Can't Stop Loving You

by Janelle Taylor

  “So? We’re pregnant,” he shot back, his eyes flashing at her. Finally, he was showing a trace of anger, and for that she felt oddly grateful. She didn’t want—or need—him to be her selfless hero.

  “I’m pregnant, Noah. Not us. Me. I’m the one who’s having the baby.”

  “And I’m the one who was raised by a single mother,” he retorted. “I’m the one who knows what that’s like. I’m the one who’s spent every day of my life thinking how differently things would have turned out if I’d had a father. A child—our child—needs two parents—”

  “You’re right,” she said softly.

  “—and there’s no way I’m going to—what?” he asked suddenly, as if he had just heard what she had said. “Did you say I’m right?”

  She nodded.

  His face lit up.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she put her fingers against his lips before he could make a sound. “Our child does need two parents, Noah. But those parents aren’t going to be you and me.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  May, 2001

  Rockton, Missouri

  “Mariel? Where are you?”

  Mariel paused with her hand on the study door, hearing her sister’s voice in the foyer below. “I’m up here, Leslie,” she called wearily. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you come back down for a second? You won’t believe this.”

  With a sigh, Mariel turned away from the study and headed back down the flight of steps to the first floor. She hadn’t walked up them more than fifteen seconds earlier, confident her sister was headed out to have a manicure at last.

  As sisters went, Leslie was usually pretty laid back and self-sufficient. But with her wedding countdown dwindling from months to weeks, she was becoming increasingly high maintenance. Luckily, the bridal shower would be over with by this time tomorrow, leaving only the wedding for Mariel to guide her sister through.

  Only the wedding?

  She was dreading that ordeal already. Not that she wasn’t anxious to see her sister happily married to Jed Peterson, her high school sweetheart, who also happened to live right next door.

  But Leslie was already fretting about the tiniest details—whether the type on the printed matchbooks would be the exact shade of dark pink as the frosting roses on the cake, and whether the faint scar on Jed’s knuckle would show if the photographer decided to snap a close-up shot of their hands in their new wedding rings.

  Mariel had no idea how she was going to make it through another seven weeks of listening to her sister’s irrational worries without completely losing her sanity.

  “What’s wrong, Leslie?” she asked, finding her sister in the living room. She was sitting on the old-fashioned, uncomfortable couch—which their mother had always called the “davenport”—and there was a large, open gift box filled with what appeared to be layers of tissue in front of her.

  “You have to look at this, Mariel,” Leslie said in a choked voice. “The UPS guy delivered it just as I was walking out the door.”

  “What is it? A shower gift?” Mariel reached across the glass coffee table for the box, careful not to knock over the cluster of china religious figurines that had been there as long as she could remember.

  “It’s from Jed’s two cousins,” Leslie said.

  “The twins from Texas?”

  “Lord, no.” Leslie looked horrified. “Mary Ellen and Pamela Joan aren’t invited to the shower, remember? We knew they’d fly up for it, and it’s already going to be hard enough on Jed’s mom to have the two of them staying under their roof the weekend of the wedding. They never stop talking.”

  “Then, which cousins?”

  “Millie and Helen.”

  “They sound like little old ladies,” Mariel said.

  “They are little old ladies. Spinsters. They’re Jed’s second cousins, or maybe third. They can’t come to the shower because they play bingo at their retirement home every Sunday afternoon. Go ahead, Mar. Look what they sent.”

  Mariel parted the layers of tissue and pulled out something white and satiny. Long and white and satiny. And lacy. And sequiny. She looked up at Leslie, her arms clutching what seemed like yards and yards of the billowing garment. Something tickled her nose, and she sneezed. “Was that a feather? What is this, Leslie?”

  “It’s a peignoir set,” her sister said in a strangled voice.

  “Are you laughing or crying?”

  “I’m not sure.” Leslie sank back on the couch and threw her head back.

  Mariel shifted the fabric, and something fluttered to the floor. She bent to pick it up and saw that it was a note written on old-fashioned floral stationery. The spidery handwriting read, For your wedding night, dear Leslie.

  “For your wedding night?” Mariel looked at her sister. “But this is…”

  “Hideous. I know.”

  “Les, this thing is covered in…stuff. Feathers, sequins…you name it.”

  “I know!” Her sister buried her face in her hands. “I can’t wear it. Ever! Let alone on my wedding night.”

  “Just send them a nice thank-you and give it to charity.”

  “Mariel, you don’t understand. They’re going to ask me if I liked it. They’re going to want me to model it for them. They’re going to ask Jed—”

  “Calm down, Leslie! You’re getting carried away.”

  Her sister, the Drama Queen, groaned. “I can’t take this. The stress is killing me. Why didn’t we just elope?”

  “You wanted a big wedding, remember?” Mariel attempted to stuff the peignoir back into the box and jammed the cover on. A feather wafted in the air. “I’m the one who said maybe we should keep it more…manageable.”

  “I know. But I kept picturing the kind of wedding Mom would have wanted for me. She always talked about our wedding days—mine and yours. I guess maybe I’m doing it for her, in a way.”

