Rough Around the Edges

by Marie Ferrarella

  Her eyes widened and she looked toward the closet where the nurse had placed both the jacket and the ruined sweater. The latter was in a sealed plastic bag. “Oh, I’m sorry—how did you get home? Did your wife…?”

  “No wife. I’ve a few talents my sainted mother wished I didn’t have. But I’ll be taking the keys now if you don’t mind, as well as the jacket itself and the sweater.” He paused as a thought hit him. “You do still have them, don’t you?”

  “In the closet.” She pointed.

  He realized she was looking at the flowers he’d brought. The ones he’d thought to pick up at the gift shop downstairs. The ones he’d forgotten he was holding the instant he’d seen that bare shoulder of hers and the hospital gown dipping down temptingly over the swell of her breast.

  Fumbling mentally, O’Rourke paused before opening the closet. “Oh, these. To celebrate you being my first nonfamily delivery, I brought you flowers.” Crossing to her bed, he handed her the large bouquet.

  How long had it been since she’d had flowers from anyone? The last time she recalled, it had been for her high school graduation and it was her father who’d given them to her.

  “And those?” she nodded at the tiny one he still held. “Did your flowers give birth, too?”

  Now that he thought of it, the notion that had prompted him to pick up the smaller bouquet seemed foolish. He shrugged, trying to seem casual.

  “I got them for the little one. Flowers from her first admirer, so to speak.” He turned away in case Kitt wanted to laugh, pretending to look around. “Is there a vase someplace?”

  Kitt felt her eyes begin to smart. She couldn’t remember when she’d been so touched.

  “You can use the water pitcher,” she suggested quietly. Her throat felt as if it was closing up. “And the little bouquet can go into the glass.”

  She had absolutely no idea why a tiny handful of flowers would affect her so. There were tears threatening to spring into her eyes. Maybe it was because the baby’s father hadn’t even wanted to stick around to see her born, much less bring her flowers.

  Or maybe it was just postpartum depression, Kitt told herself. Why else would she suddenly feel so weepy over tiny white and purple daisies?

  Deciding the jacket and sweater could wait, O’Rourke laid the large bouquet on its side on the counter, took the pitcher and filled it halfway with water. He did the same with the glass, then tucked the appropriate bouquets into each.

  “I hope your husband won’t mind my bringing you flowers.” Lucky thing the man wasn’t here, O’Rourke realized. The situation could have become rather sticky. He knew he wouldn’t exactly appreciate someone bringing flowers to his wife if he had one.

  The lump in Kitt’s throat grew a little larger and she called herself an idiot to waste any emotion on a man who wouldn’t waste the time of day on her. Sheer will made the lump dissolve.

  She laughed shortly under her breath. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about on that score.”

  There was something in her voice that caught his attention. O’Rourke turned around, the water pitcher in one hand, the glass in the other. Flowers bowing their heads from each.

  “You’re not married.”

  It wasn’t a question. As soon as he said it, he had got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t.

  Kitt raised her chin in an unconscious, defiant gesture. It wasn’t by choice she found herself in this situation, she thought, squelching the pang she felt. She came from old-fashioned people with old-fashioned values. You married the person you loved and made babies with. Jeffrey hadn’t quite seen it her way. But she’d hung on, hoping. Which probably made her a fool in most people’s books, she imagined.

  “No, I’m not.”

  There was a gruffness in her voice, a defensiveness. He’d gone somewhere he wasn’t supposed to, he thought.

  O’Rourke figured it wasn’t a good idea for a new mother to get upset so soon after delivery. Setting both bouquets of flowers down on the counter that ran against the wall where she could see them, he attempted to sound disinterested.

  “No one’s judging you, love. It was just a question. Just didn’t want to be getting my head bashed in by some jealous husband, that’s all.”

  There was a brief flash of kindness in his eyes as he looked at her.

