by Thea Dawson
The door to his office opened. Relief burst through his chest as she walked through the door, her cheeks pink with the cold. She looked at him warily, but that was fine. He could work with anything as long as she was actually there.
“Hi. Are you still mad at me?” she asked.
“Yes, but not as mad as I was yesterday,” he conceded.
“So … progress?”
He managed a small smile. “I’m sorry for the way I acted. I was harsher than I should have been.”
She shook her head. “My bad. I should’ve checked with you first.”
He stepped toward her and took her hands in his. “Listen, Rachel, I really like you. I have no idea where this is all going. It’s all uncharted territory for me. But if this is going to work between us, you have to not throw me in the deep end with situations like this.”
“I’m sorry, Bryce.” She sounded sincerely apologetic. “I was out of line. If you want me to call and cancel, I will.”
He pulled her into a hug, which, to his relief, she returned. “No. I’ll go, but only under one condition. You got me into this. You’re coming with me.”
She pulled away to look up at him, her face bright again. “Of course I am. They’re expecting me. Oh, and they live on a farm, so Vera said to be sure to wear sensible shoes.”
14
Bryce and Nora met Rachel in the parking lot in front of his condo on Christmas morning. Despite making up in his office a couple of days earlier, some of the lightheartedness that had characterized their first few weeks together had faded. There was a new cautiousness to Rachel’s behavior. Bryce didn’t like it, but he wasn’t sure how to get them back on track.
Rachel got out of her car, carrying an enormous gift basket of fancy crackers and spreads that she’d brought for the Sullivans. She gave Bryce a quick, possibly nervous kiss on the cheek before turning her attention to Nora, who was strapped to Bryce’s chest, facing outward and looking rather like the Michelin Man in her puffy white snowsuit.
“How’s my bestie? Oooh, I’ve missed this girl!”
Nora gave her a delighted smile. Rachel clapped her hands and looked up at Bryce. “Ready for an adventure, you two?”
She carefully placed the gift basket in the back seat of the car, while opposite her, Bryce installed Nora in her car seat. She slammed the back door and was about to get into the passenger’s seat when Bryce stepped over toward her.
“Wait,” he said in his commanding boss voice.
She bit her lip and looked up at him through thick lashes. They regarded each other in silence for a moment.
“Are you still mad at me?” she asked.
“I’d like to be.” His face broke into a reluctant smile. “But I’m not. I really just wanted a proper kiss.”
Her smile was full of relief. “I can do that.” And she did, with a deep and sincere kiss that was all the warmer for icy cold air around them.
They stood beside the car for a moment. Bryce pulled her close to him and stroked her hair. “Just promise me you’ll behave from now on.”
“I promise I’ll behave,” she said, looking up at him, her big brown eyes filled with a solemnity that he didn’t buy for a minute. “And if I don’t, you can spank me.”
“You might want to be careful about making promises like that.”
Rachel wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and he laughed. He wasn’t sure if things between them were completely back to normal, but they were getting there.
She tilted her head at the car. “Come on, handsome. We’ve got a Christmas lunch to get to.”
He opened the car door for her, and she slipped in.
The ride up was uneventful. Nora burbled and fussed for a little while, then fell asleep. Rachel entertained Bryce with stories about her adventures and misadventures abroad. The low dark clouds threatened snow, but it didn’t fall, and the roads stayed dry and clear all the way up.
The Sullivans’ farm was down a long country road lined with bare trees. When they reached the little house at the end of it, Bryce put the car in park and wondered again how he’d let Rachel talk him into this. He’d intended his affair with Nora’s mother to be nothing more than some consenting adult fun, but it had turned into much more than he’d ever bargained for. Now he had to confront her parents and their judgment.
Rachel’s hand wrapped around his and gave it a squeeze.
“It’ll be fine,” she promised him. “Come on.”
