by Nancy Bush
“There you are,” Trini said with relief from the only chair in the room as Andi opened her eyes.
Andi looked around dully. She was in a hospital room with blue and green decor. A blank television stared down at her like an accusing eye. She could see her toes holding up the covers at the end of the bed.
Miscarriage ...
A wave of sorrow brought tears to her eyes and she closed her lids and fought back a hard cry that wanted to erupt from her soul. She’d barely gotten used to the idea that she was pregnant and now the baby was gone.
“Hey,” Trini said. She was beside Andi in an instant, grabbing her hand.
“The baby’s gone.”
“Um . . . yes, I think so,” Trini said soberly after a moment of indecision. “I’m sorry, Andi. I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
Andi kept her lips tightly closed, afraid if she said anymore she would break down completely.
Trini squeezed her hand. “I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but there’s something good that came out of this.”
Andi just stared blankly ahead.
“It proves you can get pregnant. The last I heard, you said you didn’t think it could happen, and it did. Doesn’t have to be Greg’s baby, you know.”
“I don’t want to . . . talk about it.”
“Just listen then. Soon as you’re better, head on down to the local sperm depository and pick yourself out a baby daddy. Pick one with really good genes. Or how about that guy you’ve been seeing? Luke?”
“No. It’s not . . . no . . .” She didn’t have the energy to explain.
“I’m just sayin’. He wouldn’t leave the hospital even when the staff told him to. He finally took a break about an hour ago to get some sleep, but I bet he’s back ASAP. He’s like . . . built for sex, and I hope you’ll tell me it’s just as good as it looks.”
“Stop,” she said weakly.
“I’m not saying right now, obviously. But later.”
“I’m not having sex with Luke,” she said with certainty.
“You should. I mean it.”
“Don’t make me smile, Trini. I feel too miserable.”
“Smiling is good. Smiling means you’re improving.”
“No, I’m too sad.” Her voice trailed off, small and loaded with pain.
“What can I do to help?” Trini asked in all seriousness.
“Nothing. Thanks. But nothing.”
Trini sighed. “Okay, what if I tell you about my relationship with Bobby? You don’t have to talk. You don’t even have to listen. Just try not to think too much.”
Andi closed her eyes. There was wisdom in that. Let Trini just talk. She could tune out. She needed some kind of distraction or she would be swallowed up by the dark. “Okay.”
“He first came to my Pilates class. Did I tell you that he’s not my type? I did, didn’t I? He looks more like Greg than Tim . . . you remember Tim? My last serious guy . . . relationship . . . whatever you want to call it, that I thought could turn into something more. Not that I necessarily want that, but you know what I mean. Tim had that tattoo that ran down the side of his neck? You told me you thought it looked like Pinocchio’s nose, but it was really a flute because he was a musician. Anyway, Bobby’s not like Tim at all. He’s very corporate, although in a nerdy way. Wears glasses and not cool ones, but I’m working on him. Hard to believe I fell for him, but I have. When you take away all the trappings of nerdom, he’s really sexy.”
Andi was drifting. The conversation came to her through a watery filter.
As if realizing it, Trini said, “Go ahead and fall back asleep. And relax. I’m just talking here . . . let’s see . . . Bobby and I haven’t had sex yet. We’re still kind of circling each other, y’know? I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this, but he wears a hairpiece because he’s going bald.”
Andi made a strangled sound.
“I know! I just know he’d look great if he shaved his head, but as I said, I gotta work on him. Time will tell. You gotta meet him and you’ll know what I’m talking about. . . .”
The next time Andi woke up it was night, and she felt like she was weighted down by an invisible blanket. Her chest hurt and she didn’t want to move. She kept hoping it was all a nightmare from which she would awaken.
She ran a protective hand over her abdomen. How many days had she known she was pregnant? Four? She wanted to bury her face in her pillow and make it all go away, but she sensed there were others in the room. She opened one eye and saw she was alone. The voices she’d heard were from people in the hall, just outside her door, talking softly.
“. . . Greg sure could get ’em pregnant. They just can’t hang on to the babies,” Emma was saying.
A man’s voice answered in a mumble and Andi caught part of it. “. . . lucky for us about Mimi and now this . . . Greg stuck his dick in way too many . . .”
And then Emma again, even softer, “Think she knows?”
“Nah.”
Carter, she realized dimly. Talking about Greg’s indiscretions. Of course she’d known about Mimi, but not that there had been many more. A sharp stab of pain. Surprising, even so many months after Greg’s death.
Or maybe it was just that she felt so low.
Their voices diminished as they moved off. Andi flung an arm over her eyes, willing herself back to sleep.
She awakened with a start to realize it was night. There was someone sitting in the only chair and her heart flipped over until she recognized her psychiatrist, Dr. Knapp.
“What are you doing here?” Andi asked.
“I wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“How did you know?”
“Your sister-in-law called me.”
“Emma?”
“She said she was with you and called nine-one-one. How are you doing?”
