by Katy Regnery
MANDA: I land at four thirty. I can be there around five if I come right from Sea-Tac. Do you want me to stop and get anything?
LEIGH: No. I just need you.
Just be there for her.
Luke’s advice, whispered in his low, sweet voice, echoes in my head, and I am at once deeply grateful and yet so desperate for his big, strong hand in mine that the longing makes me sob. No tears. I don’t have any left right now. Just a soft, sad sound of yearning escapes from my lips like a whispered prayer that no one hears and no one can answer for me.
MANDA: I’m coming.
Then I lean my head back on the seat, close my eyes, and try to get a little sleep before I arrive in Seattle.
***
My name is on an approved list of visitors at the NICU of Seattle Children’s. A nurse at the front desk gives me a preprinted badge and advises me that visiting hours end at 8:00 p.m., which leaves me about two and a half hours to see Leigh.
As I follow her down a bright hallway, a smudge of river mud on my shirt reminds me that I’m still wearing the same clothes I had on earlier today, when I caught my first salmon. So much has happened since then, I can barely wrap my head around it, but I force myself to focus: my only mission right this minute is to be there for Leigh and Jude.
“How...um, how bad is it?” I ask the nurse. I have no idea what to expect.
The nurse glances at me, the playful teddy bears on her scrubs at odds with the grim expression on her face. “How much do you know?”
“Jude said the baby’s head was too big for the delivery? That he got caught?”
The nurse walks a little more briskly. “Mr. and Mrs. Stanton’s baby wasn’t delivered here. He was airlifted via helicopter to this hospital after a difficult birth. I’m sure the parents can fill you in more.”
If I wasn’t a reporter who knew how reticent hospital staff are to discuss diagnoses with nonfamily, this may have worried me further, but I know she probably can’t give me any details, so we make the rest of the walk in silence.
“Mrs. Stanton is napping in the Family Resource Center. After ten hours of labor, the delivery, X-rays, and emergency transport, the doctor insisted that she get some rest as soon as her baby was stabilized,” she says, stopping in front of a large plate-glass window. “But Mr. Stanton is in here.”
I look through the glass to see Jude’s massive form sitting in a rocking chair. He’s wearing a purple Seahawks T-shirt with an orange hospital lanyard around his neck and tenderly cradles a small blue bundle in his lap. He leans forward, his face is so close to the baby’s, his eyes so engaged on his tiny son, he doesn’t see me, and I’m hesitant to interrupt them.
“You can go in,” says the nurse. She glances at my badge again, then adds, “In fact, you’re the approved adult to be here when one of the parents is off premises, so you can pretty much come and go freely.”
“I’ll wait out here for a second,” I whisper, my eyes never leaving Jude and his struggling child, even when I can’t see them clearly anymore through the blur of tears.
Just be there.
Taking a deep breath, I open the door to the NICU, and step inside, careful not to make a sound as the door latches behind me. A nurse looks up, her eyes darting to my badge before she offers me a gentle and tentative smile. Without a word, she gestures to Jude and nods at me—a small gesture to know I’m welcome here.
I step forward, still trying to find my footing in this quiet, sterile, heartbreaking place, still wondering what in the hell I can say to soothe the terrible worry Jude and Leigh are facing. I feel so small and so ill equipped to support them...until Jude realizes I’m here and looks up at me.
“Manda,” he whispers, his eyes lighting up when he sees me. “You’re here.”
“I got here as soon as I could.”
His smile dims a little when he looks down at his child. “They had a hard time.”
“I know.”
When Jude looks up, his eyes are glassy. “Hey, Aunt Manda, come and meet Kai.”
“Hey, Kai,” I whisper, swiping at the tears on my cheeks as I squat down beside the rocking chair.
Nestled in a burrito of light-blue blankets is a brand-new human being with golden-brown skin, curled lashes, chubby cheeks, and an abundance of jet-black curls. He is the perfect mix of Leigh’s African American genes and Jude’s Maori, and for a second, I’m stunned and humbled by the beautiful little person my friends have made.
