Just Breathe

by Susan Wiggs

  The house staff melted away, at least momentarily. Stepping closer to the bed, he said, “Feeling better?”

  “No.” She lifted the oxygen mask. Her lips were still bluish. “Don’t look so guilty. It’s not your fault.”

  “You should put that back.” He indicated the mask.

  “I need to check on my dog. Franny doesn’t like being separated from me.”

  “Aurora can take care of her. She’s good with animals.”

  Sarah relaxed against the pillow. “I haven’t had Franny for long, but once she made up her mind to trust me, she stuck to me like glue, just like that. It’s a bit scary, how attached I am already. You’d think we’d been together forever.” She put the mask back in place.

  “Dogs can be like that.”

  For some reason, the statement struck her as funny. He saw a smile shine from her eyes, though the mask covered her nose and mouth. Then he realized she wasn’t smiling at all. A tear slipped down her cheek and melted into the spongy gasket of the mask.

  Oh, man, he thought. This was why he was a firefighter, not an EMT. He’d rather face a blazing forest than a hurting woman’s tears.

  “Do you want me to find the doctor?” he asked. “Are you in pain?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.” She muttered something else he couldn’t make out. Then she said distinctly, “You have a nice daughter.”

  “Thank you.” It was something he heard often and never got tired of. He just wished it made Aurora happy. “I’m proud of her.”

  “I don’t blame you.” She shut her eyes and breathed into the mask.

  Will felt awkward, which was unusual for him. Due to the nature of his job, he saw people in all kinds of circumstances, often during the most terrible moments of their lives. He saw families whose possessions had burned to ash, farmers whose crops or orchards had been destroyed, children who had just lost a pet. His job was no picnic, but it was who he was, what he was good at. Despite his preference for dealing directly with fires, he knew how to engage a person by looking deep into her eyes. He learned not to flinch at someone else’s pain, and he understood that simply feeling their agony didn’t help. You had to do something about it.

  Agitated, he looked around the area. Why weren’t they helping her? She seemed exhausted, lying limp against the pillow, her pale hair damply plastered to her brow. He stood quietly by, trying not to let his agitation show, because that might upset her. He wondered if he should pat her hand, try to comfort her somehow. He decided against it. Better to leave her alone, let her rest.

  What an odd bird she used to be. As teenagers they could not have been more different. He had been full of the kind of dreams only a cocky young athlete could have. She had been, to him, a cipher. He had not known her, except as an annoyance in his life. Nor would he have bothered with her except that, for reasons he now understood all too clearly, she had singled him out for ridicule.

  He recalled the first time someone had shown him Sarah’s comic strip, which she’d titled “Hell on Earth.” The publication had no school sponsorship. Yet it was the most popular thing going, passed around from student to student like a joint at a party.

  Will hadn’t thought about it in years, but he could easily recall Sarah’s bold, somewhat crude drawings. She lampooned everything from the fall alumni parade to the food in the cafeteria to girls having cosmetic surgery—including Will’s sister, Birdie. Most of all, though, Sarah Moon’s sarcasm bit deep into people to whom life and all its pleasures came easily. People who didn’t have to sweat for their grades or fight for their spot on a team, people who could sit anywhere at lunch, date anyone they wanted and charm any teacher on the faculty.

  People like Will.

  She had gone after him without mercy. Her bold, assured drawings reduced him to a vacant-eyed creature with a square jaw and shoulders so wide he couldn’t fit through doorways. It had infuriated him to see himself as a cartoon character pumped up with his own importance, obsessed with his looks, using his talent and charm to manipulate every situation to his advantage.

  He pretended to laugh at “Hell on Earth” along with everyone else, but deep down, the caricature of him made him squirm. Although he would never admit it, he knew the reason he hated her comic strip.

  Because she was right about him. Her portrayal of him was bitingly accurate.

  Maybe he hadn’t been as stupid and clueless as the caricature, but he probably had been as self-absorbed and mean-spirited as she portrayed him. She held up a mirror and he didn’t like what he saw.

  “Sarah!” Nathaniel Moon strode into the emergency department and hurried to her side. “What’s going on?”

  “Hey, Dad.” She lifted the mask and made a valiant effort to smile.

  Her father seemed as ill at ease around her as Will felt. He felt an unexpected kinship with Nathaniel—they were both single fathers.

  Nathaniel awkwardly patted her shoulder. “How are you? What happened?”

  Will filled him in, trying to make everything seem routine. But he could see the concern on Nathaniel’s face: there was nothing routine about a young woman collapsing.

  When the doctor arrived a few minutes later, he wore a curious expression on his face. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but there appeared to be a spring in his step. Will felt better, seeing the doc looking calm and confident. “I’m going to take off now,” he said, stepping back to give them some privacy. “I’ll watch your dog, bring it over after you’re home.”

  “Thanks,” Nathaniel murmured.