Before they were completely out of the car, Vera and Wilson were out of the house and making their way over to them. Vera was a short, plump woman in her early seventies with short curly grey hair. She moved stiffly, but had a bright smile and sparkling eyes, and welcomed them with enthusiastic hugs before turning to fuss over Nora. Wilson, tall, lanky, and more reserved than his wife, shook hands with Rachel and Bryce, but his smile as he thanked them for making the long drive was sincere.
Rachel extracted Nora from her car seat and handed her to Vera, who wrapped her arms around the sleepy baby and looked up at her guests with tears in her eyes.
“Thank you for coming. It means so much to us,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “Won’t you come in?”
It began awkwardly.
The four adults clustered around the coffee table in the overheated living room. A dining table, already set for lunch, sat in one corner. Vera, clearly both excited and nervous, talked incessantly, Wilson nodded a lot without saying much, and Bryce sat on the couch next to Rachel, answering the occasional question and looking uncomfortable.
It was up to Rachel to break the ice.
“Tell me about your farm!” she said brightly, and launched into a stream of questions: how long they’d had it, what kind of food they grew, what tasks they liked and disliked most. Gradually Vera’s chatter became less anxious and more sincere, Wilson joined in the conversation, and even Bryce seemed to unwind. As his posture became more relaxed, he began volunteering information about Nora and her eating and sleeping habits, which Vera absorbed with rapt attention. Nora did her part by waking up fully and allowing her grandmother to give her a bottle.
Rachel studied the old woman as she sat in her armchair, feeding the baby, her face glowing with grandmotherly contentment. She gave Bryce a sidelong glance.
He was dressed casually by his standards, but his khaki pants, oxford shirt, and cashmere sweater still looked out of place in the Sullivans’ homey living room, with its shabby furniture, crocheted doilies, and abundance of photos and knick-knacks. He and Wilson had somehow hit on birds, of all things, as a topic of mutual interest; Wilson was telling Bryce about the local birds that flocked to the farm, while Bryce shared a story about a road trip he’d taken in college, chasing sightings of a Ross’s gull far south of its normal habitat.
Under other circumstances, the knowledge that her alpha-lawyer boyfriend was a birdwatcher would have delighted her, but as Vera, Wilson, and Bryce relaxed, she grew more tense, wondering if arranging this visit had been the right thing to do after all.
Was Bryce paying any attention to the way Vera’s eyes were fixed on Nora? If he went ahead with his plan to place Nora for adoption, Vera and Wilson would most likely never see their tiny granddaughter again.
Maybe it was just cruel to bring Nora into the Sullivans’ lives again if she was only going to be snatched out of their reach forever in a matter of days. Of course, it would have to be up to Bryce whether he broached the topic of her impending adoption with her grandparents. Rachel half prayed he wouldn’t because it would surely crush the kindly old couple, and half prayed that he would—because as long as the Sullivans were kept in the dark, she felt like they were there under false pretenses.
As Bryce and Wilson focused on their unlikely bird connection, and Vera made cooing noises at Nora, Rachel lapsed into uncharacteristic silence, wishing she and Bryce had talked the situation through more carefully.
“Grab your coat,” Wilson suddenly said to Bryce. “You too, young lady, if you’d l
ike to join us. I’d like to show Bryce here the bird feeders I set up in the back of the house, and I’ll give you a tour of the farm while we’re at it.”
Bryce gave her a hopeful look, but she ignored him. “You know, I think I’ll just stay here,” she said. “Maybe I can help Vera get lunch set up.”
Bryce’s expression turned resigned, but he obediently followed Wilson into the hallway to retrieve his jacket, and the two men disappeared out the front door.
Rachel turned her attention back to Vera. Nora had finished her bottle and was looking around, taking a sharp interest in her new surroundings.
Vera shook her head fondly. “He’s so proud of those bird feeders. Built all of them himself. He’s wonderful at making things, and he’s set them up so that we get different types of birds here all year round.”
A glance out the window confirmed that the two men had come around to the back of the house, where Wilson and Bryce were admiring an impressive array of tray, tube, and suet feeders.
