heard the door to the bathroom open and turned to find a refreshed Brooke holding up her special toothbrush. Brooke’s plan to tease Tess over the toothbrush flew out the window when she saw Tess in her pajamas. Brooke’s eyes roamed over Tess and her eyebrows rose almost into her hairline.
“What?” Tess asked defensively. Brooke pursed her lips and shook her head. “Do you have something against Wonder Woman?” Tess blinked her eyelashes.
Brooke cleared her throat and held up her small toothbrush. “Umm…Tess, is there something you would like to tell me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you just had me swap spit with The Hulk and you apparently want me to share a bed with Wonder Woman...” Before Brooke could finish her statement, she was hit in the chest with a flying pillow. “Violence is not the answer, Ms. Sinclair. Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” Brooke warned sternly, toothbrush in hand.
“Ooohh…Am I supposed to be scared?” Tess asked.
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