Now And Always (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  “I’m getting up,” I promised. "Just trying to find clothes that fit."

  She frowned harder. “You look exhausted, Claire.” She came into my room and brushed her thumb gently under my eyes. “Are you sleeping?”

  “No,” I mumbled.

  “Baby keeping you up?”

  “No,” I sighed. “Not all the time.” I grimaced. “Other things are keeping me up, too.”

  She nodded. “You miss him.”

  “Mom.” My voice caught, and I cleared my throat and shook my head. I wasn’t going to cry about Ethan again. I had done too much crying lately. “Yeah, I do. So much.”

  “Why don’t you call him?” She sat down at the edge of my bed and immediately folded up the hoodie I’d tossed there and set it in her lap. From the fretful way she smoothed her hands over it, I could see her unhappiness on my behalf. I had that old ache again, the one that came from feeling like I’d disappointed her.

  I curled my hands around my belly. “He was right about the genetic stuff though. Grace called me, did I tell you?”

  My mother’s eyes widened. “No, you didn’t. How could you forget to do that?”

  "I...have no idea," I admitted. "Pregnancy brain is a real thing and it's kicking my ass. But yeah, after he came by the other day, J.D.’s sister actually reached out to me, which was frigging weird, let me tell you. But she got their mom’s medical records from the doctor. Apparently the BRCA2 gene does run in their family.”

  “Oh,” my mom said softly.

  I nodded and cupped my hands over my belly again. I wished my daughter was out so I could hold her tight right now. “So now I know, and I can plan, and I guess that’s thanks to Ethan.” I looked down at my swelling stomach and willed myself not to cry.

  "You guess," she stated flatly. It wasn't a question.

  I winced at her tone. "He shouldn't have betrayed me like that, Mom."

  She nodded. "No," she said lightly. "That was out of line, no doubt. But I'm not sure 'should' is the word you should be focused on here."

  Without meaning to, I glanced under my bed again, at all those things that I thought should have happened in my life.

  Following my gaze, my mother looked down and caught sight of the half-hidden plastic tub. "What's this?" She bent at the waist and pulled it all the way out."

  "How are you able to bend like that?" I complained, rubbing my stomach.

  "Yoga." She beamed at me. "And also I am not carrying another person in my belly. But Claire -?" She trailed off when she looked through the clear plastic of the storage bin. "Your boards! I didn't know you'd kept them. I'm so glad!"

  "You are?"

  She took the lid off and gasped. "Oh the Five Year plan," she said with a proud smile. "I loved this one. You were so sure of how everything was going to go."

  I snorted. "Now I have no idea."

  She looked up from studying the board. "That's okay though."

  "I'm trying to be okay with that."

  She nodded in encouragement. "Right. You don't always need to know what happens next, Claire. So long as you're happy."

  My breath caught in my throat, choking me. "Shit. Mom. I'm not happy, though.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down in a frown. "Okay," she said evenly. "How do we fix it?"

  I hugged myself miserably. "Go back in time and knock Ethan out before he goes to J.D.? He'd wake up with a headache, but at least he wouldn't have forced my hand."

  She nodded. "I was wondering if that's what this was. You're keeping score, Claire."

  "Huh?" I shook my head vehemently. "What? No way."

  She patted my hand. "He did something wrong, I get that. But are you going to let yourself get so hung up on punishing him for it that you're punishing yourself too? Do you want to prove your point, or do you want to be with him?"

  I opened my mouth but no sound came out. No matter how hard I blinked, I couldn't keep the tears of longing from filling my eyes. "I want to be with him," I breathed. "But he shouldn't have told."

  She stood up and gestured to my boards. "I heard you swear a minute ago, and I didn't say anything because it didn't matter. Baby girl, 'shit' is nothing to me right now. For you, should is the dirtiest word of all."

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Ethan

  The blaring jangle of my shop phone made me jerk my hand, ruining the precise cut of the joint I'd just been setting. "Damn it!" I really, really needed to stop re-routing my phone through that nuclear siren of a landline.

