They skipped dessert, paid the bill and walked to their car, which was parked on the street a few blocks away. She would have loved to stroll along, hand in hand with Eli. Window-shopping, maybe picking up a few souvenirs for the kids, like many of the tourists around them appeared to be doing.
No storybook ending for her.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Char. That was never my intention.”
He’d stopped in the middle of the flow of walking traffic. She took his hand to pull him to one side. She didn’t want to do this in public—even amongst strangers. “I know, Eli. You’re a good person. I never doubted that for a minute.”
He squeezed her hand. “Don’t go.”
If he’d included the words I love you, Char in that petition, she’d have caved in. But he didn’t.
She carefully extricated her hand from his. “I have to. I can’t pretend to be happy about the way you’re handling this. Damien doesn’t need more drama right now. If the situation changes when you get home, you know where to find me.” She faked a smile. “Heck, you managed to stumble across my big white teepee when you were on foot and broke. Now, you have my e-mail address and my cell phone number. It’s not like we’re going back to being strangers.”
He didn’t dispute that, but he seemed downcast and less sure of himself than usual. A part of her hoped that meant he was questioning his decision to go back to his wife. She wasn’t betting on him miraculously making a clean break from Bobbi and choosing Char instead, but she couldn’t let go of her dream entirely. Not yet.
“When we get to the hospital, I’d like to talk to Damien alone. If you don’t mind.”
I MIND, HE THOUGHT. I mind you making plans without me. I mind you leaving. I mind the fact that I screwed up and now I don’t know how to fix things between us. But he didn’t say any of that. He’d lost any right he might have had to try to influence her decisions.
He opened the car door for her then hurried around to get behind the wheel. The rental car was in his name now. He hadn’t wanted to call Bobbi again, but given the fact she had a key to his house and knew where he kept his credit card file, his options were limited. Except for that mysterious e-mail, Eli hadn’t heard from his uncle. He hoped Joseph still had the contents of Eli’s wallet, but he doubted the older man would have been able to figure out how to fax him copies.
Bobbi had responded faster and with fewer questions than he’d expected. Maybe Sue’s attempted suicide had had an impact on Bobbi. The two had been friends at one time. A fact that made the difference between Bobbi and Char all the more obvious. He couldn’t picture Char faking friendship with a woman whose husband she’d loved for nearly twenty years.
“What are you going to tell him?” he asked, following a string of cars that was turning left onto the main road.
“Goodbye,” she said simply.
He fumbled with the control knob for the wipers. A light rain had started.
“Strange weather, isn’t it?” she asked, leaning forward to peer out the window. “It’s like a fog bank moved onshore.”
Her tone was too conversational for his taste. They’d been utterly civilized during dinner. As polite as strangers.
He hated the way things stood between them, but when he tried to bring up the subject of what might happen in the future, she’d cut him off. He didn’t understand that. Bobbi would have talked the subject to death.
“I meant, what are you going to tell him about us?”
“What’s to tell? Remember those helium balloons I delivered to the party the first day you showed up at my shop?”
Everything about those balloons had pissed him off at the time. He remembered thinking how frivolous, impermanent and wasteful they were. “Uh-huh,” he answered, glad he hadn’t said anything to her at the time. He would have come off as Oscar the Grouch. She probably would have beaned him with her talking stick to put him out of his misery. “What about them?”
“Well, if we had released two balloons at exactly the same moment, I guarantee they wouldn’t have wound up within five miles of each other. That doesn’t reflect badly on either balloon. It simply proves that everyone is subject to the whims of fate. And if anyone happened to reach out and grab one of the balloons’ strings, then all bets are off. No one can account for those kinds of variables.”
“You’re saying I’m full of hot air?”
“No more than I am.”
“Are you sure you want to spend the night at Wanda’s?”
She nodded with conviction. “I can’t wait to see Damien’s baby photos.” She sighed softly. “I’ve been waiting seventeen years for this, Eli.”
She turned in her seat to look at him. “I used to go to places like Chuck E. Cheese’s and the roller skating rink on his birthday. Not because I thought I’d see Damien, but because I wanted to imagine him somewhere like that having fun with his family and friends. Does that sound creepy?”
It sounded so sad he had to make himself grip the steering wheel to keep from reaching out to touch her, comfort her. “Uh-uh,” he grunted, his throat too tight to speak.
“Last year, I took Kat’s sons to see a 3-D action-adventure movie on Damien’s birthday. Afterward, we went out for pizza. It was fun. Almost like the real thing.”
He wondered if he would have done the same thing if he’d known about Damien from the beginning. He doubted it. Look at how maturely he’d handled finding out the son he’d raised wasn’t his—booze and a half-assed vision quest.
They arrived at the hospital a few minutes later. He drove to the main entrance and stopped. “Go ahead. I’ll park the car.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t think to bring an umbrella. What about my suitcase?”
“I’ll bring it with me.”
She got out without a backward glance and hurried inside. He drove slowly looking for a parking place. The upper and lower lots were both more crowded than he’d expected given the time of night, but he found a spot under a bright light.
