Ex’s and Oh’s (18 page)

She knew little about children, and even less about teenaged boys. She stared at him.

“What?” he asked.

“You just reminded me of someone.”

“My dad?”

“No, your mother.”

He dropped the parts he’d been trying to put together. “I wouldn’t tell her that.”

“Why?” she asked.

“She’d take it as an insult.”

Caroline placed her hand at the small of her aching back. It was still hotter than blazes outside. Since when was September the hottest month of the summer? The idea of autumn beckoned.

“Your mom loves you. I never want to be caught in the middle of the two or you. I feel bad for—”

“I don’t want sympathy.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Maybe I want everybody to stop looking at me like I’m some kind of freak.”

“Who looks at you as if you’re a freak? Not me. I see a kid who looks like his father and acts like his mother. Maybe I
should
feel sorry for you for that, but I don’t.”

He stared at her. And then he did something completely unexpected. He smiled.

After today, Andy’s debt would be paid in full. Caroline supposed it stood to reason it had taken them until
now to reach an understanding. She doubted Tori was going to be pleased about that. In Tori’s eyes, it would be one more way someone else had reached her child when she couldn’t.

Caroline straightened suddenly. That was it. That was what was at the heart of the problem. Tori wasn’t jealous of Caroline because of Shane. She was jealous because of Andy.

She finished folding a stack of tiny sleepers and was on her way to the little room Shane had helped her set up as a nursery, both hands full of baby items. Pain tore through her with so much force she doubled over.

She must have groaned, because Andy looked at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do I do?”

It was all she could do to speak through the pain. “I think the baby’s coming.”

“Now? Here?” He started toward her only to stop at the sight of the blood seeping into the baby clothes she’d dropped.

On
the floor, Caroline lay curled in the fetal position. She could hear Andy talking.

He must have dialed 911. “No, she’s not my mother. Who cares about that? She’s in a hell of a lot of pain. She’s going to have a kid and there’s blood everywhere.”

Caroline recognized his panic. But then another pain seared through her, consuming her. The next time she was aware of anything else, she heard Andy yelling into the phone. “Mom! She’s bleeding. I can’t do this.”

She closed her eyes again, drifting in a place that obliterated every sound, every thought, everything except pain and fear. She didn’t know how much time elapsed, but eventually she felt a hand on her forehead and then on her abdomen.

“Sweet Jesus.”

It sounded like Tori. Somewhere, a phone was ringing. In the farthest reaches of Caroline’s mind, she realized the 911 operator had called back.

“Fine,” Tori was saying. “I’ll stay on the line. You’ll be here in how long? Twenty minutes? That’s what you told my son three minutes ago.” She used the most unbecoming word known to mankind. “It’ll be too late by then. I said I’d stay on the line, didn’t I? Andy,” she said, “help me get Caroline into my car. Grab some towels, son. That’s it.”

Somehow they got Caroline into the back seat of Tori’s SUV. “Don’t worry.” Tori dove into the driver’s seat. “We’ll get you to the hospital.”

Andy climbed in beside Caroline, who was lying on the back seat. Crouching down, he said, “Mom, what do I do?”

“Just make sure she doesn’t roll out of the seat.” Tori must have picked up the phone. “I said I wouldn’t hang up, didn’t I? I’m bringing her to the hospital myself. We’ll be there in five minutes. What?” And then, “Don’t worry. You’ll recognize me. We’ll be the car doing ninety with our emergency flashers blazing. You tell them in E.R. they’d better have the best damn doctor on staff waiting at the door.”

Lying in the back seat, Caroline could only moan. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It was too soon. She hadn’t grown tired of being pregnant. Her baby was too small.

It was too soon.

The next aeon was a blur of bright lights and barking voices and movement. Caroline had been lifted from the back seat to a gurney. There was an elevator ride, and
more pain, so intense, so searing she thought she would die from it. Once, she thought she had died, for there was one moment when the pain went away and she felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing.

Then another pain overtook her, and she knew death couldn’t hurt this much, be this loud or this blindingly bright. She didn’t know where she was. But Tori and Andy weren’t with her.

