The Woman Next Door

by Barbara Delinsky

  In fact, Karen was calmer than she had been in months. With Lee out of the house, her anger had ebbed, and without the anger, she was becoming the kind of woman Amanda remembered. Determined to make an independent life for herself and the children, she had booked a cottage on Martha’s Vineyard for the week after school got out. Amanda thought it an incredibly brave thing to do.

  Studying the baby now, Amanda said, “I don’t see any resemblances.”

  “So if it isn’t one of our men, who is it?” Karen asked.

  ***

  Amanda had her theory, but she was waiting for Gretchen to feel comfortable enough to confide in her. It happened in a roundabout way. Amanda was there one evening the next week when Oliver Deeds dropped by again. If Gretchen’s refusal to see him hadn’t been a giveaway that their relationship was more than a professional one, the way he looked at the baby certainly was.

  Graham saw it, too. He was holding Benji when Oliver appeared at the door. Having come from work, the lawyer looked the part, except for his eyes. Sad was one word for them. Uneasy was another, defenseless a third.

  It was the first time Oliver had seen the baby close up. He tried to look past Amanda for Gretchen, tried to look for a place to put the gifts he’d brought, tried to look at the floor or the stairs or the door, but his eyes kept returning to the infant.

  “Want to hold him?” Graham asked, and Amanda quickly relieved Oliver of his bundles. Before he could say no—before he could say much of anything—the small blanketed bundle was placed in his arms.

  Oliver blushed. “I—I’ve never held a baby before,” he said, but his arms took the right shape, and if the baby sensed a novice, he didn’t let on. His tiny eyes were closed, his skin silky. “I thought they’d keep him at the hospital longer, being early and all.”

  “They checked everything out,” Amanda said. “He was healthy, so they thought he’d be better off here.”

  “But he’s so small,” Oliver said. When the baby opened his eyes, he whispered a nervous, “Can he see me?”

  “Only vaguely. Mostly he sees shapes.”

  The baby pursed his lips and batted a fist in their general direction.

  “He’ll be a thumb sucker,” Graham said.

  “So was I,” Oliver remarked. He looked up quickly, reddening all the more, but he didn’t attempt to qualify the statement. His focus returned to the baby. “He doesn’t weigh very much.”

  “Five pounds, eight ounces,” said Gretchen from the stairs.

  They all looked around.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Oliver spoke, his voice proud: “He’s very handsome.”

  Gretchen nodded but stayed where she was with her weight against the banister.

  “Does he eat well?”

  She nodded again.

  “Are you nursing him?”

  “Yes. I need him now.” She sent Amanda a look that held both demand and plea.

  Gently Amanda took the baby from Oliver and carried him to Gretchen, who went up the stairs without another word.

  Oliver’s eyes followed. Amanda couldn’t help but see the yearning there. She had seen the same thing too many times in Graham’s eyes not to know what it meant. She was trying to think of the most tactful way to raise the issue, when Graham said a blunt, “Where’ve you been all these months?”

  To his credit, Oliver didn’t try to deny it. “In the dark,” he replied, his eyes back to being sad. “I didn’t know she was pregnant until the art was vandalized.”

  “So you just. . . did it and disappeared?”

  Oliver frowned. His Adam’s apple moved above the neat knot of a tie that might have been gray, green, brown, or something in between. “It wasn’t as simple as that.”

  “How not?”

  “She was Ben’s wife. She was a new widow. She was lonely and vulnerable. She was a client. I wasn’t supposed to be drawn to her.”

  “But you were,” Amanda said, feeling as peeved as Graham. The issue of Oliver’s identity had been such a major concern in the last few weeks. If he had come forward sooner, he might have saved the neighborhood a lot of grief.

  “I thought what we had was mutual,” he said in his own defense.

  “I thought that if I backed off, and she took the initiative, it wouldn’t be so bad. But she didn’t call me either.”

