Like Never Before

by Melissa Tagg

  She felt a tug on her arm and looked over. Charlie held out a grape.

  She accepted it and popped it in her mouth. When she lifted her gaze, it was to see Logan watching. Smiling.

  Until the chime of her phone ruined the moment. Trevor? Eleanor’s fiancé.

  “Sorry, but I’d better take this.” She rose, padding into the kitchen, hope trailing that this family—this perfect family—wouldn’t think her rude.

  “Amelia, thank God you answered. I don’t know why I didn’t call you sooner. Actually, I do know why. It’s not like you and Eleanor are close, but—” He halted. “Have you heard from Eleanor in the past week?”

  She moved farther into the kitchen. “I’ve more than heard from her. She was here.”

  “There? With you? In Maple Valley?”

  The refrigerator’s ice machine clunked. “She stayed overnight on Friday.” She stepped closer to the refrigerator, gaze meandering over the photos covering it like a collage. The four siblings in goofy candids. Logan, Seth, and who she assumed was Beckett, high schoolers with arms slung around each other. Several of Charlie. Kate and Colton.

  “But she’s not there now?”

  “No.” Her focus slanted to a photo at the far edge of the fridge. Logan and . . . that had to be Emma. The woman’s strawberry-blond hair flowed over her shoulders, and her smile was bracketed by twin dimples. Sleeveless dress.

  And suddenly she could hear Logan’s whispered voice again his first night home. “Emma.”

  Her stomach churched.

  “I just stopped by her apartment for the third time this week. She’s not answering my calls. I don’t know what to think.”

  She turned away from the fridge, the panic in Trevor’s voice finally registering. “Wait, Eleanor’s not back in Des Moines?”

  “Amelia, I’m worried.”

  It didn’t make sense to be nervous about this. It wasn’t like this was the first time.

  But parked here, alone, in the center of a plush red leather couch that was probably supposed to make this waiting room feel homey and comfortable, anxiety scratched under Logan’s skin. Behind that redwood door flanked by twin ficus plants with slick plastic leaves, Charlie was under a therapist’s microscope.

  For the fourth time in the past forty-five minutes, he rose from the couch and walked to the room’s one window, tilted its bamboo blinds, and looked out on the parking lot without really seeing it.

  What if the therapist determined something was seriously wrong with Charlie?

  What if her language delay wasn’t fixable?

  What if he’d waited too long?

  Please, God, don’t let me have waited too long.

  It was as close as he could get to a prayer. But if Dad was right, if God was waiting for him—had been all this time—then maybe, for now, this was okay. A start. A tentative testing of the waters.

  He let the blinds drop back into place and fished his phone from his pocket instead. He’d tried focusing on emails earlier—no luck. But why not call Theo, check on the office?

  Theo answered on the second ring. “What do you know? Walker’s still alive. I was about to send a search party into the boonies for you.”

  Theo had every right to scold. Logan’s voicemail was crammed with messages from him. Same with his inbox. “Afternoon to you, too.”

  “Nope. Still morning here in LA. You’ve got two hours on us, remember?”

  “Right, the time difference.” Though lately California seemed a lot farther away than just a couple time zones.

  “How’d you know to call? I’ve got news for you. Was just trying to decide whether there was any point in calling or if I should go old-fashioned instead. Send a telegram or transport a letter via stagecoach.”

  “Carrier pigeon would’ve been acceptable.” The couch sighed when he dropped back onto it. He propped his feet on the coffee table. Why hadn’t he thought to call Theo earlier? Could’ve saved himself an hour of pacing or trying to force interest in any of the outdated waiting room mags. “What’s your news?”

  “Roberta S. Hadley. We’re in.”

  Logan’s feet dropped to the floor. “We’re in?”

  “Well, close to in. She wants to meet us. Wants to fly us to D.C.”

  “Whoa.” For the first time since he’d walked into this office an hour ago, something other than apprehension grabbed hold of him. “Whoa.”

  “I’ll say it a third time just for good measure. Whoa.”