It seemed someone was working on her at every end. An oxygen mask was placed over her face, an IV started in her arm, a blood-pressure monitor, somewhere. At the very center of her, pain, pain and pain.

She heard beeping and voices and someone yelling, “Push, Caroline.”

She couldn’t. She was too weak. And it hurt too much.

“Push. We’ve got to get your baby out now. Push.”

She pushed.

And she screamed.

And she pushed again. And again.

At some point the pain subsided. She opened her eyes against the bright lights. And listened to the sounds of silence.

“What’s happening?” she said through the oxygen mask.

“It’s a girl,” someone said.

There was a suction sound, and a frail squeak, and finally a whimper.

“Atta girl,” somebody said. “Use those lungs.”

“Caroline, look,” a nurse said.

Caroline turned her head, and there was her baby being wrapped in a towel.

“Give me your hand.”

The nurse placed Caroline’s hand on her child’s little torso. “You have a daughter.”

Caroline smiled. She had a daughter. Seven weeks premature, she was tiny and skinny and pale, but she was warm, and she was breathing.

And there was hope.

Shane burst into the hospital like a wave breaking shore.

Andy jumped out of his chair. “Shit, Dad,” he said. “Mom can drive!”

“From what I hear,” Shane said, fighting tears of pride and humbleness and just about everything else, “you’re both pretty damn good under pressure.”

Andy glanced away, embarrassed, but proud, too. “Caroline’s sleeping. Mom’s sitting with her. They won’t let anybody else in her room.”

“And the baby?”

“Wait’ll you see her. I used to catch fish bigger than she is.”

Andy led the way to the elevators. Inside, he punched the proper button, and up they went. Shane’s stomach stayed on the first floor. But his pride for the boy-man who was his son shot up to the fourth floor along with him.

He looked at Andy.

“What?”

Shane shook his head. “I was just thinking about time. Just the other day, I was going to the nursery to admire you.”

“Fifteen years ago, you mean.”

“That’s what I said. Just the other day.”

Caroline opened her eyes to bickering.

“I go fishing one day, and all hell breaks loose.”

“I’ve been telling you for years you have to stop trying to keep all the balls in the air all the time.”

“You never told me that.”

“Fine.”

Recognizing Shane’s and Tori’s voices, Caroline couldn’t help smiling. “Have you seen her yet?”

Shane and Tori looked at her from opposite sides of her bed. She felt Shane’s hand go around hers. “I went to see her when they wouldn’t let me see you. Somebody was hogging the visitation rights.”

“Just remember who got her here.”

They were at it again.

“You should be glad I went to the trouble to contact you at all,” Tori grumbled. “If I hadn’t called the Coast Guard, you’d still be out there trying to snare some poor unsuspecting lunker salmon.”

“How is she?” Caroline asked.

Shane seemed to come to his senses. Hunkering down so his face was close to Caroline’s, he said, “She was sucking her thumb when Andy and I saw her a few minutes ago. She weighs four pounds and eleven ounces and she’s already strong enough to suck her thumb. They’re keeping a close watch on her, though. She’s got an IV and oxygen, but they said she’s a fighter. She has red hair, Caroline. I bet Karl’s getting a kick out of that.”

Caroline was getting lost in the way Shane was looking at her. Tori cleared her throat. “Guess I’ll be going.”

“Don’t go,” Caroline called. “I haven’t thanked you. How do I, Tori?” A tear trailed into Caroline’s hair.

“I didn’t do anything anybody else wouldn’t have done.”

“Pardon my French, but that’s bullshit and you know it.”

Caroline had everyone’s attention.

“Andy called
you,
” Caroline said. “He needed
you.
And
you
were there. I guess you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

“You think you’re so smart.”

“I would have lost her if not for you and Andy. How is he, by the way?”

Tori shrugged. “He’s taking all the credit. He’s a man, all right. I think he’s going to be okay.”

“Are you ready to give me your permission, Tori?”

Tori made that sound she made through her tightly pursed lips. “Ha! Get some rest. Once you leave this hospital, you won’t sleep again for the rest of your life.” She looked at Caroline, then at Shane, and finally away.

