Just Breathe

by Susan Wiggs

  He chuckled. “It’s the American way.”

  “Don’t be so cynical. People make it work every day.”

  “Miss Moon. Is that an overture?”

  “As if. I was speaking hypothetically.”

  Will put up his hands in surrender. “Just checking.”

  “Half the town thinks we should be a couple,” she said. “Have you noticed that?”

  “Kind of hard to miss.”

  “Don’t you think it’s possible for us to be friends?”

  The question haunted him, but he answered with a lighthearted grin. “It’d be a sad state of affairs if we couldn’t. I understand you’re not in the market for a relationship.”

  She patted his arm. “That’s why we’re so good together.”

  Aurora took a break from her scientific puppy search and let them all out of the box at once. She lay back in the grass and giggled while they climbed all over her.

  “I bet you wish you had ten Auroras,” Sarah said.

  “Maybe not ten. We have our ups and downs.”

  “She seems great to me. How do you do it? How do you raise great kids?”

  He laughed. “You’re asking me?”

  “I ask everyone I meet. I need all the help I can get.”

  “Stop by the house sometime. I’ve got some books I can lend you.”

  “Aurora told me about the books. More than a hundred at last count.”

  “I can spare a few. I don’t have anything on twins, though.”

  She tucked both hands around her stomach. He had an insane urge to touch her there. He felt a fascination with her body. Not just the rounded belly but the swelling breasts and that ineffable air of mystery about her. He found her incredibly sexy. He wondered if that made him a pervert.

  “I had Birdie tell my ex,” Sarah said. “Jack and I do all our communication through lawyers now. I was terrified about what his reaction would be. I kept envisioning a custody battle that ends up like The Parent Trap, you know?”

  “Birdie will protect you and the babies,” Will said.

  They sat quietly together as the shadows deepened in the folds of the hillocks sloping down to the sea. Aurora was in no hurry to make up her mind about a puppy.

  “Good,” Sarah said. “Feeling safe is the most important priority of a single mother. That’s something I heard in this divorce group I joined in Fairfax.”

  “Is it helping?”

  “Everything I’ve done since I left Chicago is helping.” She stretched her feet out in front of her and sighed. “I’m glad I came back here. I feel as if I can breathe again.”

  “That’s good, Sarah.”

  “When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to leave. I wanted to live in the big city, see the world. Did I tell you I spent my junior year of college studying in Prague?”

  “No. How was that?”

  “A lot like Chicago, but with older buildings and a more polluted river.”

  He smiled and turned to her on the porch swing. The hell with being just friends. She was no longer communicating with her ex. “I’m glad you came back, too.”

  Her gaze dropped, even as her smile widened. “Yeah?”

  “Sarah—”

  “Dad!” Aurora called from the yard. “I figured it out.”

  He hesitated just a moment longer, then got up from the swing and offered his hand to Sarah, palm up. She looked at him. “Helping the poor, pregnant lady to her feet?”

  “Get used to it.”

  “Dad, come on.” Aurora’s voice was edged with impatience.

  “So what have you figured out?” As he and Sarah crossed the yard, he took care not to trip over the puppies underfoot.

  “The right dog.”

  “That’s great, honey.”

  Aurora wore a smile he’d never seen before. He thought he knew all the ways she had of smiling, but this one was new, tinged with a peculiar depth.

  “See, this one wants me the most,” she said, indicating a pup that kept straining to lick her face. She pointed out two others. “Those are the prettiest, don’t you think? And the two over there, playing with each other, are the friskiest.” She went and scooped up the last puppy, which was trying to get to the porch, back to its mother. “And this one,” she said, cuddling it against her chest until its whimpers subsided, “needs me the most. So I choose this one.”

  Thirty

  Jack started calling Sarah again. He was completely taken by the idea of twins, even though it doubled his child support liability. He clearly regretted joking about who had fathered them. Sarah knew this because not only did he resume calling her—calls she refused—but both his mother, Helen, and sister, Megan, got in on the act.

