Three Wishes

by Barbara Delinsky

  Bree was entranced by the look on Tom’s face when he first saw her. It combined longing and love with intense relief. He stopped just inside the revolving door. Alice rose. She didn’t come toward them, but her un-sureness ended his. He crossed the space in seconds, wrapped her in his arms, baby and all, and held them both for a long, silent time.

  The forty-eight hours that they had together couldn’t have been more perfect. As Boston fell behind mile by mile, so did the hard feelings that had kept them apart. By the time they reached Panama, all awkwardness was gone. The town was a pocket that the past couldn’t touch.

  Tom wanted to show Alice the town green, the church where he and Bree had been married, the office above the bank. Bree wanted to show her the town hall, where their wedding reception had been held, the general store, and the diner. Alice wanted to see the bungalow, the bench by the brook, the pumpkin field where the Labor Day barbecue had taken place.

  They saw it all. The weather was perfect, the foliage vivid even a week past its peak. Townsfolk waved as they drove by and approached when they stopped. Alice’s enthusiasm matched Tom’s pride. Both matched Bree’s happiness. She couldn’t even be envious of Tom’s intimate ease with his sister, because Alice was just as easy with her. In no time at all, she felt she had known Alice forever.

  They spent time at the bungalow and time at the diner. Tom baby-sat Jimmy while Bree took Alice to meet Julia, and when they should have returned, they traded grins instead and went to Verity’s cottage in the woods.

  Alice was spirited and fun. Bree adored her.

  And the baby? What could Bree say? He was smiley and sweet, wanting nothing more than dry diapers, mother’s milk, and the occasional bit of attention. Tom gave him far more than that, uncle and nephew a sight to behold. If Bree had even the tiniest lingering doubt about having risked a third wish on their own child, it was dispelled by the sight of Tom stretched out on the floor, watching in fascination while the baby played inches away.

  All too quickly, Alice’s time in Panama ended. With Boston’s approach, mile by mile, came threads of sadness.

  “Will you tell Dad you saw us?” Tom asked.

  “Not yet. But he isn’t indifferent. He reads your letters, reads them more than once. And he studies the pictures.”

  “Will he talk if I call?”

  “I don’t know. He visits the cemetery twice a week. That’s when he comes home all stoic and hard. I’ll work on him, Tom. I can’t promise anything more than that.” She hugged him, then opened her arms to Bree with a what-can-I-say expression.

  Bree held her tight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You’ve made him so happy by coming. Him and me.” Alice would be a wonderful aunt to her child. Bree felt a profound sense of relief knowing that Tom and the baby would have family, should anything happen to her.

  By the end of October, Bree stopped waitressing. She went to the diner every day, but what work she did was either by computer or by phone. Before and after, she sat talking with friends.

  “Only two months left,” Jane said. They sat side by side at the counter, having late-morning muffins and tea. “Can you stand it?”

  “Barely.”

  “You look good.”

  “I feel good.” She truly did—strong, energetic, and happy, so happy sometimes that she burst into tears. Waking up beside Tom each day was a dream, all the more so waking up pregnant beside him each day. Julia had been right about the joy of pregnancy, though Bree figured the father-to-be made the difference. Tom loved everything about her pregnant body. Rarely did a night pass when he didn’t remove her nightgown to run his hands, ever so slowly, over the mound of her belly. He loved the fullness of her breasts, loved the bump of her navel and the vertical line beneath it. He loved putting his ear to the baby and listening, and she loved pushing her hands into his hair or rubbing his bare shoulders and watching them, father and child.

  If only there weren’t that fear. It came and went, a scary little shred. She was seeing the doctor twice a month now. He swore all was just as it should be. The baby was bigger and more active. But December neared.

  “I want everything to go well,” she told Jane.

  “What’s not to go well?”

  She fiddled with the crumbs on her plate. “Remember I told you about the three wishes?”

  Jane nodded.

  “I think this was one.”

  “The baby?”

  “After the accident, the doctor told me I couldn’t have kids.”

