Dean drifted in darkness, his body weightless. He tried to fight his way to the surface of consciousness, but it was like quicksand: the more he struggled, the farther he was sucked into the black void. After a moment he no longer cared if he reached the surface again. He let himself go; gave himself over to the strange and obscure warmth of the dark.
The next moment, he was twelve again and on the Wild Mouse. It was his favorite ride at Thunder Hill, the small amusement park he went to as a child. His mom and dad took him and his sister, Julie, there once every summer.
Dean never thought of the Wild Mouse without thinking of Julie.
Suddenly the ride jerked and bucked and dropped without warning, slamming his shoulders first against one side of the tiny car, then the other. But this time it was different. The movement shot pain through him. Each time the mouse made a hard turn, Dean’s neck felt like it was breaking. With each jolt, his shoulders felt as if ice picks jabbed to the bone.
It wasn’t right. The pain. No Julie screaming behind him. He struggled to make sense.
That’s right. Thunder Hill had been closed for years, the Wild Mouse’s cars removed and the tracks disassembled. A Wal-Mart now stood where the park had been. He’d bought an artificial flower arrangement to place on his parents’ grave at that Wal-Mart the last time he’d been home.
The irregular jolting movement and the sharp pain persisted.
Where was he, if not on the ride?
Then he remembered. Clifford. Clifford was dead. I’m hurt.
He tried to open his eyes. He couldn’t, yet he came to himself enough to realize he was being carried over someone’s shoulder, someone who was hurrying along double-time. That made sense of the jerking motion—it wasn’t the Wild Mouse after all.
The rocking movement stopped. There was an explosion of pain. A truck engine ground to a start. Then, unconsciousness engulfed him again and the pain miraculously ebbed away.
He drifted in darkness for a bit. Then he found himself standing next to his parents’ grave, looking at the gray granite tombstone. The bright red silk arrangement he’d left so long ago had faded to pale pink, its fabric petals frayed by years of wind.
When he looked more closely at the engraving, it wasn’t his parents. It was him: James Dean Coletta.
He heard a footfall behind him and he turned. His mother stood there, the bright sun behind her. She smiled and reached out to him. She was strong and healthy, like she had been when she taught at the university; not the gaunt woman whose body had been consumed by cancer.
Warmth washed over him as he raised his hand to take hers.
For the past hour, Molly had driven the road around Forrester Lake—the old road, the curvy one with deep potholes and no shoulder. She stopped briefly at the spillway, got Nicholas out of his car seat and walked along the edge of the lake. Being late in the season yet before the heavy fall rains, the lake’s level was below the dam, the spillway bone dry. It was there, looking out over the greenish water, smelling the hint of a wood fire in the air, holding a child that depended solely upon her, that she made her decision. She’d embarked on a path to protect this child and there could be no half measures.
As she’d done with everything in her life, once the decision was made, Molly didn’t look back, didn’t torment herself with what-ifs. She had thought this through, carefully, logically. She drove straight from there to her father. He still lived in the apartment over his tavern where she’d spent most of her childhood.
The crunch of the car tires sounded unnaturally loud in the empty crushed-stone parking lot of the Crossing House. Loud . . . and guilty. Just like it had when Molly had been out after her curfew in high school. The times had been few, that was probably why the sound had stuck so in her mind. If she’d been like her brother Luke, sneaking out all of the time, she was certain the guilt would have worn right off that sound.
She put the car in park. It was time to get the worst over with.
Drawing her shoulders square, she reminded herself that she was a grown woman. She’d been living on her own for years. She was a doctor, for God’s sake. There was no need to be as nervous as an errant teen. But the fact was, she was going to lie to her father—which was probably a much larger cause of her sound-associated guilt than ancient teenage secrets.
She decided to carry Nicholas in her arms, not in the baby seat. The outside stairs to the apartment seemed much longer than they had the last time she’d climbed them. Once she reached the top, she could hear a television on inside. She rapped on the door without hesitation. After all, she had decided.
When her dad opened the door, he stood quietly for a moment, giving her the same expectant look he’d give a stranger. Then his black brows shot up and his eyes widened.
“Dad.” Molly’s heart seemed to be inching up her throat.
He flung the door open wider. “Molly! What’s wrong?” His gaze then shifted to the bundle in her arms and he frowned.
“I’m coming home,” was all she could say.
He took a step out onto the landing and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her inside with him. “Leaving Boston? What’s going on? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
She stood just inside the door, amazed as she always was upon arriving, that the apartment was so much smaller than in her childhood memories. The cramped living room was completely filled by a single recliner, a TV, and sofa. The kitchen had an efficiency-size stove, a refrigerator shorter than Molly, and a round table crowded into the corner. She and Lily had shared a bedroom, her dad had a tiny bedroom toward the front, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, and Luke had slept on the same foldout sofa that still sat in the living room.
For a single second, she had to blink away tears. “I didn’t know myself until today.”
Tension lined his face. “Whose baby?” he asked.
Simplicity. She drew a breath. “Mine.”
Chapter 3
Benny felt as if a trap door had fallen away beneath his feet. Heat shot throughout his body.