  Sarah didn’t hate Helen and Megan. Having lost her own mother, Sarah had liked having Helen in her life. And now that Sarah was carrying the heir apparent, her stock with the Daly women had risen. Even so, they were not the ones who had carried on an affair with Mimi Lightfoot and God knew who else. They had never done a thing to her except give their loyalty to Jack. Out of courtesy, she took their calls. Once Jack was informed about the twins, their calls doubled in number. Which, when Sarah thought about it, made sense.

  “He’s miserable,” Megan confessed.

  Sarah used her speakerphone while she worked at a lap desk in bed. Her perinatal specialist urged her to spend plenty of time on bed rest as the pregnancy progressed. “Not my fault,” she said calmly and refused to let herself feel guilty. Back when he was sick, it had been her mission to make him feel better. The reflex was still surprisingly strong, even now, but she resisted it.

  “I’m not saying it is, just stating a fact.”

  “It’s also not my problem.”

  “You were married to him,” Megan said. “You were with him when he nearly died of cancer.”

  “I don’t exactly need a reminder of that.” Since being on her own, she’d had plenty of time to think and analyze what had gone wrong, to ponder the reasons two people who had once loved each other had ended up apart, and hurting. It was easy enough to point the finger at Jack, and she had done plenty of that. However, Sarah had learned that in order to find her own peace and inner healing, she would need to ask hard questions of herself, too, and acknowledge her role when all she really wanted to do was blame Jack.

  “He’s still with Mimi Lightfoot, last I heard,” she pointed out.

  “He’d break that off in a minute if you said you want to try again,” Megan confided. “For the sake of the vows you took, shouldn’t you try to overcome this?”

  Vows, thought Sarah. She had sworn to be his wife in sickness and in health. She had managed the sickness part—so had Jack. It was sticking together in health that had been impossible. Something had broken down between them, and like it or not, she’d had a hand in that process.

  “...forgive him and try to pull together?” Megan was saying.

  “No,” Sarah said. She was surprised and a bit relieved when the conviction resonated inside her. She wasn’t kidding herself. She didn’t want him back. Not for herself, and not even for the babies. She knew him too well, knew the novelty of being a dad would wear off and they’d drift apart again.

  “That’s all you have to say—no?” Megan sounded incredulous.

  “No, thank you?”

  “This is not a joke, Sarah. It’s not funny at all.”

  At last, something they agreed on. “He broke my trust in a way that can’t be mended,” she explained. “I won’t raise my children in a home like that.”

  She ended the unsettling phone call and headed for the White Horse Café to meet Judy and Vivian for coffee. This had become part of her morning routine and she found herself cherishing the time they spent together. They genuinely cared about her, and seemed to ha
ve an endless capacity to listen.

  “I brought too many expectations to my marriage with Jack,” she confessed over a decaf latte and a coconut scone. “He was supposed to be the knight in shining armor, rescuing me from my unbearable life on an oyster farm. What I refused to see was that he wasn’t that guy, and my life wasn’t unbearable.”

  “That doesn’t excuse what he did,” Vivian pointed out. “There’s no excuse for infidelity.”

  “He’s the father of these babies.” Sarah touched the hard swell of her belly. “We’ll always have this connection. I can’t escape it.”

  “You’re going to have to forgive him so you’re not angry all the time,” Judy said.

  “That’s psychobabble,” Viv pointed out. “She deserves to be angry.”

  “I’m supposed to avoid stress,” Sarah confessed. “And you know what’s funny? When I was with Jack, and had this so-called perfect life, I was more stressed out than I am now, alone and pregnant with twins.”

  “That’s just it,” Viv told her. “You’re not alone. Not here. Not anymore.”

  “And not,” Judy added, “with Will Bonner at your beck and call.”

  Sarah’s face heated. “He’s not at my beck and call. What is one’s beck and call, anyway?”