Rachel turned her attention back to Vera. “Look at Nora. She’s so happy to be here!” She leaned forward. “Vera, how can I help with lunch?”
“Oh, why don’t you hold Nora for a few minutes while I get the food ready?”
Vera shifted as if she were about to stand up, but Rachel stood up first. “Don’t be silly. Just sit and enjoy her. Tell me where everything is, and I’ll take care of it.”
She didn’t miss the look of gratitude and relief that crossed Vera’s face. The kitchen was just off the living room, and Vera called out instructions as Rachel extracted a chicken from the oven along with a salad from the refrigerator, and quickly warmed up mashed potatoes, yams, Brussels sprouts, and freshly baked rolls.
When the food was on the table, she returned to the living room. Vera patted the couch next to her, and Rachel sat down beside her.
“I can see the boys coming up the hill. They’ll be back in a few minutes. In the meantime, can I show you some photos of my Nora?” Vera asked, her eyes hopeful. She nodded at a photo album on the coffee table.
Rachel’s eyes widened as she picked it up and opened it, holding it in her lap so that both she and Vera could see it. She’d been curious about Nora’s mother since the beginning, but she’d never had the nerve to ask Bryce for more than what he’d shared with her.
The photos were mostly of Nora in high school and as a young woman. She was pretty and blond, with Wilson’s lanky build and Vera’s toothy smile. They flipped through the album, admiring pictures of her as a cheerleader, dressed for the prom, standing in front of the Empire State building while she was a student at Barnard, and arm in arm with Vera and Wilson on the day she graduated from college.
“I was forty when I had her,” Vera said, gazing at the album. “We always wanted children, but we’d been married almost twenty years, and it never happened, so when I found out I was pregnant—” she laughed, but Rachel saw that her eyes were watering, “well, it was like a miracle. And Nora was such a blessing. Such a wonderful child, so smart and curious and affectionate.” Vera blinked and smiled at Rachel. “And we spoiled her rotten, I’m sorry to say.”
Rachel smiled back, her heart aching for the old woman who’d lost her only child. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said softly. “That must be so hard.”
Vera nodded and wiped away another tear. “It is. We miss her so much.” She adjusted the squirming baby carefully in her arms. “But at least she left this precious angel behind. I wish more than anything that we could have kept her, but she needs parents who can look after her properly. I worried that if something happened to us, she’d end up in foster care, and I didn’t want that. Nora wouldn’t have wanted that.” She nodded out the window. “He seems like a very nice man. I know he’ll do right by her.”
Knowledge of the impending appointment with the social worker squirmed in Rachel’s stomach. She just nodded in response.
“I hope he’s not too angry with her,” Vera went on. “With my Nora, I mean.”
Rachel frowned. “Why would he be angry with her?”
Vera sighed, still looking out the window at the two men. “She used him. To get pregnant, I mean. She was never that interested in getting married—honestly, I don’t think she was even all that interested in men—but she always wanted a baby. She’d been talking about sperm donors …” Vera shook her head. “I tried to tell her that it’s not easy raising a child, even with two parents, but she wanted it so much, and she had a good job …” Vera smiled fondly at her reflection in the glass. “She was very stubborn. When she wanted something, she usually got it.”
Vera looked back at Rachel, her expression embarrassed. “I’m not sure what she told Bryce. She probably told him she was on the pill or something, but she wasn’t. I don’t know what he was expecting, if he thought they’d have a relationship or if it was just a two ships passing in the night kind of thing, but I’m sure he wasn’t expecting to get a baby out of it.”
Rachel absorbed this silently, wondering how Bryce would take this news. Privately, she thought it was pretty selfish of Nora to use Bryce to get pregnant without his knowledge, but surely it would alleviate some of the guilt he felt to know that Nora had wanted this baby all along, had maybe even planned for her.
She kept her voice as gentle as she could as she asked something she’d wanted to know from the beginning. “Do you mind if I ask what happened to Nora?”