  He tried to straighten, but the couch cushions made it impossible. He finally let himself flop back, head tipped, eyes on the ceiling fan spinning overhead. Who would’ve thought back when we first went freelance? “A presidential campaign.”

  “Yeah, and not some piddly third-tier candidate who won’t make it past Super Tuesday. Hadley’s an actual contender.” The sound of Theo’s pen, tapping frenetically against his desk, came over the phone—his personal tick. “So we need to talk dates. She’s suggested May 1—”

  “Can’t.” He hauled himself from the couch’s pocketing hold. “I’ve got something that day.”

  Theo’s pause was a reprimand. One he followed with an incredulous tone. “You’ve got something that day?”

  “Yes, you know Colton Greene. He lives in the Valley now. He’s got a nonprofit, and there’s this fundraiser, and I got roped into basically coordinating it because organization and focus aren’t exactly anyone’s strong suit around here, and—”

  “Logan, this is Roberta S. Hadley. You don’t say no to a meeting with her so you can put on a bake sale in Iowa.”

  “I’m not saying no, I’m saying pick a different date.” Logan leaned over to re-fan the magazines he’d fingered through earlier on the coffee table. “And it’s not a bake sale. Give me a little more credit.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a black-tie affair at the governor’s mansion. Get out of it. It can’t be more important—”

  “It can.” Now he did straighten. Stiffen, actually. He faced the couch, where his indentation still marked its cushion. “It is more important. I made a commitment.”

  Another pause. Another wordless reproach. “Yeah, well, you made a commitment to me, too. We have a business together. You remember that, don’t you? And with no warning, when we were on the brink of our biggest career opportunity, you stretched what was supposed to be a two-week break into a two-month disappearance.”

  “Theo—”

  “How do you think that’s going to look to Hadley? If you manage to even get around to meeting with her, that is?”

  He turned at the sound of the office door opening, the therapist’s assistant’s footsteps. “Mr. Walker, if you’d like to come in now—” She broke off when she realized he was on the phone. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  He mouthed an apology. “Look, I need to go.”

  “Logan—”

  “I will get on a plane to D.C. any other day you or Roberta S. Hadley want. Just not May 1.”

  He heard Theo’s pen clunk to his desk. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And Theo?” He placed a pillow he’d moved out of the way back onto the couch. Straightened his tie. “I want this. Just as much as you. I’m not flaking on you.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  “Believe it.”

  Charlie spotted him as soon as he entered the now-open office. She ran toward him, carrying a book, the barrette in her hair crooked and dangling. And oh, he could feel his heart constrict. That mix of drenching love and care and concern and the weight that always came along with it. The responsibility. The worry that, on his own, he wasn’t enough for this treasure of a person.

  “Logan, thanks for your patience.” Lacey White couldn’t have more than a few years on him—if that. She wore a pink sweater over a simple yellow dress—like something Emma would’ve worn. She had an easy smile and confident handshake. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll have Charlie hang out with Patience for a few minutes while we chat.”

 
He unclipped Charlie’s barrette, pocketed it, and palmed her little head like a basketball. “Sure thing. You cool with that, Charlie-pie?”

  She didn’t even hesitate—ran straight to Lacey’s waiting assistant, who ushered her out the door.

  “Have a seat, Logan.” Lacey motioned to two chairs edged up to a table that matched the redwood of the door and the bookshelves carved into one wall. “And try not to be so nervous.”

  He sat. “It shows that much?”

  “You’re a single dad. It’s only your second experience with speech therapy. And you want to know if your daughter’s okay and is ever going to start really talking. It doesn’t have to show.”

  He could kiss her feet for that.

  She settled across from him, crossed one leg over the other. “First of all, Logan, you have a wonderful daughter. Charlotte—you call her, Charlie, yes?” At his nod, she continued. “Charlie is bright. She’s very aware and attentive. She’s communicative in her own way. And I agree with the two other doctors she’s seen. Cognitively, mentally, physically—she is developing at what’s considered a typical rate.”

