"You hungry, sweetie?" Carol crooned as Liz began to shift and twist in her arms. "Almost dinnertime, it's okay."
Muzak drifted from the overhead speakers and a fluorescent light over the meat department flickered wildly in time with the beat. The scent of freshly baked bread wafted from the bakery and mingled with a bank of fresh flowers waiting to be bought and carried home.
Striding down the aisle, Carol hesitated as Mary Alice Reilly turned a corner and stopped directly in front of her.
"Carol!" she said, pleasure coloring her tone as a bright smile wreathed her face. "What a nice surprise."
"Hello, Mrs. Reilly" Carol said, tightening her grip on the small red plastic basket she held in her right hand. "Congratulations. I hear you're a grandma again."
"At last," Mary Alice said with a quick grin. "I thought
Eileen was just going to carry this one for the rest of her life."
"Mom and baby are doing well?"
"Great," Mary Alice said. "That little girl is just the sweetest thing—" She reached out and trailed a fingertip along Liz's left arm. "Of course, not nearly as pretty as this one."
"Oh, of course," Carol said laughing. "And you'll say the same thing to Eileen, won't you?"
"I will, and stand by it. No baby's as pretty as the one you're holding at the moment." The older woman cocked her head and looked at her for a long minute. "This baby's been good for you, Carol. As good as you've been for Jack."
"What?"
"He doesn't know it yet, but I think he's happier than he's been in a long time." She reached out and gave Carol's arm a fond pat. "And I think it has a lot to do with you."
A flicker of something warm and lovely darted through Carol's stomach and disappeared again. "Mrs. ReiUy_"
"Mary Alice, honey. Call me Mary Alice."
"Thanks," Carol said quickly and took a step around the other woman's cart. "But you should know that—"
The older woman shook her head and interrupted her neatly. "I know all I need to know," she said, smiling. "And now, I've got to finish up here so I can feed Peggy, then get over to Eileen's house." She started walking, then paused and looked back over her shoulder. "You say hello to Jack for me."
"Okay, I will." Carol watched her go until she rounded the end of the aisle and moved out of sight. Then she dropped her gaze to Liz. "I think his mom likes me."
Smiling to herself, she headed for the checkout counter, then stopped, remembering she needed tampons. "Rats. Okay, Liz, one more thing, and then we're outta here."
She hurried to the last aisle and while she walked she started thinking, mentally counting. Her steps slowed as she realized that she should have started her period days ago. "No," she muttered, as if needing to hear the word aloud. "I couldn't be."
But she remembered that first night with Jack. The broken condom. And she wondered.
Standing in front of the tower of tampons, she let her gaze slide to one side, where it landed on a row of home pregnancy tests. Hand shaking, she reached for the closest pink and white box and dropped it into her basket.
"My mother's not crazy, so you must be a stranger," he said tightly. "Goodbye."
"Don't you hang up this phone, Jack Reilly," she said in a tone that could still send shivers down his spine. "I want an answer to my question."
His jaw clenched and his fist tightened around the phone. How the hell could she even ask him that? She knew exactly what had happened the last time he'd been married. He'd turned out to be the first divorce— ever — in the Reilly family. Not something he was looking to repeat. "You want an answer? Here it is. I'm not getting married."
"So you're going to leave your child without a father?"
"Child?" Cold dropped into the pit of his stomach. "What child?"
"Carol's pregnant."
Air rushed from his lungs. The room tilted and he gripped the arm of the chair to keep from being tossed to the floor. Carol? Pregnant? Instantly, his mind darted back. Back to that first time. When that ancient condom he'd used had broken. He'd managed to forget about that. Told himself that it would be all right. That one time wouldn't make that big a difference. And to be honest, Carol hadn't been worried about it, so he hadn't seen a need for him to say any rosaries over the situation.
Pregnant? He slumped back in his chair and wiped one hand across his face. "She told you?" She'd told his mother and not him? Stunned, he felt a pang of hurt ripple through him because Carol hadn't said anything to him. Then worry and confusion crowded behind the twinge of disappointment and demanded their turn at recognition. He didn't even know yet how he felt about a possible baby. "Why the hell would she tell you and not me?"