  "E's Custom Woodworking," I sighed into the receiver, once my heart rate had returned to semi-normal.

  There was a pause.

  Then a familiar sip of breath that set my heart racing. I flattened my hand on my work table in an attempt to steady myself. "Claire? Is that you?"

  "Hi."

  As I waited for her to say more, my neck started to burn, and I realized I was rubbing it so fast I could start a fire. "What do you want?" It came out a lot colder than I wanted. I was trying so hard not to gasp in relief, trying so hard not to dance around my shop like a fool just to hear her voice again.

  "Can I come over? There's something I want to show you," she said in her calm, collected voice.

  Anger shot through me when I heard how unruffled she sounded in contrast to the clamor of my own wildly beating heart. "I don't think that's a good idea," I said, trying to mimic her steady tone.

  "Well?" she laughed. "Too bad. I'm already here."

  "What?" I peeked out my dirty garage window. Just the sight of her jeep in my driveway made me want to sigh in relief. It looked right.

  But why was she here?

  "I just want to show you something," she repeated. "Please, Ethan?"

  It was the please that did it. It always did. If Claire needed something from me, I gave it to her. How could I stop the habit of a lifetime?

  "Fine." I replaced the phone in its cradle and went to my front door. Opening it wide, I watched her slip from the seat of her Jeep. The first thing I noticed was the blossoming swell of her belly, and I ached to touch it, to run my hands over the swell and murmur to the little girl sleeping under that soft skin.

  Instead I gripped the doorframe and watched as she bent to retrieve something from the cesspool of her back seat. She emerged with a clear plastic tub covered in a blue lid. Frowning, I couldn't help but ask, "What's that?"

  She kicked her door closed. "This is what I wanted to show you. Can I come in?"

  Since the night at the Crown, the night I'd hit rock bottom according to Sadie, I'd been working double time to climb back up again. I'd poured myself into my work. I'd more than doubled my profits from last month. And best of all, I was nearly done with my accounting class. I was getting ready to hang that all important piece of paper on my wall saying I was a graduate of Crown Valley College.

  On paper, everything was going right for me. Letting her into my house would only screw everything up. I knew this.

  But goddamn, I still loved her so much.

  "Okay." I stepped aside, long-held instincts prompting me to hold open the door for her. She gave me one of those shy, private smiles I'd come to cherish when they were only mine. "Here, give me that," I said begrudgingly and lifted the plastic box from her arms. "It was wide and unwieldy, but lighter than I expected. "What's in here?"

  "Hang on," she said. "Let's go to the living room, okay? I need space." She shivered dramatically, in a way I immediately registered as fake. "And wow, it's cold in here. Mind if I light a fire?"

  It wasn't cold at all. It was a beautiful spring day. But she was up to something. And when Claire was up to something, it was better to find out what it was sooner rather than later.

  "Okay." I turned and walked into my living room, resisting the urge to look behind me and drink in the sight of Claire in my house again. I'd missed her so much.

  I set the plastic tote down in the center of the living room carpet and knelt in front of my old, leaky fireplace. I rarely used it since it sucked up
more heat from the room than it provided, and it took a few tries to knock the rusty flue open.

  Claire watched me as I built a triangle of kindling, and I found myself sneaking glances at the pretty way she bit her lip and the nervous flutter of her fingers in her lap. Those adorable, elegant pinky fingers of hers made my heart feel too large inside of my chest.

  "There," I said, stepping back once a small tongue of flame flickered to life.

  She nodded. "Thank you," she said, then dropped to her knees and opened the box.

  I leaned in in spite of myself. Inside the box was a neat stack of posterboard. Recognition flickered through me, and was confirmed when Claire picked up the topmost board and turned it so I could see. “I showed this to you once,” she said.

  “It’s your Five Year Plan.”

  Her mouth kicked up in a lovely little smile. “You remember?”

