“Daniel.”
From her voice, he immediately knew something was wrong. “You okay, Ma? Dad okay?”
“Your father’s fine, dear. It’s just…I’ve done something, for which I need your forgiveness.”
“I can’t imagine what that could be.”
“Well, it’s about Brenna. I…I’ve been caring for her since shortly after she left James’ in New York.”
He gave his head a small shake. Had he misheard?
“You what?”
“She’s the patient I’ve been with at the Armstrong’s cottage.”
All this time? While he was eaten up with worry? And his own mother had said nothing?
“The Envoy and Dr. J arrived with Squeak this afternoon.”
His stomach corkscrewed. The whole family, reunited in Maine. Everyone but him.
“Daniel? Are you there?”
Yeah, he was here.
Here.
“Please speak to me.”
He didn’t trust himself to. But a single question had hounded him all day. “Is Brenna going to keep Squeak?”
His mother faltered. “Yes,” she said softly. “She’s going to keep her.”
He felt himself become a speck, sucked into a dark vacuum. He dropped the handset on the kitchen counter and grabbed the edge, not sure if he should hold on, or rip the cabinets off the wall.
“Daniel?” Her voice carried out of the phone into the empty space between them.
You must have done a good job, fixing her up, he wanted to spew, to lash out. Blame someone else because Brenna had left him behind. Rationally, he knew his mother was the wrong target. The failure lay at his own feet.
But he felt cheated, abandoned, betrayed. He jerked the immovable countertop, let go suddenly, and snatched up the phone. “Ma,” he said. “I’ve gotta go now.”
“Oh, Daniel, please don’t hang up. I know you’re angry with me. Let me explain.”
He pressed the handset to his gut. All this time that Brenna had been missing, all he’d wanted was good news about her, to be reassured she was safe and well. He wanted her to thrive. And now that he was getting what he wanted, he could hardly stand it. He placed the phone against his ear again.
“Go on,” he said.
“She called me from Logan Airport. She’d bought a one-way ticket to Kavsak. She was in trouble, suicidal, I could tell by her voice. I knew I was her last hope. If I failed, she wouldn’t reach out to anyone else. I knew I didn’t belong in the middle of this, but I couldn’t leave her. And I don’t think you’d have wanted me to, either, no matter how upset you are at this moment.”
He took a deep breath. “You did the right thing, Ma. And I’m glad you did. I’m not upset because you helped her—I’m upset because I have a heartache and a baby’s sock in my pocket, okay? It’s not you. It’s not even Brenna. The problem is I want something I can’t seem to get.”
He heard her sniffling.
“Ma. Ma.” Shit. She was crying outright. This, from the woman who daily sat with the psychologically wounded, allowed herself to be drenched in human misery, then stepped across the home threshold with a sweet countenance.
“I didn’t tell your father,” she said, blowing her nose. “He wasn’t part of this. He told me you had some chats. You can still talk to him. He’s always given you advice you could trust.”
“I still trust you, Mom.”
“No. I’ve dented our relationship. Made you pay a cost that I could have spared you. I’m your mother. Your. Mother.”
“Ma. One scratch isn’t going to undo a lifetime. I’ll think of it as having taken a punch for Brenna. I’d do that. You know I would if it made her better.”
“I just hate that I was the one who delivered it.”
“You saved Brenna. You gave Squeak a mother. You did good. I’m proud of you. Christ. If anything, you deserve a medal. Brenna’s one tough case.”
“Not anymore,” she said.
“Well, see?”
There was a long pause. “Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
His mother hesitated. “When Brenna called me from Logan, it was to ask a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“She wanted me to tell you, when the time was right, that she loved you.”
An odd sensation flashed through him, a kaleidoscope of colors projected around the room, accompanied by a plummeting stomach. Like the time Jimmy Chandler accidentally kicked him in the gut while they were rough-housing.
“What you have to decide, Daniel, is whether you’re finished with her—whether you’re willing to try again.”
