by Meg Maxwell
“We don’t know yet,” he said. “Can you come?”
“Of course. I’m at Baby Center with my grandmother and sisters, but I’ll leave right away.” Georgia had driven over herself, since she’d wanted to stop at the maternity shop and buy a few pieces of clothing before meeting her family at Baby Center. She let her grandmother and sisters know what was going on and they all rushed out, Annabel driving Georgia’s car with Georgia in the passenger seat so she wouldn’t have to drive while so worried.
Twenty minutes later, they were in the lot of the Blue Gulch Clinic, Gram and Clementine pulling up next to them. Inside was Nick, Timmy in his carrier on the chair beside him, and Dylan’s great-aunt Helen on the other side, worry etched on her face. Essie immediately sat beside Helen and took her hand, lending some quiet comfort.
“No word yet?” Georgia asked, sitting down beside Nick.
“They’re running tests is all I know,” he said, dropping his head between his hands. “He’s got to be okay. He has to be.”
They all glanced at Timmy, so sweet and innocent. So recently reunited with the father who loved him so much.
“Detective Slater?” a doctor said. “Dylan told me that I could relay his medical information to you. He’s going to be fine. Low blood sugar is all. He appears to have been under stress lately.”
Nick visibly relaxed. “We’ve got him settled into a good place right now. All that stress is part of the past.”
The doctor nodded. “That’s what he said. I think it just caught up with him. You can see him now.”
Nick thanked the doctor, then walked up to Aunt Helen and sat on her right side to explain the good news. Helen Patterson was so depleted from worry that Essie, Annabel and Clementine offered to bring her back to Nick’s house and get her settled and stay with her until Nick or Dylan returned.
Georgia would stay with Timmy. “Tell Dylan I said hi and that I’m glad he’s okay,” she said to Nick. “And that Timmy is in good hands.”
Essie stood up, helping Helen to her feet. “And make sure he knows he’s not allowed to come to work for the dinner shift tonight. When he’s one hundred percent better, his job will be waiting.”
Nick nodded. “He’s a lucky kid to have the Hurleys on his team.”
“And you,” Georgia said, her hand on his arm.
* * *
The moment Nick walked into Dylan’s room in the clinic, the teenager burst into tears. He was half-reclined on the cot, a lumpy pillow behind his head, and was wearing one of those loose hospital gowns. He grabbed the box of tissues on the bedside table and wadded up a tissue to dab under his eyes.
Nick hadn’t been expecting the tears. “Hey, Dylan,” Nick said, walking over to the bed and sitting down in the chair beside it. “You’re okay. Everything is okay. Timmy is safe and with Georgia. Your aunt Helen was here, and Essie Hurley and Georgia’s sisters are bringing her back to my house to rest and wait for you when you’re ready to be discharged. Child Protective Services has closed the case. You have a good job waiting for you when you’re up for going back. You have solid friends here to support you. Everything’s okay.”
Tears streaked down Dylan’s face. He shook his head. “Maybe they shouldn’t have closed the case.”
Nick stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
Dylan jabbed under his eyes with the tissue. “Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing, not putting Timmy up for adoption. I’m eighteen. I don’t know anything. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
That explained the stress level spiking instead of settling down. Now that Dylan and Timmy were reunited, the worry of keeping him no longer an issue, Dylan could finally focus on the reality of being a father and was now questioning his ability to do so—well. Plus the stress of having to leave Timmy with Nick, not seeing his infant for a week, then being spooked by the sight of Nick in Houston and suddenly moving to Blue Gulch—it must have all taken its toll on the new eighteen-year-old. He was a kid. A kid with a heap of responsibility on his young shoulders.
“Maybe I should let him go, be raised by a good family,” Dylan said, the tears coming again. “I swore I’d never leave him. But maybe I’m doing him a disservice.”
“Do you think you can be a good father to Timmy?” Nick asked.
“I know I can.”
