by Robin Wells
Lily takes a big bite of ice cream. “Do you have any pets?”
“No. I love dogs, but we both work too many hours to care for one.”
“Quinn has a doggy door,” Lily says. “That way Ruffles can go outside whenever she needs to.”
“That’s a good solution,” I say.
“It won’ work for a baby, though,” Lily says.
Quinn laughs and I smile, but the comment hits more nerve than funny bone. Jessica mentioned a donor egg again when I talked to her last night.
“So can we go to the zoo tomorrow?” Lily asks.
Quinn gives me a quizzical look. “How did you know my shop’s closed on Mondays?”
“I saw it online.”
“Can we go?” Lily turns pleading eyes on Quinn. “Can we?”
“I don’t know yet, sweetie,” Quinn says. “As I said, I have to check on Miss Margaret and get you enrolled in school, and I need to touch base with Miss Terri about client appointments.”
I pull out my phone and scroll through my schedule. “I can move things around for any afternoon this week.”
“Put it on your calendar,” Lily tells Quinn in an officious tone.
Quinn’s eyebrows rise.
“Put it on your calendar to check with Miss Terri an’ give him a call. If you schedule it, you won’ forget.”
I laugh at her precocious efficiency, but Quinn’s eyes fill with tears.
“Hey, Lily,” I say, “would you go get me another napkin from the counter, please?”
“Sure!” She hops up and heads to the front of the shop.
I lean over the table toward Quinn. “What’s wrong?”
She wipes away a tear with her napkin. “What she just said—she sounded just like her mother. Brooke scheduled everything.” Quinn dabs her face again. “Can you watch her for a moment while I run to the ladies’ room and pull myself together?”
“Sure.”
As I watch Quinn leave the table and Lily come back, I think about the movie Sliding Doors and the concept of parallel universes. How could I have lived on earth for the last few years and not known that I had a daughter? I think about the photos of Lily on Margaret’s Facebook page, about how much she’s already grown and changed in her short lifetime, and I have the strangest feeling that a large chunk of my life has somehow gone by without me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Quinn
Monday, May 13
SO HERE I am once more, with plans to go to the zoo with a father, only this one isn’t mine, and this time—just my luck—he’s going to show up. Zack just texted me that he’s on the way.
I stash a tube of sunblock and a package of hand wipes in my purse as Lily skips into the kitchen, her friend Alicia behind her. “Auntie Quinn, can Ruffles come with us?”
“No, sweetie,” I say. “Pets aren’t allowed at the zoo.”
“Aww!”
“She’ll take a nap while we’re gone, then be ready to play when we get back home. Zack is on his way, so please go put on your shoes.”
“Yay!” Both girls run away shrieking. I smile as I watch them race to the back door and pull on their sandals. Alicia is accompanying us. She only goes to preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I owe her mother some payback. She watched Lily again this morning while I went to the hospital to visit Margaret and handled Lily’s preschool reregistration, and she’s agreed to do so once more this evening. There’s another reason, too: I hope that having another child along will dilute some of the tension I feel around Zack.
I’m don’t like secrets, and I’m really uncomfortable with the secret connections between the three of us. Lily doesn’t know Zack is her dad, and Zack doesn’t know I’m carrying his unborn child. It’s still early days and I’m not yet showing, but I’m feeling so unlike myself that it’s hard to believe the world can’t tell I’m pregnant. My tummy is bloated, my breasts are tender, and my stomach is alternately—and sometimes simultaneously—nauseous and ravenous.
Zack’s presence in my life has other complicating factors, as well. It’s raising eyebrows with those who don’t know the full story. Alicia’s mother looked at me questioningly when I’d said a male friend was going to the zoo with us when I picked up Alicia.
“Is this someone you’re dating?” Caroline asked.
“No, nothing like that. He’s just a friend. Actually, he’s a friend of Miss Margaret’s.”
“Is this the same guy you and Lily had ice cream with?”
So Lily has been talking. “Yes.”
“Lily said he looks like a prince. I asked if he was a friend of Brooke’s, and she said no.” She paused and looked at me expectantly, obviously waiting for me to contribute information.
I just smiled and nodded.
“Does he live in the same town as Margaret?”
“No, he lives here. But he and his wife are about to move to Seattle.”
Her eyebrows arched upward. “He’s married?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going with him to the zoo.” Her voice held a question, although it wasn’t asked as one.
I lifted my shoulders. “You know Lily—she enchanted him. When he heard about Margaret being in the hospital and Lily losing her mother, he wanted to do something to cheer her up.” The more I talked, the odder the whole thing seemed. My face grew hot.
“Well, that’s really nice of him.” Caroline’s expression said she found this all very peculiar.
Did she think I was getting involved with a married man? Open, earth, and swallow me now. “Yeah,” I muttered. “He’s a nice guy.”
Maybe too nice. He’d dropped by the hospital again this morning to meet with Dr. McFadden. I appreciate hearing what Margaret’s physician has to say, but I find Zack’s involvement disconcerting. I’d hustled Alicia out her front door and back to my place before Caroline could pose any more awkward questions.