  “Oh, Bree. You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to think about it. I told Tom before we got married. He was furious when I told him I wished for a baby.”

  “Why? What better thing to wish for?”

  “It might have been the third wish.” When the look on Jane’s face said she still didn’t get it, Bree added, “There’s a part of me that thinks I was put back on earth for Tom and the wishes, and that once the third one is granted, I’ll die.”

  “That’s crazy,” Jane scolded. She lowered her voice, but the fire remained. “Don’t say it, don’t think it, don’t breathe it.”

  “I can’t help it,” Bree cried. Most of the time she believed that the pregnancy had happened on its own, but there was no way she could be absolutely, positively sure that the wishes hadn’t been involved. She wrapped her fingers around Jane’s arm. “Promise me you’ll be there for Tom and the baby if anything happens.”

  “Don’t even mention the possibility—”

  “Promise me, Jane. You’re my best friend. I want you to say it.”

  “I’ll be there, but it won’t be necessary. Nothing’s going to happen. You’ll fly through the delivery. Afterward you and I will sit here and laugh that you thought for even one minute what you just thought.” She shivered. “God, Bree, that’s awful.”

  But Bree felt better with Jane’s promise secured. Dark images faded. Only bright ones remained. She smiled at those. “I’m okay now.”

  Jane eagerly changed the subject. “The shower’s going to be at Abby’s house. She insisted, and since the Nolans have the nicest house on the green, and since Abby’s baby-sitter can watch the other kids, too, it seems right. Next Friday at five. Okay?”

  “You guys don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, we do. Besides, it’s already done. Everyone knows. We’re not canceling.” Jane’s gaze shifted.

  Bree looked around and smiled more broadly when she found Verity leaning against the edge of the next stool. “Hi. Sit and have a muffin with us?” She raised a hand to LeeAnn, but Verity drew it back down.

  “I can’t stay,” she said softly. “I just wondered if you knew the sex of the baby. I’m crocheting something.”

  “Oh, Verity.” Bree was touched.

  “I want to make the color right.”

  “That’s so sweet of you. But I don’t know what the sex is.”

  Verity nodded. “Then I’ll make it generic.” She left the stool and was gone without another word.

  Bree understood the rush when Dotty took her place, looking back at the door. “Good thing you didn’t tell her. The last thing you need is something Verity makes.”

  “I would have told her, if I’d known the sex. I’d love to have something Verity makes. She’s very talented.”

  “She’s weird.”

  “She’s my friend.” Bree turned to Jane. “She’s coming to the shower, isn’t she?”

  “I invited her.”

  “You did?” Dotty asked. “You said you wouldn’t.”

  “You told me not to. I didn’t answer.”

  Dotty made a guttural sound. “You’re impossible.” With a look of disgust, she left.

  Jane kept her eyes on her tea. “I’m no more impossible than she is.”

  “You’re not impossible. There’s no comparison.”

  “I applied.”

  It was a minute before Bree understood what she meant. “To art school? That’s great.”
<
br />   “I don’t know if I’ll get in.”

  “You will.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll get a scholarship.”

  “You will.”

  Jane let out a weary breath. “I hope so. I can’t take much more, Bree.”

  “You won’t have to. Oh, I’m so pleased you did it. When will you hear?”

  “After the fifteenth of December.”

  That pleased Bree even more. It meant she would know before the baby came, which meant that she would be able to lobby for Jane if Dotty gave her trouble, which she was sure to do. Dotty was a difficult woman.

  Bree leaned close and, tongue in cheek, said, “Maybe your mom will have other plans next Friday at five?”

  Dotty was at the shower. Verity was not. Bree kept thinking about that afterward. Worried, she drove to the cottage the next day.

  Verity seemed unsure from the moment she opened the door. She invited Bree in and set about making tea, but she didn’t quite look Bree in the eye.

  So Bree said, “I missed you yesterday. Why weren’t you there?”

  Still without making eye contact, Verity said a breezy, “Oh, I hadn’t finished making what I wanted to make,” as though that were all there was to it, but Bree doubted it was.