  “She wouldn’t have,” Graham put in. “She isn’t self-confident when it comes to members of the opposite sex.”

  Oliver met his gaze. “Neither am I.”

  ***

  Gretchen came down within minutes of Oliver’s departure. The baby hadn’t needed to nurse. She had only wanted to get him away from Oliver. Sitting carefully on one of the lower steps, she laid him on her thighs. His eyes were on her. Hers were on Amanda and Graham. She wanted to see if they were disappointed in her, but all she saw was gentleness.

  Amanda came to sit on the step below hers. “You should have told us.”

  “I couldn’t. He had to do it.”

  “What happened?”

  How to begin? She hadn’t wanted it to happen. She hadn’t planned it. “He was here a lot after Ben died. He had all the legal answers, and he knew how to handle Alan and David. He helped me with other things. I didn’t even know how to balance a checkbook. Never had enough money to do that before Ben. Pretty dumb, huh?” she asked with a glance at Graham.

  “I’ve been there,” Graham said.

  “He still is,” Amanda said with a fond smile. “I’m the one who balances the checkbook.”

  Gretchen felt a little better. “It was one night. That’s all. One night. I waited for him to call afterward, but he didn’t. So maybe I should have called him. But I was sure he’d decided he wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to be hurt.”

  “I’ve been there,” Amanda said, darting Graham a quick look, but she didn’t elaborate. She turned back to Gretchen. “Did you think of calling him over the winter?”

  “A hundred times,” Gretchen said. “A thousand times. I always lost my nerve.” She touched the baby’s cheek. He turned his head toward her finger. “I saw him a couple of times, but they were professional visits. He didn’t seem inclined to want anything more. I wasn’t showing then. Even when I started to show, I could hide it under a sweater.”

  “Do you love him?” Amanda asked, as Gretchen had done a dozen times.

  “I thought I did at the time. I thought it was something mystical—like Ben handpicking the man who could take care of me.” The words sounded pathetic to her. She could imagine how they sounded to Amanda and Graham. Quickly, she added, “I mean, it’s not like I need a man to take care of me.” Her voice dropped. “Only I didn’t know that then.”

  “Knowing it puts you in a position of strength,” Graham said, crossing the foyer to join them.

  Gretchen didn’t understand. She looked from him to Amanda.

  “You’re stronger now,” Amanda explained. “You could talk things out with him. See what he wants. See if there’s anything worth pursuing.”

  Gretchen was torn. “What if he says there isn’t?”

  “He won’t,” Graham said. “He’s interested.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “We saw how he looked at the baby.”

  “If it’s just the baby, it’s no good,” Gretchen said. She needed someone to love her.

  No, she caught herself. She did not need it. She wanted it. There was a difference.

  “You’ll never know unless you give it a shot,” Graham said.

  ***

  And that was what life was about, Amanda decided during one of the few moments when she let herself think about the next round of treatment. Taking chances. Giving it a shot.

  She also decided that the most important thing was not letting the desire for what you want ruin what you already have. She had Graham. One look at Karen, with four children and a tough road ahead, and she realized how lucky she was. One look at Gretchen, who might or might not
be loved by Oliver, and Amanda appreciated her marriage all the more. She had always felt that she had something special in Graham. With each day that passed, she realized she hadn’t been wrong.

  ***

  Graham couldn’t get enough of Amanda. He had assumed that after the first flurry of passion following the crisis with Jordie, the hunger would ease. That it lasted through the debacle with Dorothy—that it grew through the pleasure of being with Gretchen and her baby—told him something.

  Amanda had shown her mettle in the last few weeks. It was a total turn-on. She walked in the door, and he was hard. She drove down the street, and he was hard. Hell, she called on the phone to say that she was about to drive down the street, and he was hard.

  “This is remarkable,” he murmured against her throat after a rousing bout against the dryer. She had walked into the house, whipped off the sweater she had spilled coffee all over, and gone straight to the laundry room, and what could he do but follow?