The two girls are playing zoo with Lily’s stuffed animals in the living room when Zack rings the doorbell ten minutes later. Ruffles barks and races to the front foyer. The two girls charge after her. I try not to notice how good Zack looks in jeans and a Tulane T-shirt when I open the door. He’s changed clothes; he was in a suit and tie at the hospital.
He flashes his dimple as he says hello. “Great house,” he comments as he steps inside.
“Thanks.” I catch myself folding my hands over his baby in my belly—his baby! Why does my brain insist on thinking in those terms?—and force my arms to my side.
Lily jumps up and down. “We’re ready!”
“Awesome,” Zack responds.
“This is Ruffles,” Lily says. “And this is my friend Alicia.”
Alicia shyly hangs back. Zack squats down to her height and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Ruffles.”
She giggles. “I’m Alicia!”
“Oh! I got confused.”
Both girls laugh.
Lily cocks her head at him. “Did you really?”
“Why, yes,” Zack says.
“He’s teasing,” I clarify.
“Alicia, he has his hand out so you can shake it. Like this,” Lily says. She grabs Zack’s fingers and gives a vigorous demonstration.
To my surprise, Alicia steps up and pumps his hand up and down. She’s usually very reticent around strangers.
“Does Ruffles know how to shake?” Zack says.
“No, but she can high-five,” Lily says. She sticks out her hand, and Ruffles taps her palm with a paw.
“Wow. That’s awesome! Did you teach her that trick?”
“No. Auntie Quinn did. She teached Ruffles to sit an’ speak an’ lie down an’ stay an’ go in an’ out the doggy door an’ to fetch her ball. Wanna see?”
“Sure!”
The girls race off to get the dog’s ball, and Zack stra
ightens.
“You did an impressive job getting Alicia to warm up to you,” I say.
He lifts his shoulders. “I’ve had a little practice with my sister’s kids and my wife’s sister’s kids. I only see them once or twice a year, so they always start out acting shy.”
The girls bound back into the entryway. “Fetch, Ruffles!” Lily says.
She tosses the ball into the living room, and Ruffles gamely retrieves it. The girls take turns demonstrating the floppy-haired dog’s fetching prowess. Zack watches, appearing suitably impressed.
After about the seventh or eighth round, I decide to call a halt. “Who wants to go to the zoo?”
“I do! I do!” Both girls raise their hands and jump up and down.
“Okay, then. Does anyone need to use the potty before we go?” I ask. Brooke taught me the importance of asking that question. Both girls shake their heads no.
“We’d better take my car,” I tell Zack. “It has two safety seats in the back.”
We all traipse out to the driveway. Lily and Alicia pile into the back and climb into their seats. I fasten Alicia’s five-point harness while Zack fastens Lily’s.
I check Lily’s seat belt when I go around the car. “It’s not that I don’t think you did it correctly,” I say apologetically as I climb into the driver’s seat. “It’s just that Brooke told me I always needed to check, so—”
He lifts his hands. “Hey, I’m happy to be with someone who knows what they’re doing.”
I’m a little nervous backing out of the driveway. Zack is watching me, and being watched makes me feel like I’m being judged. It’s a holdover from my childhood, when being noticed meant being criticized. I peer in the rearview mirror and turn my attention to the girls.
“What’s the first animal you want to see at the zoo?” I ask.
“The ele-funks!” Alicia says. “They’re my favorites.”
“Then the monkeys,” Lily says. “I love monkeys!
“What’s your favorite an’mal, Mr. Zack?” Lily asks.
“Hmm. It’s probably a tie between gorillas and bears,” he says.
“I know Auntie Quinn’s, ’cause it’s the same as my mommy’s. Giraffes!”
“That’s true,” I say.
“It’s ’cause they have long eyelashes like mine. Right?”
“Yes, baby girl,” I tell her. I smile at her friend in the rearview mirror, not wanting Alicia to feel left out. “And Alicia has beautiful giraffe eyes, too.”
The conversation is child-driven and animal-centric all the way up Magazine Street. Alicia is nearly as talkative as Lily by the time I pull into the parking lot. We all pile out.
“Please hold an adult’s hand until we get inside,” I tell them. Alicia grabs mine, and Lily takes Zack’s. I’m surprised by how easily she goes with him.
He pays for everyone’s tickets at the gate. The woman in the ticket booth smiles at him. “You have a beautiful family.”
“We’re not a family,” Alicia informs her.
“We could be,” Lily says. “We’re friends, an’ my mommy says friends are the family you choose.”
“Friends aren’t family,” Alicia insists.
“They can be.” Lily turns to me. “Right, Auntie Quinn?”
“There are different kinds of families,” I say, not wanting to have this particular conversation in front of Zack. “Who knows the way to the elephants?”
“I do! I do!” Lily and Alicia bounce up and down, then charge toward the entrance.
“Don’t run, and stay within eyesight,” I call.
They slow down, but it’s surprising how fast their little legs can move. Zack and I have to hustle to keep up.
At the elephant exhibit, they move to the front, joining a cluster of other children. Zack and I stand back and watch them.