“He’s...gorgeous.”
“Yeah,” says Jude with a rumbling chuckle. “He’s gonna break some hearts.”
My eyes slide from Kai’s face to his father’s. “How is he?”
“Well...” Jude takes a deep breath. “He has a depressed skull fracture. Probably from a crash into Leigh’s pelvic bone. He was almost out, you know? Mighta been more dangerous to push him back and do a C-section. Tough choice.”
I remember back to Leigh insisting that she was strong enough to deliver naturally at home without any interference or epidural. Her midwife seemed to agree that Leigh’s shape and size could accommodate her baby’s delivery, but perhaps Jude’s genetic contribution had been underestimated.
“When was the doctor called?” I ask.
“Not soon enough,” Jude murmurs, rocking his son gently when Kai fusses.
“You left the house and went to the hospital?”
“Mm-hm. Ambulance came for Leigh.” He sniffles, then reaches up to push a rogue tear into his hairline. “Most scared I ever been.”
“Is he...” God, how do I say this? “Is he going to be...okay?”
“God willing.” Jude clears his throat. “Ping-pong fracture ain’t uncommon. It happens. This one ain’t the worst the doc’s ever seen.”
“What’s the treatment?”
“Watch and see for a few days. He might need surgery in a week or two if the skull doesn’t resolve. Called a neurosurgical elevation. Gets the dent out.”
“His Apgar?”
“Believe it or not? Normal enough by the second time ’round. Yeah, he’s got this dent in his head, but he’s breathing okay. Color’s good. Got a loud cry when he’s mad...which he’s gonna be soon if Leigh don’t wake up and feed him.”
As if on cue, the NICU door behind me opens, and I spring to my feet when I see the exhausted face of my dearest friend coming toward me. A second later, she’s in my arms, and I’m hugging her harder than I probably should, considering her battered body.
“Manda,” she breathes near my ear, her voice deep and tired, “you’re here.”
“I’m here,” I say, sniffing away the tears rolling down my cheeks. “I’m here.”
She leans away from me, looking at me with watery eyes. “You met Kai?”
“I met your beautiful boy.”
Her jaw clenches. “I’m scared for him, Manda.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “He’s going to be okay. His Apgar was good.”
“But his brain,” she says, her voice breaking off as she blinks her eyes, her lower lip quivering. “What about his brain?”
“Whatever happens,” I say, “I’ll be here for you...and for Kai. He’s got you and Jude. You can get him tutors, great teachers...whatever he needs. He’s going to be okay, Leigh. I know it.”
She pulls me fiercely against her, her forearm a bar of steel against my back. “Thank God you’re here.”
A moment later, she and Jude switch places, and Kai nurses contently while I sit on a footrest across from my best friend.
I stay there for an hour.
For two.
Then for three, four, five, and six as Jude goes home for a shower and nap.
I end up staying there all night long.
Because the only advice—the best advice—came to me from a source I trust:
Just be there for her.
Chapter 10
Luke
It’s been two weeks since Amanda left Sitka in a rush to get to her friends, and not a day has passed since then that I haven’t tho
ught about her, wondered about her friends’ baby, and missed her bright, sexy, playful presence in my life.
That’s right.
I miss her.
I miss my no-strings-attached fling...because I’m an idiot.
It probably doesn’t help that the house is so danged quiet. My kids are away until the end of June, visiting their mother’s parents in San Francisco. I mean, I’m happy for them to have time with their grandparents, but at least when they were here, I was distracted by their needs and questions—I didn’t have as much free time to miss Amanda. Now? All I have is work, weekly dinners with Bonnie, and running through a long list of house repairs in the evenings and on weekends. Lots and lots of time to one, think about how much fun I had with Amanda, and two, feel lonely without her.
It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m replacing two rotted-out boards on the front porch when my sister stops by with the twins, pushing them in the carriage as they take an afternoon nap.
