The Baby Favor

by Andrea Laurence

  For a few minutes, all Mason could hear was the sound of their breathing and the rapid pounding of his heart in his chest. It was the first time in a long time that the beat of his heart tapped out a joyful rhythm instead of a somber dirge. With Scarlet still in his arms, he felt happy. Really, truly happy.

  Reluctantly, he let her finally roll back onto the bed. They crawled beneath the blankets together and switched off the lamp before he turned on his side and pulled her back against him. It had been a great night. He almost didn’t want to close his eyes and have it end, but sleep was winning the fight tonight.

  Mason was very nearly on the edge of sleep when he heard his cell phone ringing on the nightstand. Rolling over in bed, he picked up his phone and his heart sank when he saw the number. The fleeting moments of happiness he’d just cherished seemed to crumble in his hands as he looked at the screen. The last time he got a late-night call like this, it was Jay telling him that Rachel had an accident and was dead. This time, with the hospice number flashing across the screen, there was only one eventuality and he wasn’t prepared for it.

  Ignoring the call wouldn’t change anything, however. He hit the button to answer. “Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Karen with New Horizons Rehabilitation Center. Is this Mr. Spencer speaking?”

  He closed his eyes and hesitated to answer, knowing his life was about to change forever. “This is he.”

  Ten

  It felt surreal to be back to the cemetery so soon. They all knew this was where they were going to return, but that just wasn’t something Scarlet had been ready to face.

  Today, they were seated in a short row of chairs in front of the casket. That made it easier to hold the squirming Luna in her arms. For some reason, holding the baby made her feel grounded. It couldn’t hide the ugly reality of the situation from her, though. As her gaze strayed from Jay’s casket, she noticed the grass hadn’t even started to grow over Rachel’s grave. They’d removed the last of the dead flowers from her service to prepare Jay’s final resting place.

  A new wreath of white roses was placed behind the newly installed headstone Rachel shared with her husband. All his information was complete aside from the date of his death, a date that Scarlet would never forget. Up until the moment they received that call, it had been one of the best days of her life. Since then, everything had fallen apart.

  They’d called the airline after getting off the phone and made arrangements to catch the first flight back to LAX. They didn’t even bother going back to sleep. Instead, they’d taken showers, packed and checked out of the hotel in the small hours of the morning.

  Mason had said almost nothing since he got the call. He’d hung up the phone and said, “Jay’s dead. I’m sorry, but we need to get back to LA.” That was basically it. He’d muttered the occasional inconsequential thing about packing and spoken briefly to the TSA agents at the airport, but Scarlet was suddenly invisible.

  At least that was how she felt. She wanted to hug him. To say she was sorry about Jay. But he wouldn’t make eye contact long enough to engage her in any kind of serious conversation. After they got back home, things weren’t much better. He immediately threw himself into dealing with Jay’s funeral arrangements. He met with Jay’s estate attorneys and busied himself with paperwork for Luna’s adoption.

  Scarlet tried not to notice that he never once mentioned her adopting Luna. She wasn’t sure if that indicated a change in how he felt about their relationship or not. What she did know was that it felt like before. Like the months leading up to their separation. The warm, affectionate Mason seemed to have vanished with that phone call. He hadn’t touched her. Some nights, he hadn’t even come upstairs to go to bed.

  This morning, like the night before, she’d woken up to a cold, pristine space beside her in the bed. It was amazing how quickly she’d gotten used to having him back there. It was where he belonged. Scarlet just wasn’t sure if he felt the same way any longer.

  She’d held her tongue so far. She understood that Mason would need time and space to grieve. His younger brother had been his best friend. That didn’t mean she wasn’t worried. If Mason retreated too far into himself, if he didn’t lean on Scarlet for support the way a husband should lean on his wife...she worried that he was going to run.

  Mason had sworn he wouldn’t run again. He said that he wanted her, that he wanted this. But Jay’s death was their first real test, and a serious one at that. If his instinct was to flee from the reality of losing his brother, he might be several miles down the road before he realized that he was doing it again.

  It felt like running. As she turned to look at Mason, he was like a stone statue. No emotion, no movement. She hadn’t seen him cry a single time since he got the call about his brother. He’d instantly gone into “handle it” mode. She wished he would cry. Then she could feel like comforting him wasn’t a misplaced gesture. He was sitting a mere five inches away from Scarlet, but it felt like she was losing him all over again and she didn’t know what to do.

  Scarlet turned away from Mason and looked to the minister. The same man had overseen Rachel’s service. She was certain his words were comforting, but she had a hard time focusing on him. She was trying to keep from letting her feelings get the best of her for Luna’s sake. The baby might not understand what was happening, but she could feel the emotional energy Scarlet put out. She didn’t want Luna wailing through the service. It would break everyone’s hearts to hear the dead couple’s baby so distraught.

  “Let us give thanks today, even in our grief, for Jay’s brother, Mason, and his wife, Scarlet.”

  Scarlet perked up at the sound of her name spoken by the minister.