He turned off the engine and sat without moving, his gaze fixed on the shimmering moisture collecting on the windshield. Char was leaving in the morning. He didn’t blame her. She had as much right to be Damien’s legal guardian as he did. Maybe more. Damien had been in her heart for seventeen years. Ever since his first breath. Eli had spent those years giving his love, attention, hope and heart to other children. His children, but still…
“I’m an ass.”
That you are, chickadee.
He put his head in his hands and groaned. The voice was back. Just what his guilty conscience needed—an ally.
“HE’S STILL AWAKE,” a nurse—one Char hadn’t met before—told her.
They’d exchanged greetings outside the door of the ICU while Char was waiting for the buzzer to sound. “I think they plan to move him to a regular ward tomorrow.”
“Really? That means he’s improving. Do you know when he’ll be released?”
The woman, who had a good ten years on Char, made an offhand motion with her hand. “Hard to say. He developed a slight infection around the wound so he has to stay on IV antibiotics. They’re testing it for staph, but we’re not taking any chances until the results come back.”
Char was glad to know her son was getting the best care available.
Wanda wasn’t in the room, as Char had expected. Damien was sitting up, the television remote in his hand. “Hey, Damien, what’s new?” she asked, trying to keep her voice casual. She didn’t want him to know how difficult it was for her to say goodbye.
There was a sparkle in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. “Have you seen this show? It’s set in the Black Hills. My sister told me about it but I never watched it before.”
She drew up a chair near the head of the bed. “You must be talking about Sentinel Passtime. This is going to make me sound like a terrible name-dropper, but my best friend’s husband is Cooper Lindstrom.”
“No way.”
“Yep. And my other good friend, Jenna Murphy
, is engaged to the show’s producer, Shane Reynard. She’s also a writer on the show. You can check out the credits when it’s over.”
“Wow. That’s cool.”
She leaned closer, ostensibly so she could see the TV set, too. In fact, she wanted to absorb as much of his scent as she could.
“Did they actually film this around where you live?”
She nodded. “Yeah. They did a week or so of location work. The film crew was great for business. Honestly they’re the reason I could afford to make this trip.” She cocked her head, realizing for the first time how true those words were. If not for Libby, whose initial contact with Cooper set the entire Sentinel Passtime production in motion, Char might never have met her son.
“Libby—Cooper’s wife—is in Malibu at the moment. She lost her grandmother recently and I’ve decided to visit her, since I’m so close. To cheer her up, you know.” Or was it the other way around?
He hit the mute button to silence the commercial hawking some wonder cloth that was supposed to absorb a gazillion times its weight. “When?”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Your mom’s going to take me to the train station in the morning. Eli will stay so he can visit you and meet with the lawyers.” She tried to keep her tone upbeat. “Hopefully, in a few days you’ll be on your way back to South Dakota. Your birthplace.”
His frown looked so much like a young Eli her throat closed up and she thought she might weep. “I don’t remember it. Dad used to say he was going to take us to the Air Force base where he was stationed when they got me, but he never did.”
“Ellsworth. It’s in Rapid City. I live about thirty miles from there.” She faked a smile. “I’m the only big white teepee in the area. You can’t miss my place.”
“You’re not flying back with us?”
She sensed that the question he was asking was really What the hell is going on with you and my birth father? “No. Like I said, I’m going to visit my friends for a couple of days then head home from there. Eli will be your legal guardian. I’m sure he wants to get you enrolled in school as soon as possible. And, of course, you’ll meet his family. Your half sisters and stepbrother.”
His expression was as inscrutable as his father’s. She quickly added, “I do business in Lower Brule all the time, so we’ll see each other on a regular basis. My name might not be on that paper, Damien, but I already told Eli that won’t stop me from being a part of your life. Only you can do that.”
She couldn’t bring herself to ask if he wanted her in his life or not. If the answer was no…she didn’t want to think about what that would mean to her future, her plans, all the Normal Rockwell moments she’d imagined for her and her son.
Voices resumed on the television. Familiar voices, yet different. Char looked up and spotted Cooper and costar Morgana Carlyle. They were hiking through an aspen grove. She knew the spot. According to Libby, this was the moment she admitted to herself that she had a thing for Cooper. Later that night, Coop and Libby spent the night together and Libby wound up pregnant. Char didn’t know if the same thing happened in the script or not.
“Love is a bunch of crap, you know,” the young man beside her said.
She snickered softly. “That’s always been my take, too, but do you want to know a secret? Something I’ve never told anybody? I’m a hypocrite. For all my cynicism and bad-mouthing love, I read every romance novel I can get my hands on and I follow all the gossip magazines because I secretly hope that love exists.” Because if it exists then there’s a chance I’ll get my happily-ever-after, too.
He didn’t say anything. What teenage boy would, she told herself.
She felt embarrassed by her confession. Maybe she’d made a fool of herself. There was such a thing as too much personal information, she silently chided herself.
“My mom and dad loved each other,” he said quietly. “That’s one of the reasons I was so mad at Dad for dying. For leaving Mom alone. Then, she met Steve, and it turned out I was pissed off for nothing.”
