by Aaron Lazar
My father must’ve read my mind, for he checked his watch again. “Contractions are two minutes apart, Mary. Looks like this one’s coming faster than when you delivered the boys.”
And there it was again, just as we reached the Emergency Room parking lot. Another contraction, more yelling, more fear coursing through me.
Things happened quickly now. My father had been on the phone to the ER minutes before, alerting them of our approach.
A tech met us at the door with a wheelchair.
My father tossed the keys to Jax after helping my mother into the chair. “Park this in the garage, son.” He turned to me. “Bring your mother’s bag in, Finn.”
Another cry from my mother made my father stiffen. He raced to her side and began filling in the nurse who appeared in green scrubs. “It’s coming faster than before. She’s down to a minute between…”
I couldn’t hear the rest. I grabbed the suitcase and nodded to Jax, who still surprised me by not making wisecracks or rolling his eyes. Unusually quiet, he got into the car and nodded to me. “See you inside.”
“Okay.” I stood in the wind and cold, brushing snowflakes off my face. “See ya.”
Inside, I found my parents being checked in, but was shooed into the waiting room when a nurse abruptly cut short the registration and wheeled my mother toward the elevator. “You finish the paperwork,” she said to my father. “Meet us on the second floor, delivery room three, when you’re done.”
My mother’s cries echoed through the waiting room as the elevator doors whisked shut, and that same sense of fear cantered through me.
Is something wrong this time?
Will they get her to the delivery room before the baby comes?
I settled in the empty waiting room, then realized with a start, it was still Christmas Eve. Everyone else was home, drinking eggnog and hanging his or her stockings.
Green plastic garlands with red silk balls draped the doorways and windows, and somehow the weak attempt to make the place feel Christmassy depressed me. I wanted to be home, in my living room. I wanted to lean over my mother’s shoulder while she played Christmas carols, singing together like we always did on Christmas Eve. I wanted to see my dog, Mr. Jingles, turn in circles on the rug before the fireplace, ready to settle down for a good night’s sleep. And I wondered what in the world was in that small shiny box with my name on it beneath the tree.
“Finn?” Jax handed me a small white ticket. “Here. You keep the parking receipt. I might lose it.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and plopped down beside me. “Still coming down like a banshee out there. I could barely see.”
I’d gotten my license a few weeks ago, but hadn’t had much chance to practice in the snow yet. I’d been glad my father hadn’t asked me to park the car. With the way my luck was running that year, I probably would have crashed it.
We sat together in silence for a while.
Finally, I got up and started to pace. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
Jax shrugged, looking up from his game for a few seconds. “Dunno. But the way things were going there, it should be pretty quick, I guess.”
I wondered if he’d ever done this before, considering his history with getting girls pregnant. “Jax?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you ever see those babies?”
His head jerked up. “What?”
“You know, your babies. Those girls you…”
He put down the game and closed his eyes. “Oh, crap. How did you find out?”
“I saw one at the doctor’s office that day we took Mom in for a checkup. That girl and her mother were really uncomfortable when they spotted us. They pretty much hid around the corner. And vice versa.” I sat down again beside him. “Dad finally told me. He said there were three of them.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “Cripes. I wish he hadn’t told you.”
“What happened to the babies? And who were those girls, anyway?”
He opened his eyes and leaned toward me. “Listen. I screwed up big this year. I’m paying for it, don’t you worry. You don’t know the girls, they’re not from our school.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “One said she had an abortion,” he grimaced. “And the other two gave them up for adoption.”
“Whoa.” I sat quiet for a while. “Do you ever think about them? That you have two kids out there somewhere, being raised by strangers?”
He shifted uncomfortably on his chair, his eyes hooded. “I try not to. It’s too weird.”
“Oh.” I stretched my legs out to relieve the pins and needles I felt when I suddenly moved. Having just turned seventeen in November, I never gave a thought to fatherhood. Some day, maybe, I’d get married and have a family. But unless it was with Libby, I couldn’t picture it. “It’s just kind of sad, is all.”