He ignored her redirection and responded to her first statement. “Is Brenna still keeping to that now that she’s not holding a one-way ticket to oblivion in her pocket? ”
A long silence stretched out at the other end of the line.
She couldn’t say, he realized. Confidentiality.
“I don’t belong in the middle of this. You and Brenna need to sort this out directly.”
“Right,” he said. “G’night, Mom.”
He hung up.
Call me sometime when you can talk.
When Margaret came back inside the cottage from her call to Daniel, Brenna observed, her eyes were red-rimmed. Tucking a soggy tissue in her pocket, she straightened her spine and offered her guests decaffeinated coffee.
Shit. It hadn’t gone well. Daniel must have felt so betrayed.
“Thank you, no,” her father said, standing up. “Everyone’s tired. I’d best get to my hotel in Portland. I fly out to Vienna again tomorrow.”
It had already been decided that Dr. J would stay on at the cottage to transition Squeak into Brenna’s care. The driver had brought Dr. J’s bag and Squeak’s car seat in from the limo.
Her father turned to Margaret and extended his hand. “I do thank you, Dr. Ellsworth—for everything.” Turning, he took Dr. J’s hand between his own. “Goodnight, Jelena. I’ll stay in touch.”
To Brenna, he said: “I propose to leave perimeter security for you. The FBI, having found you, will close the case. I’ll have RedRiver provide a crew. Nothing intrusive, but if you go into town, Brenna, would you take a couple bodyguards with you?”
Cheesh, she felt like saying. She survived Kavsak, she could run into Portland without an armed escort. But, looking down at Squeak, she nodded acquiescently.
“Will you see me out?”
She agreed, even though she was loath to disturb Squeak’s peaceful slumber in her lap.
Margaret patted Dr. J’s arm. “Come, dear. Let me show you your room and get you some bath towels.”
The night was soft, clear, and starlit. Brenna pulled the door closed behind her and stopped on the front stoop, her father at her shoulder.
He tipped his head toward Squeak. “She’ll make a welcome addition to the Rease throng.”
“Yes,” she said, grateful that he had brought the baby to her. She hesitated, thinking that if she felt gratitude, she might also acknowledge it to him.
“Odd,” he said, before she could speak, “that you spelled her name, Ann, without the ‘e’ at the end. But I can see, with all that artillery coming down around you, that you may have been filling out those documents in haste.”
He knew. He was telling her obliquely that she had nothing to fear from him. “Dad. At Roza’s nursery—well, I can’t explain it, exactly. But it’s like I fell in love with Squeak.”
He looked out across the meadow. “It’s curious, parenthood. The first time you hold your new baby in your arms, you can’t imagine loving them more than you do at that moment. And yet,” he said, turning and studying her face, “you do. Every day, you love them more.”
He glanced at the Cadillac, at the driver standing beside it, waiting for him. “A father is ill-advised to play favorites with his children, but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for you to know, Brenna, that of all my children, you have always been the one most in my heart. You have your mother’s qualities. E
verything I cherished in her came down to you.”
She closed her eyes, tipped her head, concentrating on a soft hum, her long-suppressed love for her father.
“If there is such a thing as a hereafter and your mother can see how poorly I’ve done by you, I am sure she is appalled.” He stopped. “I am appalled.”
She looked away, over the garden, hearing the sea, sensing the trees, her silent sentinels. “I haven’t exactly been an easy daughter. I screwed up. Behaved horrifically. Nearly did in your career.” She faltered, looked down at Squeak, wondering what inadvertent errors she would make with her own child, hoping that her mistakes would never lead to estrangement. Tears pricked her eyes, just thinking that some day this child might not want her. “I’m sorry, Dad, for that.”
He let her words be absorbed by the stars above, the cheepers in the meadow, the waves of the ocean.
“I wish I could have been more like Mom from the start.”
“You were, Brenna. All this time. What you lacked was proper guidance. And, perhaps, a little less of your father’s hard-headedness.”
