Stirred (3 page)

“More children? No! No, you don’t…you don’t understand. Ivy…she isn’t…
wasn’t
my husband’s child. She was Jacob’s,” I tried to explain, but choked on a sob so deep and painful, I couldn’t get past it.

“Wait. Back-up. Who’s Jacob?” Dr. Baylor asked.

“My…my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? But your chart says you’re married.”

“I am.”

Her brow tensed in censure. “Mrs. Ross, perhaps this isn’t—”

“Jacob died…months ago, before I even knew I was pregnant.”

“Oh my God, I…I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.” Dr. Baylor snagged a tissue from a box on a nearby stand and handed it to me. She paused and looked me in the eye. “What on earth happened?”

I shook my head. “He was killed defending me. We were in a club and a couple cowboys came in, started harassing people. One of them grabbed me. Jacob intervened. But the guy pulled out a metal bar and smashed it over Jacob’s head. He collapsed on the floor; his eyes were open, but…he was gone. He died.”

I wept into the tissue while Dr. Baylor laid a hand on my shoulder. I was relieved she didn’t try to soothe me with token words of comfort. She just stroked my arm until I pulled myself together.

“I don’t remember much after that,” I continued. “Only what my friends told me later, that I freaked out when they took Jacob’s body away. I woke up in the hospital. I’d passed out. When they asked if I might be pregnant, I realized it was possible, so I had a test, and it turned out positive. Only four weeks, but…still…”

“And your husband?” Dr. Baylor asked.

“He and Jacob were close. When Declan found out I was pregnant, he promised to take care of us. He offered to marry me and help raise the baby. I thought Jacob would’ve wanted it that way if he’d known; he’d want us to be taken care of. And I didn’t think I could do it on my own, not without a degree or family who could support us. I didn’t have a job or any work experience, and if I quit school, I’d have to start paying off my student loans immediately. I remember how much my mother struggled with my sister and me as a single parent. So…I did it. I married Declan Ross.” I turned my head and stared out the window as the full weight of my situation settled over me. “But it was all for nothing. Ivy was my last connection to Jacob. But now she’s gone. I’ve lost them both.” I buried my face in the pillow.

Dr. Baylor sat quietly while I cried my heartache away. After several minutes, she handed me another tissue. I swiped my eyes, but stared out at nothing.

“Eden,” Dr. Baylor said, using my first name as if we were old friends. “This is all very difficult, I know. The pain is so fresh, but…I think it might help if you discussed your feelings, your plans, figure out where you’ll go now that so much has changed.”

She offered an anemic smile, and while I realized it was probably well-rehearsed, the look in her eyes was one of genuine concern. Gone was any implication of judgment. And I supposed she was right. Everything—Jacob’s death, my pregnancy and sudden marriage, losing Ivy—it had all happened so fast, I’d barely had time to process my feelings. From day one, I’d simply reacted, marrying quickly to protect myself and my child, because I’d told myself Jacob would’ve wanted it that way.

But, in reality, I’d been too frightened to even consider handling it by myself—a baby, a full load of classes, some crappy minimum wage job. My mom was a proud woman. She’d tried to protect her kids from her harsh reality, always smiling in reassurance that everything was fine when it wasn’t. She thought she was protecting us, but instead, she’d coddled us, and when I got pregnant, I was ill-prepared to handle it on my own. So, with an easy out, right there, staring me in the face, I felt I didn’t have to, even though I knew damn well it came with strings.

I was very young, but I wasn’t naïve; I knew exactly who Declan Ross was and why he’d married me, and it wasn’t just because he had some silly crush on me, like my friends thought. Nor was it some virtuous act to raise my baby as his own. He’d had ulterior motives, and I’d seized on those in the name of security. I was scared, but I knew what I was doing.

And therein laid the rub. I made some very poor choices for all the wrong reasons, and now it was too late. I couldn’t unburden myself and hope to change my circumstances. Declan and I had a contract. So, accepting my fate as I had fashioned it, I dried off my face and took a deep breath.

“There’s not much more to say, Dr. Baylor, not anymore.” I shook my head and shrugged. “I’ve made my bed, and now I have to lie in it.

It was a number on the calendar, a day like any other. Except it wasn’t. It was
the
day, the same one I dreaded every year. Only this year was different, the anniversary a big, fat, round number. Twenty years to be exact. And not once during each of those years had I ever marked the calendar with a red X or black circle. I didn’t need a visual reminder. My heart was like a Geiger counter, pulsing with an electrostatic charge as the date drew nearer, the memories stronger, the pain of which was so inescapable, I had no choice but to deal with it, to let the sorrow flow then ebb so I could move on and live another day. But moving on doesn’t mean moving forward. That was beyond me. Sure, my body grew older, my mind sharper, my wisdom more prudent. But my heart—it simply grew harder. My punishment, I suppose, for making the wrong choice.

Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t all bad. I’d had many wonderful things happen to me in the years since Jacob and Ivy died. I had the career I wanted. Two of them, in fact, both fulfilling and better than I could have hoped for. My greatest joy, however, was Ian, my son, seventeen years old now and ready to take on the world. Or at least college anyway. He was the one good thing to come out of my marriage, so even though I had many regrets, staying in my marriage was not one of them, at least not in the beginning. I couldn’t imagine life without my son.

I used to stare at him when he was a small child, curious if he would have shared any similarities with the half-sister he never met. But that was an indulgent thought, because Ian was Declan’s son, not Jacob’s. And I didn’t even know what Ivy looked like anyway. I never saw her before she was buried. At the time, Declan insisted I’d be too traumatized. So I conjured my own image of a vivacious little girl with dark, bouncy curls, kind, mahogany eyes, and a wide, toothy grin, much like Jacob. With Declan gone a lot in those early years, I couldn’t help but daydream about what it could have been like had Ian been Jacob’s child instead, had Jacob and Ivy survived so we could be the family I’d always dreamed of.

“Jesus Christ, Eden, you’re not going to be all depressed and mopey today, are you?” Declan lamented as he walked into the room, his voice startling me from my memories. He set his briefcase down on the kitchen counter before pouring himself a cup of coffee, into which he dumped two full tablespoons of sugar and three more of cream. Even still, he winced when he took a sip. “Do you always have to brew it so damn strong? It’s like drinking jet fuel, for God’s sake.”

With my elbow on the table and my chin in my hand, I disregarded his snide comment and offered him a hollow smile instead.

“Are you coming with us today?” I asked, though I knew the answer would be the same as it had been for the last fourteen years.

He grimaced, and it wasn’t from the coffee either. “Come on, Eden, we’ve been over this already.”

“Just a half hour. We’ll lay some fresh flowers, chat a little then maybe—”

“Chat? Really? To a gravestone?” He shook his head. “No, thanks. Too morose for me.”

“It’s not just a gravestone, Declan. She’s my child.”

“Yes,
your
child, Eden.
Not
mine. Besides, I don’t have the time,” he added with a glance at his Rolex. “I have back-to-back meetings all day. You and Ian go, have some fun or…whatever.”

“Fun? You think commemorating the worst day of my life is fun?”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, babe. Whatever. Aren’t you having one of your ladies’ nights tonight?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So you can have some fun then. Talk this shit over with your sister.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Yeah, somewhere between her drinking and flirting,” I mumbled, knowing Declan wasn’t listening, nor did he care. So I whispered to myself, “Maybe Aurelia will have a little empathy.”

Declan’s head snapped up. “I’m sure she will. You gals have fun. I gotta go.” He grabbed his briefcase and pecked a kiss atop my head as he passed by, more out of habit than any real emotion, not that I wasn’t used to it.

While Declan went off to conquer the world of high-finance and corporate raiding, Ian escorted me to Seattle’s Lakeview Cemetery, where Ivy’s tiny casket was interred. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, the sky clear enough to see from Lake Union, across Union Bay, and over to Lake Washington. We brought a fresh spray of tiger lilies to place upon her headstone, and Ian sat attentively as I babbled on about all the things that had happened since the last time we’d visited. He allowed me another photo of him next to her grave as a way of marking the years since I’d lost her. It was bittersweet, but necessary for me to carry on, and I was greatly comforted by Ian, who, unlike his father, never failed to soothe me through the difficult memories.

I spent the rest of the day alone after Ian left for school, but it was hard to concentrate on much of anything. I didn’t go into work. The Montessori school I operated ran perfectly well without me most days, and the unfinished manuscript sitting open on my laptop held no interest for me whatsoever. So I puttered about the house instead, straightening up what was already neat, vacuuming away footprints from the already clean carpet, and loading the dishwasher before perusing my extensive dressing room for something to wear out later.

Tonight was “Ladies’ Night,” a monthly gathering my best friend, Aurelia Wylde, and I regularly attended with our closest girlfriends and my little sister, Emmy. It was being held at Pulido, an upscale tequila bar and restaurant in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. I usually enjoyed time out with my friends, but this event landing on this particular day left me rather melancholy. But perhaps Declan was right. Maybe I did need to talk things over with someone. At the very least, I could use time away with a few of my friends.

My sister Emmy was great on most occasions, but when partying out on the town, flirting became her number one priority. Aurelia could usually be counted on to listen, but she’d been uncharacteristically distracted of late. I knew she was seeing a new guy, and Reely—as we often called her—tended to over-immerse herself in every new relationship, sometimes to the point of losing herself. But, friends since high school, she knew me better than anyone, including what I’d been through with Jacob and Ivy, as well as Declan. There were no real secrets between Reely and I, nothing that mattered anyway.

Early that evening, Ian left again to join an SAT study group at his high school. Declan had not yet returned home from work, as was usual for him. Most nights, he didn’t get home until after nine or ten. I wasn’t sure whether he simply enjoyed his work and the riches it brought, or if he was avoiding me. Not that I minded all that much. I often did the same.