by Beth K. Vogt
“Let me put this in my car. Then we’ll tackle the crib. And if you’re interested, I’d be glad to help you organize the garage, maybe unpack some of the boxes.”
“That’s okay, Stephen. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“I offered.” He stood in the archway, tossing a wink at her over his shoulder. “I’m going out of town for a couple of days, but when I get back, I’ll check into a hotel down the road and we’ll clear out the garage. I’ll even paint a room or two if you want.”
“Not crazy about the orange?”
“Are you?”
“I can’t say I am.”
“Well, choose another color, then. If you need painting done, I’m your man.”
No, he wasn’t.
His words punctured her heart with the swiftness of a well-aimed bullet even as the familiar scent of lime lingered after Stephen left. Why did Stephen prefer what Sam would have called “men’s perfume” while Sam stuck with a no-frills soap-on-a-rope that his mother gave him every Christmas?
thirteen
Haley carried her laptop into her bedroom, waiting for her brother to respond to her instant message. She settled against a pile of pillows, the computer resting against her baby bump. Well, it was more than a bump, with six weeks to go.
Her message remained unanswered in the white box on the lower right-hand part of the Facebook screen. She’d typed You want to Skype?
She tapped her fingers on the keyboard, checking her e-mail while she waited for David, flipping back and forth between tabs. Finally he responded.
Sorry, Hal. Don’t have time to Skype.
Got a few minutes to IM?
Sure. How ya doing?
No complaints. Unless you want to hear about how many times I go to the bathroom at night.
NO.
Didn’t think so.
You keeping your guard up?
She shook her head, mustering a half laugh at his big-brother way of reminding her to be strong, to not let life take her down.
Always.
Seriously, Hal—you need anything?
Haley paused with her hands over the keyboard. She needed advice. The kind only a big brother could give.
I’m good. Sam’s brother has been hanging around some.
Why?
He wants to talk about Sam. Helped put up the crib. Wants to paint the baby’s room.
Are you okay with all that?
Sure. Shouldn’t I be? It’s okay for me to help Sam’s brother, isn’t it? For him to help me?
You tell me, Hal. Didn’t you say the guy looks just like Sam?
He’s not exactly like Sam.
Identical twins, right?
Okay, they look exactly alike. But they have different personalities.
You’re confusing me.
How to explain this to her brother over instant messaging?
I’ve noticed differences. That’s all.
Whatever you say. So long as it doesn’t weird you out, I don’t see a problem with it. Maybe he feels bad that he wasn’t around more when his brother was alive and wants to help you now.
That’s what he said.
Guys are uncomplicated, Hal. He’s helping you because he misses his brother. You okay with that?
Sure.
David signed off a few moments later.
Was she fine? There was no easy way to answer that. Most mornings the remembrance of what she’d lost—whom she’d lost—jerked her awake. And then she’d have a morning like today when sleep disappeared in slow blinks of her eyes and emptiness lay soft in her heart, forcing her to weigh it and find a way to balance it with yesterday, today, and all the tomorrows without Sam.
She clicked on the folder labeled “Sam’s E-mails,” searching for the one titled “Follow Up” and dated a few weeks before his death.
I miss you, Hal.
I know you’re upset that I re-upped. But we talked about it before I left. And I thought about it all the way over here. Talked about it with some of the other guys. The bonus is just too good to pass up. You get that, right? We can save it for that house you keep talking about.
Just because I reenlisted for a couple more years doesn’t mean I’m going to make a career of the army. We’ll talk about that. I promise.
I need to cut this short—have to go train.
I love you. Take care of yourself. I know you will. You always do.
S
Why hadn’t she responded? Told him she loved him, too? Told him that she thought she might be pregnant?
She’d filed the e-mail and waited for his next phone call—and then acted as if everything was fine. Let him talk about his day. His buddies. And when he brought up reenlisting, she said, “I get it, Sam. Decision made.”
Even though she didn’t get it. She was married to a man who seemed intent on leaving her . . . again and again and again.
Why, God? Did Sam really prefer being deployed over being home with her? Wasn’t she enough for him to come home to?
She slammed the laptop shut.
She didn’t want an answer. The truth might rip the flimsy bandage off her shredded heart, allowing her to fully feel the pain she’d suppressed for months. The emptiness that had stalked her even before Sam’s death.
fourteen
The warm fluid trickling down her thigh didn’t mean anything. All pregnant women had a little bit of incontinence.
Right. Haley would lock herself in the bathroom that needed to be painted, the fixtures updated, for the next six weeks and keep telling herself a lie. This is what Kegel exercises were for: stopping that bothersome third-trimester leakage when you sneezed. Or laughed. Or coughed.
Only she hadn’t sneezed. Or laughed. Or coughed.
She had gone back to her bedroom to get a pair of shoes because Stephen Ames, bossy man, told her that she couldn’t work in the garage if she was barefoot. She bent over to get her tennis shoes and felt something . . . something wrong.
