by Lilian Darcy
He could only suggest it…then duck, in case she bit his head off, the way she’d bitten Carla’s.
She arrived back in the unit ten minutes later, breathless, swollen eyed and tight faced. “I couldn’t catch up to her. I saw her leaving the lot, but she didn’t see me.”
“She’s going to understand, Reba.”
“I have to tell her I’m sorry.”
She grabbed for a wad of tissues from a nearby equipment cart and pressed them to her ravaged face. Lucas wanted to soothe her reddened lids with his lips, and cradle her tired head against his shoulder, but frankly didn’t dare, right now.
“I have to hug her,” Reba finished. “It’s not going to be enough, just picking up the phone.”
“Angela suggested we should head home to Biggins for a couple of nights, anyhow,” he told her.
She frowned at this. “Leave Maggie?”
As soon as she’d looked down at their baby and spoken her name, she closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her breasts, and Lucas knew what that meant, by this time. They were filling and tingling, because she’d felt a surge of emotion about her child.
Eyes still shut, she slumped into the chair beside the isolette, not even needing to check its position because she knew the whole of this cramped space so well, including the exact layout of every machine.
“Time to play with the pump, I guess,” she muttered. She looked utterly defeated.
He dropped to a hunch beside her and coaxed her hands away from her breasts, feeling how hot and tender she was there, even through her clothing.
“No…” she protested. “Lucas, I’m—”
“So you’re going to leak, big deal.” He brushed his forehead against hers, feeling the soft warmth of skin and hair, then sat back a little. “It’s purely a technical problem, and no-one around here will mind. We’ve seen it before. Look at me, Reba.”
She did, quirking her mouth into an expression that said, “What now?”
“I think Angela’s right. I think Maggie might need us to take a break more than she needs us with her, right now. She knows her nurses. They’re as familiar to her as we are, and they talk to her and touch her and soothe her, the way we do. She’s improving every day—Angela says we should be able to hold her next week—but you’re killing yourself.”
“You’re the one who stays here every night.”
“I’m not the one who’s trying to make milk for her, with minimal help from the machine and Maggie not able to help you herself, the way a stronger baby would. And did you cry all the way back from the parking lot?”
“My eyes are an eight point three on the redness scale, right?”
“Eight point nine,” he corrected.
“Wonderful!”
“You are wonderful,” he answered her seriously. “You’re doing a wonderful job as Maggie’s mom. But let’s do it. Let’s take a break. In fact, I don’t think I’m suggesting, here. I’m ordering.”
She angled her jaw, with a glimmer in her fabulous eyes of the stubborn spirit he remembered from last September. “Oh, you are!”
“Angela’s ordering. Maggie is. She wants to be able to snuggle up to you one day and have her meals the way nature intended. She wants lunch still to be there, not lost to your exhaustion and your battles with the pump.”
Reba closed her eyes again and let out a slow, shaky sigh. “Made your point, Lucas.”
“We’re going?”
“We’re going.”
“Tomorrow. Two nights.”
“In the afternoon. If she’s doing okay. Back here after breakfast Monday morning.”
“Deal,” he said.
“Plan to put it in writing?”
“I trust you.”
“Let me go pump.”
For the next twenty-two hours, Lucas kept waiting for Reba to back out of the deal. A part of him would probably even have welcomed the excuse not to go. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to leaving Maggie for two whole days, even in the competent hands of the staff he’d already come to think of as friends. He was only doing this for Reba, and for Maggie herself.
As they drove away from the hospital on Saturday afternoon, he felt dizzy as if gripped by vertigo. The world outside the NICU seemed vast, distorted, disorientating and unsafe. Without Maggie in his field of vision, nothing else seemed to make sense.
He admitted to Reba, “One tiny thing and I would have backed out of this. A half degree spike in her temp, a blip in her weight gain.”
“Even a spell of distress,” Reba agreed.
“But she looked good, didn’t she?”
“She looked great.”
“We have to enjoy this even if we hate every minute of it, okay?”
They both laughed.
Kind of.
Edgy laughter, tinged with doubt.
Lucas glanced across at Reba in the passenger seat of his car and wondered how someone could seem so familiar, and yet still so much of a stranger. They were both distanced from each other by their fog of exhaustion and fear.
He knew how she liked her coffee, and the shapes her mouth fell into when she ate. He knew the colors of the natural red-gold highlights in her dark hair. He knew how long she spent in the shower and how often she washed that hair and the lullabies that she remembered from her own childhood and sang softly to Maggie.
He valued all of it, too, more than he’d ever known how to value such small, simple things about a person, before.
But he still had no clue about some of the really important stuff. How far would she adjust her life so he could stay involved with their baby? What ideas did she have about raising kids? How did she see her whole future, now?
And whenever that hot, astonishing connection sizzled back into life between them, as it had yesterday at the mall, what significance did she attach to it?
Basically, what did she want?
He sensed she probably didn’t know half this stuff about herself yet, either.
How could she?
He’d had to walk her through her packing this morning, and run a last-minute bundle of laundry down to hotel housekeeping because she discovered some still-unwashed things that she vaguely insisted she needed. At the time they’d agreed on for their early lunch, he’d had to wake her up because she’d fallen asleep in the chair beside Maggie’s isolette.