He let out a long breath and shoved me sideways, almost knocking me off the chair. “Just shut up about it, will ya?”
I rubbed my arm and scowled. “Fine.”
We sat in silence for another half hour, and finally, when I’d started to worry in earnest again, my father showed up in the doorway, looking tired, but proud.
“It’s a girl,” he said.
We jumped up to meet him halfway.
He put his hands on our shoulders, smiling. “You have a little sister.”
“Cool,” I said. “That’s great, Dad.”
Jax said, “Is Mom okay?”
“She’s fine, boys. Tired, but she did great. You can see her in a little bit.”
With a sigh of relief, we followed my father to the vending machine, where he bought us both cups of weak hot chocolate and kept patting us on our backs. I realized in that moment that he’d been scared, too, on that snowy ride to the hospital and up in the delivery room. It had been pretty darned close. If we’d gone off the road into a snow bank, my mother would likely have had the baby in the car.
With a start, for the first time in my youth I recognized my father’s human side, acknowledged his frailties. I sipped the scalding drink and followed him back to the waiting room. We settled together for a few minutes, and then I touched his arm.
“Now we’re five,” I said. “That’s a nice number.”
I ignored Jax’s eyes rolling.
Dad shot me a look that seemed more than just a father placating his son. With a sure grip, he took my hand and locked eyes with me. “Right you are, my son. Now we’re five.”
Chapter 39
July 20th, 2013
4:30 P.M.
We drove into the deserted cemetery, slowly following the grassy lane around sections of headstones until we came upon Jax’s and Cora’s plots. The silence was eerie and except for a slight sea breeze that wafted through the branches in the old maple trees overhead, nothing moved.
Libby got out and touched my elbow, pointing up the hill. “Much as I want to scream at Jax myself, I’ll be up there. I want to visit my grandpa.” She wandered off, and I wondered if she knew I needed to be alone to face my demons.
I approached the graves, my legs suddenly leaden. The closer I got, the angrier I felt. It bubbled inside me, pinwheeling through my brain.
“Jax, I hate you, you cheating son of a bitch. And you, Cora,” I turned to face her stone. “How could you? How could you do this to us? How could you betray me?”
A small part of me felt somewhat guilty, knowing in the past few days I’d faced a number of unpleasant truths about myself, including my submerged feelings for Libby. But I ignored it and soldiered on. It felt good to vent.
I paced back and forth in front of the headstones. “You told Libby I made all those girls pregnant?” I raised my arms to the heavens. “Why? What did I ever do to hurt you so bad that you’d want to destroy my life?”
It built now, surging within me. “Sixteen years, you bastard! Sixteen years you put Libby and me through hell on earth. You broke her heart. My heart. You tore apart two kids that were madly in love.”
I tu
rned to Cora’s grave, seeing her Audrey Hepburn look-alike angel face. So sweet. So cute. So devious. “Do you know what he did, Cora? Did he tell you all his secrets while he had you between the sheets?” I pushed away a sudden image of Jax impaling my wife, and turned in a circle, glancing toward the bluff. “Did he whisper the awful truth to you before you went over those cliffs?”
I went cold for a minute, wondering about the scenario again, turning back to Jax’s grave. “Wait a minute. Did you do it on purpose, Jax? To smother your guilt about killing our family? And to take the last living member of mine over the edge with you? Was it an accident? Or did you do it on purpose?”
I scanned the area to be sure no one had approached and could hear my crazy ranting. Still quiet, no cars nosed around the tombstones and no mourners carried flowered wreaths to graves. Libby kneeled on the far hill near her grandfather’s stone.
“I loved both of these women, Jax. And you stole them from me. First Libby. Then Cora.”
