Somebody Like You (14 page)

Claire wove her arm through Haley’s and tugged her down the hall. She raised her voice so that it echoed back into the living room. “Yes, I’d love to see what you’ve done with the baby’s room.”

“But I haven’t done anything.”

“Show me the room.”

“Fine. I’ll show you the room—and everything I’ve done.” She opened the door, stepped inside, and did a quick turn around. “Which is nothing, besides being surprised by the delivery of a crib from my parents.”

Dancing a brief jig, Claire clapped her hands like a toddler. “Happy baby shower from your mom and dad!”

Haley would have sat down—if there’d been anything to collapse onto besides the floor. “My parents knew about the baby shower?”

“Of course they knew. I invited your mom, but she said she’s coming out once the baby’s born. She did want to send a gift, though.” Claire gave the room a quick once-over. “You don’t want to bring your son home to this room. There are no curtains—”

“I know that. I just haven’t gotten around to painting yet. Or choosing curtains. Or a dresser.”

All the things she needed to do—and hadn’t—rose up and accused her.
Please, don’t let Claire ask what I do all day.
She couldn’t tell her. Dodged Shelton’s letters. Napped. Filled the
silence with nonstop DVDs. Went to the bathroom too many times. Avoidance took up a lot of time.

“You’re not going to use the crib right away. Most of the time, a newborn sleeps in a bassinet or a cradle near the parents’ bed.”

“Why can’t I just use the crib?”

“Do you really want to be traipsing back and forth from your bed to the baby’s crib during the night?”

“No. But my baby isn’t going to keep me up at night.”

“Spoken like a delusional first-time mom-to-be. No newborn sleeps through the night.” Claire eyed the window. “Do you sew?”

“Not even a button on a blouse. If something rips, it ends up in the thrift store pile.” She stared Claire down. “What? We each have our talents. Can you drive tacks with a Glock at twenty yards? Disassemble and reassemble a Walther PPK in under a minute?”

“I don’t even know what you just asked me. But I doubt either of those skills is going to help you get ready for this baby.”

As if Claire needed to tell her that.

“Do you know what color you want to paint the room?”

“Blue?”

“Original.”

“Blue is a boy color.”

“Hundreds of years ago, boys wore pink. Did you know that?”

“No—and I am not painting this room pink. What would Sam think if I painted his son’s room pink?”

Her question thudded against the walls. What would Sam have said about any of this? Would he have wanted a son or a daughter? He’d been denied the chance to experience fatherhood—and her stubbornness had stolen what few moments he could have savored.

“Hey, you okay?” Claire’s question pulled Haley back from an emotional abyss. Grief was one thing—remorse could crumble the fragile ground beneath her feet.

“Sure. I’m fine.”

“Missing Sam?”

“Yes.” She switched off the light, moving back into the hallway. “There’s a part of me that always misses Sam.”

“I planned this shower to encourage you, not to upset you.”

“It’s not the baby shower.” The words piled up in the back of her throat. If only she could let them tumble out . . . find release. “It’s just . . . everything. All the things I have to do before the baby’s born. All the letters from the homeowners’ association. Never mind.”

“Haley, how many times do I have to tell you the guys are willing to help?”

“And how many times do I have to tell you I can handle it?” Laughter sounded in the living room. “Even if Sam were here, I’d be the one painting the baby’s room. Come on, let’s go enjoy this baby shower you surprised me with—but I’m warning you, I don’t play games. Got it?”

Well, she couldn’t say the baby didn’t have stuff.

Haley sat in the middle of the baby’s bedroom, surrounded by the gifts the women had given her. A stuffed yellow duck with a neon orange bill snuggled in a car seat. Bottles of baby shampoo, baby wash, and baby lotion overflowed from a blue plastic baby tub, nestled against a pale green terry-cloth towel with one end that formed a hood that looked like a turtle, and a pile of soft pastel washcloths.

Could she wash a newborn without breaking him?

She picked up a teddy bear covered in soft golden fur. How many stuffed animals did one baby need? A duck, two bears, a lamb, a cow that rattled when she shook it, and a floppy striped tiger—she was well on her way to a zoo for her unborn son. If she put all these animals in the crib once she assembled it, he would have nowhere to sleep.

Depositing the bear back in the menagerie, she touched the bundle of tiny clothes lying near her left knee. Would her baby really fit in these? Her finger traced the stitching on a pint-sized jean jacket. Sam would have loved this, especially paired with the
BORN TO BE WILD
onesie. Claire had instructed her to wash all the clothes and blankets—a glimpse into her future of nonstop laundry once the baby was born. Time enough for laundry tomorrow. She still needed to attack the piles of her own dirty clothes she’d been ignoring.

Ignoring things. That seemed to be her modus operandi since Sam had been killed. If possible, she would have shut the door in the stoic faces of the men who’d shown up almost five months ago to tell her Sam had been killed. Not that they had to say anything—just seeing them standing outside the apartment, so formally dressed, so still, so
sorry
 . . . She’d known.

“He’s been killed, hasn’t he?”

“Ma’am, may we come in?”

“Just tell me.”

“Please, ma’am, may we come in?”

Fine. They wanted to be inside the apartment before telling her what she already knew. She moved out of the way, her hand still clenching the doorknob of their second-floor apartment. Followed them into the small living room. Sat in the chair she’d reupholstered during Sam’s first deployment after they’d married while all three men sat on the couch.

