Did Tessa think this was some sort of game? Why would she come all this way to offer Abby Luke’s child and then, seconds later, snatch the baby away? How horrible for Tessa’s mother not to know she had a grandchild on the way. But Abby would gladly trade places if the alternative was knowing Luke’s baby existed somewhere in the world, in a stranger’s house, a stranger’s arms. And she would never hold him.
She might never hold her grandchild.
Luke had told Abby that Tessa was nice. As compared to what? A monster?
“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “I’m not sure. I honestly have no clue.”
Rob made a sound behind her, a grunt of disapproval that Abby wholeheartedly agreed with.
Honest, or one of its derivatives, was one of those words kids used when they weren’t. Once a mother, always a mother. She wasn’t that long out of practice. And Tessa was not at all sorry.
“Then you’d better stay,” Abby said, “until you decide.”
The sticky-sweet smell of Belgian waffles and blueberries, Sunday breakfast at Briar Rose, flipped Abby’s stomach on its head. She ducked inside the pantry, folded a saltine into her mouth, and washed it down with tap water. Too much thinking and too little sleep had resulted in a worry hangover. In short, she felt like crap. She’d managed to wake with the sun, complete food prep, and set the tables before the first bleary-eyed guest stumbled into the dining room for coffee. She’d set herself on autopilot, forbade her mind from wandering to the girl who slept in Luke’s bedroom, wrapped in Luke’s blankets and around Luke’s baby. But maintaining focus had zapped her meager supply of energy.
One couple was finishing up and lingering over coffee, and another awaited the delivery of their meals. The rumble of their voices scraped across her tattered nerves. Not their fault. But more than anything, she wanted to return to her bedroom, dive under the covers, and hide from the plans she’d made last night with Charlie. She’d called and asked him to meet her at Percy’s for an ice cream, a safe spot to tell him about Tessa. She’d felt like she was lying to Charlie by fabricating a sudden ice-cream craving. She’d felt like she was cheating on Rob, the man she craved.
Abby balanced two breakfasts across her arms and made the delivery. “Here we are,” she said, and set the warm plates before the gray-haired couple.
“Excuse me, Abby?” Lisa from Room 1 motioned her over to where she and her husband, Ronnie, sat before empty plates, oversized servings consumed. Lisa and Ronnie weren’t newlyweds, but the childless couple in their thirties acted the part. They sat on the same side of the four-top, ate from each other’s plates, made a point of finishing each other’s sentences and each other’s food. Earlier this week, Abby had to knock on their door and drop not-so-subtle hints about the thin walls, although nothing at all was wrong with her home’s insulation. Some people—Lisa—liked to make sure everyone knew when they were having a good time.
“More coffee?” Abby asked.
“We’d like some eggs.”
“Eggs?” Abby asked, her mind working to come up with a polite answer that wasn’t a lie. She had plenty of eggs, all needed for tomorrow’s eggs Benedict. She always explained breakfast service, a different meal each day. Coffee or tea? Apple juice or orange? Canadian bacon or sausage? Half an hour ago, those were the only choices she’d offered.
Lisa nodded. “Two scrambled, dry please.”
“Of course.” Abby might still have enough for tomorrow.
“Sunny side up for me,” Ronnie said.
Never mind.
In the kitchen, she eased two cast-iron frying pans from their hooks and fired up the gas burners. She slid a carton of eggs from the fridge and cracked one over the bowl before she realized she’d forgotten the bowl. “Really?” she told the egg oozing across the gray granite. “Are you kidding me?”
“Who are you talking to?” Hannah bustled in for her shift, light brown hair piled wet on her head, arranged like one of Celeste’s sticky buns.
“Please.” Abby motioned at the egg mess, and Hannah snapped up a sponge from beside the sink. Abby shook her head. She cracked two eggs onto the surface of an oiled pan, two more into an actual bowl for scrambling.
Hannah rinsed the sponge in the sink and then scowled at Abby’s kitchen chalkboard menu planner. “Those don’t look like waffles to me.”
