She loved him. She knew it, and she knew it wasn’t his kisses that had made her fall in love with him. They were wonderful, sex with him was glorious—but she’d fallen in love with him because he was a rock, solid and steady even as wild tides and rapids churned around him. He was a man who could have an infant dumped on him, and without complaint he would bring that infant home and take care of him. He was a man who would take classes to become a better father for the child. He would surround the child with books and toys, a crib and a walker and a boat-shaped tub for baths. He was a man who thought before he spoke, who listened, who designed buildings that could protect the people inside them while letting the outdoors inside.
He was amazing. And she was in love.
She would have said so, too—even though they were standing in a parking lot in the waning light, with the drone of rush-hour traffic cruising past the hotel—but before she could speak, D.J. cut loose with a bleat of impatience. Levi grinned, stepped away from the passenger seat and helped Corinne into it. She heard him open the tiny trunk and toss her bag inside, and then he joined her in the car.
The silence that accompanied them home was friendlier and more peaceful than the silence that had risen between them when they’d first left the train station. Corinne was feeling better now, with D.J. in the car. Everything was fixed, back in balance, arranged the way it ought to be. And in truth, the car wasn’t exactly silent. Throughout the drive, D.J. provided a running commentary in his own unique language.
At the house, they worked in tandem to get her bag and D.J. out of the car. These were their Friday rituals; they didn’t need to confer. Corinne carried D.J. inside, discreetly poking her finger into the leg opening of his shorts to check his diaper, and Levi lugged her bag into the house. While Corinne went upstairs with D.J. to change his diaper—it was always damp; she didn’t know why she even bothered to check it—Levi headed to the kitchen to start dinner. He was a better cook than she was. And in all honesty, she would rather change D.J.’s diaper than cook. Diapering him gave her time alone with him, an opportunity to prove her mettle as a caretaker, a few minutes to bond and giggle with him and feel as if she was an indispensable part of his life.
He chattered enthusiastically while she taped a dry diaper onto his bottom. He was full of news for her; she wanted to believe he was filling her in on the entire week. Since baby-talk struck her as meaningless, she responded in a straightforward way to his prattling. “Is that so?” she asked as she smoothed the diaper tapes at his waist. “Are you sure it happened that way?”
“Lee-lee ga baa-baa!”
“I think you’re pulling my leg,” she muttered, then gave his leg a playful tug. “Just like that.”
“Ga-lee-lee!”
“Yes, well, that’s easy for you to say.” His shorts back in place over his diaper, she lifted him off the pad on the dresser that Levi had set up as a changing table. He eagerly wrapped his arms around her neck, still yammering. Together they descended the stairs to the kitchen.
The room was empty, but she spotted Levi outside on the deck, lighting the grill. Smiling, she lowered D.J. into his walker and he sped off. Everything felt normal to her, proper, perfect. Travis Justice might as well have been a figment of her imagination. She and Levi and D.J. were home now, and all was right with the world.
Levi came back inside. He gave Corinne a breezy kiss on his way to the refrigerator, from which he removed a tray of skewered chunks of swordfish. He set it on the counter, then turned to face Corinne and gave her a longer kiss, a deep, lazy kiss that both relaxed and excited her, made her move against him and think that, as tasty as those swordfish shish-kebabs looked, a few minutes in bed with Levi would satisfy other, stronger appetites of hers.
But he broke from her, smiled again, and grabbed the tray. Not until he was back on the deck, arranging the skewers on the grill, did she realize that they weren’t talking much.
They always talked a ton when she arrived from New York. He would want to know all about her week, and she’d want to know about his. He’d ask her how Gerald was doing, chuckle with her over Gerald’s most recent outings with women, promise her that someday Gerald would find a woman suited to him, and predict that Gerald was going to seduce that woman by building a fire in his master bedroom fireplace. Corinne would interrogate him about the house and about his other projects. She’d want to know how this or that proposal was coming along, how it exemplified his theories of design, what input his partners and associates were providing and whether a bid was likely to succeed. She’d complain about how crowded and noisy Manhattan was at this time of year, and he’d boast about how calm and quiet Arlington was in comparison, the air fresh, the small city surrounded by orchards and rolling, forested hills.
