Lakeside Hospital Box Set

by Cara Malone

  Lily smiled. “Yeah, you should go work with her – I’ve got my mom here and she doesn’t have anyone.”

  “I could go,” Lily’s mom said. “If the two of you want to stick together.”

  “No, you stay,” Mercedes said. “You were the one who was looking forward to this class – besides, I kind of already know the basics. You don’t mind, right, Lily?”

  “Of course not,” Lily said. “Go - she’ll think she won the lottery when she finds out you’re a rock star OB/GYN.”

  Mercedes gave her a quick kiss, then went over to introduce herself to the girl. Lily listened as Mercedes offered her assistance and Lily’s mom got in position behind her for the breathing exercise. She watched Mercedes sit down behind the girl, letting her lean against her, and that sight could have easily spurred a fit of jealousy – her girlfriend, even if only temporarily, was sitting with another woman in her arms.

  But that full-hearted feeling never left Lily. It only intensified as she watched Mercedes walk the girl attentively through the exercise, glancing lovingly over at Lily from time to time. Mercedes might think that she was a selfish person for leaving her mother all those years ago, but Lily could see otherwise.

  She’d made a few bad decisions over the years – who hadn’t? But underneath it all, Mercedes was compassionate, caring, beautiful, and incredible. I love you, Lily thought, not for the first time although she’d never had the courage to say it out loud.

  “How are you doing, honey?” her mom asked behind her.

  “Good,” Lily said. “I’m really good.”

  Her mother led her through the exercises, periodically saying things like, “This isn’t how they did it when I was a new mom,” or, “Wish I knew this trick back in the day,” and even, “I don’t know about that – you’re probably going to want the epidural.” And even though it might have been easier to have Mercedes guiding her, Lily would not have changed a thing.

  “Mom,” she chastised after a few minutes. “Let Tabitha run the class, okay?”

  “Sorry,” her mom said. “Just relax, honey. I’m here for you.”

  After the class ended, Lily’s mom dropped Mercedes off at her apartment so she could pick up her car and head over to her own mother’s house to get a few more bins filled. Lily went home and napped for a couple of hours, then met Chloe and Krys for coffee.

  Well, they drank coffee, and she slowly sipped on a hot chocolate. She told them about the birthing class – the first of a series of four – and then switched the conversation to Krys. “How’s the wedding planning going?”

  She and Darcy were four months into their engagement, and the amount of time they had to spend with friends – which had already been slim – had dwindled as they got into the thick of the wedding planning.

  “I would just as soon take a long weekend and elope to Vegas, or have a private beach wedding – something low-key,” Krys said. “But Darcy’s set on a huge, magical wedding with everyone we’ve ever met or been related to.”

  She paused when she noticed both Chloe and Lily were staring at her with doe eyes.

  “Come on, you guys,” she said. “Not you, too.”

  “I think it sounds romantic,” Chloe said. “She wants to celebrate your love in front of everyone.”

  “You only get married once,” Lily said. “You should let Darcy make it special.”

  “It will be special no matter what because I’m marrying the woman of my dreams,” Krys said, and Lily finally felt that pang of jealousy she’d been expecting in the birthing class. It was three hours late, a sudden, sharp yearning for something she’d never had and thought she no longer needed.

  “You know what I think?” Chloe asked Krys. “I think deep down, you’re just a big, squishy romantic. You try really hard to hide it but you’re not fooling us.”

  “Maybe,” Krys said, relenting. It was obvious by the look in her eye that she wasn’t nearly as annoyed with the wedding planning process as she was pretending to be. Then she grinned and said, “There is one huge perk to planning an enormous wedding and that’s the food. Darcy has set up cake tastings at every bakery in Chicago and it’s all delicious.”

  “I can’t wait to do all of that with Ivy,” Chloe said, looking a little forlorn.

  “Oh no, don’t even think about it - you can’t get engaged before Darcy and I get married,” Krys said. “You have to wait your turn for the spotlight.”

