Chasing Rainbows A Novel

TWENTY-TWO


I woke early the day I was meeting Ryan at the lawyer’s office. Matter of fact, I hadn’t slept much at all.

We were to sign our property settlement at lunchtime. The division of property hadn’t been difficult. For one thing, our house was pretty much the only thing we had. Sure, we’d been very careful about saving for retirement and oddly enough that had been what helped me now.

Ryan kept his retirement funds intact. I got the house. We’d been making double payments for as long as I could remember, and the remaining principle was negligible. Even I could manage the payments, assuming I didn’t work at the rink for the rest of my life.

I studied the clock and wished our appointment was early rather than later. I’d accepted the fact our marriage was really and truly over, I just didn’t want to think about it any longer than I had to.

Realizing I had time to kill, I decided to get comfortable, make some coffee, and find a way to make the morning pass as quickly as possible.

When I reached for the security of Dad’s shirt, I hesitated, my fingertips a fraction of an inch from the well-worn fabric. I lifted the sleeve and pressed it to my face, inhaling deeply. After countless launderings, all traces of Dad’s scent were gone, just like Emma’s scent from her lock of hair, her booties, her gown.

Dad was gone. Emma was gone. Neither were coming back.

I dropped the sleeve, smoothing the fabric before I closed the closet door.

I knew I’d pull the shirt out from time to time, but it had seen me through the worst of things. Maybe the shirt and Dad’s book had been exactly what I’d needed to bring me here. To this moment.

I reached for the sweatshirt Ashley and Diane had given me and pulled it on. I caught my reflection in the mirror and smiled.

Goddess.

A laugh burst through my lips.

At least the kid believed in me. And Diane believed in me. Heck, Sophie Cooke and my family believed in me. I must be doing something right.

I touched my bracelet, tracing the outline of each bead starting at the clasp and working my way around in a circle.

The rainbow wasn’t perfect. Some segments of color were flawed and a few were misbeaded. A lot like me, actually.

Suddenly, I couldn’t think of a talisman more perfect for my day--or life--ahead.

o0o

Ryan and I stood outside the lawyer’s office, staring at each other awkwardly. The entire signing process had taken less than fifteen minutes and now all we had to do was wait and watch our mailboxes for the official document.

The late April day had grown warm, and a hot wind wound its way down the sidewalk, tumbling small potted plants, whipping brightly-colored flags, foretelling the storm to come.

I took inventory of Ryan’s features as we stared at each other, the uncomfortable silence stretching between us. There were new lines at the corners of his eyes, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he carried a little extra weight in his cheeks. His eyes lit with something I remembered from long ago, but couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I remembered how we used to laugh, how he would finish my jokes and I would finish his. I remembered how we used to be in sync, how we used to be in love.

When had we lost us?

Maybe we’d tried to get pregnant one too many times after we lost Emma. Or maybe we hadn’t tried enough. Maybe trying for a baby wasn’t the only thing we’d given up on. Somewhere along the way the unspoken thoughts had taken over. Lost in the silence, we’d let our life together slip away.

The corners of Ryan’s eyes turned down. I realized signing the papers had hurt him as much as it hurt me.

I found comfort in the fact it pained him to walk away from us--from me--after all these years.

“You look beautiful, Bernie.” His lips pulled into a crooked smile, but a shade of regret fell across his eyes. “Maybe this is what you needed.”

“What?” I frowned.

“To be alone.” His gaze widened. “Without me.”

I shook my head and let a disbelieving laugh slide across my lips. “No.”

Truth was, a part of me still wanted what we’d once had. I’d let our marriage die along with my spirit in the years following Emma’s death. It had taken losing Ryan and losing Dad to show me just how much I’d shut down inside.

Maybe I looked different because I’d finally given myself permission to live. Permission to survive. Permission to feel and love and laugh.

After all this time, I finally understood exactly what rainbow it was I needed to be chasing.

Me.

“Your toes are purple.” Ryan’s brows drew together, etching a deep line into his forehead as he glanced down at my feet.

In a toss-up between the boots and a new pair of strappy sandals Diane had given me, I’d gone with the sandals. After all, from the ankles down, I still had it all going on.