But tonight, she didn’t care about his work projects, not the way she usually did. His kisses and smiles couldn’t erase her sense that something was awry in their world, its rotation not quite smooth, the atmosphere not quite pure. Electrical currents buzzed invisibly in the air until it seemed to crackle, making the hairs on her arms quiver in warning.
“Travis Justice,” she whispered, her gaze following Levi as he turned the skewers on the grill, then stared out at the woods behind his house. “Travis Justice is what’s wrong.”
But he’d be gone soon, she assured herself. He lived in California. Surely he’d have to go back there eventually. And then the atmosphere would settle back to its normal tranquility, and she and Levi and D.J. would regain their balance.
She pulled a bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator, uncorked it and filled two goblets. She knew her way around his house as well as around her own apartment. He was always encouraging her to help herself to whatever she needed or wanted, use his dishes, pour wine, think of his house as her home. Usually she did. Tonight, however, there were those eerie currents in the air.
Trying to ignore them, she carried the glasses out onto the deck. D.J. zoomed toward the door, but she circled back inside to lead him to the screened porch, where he could cruise around in his walker without hurting himself. Then she rejoined Levi on the deck, lifted her glass and took a sip of the dry, cold wine.
“There’s a salad in the fridge,” he told her.
“I don’t care.” Corinne used to be circumspect, but loving Levi had made her less cautious, more willing to take chances. “Levi, what’s going on? Why aren’t you talking to me?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. He wasn’t going to deny her accusation or contend she was crazy to suggest anything was wrong. That was one more reason to love him: he didn’t play games, didn’t pretend things were fine when they weren’t, didn’t act as if her intuitions were silly.
“I thought maybe we ought to have dinner first,” he said.
Apprehension bubbled up inside her. “It’s Travis, isn’t it. His being here—it’s causing problems.”
“Not problems,” Levi said carefully. He turned the skewers once more, studying the chunks of white fish to make sure they were grilling evenly.
“Then what?”
“He wants custody of D.J.”
Her heart stopped for a fraction of a second, then resumed its steady beat. “Well, he’s not going to get it. Your sister named you D.J.’s legal guardian. Her will—”
“I’ve already talked with Murphy about this,” he said, cutting her off. “My lawyer. He told me a birth father has legal rights in a situation like this.”
“But you have legal rights, too,” Corinne said firmly. If she spoke with enough conviction, maybe that would make it true. “Your sister named you D.J.’s guardian in her will. She was D.J.’s mother. Her wishes have to count for something.”
“They do,” Levi agreed. He lifted the skewers and placed them on the platter, then shut off the grill. “But Travis’s wishes also count for something. He’s D.J.’s father. And the only reason I even became D.J.’s guardian was because Travis had been excluded from D.J.’s life.”
“Well…” She scra
mbled for a better argument. “If he’d been any kind of a decent guy, he wouldn’t have fooled around with your sister and then disappeared. If he’d stuck around, if he’d exercised any responsibility with her instead saying, ‘thanks for the good time, I’m outta here,’ he would have known about D.J. He isn’t blameless.”
“No. He isn’t.” Levi sipped some wine, his eyes dark and penetrating as they searched Corinne’s face. “That’s not the point, though. The point is, he’s D.J.’s father and he wants his son.”
“Great. I want smaller feet and more free time. We can’t always get what we want.”
“Corinne.” He perched his glass on the deck railing, then gathered her free hand in his. “I think he should have custody of D.J.”
She’d misheard him. Misconstrued his words. Surely he hadn’t said what she thought.
