Marred

by Tess Thompson

  Violet flooded with heat, embarrassed and angry all at once. Why did everyone in this town feel it necessary to lecture her today? “I didn’t know Mr. Adams was sick.”

  “He has rheumatoid arthritis,” Mrs. Adams said.

  “I’m sorry,” Violet said. “My dad has that too.”

  “You didn’t know. Still, sometimes you need to think about people over causes.”

  “I am thinking about people. I’m thinking about the health of our planet. We only have one, you know. I’d like it to still be here for my son.”

  “We all saw you down here with your picket sign, and frankly, it was embarrassing. I thought you had better manners than that.”

  “Manners? What is everyone’s obsession with manners? Sometimes manners are exactly opposite of what we need. Nothing ever changes without protest. Women who make a difference in the world are rarely polite.”

  “It must be nice to have time and money to think of such high ideals. I’m too busy paying for my husband’s medicines to concern myself with such things.”

  “I’ll have you know I closed my store last week. It’s all over. Finished. I have no place to live either now that my parents—who were so dedicated to manners—are coming back to town. I’m pretty worried about feeding my son, so I don’t appreciate the lecture.” Violet stopped. If she started crying in front of Mrs. Adams in the middle of this glossy lobby, she would die right there on the spot.

  Dakota tugged on her hand. “Mama, I see Honor.”

  Honor. Thank God. A way to escape.

  Violet picked up the keycard from Mrs. Adam’s desk and sniffed. “Have a great day, Mrs. Adams.”

  “You as well, Miss Ellis.”

  Dakota broke from her grip and sprinted across the lobby toward Honor. Violet cringed when he shouted Honor’s name and leapt into her arms. So much for quiet. She glanced at the front desk. Thankfully, busy with guests, Mrs. Adams and the rest of the staff weren’t paying any attention. An older woman sitting on a lounge chair looked up from her magazine to smile at Violet. “What a darling boy.”

  Violet thanked her and quickened her pace. Honor and Dakota were by the elevators. Apparently, her son had managed to tell Honor the entire story of their altercation at school.

  “So now I can’t go to school,” Dakota said.

  “Are you sad about that?” Honor asked.

  “No. I don’t like that old battle-axe.”

  “Dakota! Where did you hear that word?” Violet asked.

  “You said it today.” Dakota wrinkled his forehead as if she were the most perplexing woman on the planet. Maybe she was.

  “Never mind that. Honor, what can we do to help with the baby?”

  “Baby 101, that’s what,” Honor said as they followed her into the elevator. “We had one of the staff go out and get formula and diapers.” She put a keycard into a slot and punched the top floor button.

  The elevator moved. Dakota squealed. “Elevator, Mama.”

  Violet’s stomach lurched as they came to a stop. They all exited into a hallway. A plush, sage-green carpet felt wonderful under her feet, like walking on a firm mattress. She would love to take off her shoes and let it soothe her tired feet. The scent of lilies from a vase on a rectangular table tickled her nose. Where did he get lilies this time of year? Probably flown in from some third world country for exorbitant amounts of money. None of which trickled down to the poor farmers who grew them.

  “Dakota, this is a very special floor,” Honor said. “Kyle’s a part owner so he stays in the very nicest suite in the whole resort.”

  “Wow,” Dakota said.

  “He’s not Superman,” Violet said under her breath.

  Honor shot her a look. “Be nice. You have the power right now.”

  “I’ll try not to let it go to my head,” Violet said.

  “Stop being so grumpy,” Honor said. “Wait until you see this baby. She’s precious. Seriously, you’ll want to eat her up.”

  “Eat a baby?” Dakota asked.

  “Not really,” Honor said. “It just means she’s yummy. I mean, she’s pretty and I just want to kiss her all over.”

  “Oh,” Dakota said. “That’s weird.”

  “I have a thing for babies,” Honor said. “What can I say?”