  Chloe laughed, then said, “No worries there – Ivy’s so focused on being chosen as chief surgical resident next year that we don’t have time to even think about marriage yet. But when it happens, you better believe I want to be a princess for a day.”

  “You’ll get your turn,” Lily said. “I know how much Ivy loves you and knowing you, I don’t doubt there will be tiaras involved.”

  Chloe laughed again, then got that sly smile on her lips that said she was about to put on her matchmaker hat as she said, “So, give us the Mercedes update. How’s everything going?”

  Lily smiled involuntarily.

  “This morning she said she might stay in Evanston a little longer,” she said. “She’s still definitely going back to Seattle eventually… but it would be nice to have some more time with her.”

  “When are you two going to admit it?” Chloe asked, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Clearly you’re in love with each other – just tell her so she can move here and you can live happily ever after already!”

  Lily practically choked on her hot chocolate, looking to Krys for backup. That was not in the realm of possibility. But Krys just shrugged her shoulders and said, “The girl knows what she’s talking about, and you have been acting like a lovesick teenager for the last few months.”

  “It’s temporary,” Lily reminded them both – as well as herself. “Yes, I like her a lot. But we both knew it was never going to be anything real.”

  “It already is,” Chloe whispered, then winked and took a sip of her coffee.

  15

  Mercedes

  Mercedes and Lily brought the kids to the new laboratory to paint the mural at the beginning of their Christmas break. Tyler and Theo approached it almost scientifically, planning out what they wanted to do and sketching it on a large piece of craft paper, and when they met Mikey and Faith, they helped the younger kids figure out what they could do to help.

  Mercedes pulled a couple of rolling chairs into the room – one for herself and one for Lily – and they sat back and watched the kids unleash their creativity on the wall.

  “Are you sure it’s okay to paint over this?” Faith asked hesitantly as she held a paintbrush up to the leg of a faded giraffe.

  “Go nuts,” Mercedes said. “Have fun with it.” Faith smiled broadly and turned back to the wall, taking a long, thick swipe of red paint across the giraffe. Then Mercedes turned to Lily and said, “Thanks again for inviting my sister’s kids – I knew they would love it.”

  “Your family is my family as long as you want them to be,” Lily said, taking Mercedes’ hand. She put it on top of her belly, now nearly seven months large.

  The baby was kicking often and would be a happy, healthy infant. Mercedes knew the baby’s sex – she’d seen it on one of Lily’s ultrasounds – and it had been one of the hardest secrets she’d ever had to keep, not allowing a stray pronoun to slip out in conversation about the baby.

  Lily’s baby shower was coming up in just a few weeks, and Mercedes had even managed to withstand Lily’s mother’s near-constant badgering. Just tell me if it’s a boy or a girl. I want to do one of those cute gender-reveal cakes. I’ll still get Lily plenty of unisex clothes and toys – just tell me!

  “I promised Lily I’d be the only one who knew,” Mercedes had said, putting her hand up as if she were taking an oath. “She wouldn’t have even let me find out if I hadn’t insisted on watching the ultrasound to make sure her obstetrician didn’t miss anything.”

  “I’m going to paint a robot!” Mikey exclaimed as he went over
to the table that Mercedes had set up with all sorts of paint colors spread out across it. “Umm, Theo, can you help me paint a robot?”

  Lily laughed and said, “They’re so cute!” She rubbed her belly tenderly and said, “I can’t wait for this one to get here so we can do things like this together.”

  Mercedes leaned over and kissed Lily’s temple, saying, “Me, too. By the way, I have some news about my sabbatical.”

  “Oh yeah?” Lily asked, perking up.

  “It’s good news and bad news,” Mercedes said. “I was able to extend my stay here, but only by two months. I have to go back in February because the women in my clinical trial should have all given birth by then and there’ll be so much data to weed through.”

  Lily’s lower lip quivered and it broke Mercedes’ heart.

  “But I’m due in March.”

