“Of course,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we?”
Alicia McCord was not delighted that she would become a grandmother sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“You came to Boston with such great promise, with a solid upbringing, good Christian values. And you’ve been lying to me this whole time?”
“I told you how I spent my summers.” Julia heard the whine in her voice, felt like an eight-year-old. “And I told you about Tom.”
“Clearly not everything.”
“Some things are solely my business.”
“You’re my daughter. That makes it my business.”
Julia rubbed her lower abdomen protectively. “And this is my daughter. So you’ll need to trust me to do what’s right.”
Alicia dabbed her eyes with a tissue, came away with a mess of mascara. “Do you love this man?”
“With everything in me.”
“And does he love you?”
“Of course he does. How can you ask that, Mom? I wouldn’t have . . . fallen into this if he was just a fling.”
“Then why aren’t you getting married right now? I could help set something up in a local church—”
“Not yet. If I get married, I could lose my scholarship because of the change in financial status. And besides, I get free prenatal care because I’m a single mother.”
“Single mother. Do you know how tragic those two words are?” Alicia shook her head. She had been a single mother for the past twelve years, since Julia’s dad booked it to Idaho.
“Everything’s a tragedy with you if it doesn’t fit into your worldview.”
“It’s not my worldview. It’s the gifts and responsibilities that God has set before us.”
Julia took the tissue, carefully wiped the mascara from her mother’s cheeks. “I’ll lose the baby weight and come back to Oklahoma next summer, get married there. Tom is all for that. We can start planning now.”
“Child, oh my child.” She framed Julia’s face with her hands. “He won’t marry you, you know.”
“How can you say that? You don’t know him.” Julia tamped down the fury, held it between her heart and her baby because her mother didn’t deserve the anger that she felt every time someone tried to tell her they knew Tom better than she did.
Her mom pulled her close, a tight grip on her shoulders until Julia relaxed and allowed herself to be hugged. “He’s like a sparkler you light on the Fourth of July. Bright light, then quickly cold ash.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Just consider giving the baby up for adoption. Please, sweetheart.”
“What?” Julia jerked away. “No. How could you even suggest that?”
“I can help connect you with a Christian couple who can provide an excellent home for a baby. What can you give her or him, Julia? A tiny apartment and a man who works all the time, and then resents you because he has no life and you have no life. What happens when the baby becomes a millstone instead of a blessing?”
“Don’t, please just . . . don’t.” She could barely breathe. “She will always be a blessing. I love her, Mom.”
“Give her a chance, Julia. If you love her, give your baby a chance.”
Julia felt a flutter under her navel, her daughter making her will known for the first time. She would never give this child up, never give Tom up, never give up the dreams that burned through her skin. The foolish teenager who had helped Baby Doe go free would be the devoted mother who would bind her daughter tightly to her for a lifetime.
And Tom would do the same.
24 Years Earlier, December
The week after Thanksgiving Jeanne helped her set up the apartment. She filled in for Tom, who’d said something about a sudden injunction or some urgent business that couldn’t penetrate Julia’s pregnancy haze.
It was good that Tom worked all the time; Julia looked like a buoy. She had needed the time apart to get her semester’s work done early and to get about the business of nesting.
He’d won the fight with Social Services to get her welfare benefits. The state had claimed her scholarship was the equivalent of a salary and she wasn’t eligible for any assistance. Tom had argued strenuously—pulling some South Boston strings—that her college fulfilled the welfare-to-work requirement and couldn’t be held against her financial status. If they started picking at a client’s college financial aid, he said, the whole federal system would come tumbling down.
He had found a studio apartment in Dorchester that the housing voucher would cover. Julia cringed at taking entitlements but told herself it was just until they got settled and the baby was born. Next August Tom would have his first-year review at the law firm, get a raise, and be able to afford a nice two-bedroom near the college.
The apartment smelled like fermented apple cider. The one window looked out on a convenience store and a bus stop. The bathroom was tight with a toilet, tub, no shower. Julia had to wash her hair with a bucket. Mismatched table and chairs would serve as her worktable and Tom’s computer desk. He hadn’t moved in yet; too busy with the firm and studying for the Massachusetts bar exam.
The work in Nahant had given her a notion of how to use space. Even so, they’d have to be creative with the baby furniture. Jeanne had filled in for Tom when he was too busy to shop the garage sales with her. Her back ached, her stomach was on fire with heartburn, her feet had swollen so much she had to wear sandals in the cold weather.
The baby kicked in lightning bursts. Boom, boom, like a boxer.
“That baby’s going to kick her way out of you,” Jeanne said. “Are you sure you don’t need to lie down or something?”
“We have to get this changing table put together.”
“What about day care?” Jeanne said. “Did you check out that place I told you about?”
Julia was breathless, trying to screw the frame together. “I’m taking next semester off, Pottsie.”
“Jules, you said you’d be ready to go. The timing is perfect. Isn’t it?”
Timing is everything. While she was growing into a mountain, Jeanne had bloomed. The shy girl from Quincy—who went to Mass every day, crafted incredible fabric, volunteered as a Big Sister—had somehow matured into a composed woman with thick, blond hair and long eyelashes.