“I hate it when that happens,” she said, hoping she sounded sincere, not flippant. “I was mad at my dad, too. First, he divorced Mom and then he died. Unfortunately my mother didn’t make as good a choice the second time around as your mother.” She put a finger to her cheek, pretending to think a minute. “Or the third. Or the fourth, for that matter.”
His grin seemed real. She could see the scared kid behind those familiar blue eyes. She wished more than anything she could offer him a home and a happy life in a picture-perfect world. But she couldn’t.
Nobody can do that, chickadee.
She stood. “Well, I’d better go. Eli is going to sit with you until closing time. Hopefully, we’ll see each other after you get settled in South Dakota. But you have my cell number and e-mail address. And I’m going to set up a Facebook account as soon as I get home so we can friend each other. In the meantime, just holler if you need anything, okay?”
His chin dipped slightly in acknowledgment. She couldn’t tell if he was sad or upset or what. But since there wasn’t anything she could do at the moment, she turned to go. “Oh, wait,” she said, before she’d taken a second step. “I just finished reading this book. I asked a friend for a recommendation for age-appropriate reading material for a guy who was seventeen going on twenty-five. I read it on the airplane. It’s pretty good. What’s not to like about having your own personal dragon?”
She handed him the hardcover book with the striking cover. “It’s part of a trilogy. If you like it, I’ll buy the rest of the books for you.”
He studied the back jacket a moment. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She started to leave again then stopped. “Hey, I know. I’ll make Eragon my selection for the Wine, Women and Words book club. When it’s my turn to host, you can come and be our guest.”
“Why me?”
“Well, first, because I’d like you to meet my friends, and, second, because you’re the target audience of this book. It would be cool to see if your impression is vastly different than ours.”
He gave a shrug.
She decided to take that as a yes. “Later, chickadee,” she said. She didn’t know why that nickname felt right, but it did.
She also really wanted to hug him, but she wasn’t sure he’d be receptive. She settled for giving his hand a quick squeeze. Lame, she knew, and probably cowardly, but hopefully there would be a time in the near future when they could be open and honest with each other.
For the moment, she’d take this gift—she’d finally met and touched the child she’d given up—and treasure it. Anything else that came from this meeting would be pure gravy.
“Okay, then, I’m going. Thanks for not telling me and Eli to take a hike the first minute you met us. I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know how any of this will turn out, but I hope to be a part of your life. That’s entirely up to you, of course.”
His eyelids were flickering in that way that said he’d be asleep soon. Instead of waiting for an answer, she impulsively dropped a light kiss on his cheek. Scattered patches of stubble competed with a very mild case of acne below where she kissed. One last inhale of his scent and she left the room.
Eli and Wanda were sitting in the waiting room when she entered. It was apparent they’d been talking. Maybe about her. Eli had that discomfited look on his face that she associated with bad news. What could be worse than saying goodbye to the person you’d been waiting so long to meet?
“He’s starting to doze off,” she said. She retrieved her suitcase from Eli. “I told him my plans and that we’d keep in touch by phone and e-mail once he gets settled.”
Wanda stood. She looked tired, but more at peace than she had when they first arrived. Char was glad for that.
“Do you need anything else from me before I leave?” she asked Eli.
His lips tightened, and for a minute she didn’t think he was going to respond. Finally he looked at Wanda and said, “Could we have a minute?
”
“I’ll wait in the lobby,” she told Char. “I’m so glad you’re going home with me. I hate walking across the parking lot alone.”
Char was exhausted, physically and emotionally. The last thing she needed was a big scene with Eli. She put her hand up when he took a step closer. “Eli, please. Let’s not drag this out. I knew the risks associated with loving you—I’ve known them since high school. I chose to ignore common sense and fall back in love with you anyway. That’s my problem.”
“You’re running away.”
He raked his hand through his hair. Several strands stuck straight up, like a Mohawk. A deep, wrenching feeling swept through her. To avoid crying, she drew on her anger.
“Well, you did the leaving last time. Now we’re even.”
“Char, that’s not fair.”
“Right. Well, we’re adults, not kids anymore. We both know fair isn’t a constitutional guarantee. Here’s the deal, Eli. I’m not going to beg or wheedle or try to guilt you into including me in my son’s life. I can take care of myself—I have since I was sixteen, alone and pregnant.” She took a step closer and tapped her finger on his chest. “Just don’t try to keep me from him. That’s all I ask.”
Then she left.
Her anger sustained her until she reached the elevator. Then a tsunami of tears formed in the back of her sinuses, nearly choking her. You can do this, Charlene. Not the old black woman’s voice. Her mother’s.
Char didn’t know what that meant but it surprised her enough to distract her from her pain. She was back in control by the time she joined Wanda.
“Thank you for doing this,” she told the woman who had raised her son. “I can’t wait to see pictures of him growing up.”
Wanda led the way toward the parking lot. As she’d said, the mist had stopped. The damp chill felt oddly life-affirming. Char didn’t bother with a backward glance. The hospital was a convoluted design that was partly below ground. She had no idea where to look to see Damien’s room. But she felt him. In her heart. As she always had. And although a part of her might have wished otherwise, Eli was there, too.
Finding Their Son Page 17