“No, but I was so busy listening to my own needs I never really considered hers, or at least not honestly. I kept telling Ellen that once she held her baby in her arms everything would change. I was banking on that old mother’s instinct kicking in. I hired someone to help her as soon as we knew the triplets were coming, but I insisted that Ellen and I would be the primary caregivers. I really thought she’d want it that way, too, once the babies came. She never did.”
“How could anyone look at those three precious little girls and not love them instantly?”
“That’s just it. She did love them. More than she imagined she would, I think. But their care was just too overwhelming for her. She didn’t find any satisfaction in it. She told me once that she was choking on ABC’s. She wasn’t fascinated by all the simple things that I found so exciting. When Jessie blew bubbles, it wasn’t cooing to Ellen, it was drooling. When the girls started to walk, they weren’t taking first steps, they were constantly on the brink of falling and hurting themselves. She was repelled by dirty diapers, and the girls’ crying made her nervous. And to further complicate matters, they kept Ellen from doing the things she enjoyed, like shopping or playing tennis or heading up some committee. She felt like life was passing her by. And I couldn’t agree to putting the girls in day care so young or having a live-in caregiver. They weren’t going to be shoved aside like I was. I kept telling myself that Ellen would adjust in time, that once the girls got a little older she’d start enjoying them. My immediate solution was to take her out more, but while she enjoyed that, our late nights left her tired the next day, which meant she had even less patience for the girls.”
Jacob fell silent, thinking back over those days, wondering where he’d made the first mistake, looking, always looking, for the solution that would have been right for both of them. And he came to the same conclusion as always. Maybe they’d found it.
“All women aren’t like Ellen, you know.” Michelle’s words fell softly into the silence.
He thought of Jenny, his former on-air partner. She’d said she loved him, but she needed time to herself, too. Not just an evening without the girls, but evenings at home alone in front of the television set. Jacob had never understood why they couldn’t watch television together. And she’d grown tired of having the triplets as part of the package. She’d liked the girls. She just hadn’t wanted them on a full-time basis. And then there was Katie Walters’s mother. What was it the triplets had heard? Something about how she’d have left, too? Apparently wanting a full-time mother for his children was asking for too much. But then he always had wanted more than he should. His own mother had told him so often enough. Couldn’t he see she had other children to care for besides him?
“I know,” he finally said.
“So relax, partner. I think I can handle anything your girls can dish out. Trust me.”
Jacob wished it was that easy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACOB AND MICHELLE were in the station lunch room getting their caffeine fixes when Bob Chaney handed them an envelope.
“You guys had the best ratings this week, so enjoy the promo,” he said as he walked away. He’d been keeping his distance ever since Michelle had blown up at him the week before.
Michelle opened the envelope, half expecting to find a gift certificate for dinner for two at some romantic out-of-the way spot. She was surprised when she pulled out four tickets to Disneyland.
“What is it?” Jacob asked, sipping his coffee. His T-shirt was blue this morning, depicting a beautiful Colorado skyline. The color looked good on him.
“Four tickets to Disneyland. Two for you and two for me.”
“Seems like he got our message. We get to take dates,” Jacob said with a grin.
Michelle wondered why that didn’t please her as much as it should have. “I guess. Here.” She handed him the tickets.
He handed two back. “You get these.”
Michelle turned back to the pop machine. “You go ahead, Jacob. Take the girls.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Michelle. I’m not taking your promo.”
She faced him, a can of soda in hand. “And what am I going to do with two tickets to Disneyland? Take Noby? You know I don’t date, and I can’t think of a single friend who would choose to spend an entire day with me, rather than with the man in her life.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. It wasn’t Jacob’s fault she didn’t have anybody of her own to take to Disneyland. “Take the girls, Jacob. They’ll love it.”
“Then you’ll have to come with us.”
“We only have four tickets.”
“So we’ll buy one more. I’m not taking these tickets unless you come along with us. Think of it as research. You can get a good look at Cinderella and her evil stepsisters while we’re there.”
As weak as it was, she accepted the excuse. “Okay, sounds like fun. When should we go?”
“How about Saturday?”
“Saturday’s fine. Around eight?”
“Why don’t we pick you up at seven and have breakfast on the way. My treat. We can tell the girls tonight.”
It was only later that Michelle wondered if they’d both been a little too eager to spend the day together. She was in this for the kids. Period.
* * *
“YOU GONNA SEW Jessie’s other sleeve on when you finish sewing that one, Michelle?” Allie asked Wednesday night after supper. She was holding the sleeve in question.
“As soon as I trim the threads on this one,” Michelle said. She took her foot off the sewing-machine pedal long enough to turn the sleeve currently under the needle. She was finding it a little difficult to maneuver the material with Jessie hanging on her arm.
“I can trim the threads for you,” Allie said.
“How do you make it go so straight?” Jessie asked, leaning to get a better look.
“See that line?” Michelle asked, pointing to a plate on her machine. Jessie nodded. “I just keep the edge of the material even with it, like this.”