“Toenails?” I asked.

“Toenails,” he repeated.

“What’s your point?”

“You never painted your toenails purple when we were married.”

I glanced down at my feet and shrugged. Not a what-in-the-hell-business-is-it-of-yours shrug, but rather a will-you-look-at-that sort of shrug.

I never did a lot of things when we were married.

I thought the words, but I didn’t say them. Maybe I was a coward. But maybe, just maybe, I thought the words might hurt Ryan and at that moment, hurting him was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

After all, it hadn’t been Ryan’s fault I’d shut down after Emma died.

It hadn’t been anybody’s fault.

It just was.

“People change.” I spoke the words lightly, downplaying their significance.

People did change.

I’d changed.

Soon I’d no longer be Ryan’s wife. And while I’d always be Emma’s mom, I was moving past the grief of being Emma’s mom. I was ready to be me. To live my life. To be Bernadette Murphy.

And why not?

I stole another glance at my feet.

Anyone who wore purple toenail polish couldn’t be all bad.

Ryan gave me a tight smile and began to turn away. I remembered the box, reaching into the large tote bag I’d carried to hold my copies of our papers.

“Hang on a sec.”

He hesitated, frowning at me slightly. When I handed him the small, wrapped box, surprise and curiosity danced in his gaze.

“For the baby,” I said.

He blinked.

We hadn’t spoken a word about his new daughter. It was probably better that way, but I wanted him to have what I’d brought him.

A pair of young mothers stepped away from a wrought iron bench nearby, hurriedly pulling up the canopies on their strollers as the sky darkened.

I pointed toward the vacated bench. “Here. Let’s open it.”

“You sure?”

Our eyes locked and held, and for a moment I could see our entire past played out in the depths of Ryan’s searching gaze.

“Very,” I said softly.

We settled next to each other, and he peeled back the wrapping paper, slipping a finger beneath the flap of the box to pry open the top.

The pale pink hippo sat inside, nestled in a bed of tissue paper.

“This is Emma’s,” he said softly.

“Was Emma’s,” I corrected. “I think she’d like her little sister to have it, don’t you?”

Ryan’s features pinched and for the briefest of moments, I thought he might cry. Instead he straightened away from the bench and leaned down to press a kiss to the top of my hair.

“He plays Brahms Lullaby.” I explained as if he wouldn’t remember, even though his expression made it evident he hadn’t forgotten a thing.

I reached to pull the hippo’s accordion-pleated tail. “Right here.”

Soft music filtered into the warm air and for a moment I found myself transported back to the day Ryan and I picked out the toy for the nursery.

The music came to a stop and we stayed motionless, wordless, until Ryan returned the hippo to the box and closed the lid. “Thanks.”

We stared at each other and I nodded, unable to find my voice.

“See you around, Bernie.” His eyebrows lifted slightly as he said the words, and my heart hit my toes.

I forced a smile as he turned and walked away, down the windswept sidewalk back toward the metered space where he’d parked his car.

“See you around,” I whispered toward his back, my words lost on a sudden burst of moist air. In my heart I knew chances were pretty good I wouldn’t see him around at all.

Ryan Murphy had really and truly walked out of my life and into his new one.

o0o

There were two messages waiting for me on the answering machine when I got home.

The first sent my pulse into an excited frenzy. I absent-mindedly waited for the second message as I reached for the phone to return the first.

Jim Barnes at the Courier Post wanted to talk to me about a regular column.

Regular.

Column.

He’d never heard back from me when he’d called about the second article, so would it be all right to run them both now? How soon would I be able to get him another, and when could I come in to the office to discuss whether I’d be able to provide them with something on a weekly basis?

Regular.

Column.

I longed to say the words over and over, tasting them, trying out the feel of them on my tongue.

Had I found a job by pouring my heart onto paper? If only Dad could see me now.

I laughed in disbelief just as the voice of the second caller cut through my happy oblivion.

“Bern, it’s David. Diane’s water broke. Ashley’s with me at the hospital.”