Daniel stayed home from work, had his calls forwarded to voice-mail, and spent the morning hacking at a particularly tough piece of ground by the far fence of his garden. Too irritable and out of sorts to be in polite company, he was taking a mental health day.
He had spent the night stewing. His mom was right. She had dented their relationship. Even though he knew intellectually that she had done it to save Brenna’s life, and that the price he had paid was small compared to the benefit that had come from it, he couldn’t help the way he felt.
Alone.
There were just three of them in his family. His mom and dad were only children. He had no aunts or uncles, no cousins. No wife or children of his own. Put all the Ellsworths from this branch of the family into one room, and there wasn’t quorum to call a meeting.
He lifted a heavy clump from the ground and dumped it upside down so the packed clay was exposed. He knifed the clod with the spade, directing his anger at it, slicing and chopping at it with vehemence.
He was tired of getting yanked back to the starting gate, of having to start over.
Again.
Breathing heavily, sweat pouring down his temples, he stopped slashing, listening to the pity party in his own head.
“Shit,” he hissed, spearing the spade into the completed bed.
He strode over to the pergola, flicking sweat off his brow with his index finger. He picked up his water jug, glugged deeply from it, and dropped his butt on the edge of the bench, glaring at the patch of turned-over soil, thinking about what his mom had said—that it was up to him to decide if he felt he could go another round with Brenna.
If misery was proof, then he was still deeply in love with her. Ultimately, he knew, if he wanted to have an ongoing relationship with Squeak, he’d have to sort out some way to interact with Brenna in a cordial fashion.
But—stick his heart out again? Suggest another try? He shook his head. He still remembered very clearly how he felt that day she rode off with James.
After his mom’s call, he’d spent the night tangled in a web of contradictory thoughts. Brenna had saved his life in Kavsak. She came home with him, made love to him, slept with him, shared more of herself with him than he imagined she did with anyone else. All while she constantly threatened to abandon him. Which ultimately, she did.
So what if she told his mother she loved him? She said it when she had a one-way ticket to Kavsak and no intention of following through.
It wasn’t until nearly dawn that the bottom line occurred to him: If a woman loved a man, she would look him in the eye and say so. Her actions would support the words. He wouldn’t have to spend sleepless nights combing through clues.
It took two people to make a marriage. Anything less than full commitment didn’t suffice. Much as it pained him, Brenna wasn’t dedicated to him, willing to share the heavy-lifting that a long-term relationship required.
Hell, she couldn’t even utter three measly words to his face.
He stood up, swiped the soil off his hands onto the seat of his jeans. Being persistent was one thing. Being a fool was another.
He was going inside to shower and shave and put on fresh clothes. Then he was sitting down and finishing the script. Now that he knew the babies had been adopted, he could finish writing. The sooner he got everything that had to do with Kavsak behind him, the better.
He retrieved the shovel, thumped the shed door closed after it, and strode toward the house. On the back deck, he stopped, looking around himself.
He’d been living on ‘hold’ for a long time. Waiting for his grief over Aya’s death to pass. Waiting for a promotion at EBS. Waiting for Brenna to love him.
Waiting.
Not acting.
Where was he in his life? What did he see ahead? What direction did he want to take?
He looked up, considering his large, two-story house. This house was a family home. He didn’t have one. Didn’t expect to in the near future.
Washington, D.C. was the heart of political journalism. This was where Aya had wanted to live. He’d come here for her, not because his own work demanded it, or because he especially liked living in the District. He was a Mainer, fifth generation. He loved the ocean, starry nights, fresh air, cross-country skiing. He could live in his home state near his parents (once he got over his snit) and rejoin his circle of lifelong friends.
As for EBS, he’d been there too long. Become a manager rather than the writer he started out to be. He’d bought in too deep, paid too high a price—precious time with Aya and with his parents—for a wall-full of awards that demanded continual replenishment. He was tired of being owned, tired of living EBS’ mission as if it were his own. He wanted his own life, his own direction.
He tugged his sodden T-shirt over his head and stood there, thinking, absently wiping the sweat off his chest with it. Why not just point himself in a brand new direction?