  Violet flushed with shame. Honor couldn’t have a baby of her own. Seeing a newborn must hurt. And here was cavalier Kyle Hicks with one just dropped into his lap like everything else in the man’s life.

  They reached the door of the suite. Honor didn’t bother to knock; she simply pressed the keycard against the door and entered, gesturing for Violet and Dakota to follow.

  “Don’t be loud,” Violet said to Dakota. “The baby might be sleeping.”

  Dakota mimicked her finger to her lips and made a shushing sound.

  When they entered the suite, Violet had to physically restrain herself from gasping out loud. The suite was magnificent. The same white marble floors as the lobby shone under the light of a chandelier made of sparkling glass. Posh, richly hued furniture in greens and purples, fluffy rugs, and glass tabletops with silver trim were arranged in geometric perfection. Paintings of various bright and vibrant flowers decorated the creamy sage walls. The bank of windows looked out on the entire town of Cliffside Bay, surrounding country roads, forests, and meadows. If it weren’t foggy today, you would be able to see the endless waters of the Pacific.

  She quickly forgot all of that at the sight of Kyle Hicks with a baby in his arms. A spot of sunshine had broken through the gray sky and washed the room and the man in a warm glow. She drew closer, mesmerized. He cradled the baby against his chest and softly sang “You Are My Sunshine.” Kyle Hicks knew a lullaby. Go figure.

  He looked up from the baby and smiled at her. Triumph glittered in his deep blue eyes. “I got her to sleep,” he whispered before his gaze turned back to Mollie. Those thick, black lashes didn’t belong on a man. Whatever. That was of no consequence. Pretty is as pretty does.

  She glanced around the room. A dilapidated stroller was parked over by the couch. “It’s like 1972 is looking for its stroller.”

  Honor laughed from across the room where she had Dakota on her lap.

  “No, seriously,” Violet said. “You must never use that again. It’s not safe.”

  An empty bottle and a used diaper sat on the coffee table. Apparently neither Honor nor Kyle knew how to roll a dirty diaper because it was wide open with the baby’s last deposit displayed for all the world to see. Violet rushed to the table and arranged the diaper into a tight ball.

  They needed a diaper pail or things were going to get stinky very fast.

  “What do we do first?” Honor asked.

  “Kyle, put the baby on the ottoman here.” Violet pointed to the large ottoman adjacent to the armchair near a gas fireplace. “She’ll be nice and warm there.” She instructed Dakota to switch on the fire. He leapt from Honor’s lap and gleefully pushed the switch.

  “What if she rolls off?” Kyle asked.

  “She can’t roll yet,” Violet said. “We’ve got weeks and weeks before she can do anything close to rolling.”

  Violet grabbed the pink blanket from the couch. “Before you put her down, we need to swaddle her.”

  “Swaddle?” he asked.

  “I’ll show you how,” she said.

  Surprisingly, Kyle followed her directions and put the baby in the center of the blanket.

  “Does she seem healthy?” Kyle pointed to her head. “What’s that dent there?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Violet said. “All babies have that when they’re first born.” She gently caressed the soft dent in Mollie’s head, remembering when Dakota had been that age. “I didn’t know that when Dakota was born. I freaked out.” The plates of the head had to fully grow together. Her nurse at the hospital had kindly explained it to her. She now explained this to Kyle.

  “What about her eyes? Do you think she can see out of them?” Kyle asked.

>   “You mean because they look kind of glassy?” she asked.

  Kyle nodded.

  “Totally normal. All white babies are born with blue eyes that look like this. They turn their real color later.”

  Kyle nodded again. His eyes looked like a startled animal’s. Arrogant Kyle Hicks, all shook up.

  She deposited the blanket on the ottoman and instructed him to put the baby in the middle. “Now you wrap her up like a burrito, as tight as you can get it.”

  “Won’t it hurt her?” Kyle asked.

  “No. They like it. Mimics the womb,” Violet said, amazed how fast all this came back to her. She hadn’t had the luxury of anyone advising her. Not that she needed anyone. Books had everything a new parent needed to know. If you had a chance to read them before the baby appeared on your doorstep.