  Sarah’s gaze was fastened on the doctor. He had some forms on a clipboard. “Your labs are back,” he said.

  Part Four

  Nineteen

  “Thanks for coming,” Sarah said that night as she opened the door for Will Bonner.

  He stepped inside the cottage, and she was instantly struck with the impression that he was too big for the place. Too tall, too broad, too present, too...everything.

  Franny was ecstatic about her homecoming. She’d been with Will and Aurora all day. Will had offered to keep her for the night, since Sarah had not returned home until nine o’clock. That would have been the practical thing to do, rather than asking him to deliver the dog, but Sarah was not in a practical frame of mind.

  “Will, I really appreciate this,” she said, sounding remarkably calm.

  “Not a problem.” He stood with his baseball cap in his hand, watching her. Waiting and no doubt wondering.

  Sarah held his gaze. The only way to say it was to say it. “I’m pregnant.”

  There. The words were out. The news delivered by the doctor now hung in the air, creating their invisible but inescapable reality. It was a moment that changed everything—her future, her dreams, the life she thought she would have. She had imagined it many times, but she’d never pictured herself sharing the news first with a relative stranger.

  To his credit, he took the news well enough. “Are congratulations in order?”

  “Yes and no. I mean, it’s something I wanted. Just...not now.” She could still hear the doctor’s announcement.

  She was pregnant.

  Unexpectedly, impossibly, mind-blowingly pregnant.

  It was a dream come true. It was her worst nightmare. She was still in a state of shock. Being pregnant was the last thing she’d expected. Sure, there had been symptoms over the past few weeks. She thought the missed period was the result of stopping the cyclical doses of Clomid, and she had dismissed the nausea and weird cravings as nerves. Today she’d learned there was a reason for all that, and it had nothing to do with ending her marriage and starting over. A baby.

  “I can’t thank you and Aurora enough for helping me today,” she said. The moment felt entirely surreal. Here she was with a man she had once adored and hated with every fiber of her passionate adol
escent being. “Please,” she said, “have a seat. I mean, if you have time.”

  There was a world of meaning in his moment of hesitation. They were strangers, the way they had always been. No matter how much time had passed since high school, she was still the weird chick with a chip on her shoulder and he was still the godlike athlete.

  “Thanks,” he said, and took a seat on the chenille-covered sofa. “I just got off work.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t have any beer but there’s a bottle of Pinot—”

  “Sarah.”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m babbling.”

  “Sit down.” He took her by the hand and pulled her down beside him. “Listen,” he said, “just so you’re clear on this—I want you to know I respect your privacy, a hundred percent.”

  “About me, uh...” Her mouth went dry. She could barely think it, let alone say it. “About me being pregnant.”

  “Totally your business.”

  Very diplomatic. He probably knew all kinds of scandalous things about citizens in his fire district. She figured that in his position, he sometimes had to burst in on people unexpectedly in order to rescue victims who got themselves into a jam. He would know who kept weird sex toys in their bedroom and who never cleaned the kitchen or returned their library books.

  “I should tell your sister. As you probably know, I’m her client.”

  “Are you her friend?”

  “No. I mean, she’s great, but it’s not a social thing.”

  “I’m thinking you need a friend more than a lawyer right now. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  “Kind of overwhelmed, but otherwise all right.” She eyed him with both curiosity and suspicion.

  “What?” he asked.

  “There was a time when Will Bonner would’ve spray painted the news on a train trestle.”

  “That was years ago.” He didn’t deny that the old Will would have done exactly that. “People change. I’ve changed. And whatever you choose to do about your situation is strictly your business.”

  The comment startled her. She caught his meaning, then vigorously shook her head. “Oh, I’m having this baby. And keeping it. No question about that.”

  There wasn’t. She had wanted this for far too long and had worked too hard for it.

  “Then I guess congratulations are in order.” He sent her a smile so genuine that she blinked.

  “Thanks. After the doctor, you’re actually the first one to congratulate me.” She paused. “My father neglected to do so.”

  “I’m sure he was preoccupied with the fact that his daughter had been brought to the E.R.”

  “I don’t get it. You’re making me feel better about things.” She was not only charmed by him, but intrigued. “I wasn’t expecting that from you.”

  He laughed. “I’m going to take that as a compliment, even though I’m not sure you meant it that way.” He relaxed against the overstuffed sofa, looking as though he belonged there after all. “Anyway, if you feel like talking, or want to unload or something...”

  She wondered if her lower jaw was really on the floor, or if it just felt that way. Will Bonner, holding out the hand of friendship? What was wrong with this picture?

  Maybe it was in his job description to check on hysterical pregnant women and make sure they didn’t go off the deep end.

  She felt him watching her and realized she hadn’t replied. When she did, it was with a question of her own. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you invite me to unload on you?” In spite of herself, she felt her gaze being drawn to him. His big shoulders looked as though they could support the weight of the world.

