by Sarah Morgan
“Mommy—” Ruby hung on her hand, the pressure making Beth’s shoulder ache “—I’m tired.”
Me, too, Beth thought. “If you walk faster, we’ll soon be home. Hold Bugsy tight. We don’t want to drop him here. And don’t walk too close to the road.”
She saw accidents everywhere. It didn’t help that Ruby was a fearlessly adventurous child with no apparent sense of self-preservation or caution. Melly was virtually glued to Beth’s side, but Ruby wanted to explore the world from every angle.
It was exhausting.
Beth wanted to work for Glow PR. She wanted to walk along Fifth Avenue without needing to be alert to potential disaster. She wasn’t the first mother to want both work and family. There had to be a way to make it happen.
Jason’s mother lived nearby, and Beth was hoping that if she found a job, Alison might be prepared to help out with childcare. Melly and Ruby adored Jason’s mother. Beth adored her, too. Alison defied all the mother-in-law clichés. Instead of resenting Beth as the woman who stole her only son, she welcomed her like the daughter she’d never had.
Beth was sure Alison would be delighted to help, which left the small problem of finding a job.
Did she have what it took to impress Corinna after seven years out of the game?
She felt woefully unequipped to return to the corporate world. She wasn’t sure she was capable of conducting an adult conversation, let alone dazzling people with creative ideas.
Maybe she should call her sister. Hannah would understand the lure of a career. She worked as a management consultant and seemed to spend most of her life flying first-class round the globe being paid an exorbitant amount to fix corporations unable to fix themselves.
They were due to meet up the following night, and Beth had been meaning to call and confirm.
Hannah answered in her usual crisp, no-nonsense tone.
“Is this an emergency, Beth? I’m boarding. I’ll call you when I land if there’s time before my meeting.”
How are you, Beth? Good to hear from you. How are Ruby and Melly?
Beth had always wanted to be close to her sister and wasn’t sure whose fault it was that they weren’t. It had got worse lately. Regular dinners had become less regular. Was it her fault for only having the children to talk about? Did her own sister find her boring?
“Don’t worry.” Beth tightened her grip on wriggling, writhing Ruby. It was like trying to hold hands with a fish, but she didn’t dare let go or Ruby would end up under the wheels of a cab. “We can talk tomorrow over dinner. It’s not urgent.”
“I was going to call you about that—No champagne, thank you, I’m working. Sparkling water will be fine—” Hannah broke off to speak to the stewardess and Beth tried to suppress the stab of envy.
She wanted to be in a position to turn down champagne.
No, thanks, I need to keep a clear head for my meeting where I will say something important that people want to hear.
“You’re canceling on me again?”
“I have a job, Beth.”
“I know.” She didn’t need reminding. And here she was, a stay-at-home mom with a growing complex that was fed and nurtured by her more successful sister. She tried not to think about the lamb marinating in her fridge or the extravagant dessert she’d planned. Hannah ate at all the best restaurants. Was she really going to be impressed by her sister’s attempts at Christmas pavlova? Whisked egg whites were hardly going to change the world, were they? And was Beth really so desperate that she needed the approval? “Where are you off to this time?”
“San Francisco. It was a last-minute thing. I was going to text you right after I finished this email.”
It was always a last-minute thing with Hannah. “When are you back?”
“Late Friday, and then I’m off to Frankfurt on Sunday night. Can we reschedule?”
“This is a reschedule,” Beth said. “In fact, it’s a reschedule of a reschedule of a reschedule.”
The rustle of papers suggested Hannah was doing something else at the same time as talking to Beth. “We’ll fix another date. You know I’d love to see you.”
Beth didn’t know.
What she knew was that she was the one who put all the effort into the relationship. She often wondered whether Hannah would bother to get in touch if Beth were to give up trying. But she would never give up. Even though Hannah frequently drove her crazy and hurt her feelings, Beth knew how precious it was to have family. She intended to hang on to hers even if it meant leaving fingernail imprints on Hannah’s flesh. “Have I offended you in some way? You always have some excuse not to see us.”
There was a pause. “I have a meeting, Beth. Don’t take it personally.”
Beth had a horrible feeling it was as personal as it could get.
Like Corinna, Hannah didn’t do children, but this was more than that. Beth was starting to think her sister didn’t like Ruby and Melly, and the thought was like a stab through the heart.
“I’m not overreacting. You’ve pulled away.” Corinna had been her boss—there was no obligation on her to like Beth’s children, but Hannah was their aunt, for goodness’ sake.
“We’re both busy. It’s difficult to find a time.”
“We live in the same city and we never see each other. I have no idea what’s going on in your life! Are you happy? Are you seeing someone?” She knew her mother would ask her, so she considered it her duty to be an up-to-date source of information. Also, she was a romantic. And then there was the fact that if Hannah had a partner they might see more of each other. The four of them could go out to dinner.
But apparently it wasn’t to be.