“How’s the bachelor life?” she asks me.
I give her an annoyed look, and she sighs, pulling two cold beers out of the undercarriage of the stroller and offering me one. We sit on the porch steps as I uncap the bottles with my keychain.
“Cheers,” she says.
“Sure. Cheers.”
We each take a long sip, then sit quietly side by side, soaking up the sun and staring out at my front lawn, which was freshly cut this morning.
“You know, a lot of women responded to that ad,” says my sister, cutting to the chase. “Not just Amanda. Maybe it’s time to get back out there, huh?”
“Back...out there?”
She shrugs, then reaches back into the undercarriage and pulls out a stack of paper, settling the pages on the planking between us. “Here are all the responses. I printed them out.”
I glance at the small-looking stroller. “What’re you going to pull out of there next? Mary Poppins’ hat stand?”
She grins. “Gilly’s favorite movie.”
I take another swig of beer. “I don’t...”
“You don’t what?”
I really don’t want to date anyone else. I want to keep dating Amanda. That’s what I want to say—that I never had that kind of chemistry with anyone. Not anyone in my whole life, my wife included. I stay up at night remembering her body and wake up about to orgasm because I’ve been dreaming of my cock balls deep in her tight, hot pussy. I think about her holding Meghan on her lap and singing camp songs. I think about her making chocolate pudding in bare feet and showing up at the last-day-of-school concert wearing a sundress and holding bright-blue cotton candy. I go over and over her list of everything she wants in the ideal mate, and deep inside of me, I know—I fucking know—I could be good for her.
My sister nudges my knee. “What?”
“I miss Amanda.”
“You don’t say!” She nods. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“It sucks.”
“Did you send her stuff back yet?”
I shake my head.
I packed up her suitcase last weekend. It’s sitting in my trunk, taped up in a box and labeled for her apartment in Seattle. It’s been sitting there for a solid five days. I can’t bring myself to stop by the post office and send it back to her. I feel like once I do, the cord between us will be cut.
“That’s not at all creepy,” says Bonnie.
“What?”
“Holding her stuff hostage.”
“I’m not holding it...hostage.”
“The hell you’re not. I bet you’re hoping she calls to find out why you haven’t sent it back yet, and then—voilà! You’ll be in touch again.”
My cheeks flare with heat. Damn my sister.
“Shut up,” I mutter, tilting back my beer bottle again.
“You could just call her, you know.”
“Oh,” I say, “and that’s not creepy-stalkerish at all. One of the last things she did was remind me that our relationship was temporary.”
“Luke!” She growls with annoyance, shaking her head. “You’re making this so much tougher than it needs to be. Call her. Text her. Get back in touch.”
“And say what?”
“I don’t know...How about I miss you! I wasn’t ready to say good-bye! Want to give us another chance?”
I shake my head. She makes it sound so easy, but it’s not.
“I’d be ignoring her feelings.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you...she didn’t indicate that she wanted anything more from me. It doesn’t feel right to push it.”
My sister’s quiet for a second before she checks to be sure the twins are still asleep, then blurts out, “Bullshit.”
Bonnie doesn’t swear a ton, so my eyes shoot up to lock on hers. “Huh?”
“That’s total bullshit, and some part of you has got to know it!”
“No. She was pretty clear that—”
“What was your agreement again? No strings attached? Emotionless screwing, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Then I’m calling bullshit. A hundred and fifty percent.” I raise my eyebrows, waiting for her to continue. “Luke! You two were emotional. Strings got attached. You didn’t just meet in the dark, have anonymous sex, and part ways. You didn’t just use each other’s bodies. You liked each other. You were smitten.”
“I don’t think—”
“Cheap flings don’t include family dinners or getaway weekends to expensive resorts. When you’re just using someone for sex, you don’t look at them like you could maybe, possibly see forever in their eyes.”
“I didn’t look at her like—”
“I’m talking about her,” says Bonnie. “The way she looked at you from across the campfire at my house? That wasn’t cheap or temporary. That was a woman who could have been talked into something more.”