  “For even in this moment of sadness and mourning, we are celebrating the beginning of a new family for Luna when she needs one the most. For many years Mason and Scarlet have longed for a child, and now they have found what they always hoped for. The Lord works in mysterious ways, bringing joy to some even as grief is brought to another. But may we find peace in knowing it was God’s plan for Rachel and Jay to be together in the Kingdom of Heaven, and for Luna to remain on Earth with her new family.”

  Scarlet looked out of the corner of her eye at Mason. He seemed to be even more uncomfortable than he had been before. He obviously didn’t like the attention shifted onto them, as though they had somehow benefited from his brother’s death. She was certain no one looked at it that way, but still, he seemed visibly uneasy.

  She turned her attention to Luna instead. The baby was enamored with the stuffed monkey they brought with them today. It was one of the few items they could take that didn’t jingle, beep, play music or otherwise disrupt the service. Luna chewed at the monkey’s ear, indicating another tooth was coming in. A milestone her parents would miss.

  And then, as soon as it had begun, the service was over. Mason and Jay’s parents approached the casket to say goodbye, and then Scarlet stood and went with Mason. She watched as Mason laid his hand against the smooth white surface. He said something she couldn’t understand, then turned and walked down the hill to the car. She followed behind him, struggling to catch up in her heels as he nearly ran from his brother’s grave site.

  By the time she reached the Range Rover, Mason was inside and the engine was running. Scarlet cautiously buckled Luna into her car seat and climbed in front. “For a moment I wasn’t sure if you were leaving without us,” she said quietly after she shut the door.

  Mason didn’t look at her. He just put the car into Drive and pulled away from the curb. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied.

  “It felt like you were running.”

  “I...” He hesitated. “I just needed to get away from there. It was too much all at once.”

  Scarlet turned to look at him. “Not from the service. It felt like you were running away from me.”

  He considered her words
for a moment before pulling out into traffic and taking the turn to merge onto the freeway. “Maybe I was,” he admitted with a heavy sigh.

  Scarlet didn’t know what to say to that. She had expected him to argue with her. To tell her she was being too sensitive and this wasn’t about her. To reassure her that he wasn’t running away, he’d promised he wouldn’t do that, and that he just needed some time. She’d gotten the exact opposite and it stunned her into silence.

  The ache of worry started to pool in her stomach. Had she misjudged this entire situation?

  She sat back against the soft leather of the passenger seat and took a deep breath. Mason had only asked her to play along with the relationship for Jay’s sake. Once his brother passed, the charade was supposed to end. She knew that. But hadn’t things changed between them? Hadn’t they made love, made promises that they weren’t going to let their marriage fall apart when things got hard? She hadn’t imagined that things had evolved past the original agreement, had she?

  And yet she knew that was Mason’s modus operandi. When he couldn’t control things, he retreated. And now, despite everything he may have said before, everything he promised to change, he was distancing himself from her and their marriage. She could feel it: the same anxious ache of losing something and being unable to stop it that she’d felt before he left the last time.

  Tigers didn’t change their stripes.

  Scarlet could feel things spiraling out of her control. She hadn’t wanted the divorce last time and it hadn’t made any difference. Once he pulled away, there was nothing left to hold on to. She wanted to work through this, to raise Luna with him the way Jay had always intended. She just wasn’t certain if Mason was going to give her that choice.

  Luna.

  Scarlet closed her eyes tight and clutched at the leather armrest as she realized how much more was at stake if he ran away this time. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. After weeks of insisting he wanted them to be a family, he wouldn’t take the baby away just when she’d given in and fallen in love with her. Or would he? If the situation was uncomfortable enough for him, she wasn’t so certain.

  “And were you running from Luna, too?” she asked.

  Mason exited the freeway and pulled to a stop at a red light. His jaw tightened as he gripped the steering wheel and considered his words. “Of course not. I told my brother that I would raise Luna like she was my own daughter and I intend to keep my promise.”

  “And what about all the promises you made to me?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Mason felt like crap. There was no candy coating it.

  He was used to things going to plan. In his business, he was in charge of every detail and had built his success on knowing the right decisions to make and executing them flawlessly. Real life wasn’t as simple as choosing which brand and style of beach towels to stock in the stores. There was an X factor of emotion that threw everything into a tailspin no matter how hard he tried to keep things steady.

  As he sat at the dining room table, staring at his laptop and surrounded by paperwork, he could feel that X factor at play. Nothing was going the way he expected it to. Or at least the way he wanted it to. That just added a foul mood on top of his other problems. He missed his brother, missed his wife, missed feeling like his life made any sense at all...

  He’d seen the way Scarlet looked at him since the funeral. He’d earned that scowl, there was no question of it. But for now, he needed his space. He needed room to breathe, to think. Being with Scarlet made him happy. This was not the appropriate time to be happy.