When he continued to study her face in the pink dusk light, she laughed. It was absurd, allowing a pretty boy from California to take custody of the magnificent little child scooting around the screened porch of Levi’s home. “You’re joking, aren’t you?” she asked when he didn’t join her laughter.
“No.”
“But—but D.J. is—I mean, you’ve been raising him, and—”
“And it wasn’t my choice. I took him in, I struggled, I screwed up my professional meetings—” at that reference to their first encounter, he permitted himself a faint, humorless smile “—and I took classes just so I could figure out what the hell I was doing. It wasn’t my plan to become a bachelor father to my nephew. It wasn’t my lifelong dream. It was the outcome of something very, very bad. My sister died, and this was how everything shook out.”
“But—” She silenced herself, unsure of what to say. It had never been her lifelong dream to become involved with a bachelor father, either. She’d never given much thought to babies at all, and when she’d first met Levi, she’d been annoyed that his obstreperous baby was interrupting their meeting.
How had things changed? When had she realized that reality’s astonishing surprises could take precedence over lifelong dreams?
“I think it would be good for D.J. to know his father. I’ll always be his uncle. He’ll always have me. But his father wants to raise him. How can I stand in his way?”
“Easy. You can fight him. Talk to your lawyer some more. There’s got to be a way.”
“Corinne.” Levi sighed. “If it were me, if I’d fathered a child I hadn’t known about, and then learned the truth eight months later, I would want that child. I’d want to raise him. And I’d fight—yes, with lawyers, with money, with my fists, if necessary. I’d fight anyone who tried to keep me from my child. That’s a father’s right. Travis has rights here. I can’t in good conscience keep him from D.J.” He squeezed her hand. “We’re working together, trying to make the transition smooth. I don’t want to be his enemy in this. I’m D.J.’s uncle. I want what’s best for D.J.”
“Sending him to California with a total stranger—you think that’s what’s best for him?”
“Sending him to California with his father.”
Tears wadded into a soggy lump inside her throat. This wasn’t her business, she told herself. It wasn’t her battle. It wasn’t her baby.
But the thought of visiting Levi each weekend and not seeing D.J., not holding him, not singing to him, not feeling that fierce surge of love and protectiveness and giddy, playful joy at watching an innocent young child become acquainted with the world…
She couldn’t bear the idea of it.
Even worse, she couldn’t bear the understanding that Levi would let such a thing happen, would let a stranger take D.J. away, would bow to fate the way he’d bowed to it when he’d learned of his sister’s will.
She couldn’t bear the thought that the man she loved would give away the baby she loved.
She simply couldn’t bear it.
Chapter Sixteen
SHE LEFT EARLY the next morning. The night before had been hot and sticky—so muggy he’d had to keep the windows shut and the air conditioner running. After making love, they’d lain together in bed, listening to the chilly hiss of the ventilation system. The sex had been hot and powerful—but he’d sensed a certain desperation about it, something he couldn’t define or explain.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she’d whispered when he asked if she was okay. Her eyes had been glassy, her skin unnervingly cool against his. “I’m sorry, Levi—I wish I understood it, but I don’t.”
Now she was gone, and he didn’t understand anything, either. She hadn’t even let him drive her to the station. She’d arisen at dawn, told him she had to go home, and phoned for a cab. He’d choked down a cup of coffee with her, remained downstairs while she tiptoed into D.J.’s room to bid him good-bye, and then walked her out to the cab. Warm mist hovered above the grass. Today would be even hotter than yesterday, the sort of day that left one waiting for a thunderstorm to sweep through—praying for it.
She’d apologized again, promised to phone him, touched his lips with hers, and then disappeared into the shadows of the cab’s interior. He watched as the car drove away and the mist settled back down along the ground, a dense gray blur.
D.J. was chanting in his crib when Levi trudged back into the house. The cheerful babble wafted down the stairs to him, alerting him that the baby wanted to escape from his crib. But Levi needed more coffee, more time—more air. He needed to think. And one thing he didn’t need, right this minute, was an energetic little boy with an empty stomach and a full diaper.
