A Borrowed Life

by Kerry Anne King

  “What’s your name?” Abigail asks Lance. “Your full given name, I mean.”

  “Can’t I take that with me to the grave?”

  “Lancelot Gawain Arthur Marshall,” Rosie says, laughing.

  “You’re making that up.”

  “I wish,” Lance says. “My mother has always been . . . a geek, to put it mildly. Seriously into cosplay. And Arthurian romance is more real to her than her real life. Including me. So. Yes. Lancelot. Please don’t use your naming powers to inflict that one on the little guy.”

  “At least she didn’t name you Percival.” I can’t help laughing at the expression on his face, or wondering what is wrong with me that he is the father of my baby and I’ve never even asked his middle name. Or names.

  “You laugh,” he says, “but it was very nearly Galahad. Would you have still made a baby with me if I was a Galahad?”

  “Eww,” Abigail objects. “Sitting right here. The baby’s name is Gavin. Like Gawain, only in modern English. Lance can pick his middle name.”

  Her choice stuns me, both because she’s chosen to acknowledge Lance in this way, and because Gavin is so close to Gwyn, the name of the baby that died. I’m not sure how Lance will take it, if the name will hurt him, if . . .

  “Thank you.” He clears his throat. “I love it.”

  “So?” Abigail demands. “What’s his middle name going to be?”

  Lance glances at me out of the corner of his eye, and says, very carefully, “I was thinking about Thomas.”

  Again, a silence falls over us. “Mom?” Abigail asks. “I know Dad wasn’t perfect, especially not to you—”

  “Gavin Thomas Marshall,” I interrupt, rolling the name on my tongue. Looking down at the baby to compare it with the reality of him. “It fits.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  January 7, 2021

  It’s been months since I’ve picked up this pen. Who has time for journals with a little boy to raise and a household to run? I’ve just recently begun to feel like I have a brain again.

  Truth is, I haven’t felt the need of it.

  I’ve been too busy living.

  Not that I won’t keep a journal again, but you, my little book, are a story that is done.

  Liz

  “Where’s my baby?” Abigail sings out before she’s even made it into the room. “Is he really walking? I can’t believe I missed his first steps! Stupid day job.”

  Gavin crows with delight at the sight of his adored big sister. “Baba!” He drops the toys he’s been playing with and holds up his arms, expecting to be picked up and spun around the room.

  She drops to her knees and holds out her hands to him. “Oh no, you don’t. You walk over here like the big boy you are.”

  Instead, he crawls directly into her lap. Abigail hugs him, smothering his face with kisses, and both of them break into delicious laughter.

  “I can’t believe he’s almost one! How’s the party planning?”

  “Out of my hands. By the time Bernie and Tara are done, it will be a birthday extravaganza like this town has never seen.”

  I hit save on my work and close my laptop, reveling in one of my favorite moments of the day. The bond between my children is a beautiful thing. I love watching them together, so I delay mention of the long white envelope waiting on the end table beside me. It’s the sort of envelope that threatens to change everything, but change is inevitable. And good. Even if it brings some heartache with it.

  “Something came for you today.”

  Abigail sobers at the tone of my voice, staring at the envelope I’m holding out to her. It’s addressed to Miss Abigail Lightsey. The return address is official—the University of Washington.

  “I was going to tell you,” she says slowly.

  “Just open it.”

  “I don’t know if I want to.” She holds the envelope gingerly, as if it might explode. Normally, she’s a neat letter opener, slicing carefully at the fold with a knife, but she takes a breath and tears the envelope open.

  The time it takes for her to read seems like an eternity.

  “I’m in,” she says, glancing up at me, her face full of indecision and worry. “But I don’t have to go. I know you need help with Gav and—”

  “You need to have your own life,” I say evenly, tamping down a rush of grief and loss. This year has been a gift, the chance to build the relationship the two of us never had, but I still want Abigail to live her own life.

  “But you need me to babysit and help.” Her voice wavers.

