“My ex-husband was the last person I would have wanted with me when I gave birth,” Clancy said. “He is so squeamish.”
“I’m sorry that Jeremy isn’t here, Bonnie, and that you have to put up with me,” I said.
“Huh.” Bonnie sniffed. “I’m glad you’re here. You, too, Clancy. Jeremy also fainted both times. So far, you two are doing a much better job. He can’t come with me into the operating room if I still need to have that Caesarian. They don’t have time to scrape him off the floor and take care of me. Some things never change. He’s a wonderful guy, but he goes limp at the sight of blood. How did Detweiler do?”
I thought it would be disloyal to complain about the problems created by my mother-in-law, so I kept the conversation very neutral. “Fine. None of us expected a home birth, but Brawny knew what she was doing. Obviously, it felt different—and I’m glad the kids got to participate. I think that’s helped them bond with their new brother. I’m glad Ty’s here and healthy, but I’m tired all the time and I can’t find the energy to do much.”
Bonnie smiled although her teeth were clenched. “Maybe you need to give yourself time to recover. Of course, that might be the only upside to working for other people. It’s the law office’s responsibility to cover for me.”
Clancy let us out at the ER entrance. I walked Bonnie into the ER and got her paperwork started. An orderly found a wheelchair for her, while I pulled up a chair by her side. We weren’t there five minutes until Clancy joined us. “Lots of parking. I guess most people don’t want to be out in this weather. There’s another ice storm coming. Or that’s what they’ve predicted. Poor Cara Mia. She was so upset about not joining us.”
“I can’t wait to see her.” I stepped away from the window where they were taking Bonnie’s personal information. “I’ve missed her so much.”
A hospital worker came over and strapped an identifying band around Bonnie’s wrist. “We need to move you,” she said to our friend as another wave of contractions hit her. By my calculations, they were fifteen minutes apart. Maybe even longer because I’m so bad at telling time it’s a joke. Anya has suggested I take remedial classes. Detweiler wants me to ask Siri, the voice on my iPhone. I prefer to continue on my merry way being chronically misinformed because my inability is so well-known by now that no one expects me to be accurate.
Clancy and I took two steps to follow Bonnie in her wheeled chariot, but an armed security guard intercepted us. “Sorry, ladies. No one but hospital workers and personnel are permitted beyond this point. Unless, of course, one of you is actually that lady’s husband in drag.”
He thought he was being hilarious. Clancy and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.
“Kiki? Clancy?” Bonnie called out to us. “Grab a couple of magazines for me from the gift shop will you? I might be here a while. I’ll go nuts without reading materials.”
“Sure. Want us to grab a couple from the waiting room, too?” I asked.
“Yuck! No way,” Clancy said. “That’s one of the secret places germs hang out. Magazines on airplanes and in waiting rooms. We’ll go grab a few for you, Bonnie.”
“I did not know that about magazines in waiting rooms,” I said.
“Also doorknobs, phones, pens handed to you to sign things, handrails, handles of utensils at salad bars, salad bars, salt and pepper shakers, the list is endless.”
With one gloved hand, I smothered a smile. Clancy is borderline OCD. If anyone would be able to recite such common bacterial hideaways, she’d be the one.
“Steering wheels on cars, the bottoms of purses because most women set them on the floor in restrooms—” Her list went on and on.
The gift shop beckoned, so I kept walking while she warned me of lethal infestations lying in wait. The magazine rack offered a pleasing selection of reads. We both picked two.
To the right of the cash register was a wall of fame, saluting Star Employees.
“I’ll get these,” Clancy offered.
“No, I’ll use the store charge card. It’s a promotional item, I think. A gift for a customer, right?” As I pulled my wallet from my purse, I did a double-take. One of the photos on the wall caught my eye. I squinted. The face seemed familiar. I leaned across the counter.
“Excuse me!” A volunteer in a pink smock stuck her head up from where she’d been unpacking new merchandise. She peered up angrily, a strangely incongruous sight because she was planted on a footstool. “What do you think you are doing? Leaning on that glass. Well, I never.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
With a sour set to her mouth, she rang up our purchase and shoved the bag our way.