Hope rises up within me like flood water, threatening to drown me in the possibility of requited longing. Luckily, logic arrives quickly to dam that shit.
“She lives in Seattle.”
“So what?”
“So I’m not moving to Seattle, and I don’t see her moving to Sitka. What’s the point of pursuing her if there’s no future?”
“One thing at a time,” says Bonnie, handing me her empty bottle and standing up to walk her babies home. “Why don’t you find out if you’ve got a shot with her first, huh?”
Hmm.
I think about this as my sister walks down the front path and through the white picket gate that leads to the sidewalk. Could she be right? Is it possible that Amanda was open to more and our time ran out before we could discuss it?
I imagine myself twenty years from now, taking Chad and his kids to a Seahawks game and running into her. I bet she’d still be blonde and pretty despite the passing of years, her smile warm and her eyes deep and sweet. My mind would shuttle back to our handful of days together, and what would I feel? Joy? Nostalgia?
No.
Regret.
Deep and terrible regret.
Especially if there was a man standing next to her, with his arm around her shoulder or his hand in hers. I’d feel regret, so sharp and so bitter, it might knock me over where I stood. Regret that today—that right now, right this minute—I didn’t do something. I’d stand there, wondering if all that stood between me and being that guy beside her was now...was me making the choice to look stupid, or pushy, or—hell!—a little creepy, even, to be sure that I hadn’t missed some sign or signal, some subtle indication that neither of us were finished with each other.
The thing is...distance is its own problem. Calling or texting only reinforces the vast space between us. I need to see her again. I want to look into her eyes. That’s the only way I’ll know for sure if there’s anything between us.
My heart starts to gallop as a plan comes together in my mind: I have a week of vacation time I haven’t used yet, so taking a couple of days off this week isn’t an issue, and with the kids in San Francisco, I’m a free
agent.
What if I—
No. I couldn’t...could I? Could I book a flight to Seattle, take her suitcase to the street address she gave me, and just...show up at her door?
I mean, I could do that, right? What’s the worst that could happen?
I wince as I image her getting freaked out by my sudden appearance, taking her suitcase from me and telling me to get lost.
And yes, that would suck...but honestly, then I’d know. I’d know for sure that she had no interest in me outside of the week we spent together. And then?
I glance down at the stack of ad responses my sister dropped off.
And then I’ll move on.
***
Amanda
“Leigh, that’s such great news!” I say, whispering into the phone since I’m at work.
“Been the longest eighteen days of my life, but it’s finally over!”
Last week, Kai had a procedure—called a neurosurgical elevation—to lift the dent in his skull, and today, with good postoperative recovery and no residual neurological deficit, he’s finally been given the OK to head home tomorrow.
“Anna Mae and I got everything ready,” I tell Leigh. “Wipe warmer’s plugged in. Diaper caddy’s filled with size twos. We gave away the newborn onesies, and you’ve got a whole drawer of three-month clothes precleaned and ready to be spit up on.”
“Y’all are the best,” drawls Leigh, time with her mother rubbing off in the form of a long-lost Alabamian accent. “Can you believe he’s already fourteen pounds? Not even a month old. He’s his daddy’s son.”
I hear the warmth in her voice and smile. She and Kai had a rough start as mother and child, but maybe it strengthened their bond that much more.
“He’s a good eater,” I say, and I should know. I took a week of vacation time and a week of unpaid leave to be able to hang out with Leigh and Jude in the NICU over the past two weeks. I’ve given Kai about a hundred bottles, and I know how much that boy loves to eat.
“Manda, I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”
“Aw, shut up. You would’ve done the same for me.”
“I will do the same for you...if you ever need me like that. God forbid.” She sniffles softly, and I know her eyes are welling up. Between worries over Kai and new-mama hormones, my strong, stalwart friend has been emotional and mushy lately. “This probably goes without saying, but Jude and I...well, we want you to be Kai’s godmother.”