Haley stood in the bathroom off her bedroom, gripping the edge of the chipped porcelain sink, and refused to look at herself in the mirror. Questions piled up like a mental traffic jam in her head—questions she couldn’t answer.
Was that amniotic fluid?
If it was amniotic fluid—and it wasn’t!—what happened next?
Could she ignore what was happening?
Stephen called her name from the living room. “Sorry, Rogers. You’re going to have to figure out whatever you need by yourself.” She was a little busy right now trying to determine if the baby had found a new position on her bladder or if she was leaking amniotic fluid.
Which she wasn’t.
She couldn’t be in labor. Yes, her back was a bit tweaky this morning—but it had bothered her on and off for the last month. She wasn’t having contraction-contractions. It was too early. Lily had given the class a brief rundown of the potential complications of preterm labor last week. Haley had joked with Claire that she’d be the woman who delivered two weeks past her due date.
Claire! She needed to call Claire . . . who was in Vail this weekend with Finn to celebrate their anniversary.
“Go on,” Haley had told her. “I won’t do anything but gain weight while you’re gone.”
Where was her phone? Back in the garage, where she and Stephen were going to spend the day unpacking boxes. Fine. She’d walk out there, pick up her phone, and come back to the privacy of her room and call Claire. She took three steps and felt another warm gush of fluid.
No. No. No. Please, let me have wet my pants.
Haley pulled a light blue towel off the rack and, one slow step at a time, moved from the bathroom to the end of the bed. She laid the towel over the comforter before sitting down. So far, no more fluid. It was probably nothing. Nothing at all.
“Stephen!” When he didn’t answer, she raised her voice. “Stephen!”
Nothing. Of course; he was still in the garage. Like it or not, she needed to walk at least as far as the living room.
>
“God, I’m asking you to please, please, please don’t let me have this baby.”
She held her breath as she stood and inched her way from the bedroom and down the hallway. When she stood just inside the living room she tried again. “Stephen Rogers Ames!”
A quick pounding of footsteps preceded Stephen’s appearance. “Did you just use all three of my names?”
She must have sounded like his mother. “Sorry. You didn’t hear me when I called from the bedroom. Could you get my phone, please?”
He cocked his head to the side. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She wasn’t lying. Not really. She didn’t know if there was anything wrong yet.
She leaned against the wall and counted up to ten and back while she waited for him to return. As she took the iPhone from him, Stephen scanned her up and down, his eyebrows drawn together over his so-familiar brown eyes. “Why don’t I believe you when you say you’re okay?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m standing in a puddle in the middle of the hallway?”
“What?” He looked down at her feet and then up at the ceiling, as if he expected to see a leak. “There’s no puddle.”
“I’ll explain in a minute.” She half turned away, then looked back at Stephen. “Would you get me a glass of water?”
“Sure. But you’re not fooling me. If you don’t want me to listen to the conversation, just say so.”
“Fine. I don’t want you to—” She gasped as more fluid trickled down her leg.
Stephen froze. “Haley, tell me what’s wrong. Now. Please.”
The man was polite even when he was being forceful. “I think my water broke.”
The next thing she knew, Stephen had picked her up and carried her to the couch, but he didn’t release her. “Wait. Do you want to rest on the couch or on your bed?”
His face was inches from hers and she could see the scar that ran along his chin. “Here is fine.”
He settled her on the couch, disappearing down the hallway as she hit the speed dial for Claire. “Pick up. Don’t be skiing. Don’t be napping. Don’t be . . . doing anything else.”
Claire picked up on the third ring, sounding half-asleep. “Haley, you better be calling me to tell me that you gained ten pounds.”
Haley gripped the phone so tight her fingers hurt. Right now she’d take the extra ten pounds without a complaint. “I think my water broke.”
“What? No, it didn’t. We agreed nothing was going to happen while I was gone, remember? I’m in Vail. You’re not going into labor.”
“I’m not in labor.” She paused when Stephen reappeared with at least half the towels in her linen closet in his arms, motioning for him to wait. “And I said I think—as in maybe my water broke. Maybe.”
“Did you call the hospital?”
“No. I called you.” She closed her eyes when Stephen tried to mouth something at her.
“Haley, I can’t do anything but worry. Call the hospital and then call me back.”
“But, Claire—”
“Hanging up now. Wait—is anybody there with you?”
“Stephen Ames is—we were organizing the garage.”
“Let me talk to Stephen.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
Haley held her phone out to Stephen. “She wants to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“My friend Claire.”
He dumped the towels on the end of the couch and took the phone, pacing the living room, nodding his head while saying, “I will,” and shaking his head while saying, “I won’t,” over and over to Claire before hanging up.
Haley rested her hands on her tummy, forcing herself to relax her shoulders. Stay put, buddy. I’m not ready yet. You’re not ready yet. She cut off the internal monologue with her unborn son when Stephen hung up the phone. “What did she say?”
“She told me to make sure you called the hospital. And then she told me to not let you have the baby until she got back.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes—she kept repeating herself until her husband took the phone from her, told me to call back as soon as we knew anything, and then hung up.”