  “It’s from Old English,” Viv explained, exaggerating a professorial expression, “a shortened form of beckon—a mute gesture.” She demonstrated a come-hither movement with her hand. “I think Sarah’s got it down pat.”

  “Look at that blush,” Judy observed. “You like him. You totally do.”

  “What is this, high school all over again? We’re friends, all right?” Sarah said. “That’s all. Nothing more.”

  “Liar,” said Viv. “In fact, I’m going to call our local fire captain right now. Someone’s pants are on fire.”

  * * *

  While Megan was the youngest and most volatile of the Daly family, Sarah’s former mother-in-law, Helen, was an icon of feminine accomplishment. A graduate of Northwestern, she had been superwoman before the concept was invented. She managed to juggle a successful career in finance, four children, a husband and a busy household all at once.

  “You make it look so easy,” Sarah had told her soon after she and Jack had married. “What’s your secret?”

  “It comes in a small, brown plastic bottle,” Helen had said with a laugh, and Sarah could never figure out if she was kidding or not.

  The only thing that had ever fazed her mother-in-law had been Jack’s illness. Helen had conquered the Chicago Board of Trade, but her son’s battle with cancer undid her. Sarah had once found Helen in the hospital chapel, screaming at God. Not begging for her son to recover but demanding it. Ordering it and refusing to take no for an answer.

  Sarah knew she was no match for Jack’s mother. She never had been. When Helen dictated the menu at Thanksgiving or handed out Christmas gift lists, Sarah simply obeyed, because resistance was futile. The twins would be her first grandchildren. Sarah knew Helen would fight to be in their lives.

  When she called, she didn’t mince words. “I was disappointed when you left Jack,” she said, “but I held my tongue. However, the babies change everything, as I’m sure you know. You and Jack have had plenty of time to cool off, and now I think it’s time for a reconciliation.”

  Sarah doodled a cartoon woman hanging on to her tongue. “I’ve always admired you, Helen, and I suspect that will never change. When Jack and I were married, I did as I was told but things are different now. I’m going to do what’s best for these babies.”

  “Well, thank goodness,” Helen said. “No child deserves to be cut off from his father.”

  “My attorney is open to discussing limited visitation rights.”

  There was a pause as her meaning sank in. “Court-ordered visitation is no substitute for a family,” Helen said. “Sarah, men stray. It’s what they do.”

  Sarah heard a hardness in Helen’s voice that made her shiver. And Sarah knew—John Henry cheated. It seemed so obvious now. Her silver-haired father-in-law, whose son was so like him.

  “The good ones are smart enough to come back,” Helen continued, “where they belong. I know Jack is a good man.”

  Like his father, Sarah thought.

  “Don’t you believe every child deserves to grow up with both parents together, in a decent home?”

  Sarah bit her lip, resisting the urge to spill the fact that Jack was doing his best to minimize his child support contribution. “There is nothing decent about a home built on lies and betrayal. Jack cheated on me. And you know what? I believe I have it in me to understand why he did it. I even have it in me to forgive him.”

  “Oh, Sarah. Dear, it’s such a relief to hear this.”

  “I’m not finished. I’m trying to tell you that I can understand why he cheated. I can forgive him. But the one thing I cannot do is love him again.”

  “Sarah, you can’t mean that.”

  “And I won’t raise my children in a house without love.”

  “Children have a basic need to know their father. You’re letting your bitterness toward Jack cloud your judgment. He has a right to be a part of their lives.”

  “He gave up his rights when he broke a vow he made in the church where he was raised.”

  “Now you’re being dramatic.”

  “Must be the hormones, Helen,” she said. Instantly she felt contrite. None of this was Helen’s fault. “I don’t blame you for sticking up for Jack’s interests. Any mother would. If we didn’t, what kind of mothers would we be?”

  * * *

  It seemed strange to Sarah that, although she’d grown close to Aurora and Will over the past months, she had never visited them at their house. When they invited her over to eat something called “Truesdale Specials,” she eagerly accepted.