  “Not even a hello,” she chided, but her legs were wrapped around his waist, ankles locked. She wasn’t letting him go, though they had both already climaxed.

  “You addle my mind,” he said and took her face in his hands. Her lips were moist and rosy, her cheeks nearly as smooth and soft as that baby’s across the street, but what got to him most— always—were her eyes. That hadn’t changed. He doubted it ever would. When she looked at him that way, like he was the center of her universe, his insides went nuts. “Have I told you lately I love you?”

  She grinned lazily. “Mmm-hmm. But you can say it again.”

  “I love you. I love loving you. I love when it’s just you and me. It feels new.”

  “It is. Back from the lost and found.”

  “But better.” He believed that. They had made it through some rocky days. If couples were tested, they had passed. He sandwiched his hands between the dryer and her bottom. “Maybe we should play with it a while longer.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked, still lazy, still grinning, eyeing his mouth now.

  “Maybe we should wait another month before . . . you know,” he said, hestitant even to say the word.

  Slowly, she shook her head. “I said I needed one month. I didn’t say two.”

  “I’m saying two. I want two.”

  “That’s because you like doing it when you want.”

  “It’s because I’m scared,” he blurted out, not quite realizing it until that minute. “Aren’t you?”

  Her grin faded. She took a breath. “Of course I’m scared. I’m scared that the same thing will happen, only it’ll be worse, because this is our last try at artificial insemination. If it fails, we move on.”

  “I’m not just talking about failing at making a baby. I’m talking about us.”

  “I know,” Amanda said, very sober now. “But there’s no avoiding it. We could play for the next three months or the next three years, but we’d only find ourselves that much further from being parents. You want a baby. So do I.”

  “We could adopt. That’d take the pressure off. Sure thing, you’d get pregnant then.”

  “Not yet. I’m not ready to adopt yet.”

  He dropped his head back. “God, I’m not looking forward to this.”

  Amanda rubbed her forehead to his neck. “That’s because the process is cold.” She looked up, took his face in her hands, and brought his eyes to hers. Her voice was seductive. “We need to warm it up. I can do that. You don’t need Playboy. I’ll do it for you.” Slipping a hand between their bodies, she touched him at the spot above where they were still joined, and that quickly, he wanted her again.

  “Would ya?” he asked hoarsely.

  “You bet,” she replied.

  ***

  They decided to go with a heavier dose of Clomid, a shot of HCG, and multiple inseminations. The deal with Emily was that they would call when Amanda got her period and drop by within a day or two for the medication, instructions on when to take it, and a pep talk.

  Amanda didn’t look at the calendar. She didn’t have to. Her cycle was regular and prompt. She would get her period on Wednesday, call Emily on Thursday, drop in on Friday. Then she and Graham were taking off. He had made reservations for another weekend away, this time at an inn on the Maine coast. They were determined to keep the focus on their relationship, while they followed Emily’s directions. They were doing everything together this time, from having ultrasounds, to keeping temperature charts, doing ovulation tests, producing sperm or injecting it.

  The month before, she had remained in her chair for the better part of the day, not wanting to make any move that would bring on her period. This month, she dared it to come. It would mark the start of a new attempt to conceive. The sooner the better, she reasoned, and, intent on hastening it, she was on the go from the minute she reached school that morning until the last few minutes before she was ready to set out for home. The only reason she slowed down then was the sight of Jordie Cotter at her office door. His leg was still in a cast, but it was a walking one. He had a single crutch under one arm and a backpack over the other.

  “Hi, cutie,” called Maddie from her cage.

  “Hey,” Amanda said gently. “Come on in.”

  “You were leaving.”

  “I always have time for you.” She gestured him forward. They hadn’t talked since their night on the tower. “I think about you a lot. How’s it going?”

  “Not bad.” Coming forward, he nudged his chin toward the cast. “I can’t play so it isn’t a matter of warming the bench. Things like that are better. Others are weird.”