  Tears sprang to Mariel’s eyes. Her mother had been gone almost two years, and she still became emotional at the mere mention of her. They all did. Especially Dad.

  Luckily, he was out visiting Reverend Henry, the minister who had taken over the church when Dad retired last year and moved to Florida.

  “Go have your nails done, Leslie. And forget all about this crazy getup. Nobody will know what you wear on your wedding night except you and Jed.”

  “You’re right.” Her sister smiled and picked up the gift box, walking toward the door. “I wonder if he’s back from St. Louis yet. He’ll get a kick out of seeing this.”

  With the latest prenuptial crisis safely averted and her sister on her way through the lilac bushes to the Petersons’, Mariel climbed the steps once again.

  In her mother’s former sewing room—which she had recently transformed into a study—she sat down at her desk and turned on the computer. As she waited for it to boot up, she looked around the room, admiring the navy-and-green striped wallpaper, the freshly painted white woodwork, and the braided rug on the hardwood floor. Her own bedroom across the hall seemed strangely empty now that she had moved her desk, chair, and bookshelf in here, but she was thinking of buying new furniture after Leslie moved out in July. Either that, or moving into the master bedroom suite.

  But, much as it made sense, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with that idea. She might have the small, white colonial-style house all to herself, but she wasn’t certain it would ever feel as though it truly belonged to her, no matter where she slept or put her computer.

  You can always buy a place of your own, she reminded herself.

  But she pushed that thought out of her head. That would be almost like…

  Like what?

  Giving up?

  Admitting to herself—and the world—that she was probably never going to get married?

  Well, wasn’t that what she had always wanted? To be single, and free?

  Yes. But not like this, a small voice reminded her. Things were supposed to be different. She was supposed to be in New York, or London, or even Hollyw
ood. Not in Rockton, Missouri, living in the town—and the very house—she had spent most of her youth trying to escape.

  The computer clicked and hummed and the start-up screen appeared at last. She quickly logged on to the Internet. Her heart leaped when she saw the mailbox icon with the flag up and heard the disembodied voice that announced, “You’ve got mail.”

  E-mail.

  Her one link to the world she had once thought she might actually experience. Now she did so vicariously through her on-line friendships.

  She wondered who had written since she had last checked the mail early this morning, before Leslie woke up and went on a roll, deciding they should bake five dozen wedding-cake-shaped cutout cookies for the shower guests. Cookies that were even now spread all over the kitchen on sheets of waxed paper, awaiting icing and decoration, which Leslie had decided to leave up to Mariel. “You’re much more creative than I am, Mar,” she had said. “Maybe you can pipe my and Jed’s names on each one in pink frosting with little rosebuds.”

  Maybe. But that could wait.

  Mariel leaned forward in her chair, dragging the mouse to click on the mailbox. There were quite a few messages. She scanned the list, recognizing the user names.

  One from her chat room pal Jackie, who was an actress up for a lead in the touring company of Fiddler on the Roof.

  One from Anthony, another chat room acquaintance who didn’t seem to think she meant it when she said she wasn’t interested in a long-distance web relationship.

  One from an on-line bookstore, probably notifying her that her order had been shipped.

  And one from someone she didn’t recognize.

  She stared at the unfamiliar screen name.

  Who was Indegrl?

  She had no idea. She clicked on it, and after a brief electronic whirring, a short document appeared.

  Dear Mariel Rowan,

  I was born in St. Thomas’s Hospital outside Syracuse, New York, on July 4, 1987. My parents adopted me. I’m searching for my birth mother. I think you might be her. If you think so, too, please write back. I’m sending a photo attachment in case you want to see if we look alike.

  Sincerely, Amber Steadman

  Mariel couldn’t breathe.

  She couldn’t move.

  She couldn’t think.

  Someplace deep down inside, she had always known this day was coming.

  Now that it was here, she suddenly couldn’t recall whether she had anticipated it with dread…or with longing.

  This girl—this Amber Steadman—this disembodied person…

  This might be the daughter she hadn’t seen since that dazzlingly sunny Independence Day almost fifteen years ago.

  Independence Day.

  At the time, she had told herself that it was fitting that she had given birth on that day, of all days. She had done her duty. Had her baby. All she had to do was place her in the loving arms of the childless, uppermiddle-class married couple she had selected, and she would be free.

  But it hadn’t worked that way.

  Even now, she rarely allowed herself to think of the awful day when she had said good-bye forever to the two people who mattered most in her world.

  Independence.

  Indegrl.

  It has to be her, Mariel told herself, clicking on the download icon, suddenly desperate to see the picture.

  Of course, it didn’t really have to be. There must have been lots of babies born in St. Thomas’s Hospital that day.

  But how many were given up for adoption?

  The picture was starting to appear in strips of color that filled in from the top of her screen downward.

  She could see dark hair, parted in the middle.

  Mariel’s hair was lighter than that.

  A high forehead, no bangs.

  Mariel had always worn bangs.

  So? Hairstyles aren’t hereditary, she reminded herself, watching in fascination as a pair of straight, dark eyebrows appeared, and then green eyes fringed by thick lashes. The lashes were the same shade as the too-dark hair and brows, but the eyes…

  They were Mariel’s eyes.

