No wonder.
Twice I came into his office and found him crying.… How sad that he had to come here to cry.…
Saturday night at the restaurant was wild. Every table was full, and a line of hopefuls waited in the corner. Angie was grateful for the business. It meant she didn’t have time to think.
Thinking was the last thing she wanted to do.
At closing time, Mira showed up, running in from the cold. “Well?” she said. “Livvy said you went to see Conlan. How did it go?”
“Not well.”
“Oh.” Mira’s plump face seemed to crumple. “I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am, believe me.”
Love can get us through the hardest times.
It can also be our hardest times.
All weekend Lauren had been thinking about her conversation with Angie. Lauren kept hoping that somehow the answer was there, waiting for her to be smart enough to see it. Because as it was, she saw nothing but bad decisions in front of her.
She didn’t want to be a mother.
She didn’t want to have a baby and give it away.
What she wanted was not to be pregnant.
By Sunday she’d worried herself sick. She’d ignored Angie at work and slipped out of the restaurant without a good-bye to anyone. She walked all the way home, not bothering with the crosstown bus. No matter how much she tried to think about other things, THE BABY was always there.
Somewhere along the way it started to rain. She flipped her hood up and kept walking. The weather suited her mood. She took a perverse pleasure in the cold and chill.
She turned the corner toward home and saw him.
David stood on the sidewalk in front of her apartment, holding a bouquet of red roses. The rain pummeled him. “Hey, Trixie.”
Love swept through her, hot as a flame, and consumed everything. She ran for him, threw her arms around him. He picked her up, held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
He loves me.
That was what she’d forgotten this weekend. She wasn’t alone in this. She wasn’t her mother.
She slid down to her feet again, smiled up at him, blinking through the rain. “I thought you guys were out of town until tomorrow morning.”
“I missed you, so I came back early.”
“Your mom couldn’t have been too happy about that.”
“I told her I had a chem test.” He grinned. “We wouldn’t want Stanford to change their mind. My future’s gold, don’tcha know?”
Lauren’s smile faded. His future was golden.
Stanford.
The loneliness came back full force, made her feel older than David and infinitely far away, even though she was in his arms. She had to tell him about the baby. It was the right thing to do.
“I love you, David.” She felt herself start to cry; her tears mingled with the rain and were washed away before he could see them.
“I love you, too. Now let’s get in my car before we catch pneumonia.” He smiled. “There’s a party at Eric’s house.”
She wanted to say, No, not tonight, and take him into her shabby apartment and close the door. But once they were alone, she’d have to tell him the truth, and she didn’t want to do that. Not yet, anyway. She wanted one more night where they could be kids. Speed Racer and Trixie, laughing it up with their friends.
So when he held her hand and pulled her toward the car, she followed.
Love can get us through the hardest times.
Please, God, she thought, let it be true.
NINETEEN
Angie’s dreams that night came in black and white; faded images from some forgotten family album of the has-been and never-were moments. She was in Searle Park, at the merry-go-round, waving at a small dark-haired girl who had her father’s blue eyes …
Slowly, the girl faded to gray and disappeared; it was as if a mist had swept in and veiled the world.
Then she saw Conlan on the ball field, coaching Little League.
The images were watery and uncertain because she’d never really been there in the stands, watching her husband coach his friends’ sons, clapping when Billy VanDerbeek hit a line drive up the middle. She’d been at home on those days, curled in a fetal position on her bed. It hurts too much, she’d told her husband when he begged her to come along.
Why hadn’t she thought about what he needed?
“I’m sorry, Con,” her dream self whispered, reaching out for him.
She woke with a gasp. For the next few hours she lay in her bed, curled on her side, trying to put it all back in storage. She shouldn’t have tried to go back in time; it hurt too much. Some things were simply lost. She should have known that.
Every now and again she realized that she was crying. By the time she heard a knock at the front door, her pillow was damp.
Thank God, she thought. Someone to keep her mind off the past.
She sat up, shoved the hair from her eyes. Throwing the covers aside, she climbed out of bed and stumbled downstairs. “I’m coming. Don’t leave,” she yelled.