“Lily’s amazing,” Zack says. “So smart and polite and enthusiastic!”
I feel a little burst of pride, although I don’t know why—I certainly can’t take any credit for her. “She’s a great kid. Brooke was a terrific mother.”
He folds his arms as he watches her. His forearms are muscular and dusted with light brown hair. “I can’t get over how young she is. I was just nineteen when I donated, so when I learned I had a child, I thought he or she would be older.”
“I didn’t know you’d been that young.” I stop myself from putting my hand over my stomach. Don’t think about being pregnant when you’re around him, I tell myself. And for the sake of everything holy, don’t think about how attractive he is! “What does your wife think about you meeting Lily?”
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It’s a little complicated.”
He’s trying to sidestep the question. I don’t want to let him; I have deep stepmother issues, so if there’s a problem with his wife, I want to know about it. “You said she signed you up on the donor registry site,” I push.
“Yeah.” He rubs his jaw, glances at me, and then blows out a sigh. “The truth is, Jessica’s having a hard time with it.” He fixes his gaze on the elephants. “We’ve been going through fertility treatments for the last two years. As the treatments failed, she became kind of obsessed with whether or not I have any donor children.”
My stomach tightens. This can’t be good.
“She’s started wondering if every child she sees in New Orleans is mine. That’s one of the reasons this move to Seattle seems like a good idea.”
The shriek of Lily’s laughter carries over the noise of the crowd. She twists toward us. “Auntie Quinn! Mr. Zack! The ele-funk’s takin’ a shower!”
I look over, and sure enough, one of the elephants has lifted her trunk over her head to spray her broad gray back with water.
“Come up here an’ watch with us!” Lily calls.
“We’re being summoned,” I say to Zack.
“So it appears.” He grins, then gestures for me to precede him through the crowd. As he follows me to the front of the exhibit, I tell myself two things. One: the only reason my heart skips when he smiles is because his dimple is a dead ringer for Lily’s; and two: he’s absolutely right about his move to Seattle being a good idea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jessica
“HOW WAS THE zoo?” I ask when Zack answers his phone.
“Oh, man, it was awesome!” His voice is more upbeat and exuberant than he’s sounded in weeks. Maybe months. Possibly even years.
“That’s terrific.” I try my best to sound cheerful. I excused myself from looking at a house with Brett and went outside to place this call. The truth is, I’m almost sick with jealousy that he spent the day with Lily and Quinn, but I’m relieved that Zack no longer sounds tense or angry.
“Lily is just amazing,” Zack says.
“Yeah?”
“She’s a bundle of pure, unfiltered joy. She and her friend literally jumped up and down when they were happy or excited. I always thought ‘jumping for joy’ was a figure of speech.”
“Kids are fun,” I say.
“They are,” he agrees. “One of the elephants gave himself a bath, and you would have thought it was the funniest, most exciting thing that had happened in world history. And then there was a little orangutan who cracked us all up, and Lily wanted to know if he was being funny on purpose. We went to the petting zoo, and her little friend Alicia was afraid of the goats, but Lily just went right up to them—she was fearless, but extremely gentle. Really, Jessica—she’s just amazing! At the giraffe exhibit she started crying because giraffes were her mother’s favorite animal, and she misses her mom.”
“Oh, how heartbreaking!”
“Yeah. It was tough to take.” I can tell that he was really moved. “But Quinn is fantastic with her. She got Lily to talk about the fun times she’d had with her mom and told her that she’s probably riding giraffes in heaven
, and before I knew it, Lily was back to smiling and chattering.”
“That’s great.” A bitter taste fills the back of my throat.
“Kids are really resilient, you know? I don’t think a three-year-old totally understands the concept of death, but it’s probably for the best. Anyway, by the end of the day, it was as if Lily had known me her whole life. I carried her for a while because her shoe started to hurt and we had to find a Band-Aid. She calls me Mr. Zack.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” I tell him. “In fact, I’m thinking about coming home early.”
A long, awkward silence follows. I’m beginning to think the connection has dropped. “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Zack finally says. Is there something a bit off in his voice, or am I just paranoid?
“I know I don’t need to, but I want to. I miss you.”
He hesitates again. It’s a really short pause—no more than a heartbeat, really. “I miss you, too.”
I don’t know if it’s that tiny hesitation or if something in his voice sounds forced, but the words somehow don’t ring true. I feel as if all my blood has drained away.
“How about you? How was your day?” he asks.
“It’s two hours earlier here, so it’s still in progress. After a long morning meeting and lunch with the regional staff, I met up with Brett to tour a house that just came on the market. We’re at the property now.”
“Well, I won’t keep you.” Am I imagining it, or does he sound eager to end the call?
“How is Margaret?” I ask.
“She’s holding her own. She’ll probably be released from the ICU to a private room tomorrow or the next day.”
“That’s good.”
“Absolutely,” he says. “Look, I know you’re busy, so I’ll let you go.”
He’s definitely wanting to end the call. “All right. I love you!” I say.
“Back at you.” This is our standard sign-off, but under the circumstances, I don’t feel good about it. I don’t feel good at all.