"Of course she didn't tell me," his mother snapped, clearly at the end of her patience. "I heard about it from Tessa Baker. She got it from her daughter who works at the beauty shop with Ellie. She heard from her mother who called her after Susie's mom told her. Susie sold her—Carol—the pregnancy test."
Now his head was spinning. Christ. Had he really forgotten how things worked in a small town? Hadn't he and Ed just been talking about the gossips and how they'd be looking for something new to chew on? Looked like they had it. "Good to know the spy network's still up and running."
"This is no time for jokes, Jack Reilly."
"Trust me, I'm not laughing." He swallowed hard as he fought to come to grips with the idea of Carol pregnant with his kid. This changed everything. While his mother ranted, Jack's brain raced.
He saw his plans to get out of town go up in smoke. How the hell could he leave Christmas and walk out on his own child? How could he live with himself, knowing he'd turned his back on his own?
Then other feelings reared up inside him and squashed him flat. Once before, he'd listened as a woman told him she was pregnant. And before he could even react to the news, she'd informed him that the child wasn't his. A yawning blackness opened up inside him as Jack felt the rage of that moment, the disappointment and disgust roar through him, as fresh in memory as if it had been yesterday.
But then another image was layered over that painful one. And he saw Carol, as clearly as if she were standing in front of him. He saw how she was with Liz. Holding her. Loving her. As she would love a child of his. And something inside him yearned to be there. To be a part
of it. Even while one cowardly corner of his mind was looking for a way out.
He had to talk to Carol.
"Mom?"
She kept talking, a runaway train of advice and threats and pleas.
"Mom!"
She stopped. "What?" One word, snarled as only a loving mother could.
"I've gotta go." He hung up before she could get started again. Then he stood up and headed for the front door. Snatching his cap off the wooden peg on the wall, he dragged it on, stepped out into sunset, and closed the door behind him.
Lacey knocked on Carol's apartment door and waited, twisting her fingers together as the butterflies in her stomach swirled in agitation. Ever since she heard about Carol buying the pregnancy test, she'd known she had to come here. Had to do something. But that didn't make it any easier.
Carol threw the door open and stood there smiling, Liz cradled in the curve of her left arm. Quinn instantly surged forward, pressing his huge head beneath Lacey's right hand in welcome. Her fingers moved through his thick, wiry hair and she held on, trying to soothe the jitters hopping through her system. Now that she was here, she didn't know what to say. How to say it.
Earlier today, everything was still good. Sort of. She and Peggy had been talking about college again. Making plans again. Plans that now wouldn't be coming true. A twist of disappointment snapped free inside her, but she tried to ignore it. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be, she
thought. College? For Lacey Reynolds? Daughter of the town drunk?
Her stomach lurched and nausea rolled through it, climbing up her throat, choking her. Carol was the only one in the whole town—except for Peggy—who'd ever thought Lacey could go places. Caro
l had believed in her. And now, she was going to hate her.
"Lacey." Carol smiled, but questions filled her eyes. "What're you doing here?" Concern was layered over the surprise as her smile faded. "Is everything all right?"
"Yeah." No. Nothing was all right. And maybe it never would be again. She was so scared. Fear was alive and thumping to the beat of her heart. She'd been thinking and thinking all afternoon and she knew what she had to do. She just wasn't sure how to do it. "Can I, um, talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure, honey." Carol stepped back and said, "Come on in."
Lacey's gaze swept the room, littered now with baby stuff. Bibs and blankets and stacks of clean laundry. Tiny shirts with even tinier snaps that looked like doll clothes. There were two boxes of disposable diapers in one corner and the TV was on—an episode of The X-Files, a hum of noise in the background.
"I was just finishing up feeding Liz," Carol said and sat down on the couch, picking up the baby bottle off the table in front of her.