Perhaps her beauty came from not knowing she was beautiful.
“I can’t . . . I just can’t see how I’d manage it,” Julia said. “The baby needs someone around and Tom’s never here and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”
“I’m sorry.” Jeanne didn’t spout reassurances like he’ll find the time or you’ll be okay or even, I’ll help you, though Julia knew she would. “I pray for you every morning. You know that, right?”
“I know, I know.” Julia hugged her tight, ashamed that her prayers—when she remembered them—were only for Destiny and Tom.
Something pinched her groin and suddenly soaked her legs. “What’s happening?”
“Your water,” Jeanne said. “Your water just broke.”
The labor came a scant five minutes after, fevered and hard. They called everywhere but couldn’t find Tom.
Jeanne took Julia to the hospital and held her hand as Julia groaned and shrieked, her body rebelling against gravity and common sense.
Destiny was born a red-faced, dark-eyed little girl who peeled the paint off the walls with her wails. “A nine-ten on the Apgar,” the doctor proclaimed. “Couldn’t be healthier. Or more ready to take on the world.”
They slipped the baby into Julia’s arms. She was too exhausted and in too much pain to hold her, so Jeanne rocked the baby for a while and then took her to the nursery. As she was leaving, she hugged Julia and said, “I left messages everywhere. He’ll be here soon.”
Alicia McCord arrived in the middle of the night, blabbering about layovers in Omaha and Cincinnati before finally arriving in Boston. Then she started her pitch: the baby is beautiful and did you think about what we talked about last spring, about giving your
daughter a good life and wherever is this child’s father?
Julia folded her arms, kept them tight even when the nurse brought the child to be fed. She would not hold her baby until Tom came and shared that moment with her. Her mother took the two nighttime feedings.
“He’ll come,” her mother said. “But he’s not going to stay.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Oh, honey, I’m afraid I do. The nurses are asking for her name,” her mother said. “Devon, right?”
“Destiny.”
“What? That’s an odd name.”
“She was meant to be my destiny, so Destiny she will be.”
“It’s such a . . . trendy name.”
“She’s my daughter. I get to name her. Now, please, I need to sleep.” But sleep wouldn’t come. Julia tossed and moaned softly until someone made her take a pill and she tumbled into colorless dreams.
Tom arrived the next morning, unshaven and bleary-eyed, smelling faintly of booze. “I was in New York,” he said. “They sent me for a deposition. I told you I was going, left you the phone number.”
You didn’t, Julia wanted to say, but all she could muster was, “Oh.”
And she realized in that moment that Tom was not the sparkler like Mom had said. She was. He set her ablaze and when her light had dimmed to a musky coal, he had turned elsewhere.
When he said, “Alicia and I had a long discussion this morning. About what’s best for the baby and best for you,” Julia knew that the case had been closed without her even registering a plea.
Julia asked for time alone with the baby. She held her, rocking back and forth, trying to drive out the agony of her body being torn open and then being torn away from her baby. Oh, God, how could You let this happen to us?
She kissed her daughter’s cheeks and eyes and smelled her wispy hair, marveling that the child had finally stopped kicking and found peace.
Perhaps this newborn child has more wisdom than I do.
She signed the papers that Tom had already signed and surrendered her baby to a destiny different from the one she had planned.
Five
North Carolina
Monday, 7:03 a.m.
Jack kissed Chloe’s cheek as she straggled past him for the coffee. He was buttoned-down and bright-eyed, his blond hair like a halo. Last night she had danced like a six-inch stiletto; this morning she flapped like a moldy old sneaker.
Fifty more years of this, she told herself. It’s good. Good to be safe with a good man.
“My turn to do the shopping.” Jack poured coffee into his oversize thermos. He eschewed Starbucks for thriftiness, though they could afford designer brews or even a housekeeper to make their morning coffee. Two children with trust funds fall in love, marry, make a life. In the scheme of God’s things, such fortune didn’t seem fair to her husband. So at every possible corner, Jack cut expenses and Jack cut guilt.
“Chloe. Are you listening? Need anything from Costco?”
She waved her hand over her mug, trying to muster a physiological response from the coffee. School. Costco. Jack. Manna and quail—she was ungrateful. Her own ingratitude was just another trap she could not escape.
“The usual stuff, I guess,” she managed. How many thousands of rolls of paper towels, bags of boneless chicken breasts, and jars of spaghetti sauce would make up fifty years?
Jack called their spare lifestyle training in godliness, apparently unaware of the irony of chewing on Costco dinner rolls while living in a million-dollar condominium. Was his lack of passion also training in godliness, or was there something so decaffeinated in Chloe’s love that he doled out his desire like he shuffled those stupid coupons?
“Christmas is just a few weeks away. I suppose we need to start thinking about wrapping paper and the like,” she said.
He touched the small of her back, tenderly possessive. “You still haven’t told me what you’d like for Christmas.”
“Jack. What I really want . . .” She clunked her mug on the counter and turned to face him. “I want a vacation.”
“What?”
“We haven’t been away since the honeymoon. Remember the honeymoon, darling?”