“Tori?”
Shane called.

She turned in the doorway. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

With a tilt of his head, he said, “Thanks.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

For the first time in years, the two of them smiled at each other. And meant it.

Ahhhh.
This was more like it. This beat hospital drab any day.

Tori took a sip of her margarita. The lights were dim. The music was loud. The club was crowded. And the Jude Law look-alike across the room couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The emergency girls’ night had been Nell’s idea. Going to the club had been Tori’s, but even Pattie, whose husband usually gave her grief about coming here, had agreed to the celebration. Of course, they’d all wanted to hear the entire story of Caroline’s baby’s birth, detail by infinitesimal detail.

“Andy hung up on the 911 operator to call you?”

“I heard that’s a no-no. The kid has balls, Tori.”

“Thank goodness, he was at Caroline’s.”

“You really drove ninety miles per hour?”

“And you beat the ambulance to the hospital?”

Tori had been doing a lot of nodding this evening. They’d met the ambulance half-way to the hospital. It
had turned around and followed them, lights and sirens blaring the entire way.

“You and Andy saved Caroline’s life and her baby’s, too,” Pattie said.

“I don’t know about that,” Tori said. “But we got her there in time for the doctors and medical staff to do their thing.”

“You did more than that, and you know it,” Elaine insisted.

“You deserve an award or some kind of medal.” Nell took a sip of her strawberry daiquiri.

Caroline’s words filtered through Tori’s mind.
Andy called you. He needed you. And you were there. I guess you’re just going to have to deal with it.

She’d been dealing with it all day.

After leaving Caroline’s hospital room, she’d gone downstairs to the lobby, where Andy was sitting by himself.

He’d looked up as she approached. “Hey,” he’d said.

“Hey,” she’d replied, taking the chair next to his.

They both leaned back, suddenly exhausted. “We make a pretty good team,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She’d looked at his profile, wondering when it had happened. When had her baby boy turned into this man? Oh, she knew he had some growing up to do. Hell, so did she. But she’d looked at his profile, at the broad forehead that reminded her so much of his father, and his
nose that was so like hers had been, and she’d been so struck by his beauty, tears had coursed down her face.

Noticing, he’d glanced at her self-consciously. “What’s the matter?”

She got herself under control and gave him a wavering mother’s smile. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

“All moms think that about their kids.”

“Yeah.” She sniffled again. But not all moms were right. She was right. “Are you ready to go home?” she’d asked.

“I thought I’d hang out on Dad’s boat tonight. There’s a kid my age whose family is renting a slip at the marina. I thought maybe we’d play some beach volleyball or something. I already asked Dad if it was okay. He told me to check with you.”

Well. He’d been hers for a total of twenty-seven seconds. “Is your father going to be there?”

“Yeah.”

“Was that a yes?” The man’s voice in her ear startled Tori.

She drew back slightly. The Jude Law look-alike smiled, transporting her back to the club and reality.

She’d completely missed his approach. Pity. She would have enjoyed that.

“Uh,” she said.
Good one, Tori.
Smiling provocatively, she tried again. “I’m afraid I was miles away. What was the question?”

“May I buy you a drink?”

Ooh. A man who said
may I.

He had a nice voice, deep but not too deep. And that physique.

She picked up her margarita. “Maybe you could buy me the next one.” Rising to her feet, she winked at Elaine, Nell and Pattie, then led the man away from the table where they could talk.

She could feel his eyes on her, checking her out the way she’d checked him out moments ago. She knew how she looked. Her black pants were tight but not too tight. They were slung low. Almost too low. And nothing said
look at me
more clearly than her red silk tank.

They settled in an area where they didn’t have to yell. They chatted for a while. She learned that his name was Adam. He was thirty-five and a doctor, no less. Didn’t that beat all?

He said all the right things, leaning in just far enough to let her know he’d like to get closer. He was divorced.

“Yes, me, too.”

And he had three sons.

“I have one.”

“We live in Grand Haven. I don’t usually bring my boat up to Charlevoix. I’m awfully glad I did.”

True to his word, he bought her a drink. And she knew
he was hers for the asking. Any second now he was going to offer himself up on a silver platter.

