First Came Baby

by Kris Fletcher

  He wanted to take care of them. She understood that, and his desire to give Jamie a past to be proud of.

  But was he determined to give them the house because it was easier—safer—than giving himself?

  She wandered upstairs to the room with the hidden cupboard, the one that had been hers before Maggie married Neil. Her mom had been right next door in the room that had housed Boone, albeit temporarily.

  A small smile crossed her lips. Boone in Maggie’s room. No wonder he had said it always felt cold to him.

  “Charlie,” she said, “Daisy, Nana, Poppy...if you’re listening, I want you to know, I love you all. And I love this house. I promise I won’t sell it to anyone who wants to tear it down.”

  She moved to the little cupboard. Boone had removed the door and added shelves, and she had painted it a deeper blue than the powdery shade on the walls. It was now a built-in bookshelf, one that echoed the colors of the river that could be spotted from the window when the trees were not in full leaf.

  “So many secrets.” She ran a hand over the shelf that Boone had sanded to be almost as soft as Jamie’s cheeks. “So many memories.”

  She was going to miss it, no doubt about it. She was very grateful that she could stay here a little bit longer, that she and Jamie and Allie would have time together under this roof.

  But time moved on. Rivers flowed. Things changed. Some possibilities ended, but others opened up.

  She sat in the window seat and stared out at the activity below. So many people coming and going. Thank heaven Maggie was here to deal with them, because right now, Kate had more important things on her mind than the fate of possibly stolen, possibly historic silverware. Like figuring out when and how she would tell Boone that she loved him. That she wanted to stay married to him. And that, wonderful as this house was, she didn’t need turrets or stained glass or secret staircases.

  She needed her home. Her family. Her husband.

  Those she could have anywhere, as long as Boone was in her life.

  * * *

  IT FELT LIKE forever but at last the hordes had departed and it was just Kate and Boone once more. Kate thought she had never been so happy to see the door close behind anyone as she was when the last Mountie left.

  “Wow. That was a day.”

  “Yeah, that’s one way to put it,” Boone said from behind her. Too far behind her. Why wasn’t he up here sliding his arms around her waist? Maybe he was holding Jamie, though that had never stopped him from delivering a one-armed squeeze before.

  When she turned around, she saw that his hands were in his pockets. His face had that closed-off expression she’d seen only on the rare times when he had let something slip about his mother.

  That wasn’t exactly encouraging.

  “Boone,” she began, moving toward him, but a squawk from the floor pulled her attention to Jamie, struggling against the confines of his bouncy seat.

  “Right,” she said. “I forgot it’s your dinnertime.”

  “There’s a first.” A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Boone’s mouth. “You take care of him. I’ll make something for us.”

  “Good plan,” she said, then reconsidered. Jamie needed time with his father. She needed something to keep her hands busy while she talked, because she knew she had to have this conversation now, in daylight, with Jamie present as a constant reminder of how amazing she and Boone could be when they worked together.

  “Actually, let’s switch it up. I’ll chop and cook if you take cereal duty.”

  He nodded, scooped Jamie into his arms and headed for the kitchen. Jamie was strapped into his high chair and given a spoon to bang. Kate started water boiling and pulled vegetables from the fridge. Boone mixed cereal. It could have passed for any other night except for the silence hanging over them.

  And the way Boone’s gaze kept straying to the plastic sheeting at the entry to the office. Kate knew that though his body was in the kitchen with her, everything else was on the other side of that semitransparent covering.

  “Heck of a mess,” she said softly. Better to get the undeniable facts out of the way.

  “Yeah.” He turned swiftly, taking himself and the bowl of cereal to Jamie. “Yeah, that’s for sure.”

  “But we’ll put it back together.”

  “I shouldn’t have done it, Kate.”

  She winced at the guilt in his voice, the way his shoulders hunched forward as he offered the first spoonful of food.

  “Look. You—we—took a chance. Sometimes chances pay off, and you end up with something wonderful like a baby. Other times, they don’t turn out the way you hoped.” She set bread on the table, squeezing his shoulder as she moved past. “Win some, lose some. But it will be—”

  “Don’t you dare say it’ll be fine.”

  “But it will be. Boone, listen to me. Jamie and I will be happy wherever we land. I love this house, but I’ll love the next one, too, as long as it has the two most important things in my world. Jamie.” She turned to face him, bracing herself against the counter as she finished the thought. “And you, whenever you can be with us.”

  Even from across the room it was impossible to miss the immediate contraction of every muscle in his body.

  The heck with keeping her hands busy cooking. She needed to touch him, to try to smooth away some of that tension. “Boone,” she whispered as she slipped behind him and wrapped her arms around him. “I know you’re still worried about what kind of father you can be. I know you have a life in Peru that you want to keep. But I’ve seen the way you’ve fallen in love with Jamie. I’ve watched you learn how to read him and understand him and give him what he needs, and I know that you are killing it as a dad. I want you here as much as you can be. I want Jamie to keep a calendar where he crosses off the days until you come back to us. I want...” She buried her face in the unyielding rigidness of his back, breathing him in, filling herself with him to give her strength. “I want us to stay together, Boone. Because Jamie loves you. And so do I.”

