What's Left Behind (8 page)

Tessa tugged the jersey down over her belly. She hung her head, and tears ran down her cheeks.

“Hey, don’t be like that.” Charlie opened his arms to Tessa and ushered her closer. “Tessa,” he said, drawing out the syllables, the way Luke had done. “We should be celebrating.”

Tessa ran into Charlie’s arms. She buried her face in the shoulder of his white polo shirt, no doubt soaking the fabric, as if she’d known him forever. “It’s going to be okay. We’re here for you. We’re going to figure this out. No worries.” Charlie rubbed Tessa’s back, and her shoulders rose and fell with her tears.

All Abby had ever wanted from Charlie those many years ago.

Abby ducked into the pantry and clamped a hand over her mouth to quell the cottony swell, the urge to scream. Did Charlie think he could sway the girl? Convince her to leave Luke’s baby with Abby, just because he said so?

What you wanted and what you ended up with weren’t necessarily the same.

Luke had worried Abby with his devil-may-care attitude toward sports and all manner of physical dares. Her son was all-boy, all the time.With Luke, Abby had at least understood what she was up against. Girls in general, this girl in particular, were something else altogether. Charlie was no match for passive-aggressive girly crap, especially in the guise of a beautiful girl who was carrying their grandchild.

Abby focused on a row of spices—rosemary, thyme, oregano—and bit the soft flesh of her palm until pain bloomed and the panic in her belly receded.

Back in the kitchen, Tessa clung to Charlie’s shirt. Above the girl’s head, he mouthed,
No worries,
to Abby. But Abby Stone wasn’t a schoolgirl he could charm with his good looks and pretty words. She’d seen too much to believe in easy answers. Happy ever after had died with her son.

Abby put water on for peppermint tea. She poured batter into the waffle iron and peeled a banana for slicing. The baby needed nourishing. The girl needed convincing. If Tessa were anything like Abby had been while pregnant, breakfast would lead to second breakfast and slide right into lunch. Abby wished she could rewind the clock to a time when her fondest wish had been four straight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Back to one perfectly ordinary mid-March, middle-of-the-night newborn feeding. Back to a time when she hadn’t appreciated her good fortune.

She’d thought she’d be in that room forever. Late-winter winds battered the nursery’s windows and banged shutters against the siding. A CD played “Little Boy Blue,” a loop of warm sound. The song’s steady backbeat mimicked a human pulse, but the ersatz heart didn’t fool her son. Luke had kicked off his blanket, his arms and legs flailed for her, twitches of movement in the darkened room. His thin cries pierced her chest. Abby lifted him from his cradle. Before she could fully settle into the rocking chair, before she wedged the nursing pillow beneath her forearm, Luke clamped on to her nipple, hard enough to snatch the air in her throat. He’d always known how to get what he wanted.

A grandchild. A piece of her son alive in the world. She’d lost her child once and survived. Losing again would kill her.

T
essa couldn’t stop looking at the photo centered above Luke’s bed.

Dina had taken the shot of her and Luke in December, when they’d gone sledding, right before finals week. A last blowing off of steam before they locked themselves in books and laptops to memorize facts they’d forget five minutes after the doors of the lecture halls snicked shut behind them. She and Luke sat on an oversized cafeteria tray at the peak of the hill by their dorm. Top of the morning, top of her life.

After breakfast, they’d hiked the paved trail up Orchard Hill. Tessa was falling behind, savoring the strange feeling between her legs. The secret ache told her hours ago, everything had changed. Luke, who could’ve had any girl, had chosen her. He thought she was beautiful. He thought she was special.

Boys were so easy to fool.

The sun’s rays bounced off the snow-covered hillside, blinding her. Luke jogged back down the hill, and she climbed onto his back. With a battle cry, he raced up the hill, Tessa grasping the fabric of his ski jacket for dear life, her body bouncing mercilessly against Luke’s. The solid feel of him pounded against her chest. Clear blue sky with a whisper of white cloud skittering across it. Snow-dusted tree branches. Groups of kids along the path. As she and Luke bounded past, their voices touched her, like high-fives of celebration. Joy bubbled from her center. Luke deposited her at the top of the hill, with her stomach muscles tight from laughter, her cheeks chapped from the cold.

