Cherished Beginnings

by Pamela Browning

  "I'm pleased with it," said Maura.

  "In fact the only thing you're not pleased with is Xan Copeland," Golden replied. "Don't think I haven't noticed you mooning around here. He hasn't called all week. Is something wrong?"

  "Everything," said Maura emphatically, turning over a huge shovelful of dirt, "is wrong. It's so wrong it doesn't bear talking about. So please don't ask questions."

  "I thought everything was fine between y'all. In fact I expected to see the sign out front changed to read: McNeill and Copeland Birth Center. You know, the two of you would be an unbeatable combination. Hospital births or home births, you pays your money and you takes your choice."

  Golden's attempt at levity was lost on Maura, who attacked the ground even more viciously with her shovel. The shovel met with a stubborn resistance, and so Maura fell on her knees and scooped the dirt aside until a big rock was revealed. She tugged at the rock until her face grew red from the exertion, finally falling back panting, not having budged the rock one inch. She had, however, mangled a fingernail. Frustrated tears sprang to her eyes, and Golden knew better than to think that the frustration was caused by the immovability of the rock. The immovability of Xan Copeland was what had caused Maura's tears.

  Golden sank down on her knees beside Maura. "Hey, girlfriend, I'm sorry if I said something I shouldn't have." She paused. "I think you need to get out and do something instead of sitting around here. How about driving into Charleston with me tonight? None of our patients is due to deliver. We could take in a movie. Want to?"

  Maura wiped a tear from her cheek, leaving a black smudge. "Kathleen and Scott have invited me out to dinner. I've already told them I'd go. But thank you, Golden. Maybe some other time, okay?" She smiled a watery smile.

  "Okay. I'll put these gardening tools away." Golden hoisted the shovel and the hoe, heading for the tool shed.

  Maura slowly rose to her feet, brushing the dust from her clothes. This day was typical of her days lately; deep depression, unchanged by any of the things that usually brought her pleasure. The black cloud of gloom that had descended on her when Xan had walked through those doors at the hospital and out of her life would not be vanquished.

  Even an especially joyous birthing this week, to parents who had thought they would never be able to have a baby of their own, had not done anything to dispel her lassitude of spirit. Nothing, it seemed, would give her comfort except Xan.

  But Xan had not called, nor had he visited her, nor had he expressed any desire to do so. He had simply dropped out of her life. Even after all they had become to each other, she was nothing more to him than his other women. Useful to him for a while, then when he didn't want her anymore, whoosh, she was gone, just like that. She'd believed that their relationship was special. Well, that just proved she didn't know how to handle the real world yet. Kathleen had been right all along.

  Which is what Kathleen tried to avoid saying when she and Scott stopped by to pick Maura up for dinner. It had been Kathleen's idea that they all go out together, since they'd seen little of each other lately and Maura wasn't on call that night. Kathleen had visited Maura in the middle of the week and noticed how pale and tired Maura looked. When Maura poured out the story of what happened with Xan, the hurt in her eyes tore at Kathleen's heart.

  Now Kathleen sent Scott out to look at Maura's herb garden and while he was gone, she spoke bluntly to her sister as they stood at the kitchen door. "Xan hasn't called?"

  Wearily Maura shook her head.

  "What will you do now?" asked Kathleen, worried about the despair on Maura's face.

  "I don't know. I really love him, Kathleen." But her voice was dispirited, sad.

  "You love him. Oh, Maura." Kathleen's words fell between them, heavy as stones.

  "You warned me. Maybe you were right. But he said he loved"—here her voice broke—"loved me." She finished the sentence painfully, her heart breaking.

  "And you believed it?"

  Maura nodded. "There wasn't any doubt in my mind."

  "Does he know why you don't want to work in a hospital again?" Kathleen's question was pointed and direct.

  Maura shook her head. "I—I've never been able to tell him," she said helplessly.

  Their private conversation was interrupted by Scott, who stamped his feet loudly on the back porch to shake the garden dirt off and said, "That's one fine garden you've got, Maura." The pregnant cat, lately christened Mehitabel, lumbered heavily off the porch, out of Scott's way.

