by Patricia Kay
Forty minutes later, dressed in jeans and a loose cotton shirt, she padded downstairs and headed for the coffeemaker. A few minutes later, steaming cup in hand, she sat down to her laptop.
She’d decided to research townhomes, patio homes and condominiums in San Antonio. Now that she’d made up her mind to move there in March, she wanted to be ready. Mostly she wanted to prepare a budget, make sure she was right about being able to afford to take a year off work and just see what was available.
An hour later, she’d found several complexes that interested her, and was also satisfied that financially, her plan would work. She would have to be careful, of course, stick to her budget, but she was used to doing that anyway. Sophie had never been extravagant. Once in a while, she’d indulge herself and splurge a little—mostly on clothes or shoes—but never to the point that she created a problem. And once she had the babies to take care of, she knew she’d be doubly cautious.
She smiled, touching her tummy. It was hard to believe so much had happened in just a few short months. In another month, she would begin to show. But as long as she kept her tops loose, she should be okay. Still, it was a good thing she planned to be gone by the first of February. What would Dillon think when he found out she was leaving?
What would he say?
And what would she say back?
Sighing, she pushed the problem of Dillon out of her mind, at least for today. Instead she decided to give Joy a call and see how she was doing. But before she could, her cell rang. It was Beth.
“What’re you doing today?” Beth asked.
“Not a thing. Why?”
“I’m gonna go look at maternity clothes. I thought you might want to come.”
Sophie smiled. That would be fun. And she did need to get some tops. “Sounds good. How soon do I need to be ready?”
“How about I’ll pick you up about ten-thirty? We can have lunch out, too.”
“I’d love that.”
So the two of them went shopping and Sophie indulged by buying a couple of pairs of pants that would stretch and half a dozen pretty, flowing tops. They stopped for salads afterward, and by the time Beth dropped Sophie at home, it was after two.
She put her purchases away, poured herself a glass of Diet Coke, then sat down at the kitchen table to call Joy. When the call went to voice mail, she left a message, then texted Joy.
After an hour went by with no call back or answering text, Sophie decided to call the main number at Hannah’s House.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Marlowe,” the operator said, “but Joy isn’t here right now.”
Sophie frowned. Where could her sister be? “Do you know where she went?”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Are you sure she didn’t tell you where she was going?” Joy didn’t have a car, so where could she have gone on her own?
“No, Ms. Marlowe. All I know is, a young man came to see her and she went off with him.”
Sophie’s heart jolted. A young man? Joy didn’t know any young men there. “Who was it? He had to give his name to see her, didn’t he?”
“Um, I don’t know. I wasn’t at the desk when he came.”
“Well, who was? Can you check and find out?”
“Hold on a minute. Let me ask around.”
A few moments later, the young woman came back. “Um, Miss Marlowe? We had a volunteer working this morning and she’s gone this afternoon.”
Sophie sighed in frustration. Could it have been Aidan who’d come? Had Joy been in touch with him? No. She would have told Sophie if she had. But who else could it have been? Frowning, Sophie thanked the young woman and disconnected the call. The only way Aidan could possibly know how to find Joy was if Dillon had told him.
Why would he do that?
Anger now fueling her movements—there was obviously something happening Dillon didn’t want her to know about—she pressed the familiar numbers of his cell.
He’d better have some answers.
* * *
Joy stared at Aidan. The two of them were sitting on a park bench only a block from Hannah’s House. Dillon had driven away after telling them he’d be back whenever they wanted. “All Aidan has to do is call me,” he’d said.
Joy had been so stunned, first to see Aidan and then to hear what he’d had to say, that she’d barely been able to thank his uncle and tell him goodbye.
“I’m sorry, Joy,” Aidan said, taking her hand. “I know I hurt you.”
“Yes, you did.”
He swallowed. “I—I missed you.”
Joy’s eyes filled with tears. “I missed you, too,” she whispered.
“Can...we start over?”
“How...how is that going to happen? With you in Ohio and me here?”
“I’m only going back to Ohio to pack. I’m moving back to Crandall Lake to finish school. And...if it’s okay with you...I’ll come to San Antonio on the weekends to be with you. I—I want to be here when you have the baby.”
“You...you mean that?”
“Yes.”
“What if you change your mind again?”
“Look,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Dillon and I talked this all out. I told him that being away from you made me realize that I—I really do love you. And...and I want to be a part of your life.”
“What about our baby? Do you want to be a part of his life, too?”
“If...you want me to be.”
Joy frowned. “How would that work?”
“I don’t know yet. We’d have to talk to your sister and Dillon and do a lot of research, but I was thinking maybe I could go to college at UT in Austin. And...and maybe we could get an apartment there and you could finish high school...and if you wanted to...we could keep the baby.”
Joy just stared at him. She could barely think. Could he really mean all this? It was such a drastic change from before when all he’d wanted to do was escape her and the pregnancy that she couldn’t absorb it all in just a few minutes.