“What do you mean, yours? You adopted him? How could you do something like that and not tell me? How do you expect to raise a child without a father? What about your career? Did you even think this through?” Benny couldn’t stop the rush of questions. And as long as he kept asking, he didn’t have to listen to his daughter’s answers. After all of her struggles to become a doctor, establish herself at the hospital in Boston . . . how could she do something so irresponsible?
He stared hard at her, his jaw tense.
“I mean he’s mine. My son.” She swallowed hard, but lifted her chin in determined defiance, just as she’d done as a child when told something she wanted was impossible.
Well, hadn’t he been the one to teach her that nothing was impossible if you wanted it enough? But this. This was different.
“And the father? I don’t suppose you got married and didn’t tell me, too?” he said harshly.
“No. I’m not married.” She paused, but didn’t look away. “His father isn’t involved.”
Benny sputtered and shot to his feet. He rounded on his youngest child, more angry than he could ever remember being. “Not involved? Just how does that work? You slept with a man who has no more responsibility than that?”
“Dad—”
“You’re not a teenager, for God’s sake. You’re a grown woman. You’re a doctor! How in the hell did you end up pregnant?” His ears felt as if they were on fire.
“The same way anyone else ends up pregnant.” She held his gaze, but he could see the tears shining in her eyes, the only hint that she was less than solid in her confidence.
“Who’s the father? Is he another doctor? Married?” The idea that Molly had allowed herself to be used by a married man was almost too awful to consider. “You can’t just let him shirk his responsibility. If you don’t want to marry him, at least make him financially responsible for this child! What kind of man doesn’t take care of his own child? This
boy will need things—and you’ll have to be home with him, not at some hospital working all hours. . . .” Benny knew he was yelling. He never yelled. He’d never had to. His children usually understood reason.
“Plenty of single mothers work and take care of a baby.” The challenge was stronger in her posture now, her back straighter, her chin higher.
“Is that what you want for your son—a home that’s not a home, a mother who’s never there?”
“My mother was never here—and I turned out fine!”
“Yes. Just look at you.” He turned his back on her and scrubbed his hands over his face. That was the crux of the matter, really . . . Molly’s mother. She’d humiliated his children by leaving them as if they were unwanted kittens. They’d had to grow up in this town with that shame hanging over their heads. And ever since that day, Benny had modeled his life, guarded his words, insisted that his children always stand on high moral ground, in an effort to reestablish respect for this family.
He heard Molly take a deep breath behind him. His heart was breaking. He’d wanted so much for his bright and talented daughter. A career. A loving husband. A good home. A happy family. Security. Now, there was nothing easy about the road ahead of her.
“Listen.” He heard her get up from the couch. “Dad, all of this argument is too late. I have him. Nothing’s going to change that.”
Turning to face her, he found himself unsettled that she was so close. He drew a ragged breath himself. He adopted her rigid stance. “Why didn’t you tell me before now? All of these months . . . all of those phone conversations . . . and you never once hinted at this!”
She bit her lower lip for a minute. After glancing at the floor, she said, “Because I wasn’t going to keep him. I was going to give him up for adoption. I didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t decide until the last minute. . . .”
Benny felt as if a hot poker seared his heart. “You were going to give away your own child!” He closed his eyes and shook his head. Was she like her mother, then? Had he been blinded to her deeper moral flaws by her brilliant mind and dedication to her goals? It killed him to think so.
When he opened his eyes, he said, “I don’t know what makes me more disappointed in you—that you got yourself into this situation in the first place, or that you were going to hand your baby off to strangers . . . so it would be more convenient for you.”
At that, he moved himself a little farther away, giving her only his brooding silence. It was all he had left. He could see the pain in his daughter’s eyes. Yes, the words he’d just said were cruel. But they demanded to be said.
After a moment in which she looked like she might shatter if touched, she turned around and picked the baby up off the couch. As she walked to the door, she said, “Right now, I’m pretty disappointed in you, too, Dad.”
He watched her walk out the door, knowing he should stop her. They shouldn’t leave things like this. But shock and anger kept his feet from moving.
Molly held herself together until she got Nicholas in his car seat and herself behind the wheel. Then the shaking started. It began in her knees and quickly radiated to encompass her entire body. Within seconds she heard her own teeth chattering. In all of her harried thinking and planning, she’d never once imagined this—that her father would react so coldly, so furiously. Throughout her entire life, he’d always been logical, pragmatic. When she was faced with a difficult situation, she could always count on her dad to take the cool approach and talk her through.
She remained in the parking lot of the Crossing House, trying to calm herself enough to drive. It wasn’t until she caught herself looking up at the apartment door for the third time that she realized she was waiting—waiting for him to come after her.
He didn’t.
She had intended to stay with her dad for at least a few days, until she had a solid plan for her future. So much for that. Starting the car, she took one last lingering look. Then she put the car in drive and pulled out of the lot.
Well, she thought, I have to alight somewhere. Glens Crossing didn’t have a motel. And she still put stock in this being the best place for her and the baby to be—even without her father’s support.
