Karl might be parentless. The University of Chicago Hospitals were supposed to be the best in the city for cardiac care, but even the best doctors made mistakes sometimes. His anger rang through his ears at that thought. If one of the doctors made a mistake with his mother, he’d make sure they paid for their error.
He was still too young to go to a parent’s funeral, even if he’d already been to his father’s.
Vivian’s talking broke through the fog. “I’m just the daughter-in-law. Her kids are here now.”
The doctor blinked a few times before shifting to include the rest of the family without excluding Vivian. “Your mother had a heart attack. We’ve done an angioplasty and inserted a stent. She’ll need to stay in the hospital tonight for observation, but she can go home tomorrow, Thursday at the latest. She’ll also start receiving some lifestyle instruction about weight loss and exercise, and it’s important that she follow those instructions after discharge.”
My mother is alive. His heart didn’t unclench, but at least he began breathing again.
Everyone started talking all at once, asking if she’d be able to go back to work, the risk of another heart attack, if she’d need a nurse at home and how she’d come to have a heart attack. Karl didn’t know which questions were his and which were asked by his siblings and their partners. Each question was asked at least three times by different people.
Vivian’s soft voice broke through the din. “When can we see her?”
Karl stopped midquestion to look at his runaway wife, who was avoiding his gaze.
“She’s sleeping now,” the doctor replied, “and will probably sleep through the night, but you can see her if you want. She’ll be able to receive visitors in the morning.”
The entire family turned as one unit to follow the doctor and assure themselves their mother was still alive.
Karl didn’t speak to Vivian at all as they were led through sterile hospital hallways to view their sleeping mother, back through more hallways to fill out paperwork, back through a few more hallways to get to the hospital parking and finally through the cold, dark garage.
He walked Vivian to her car, calmed by the fact that she was still in Chicago. The sheer relief that his mother was alive overpowered his uncertain feelings about Vivian for the time being.
He’d stood at his mother’s bedside with the din of the hospital thrumming around him and thought about the almost adult-size coffin that his brother, Leon, had been buried in. But every time the panic at the death of another family member started to overtake him, he’d get a whiff of Vivian’s jasmine perfume. The exotic scent grounded him in the present. His mom was not dead, she was sleeping. She would wake up and the doctors said she would be back at work within a week or two. His grandmother’s funeral would continue to be the last family funeral he’d been to.
As he watched Vivian unlock her car door, he wanted to reach out and grab her hand, to feel the warmth of her dexterous fingers and to know his future shared the lifeblood that pumped through her veins. His mother was in the hospital, but the present still had hope.
* * *
VIVIAN BEAT THEM all to his mother’s and was unlocking the door to the kitchen when Karl pulled into the driveway. Without jasmine clouding his brain he’d had fear to muddle his emotions and he got out of the car angry.
“What in God’s name were you doing at the hospital?” he yelled up the driveway as he walked to her. “I get home, expecting to find you waiting for me, and instead I find that stupid bird, no note and a call from some neighborhood cop saying my mom was in the hospital.” His fears were exploding out of him, and years of practice at showing the world only the face he wanted it to see couldn’t stop the outburst. If she cared she didn’t show it, she just unlocked the side door with his mother’s keys and let herself into the house. “Just as I’m thinking you’ve driven off to God only knows where, I find you sitting in a hospital waiting room, having been at my mother’s house when she had a heart attack.”
His wife’s eyes were drooping and her face was drawn when she sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “By the time I realized I hadn’t left you a note about Xìnyùn, I’d changed my mind about leaving.”
Karl walked over to the sink, thought about what she’d said and pushed off the counter. She was only going to leave a note about the bird? When he got back to the table, he was too angry to sit. “Leaving to go where?” he asked, still hoping her answer would be the grocery store.
“Nevada. I was on my way to my aunt.”
“You were on your way to Nevada and the only note you were going to leave was about the bird?” His clenched jaw meant the words barely made it past his lips.
“Well, I...”
“You didn’t think I’d want to know where you were going and, you know, about the baby?” How was he supposed to be able to find her if she only left a note about the bird, with no indication of where she was going? Did she even know if her aunt would take her in? He was going to find a place for her in Chicago, just not in his apartment, where he could smell her and she could drive him crazy.
“I think Aunt Kitty would have taken me in.” She looked bewildered and Karl didn’t know if it was because of his anger or the stupidity of her near cross-country drive. He didn’t really care.
“You were going to drive across the country based on the uncertainty of the verb think?”
“And I was going to let you know when I got there. I wasn’t going to keep information about Jelly Bean from you.”
“Jelly Bean?” Tilly’s voice asked. Karl looked up to see Tilly, Dan, Renia and Miles crowded in the kitchen doorway.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know there’s a baby,” Tilly said, her face radiating the innocence only youngest siblings could achieve.
“Does Mom know?” Renia asked.
“No,” Karl growled. “Mom doesn’t know. Vivian didn’t want her to know.”
“It’s bad luck to tell people before the third month,” Vivian said, defensively.