She was smart to have made him wait a few months to have sex. A calculated risk, but worth it. Because he’d held her hands and dusted her face with kisses. He’d told her to open her eyes. He’d said it might hurt. But that night, it hadn’t hurt at all. Not in any way that mattered.

Tessa hummed the first line from “Wish You Were Here,” slow and ethereal. Luke’s cat, Sadie, poked her head out from under the bed. The cat had slept there all night. She’d refused to come out, even when Abby had waved a rainbow wand of curly ribbons by her face. Not even when Abby had tumbled aluminum foil balls the cat supposedly could not resist past the bed.
Fine,
Abby had said, when Tessa could tell the sleeping arrangement—for Tessa and the cat—was anything but.

Tessa clucked her tongue. When Sadie wound around her bare legs, she scooped the cat into her arms and planted a kiss in the soft fur behind her ear. In the photo, Tessa faced forward, legs crossed. Luke’s legs wrapped around her waist. He gazed out to some unknown point, or some unknown person. A girl, most likely. That tall blonde from Central who was always hanging around, waiting for the latest breakup? How long could a relationship last when there was always some girl, or girls, waiting in line for you to fail?

“Who do you think Luke’s looking at?” Tessa asked. “Hmm?” Inside Tessa, the baby squirmed, and Sadie leaped to the floor. Tessa pressed both hands to her stomach, as though trying to hold the baby inside her.

On that day on the hill, she’d longed for Luke, as though he were already gone. If love felt so much like grief, how could you tell the difference? Tears sprung to her eyes, and a familiar congestion filled her chest.

A handled shopping bag from yesterday’s shopping spree sat on the floor, and Tessa set to unpacking the contents. She’d dashed out after breakfast, giving Abby and Charlie privacy, she was certain, to talk about her. At Mama Land boutique, the saleswoman had cautioned Tessa against purchasing too many items at once. She’d assured Tessa that just when she’d thought she couldn’t get any bigger, she’d grow exponentially. But what the heck? She had Dad’s credit card and his sort-of blessing. At Abby’s urging, Tessa had called to tell her father her location, and she’d taken his rather pronounced sigh from the other end of the phone as all the permission she needed. “You don’t listen at all, do you?” he’d asked, not expecting an answer. No, she did not listen. And neither did he.

But Abby would listen to Tessa. She’d make sure of it.

Tessa laid out her purchases across Luke’s bed. Two pairs of not-too-short shorts, the denim low-cut, if you didn’t count the stretchy beige fabric that cradled her growing belly and reached all the way to the underside of her bra. Three T-shirts, longer in the front than the back. A sundress with navy stripes running vertical. Each item was cleverly designed to camouflage the fact she was a freaking freak show. From the bottom of the bag, Tessa retrieved half a dozen pairs of underwear, the worst of the worst. Underwear with a secret baby belly, in case she were trying for the sexy prego look.

She couldn’t imagine letting any guy see her undressed, not even after the baby was born. She only wanted Luke.

Luke, taking her by the hand, dragging her into his study carrel, and locking the door behind them. Luke’s voice in her ear, telling her how sweet she tasted in his mouth. He’d known exactly what he was doing, an expertise born from years of fooling around with other girls.

She wished she’d been his first. She wished they’d been high-school sweethearts. Like Dina and Jon, and Dina’s parents. Like Abby and Charlie. Luke had told her his parents were best friends before they dated.

How romantic was that?

Had Luke loved her? For real? He’d said the words, breathless soft-sweet mumblings, uttered when he was about to come. But everyone knew that didn’t count. Everyone knew that wasn’t romantic.

She wished Luke were here, right now, with her in his bedroom.