“They most certainly do not. Some people think rules don’t apply to them.” Abby whisked the eggs harder. “I explain the rules about breakfast, rules I’ve thought out, planned out. How am I supposed to plan if, at any given moment, someone can just walk into my home and change my entire life?” Egg sloshed over the rim of the bowl.
Hannah rushed in to wipe up the drips. “You need me to pick up eggs for you at Rooster’s?”
Eggs sizzled in the frying pan. Abby turned down the heat, sprinkled her Briar Rose recipe seasoning mix. She added some to the scrambled eggs and poured them into the second pan. “Some people do whatever they want, no thought to the consequences, or who they’re hurting. I mean, I love eggs. Love them. You know that, right?”
“I guess.”
“I always thought that I’d have more.”
“I can run out after my shift.”
With her right hand, Abby flipped the eggs, landing them sunny side up. Left-handed, she scrambled eggs in the pan. “One thing’s for sure, I do not take well to teasing.”
“That makes two of us.” Charlie stood in the doorway to the kitchen, over an hour early and in the worst possible location.
Abby’s heartbeat kicked her in the ribs. She gazed around Charlie, making sure a certain young lady wasn’t heading his way to take him out at the knees. “What are you doing here?”
“You sounded stressed on the phone.”
“You have no impulse control.”
Charlie shrugged. “That, too,” he said, but his expression caught the brunt of her insult.
Sorry, she mouthed, and ushered him in. She slid the egg orders onto the waiting plates and turned to Hannah. “Deliver these to table three?”
Hannah glanced at Charlie and back to Abby. Abby didn’t make a practice of sharing her personal life with her employees, but Hannah had worked for her long enough to piece together their history. “I’m on it.” She slid a half apron from its wooden peg, tied it around her waist, and snapped up the orders.
Abby turned off the burners, but heat flushed her chest. Her lips tingled. All she could do was shake her head, give herself a moment before she upended Charlie’s life.
“Don’t do that, Abby. What is it? What’s wrong?” he said, his voice taking on the tinge of her mood.
“Do you remember Luke’s girlfriend, Tessa?”
“Sure, of course, hot girl with blue hair.”
Abby laughed, the perfect antidote for her tension. Leave it to Charlie to sum up a woman by the color of her hair and where she hit on the hotness chart.
Hannah breezed into the kitchen. “Just passing through.” She slipped the apron from around her waist and backed out the door so she wouldn’t miss a thing.
Abby waited for the sound of Hannah rifling through the broom closet. “Tessa’s pregnant,” Abby said.
Charlie tilted his head. He stared at her, long enough to remember why she loved his changeable hazel eyes. Long enough to remember Celeste’s warning to keep her distance. Long enough for her to wish she could forget.
His eyes brightened from gray to green. “How far along?”
“About five, six months. I’m not sure, I—”
Charlie let out a whoop. “We’re having a baby!” He grabbed Abby around the waist, lifted her in the air, and swung her in a circle, the kind of over-the-top reaction she’d wanted when she’d told him she was expecting Luke. Crazy, irrational, but she’d wanted it anyway. She’d been a teenager. She’d been in love.
Abby held on to Charlie’s shoulders, widened her eyes at him, a little thrilled and a lot horrified. “Put me down! What’s wrong with you?” She cut her gaze to the dinin
g room, filled with guests waiting to gobble up a juicy piece of local gossip and spit it out across town. Or, worse, spew bits of misinformation at the gift shop she recommended to all of her patrons: Lily Beth’s Heart Stone.
He set her back down, closer to him than when he’d lifted her from her feet. “We’re having a baby,” he repeated, slow and sweet and caressing every syllable.
“I’m not pregnant, Tessa is.”
“Would it be weird if I were proud of our kid, in a youthe-man kind of way?” Charlie said, referring to Luke. “You know, along with an appropriate amount of parental disapproval.”
She was about to tell Charlie he was a complete ass, but truth be told, he wasn’t. If Luke had been alive, she could well imagine Charlie lecturing him from here to next Thursday. And then, after the baby was born, pounding him on the back and sharing a cigar.
“It wouldn’t be that weird.”
“What do we do now? Road trip to Amherst?”