Meggie wandered over to peer at the sewing machine.
“You get that lace measured out like I showed you, Meggie?” Michelle asked.
“Almost,” Meggie replied, returning to her task.
Michelle pulled one of the pins out of the sleeve before the needle hit it.
“Here’s the pin cushion,” Allie said, taking the pin to put it in the cushion herself. “How about if I take all of the pins out for you?” she asked.
“What can I do? It’s my sleeve,” Jessie said, still holding on to Michelle.
“You can help me guide the material,” Michelle said. “See, take the bottom edge, and help me keep it on the line.”
“Like this?” Jessie asked. She’d let go of Michelle’s arm but was having a problem getting a good hold on the material.
“Here,” Michelle said, lifting her foot from the pedal again to move Jessie onto her lap. “Now we can do it together.”
“And I’ll do the pins, all right?” Allie asked.
“Okay, you can be the pin lady,” Michelle said, trying to slow the machine down to a speed Jessie could handle. “How’s the lace coming, Meggie?”
“Fine.”
Jessie started to slip off Michelle’s lap and tried to right herself, pushing one foot against the floor. But she missed and pushed against Michelle’s foot.
The sewing machine whirred loudly as the needle sped into triple time, pulling the material out of Michelle’s grasp. There was a loud cracking noise, and everything stopped.
“What happened?” Jessie and Allie asked at once.
“What was that noise?” Meggie asked, coming over to see what was going on.
Michelle leaned around Jessie to get a closer look at the sewing machine. �
��I think we just broke a needle.”
“Uh-oh,” Allie said, backing up.
Jessie scooted off Michelle’s lap.
Meggie went back to cutting lace.
After Michelle removed the broken needle, she turned to the girls. Two of them were watching her carefully, their faces puckered with worry. Meggie was hunched over her lace.
“Hey!” Michelle smiled. “It’s no big deal, you guys. Needles break all the time. That’s why I have extras. Allie, bring me my sewing basket.”
Meggie handed the basket to her sister, who hurried over to Michelle with it. Jessie scooted closer.
It took Michelle only a couple of moments to realize she’d left her extra needles at home.
Allie looked worried again when she heard the news. Jessie started to cry. Meggie’s scissors were snipping away.
Michelle cuddled Jessie under one arm and went over to Allie, pulling her under the other. “So I guess we’ll just have to take a trip to my house,” she said. “You girls can come along and say hi to Noby. You remember Noby, don’t you?”
Meggie stopped cutting. All three girls nodded.
“She’s probably pretty lonely, so it’s good to be able to take a break and go see her. Allie, why don’t you run out and tell your daddy where we’re going?”
Allie hurried outside to where Jacob was waxing his 4x4. Jessie hopped up and down, obviously eager to get going, her tears forgotten. Meggie went back to cutting.
“Come on, Meggie, you can finish that when we get back.”
“I’m staying home with Daddy,” she said, concentrating on her task.
Michelle frowned. “Don’t you want to see Noby?”
“I wanna stay home with Daddy,” Meggie said, neatly sidestepping Michelle’s question.
Michelle walked over to the little girl. “You don’t have to come, Meggie. I just want you to know that I’d love to have you along if you want to come.”
“I’ll stay with Daddy,” Meggie said, still not looking up from her lace.
“How about if we bring you back some ice cream?” Michelle asked, determined to reach the little girl.
“Okay, if you want.”
And with that, Michelle knew she had to be satisfied.
* * *
ALLIE THOUGHT Saturday was never going to come. All day Friday she kept waiting for school to be over, but it was taking forever. Every time Allie looked at the watch her daddy had bought her for Christmas, the numbers had barely changed at all. She thought maybe the battery wasn’t so good anymore, but if it wasn’t, then the clocks at school weren’t working, either, ’cause when her teacher dismissed them for lunch, it was the exact time on Allie’s watch that lunch was s’posed to be.
Lunch was hardest of all. She kept being afraid that Meggie or Jessie was going to need her for something, and then she’d blab everything and one of them would ruin it. This was one plan she was just going to have to do on her own. She could, too. Because then she and her sisters would live happily ever after.
She and Jessie and Meggie had been to Disneyland lots of times, and Allie knew plain and simple that five people couldn’t sit together on the rides. So she was going to make sure her sisters sat with her. Then her daddy and Michelle would have to sit together and after a whole day of being next to each other they’d fall in love. Now all Allie had to do was keep her big mouth shut and not tell her sisters that Michelle was going to be their new mommy. Not yet. Not until they got back from Disneyland. Then she’d tell them. After all, she wanted them to know she was the one who got Michelle for them—just in case they ever found out she was the one who started the whole trouble in the first place by being born first. But keeping such important stuff a secret was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
* * *
FRIDAY NIGHT, Michelle dropped Noby off at her parents for the weekend, worried that her pet was getting depressed at being left alone so much. Her mom and dad seemed delighted to cat-sit, but Michelle knew, as fond as they were of Noby, it wasn’t her cat they were worked up about.