  His hands closed over hers. For one second she thought he planned to give them a squeeze before turning around and kissing her and telling her that yes, God, yes, he loved her, too, and wanted to be with her, too, and was willing to take a chance on the kind of family, the kind of marriage, they could make.

  Instead, he pulled her hands apart and then blindly pushed the spoon forward, totally missing Jamie’s mouth.

  “Boone. I know it wouldn’t be the easiest way to live, but we have something so—”

  “No.”

  She stopped. Stopped speaking, stopped breathing, stopped understanding.

  “What?”

  “No.” He stared into the bowl of cereal. “I can’t stay married to you, Kate.”

  Coldness slammed through her, as raw and numbing as a January gale. The world receded for a second, like she was seeing everything through binoculars. Everything was out of her reach. The house. Boone. Hope.

  I can’t stay married to you.

  She moved to the counter, stared out the window, searching for some flicker of light in the dusk. Her hands curled around the worn edges of the counter where her mother and grandmother had washed and chopped and stirred. Where they had undoubtedly also talked and wept and prayed.

  Help me, Nana.

  She replayed his words in her mind, listening for some shred of possibility against the background of Jamie’s babbles and the steady clank, clank of the spoon against the bowl.

  “I can’t stay married to you.”

  He had said can’t. Not won’t, but can’t. That was better, wasn’t it? Won’t would mean he didn’t want to. But can’t...that just meant logistics and obstacles, and wait, she knew how to handle those...

  “But you can,” she whispered to the window. “You can, Boone. I know it won’t be the usual kind of marriage, but military families, the
y do this all the time. They make it work.”

  Clank.

  “I’m not asking you to give up Project Sonqo. I know how important that is and I’m proud of you for being part of it. But it doesn’t have to be...” She squeezed her eyes tight, breathed deep to push away the heaviness pressing on her chest. “You have so much love in you, Boone. I see it there. Just like...like you knew that the treasure was here, even when the rest of us—”

  Clank. Clank.

  “We can do this. I know we can, because I love you, Boone.” No more staring into the darkness. She made herself turn around. “I love you, and what we have is too—”

  Her eyes registered the sight in front of her before her feet did. Her eyes saw Boone blindly holding the spoon in front of Jamie and her ears told her that Jamie wasn’t making any noise and her eyes saw the jerky movements of Jamie’s jaw and the frantic wideness of his eyes and her brain said, Jamie, choking, move, but her feet took longer to get the message so for one never-ending second she was rooted in place while everything in her screamed.

  Then her feet took flight. Her hands reached for Jamie, tugging at him, but the straps were secure and she let out a cry of fury while Boone reared back and she barked at him to call 911 while she fumbled with the fastener and then it was loose, Jamie was loose, and her training kicked in and she placed him over her knee. Tummy down, support his head, five back slaps. One, two, three, four—

  Something warm hit her foot. Jamie squirmed. He coughed.

  And then he let loose with the most welcome cry she had ever heard since the one that had signaled his arrival into the world.

  “Jamie!” She scooped him close, pressed him to her, breathed him in. “Jamie, oh, my baby, you’re okay. You’re okay, it’s okay. Shh, sweetie, you just choked on your cereal. I know it was scary but you’re okay now, I promise, Mommy is here, Daddy is—”

  Boone.

  She blinked back her tears long enough to catch a glimpse of Boone, hovering at the edge of the table. She held out her hand.

  He didn’t take it.

  “Jamie?” he asked in a strained voice.

  “He’s fine. Really. Did you call 911? If you did, we should call back, tell them everything is—”

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, unable to speak past the emotions rushing back into her throat.

  Boone stared at the floor. When he raised his head, she wished for her tears to return and act as a veil between her heart and his utter lack of expression.

  “Good.” He turned on his heel and started walking away. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  * * *

  ONE MINUTE HE was in the kitchen, using every bit of strength he possessed to stay pulled together while he killed the best thing that had ever happened to him. The next, he was upstairs in the bed he hadn’t used in weeks, lying on his side and staring at the clock on the bedside table.

  He had no idea how he’d gotten there. No memory of turning his back on Kate and walking up the stairs.

  Yet here he was, fully clothed, watching the numbers change on the clock and willing them to go faster. He needed to get out of here. Needed to get on that plane and get back to Peru and return to the one place where he knew how to make things better, where he didn’t destroy everything he saw and touched and loved without even trying.

  I want us to stay married.

  She would never know that when she’d said that, some wall inside him had shifted. No, it had fallen down. He was Humpty Dumpty and the wall between him and everything he wanted had tumbled down, but he had still fallen and had still broken apart on the ground.

  The hell of it was that for one second, one heartbeat, he had thought about saying yes. For the space of one breath, everything he had ever wanted had been his.

  Then he had remembered.

  I want to have more kids. I would like to have them with someone I can build a life with.