  He rested one palm flat on the table. “She just . . . doesn’t talk.”

  “But you said she says single words now and then, correct?”

  “It’s rare, but yes. Honestly, it’s usually when she’s tired or upset or impatient. She’ll say ‘Daddy’ or ‘book’ or ‘water.’ She talks in her sleep, too.”

  “And when she says words, they come out clearly? She doesn’t have trouble getting them out?”

  “Yeah. I mean, clearly for a toddler, that is. But she doesn’t stumble or stutter, really.”

  Lacey nodded thoughtfully. “So it does very much seem like she can talk. She’s just choosing not to. Or simply doesn’t have a great desire to.”

  His fingers fisted atop the table. “She’s spent too much time alone with a nanny. She hasn’t been in playgroups or . . . or what’s that thing everyone does now? Playdates? We go to church, but she usually sits with me instead of going to a nursery or anything and—”

  “Logan.” Lacey leaned forward, her knees nearly touching his, waiting until he looked her in the eye. “Charlie’s speaking delay is not your fault. If you hear nothing else I say, hear that. The fact that you’ve got her here today proves that you’re an attentive, caring, and supportive father. She clearly adores you.”

  Those words—the assurance embedded in them—they slicked over him. Like aloe over sunburned skin. Quenching and more needed than he’d even realized.

  “I . . . she . . .” Whatever grateful reply he meant to give stalled in his throat. He swallowed around a lump, vision blurring as hot, embarrassing tears pooled against rapid blinks. “Sorry. I don’t know why . . .”

  Emotion pressed at him from all sides. And the urge to escape collided with the need to stay here and lap up the promise of help and hope for his girl.

  “It’s all right.” Lacey offered a simple smile and opened a folder she’d carried with her to the table, moving on as if he wasn’t sitting next to her attempting not to fall apart.

  Thank you, God.

  There it was. Another one-line prayer. And he meant it, didn’t he? He’d needed an inch of reassurance and, in the form of a kind professional, he had been given a mile of encouragement.

  “Now, what we’re going to work on in therapy is helping Charlie want to talk.” Lacey pulled out a sheet of paper with scribbled notes. “We’re going to work together to develop some prompts and some very specific activities meant to stimulate her interest in verbal communication. Something as simple as playing with puppets can be incredibly helpful.”

  Puppets. He could do that.

  The Everwood Bed & Breakfast stared Amelia down behind pearl-white shutters—strangely the only pristinely painted piece of the old Victorian’s exterior. Its weather-stripped siding and a rickety porch appeared more gray than white. The gnarled branches of blunt-cut bushes edged the front, and a narrow walkway cut through sparse grass.

  And there on the porch, curled into a sun-faded rattan loveseat—Eleanor.

  Amelia closed her car door and started up the sidewalk to the forlorn structure. It’d hit her halfway through the workday that, if by some curious chance Eleanor was still in Maple Valley, she’d have come here.

  Jaundiced floorboards creaked, and a thin breeze slithered through wind chimes as she climbed the porch steps. Not until she stood in front of her did Eleanor finally look up.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I knew to come looking for you because Trevor called. I knew to come looking here, because you love B&Bs. Always have. And the one other time you came to visit me in Maple Valley, the only good thing you had to say about town is that we’ve got an intriguing B&B.”

  Eleanor closed the book she’d been reading—not Jeremy’s this time. She dropped her feet to give Amelia room to sit. “Now that I’ve actually stayed here, I might use a different word than intriguing.”

  “Such as . . . creepy?”

  “If I had my realtor hat on, I’d say eclectic, but honestly, your adjective’s better. There’s this paisley-print wallpaper in the room I’m staying in that’s so dizzying it should come with a doctor’s warning. Oh, and the lady who runs this place carries her cat with her everywhere—just draped over her arm like it’s a fur stole or something.”

  Her sister combed her fingers through her unruly tangles—so different from her usual tamed hair. She wore a light sweatshirt over yoga pants. Circles under her eyes suggested restless nights.