“How?” Nick prompted, hoping to lead Dylan back to confidence.
“Because I love him. I loved him before he was born. I’ve loved him every minute of his life. I want to be everything that my father wasn’t.”
Nick stiffened. Despite having seen his unborn baby on the monitor, despite being overwhelmed by it, Nick didn’t feel a connection to his child yet. Because the idea of fatherhood didn’t feel real? Or even like a possibility despite being reality? He leaned closer to Dylan, resting his elbows on his thighs, his hands under his chin. “Do you ever worry that it’s in your blood?” He wasn’t sure he should even put the question out there, but he wanted the answer—for Dylan and for himself.
Dylan sat up, his expression resolute. “No. I’m not my dad. I’m nothing like him. I’m like my mom.”
Nick sat back as something gave way inside him. The words were so simple, yet he’d never thought about his own history in the same way. Nick wasn’t anything like his dad either; he never had been.
Nick squeezed Dylan’s hand for a moment. “I know that. I believe it.” He waited for Dylan to catch his breath. “You’re taking on a big responsibility.”
“Yeah, I am. But I love my son. I’ll take parenting classes. I’ll do whatever it takes. I won’t give him up.”
Nick smiled. “There’s the self-assured Dylan from Houston. You’re not alone. You’ll have Timmy’s godparents right here. There are already quite a few people who adore Timmy. You’ll have support. I never want you to feel alone, Dylan. I will always be here for you.”
The boy burst into tears, shuddering sobs racking his body. “Really?” he managed to say.
Nick leaned over and pulled Dylan into a hug. Yes, he was eighteen. A legal adult. And a father. But he was a boy who needed a father figure himself, and Nick was going to be that father figure.
“I’m here for you, Dylan,” Nick said. “Always.”
Dylan calmed down and wiped under his eyes.
“And so is Georgia and, from the crowded waiting room earlier, the entire Hurley family.” Nick leaned back. “I want you to promise me something.”
“Okay,” Dylan said.
“If you ever have a problem again, you tell me, okay? Because that’s what I’m here for. Hell, I already feel like Timmy is my family. That makes you family.”
Dylan’s eyes filled with tears, and he nodded. Nick pulled him into another hug.
“It’s gonna be okay, Dylan.”
“I finally believe that,” Dylan said.
* * *
Avery wanted to have a going-away lunch at Hurley’s, and Nick was glad for the excuse to run into Georgia. He’d tried yesterday, after stopping at the Victorian with Dylan to pick up Timmy, but Georgia had been polite and reserved with him and focusing her attention on Dylan and how he was feeling. The teenager was 100 percent better, mentally and physically. Nick had taken them on the shopping trip he’d planned for the day before, and once he got the Pattersons settled into their new home, he’d breathed a very long sigh of relief.
He hadn’t even realized how much the past week had weighed on him until 99 percent of it had been lifted from his shoulders. He still felt responsible for not only Timmy but Dylan and his great-aunt too, yet Dylan was of sturdy stock and could take care of himself and Timmy, even if he wobbled now and then, even if he needed a hand and one of Nick’s weary shoulders.
He’d texted Georgia before he’d gone to bed last night, a simple Good night, beautiful. Thanks for...everything, and
it had taken her a while to text back. Like almost two hours. He’d just gotten a Good night in response. And then had slept as if he were being pecked by imaginary pigeons.
She wanted something from him that he couldn’t quite figure out. For him to want to be a father? To feel more connected to her pregnancy? He’d already agreed to attend the next ultrasound appointment. And be her Lamaze coach.
As he arrived at Hurley’s, he saw his sister and Quentin at the round table by the fireplace, Mr. Whiskers’s carrier under Avery’s chair. They were deep in conversation, their faces an inch apart, and the look of utter love on Quentin’s face made him stop in his tracks. He knew the guy loved Avery, but seeing it like this, up close and personal, was like a good left hook to the jaw. He was letting his kid sister go, to live her life, to be herself, to find herself. She wouldn’t be alone, no matter what. And really, Nick thought, as he finally got his feet moving again, he didn’t feel much of a “matter what” because he trusted in Quentin, trusted in their feelings for each other.