Nicholas started making the soft little noises that preceded a newborn cry. She only had enough formula to get her through this afternoon, which meant she also had to do some shopping.
“Shhhhh,” she said softly. “Just hang on a few more minutes, little guy.”
There was only one other place she could go: Lily’s. She wondered if she’d get the same unexpected reaction from her big sister as she had from her dad.
I’d better not. I might have been young when Riley was born, but I knew how to count.
Lily and Peter’s son, Riley, had been born six and a half months after they eloped. Molly didn’t remember her dad blowing a gasket then. However, Lily had married Peter. Molly wondered if she’d shown up with a diamond on her finger and a prospective husband in tow if Dad would have reacted differently.
Well, she thought, Lily and Peter had ended up divorced. Was it any less emotionally disturbing for a child to have to go through his parents splitting up than being raised by a single parent in a stable environment?
This whole disappointment thing stung more than she cared to admit. If he knew the real story. . . . Molly quickly dashed that thought. There was a risk involved that she hadn’t previously considered. Taking a baby that wasn’t hers, even for its own protection, could have serious legal ramifications. Anyone she told could be held in some way accountable. Thank God she’d kept the truth to herself.
Even so, the child in her felt betrayed by her father’s reaction. If he couldn’t support her in her adult decisions, then maybe their relationship had been no more substantial than toilet paper out in a spring storm, losing all of its integrity as soon as the rain began to fall.
She took the road toward the lake. Lily and her new husband, Clay, lived in an old farmhouse not far from the marina where Clay worked. That relationship was something of a puzzlement to Molly. While growing up, Lily and their brother, Luke, used to pal around with Lily’s first husband Peter and his buddy Clay. Molly, of course, had been excluded from the circle of friends because of her age. The guys were all about the same age; Lily had barely been old enough to fit in. Even though they had all been friends, it had seemed to Molly that Lily and Clay were closest. That’s why Lily’s elopement with Peter had come as such a surprise to her.
Molly remembered the way Lily would dodge her probing questions on the telephone. When fourteen-year-old Molly had said she had always thought Lily had been in love with Clay, Lily had laughed. But to Molly it had sounded wrong, like the laugh had been forced and laced with more nervousness than humor. As things had turned out in the long run, maybe Molly hadn’t been so far off the mark. But Lily had never wanted to discuss her love life with Molly—come to think of it, Lily never shared any of her inner secrets or problems.
By the time Molly pulled her Jetta into Lily’s long driveway, Nicholas was crying.
“All right, sweetie. Just a few more minutes.”
After one fortifying breath, she got out, then lifted the baby and the diaper bag out of the car. As she had at her dad’s, Molly carried Nicholas in her arms, not the baby seat—a show of solidarity, commitment, of unity between spirits.
He quieted with the closeness and Molly felt the magic she’d always assumed came with motherhood—like breast milk and recognizing your own baby’s cry—the power to calm. That feeling spread over her, erasing her doubts, soothing her fears, allowing her to set one foot in front of the other toward an unknown destiny.
She held him tighter for a moment, her own heartbeat echoing throughout her body, offering up a prayer that she was doing the right thing for this child.
Glancing at the barn, she wondered if Lily would be out there in her pottery workshop or in the house.
Molly decided to try the house first. She climbed the wide steps to the wraparound fro
nt porch. A swing and four rocking chairs sat intermingled with Lily’s huge pottery containers filled with flowers—mums and pansies for the late season. For a brief moment, a pang of regret struck Molly’s heart. She’d never really thought she wanted the weight of a home and a family, preferring to concentrate fully on her work. But suddenly there was something infinitely appealing about this rural setting, this warm and welcoming home. She realized Lily had created just the kind of home she and Lily had always dreamed of when they were kids living without a mother over their dad’s bar.
Molly just hoped the welcoming atmosphere continued after Lily had heard her story.
She raised her hand to knock at the same moment the door swung open. Lily stood there in denim coveralls smeared with red-brown clay, her hair up in a pony tail. She looked ridiculously young for the mother of a sixteen-year-old; suddenly Molly felt like the aging older sister.
“Molly! What are you doing here?” Her shocked expression said she expected something terrible. “What’s happened?” The color was rapidly draining from her face.
“Nothing—everything.” When Lily remained motionless, Molly asked, “Can we come in?”
At the word “we,” Lily’s worried gaze flicked from Molly’s face to the bundle in her arms. Her alarm didn’t appear to ease, but she did open the screen and stepped back to let Molly in. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Molly said as she stepped inside. But her answer was masked by Nicholas’s full-fledged howl. It was such a distinctive newborn cry that Lily’s eyes widened further.
Then her eyes narrowed as she honed in on Molly. “Why aren’t you in Boston?”
“I’m coming home.” Molly jiggled the baby, trying to quiet him. “I’ll explain everything, but first this guy needs to be fed.”
“Just who is ‘this guy’?”
Nicholas squalled, his face a rumpled beet red.
“I don’t want to yell over him. Let me feed him and I’ll explain.”
Promises to Keep Page 4