The Cowboy’s Return

by Aarsen, Carolyne

  You and your baby. Like they belonged together.

  And didn’t they?

  “The doctor said everything is good with both me and the baby. We can go home this afternoon.” Summer sat down on the bed in the hospital room and her mother lowered herself into the chair beside it, her arms crossed tightly over her chest in a self-protective gesture.

  “So, do you know who might adopt our little girl?” she asked.

  Her mother’s use of the word ‘our’ created even more confusion. Her mother was taking ownership of this baby.

  “No. I wanted a closed adoption.”

  “Wanted? It sounds like you haven’t made up your mind yet.” Her mother shook her head, frowning her seeming frustration with her daughter.

  Summer’s thoughts ticked back to her conversation with Glenda. She had to tell her. It wasn’t right that Glenda knew and not her own mother.

  “Mom, I never told you much about the baby’s father.”

  “No. But I thought he was dead now.”

  “He is, but that’s not the issue.” She looked at her mother’s trusting face, thinking of the losses she’d already dealt with. And now she had to pile one more item on her mother’s thin, stooped shoulders. “The baby was conceived when…” She drew in a shuddering breath. “When I was raped by Dustin.”

  Her mother’s gasp, the horror in her widened eyes, combined to create an answering grief deep in Summer.

  “Oh…my dear…sweet girl…” Her mother stood, staring at Summer a moment, as if trying to gauge how she felt. Then she gathered Summer in her arms, and held her against her. “Why did this have to happen to you?”

  Summer closed her eyes, letting her mother comfort her as she had when Summer was young. She cried, clinging to her mother’s thin frame, the old roles so easily falling back into place. Mother helping a daughter through a hard time. She let her mother comfort her, inhaling the familiar scent of her perfume, the shampoo she always used.

  The smell of her mother.

  Her mother pulled back after a moment, cradling Summer’s face in her hands. “This is a very hard thing for you.” She swallowed, holding Summer’s tear-filled gaze, her own eyes glistening. “Is that why you’re so confused about this baby? You’re not sure how you feel about her?”

  Summer nodded, fighting for the control she was losing so often these days. “I’m not sure how I feel, period, but yeah. I wasn’t supposed to spend any time with her. I wasn’t supposed to even see her.” She sighed, tugging a tissue out of the box beside her bed and wiping her eyes. Again.

  “And now that you have…”

  Summer twisted the tissue around in her fingers. “I’m surprised at how much I care for her. It’s beyond emotional. Like it’s a physical thing. But at the same time, I struggle with…with how she was conceived. It’s not right to feel that way. I know it’s not her fault. So I’m attached, and yet…scared. I wasn’t supposed to feel any of this.”

  “I can understand that,” her mother said. “I remember feeling guilty when you and your brother were born because I got pregnant with someone I wasn’t committed to. And don’t forget, even if all the events of this child’s birth were perfect, you would probably still feel confused.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way though. I had everything planned. It was supposed to be so easy. Have the baby in the hospital and not even see her after. She would be taken away and given to a family who would love her unconditionally. And now…”

  Her mother took Summer’s hand in hers, stroking her palm, tracing the lines on it, a melancholy smile shifting her lips. “I remember when you were little. You were making me a necklace. You were stringing the beads and then you got mad and stripped them all off the string. The colors weren’t in the right order and didn’t look good together. So you started again. And again. I’m sure you made that necklace at least six times. You were in tears by the time you declared it finished, and even then you weren’t happy with it.”

  “I guess I was always a perfectionist.”

  “You were. But you know, the interesting thing was, I liked each one of those necklaces. I liked each combination you came up with. They were all pretty in their own way, but what also happened, it was like you took something from each of those necklaces and came up with something you were happy with in the end. So sometimes the imperfections you see, both in life and in yourself and in situations, could be you just trying to figure things out. And so I’m thinking even that the confusion you feel now isn’t wrong or right. It just is.”

  Summer understood what her mother was trying to say, but she couldn’t meld her head and her heart. She wished Lucas was here. Wished he could help her through this as well.

  “And what are you thinking right now?” her mother asked.

  “Eve. The future adoptive parents.”

  “I thought you said you wanted a closed adoption.”

  “I do. I don’t know who they are. A vague couple who is waiting for my baby.”

  “But is everything signed already?”

  “I was going into town to do some final paperwork when the storm came in.” Summer sighed, thinking of the nursery just down the hall where her daughter lay.

  “So nothing is final.” Her mother waited, and Summer could feel the expectations pushing at her, another emotion to deal with. She closed her eyes and laid back. “I’m tired,” was all she said.

  “Of course you are.” Her mother brushed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear with a loving gesture. “You rest. I’ll come see you once you’re…” She paused and Summer looked up at her.

  “Are you going back to Lucas’s place?” her mother asked. “Can you still take care of Glenda?”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” Summer said, her head aching in earnest now.

  “Well, you can come home anytime you want, you know.” Her mother patted her on the arm. “You and the baby. I can get stuff together really quick. Dietrich said he would give me some baby stuff from him and his wife.”