He poured a fresh cup of coffee for himself and carried it out to the porch. The morning air pressed against the screens with its smothering heat and dampness, but it was better than the processed air inside. Five minutes he’d give himself, and then he’d go back in and check on D.J.
In the not too distant future, he’d be able to sit out on the porch sipping coffee for as long as he wished. He wouldn’t have to time himself, wouldn’t have to live his life in incremental moments, always wondering if D.J. was all right, if D.J. needed him, if there was something he ought to be doing for D.J. at that exact moment. He’d be the one freed from the crib—his own invisible cage of responsibility and obligation.
He’d miss D.J., of course. As the kid’s uncle—and only true tie to his mother—Levi would always be a part of D.J.’s life. But the day-to-day job of raising him would belong to Travis.
The prospect saddened him, but fighting Travis for custody wouldn’t be fair, either to Travis or to D.J. A boy deserved his father. And no child deserved to be split in two by bickering adults. Levi knew his Bible. He knew about Solomon’s decision to cut a child in half, and about the love that motivated the true mother to cede her child to her rival in order to save her baby’s life. Levi would cede the child because it would do D.J. no good to be split between a West Coast father and a New England surrogate father.
He would have explained all this to Corinne if she’d let him. He’d tried last night, but she’d shut down. She hadn’t wanted to hear.
This had been the weekend he’d planned to discuss marriage with Corinne. He cursed at his timing, his lousy luck. He never would have expected that she’d react to the custody situation the way she had. He’d thought she would sympathize with him, assure him he could remain in D.J.’s life—long-distance but still central to the boy, the way he’d been close to Ruth even though they’d been three thousand miles apart. He’d figured Corinne would comfort and support him through a difficult decision. He hadn’t imagined her weeping after they’d made love, insisting she wasn’t angry but was unable to name the cause of her distress, lying rigidly next to him throughout a long, troubled night and departing before the stars had completely faded from the sky.
If he wanted to exert himself, he might come up with some explanations for her behavior. But he’d already come up with the most obvious explanation: if he didn’t have D.J., Corinne didn’t want him.
He never would have guessed she’d turn out to be a
woman like the ones he’d been warned about, the sort who became attracted to men because they had children. The first few times they’d met, she’d seemed annoyed by the baby. It wasn’t until that weekend she’d come to Arlington uninvited, as if driven by some need to know Levi better—and D.J. She’d fallen for D.J. gradually, just as she’d fallen for Levi.
And now she’d fallen away. Without D.J., Levi no longer mattered to her.
He cursed again. His coffee was too hot and his five minutes were up—and he no longer trusted his judgment. He’d been so wrong about Corinne, so crazily, painfully wrong. And as a result, he was going to lose both her and D.J., just months after he’d lost his sister.
A weak man would be demolished by all that loss. Levi wasn’t sure how strong he could be. He supposed he was going to have the opportunity to find out.
*
“THIS WOMAN is—what? A father school teacher?”
“Daddy School,” Levi corrected Travis. They were in his car, D.J. strapped into his child seat behind them, traveling through Arlington to Jamie McCoy’s house.
Travis was worried about his parenting skills. “I’m twenty-five years old,” he’d told Levi while they sat in the air-conditioned kitchen drinking coffee while D.J. spun circles around them in his walker. “I’ve never changed a diaper in my life.”
“Neither had I, before I got D.J.,” Levi had assured him. “Whatever you can’t figure out on your own you can read up on. Or you can take a class.”
“What kind of class?”
That was when Levi had gotten the idea of phoning Jamie McCoy and seeing if his wife, Allison, the brilliant Daddy School teacher who’d taught Levi so much, would be willing to meet Travis for a private tutorial. “We’re just hanging out today,” Jamie had informed him. “It’s too muggy to do anything. So come on over and we’ll all do nothing together.”
Hush, Little Baby Page 23