  Kathleen propelled them toward the car, exchanging a look with Maura that said they'd keep their conversation private.

  "Where are you taking us to dinner?" asked Kathleen idly once they were on the road. Maura, sitting alone in the car's back seat, had assumed that they would be driving into Charleston to eat at one of the many fine restaurants there.

  "We're going down the coast to a little restaurant called the Shrimpboat," Scott said. "It's just a tiny place, sort of a local secret. The food is supposed to be wonderful."

  Maura felt a white-hot pain sear the region around her heart. Of course Scott couldn't know the significance of that particular restaurant in her life, and she couldn't seem to summon the effort to ask him if they could go someplace else. How could she bear to sit in that same restaurant where she had blurted out that she loved Xan? How could she look out at the view of the shrimp trawlers and the docks and not think about that night, that wonderful night, when their love had become a reality?

  Blinking back the tears that clouded her vision, she stared out the window at the passing panorama of marshland, of great moss-draped trees overhanging the road. She saw none of it. All she could see was Xan's smiling face, his laughing eyes, that funny bump in the middle of his nose. All she could think about was loving him, even now.

  Much too soon they reached the restaurant, and as she followed Kathleen to their table she kept her eyes riveted on her sister's shining hair. She didn't want to look out the big window at the cove, didn't want to see any of it. The pain inside her cut to the core of her very soul.

  Blindly, only going through the paces, oblivious to the curious way Scott was looking at her and untouched by Kathleen's quiet concern, she stared at the menu, not knowing what to order. Finally she let Scott order something, anything, she didn't know what. After they placed their order, she heard Kathleen say apprehensively, as though from very far away, "Oh, Maura, I'm afraid he's here. Xan Copeland."

  And then, incredulously, she swiveled her head toward the window, toward the very table where the two of them had sat such a short time ago, such a long time ago, and her eyes locked into the eyes of the man she'd thought had loved her, and they went through her like the thrust of a very hard, very cold sword.

  The woman with him was blond and svelte and dainty, a petite thing with the look of money about her clothes and shoes and jewelry. She didn't see the exchange between Xan and Maura because she was admiring the view from the window. Just as Maura had admired it when Xan had brought her here.

  How could bring someone else here, to their special place? How could he? Maura struggled through the meal in a fog of agony, the food tasteless in her mouth. Kathleen and Scott tried to distract her, and they were very kind. But all Maura could think about was Xan being with someone else. After they'd eaten, it was with immense relief that Maura stumbled from the restaurant, self-consciously holding her head higher than usual and avoiding looking in the direction of Xan and his date.

  "Maura," Kathleen said suddenly as they drove home, "come home with us for the night." She turned in the seat, her anxious face illuminated by the lights of the car behind them. "You could go to mass with us in the morning in the Teoway Island church. Would you like that?"

  Maura smiled bleakly. "Really, I can go home. I'm going to survive the breakup with Xan, you know." Although at the moment, she wasn't sure of the truth of that statement.

  "We wouldn't even have to stop by the farmhouse," Kathleen told her. "I'll let you borrow some of my clothes
tomorrow. And anyway, you said that Golden is on call all weekend. Oh, please come home with us. I'd really like you to."

  It was kind of Kathleen, and Maura really didn't want to go home alone to the big, dark house.

  She sighed. "Okay. Fine."

  "Good," said Scott. "You can keep Kathleen company tomorrow after church. I have a tennis date."

  And so it was that Maura drove back to Teoway Island with Kathleen and Scott instead of to her farmhouse, a circumstance that Xan Copeland hadn't counted on.

  * * *

  Damn, Xan thought to himself as he drove up in front of the McNeill Birth Center. All the lights in the house were out, and the countryside itself was dark in this remote area. He had hoped Maura would still be awake.

  He'd rushed his date through her dinner and made up a story so that he could drive her back to Charleston right afterward. She'd taken it all pretty well, considering. Then he'd driven at breakneck speed back to the farmhouse, knowing he had to see Maura.

  He got out of his car and slammed the door hard, thinking the noise might rouse her. But the only sound was the chirp of crickets in the underbrush and the high, clear cry of a night bird. He strode beneath the pecan trees, their leaves rustling above him as the wind blew gently through the branches.