“This is Manhattan. It’s crowded. I see a lot of people.”
Beth gave up trying to extract information. “Ruby and Melly miss you. You’re the only family that lives close by. They love it when you visit.” She decided to test a theory. “Come over next weekend.”
“You mean to the apartment?”
Beth was sure she hadn’t imagined the note of panic in her sister’s voice. “Yes. Come for lunch. Or dinner. Stay the whole day and a night.”
There was a brief pause. “I’m going to be working right through. Probably best if you and I just grab dinner in the city one evening.”
A restaurant. In the city. A child-free evening.
Beth scooped Ruby up with one arm, feeling a wave of love and protectiveness.
These were her children, her kids, her life. They were the most important thing in her world. Surely her sister should care about them for that reason if nothing else?
The irony was that because Hannah rarely saw them, the girls saw her as a figure of glamour and wonder.
Last time Hannah had visited, Ruby had tried to crawl onto her lap for a hug and Hannah had frozen. Beth had half expected her to yell Get it off me! In the end she’d removed a bemused Ruby and distracted her, but she’d been hurt and upset by the incident. She’d remained in a state of tension until her sister had left.
Jason had reminded her that Hannah was Hannah and that she was never going to change.
“Fine. We’ll grab dinner sometime. You work too hard.”
“You’re starting to sound like Suzanne.”
“You mean Mom.” Beth unpeeled Ruby’s fingers from her earring. “Why can’t you ever call her Mom?”
“I prefer Suzanne.” Hannah’s tone cooled. “I’m sorry I’m canceling, but we’ll have plenty of time to catch up over Christmas.”
“Christmas?” Beth was so shocked she almost dropped Ruby. “You’re going home for Christmas?”
“If by ‘home’ you mean Scotland, then yes—” Hannah’s voice was muffled as she said something else to the stewardess—I’ll have the smoked salmon and the beef—
Beth might have wondered why her sister was ordering smoked salmon and beef when the
y both knew she’d take two mouthfuls and leave the rest, but she was too preoccupied by the revelation that her sister would be home for Christmas. “You didn’t make it last year.”
“I had a lot going on.” Hannah paused. “And you know what Christmas is like in our house. It’s the only time we all get together and the place is a pressure cooker of expectation. Suzanne fussing and needing everything to be perfect and Posy blaming me when it isn’t...”
It was so unusual for Hannah to reveal what she was thinking that Beth was taken aback. Before she could think of an appropriate response, Hannah had changed the subject.
“Is there anything in particular the girls would like for Christmas?”
The girls. The children. Hannah always lumped them together, and in doing so, she somehow dehumanized them.
Beth knew her sister would delegate gift buying to her assistant. It would be something generous that the girls would forget to play with after a week and Beth would be left with the feeling that her sister was compensating.
She thought about the fire engine currently smacking against her leg as she walked and knew she wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize anyone for overcompensating. “Don’t buy anything that squeaks or emits sirens in the middle of the night. And spend the same amount on both of them.”
She kept a mental tally and watched herself constantly to check she wasn’t showing a preference, that she wasn’t admonishing one more than the other, or showing more interest in one than the other.
Her children were never going to feel their parents had a favorite.
“I am the last person you need to say that to.”
In that brief moment, she and her sister connected. That single invisible thread from the past bound them together.
Beth wanted to grab that connection and reel her sister in, but the blare of horns and the general street noise made it the wrong place to have a deeply personal conversation. And then there were the listening ears of the girls, who missed nothing.
“Hannah, maybe we could—”
“What are they into at the moment?” With that single question, Hannah chopped the connection and floated back to that safe place where no one could reach her.
Beth felt a pang of loss. “Melly wants to be a ballerina or a princess, and Ruby wants to be a firefighter.”
“A princess?”
Beth heard judgment in her sister’s tone. “I buy her gender-neutral toys and tell her she could be an engineer and apply to NASA, but right now she just wants to live in a castle with a prince, preferably while dressed as the Sugar Plum Fairy.” She didn’t bother adding, “Wait until you have children and then you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
No matter how much their mother longed for Hannah to fall in love and settle down, anyone vaguely grounded in reality could see that was not going to happen.
3
Hannah
Pregnant.
Hannah closed her eyes and tried to control the panic.
There was still a chance she might not be pregnant. True, she was five days late, but there were other things that could cause that. Stress, for example. She was definitely stressed.
She dropped her phone back into her bag, feeling guilty about Beth.
She hadn’t forgotten dinner. She’d canceled because she knew she couldn’t handle an evening in the child-centered chaos of her sister’s apartment.
Was she crazy going home for Christmas this year? Last year she’d lost her nerve at the last minute and pretended she was working. She’d switched off her phone and spent the time in her apartment numbing her feelings with several bottles of good wine and a reading marathon. By the time she’d closed the final book, the festive season had been over.
This year that wasn’t an option.
She dreaded the forced togetherness of Christmas and the pressure that came with it.