  A weary wind jostled an empty flower basket hanging from a hook in the porch ceiling. Eleanor’s gaze settled on a magnolia tree in the B&B’s yard—the property’s one cheery feature. But with each cascading gale, cotton-white blooms were stripped from its branches in waves. “Remember how we had one of those trees in our old house? Mom used to lament how quickly it lost its blooms each spring.”

  “Looks like snow when it falls like that.” Amelia shifted to tuck her feet underneath her. “Speaking of which, they’re actually saying we’re supposed to get another round of snow next week. Can you believe it? Snow in May. You gotta love it.”

  “Actually, I think maybe you’re the only one who loves it.” She said the words without any hint of criticism. Only mild tease.

  “You didn’t have to leave, you know.”

  Eleanor turned her head to look straight at her. “I did. I needed . . . to think, I guess. And I felt awful about the way I showed up without any warning, interrupted your date—”

  “That wasn’t a date.” And was it really only a week ago she’d sat in The Red Door, listening to live music and telling Logan about her divorce?

  “Well, I interrupted either way. And then I took your bed. And worst of all, Jeremy’s book. If it makes you feel any better, I quit reading it. I considered trashing it, but it’s a library copy.”

  “You didn’t have to quit reading it.”

  “Thing is, I think I wasn’t just reading it because I wanted a life coach’s thoughts on love or whatever. I thought maybe there’d be a chapter in it that explained why things went wrong for you two. I thought it might tell me all the things you never did.”

  Cool air brushed circles of pink over Eleanor’s otherwise pale cheeks—no makeup today. “We’ve never been close like that, El.”

  Eleanor’s hands flopped to her lap. “I know. And that’s the thing that’s so sad. We’re twins. Shouldn’t we have, like, ESP or something? And it’s just one more thing that has me terrified about marrying Trevor. It’s not just seeing other marriages fall apart that scares me—it’s realizing I don’t even have a good relationship with my twin. How in the world can I expect a marriage to work?”

  She’d never seen her sister like this. Not confident, organized, Type-A Eleanor. The one who always knew what she wanted. The one who’d chosen the practical college major. Who’d earned a grad school fellowship. Who’d put off her love life until she was ready for it.

>   Except listening to her now, maybe she wasn’t ready for it.

  Then again, was anybody ever ready?

  “So was there?”

  Eleanor’s eyebrows dipped into a V. “Was there what?”

  “A chapter on why we broke up?”

  “Not in what I read. And I flipped through the rest of the chapters just in case. Didn’t see anything that looked too tell-all-y.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least.” She slipped her feet to the floor and leaned over, elbows on her knees. A chug of wind sent petals from the magnolia tree dusting over the porch floor. “We broke up because he said I was too much for him.”

  She felt the force of her own surprise, heard the prodding of Eleanor’s silence.

  “All those years of trying to get pregnant took their toll on me, I guess. And then when the adoption fell through . . .”

  For a naked moment she was there again. In the hospital, staring through a nursery window, watching her whole world fall apart. Knowing before the social worker even said the words . . .

  “Maybe I was too much. Maybe there were too many nights of tears and too many days of existing like a zombie. I don’t know.” But her eyes were dry now, her words listless. “All I know is, Jeremy couldn’t put up with it anymore. How was he supposed to go out and speak and inspire people when his own home was in such emotional distress? I told him I could go to a doctor. Maybe I had a chemical imbalance. He said, good, go for it. But he still wanted the divorce. Because how would it look, a motivational speaker with a depressed wife who couldn’t keep it together?”

  Eleanor’s inhale was sharp. “What a jerk.”

  She glanced over. “I think he wanted out for a long time. And I think I knew it. I was hoping the adoption might save the marriage. But, well, it is what it is, right?” She’d closed the door on that chapter in her life. Told herself over and over her new life in Maple Valley was enough to fill the blank spaces. Even believed it often enough. Especially here lately.