Luke had told her his mother was strict. She’d never allowed girls in his bedroom. But even as he’d told Tessa, she’d detected the undercurrent of a smirk. Luke had been an adrenaline junkie. That was for sure. How easy would it have been for a girl to slip from the night and through the French doors? How easy would it have been for Luke to lead a girl by the hand into his bed?

How easy would it have been for Luke to cheat on her while they were going out? Wouldn’t
that
have given him the ultimate adrenaline rush?

Sunlight bathed the aquarium on the shelf above Luke’s desk. Starfish and sand dollars stood out in stark relief. She could imagine Luke finding the treasures in the sand. His warm hand reaching down to make them his own, the way he’d claimed her.

Tessa took the stack of hideous underwear across the room to Luke’s dresser and opened the top drawer. No tightie-whities, no boxers, no balled-up crew socks. Instead, two photo albums filled the drawer, one atop the other. She carried them to Luke’s bed, feeling as though she’d unearthed buried treasure, clues to Luke’s secret sacred self.

At the UMass memorial, Father Thomas had spoken of how Luke was taken too soon. He’d assumed Luke’s untimely death had them all searching for answers. But Tessa had been searching since the day she’d met Luke. Luke’s death had only made him harder to unravel.

She cracked open the album, flipped past a teenage-looking Abby holding Luke in her arms, a blond-haired woman at her elbow. Abby and chubby-cheeked Luke holding hands before the entryway door of Briar Rose.Would her baby have eyes like Luke’s, so intense you thought he saw inside you, even if he didn’t know you at all? She’d thought they’d have more time. Why did she always make that mistake?

Heat flooded her face, and her breath came in wet gulps.

A preschool Luke in overalls stood on a stool before the center island of the Briar Rose kitchen. A mixing bowl with a wooden spoon sat on the counter. Flour overflowed the bowl, dusting the counter, Luke’s apron, and Luke. Abby beamed at Luke, but little Luke stared straight ahead. His right hand extended before him, reaching for someone or something out of his grasp.

Tessa touched a fingertip to Luke’s tiny photo hand. Strange thought, she loved who Luke was before she’d even met him. Her left hand slid to her stomach, caressed the curve beneath her belly button. Not so strange, she already loved Luke’s baby.

Loving meant loss.

“What are you doing?” Abby’s voice, breathy and strident, startled Tessa’s hand from her belly.

Abby stood in the doorway, staring at the photo albums, or, more specifically, in their general direction. Six o’clock in the morning, and Luke’s mother looked like she’d been up for hours. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. Face scrubbed and shining, with just a hint of makeup. A natural beauty, Tessa’s mother would’ve called her. As if takes-two-hours-to-get-ready Meredith Lombardi would know anything about that. Some women needed a little assistance, Mom had told Tessa, and then she’d taken twelve-year-old Tessa out to shop for blush, lip gloss, and mascara.

“He was so cute all covered in flour.” Tessa slid her finger from Luke’s photo hand to his little boy face, traced the curve.

Abby’s cheeks pinked. The corners of her mouth turned down, and she shook her head. Gaze hovering somewhere above the bed, Abby closed the pages of the photo album, without even looking.

She couldn’t, Tessa realized.

Add that discovery to the Abby Stone file, the one Tessa had only just begun.

“I’m sorry, Abby,” Tessa said, even though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. The fact she’d opened the albums, or that Abby couldn’t.

Abby sighed, and folded her arms across her chest. “Luke loved to bake.”

“For real?” At school, they’d taken most of their meals in the cafeteria. Luke’s dorm room boasted the world’s smallest microwave and a dorm fridge that, last seen, housed crunchy peanut butter, grape jelly, and a hot dog of questionable vintage. No one would claim the dog, so no one dared to toss it.

“Everything and anything.”

Luke Connors liked to bake. Add that to her Luke Connors file, the one Tessa had started on the day she’d met Luke.

“Hungry?” Abby asked.

“Only when I’m awake.”

“Go wash up. I’ll get you something to eat before I put you to work in the kitchen.”