  It was like some kind of self-imposed penance that he was sure Scarlet wouldn’t understand. All he knew was that the moment before he’d received the call about Jay’s passing, he’d been happier than he’d been in years. He had his wife back, his home back, a child he adored, things were going well... It was almost enough to make a man forget that his sister-in-law was newly buried and his brother was clinging to life in a hospice facility. That the baby they cherished—the one who had salvaged their marriage and made their lives complete—had only arrived through the direst of circumstances. Rachel and Jay had to lose everything, including their lives, for Mason and Scarlet to be happy again.

  Mason felt guilty as hell. That was the long and short of it. His life was better than ever and he’d forgotten in the moment that he had no business celebrating at a time like this. The only way he knew to make up for it was to make his brother’s needs his number one priority. The funeral arrangements were an easy and obvious way to fill his time. From there, he spent hours with the estate lawyers determining what needed to be done with Jay and Rachel’s property and holdings. It would all be liquidated and put into a trust for Luna. Jay had already put that provision in his will.

  In preparing for Luna’s adoption, his brother had also put together an account for her care. It was generous enough that the monthly interest generated on the principal would handle most of her expenses. Not that a one-year-old had many outside of the usual food, diapers and care. Later, however, it would provide for private school and the best colleges she could get into.

  Mason would’ve happily paid for all of that himself. He told Jay he would raise Luna as his own daughter and that meant he wouldn’t skimp when it came to anything she might need. At this point, he’d feel better about things if he was financially supporting Luna. But Jay hadn’t allowed for it. It was typical Jay to handle all the details so Mason didn’t have to do anything but make the most of his time with Luna.

  But that was the hardest part of all. At least for Mason.

  Luna wouldn’t remember her parents, or know why she was here instead of the home she’d been born in. But Mason knew, and every time he looked at her, all he could see was everything she’d lost. Each milestone she achieved would be bittersweet, knowing Rachel and Jay had missed it.

  “There you are.”

  Mason looked up to find Scarlet peeking at him from around the corner. He had set up his computer in the dining room, which was in plain view, but was also the most secluded and unused of the rooms in the house. “Hey.”

  Scarlet leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you know that’s the first thing you’ve said to me all day?”

  He frowned. It wasn’t intentional. At least he didn’t think so. “I’ve been working on some things today.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Just like yesterday. And the day before. And every day since Jay died.”

  Mason sat back in his chair and slammed his laptop lid shut. “Someone has to deal with things, Scarlet. My parents can’t handle it.”

  “I know. And I understand. But you don’t have to abandon your own family to do it, Mason.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Scarlet. I’m right here. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  “Physically, no. Mentally, you’ve checked out of this marriage. And of this family, too.”

  Mason pushed his chair back and stood up. He grabbed his drink off the table and carried it into the kitchen for a refill. He needed something to do instead of sit there while she leveled accusations at him. “Don’t you think you’re being a little overdramatic about all of this? My brother died. Can’t I have a little time to process everything?”

  Scarlet followed him into the kitchen. “Absolutely. And if I thought you were actually working through your brother’s death, I wouldn’t mind at all. But you’re hiding from it just as surely as you’re hiding from us. I know this feeling, Mason. You’re getting ready to run.”

  Mason set his glass on the counter and turned to face her. “Do I look like someone about to run away?” He was wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops.

  “I didn’t think so. I thought you really meant it when you said you wanted to try again.”

  “I did want to try again. But the
n I saw this and I wasn’t sure you felt the same way.” Mason opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out the divorce papers she’d stashed there.

  Scarlet took the pages from him. “This is just the draft we agreed upon weeks ago. I haven’t spoken to my attorney about this since we decided to reconcile. I thought you didn’t want the divorce.”

  “I don’t want the divorce,” he said. “But I’m still worried that you do. What is that note in there about consulting an adoption attorney?”

  Scarlet flipped through the pages and found the note her attorney had hand scribbled in the package. “That was nothing.”

  “It didn’t look like nothing. It looked like you might be trying to cozy up to me long enough to get what you really wanted—custody of Luna—then you’d walk away from me.”

  Scarlet’s mouth dropped open. “My attorney recommended I talk with someone just so I had a better idea of my rights, since Jay left her to you alone. That’s all. I didn’t even end up calling him. Do you really think that all of this—all these weeks, all those nights together—was just about luring you back in so I could have the baby, then leave you high and dry? Honestly? That’s what you think of me?”

  Mason shook his head. “I didn’t know what to think. That’s why I didn’t bring it up. I wanted more time to figure it out before we discussed it again.”

  She put the papers down on the counter. “I think we’re discussing it now.”

  Mason closed his eyes. He wasn’t mentally prepared to have this talk. Not now. At least not if he wanted it to end well. He shouldn’t have brought up the divorce papers. He could tell she was going to push the issue, though. He had shut her out, and she was tired of it, but he didn’t know what else to do. Was he supposed to tell her that he couldn’t stand to be happy with her because he felt guilty? That every kiss, every touch, every laugh they shared made him feel more and more like a thief who stole his brother’s life?