He put his arms around her and blended into her. A nice fit. Everyone said so. His eyes were blue like his father’s, narrow like his mother’s. He said she had doe eyes, as if that were a compliment and not a description of a girl running scared.
Her eyes were so dark brown that when people looked at her, Chloe was convinced they only saw their own reflection.
“I’m planning to polish the thesis over the winter break,” he said. “You know that.”
“Bring your laptop. It’s a small world now. You can log in from anywhere, anytime. And do anything you want.” Goose bumps ran up her neck because she had proof of that.
“I can’t . . . sorry, love.” He pressed his face to her neck. His skin smelled like Irish Spring soap. “The timing is off. Maybe we can plan something for graduation. Something amazing.”
Chloe locked his arms around her waist. “We’re never going to graduate, Jack. There will always be one degree or another to go after. I need a break now.”
“We could drive south to Florida for a couple of days, I suppose. Though the crowds will be horrible with Christmas vacations and all. Maybe if we steer clear of Orlando—”
“Let’s go to St. John’s or Palm Island. You can study and I can lie in the water and tip my head back and let the sun enfold me. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”
“Sounds poetic.” He laughed, showing a dimple and perfect teeth. “You’re not having a midlife crisis twenty-five years early, are you?”
“No. I just want to see something other than a lab or a classroom.”
“Chloe, you could tell me if you needed something.” He leaned back, studied her face as if he were solving a mystery. “You know that, right? Anything at all.”
She needed out of the pressure cooker of their lives. Jack would never admit his conviction that a Deschene or a Middlebrooks should not have needs because they had been given so much. Look to the needs of others, he said. He believed that, lived that, all the while missing her desperate desires.
She needed him—or someone, forgive me, God—to love her slowly, deeply, without measuring that love like a coupon. She needed Jack to stop thinking of her as the girl who came to him as a virgin and to start searching for delight in the woman who was his wife.
Did he ever roil deep inside, ribs aching with something more than class schedules, lofty plans, and good stewardship? Or was she selfish and greedy and—dear God—what is so wrong with wanting to lie back in the sunshine and feel the breeze dance over her skin?
“Chloe.” Jack cradled her face. “Is there something I need to know?”
She pressed against him so he couldn’t see her eyes. “I just need a vacation.”
“Okay. Let me think.” His shoulders stiffened. Not from resistance, she knew. Just from the pain of possible rescheduling. “You do realize the resorts are probably booked solid.”
“Then we could sail. I would love to sail for a few days.” Sun glinting off the water. The gentle rocking of the boat. Sand flung into the wind becoming stars.
Endless stars. Endless skies.
Chloe spilled tears now, tears that Jack wiped away with his thumbs. “Are you all right, darling?” he said. “You can tell me if you’re not.”
“No. I mean, sure,” she said. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“What?”
“You’ve been acting hormoney lately.”
Chloe laughed. “Hormoney is not a word.”
“It should be.”
“So . . . what if I were?”
“Hormoney?”
“Pregnant.”
Jack smiled, his eyes crinkling under his wireless-rimmed glasses. “We’d make it work.”
“Make it work? That’s how you see us?” She pushed away, went to the refrigera
tor for the half-and-half. They bought it by the quart; cheaper that way.
Jack sipped his coffee, studied her. “You are tired, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you, Jack? We’ve been pounding out milestones since we got to Duke. One checked box after another. Chloe and Jack Deschene—a well-constructed spreadsheet, a well-executed program. Bang bang, mission accomplished and on to the next goal.”
He squinted and tipped his head to the side. He was a brilliant student but not given to intuitive thinking. “Is there something wrong with deciding what we want and then working our backsides off to get it?”
“What if we don’t really know what we want?”
“Oh, Chloe.” Jack hugged her, pressed his face to her neck. “Forgive me, darling. Forgive me if I’m not doing something right.”
How could she tell him that he did everything right, and that was part of the problem?
Chloe nestled into her husband’s shoulder and stayed there—silently—while the toast burned.
Monday, 7:31 a.m.
The intercom buzzed as they ate oatmeal with figs and walnuts. Chloe stood up. “What if Mother—”
“I’ll get it.” Jack motioned for her to stay seated. “It’s probably Marj, locked out of her apartment again.”
“Yeah, probably.” Their neighbor was a genius linguist at Duke, sweet-tempered and so forgetful that they kept a set of keys for her at their apartment.
He snatched Marj’s keys from the key tray. “Why would you think something’s wrong with Susan?”
“No reason. I just . . . she’s getting up there. She seems brittle.”
“I’ll make sure we see her more often, then.” Jack pressed the intercom call button. “Yes? What is it?”
“Mrs. Deschene’s mother is asking to come up.”
“Okay. That will be fine. Thanks.”
“I told you, Jack. She’s never out this early. Something’s wrong.” Chloe was already on her feet, skimming the possibilities. Her cousins were all in their late thirties, almost a generation removed from her. Her mother’s sister was a hardy eighty years old. No one had cancer or heart problems. Had someone been in an accident? Had Mother received some horrible diagnosis, like breast cancer or heart trouble?
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