All these strange new feelings settled down as he approached the table, truly happy for Avery. He hugged them both, and listened to their excited chatter about Nashville, ate a ton of ribs and still couldn’t resist a slice of Georgia’s peach pie, just to have a piece of her with him. Finally, he said his goodbyes, to the cat too, foisted a Happy Travels card with some emergency money inside for the two of them and then hugged his baby sister goodbye.
“Next time I see you you’ll be a dad,” Avery said, wrapping her arms around him. “That’s one lucky little guy.”
“I’ll try my best,” he said, realizing how much he meant that.
Avery laughed and looked at him as though he were crazy. “Your worst is still pretty darned good. Granted, I didn’t like being told what to do or how to live my life. But it’s nice to know you care, Nick. Really care. I don’t have any family but you. And now Quentin. But you’re my big brother.”
“I’ll always be that,” he said, squeezing her into a hug.
“Bye, sir,” Quentin said, reaching out his hand.
Nick smiled and said, “I’m not sir to family.” Then he grabbed Quentin into a hug too.
As he watched them leave, drive away in Quentin’s little blue car with the crazy bumper stickers, his sister’s words echoed in his head.
Your worst is still pretty darned good.
He shook his head, the compliment making him smile. He did care. He cared a hell of a lot. About Avery. Quentin. Georgia. Her family. And their baby, who’d be born in just five months.
A gray cloud didn’t form over his head, opening up and drizzling on him the way it always did when the idea of himself as a tiny person’s father flashed into his mind. There was just a neutrality when there had been cold fear. He’d call that a big improvement.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Georgia coming around the side of the Victorian, a big floppy hat shielding her eyes and pruning sheers in her hand. She had on shorts that showed her long, beautiful legs, and a T-shirt that couldn’t hide the swell of her belly.
That was his baby. His. A little Hurley Slater was coming into the world and he could either stand here, happy enough that he no longer felt as if he were jumping out of his skin, or he could take the opportunity and run with it.
He was going to run with it. An idea came to him, involving a camera, Blue Gulch and the rest of his life. As Georgia clipped away at a bush without seeing him, he rushed off the porch in the opposite direction, wanting the rest of his life to finally have a chance to get started.
Chapter Sixteen
Nick bypassed a group of day campers walking two by two to the playground at Blue Gulch Elementary School, took out his phone and clicked on the video camera function. He flipped the screen so that it was filming him.
“Dad here,” he said, but his voice was a little wonky from how not-everyday this was for him, so he restarted the video and cleared his throat. “Dad here. Hi. I don’t know your name yet. Your mother and I haven’t talked about that yet, but I’ll bring that up later today. You need a name, right? I—”
A little girl stood at the edge of the playground fence and stared at him, then finally ran off to the tire swings, giving him the privacy he needed to do this.
He kept the video camera aimed at him. “I’m filming this five months before you were born. One day, maybe when you’re all grown up—your aunt Avery’s age now—you’ll like the idea of looking back on how you came into the world.” He felt like the Grinch on that snowy precipice, his heart growing so big it almost exploded. “I want you to know something. I want you to know that that even before you were born, I loved you.”
The floodgates opened and Nick had to sit down on a bench and catch his breath.
It was true. He loved his child. He always had, from the moment Georgia had told him she was pregnant. He’d been afraid, yeah. But that never meant he didn’t love their son.
He aimed the camera back on his face. “Dad here again. I’ve been worried how I’ll do—and since you’ll probably be watching this when you’re graduating from high school or whenever people watch home videos that only families like, you’ll be able to tell me how I did.”
