“What if you get sick and can’t get to the doctor’s and the Wi-Fi doesn’t work? What if a serial killer comes along? No one will hear you out here, will they?”
“What if it’s a grizzly bear?” I said. “Or a pack of wolves? Or a zombie. Because those are more likely to appear on my doorstep than a serial killer in Wellfleet, Dad. Come on.”
“That’s what everyone says until it happens,” Dad said. “?‘Couldn’t happen in my little town.’ Hey. You’re the one who got me hooked on true crime podcasts.”
Dang it. He was right.
“You come in at all hours from that hospital, Squashy. And now there’s no one here to look after you.” Zeus barked from upstairs. “Except the dog,” Dad added.
“I’d leave you alone, Lillie,” Ben said. “Your dad says the studio is completely self-sufficient. He just wants you to have someone close by to put his mind at ease. It gets dark early out here.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it.
I had five neighbors within a ten-minute walk. All of them lived elsewhere in the winter. Four of the five had already left, and the Burtons would head out the week before Thanksgiving and go home to Colorado.
This would be the first winter of my life that I’d be alone. There would be nights that I’d come home at 3:00 a.m. Times when it might be nice to have someone feed Zeus for me without asking my dad to drive over and do it.
And Dad was right. I could scream at top volume, and no one would hear me.
“Did your plow really break?” I asked Dad.
“The frame snapped on that damn pothole on 6A,” he said.
“Ben? Don’t you have a life? I thought you owned your own house.”
“I do.”
“And you’re just going to abandon it while you sit in my shed like a creeper?”
“No, Lillie. I’m going to rent it out to a nice couple from Florida who don’t want to live there anymore. I’ll be on the Goody Chapman every day. I’ll just sleep here.” He paused. “If you don’t mind. But I think your father has a point.”
I didn’t want him here when Dylan was home. Dylan loved the studio, and so did his friends. “You can stay with my father over Christmas when my son is home,” I said.
“Speaking of that,” Dad said, “I was actually thinking of staying with you when Dylan’s home.”
I set my fork down with a clatter. “Excuse me?”
“What?” Dad said. “I love my grandson. He loves me. I miss him, and I’m old.”
Ben laughed, and there it was. That warmth in my stomach. His face went from stoic to . . . to . . . to dead sexy. Delighted and mischievous and yep, dead sexy. “You know he means it if he’s pulling the old man card,” he said to me, and I couldn’t help smiling.
Not a housemate. Sort of a . . . property mate. The thought of coming home to the studio lights on, or smoke coming out of the woodstove we had in there . . . it might be kind of nice.
“We’ll give it a week and see how it goes,” I said.
“See? I told you she’d love the idea,” Dad said, then ducked as I threw my napkin at his head.
CHAPTER 20
Melissa
If Melissa kept the baby, she’d be just another look at my baby bump person on Instagram. Boring! Plus, she already had Ophelia (who wasn’t great about letting her take pictures that showed them having fun together, since they rarely if ever had fun together, though Ophelia’s room had gotten a whole heap of comments and likes).
Plus, she’d been feeling abysmal (word of the day!). Seriously. She could not keep the gas in. The other night, it had surprised her while she was cooking, and Bradley laughed and said even her farts were adorable. (She hated the word fart, and she nearly stabbed Bradley—hello, mood swing.) The acid stomach. She’d vomited a couple more times, too. And the exhaustion!
Then again, she didn’t mind taking a nap. It helped pass the day.
A baby. Ugh. Diapers and screaming and sleepless nights.
But she was in charge of the money now. She’d hire a nanny or a night nurse and get right back into shape. Maybe she’d be one of those Kate Middleton types who looked like she’d never given birth. Even if pregnancy did ruin her body, she’d get it back into shape with yoga and Pilates, just as she did now. If her lady garden got a bit droopy, there was surgery for that. Ditto breasts, but gosh golly, they were looking amazing these days. Rounder. Perkier. Bradley couldn’t stop touching them.
And then there was the image of that little creature inside her. Its tiny, mysterious hand, so small but already a hand. A plum, the pamphlet had said (currently hidden in a pair of boots in her vast closet). A plum wasn’t nothing.
Bradley was a good father, more or less. He had been until the divorce, from all accounts (well, from his account). He’d been a good husband to Lillie. It had been one of the things that attracted her, his ability to commit and be a loving husband; he’d told her he’d never cheated on Lillie before. Dylan would have to be nice to her if she was having his half sibling. It would be a sister-or brother-cousin to Ophelia.
Oh! And Melissa could name it! Wasn’t she fantastic at picking out names! Granted, she would’ve chosen something other than Melissa for herself, but the memory of Kaitlyn calling her Missy—Kaitlyn’s first word—had been too strong back then.
Melissa hoped it was a girl, because those names were much more fun. Addison? Emery? Fairchild was such a great last name, much better than Finch (or Cumbo, for heaven’s sake . . . Kaitlyn had wanted to keep Cumbo as Ophelia’s last name, but when she changed Harminee’s name to Ophelia, Melissa also changed the girl’s last name to Spencer). Hang on a sec! She could ask for names on Instagram and TikTok! And the baby’s room would be so beautiful. The clothes for little girls . . . they were almost too adorable!
The nanny would watch the baby when Melissa got bored or needed her facials or a nap or yoga classes or shopping trips (she still wanted to go to New York with Ophelia, especially for Christmastime). What fun it would be to see some of the old crowd and put her hand on her adorable tummy and modestly acknowledge that yes, she was expecting. She’d have to look up some designer maternity clothes.
But she was getting ahead of herself. Did she really want to give the rest of her life over to some tiny, unreasonable tyrant? She could go down to Hyannis and get an abortion, and only Lillie would know.
How was that for irony? The first wife being the confidante of the second! It was kind of delicious, if Melissa was the malicious type. She had to admit, though, that Lillie had been very . . . kind . . . in the office. Melissa could see why people wanted her to deliver their babies. She’d asked all the personal questions without making Melissa feel stupid, and during the ultrasound, she’d seemed a little . . . tender.
That tiny head. The profile. Her little plum had a profile. A beating heart.
Yes. She’d keep it. It would only add to her influencer status. Melissa Fairchild, decorator, fitness expert, adoptive mother and now child-rearing expert, someone who’d show off her beautiful home, children and body but still be realistic and relatable (without being too real, of course . . . she wasn’t going to talk about vomiting or gas, for gosh sake!).
A baby bump, glowing skin . . . she’d make a yoga-workout-for-pregnant-women video! Maybe she could get it copyrighted and start an empire. She was rich. Money made money. She could afford the marketing and publicity, right? And Bradley would be thrilled . . . he would love his new child, her fame would rub off on his book sales, and they’d become a power couple. It would be nice to have him pull his weight around here, especially if he could do it as a bestselling author.