She hadn’t asked if he had any kind of a plan for their visit, and that was good, because he didn’t. He just kept thinking about the cabin, without even knowing if it would be practical for them to stay there. They’d probably end up in the same motel he’d used on his first visit last year. Or at her little rented house two streets back from the steakhouse, if she wanted.
Right now, this drive north, at just after noon, felt like one of those escape scenes in movies where the car is screaming down the tunnel and the ball of fire is rolling after it, threatening to overtake.
Terrible comparison.
Illogical.
Maggie wasn’t a ball of fire. Denver wasn’t. The hospital wasn’t.
“It’s the emotion,” he heard himself saying aloud. “You just want a vacation from the sheer intensity of the emotion.”
He’d never experienced this before. He hadn’t even known it was possible. Lord, what a sheltered, barren life he must have led!
He felt Reba looking at him, but she didn’t say anything for some seconds, then suddenly she gave a gasp and muttered something under her breath. “You didn’t forget the pump?” he asked at once. It was the only thing he could think of that might have caused her reaction.
“No. That’s in the bag. The jars, and all. I—I just realized. First time I’ve thought. When I’ve pictured this—getting away—not sleeping at the hospital or in our suite—I’ve been thinking of the main house at Seven Mile.” She shook her head, as if something had gotten loose and was rattling around in there. “What’s wrong with me? That’ll be full of ranch hands. I was seeing Mom and Dad’s furniture, in my head. My mind’s playing tr
icks.”
“I’ve been thinking of Seven Mile, too.”
“Same mistake?” In his peripheral vision, he saw her frown.
“No. The cabin. Just can’t help thinking how fresh and peaceful it would be, up at the cabin.”
“Oh, wouldn’t it? Oh, it would be so good to be up there!”
“Cold, still.”
“Snow drifts in the shady patches. But we could light the fire in the stove. We can check the forecast. The track will be muddy. Horses might be best. Saddlebags for our gear. We’d need to shop for food. And check that—”
“Hey, easy!”
She sounded quite feverish about it, mind ticking over too fast. Was her body healed enough for riding, yet, he wondered. Would they fit everything they needed in a few saddlebags? Would they use two bedrooms, as they did in their suite, or one? They’d only needed one of the cabin’s bedrooms last year.
She wasn’t thinking of that.
“You’re right,” she insisted. “The cabin. I want to do this.”
And he couldn’t talk her out of it, largely because he wanted to do it, too, and to hell with any awkward questions it raised about the unexplored and probably impossible state of their relationship.
“I’m so glad I found you home!” Reba said to Carla.
She was already fighting tears, she’d need to pump again soon, and she knew Carla would feel the way she was shaking, when they hugged. Would she stiffen and push away?
“Hey, what were your other choices?” Carla teased. “I’m here, I’m at the steakhouse or I’m at the grocery store buying diapers and baby glop in little jars. Stunningly predictable.”
Reba pulled back a little. “You have to be mad at me, Carla.”
“No, because I’m too busy being mad at myself. I did say all the wrong things.”
“I was way too touchy about it.”
“I was falling over myself not to—because I know, I do know, how hard it is, what you’re going through—but somehow that only meant everything came out worse.”
“No, I just took it in the worst way, even though I knew you didn’t mean it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really a good friend, honest. Promise. You just have to take it on trust, I guess, when I mess up like I did yesterday.”
“I messed up worse.”
“You had a better excuse.”
“So who wins? Let’s get this straight. Who gets the highest Bad Friend score?”
“Me!”
“No, me!”
They were both laughing now.
“Hey, are you coming in?” Carla said, squeezing her once more.
“I’d like to, but—”
“I can’t believe you’re here. I almost turned around again on the far side of Fort Collins yesterday, to go back and apologize, but I didn’t want to leave Mom with the boys for too long. Then I kept wanting to call, but Chris said I had to see you face-to-face—he’s all set to mind the boys tomorrow—sometimes husbands are great—I can’t believe you’re here!” she repeated, against a background of TV and toddler voices.
“We came up for a couple of days. The nursing staff kind of kicked us out and told us we had to.”
“We? Lucas, too?” Carla peered out toward the driveway, but her view was blocked by a shrub.
“Yes, he’s waiting, which is why I’d better not come in. I wouldn’t let him get out of the car in case…you know…”
“What, I was going to greet you with water balloons or rotten tomatoes?”
“Something like that.”
“Where are you staying?”
“We’re going to try riding up to the cabin.”
“Ouch!”
“I’m fine, now.”
“There speaks a woman who didn’t have stitches. Hang on, though. Both of you? That little cabin?”
“We really need something like that.”
“Both of you,” Carla repeated.
Reba closed her eyes. “No assumptions, Carla.”
“I’m not assuming anything. I’m straight out asking.”
“And I’m not answering, straight out or otherwise. Because I don’t know.”
“You must know how you feel.”
“Yeah? Must I?” Reba squeezed out a crooked smile, then ticked off on her fingers. “I feel exhausted. Terrified. Sore-breasted. Dizzy with missing Maggie already.”