“And you, Cora.” I frowned. “I know. I’m sorry. Maybe I didn’t love you enough. Maybe it showed somehow. But damn it, woman! I tried. I gave it my best shot.” The sun dipped lower, flickering through the trees. “But you should have talked to me. Told me how you felt. You should have faced me, Cora. If you loved Jax, I would have…”
I realized in that moment why she couldn’t tell me about her affair. If she loved Jax, if she’d told me, I would have gone ballistic. My crazy hatred for him had consumed my adult life, and when I thought back on it, she’d heard about it almost every day of our marriage. If she told me, God knows what I would have done.
I certainly wouldn’t have forgiven her like a kindly soul and agreed to a divorce. Well, maybe in time. Maybe I would’ve slunk away like a wounded deer and died in the woods. But it’s more likely I would have gone for Jax’s throat and…who knows? Was I capable of murder? Could I have killed him in a rage that blasted through the past decade? Rage that sprang from all my losses? All the hurt?
Could I have done such a thing?
I hung my head. “Okay. So maybe I wouldn’t have listened. But you still should have told me if you were unhappy. That, you could have done. Instead of leaving me feeling like the ignorant cuckolded husband who blithely goes about his business thinking everything’s fine.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Jax?” I laughed bitterly. “I know you’re in Hell. Did you drag my poor Cora with you? Or are you finally mingling with your own brand of demons?”
Exhausted, I slumped inside, as if I’d reached a turning point. Something inexplicable happened to me in that very instant I stood on the grass by the graves, with the stiffening sea breeze building and swirling around me. A sense of peace worked its way through me, comforting me, soothing me.
Was it God?
I looked to the heavens, surprising myself by speaking the word aloud. “Lord?”
Could it be?
Or, maybe it was my parents. Or Eva. Their graves lay here, too. Maybe their spirits lingered or were called from Heaven by my distraught cries. Could they have heard me? For a moment, I felt embarrassed at my tirade. I had no control at all. I was such a loser.
Again, soft and mellow, comfort flowed through me.
I relaxed inside, smiling toward the clouds. “Thank you.”
Simultaneously relieved and spent, I turned to Libby’s figure and gently waved, signaling I was ready to go.
Chapter 40
December 29th, 1997
10:30 A.M.
I peered out the window at the car climbing steadily up the driveway. “They’re here!”
Jax grunted from his spot on the sofa, and I rushed to the front door.
“Come on, Jax.”
My faithful beagle had jumped to attention, even though my brother hadn’t. Now the dog circled my feet with excitement. I leaned down to pat his soft ears. “It’s the baby, Mr. Jingles. She’s coming home. You have to be very gentle with her, now. Don’t lick her too much, okay?”
He raised his big brown eyes to mine as if he understood every word, and I believed he did.
I opened the door and walked outside into the crisp cold air. I’d shoveled and salted the walkway and parking area earlier, and it looked good. Safe. Clear. Dry.
“Hi, Mom. Welcome home.” To my own surprise, my voice wavered. Sure, I was a teenager. Sure, I was cool. But I’d really missed having my mother around, and even if Jax was too unflappable to show it, I thought he’d missed her, too.
“Hi, sweetie.” She hugged me and grinned, looking much perkier and brighter than the day of the birth, then turned around to pick up the baby in the new car seat. “We’re home, Eva.” She carefully lifted her with a blanket loosely draped over the top to keep away the cold.
My father handed me the suitcase and a plastic hospital bag bulging with supplies. “Let’s get her inside, Mary.”
I followed. He guided my mother’s elbow and she carried the baby as if she held a porcelain doll, which in a way, I guess she did. A delicate new baby girl. It was pretty cool, in spite of what Jax had been saying all week about stinky diapers and baby food splashed on the walls.
He actually got up from his permanent spot on the couch to greet them at the door, and took the bag from me, half-heartedly helping.
When my mother laid her in the bassinet we set up in the kitchen and folded back the blanket, Jax frowned. “Whoa. She’s so tiny.”
My mother laughed. “She’s only four days old, honey. She’ll grow.”
“Why’s she so red?” he added, with his usual lack of tact.
