Flirt (Chasing Hope Book 1)

by Lavinia Leigh

  It took her an hour and a half to walk there, pushing the stroller and cursing the hills that defined Port Hope. Thankfully, it was still mild outside, just a little under freezing. She wrapped Millie in a blanket that had been a gift from Dorothy, hoping the gesture would mean something. Before today, she’d never used it, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Emmeline spent the entire morning working hard on her school assignments while almost-five-month-old Millie played. Emmeline was plowing through her work and her overall marks had improved since she started doing her distance education.

  She turned down the driveway. The house was even bigger than she remembered, or maybe all her time in the cramped train car was clouding her memory. It was hard to remember her life before Millie. There was nothing the same. Her world, instead of revolving around her friends, what party to go to, or her current celebrity crush, was now all about diapers, baby feedings, and those precious moments she got to spend with Nicholas alone when Millie fell asleep for a few brief hours.

  That was what she would tell his parents. What he had done for her and Millie. He was their rock. She would never have been able to do this without him. His calming nature soothed Millie and lulled Emmeline into some sense that everything was going to be okay, like he never doubted anything for a second. All while working, going to school, and somehow completing his homework, which became more and more demanding each day. He didn’t complain. He didn’t get mad. He was a freakin’ angel, and the very least he deserved was to have his mother recognize it! Emmeline’s anger simmered under the surface.

  Seeing the house for the first time in months made her hands shake. Walking up the steps to the front door was intimidating. She almost turned back, but she remembered Nicholas’s face and steeled herself. She wasn’t going to let Dorothy get to her. Emmeline hoped for both their sakes that Dorothy had taken an extra Xanax that morning.

  She rang the doorbell and heard it echo throughout the house. Dorothy answered a minute later. She stood there looking at her, picking out a strand of hair that was beginning to thin and yanking on it.

  “Hello,” said Emmeline, trying to break the awkward silence. “Can we come in? I need to change Millie, and I would prefer not to do that in the cold.”

  “Well, of course,” she said, snapping back into focus and ushering them in.

  The house was impeccably decorated for Christmas. Lush garlands with sparkly bows wrapped the bannister leading to the second floor, and a centrepiece of overflowing red poinsettias in a crystal planter was displayed on a round table in the ample hallway.

  Dorothy led them into the Victorian parlor with a white marble floor. Almost everything in this room seemed breakable, and Emmeline was always afraid of moving wrong or of dropping something on the delicate white velvet settees that faced each other. In between them stood an intricately carved walnut coffee table with a Belleek woven china basket on it. Behind each settee was a couch table decorated with precious sparkling cranberry lusters. The walls held shelves that boasted such things as Dresden china figurines and Wedgewood pill boxes and portraits in gilded frames.

  “I think I need to take Millie to the bathroom,” Emmeline said sheepishly. There was no way she could change her kid in there, especially not with what she smelled coming from Millie’s diaper.

  Dorothy nodded and pointed in the general direction of the bathroom. It wasn’t exactly the way Emmeline wanted to start their visit. That morning she had planned everything she wanted to say in between working on her essay on Canadian history and fumbling over her advanced calculus. The idea was to talk to Dorothy rationally and invite her to be part of Millie’s life with a welcoming smile on her face. She’d let Dorothy hold Millie and Emmeline would do all this for Nicholas to try and repair the rift. Truthfully, she didn’t care if this woman was tossed off a cliff. She’d happily never talk to her again, but Dorothy was Millie’s grandmother, and it would mean the world to Nicholas. Besides, it was Christmas. Now was the time.

  She changed Millie, and then came back out to join Dorothy, who had set out a tray of tea on a silver service along with a few plain biscuits. They sat down, straight-backed as the settees were designed to do, and Emmeline reached for a biscuit. She was starving, a side effect of nursing. The biscuits tasted like sawdust.