  “I know,” Mercedes said, surprised to find that her throat was growing tight with tears. “I tried so hard – I wanted to stay here. But it’ll compromise the whole study if I don’t go back and take the lead again. It’ll be five years of research and data on a hundred patients wasted.”

  Lily frowned, then tried to put on a brave face. “It’s okay. We both knew this was the outcome.”

  “It’s not like I’ll be stuck in Seattle,” Mercedes hurried to add. “I can come back on weekends, and-”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t promise each other more than we can deliver,” Lily said quietly.

  “What are you talking about?” Mercedes asked. Things had been going so well – none of it was anything Mercedes had planned, nor could she have foreseen how her detour to Evanston would turn out, but she wouldn’t trade it for all the clinical trials in the world. “Lily, I really like you. I-”

  She cut herself off. You cannot tell this beautiful woman that you love her for the first time while your niece and nephew paint a wall and talk about robots fifteen feet away. And you can’t tell her how you feel about her in the same conversation in which you tell her you won’t be here to witness the birth of her child.

  Lily looked at her expectantly and Mercedes settled on, “I hate this expiration date idea. It was fine in the beginning, but you have to agree that our relationship has gotten more serious than that. Right?”

  Lily gave her a tortured look. “It has. But I can’t maintain a long-term relationship while I’m also learning how to care for an infant. Let’s not talk about this now, okay?”

  “Okay,” Mercedes agreed with a sigh. She let go of Lily’s hand and said, “I was here late last night with a breech birth – I really need a cup of coffee. Can I get you something from the cafeteria? Juice, a snack?”

  Lily smiled sadly. “No, I’m okay. Thanks.”

  Christmas Day was like no holiday Mercedes had ever experienced before.

  She woke up next to Lily in the big, plush bed at Lily’s house, no pagers or patients interrupting them. It was a novelty to have the holiday off work – in Seattle, Mercedes would have volunteered to work on Christmas so her coworkers could go home to their families. It was double pay and it kept her from having to impose on her friends during an intimate family holiday.

  In Evanston, she found herself in the unique position of having not one but two families to share the day with.

  “Are you sure I’m not going to be getting in the way of your family’s traditions?” she’d asked Lily about a dozen times after Lily invited her – no, told her that she’d be coming – to her parents’ house for Christmas dinner.

  “I want you there,” Lily said. She’d pulled Mercedes into a long kiss, squeezing her cheeks between her palms, and then said, “I may only get you for two more months, but I want to enjoy every minute of it, and that includes having Christmas together.”

  So they’d made plans to have Christmas dinner at Lily’s parents’ house in the evening, and go first to Jewel’s house that morning, where Mercedes would get to watch for the first time as her niece and nephew tore open their Christmas presents. Mercedes had agonized for weeks over what to get the kids since she finally had an opportunity to give them their gifts in person, and she’d thought even longer about what to buy her mother. What do you get the woman who has everything and uses it to build a cocoon around herself?

  In the end, she’d decided on a year of maid service and gift cards to a few good restaurants around town – things her mother couldn’t hoard.

  “Merry Christmas, baby,” Mercedes said as she wrapped her arms around Lily in the bed. She patted Lily’s stomach, then kissed the crook of Lily’s neck and said, “and Merry Christmas to you, too, Mommy.”

  “Mmm,” Lily moaned, still half-asleep beside her.

  She shifted her ass backward, pressing it into Mercedes’ hips and finishing the job of waking her up. Mercedes slipped her hand beneath the covers and under the waistband of Lily’s pajamas. She was already wet, her body pulsing against Mercedes’ fingertips. Merry Christmas to me.

  “We should get over to your sister’s house,” Lily said, opening her eyes and looking at the time on the alarm clock.

  “Shhh,” Mercedes whispered, slipping one finger into Lily’s wetness and enjoying the way she pressed her body against Mercedes harder in response. “Don’t talk about my sister right now.”

  “You’re going to miss the kids opening their presents,” Lily objected, but not too adamantly.

  “It’s only six a.m.,” Mercedes said, rolling Lily onto her back and kissing her as Lily’s body clenched against her finger. “I’m willing to risk it.”