“What do people in Charlevoix do for fun?” he asked suggestively.

“The same as people from Grand Haven,” she answered, just as suggestively.

He smiled.

And she said, “Could I ask you something, Adam?”

“Ask away.”

“Do I make you drool?”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

For some reason, Tori glanced back at her table of friends before asking, “What do you see when you look at me?”

“Seriously?” he quipped.

She nodded, running her acrylic fingernail slowly up his forearm.

“I see beauty. Your hair. Your eyes. Your clothes. Your body. Perfection. You must know you’re gorgeous. I like gorgeous. A lot.”

Tori didn’t know what was wrong with her. She’d heard it before. Tonight it failed to move her. Finally, she sighed. “Thank you for the drink.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my friends.”

She left him standing there, ripe for some other woman’s taking.

Pattie, Nell and Elaine all stared at her as if she’d grown back her old nose. “What?” she asked.

“We didn’t expect to see you again tonight,” Pattie declared.

“Was something wrong with him?” Elaine asked.

“No, he was perfect.”

“I don’t understand,” Nell said. “I thought you wanted perfection.”

Tori made a face. What could she say?
Damn you, Caroline Moore?
She probably should have thanked Caroline for this newfound depth of character. Maybe she would. In a hundred years. Maybe she wanted to be more than a body and a pretty face. Maybe she already was.

“You girls ready to get out of here?”

“I’ve been ready,” Pattie complained. “Where are we going next?”

“Shopping.”

“No store is open this time of night,” Nell insisted.

“The Internet is open all night.”

Tori saw the three other women exchange glances.

“What are we shopping for?” Nell asked gently.

“Shoes, of course.”

“What do you think, Anna?” Caroline asked, cradling her baby. “Should we answer the door? Or should we pretend we’re not home?”

Anna Maria Moore stared into her mother’s eyes.

“You’re right. We should answer the door. It’s just that I can’t seem to get enough of looking at you.”

Anna pulled the most precious little face. And Caroline rose carefully to her feet. Checking first, she opened the door to a delivery man.

“Package for Caroline Moore,” he said. “Looks like you already have a package, and a tiny one at that.”

Caroline was adjusting to the way people in small towns talked to everyone. If she happened to check her mailbox while the mailman was there, it could be half an hour before he stopped talking and went on to the rest of his route. It was the same way when she went to the fish market or the grocery or to the gas station. By the end of the visit, nobody was a stranger. She’d never seen this deliveryman before, but she returned his friendly smile.

“She’s two weeks old today.”

“Congratulations. The wife and I have four grandchildren. You think kids are great. Wait’ll you get grandchildren. I need a signature.” He pointed to a line on his clipboard.

She took the pen he offered and signed where he indicated, no easy feat with a baby in her arms. Caroline didn’t mind.

Anna had only been home for two days. Although she was premature, she’d taken to her mother’s breast like a little pro. Shane had been right that day in the hospital. The baby was strong. She was a fighter. And she liked to suck her little thumb. He was right about something else. Anna’s hair was fine, wispy and red, her fingers dainty, her toes adorable.

Caroline had called Maria, her grandfather’s former housekeeper to tell her about the baby. Maria had been thrilled with Caroline’s choice of middle name. She’d also been happy to learn that little Anna didn’t have a skinny neck and prominent Adam’s apple. Like Andy had said, she hardly had any neck at all.

Andy and Shane. Shane and Andy. It was amazing how often she thought of them.

“Are you going to stand there holding that package all day?” Shane asked, coming into the room from the nursery where he’d been finishing putting together more baby items.

She stared at him, gaping. She’d been doing that all morning. She couldn’t help it.

He took the baby from her, his hands nearly bigger than she was. Anna never seemed to mind all the jostling.

Caroline still made no move to open the lightweight box in her hand. She was too busy watching the silent exchange between Shane and her daughter. It was almost as if Caroline wasn’t even here. She didn’t have it in her to mind.

Shane was careful to support little Anna’s head. She practically fit in one hand. He’d forgotten the sweet smell of newborns. Somehow he’d forgotten how small they were and how their cries could jolt a grown man awake in the middle of the night.