  Good to see that she brought out the good stuff for her granddaughter’s first visit, Emmeline thought to herself, although she didn’t like the bitterness that Dorothy was bringing out of her. It didn’t feel like herself.

  “Why are you here?” Dorothy glanced over at Millie as though she didn’t want to be caught doing it.

  Millie squirmed, protesting having to sit on Emmeline’s lap. Millie, Emmeline was learning, preferred to do her own thing, and being made to sit still wasn’t exactly her idea of fun. She wouldn’t stand it for very long. Emmeline reached into her diaper bag, pulled out a blanket, and spread it on the floor beside her feet. She placed Millie on it, which was much more to her liking. She rolled over, grabbed at her feet, and stuck a toe in her mouth after ripping off her sock.

  “I know the situation hasn’t been the greatest,” Emmeline started as she had rehearsed. “But I don’t see why we can’t put this whole thing behind us and start over.”

  Inside her mind, she begged over and over, Please, let this witch come around. Please, I’ll even stop calling her a witch. Nicholas needs this. Please. Let this work.

  Dorothy squinted. It was clear that she was suspicious. Emmeline wondered what she could do to take the questioning look out of her eyes. Obviously, their time apart hadn’t cooled the animosity that Dorothy felt for her. Please let this work, she prayed silently.

  Chapter Eleven

  Emmeline swallowed hard, and then started again, speaking carefully. “I know you never got to hold Millie at the hospital, so I thought I’d bring her by so you could have a chance now.” She silently added you stupid cow to the end of the sentence and plastered a smile across her face.

  “You’re right, you robbed me of that chance to spend time with my granddaughter. You didn’t even consult with us on her name.” Dorothy blinked twice.

  She wasn’t going to make this easy.

  “I didn’t realize that you wanted to be consulted. I believe you said I could have that much, at the very least, when you were going to rob me…” Damn, I took the bait, Emmeline thought. “Excuse me,” she said, slowing down. “I apologize”—inwardly gritting her teeth—“I didn’t realize it was important to you.”

  “Your naivety astounds me. Of course, everything about my granddaughter interests me. Millie,” she huffed as if a child by that name was the end of the world.

  “Emmeline is a wonderful name, and one that means a lot to my family. You can hardly blame me for wanting my daughter to carry on in our tradition.” Emmeline forcefully bit her tongue, and a metallic taste mixed with her saliva.

  Even though it hadn’t been Emmeline’s intention to name Millie after her, it seemed to suit the squirmy baby on the floor, with her little tufts of sticky-up hair and the pink bows clamped into it, as if that was what the universe had intended for her all along.

  “Yes, well, you could have done worse,” Dorothy finally conceded. She picked up her wine glass instead of a teacup and drunk three oversized gulps. Emmeline tried to change the subject.

  “Nicholas was so pleased that you made the arrangements for him to go back to school this year. I know he tried to call.” Emmeline attempted to sound bright and optimistic, but to her own ears, she just sounded fake.

  “We weren’t going to deprive him of his studies. We aren’t heartless, you know.” Dorothy made an exaggerated cough, and Emmeline clenched her fists and widened her smile. Dorothy got up and poured herself another glass of wine, ignoring the tea going cold on the table.

  “He’s doing quite well, actually. None of his marks have suffered. He works so hard at it. You should be proud.”

  “Yes, I know. I get a copy of his grades.”

  Nothing. She�
�s not even trying. This might have been a total waste of time. She eyed Dorothy up and down, trying to assess if she was just being her normal abrasive self, or if she was a little tipsy.

  “Would you like to hold her?” She tried to sound as sincere as possible. This is for Nicholas, she reminded herself. He missed this woman, even if Emmeline couldn’t quite understand it herself. She clung to the knowledge that at least Dorothy didn’t go through on all her threats, but still, it was like a wound being torn open every time she thought about it.

  “I think it would be about time,” said Dorothy.

  I might just live to regret this. Emmeline reached down and picked up her daughter, who was now sucking loudly on her middle three fingers. She handed her to Dorothy and held her breath.