  Aurora greeted her at the front door along with a gangly puppy, whom Aurora had christened Zooey. The house was a Craftsman typical of the area, originally built in the 1940s as a retreat from San Francisco. She was gratified to see that her drawing of Aurora occupied a prominent place on the wall. Aurora eagerly showed Sarah around the house.

  “Is that your mother?” Sarah asked, indicating a framed photo on the dresser. It showed a smiling woman looking directly into the camera. She bore an eerie resemblance to Aurora, yet there was a barely discernible difference, a hardness in the eyes and in the set of the jaw. Or maybe it was sadness.

  “That’s Mama.”

  “I bet you miss her.” Sarah’s hand strayed to the swell of her stomach. She had yet to hold her babies in her arms, yet she felt such a fierce and elemental connection with them that it was hard to imagine doing what Marisol had done, walking away from them.

  Aurora shrugged. Sarah sensed a world of suppressed emotion in that shrug.

  “I miss my mom,” Sarah said, “every day.” She refused to turn maudlin, though. “How about you show me around some more.”

  “Through here,” Aurora said, heading down the hall. Clearly, she did not want to pursue the conversation. The tour concluded with a visit to a long, cluttered room upstairs that connected to Aurora’s bedroom through the bathroom. There was a counter with built-in drawers, two tall windows letting in the light, odds and ends of abandoned furniture and stacks of unlabeled storage boxes.

  “This was going to be a sewing room,” Aurora said. “Mama wanted to be a dressmaker, so my dad fixed this room up for her. She never made anything, though. Do you know how to sew?”

  “Not a stitch,” Sarah admitted. She tried to imagine the beautiful, sad-eyed Marisol seated at the window, sewing a dress. She paused at another photo in the doorway and thought, What were you thinking, Marisol? You broke their hearts.

  Right then and there, Sarah vowed to always remember that being a mother meant protecting your loved ones f
rom hurt, not inflicting it.

  “Dad’s out back,” Aurora said, clomping down the stairs. “He just lit the grill.”

  When Sarah saw Will, she knew she was deceiving herself about the way she felt about him. The sight of him on the patio, in a white T-shirt and faded jeans, drew a flush of warmth over her. She hesitated for a moment, in her mind drawing a comparison between Jack and Will. Jack was always on the go, with no time for flipping burgers. Will knew how to be in the moment.

  I’m a goner. The sight of him grilling burgers was a turn-on. She had been telling him and Aurora and herself she wasn’t in the market for a relationship.

  All lies. She looked at him and wanted to frame his broad shoulders with her hands. She wanted to feel the texture of his hair and the taste of his lips, and every time she saw him, she wanted him more. She fought the attraction with everything she had, because it could only lead to heartbreak. There was no way she could be falling for someone now.

  She clung to that resolution as she waved at him through the kitchen window while she and Aurora fixed a salad. She repeated it like a mantra in her head when he served dinner with a flourish and a heart-tugging grin.

  “It’s okay if you don’t like the burgers,” Aurora said. “Not very many people do.”

  “You’d be amazed at what I like these days,” Sarah said, inspecting the meal on her plate. It looked a bit strange and sounded even stranger—a patty made of SPAM, Velveeta and onions.

  “It’s best when you dip it in the tomato soup,” Aurora advised, demonstrating.

  Sarah gave it a try and took a bite. She felt Aurora and Will watching her intently. This was some sort of test. “Delicious,” she said.

  “Really?” Aurora asked.

  “Totally.” She touched her belly. “We all like it.”

  After dinner, the phone rang and Aurora disappeared into her room.

  “She and her friends talk for hours,” Will said. “No idea what they talk about.”

  “Boys and clothes. You want some help with the dishes?”

  “Nope, you’re company.”

  She leaned back and put her feet up on the chair next to her. “Oh, but I insist.”