  What was the matter with her? Kitt upbraided herself. He was only being nice. She looked for a way to change the subject. “Irish, right? Your accent, I mean,” she added when he didn’t say anything.

  “Yes, Irish. County Cork, specifically. Born and raised. But I thought my accent was sublimated after all this time. I’ve been here four years.”

  “No, it’s not.” She thought his accent rather charming, and though it wasn’t exactly thick enough to cut with a knife, it was still very much there. “Why would you want to lose it?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Not lose it, just put it on hold for a while. Natives tend to have more faith in dealing with natives than foreigners. It only stands to reason.”

  “Not if the foreigners have more to offer than the natives. What is it that you do?”

  What did he call himself? Entrepreneur? Computer visionary? Dreamer? Not exactly sure where to begin, he settled for mystery. “It’s complicated.”

  Kitt frowned. Even in this so-called enlightened day and age, she still ran into prejudice in her field. Was he like that, given to believing inherently in male superiority? “I didn’t push out my brains along with Shawna. Try me.”

  Any thought of explanations were suddenly aborted. “Shawna?”

  That’s right, he didn’t know, she realized. She’d made the decision during the morning feeding.

  “My baby. Since I didn’t have a name picked out for her, I thought it only fitting that she be named after the man who helped bring her into the world. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Mind?” O’Rourke echoed. “No.” It hit him funny, creating a small, odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. A little like what he’d experienced when he’d first held the tiny being in his arms last night, except more so. Shawna. He liked it. “Huh. Never had anyone named after me before.”

  “Then consider it a first.” They were getting away from the topic and she was suddenly consumed with curiosity. “You were about to tell me what you do.”

  He sighed, looking out the window. He could see the harbor from where he stood. The ocean seemed calm. He’d be crossing an ocean soon himself if things didn’t turn around for him.

  “Not much of anything if the government has its way.” He saw her looking at him oddly. “I’m about to be deported.”

  Kitt’s mind jumped to the documentary she’d watched the other night on gangland criminals from the 1930s. Lucky Luciano had been deported. “You’re an undesirable?”

  O’Rourke’s lips curved in a slightly lopsided smile. “That all depends on your definition of undesirable, I suppose.” Since he’d mentioned it, there was no point in keeping her in the dark about the actual reason. “My visa’s up in thirteen days.”

  He didn’t seem very happy about that, she noted. Maybe he had nothing to go back to. She knew how that was. She wouldn’t have wanted to go back to her old home, either. Her parents were both gone and her only brother had moved away to Oregon a couple of years ago. Nothing left but memories. “Can you get an extension?”

  He laughed softly. “Those are up, too.”

  She had no idea why, but it made her sad to think of his leaving. “Then you have to go back?”

  Pushing his hands into his pockets, he looked out the window again and stared at cottony clouds that seemed to be pasted in the sky. There had to be a solution, he was just missing it. “Looks that way.”

  “And you don’t want to.”

  No, he didn’t want to, he thought. O’Rourke looked at her, trying to keep his tone light. “I’m not nearly ready. The work I’m doing—” No point in getting into that. “Well, it’s complicated.”

&nbs
p; They’d come full circle. “So you said.” She thought of her own circumstances. “Well, at least you have somewhere to go to. Count yourself lucky.”

  Years of playing both mother and father to his siblings while trying to juggle his own life had made him keenly attuned to nuances, though he never admitted as much outright. “Why, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do.” Hearing herself snap had Kitt relenting as she offered him a contrite smile. “At least, temporarily.” Because he’d told her some of his problem, she suddenly felt the need to open up herself. The strain of keeping it bottled up was suddenly too much. “You want to compare hard-luck stories? I’ll give you a hard-luck story. Try coming back home after being laid off, or ‘outplaced’ as they whimsically call it at the company where I work, excuse me, worked, to find out that the man you’ve given your heart, not to mention your paychecks, to has decided that the aerobic instructor down the hall was more suited to him than the slightly overweight, now-out-of-work aerospace engineer he’d been living with, so he’s run off with her.” She’d been an idiot to call Jeffrey with the news, expecting sympathy. But how was she to know he’d suddenly bolt? “Run off with her, most of my things and all of my joint bank account. The rent’s not even paid. It hasn’t been for the last three months and the landlady said I have to move out immediately.” She struggled to keep the bitterness, as well as the panic, out of her voice. “As of right now, I have no permanent address.”