Her family thought she was a career woman, with no time for relationships.
That was going to make for an interesting conversation if she was pregnant.
She should do a test. Find out one way or another. But then she’d know, and right now she’d rather cling to the vague hope that her perfectly organized life wasn’t about to become complicated.
“Everything all right, Hannah?”
Hannah opened her eyes. Adam was standing in the aisle of the first-class cabin, stowing his overnight bag.
“Everything is fine.” Hannah already had her bag safely tucked away and her laptop by her seat. She lived with a sense that things were about to go horribly wrong, and did what she could to prevent it by planning and controlling every last detail of her life.
“Are you sure? That conversation sounded tense.” He sat down next to her. He was tall and rangy, his long legs filling the abundant space in front of his seat. “Problems?”
Normally when she was traveling, Hannah preferred to keep herself to herself. If such a thing as a Do Not Disturb sign existed for passengers, she would have been wearing it.
Today, however, she was traveling with Adam. Adam was her colleague and, for the past few months, her lover.
Turned out he might also be the father of her child, which she knew would be as much of a shock to him as to her.
“I was talking to Beth.”
Guilt pricked like holly. Beth was right that she hadn’t seen her nieces for a while. The girls were adorable, but being with them made Hannah feel inept and inadequate. She found it impossible to read fairy stories where everyone lived happily ever after. She couldn’t bring herself to perpetrate that lie. There was no Santa. There was no tooth fairy. Love couldn’t be guaranteed.
She’d tried explaining that to Beth once, but her sister had thought she was being ridiculous.
Maybe life doesn’t always end happily, Hannah, but I’d rather protect my kids from that reality when they’re young if that’s all right with you!
Hannah thought it was healthier if one’s expectations of life were grounded in reality. If you didn’t expect much, you didn’t have as far to fall when you finally realized that no amount of planning could stop bad things happening.
A few years before, after an unexpected snowstorm, Hannah had been forced to stay the night at Beth’s apartment. In the middle of the night, Ruby had crawled into her bed. Hannah had felt the tickle of soft curls against her skin and the solid warmth of the child through the brushed cotton of her pajamas as she’d snuggled close for reassurance. It had reminded her so much of that one terrible night when Posy had climbed into her bed that the memories had almost suffocated her.
The fact that her sister didn’t understand simply made her feel more isolated.
She’d left before breakfast, choosing to battle snowdrifts and bad weather to escape the memories. She’d been careful never to put herself in that position again. Until now.
She ran her fingers around the neck of her sweater, even though it wasn’t tight.
Christmas was going to be hard, but even she couldn’t find a way to evade it for a second year. The McBride family always gathered at Christmas. It was tradition. She’d resigned herself to the fact that it was something she was going to have to live through, like a bad bout of the flu. But now she had this added complication.
“She was upset that you canceled?” Adam watched her, concerned, and she looked away quickly. He noticed things. Small things that other people missed. It was one of the attributes that made him good at his job. It was also part of the unsettling attraction she’d felt since his first day at the company. Hannah had been completely unprepared for the startling chemistry between them. She was so good at controlling her feelings it had come as a nasty shock to discover they were capable of rebellion.
“I’ve hurt her.”
He removed his phone from his pocket and handed his jacket to the steward. “Why don’t you tell her the truth? Tell her you fin
d it hard being around the kids.”
Oh the irony.
If I’m pregnant, I’m going to have to find a way to be around kids.
It still surprised her that she’d talked to him about her family, but Adam was remarkably easy to talk to.
She hadn’t told him everything, of course, but more than she’d shared with anyone else.
“It’s...complicated.” She noticed that a couple across the aisle from her were traveling with a baby. They hadn’t even taken off but already the baby was fussy and restless. Hannah hoped it wasn’t going to cry for the whole flight. Listening to a child cry made her stomach hurt.
“Introduce me to her, and I’ll do it.”
“What?” She turned back to Adam, confused.
“I want to meet your sister.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what people do in our position.”
“Our position?”
“I’m in love with you.” He said it easily, as if love wasn’t the most profoundly terrifying thing that could happen to a person. “Or are we going to ignore that?”
“We’re going to ignore it.” At least for now. She had the same control over her feelings as she did over her schedule. She’d learned to hold them back. If there was one thing she hated in life, it was emotional chaos.
“I should be offended that you’re treating my heartfelt declaration of love so lightly.”
“You were drunk, Kirkman.”
“Not true. I was in full control of my faculties.”
“As I recall, you’d consumed several glasses of bourbon.”
“It’s true that I may have needed a little liquid support to give me courage—” he shrugged “—but saying I love you is a big deal to a guy who has been single for as long as I have.”
She hadn’t allowed herself to believe that he was serious.
For Hannah, love was an emotional form of Russian roulette. It was a game she didn’t play.
Her emotional safety was the most important thing in the world to her.
She didn’t even want to think about how complicated it would be if there was a baby in the mix.