This wasn’t only a crisis. It was also an opportunity. He could sell his house. Use the money to start an independent production company. He had the skills and the contacts. All this work on war had made him want to produce a series on peace. No one taught peace. That could be his first project.
He walked inside. He was going to call Kelly Price, his realtor-friend. Then he was going to finish the documentary. And after the premiere, he was going to resign from EBS.
He was a free man.
Lacking a crib in which to put Squeak, Brenna pushed her bed into the corner of the room and slept with Squeak between her and the wall. She awoke a hundred times, checking to be sure the baby was breathing, making sure she wasn’t squishing her, ensuring the covers weren’t too high. Or too low. And there she lay, tiny hands flung above her head, steady little breaths rising into the room.
Squeak stirred at first light and emitted her trademark mewl. Brenna woke instantly, turned and found the baby watching her.
“Hey, you,” she mumbled. “You’re up.”
Drooling like a St. Bernard after a hard romp, Squeak reached for her, cooing.
She slid her hand down the baby’s body and turned her on her side so they could commune face-to-face. Soggy bottom, she noticed. “You know,” she said, running her fingers through Squeak’s dusty-looking dark hair, “I’m hoping you’re going to be a forgiving little thing because I have no clue what I’m doing.”
Squeak chewed her fist.
Trepidation? She sat up, rubbing her eyes, looking for the diaper bag. By the door. She scooted forward on the bed and hopped off to go get it.
Squeak rolled over. Not in the direction of the wall. She was agile—and fast.
Brenna leapt back on the bed, getting between the baby and the edge, and set the bag on the mattress beside her. She picked up Squeak, moved her to the middle of the bed and lay her on her back. The snaps on the ‘pee-jays’ easily popped open. Squeak extended her legs, her toes stretching the footies. Brenna tugged at
the fabric. There wasn’t enough give to free the legs.
All right, she knew the baby hadn’t been sewn into them, so…duh. Bend the knees. Amateur, Rease. Rank amateur. She freed Squeak, exposing her soft belly, her dimpled chest. She was beautiful, so small and perfect.
And stinky.
Brenna picked at the tape and opened the diaper. She grimaced. Not just pee. She swallowed. Using the sodden diaper, she scraped off what she could, holding the baby by the ankles to keep her bottom off the bedcovers. She loosely turned the soiled nappie in on itself and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.
Wipes.
There was a packet in the bag. She dug one-handedly through baby paraphernalia—jars of food, fresh jammies, formula, bottles. Preoccupied as she was, she didn’t at first notice that her knee was growing warm.
And wet.
Beneath her, a widening puddle soaked the coverlet, the top sheet, the fitted sheet. She snatched Squeak up and jumped out of the bed. Her right foot landed squarely in the dirty diaper, which had unfolded with the grace of a summer bloom.
Shit.
And now she felt her own T-shirt, warming, wetting. She shot her hands out, dangling Squeak over the floor. There being nothing she could do to halt the stream, she waited, watching the puddle widen around her bare feet.
Cool.
Full load of laundry. Floor mopping. Shower. Replace the mattress if the pee had soaked through. Remake the bed. And she hadn’t even achieved objective number one: change the diaper.
Squaring away household chores was not easy, Brenna discovered, when they had to be performed with a baby on one hip and only one free hand. She set Squeak down, thinking she’d make short work of it, but every time she put her down, Squeak started crying, and she had to pick her up again to keep her from waking Margaret and Dr. J.
When she settled, Brenna set her down again. And while Squeak was forgiving, each attempt Brenna made to put her down escalated the response. Less time elapsed before the tears trickled down Squeak’s cheeks, and the more intense her crying became.
Finally, Squeak became disconsolate. Brenna, frazzled, gave up the work list and took her out of the room, wondering what the heck to do. She paced with her, ignoring her own urine and drool-sodden pajamas. Patting her back, Brenna wore a path between the kitchen and the living room, back and forth, back and forth, trying to remember nursery rhymes.
Day Three Page 59