She was an amazing baby. Of course, he may have been a tad biased. She slept a lot. But when she wasn’t sleeping, she was extremely alert. She was studying him right now, feature by feature. It was the funniest thing. It was as if she thought she should know him from somewhere, but couldn’t place him.

“Hi, there,” he said, holding her so that they were at eye level. “I’m Shane.”

He would look into those eyes thousands of times during the next fifty years. He would look into her mother’s even more. He looked into Caroline’s now. “Hi,” he said.

She brought her hand up to his face. His bare face.

Caroline hadn’t said anything when he’d arrived earlier, but he’d caught her looking at him much the way Anna had just looked at him, as if she knew him from somewhere but couldn’t quite place him without his beard.

“What made you decide to shave?”

He’d been emotional for two weeks. In fact, he’d broken down and cried when Andy finally opened up about what had happened the day Brian drowned. His son had described the outing and the sun, and how Brian had taken off his life jacket to try to fish something out of the water. Neither of the boys had thought anything of it when Brian hung the life jacket on the mast to dry.

And then the wind came up, slamming into the sail, catching Brian on the side of his head. Andy had used his fist to knock on the boat’s hull, mimicking the sound of the impact of metal and Brian’s skull.

Shane had let his tears fall. “I miss him,” he’d said. “I miss him every day, son. I guess we always will.”

Andy had cried, too.

“It’s a sad fact of life that we can’t save everybody.” For a long time, Shane had mourned his marriage. In a sense, he’d mourned it the way Andy mourned his best friend. “Maybe, somehow, the losses make the successes all the more poignant. Who knows why Brian died, and yet Caroline and Anna lived. Maybe there is no reason. Maybe it’s enough that we love, that we bare our soul to someone who knows us, truly knows us.”

It was during that revelation that Shane had decided to shave his beard. It had taken him another week to do it.

Caroline ran her hand along Shane’s smooth cheek. “What made you decide to shave?” she asked again.

Clearing his throat, he said, “I figured you deserved to see me, all of me, if I was going to ask you to marry me.”

“You figured that, did you?”

Shane felt a smile lurking. “I’m Shane Grady. I run the marina. I have a fifteen-year-old son who’s going to be the death of me, a difficult ex-wife, a boat, a house, and not much else, but whatever I have, I’ll share, because I’ve never been in love like this.”

It was Caroline’s turn to sniffle. “I’m Caroline Moore. And this is Anna. I have a law degree and a closet full of beautiful shoes, a few precarious friendships, and before I moved here, I’d never been in love at all.”

She couldn’t stop looking at his face. It was completely different without the beard. He had an angular jaw and a wide mouth. A poet’s mouth. She couldn’t decide if he looked older or younger. She liked him exactly as he was.

Remembering the package, she shook it lightly. Nothing rattled. “Shall I open it?”

He carried the baby, she the package, into the kitchen where she took a knife from the drawer and sliced through the packaging tape. She lifted the lid easily enough, but had to remove several layers of packaging foam in order to reach what was inside.

She drew in a loud breath, her mouth forming a large
O
.

“Aren’t they a little big for Anna?” Shane asked.

Caroline lifted a beautiful pair of baby shoes from the box. She turned them over, looking at them from every angle. “They’re made by hand in a little village on the coast of Italy.”

“Who’re they from?” Shane rummaged through the rest of the packaging foam.

Caroline wasn’t surprised he didn’t find a card. She knew who they were from. “They’re from Tori.”

“Why would she go to so much trouble?”

“Remember when I asked her if she was giving us her permission? I believe she’s given us something better. She’s giving us her blessing.”

Even baby Anna responded to the wonder in Caroline’s voice.

“That’s nice,” Shane said quietly. “Does this mean you will?”

“Will?” Once again, Caroline found herself looking at the stranger before her. “Oh, you mean will I marry you?”

“That is the question on the table.”

She rolled her eyes, but in the end she smiled. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He leaned down and kissed her mouth gently, Anna between
them. When it ended, Caroline found herself looking at his hands.