I was in motion, slamming down the phone, grabbing for my purse and keys, running, breathless, not waiting to hear the rest of David’s message.

As I backed out of the drive and pressed down on the accelerator, I flashed back on the last urgent message from David. The one that came shortly after I’d emailed the second article to the paper.

Had there been other messages on the machine that day? I tried to picture the flashing light and how many times it had been blinking.

Had I missed Jim Barnes’s call?

Chances were, I had, but I could worry about that later.

I smiled.

Right now, the newest Snyder was about to make his or her arrival and I didn’t plan to miss a single second of the blessed event.

o0o

When I reached Labor and Delivery, Diane and David were nowhere to be found. Diane had been whisked to surgery for a C-section and David had gone with her.

I found Ashley sitting alone in the waiting room, pale as a ghost, frightened eyes huge.

“Aunt Bernie.” Relief oozed from her words as I gathered her into a hug.

“Any word?” I asked.

She shook her head against my chest, and I stroked the length of her smooth, long hair.

“Everything will be all right,” I whispered against the top of her head. “You’ll see.”

And then I prayed, with all of my might.

The nurse had told me the baby’s heartbeat had been dropping with each contraction. The doctor’s call had been to get the baby out.

Ashley and I waited for what seemed like forever, but in reality was no more than an hour.

When David finally appeared, the happy news splashed across his face.

Ashley pushed to her feet, and her father grinned. “You’ve got a little brother.”

She launched herself into his arms. I kept my distance as they laughed and hugged. Sometimes I worried I took my place within their family for granted. Truth was, maybe they merely tolerated me.

My fears were squashed when David held one arm out to me, gesturing for me to move closer. I wrapped one arm around his back and another around Ashley, joining in the celebration of the newest Snyder’s arrival.

“What are you going to name him?” I asked.

“Junior.”

“Junior?” Ashley and I repeated at the same time.

“I’m kidding,” David teased. “We don’t know yet. If he’d been a girl we were going to name her Bernadette, but one of those is probably enough.”

Call me crazy, but I thought he and Ashley laughed a little too hard at that moment.

I glanced at Ashley as we headed toward her mother’s room. Her forehead puckered with concern, and she’d apparently forgotten to smooth her eyebrows in the rush to get to the hospital. The new hairs were long now and zigzagged across the space above her blue eyes like out of control caterpillars.

She caught me staring. “What?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head.

As we stepped inside, a nurse was tucking Junior Snyder into his mother’s arms. Tears of joy slid down Diane’s cheeks.

David gently wiped the moisture from Diane’s face then dropped a kiss first to her forehead, then to his son’s.

There were many years in which I would have never thought this, but Diane was lucky to have him. Hell. Look how lucky I was to have him--to have all of them.

I remembered the moments before Emma’s birth and how badly I’d wanted to keep her inside me where she was safe. Those days seemed forever ago when I thought about how life went on without her, and for a time, without me.

Emotions welled up inside me and I choked on a mixture of joy, sadness and hope. I hiccupped and all heads turned toward me.

David left Diane’s side long enough to reach for me. “You okay?”

Genuine concern glimmered in his eyes. I may have once fantasized about putting this man’s head in an oven, but he’d turned out to be the real deal. A keeper.

I nodded. “I just thought of the perfect gift.”

“Gift?” David’s forehead puckered, a slight vertical crease marring his forehead.

“For Junior’s crib,” I said, picturing the blue elephant from Emma’s room.

They’d come in a set of three. The pink hippo. The blue elephant. The yellow bear.

We’d carried the bear to the NICU, setting it next to Emma in her incubator. We hadn’t known whether or not she could hear until the moment the bear played Clair de Lune. Emma had turned her head, eyes wide with wonder, and she’d listened.

I’d keep the bear. After all, who knew what surprises life had in store.

As I watched Diane cradle her new son, happy laughter built inside me, nothing more than a slight bubble at first, building in intensity, growing until it tumbled out of me, spilling into the room.

“Bernie?” David took a step closer, concern plastered across his face.

“Junior,” I said, my laugh growing stronger, my smile spreading wide across my face.