  I sank into my chair. Of course I remembered. She’d talked about her plans and vision boards for hours, and I’d been happy to listen to her. Back then I didn’t know it was because I was in love with her. But I was as in love with her then as I still was now, and the reminder made it hard to breathe. “Vaguely,” I lied.

  She nodded, accepting this, then turned the board around again. She frowned at it, her hazel eyes darting around, taking stock of all her plans.

  Then she leaned forward and threw it into the fire.

  “Claire!” I dove for the fireplace. “What are you doing?”

  “No.” She put her hand in my arm, stopping me before I plunged my hand in to rescue it. “Ethan, look at me.” The flames licked higher, showing shades of green and blue as the magazine ink bubbled and peeled away. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, until Claire cupped my chin and gently turned my face to hers. “Ethan, I love you.”

  My heart stalled in my chest. “Yeah?”

  “I always have.”

  I couldn’t speak. She seemed to know this and nodded. “Loving you is the only thing I’m sure of these days.” She touched her belly with her hand. “It might be the only thing I’ve ever been sure of, as much as I tried to pretend otherwise.”

  She crouched down and grabbed another of her boards from the tote and tossed it atop the first one. The greedy flames licked at it eagerly as it curled up, shriveling like an autumn leaf.

  She watched it for a moment, then took a deep breath and grabbed another one. Then another, until one by one, every vision board was claimed by the fire.

  “I thought I knew what should happen next.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she watched the last board turn to ash. “But I don’t. I’m only certain of one thing.” She turned to me. “I want to be with you. And I’m sorry. I’m letting go of everything else. But please don’t make me let you go. Please. I need you, Ethan. I love you.”

  She looked at me, showing the reflection of the dancing flames in her eyes. Calm. Collected. Confident. My beautiful Claire asking me to take her back. Asking me, because she needed me. “Ah God, Claire, I’m so sorry I went to J.D. I shouldn’t have -.”

  She touched her finger to my lips before brushing a light kiss in its place. “I’m done with should,” she said. “No more. From now on, I only want what is.”

  “Claire you’re amazing,” I choked. I cupped her face between my hands and looked at her, drinking her up again, barely able to believe what she’d done here. What she’d given me. “I love you,” I promised before kissing her hard. “God, I love you so much.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Claire

  Ethan set my bag down and pulled his phone from his pocket. "Are you sure?" he asked once again.

  I opened my mouth to say yes, but another contraction stole my breath. I closed my eyes and hissed through the pain as Ethan fumbled to re-set the timer on his alarm.

  "That's four minutes, Claire," he said once the pain eased its grip.

  I nodded. "Yeah. Time to go, right?"

  He glanced at his phone again. "Your mom is on her way to the hospital now, she just texted me. Willa and Sadie are going to pick up Ruby as soon as the school day is over. Olivia just sent me a whole bunch of exclamation points but she can't get off from work. Ryan says good luck. Naomi just sent a screen full of scream emojis. Beau says good luck. Jonah said...well I'm not going to read that, you'll yell at me. And I think Finn is mad at me that you don't want him there."

  "I'm not letting my brothers see me like this," I panted. Another contraction was coming hard on the heels of the last one. "Tell Finn he can come when my makeup is done."

  Ethan laughed and nodded as his thumbs flew over his keyboard. Then he looked up at me. "Is that everyone?"

  I winced. "No. You know that."

  He exhaled sharply. "Are you sure?"

  I nodded. "Are you?" I asked, watching him carefully.

  But my Ethan was a rock. Steady and sure, he just held my gaze and nodded. "You want me to make the call?"

  "Please I'm kind of -- fuck! -- dealing with some shit right now." I balled my fists and dug them into the base of my spine, breathing through the next contraction as best I could as Ethan walked from the room with the phone to his ear. I was a little grateful that I was too distracted by the pain to hear what he was saying to the person on the other end of the line.

  The contraction was like a wave and I breathed as it crested upward. It hurt, but I couldn't help but feel wildly excited even as I hissed through the pain.

  I was going to meet my baby today.

