He pulled her to a stop beside him. “I’d like to stay with him, Bailey. I’m at loose ends this afternoon and would probably just be sitting in front of the TV in my hotel room.”
Jake? No way! He’d be out exploring Boston. Or drinking in some upscale pub. Maybe eating lobster down at the pier.
“I...envy you. Having a child. You’re the only one of us who didn’t plan to be a parent by thirty and here we are, all pushing thirty-five and you’re the only one who actually is a parent.”
He was talking gibberish. Most of their friends had kids. Danny and Kora and Jake were...
That was the us he was referring to. The closest us there’d been. Danny and Kora. Jake and Bailey.
“Koralynn has pictures of Mattie up in Danny’s room. Her parents send them. And tell her what you say about him. She repeats it all to Danny. And me, when I’m there.”
He shouldn’t be telling her this. But she grabbed hold of the lifeline.
“Please, Bail. I think I can manage to keep him out of harm’s way for a couple of hours. I know Kora would love firsthand news. And...I’ve wanted to see him since I heard you had him. Who knows when I’ll get another chance? Let me meet him, okay?” She had to get this straight. Jake was begging? To spend time with her son?
“I...Jenna doesn’t want kids,” he said. “So it looks like I’m not going to be having any of my own.”
It was not her business. But she cared.
“Sure, Jake,” she said, slowing as they approached her building. “I mean, if you really want to sit with him, I don’t have a problem with it. He’ll be sleeping most of the afternoon anyway, and it would be nice if he could nap in his own bed...”
She trusted Jake. And if it meant that much to him...
Something inside Bailey told her it wasn’t right. Wasn’t smart. But she felt convinced that no one was going to see any resemblance to Danny. Mattie had dark hair like hers, not blonde like Danny’s. Her brown eyes, not Danny’s blue ones.
Not smart, her mind repeated.
But she didn’t listen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Hi, babe. How’s your day been?” I had to ask. Just in case Danny had the wherewithal to answer. Even after a couple of months in school, I was suffering from withdrawal, finding it hard not to be with him every minute of every day. I spent half my time fighting panic attacks, afraid I was letting him down. And the other half coming back to life.
I had to work. Not only for me, but because we needed the money.
Still, I needed him to know I cared. So as soon my school day was done I climbed into my Mustang and headed over to Danny’s. Every single day. And I stayed until bedtime. Every single night.
On weekends, my days were just like they’d been for the past year. I got up, showered, packed whatever I had to do for the day and drove over to Danny’s, where I’d stay until bedtime. I only left to do errands, taking the minimum amount of time. “I bought those gold-and-rose-colored towels I asked you about a couple of days ago. They look good in the spare bathroom.”
He was flat on his back tonight. The sores must have healed.
“You know that little Down syndrome boy I told you about, the one I have in my class this year? I really want you to meet him....”
Every day it was the same. I shared everything. He shared nothing.
Still, I loved my kids. I loved our new house. And I loved him.
Life wasn’t perfect. But I was coping.
* * *
Another holiday season arrived and then passed. Mattie, at twenty-three months, wanted nothing to do with Santa Claus, but loved ripping paper from his gifts. On Christmas morning, Bailey sat alone with him in front of the small tree in their living room—a first for her, having her own tree—and watched as he tore colorful paper off toy after toy, only to turn away from the unwrapped bounty as soon as the paper was gone to reach for another wrapped package.
Clearly he didn’t quite get the concept that fun awaited him inside those boxes he’d abandoned.
They had a good day, though, playing with his new toys, reading the books, and he even let her try a couple of his new outfits on him.
Delores came up for Christmas dinner; between the two of them, they’d prepared all the traditional dishes—turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole—and they’d shared memories of past Christmas dinners with each other. Delores spoke of her Walter with reverence and smiles, and Bailey found herself telling the older woman about Koralynn and Mama Di and Papa Bill and all the Christmases she’d spent with them.
There were gaps in her stories, but Delores didn’t ask questions. And she was gone by the time Bailey and Mattie made a Skype call with Mama Di and Papa Bill to open their presents.
It was a great Christmas in some ways. A new beginning. But it was lonely, too. So much so that, in the second week of January, when Bailey got a call from her previous firm asking her to assist with a case she’d worked on before leaving town—a contentious two-year custody suit involving an autistic eight-year-old girl—she agreed. She arranged to take a week off work and travel to Pittsburgh.
She’d arrive in town, do her job and get out. No contacting anyone she knew from her former life. And no drive-bys.
Because she was taking Mattie—how could she leave him for a whole week?—she’d planned to fly out the next Sunday, renting a car when she landed in Pittsburgh, with the firm picking up the tab. But the Friday before they left, eying all the things she thought she should take to keep her son happy in the firm’s hotel suite for five days—she canceled the flight. She loaded the two of them and all their gear into her Ford Thunderbird and traveled five hours each day to Pittsburgh. Thankfully Mattie slept through most of it. They got in just before dinner on Sunday.
Like any other visitor to town, she checked into her hotel, ordered dinner from room service and as soon as her son was down for the night, opened her briefcase and got to work.
