She rang the doorbell at her mother’s Ardsley Park house and then fumbled in her purse for the house key. The door swung open.
Marie stood in the hallway dressed in her bathrobe and slippers, which was unheard of. This was a woman who never left her bedroom unless she was dressed and perfectly groomed.
But there she stood with lank, unwashed hair. Her eyes were red-rimmed with dark circles beneath. She held a tissue to her nose.
“Mom!” Brooke shifted Henry from one hip to the other. “You look like death. What’s wrong?”
“Fever. Chills. Started an hour ago. You look nice,” her mother said, giving an approving nod to Brooke’s deep V-neck top and eyeliner. “I, on the other hand, feel like I’ve been run over by a dump truck.” Marie’s voice was a hoarse rasp.
“You should have called before I left home. I would have just canceled,” Brooke said. She stepped into the hallway and took Marie by the elbow. “Come on. I’ll fix you some tea with lemon and honey, then you need to get back to bed.”
“No,” Marie croaked. “Go. Just go. I’m going back to bed. But you need to go to the airport and see Pete. Go. Shoo.” She made shooing motions with her hands.
“And take Henry? Are you nuts? What’ll I say? What will he say?”
“You two will figure it out,” Marie said, turning her head aside to cough. “No matter what else happens, he’ll fall in love with Henry. Who wouldn’t? Promise me you’ll go. Promise me you won’t back out and run away again.”
Run away. Again. Like she had the weekend of her wedding. The words stung. Because they were true.
“All right,” Brooke said. “We’re going.”
*
Pete had neglected to tell her where he was flying in from, so she had no idea of his flight number or where they should meet. She’d been so keyed up about the meeting that she’d arrived at the airport thirty minutes early and had spent the past ten minutes pacing up and down the airport’s carpeted retail concourse. Her back ached from carrying the heavy toddler, so she finally put him down.
“Toy!” Henry cried, pointing to a gift shop where a giant stuffed Snoopy was perched in the front window. He set off at a run for the shop.
“Whoa there,” she said, following after, scooping him up just before the boy made it to his quarry. The back of his pants were damp. She held him aloft, sniffed, and gagged.
“Oh, Henry, nooooo. Not now.”
“I poop,” he said proudly.
“We poop in the potty, remember?”
“No potty,” Henry said.
She’d almost left his diaper bag in the car but at the last minute had shoved her purse inside and looped the bag over her shoulder. It was navy blue, quilted cotton with a pattern of elephants and tigers. Not nearly as cute as the black designer clutch she’d planned to carry. She hurried to the ladies’ room, breathing through her mouth while she stripped off the boy’s shorts on a drop-down changing table. “What we have here is a shituation,” she muttered, stuffing his soiled shorts, shirt, even his socks into a plastic sack she kept in the diaper bag for just such emergencies. She used half a bag of baby wipes cleaning him up, then dressed him in a fresh outfit.
Finally, she went to the sink to wash her hands and check her makeup. “Oh God,” she moaned, looking at the mirror. Her cute low-cut top had somehow come into contact with Henry’s soiled backside. Gagging, she scrubbed at the top with a wet paper towel. The quarter-sized damp spot grew to the size of a half-dollar, directly over her left nipple.
Brooke grabbed Henry’s hand and dragged him in the direction of the gift shop. Surely they sold a few items of women’s clothing, right?
She was in the process of paying for the only top she could find, a hideous bile-green tank top with SAVANNAH spelled out in sequins when Henry spied his heart’s desire. It was a board book featuring his favorite thing in the whole world, the hairless Canadian cartoon character, propped on a display next to the cash register.
“Caillou!” Henry crowed, grabbing for the book at the same moment Brooke was in the process of handing her credit card to the cashier.
Without thinking, Brooke snatched his chubby hand away from the book, which shared shelf space with dozens of tiny cheesy breakable souvenir trinkets. “Henry, no,” she said sharply. “You already have that book.”
Her son’s face crumpled into agony. “I want it!” he cried. “I want Caillou!”
“Anything else?” the cashier asked, her hands poised over the register. “Chips, gum, soft drinks, magazine?”
“Just the shirt, thanks,” Brooke said tersely, keeping an eye on the concourse. It was ten after ten, and a sudden wave of passengers had disembarked their flights and were passing by, laughing and talking.
“Please, Mommy,” Henry whined. “I want Caillou.”
“Can I have your email for your receipt?” the cashier asked.
“No!” Brooke said. “Stop it right this minute.”
“Excuse me?” the clerk said.
“Sorry, I was talking to my son. Just print out the receipt and put it in the bag, please,” Brooke said through clenched teeth. She released Henry’s hand to retrieve her card.
Henry saw an opening and seized it. He grabbed the book with both hands. “Mine!”
Without thinking, she snatched the book back. She knelt down so that she was at eye level with her son. “Absolutely not. You have this exact same book at home, and I am not buying you another one.”
She stood up and tried to compose herself. Another wave of passengers was passing. She saw a familiar face in the crowd. It was Pete, striding down the concourse, one arm flung casually across the shoulder of a young blond woman. She was in her midtwenties, slender and petite with a long Nordic-looking braid cascading down her back. She wore form-fitting green hiking shorts and had a backpack over one shoulder. Pete leaned in, laughing and talking with her.
Brooke felt herself shrink away from the gift shop entrance. She wanted to flee, to melt into the woodwork. As soon as Pete and his friend had passed, she tugged gently at her son’s hand. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go home.”
“Nooooooo!” Henry wailed, throwing himself onto the floor. He grabbed the book and hugged it to his chest. “I want Caillou! I want it, I want it!” His face was scarlet with rage. She bent over and tried to pry the book away. “Noooooo!” he screamed, kicking his tiny feet at her ankles.
Brooke saw Pete pause. He turned, said something to his female companion, and frowned, looking to see where the commotion was coming from. His eyes met hers. People surged around him, but Pete Haynes stopped dead in his tracks.
54
He strode toward the gift shop. Stopped, then wrapped Brooke in an awkward embrace. “I’m so glad you showed up,” he murmured in her ear. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“I wasn’t sure either,” Brooke said, her voice shaky. “It’s been so long. But I’m really glad you called.” She saw the woman who’d been walking with Pete, standing discreetly nearby, watching their reunion with undisguised interest.
Sensing he’d lost his audience, Henry abandoned his tantrum, stood and raised his arms. “Mama. I pick you up.”
Brooke took a step backward and scooped her son into her arms.
“Who’s this?” Pete asked warily.
“Pete, this is my son, Henry. Henry, can you say hello to Pete?”
Henry turned away, burying his face in her shoulder.
“Hi, Henry,” Pete said, lightly tapping the boy’s back. “How old are you?”
Henry lifted his head and observed the stranger, his expression grave. He held out three chubby fingers. “I’m fwee.”
“Obviously, we’ve got some catching up to do,” Pete said.
“Who’s your friend?” Brooke asked, gesturing toward the girl who was now slouching against a nearby wall.
“That’s Hope, a grad student I’ve been working with. Hey, Hope,” he called. “C’mere. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
“Hello,” the young woman said, offering a wide smile showing perfectly straight, blindingly white teeth. “You’ve got to be Brooke. Pete’s told me so much about you.”