  He’d said no because he knew, knew the same way he’d known that old Charlie had stashed something in this house, that she hadn’t been lying. She might want him now. But what she really wanted was the same thing she had longed for before he’d blown up her life: a family. More kids. A husband she could rely on, one who didn’t walk around like a ticking time bomb no matter how much she insisted he was a good parent.

  So he’d said no.

  And then, because he had to do something, anything to keep from saying, “wait, no, actually,” he had focused on Jamie. On feeding Jamie. On making sure he got that spoon into that mouth every time, because that was what good parents did. They made sure their kids were safe and warm and fed even when their own insides were being shredded.

  But he’d been so shell-shocked, so blind to anything but what was happening inside, that he forgot to look. He just kept shoving and pushing and doing what he thought was right, because that was all that mattered, wasn’t it?

  Jamie could have died. If Kate hadn’t been there, hadn’t known what was happening and what to do...

  He forced himself to relive those moments. The way Kate had flown across the room. The unholy sound she’d made as she’d pulled Jamie out of the chair. The way she had known exactly what to do when she’d flipped him over and started counting, one, two, three. And then the way she had sagged and cried and clutched Jamie to her. And God, dear God, it had all been over before he’d even really grasped what was happening.

  He didn’t need to be his mother’s son to hurt his own child. He was able to do it without even trying.

  He stared at the clock. How many minutes until he was on the plane? How long until he could let himself feel the loss that was already lodging inside him?

  How long until he could be certain that he wasn’t going to destroy anyone else?

  * * *

  KATE HAD THOUGHT that no days could be as long or as lonely as the ones after Neil’s death. She hadn’t thought it possible that any hours could stretch on, bleak and joyless, the way they had after his funeral, when all of a sudden it was just her and Allie and their mother, and nothing was right anymore.

  It turned out that a broken heart would always have that effect, no matter the reason it had shattered.

  In some ways this was worse. No, there wasn’t that abrupt demarcation that had come when the principal called her down to his office to find Nana waiting to tell her that Neil wouldn’t be coming home that night. But this—this week in which she was forced to see Boone all day, to watch him hide upstairs each night, to watch him with Jamie and see the love pouring out of him and know that there was no love there for her...

  No. He loved her. She was sure of that. He had never said it, never even hinted at it, but she knew it was true, the same way she knew that he would never deliberately hurt her or Jamie. Love was what had made him want to keep the house for her. Love was what had made him extract her promise that she wouldn’t let him hurt her when they made love again. Love was what had made him curl around her in the night, what had made him watch her in the early mornings when he thought she was still asleep.

  He loved her. She knew he did. But it wasn’t enough to make him push past the fear.

  Every minute hurt. Every breath hurt.

  They stayed civil. Polite. They said please and thank you so many times that the house could have been a Victorian tearoom. Oddly, though, the one word that was never spoken was the one she needed most.

  Sorry.

  Outside, the world went on. Word came from Ottawa that while further study was needed, it seemed that Charlie’s treasure was indeed a collection of items that had been taken from the White House before it was burned. Kate was advised to keep a date in June free, as there would likely be an official ceremony to present the items to the American ambassador. She circled the date on her calendar but made no promises.

  Maggie informed Kate that the Mayor was walking around town refusing to tel
l anyone what had happened. Not that she needed to—everyone had heard the tale already. But it seemed the Mayor was hoping against hope that the items would be proven fake or that another legend would appear, one that would easily replace the treasure in Comeback Cove’s tourism campaigns.

  Kate took Jamie to the pediatrician for his six-month check-up. Boone had planned to join them. That was one of the reasons she had scheduled the appointment during his visit. But he had said something about plumbing and she had simply nodded.

  “Fine,” she’d said, and the part of her that wasn’t numb had been oddly glad to see the way his jaw clenched at the simple word. It meant he wasn’t indifferent to her.

  Back in college, when Kate had been studying attachment in abusive families, her professor had compared a child’s need for love to that of a starving man faced with a soggy potato chip. It wasn’t nourishing. It wasn’t what anyone would choose under normal circumstances. But when the choice was that or nothing, the chip would win every time.

  That clenched jaw was Kate’s soggy chip.

  The worst moment came when she woke up in the middle of Boone’s second-to-last night and heard him talking. At first she thought he was on the phone with Jill or Craig. But three in the morning in Comeback Cove was two in the morning in Ollanta, and she doubted that there was any emergency that would require a call at this hour. Besides, when she listened more closely, his voice was going on and on, steady, without the pauses that would come with a phone call.

  She had to know. She slipped out of bed and moved to the foot of the stairs, where she waited. And listened.

  And died a little inside when she realized that he was singing into the recorder. “Carry On Wayward Son,” the song he had sung over and over while walking Jamie the night of the ankle and the tooth. The night when she had figured out that he was going to be better at this family thing than he thought possible.

  Why the hell wouldn’t he believe her?

  When Saturday morning finally arrived, it was almost a relief. She packed Jamie’s diaper bag and had the wild thought that this was how she had felt while getting ready for Neil’s funeral. The time of bracing for the worst was almost over. Once she got through this, she could stop saying goodbye and start crawling forward into her new reality.