  I know she’s torn. She loves her little brother, but she hates her job. Plus, Josh has moved to Seattle, and the long-distance relationship is a strain. Going to UW would bring the two of them back together. She needs to go, and I need to help her make that decision.

  “The babysitters are clamoring for turns. Lance spends hours with him. Val would move in if I’d let her. Tara and Bernie threatened to kidnap him the other day if I didn’t give them a turn soon. And Gil’s boys are over here all the time, not to mention Rosie and Gil.”

  Abigail sniffles. “I missed his first steps, and I live in the same house. I don’t want him to grow up without me.”

  “You also don’t want to spend the rest of your life working at this job. We’ll visit. We’ll FaceTime. Go be near Josh and become the surgeon you always wanted to be.”

  “About that.” She glances up at me, then away. “I don’t think I want to be a surgeon.”

  “But you applied to medical school.”

  She runs to retrieve her brother, who is trying to crawl underneath the sofa, where Moses is hiding from grabby little fingers. “I’m thinking I’ll be an obstetrician. That way, I still get to do some surgery and . . .” Gavin twists and arcs his back in her arms, howling a loud protest, and she sets him on his feet, holding his hands so he can walk. “Well, that moment when Gavin was born was the best moment of my life. I was the very first person to ever touch him. And the way he changed everything, for us . . . I want to be part of that for my whole life, I think.”

  Now both of us are sobbing, which is out of character and suddenly funny, so in a minute we are laughing and crying all at the same time. Abigail walks Gav close to my chair and then lets go of his hands, hovering close to steady him, but he gets his balance and totters toward me, babbling with excitement.

  Abigail claps her hands as I scoop him up and hug him.

  “Well,” she says. “You’d better get dressed if you’re going out. And I’ll clean up a bit. Looks like a tornado hit.”

  “That tornado’s name is Gav.” The room doesn’t look at all like the Better Homes & Gardens serenity my imagination pictured when I first walked through this house. It’s a mess. There’s a playpen where I planned to put a decorative table. The floor is cluttered with a toppled pile of durable cardboard books we’d been looking at. Gav’s beloved plushy ride-on tractor lies on its side. Two of my kitchen pans plus lids that he’d been using as drums and cymbals earlier are right in the middle of everything. It’s amazing how much easier it is to raise a baby when I’m not trying to keep a perfect house.

  Abigail has lightened up in some ways, but she’s still an obsessive neatnik. Fine by me. I prefer to divide my time between playing with Gav and making slow progress on a new play that Bill has promised to put on with the community tribe, even if it’s just for fun and without an audience.

  Leaving Abigail to clean up the mess and supervise the baby, I go upstairs to change.

  There is one thing still lacking in this life I’m creating for myself, and I’ve concocted a daring plan that makes me feel like I’m vibrating from the inside out. I’ve even bought new clothes for the occasion with some help from Val—a pair of nice slacks, boots with heels, a long knit tunic over a black silk camisole.

  I make half turns in front of the mirror, trying to suck in my belly and tighten my butt. Postpregnancy bounce back is not a thing that happens to a woman my age, but it could be worse.

  When
I come downstairs, Lance glances up at me from where he’s playing on the floor with Gavin. His eyes widen appreciatively.

  “Wow. Was I supposed to dress up?”

  “You’re perfect.”

  “Are you sure? You could go to the opera in that, and I’m Colville casual.”

  I grin at him. “Colville casual works fine.”

  Half an hour later, we sit across from each other at the sports bar. He’s drinking a beer, but even though I’m no longer pregnant or breastfeeding, I’m sticking with water. I’m driving, and my one episode with an almost DUI is going to last me for the rest of this lifetime.

  “So this is the big surprise?” he asks suspiciously. “I mean, I know this place has memories, but we’ve been here a lot since our first date.”

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  “I thought it was.” His tone of voice, the intensity in his eyes, raises a hot flush to my cheeks. I haven’t heard that from him since the day he asked me to marry him. This is perfect timing, encouragement for what I’m about to do.