Vera nodded and sighed. “Early in the pregnancy, she found out she had cancer. She refused treatment for the first six months in case it hurt the baby. By the time they started chemo, it was too late.”
Rachel’s eyes went wide. “I’m so sorry.”
Vera softly stroked the baby Nora’s hand with one gnarled finger. “If it hadn’t been for all the tests and things they were doing because of the pregnancy, she probably wouldn’t have found out about the cancer until it was too late anyway. It was already pretty advanced by then. She said the baby had given her a fighting chance, and the least she could do was return the favor.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said again, at a rare loss for words. Her feelings about the dead Nora had changed from pity to anger to admiration over the course of a minute. But throughout, she clung to the thought that Bryce needed to know he wasn’t the villain in this story.
“She died just a few weeks after Nora was born,” Vera continued. “She was in hospice, and she cuddled Nora right up to the end. She was so happy to have her.”
Rachel blinked back some tears of her own.
Vera gave a watery laugh. “Oh, listen to me, getting so maudlin when you’ve made such an effort for us.” She reached across the baby and gave Rachel’s hand a squeeze. “Let’s call the boys in for lunch and talk about happy things.”
15
Bryce had been braced for a cool reception from the Sullivans and would have been quite happy to have been ignored in favor of the baby, but Vera and Wilson both seemed genuinely pleased to have him there. He’d been so ashamed of the role he’d played, and not played, in Nora’s existence that it hadn’t occurred to him the older couple’s delight in seeing the baby might overcome any resentment they felt for him.
Wilson’s manner had been polite but stiff when they’d arrived, but he’d warmed up quickly when he found that they shared an interest in birdwatching, almost as if he’d been hoping to find common ground.
Now, the two men stomped over the frozen ground of the farm, Wilson filling him in on its history, which dated back over 150 years, telling him which fields would be used for which crops in the spring, and giving him a breakdown of the elaborate bird feeder collection he’d set up outside the dining room window. To Bryce’s relief, he didn’t mention his daughter or ask awkward questions about their brief relationship.
After he’d gotten over his dismay at having to spend Christmas with the Sullivans, he had begun to wonder if there might be a way to revert Nora’s guardianship back to them. He’d even talked to Chuck, who’d suggested that
an arrangement in which Bryce paid child support and set up a trust for Nora’s education might work. On arriving at the farm, he’d thought that he might sweeten the deal by paying for a housekeeper and daycare as well. It would a much greater financial commitment than placing her for adoption, but it would alleviate the day-to-day responsibility he had for Nora while allowing her to stay with relatives who clearly loved her.
Perhaps he could even arrange to see her himself sometimes.
But it didn’t escape Bryce’s notice that over the course of their short tour, Wilson told him the same story about the farm’s original owners two times, and three times he told him about the migrating grosbeaks and why he’d decided to build them a wooden platform feeder. Vera’s mind seemed sharp, but the way she walked suggested that movement was difficult or painful. Moreover, the farm itself might be a wonderful place for a child to grow up, but without adequate supervision, it could be dangerous, and it was a long drive from the nearest town where schools and doctors’ offices and playdates could be found.
However loving these grandparents might be, they were in no position to care for an infant, let alone the lively toddler Nora was sure to grow into. No matter how much material help he offered them, it wouldn’t be fair to expect them to take on that responsibility.
He sighed to himself even as he admired Wilson’s covered grosbeak feeder. He hadn’t missed the sharp glances Rachel had given him in the living room and knew she was thinking the same thing he was: that adoption would destroy Wilson and Vera’s hopes for a close relationship with their granddaughter.
When Bryce and Wilson got back, the table was groaning under the weight of a chicken, salad, mashed potatoes, yams, and a variety of other side dishes. Vera must have been cooking for days. With a guilty pang, he thought of how many times he’d been tempted to call and cancel the whole thing.
The four adults sat down around the table, Bryce across from Rachel. Nora was in her car seat on the floor nearby, waving at some developmentally appropriate toys that dangled from the handle.