  She had been making plans for a vague future and Summer didn’t even want to think past the next couple of hours.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Summer said. “I appreciate the offer.”

  She gave her a careful smile, then closed her eyes, exhaustion clawing at her as she fell into a restless sleep.

  * * *

  “Everything looks good,” Elaine, the ward nurse, was saying to Summer, filling something out on a chart. “You and your baby can go home now. It would be great if you had a name chosen, so we could finish up our paperwork.”

  Lucas saw Summer’s conflicting emotions as the nurse let the sentence drift off and Summer looked over to the clear plastic bassinet sitting by the bed.

  “It’s complicated,” was all Summer would say, her voice terse. Tense.

  Lucas couldn’t help a shiver of apprehension at her tone. Though he was thankful he could bring her and the baby to the hospital to be checked over, since Summer had come, she seemed different. He couldn’t identify it, figure out what it could be, but she had changed.

  And not for the better.

  Summer had already put on the clothes Glenda had sent with Lucas. Tricia had given him an outfit for the baby’s homecoming. When she had given it to him, Lucas couldn’t imagine anyone fitting into anything this tiny.

  But despite that, the little girl looked like she was drowning in the sleeper.

  “And I notice you got a car seat?”

  “Yep.” And again, Lucas couldn’t imagine putting that tiny baby into the contraption Tricia had given him. All those heavy straps and buckles would overwhelm that little body. But it was the law, so they had to comply.

  “Excellent, because that’s one thing we cannot release the child out of the hospital without.” The nurse gave Summer another puzzled look, but Summer’s entire attention was fixated on her baby. “So I guess that’s that. You guys can all go home and be a nice cozy little family.”

  Lucas didn’t even bother to correc
t the nurse. She was young and had just come on shift this morning and knew nothing about their situation.

  So he just smiled and stroked Summer’s shoulder in a gesture of support and comfort.

  “I’ll put her in the car seat,” Lucas said, walking over to the bassinet. “You sit in that wheelchair, and I’ll be right behind you.”

  He picked up the baby, hoping he looked more competent than he felt. Holding her close, he walked over to the car seat and laid her inside. She threw her arms out in shock, screwed her face up, and screamed.

  Lucas shot a panicked glance at the nurse who was smiling as she helped Summer into the wheelchair. “They all do that,” she said. “It’s for their own good, but most of them seem to hate it.”

  Summer looked concerned as she kept her eyes fixed on her baby, watching Lucas fumble his way through the next steps Tricia had shown him repeatedly. Thankfully, he got everything together and clipped, the sheepskin covers on the straps protecting the baby’s face.

  “Look at that, you’re such a pro,” the nurse said with an admiring glance. Lucas shrugged and wrapped the blanket Tricia had given him around the little bundle. But he was all thumbs when it came time to put the little toque on her head. It slipped over her eyes, and he couldn’t seem to get it to sit right.

  Finally the nurse took pity on him, squatted down, rolled the cap up one more roll, lifted the baby’s head and pushed the stocking cap back, then laid her head back down. “See, now the pressure of her head will keep the hat in place,” she explained with a grin.

  “Thanks for the pointers.” Lucas pushed himself to his feet. “There’s a cover that’s supposed to go on over the top of it now?”

  The nurse took it from him and slipped it on over the car seat. It covered the whole thing, but there was a small zipper for the opening.

  “How cold is it outside?” Elaine asked, grasping the handles of Summer’s wheelchair and pushing her out of the room.

  Lucas grabbed the car seat and the diaper bag, following behind. “It’s not too bad,” he said. “At least the sun is shining.”

  He looked over at Summer, but she sat with her hands clasped on her lap, looking at the car seat that Lucas gingerly carried. He could hardly wait to get her by himself so he could find out how she was feeling.

  They got to the front desk where Summer had to be signed out one more time, and Lucas set the car seat down beside the wheelchair. He placed his hand on Summer’s shoulder, bending closer to her. “I’ll just go get the Jeep and bring it around the front,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She smiled up at him and, as their eyes connected, some of the tension that had been holding him the past hour loosened a little. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, fingered a strand of hair away from her face, then hurried out the door to his vehicle.

  Ten minutes later, the car seat was snapped into the carrier buckled into the back seat, Summer was in the front passenger seat, and they were finally headed out of town.

  “So, how are you really feeling?” Lucas asked, breaking the silence that had taken over from the time they left the hospital till now.

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  He glanced over at her, her answer not what he expected.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like I said, I’m not sure. I feel so confused. I’m not sure what I’m allowed to think or what I should think.” Her hands were twisted on her lap, her fingers working each other, her knuckles white.

  “Well, why don’t we start with the first thing that’s on your mind?” Lucas asked, trying to navigate this uncertain territory. His heart stuttered in his chest, not sure what to expect from her.

  “The first thing on my mind is how thankful I am that you’re here.” Summer gave him a gentle smile. “You’ve been a tremendous support, and I’m grateful for every moment we spend together.”

  He tried not to think of that as the good-bye it sounded like, so he smiled and took it at face value. “Well, I’m glad I could be here for you,” he said, reaching over and taking one of her hands, prying it loose from the other. She squeezed his hand tightly, then looked ahead. “And I’ve said this before, but I think I need to say it again, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here as long as you want me around.”