  Millie took one look at the stiff old lady who was staring at her, appraising her as if she were about to buy her at auction, and started to wail. Emmeline wanted to grab her back, but sat on her hands. Perhaps it still could work.

  “How is Erik doing?” Emmeline asked casually. She knew that Erik snuck in regular phone calls to his big brother, but suspiciously he never said too much about their parents—at least, not that Nicholas shared.

  “Why are you crying?” Dorothy asked a now full-out sobbing Millie. “Your father never did that, you know.” Dorothy’s hissing lecture was heard plainly above the noise. Emmeline resisted as her daughter reached for her. If she took her back now, it would be over.

  “Maybe if you hold her closer,” she calmly suggested, while inwardly cringing. Millie—she tried to telepathically connect to her daughter—stop crying please, for Daddy’s sake, stop crying.

  Dorothy held Millie closer and Millie fought back, getting angrier by the second.

  Please, Millie, please, Emmeline silently willed, just as her daughter let out a wall-shaking wail, signalling the end of the world in her little mind. How could you blame her? She knew this woman was no good, she had no relationship with her, and she could more than likely sense the turmoil going on in Emmeline’s head.

  “This is no use,” Dorothy said finally, and handed her back. Millie immediately stopped crying.

  “Thanks, kid,” Emmeline whispered, then plastered soothing kisses on Millie’s cheek.

  “You have obviously turned her against me.” Dorothy sat up a bit straighter and pursed her lips.

  A dull throbbing started in Emmeline’s temple. “She hasn’t had enough time to get to know you. Besides, she’s an independent little thing, much happier just sitting on the floor playing. Really, she’s a very good baby.”

  “Does Nicholas know you brought her by?”

  “No, I wanted to make it a surprise. Let him know that everything is okay. Sort of like a Christmas present.”

  “I see. Well, as far as I can tell, the damage has been done. And you can tell him that until he stops this nonsense and comes home, there will be no change.”

  “How can you be so unreasonable? He’s not a puppet that you can dictate his every move. He did what was right for his kid.”

  “And I am doing what is right for mine!”

  This was stupid. How did I ever think that I could reason with her? Emmeline forcefully packed up Millie’s few toys and picked up her daughter.

  “You came to me, and now you can’t handle things, so you’re going to run off again! What did you expect? You seduce my son, get yourself pregnant, then manipulate him to move away from home and take my granddaughter to live in squalor. I’ve done everything that I can for him until he comes to his senses and gets rid of you. This is actually what being a parent is like, and sometimes tough love is necessary.”

  Tears stung the corners of Emmeline’s eyes, but there was no way she would let this woman see her cry. She would never let her win. She swung the diaper bag over her shoulder and quickly walked for the door. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. This house was cursed—worse, an actual witch lived there.

  Dorothy didn’t even see her to the door. Emmeline opened it, put Millie in the waiting stroller outside, and slammed the door shut behind her. She could hear the echo. At least there was one sliver of satisfaction: maybe one of Dorothy’s precious figurines would be knocked off the mantle and smash. She knew it was stupid, but the idea made her feel just slightly better.

  She walked down the pathway toward the road with only one thought in her mind.

  How am I going to explain this to Nicholas?

  Chapter Twelve

  As she walked home, tears burned the corners of her eyes. Emmeline knew how badly she had failed to fix things with Dorothy. But they quickly dried up and turned into anger. By the time she reached the bottom of the hill that Dorothy’s house was planted on, Emmeline was in a full-fledged stomp. She couldn’t believe she had actually gone out of her way to make up with that woman, but part of her couldn’t help but be grateful. Emmeline could now officially go on for the rest of her life knowing she did everything she could do to fix their relationship, and the sliver of guilt which had been residing in her heart, the nagging suspicion that maybe she should have reacted in a different way or treated the situation differently, was gone. That in itself was a gift.