Dr. Knapp was a tiny woman in her forties who leaned toward the bohemian look with long hair, flowing skirts, and dangling silver earrings. At her first appointment, Andi hadn’t been sure they would be a good match, but she’d come to trust the doctor implicitly. “I didn’t know Emma knew about you,” she murmured. Carter was the one who’d named her the “guru shrink.”
“You know about the baby, I take it,” Andi said.
“I heard you just found out. I’m so sorry, Andi.”
The doctor’s commiseration made Andi’s throat go hot, her nose burn with gathering tears. “I’m . . . disappointed.”
Dr. Knapp pulled her chair closer to Andi’s bed. “This is another big blow. You have a right.”
Andi nodded silently, fighting the waterworks.
“Let down,” her doctor advised kindly, and Andi bent her head and cried.
PART II
MIDDLEGAME
Chapter Ten
The game requires the patience of a saint. Strategizing. One step following another. I have to fight back my increasing desire to be rash. To jump ahead and get going forward faster ... faster ... faster.
But that’s not the way the game works and it’s sweeter for it. That doesn’t mean unexpected turns don’t infuriate me. Miscarriage ... ? Gregory Wren got his sweet little bird pregnant? And it wasn’t the first time he’d spread his seed, supposedly. Just ask the mistress he was fucking any time he could get away from Andrea ... Andi ... the cool, seductive wife. Just thinking about her gets me hard. Before she dies I will fill her with my own seed.
My blood boils with need and rage. Immediately I recognize the danger. Have to wait ... have to wait ... This miscarriage has shone a light too brightly on my ultimate quarry.
But there are others who can fulfill my need while the game continues ... all part of the misdirection.
* * *
At seven p.m. Andi lit a candle and put it in the window of her cabin, standing back and staring at the flame. She drew a breath, closed her eyes, and let herself feel the sadness. Today was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, nearly six weeks since her miscarriage, and each person’s candle, lit
at seven p.m. in their respective time zone, sent a wave of light around the world in recognition of their loss. Andi had never really participated in global events until this day, but she had to admit this one small act made her feel better.
She’d gone back to work fairly quickly after the miscarriage, but, as she had after Greg’s death, she’d mostly walked through the days like an automaton.
Her mother had insisted on flying in from Boston to help her. Andi had weakly protested, but her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. As soon as she arrived, the first thing Diana DeCarolis did was refill Andi’s antidepressants, even though she told her mother she still had pills from Dr. Knapp’s first prescription. “Then you should be taking them regularly,” her mother said flatly, holding up the vial. “If you had been, these would be gone.”
She was right, of course, but Andi didn’t care to hear it. She’d been doing fine, and it was just as well she’d neglected the pills because she’d been pregnant at the time. She would have been worried sick if the baby had lived because she’d been taking those antidepressants throughout her three-month pregnancy.
She hadn’t seen Luke much since the miscarriage, and over the last weeks she’d begun questioning whether she should have hired him in the first place. She’d heard nothing more from the Carreras; none of the Wrens had. And when Andi returned to work, there’d been no more talk from Carter about selling any properties to them. The company’s construction loan had finally come through, so they were able to pay their bills and continue building the lodge without the worry of running out of funds. She’d called Luke and given him that information, but she hadn’t pulled him off the job as yet. This could be just a lull, and the Carreras would come back swinging. If so, she hoped Luke would find something on them and put them out of the strong-arm business, but she wasn’t certain how long their business arrangement should be kept in place.
Meanwhile, her mother took over Andi’s move, emptying the boxes, sorting out what was needed and what could go into storage—more, even, than Andi had—then she moved on to what she felt needed to be changed at the cabin itself, namely the nursery furniture and decor. Andi didn’t have the energy to stop her, and truthfully, she didn’t know what she wanted anyway. With the aid of Andi’s brother, Jarrett, Diana brought a double bed out of storage for the spare room, along with various and sundry other items to make the cabin comfortable. She stayed ten days, and by the time she left, Andi was desperate to be alone again. Though she appreciated everything her mother had done for her, a little of Diana went a long way. Organization was her mother’s forte, but her drill sergeant ways wore thin fast.
Now, Andi went to the bathroom medicine cabinet and peered inside, seeing the two vials of pills sitting side by side. She’d started taking the new ones but had switched to the originals. What difference did it make?
She was in the kitchen when there was a knock on the door. She started in surprise, then berated herself for being so on edge. Sometimes she wondered if she’d read too much into Brian Carrera’s remarks that day on the treadmill. Were they as threatening as she’d believed? Nothing untoward had happened at the lodge, no dead-of-night sabotage. And Carter had since insisted to both Emma and her that he hadn’t really been thinking of negotiating with them, which was a bald-faced lie, but whatever. As far as Andi was concerned, she was glad she didn’t have to think about the Carreras for a while. Maybe it was just a honeymoon period, but she was grateful for it anyway.
As she crossed to the door she thought of Luke and her steps quickened. There was no reason to think he would be here. She hadn’t seen him in weeks, not since he’d sent Art Kessler to supervise her landscaping, which she’d gratefully appreciated. Between Art and her mother, the cabin was in great shape. She just wished she had a reason to see Luke more.