She wanted to tell them not to read more into her time with Jacob and his girls than was there, to remind them that she was a married woman, that until Brian was found, one way or the other, she would remain a married woman. But she’d been telling herself the same things all week, and if she hadn’t managed to curtail her own excitement at the thought of the next day, she knew she’d fail miserably with her parents.
Sometimes she wondered if she wasn’t overdoing her loyalty to a man she hadn’t heard from in almost five years. She wanted to put her life back on track, to have babies, to raise a family. She didn’t want to grow old alone. And yet each time she thought about putting the past to rest, there was something inside her holding her to the vows that she and Brian had made. She was certain he hadn’t left her by choice. And until she knew for sure he’d left her for good, she couldn’t stop being married to him. There was a bond between them—forged many years ago by their young idealistic love—that refused to be broken. Michelle suspected that the reason she still felt that bond so strongly was because Brian was alive somewhere, willing her to wait for him.
And she’d wait forever if she had to, she told herself as she drove home later that evening. But she was going to do what living she could while she waited. Her mother had been right to claim that Michelle had quit reaching out to people. She’d forgotten how good it felt to help someone else, how much less time it left for worrying about her own problems. Now Jacob’s girls were filling up some of the empty spaces inside her; she just had to be careful not to let their father do the same.
* * *
SHE WAS READY and waiting at seven o’clock Saturday morning when Jacob’s Explorer pulled into her driveway. The triplets were buckled up in a row in the backseat, looking absolutely adorable in their identical denim overalls, red T-shirts, high-top tennis shoes and their hair up in ponytails. But it was their differences that stole Michelle’s heart as she told them all good-morning and slid into the front beside Jacob.
“Michelle, guess what? We’re stopping at McDonald’s for breakfast on the way,” Allie piped up from the middle of the back seat.
“I get to sit next to you,” Jessie confided.
“At McDonald’s, she means,” Allie added importantly.
“Hi,” Meggie said, not quite containing her smile.
“I missed you guys yesterday, you know that?” Michelle said, smiling at them. The day was perfect already, and it had only just begun.
They arrived at the Magic Kingdom just as the gates were opening. Jacob pulled into one of the few vacant parking spaces in the Thumper lot, and by the time he’d turned off the ignition the girls had unfastened their seat belts. Meggie tugged on one door handle and Jessie on the other, while Allie bounced impatiently between them.
“Come on, you guys,” Allie said.
“Whoa!”
Michelle was startled by Jacob’s stern tone—and by the reaction he got. The girls froze in their seats, three pairs of dark eyes trained on their father.
“I want the rules one more time,” Jacob said, turning around. “Jessie?”
“We stick together and always hold someone’s hand.”
“Good. And?”
“If we have to go, we tell you before we get in a long line.”
Jacob smiled. “You got it. Meggie?”
“No running.”
“Right. Allie?”
“If we get lost, we go to the castle and wait there.”
“Right.”
“But we won’t, you know, Daddy. We never do.”
“I know, sport, but I’m supposed to worry, anyway,” he said, giving Allie’s ponytail a tug. “Now let’s get this show on the road.”
The girls climb
ed out of the 4x4, not one ounce less excited, but much more contained. Michelle was impressed.
She was having trouble containing her own excitement as they entered the park and headed down Main Street. The sun was shining, glinting off the lampposts lining the street. The shops beckoned with their colorful displays of candy and stuffed renditions of every Disney character ever to have graced a motion-picture screen. And best of all was the magnificent blue-and-white castle that stood tall and proud at the end of Main Street. Michelle figured even the staunchest scrooge couldn’t look at that castle and not feel, just for an instant, that dreams really did come true.
They decided, at Allie’s urging, to tackle Fantasyland first and work their way around the entire park. Michelle thought the plan seemed a bit too elaborate for seven-year-olds, but by the sounds of the chatter between the girls and Jacob, doing Disneyland—all of it—was nothing new to them. She hoped she would be able to hold out.
The girls skipped between Jacob and her, talking as fast as their little mouths could manage. Michelle wondered if they even heard each other, as none of them seemed to stay quiet long enough for a single word to reach them.
“We’ll do Snow White’s Scary Adventures first, Daddy, okay?” Allie asked, glancing up at her father.
“Fine, sport.” Jacob nodded. Though he was watching the girls like a hawk, he looked more relaxed than Michelle had ever seen him. If she wasn’t mistaken, Jacob Ryan was as affected by the magic around them as she was.
Another family brushed past, and Michelle saw the mother turn around, do a double take and then nudge her husband. Michelle smiled, not yet used to the attention the triplets attracted wherever they went. She supposed to these strangers she was the mother who completed Jacob’s family unit, and she wished suddenly that it was true. She could only imagine how it would feel to be the nucleus of a family, but she figured that this day with Jacob and his children was the closest she’d come to it. It might be the closest she’d ever come to it. And she was going to enjoy every minute, she determined as she followed the girls toward Snow White’s Scary Adventures.
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