“I’m going to be an aunt,” Tilly exclaimed, before glancing at Renia. “Again. I’m going to be an aunt again. How far along are you?”
“Seven weeks.”
The room was silent as they did the math. Karl had avoided all questions about how he and Vivian met and got married, but everyone in the room knew he’d gone to Las Vegas alone for a conference and now everyone knew Vivian had gotten pregnant sometime during that week. A month later he’d been introducing her to people as his wife when nary a soul had met her before.
“Miles?” Renia asked her husband. “Why don’t you look as surprised as the rest of us?”
“Sarah and I ran into the happy couple at the library. Karl was holding What to Expect When You’re Expecting like it was a land mine he’d fished out of a Cambodian swamp and was afraid to put down.”
“And you kept this from me?”
Miles shrugged. “Wasn’t my secret to tell. If I’d known how good the secret was...”
“Neither Vivian’s life nor mine is a soap opera to be dissected.” His sisters stopped their chatter, but neither looked particularly apologetic. “Thank you, Miles, for trying to maintain my privacy.”
“Hey, it was worth it to be here at the great reveal.”
Now that his family was all here, he could think about something more concrete than his feelings for Vivian. “Let’s focus on Mom’s care. Even though the doctor said her recovery would be quick and she could go back to work soon, I think someone should stay with her. Maybe help out at the restaurant. Work is killing me right now, so I can’t be here for her. Miles, Renia and Dan, you have the freest schedules. Can you guys care for Mom?”
* * *
WHY COULDN’T KARL see the obvious solution? “I can do it,” Vivian said from her chair, h
er voice not quite rising to interrupt the arguing family members standing above her.
“I’m scheduled on a trip to visit some of our producers,” Dan said. “But if I can get those postponed, or I can get someone else to cover them, I can definitely help Miles and Renia.”
“I can do it,” Vivian repeated. She really should stand up and assert herself, but she was too exhausted.
“I’ll set up an online calendar,” Miles offered. “Then we can coordinate schedules online and sync them with our phones...”
Vivian opened her mouth to repeat herself again and was interrupted by Renia. “You men are so busy trying to manage the situation that you’ve not heard Vivian offer to stay home with Mom.”
“Can you help at Healthy Food, Mom’s restaurant, too?” Tilly asked. “Edward can manage the restaurant in Mom’s absence, but they’ll need someone to work the register.”
“I can work the register.” After two weeks of perfecting her cooking and walking down every street in the Loop, Vivian was grateful to have an opportunity to be useful and working again.
“She is not working at Healthy Food, nor is she staying home with Mom.” Karl’s voice didn’t leave any room for argument, but Renia argued anyway.
“She’s not fit,” her husband said, finally.
As much as she wanted to let his words slide right off her back, they stung. She’d lived in his apartment for two weeks and not done anything but feed him and look for a job. What exactly did he think she would do to his mother?
“Is the pregnancy that risky?” Renia and Tilly’s faces wore matching expressions of concern.
“It’s not the pregnancy.” Karl’s mouth barely opened wide enough for the words to come out. If one of his relatives tapped him, he’d shatter.
“Just because I was fired from Middle Kingdom for cheating doesn’t mean I can’t work a register and remind your mom to take her meds.” Four pairs of eyes blinked rapidly, but Vivian didn’t care. Now that Karl knew her dirty little secret, she didn’t see why the rest of the family couldn’t know, too. Just throw the whole mess—one-night stand, drunken marriage, pregnancy, all of it—out into the light of day and see what happened.
She knew she didn’t deserve the distrust emanating from Karl, especially as she was volunteering to help the family out by taking care of a woman who didn’t even like her. “You wanted me out of the apartment. This would give me a place to live and something to do.”
“But the register...” Karl protested.
“Whatever story your FBI agent cronies told you should at least convince you that I’m good at counting and have fast hands. I worked at that casino for sixteen years, and no one ever managed to pass a cheat by me. I can work a register.”
“Let’s not decide this now,” Renia said. “We can all go home, sleep on it and come to a decision tomorrow. Maybe Mom wants a say in her future.”
Vivian looked at Karl. While it felt like forever ago, it was only earlier this evening that she’d been driving out of Chicago to leave Karl and his suspicions behind. Now she was offering to stay in the city to take care of a mother-in-law who didn’t like her on behalf of a husband who didn’t trust her.
At least there was security in caring for Mrs. Milek, only...where would she sleep tonight?
“Vivian, perhaps you would like to stay at our place tonight?” Tilly offered. “We have a spare room.”
Vivian flashed her blue-haired sister-in-law a grateful look. “I would really appreciate it.”
“No, Tilly, you know you have to get to your restaurant early tomorrow. Vivian can stay with Miles and me in Sarah’s room for the night, and we’ll get her set up in Mom’s house tomorrow.”
The line of Karl’s jaw tightened, as if he was thinking of arguing, but he didn’t say a word in protest.