“Ah, well, let’s go back to the store,” Clancy said after we’d delivered the bag to a grateful Bonnie. “There’s lots of food there.”
“And M&Ms. I can get excited about them.”
“Do you know what Bonnie’s baby will be?”
“Yup. Remember? She asked for blue. Another boy. I think she and her husband were a tiny bit disappointed. Three boys. They would have loved to have added a girl to their household.”
Clancy laughed. “She told me she always wanted to have a big family. What do you want to bet this won’t be her last trip to the birthing suites?”
“If at first you don’t succeed,” I said, “try, try again.”
PART III / CHAPTER 1
February
~ Kiki~
As predicted, Bonnie had another boy. Despite the fact we’d raced to the ER, Bonnie wasn’t ready to go into hard labor. In fact, she didn’t give birth for another 24 hours. But unlike me, Bonnie managed to make it to the hospital.
Since I’d given birth at home, Dr. Gretski wanted to see me sooner rather than later to see how I was doing. The appointment came as a surprise to Detweiler. He’d been prepared for a six-week post-natal visit, but not one so soon.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I can handle this without you.”
When he grunted an “okay,” I turned so he couldn’t see my expression. Secretly, I’d hoped he’d find a way to come with me. Yeah, I could sound all brave and self-sufficient, but inside I felt crumbly. Like the spine I’d finally built at great cost and intense effort was suddenly riddled full of holes. This porous scaffolding could give way at any minute.
But I didn’t share that with Detweiler.
He had his own worries.
His boss, Prescott Gallaway, didn’t get much done, because he spent all his time calling do-nothing meetings and following up on them with press conferences. “Makes me sick,” Detweiler had complained over his morning coffee. “He’s doing everything possible to position himself to take over Robbie Holmes’s job. He keeps telling the media all these shortcomings he’s supposedly found and fixed. Or fixing, because this obviously is going to take him a while. But all that’s a joke. It’s make-work. Everybody knows what he’s doing. The mayor is on board, because he’s never liked Robbie. He can’t bend Robbie to his will.”
I inserted, “Uh-huh,” and other comments designed to prove I was paying attention. But my mind had skipped ahead to the doctor’s visit. I planned to tell Dr. Gretski that I wasn’t myself. Every morning I spent part of my time in the shower sitting on the floor and sobbing. At night, I stared at the ceiling and wondered what it would be like to be dead. Would it hurt?
I held Ty and felt nothing. No joy. No attachment. Only intense responsibility. And I knew, deep down inside, that I was not myself. That I’d fallen into a deep pit of depression. But I told myself, repeatedly, that if I kept going through the motions eventually I could climb back out. Except…how could I scale those impossibly high walls if I only had enough energy to keep putting one foot in front of another?
Several times while Gretski examined me, I opened my mouth. I intended to say, “I need help,” but the words weren’t there. It was like they were library books and another patron had checked them out, leaving only an empty spot on the shelves.
Instead of speaking up, I stared at
the shiny bald spot on Gretski’s head and tried to avoid eye contact. He had this funny, peering look about him. You could imagine him as a Peeping Tom. Of course, maybe he was. Only he’d been smart enough to get paid for having a look-see.
“Any questions,” he said, after plopping down behind his computer and entering notes on my exam. He seemed equally happy not to lock eyes with me. Perhaps he thought that my having the baby at home was a personal failure. Or maybe just a costly mistake, since he couldn’t charge me for delivering my baby.
“Um. I’m not happy like I should be. I’m just blah. That’s the best way I can describe it. I don’t think it’s normal,” I complained to Dr. Wade Gretski, my ob/gyn. Anya thought it hysterical that my doctor’s name that sounded so much like that of the great hockey player. She even suggested that I was having a “hat trick,” the slang for scoring three goals, because I now had three kids, and that Dr. G would show up for the delivery wearing a hockey mask.
“In cases like this, it’s best to review your lifestyle. Ease up. Get more rest.”
“But I have a nanny! Brawny lives with us. She’s really a terrific helper and—”
He interrupted me. “How many hours a week are you working?”