* * *
It was a rough winter. Halfway through January, and already I was frozen to the core. They were taking Danny to physical therapy five days a week now. I’d get to his room just before they wheeled him back in each day, so I could be there to greet him.
I’d wait there at the door, my heart pounding as I saw them heading down the hall, wheeling his bed, afraid to meet the eye of his therapist, Johnny, and afraid not to.
Had Danny shown any signs of taking ownership of his movements that day? Had he resisted when Johnny moved his limbs up and down, to and fro, around and back, in an attempt to fight off the atrophy that was setting in? Had he assisted in any way?
Grimaced even?
It was always the same. I’d look at Johnny, he’d smile and tell me they’d had a good day. He’d get Danny’s bed settled back in his room, and after that he’d leave.
Then I’d take over, chattering cheerfully to my husband while I fussed around the room, trying not to cry. The emotion would pass, usually within minutes, and I’d settle down on the bed with Danny and grade papers. Or watch television. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and Monday and Thursday nights, we’d watch football. Whoever was playing.
“I thought maybe we’d have a Super Bowl party here,” I told him that cold January Tuesday as I tuned in to a sports station and had to settle for basketball, Danny’s second-favorite sport. “We could invite Jake and maybe some of the other guys.” I was making things up as I went, filled with a desperate need for normalcy—or at least for a bridge between the life I led outside the center and my life with Danny. “I’ll call your mom and Charles,” I said as the Phoenix Suns scored two points. “Maybe they’ll drive up from Kentucky. We’ve got the spare room in the bungalow, and now that I’ve finally cleared out all the boxes, it’s ready for guests.” I’d done the unpacking during those middle-of-the-night times I couldn
’t sleep....
I’d make seven-layer dip, Danny’s favorite. And Mom’s cocktail meatballs with the grape jelly. He’d always said he could smell them while he was coming up the block and had never waited until a gathering started before stealing some samples. I could bring my little Crock-Pot warmer. The scent of the cooking meatballs would fill the room and might tempt him into waking up. I could imagine it. Danny would open his eyes and everyone would be there, having fun, talking and laughing and engaging in ribald discussions over the game.
I’d be the first to notice, of course, and would try to talk, but my throat would be so tight I’d only manage a squeal and then, one by one, everyone would turn toward Danny. He’d be grinning and the cacophony would burst over us so that no one would see that I was sobbing my head off...
“Hey, he tell a joke or something?” Jake’s voice interrupted the fantasy and only then did I realize I’d been sitting there grinning, so lost in thought I hadn’t seen him standing there with a flat, boxy-looking brown bag in his hand.
“I brought Chinese,” he said. And though I wasn’t the least bit hungry, and had had no intention of eating the salad I’d put in Danny’s little refrigerator when I’d come in an hour before, I took the cardboard carton, plastic fork and napkin he handed me, and joined him in one of the two plastic chairs by Danny’s bed.
“Only thing missing is some wine,” he said as he chomped away on his peppered beef over brown rice. I was actually enjoying the orange chicken he’d brought me. Even before the accident, Jake had known what I liked and what I didn’t. We’d all known each other’s tastes-—Danny and Bailey and Jake and me. We’d have to be stupid not to, as often as we’d all eaten together over the years.
I was nodding in response to his wine comment when I glimpsed the change in Danny. Or rather, in his covers. That steady rise and fall, the one that probably nobody but me noticed, wasn’t—Before I realized what I was seeing, Danny made a ghastly sound, a cross between a gasp and throwing up. Jake’s box landed on the floor as he reached for Danny, sitting him up. I saw his finger going in Danny’s mouth as I ran from the room, calling for help.
It wasn’t going to end this way. I wasn’t going to let it.
* * *
“We miss you around here, Bailey.” Richard Mayer, senior partner at Mayer and Mayer, cocked an eyebrow at her as they left the conference room late on Tuesday. Trial was on Thursday and they were going to be ready. Little Carly’s father wanted to have her put in a home, which state funding would cover, instead of letting her stay at home with her mother, which would require him to pay child support.
Bailey had done all the initial interviews on the case two years before. She’d been following professional assessments from Carly’s medical team and had just that afternoon met with an impartial expert witness who’d spent the previous day with the little girl. In the morning, she was going to be meeting with a team from Carly’s school. There’d be nothing left undone to help this little girl have the fullest, most complete and loving life she could.
Regardless of the extra cost to her father.
“I miss being here, sir,” she said now, closing the leather flap of her briefcase and loading it, along with an almost foot-high stack of files, in the milk-crate-style rolling cart she’d been using since law school. She liked the firm in Boston; Sheila and the other women who made up the partnership were brilliant lawyers.
And left Bailey to handle cases she could have won in law school.
Still, she loved her condo. Mattie loved Delores. And they had a new life....
“We have an opening,” Richard was saying, his head tilted as he studied her. She recognized the look. Assessing. Calculating. She’d seen him use it in the courtroom before closing arguments.
It was his close-the-deal look.
Her heart started to pound.
“Hillary Banks is moving to London with her husband.”