  He'd hated it that Maura had been at the Shrimpboat and that their eyes had met so impersonally. She'd looked crushed, hurt. He didn't blame her. He would have felt the same way in her place. He'd only taken his date there in a futile attempt to forget Maura. So now he had to tell Maura this. He had to talk to her, he had to.

  He knocked on the door. No answer. Impatiently he knocked again. Still no answer. The place was quiet, too quiet. She'd be used to people knocking in the middle of the night, coming to get her for imminent birthings.

  He bounded off the porch and ran around to the back like a man demented. He banged on the door as hard as he could. "Maura!" he yelled in frustration, backing off the porch and looking up at the window to her bedroom. He bent down and picked up a handful of gravel from the path. He tossed it against her window, but no hand lifted the heavy shade and no surprised face appeared behind the glass.

  He pulled out his phone and called her, but his call went directly to voicemail. Texting her produced no results. Where was she? Had she gone on to somewhere else with her sister and brother-in-law? Where would they go? He couldn't imagine.

  Still not ready to abandon hope, he ran around the front again and used his fists to make a racket against the front door that would have awakened anyone but the dead. No one answered. She really wasn't there.

  His shoulders slumped in disappointment. Maura birthed babies all over Shuffletown. She might be gone for hours.

  He sat down in the hammock, fighting his regret and the pain that went with it. How he longed to hold her in his arms and make everything right between them! Ever since he'd walked away from her in the hospital he'd regretted it. He'd spoken too hastily, and then his pride wouldn't let him go to her. He wanted her to come to him.

  But now he'd had enough of his own pride, had almost choked on it. He clenched his fists, overwhelmed with longing. And then he heard the plaintive meow.

  He walked around to the other side of the porch. His eyes pierced the gloom, searching for Mehitabel. Another meow, and he saw her. She was lying in an empty box that had been tossed in the corner. He looked closer, his eyes widening. Then he knelt, scratching the cat behind the ear. He was rewarded by an answering purr.

  He smiled and shook his head. Then he sat down beside the box. Maura was always talking about cherishing life's beginnings, and knowing how nurturing her spirit was, he presumed her philosophy extended to cats, too.

  "Well, Mehitabel, old girl," he said conversationally, "it looks like we're in for a long night. Why did you pick tonight of all nights to have your kittens?"

  He hadn't heard the clunk of his cell phone as it hit the floor when he rose from the hammock on the other side of the house.

  * * *

  Maura, ensconced in the big bed at Kathleen's, slept fitfully. They'd decided the night before to get up around ten o'clock and go to the eleven o'clock mass at the small and rustic Teoway Island church. After mass, when Scott left for his tennis date, she and Kathleen sat on the long deck overlooking the Teoway Island marshes. A belted kingfisher dived for fish amid the tall reeds, distracting them as they ate the lunch Kathleen had prepared, chicken sandwiches embellished with watercress and accompanied by tall glasses of sweet iced tea. Rather, Kathleen ate. Maura only shoved her sandwich around on her plate and stared into space.

  "What am I going to do, Kath?" Maura asked finally.

  "Now you're asking me? When it may be too late to do anything?"

  "She was pretty, wasn't she?" Maura said in utter discouragement, thinking of the woman who had been with Xan in the restaurant.

  "You're way prettier."

  "But he's not involved in conflict with her," said Maura unhappily. "If we only didn't have the childbirth thing at issue, everything would have been all right between us."

  This was supposed to be a light lunch and a sisterly chat. Only it had become more than a chat. This could only be classified under the heading of a full-fledged discussion. Kathleen stood and paced the deck, thinking.

  She turned back to Maura. "You're going to have to talk to Xan," she said.

  "If he wanted to talk to me, he'd have called," Maura said stonily.

  Kathleen knelt at her sister's side, gazing up at her earnestly. "You know how I worried about you when you first started going out with Xan? How I feared that you didn't have the experience to handle him? And how self-assured you were, telling me that you could take care of yourself?"