He paused, clicking off the video and leaning his head back, something daring to sting the backs of his eyes. He clicked Video. “Got kind of emotional for a minute there. I just want to do right by you. I don’t want to let you down. I won’t let you down. Since there’s five months till you’re coming, I thought I’d show you a little of the town where you’ll be born, where I was born, where your mother was born. I’ll show you where I grew up and where I went to school, where I had all my firsts.”
I’m reclaiming this town for you, little guy, he added silently. I’m going to see it through your eyes, for your eyes. Life has to be about the present and future, not the past.
Yeah. It did. And it would be from here on in.
“This is where you’ll go for your first day of school,” Nick said, sweeping the video camera across the front of the Blue Gulch Elementary School. “Right there,” he added, zooming in on the bicycle rack, “is where I wiped out in front of every kid on my bus. I had such a bad cut on my leg that kids used to offer me baseball cards to see it.” He turned to the left. “And see that tire swing? That’s where I made my first friend, a really funny kid named Finn. I should look him up.” Nick smiled at the memory of himself and Finn riding their bikes all over town, looking for buried treasure and frogs, like little Henry Grainger.
After the elementary school, he moved to the middle school, where he had had his first awkward kiss, filming under the bleachers where it had happened. Then the high school, where he shared one of his favorite memories, his high school graduation, his mother and sister surprising him with dinner out at Hurley’s. He told his son how back then, he had no idea that the girl he’d grow up to marry had been at Hurley’s that day.
Nick froze. The girl he’d grow up to marry. Marry. He’d thought about it, of course, over the past weeks, ready to cough up Georgia’s least favorite word, obligation, and commit to her and their child. But he’d known Georgia wouldn’t want a husband who operated out of should. She was holding out for the real thing.
His heart wobbling, he got back in his car and filmed around town, pointing out some businesses that had come and gone, spending a good ten minutes in front of Hurley’s, aiming it up at Georgia’s window on the second floor. He probably looked half-crazy, holding up his phone and narrating, but Nick didn’t much care.
“Now I want to show you where I grew up,” he said into the video camera. He got into his car and drove over to the house that had stopped making his insides seize up—or had since that night he found Avery in the yard under the weeping willow. It was Avery’s house now. That was how he would think of it: about its future.
He walked around to the backyard,
hoping his tenants wouldn’t mind that he was skulking around. There were no cars in the driveway, so they didn’t appear to be home. He swept the video camera across the yard. “This is where I’d lie for hours every night with the telescope my mother bought me for my tenth birthday, looking for the Big Dipper and hoping to see some planets. And right there,” he added, zooming in on the back porch, “is where my mother would read to me and Avery every night for an hour.” He stared at the porch swing, barely focusing on the crack his father had once put into it in a fit. “This will always be Aunt Avery’s house, and if she moves back here, if she’s not too big a country music star for little ol’ Blue Gulch, maybe she’ll read to you here too, under the stars.”
I’m having a baby, he whispered into the early evening air, and again he felt something shift in his chest—open instead of close, widen instead of tighten.
He had one more place to visit and then he was going to see Georgia Hurley and let her know he was ready to be a father.
* * *
Well, well, there was a new text from Nick, this one asking Georgia to meet him on the front porch of Hurley’s. She glanced at the time. It was close to 9:00 p.m. and two big parties had come into the restaurant a little while ago to get in before closing. Georgia should be inside helping out in the dining room, walking around with a coffeepot and a pitcher of lemon water, fetching anything the busy waitstaff couldn’t get to.
Anything to avoid what she was afraid was coming: goodbye. Nick might be staying in Blue Gulch, but he might as well be half a world away emotionally.
She took off her apron and hung it up on a peg, let her grandmother know she was stepping outside for a moment and steeled herself before opening the front door. She still couldn’t get over his last text—from last night. Thanks...for everything.
Thanks for...everything. She was about to give him a piece of her angry mind. She yanked open the door and there he was, standing on the porch so danged handsome with so many shopping bags in his hands that she was surprised he could still stand straight.