“Not necessary.” Abby told him about Tessa showing up on her doorstep and everything that followed. “She might want to give the baby to someone else,” Abby said, and the cracker she’d eaten hardened in her belly. “I’m keeping the baby.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Charlie said, and his airy confidence rubbed Abby the wrong way. “She’s just a kid. She’s scared,” he said, as if Tessa were a damsel in distress, rather than a young woman who’d come here with a hidden agenda. “How can she know whether she’s ready to raise a child? She’s probably spent the past few months trying to avoid the issue.” Charlie’s voice filled the kitchen, taking on the resinous tone of Charlie the caring objective teacher. No relation to Charlie the one-time absentee father.
“Is that what you did?” she said, hating the raw edge to her voice, but powerless against the pull of the past. And sleep deprivation stripped away every defense.
“Never.”
“No?”
Tessa stepped into the kitchen, her face flushed, her pink camisole wrinkled from sleep. The fabric gaped, revealing an inch of bare round belly. “You sound just like Luke. I thought you were Luke.” The disappointment in Tessa’s eyes wound around Abby’s heart and tugged her toward the girl. Then Abby remembered Tessa’s list of options for Luke’s baby, and she stood her ground. Tessa knew what they’d all lost. How could she threaten Abby with more of the same?
Tessa tugged the jersey down over her belly. She hung her head, and tears ran down her cheeks.
“Hey, don’t be like that.” Charlie opened his arms to Tessa and ushered her closer. “Tessa,” he said, drawing out the syllables, the way Luke had done. “We should be celebrating.”
Tessa ran into Charlie’s arms. She buried her face in the shoulder of his white polo shirt, no doubt soaking the fabric, as if she’d known him forever. “It’s going to be okay. We’re here for you. We’re going to figure this out. No worries.” Charlie rubbed Tessa’s back, and her shoulders rose and fell with her tears.
All Abby had ever wanted from Charlie those many years ago.
Abby ducked into the pantry and clamped a hand over her mouth to quell the cottony swell, the urge to scream. Did Charlie think he could sway the girl? Convince her to leave Luke’s baby with Abby, just because he said so?
What you wanted and what you ended up with weren’t necessarily the same.
Luke had worried Abby with his devil-may-care attitude toward sports and all manner of physical dares. Her son was all-boy, all the time.With Luke, Abby had at least understood what she was up against. Girls in general, this girl in particular, were something else altogether. Charlie was no match for passive-aggressive girly crap, especially in the guise of a beautiful girl who was carrying their grandchild.
Abby focused on a row of spices—rosemary, thyme, oregano—and bit the soft flesh of her palm until pain bloomed and the panic in her belly receded.
Back in the kitchen, Tessa clung to Charlie’s shirt. Above the girl’s head, he mouthed, No worries, to Abby. But Abby Stone wasn’t a schoolgirl he could charm with his good looks and pretty words. She’d seen too much to believe in easy answers. Happy ever after had died with her son.
Abby put water on for peppermint tea. She poured batter into the waffle iron and peeled a banana for slicing. The baby needed nourishing. The girl needed convincing. If Tessa were anything like Abby had been while pregnant, breakfast would lead to second breakfast and slide right into lunch. Abby wished she could rewind the clock to a time when her fondest wish had been four straight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Back to one perfectly ordinary mid-March, middle-of-the-night newborn feeding. Back to a time when she hadn’t appreciated her good fortune.
She’d thought she’d be in that room forever. Late-winter winds battered the nursery’s windows and banged shutters against the siding. A CD played “Little Boy Blue,” a loop of warm sound. The song’s steady backbeat mimicked a human pulse, but the ersatz heart didn’t fool her son. Luke had kicked off his blanket, his arms and legs flailed for her, twitches of movement in the darkened room. His thin cries pierced her chest. Abby lifted him from his cradle. Before she could fully settle into the rocking chair, before she wedged the nursing pillow beneath her forearm, Luke clamped on to her nipple, hard enough to snatch the air in her throat. He’d always known how to get what he wanted.
A grandchild. A piece of her son alive in the world. She’d lost her child once and survived. Losing again would kill her.
CHAPTER 6
Tessa couldn’t stop looking at the photo centered above Luke’s bed.