  Forgetting that she was a stranger, O’Rourke took the tone he used with his siblings whenever one of them messed up. “Are you daft, woman? How could you have a joint bank account with a man who wasn’t your husband?”

  She took umbrage at his tone. “Where I come from, they call it being in love.”

  O’Rourke snorted. “Where I come from, they call it being stupid.”

  She didn’t need this abuse. She’d upbraided herself enough on her own. Served her right for opening up to a total stranger. What was she thinking?

  That was the problem, she wasn’t thinking, only feeling. Big mistake. Not one she meant to repeat.

  “Well, thank you for your flowers,” she said coldly, “but I think you’d better leave now.”

  He’d insulted her. O’Rourke tried to look properly contrite. It was an expression he couldn’t ever quite manage.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come out. I have a habit of speaking my mind a little too bluntly.” He could almost hear his mother’s voice in his head. “My mother used to say it’s what made me so rough around the edges. I tend to plow right into the thick of things instead of looking for the door and opening it first. Sorry,” he repeated.

  Kitt blinked back tears, annoyed with herself for suddenly unloading and then for getting upset about it. Talk about hormones running amok and being out of whack.

  She waved away his apology. “Not your fault. I’m just a poor judge of character.”

  O’Rourke looked around for a box of tissues, knowing there had to be one somewhere in the room. He spotted it on the counter beside the sink.

  “You’re not the first one to have that problem, or the last.” He picked up the box and brought it over to Kitt. “Fell for the wrong person myself, I did. Problem was, I thought she’d wait for me while I got our future together. Turns out she went on to another man because she got tired of waiting for me.” O’Rourke stopped, surprised to hear himself tell her that. It wasn’t something he talked about, not even with his friends.

  Reaching, Kitt took a tissue out of the box in his hand and wiped the dampness from around her eyes. He was matching her woe for woe. She looked up and studied him for a moment.

  “Have you always had this competitive problem?” she asked. “This need to out-misery someone?”

  O’Rourke frowned, thinking himself a dolt. Why had he just said all that? It had to be the deportation weighing heavily on his mind that was making him lose his grip this way. Otherwise, why would he just talk about things best left unsaid?

  He tossed the box back on the counter. “I was just trying to make you feel better.”

  “Sorry.” She wiped a last stray tear that had trickled out. “It worked.” Kitt balled the tissue up in her palm, then sighed. “Temporarily at least.” A knock on her door interrupted whatever she was going to add. “Come in.”

  The door slowly opened and a cheery-looking nurse entered, pushing a small bassinet with a small occupant before her.

  “Someone here to see you.” The nurse’s brown eyes lit up when she looked at the man standing beside her patient. “And her daddy, too.”

  “Oh, I’m not—”

  The nurse brought the bassinet to a halt at the foot of the bed. “Sterile, no, but that can be taken care of quickly enough,” she assured him, crossing to the far wall with its cupboards and closets. “Not sterile in the traditional sense, of course,” she chuckled. “That little darling there proved that handily enough.”

  Chattering away happily, the nurse opened up the cupboard beneath the sink and took out what looked like a flat blue paper towel. Deftly, she shook it out and the “towel” transformed into a paper gown intended to cover the length of its wearer. She held it out to him.

  “Here, you put this on and then you can hold your daughter.” After a beat, O’Rourke took it from her. She interpreted his look her own way. “Probably seems silly to you, seeing as how you held her without that to begin with. We all heard about the delivery,” she confided with a wink. “Very impressive. Lots of fathers fold at the first sign of blood. They go down like a stone. You’re a lucky lady,” she told Kitt, patting her arm a moment before she went to pick up the baby.