Lacey watched as the baby opened her mouth and shook her little head until she got a good grab on the rubber nipple. Carol laughed and looked up at Lacey. "She's a good eater. Probably be ordering a hamburger by next week."
Lacey smiled, but it trembled on her face. This was right, she told herself. Being scared was natural. She'd
been scared before. But she had to do this. For her. For Liz.
"Carol.. ."
Her gaze narrowed. "There is something wrong, isn't there?"
She wanted to cry. Wanted to tell Carol how she was sorry to let her down. How she'd meant to go to college, just like she and Carol always talked about, but that boy had been so nice. And he'd really liked her. He'd said she was beautiful. Nobody had ever told her that before, and then when he left, Lacey had figured no one would ever have to know about those nights they'd been together.
Until she discovered she was pregnant.
But it wasn't the time to tell Carol all of that. The only thing that mattered now was what she had to do. What she'd come here to do. And to say.
Lacey took a deep breath, steeled herself, and blurted out the truth. "Liz is my baby, Carol. / left her in the manger so you'd find her. You and Quinn." Her words came faster now, tumbling from her mouth in a mad dash to be said. "I didn't want to leave her, but I had to." Lacey heard the tears in her own voice. Her throat tightened and her vision blurred. Still, she saw Carol stand up slowly. Liz kept eating, her short breaths sounding loud in the stunned silence.
Carol looked as though all the breath had left her body. "Lacey—"
"I'm sorry, Carol, I know you really love her, but I do, too," Lacey said, her heart twisting with a sudden, sharp pain that seemed to shimmer through her and grow as it spread. Cold. She was so cold. "I didn't know what to do before. But I do now. I have to take care of Liz myself."
Carol's vision narrowed to a pinpoint. She stared at
Lacey and saw a terrified girl, bravely trying to do what she thought was best. But at the same time, she saw in Lacey's eyes the end of her own dreams. Liz was a warm, slight weight in her arms. The small sounds she made as she drank her bottle had become as familiar to Carol as her own heartbeat. Her life—her world—revolved around the baby.
And now she was going to lose her?
Then a calm, clear, rational voice in her mind screamed, Why should you believe her? Anyone could claim to be the baby's mother.
True. But at the same time, she realized that there was no reason for Lacey to be doing this. No purpose in trying to lie about it when one visit to Phoebe for an examination would prove or disprove the lie. And why would the girl suddenly decide to pretend to be the mother who'd abandoned her child?
Lacey wasn't the kind of kid who did things for attention. Quite the opposite. She kept as low a profile as possible because of her mother's reputation. A part of Carol couldn't believe that the girl she'd known for two years was standing in front of her making these claims.
It didn't make sense. None of this made sense. But one look in Lacey's eyes told her that the girl was speaking the truth. The hard, cold, bitter truth that meant Carol was going to lose Liz.
Her arms tightened instinctively around Liz. "Lacey, why? Why didn't you tell me before? Why did you leave her in the first place?"
The girl swiped tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands. "I was scared. I couldn't tell my mom. I couldn't tell anybody. You would have been so disappointed in me." Her face crumpled and she fought a battle with her trembling bottom lip and lost it. "I didn't
think I'd get pregnant. I didn't—" She blew out a breath and shook her head.
"How, though?" Carol's words slipped out, and when she saw Lacey's gaze sharpen, she shook her head. "I don't mean how did you get pregnant. But how did you hide it? From everyone? From meV And why hadn y t she noticed? How had a teenage girl hidden her pregnancy so completely that Carol had never noticed?
Lacey sniffled and ran one hand under her nose before swiping tears from her cheeks. A short, harsh laugh shot from her throat. "It wasn't hard. Nobody looks too close at a fat girl."
"Oh, Lacey ..."
"I went on Weight Watchers and I was really good about it, too, so even though the baby was getting bigger, I lost weight. And with the sweatshirts and everything . .." She shrugged, then wrapped her arms around her chest and held on. "Nobody noticed anything different. I was still just fat Lacey."
God. For months, the girl had kept her secret. She'd hidden in plain sight.