  Mariel’s fifteen-year-old eyes, looking back at her from a stranger’s face.

  She bit her lip, clutched the arms of her chair, and stared at the computer in trepidation, not sure what she was expecting. The eyes were proof enough. It didn’t matter if the rest of her face didn’t look the least bit like Mariel’s—

  And it didn’t, she realized.

  The nose was too long, the mouth too full.

  Noah’s nose. Noah’s mouth. Noah’s hair and Noah’s brows.

  Mariel’s eyes.

  She let out a shuddering sigh as the truth slammed into her full force at last, far too potent to deny or even second-guess.

  This was positively, absolutely, the child she and Noah had handed over to strangers moments before they had walked away from each other forever.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Where’s Kelly?”

  Noah kissed his mother on the cheek, suppressing a sigh. “You know she works Saturdays,” he told her, noticing that she had colored her hair. Again. “I like the new tint,” he said, patting her head before heading from the tiny entry hall into the galley kitchen.

  His mother closed the door behind him, locked the two bolts, and followed him. “You don’t think it’s too blond?” she asked.

  He did, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. When he was a kid he had tried for years to get her to go back to her natural color, which was probably even darker than his hair. She had always told him that blondes had more fun.

  Which had always struck him as odd, because his mother rarely seemed to have any fun. She was always too busy working two jobs, struggling every month to make the rent on this run-down fifth-floor walk-up on Fortieth Street just south of Queens Boulevard.

  “I brought you soup,” he said, setting down the grocery bag he had lugged two blocks from the subway.

  “I have soup. You didn’t have to do that.”

  He opened the cupboard and saw only one red-andwhite labeled can left from the half dozen he had brought her last Saturday. “So, you’ll have more soup,” he told her, taking out the cans one by one and stacking them in the cupboard. “Chicken and Stars, Chicken Noodle, Chicken Gumbo…geez, Mom, did I get you anything but chicken? Oh, here we go, here’s some vegetable beef.”

  “I like that. I like chicken soup, too. You don’t have to do this, Noah. What’s that?”

  “Black olives. You like black olives.”

  “Don’t buy me olives, Noah. Don’t buy me soup. You don’t—”

  “They were on sale,” he lied, and handed her a box of Ring Dings. “For dessert.”

  “Are you staying for dessert?”

  “Definitely.” He pulled out a chair and sat at the table. It wobbled when he rested his elbows on it, and he bent to look at the legs. “Mom, what happened to that piece of wood I brought you to put under the short leg?”

  “Isn’t it there?” She folded the brown paper grocery bag neatly and put it into the cabinet beneath the sink. “You want some tea, Noah?”

  “Sure.” He should have brought tea bags, he realized, watching her take out a glass jar with only a few left, all herbal. He made a mental note to bring tea bags and another small piece of wood for the table leg.

  “What time is Kelly coming home?” his mother asked, setting the kettle on the gas flame.

  Never, Mom. She’s never coming home.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that. It had been three weeks since Kelly had moved out, and months since they had come to the mutual decision that their marriage was over. He had even placed an ad for a roommate in the Village Voice classifieds, unable to afford the rent without Kelly’s substantial salary, and unwilling to leave the apartment—and the eclectic East Village neighborhood—behind.

  “Noah?”

  He looked up to see his mother watching him, her hands on her hips. She looked old, he notice
d. Old and shabby, in her faded jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with a television network logo. He had given it to her, along with countless others—one of the perks of working in the creative department of a Madison Avenue ad agency. Free T-shirts, caps, nylon bags, plastic cups, key chains—all of them stamped with the names of various cable networks and publications.

  Another perk was all the deodorant, laxatives, and condoms he could use, courtesy of the agency’s biggest client. Now that Kelly was out of the picture, he supposed the condoms might come in handy…if he ever met a woman appealing enough to date, let alone sleep with.

  He and Kelly hadn’t needed condoms. She had an IUD—something most OB-GYNs didn’t recommend for a woman who hadn’t yet had children and intended to start a family. But Noah hadn’t found out about that part until recently. He had always assumed that when they were ready for children, Kelly would have the IUD removed and get pregnant.

  Theoretically, it could have worked that way, despite the doctor’s recommendation. But Kelly hadn’t wanted the IUD to be removed. She hadn’t wanted to get pregnant, and she hadn’t wanted children.

  If only she had told him that before he married her. Before he fell in love with her.

  She claimed she hadn’t realized back then how she felt about motherhood. That she had assumed she would grow into the kind of maternal longing that seemed to seize all of their married friends. As it turned out, Kelly’s biological clock was apparently defective, and she wasn’t the least bit fazed.

  Noah sometimes wondered if their marriage would have continued if she had been willing to have children.

  Possibly.

  Kelly had been easy to fall in love with back when they were both twenty-four and she was a gorgeous, witty, brilliant law student who was crazy about him. And she had been easy to fall out of love with now that they were both thirty-three and she was a gorgeous, witty, brilliant lawyer who was convinced that Noah wasn’t living up to his potential.

  Sooner or later, he would have to tell his mother that he and Kelly were getting divorced.