It was only when she got to Renia’s house that Vivian thought to text Karl a short message with instructions for Xìnyùn’s care.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KARL SLIPPED THROUGH the church doors and into the end of a back pew right before the priest proceeded down the aisle. Mass was the first time he’d come south of Cermak since his mother’s heart attack.
He’d let his managing sisters get Vivian set up to work at Healthy Food and get their mother home from the hospital. He didn’t want to see his mom shuffling around the house in a robe, maybe with an oxygen tank and definitely surrounded by pills. Nor did he want to be surrounded by the smell of jasmine and its ambrosial lie of a fake marriage and very real baby.
His feeble excuse was that he was swamped with work. After threats and some badgering, the law department had sent another disc—still heavily redacted. Plus, back at his condo there was that stupid bird to take care of. He didn’t neglect his responsibilities, despite the bird being ahead in the H-O-R-S-E basketball challenge, fifty games to ten.
He recited the greetings in unison with the rest of the congregation, as he had most Sundays for as long as he could remember. People around him stood and kneeled and sat, and he used the familiar rhythm to let his mind wander into the thoughts he’d kept at bay all week. Despite his fears—which he knew were irrational—his mother was fine. She was going to survive the heart attack. She was going to learn to eat better food and maybe start walking to work instead of driving the couple of blocks. Another family member he loved hadn’t died on him. He wouldn’t be an orphan; he’d be a twice-divorced man with a child he hardly ever saw and a bird whose name he couldn’t pronounce. Not exactly the future his father had imagined for him.
My boys! his dad would say. Karl’s going to do important things one day. My wife says he’s going to be president, but I think he’ll stay closer to home and his family.
He was close to home and his family, and he was doing important things. What more could the ghost of his dad expect out of him? He had tried marriage, and it hadn’t worked out. What he had with Vivian didn’t count, as neither of them could define what they had with each other, and if they couldn’t define it, they couldn’t know what it was. She was pregnant with his child, and he was making sure he didn’t neglect his responsibilities. Everything else was...fuzzy.
You’re just going through the motions of marriage and family because it’s expected of you, Jessica had accused him at the beginning of the end of their marriage. The only thing you care about is your work, as if it will bring your family back to life. We could have a family of our own, but I don’t think you can flex your mind even the slightest to see how that might be possible.
Hearing the Nicene Creed said by the man next to him was a surprise and Karl wasn’t able to catch up until the second line. He’d completely missed the readings and homily, moving in concert with the congregation but not hearing a word the priest said. When flashes of white moved about the altar, Karl closed his eyes, as he had every Sunday since his brother’s funeral, to remember Leon in altar boy robes. Sundays, while the priest was preparing the Eucharist, was one of the few times he could remember his brother as alive, rather than dying in a hospital room. From the back of the church he could superimpose Leon’s smiling face on whatever child was currently serving at the altar.
Karl never sat in the front pews.
Jessica’s accusation had been unfair and proof she didn’t understand him or what his dedication to his work represented about his feelings for his family. He’d left corporate law for the low pay and drudgery of the inspector general’s office because the work was important, and despite what Jessica had believed and his mom had hoped, running for office was not a substitute for the work he did for the city. He wanted—needed—to do more to stop corruption than just pay lip service to ethics. He wanted to hunt down those who thought nothing of cheating the people.
Besides, he was the good son. He came to Sunday dinners at Mom’s, often ate at Tilly’s restaurant and had even worked a booth at the Taste of Po
land for Renia. The good son, just as his father had expected, even if he wasn’t around to see it.
He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The present—Father Szymkiewicz holding the Eucharist up in offering and the warmth of the community around him—should be the focus of his attention, not anger at those who were in prison for their crimes. Anger had not brought his family back from the dead yet, and it never would. Justice and prevention were the key. And forgiveness. Surrounded by God’s grace, he couldn’t forget forgiveness.
“Peace be with you.” Karl jumped at the voice and turned to see the man next to him with his hand out. He returned the greeting and shook hands with other parishioners, crossing the aisle to shake hands with Mr. and Mrs. Biadała, who asked after his mother. Karl informed them that his mother was going to be fine, which wasn’t a lie. His sisters or Vivian would’ve called him if she’d gotten worse.
After taking communion, Karl knelt and rested his head on his hands, letting the edge of the wood on the kneeler bite into his knees and focus his mind. He looked forward to this moment of contemplation every week. No matter how many people interrupted him in a normal day—calls from his family or couriers with redacted and thus useless information—no one ever interrupted him during this moment of silence. And he could ignore the phone vibrating in his pants pocket while he talked to his father. Sometimes he used the moment to talk to his dad, and sometimes to his Father with a capital F, but he always took this moment to seek guidance.
The guidance he sought wasn’t always available. Or, as today, he didn’t like what he heard.
Forgiveness. Be willing to offer it, and don’t expect it when you have done wrong unless you are also willing to apologize. He hadn’t meant to expose Vivian’s secret to his family. That Vivian’s presence seemed to push him out of his comfortable stoicism was his responsibility, not hers. And he should apologize for any embarrassment he’d caused her—take responsibility for his actions.
Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore Page 41