“What do you think? I know we’d have a lot to work out, that it wouldn’t be easy, but if we both want it enough, we can figure out a way to make it happen.”
“Wh-what would we live on? Would you work? Who would watch the baby?”
“I’d probably have to find a part-time job, but I have enough money to last us a couple of years anyway. And Dillon said he’d help.”
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Joy said. Her heart felt so full, and she wanted to believe he was sincere, yet she was still afraid. He might feel this way now, but what if he changed his mind? He’d done that once already. He could do it again, couldn’t he? What if she said she loved him, too, and wanted nothing more than to spend her life with him and their baby, and then he got tired of her or things got too hard and he left her again?
Aidan leaned forward. “I do love you, Joy,” he murmured. “I missed you so much. If you’ll let me, I’ll prove it to you.” Then he kissed her.
Joy’s heart leaped. Pulling his head closer, she kissed him back. When they moved apart, she looked deep into his eyes. What she saw there made her so happy she was sure her heart was going to pound right out of her chest. “I—I love you, too, Aidan.”
“So you’re okay with all this? You want to keep our baby?”
Now she knew what it meant when people said they threw caution to the wind, because suddenly all of her doubts evaporated. “I’m more than okay with it. I’m ecstatic!” She still couldn’t believe it. Aidan wanted to marry her when she felt she was ready. He wanted to help her raise their baby. She would finish high school with him by her side. They would both work part-time and they would both go to college. They would be together. She hadn’t even told him about her Social Security income, the money she got each month since her parents had died and would c
ontinue to get until she turned eighteen. He had no idea Sophie had arranged for the money to be deposited into a savings account for Joy and that there was quite a bit accumulated now.
This time when they kissed, Joy knew that it was all going to be okay. It wouldn’t be easy; they would have some tough times ahead. But they would face them together.
* * *
Dillon saw on his caller ID that it was Sophie phoning him. He debated, then decided to let the call go to voice mail. He could guess what she wanted to talk about. Somehow she’d found out Aidan and Joy were together. Dillon felt like a lowlife avoiding her like this, but before he talked to Sophie, he knew he had to sit down with Aidan, find out what he and Joy had decided. He knew Sophie would be furious with him, but it couldn’t be helped.
“I’m sorry, Sophie,” he whispered, looking regretfully at the phone. “But it’s all good. You might not think so at first, but everything’s going to work out.”
Yet even as he said it, he wondered if he was right.
* * *
Joy saw that Sophie had called her twice. She hadn’t heard the ring; her phone had been buried in her shoulder bag and she’d been so enthralled with Aidan and what he’d been telling her that she hadn’t been tuned in to anything else.
Joy bit her lip. “My sister’s been calling me.”
“Want to call her back?” Aidan said. They were still sitting together on the park bench, but now his arm was around her protectively and every few minutes, he would kiss her again and tell her she was beautiful, and he loved her.
“Later,” Joy said. She knew she was being a chicken, but she couldn’t help it. She was scared of what Sophie would say when she heard Joy’s news. She wanted to think Sophie would be happy for her, but believing that was a different story. “Okay. Are you cold? Want to go back to the house?”
“No, I’m fine. I’d rather stay here.” At the house, she’d have to answer questions. Plus, they wouldn’t be able to be alone. Boys were not permitted in the girls’ rooms and there really wasn’t any other place you could go other than the visitors’ lounge or the chapel. Neither was a good option as far as Joy was concerned, because neither afforded much privacy.
“I could call Dillon. We could go get something to eat,” Aidan said.
“Let’s wait a little bit.”
“Okay. Um, I was thinking,” Aidan said.
“What?”
“If we have a boy, how would you feel about naming him Derek?” Aidan gave her a shy smile. “That was my dad’s name.”
“Oh, Aidan. I would love to name him Derek. But what if it’s a girl?”
“My mom’s name was Carol,” he said softly.
“And my mom’s name was Jennifer,” she said. “We could name a girl Jennifer Carol.”
They smiled at each other. And then they didn’t talk for a while. They were too busy kissing.
* * *
Dillon waited another half hour, and when Aidan still hadn’t called him, he decided to call Aidan.
“Listen,” he said when Aidan answered, “Joy’s sister has been calling me and I haven’t picked up because I wanted to know what you and Joy and have decided before I talk to her.”
“I was going to call you in a little while,” Aidan said.
“Okay. So what’s the decision?”
Dillon smiled as Aidan explained what they’d talked about. “Okay, then. I’ll call her sister.”
“Uh, wait. Lemme see what Joy says.”
Dillon could hear the two of them talking; then Aidan came back on the line. “She says okay, but she feels bad because her sister’s been calling her, too, and she didn’t pick up, either. Maybe she should call her first.”
“Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll take care of things. Do you want me to head back and pick you up?”
“No, Joy and I are gonna walk back to the house. Why don’t you come there in a little while? Maybe we could all go have an early dinner somewhere.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you in half an hour.”
After disconnecting the call, Dillon sat thinking for a few minutes before calling Sophie. Deciding he had to face the music sometime, he finally placed the call.