  “I knew it was a date,” I confess. “Just . . . it was easier to pretend to be Lacey. I needed her. She was a free spirit who could do whatever she wanted. She gave me distance from my old life, from all of the rules. But . . .”

  The words I want to say stick in my throat. What if, instead of breaking down the wall I erected between us, they create more distance? What we have as friends and co-parents is good, and what I’m about to do will disrupt the delicate balance we’ve established.

  “But?”

  He’s looking at me the way he used to look when he wanted to kiss me. It makes it hard to think.

  “But.” I swallow, make my eyes meet his. “It wasn’t Lacey who fell in love with you. It was me.”

  My heart is hammering so loudly, I’m sure that even the waitress can hear it, that she’ll ask me to turn down the volume so I don’t bother the other patrons.

  “You love me,” he repeats, as if he’s tasting the words. I don’t see shock or dismay on his face, and that gives me the courage to keep going.

  “You asked me before if I would marry you. When I said no, it wasn’t because I didn’t love you, just because I was still all tangled up. I didn’t trust my feelings.”

  “And now?” His voice is husky, those eyes looking right through me.

  “Here.” I draw an envelope out of my purse and hand it to him. “This is for you.”

  Lance opens the envelope, his forehead creasing in a puzzled frown. He glances up at me.

  “Flights to Vegas?”

  “Not just flights.” I can’t breathe, waiting for him to see, watching his face for the reaction.

  He removes the plane tickets from the envelope, sets them on the table in front of him.

  Then he withdraws a sheet of printer paper, unfolds it. I watch his eyes move, know word for word what he is reading, beginning with the header: Vegas Wedding Chapel Vacation Package. It seems an eternity of waiting for his reaction, and my head is light from lack of oxygen when he finally looks up at me.

  “Breathe,” he says. “Before I have to come over there and resuscitate you.”

  I follow his command, and when the buzzing in my ears recedes, I say, “I knew you’d never ask me again. So I figured it was up to me. If you still want to.”

  He says nothing, and I plunge onward, filling the silence with words.

  “When you asked, it wouldn’t have been right. I didn’t know who I was. I needed to figure that out, to be sure that I knew how to be me. That I wouldn’t be . . .” I pause, looking for the right word.

  His lips quirk in the hint of a smile. “Assimilated? Like the Borg in Star Trek?”

  “Exactly. Not because of you, because of me. And the baby, and everything. I loved you then, I just wanted things to be right. No false pretenses. No marriage of convenience. But if you’ve changed your mind, if you don’t feel that way anymore, I’ll understand.”

  Lance looks down at the paper in his hands and then back at me. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Look, if this is out of line, you can just forget it, okay? Last thing I want to do is ruin what we—”

  “Liz.”

  He stretches his hand across the table and closes his fingers around mine.

  “Of course I want to marry you. But—Vegas? Eloping in Sin City? Our friends will kill us. Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely! I do not want a church wedding. Can you imagine Abigail and Earlene and Bernie fighting over how the service should be? It would be a disaster. I thought we could just slip away, the two of us, and get married. Commit the sin and ask forgiveness later. They can throw us a party.”

  “You in Vegas,” he says.

  “I’m not talking an Elvis wedding. There are chapels and—”

  “Yes,” he says, his fingers squeezing mine. “Now, can I ask a favor?”

  I’ve run out of words and look my question at him.

  “Can we get out of this place so I can kiss you properly?”

  We’ve already ordered, and I almost get bogged down in propriety. You don’t just run out of a restaurant. But I can’t sit here across from him another minute. I get to my feet and start walking. He follows, his hand warm on the small of my back. But as soon as we are outside and clear of the door, instead of kissing me, he gets down on one knee in the snow, right there in the parking lot. It’s dark, but the streetlights illuminate us. He turns his face up to mine, digging something out of his pocket.

  “Idiot. I already asked you.”

  “My turn. Fair play, and all that.” There’s a ring on the palm of his hand. It glows, softly luminous. Not a diamond. An opal, all shifting colors with fire at its heart.

  “The minute I saw it, I knew it was yours. It’s like you. Who you are shifts a little with light and perspective, but at the center, you are always you. Liz.”