  “We need a plan.” Honor glanced at her wristwatch. “I’ve got to pick up Jubie in thirty minutes.”

  “You need supplies,” Violet said. She explained the need for a crib, pacifier, car seat, stroller, and changing table.

  “Can you rent that stuff?” Kyle asked.

  Violet shook her head. “No, but you can buy them online and have them rush delivered.”

  “Right.” Kyle let out a deep breath. “I’m not thinking clearly.”

  Honor patted his arm and drew him over to sit on the couch. “You look a little pasty. I think we need to get some food in you.”

  “We can call for room service,” Kyle said. “Whatever you guys want.”

  From over by the window where Dakota had decided a knickknack of a seashell was better as a truck, replete with engine noises, he looked up, suddenly interested. “Can I have a cheeseburger?”

  “Absolutely. If it’s okay with your mom. Do you let him eat meat?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?” Violet asked. What was it with this guy? Did he have to make a case about everything?

  “Can I have a milkshake?” Dakota asked.

  “If your mom says yes, then I say yes,” Kyle said. “Your mom’s saving me right now.”

  “You can have one for dessert. Burger first,” Violet said.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “After we order dinner, let’s get on the internet and order what we need,” Violet said.

  “How much is this going to cost me?” Kyle asked.

  “Why are you worried about money?” Violet asked.

  “I’m not worried. Old habits die hard, that’s all,” Kyle said.

  Was he referring to an impoverished childhood? Despite herself, curiosity poked through her annoyance. No one knew much about his past, other than he’d come to USC as an emancipated adult.

  “It’s a little late to worry about money now,” she said in a tone sharper than she meant. “You made a baby and now you have to pay to take care of her.”

  “I get it. Back off with the judgey tone,” he said.

  “I’m not judging you.”

  “Yes, you are, but it’s fine,” Kyle said. “I don’t care what you or anyone else think about me. I haven’t for a long time. Regarding furniture, I want the best. Top of the line.”

  “Of course, you do,” Violet said.

  “Didn’t you just lecture me that I need to take care of my daughter?” Kyle’s eyes darkened when he was annoyed. She’d noticed that before. They darkened every time she was anywhere within his vision.

  After Honor left, they ordered dinner and went to work. In less than forty-five minutes, they’d ordered furniture and the other supplies. Shopping was speedy when you simply ordered the most expensive item in every category. Violet kept her opinions to herself. Who cared if this guy wanted to waste his money on designer names? It wasn’t her concern.

  Mollie Blue woke up and began to cry the moment they all sat down to eat.

  “It’s a baby thing,” Violet said. “They have some kind of radar to ensure you never eat an entire meal or get an entire night’s sleep.”

  Kyle’s shoulders slumped. “I’m starving.”

  Despite her intentions to the contrary, she softened. “You eat. I’ll feed her this time.”

  “She probably needs to be changed first,” Kyle said.

  She looked over at him, surprised. “You catch on quick.”

  “That’s what it was last time anyway,” Kyle said.

  While the boys ate, Violet changed Mollie’s diaper and fixed a bottle from the powdered formula, careful to read the directions. She’d breastfed Dakota exclusively.

  “Is it supposed to be warm or cold?” Kyle asked.

  “Room temperature is fine, but they prefer if it’s the temperature of breast milk.”

  “What the heck temperature is that?”

  “Body temperature. See here?” Violet sprayed a small amount of formula on her forearm. “If you can’t feel either hot or cold then it’s the exact temperature of a person’s body. Whatever you do, don’t heat a bottle in the microwave. Hot spots.”

  “Hot spots? What is that?”

  “Hot spots in the water that could burn her. Microwaves don’t heat liquids evenly.”

  “Jesus. I had no idea.”

  “It’s all right. You know now.”