Five minutes later, Haley stared at the phone in her hand, refusing to look at Stephen, who stood at the end of the couch watching her. She could obey the nurse’s instruction to come into the hospital and be examined—or she could sit on the towel and ignore whatever was happening in her body.
“What did the nurse say?”
“She told me to come in and get checked out.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I didn’t say I was going.”
“Haley—”
“Stephen, I am not having this baby yet. I’m not.”
He knelt down next to the couch and covered her hands with his, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Fine. You aren’t having this baby yet.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m agreeing with you.” His thumb rubbed across the back of her hand. “It seemed like the best thing to do.”
“I don’t want to be in labor. Not yet. I’m not ready.” She covered her face with her hands, muffling her words. “I haven’t packed a bag. I haven’t figured out how to do this without Sam. I’m not ready to be a mother.”
Stephen clasped her hands with his, easing them away from her face. “All we’re doing is going to the hospital to check things out. That’s it. Now, come on, let me get you to the car.”
“I can’t go like this.”
“What do you want to do—change into something more formal?” Stephen’s smile invaded a corner of her heart that she’d walled off, even as it encouraged her to relax. To believe that things would be okay.
“I’m . . . damp—” Oh, she never thought she’d say those words to a man. “I need to change into some dry clothes.”
She moved to stand, but Stephen pressed a hand against her shoulder. “Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.”
“For goodness’ sakes, Stephen, my legs still work.”
“Just tell me.”
Their stare-down lasted a full minute—and she blinked first. “Fine. Get me a pair of my sweatpants from the bottom drawer in my dresser. And a hand towel from the linen closet in the hallway.”
He motioned to the pile of towels at the end of the couch. “Won’t one of these towels work?”
“Just get me the hand towel.”
When her phone rang, she greeted Claire without even looking at the display.
“Well?”
She sucked in a breath. Exhaled. She would do this. Get checked. Come back home and laugh at the false alarm. “I’m going to the hospital.”
“Are you in labor?” Claire’s voice rose with each word she spoke.
“I sincerely hope not, but the nurse insisted I come in and get checked.” Haley brushed her hair out of her face. She should have told Stephen to get her a clip for her hair. “I’ll be back home in no time.”
“We’re heading back to the Springs.”
“Don’t do that!”
“Are you kidding me? I’m your coach!”
“And this is your anniversary weekend.”
“Finn already talked to the manager and added an extra night. We’re leaving everything here, just getting in the car and coming your way.”
Haley eyed the hallway. How long did it take for Stephen to find a pair of sweats and a hand towel? “Let me go to the hospital and get checked, Claire. Sit tight. I’ll call you in an hour, okay? Even if I am in labor—and I’m not—I won’t be having this baby right away, according to Lily.”
“All right—but only if you promise to call me as soon as you know what’s going on.”
“I promise.”
When Stephen came back with her replacement clothes, she considered her options. “Why don’t you go start the car?”
He stood at the end of the couch, hands on his hips. “What?”
“I need some privacy.” She shook the g
ray sweatpants in the air.
“Oh—right. Call me when you’re ready.”
From his position in the center of the kitchen, Stephen watched the minutes tick by on the microwave. At the five-minute mark, he paced toward the living room. “Are you—”
“Do not come in here, Rogers. I will kill you.”
He froze. “Right. Not coming in. Hey, you’re not planning on taking any of your guns with you, are you?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I’ve seen you handle a gun, Haley. I want to know how serious your threat was.”
“Very funny.” The sound of Haley’s too-rare laugh followed. “Actually, that is funny. Did I ever apologize for threatening you?”
“Nope.”
“Remind me to do that sometime when I’m not busy.”
“Deal.” How serious could things be if Haley could joke with him about their first meeting?
“All right. I’m decent.”
When he reentered the room, she’d moved to the edge of the couch. “Can you hand me my keys? They’re hanging by the—”
“Haley, don’t be stupid.” He scooped her back into his arms. “I’m driving.”
She leaned away from him. “Did you just call me stupid?”
“Yes. Don’t make me say it again.”
“I am not getting in a car with a man who insults me.”
He shifted her so that she was closer, her hand resting against his chest. “Doesn’t look like you have much say in the matter. Remind me to apologize sometime when I’m not so busy.” He ignored her huff of air. “Where’s your suitcase?”
“I don’t have one. I’m not in labor. It’s too early. As far as I knew, I still had a few weeks to get my delivery bag packed.”
“If you get admitted, I’ll come home and get what you need.”
“Claire can do it.”
“Didn’t you say that she and her husband went to the mountains?”
“Yes, but she’s on alert to come back.” She leaned forward and opened the front door.
“I don’t suppose this would be a good time to ask if they checked the weather report. It’s been snowing up at the Eisenhower Tunnel for the past couple of hours.”
“Did not hear that. Did. Not. Hear. That.” Haley closed her eyes as if she could block out his words by not looking at him. “Maybe I should have brought a towel to sit on.”