She checked the peephole and saw that it was her brother on the steps, all six feet three of him. She was surprised and a little disappointed. But had she really expected Luke? The last time they’d talked he’d told her he hadn’t been able to meet with Peg Bellows yet, and if he was following any other plan to bring the Carreras to justice, he hadn’t let her know.
But what was Jarrett doing here? He’d called her right after she got out of the hospital—after being prompted by her mother, she was pretty sure—to see how she was doing, but that had been their only communication. They’d never been close, and after high school Jarrett had gone into the restaurant/bar business, living late hours and hanging around with somewhat suspect associates, while Andi had taken the college and marriage path.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked as she opened the door.
He sent her a faint smile. “In the neighborhood, sort of. I was at Lacey’s and thought I’d stop by.”
Lacey’s . . . Andi’s heart jolted a little. “Not exactly on your beaten path,” she remarked. Jarrett lived miles away, on the other side of Portland.
“Yeah, well, thought I’d come by to see you,” he said lightly. “You gonna make me stand on the porch all night?”
“Come on in.” She opened the door wider and stepped back.
Jarrett crossed the threshold and looked around the cabin with interest. He was tall, dark, and handsome, the total cliché, but he was a hard person to know. But then again, maybe she was, too.
“I saw Trini there,” he said.
“At Lacey’s?”
He half laughed. “I know. Nothing gluten-free and low-salt there.”
“What was she doing there?”
“Enjoying the ambience like the rest of us?”
“Well, I never want to go there again.”
He gave her a sympathetic look, unusual for him. “Trini seemed to be watching the door for someone, but they didn’t show. Maybe another relationship on the edge. She knows how to run through ’em.”
Trini’d run through Jarrett once upon a time. That was her normal way, but Jarrett wasn’t exactly Mr. Relationship either. Their affair, such as it was, had ended badly, but it was long in the past now.
“You seen her lately?” Jarrett asked casually, too casually in Andi’s opinion.
“Not a lot. A few times.”
She’d actually only seen Trini twice since her stay at Laurelton General. Once while her mother was here—though the way Diana had kept busying around and inter rupting them while Trini was over had cut that visit short—and then another time when Andi had met Trini for lunch. That time her friend had been so distracted and unwilling to talk about herself that Andi had asked, “Who are you and what did you do with Trini?”
She’d jerked as if stung, but then she’d relaxed and managed to dredge up a smile. “That bitch? She’s around. Just been busy.”
“Lots of classes?”
She shrugged and nodded.
“Still seeing Bobby?” Andi asked. It wasn’t like Trini to be so unwilling to talk about herself.
“Actually, he’s been like a ghost lately.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah,” she said regretfully. “I think he might be over me . . . us.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that.”
“Ah, well.” She shrugged. “Forget about it. He wasn’t my type anyway. Too buttoned-down, didn’t I tell you? What am I going to do with a guy like that? I mean, really, over the long haul.”
Andi said softly, “You seemed to like him pretty well.”
“The sex was great. That I’m going to miss. And you know, I thought . . . maybe this was just what I need. Maybe I’d been going for the wrong type all along. But it didn’t work out, so whatever.” She cleared her throat and asked, “What about you? How’re you doing, I mean really?”
“Okay. Better. Day by day. Going to work and getting back to my life.”
“Any chance you’ll be back at the gym sometime soon?”
“Yeah, sure.” Andi had tried to steer the conversation back to Trini, but her friend hadn’t wanted to talk about herself. That was so unlike her usual MO that their lunch conversation had ki
nd of petered out, and they’d parted with promises to get in touch soon, promises yet to be fulfilled.
Now Jarrett stared through the window in the back door, next to the kitchen, to a spot in the middle distance, his gaze running past the willow losing its leaves at the water’s edge to fixate somewhere further on the faintly rippling waters of Schultz Lake. His hair was rakishly long, and he wore jeans and a black leather jacket, the combination making him look slightly dangerous. Her brother was a cool customer who played his cards close to the vest.
“You want something to drink?” Andi asked, heading to the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. She pulled out a pitcher of chilled water.
“I’m not staying. Just wanted to check in on you.”
“As you can see, I’m okay.”
“Back at work?”
“Yeah, for a while now.”
“You know,” Jarrett said, still gazing at the water, “he planted willows all around this lake. Schultz did, when he started developing. Had a thing for them, I guess.”
Andi shot a look to the partially denuded tree bending down toward the water. The willow branches were knobby whips.
“How are the Wrens?” Jarrett asked neutrally. Andi turned and gave him a sharp look. Jarrett had never said anything against Greg, but Andi had always known he hadn’t had much use for him.
“Pretty much the same as always.”
“Y’all still having trouble with the Carrera brothers?”
Andi’s brows lifted. “You pay attention to our dealings with them?”
“The Carreras get a lot of airplay, and that lodge you’re building at the end of the lake keeps coming up.”
Andi grunted an assent. She’d seen the lodge on the news as well. It was like time-lapse photography; every time it was shown it was a little closer to final framing.