  “And you just happened to have it with you?”

  “Been trying to get my nerve up to ask you again. I carry it around with me.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I whisper.

  “All you need to say is one small word. It starts with y.”

  “Yes. Of course, yes. Now will you get up from there?”

  He slides the ring on my finger, but before he can get to his feet, a car pulls into the parking lot. The window lowers and Tara’s head pokes out. She whoops out loud. “That looks for all the world like a proposal!” she shouts. The catcall from the driver’s seat can only be Bernie.

  “Run for it,” Lance says. He scrambles to his feet, grabs my hand, and the two of us dash for my car. We slide in, laughing and breathless. He kisses me, then breaks away to ask, “That’s small-town living for you. What are the odds? Can we bump up the date on those tickets? Leave tomorrow?”

  “It would cost us.”

  “Worth it.”

  My phone buzzes. Lance’s chimes about two seconds later. Text messages come in fast and furious.

  Val: Hey, do you have something you want to tell me?

  Abigail: I can’t believe I just heard the news from Bernie of all people. I live in your house! I’m your child!

  Rosie: About time.

  Pastor Steve: I just heard a little rumor—if it’s true, I’d be honored to perform the service.

  “We’re in for it now,” Lance says. “They’ll never let us elope.”

  “We could drive. Leave right this minute. Forget clothes and everything and just go.”

  “We do have a small anchor.”

  “Abigail will take care of him. We can call her when we’re well out of town.” But I know full well it’s too late. The hounds will track us to the ends of the earth if we try to run. And now that I’m thinking about leaving Gavin for a week, I know I can’t do it anyway. Lance knows it, too.

  “It was a fun idea,” he says. “But I kind of like the idea of Gavin as ring bearer.”

  I lean back against my seat, accepting.

  “Regrets?” Lance asks, reaching for my
hand.

  “Never. You ready to go home and face the music?”

  “One more kiss to fortify me.”

  After considerably more than a single kiss, I pull out into the street and head toward home and a life beyond anything I ever dared to dream. I don’t need Lacey anymore to guide me. From now on, all decisions are up to me, and I plan to say yes to every good thing that comes my way.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful to so many people for their part in the creation of this book.

  First, as always, thanks and much love to my Viking, for moral support, tolerating long brain absences when all I could think about was the story, and also that all-important continuity read. Also to my sons—your excitement over my success is a huge energy boost on hard writing days.

  Thank you to my wonderful agent, Deidre Knight, for being as excited about the premise as I was.

  I am incredibly fortunate in my editors. Much thanks to Jodi Warshaw, my acquiring editor at Amazon, and to developmental editor Jenna Free, who always pushes me to go deeper into both story and characters. As for copyeditor Michelle Hope Anderson, you are an absolute delight to work with, and I love the way you shine up my words without altering my voice.

  Kristina Martin and Barbara Claypole White—I owe you both for your courageous read of an exceptionally rough draft and for all of the helpful and encouraging input.

  To all of the wonderful, supportive people in the League of Legendary Writers—thank you for helping me stay on track. You all inspire me on a regular basis.

  And a special vote of thanks to the people who helped me get my facts straight. Liv Stecker, thanks for your insights into community theater. Thanks to Sara Wheaton for going over EMT and ambulance procedures and Kellie Rice for sharing your professional knowledge around the logistics of a DUI.

  Readers, you make my writing world go round. Thank you for your love of books—without you, this book would never have been written.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © Diane Maehl

  Kerry Anne King is the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of Closer Home, I Wish You Happy, Whisper Me This, and Everything You Are. Licensed as both an RN and a mental-health counselor, she draws on her experience working in the medical and mental-health fields to explore themes of loss, grief, and transformation—but always with a dose of hope and humor. Kerry lives in a little house in the big woods of the Inland Northwest with her Viking, three cats, a dog, and a yard full of wild turkeys and deer. She also writes fantasy and mystery novels as Kerry Schafer. Visit Kerry at www.kerryanneking.com.