"And then when I had her, I thought about you and how you and Quinn are always walking through the square at night and I knew you'd find her and take good care of her."
The baby hiccuped and Lacey jumped, then moved away, pacing quickly around the room in jerky steps, waving her hands as she talked. She choked out a laugh that sounded to Carol as though it were drowning in banked-up tears. The girl rubbed her face with her fingertips. "I had the baby and I put her out in the manger 'cause I knew she'd be better off with you. You didn't have anybody, so I knew you'd love her like she should be."
She whirled around and faced Carol, eyes glistening. "But now you 're pregnant."
The accusation fired across the room like a bullet and hit its mark. Carol swayed in place, eyes wide, breath caught somewhere behind the knot in her throat. "What?"
Lacey struggled for air, too, as if firing that bullet had been as difficult as being hit with it. But she swallowed hard and snapped, "You won't want Liz now. You'll have your own baby. So I want mine back."
"Lacey—" Carol took a step and stopped. This was all happening so fast. Everything felt so out of control. So crazed. She couldn't make sense of it. Any of it. "Pregnant? I'm not—how did you—" She closed her eyes, sighed heavily, and almost groaned.
The pregnancy test she bought at the grocery store.
Idiot. She should have gone to Phoebe for the stupid test. Then no one would know what she suspected. Then Lacey wouldn't be standing here reclaiming Liz and shaking the foundation of her world.
"I'm not," Carol said quickly, then backtracked. "I mean, I don't even know if I am or not. I haven't taken the test and—"
"But you might be."
"And I might not" Carol said quietly, somehow keeping from screaming. "But either way, it wouldn't change anything. I love Liz, Lacey."
The girl looked at her through blue eyes swimming in tears that overflowed into tiny rivers that streamed unheeded down her cheeks. "I know, but I do, too." She slapped one hand to her chest as if trying to keep her heart from bursting. "I watch you with her, watch her laugh and smile and see you kiss her and I think it
should be me. She should love meT Lacey hugged herself tightly and choked back a sob tearing at her throat. "I'm her mom. She should know, Carol. She should know that I love her, right?"
"God, Lacey . .." Carol's heart ached like a bad tooth. The girl's misery was real and blistering the air in the room. But pain swamped Carol, too, dragging at her, smothering her in hot, throbbing wa
ves of agony that peaked and valleyed and peaked again.
This was love, she thought. This was the risk. This was the price.
"You're going to college," Carol said, reminding the girl of her plans. Of her dreams. She didn't hear the desperation in her own voice because she was too focused on Lacey's.
"I can go later," she said breathlessly, and her expression was stubborn, determined. "I can go part-time. I can get a job and study, too."
The walls of her fantasy palace crumbled. "Lacey, why? I'll take good care of Liz. You know I will. You can still have your dreams. All of them."
Lacey shook her head, bit down hard on her bottom lip, and stepped in close to Carol. Reaching out, she scooped Liz out of Carol's arms and into her own. She stared down into her daughter's face and smiled through her tears. "It doesn't matter. College isn't that important."
Carol wanted to snatch Liz from Lacey's arms. Wanted to turn back time twenty minutes—an hour. Back to when everything was good. Back to when she and Liz were still a family. How could she do it? How could she hand this child over to another child? And how could she allow Liz to be taken away simply on this girl's say-so? She
couldn't. Maybe it was reaching for straws. Maybe she was fooling herself. But she had to be sure.
"Lacey ..." The girl looked at her. "I can't just hand her over to you like this. Liz is in the system now. We'll have to contact Maggie Cooper."
Lacey paled, but lifted her chin and nodded. "Okay."
"And Maggie will want proof that you're Liz's mother." As do I, Carol thought wildly, but didn't say.
Lacey's blue eyes widened in surprise. "I wouldn't lie to you."
"If what you're saying is true," Carol pointed out in a low, hurt-filled voice, "you've already lied to me. And everyone else in town. For nine months."
Lacey bit her bottom lip and looked from Carol to the baby in her arms again. Without shifting her gaze, she said simply, "What do you want me to do?"
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