Tessa imagined working alongside Abby, elbow-to-elbow in batter, and knee-deep in conversation. Then Tessa imagined screwing up so badly Abby sent her away before she could learn more about Luke. She imagined losing her opportunity to know Abby. “Are you sure? I need to shower. I don’t want to hold you up.”

“Twenty minutes,” Abby said. “You’ve got plenty of time.”

The last time Tessa had made breakfast with her mother, Tessa had scalded the hot chocolate, burned the pancakes, and accidentally set the kitchen on fire. Three weeks later, Mom was in Paris, sipping champagne and nibbling crepes, free from a daughter who’d tried too hard to please.

Coincidence?

“But, Abby, I don’t know what to do. I’ll only get in the way. I’m no—”

“Breakfast service starts at seven for the guests. If you’re family, you’re expected to help out.” Abby flashed Tessa the smile she’d shared after Luke’s memorial, the one that had drawn her closer then. The one that drew her now.

If you’re family.

Was that an offer or a dare?

To Abby, cooking eggs Benedict was a dance requiring two in-sync partners, an almost clairvoyant communication between like-minded individuals, a give-and-take that could upend the most kitchen confident individuals. When Hannah called in sick, Abby could’ve managed breakfast alone. Whisk and cook hollandaise sauce, poach eggs, warm Canadian bacon, toast English muffins. She’d done it before. She’d been planning on doing it again.

Until she’d checked in on Tessa and found her poring over Luke’s photo albums, eyes puffy, expression determined to punish herself. If left to her own devices, Tessa would’ve stayed in Luke’s bed, turning the pages of Luke’s life, pressing a thumb into her ache to freshen the pain.

Why else would Abby have hidden the albums away from herself?

“Stir until bubbles form.
Until.
” Abby grabbed a pot holder and moved the simmering hollandaise sauce in front of Tessa to a cold burner, seconds ahead of an unsightly, and wasteful, curdling.

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Abby slid English muffins from the toaster, slid slabs of Canadian bacon from the pan, scooped poached eggs from their bath. “Now, you drizzle the sauce over the eggs.”

Tessa grabbed the hollandaise sauce pan by its metal handle. “Youch!”

“Pot holder.”

Tessa held her hand by the wrist, face set in a grimace.

Abby inhaled the savory ham and eggs, shook her head, and ran the tap. She held Tessa’s palm under the cold water and then patted it dry with a dish towel. “Better?”

“Much,” Tessa said, even though she looked as though she might cry again, when that was the last thing Abby had intended. “I bet Luke never burned his hand,” Tessa said, and Abby had the urge to place a kiss in the center of her palm, the way she had when Luke had tried a similar stunt.

“Sure he did.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Yes, and it’s also true.” Pot holder in hand, Abby drizzled hollandaise over two sets of eggs Benedict and placed them on a serving tray.

“I told you I’d get in the way. I warned you I didn’t know how to cook or—”

Abby passed the plated breakfasts to Tessa, forced cheer into her voice. “Deliver these to table one, please!” Tessa wasn’t going to learn how to cook by whining about her inability. And she wasn’t going to get over her grief by wallowing in it either.

The thought conjured Lily Beth, her voice loving, but her expression take-no-prisoners serious.The day Abby long feared had arrived. Sure enough, she’d become her mother. Soon, she’d be bathing crystals in sea salt and spinning fairy tales.

“Table one?” Tessa asked.

“Couple by the window, practically sitting on each other’s laps,” Abby said, and a grinning Tessa headed into the dining room.

After Charlie had left for college, Abby had done her share of wallowing until Lily Beth had dragged her from her bedroom and back into the world. The baby she’d been carrying should’ve been enough to give her purpose, but all she knew was that the boy she’d loved forever was gone. She’d thought her life was over, instead of beginning anew.

Abby prepared two more plates of eggs Benedict and delivered them to the guests at table three, a young couple spending their first visit at Briar Rose. “And here you go,” Abby said, sliding the plates before appreciative
oohs
and
aahs
.