She answered immediately. “Dillon? Where are you?”
“I’m sitting in my car. Why? Where are you?”
“I’m at home! I’ve been trying to reach Joy and no one seems to know where she is, nor is she answering my calls. Do you happen to know where she is?”
Dillon took a deep breath. “Yes, I do. She’s with Aidan.”
“That’s what I thought. What are you trying to pull, Dillon? Why is Aidan in San Antonio?”
So Dillon explained, finishing with “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know ahead of time, Sophie, but I thought this was something the kids needed to work out on their own.”
“Oh, really? You made that decision all by yourself, did you?”
He heard the way her voice shook and knew she was beyond angry. “I did what I thought was right,” he said quietly. “If that upsets you, I’m sorry. I think, in my shoes, you would have done the same thing.”
“You have no idea what I would have done, Dillon. One thing I know, though. I would never have gone behind your back.”
“Look, can this discussion wait until we can see each other? I’m supposed to be heading back to Hannah’s House to pick up the kids and we’re going to have dinner together before Aidan and I take off.”
“So you think everything’s settled? And that I should just be a good little girl—a team player—and fall right into line with your plans? Well, I don’t think what you’re proposing is a good idea at all. And I can’t believe you thought I would! Joy is only sixteen, Dillon! She is far too young to make this kind of commitment and certainly way too young to get married.”
“They’re not talking about getting married now, Sophie. Not until Joy’s eighteen.”
“Oh, but it’s okay for them to live together until then?”
“Look, nothing’s cast in stone yet. We can all sit down like civilized human beings and talk about this, can’t we?”
“You never even thought about me, how I’d feel, did you? You just went ahead and did what you wanted to do, the same way you’ve lived your entire life!”
“I did think about you, but I felt this was the kids’ decision to make, not yours...and not mine.”
“Kids. That’s the operative word here. They are kids. They have no idea what life is going to be like after that baby is born. And you don’t, either. You’re a selfish, pigheaded, clueless...idiot!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Sophie,” he said stiffly.
“If you think I’m just going to say okay to this stupid scheme of yours, you don’t know me at all. Since Joy doesn’t seem to want to talk to me, you can tell her that I’m leaving for San Antonio as soon as I get my things together and that I will see her tonight.”
And with that, she hung up on him.
Chapter Twelve
Sophie knew she had to calm down. First of all, it was dangerous to drive all the way to San Antonio when she was so upset. Second, it was bad for her baby to be so stressed.
Oh, she could just strangle Dillon! This plan of his and Aidan’s was madness. She could excuse Aidan because he was just a kid, and kids had big ideas that weren’t sensible or realistic. But Dillon! Dillon knew better. What in the world was he thinking?
If only she could just call Joy and talk to her. But that wouldn’t work. She had to see Joy. She had to talk to her in person.
Sophie waited thirty minutes, and by then she felt calm enough to load her overnight bag in the car and take off for San Antonio. She made good time and pulled into the driveway of Hannah’s House a little before seven that evening. In the darkness, the Christmas
lights made everything look festive. Sophie wished her mood matched and that she was there for a happy reason.
“Miss Marlowe!” the receptionist exclaimed when she saw Sophie enter. “We didn’t expect you back so soon. Does Joy know you’re coming?”
“She should,” Sophie said. She was still fighting hurt feelings because Joy had not called her.
“I’ll let her know you’re here.”
While she waited, Sophie called the little hotel she usually stayed in when she visited and was relieved to find they had a room for her tonight. A few minutes later, Joy entered the visitors’ lounge. She looked hesitant, but she came right over and hugged Sophie. Her eyes were bright and filled with hope. Sophie’s heart ached, and she couldn’t stay mad at Joy. She was so young and naive.
“Oh, Sophie,” Joy said, “please don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry with you. I’m furious with Dillon. This scheme of his is crazy, and it just frustrates me that he brought Aidan here without telling me and that the two of them have talked you into something that makes no sense at all.”
“Why doesn’t it make any sense?” Joy asked in a small voice.
“Honey, you know why. Aidan is only eighteen. He hasn’t even finished high school yet. And you’re only sixteen. You admitted you’re too young to be a mother, that you have plans for your life. You’re going away to college. And so is he. I... You agreed that I could adopt your baby. That that was the best plan for everyone. How has any of that changed?”
Joy bowed her head. For a long moment she didn’t answer. When she finally looked at Sophie again, her eyes were shining. But not with tears. With happiness. “What’s changed is that Aidan realizes how much he loves me, Sophie. He wants us to be together, to raise our baby together, to be a family.” Her voice rang with certainty.
“But, honey, what about school?”
“We’re both going to finish school. And we’re both going to go to college. Didn’t Dillon tell you?”
Sophie sighed heavily. Yes, Dillon had spelled out their plan. But it seemed like so much pie in the sky to Sophie. She’d seen firsthand what happened when kids thought they could do it all. Life quickly showed them it wasn’t as easy as it seemed on paper.