  “Weird, like with your dad?” she asked. She didn’t believe in beating around the bush when something was so obvious. Kids saw through that in a minute.

  “Yeah. With my dad. He’s over a lot. He’s even nice to my mom. Julie thinks they’re getting back together.”

  “Do you?”

  “No,” he said, but he was pensive. “Too much has happened. I blame myself sometimes.”

  “Don’t.”

  “They say that, too. They say they had problems for years.”

  “I think that’s true. In any event, they’re right. What happened between them wasn’t your fault.”

  “Does Gretchen hate me?”

  “No. Gretchen isn’t a hater. Besides, she’s too happy with her little son to think about it.”

  “But her painting is ruined.”

  “She’ll find something to put in its place.”

  Jordie nodded. Quietly, he said, “I hope she does.” He limped back toward the door. “Maddie’s awful quiet.”

  Amanda sat against the edge of the desk with a hand by either hip. “She doesn’t have any cause to swear. You’re too calm. Is it going all right with the new therapist?”

  He stopped at the threshold. “It’s going okay. But he isn’t you.”

  “What a sweet thing to say.”

  He turned. His eyes met hers, then shied away. Seconds later, he forced them back. “I owe you more. What you did that night was amazing.” He was talking of their time together at the tower.

  “I did what I had to. I needed it for me, as much as for you.”

  “Because of Quinn?” When she nodded, he said, “I miss Quinn.”

  “We all do.”

  “I won’t ever forget the dates. Y’know, when he died and all. It was four weeks ago yesterday when he drank my dad’s booze. It feels like a year.”

  “Four weeks ago today,” Amanda corrected gently.

  “Nuh-uh. It was a Tuesday. I know exactly where I was when I got the call saying he’d been caught. It was like the first thing in a whole chain.”

  Amanda didn’t answer. He was right. The drinking incident had occurred on a Tuesday. She was trying to figure out how she had confused the days, then trying to grasp what it meant.

  It must have shown on her face, because Jordie asked a worried, “Are you okay?”

  Amanda’s heart was palpitating. “I am,” she said, and asked out
of sheer habit, since her mind had jumped ahead, “Need a ride home?”

  “No. My dad’s coming to pick me up.”

  Amanda was grateful for that—because she wasn’t going straight home. She had a stop to make. Oh, sure, she had pregnancy tests at home, but she wanted one that was fresh.

  ***

  She bought three. Each was made by a different company and worked a slightly different way, but each one could be used at any time of day, as early as the first day of a missed period, with accuracy over ninety-nine percent of the time.

  She was shaking all over by the time she got home, and then botched one strip by wetting the wrong end. That left two. She did the first, waited the requisite five minutes, and saw a plus. Afraid to believe, she did the second, waited the two minutes that it required, and saw two magenta lines. Two meant pregnant.

  She put the strips side by side on the bathroom sink. She washed her hands. She picked up the cell phone and punched in Graham’s office number.

  “It’s me,” she said when he answered. “You have to come home.”

  He was immediately frightened. “What’s wrong?”

  She swallowed and bit back her excitement. She wanted him to see the strips for himself. Wanted him to feel the disbelief, the surprise, the ecstasy. We blew it, buster! she wanted to yell in delight, because he’d missed the dates, too. She had no idea how they’d both done that.

  “Nothing wrong,” she said, careful to steady the shake in her voice. “I just have to show you something.”

  “Something good or something bad?”

  “Good.”

  “Something big or something small?”

  “Graham. Come home now.”

  Ten minutes later, he drove down the street. Heart pounding, she met him at the door, took his hand, led him up the stairs and into the bathroom, and pointed at the strips. He stared at them, then at her. He approached them curiously, studied one, then the other. He looked at the boxes from which each strip had come. His eyes widened.

  “Christ,” he murmured on a thread of a breath and turned to her in excitement. “We did it?”

  She nodded.