  Holding the infant to her, the nurse looked at O’Rourke expectantly. He was still holding the blue paper gown in his hand.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation? Put it on.” She waved him to it. “I can’t let you hold her until you have the gown on,” she reiterated. “And wash your hands. Rules.”

  It was either put on the gown, or launch into an explanation that, the story making the rounds not-withstanding, he wasn’t the father. O’Rourke didn’t feel like getting into that. It hadn’t worked with the well-meaning policeman last night and he had a feeling it wasn’t going to convince the nurse now.

  Besides, he wasn’t adverse to holding the baby again. The truth was, he rather liked it. There was something special about babies. They represented innocence untouched, potential untapped. That spoke to him, making him hopeful about the future.

  No, there was nothing better than holding a newborn in his arms.

  Unless it was helming his own company. His own solvent company.

  O’Rourke put his arms through the blue gown and pulled the ends together behind him as best he could.

  “All right,” he pronounced, holding out his arms. “I’m ready for her.”

  The nurse transferred the baby into his arms. Watching him, a knowing look came into her eyes. “This isn’t your first, is it?”

  He thought of the others. “No, not my first.”

  He’d been barely eight the first time he’d held a newborn in his arms. Bridgette. The experience had felt almost mystical to him. Somehow, he placed himself beyond the blood and the obvious detractions, coming to a feeling like no other. The best way he could describe it was to say it was a bonding. A bonding that transcended the everyday and made him feel, for the first time in his young, poverty-stricken life, that there was something beyond the confines of his small town.

  Beyond the island he’d been born to, even. It also made him feel that no matter where he went in the world, a part of him would always remain grounded within the babe he’d held in his arms.

  That tiny babe was twenty-three now. Twenty-four next June.

  Funny how all that came back to him suddenly as he held the child of a woman he didn’t know. Held a child he was no part of.

  Stirring, Shawna looked up at him with her huge blue eyes, just like the first time. And just like the first time, he f
elt himself being taken captive by the diminutive being. A captive just as surely as if she’d snatched him into the palm of her hand and held him fast there.

  Holding her to his chest, O’Rourke saw Shawna begin to root at his paper gown, locking her rosebud mouth around it. A dampness began to spread out from where contact had been made.

  Very gently, he separated her mouth from the paper before she could tear it off. He had a feeling disposable hospital gowns were not on the list of required nutrients for newborns.

  “Ah now, love, you won’t be finding anything there to satisfy your hunger, I’m afraid. That’s your mama’s department.” He glanced up toward Kitt.

  As if on cue, the nurse took the infant from him and briskly presented Shawna to her mother.

  “Always makes me misty, seeing a brand-new father with his baby.” She cleared her throat. “Didn’t know my own,” she confided. “This makes me feel that there’s hope for the world. You make a lovely couple and now you make an even lovelier family. Core of our culture, the family. Used to be nothing more solid. Time for that to happen again.”

  So much for protesting that O’Rourke wasn’t the father, Kitt thought. She would have felt like the person who announced to a five-year-old that there was no Santa Claus. Still, she wasn’t about to nurse Shawna in front of O’Rourke.

  She shook her head. “No, I—”

  The nurse looked at her knowingly. “I understand.” She lowered her voice. “It’s perfectly normal to feel a little awkward about this. Here, let me show you a little trick.” Deftly, she positioned her body between the woman in the bed and the man she had assumed was her husband before going to work.

  Not that she had to block out his view. Tempting as the woman might be, O’Rourke had averted his eyes to give Kitt the privacy she deserved. A man had to have certain standards.

  “This way,” he heard the nurse telling Kitt triumphantly, “you can even feed your daughter in public and no one’ll be the wiser for it.”