  “You could have come anyway. You didn’t have to bring a gift.”

  Verity poured the tea.

  “Dotty said something to you, didn’t she?” Bree asked.

  A plate of sliced pumpkin bread joined the tea.

  “Why do you listen to her, Verity? She’s one of those people you talked about who have a closed mind.”

  Verity slipped a slice of the bread onto Bree’s dish. When Bree made no move to touch it, she sat back in her own seat, with her shoulders slumped. “She said you didn’t want me to come. She said that you would never say anything to me, that you’re too polite.” She looked up. “You are polite, I know that.”

  “I wanted you there. I told Dotty that. I told her you and I are friends. I’m sorry, Verity. She’s a witch.” Verity laughed at that.

  It was a minute before Bree realized what she had said. Then she laughed, too. “She is. Not you. Her.” She sobered. “I really did want you there. I want people to know we’re friends.”

  Verity’s smile turned sad. “No, you don’t. You don’t want that kind of stigma.”

  “There’s no stigma. Not for me. I don’t care what people think about our friendship.” “Your husband might.”

  “Tom? Oh, no. When I told him what I suspected Dotty did to you, he said . . . I won’t repeat it—it was crude.” And Verity was a southern lady, sitting there with her fine china and linen napkins. She still looked bohemian. But she was refined and sensitive.

  “Dotty isn’t alone. There are others who share her feelings. You have a baby to think about now. Maybe she’s right. Maybe the baby would be better off sleeping under someone else’s afghan.”

  Bree slid her arms across the table to touch Verity’s hands. “I would be honored if my baby had an afghan made by you. It would bring luck.”

  Verity looked like she wanted to believe that.

  “The baby may need luck,” Bree said quietly, straightening. “If this is the third wish, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She wished Verity could read the tea leaves in her cup.

  “You did the right thing,” Verity said. “I’ve seen your husband’s face when he’s looking at you. That expression is as close to holy as we have here on earth.”

  “What if I die?” Bree asked. She couldn’t ask anyone else quite as directly.

  “You died once,” Verity said. “Think back to how that was.”

  “I keep trying to, but I can’t.”

  “Earthly images have come in the way.”

  Yes. She supposed they had. Swept up in the joy of life, she had distanced herself from the being of light. She had wanted to feel normal.

  But she wasn’t normal. She would never be normal.

  “Take a deep breath,” Verity said. “Close your eyes. Clear your mind.”

  Bree took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. She cleared her mind.

  After a minute, Verity spoke again, but softly. “Now remember what happened that night.”

  That night. Bree recalled walking through the snow. She saw Tom’s Jeep coming up the hill and, looking toward the far end of the green, saw the pickup barreling toward them. She relived the fear she had felt at the last minute, felt the pain of being hit, saw herself on the operating table, seconds from death.

  Something took over her thought process then. Without a conscious effort to re-create it, she felt herself leaving her body and rising, rising past the room’s ceiling. Her mind’s eye looked up, drawn there by a light that grew brighter and brighter until it filled everything in its path. Love was there. Peace was. And happiness.

  Bree grew stronger. Fear vanished, done in by the sheer beauty of the place where she was. Here, anything was possible. Every outcome was positive. Whatever happened was meant to be.

  Calmer now, she drew in a deep, slow breath. Drowsy but renewed, she opened her eyes. They fell on Verity. “Thank you,” she said softly, and smiled.

  Dear Dad, Tom wrote on Thanksgiving night.

  I’m sitting in the family room with the fireplace lit and Bree curled up beside me, sleeping. We had a great day. Thanksgivings in Panama involve the whole town, so those of us without extended family don’t feel so alone. That doesn’t mean we don’t think about what might have been.

  I’m sorry we couldn’t have been there with all of you. I’m sorry you wouldn’t let us come. I respect the fact that you aren’t ready to see me. Still, it’s hard. Bree is at the end of her eighth month. The doctor doesn’t want her flying after this, and once the baby’s born, we’ll have to stay put for a while. I wished she could have met you—and you her—before the baby’s birth. She has no family at all besides me. She’s hungry for it.