  "Naive, that's what I was," replied Maura with a trace of bitterness. Then she burst out, "Oh, Kathleen, I'm afraid I've ruined everything!" Kathleen was startled to see Maura's brown eyes swimming with tears.

  "All right, you were naive. But naive doesn't mean stupid. If you love him, go after him. You have a lot of things to reveal to Xan, and you should have told him long ago. Tell him, Maura. Tell him now."

  "You make it sound easy," said Maura.

  "Sharing your emotional life with another person never is. You've always experienced heavy emotions vicariously, through your patients. But actually putting yourself on the line emotionally, trusting another person so totally that your whole life is open to him—that's one of the things you never learned to do. If you care about Xan, you're going to have to learn. Do it now, before you lose heart."

  Maura rose from her chair with a rueful smile. "Thanks for the sisterly advice," she said.

  Kathleen stood up, feeling as though she, not Maura, were the elder sister. "Don't thank me yet," she warned as Maura picked up her cell phone. "Wait and see if it works."

  * * *

  Xan urged his Harley along the rutted road, getting a kind of grim satisfaction out of the jouncing ride. Keeping the motorcycle from running up the trunk of one of the numerous pine trees in this area was a difficult job, and come to think of it, he wasn't sure he didn't want to. A collision with a tree seemed at this point a prospect a lot less agonizing than the inner pain he was feeling.

  He'd watched Mehitabel give birth to four tiny kittens there on Maura's side porch. He offered encouragement to the laboring cat until dawn peeped over the horizon, knowing that Maura wouldn't have wanted the cat to be alone at such a time. All the while he'd expected Maura to arrive home, tired yet exalted in that radiant way of hers, when he would gather her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her.

  Finally, after the sun had fully risen, turning the dewdrops on the roses into diamonds, he rose, too. He left his cramped position beside the cat's box and stretched, admitting to himself that Maura wasn't coming home any time soon. He was tired himself and didn't know if he could keep his eyes open all the way back to his villa. But he did, and he'd fallen into bed exhausted to catch a few hours of sleep before he woke and the sadness settled over hi
m again.

  The winding road led to one of his favorite places on Teoway Island, a place where he often went to find inner peace. He'd go there now and give himself over to it. He already knew what he'd done wrong with Maura. He hadn't fully accounted for the sadness in her, and he'd asked too much. And in some ways he hadn't asked enough. About her past, for instance. He'd have to clear up the mystery about that before they could pick up and go on. They could still have a satisfying life together. It was up to him to figure out where all the pieces fit, that's all.

  * * *

  Maura swung along the hard-packed sand, placing one foot in front of the other with great concentration. She had to concentrate on something as simple as walking in order not to think about what she was about to do.

  She'd called Xan's cell phone with no result. His office answering service operator—the gabby one, thank goodness—had asked her if she wanted to page him. Xan had, she said, gone for a motorcycle ride to the Vrooman mansion, an old plantation house on Teoway Island.

  "No," Maura had told the operator quickly, it wasn't necessary to page Xan. And then she'd borrowed a pair of white jeans and a saffron-colored Teoway Island T-shirt from Kathleen and set out for the Vrooman mansion.

  She knew the winding road Xan had ridden to the Vrooman place. It snaked through a palmetto-oak-magnolia maritime forest, and she wouldn't attempt a walk through such wild terrain by herself. The other way to reach the mansion was along the beach. Although it was a longer route, she didn't mind it because she welcomed the chance to think.

  But now she didn't want to think at all. Confronting Xan was something she'd do better to handle by instinct, like birthing babies. She was an instinct-oriented person, especially where human relationships were concerned.

  Now she could see the tall ruins of the mansion silhouetted against the cloudless blue sky. Her heart leaped to her mouth. What if Xan wasn't there after all and she had wasted the trip?

  She climbed to the top of the beach-front dune ridge and from the advantage of this height surveyed the mansion site. No sign of Xan. So she skidded down the side of the dune, her borrowed sneakers filling with sand, which was uncomfortable to say the least. She trudged on, peering ahead through the lush foliage. Was that bright-blue metal glinting there in the sunlight? Yes! It was Xan's motorcycle! She approached slowly, thumbs linked over the edges of her pockets, wondering where he might be.