by Loree Lough
“Goodness, Bobby,” she said, grabbing a glass from the cupboard. “You’re so subtle that—”
“Subtle indeed,” Emmaline complained. “All this indulgence around here is turning him into a rude little rascal.”
“What’s a rascal?” Bobby whispered to Angie.
“A brat,” she whispered back.
“I’m not a brat, Grandmother.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“But I’m a good kid.” He looked at Dara. “Right?”
She opened her mouth to agree, but Emmaline beat her to the punch.
“If you were as good as you think,” his grandmother said, “maybe God wouldn’t have sent you to the hospital.”
He looked into his grandmother’s eyes, tears filling his own. And without a word, he slid from his stool and ran from the room.
Angie shot Emmaline an angry look, then ran after her brother. “Bobby,” she called, “wait up.”
Dara calmly dried her hands on a dish towel and walked purposefully toward the snack bar. “Mrs. Brewster,” she said, sitting on the stood beside Francine’ s mother, “we have to talk.”
Emmaline put down her paring knife, wiped her hands on her apron. “About what?”
“About what just went on in here.” Dara hung her heels on the stool’s bottom rung, rested her hands on jeans-clad knees. “I’ve been quiet when you chewed me up one side and down the other, but I can’t sit idly by while you belittle the children. Especially when they’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong!” Emmaline protested. “Why, they’re becoming little barbarians!”
Noah had decided to stop off at home on his way back to the office, rather than phone Dara with the news about the payment. He’d let himself in through the front door and headed toward the sound of voices in the kitchen. He’d stopped short of the doorway, though, when Emmaline’s scolding drove his children from the room.
“They’re not barbarians,” he heard Dara say. “They’re terrific kids. And you have to stop ridiculing them.” She paused. “They were so excited—no, make that thrilled—when they heard you were coming for Christmas. Don’t you know how much they love you?”
“Of course they love me,” she scoffed. “I’m their grandmother.”
“Then may I suggest you act like one and warm up a little. Spend some time with Angie and Bobby—not teaching them how to bow and curtsy, but getting to know them.”
“What kind of nonsense is this? I’ve known them all their lives!”
“If you knew them, really knew them, Mrs. Brewster, you’d realize what remarkable children they are.”
“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this,” she said, starting to get off the stool.
“You’re absolutely right. But you do have to stop being so mean to the kids.” She held a hand in the air to forestall Emmaline’s retort. “I realize I’m not their natural-born mother, but I love them as much as if they were mine. It hurts them when you call them names, and I’ll do whatever I must to keep them from being hurt.”
Emmaline gasped. “Why, of all the…I’d never hurt them. How dare you insinuate such a thing!”
“Mrs. Brewster, I’m not insinuating anything.” Frustrated, she sighed. “I know you don’t like me, but that’s a problem only if we can’t learn to work around it…for the kids’ sake.”
“I never said I didn’t like you.”
Dara snickered quietly. “Well, you sure could have fooled me!”
Noah leaned back so that he could see them but they couldn’t see him.
He watched Emmaline begin to pace, from the sink to the stove to the snack bar and back again.
“It isn’t you, don’t you see? It’s me!”
“What do you mean?”
Emmaline stopped, faced Dara and said, “Everyone loves you. Noah, the children—even Joseph thinks the world of you. It’s Dara this and Dara that. You’d think you hung the moon!”
In all the years he’d known her, Noah had never seen the woman cry for real, but her tears were genuine now.
“You’re not the perfect housekeeper or a prizewinning cook,” she blubbered, “but you don’t need to be perfect.” She threw her hands into the air. “Don’t you see, they love you just for yourself!”
Dara nodded slowly, telling Noah that she was getting the same picture he had gotten: Emmaline was jealous of Dara!
She slid off her stool and drew Emmaline into a warm hug. “You’re sadly mistaken if you think they don’t love you, Mrs. Brewster. They’re crazy about you—Noah, the kids—and Mr. Brewster adores you. Anyone with eyes and ears knows it!” Patting the older woman’s back, she added, “No one expects you to be perfect, least of all the bunch of us. We’re family, for goodness’ sake! If you can’t relax with us, who can you be yourself with?”
Emmaline stepped out of Dara’s embrace, blotted her eyes on a corner of her apron. “Joseph was right,” she said, sniffing.
“About what?”
Impulsively, she grabbed Dara’s hand. “You’re a wonder.”
And Noah, from his vantage point, nodded in agreement. He’d loved her from first sight, but never more than right now.
The next weeks flew by in a flurry of activity, with Dara volunteering at the elementary school and putting the finishing touches on the house.
She’d always been a bundle of energy, so the fact that she’d been tiring by suppertime worried her more than a little. Perhaps caring for Noah and the children, as well as all the holiday preparations and entertaining Joseph and Emmaline, had worn down her usual energy reserves. She’d scheduled a physical, to make sure everything was A-OK.