  “You’re by yourself. You just had some big news.”

  “You are an extremely kind person,” she said, studying him. Same great looks, she thought in a TV announcer’s voice. New, improved insides! “When did that happen? Where’s the Will Bonner who used to call me Oyster Girl?”

  He spread his hands, palms up.

  Correction, she thought. He didn’t look the same as he had in high school. He looked better. He’d filled out, and his smile was genuine and deep, growing from within. His eyes—hazel, she had no trouble remembering—crinkled at the sides, adding character to looks that had once been too perfect.

  “Did I really call you Oyster Girl?” he asked.

  “You and the entire basketball team.”

  “We had nicknames for all the girls. Believe me, you could’ve done worse. You’re right, though. I wasn’t nice in high school. I suppose I was the guy in your comic strip.”

  “For what it’s worth, I feel bad about that.”

  “Don’t. Maybe seeing myself in your comic strip made me determined to be a better person.”

  “Your parents get credit for that, not my drawings.”

  “How much did you listen to your parents when you were in high school?”

  “I barely remember having a conversation with them.”

  “I rest my case.”

  Chitchat. She, Sarah Moon, was making chitchat with Will Bonner. In high school, he was the sort of person you looked at and thought, he’s got a great life ahead of him. She used to fantasize about him. She and every other girl in school.

  “I want you to know, it’s okay to tell Aurora. She’s probably wondering.”

  “Yeah, she wanted to come with me but I made her stay home. It’s a school night. But your news isn’t mine to tell.”

  She could feel her color come up, like mercury rising in a thermometer. “Aurora’s great,” she commented. “You must be incredibly proud of her.” She wondered how many times she had stared at the photograph of Will and Aurora in Birdie’s office. Sarah had never connected the tiny angel in the picture with Will’s nearly grown daughter. People left pictures in their frames forever, she reflected. Out of laziness, or because they wanted to freeze a particular moment in time?

  “I am.”

  Keep talking, she silently urged him. Don’t make me pull the story out of you.

  He didn’t keep talking.

  “So I’m guessing she’s your stepdaughter,” she ventured.

  He nodded. “I married her mother the summer after high school. Legally adopted Aurora a couple of years after that. Sometimes I feel more like her older brother than her father.”

  He never said what happened to the mother.

  You never asked, she thought.

  “What’s that look?” he asked.

  “I’m not giving you a look.”

  “Sure, you were. I saw it. What are you thinking?”

  “About what you just said about Aurora’s mother. It’s going to keep me busy for hours, speculating.”

  “Yeah?” He turned sideways on the sofa and held her gaze with his. “What are you going to speculate about?”

  “Aurora told me you and your...wife are really close, but that she lives in Vegas now.”

  He stayed very still for a moment. Then he dropped his elbows to his knees and steepled his fingers together. “That’s half-right. Marisol does live in Vegas.”

  “And the other half...?”

  “Aurora’s had a hard time accepting that we split up.”

  He was different when he talked about his daughter. There was a depth and gentleness in him that Sarah never would have thought him capable of. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “And I apologize for bringing up a painful subject.”

  He kept staring down at his hands. “She left. It happens.” A new kind of silence settled between them. This one was not awkward, but soft with a shared understanding.

  Sarah felt oddly safe, talking to him. And she definitely needed to talk. He’
d been absolutely right when he’d pointed out earlier that she needed a friend. She had this uncanny urge to tell him what it felt like to have her marriage end at the exact moment a life was beginning. With her father today, she’d been too stunned and her father too uncomfortable to analyze and speculate. With Will, she felt as though she’d explode if she didn’t get the words out, and he seemed perfectly at ease with that. There was this thing he did, a way of listening with total absorption. She wondered if he felt the same instant bond she did, or if he was just being nice. It didn’t matter. There were things she couldn’t hold in any longer.

  “Jack and I were desperate to have children,” she said. “Jack’s my soon-to-be ex.”

  Will didn’t say anything. She didn’t need him to.

  “You want to hear something weird?” she offered.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not if you stay on that sofa.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Tell me something weird, Sarah Moon.”

  “It’s so weird, it’s practically cosmic.” She was like a sinner with a confession that wouldn’t stay inside.

  He leaned back and laced his hands around one knee. “Try me.”

  “I didn’t get this way by sleeping with my husband.”

  “I’m not here to judge you.” He shifted on the sofa so that he was facing her. The slight flush on his cheeks was oddly endearing.

  “Wait, it’s not what you think. I didn’t get this way by sleeping with anyone.”

  “I can’t quite wrap my mind around that one.” Now he was probably thinking she’d lost her mind.

  “See, I’m ninety-nine percent sure this baby was conceived at the exact moment my marriage broke up. I wonder if that’s a sign or something.”

  He stayed quiet. A crease appeared in his forehead.