Dina had taken the shot of her and Luke in December, when they’d gone sledding, right before finals week. A last blowing off of steam before they locked themselves in books and laptops to memorize facts they’d forget five minutes after the doors of the lecture halls snicked shut behind them. She and Luke sat on an oversized cafeteria tray at the peak of the hill by their dorm. Top of the morning, top of her life.
After breakfast, they’d hiked the paved trail up Orchard Hill. Tessa was falling behind, savoring the strange feeling between her legs. The secret ache told her hours ago, everything had changed. Luke, who could’ve had any girl, had chosen her. He thought she was beautiful. He thought she was special.
Boys were so easy to fool.
The sun’s rays bounced off the snow-covered hillside, blinding her. Luke jogged back down the hill, and she climbed onto his back. With a battle cry, he raced up the hill, Tessa grasping the fabric of his ski jacket for dear life, her body bouncing mercilessly against Luke’s. The solid feel of him pounded against her chest. Clear blue sky with a whisper of white cloud skittering across it. Snow-dusted tree branches. Groups of kids along the path. As she and Luke bounded past, their voices touched her, like high-fives of celebration. Joy bubbled from her center. Luke deposited her at the top of the hill, with her stomach muscles tight from laughter, her cheeks chapped from the cold.
She was smart to have made him wait a few months to have sex. A calculated risk, but worth it. Because he’d held her hands and dusted her face with kisses. He’d told her to open her eyes. He’d said it might hurt. But that night, it hadn’t hurt at all. Not in any way that mattered.
Tessa hummed the first line from “Wish You Were Here,” slow and ethereal. Luke’s cat, Sadie, poked her head out from under the bed. The cat had slept there all night. She’d refused to come out, even when Abby had waved a rainbow wand of curly ribbons by her face. Not even when Abby had tumbled aluminum foil balls the cat supposedly could not resist past the bed. Fine, Abby had said, when Tessa could tell the sleeping arrangement—for Tessa and the cat—was anything but.
Tessa clucked her tongue. When Sadie wound around her bare legs, she scooped the cat into her arms and planted a kiss in the soft fur behind her ear. In the photo, Tessa faced forward, legs crossed. Luke’s legs wrapped around her waist. He gazed out to some unknown point, or some unknown person. A girl, most likely. That tall blonde from Central who was always hanging around, waiting for the latest breakup?
How long could a relationship last when there was always some girl, or girls, waiting in line for you to fail?
“Who do you think Luke’s looking at?” Tessa asked. “Hmm?” Inside Tessa, the baby squirmed, and Sadie leaped to the floor. Tessa pressed both hands to her stomach, as though trying to hold the baby inside her.
On that day on the hill, she’d longed for Luke, as though he were already gone. If love felt so much like grief, how could you tell the difference? Tears sprung to her eyes, and a familiar congestion filled her chest.
A handled shopping bag from yesterday’s shopping spree sat on the floor, and Tessa set to unpacking the contents. She’d dashed out after breakfast, giving Abby and Charlie privacy, she was certain, to talk about her. At Mama Land boutique, the saleswoman had cautioned Tessa against purchasing too many items at once. She’d assured Tessa that just when she’d thought she couldn’t get any bigger, she’d grow exponentially. But what the heck? She had Dad’s credit card and his sort-of blessing. At Abby’s urging, Tessa had called to tell her father her location, and she’d taken his rather pronounced sigh from the other end of the phone as all the permission she needed. “You don’t listen at all, do you?” he’d asked, not expecting an answer. No, she did not listen. And neither did he.
But Abby would listen to Tessa. She’d make sure of it.
Tessa laid out her purchases across Luke’s bed. Two pairs of not-too-short shorts, the denim low-cut, if you didn’t count the stretchy beige fabric that cradled her growing belly and reached all the way to the underside of her bra. Three T-shirts, longer in the front than the back. A sundress with navy stripes running vertical. Each item was cleverly designed to camouflage the fact she was a freaking freak show. From the bottom of the bag, Tessa retrieved half a dozen pairs of underwear, the worst of the worst. Underwear with a secret baby belly, in case she were trying for the sexy prego look.
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