  Violet sat in the armchair and placed the bottle in Mollie’s mouth. The baby sucked with no fussing, which meant she probably had not been breastfed. How sad to think the child would never know her true mother. The poor woman. To leave before they could know each other was incomprehensible and so unfair. She wondered, too often, how God let a tragedy like this happen. What had an innocent little baby ever done to deserve this fate? Her father would say that it was not our place to ask, but Violet had a few questions she planned on asking God when she arrived in heaven. Mollie would be on the top of the list of questions, right after how did a man like Cole Lund thrive despite his hypocrisy?

  Cole Lund. America’s Pastor. Dakota’s father. Someone else’s husband. She’d been naive to believe he loved her.

  She’d gone to work for him after leaving college. His strategic seduction had taken time. It started with lunches, then dinners out, all under the pretense of a working meal. As one of the administrators to the pastor staff, her job was to take notes while he brainstormed sermon ideas or plans for church growth. After a few months, he started dropping by her apartment in the evenings to ask her opinion on a sermon or a staff decision. Flattered and beguiled, she’d let him kiss her one night after he confessed to his feelings. I can think of nothing but you.

  America’s Pastor, as it turned out, could think of other things besides Violet Ellis—his status in the church, his family, his Mercedes where he’d first placed his hand on her knee. When she told him she was pregnant, he dropped her so fast she could almost hear the thump of her head hitting the proverbial curb. That night, a man showed up on her doorstep with a check and a threat. Tell anyone and you won’t live long enough to give birth. Don’t come back to work. Don’t contact him ever again.

  A sliver of loneliness crept of her spine. She was alone with her questions, alone with her mistakes.

  Violet stroked the peach fuzz on Mollie’s head. “What a pretty one you are,” she said under her breath.

  Mollie was a concentrated eater with an occasional appreciative grunt. Although, they should have Jackson or Kara give her an exam right away. She said as much to Kyle.

  “Doctors? But she isn’t sick, is she?”

  She almost laughed at his worried expression. Welcome to parenthood.

  “No, it’s just standard for newborns to have frequent visits for checkups. They weigh and measure them and make sure they’re thriving. They call them ‘well-baby visits’.”

  Kyle ran both hands through his hair as he crossed the room and sat on the coffee table across from her. “I don’t know what I’m doing. This is a disaster.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She smiled, remembering her first few weeks as a mother. “I thought they were insane when the hospital sent me home with Dakota after less than twenty-four hours. I told the nurse
s I had no idea what I was doing, and I had no one to help me. They assured me I would be fine and to trust my instincts. I wanted to say, but I have no instincts. I’m too young for this. And my mother wasn’t speaking to me—I didn’t tell them that part, but seriously, I had no one. That said, the nurses were right. It all fell into place. Although, Dakota was an easy baby. For one thing, he was giant. He weighed nine pounds when he was born.”

  “How did nine pounds come out of you?” He gestured toward her narrow hips.

  “It wasn’t pretty. At all.” He’d ripped her in several places. She wasn’t sure everything was good down there, even now. It would require having sex with someone to find out, which seemed unlikely to happen anytime soon.

  “Are bigger babies better?” he asked. “Because she doesn’t seem very big.”

  “I’d guess she’s just over six pounds. I’ve heard the smaller they are, the longer it takes them to sleep through the night. They have to eat more frequently than a big fat baby like Dakota.”

  “Sleep. How am I going to work and take care of her by myself?” His eyes had darkened to the color of the night sky just after twilight when the first of the stars appear.

  “You’ll hire a nanny for during the day and a nanny for the nights. Once she starts to sleep through the night, you’ll be fine with just a day nanny.”

  “There’s such a thing as a night nanny?”

  “Yes, all rich people have them.”

  “They do?” he asked.

  “A lot of rich people have them.”

  “Did you have one?” he asked.

  A bitter taste at the back of her throat prevented her from a sarcastic laugh. “I couldn’t afford one. My parents had disowned me. I was solo. Fortunately, Dakota slept through the night at six weeks.”