  In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered – Mikey and Faith had torn into their gifts around five-thirty that morning and Jewel had to send Michael into the war zone around the base of the Christmas tree to pull a few gifts from Santa out of the massacre to be saved for the arrival of Mercedes, Lily, and her mother.

  It was a lot of fun to watch the kids’ eyes light up as they ransacked everything under the tree, becoming increasingly surrounded by balled up scraps of wrapping paper and piles of toys and clothes. Mercedes’ mother tried to save a few pieces of paper here and there, snatching them out of the ruins and attempting to smooth them out on the dining room table.

  “These are still perfectly good,” she kept saying as Mercedes gently pried the used wrapping paper out of her hands and added it to the overflowing trash bag that Michael had brought out to catch all the detritus.

  “That’s true,” Mercedes said. “But I’ve seen your wrapping paper collection and you don’t need any more. Neither do Jewel and Michael, so let’s just throw this away.”

  “What about you, Lily?” her mother had asked, casting about for a reason to keep the paper. “Could you use that?”

  “She doesn’t need it, Mom,” Mercedes insisted, keeping her tone as friendly as she could. Her mother had been making a lot of progress with Dr. Silva since the summer and even though Mercedes never once felt like she understood the hoarding urge, she could at least appreciate her mother’s efforts.

  “How are we going to remember this Christmas without that paper?” her mother tried one more time.

  “With the gifts that were wrapped in it,” Mercedes said. “Come on, Mom, let’s go in the kitchen and get everyone a fresh round of coffee. Lily, you want some more tea?”

  “That would be great, thanks,” Lily said.

  They spent the morning with Mercedes’ family and the kids roped them into a game of Monopoly – one of the gifts Mikey had received – and when Lily had wiped the floor with Mercedes and bought every last one of the railroads, they finally called it quits and headed over to Lily’s parents’ house for part two of their Christmas Day.

  “Are you having a good holiday so far?” Mercedes asked in the car. “Thanks for hanging out with my family and me.”

  “I’m having a great time,” Lily said, reaching across the center console to put her hand on Mercedes’ knee. Mercedes moved her hand up a few inches, then a few more, and slid Lily’s fingers between her thighs. Lily laughed and shook her head, th
en said, “Are you ready for my family?”

  “Always,” Mercedes said.

  She’d been to quite a few Thomas family dinners over the last few months and gotten to know Lily’s parents well. She was less familiar with her brothers because they didn’t always make it to the weekly dinners, but she’d picked up gifts for Theo and Tyler to thank them for doing such a great job on the mural for Lily.

  The house was alive with activity by the time they arrived. The boys were playing football in the snow outside with Conrad and Lily’s mom was in the kitchen with Conrad and Jace’s wives, getting the meal finished up.

  “Merry Christmas everyone!” Lily exclaimed as she led Mercedes into the living room where her dad and Jace were watching a football game. Her dad hopped up and gave Lily a hug while Jace took the presents that Mercedes had been carrying.

  “Come on in,” Lily’s dad said. “Make yourselves at home. Dinner’ll be ready at five – I hope you’re hungry!”

  Lily laughed and patted her stomach, saying, “These days? Always.”

  There was an incredible, mouth-watering aroma wafting down the hall from the kitchen and it made Mercedes’ stomach rumble. She and Lily went to say hello to her mom and see if there was anything they could do to help, and then the whole family sat down around a long dining room table not long after.

  They all ate, drank and made merry just like Mercedes had always heard about people doing. She would have sworn it was a myth if she hadn’t had the chance to experience it herself, first with her family and then with Lily’s, and it turned out to be the best Christmas she’d ever had.

  After the meal was through, the dessert had been served, and all the presents were opened, everyone settled down into whatever corner of the house seemed most comfortable to them and they had a relaxing evening. The kids went back outside with their dad and grandpa to pass the football some more, Lily’s mom busied herself with arranging trays of Christmas cookies for people to nibble on and refreshing the bowl of eggnog on the console table.