I added it up in my head. “I’ve only been to the store once, for a party.”
“Are you getting enough rest? Going to bed at a reasonable hour? How is your husband sleeping? He’s recovering from a gunshot wound, right?”
“Not well—”
“How many times a night do you get up to urinate or nurse the baby?”
“At least three. Sometimes four.”
“What’s a typical day like for you?” His fingers danced over the keyboard. Gretski might share a name with a hockey player, but he had the typing skills of a darn good secretary.
“Get up around six. Feed the animals, two cats and a dog. Shower, get dressed. I nurse Ty and then I get the kids ready for school. Brawny takes them, but I’ve been trying to give them extra attention. So I drive the kids to school and drop them off. Of course, I take Gracie along with. She’s our Great Dane. She’s no trouble at all, except that she misses going for walks. There are thank-you notes to write and—”
With a kick of his feet, he wheeled away from his computer. “I don’t think we need to continue. Here’s the point: Like most of my patients, you are pulled in a dozen different directions. Of course you’re tired. Nanny or no nanny. You’re probably exhausted. Anyone would be, but especially a thirty-three-year-old mother! Staying at home with the baby should be like a vacation.”
I burst into tears. “But it’s not! I don’t feel like myself. I’m sad.”
“Kiki, I’m not chastising you. I’m simply pointing out that you have every reason to be tired. Be kind to yourself. Try to sneak in a nap or two. Put your feet up when you can.”
“But will I be okay?”
“Of course. You’re healthy and hormonal. You’ll get over this. What’s on tap for you the rest of the day?”
“I’ve got a book to read, thank-you notes to write, an afghan to finish, and a phone call to make.”
Dr. Gretski shook a finger at me. “I’m ordering you to go home, put up your feet, and get some rest.”
“Okay. Got it. Thanks for your help. I’ll get right on that.” As I glanced over Dr. Gretski’s shoulder, I saw his nurse shaking with laughter. A telepathic moment passed between us. I could read her thoughts: This man is nuts.
CHAPTER 2
I did go home. I did curl up on the sofa. But I didn’t get any rest. For days now, I’d been worried about the “setback” that Robbie had reported to us regarding Sheila’s rehab for alcohol abuse. Each time I called, his phone went to voice mail. From my spot on the sofa, with Gracie on the floor and both cats curled up behind my knees, I tried again.
“How’s Sheila doing?” I asked the minute Robbie answered.
“Up and down,” he said. “Last week someone grabbed her 400-count sheets out of the dryer by mistake, and she had to sleep on regular linens. That caused a real problem. Not so much because the sheets were rough. More because it reminded her she wasn’t in her own home, and that she didn’t have control of her life anymore.”
“Could you describe ‘setback’ for me? In detail? I’d like a sense of what you’re dealing with.”
“She bribed a member of the cleaning crew to bring her vodka. The dope put it in a Pine-Sol bottle to hide it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t rinsed the bottle out properly, so Sheila started puking almost immediately. Then that idiot of a housekeeper started laughing, because her vomit was so sudsy. He suggested that she move it to the hallway, because that way he could wipe it up and clean the tile at the same time.”
I groaned. Sheila had obviously sunk to a new low. Thank goodness Anya couldn’t talk to her, at least not yet. I did not want my daughter to know all these gory details. Maybe someday, but not right now.
“The next day,” continued Robbie, “she was upset, so Sheila sprayed Aqua Net into her mouth.”
“Come again? Aqua Net?”
“Turns out, hairspray is 77% alcohol. Someone had smuggled in a can. Sheila traded her diamond earrings for a three-dollar can.”
“Oh, no!” Sheila’s first husband Harry had given her those earrings, and I’d hoped that one day they’d go to Anya, because her grandfather had been so thrilled to learn she was on her way. Sadly, Harry had died before she was born, but even on his deathbed, he’d thanked me repeatedly for carrying his grandchild.