“Oh, of course…”
“I’m itching to call the unit every five minutes that we’re away, although we’ve promised each other we’re not going to. I feel connected to Lucas, because I know he loves Maggie as much as I do and I…never expected that, to be honest. Not at all. A man like him. But we’re so different. We’re from such different worlds.”
“Sometimes that doesn’t matter.”
“And we get angry at each other. Maggie ties us together, and what if we hate that, in the end? It’s not enough. There are divorced couples all over the world proving that having a child together isn’t the right glue for a relationship. How can I have a clue, right now?” She stopped. “Am I yelling at you again? I’m not.”
“If you say so, honey.” Carla laughed, and hugged her again.
“I’m really not.”
“It’s okay. Go enjoy your two days. Just keep it simple.”
The advice made sense, but it was easier said than done. Reba no longer had a clue what “simple” was.
Back in the car, Lucas asked, “She’s all right?”
“She’s great. Me, I’m not sure I know how to communicate in the right way with anyone, at the moment.”
He didn’t contradict her.
They took a detour to Reba’s little house, where she wrestled with the beast again, and produced her usual little jar to add to the portable cooler they’d brought. The place smelled fresh and clean, because Carla had been dropping by every few days just to check on things. One day, it might actually feel like home. Would that be good or bad?
Reba called her parents from her own phone, even though she knew Lucas would have to hear her. He no doubt disapproved, all over again, when she said, “Don’t come yet. Just please don’t. We still haven’t been able to hold her. Wait until you can do that.” But he didn’t comment.
They called the NICU, also, and Maggie was doing fine.
Next, they drove to the store and bought the food they’d need for the next two nights—steak and pasta, milk and fruit, half a shopping cart full of different things. A blue sky overhead promised fresh, crisp air and a cold night. They’d definitely need the fire.
Matches, soap, towels…
In her head, Reba reeled off the items still in store at the cabin as they left Biggins and drove toward Seven Mile. Her parents had left the cabin pretty much as it was, during the move. The Hallidays had asked for this, apparently, and Mom and Dad had no need of any more furniture and household goods in Florida. This meant that the familiar quilts and linens, the crockery and silverware, the bookshelf filled with old paperbacks and the emergency canned goods in the closet under the stairs should all still be there.
She felt her heart lift, and some of her fears dropped away. The mountains grew closer, cloaked in falls of snow that looked as blue as the ocean in every shadow. With the car window open, the cold air seemed to polish Reba’s face until her cheeks glowed.
Then they wheeled into the front yard that she’d played in since before she could walk, and the house was gone.
Just gone.
In its place, lay a dark, ugly expanse of mud, rutted with the marks of big, heavy wheels and littered with the broken pieces of a terracotta planter box that Mom used to fill with pretty annuals every spring.
Reba was too shocked to speak, at first. A few seconds later, she was too angry not to. “You didn’t tell me? You couldn’t have prepared me?”
“Reba—”
“I wouldn’t have come here. You set me up for this.”
“Reba, I didn’t—”
“Is it bulldozed? Totally destroyed? Or is it…?
Where is it?”
Lucas had to yell to get through to her. “I don’t know! Okay? If you’ll listen for just one second! I didn’t know Dad would have gotten this organized so early in the spring. Do you really think I wouldn’t have told you? Come on! Credit me with some—I don’t know just what you do credit me with, sometimes, Reba Grant. Not much, apparently. A few organizational skills. Which have let us down on this occasion, because it’s obvious now that I should have called ahead to Lon. And no heart, at all.”
He parked his elbows on the steering wheel, pressed his fingers together across the crooked bridge of his nose and blew out a frustrated breath.
Reba asked in a thin voice, “So what was the plan, last time you talked to your Dad?”
“Last time I talked to my Dad, we talked about Maggie. Seven Mile didn’t even come up.”
“And you didn’t call ahead to Lon?” She opened the passenger door and climbed out.
He could follow if he wanted.
Or not.
“I told you, no.”
Behind her, she heard his door, and then his footsteps on the soggy ground. She kept walking, impelled by sheer stubbornness to go and actually stand on that lake of mud where her family’s kitchen and bedrooms and living room once had been.
“So you don’t know where the house is?” she asked Lucas, not bothering to turn around. “If it still exists?”
A couple of hundred yards away, the corrals and barns and sheds still existed—incongruous in their grouping now that there was no house nearby. They could hear cows bawling and various mechanical sounds over there, as well as occasional voices.
“Dad was planning to move it,” Lucas said. “He’d talked to a construction engineer. They had a couple of sites in mind.”
She felt him beside her, as stiff and angry as she was, and turned to glare at him. “Would you care to share the location of those sites with me, at this point, so we can go look? See if we can find my house?”
“If you’re suggesting I knew more than I told you, then yes, I did, a little.”
He bent down, picked up a shard of the broken terracotta and threw it into the wind. His body moved jerkily, but the throw was still powerful and efficient, and the shard skittered into the winter deadened grass beyond the sea of mud. Only when it stopped moving did he turn back to her.