And waited.

They’d expected tears.

She’d been polite. Controlled. She knew what was expected of her as an army wife. Sam never worried about her when he was gone . . .

A sharp twinge at the base of her belly caused Haley to wince. Rubbing the area, she eased herself to her feet. Braxton Hicks contractions—that’s what Lily had called them. A physical reminder that motherhood was imminent. Single motherhood.

No tears. No tears.

I can do this. I have to do this. I
will
do this. I won’t let you down, Sam.

Dispersing her thoughts with a shake of her head, she retrieved a white rectangular plastic basket from the laundry room, bending to pile the clothes and blankets, towels and washcloths into it, and then carrying it back to the room between the kitchen and the garage and placing it on top of the dryer, kicking at the pile of dirty jeans on the floor.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” She muffled a yawn with her hand. “I need a snack and some sleep.”

In the kitchen, she noticed her iPhone sitting in the wooden fruit bowl between two yellow bananas just beginning to sport brown spots. Okay . . . what was it doing there? Where was her brain? If she couldn’t keep track of her phone, how was she going to take care of a baby?

When she picked it up, she noticed she had a message from Sam’s mom. It’d been a couple of weeks since they last talked—the night of their “Do you have another son?” conversation.

Captured in a voice mail, Miriam’s voice hesitated. “Haley? Why aren’t you picking up the phone? I hope you’re okay—that you’re not too angry with me. Has Sam’s brother contacted you again?” Haley deleted the message and checked the time. Nine o’clock. Still early enough to call. But first, she tore into a bag
of mini candy bars, filling a cereal bowl with an assortment of Snickers, Milky Ways, Three Musketeers—and setting the Twix aside for Claire. Then she poured herself a glass of milk—plain—and settled onto the couch to talk to Miriam.

Her mother-in-law answered before the second ring. “Haley? Oh, Haley, I’m so thankful you called me back.”

“Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. I want to know how you are—you haven’t called me since . . . since . . .”

“Since Stephen showed up here?” Were things so bad that Miriam couldn’t even say her son’s name?

“Yes.”

Haley swallowed half a mini Milky Way chased with a sip of cold milk. “Sorry. Having a before-bed snack. Sam’s twin showed up here a couple of times. I finally agreed to meet him for dinner and answer some of his questions.”

“What did he want to know?”

“Basic things. How long Sam and I were married. Did Sam like the military—that kind of thing.”

“How did he look?”

“Just like Sam—”

“No, no. I mean, did he look happy?”

Now, why did Miriam expect her to be able to answer that question? “We weren’t talking about him. He asked questions about Sam. I answered as best I could. Miriam, can’t you call him? Is it so hard—so bad between you both? I mean, he told me that you were the one who let him know about Sam.”

When Miriam didn’t respond, Haley voiced the question lurking in her head. “Did you and your ex-husband make some sort of agreement that you’d take Sam and that he’d take Stephen? That you wouldn’t talk to Stephen?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Then call him. You must miss your son.”

“I—I wouldn’t know what to say.”

Haley unwrapped another candy bar, but she’d lost her appetite. “Well, that seems to be the problem that kept Sam and Stephen apart all these years. Maybe it’s time to say something—anything.”

“It’s so complicated.”

“So are all the unsaid things—the things you can never say once someone’s dead.” Now whom was she talking to—her mother-in-law or herself ? “I’m sorry, Miriam. You’ve got to decide how to handle this. I’m no relationship expert.”

“Are you getting together with him again?”

“I don’t plan on it.” She stirred the mix of chocolate bars with her fingers, swirling them around in the bowl. “What’s the point?”

“Well, if you do . . . will you tell him I asked about him?”

“Of course.”

But that would be yet another message left undelivered.

S
tephen was 100 percent certain that his oh-so-reluctant sister-in-law was going to hate his showing up again. He’d thought about it all the way from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. And yet, he wanted to do this. Had to do this. Why else would he drive over a hundred miles? But Haley? His actions might be grounds for another potential “click, click, bang” episode.

He pulled the car into the driveway to the left of the house, his glance straying to the leafless tree that looked even barer now that his plans to hang the baby swing had been thwarted by the unpredictable Colorado weather. He’d be lucky if he got to hang the swing before May—if Haley didn’t hang the swing herself.

He grabbed a small white envelope from its resting place on the front passenger seat. Not that heavy, but then again, you couldn’t always judge the value of something by how much it weighed.

Would Haley even be home? Was she going to work once the baby was born? If he asked her any more personal questions,
she’d hit him over the head with a virtual
NO TRESPASSING
sign. It wasn’t as if a once-absentee brother-in-law and uncle-to-be had any say in how she raised the kid. Sam’s son or daughter.

Cold heightened by a biting wind cleared the cul-de-sac today. The bare tree branches rattled as a gust of air tossed Stephen’s hair and nipped his neck and ears. The front door swung open, and Haley stood with the screen door separating them.

“I don’t need anything else for the baby.” Haley stood with her arms crossed over her rounded tummy, which was evident beneath a long-sleeved brown T-shirt adorned with the simple slogan
LIFE IS GOOD
in muted orange letters. Did she believe that?

“Hello to you, too.” Stephen held up the envelope. “I wanted to show you something.”

She didn’t budge. Haley Ames redefined the word
stubborn
. “May I come in?” Another gust of wind shook the screen. “At least one of us is going to get cold.”