  The ride to the hospital sucked. No other way to describe it. I gripped the ‘oh-shit' bar of my Jeep, slightly weirded out to be in the passenger seat, as Ethan floored it over the country roads to Reckless Falls Hospital. "Is it just me?" I demanded through gritted teeth. "Or is this little girl really impatient to make her debut?"

  "Takes after someone I know," Ethan chuckled and gave me his hand. I gripped it and squeezed as the next contraction took hold. "Unf," he grunted, but didn't let go until we pulled up to the hospital entrance.

  "There you are." My mother was already there, with a wheelchair at the ready.

  "I'm going to park, Mrs. King," Ethan said once they'd helped me into the chair. "Then I'll be right up."

  My mother watched him sprint back to the Jeep with a smile on her face. "You got a good one there, Claire," she said, patting my shoulder.

  "I know." I gripped the armrests as another contraction started cresting. "And goddamn but he's really lucky it's not his baby that's doing this to me because Christ!"

  "Ho-kay, let's get you inside before you have this baby on the sidewalk." My mother pushed the wheelchair so fast my head jerked. I closed my eyes, concentrating on my breathing. It didn't cross my mind to open them and check that my mother was alerting the right doctor. It didn't cross my mind to turn around and wonder where Ethan was and whether he'd gotten a spot close enough to the door.

  I didn't need to worry about anything. They'd take care of me. Ethan would take care of me. I trusted this more than anything else.

  Which is why, when he'd suggested calling J.D. when I went into labor, "Just so he knows. Just so he has the option," I'd said yes.

  He knew his daughter was on her way. It was up to him what he wanted to do about it.

  Not me.

  "Five centimeters already," the nurse said once we were in our room.

  "Isn't that fast?" my mother asked worriedly.

  "She's her mother's daughter," Ethan said, wincing as I squeezed all the blood from his hand. "Maybe she'll grow up to be a sprinter too."

  "If she doesn't kill me first!" I shrieked as I bore down.

  "No, it's not time to push yet!" the nurse cried.

  "Sure feels like it! God! Get her out of me! Ethan!"

  "I'm right here, Claire. I'm going to press on your back, okay? Like in the class we took. Can you roll to the side?"

  I grunted and let him help me shift into a more comfortable position. I curled up, drawing my knees as close to my chest as I could and stared fixedly at the door i
nto the hallway. I kept my eyes on the light shining into the room from outside as I panted through the most intense contraction yet. My mother shushed me and brushed her hand over my hair, but I kept my eyes on that square of light like it was the only thing that mattered.

  As quick as it came, the pain was gone.

  As was the square of light. In its place was a dark silhouette.

  "Hi," J.D. said, clearing his throat. "I'm here."

  Later on, Ethan would tell me that J.D. arrived only ten minutes before my daughter did. But I couldn't tell. Time drifted and dipped, stretching out and compressing in a haze of pain. I know that at one point I swore at Ethan for not pressing on my back hard enough. And I was pretty sure that I called J.D. every name in the book for doing this to me in the first place. And my mother may have told J.D. she needed some work done on her car when this was all over, which might have made J.D. stammer like a schoolboy and say, "Thanks, Mrs. King."

  But all of that faded immediately once I gave in to the overwhelming urge to push.

  I screamed. Ethan held one hand. J.D. held the other. I screamed again and then there was a silence so heavy that it crushed the air from my chest.

  But then it was pierced with the sound of a beautiful wail.

  "Oh my God!" I breathed, letting my head fall back on the pillow. "She's here. She's saying hello." The nurse lifted her and placed her on my chest. She smelled like pennies and her skin was like velvet. “Hi there, baby girl,” I whispered in her tiny, perfect ear. “I’m your mommy.”

  I looked at J.D. A single tear tracked down his cheek. "And there's your Papa."

  Then I looked at Ethan, who stood next to me, blinking hard. “And look. There’s your daddy.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Claire

  I pulled into the driveway and nearly rammed into Ethan’s truck in surprise.

  Ethan sat on the front porch. Instead of holding Lila like usual, his arms were empty.