  How do I explain to Nicholas I just cut off any future connection to his family? She groaned. The only thing she could decide was, she needed to wait until her anger calmed down before telling him.

  It took a week.

  Nicholas snuck across the train tracks as the sun went down, looking for dinner. A snow storm had closed many of the tracks, and trains were delayed, making the station abnormally quiet. No one was venturing out if they didn’t have to, and it seemed as though many who worked in the city, normally commuting back and forth, were staying there. Emmeline didn’t miss the loud whistles announcing their presence that frequently woke Millie up, or the whooshing sounds of the trains that went through and didn’t stop.

  With only a few days until Christmas, and everything shut down due to the heavy flakes of snow serenely falling, Emmeline’s temper had subsided and she decided to decorate for the holiday. It was Millie’s first one, after all. A few days earlier she had managed to take Millie to see Santa at the grocery store where they gave out free photos of the kids. Emmeline ended up with an adorable picture of Millie on Santa’s knee with her tongue sticking out, which now proudly sat on one of the tables in the second-class car. Afterwards, she had gone to the dollar store and picked up a set of lights to make their train car feel a little festive. There was no room for a tree, no money either, so that wasn’t even an option, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for some twinkly lights to brighten the place up.

  At first, she thought that she would string the lights up along the windows, spreading them out, but at the last second, she changed her mind and pulled out some scotch tape. She folded the lights in half, found the middle, and taped it to the wall of the train near the ceiling. From there she wove the lights back and forth until she made a design of a tree out of them.

  She stood back from her handiwork and examined it. This might be a poor man’s Charlie Brown tree, but it was a tree, and it fit in the cramped space. Most importantly, she felt satisfied that her daughter would have a tree for her first Christmas.

  “What do you think, kid?” she asked Millie.

  Millie clapped her hands. She had just learned to clap and was doing it non-stop, in between sucking on her middle three fingers. In this case, however, Emmeline thought of it as approval.

  The door opened and a gust of wind and several snowball sized-flakes blew in, along with a shivering man. White flakes crusted Nicholas’s hair, and little piles rested on the shoulders of his black winter coat from the short walk over.

  “I was hoping you’d come back for a while,” Emmeline said. Immediately Millie raised her arms for her father to pick her up. As he did, she babbled happily and patted the snow on his shoulders.

  “There’s my little Angel Face,” he said, and zoobered her cheek. Millie threw her head back out in a fit of giggles.
They were two peas in a pod, those two. “The station is dead, I thought maybe I’d come home for something hot to eat.”

  “You’re in luck, it’s gourmet spaghetti.” Emmeline was still just learning how to cook, but she was really starting to love it, something that surprised her more than anyone. Tonight’s meal consisted of spaghetti noodles covered in tomato soup. Pretty basic stuff, but it was cheap, and Millie loved to play with the long strings of noodles. She didn’t exactly eat them—she was just starting on solid food with her two brand new front teeth—but they did make an excellent toy. Emmeline longed to try some different things out. If only she had the money for all the ingredients in the dishes she wanted to try from the cookbooks she was poring over these days.

  “Perfect,” he said.

  Tonight, she decided, she would tell Nicholas about the fiasco with his mother, although she hated to break the peacefulness that the falling snow had brought.

  “Before you start eating, I have a confusions I have to make—a confession, I mean.” As she broke into the story, her hands were shaking. She hoped he would understand that she was trying to make things better. Her words tripped over themselves and were scattered, as if they were trying to all come out at once, not making sense the way she had rehearsed in her head.

  Nicholas asked a few questions about how his mother was doing, and what she had said. He laughed when he heard that Millie didn’t want to do anything but play on the floor, but she could see his heart was breaking. She didn’t know until this moment how deep his wounds ran. His separation from his family was more painful for him than she had even imagined.

  He was quiet, and didn’t touch his dinner afterwards. Finally, he got up from the table and left, not even saying good bye.