As it turned out, her appointment was at ten o’clock on Valentine’s Day. She’d waited the customary thirty minutes beyond the set time, then sat another ten minutes in the examining room, waiting for Dr. Peterson.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said when he breezed into the room. “I had to break some bad news to my last patient. Took a little longer than I expected.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, putting aside the magazine she’d been reading. “Sitting around in here has been the most leisure time I’ve had in weeks.”
He peered at her over the rims of his half glasses, then patted her hand. “I can always count on you to brighten my day, can’t I?” He scribbled something in her file, then motioned for her to sit on the edge of the table. “So what’s this I hear about you getting married?”
Nodding happily, Dara smiled. “December 18.”
“Do I know the lucky fella?”
“I doubt it. His name is Noah Lucas.”
Peterson squinted one eye as he palpated Dara’s throat. “Can’t say as the name is familiar.” He plugged the stethoscope into his ears and listened to her chest. “Deep breath now,” he instructed. “Now, then,” he continued, listening to her back, “what seems to be the trouble?”
“Well, I’m just so tired all the time.”
He unplugged the stethoscope and grabbed his flashlight. Brow furrowed, he stared into Dara’s right eye, then her left. “Are you getting enough rest?”
“I should say so! I’m asleep by eleven and don’t get up till six.”
“Overdoing it around the house, then?” he asked, strapping the blood pressure cuff into place.
“No, just the usual chores, but Noah’s kids are a big help in that department.”
He made another note in her file. “Flat on your back, young lady.”
Once she was settled, he poked and prodded at her abdomen. “Hmm,” he said, frowning. “Excuse me for a minute, will you?”
Peterson hurried out the door, white coat flapping, and returned with the results of her blood and urine tests. “How long did you say you’ve been married?”
“Almost two months to the day.”
Nodding, he said, “That’s right. December 18.” He wrote something else in her file. “Go ahead and get dressed,” he said. “You know where to find me.” With a grin an
d a wink, he was gone.
Dara hurried into her clothes and rushed right into Peterson’s office. He’d been her doctor ever since she was a child. He’d removed her tonsils when she was six. Set her broken arm that time she’d fallen off the monkey bars in the fifth grade. Prescribed antibiotics to get her ear infection under control when she was on the high-school swim team. And performed every other examination—healthy and sick—in between. Settling into the low-backed chair across from his desk, she waited for him to complete his additions to her file.
Peterson removed his half glasses. “How long have we known each other?” he asked, lying them atop the file.
“Well, I’ll be thirty in May. Mom brought me to see you for the first time when I was in kindergarten.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, nodding and smiling, “when you nearly lopped off your big toe in the frog pond at Centennial Park.”
Dara laughed at the memory. “I’d almost forgotten about that!”
“You make me feel old, I don’t mind telling you.”
“Why?”
“Because I doctored you when you were barely more than a baby, and there you sit, having a baby of your own.”
It took a moment or two for the news to sink in. Dara repeated his words in her head: a baby of your own. A baby of your own!
“It’s perfectly normal to feel tired, especially during the first trimester. But you’re healthy, and you’re young. I think you’ll be fine, just fine.” He grabbed his ballpoint pen and a sheet of prescription paper. “I want you to call this guy,” he said, scribbling another doctor’s name. “He’s one of the best obstetricians in the Baltimore area. He’s busy, but he’ll make room for you if you tell him I sent you.” Peterson tore off the paper, handed it to Dara.
She accepted it with a trembling hand.
“You really had no idea?”
She shook her head. “I thought…There were signs, but I blamed them on nerves. You know, being a newlywed, adjusting to married life, taking care of two active—”
“Stepchildren?”
“I don’t like that term,” she said gently. “Active children. I like that much better.”
“I assume from the way you’re glowing, it’s good news.”
“Very good news,” she said, grinning.
Standing, Peterson opened his office door. “Doc Johnston is a great guy. He’ll want to see you once a month, every month, until the third trimester. Then he’ll play it by ear.”
Nodding, Dara walked beside him down the hall.
“He’ll bump up the visits at the end, from once a month to every two weeks. And that last month, he’ll want to see you every single week.” He dropped a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “Gimme a call now and then to let me know how things are going, okay?”
She smiled. “I will.”
He stood at the next examining room door. “And drink plenty of milk.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Dara pressed a palm to her stomach. A baby, she thought. You’re going to have a baby!
She hurried through the waiting room and across the parking lot. Lord, she prayed, driving away from the medical building, help me keep my mind on the road, because I don’t think my powers of concentration are going to be too good on the drive home.
She couldn’t wait to get there so she could phone Noah and tell him the news.
It was all she could do to control herself through dinner, through the kids’ homework session, through the hour of TV they were allowed to watch before bedtime. They’d worked out a routine in the weeks since Emmaline and Joseph had left—Noah would tuck Bobby in while she listened to Angie’s prayers, then they’d trade off.
Dara finished up first and went downstairs to wait for him in the family room. She’d fixed a special dinner in honor of Valentine’s Day, complete with fresh flowers on the table, and had made all of Noah’s favorites: breaded cubed steaks with roasted potatoes and carrots, spinach salad and a heart-shaped chocolate cake for dessert.