David smiled. Diane smiled. Before I knew it, the three of us laughed and cried while Ashley practiced dramatic eye rolls.

Life was funny...and wonderful.

Sometimes you had to wait a little while for the good times to kick in. But when they did, you realized every moment and experience that came before was necessary…necessary to bring you here.

o0o

The skies that had been threatening all day gave way during my drive home from the hospital. Rain slapped at the windshield, coating the glass with a thick sheet of water.

I could make out the shopping center to my left and realized it had been a while since I’d sat in the café, watching the world go by.

No time like the present to see what new inspiration I could find studying Genuardi shoppers. After all, it looked like I had some columns to write.

I didn’t notice the darkly clad figure racing across the parking lot next to me until we both reached the overhang running the length of the store.

I flattened my back to the wall, grimacing against the squish of rainwater in my sopping-wet sandals.

“Nice choice of footwear, Number Thirty-Two.”

The rumble of his voice was unmistakable and the tightening of my belly undeniable.

Number Thirty-Six.

I looked up at him, relief washing through me at the sight of his smile. “I was going for bold and daring,” I answered. “Not good?”

The rain pelted the awning over our heads, like applause in a too-small space--loud and out of control.

He laughed a hearty, from-deep-inside-the-soul laugh. The kind I hadn’t heard in a long, long while.

“What?” I asked, as if Number Thirty-Six owed me an explanation for his joy.

He smiled down at me, tiny creases framing his dark eyes, laugh lines bracketing his sensuous mouth.

My heart tilted sideways.

“I was just thinking.” The deep timbre of his voice tickled something deep inside me, a craving I’d thought long dead. The desire to be spoken to, whispered to, made love to. Not sex. Love.

I did my best to arch a brow. After all, two could play the neighbors-trapped-under-an-awning game. “Thinking what?”

His lips parted, exposing a wide grin. A great big, wonderfully uninhibited grin.

“Rain like this--” he tipped his chin toward the downpour “--we’ll have to sing a rainbow.”

For one very long moment, the world hushed around me. I saw nothing but the intensity of his gaze. Heard nothing but the reverberation of his words in my mind.

I thought of the inscription in Dad’s book and what Mom had said the day she’d handed me the cryptograms.

I’m sure your father thought he’d have more time.

I thought about the puzzles he’d chosen and realized my dad’s message may not have been complete, but wasn’t that the beauty of life?

Wasn’t that the beauty of learning and growing and stumbling and getting back up and trying again?

“Is that something you say a lot?” I asked Number Thirty-Six. “The rainbow thing?”

Number Thirty-Six frowned slightly and laughed. “No. It sort of popped into my brain just now. Funny, huh?”

“Funny,” I said in a whisper.

It was all so simple, wasn’t it? In the end, life boiled down to whether or not we chose to sing our rainbows.

If possible the rain picked up in intensity.

For longer than I cared to admit, I’d been content to be carried--a loose twig washing downstream with the current.

I hadn’t tried to swim to shore. I hadn’t tried to buck the current. I hadn’t tried, period.

But standing there, looking into Number Thirty-Six’s face, I saw the possibilities and realized I was ready to risk giving everything I had to give.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

I blinked myself back into focus. Number Thirty-Six had been saying something while I’d been lost inside my head. “I’m sorry?”

He jerked a thumb toward the café sign at our back. “Buy you a cup of coffee?”

I stole another look at his laugh lines. At that moment, he looked like...well...he looked like someone I might want to know forever.

I smiled then. A real smile. The kind of smile that pulls you taller, straighter, brighter.

“Coffee sounds great,” I said.

And you know what?

It was.

-o0o-




About the Author


Kathleen Long is a RITA nominated, RIO Award and two-time Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence winning author of thirteen novels of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Her additional honors include National Readers Choice, Holt Medallion, Booksellers Best, and Book Buyers Best award nominations. After a career spent spinning words for clients ranging from corporate CEOs to talking fruits and vegetables, she finds great joy spinning words for fictional characters, places and plots. She divides her time between suburban Philadelphia and the Jersey shore. Please visit her at www.kathleenlong.com.