  I know you’re angry at Alice for coming to visit, but I want you to know that in all the time we talked, she never once criticized you. She never once said she thought you were wrong to be angry. Don’t think that by her coming here, I got my way. If anything, her visit reminded me that I don’t have all of you.

  Bree loved having her here and wants her to come back. I wish you’d encourage her to.

  I wish you’d come yourself, if not now, then once the baby is born. My offer of tickets is still open, for as many of you as will come. My house is small. Not everyone would fit here, but we have friends in town who will gladly house the overflow.

  I was wrong, Dad. The way I behaved even before Mom got sick was wrong, and afterward, what I did was inexcusable. Mom’s gone now. I can never apologize to her. I can never move past this with her. But I’d like to with you. I’m not asking you to forget. I’m not even asking you to forgive. What I’m asking is if we can bury the hatchet and maybe recapture some of the good times. You’re the only grandfather my child will ever have.

  Love, Tom

  Two weeks later, Bree was at peace. The doctor pronounced her in fine health, if still a ways from delivering, and she wasn’t thinking about what-ifs. She had decided that nothing would get her down, and nothing did. Even eighteen pounds fatter, she was enjoying being a woman of leisure for the first and last time.

  The season was perfect for that. She had the diner’s best seat for watching the East Main Slide and got first crack at the cookie exchange during the annual clothing drive at the church. She spent hours reading before a blaring fire, and hours more at Verity’s with yarn and crochet hook in hand.

  Her joy was in spending time with those she cared most about. Tom topped the list, of course. Behind him came Jane, Liz, and Abby. Verity’s spot was more private, Julia’s more special.

  She was with Julia on this day, watching her arrange greens in the diner’s little black vases, when the front door opened. With the lunch rush over and the dinner rush yet to start, new arrivals stuck out.

  Bree didn’t
turn. She was too bulky to do it with ease and, after the first seconds, too busy watching Julia’s face. Her eyes had widened. Her skin had blanched. Her hands were suspended around the greens.

  Slowly, she lowered them. “Oh, my,” she said. “Oh, my.” She shot Bree a moment’s frightened glance and slid out of the booth.

  Only then did Bree turn. The newcomer was a woman, close to her own age, with thick dark hair spilling from a pretty wool hat, flushed cheeks, and a homespun look. Julia gave her a hug, then took her hand and stood for what seemed an unsure minute, before leading her back to the booth.

  Looking as nervous as Bree had ever seen her, she said, “Bree, this is my daughter, Nancy. Nancy Anderson, Bree Miller.”

  Tom spent the afternoon in Montpelier, negotiating with federal prosecutors in an attempt to forestall a client’s indictment for mail fraud. He carried a cellular phone, as Bree did. They had agreed she would call at the slightest hint of labor, but the phone didn’t ring.

  When he arrived home, Bree was setting the table. The instant she saw him, she dropped what she was doing and grabbed his shoulders. “You’ll never guess what. Julia’s daughter showed up, right out of the blue. It’s the first time she’s ever been here. Julia got so pale I thought she’d seen a ghost.”

  Tom hadn’t heard from Nancy since he had suggested she come. “Julia’s daughter? Nice. I take it Julia recovered?”

  “It took a while. They’ve had some differences. Julia was cautious at first.” She gave him a wide grin. “Hi, handsome. How was your day?”

  He laughed. It was a joy, the way she did that each time he came home from wherever he was. He caught her mouth in a kiss and moved his hand on her belly. “Hard as a rock. Muscles contracting?”

  “A lot. But I feel good.”

  “No pains?”

  “None. Tom, they’re coming for dinner.”

  “Who?” It took him a minute. “Here?” He counted the place settings. “Bree, you’re not making dinner.”

  “That’s what Julia said. But it’s all made. Flash did it, three courses’ worth. We just have to heat and serve.”