  “I don’t want you to go anywhere,” Summer said, her hands still clinging to his. “I’m glad you’ll be here.”

  Her comment made his heart sing, and the coil of tension in his gut released.

  “As for the next thing on my mind—only absolute and utter confusion,” Summer said.

  “Confusion about the baby,” Lucas said gently.

  “Yes, about my baby…the baby.” Her comment created another level of tension, and he struggled to find the right thing to say. He decided to go for straightforward and to the point.

  “So tell me what you’re confused about.” He kept his tone gentle, hoping he could ease the information out of her without her becoming defensive. He had a hundred more questions, but he knew he had to take this slow and one step at a time.

  Summer’s hand tightened on his, and she looked into the back seat. Checking on her baby.

  “Like I said before, I wasn’t supposed to see her, but now that I have…”

  “It’s gonna be hard to let go of her?” Lucas couldn’t help asking.

  “For most of my pregnancy I resented her presence,” Summer said. “How could I think that about this helpless little human?”

  “Maybe it was self-protection?”

  “Maybe, but what if she felt that? What if subliminally she knew I didn’t want her?”

  “I don’t know if babies pick up on that,” Lucas assured her. “But I do think they know they are loved when they’re carried, held, kissed, sung to,” he added.

  Summer said nothing for a beat, looking straight ahead.

  Then her phone chimed, and she pulled it out, staring at the screen. She swiped it, reading what looked like a text. Then she pressed the phone to her forehead, a look of utter despair on her face.

  “That’s Eve. My friend, the social worker. She wants to know what I’ve decided.”

  Ice slipped through Lucas’s veins and his hands gripped the steering wheel even tighter.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t say anything you’ll regret.

  “And how do you feel about that?” he asked, pleased that he had come up with something non-threatening.

  She was silent a moment, then she sighed.

  “I saw a couple at the hospital,” she finally said. “They’d just had a baby too. And I saw the way they were looking at their child. I saw the yearning on their faces, and I saw the love shining out of their eyes. Uncomplicated. If my baby were to go to an adoptive home, there would be no baggage. Nothing. The family would have no negative memories connected to her—”

  “You don’t have negative emotions attached to her,” Lucas protested. “I’ve seen how you look at her.”

  “Don’t make me out to be better than I am,” Summer said. “I still feel so confused. That couple, however, only has anticipation and joy.”

  Lucas felt as if the conversation was slipping away from him. It was like trying to hold water. Squeeze too hard and it’s gone, hold it too loosely and it disappears as well. “I feel like I have no right to tell you what to do but I know that I spent a large part of my life in a good loving family, a good home, but despite my feelings towards my grandmother, the more time I spend with her, the more I recognize that we share a connection I don’t have with anybody else.”

  “Please don’t make this any harder for me,” Summer whispered.

  “I’m not trying to make it harder for you,” Lucas said, glancing from the snow-covered road ahead to her and back. He keenly felt the responsibility of transporting Summer and her newborn. He slowed down as a truck roared past them, a cloud of snow obliterating his sight. “I just have to think of what my grandmother said. How she wished she might’ve tried a little harder to take care of me. I know it�
�s nothing like what you’re dealing with but—”

  To his surprise and shock, Summer yanked her hand away from his. He shot a quick glance in her direction in time to see her clenched jaw, her narrowed eyes.

  He had said the wrong thing.

  “I wish you would stop telling me what to do,” she snapped. “I wish everyone would stop telling me what to do. I know you love that baby. I’ve seen the look on your face when you hold her. And I’m wondering if you’re thinking of me, or if you’re just thinking about yourself.”

  “Of course I care for her,” Lucas said. “Who wouldn’t? But I’m not just thinking about me, I’m thinking about you.”

  “I don't want to talk about this anymore,” Summer said. “Please just take me back to the house. I need…I need to leave.”

  “How? You shouldn’t be driving yet?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she snapped.

  Words crowded the back of his throat, questions, comments, but Lucas kept them down. He fought the panic curling in his midsection. Struggled with the questions he wanted to ask. But from the set of her jaw and the whiteness of her knuckles, he knew he had to back off.

  He said nothing more, and they drove in a heavy silence all the way back to his place.

  When he stopped the truck, she stepped out before he could help her. She pulled open the back door and struggled to get the car seat off the frame.

  He turned off the vehicle and went to help her, but she shook her head, so he waited until she was done, then grabbed the diaper bag, and followed her to the house.

  Once inside they were greeted by Kinsley and Glenda.

  “Congratulations,” Kinsley said to Summer, getting up from the table. “Can we see her?”

  Summer nodded, setting the car seat on the table. Glenda and Kinsley were immediately distracted.

  Kinsley pulled the cover off, and her expression seemed to melt. “Oh, look at her, she’s so beautiful.” Her voice held a note of awe and wonder. The same note Lucas had heard in Summer’s voice when her daughter was first born.

  “I swear the little munchkin has grown in the last twenty-four hours,” Glenda said, reaching in and letting the baby’s minuscule fingers curl around her pinky.