My father grew defensive. “She’s a newborn, son. They all look like that. You boys looked just like little Eva. Except maybe she’s a tiny bit prettier.” He smiled, ruffled both of our heads, and then turned to lean over the baby. His nose wrinkled. “Ought-oh, Mary. I think she needs to be changed again.”
Jax rolled his eyes and backed up with his hands held high. “I told you, little bro. It’s just starting.”
My mother gave Jax a look of disbelief, then picked up the baby. “Come on, Finn. At least I know you’ll want to learn how to take care of your little sister.”
I followed her upstairs to the baby’s room—all yellow and white with cute elephants on the wallpaper. And that very day, I learned how to diaper a baby.
Chapter 41
July 20th, 2013
6:30 P.M.
With the horses, dogs, chickens, and cats all fed and watered, Libby and I respectively returned to our homes to shower. Me, to the cottage, Libby to her expansive still-pink fairy tale bedroom in the mansion.
I stripped out of my stinky barn clothes and entered the cool shower, soaping up and lathering away the perspiration and dust, trying not to think of Libby doing the same thing.
I imagined her long dark hair streaming down her back and felt a shudder of desire.
Would her skin feel as soft, just as it had when I’d been with her all those years ago?
Would her long legs wrap around me the same way, the same perfect fit?
I tried not to picture her gorgeous body, with all its curves and my favorite, mysterious sweet spots, but I couldn't get it out of my mind and suddenly ashamed, felt like a prurient teenager. I chastised myself, realizing the woman was a wounded soul who’d been caught in the clutches of the worst form of betrayal, in spite of the fact that it had been a false understanding based on my brother’s horrible lies.
When I finished, I shaved again to get rid of the five o’clock shadow, and the phone in the living room rang. I dried the shaving cream from my face and ran to pick it up.
“Mr. Finn?”
I recognized Fritzi’s voice right away. “Fritzi? Everything okay?”
“Ja, alles ist gut.” She paused. “I make a nice clam chowder with biscuits. You come and have some, okay?”
“Sounds great.” I glanced at my near-empty refrigerator. “I’m down to no food again, anyway.” I thanked her and hung up, then went back to the closet to pick
out some clothes. I found a nice pair of khaki shorts in the back of the closet that Cora had bought me and I’d never worn, and a light blue short-sleeved shirt. I knew I was doing it for Libby, and hoped she’d join us for the chowder.
I wasn’t disappointed.
Libby was there when I pushed through the screen door, wearing clean cutoff shorts and a yellow blouse.
She looked a bit surprised when I came in and reached around Fritzi for a bowl in the cabinet.
“Finn?” Libby said, as if completely caught off guard.
I smiled at her. “That’s me.” I set the bowl down and turned back to her. “Fritzi invited me, too. Is that okay?”
“Oh.” She flushed. “Of course it is. You’re welcome to join us.”
Fritzi filled my bowl with aromatic chowder, and I grabbed two biscuits from the basket on the table, which ended up being the flakiest I’d ever tasted.
“Incredible, Fritzi. You oughtta be a cook, or something like that.”
“You are a bad man, Mister Finn!” She laughed, smacked the back of my head, and bustled around the kitchen, keeping herself busy so as not to worry about “the mister,” who she kept talking about the entire time. “The Mister likes his clam chowder with thyme from my garden,” she said, eventually dishing up a second helping for me.
“What? Your garden?” I laughed. “You mean, my garden,” I said through a mouthful of biscuit. “I planted it. I weed it.”
“But I pick from it.” She chuckled and tut-tutted at me, wagging a finger. “You are bad, Mister Finn.”
Libby laughed. “It won’t be your garden for long. You’ll be a berry farmer before long.”
Fritzi oohed and ahhed. “Ja? You are going to live back at your old family house? When are you going?” Suddenly she frowned. “Oh. That means…” With a sob, she covered her face. “You are leaving us? Nein!”
I jumped up and patted her shoulder. “Oh, Fritzi, don’t be sad. I’ll be back all the time. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”