She’d bought him a card, too, and planned to give it to him, along with the tiny box of chocolates she’d bought at the grocery store, when he finished with the children. Her heart hammered when she heard his stocking feet thudding down the stairs. Please, Lord Jesus, she prayed, eyes shut tight, hands clenched, let him be happy about the baby; let him be happy about the baby!
He didn’t come straight into the family room, as she’d expected. She heard the hall closet door open and close. And then, there he was, standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind him, framed by the hallway light.
“Dinner was terrific,” he told her.
“So you said…about a hundred and fifty times.” She smiled. “So thank you, for the hundred and fiftieth time.”
There was a slight crinkling sound as he walked toward her, which intensified when he sat beside her on the sofa. “I wasn’t sure what to get you,” he began, as one corner of his mouth lifted in a playful grin. “But you don’t strike me as the dozen-red-roses type.”
“Actually,” she said, “I prefer daisies.”
His smile doubled in size when he handed her a huge bouquet…of long-petaled white daisies.
“Noah,” she gushed, “how did you know?”
He shrugged. “Honest?”
“Honest.”
“I have no idea.”
They shared a moment of quiet laughter, then she handed him the little box of candy. “I know how much you like chocolate butter creams,” she explained, laying the card and candy box between them on the sofa.
“That reminds me,” he said, looking at it, sliding a card from his back pocket. He’d folded it in half so it would fit, and he grimaced at it now. “Sorry,” he said, holding it out to her. “Guess I’m not much of a romantic.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, accepting it. “Any guy who buys his girl her favorite posies on Valentine’s Day is pretty romantic, in my opinion.”
They read their cards, and hugged and thanked each other, and then Noah popped a chocolate into his mouth. “Mmm,” he said around it. “Want one?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m going to have to start watching what I eat.”
His brow crinkled. “Why? You have a terrific figure.”
“For now.…”
“What?”
She stood, headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to put these in water.”
“I’ll come with you.”
She rooted around in the cabinet under the sink, where she’d stored the vases. After filling one with tap water, she unwrapped the daisies. “I have something to tell you,” she said, plucking withered leaves from the stems.
“What a coincidence. I have something to tell you, too.”
One by one, she arranged the flowers in the vase. “You go first.”
“Okay, if you insist.” He led her across the room, where a battered wooden box stood on the table. “I found this while I was searching for a way to clear your father’s name,” he explained.
“Clear his…” She met his eyes. “Oh, Noah! It’s over? You made the payment, and—”
“Yes, sweetie,” he said. “It’s over. But that isn’t the best news.” He nodded at the box. “Open it.”
She opened it and looked at its contents. Puzzled by the brown leather book on top, she picked it up. “I didn’t know Dad kept a journal,” she said, frowning.
He took it from her, opened to the page he’d marked with a slip of yellow paper. “You can read the rest later,” he said, handing it back to her. “But first, I want you to read this passage.”
Dara sat down, laid the book on the table and began to read as Noah stood beside her. She was silent for a long time after closing the book. And then her gaze met Noah’s. “He did it for Mom.” She sighed. “For Mom!”
Not satisfied with the doctors’ prognosis, Jake had made it his full-time job to find a way to save his wife. He’d surfed the Net, interviewed cancer specialists all over the world, read every book he could get his hands on, as evid
enced by the entries Noah had marked. They had one last chance, as Jake saw it, to save Anne…an experimental treatment being developed in England. But it was costly, and added to all Anne’s other medical expenses, Jake didn’t have the funds.
And so he’d borrowed the money from the Pinnacle account. Had written an IOU that detailed the amount of the loan, the date the money had been withdrawn and his plans to replace the funds by selling stocks and bonds. Evidently, worry over Anne’s quickly failing health distracted him, because the IOU never got delivered; it lay there now, pressed between the pages of his journal, as it had for months.
He’d made the final entry in the diary on the morning he’d left for that last trip to England, to secure Pinnacle that corporate-saving deal with Acmic Chemicals. The experimental treatments had failed to help Anne and had only succeeded in increasing Jake’s medical bills. “The minute I get back from London,” he’d written, “I’ll start selling off stocks and bonds to repay Pinnacle’s loan.”
He never said why he hadn’t asked Kurt Turner straight out to make him the loan. Hadn’t said why he’d never mentioned his plans to anyone. Male pride? she wondered. Fear?
But what did it matter now?
Her father wasn’t a thief! That was the only important thing.
He hadn’t exactly gone about taking the loan in the most aboveboard way, but she knew him. If he had said he intended to put it back, then he would have put it back. If he had lived. If he was guilty of anything, it was false pride.
The tears that had filled her eyes when she’d started reading the journal abated, and she blew her nose on a paper napkin. “What a relief.” She sighed shakily. “What a blessed relief!”
“C’mere,” Noah said, taking her hand. She rose and walked into his outstretched arms.
“Thank you, Noah,” she whispered, kissing him.
“For what?”
“For…” She looked into his eyes and, smiling, said, “For being you, that’s all. Just for being you.”