Once I recovered from the shock of her giving away jewelry so sentimental, the impact of her desperation hit me. Hard. I couldn’t imagine squirting hairspray into my mouth. What sort of compulsion was this? I wondered, and a voice in my head answered, Mental illness. That’s the point: If you knew you had it, you would be mentally healthy. But you don’t know what’s happening, and you can’t exert willpower over what you can’t recognize.
“Kiki? You still there?” Robbie prodded me.
“Yes.”
“Sad, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, as I wiped tears from my eyes. “Doesn’t she know how much we love her? Can’t she feel it?”
“No. Not right now. All she can do is fight the cravings. It’s like driving along a highway on a foggy night. She can’t see more than a couple feet ahead, and at the end of the headlights, there’s a nice warm hotel room, the comfort she’s missing. In a bottle. That’s the siren song, calling her name.”
“I miss her,” I said. “I miss the old Sheila, the one before this woman who is acting so weird.”
“I do, too.”
CHAPTER 3
~ Cara Mia Delgatto~
After living in Florida for nine months, my blood had thinned considerably. I’d actually forgotten what it felt like to be cold. That’s the only way I can explain why I’d walked out of my house in my sandals when MJ came by to take me to the airport. As she stood there beside her pink Cadillac, I wondered why she didn’t climb behind the steering wheel. Maybe she was taking a long last look at my beautiful Spin the Bottle hibiscus blooms. They were especially glorious that morning, with their deep magenta centers and yellow tips.
A woman of few words, MJ looked me up and down. Her frown of disapproval struck me as a fashion commentary.
“FitFlops sandals? Hello? Have you checked the weather in St. Louis? You might as well be flying into Siberia. I refuse to take you to the airport if you don’t go inside and change immediately. Frostbite is ugly.”
Needless-to-say, I did as she suggested, although I felt silly wearing knee-high black boots in the West Palm Beach Airport. But MJ assured me that it was smarter to wear them than to try and jam them into my suitcase. “Once you give Kiki all those gifts, you’ll have room in your bag again, but not now.”
The flight proved blessedly uneventful. As my father always said, “Any time they can reuse the plane, it was a good flight.”
Inside the jet way leading to the terminal at St. Louis International, a wave
of cold air smacked me silly. Literally, it took my breath away. I’d forgotten how frigid temps could deal your body such an unexpected assault. Not to mention how it could make your bladder holler, Howdy! I raced into the bathroom after exiting the arrivals area. After time well spent in a stall, I caught a look at myself in the mirror as I washed my hands. My dark curls were a wild mess, thanks to the humidity I’d just left. Probably not my best look. But the glow of my skin balanced out the unruly mop on my head. There was a natural blush to my cheeks and a sparkle in my eyes. In a word, I looked happy. Time in Florida had been good for me.
As I stuck my hands under a dryer that didn’t work, and searched for one that did, I reflected on the fact that I owed my newfound well-being to another mechanical failure, the ominous coughing my Camry had made, a warning wound that forced me to take the exit to Stuart, Florida, where my grandfather had owned a small gas station.
One thing led to another. My character flaws dragged me from one challenge after another. Call me a slow learner. My temper has always gotten the best of me.
In the end, it was just that—a temper tantrum—that led me to impulsively buy The Treasure Chest, a small shop specializing in upcycled, recycled, and repurposed goods with coastal living theme. Yes, it had been unplanned, but my new life turned out to be a perfect fit for me. Sure, I still missed my old friends and St. Louis. But deep down, I realized that I’d bumbled my way home, the real place where I was always meant to be.
Yet, here I was, returning to my old life—sort of—by coming back to St. Louis. This place felt familiar in a comfortable way, a sensation that quickly proved deceptive. Instead of asking for directions to the rental car lot, I relied on my memory. That proved to be a stupid decision. In short order, I found myself on a shuttle bus headed for the outlying long-term parking lots. Being jostled around in a poorly heated bus proved to be a tortuous wake-up call. My automatic pilot had failed me. Things had changed here at Lambert Field since I’d been a local. Without my permission, or my knowledge, life had done what it does best: It had moved on. I needed to prepare myself for the reality that Kiki might have changed, too, in ways beyond my reckoning.
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