The junior partner who’d been promoted just before Bailey joined the firm.
Her chest was tight.
“I spoke with the other partners and it was unanimous....”
Oh, my God. She stood there with her palm resting on the handle of her cart, smiling politely.
“We’d like to offer you her spot,” Richard said.
She hadn’t even won the case yet. Who did that? Offered a young attorney a key position, a partnership, before she’d scored the win?
“Diane said you’ve bought a place in Boston, so I can imagine you’ll want some time to think this over...”
“Get back to us by, say, the end of the week?”
He told her what they were willing to pay.
Oh, my God.
* * *
Danny was fine. He’d had some drainage and needed to be suctioned. Nothing I hadn’t seen and done plenty of times. It just hadn’t happened exactly like that before—with no warning to prevent a lack of air. Jake had pulled out Danny’s feeding tube when he’d thought he had to clear his throat, so we had to replace that as well. Again, nothing new to me.
I felt like I’d been hit by a truck, anyway.
“I’m following you home,” Jake said to me as we walked out to the parking lot just before ten that night.
“No, you aren’t. You have to work tomorrow, too, and you have a lot farther to drive than I do.” He didn’t usually stay so late. Danny’s little scare must have rattled him.
“You’re on a tightrope tonight, Kora. I’m going to follow you home, and the faster you get in your car and get moving, the quicker I’ll be on my way.”
“Jake, really, I’m...”
He gave me a look—one that was stern and needy at the same time. “It’s what Danny would have me do,” he said simply. And I relented immediately.
* * *
“What do you think, little man? You want to live here?” On the king-size bed she was sharing with her son, Bailey looked over at the sleeping boy. He’d had a busy day playing with the sitter the firm had hired for her and had fallen asleep over the vegetable soufflé she’d ordered them for dinner.
A partnership. Who would ever have thought? She, Bailey Watters had been offered a partnership in a prominent Pittsburgh firm. Even with her ex-stepfather judge still on the bench. If she hadn’t been in such a hurry to get back to her little man, she would’ve stopped by the cemetery on her way home from the office that evening just to tell her mom the news.
She wasn’t going to accept the offer, of course. But it was tempting. The money alone was damned tempting.
“I’d have enough for you to go to college when you’re eight,” she told the sleeping toddler. His pudgy cheeks, pink and healthy, puffed in and out with every breath. Mattie slept with his mouth open and drool dripped down to the sheet in the middle of the bed where she’d put him. His hair, as dark as hers now, stuck up haphazardly as it always did when he was sweating. Probably wouldn’t if she’d cut it more often, but for now, she liked it long.
She couldn’t live in Pittsburgh. In just two days’ time, she was already sinking back into the depression she’d gone through after Kora’s abrupt departure from her life. Everywhere she looked there were memories of the two of them together. She didn’t understand how Kora could drive around town and not be blasted by memories of what they’d had. How she couldn’t be consumed with the pain of what they’d lost.
But then, maybe Kora hadn’t cared as much as Bailey had. Maybe the whole kidney thing had been one of those childhood games no one really believed in.
Maybe Kora was too busy hurting for Danny to think about Bailey. When she’d seen Jake in Boston last fall, he’d said that Kora spent every minute with Danny. She hadn’t heard from Jake since.
But he was there. In Pittsburgh. Where he lived with his wife. Who traveled a lot.
It was midweek. When those who traveled
for business were traveling.
She’d been offered a partnership—junior though it was.
The dream of a lifetime.
And she couldn’t take it.
God, what she’d give to talk to Kora.
She’d already tried Mama Di and Papa Bill. Their phones went immediately to voice mail, which probably meant they were either out on their boat or at an art show.
Bailey chewed on her lip and stared at her cell phone.
He’d said they were friends. He’d said to call anytime.
Jenna had warned her to leave her husband alone. Clutching her phone to her chest, Bailey laid her head down just inches from her son and fell asleep.
* * *
I forgot that my garage door opener didn’t work until I pulled into the driveway, with Jake behind me. It had quit Monday morning and I hadn’t had a chance to go online and find out what to do about it. It was cold, but there was no snow in the forecast, so it wasn’t going to hurt the Mustang to sit outside. And it wasn’t all that big a deal to scrape windows in the morning, either.
“Garage door not working?”
I should have called Daddy. Or been more firm about not having Jake follow me home. I knew there was no way he was going to leave without at least trying to figure out what was wrong.
As it turned out, it was a tripped outlet in my master bathroom that was somehow connected to the garage electricity. A quick fix. But it took long enough that I had time to make him a strong cup of fresh coffee to take on the drive home.
All would have been fine, normal and uneventful, if he hadn’t also spotted the dripping kitchen faucet. It just needed a washer and I’d get to it. I’d seen Danny change them before. I had a toilet valve going out, too, but it was in the spare bathroom and I didn’t use it.
“Why didn’t you ask for help?” Jake asked me, watching the faucet as though it was some major motion picture.
“I’m perfectly capable and I have to learn to do things on my own,” I told him. “You’re alone a lot of the time and you don’t call people to do the stuff Jenna normally does when she’s at home.”
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